Hell's Kitchen - Hell YEAH!

I interrupt this regularly scheduled posting for a quick question or two:

Q.  How does someone from Andhra Pradesh, India even find my blog in the first place?  A.  I don't know, but he did.  And it wasn't  a referral from Networked Blogs, either...he just landed directly on my blog.  Very strange and yet exciting too, because if someone from Andhra Pradesh, India can find me, who knows where this will go next? 

Q.  Just who the heck is my Port Coquitlam reader?  And while I'm at it...who's reading from Fergus?

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Okay, now that that's out of the way, we now continue with regularly scheduled blogging.  I'll tell you right from the get-go, it's not my best work...but it's all I've got today.  Hopefully you'll come back here tomorrow and there will be something scintillating.

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It started on Tuesday.  If you haven’t watched it you should.  I’m talking about the latest installment of the quasi-reality show “Hell’s Kitchen”.   Are you familiar?   It’s the kind of show that I hate to/love to/hate to/love to watch.  I’m so not kidding.  I am quintessentially Gemini about the whole experience.    

First of all you’ve got the star of the show, super-hot in a he-just-rolled-out-of-bed-with-tousled-hair-after-a-mad-evening-of-passionate-naughtiness, Gordon Ramsay.  This guy kills me!   (in a good way)  For sure he’s a talented chef, but have you seen the way he intimidates  motivates people?  I watch in abject horror as he dresses down one chef contestant after another for doing things such as throwing out pasta that’s been over-cooked (instead of serving it, whereby the chef would then get reamed a new asshole for serving something so vile as over-cooked pasta).  All night long, at one chef contestant after another he screamed, ridiculed, shamed and did I mention screamed at to the point where the vein above his eyebrow looked as though it was going to explode!  Holy smokes, you’d think this was life or death rather than a contest to see who can withstand working under his tutelage for a grand prize of being the executive chef at Whistler’s Araxi Restaurant.   

So yeah, you’ve got Gordon who is just a tad bit short-tempered.  But honestly?  He’s nothing compared to the chef contestants!  I mean, it's not like you don't know what you're getting into when you sign up to be a chef contestant on the show.  Ramsay's rants are well documented throughout various mediums - this show, his Kitchen Nightmares show and such.  His temper and foul mouth are all part of his schtick.  So yeah, shouldn't be a shocker to the contestants that his a bit of an asshole.  

But remember, the whole premise of this show is to showcase culinary skills to Ramsay in the hopes of surviving until the end, to be awarded the position of executive chef at one of Whistler’s finest (and I do mean super-finest) restaurants.  So this whole thing?  It’s a JOB INTERVIEW on steroids, broadcast on national television for the whole country to see.  Yes, yes, yes...it's also a TV show and without all the ensuing drama of Tuesday night you're right - we probably wouldn't tune back in to see if Ramsay knocks the tar out of that little twerp who told him to go pound salt...but...really people?  Some decorum, please!    

You would think that given that, people would oh, I don’t know,  be a tiny bit aware that the guy you’ve just told to go “pound salt,” is in fact the one who will ultimately decide your fate – whether you will cook another day in Hell’s Kitchen, or whether you’re hanging up your chef’s whites and running out of town with your tail between your legs.    

I’m just saying.