I occasionally watch “American Chopper” and have since it first aired. Most people who watch the show clearly see that Paul Sr. is a raving narcissist. Of course being a narcissist means Sr. will never see that truth about himself. Even if it comes down to Sr. vs. world he will adamantly declare that the world is at fault. It’s really hard to work for a narcissist and it’s harder to have one for a parent. Combining the two would be a living hell. Even if a narcissistic parent loves his child he will always love himself more. If he has to choose between his own success and his son’s he’ll promote himself and sabotage his son. There is no reasoning with a narcissist if their ego is at stake.
The tide of public opinion flows in Paul Jr.’s favor. However, he is often called spoiled and his work ethic is criticized. Viewers can see that Sr. is an old-school iron worker and Jr. is a creative designer. What Jr.’s critics can’t seem to put together is that creative types don’t approach work like builder types. They work best with a lot of freedom but they require a project deadline and a budget. It’s not a matter of right and wrong. If a job requires 40 hours to complete it doesn’t matter if that work is done at 8 a.m., 3 p.m. or midnight as long as deadline is met within budget.
Many old school builder types take pride in rising early, getting to work early, being “on time,” etc. They’ll put in their hours and their overtime as necessary but they are also the ones who insist on lunch at noon and insist it's time to go home at 6 p.m. because they've already worked "late."
It seems that many people have a myopic and archaic view of what it means to have a good work ethic. They seem to believe that hard work equals success. I suspect people cling to this view because it makes them feel in control and gives them hope for moving up in the world. I hate to kill the Easter Bunny for you but that’s just your indoctrination speaking. Your keepers want you to work hard. It profits them and distracts you. Most people who work hard will never be successful in the mold of the American ideal.
When I lived in Baton Rouge I interviewed a man I worked with for an employee newsletter. He was a fifty-something African American. He was married with children. He had not one, not two, but three jobs. Three. And this wasn’t a temporary thing. Two of the jobs were full time and one was part time. He had worked this way for decades. He told me he worked all day (as a forklift operator in a warehouse) then went home for dinner then left again and worked the second full-time job at night. He also had a job on Saturday. To say he worked hard is a gross understatement. I respect him because he was taking care of his family; but from outward appearances most would not call him a success. (White people who think racism is not an ongoing issue have their heads up their asses.) Can you be a success if you have to sell 100 hours a week of your life to simply survive? Can you be a success when you rarely see your children; or worse, have a bad relationship with them? Sr.?
As a homeschooling mother I can also attest that one could work themselves into an early grave and still have to declare bankruptcy along the way. The moral highway is not a lucrative path.
It’s far more important to work smart and treat people with respect than it is to work hard. Working hard (unless you are working for yourself) is spending your life as someone else’s beast of burden. It’s basic business 101. Business owners don’t start a business to make their employees money. They start a business to make themselves money and they need and profit upon the time and effort of their employees. Employees are like machines. Your value is mathematical. How much money do you make the company? The company wants to keep as much of that money as possible and pay you as little as they can get away with. You know that right? So if you make a company $100 per hour and they are willing to pay you $15 per hour how hard should you work? Ethically you should do the work you were hired to do and do it well but should you work harder? Should you push yourself to make the company $150 per hour and then ask for a raise and get $16 per hour? This is turning into an I.Q. test. Yea, this is why companies choose to get cheap labor overseas. It’s NEVER been about the worker. It’s always been about the profit. I’m continually astounded by people who don’t understand this and ask “but what about the American worker?”
Back to OCC, Jr. has the creative brain to assemble a team of talented friends and build the kind of bikes that put OCC on the map and do this on any schedule that is most conducive to their success. Sr. can show up early every day, be a hard ass, drive a team of brown nosers who pretend to toe the “hard work” line yet never build another bike anyone wants to buy. With every new shit bike they finish we get to watch Sr. barrel down the highway of failure for a test drive.
