Guy Fieri is a Douchebag



Guy Fieri's show on the Food Network

 Diners, Drive-Ins, Dives, and Douchebags. That basically sums up the Food Network's show and the man who mocks the cooking program genre just by his mere presence.

Blond, spiked-mane, unkempt facial-haired host Guy Fieri is the antithesis of the high-quality food show hosts currently found on cable or satellite TV. His obnoxious attitude and disgusting eating habits have brought him some notoriety, but make him look like a buffoon.




Bourdain has disdain for Fieri


Guy Fieri lacks the "common man appeal" that Adam Richman has on Man Vs. Food or the intellectual capacity and sophistication of a well-travelled, true food connoisseur such as Anthony Bourdain in No Reservations or The Layover. Bourdain is a writer whose flair for words matches the often exotic feasts he samples in far-flung destinations. Bourdain does his thing for the love of food, culture, and the existential experience of fine dining. Fieri is a mocking mess of pop culture meets fast food. While Richman and Bourdain do not assert their cooking skills on camera, just watching Fieri cook his failed experiments in haute cuisine makes anyone with an apron seem like a culinary school graduate.

Guy Fieri displays the eating habits of a well-groomed swine.

 Guy Fieri is not even an elegant eater. Even if you consider the comical antics of Adam Richman's rather messy displays of competitive eating on his Travel Channel show, they pale in comparison to the snorting pig, mouth-stuffing gluttony of Guy's gastric habits. Who eats like that? Not even a famished man who has recently returned from a barren desert attacks food with such gaping-mouthed, saliva-slobbering embarrassment.

Guy Fieri is not a trained chef. He has no culinary credentials or even any cooking awards to his name. He's just another vapid TV personality who was paired with a cooking show to give the Food Network a reason to waste people's precious viewing time. Unless you're in a coma and helplessly bedridden in a hospital room, why would you ever want to watch Guy Fieri on the television?



A mammoth-sized ego is possessed by some men to compensate for their---well, you get the picture.


The man is an utter douchebag. Arrogant and self-absorbed are just two of the personality traits he displays in real-life settings. People who have worked for him, either on his television shows or in his restaurant, hold him in low esteem or with contempt. He is the very definition of a douchebag.




Hey, Guy! Why devalue that fridge with your autograph?


In the end, one has to consider why this man is even on TV to begin with. Seriously, why? Did the Food Network believe it was doing a charitable thing by employing this talentless bum? Would it not have been better to just leave Guy Fieri back on whatever street corner he was found so that he could do what he does best, which is spit-shining your automobile's windshield for some spare change? That's right, Guy. Just crawl back under the maggot-infested rock from where and whence you came, you porcupine-haired troglodyte! No one wants to see your glory-hole-sucking fat mouth on television anymore. So just hop on a moon-bound rocket with the entire Kardashian clan and take a one-way trip into outer space without your oxygen helmets, you punk-ass wannabe celebrities!

Guy Fieri is a douchebag! There, I said it. Defend him, if you can.

~Andrew K.

Custom Choppers

I remember a time when guys rode traditional motorcycles. Motorcycles they took pride in because they were built by their favorite manufacturers, such as Harley-Davidson, Indian, or Victory. The motorcycle company's reputation or iconic status was enough to get the rider his sought-after attention. But something changed over the years. It was not enough to have just any motorcycle. You had to have a custom bike. Like a volcanic explosion, custom choppers flexed their muscles and flowed on to the scene like stylish bad boys. Now you cannot escape them, because custom motorcycles are the standard---no longer the oddity.

One built in a garage from odd parts and welded together like some two-wheeled motoring Frankenstein's monster. Not only were the dimensions exaggerated, but the color schemes were outrageous. You needed to capture every eye as you rode down the American highway like some modern-day easy rider.

