Chapter 1: COVID Chronicles

By Karen

Day 18

March 12 seems like a lifetime ago, but that’s when I began staying indoors. It was the day after my last grocery run and before it became an imperative. I haven’t left the house since March 20. My Saturn is atrophying in the driveway, and I hope the squirrels aren’t feasting on the wiring.

I’m almost out of fresh produce and could use a quart of milk, but with each passing day, I become more nervous about venturing out. I have no idea what it’s like out there. What if I’m the only one not wearing a mask and gloves? Will people point and call me “COVID Karen”?

I read a mask doesn’t protect you from catching it, only from spreading it if you already have it. Gloves aren’t protective because if the virus gets on them they’ll spread it like your hands would, and you’ll probably touch it if you don’t know the special secret technique for safely removing contaminated gloves.

When I do go out, I’ll be armed with hand sanitizer, wipes and sandwich bags. The bags go on my hands when I pump gas so I don’t touch the pump, the octane button, or the keypad. Then I’ll let the bags drop from my hands into the trashcan before I get back in the car.

Anybody else got nifty ideas to share for staying clean?

Last night I watched the Brad Pitt – Leonardo DiCaprio movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I had no clue what to expect, but when Sharon Tate and the Manson family showed up, I was dreading how director Quentin Tarantino would handle that. Must say I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, there was gore, but in a good way. All in all, I found the movie quite delightful.

Today I’ve got 4 1/2 lbs. of bone-in country style pork ribs in the crockpot with onions, garlic, BBQ sauce and a dash of ketchup, so that’s dinners for the week done.

This morning while I was reading the paper in the living room, Roc started wailing in my bedroom. Tony went to investigate and there was immediate silence until they both dashed by me like maniacs. After a few laps chasing each other around the house, peace was restored. Thank God for Tony because Roc would be driving me and Max crazy.

One silver lining of this pandemic is that I’ve noticed robocalls have almost completely stopped.

I haven’t watched any news since Friday, so if Trump has said anything particularly stupid or deadly, I’m oblivious.

 

Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown Earns 7 Emmy Noms

By Karen

Nominations for the 70^th Annual Emmy Awards are in, and media outlets are getting the number wrong on Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. I’ve been reading it garnered six nominations. But I pored through all 65 pages of noms and found SEVEN, and here they are. (For brevity’s sake, Bourdain’s listings are complete, but I’m dropping the boring details on the competition):

Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program

• Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown • Lagos • CNN • CNN Original Series and Zero Point Zero Production, Inc.; Morgan Fallon, Director of Photography, Jerry Risius, Director of Photography, Tarik Hameedi, Director of Photography
• Blue Planet II • The Deep • BBC America
• Blue Planet II • One Ocean • BBC America
• Chef’s Table • Corrado Assenza
• Jane • National Geographic

Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program

• Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown • Lagos • CNN • CNN Original Series and Zero Point Zero Production, Inc.; Hunter Gross, ACE, Editor
• The Defiant Ones • Episode 3 • HBO
• Jane • National Geographic
• Wild Wild Country • Part 3 • Netflix
• The Zen Diaries Of Garry Shandling • HBO

Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series

• Anthony Bourdain: Explore Parts Unknown • CNN (cnn.com) • CNN, Roads & Kingdoms; Kate Kunath, Executive Producer, Joey Zadwarny, Producer
• The Americans: The Final Season • FX Networks
• The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story: America’s Obsessions • FX Networks
• Jay Leno’s Garage • NBC (nbc.com)
• Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen • Bravo (bravotv.com)

Outstanding Informational Series or Special

• Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown • CNN • CNN Original Series and Zero Point Zero Production, Inc.; Anthony Bourdain, Executive Producer/Host, Christopher Collins, Lydia Tenaglia and Sandra Zweig, Executive Producers, Morgan Fallon, Producer
• Leah Remini: Scientology And The Aftermath • A&E
• My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman • Netflix
• StarTalk With Neil deGrasse Tyson • National Geographic
• Vice • HBO

