Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Check, Please! New Hosts -Same Menu. How 'Bout This?






CHICAGO — After wading through hundreds of video submissions, producers for “Check, Please!” are now 17 steps closer to finding their new host.On Wednesday, the popular WTTW-Ch. 11 show posted on its website "The Round of 17" — bios, photos and videos for 17 hopefuls vying to replace longtime host Alpana Singh.
The finalists include Rochelle Trotter, wife of famed chef Charlie Trotter, and Ina Pinkney of Ina's Kitchen.

Singh announced in January she's leaving the show to focus on her River North restaurant, the Boarding House. DNAChicago 
That's nice and soooooooo WTTW.  The Concept of young, successful, urbane urbanites and their posse dining at trendy restaurants and giving a review to the clinking of wine glasses on Public Television is just so. . .  shall I say  . . . Sriracha . Check, Please! is a hit.  I believe that I can go one better.

Get four city dwelling Chicagoans, who actually grew up here from neighborhoods like Back of the Yards, Albany, Edison, Armour and Garfield Parks and Ridge, Mount Greenwood, Englewood, Clearing, Chicago Lawn, Canaryville, Edgewater and over by Midway, to go to very well-established eating joints with The Eatin' Pants On; Gulp and Carbo up and finally Bolt on the Bill!

These will needs be young adults who grew up ditching the dweebs, lame-ohs, snitches, dipwads and crybabies, by hopping fences, tossing garbage cans, climbing trees, gutters and fire-escapes. They will be adepts in cutting the urban trail: skeeching from fenders of passing cars in snowy weather, hopping freight cars, sauntering past Paddy Wagons with a wave to the cops in cab as one directs its door panel searchlights in pursuit of  ' four losers who bolted from Chris, Jim and Gust's Salonika Salon ( " Μπορείτε γαμημένο ιρλανδική κατάπιναν του πέους σας έρχονται πίσω εδώ μαλάκας και να πληρώνουν το λογαριασμό σας!) on Wentworth.'

Now the moral and ethical nature of my show ( Perhaps a casting title Dian and Dash?)- it is against the law to steal, but more so it is wrong.  Have I dined an dashed?  You bet.  Am I proud of doing so?  . . .No, but . . .it was funny as Hell. Does this mean that I am a far less than earnest person?  God I hope so! Earnest people sneer at the thought of dining and dashing, but are perfectly swell with Forrest Claypool's Ventra Pass

Forrest Claypool is very earnest.

 The Check Please panelists were and are always earnest, smug and nerdy lispers with a thick sense of self-importance and . . .just a refreshing hint of mint. .  Generally speaking, their presence at a table for a night of dining out would put me off my feed. Check it out, White Liberal!@

Now, this goof is not Hasidim, he is a JO, but very earnest and knows wine.  Take that #$%^ing hat off at the table!  Sorry,

Hey, don't get me wrong; they are probably all fabulous people with great social sense and thoroughgoing earnestness.  I hate earnestness.  Anybody else?

The Earnest will tell you what they think of you and your clothes, haircut, aftershave, political party, religion, diet, credit card, or automobile and when you find yourself either justifying, defending, or explaining yourself, the earnest person will smile knowingly,lovingly, sadly and dismissively offer a conclusive, "That is just so sad on so many levels. You are putting on weight - you'd want someone to tell you that -Don't You Think?"  You see only earnest people manage to reach adulthood without ever having had to to face the consequences of their words and deeds - they were nurtured and schooled by equally earnest, but wildly litigious parents.

Where neighborhood folks grew up and learned to settle differences between their contemporaries knowing that bandages and iodine were available to make things better, civil litigation never happened.  Earnest people avoided abrasions and slights by dint of premptivly announcing legal action.

More unwholesome however is this all too empirical fact:  Earnest people will always allow you to pick up the check and the tip, following their long descantings on the disappointing  wine,  spices, presentations and the atmosphere.  I always part from earnest people with a strong desire to kick them squarely in the nuts, or the similar apparti - gender specific.

But enough about me. . .earnest people are just tops!  Don't you think?

Anyway, how's about a show, not unlike Check Please.

Get four regular Janes and Джонs, ( John is from Ukrainian Village) and their pals to visit Miller's Pub on Wabash, Les Nomades on Ontario, Ken's on South Western and Kalbi on west Lawrence Ave.

1. Panelists and friends must eat like they have been endowed by their Creator with two A$$holes
2. Panelists and friends must not pay the tab, but, they must leave an obscene tip for the wait staff,and
    manage to get away without paying, or being fatally wounded in the process.
3.The host must be an accomplished regular guy/gal and have never hosted anything on Public Television or  
    Radio - even better must be willing to take a swing at Richard Roeper, Billy Dec, or refuse any
    opportunity to shine in their celebrated light.

Only after requesting payment from the show's producer will all costs to the visited establishments; if threatened by lawyers.  We will ask for proof positive that such folks ever visited the restaurant, chop-house, ham'negger, bistro, luncheonette, posada, roach coach, hash-house, grill, Grille, cafe, charcuterie, or brasserie and them prove it.  Nah, we'll pay up.  The owners will be paid and gladly.



The Concept: Dine and Dash -The action to go in a restaurant,sit at a table, order whatever you want, eat and then leave quick without payin.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I watched just enough of one episode of Check, Please to confirm that I despise it. I cannot understand why there is an audience for a program of self-important foodies.