Don't be annoying. Do have skills.

[jlh]

Great day today with ali_wildgoose, lunching and chilling and MoMA-ing and getting tea, after a fun night out to dinner with calloocallay on Tuesday. Really, really nice. Looking forward to seeing a big pile of folks at various events in DC this weekend. I'm taking the Delta Shuttle because I scored super-cheap tix and the train—I mean, look the train should NOT be more expensive than flying. That's just crazy talk!

I did, however, watch the president yammer about how more troops are going to make everything awesome in Baghdad and give the government time to stabilize etc, and you know, that would be great if I thought for one minute that any of the people IN the coalition government really wanted to maintain that government. Call me cynical.

I waited for the official blogs to go up before I posted about this week's Top Chef. First, about the treatment of Marcel this week and last week. I really see Marcel as one of those people who never really does anything hugely obnoxious, but is just annoying 24/7, so then when you finally lose your patience and blow up at them you look like an ass. So I had a lot of sympathy for Sam's freak out in the kitchen goods store, and very little for Marcel. You have to really be annoying to get all those comments from laid-back Mikey. Even Elia doesn't defend him; she just says, "he's made enemies of everyone." That said, Ilan and Betty really took it too far. Granted, the pressures of competing every day (that's right, no days off for the cheftestants) without your usual support system of friends and family (they can't really call home on a regular basis) are more than I would want to deal with. And it's really easy for me, sitting at home, to wish for everyone to behave better; we've all had days where, looking back, we didn't act as well as we might have. Still, just sit back and let Marcel make his own bed. You don't have to make it for him.

But that rap? Wow, that's some lame shit.

One thing I've learned about the judging on both TC and PR is that when they feel that someone has progressed past their skill level, shown a rookie mistake or a lack of knowledge, that's who is next to go. Last week that was Betty, who didn't seem to know how to strain a soup—to which I say, don't try to do refined if you aren't refined; I mean, other than on the beach, when has her presentation been appealing? What was she thinking with those glasses? This week it was Mikey, and in his blog Tom noted that Miguel was sent home in the same challenge for the same reason, because he's a line cook, rather than a top chef, and hasn't worked out how to step up. Ilan has, but just barely, and I bet he'll be the next one to go, but who knows?

OMG, that preview????? I SO can't wait for next week.

Also? You have GOT to read Harold's blog tonight. He'd had a problem with guest judge Mike Yakura last year, which he expressed in his interviews, but now that he's not a contestant he let it fly on his blog and it is a beautiful thing to behold.

Comments

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

The tone of the speech that the Beeb was broadcasting this morning seemed to imply that Bush was openly threatening the Iraqi government. Although that could just be a bit of the old selective editing.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I thought his tone was actually pretty flat and matter of fact, but I would say he's about a notch or two below threatening. More like warning? No, not quite even that. More like saying, look, we don't have unlimited patience here, and you people have to step it up. But definitely, he was expressing some serious unhappiness, which I think came to a head over that execution, which NO ONE was pleased with.

I just wish he wasn't the sort of person that the more isolated he is the more he thinks he's right, because even the Senate Republicans are abandoning him now, and he's running around replacing all the generals who don't think this plan will work, and it's all just sort of gross and upsetting.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

Balls. The anonymous comment is me, I forgot I wasn't signed in. Sorry.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

HA, I thought that was you. I'll reply here so you'll see it.

That Bush started this is you know, the understood "you" of all of this. I'm not really talking about that because in the context of his speech it doesn't mean anything because HE doesn't think that way, so his tone wouldn't refer to that, if that makes sense.

But I don't think the current Iraqi government is particularly interested in being a coalition government, and any ideas that Bush might have had that they did pretty much ended with their handling of Hussein's execution. That said, to me a threat is specific; if he had said, "if you do not do these three things I'm taking my ball and going home/kick you out of office for a puppet governement that will do what he's told/something I'll specify in the comments" then I would have said he was threatening. But he was more saying, you know, if you want to govern, then fucking govern. It was always a dumb plan to think that we could just get rid of Saddam and then hand the government over to the "nice" Iraqis, but if you take that as the supposition then the failure to find the "nice" Iraqis or get them to behave is understandably frustrating.

[note that I almost made a baseball joke here before I realized you (rightly) wouldn't get it, and exchanged it for an LJ-poll joke, because I care about YOU.]

All that said, Bush is a moron, and the speech was really disheartening, and his "acceptance of responsibility for mistakes" was bullshit because like, of course the responsibility lies with you, asshole, you are the BOSS. The point is that you MADE the mistakes, not that you take responsibility for them. Gah.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

[That was very sweet. I actually watched part of a major league soccer game on 5US last night - not out of choice, it was on before Whose Line Is It Anyway? - so it's surely only a matter of time before I settle down for some hot baseballing action. My tip is for the Yankees to win the Superbowl on penalties]

So, yeah. Of course I hadn't thought about Bush not thinking about it in that way, which was dumb of me because I seem to spend a lot of time preoccupied with, well, Bush not thinking in general. You know, my favourite Republican (PJ O'Rourke) once said 'these are not countries, these are quarrels with borders' and I'm beginning to think he was onto something.