Outstanding Sound Editing for a Nonfiction Program (Single or Multi-Camera)

• Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown • Seattle • CNN • CNN Original Series and Zero Point Zero Production, Inc.; Brian Bracken and Nick Brigden, Sound Editors
• Blue Planet II • Coral Reefs • BBC America
• The Defiant Ones • Episode 1 • HBO
• Jane • National Geographic
• The Vietnam War • Episode 6: Things Fall Apart (January 1968-July 1968) • PBS
• Wild Wild Country • Part 1 • Netflix

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction Program (Single or Multi-Camera)

• Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown • Lagos • CNN • CNN Original Series and Zero Point Zero Production, Inc.; Benny Mouthon, CAS, Re-Recording Mixer
• The Defiant Ones • Episode 1 • HBO
• Jane • National Geographic
• The Vietnam War • Episode 6: Things Fall Apart (January 1968-July 1968) • PBS
• Wild Wild Country • Part 1 • Netflix

The last nomination has special significance for me because I’ve said before that Bourdain was becoming the “Susan Lucci of the Emmy for Outstanding Writing” after repeatedly being nominated but passed over. My fingers are crossed he finally nails it this year.

Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program

• Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown • Southern Italy • CNN • CNN Original Series and Zero Point Zero Production, Inc.; Anthony Bourdain, Written by
• The Defiant Ones • Episode 1 • HBO
• Icarus • Netflix
• Jane • National Geographic
• Mister Rogers: It’s You I Like • PBS
• The Vietnam War • Episode 8: The History Of The World (April 1969-May 1970) • PBS

Asia Argento appears in this Southern Italy episode, but if I remember correctly, she was an extra in meal scenes more than a content contributor. Undoubtedly a generous Bourdain gesture to give her more exposure to U.S. audiences.

Although Tony said he considered it one of the highlights of his television career, the Parts Unknown episode in Hong Kong, presumably directed by Argento, did not make the cut for an Emmy.

The Emmy ceremony is Monday, September 17, on NBC.

AND: Yesterday, the LA Times recently ran an open letter to “anyone who loves Anthony Bourdain and what he stood for” asking us all to give Argento a pass on any role she may have played in his death. I only recognized four names among the signers, so I must admit I wasn’t terribly moved.

How Oprah Goosed Weight Watchers Stock

By Karen

Here’s another perfect example of the media not doing its (math) homework. All Oprah Winfrey had to say was, “Hey, look, I lost some more weight!” and it became big news, no questions asked.

Oprah joined Weight Watchers® in August 2015, investing $43 million in the company in exchange for a seat on its board. By the end of January 2016, she filmed an ad claiming she had lost 26 lbs. eating bread every day.

I calculated she was losing 1-2 lbs. a week, which is reasonable, but hardly worthy of a media blitz, especially when you factored in how much Oprah needed to lose.

To provide some context, I followed the WW Points Plus® plan myself in 2012 and lost 50 pounds in 9 months.

So today we get this big announcement that Oprah has lost “more than” 40 pounds. Not “an additional” 40 pounds. Forty pounds total.

And if she actually lost “more than” 40, don’t you think she’d proudly give the exact number, like she did when it was 26?

So let’s do the math. She was down 26 in late January, and now 40 in late December. That’s 14 lbs. lost in 11 months.

Therefore, in 2016, her average loss has been 1.27 lbs. a MONTH. That’s 20.32 ounces. Averaging four weeks in a month, she’s been losing about 5 ounces a week.

And on that paltry progress, Oprah’s stake in the company grew to $77 million because the media didn’t do the math and put the story in proper perspective.

I’m really happy that Oprah feels she’s finally got the situation under control. I’ve been there. It’s a never-ending struggle.

What I have a problem with is Oprah growing even richer touting weight-loss results that would have most dieters in despair.

