...The "Oh so black" cooking shows on the Food Network

I was going to start this essay by describing the black people that I know, but then I realized that when straight people talk to me about the gay people they know I want to stick needles in my eyes...so let's assume that I am a person who is progressive about race issues because this essay is not about my personal thoughts on race.

This essay is a little observation that perhaps the Food Network could calm their black targeting.

The funny thing is that I started getting irritated with the title of Sunny Anderson's cooking show "Cooking for Real" (you see to me, this is just a coded way of saying "Cooking for Black People") as if the other shows weren't "for real," and honestly most of them are not, Barefoot Contessa and Bobby Flay's food= too expensive, Paula Deen = too much fat, tiny, tiny Giada clearly never eats the expensive fat laden italian food she makes (also too much fat), Rachel Ray = mediocre, Sandra Lee=A-whole-nother class of terrible. Sunny is pleasant, her food seems good, she offers alternatives that are readily available outside of Zabars/Dean and Deluca/Whole Foods, so really I think she should call her show: the only decent cooking show on this afternoon.

But, and maybe this is my racism talking, "Cooking for Real" is an implication that somehow the other shows weren't meant for you, that was fake cooking, cooking for other people. Again the ironic thing is that the other shows ARE fake cooking, but you don't have to be black to feel that way, you just have to a. not have tons of money to spend on food b. not want to be rolled out of your kitchen in a wheelbarrow c. actually want to perhaps consume vitamins and fiber.

The ironic thing (or thaaang) is that Sunny, who's status as the Hip Hop caterer is mentioned in her Food Network bio, is much less shall we say, marked in her soulfood orientation then the other black hosts on food network The Neelys "Down Home with the Neelys" and Aaron McCargo, Jr "Big Daddy's House."

"Soul Food" is part of a great culinary tradition and it is wonderful to celebrate African-American food culture and perspectives as part of the network, but I just feel that every time I see a promo for the Neelys sandwiched into the other programming on food network, I feel as if I am watching Hattie McDaniel in "Gone with the Wind."

I turn on the TV and see so many images of black people that seem targeted to very narrow perspective of black people, and the reason why I am over it is not because I have a problem with the culture or want to see it "toned down" but rather and please tell me if I am being racist, I simply think it is reductive to black people. Now perhaps I am saying that they should "act white" and don't realize it...but why the fuck can't it just be someone smart who knows how to cook who happens to be black. I know some black people who can cook, but in some crazy soul food only way, they are just good cooks.

Gen. McChrystal

Okay, so after hearing the name McChrystal over and over again on NPR I have this to say. The problem with actually listening to the news for an hour is the news assumes u will listen for 5 minutes and then turn right back to Jack 93.1 to hear "Feels like the First Time" by Foreigner for the 150,000th time (which is my usual course of action). Thus I had to hear the announcement that McChrystal was "let go" 20 times, and then each time I had to hear it presented like it was the first time they said it. I already have to pretend my mother isn't retelling me the same stories on the phone, so my patience in the repetition department is limited.

My overarching thought on this matter is that McChrystal's name is just so wrong. He should have changed it. Here is a man who could take down those three people who blew the buses down the street in Superman 2 and who skips breakfast and lunch WITHOUT having a slim fast, course I had a friend who did that and called it crash dieting...but anyway the point is he's disciplined and tougher than I or most anyone I know will ever be. But this name is just unpleasant on the ears.

Now when McChrystal was growing up, this name was probably fine. However, then the 80s happened and everyone went so Crystal, (Krystle, Krystal) crazy (krazy, crazeee.)

There was _The Dark Crystal_, Krystal Jennings Carrington (not to be confused with William Jennings Bryant [no relation]) and Crystal light.

The name implies shiny chandeliers, written-for-profit mystical children's entertainment, wine glasses and trampy blondes. This is no name for a General. I mean even Judy Benjamin had an army ready last name. What is even worse is the Mc infront of it. It sounds like a McDonald's menu item. Which now they can't use it as a food item name thanks to this silly crisis.

