Friday, April 09, 2010

The Bravery of Synergy























First, possums, may we say just one thing?

When, on the premiere episode of this season of Top Chef Masters, Kelly Choi announced that the band The Bravery would be judging the Quickfire Challenge, and Tony Mantuano allowed as how he had some songs by them on his iPod, we heard but one voice in our head.

It was our heavily accented mother, gimlet eye coming through the accent as she said, “Bool cheet.” Miss XaXa’s response was a more measured, “Yeah, right,” in reaction to which we tamped down our inner mother and said, “Pull the other leg; it’s got bells on it.”

Were we like Jill Zarin, we would immediately have demanded that Mantuano pull out his iPod for inspection. Fortunately, we are not like Jill Zarin, or maybe not entirely, for we did smell a fiery-Cheeto rat.

Why, possums, why would this particular band be called upon? With the Foo Fighters on Top Chef there was at least the excuse that they were fans of the show. The excuse here was that one band member has a culinary degree, a connection that is, shall we say, tenuous at best. (In our research, we discovered, as per Wikipedia, that a couple of the band members went to Vassar, and our eyes widened. We remembered a couple of galpals in college who had boyfriends attending Vassar, and oh the stories we heard! The theory was that it had something to do with the pressure of attending a former women’s college, the first of the Seven Sisters; how else to explain the crying jags and the penchant for cucumbers in intimate situations? And The Bravery do have lesbian haircuts and a song called “Hate Fuck.” But we digress.)

Possums, the fact of the matter is that The Bravery’s record label is Island Def Jam, which is owned by Universal Music Group. “Wait,” said Miss XaXa, her voice quivering with rapidly dying innocence, “Universal, as in NBC Universal, which is the parent company of…”

Yes, possum, Bravo.

We were shocked, shocked, nay, even gobsmacked. Who knew you could buy synergy at the gas station?

It’s right next to the pork rinds, we were informed by the gas station attendant. When we asked him, “Well, wouldn’t some kind of disclosure about The Bravery have been nice?,” the attendant only laughed and asked if we wanted our car washed.

So, Chef Mantuano, politeness and go-along-to-get-along-ness and Countless LuAnn good manners are all well and good, but what would you have done if Justin Bieber were the guest judge? Hmmmm? Consider yourself pardoned but narrowly escaped.

Oh wait, never mind. Justin Bieber is also part of Island Def Jam. Carry on, Chef Mantuano, carry on.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

vive le snark...thanks for coming back...yeah whatever, it wasn't hard to imagine why these, um, "douches" were pretending that they have to eat gas station food when it is obvious that they are eating their t-shirt sales profits every night....sigh...the 2nd episode had some more energy so....thanks again!

sonicgg

Anonymous said...

So glad you're back. I was worried about you.

Did Bravo also give the band its name, The Bravery?

R'c. said...

Damn I love your article, I love your blog. I was wondering what do the other bloggers thought about this band when I found you. There is nothing more to say.
I saw them in Cambridge at the Haymakers and it was pretty bad. Have a look at the review, I'm sure You'll like it ;)
http://tujoues.blogspot.com/search?q=the+bravery
Anyway, I'm glad I discovered your blog, which I'll follow surely.

R'c.