True success today relies more upon creativity, talent, skill, knowledge, an enormous amount of luck and courage rather than the work ethics of the industrial age. Giving the finger to corporate America is usually required. A successful person has freedom in their work; and if they are a parent they have a good relationship with their children. If you're a multi-millionaire and your kids won't talk to you then you are an embarassing failure.
I guess TLC will continue to document the crash and burn of OCC because, hey, it’s good for profit and it distracts us. Hopefully Paul Jr. will rise from the ashes.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Bullies Need a Good Bitch Slap
It’s 2010 and there’s a lot of talk about bullying at schools. People are trying to get laws passed against bullying anorexics… and bullying gays … and bullying special ed students … and bullying cross dressers. People by the droves are on Internet forums resolutely declaring that bullying is bad, shouldn’t happen and needs to be dealt with by the schools, the parents and the legal system. They write things like “How did children get to be so hateful?” and “Parents need to get involved.” And the piercingly astute “People need to grow up.” Where have these people been to be so perplexed? Have they never observed nature and human behavior?
In nature a bigger, stronger animal will bully another. For example, baby owls in a nest will bully the smallest to death and may eat it. Lions will take down a wildebeest right in front of the rest of the herd that never seem to intervene on the behalf of Willy #243,957 who is being disemboweled before them. There is something in nature that prompts bullying behavior. It’s like a test for weakness and an establishment of pecking order. It seems to be a part of survival instinct.
Take a look at human history right up to the present day. Why do we have nations? People would naturally want the best land for hunting and gathering or farming and a good water supply. Well everybody wants that. More people arrive. They’ll fight over the resources. Families stick together. They grow into tribes. They eventually grow into nations with their common language and culture. They defend their resources but they also want more. They want the resources that others have as well. The result is centuries of warfare. Without an internal moral compass for restraint people will take what they want if they can get away with it. Even reality TV clearly illustrates this.
The U.S. is no different. We’re spoon fed propaganda telling us that we are somehow morally superior but our behavior as a nation proves that we are not. This nation was founded upon bullying and it continues to this day. Slavery, the Trail of Tears, homesteading, income taxes …we are not in Iraq because of terrorism. We are in Iraq because we want oil.
We, also as a nation, don’t tolerate other nations bullying us – particularly if we think we can beat them. We’ll fight with Iraq and Afghanistan but we won’t fuck with China. The world is like a big school playground. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor (and I won’t go into how they were antagonized) we didn’t fill out a form of complaint. We immediately went to war and in the end struck the killing blow by using more devastating bombs than they had and appeased our conscience with the ludicrous rationalization that the bombs saved lives. You slap me, I punch you, you shoot me, I decapitate you. Checkmate.
I guess that’s all fine and dandy as long as it is “them” who are bullied, right? It’s not supposed to happen to us and ours – our tribe – our family. Wah, wah, whine, whimper…
Then of course there are the parents of the bullies. Bullying behavior starts very young. Sometimes they do it because they are exposed to it and sometimes it just comes natural. How many times have we all seen some toddler raising hell in a store because he/she wants something the parent doesn’t want to buy? If this was nipped in the bud at home we’d rarely see a thrashing, screaming, manipulative display like that in public. But most parents start trying to negotiate. WTF? They’ll squat down to the toddler’s level for an eye-to-eye discussion (often getting kicked in the process). Or they’ll threaten the child with some future punishment, which to a toddler may as well be in the next lifetime. Or, my favorite, they’ll start counting … “one … stop it … do you hear me?... twwooooo … I mean it, settle down… don’t let me get to three…” A countdown is just allowing bad behavior to continue while you stand there looking like a dolt -- a really big dolt on an invisible leash getting the shit kicked out of you by a bully you created. Thanks for contributing.
I don’t claim to have all the answers but with my children whining not only did not get them what they wanted it was met immediately with losing something they already had and valued. Whining therefore never became an issue. Just didn’t happen. This applies to any unacceptable behavior (unless there is some underlying physiological issue such as an allergy or intolerance to a particular food ingredient. I’ve seen well-behaved kids go completely out of control a few minutes after drinking a glass of Kool-Aid.)