A popular expression used by dealers of custom choppers was "put something exciting between your legs." Nothing could be truer. Where tough guys congregate on chrome-shining steel beasts, so do the babes who love these wild-eyed, free-spirited, and untamed men. The chopper became a symbol of sex appeal. Virile guys who took command on their custom motorcycle were more likely to attract a hot babe than a some wimpy Hollywood wannabe hunk. Unless you had a hot set of wheels between your legs, you weren't considered a man.

The motorcycle was always a symbol of freedom, rebellion, and the counterculture. Ever since the days of Easy Rider with Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson riding down a stretches of Southern and Southwestern roadways with the wind blowing through their hippie hairstyles, the classic bike became a part of Americana, like mom and apple pie.

The custom chopper nowadays is less about freedom, rebellion, and the counterculture and more about commercialism. The new bike you see on the roadways of suburbia are built by profit-minded individuals, fueled by their own creativity. Popular TV shows, like American Chopper, have boosted the image of the custom-built motorcycle and brought it to a wide swath of fans, from die-hard enthusiasts to novice biker aspirants. Choppers are now being built with corporate logos, such as insurance company GEICO, video game developers for Gears of War, and even high-end automobile manufacturer Cadillac.

Yet the corporate logo is not a badge of honor. Custom bikes have become less about the rider and more about the message they are promoting. Adorning these motorcycles with flashy colors and other types of fancy bells and whistles have turned them into show pieces rather than pleasure-riding machines. The bike was meant to be a road companion like the family dog is a home companion. In the past, a spiked collar was the only accessory you needed to put on your pet, but now---just like with these custom choppers---you have ridiculous gear that only puts shame and humiliation on your four-legged friend. So why do we embellish our motorbikes like we embarrass our dogs? It's just humanity's vain attempt to say: "Look at me!"

In the final analysis, the motorcycle will always be a means of transportation for the rider and perhaps one piggyback passenger. You can ride a classic bike built by Harley-Davidson or straddle one of those garrish motorcycles customized by Orange County Choppers or Paul Jr. Designs, but you will always get from point A to point B in bad boy style. It all depends on how many eyes you want staring or glaring back at you as your rip down the road on your polished-chrome-and-steel-hide horse. Giddyup!

~Andrew K.

The Work-Weekend-Work Cycle

The weekend. Two wistful days of bliss for the 9-to-5 worker. Saturday and Sunday. Or as I like to call them: "Sat-down-day" and "Fun-day." Two full days of rest and relaxation. Forty-eight hours of do-what-you-like. Even if you minus a couple hours for going to church on Sunday morning, you still have time to relax later on. Two days of recharging the human batteries. Time to remember you are a human and not a remotely-controlled machine dedicated to making your employer a daily profit. No, the weekend is your time and it's my time. But what if that time was intruded upon by the corporate world?

As many of us who work for big companies or global corporations know, the hourly pay clock keeps ticking as long as we keep working. Therefore, we take as much as we can get--before Uncle Sam steals his greedy portion--and come in to work on weekends for that juicy overtime pay. But it is worth it?

I have to ask myself that question. Of course, when I'm in need of money, yes--it's worth my time to come in and work on a Saturday or Sunday. Hard economic times dictate employment decisions. However, now that I'm married, my personal time becomes more and more important to me. I want to spend more time with my wife, not trapped in a prison-like cubicle staring at four gray wall panels. My wife and I don't have any children yet, but when we do, I don't want to miss a single moment without them. Don't get me wrong, I'm a very dedicated worker. I like to leave after my shift is over knowing that my day's work was put forth with my best effort. I take pride in my work. My diligence and work performance has never come to be questioned by any of my employers, past or present. So, what has changed?

Time has changed. Days seems shorter now than when I was younger. Even I have changed. I'm not as fast as I used to be, I acknowledge that fact. It's not a medical condition, unless you factor in what sleep apnea has done to me physically. Oh, the desire is there! The mind is willing even if the body is weak. I can work and plan to work until such time as when I believe I am no longer functioning at full (physical or mental) capacity. That's not what is troubling me, something else concerns me about this work-weekend-work cycle.

