June 1, 2008

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   The Daily News

  

  1  For a guy who is fundamentally against reality shows on teevee, I sure wind up watching a lot of them.

  2  Usually the teevee is just blaring and I pretty much ignore it whenever I write the DN.

  3  But sometimes something comes on that just grabs my attention.

  4  The guys who write those shows design them that way.

  5  And when it comes to reality teevee, the meaner the better.

  6  That came out wrong, but I think you know what I mean.

  7  Simon Cowell, for example, is reality teevee's superstar a'hole.

  8  You get my drift.

  9  On Saturday I found a show that was absolutely riveting. It's called Hell's Kitchen. I had watched it a few times prior, but they had a marathon on Saturday, which is becoming a day that I don't want to budge anyway.

  10  That job almost killed me Friday night. I won't go into details, so let's just move to Saturday morning.

  11  Love 'em. I went years without Saturdays, so I really LOVE 'em. So Saturday morning I clicked on the teevee and a Hell's Kitchen marathon was on. It was then I realized that probably the entire rest of the universe watches this show, but somehow I never got into it.

  12  If you haven't seen it, it's a must. They have this master chef, some Brit named Ramsay who is the meanest man on the Earth. He trains two teams of people who are wannabe chefs. They learn in an absolute real restaurant.

  13  His style is this: all he does is criticize people, put them down, scream and cuss at them, humiliate them, and generally abuse them beyond anything I've ever seen.

  14  I LOVE the guy. Jolly fun. He reminds me of the way I used to direct. He throws stuff, tells people to f**k off, yells at the entire crew, screams two inches from people's faces, and then tells the losers that they are losers and to turn in their chef jackets and get the hell out of his restaurant.

  15  And I watched it so much that when I had to go do an event on Saturday afternoon I had to record it.

  16  The winner gets to become a head chef at a restaurant, so it is a pretty prize, although nothing on the show demonstrates them learning a thing about business management. Still, the idea is that he will toughen them up enough to run the kitchen at a restaurant.

  17  The show also gives every head chef around the idea that brutally abusing people is good coaching. I often think back on some of my abusive behaviors during the heat of a show and am forever happy that I stopped using fear tactics. For the record, I thank Camp Anytown for that.

  18  Anyway, by all rights I should hate the show, but I'm totally addicted.

  19  Just harrible.

  20  Naturally they always have one person on the show that everybody else hates, and naturally that person is never asked to leave.

  21  Central casting, I swear.

  22  Anyway, it's worth a look, I swear to you. You laugh a lot at the guy's psycho antics.  And like me, you'll wonder how you never watched.

  23  Moving on:  I missed YB's first ever dance recital on Saturday because of the small event over at the Chill. By the time I had them all set up, it was too late to go.

  24  Deb Rocha is the choreographer and founder of the Dance program at YB. Ellen went and told me it was outstanding, and that the full-house crowd couldn't cheer long enough or loud enough, so it looks like dance has officially arrived at YB, which is great news. Congrats to Deb and the team, which consists of boys and girls.

  25  They did some songs from our musical revue My Favorite Things, including Hey, Big Spender. I don't know what others they did, but it's really great to hear that the Theatre is putting on some more formal performances. Made me smile.

  26  Moving on, Part Two: Yesterday morning my dog talked to me. I asked her how her day was and she said, "Ruff!"

  

  27  Hopefully today will be much better.

  28  I hope you all have a great day. There have been too many rough ones this year, so fly low.

  29  Peace.

  ~H~

  

   

  

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