Why did this man go to _Rolling Stone_? You don't see Beyonce on CSpan. The sad truth is he was bound for flaky behavior, after all his name is simply the Scottish derivative of anything luminescent and light....

...Breaking into song

There are moments when I get so tired of this actor/singer/rapper/wannabe filled town.

These moments happen very often at my health club, where wannabes abound.

People are always ready to network. Sometimes it is just talk. The conversations are always brimming with enthusiasm from the person talking for the person talking, and are articulated with a "down to earth/real" tone and tons of "gangbanger" slang. Gangbanger values have helped so many lives- just ask all the wise old gangbangers living rich, full lives (the ones who weren't shot by age 20-something or aren't stuck CA's overcrowded prisons). Why not reference gangster values in any conversation about success? But then other times, when simply words will not suffice, a song will say what a simple conversation cannot.

Here are some examples of moments (or shall I say windows into the soul) of my fellow exercisers.

A few months ago, there was adult club DJ inside the toilet stall on his phone discussing (loudly) the following songs and how they increased the artistic value of the presented dances.

"So I playing 'BabyMama' [ a song by Fantasia, I think] and it's just solid dude. And then there's 'Ass and Titties' okay, dat is a strip club classic, I mean it's a straight up hit off the charts"

[ I could not determine from my internet search just who originally recorded 'Ass and Titties' apparently it must be like one of those Carole King songs that have been covered so many times one forgets the original artist]

Just the other day I was showering after my swim (thank god everyone gets a private shower)

and a group of men were talking about their singing/rapping/soul legend prospects. This particular conversation had a very musical feeling, and by that I mean they broke into song. The sweet soulful crooning was richly delivered and heartfelt, they crafted an impromptu medley: "I won't pay for pussy [pronounced phussaay] cuz I get pussy for freeeeeee/I got my 40 and my blunt, doin' it gangster style" which was sung in a round. Hopefully these men will get their chance to add to the musical canon, perhaps their songs will be played along with 'Ass and Titties' during a dance performance, then exuberantly discussed in the modern urban salon that is also known as a toilet stall.

Although clearly the locker room is a nexus of artistic expression, impromptu performances can be heard everywhere. on the stretching mats, at the machines. Each heartfelt performance fills me with awkward embarrassment for the person next to me, crooning along with great effort to "La La" by Ashlee Simpson. I wonder if any of these people do get discovered by a casting director or producer, so they have reason to continue their flights into song. If so please let me know what casting director or producer, so I can call their union and grieve them.

...Dating

So I tried to make souffle today but I just ended up crying on the floor when it collapsed. (just kidding, still 0 days, 0 recipes)

First of all, there are all these bad (and a few good ones) gay movies about who men come out because they meet someone whom they fall in love with. For me coming out was an exercise in self-improvement, like organizing my fucking closet (no pun intended). I have dated and had sex many a time since I came out of the closet at 18 years of age, but it is has been little moments of non-pleasure within a sea of isolation.

Gay men have a way of interacting with each other. Most would call it being rude. Now perhaps this may be my lack of appeal. Perhaps I come across all wrong once I am around men. Now if dating were like selling ticket packages over the phone (which should be a hellish job but is actually very enjoyable, as jobs go) then it would be great. I call people all day, enough of them like me that I make a decent living at a job designed for people not to make money. Now somehow I can handle the random population of Los Angeles (at least those who get on the "priority list," and that doesn't take much- sat in section U at the Bowl for $1, shazzam! ) but when it comes to men, I suck.

But let's talk about gay male behaviors, and I don't just mean in the dating realm....Because I see this on my swim team all the time. And in fact I just have learned (which is against my nature) to keep my head down at practice (I mean as much as I am able to keep my head down) and just not talk to anybody, or keep conversation to a minimum. Also I learn not to take it personally when a conversation just stops....again even if I'm not the one to initiate it.

Ignoring whomever you are talking to if someone else you'd rather talk to comes along. Again it doesn't matter if the ignoring party initiated the conversation with you...