The decline in the quality of life, that's it. I need to work to earn money. When I earn money, I can feed and clothe my family as well as pay bills and keep a roof over our heads. I'm not complaining about that fact. I'm concerned about my quality of life when I spend most of the work day with people (i.e., co-workers) I hardly care about. I guess I would not be so concerned if I had my own small business, such as a pizzaria, and my family owned and operated the business. We would be together all the time while also making money to support ourselves. And maybe that is the answer to happiness, to balancing life with work-related responsibilities. To own your own business and be your own boss, the dream of many, but the reality of few.

The truth of life is that we all work for someone else, even if that someone else is just a monolithic corporate face or company logo. Like pledging allegiance to the American flag, so do we pledge our very existence to the business taskmaster--the overlord of our lives--the one who controls and doles out the paycheck. This is the never-ending cycle we cannot change, like life and death. There is no room in this world for the lazy or the useless. Work, my son--work to eat and survive. You have no life beyond that daily routine. Though the work week is long, just remember that the weekend is the only chance you have to truly feel like you are alive. Work for the weekend, everybody's doing it.

~Andrew K.

Star Wars Episode 7

Star Wars fanboys (and fangirls) now have a new reason to rejoice...or do they? The surprise announcement that production will start on a new Star Wars movie due in theaters sometime in the year 2015---a third trilogy starting with Episode 7 and following the original trilogy focusing on characters Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia---has caused a pleasant disturbance in the Force. But what can fans expect?

Well, first off, fans can expect a new Rogue Squadron leader as Star Wars creator George Lucas not only steps down as director, but he has sold the entire Star Wars franchise to Disney. What's that you say...?

We hear you, Lord Vader. NOOOOO!!! That's exactly how we feel about the deal. Though Disney is successful in turning a profit with almost any animation it puts on the silver screen, Disney is also known for mercilessly destroying stories they borrowed from other sources, such as ripping off The Little Mermaid from the original fairy tale composed by Hans Christian Andersen. Disney does to classics what the Death Star did to Alderaan. You can almost hear millions of helpless voices crying out in terror, then suddenly being silenced. Silenced, because nothing can be done. It was Lucas's creation---his marketing Empire---and he sold it. Or "sold out" to an even more evil marketing Empire, i.e., the Disney Corporation stormtroopers. Just imagine the sad display of Darth Vader battling Mickey Mouse in a lightsaber fight scene. It would probably look something like this...

As if the beloved Star Wars franchise didn't have enough dignity stripped away from its original epic storyline with the introduction of those irritating, slobbering, dinosaur-like Gungans, now we will have Mickey and crew to contend with. But Disney did not start the decline of the Star Wars empire, oh no---that came with the introduction of Jar Jar Binks!

Yes, I'm bringing up Jar Jar Binks. Is there anyone in the entire galaxy---even in the Outer Rim territories---who doesn't find that juvenile Gungan utterly annoying? Is there anyone who doesn't think Jar Jar Binks isn't the sole reason why the prequel trilogy (at least the first two episodes) was a failure? That's right, I'm putting the blame on Jar Jar. Mesa ruin Star Wars. You sure did, idiot. George Lucas is to blame for Jar Jar, but what can we expect from Disney? What politically correct character will they thrust upon the Star Wars fandom? Who knows, but I already see a phantom menace on the horizon. I think Luke sees it too...

One thing is for sure, a new Star Wars movie will be greeted with much enthusiasm from long-time sci-fi fans. I think, in the end, most people will give Disney a chance to see what they can do with the legacy that Lucas has left for his millions of devotees. Will Disney take up the lightsaber and blaze a new path for the Star Wars universe and its diverse denizens? Or will the Mickey Mouse House drive the final nail in the sci-fi coffin of a once-great modern-day mythology?