I once had a friend who’d say he could lose that much weight taking a good dump. Come to think of it, anybody could.

Page Six Reports the Bourdains Have Separated

By Karen

Late yesterday afternoon I got one of those shocks that feels like an elevator going into a sudden plunge when I read this Page Six article announcing that Anthony Bourdain and his wife Ottavia have been separated for some time.

I’d noticed Ottavia seemed scarce on Twitter. And Tony didn’t wear his wedding ring through most of Parts Unknown last season, but I told myself it was all jiu-jitsu-related.

Today, their separation is all over the media. MSN, E! Online, Us Weekly, even the Daily Mail in the UK. But they all just repeat Page Six without additional detail.

Thinking back, I don’t know the exact date I first discovered Anthony Bourdain, but I stumbled upon an early No Reservations on Travel Channel one night and was instantly charmed by his looks and wit.

I had no clue he was a writer until I found A Cook’s Tour at a remaindered book sale. On its cover I learned Kitchen Confidential had been a bestseller. I’ve been in hot pursuit of every book he’s published and have read them all to date. And seen every episode of his four travel series (A Cook’s Tour, No Reservations, The Layover, Parts Unknown). And his lamentable cooking competition, The Taste.

My first dedicated post in Cats Working on him was about his 2007 No Res Christmas special. It’s apparent I knew quite a bit by then, and Ottavia was intriguing me. I finally found her in February 2008. Thus began my regular chronicle of the Bourdains, which led to several personal encounters, most recently when he came to Richmond in 2013.

But sites like Eater and Grub Street began stealing my thunder and getting all the best scoop straight from Bourdain himself, so I stepped back. But I never lost interest.

I will declare with no reservations that Cats Working pioneered coverage of Anthony Bourdain before anyone else was paying much attention. If you search the archives, you’ll find a ton of his history, professional and personal.

I will try to learn more on this unfortunate development, but this post will give any Cats Working die-hard Bourdainiacs a place to comment. Tony has written about being at loose ends before he met Ottavia. This split, real or not, is no picnic for them, so please be kind.

Tony did appear to be alone on the red carpet at the recent Creative Arts Emmy Awards, where Parts Unknown won its fourth consecutive Emmy for Outstanding Informational Series or Special.

The show was also nominated for Cinematography (Cuba), Sound Editing (Okinawa), and Sound Mixing (Ethiopia).

Bourdain was nominated once again for Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program (Borneo), but lost to a Netflix show, Making a Murderer.

Bourdain’s Got a Bone in the Throat: the Movie

By Karen

Not all fans may know that Anthony Bourdain was a chef/moonlighting novelist before he hit bestsellerdom with his nonfiction restaurant exposé, Kitchen Confidential, in 2000.

Bourdain published his first crime novel, Bone in the Throat, in 1995, followed in 1997 by another one, Gone Bamboo.

Over the past few years, Bourdain’s career hit critical mass and now he’s on a roll, with one success after another. I knew he’d arrived when his birthday appeared last year in the “Born This Day” list of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Anyway, actor Ed Westwick plays Will Reeves (called Tommy Pagana in the book), an aspiring chef who works under this guy, whom I don’t believe ever gets named…

The chef, the tallest one, was pale and thin, with long brown hair that curled out from under his chef’s hat. He held a copy of Larousse Gastronomique and was turning the pages furiously. He wore the hat high on his forehead and pulled straight back like a skullcap. A cigarette dangled from his mouth.

In chapter 18, we get more description of this chef…

His face in the bathroom mirror was pale and bloodless. Tiny pupils floated around in watery, bloodshot eyes. His thick brown hair was too long, sticking up at odd angles, and his sideburns were uneven…. One tooth was missing on the right side, but you couldn’t see it; there was one crumbling molar on the left, also invisible to the casual observer, and a chipped eyetooth.

The chef moved his eyes down over his naked, bony chest: protruding ribs, the stomach that was showing the beginnings of a paunch. He examined his arms. There were no tracks to speak of, only a small, yellowish bruise in the crook of his left arm.