In regard to bullying at school a parent posted on the Internet that his/her teen-age daughter was told to 1) tell a teacher, 2) tell the principal, 3) defend herself. Nice try but this is bass ackwards. Number 1 is defend yourself. Verbal assaults require verbal defense. Physical assaults require physical defense. Filling out a form of complaint is as impotent as counting. The initiator of a physical assault should be expelled. If physical injuries are sustained by the victim then assault charges should be filed. We already have laws against assault. We don’t need a new one for each possible target. A lot of us seem to think that if there is a problem then a law will fix it. Again I state the obvious: you can’t legislate morality.
Cyber bullies should lose access to all electronic and computerized devices they used as weapons. No cell phone, no computer. If someone shoots another person we don’t allow them to keep guns. It’s not complicated. Give them an old Underwood typewriter for school work and a 1970s land line phone at home for a year … or two … or three depending upon how big of an asshole they were.
The solutions are right in front of us. But it seems we’d rather shuffle papers, wring our hands, and ask why rather than solving the problem. And BTW, the suicide by victims of bullying is nothing new at all. Every single one is tragic but history is full of suicides by people who were bullied. (For example research Christopher Columbus and Indian mass suicide.) The only thing that reduced the occurrence of suicide throughout history was the pervasive church teaching that eternal damnation was the price.
Parents, if you know your kid is getting bullied then put a stop to it. If you’ve got to pull them out of school and press charges, do it. The only thing worse than a bully is parents who won’t go to the mat for their kid. If your kid commits suicide because you were fucking around with formalities such as some 30-day complaint process about “corrective measures” then you are guilty of murder as is the bureaucratic imbecile who drafted such a tedious process.
When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I had two playmates (extended family members who were unavoidable) who seemed to take sport in bullying me. One was a year older and another was three years older. I told them to stop, to leave me alone… over and over to no avail. One day as I was sitting between the two watching TV and they were taunting me I’d finally had it. I hit the oldest one to my right hard and fast then turned and attacked the one to my left. They were shocked and said “She’s defending herself!” Bullying from one stopped then and there. The other required one more dose of ass kicking. One day she hit me and I hit her in the face so hard she fell backwards over a couch. She came up screaming and crying with a black eye. All it takes is one or two episodes of public self-defense and most bullies will leave you alone. Very few are willing to sustain injuries and humiliation from their intended victims.
Don’t start shit and don’t take it. Sounds patriotic, eh?
In nature a bigger, stronger animal will bully another. For example, baby owls in a nest will bully the smallest to death and may eat it. Lions will take down a wildebeest right in front of the rest of the herd that never seem to intervene on the behalf of Willy #243,957 who is being disemboweled before them. There is something in nature that prompts bullying behavior. It’s like a test for weakness and an establishment of pecking order. It seems to be a part of survival instinct.
Take a look at human history right up to the present day. Why do we have nations? People would naturally want the best land for hunting and gathering or farming and a good water supply. Well everybody wants that. More people arrive. They’ll fight over the resources. Families stick together. They grow into tribes. They eventually grow into nations with their common language and culture. They defend their resources but they also want more. They want the resources that others have as well. The result is centuries of warfare. Without an internal moral compass for restraint people will take what they want if they can get away with it. Even reality TV clearly illustrates this.
The U.S. is no different. We’re spoon fed propaganda telling us that we are somehow morally superior but our behavior as a nation proves that we are not. This nation was founded upon bullying and it continues to this day. Slavery, the Trail of Tears, homesteading, income taxes …we are not in Iraq because of terrorism. We are in Iraq because we want oil.
We, also as a nation, don’t tolerate other nations bullying us – particularly if we think we can beat them. We’ll fight with Iraq and Afghanistan but we won’t fuck with China. The world is like a big school playground. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor (and I won’t go into how they were antagonized) we didn’t fill out a form of complaint. We immediately went to war and in the end struck the killing blow by using more devastating bombs than they had and appeased our conscience with the ludicrous rationalization that the bombs saved lives. You slap me, I punch you, you shoot me, I decapitate you. Checkmate.