But anyway, complaining about a bad date is nothing new. What bothers me in obsessive hindsight about this date is that I was full of self-hatred when I went on this date and so I sat around and during our conversation about working out sounded like some impossible obsessive blowhard, which I am an obsessive blowhard...but I am only because I feel insecure and then I guess he felt insecure so he acted like a jackass once his girlfriend came around (and proceeded to ignore me and just talk to her- I want to note that I was not isolated for the night because she talked to me and we got along just fine). But what is sad I was tired, punchy and insecure so I probably sounded like a bit of jerk, oh who knows.

Anyway, now that the awkward moment of me opening up my bleeding heart over a two hour date that wasn't so hot is over, let me explain my theory of what dating is like. Basically, imagine you took the Mad Max trilogy and placed it backwards (you know, Alejandro González Iñárritu style ) then that is what dating is like.

Now this may sound a bit weird but let me explain. One of the opening scenes of the first Mad Max is Max saying "crazy about you" (or actually making gestures symbolizing it) to his true love, Jessie, before he goes off to a day of car smashing. That is the beginning, later in the trilogy he is single and has to drive a semi full of sand through a barrier of killer gas pirates, then he has to be dunked in pig shit and fight for his life in something that resembles a giant colander with Tina Turner clad in chainmail and hanging by a wire watching over him. Finally being awoken by lost young people clad in leather bikinis and feather dresses, we finish on those lost young people now situated in a bombed out major city telling the same old bad story.

So if you just move that backwards you have dating...

First you hit some dives and meet lost people telling you the same old bad story.

Then you find yourself awoken from a spell by some lost, annoying young thang in leather underwear who thinks you will help them find what they need (even though what they needed never existed).

then you wade through some shit

Then you get trapped in a no win situation by a real bitch.

Then you battle some really nasty people

Then you end up in a tender moment with your soul mate, Australian accent not necessary.

And that, as Forrest Gump says, is all I have to say about that.

...FM radio: the key to your financial plan

I spend a lot of time listening to the radio and I don't have highbrow taste, and I don't care for Top 40. So by default that would mean I listen to the stations that play the catalog of 70s and 80s songs over and over again. When I drove across the country I found that every station across the nation (well from Nashville to Los Angeles) played the same songs too.

After seeing the stock market rise and fall, and the real estate market rise and fall and the everything market rise and fall...one thing stayed the same. These same tired songs still play over and over again. You never turn on a classic rock station to find they have replaced Journey and Foreigner with John Prine and Tom Waits. No matter what happens, as Led Zeppelin once said "The Song Remains the Same." Certain classic rock artists, like say Journey and Foreigner, also get play on other "genre" stations.

Please note this plan is not for people who want to be "legends" or "stars" like Elvis Costello (who now has to work hosting that show) or Elton John (who is still working all the time). This is the plan for results-oriented people, who want to cut their FM rock album and then just count the money. We're not looking to work hard for some silly pat on the back, we're the quiet ones who work smart.

Thus, forget the ephemeral (and unethical) world of financial trading, forget the auto business (I noticed GM's new board is filled with people that OTHER bankrupt companies under their belt) and forget computers (silicon is toxic): below is my NO FAIL financial plan. Outlined in several easy steps.

1. Go back in time to 1974

2. Make sure when you go back to 1974 that you are between the ages of 23-27 and male and white (alas this plan for financial greatness follows so many others). You can be gay but be like closeted about it.

3. Grow a mullet or long hair a la Louis Quatorze.

4. Give yourself time to get started in the music business as a rock band. What's great is that you don't even really have to in LA to get started. That was more an 80s thing when Poison and Motley Crue were all on the Sunset Strip. We could reference them, but then again...maximum wealth accumulation belongs to Foreigner and Journey, so like student in French Secondary school, follow the exact model.