[tropes.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, I was cheering Harold on when I read his blog last night. He ripped that asshole up!

I disagree with you about Marcel, because I find the puppypile of haters really distressing. It's the kind of weird social bubble-induced mob mentality (or at least that's what we're seeing from the edit) that really just plain sets off alarms for me. It may be my own issues with getting ostracised for being 'annoying' when I was just trying to be friendly and myself though. So I sympathize, I guess, with being so awkward that people really dislike you.

I have a feeling that part of what drives everyone mad, and Miss Alli pointed this out on TWOP, but I agree, is that Marcel is really good at at least outwardly shrugging off people's anger and not taking it seriously. Which is completely my reaction when people have blown up at me -- if you sit there and take whatever they have to throw at you calmly and even with a smile, it makes them crazy and it also makes them look like a dick. Good strategy, if you want to undermine others and don't want to make friends.

Can you tell I am sneaky?

And I found the rap so lame and awful that it was endearing. XD

Next week's preview freaked me out. I think they're gonna cut Marcel's hair or do something physical to him, but I can't quite figure out what else is gonna happen. Fisticuffs? I wish.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

You know, I watched marathons of Top Chef twice in the last few weeks, and I think only if you go back and watch a lot of episodes can you see it. Note that the way they describe him is like a gnat—constantly annoying, won't go away, but isn't really doing anything all that extreme. He also plays up to the camera a LOT for someone who says it's all about the food. In that Friday's episode one reason that Betty gets so pissy is that everyone is running around cooking and he's standing there pontificating on the best way to make onion rings. Note how often we get his opinions NOT in an interview but live from the kitchen. I don't think it's jealousy of his camera time, but rather that they all wish he would shut the fuck up. They also keep talking about him as being selfish, and I think he is incredibly self-oriented and not a good team player, which you have to be in a kitchen—it wasn't just that he wanted to say that Sam wasn't his leader, but that he thinks he doesn't need to be "led" which wasn't the point, and was really obnoxioius and unnecessary. And someone who simply won't shut up, day after day after day after day, is going to push you to the limit, especially if you have a temper as Sam does.

Compare this with Stephen last year. There were those who didn't like his cooking style, but he won a LOT of quickfires and was in the top three a lot—much more than Marcel. And he had respect for many of the other chefs, like LeeAnn and Tiffany, and he worshipped Harold even though Harold had a very different style than Stephen did. Plus, back at the house, he did relax and got along well with people like Miguel and Dave, whose cooking he didn't think much of but whose personalities he clearly enjoyed. Stephen knows Elia from Vegas so I wonder if he knows Marcel and what he thinks of him.

I dunno, in my program in my class there's a guy like that, and I pretty much can't stand him. He talks but never says anything useful, which often throws the class off in some bizarre direction. He's really selfish—he'll come up to you and tell you some story even though you are clearly doing your reading for class. I don't think that the fact that none of us really like him means that we're bullies, although we've never really done anything to him, and I don't shout at him, but then again, I'm not living with him and away from my friends and forced to listen to him spout off 24/7.

It's funny, the longer I'm online, the less sympathy I have for people who are socially tone deaf, because I really think it's a form of selfishness. "Person with good social skills," they are saying, "please make up for my lack of them, and overlook if I hurt your feelings, and do the work on our friendship that I can't be bothered to do." And it's like, "maybe you should get out of your head and open your eyes and try to have some empathy for longer than a second and a half, and you would have fewer social problems." I have a limit for how often and how long I can just smile and hug someone who has just said something that really hurt my feelings or done something assholish just because they say that they have social problems, because I think it shows a real lack of respect or caring for other people, as though those of us who do play well with others deserve to get our feelings hurt, and I'm just sort of done. Marcel falls back on, "it's about the food" but he can't lead a kitchen if he doesn't improve his people skills, which was Tiffany's hard lesson last year.

All that said? I have a bad feeling they're going to go too far next week, and it's too bad, really.

marcel marcel

[fhiqria.livejournal.com]

i agree with you that there is some base level of annoying there with marcel. these people aren't fed up with him for no reason. however, your comparison with stephen is interesting. i found stephen A LOT more annoying than marcel because of his pompous attitude. i felt like he talked down to people, including the judges, at every oppotunity. i agree that he did show a greater degree of skill and even creativity than marcel, but for some reason his behavior annoyed me more than marcel's has on season 2. this isn't to say that i don't dislike marcel (how's that for double negatives), but i find myself feeling sorry and embarrassed for him more often than not. his people skills are undeniably bad, but he doesn't seem malicious. like he thinks he's doing the right thing even though he's doing the completely wrong thing? like he is capable of having a lightbulb moment where he realizes, "wow, that was shitty what i just did"? as you can probably tell, it's a bit hard for me to articulate. i'm not even sure that i want to watch next week's episode, if what the previews and spoilers/speculation predict is true.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I just read Keckler's recaplet and I think she's going to stick it to Mike Yakura, too. Can't hardly wait, man!