I guess that’s all fine and dandy as long as it is “them” who are bullied, right? It’s not supposed to happen to us and ours – our tribe – our family. Wah, wah, whine, whimper…
Then of course there are the parents of the bullies. Bullying behavior starts very young. Sometimes they do it because they are exposed to it and sometimes it just comes natural. How many times have we all seen some toddler raising hell in a store because he/she wants something the parent doesn’t want to buy? If this was nipped in the bud at home we’d rarely see a thrashing, screaming, manipulative display like that in public. But most parents start trying to negotiate. WTF? They’ll squat down to the toddler’s level for an eye-to-eye discussion (often getting kicked in the process). Or they’ll threaten the child with some future punishment, which to a toddler may as well be in the next lifetime. Or, my favorite, they’ll start counting … “one … stop it … do you hear me?... twwooooo … I mean it, settle down… don’t let me get to three…” A countdown is just allowing bad behavior to continue while you stand there looking like a dolt -- a really big dolt on an invisible leash getting the shit kicked out of you by a bully you created. Thanks for contributing.
I don’t claim to have all the answers but with my children whining not only did not get them what they wanted it was met immediately with losing something they already had and valued. Whining therefore never became an issue. Just didn’t happen. This applies to any unacceptable behavior (unless there is some underlying physiological issue such as an allergy or intolerance to a particular food ingredient. I’ve seen well-behaved kids go completely out of control a few minutes after drinking a glass of Kool-Aid.)
In regard to bullying at school a parent posted on the Internet that his/her teen-age daughter was told to 1) tell a teacher, 2) tell the principal, 3) defend herself. Nice try but this is bass ackwards. Number 1 is defend yourself. Verbal assaults require verbal defense. Physical assaults require physical defense. Filling out a form of complaint is as impotent as counting. The initiator of a physical assault should be expelled. If physical injuries are sustained by the victim then assault charges should be filed. We already have laws against assault. We don’t need a new one for each possible target. A lot of us seem to think that if there is a problem then a law will fix it. Again I state the obvious: you can’t legislate morality.
Cyber bullies should lose access to all electronic and computerized devices they used as weapons. No cell phone, no computer. If someone shoots another person we don’t allow them to keep guns. It’s not complicated. Give them an old Underwood typewriter for school work and a 1970s land line phone at home for a year … or two … or three depending upon how big of an asshole they were.
The solutions are right in front of us. But it seems we’d rather shuffle papers, wring our hands, and ask why rather than solving the problem. And BTW, the suicide by victims of bullying is nothing new at all. Every single one is tragic but history is full of suicides by people who were bullied. (For example research Christopher Columbus and Indian mass suicide.) The only thing that reduced the occurrence of suicide throughout history was the pervasive church teaching that eternal damnation was the price.
Parents, if you know your kid is getting bullied then put a stop to it. If you’ve got to pull them out of school and press charges, do it. The only thing worse than a bully is parents who won’t go to the mat for their kid. If your kid commits suicide because you were fucking around with formalities such as some 30-day complaint process about “corrective measures” then you are guilty of murder as is the bureaucratic imbecile who drafted such a tedious process.
When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I had two playmates (extended family members who were unavoidable) who seemed to take sport in bullying me. One was a year older and another was three years older. I told them to stop, to leave me alone… over and over to no avail. One day as I was sitting between the two watching TV and they were taunting me I’d finally had it. I hit the oldest one to my right hard and fast then turned and attacked the one to my left. They were shocked and said “She’s defending herself!” Bullying from one stopped then and there. The other required one more dose of ass kicking. One day she hit me and I hit her in the face so hard she fell backwards over a couch. She came up screaming and crying with a black eye. All it takes is one or two episodes of public self-defense and most bullies will leave you alone. Very few are willing to sustain injuries and humiliation from their intended victims.
Don’t start shit and don’t take it. Sounds patriotic, eh?
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