5. Between 1976-1980 make sure you are signed and cut an album (notice the 4 YEARS you have to cut the album)

6. Maybe tour for about a year or so. Really, you'd really only have to go until about 1983, by then MTV and Duran Duran would have rendered you out of style.

6b. If you really want to get ambitious, cut a solo album in about 1987.

7. Move to an incredibly expensive place like Marin County, Newport Coast or Grosse Pointe or anywhere with draconian zoning laws and proximity to attractive natural features. Sit around said community and count your money.

Now you have to follow the steps this way and here's why. First of all, you can't go too far back in time because prior generations read more and weren't as loyal to certain rock artists. I mean Elvis is an exception, but who wants that much kitsch associated with their persona. Could Elvis live in Marin County? No, not really. You want a high quality of life. You want wealth not associated with an "estate" that produces collector plates and dolls. Also you can't go too late, I mean grunge artists like the late Cobain and Eddie Vedder get heavy rotation, but you aren't in this for semi-heavy rotation, you want maximum wealth accumulation. So think about who makes the most money- Journey and Foreigner. You have to tap the generation that grew up in that specific time.

Now you could go off and do one hit single, or even maybe 2, like Dale Bozzio and Missing Persons. But America is not a place for underachievers, according to the 2nd to last guy I went out with, Europe is the place for underachievers and the USA is where all entrepreneurs live. We're talking about building an empire here. Everyone else can go to the back of the line.

Now, let's get into how your album will create the most radio play. I will go ahead and give my personal secret plan away, this is like when Naomi Judd or Jane Seymour appear WITHOUT MAKEUP in their informercials to show their skin cream only I am making myself EVEN more vulnerable.

First of all the album has to have an iconic yet innocuous name. I chose for my album name "Chrome Bumpers" (now isn't that catchy?). Steal it and I will go back in time, pull up by you in my Conversion Van, get out, beat you up and drive off.

Okay let's get to how you are going to cut the widest swath through the different genre stations so that 35 years in the future, your money is still working for you:

You need a love ballad. Usually it would be about a rough and tumble girl who just makes you smile with love. (if your gay, either write about your dog like Barry Manilow did or let a lesbian write about her first crush, but if you're gonna take the latter route, make sure it's like a white-trash bike ridin' lesbian in a baseball cap, not some like Bennington/Vassar chick with a dog-eared copies of Bell Hooks and Susan Sontag.) You can just name the song after this girl. Kristina-Lynn is a good example. Most any 2 to 3 syllable name can modified with "Lynn" and it will work, as long as you're not trying some East Coasty/Highbrow sounding name. Alexandria-Lynn, Katherine-Lynn...no. Tracy-Lynn- BINGO!!!! If you really want to get exotic, trying using Krystie as the modifier.

You need a song about doing something loud and rowdy. Now that can be playing guitar, or driving or drinking but something that either creates overwhelming soundwaves, changes your B.A.L. or uses internal combustion. "Straight Whiskey" "Hard Driving all Night Long" "Strings breaking" (this can also be the title of your sad "I fucked up my relationship while on tour" song, but we'll get to that later) "Out the Window" "Walkback"is another one...listen people do I have to do the work for you?

You need a ballad that mixes in some other genre, this is a polite way of saying you need to find some talented unknown African-American musician or musicians and use their innovative talent within your crappy song and pay them a little fraction of what you make. Foreigner was really good at this after they used saxophonist Junior Walker for "Urgent" they found it worked so well they used a whole entire chorus of African-Americans for "I Wanna Know What Love is" and I bet those people got paid even less than Junior Walker.

Plus then they paid homage to the black community with that lovely video where they showed scenes of black people ironing things in maid uniforms and doing construction work then getting enthusiastically bussed in to sing with Lou Gramm plus they get to watch him reconcile with his 22-year-old rail thin girlfriend-BONUS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loWXMtjUZWM

Learn from Foreigner, people. A simple song will do for the talented underpaid black people will do all the work on the song. "Learning the Hard Way," "Aching" (titles like this can also be bought later by Tylenol, etc for advertising spots), "My Heart's Open Now."

