The Build: Designing My Life of Choppers, Family, and Faith - Hardcover

Teutul Jr., Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 160142888X ISBN 13: 9781601428882

Verlag: WaterBrook, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

The Build reveals the "behind the scenes" story of the popular TV reality series American Chopper for the show's millions of fans. 
Author Paul Teutul, Jr., is arguably the most creative builder of custom "chopper" motorcycles in the world.  His talents were revealed to millions of TV viewers worldwide on American Chopper, as well as later on a spinoff series, American Chopper Senior vs Junior. The Build gives the reader at Paul Jr.'s life behind the camera, which included volcanic conflict with his father and business mentor, Paul Sr. Using his own story of improbable success as an illustration, Paul Jr. offers insights on how anyone can find and activate often hidden talents.  In a charming, often humorous way, The Build is a rallying cry to unleash God-designed creativity and live life to the fullest.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

PAUL TEUTUL JR was just 27 when American Chopper: Jet Bike premiered on the Discovery Channel, featuring “Paulie” and his father, Paul Sr., building a custom chopper for 2002's Laconia Bike Week. Part of Bike Weekend, the one-off special and the intrinsic family dynamics so captivated audiences that a full series following the Teutuls and their business, Orange County Choppers, soon followed in 2003. Six years of family ups and downs ensued, culminating in 2009 with Senior firing Junior, who waited out his one-year non-compete clause before establishing his own business, Paul Jr. Designs. Today, Paul Jr. Designs continues to thrive, producing custom bikes for a variety of individual and corporate clients. There have been TV commercials and personal appearances since 2012 as well, but the most important development in Paul's life occurred when his wife, Rachael, gave birth to their son Hudson Seven Teutul in February 2015.

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1
Reality or Unreality TV?

It remains humorous to me that after ten years of appearing on a reality television show, the question I am most often asked, by far, is whether what happened on our show was, well, real.
But then again, the dynamic that made American Chopper a global phenomenon did appear unreal, prompting the two to three million viewers tuning in on Monday nights to hope—even pray, for some—that the volatile relationship between my father and me was too bad to be true.

The premise of the show was simple: a father and son work together to build custom motorcycles. American Chopper worked because the bikes and our relationship were jaw-dropping. For 10 seasons and 233 one-hour episodes, my father and I were often a relational train wreck that proved equally as difficult to turn away from as to watch.

And, yes, it was real. In fact, I believe that because of my relationship with my father, American Chopper not only was the most real reality show, but it was the first true reality show that didn’t involve surviving on an island.

The arguments, shouting matches, door slamming, and wall-punching were no different from my life growing up with my father, working for him in the steel business, and then building custom bikes together. The only difference once American Chopper started was that there were cameras around recording our blowups for the world to see.

I also have learned that there are many people with stories similar to mine—people who are part of, or are directly impacted by, an abnormal relationship. I have nodded in understanding while listening to fans of our show describe their relationships gone bad. I have even talked with one man who might have had a worse relationship with his father than I did with mine. I had not imagined that possible.

Those conversations are one reason I decided to write this book. I have been married to Rachael for seven years now, and our strong relationship is one my parents did not have. Our son, Hudson, is coming up on three years old, and our father-son dynamic will be the complete opposite of what I grew up with. I have faith that will be the case…because of my faith. And when the opportunity arose to write a book about choppers, my family, and my faith, I said, “I’ve got to do this.”

Seeing my relationship with my father play out on a reality show for ten years was difficult because our society tends to keep such problems hidden. It has been difficult to detail in this book my bad experiences with my father because he is my dad, and I love him, and I have long desired to have a normal relationship with him.

But I kept it real on American Chopper, and I am keeping it real in this book, because I know there are too many others who will nod in understanding as they read my story. Although I have learned that I cannot make my father love me back no matter what I do, God loves me unconditionally, and from the overflow of His love, I can break the generational curse that has marred the Teutul family.


2
Meet the Family, the Whole Family

I am not great with dates, but I’ll never forget September 28, 2008. That’s the day my father fired me. Getting fired seemed devastating at the time, but it turned out to be one of the best things that could have happened to me.

I was less than a week shy of my thirty-fourth birthday when my father, with cameras rolling, fired me from Orange County Choppers. I had grown up under the same roof as my father. I had worked for him for ten years in the steel business. We had built bikes together for almost another decade, with the previous six years marked by the celebrity and contention that came from filming American Chopper in our upstate New York shop.

The day he fired me began a process that allowed me to come out from under the oppressive environment I had always known; I matured mentally and spiritually and flourished creatively. Until then, I had not realized how negative the dynamic with my father was, or how much and for how long he had attempted to control me. We had spent every day together, at work and outside work. It was like an unhealthy marriage.

My father had separated from my mom in 1997, after twenty-five years of marriage and four kids. But until I got fired, there was no separation from my father. I had never imagined how much good could come from something that, at the time, hurt so bad.

I’m forty-two as I write this book, and all my life I have wanted more from my relationship with my father. But I just don’t know if he is capable of giving more. My father is a product of his upbringing. We all are, I suppose, somewhat by nature and the rest by choice.

My parents had been split for five years when we filmed the pilot for American Chopper, so little is known about my mom publicly. But with my father, it takes only one episode, if that much, to peg him for what he is: loud, strong-willed, highly opinionated, and very much “my way or the highway.”

I have a lot of compassion for my father, because he did not grow up with good role models. His parents argued constantly in their home, and he had a horrible relationship with his mother. He’s told me how he did not like his mother, a heavy drinker, because of how bad she treated his father in public. As a result, he did not have a nurturing relationship with her.

My father had an alcoholic mother, and I had an alcoholic father. I’ve thought a lot about this and talked with friends and relationship experts about it, too, and for me, as a man, there is no question that I would rather have a loving, caring mother and an alcoholic father than the other way around. I feel like it’s a game changer when there is strain or an unloving dynamic between a mother and a son, because that son will tend to have pretty big issues when he grows up. That is what I observed with my father.

My father’s name is Paul Teutul, and once our show became a big hit, he started going by “Senior.” I’m Paul Michael Teutul. While I’m not technically “Junior,” I’ve been called that since back in the days when I worked with my father in his steel business. Both of my grandfathers were named Paul, and my mom’s name is Paula.

My parents are native New Yorkers: my mom is from Brooklyn, my father from Yonkers. They met during high school in Pearl River, which is on the New York-New Jersey border, twenty miles from midtown Manhattan. I was born in Suffern, New York, in 1974. Shortly after I arrived, my parents and I moved forty miles north to Montgomery, in Orange County, where my father and a friend started an ironworks company. I have lived in Montgomery ever since, and I don’t see that ever changing.

My mom tells me I was a happy little kid, well-behaved and even-tempered—and quite curious. As far back as I can remember, I enjoyed taking things apart to see how they worked and then, for the most part, putting them back together.

The grandparental support every kid needs came from my mother’s side of the family. We were together with her parents for all the holidays and much of the time in between.

When I started kindergarten, I hated it. A kid not liking school isn’t exactly breaking news, but saying I hated school is not an adequate description. I didn’t like riding the bus, either, so I faked being sick to stay home as many times as I could. But the odd thing was that once I made it to school, I would be okay.

I wound up going through kindergarten twice, because I was an October baby and my parents held me back so I wouldn’t be so young compared to the others in my class.

I struggled...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: WaterBrook
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 160142888X
• ISBN 13: 9781601428882
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 208
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar