Plastic Jesus

Tammi Terrell

"Once she was paired with Gaye in 1967, her stardom grew, but on October 14 of that year she collapsed on stage into Gaye's arms during a performance. She was soon thereafter diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor which eventually led to her death six weeks before her 25th birthday."

Wiki writers can be pretty unintentionally tragic.

Fox News!!!

Fox News is so garbage, it's not even garbage anymore. It's the garbage water that accumulates at the bottom of your trash can when you take the trash out. It's so annoying that you don't even bother to clean it up because you would just rather leave it to itself and hope it goes away than deal with it again. Honestly, do these people ever step back and say, "My God, this is utter s***!"? Is it sad that that would even be a revelation at this point?

There are so many things wrong with this video. Here are a few of my favorite moments of idiocy:

0:00- Yes, they manage to botch the hike. No, not botch the hand-off, botch the hike. "HEY Y'ALL!". I'm thinking two things at this point:

1. You're from the South and you're probably proud of it.

2. You're hoping those tuning in identify with you because they probably have a Confederate flag hanging from their living room wall right above the fireplace.

0:14- This guy learned enunciation from Barney. "PAULA DEEN!" Uhhhh, I'm guessing you're a strong right lean? It's not what you say, it's how you say it. Example: "you sound like a dumbass" as opposed to "you sound like a dumb ass". Both of which apply.

0:15- One second. That's the fastest pick six from a botched hike you'll ever see. It's impressive almost. I'm guessing this guy was never hooked on phonics as a child. So unfortunate. This is really sad. I had to transcribe it, I just had to:

"She reveals in an unholy...connections with e...she says she uhh has unholy connections. She REVELS in unholy connections rather with evil corporations..."

Have you ever used one of those reading machines that teach kids how to speed read? The ones that cover up the lines as you go down the page so you have to read faster to keep up until there comes a point where you know you're screwed and just sort of give up? This guy reaches that moment at "she says he...uhhh". You just know he's looking at that screen and watching those words get highlighted and thinking "OH CRAP, THOSE WORDS ARE GOING TO DISAPPEAR SOON!!! Uhhhh..she says he...uhhhh". Listening to this guy squirm is pure comedy. He just went from revealing the Anti-Christ to crapping his pants...while revealing the Anti-Christ.

Paula Deen is just too easy so I'll just stick with the idiots on the couch. But I do love how she just explodes with that Southern hospitality as she says "peed in his bowl of cereal". Not a very pleasant image. She's got Georgia on her mind.

3:30- Watch the guy on the left. There's a moment where he cocks his head in anticipation. This group's got such great chemistry.

"You cook for people who are...uh...affordable"

And there it is.

There are very few times when I watch a professional in action and say, "Wow, they are so good at their job". Even fewer are the occasions where I watch a professional in action and say, " Wow, I could do a better job than this guy". Stumbling on this video was a treat.

Fox News. It's like watching Michael Scott give you the news.

McCarthy

"How does the never to be differ from what never was?"

-Cormac McCarthy (The Road)

Seems like I've been asking myself this question rather frequently as of late. When I first read that passage, it took me a while to understand it. That can happen when you're reading a post-apocalyptic father-son survival story. I remember when I was a kid my mom used to tell me that if I didn't behave she would send me off to military school. I always took her seriously. And when she threw a full size suitcase at me and told me to pack my things, I really took her seriously.

Bourdain

I took it in my hand, tilted the shell back into my mouth as instructed by the now beaming Monsieur Saint-Jour, and with one bite and a slurp, wolfed it down. It tasted of seawater...of brine and flesh...and somehow...of the future.

Everything was different now. Everything.

I'd not only survived - I'd enjoyed.

This I knew, was the magic I had until now been only dimly and spitefully aware of. I was hooked. My parents' shudders, my little brother's expression of unrestrained revulsion and amazement only reinforced the sense that I had, somehow, become a man. I had had an adventure, tasted forbidden fruit, and everything that followed in my life - the food, the long and often stupid and self-destructive chase for the next thing, whether it was drugs or sex or some other new sensation - would all stem from this moment.

I'd learned something. Viscerally, instinctively, spiritually even in some small, precursive way, sexually - and there was no turning back. The genie was out of the bottle. My life as a cook, and as a chef, had begun.

Food had power.