Time will tell, but one thing is certain---Star Wars fans are a picky bunch. Any discernable flaw in filming or any inconsistency in character creation or any uninspiring CGI sequence will likely turn the new movie---and the subsequent episodes---into unwatchable fiascos. Star Wars fans will rip Disney apart like a ravenous Rancor. The following two films will be turned into Banthan fodder by the fanboys. And the sci-fi legacy will be thrown into the Sarlacc pit, never to be seen or heard from again.

Do not let the indignity of Boba Fett's demise similarly fall upon the last remnants of the Star Wars mythos. Let there be a new hope that the Disney empire strikes back with a solid movie hit, so that fans may return to the Jedis (and Sith) with renewed joy and celebration, much like on Endor with those cuddly furball Ewoks.

May the Force be with the new Star Wars Episode VII.

~Andrew K.

Hurricane Sandy, Part 2

The calm after the storm.

...and Prospero's magic does not cease to amaze. The entire East Coast seaboard of the United States was in some way affected by Hurricane Sandy's devastating swath of destruction and death. The overnight death toll is given as 30, but that may rise as new storm victims are discovered or those currently in hospital care succumb to their wounds.


Above: Example of a widely-circulated, doctored photograph supposedly showing Hurricane Sandy storm clouds ominously hovering over the New York City skyline.


Aside from the death tolls and bizarre images of destruction in the wake of Hurricane Sandy's wrath, a new phenomenon is spreading--the posting of fake Hurricane Sandy images through social media. These photos do not depict realistic images, but improbable scenes of devastation, such as large waves pouncing on the Statue of Liberty or ominous storm clouds over the New York City skyline. Since many businesses were closed during the weather emergency, I assume a few bored workers stuck at home had time to play around with doctored images and shared those photos with their online friends. But others took photographs of actual property damage, perhaps for insurance purposes, but also to chronicle the historical destruction of Hurricane Sandy.

When you stop to survey the enormous amount of damage or pause to reflect on what happened over the past few days, you begin to appreciate the raw, uncontrollable power of nature. Some people might even ascribe this meteorological phenomenon to divine will, but I cannot go down that road merely because the deaths and destruction seem so random. Why would God--anyone's god--bring about such catastrophe? Perhaps we are being tested again. I don't know. But what I do know is that in all of humanity, no matter how boastful our claims, we could never rival nature's sheer force and power.

That is why I hardly pay any attention to environmentalists who claim we are somehow damaging the planet by our very existence. They say mankind causes so much devastation that the earth will never recover. Oh really? So when a volcano erupts and molten lava burns down tropical forests while changing the landscape, the Earth will never recover from that catastrophic event? Or when a large-magnitude earthquake shakes up the land and creates mammoth-sized tsunamis in the Pacific region, the Earth will never recover from that event either? Or when a global megastorm like Hurricane Sandy just happens to flood low-lying areas and tears down everything in its path through ferocious and unyielding winds, the Earth will never survive such costly destruction? I have to muster a mocking laugh at those apocalyptic and fatalistic environmentalists who believe--with the height of human arrogance--that we can damage the Earth more than Mother Nature herself can. We're at the mercy of the Earth, not the other way around.

I SURVIVED HURRICANE SANDY, WINDY and RAINY

October 28, 29 and 30, 2012.

 ~Andrew K.

Hurricane Sandy, Part 1

The calm before the storm.

Media coverage of Hurricane Sandy is--as with any major storm--at a fever pitch. Nothing sells more commercial television time between newscasts than a little weather scare. Every storm becomes the "Storm of the Century" if a TV channel can sell you a few more fast-food burgers or offer a "storm sale" from the local car dealership. How responsible are meteorologists in reporting this upcoming storm?

