Warm it up, Scoob'!

1. Can't. Stop. Watching. Big. Daddy. Kane! Really love the way the energy builds in that 5 minutes. TI to Black Thought to Common to BDK! *nerdy honk* I've said it before but WHY does that man wear shades now? (in addition to the I've-gained-weight schmatte?) Why why why? He has the eyes of a Byron.

2. CRANK-EE FOOD/MEDIA RANT:

I spent a lot of the weekend fighting the work-is-a-petrie-dish cold (victory: maybe? armies of Zicam and Emergen-C deployed), so I don't have anything intelligent to say about anything except that I finally read the Bill Buford article about the Food Network in The New Yorker and it was the usual mix of interesting, thought-provoking, and my least favorite flavor, the snooty clueless media Hmmm...I've never heard of this fascinating new thing called ________ [rap, iPods, hiphop, country music, Skittles, Coca-Cola, whatever--something popular] and I have every right to write long and not educate myself first. That pop kulture thing. In this case it was: Hmmm...wot is this Food Network? I would have found it much more interesting if he had talked to people who watch it 5 hours a day and worship Rachael Ray than departed programming execs. Duh.

Also: I do NOT entirely buy the idea--and I should, theoretically--that it's sad to see Mario Batali and Sara Moulton's contracts not renewed. Both of those people never got less annoying on their shows. Sara Moulton got somewhat less nervous, but she was still nervy and especially so if there was anybody on screen with her, hustling them along, interrupting them, getting freaked about coming in on time. I liked the information she had to impart, more than many, but I felt like she never got enough levels above nervous wreck for me to sink into her show. And Molto Mario, with what was possibly the most annoying grating screeching theme song ever (played in and out of EVERY interstitial, too), was totalment annoying too. He talked at 120 mph, gave slippery Italian pronunciations to things that were unintelligible, and was generally kind of off-puttingly pedantic and over-fast, not in a fascinating way. I didn't feel like he had much rapport with anybody other than himself (I liked his Ciao America show, though--other people talked). Note: this all has nothing to do with my feelings about offal. I applaud his work in the weird little animal bits department.

I *don't* like the Food Network's move towards infotainment--it's boring and repetitive and dumbed-down. (The actual cooking being done has less and less connection to any particular cuisine, as well--I could go for a rigorously French or Thai or something show.) I'm actually starting to watch America's Kitchen with christoherkimball and his Sub-Deb Kitchen Bitches. It's gotten looser and more interesting. I'll even watch New Scandinavian Cooking, with Andreas Viestad and his hilariously halting English pulled out of him in repetitive blurts that is usually so offputting I can't watch it despite my total fascination. In short: I watch the Food Network less and less. I *do* want to see chefs, more than amateur-types, amateur-chefs or Emerils. I really like learning something, however I do so. But Mario and Sara never had a lock-down birthright on being the chefs in question, if you ask me. It's still only a little over 10 years since the network was launched: I'm not ready to weep for the passing of the old guard yet.