Now getting to the "I fucked up my life on tour" song. Self-explanatory. Three girls snuck through the Sheraton and knocked on your door. They should make an exception in the vows for that one, but they don't. Again. Don't do real work here. You're looking to maximize your profits, minimize your work. Got a dead spot in the song. Just reference the tour bus or road in some way. "Passing Headlights" "Wheels Turn, Hearts break"...

Now, let's look at scenario B. And that's the best one OF ALL! That scenario assumes that the three girls made it into your hotel room and no one knows ANYTHING! you're just lonely on tour. "Awake (because I'm missing you)" would be a great title. The rule about referencing the tour bus and road still works. See how easy this is...

Angry song about the girl who did you wrong. To write this remember the ugly guy you were before you got rich and the date who wronged you. CHALLENGE: Think of a title on your own.

Now you have recession-proof plan for financial security. Get to it. Oh yeah, and don't forget to get excellent, honest representation while you are cutting this album, because all these tips are null and void if the record company is making all the money.

...Weeds

Sometime around December I got into what is called a funk. When in a funk, I typically goof off with the sort of dedication that Olympic athletes train. My latest athletic endeavor, before I began the climb back to something resembling responsible adulthood, was to watch all the episodes of Weeds on Netflix. First off, let me say that watching TV episodes on Netflix (especially on a laptop) is like eating from a package of Pepperidge Farm cookies. Specifically, both situations leave you with no choice but gluttony: the PF cookie bags force you to lift the little white card between baskets of cookies, thus forcing you to eat the next 3 cookies nested below, while Netflix forces you to watch the next episode by placing the arrow below the viewing screen that reads "more episodes." During my Weeds binge, I reflected on why the show was so addictive.

Weeds centers around a woman, Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker) who does not really know how to take control of her life and thus keeps colliding into situations. She chooses a career that is morally void. Her life spins beyond her control, yet she just keeps bouncing right along. Nothing in her life has any center. The show has a buoyancy to it, but not a lightness. Nancy Botwin fucked up her kids whom she was trying to save, ruined her chances at a safe little (illegal) business and even destroyed her own hometown.

The critiques about how suburbia is fucked up are nothing innovative. However, to me they don't ring that true. People do have to work hard to buy those (not so) little boxes on the hillside. However, coming from a family of chaos and settling into an adult life of telesales craziness and nihilistic benign laziness, when I watch the show I escape into a world that mirrors my own (no I'm not selling pot). The world just...happens.

That is why I connect to the show and is probably why others do as well. Nancy Botwin's buoyant roll through the untreated sludgy waters of her pot-dealing life mirrors the life that most Americans have now taken on. Our 70% service economy delivers very few jobs with meaning and frankly most jobs in the last 10 years were built upon buying, refinancing and selling a dream that was built on nada. People are living in dazed denial. Unlike the protesting Europeans who take it out to the streets, but Americans mostly stay complacent. Rather than rallying together, we insulate ourselves into little microvillages of crazy. As Hillary Clinton says, "It Takes a Village." Jenji Kohan has built that little village on her show. And as we watch them forget their dreams, yet maintain their myths, we see the new American way.

...The September Issue

Finally watched _The September Issue_ which is kind of like _The Devil Wears Prada_ except Andre Leon Talley is a big black man and not a little Italian Stanley Tucci. Just kidding.

Was struck by how calm it actually is at Vogue Magazine. The "meltdowns" did not seem that bad compared to the ones I viewed as an assistant (a senior agent chasing a junior agent down the halls of William Morris).

Grace Coddington is fabulous. To say how and why she is fabulous is to destroy the best part of the movie.

I didn't find Anna Wintour that toxic, just plastic and a bit sad. When sitting at her country house with her lovely daughter, Bee, she still keeps her sunglasses on. There is a moment where she compares herself to her more intellectually-oriented siblings, and somehow the trite way she sees her own extraordinary accomplishments comes through and it is sad. Even the sunglasses can't cover that.