everyone was cooler 40 years ago!

the world was a smaller place, more intimate if you will, more mysterious and dreamy and yes, authentic.

now our little planet is becoming a fuzzy globalized homogenized clusterfuck of cultural fusion.

And everyone every where desires pommes frittes a la McDonalds AND mascarpone AND movie star news AND soccer.

I don't particularly appreciate authors who write articles that start off on the premise that Americans are especially shitty. I think we look pretty okay and act relatively decently, particularly given that we're not taught foreign languages and we like to travel to other countries and spend our dwindling dollars there. We're very clean, cleaner than most, our hair is as good as anyone else's and our asses go from fantastically toned to hugely scarey. And this means what? They don't have fat asses in France?

Lets face it, the whole world is filled with self centered shitty people who don't give a fuck about other people, from coast to coast to coast. The 3rd and 4th and 5th world are slaughtering themselves and their neighbors, even as the rest of us savor those delightful amuse bouche.

Nothing new...carnage was on the menu 40 years ago, but now we know all of it and still, we do nothing to stop it. We know, we see it on the news and we don't care. None of us. Not Americans, not the fabulous Spaniards or the urbane Italians or the exotic Russians or the fast moving Chinese.

We're too busy working our personal treadmills rather desperately, trying to get a leg up, a hand up, our kids educated and our bills paid.

So screw you Heather for that snarky little shit about our country. We are as cool as anyone, as ourselves, whatever the fuck that means. SO THERE!

That said, I like Top Chef. I like Tom C. I like Ramsey. They're entertaining fantasy reality. My son was a chef - at some pretty decent places in NYC. He says if anyone screamed in anyone's ear for fucking up, they would get clobbered up side the head with the nearest cast iron frying pan. Everyone fucks up. You dump the offending foodstuff and quickly move on. There's no time for this kind of bullshit. Your serving 30, 40, 100 people, you have steaks and fish and veggies at various temps for different periods, everything needs to come out at exactly the right time. Timing is everything. People fuck up. That's the business.

I don't like the new judge on Top Chef. He's a pipsqueak nasty man. He's not particularly clever or amusing.

I LOVE Bourdain. I would eat pig skin or road kill with that man any day.