One side effect of the weather scare permeated by various media outlets is to create a rush on emergency goods, such as bottled water, flashlights, batteries, etc., which helps the local economies of businesses, but also results in a shortage of supplies. That is what I experienced on Sunday, October 28, 2012 as my wife and I went from store to store looking for a simple flashlight, in case the power goes out in the house and we're left in the dark. Not one store had a serviceable flashlight, and we checked them all--Home Depot, Lowe's, Sears Hardware, Walmart, Kmart, Giant Supermarkets, Rite-Aid, and even a couple of dollar stores. All sold-out, no thanks to the weather scare. None of these stores even had the D-size batteries we were looking for in order to replenish our "lantern-style" flashlights at home. I was tempted to go to RadioShack, because they are known for their well-stocked battery displays, but after searching all the other stores, we just drove home defeated. Our efforts were all for nothing.

I guess if the power goes out, we can rely on candles. A sort of Amish turn-of-events that takes us back to a time before Edison. We have plenty of waxy sticks with wicks at home, especially the scented kind. This truly romantic setting--the bedroom darkness broken by the flickering flame while the aroma of florals and fruits wafts through the sensually-charged air--will make surviving Hurricane Sandy a more pleasurable affair to remember. Still, you have to wonder about nature.

We claim to understand the world we live in, but the truth is that the world is constantly surprising us with its power. From periods of great heat and drought to periods of great snowfall and frigid cold, there is never a time of seemingly consistent weather. And, not surprisingly, we cannot control any of it. We are at the mercy of our own environment, of the planet's petulance or of the world's whim.

Hurricane Sandy will bring about high winds and torrential rains, more than likely flooding many places and causing may hardships or deaths. But how we weather this storm will say a lot about us as people. Neighbor helping neighbor to survive what are commonly called "acts of God." Perhaps that is why we experience such extremes in weather--a divine test to see the good (or evil) in our human nature. Is God testing us? I don't claim to know. But I do know this much...

We are a strong people and we will get through this raging and rampaging storm. And after the winds have subsided and the rains have ceased, we can relegate Hurricane Sandy to the dusty pages of history as just another storm--full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I await Prospero's magic... (to be continued, after the storm, in Part 2).
~Andrew K.

The Human Eye

Is it really a portal into an individual's soul? Does it really contain mystical powers, such as those used by magicians or hypnotists? Is the human eye more than it appears to be? I don't think so.

As a romantic notion, I can see how some people would think all of the above are true. The eye is a symbol of many things. Just as symbolic is the different colors of the iris, from bright blue to dark brown or black. I have a brown pair, which are nice in most people's eyes (pardon the pun), but everyone seems to prefer the lighter hues, especially the blue eyes---such as the ones my father had before he passed away.

He was a womanizer and I have no doubt that his sparkling, roguish blue eyes helped him seduce many women in his lifetime. He wooed my mother and later I resulted, so there's one piece of proof. But what is it about the eyes that make them seem so powerful? Why are both men and women drawn to them? There are many answers to these questions and each answer appeals to a different person, but here's my take on it...

EYES are proof that we are ALIVE. Forget about them being windows into the soul, part---eyes represent life itself. They move fluidly, they help us see, they scan the world around us, they give our brains the images we need to make sense of our world, and without eyes---we'd be literally and figuratively blind.

When we sleep, our eyes are shut. Sleep is like a little death. We visit other worlds in our dreams, but those worlds are not seen through our eyes, but our mind's eye. In death, the body lies stiff in a coffin with the eyes shut. Life has ended. Even if we are living, blood-shot eyes and red or bleary eyes suggest an unhealthy life. I know when I have lost many hours of sleep, my eyes make me look dead or like a zombie. What woman would find those kinds of eyes attractive? None, I suspect.

Eyes are like life monitors and show how vibrant we are---living and seeing all around us. As humans, we are attracted to lively people and people who have bright eyes, no matter their color. So even if the eyes reveal something about a person's soul, it is that they show not the soul, but the life currently being lived. And to those sparkling eyes an equally sparkling smile and you have a combination potent enough to lure any man or woman.

Next time, don't be shy. Look the other person in the eye. Don't wonder why. Just smile and say "hi."

~Andrew K.