Remind you of anyone we know?

Well, I’m sure the paunch must be gone since he took up MMA and lost 30 lbs., and his arms are now covered with tattoos.

The story for the movie was transported from Manhattan to London’s East End for some reason, and premiered March 14 at a film festival at the Alamo Ritz in Austin, Texas. Here’s the trailer…

The Austin Chronicle gave it a positive review.

Variety, not so glowing.

The movie’s official website includes some recipes, although food isn’t a central character.

I doubt this flick will ever make it to a Richmond screen, but that gives me time to reread the book before I get my hands on it.

Having read both novels years ago, I remember little about the plots. But I do recall laughing out loud at Bourdain’s sharp dialogue and vivid, witty descriptions of the seedy gangster underworld his imagination dwelled in.

Diving back into his fiction is one task on my To-Do list that I eagerly look forward to doing.

Is Brian Williams Finished?

By Cole

So Brian Williams suffers from fantasy flashbacks of getting shot down in a helicopter in Iraq in 2003, and talks as if it really happened. And soldiers who were flying with Williams in safety, and those in the helicopter actually shot down, had no luck ever setting the record straight.

I have nothing against Brian Williams. He can be a funny guy, personally. But as a trusted purveyor of “news,” he’s become hopeless. This “bombshell” revelation that he makes stuff up to stay in the game is unsurprising.

It’s sad if NBC considers Brian Williams “the face” of NBC news. Obviously, NBC, in trying to attract a younger audience that won’t sit still to watch TV news anyway, doesn’t realize it has reduced the Nightly News to a useless pile of lint.

These days, if Williams is having a good night, he’ll report current events for about 12 minutes, until the first commercials, then spout entertainment or human-interest garbage the rest of his time. We defected permanently after his leading the broadcast with football “news” seemed to become habitual. Regular Cats Working readers know why.

When it comes learning what’s happening out there, you can’t beat BBC World (with Katty Kay, naturally). For the American perspective, we now watch Scott Pelley on CBS. His delivery style can dry paint, but at least his priorities seem straighter.

Pelley talks about what’s worth knowing usually for about 18 minutes, through the second commercial break, and sometimes even for the whole half-hour.

In contrast, BBC World on PBS always fills 30 commercial-free minutes with solid world events, giving maybe 3 minutes at the end to a feel-good story.

So, to answer my original question, I’d say yes, Brian Williams is finished. But not for lying about his exploits in Iraq. He’s been irrelevant for quite some time.

Only One Appropriate Response to North Korea

By Cole

Does North Korea’s childish hijacking of the satirical comedy, The Interview, remind anybody else of that annual Dr. Seuss holiday special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas?

If you’ll recall, the big, bad Grinch whose heart was two sizes too small crept into the village of Whoville on Christmas Eve and stole all the trees, decorations, and presents.

And what did the Whos do when they woke up robbed? They celebrated Christmas anyway.

As Americans, we need to take a page from the Whos’ playbook.

Granted, The Interview’s best moments may have already been shown in the promo clips before Sony shelved the film. But since when do we let a Kim Jong-un tell us what’s entertainment?

Or cower at a threat from faceless hackers that reads like a satire of itself:

Warning

We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to.

Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made.

The world will be full of fear.

Remember the 11th of September 2001.

We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.

(If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)

Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

All the world will denounce the SONY.

More to come…

George Clooney is right. If we let North Korea win this point, where does it end? We might as well shelve the First Amendment.

The movie chains and Sony need to grow a pair and release The Interview on Christmas Day — in theaters, on DVD, and on demand. And movie-goers should make like Whos and watch it — and laugh even at the lame parts.

If Kim Jong-un can’t find it in that shriveled little raisin he calls a heart to laugh with us, then we can laugh at him.

PS to the hackers: If you want Americans to take your threats seriously, learn English.