Spike Mendelsohn Needs a Hand Job from Someone "Willing to Get Down and Dirty"

In what sounded to us at first like an ad from Craiglist's M4M section, Spike "Asshat" Mendelsohn is soliciting someone to help him during the Burger Bash at the 2009 Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival, an event hosted by none other than Rachael Ray. Just imagine it, possums: Rachael Ray, Spike, and his fedora and scruff, in the same room, at the same time. Wasn't there a plot point in Lost about preventing this exact confluence of events from taking place, lest the earth rotate off its axis and implode from such concentrated annoyance? (Of course, it should be no surprise that Spike got the date wrong; it's actually taking place tomorrow, February 19, and not March 19. But perhaps that is the earth's way of saving itself; if Spike shows up in March rather than tomorrow, maybe the apocalypse will be averted.)

The Little Dog Laughed: Amuse-Biatch Officially Denies Being the Rabid Dog That Bit Rachael Ray

Possums, we were shocked--shocked!--when we saw this report on Page Six today:

RACHAEL Ray was attacked by a dog in Union Square Park Saturday while bravely defending her pit-bull mix, Isaboo. According to the TV host's rep, "This dog came up - there was no owner in sight - and became aggressive. Rachael and some others shooed it away, but it came back and attacked Isaboo. Other dogs were involved, and Rachael jumped in and was bit by one of the dogs on the leg. A nurse was in the park and checked her out. She's fine."

We swear we had nothing to do with it. We would never have bitten her; we don't know what we might catch from her. It should come as no surprise to you, possums, that in the grand scheme of things, we are more "cat people" than "dog people," but we feel our stainless-steel hearts warming with a little doggie love after this.

And when even dogs spontaneously attack you, you know that your branding efforts have been successful. Well done, Rachael!

And Just Like That, Amuse-Biatch's Head Exploded

Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse Clip-Clops Down the Runway, Creates Novel Legal Defense for Demented Astronaughty Lisa Marie Nowak

Call it a hunch, possums, but we get the feeling that whoever did Rachael Ray's hair and make-up to go with the unwisely chosen Donna Karan dress for the Heart Truth fashion show held last week doesn't much care for our oft-petted Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse. Ray, a television "hostess," cookbook "author," and, by the looks of it, a former linebacker, doesn't seem particularly comfortable as she does her little turn on the catwalk, you know what we mean?

Still, those stylist bitches backstage really did a number on her. Guerrilla bitches, we salute you for making her look embalmed, indeed, almost like a taxidermist's lemur. Talk about fashion roadkill. And to think we might have lived an entire lifetime without being subjected to the nipples of Rachael Ray's Reader-Proven Small Bazooms™.

Still, her whole Six Feet Under look has given us a brilliant idea.

As you may be aware, astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak (alas, doomed ab initio by her parents' choice of Christian names; as the only other famous Lisa Marie is surnamed Presley, need we say more?) has been charged with attempted murder in a James M. Cain-worthy plot in which she, according to The New York Times, equipped her car with "a compressed air pistol, a steel mallet, a knife, pepper spray, four feet of rubber tubing, latex gloves and garbage bags," and drove from Houston to Orlando while wearing a diaper, a trench coat, and a wig to confront her romantic rival at the airport.

Now, a U.S. Naval Academy woman with a master's degree can't simply content herself with ripping the weave off the bitch who is trying to take the affections of another astronaut whose gestures of common courtesy have been magnified into obsessive, stringy-haired amour fou. No, such a woman must needs douse her rival with pepper spray, and plot to kidnap and possibly kill her.

So what does Rachael Ray have to do with all of this? Well, we're getting to that, but it has nothing to do with adultery, or spitting, or lesbian prostitutes (at any rate, as far as we know).

Remember the mocked "Twinkie defense" (yes, we know it never really happened, and has been debunked, but bear with us), which was associated with Dan White, who gunned down San Francisco mayor George Moscone and gay martyr Harvey Milk? Well, it's just possible that space-high Lisa Marie might be able to use something of that concept here, and all thanks to Rachael Ray.

As we reported in December, "NASA asked [Rachael Ray] to create meals for the space shuttle. Thai chicken was the favorite." Captain Nowak is a NASA astronaut, and in fact flew on the space shuttle last year, and was scheduled to work on an upcoming mission. Presumably she's been exposed to Rachael Ray's food as a result. So, we ask you, might she not legitimately assert a Thai Chicken Defense? Might not a Rachael Ray product have driven her over the edge? Might not the chicken dish, created by a woman who may well know what it's like to have her man's affections toyed with, have driven her mad so that she didn't know right from wrong? It's the M'Naughton rule in a delicate coconut-milk curry. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when faced with this case, we ask you to spit. You must acquit.

Amuse-Biatch Investigates: Just How Big a Boob Is Rachael Ray?

Every time we swear that we are not writing about Rachael Ray again for a while, and are going to go back to discussing all things Top Chef, something comes up.

But this time we mean it. Seriously, this is the last Rachael Ray post for a while.

Still, attentive and responsive as we are to our readers, we couldn't ignore the charges that we are mistaken about Rachael Ray having "large bazooms."

In our defense, we should say that, given our, er, proclivities, we have no "hands-on" experience with bazooms, large or otherwise (except for that brief postnatal interlude when they were merely a pair of nourishing spigots). We're also terrible at parallel parking, so perhaps our depth perception isn't all it could be. (And you may not know this, but gay men's retinas are stamped with a warning similar to that on sideview mirrors: "Objects are smaller than they appear on the Internet." So perhaps we didn't pay heed.)

And yet, judging by the floating montage of Rachael Ray adipose chest-growths above--it's sure to give us nightmares, though it's more like a Fellini wetdream by way of Magritte--they look large enough to us.

Nonetheless, we will defer to the more practiced eye of our readers (not that we would want to chance a closer inspection of the bazooms in question), and have corrected our post accordingly. In a way, getting rid of the adjective makes our point all the better.

However, this does raise the worrying (and Top Chef-related!) possibility that we've been mistaken all along about Betty Fraser, and that she doesn't deserve the moniker "Spice Rack." What say ye? Do our homophilic eyes deceive us?

Amuse-Biatch Answers Rachael Ray Christmas Hate Mail

We weren’t going to write any more about Rachael Ray for a while. Really, possums, we weren’t.

But then, when we and Miss XaXa checked in (from Gstaad and St. Bart’s, respectively), we found that one of Rachael Ray’s anonymous elves had been by in the night and left us some reindeer droppings in our mailbag.

Committed as we are to answering reader mail, and energized by raclette and conch fritters, respectively, (“Watch the pronunciation,” Miss XaXa admonished, “there is an ‘n’ in ‘conch.’”), we are delighted to turn to the task at hand.

Responding to a post that consisted only of a Rachael Ray wedding photograph and the headline, “Rachael Ray Wedding Album: Is That a Spitcurl Over His Eye?” a Gentle Reader calling herself “Anonymous” wrote us this:

You snide losers.
You wish you had the energy and success that she has. Didn't you learn in Psych 101 or from Dear Abby, at least, that you're tearing her down so you can forget about your own failure and self-hate?

Dear Anonymous, thank you for your charming note. It warmed the stainless-steel cockles of our pea-sized hearts.

Your forbearance in not putting an exclamation point after “You snide losers” gave us the chills. It’s so much nastier, and delicious, in that twin-set-and-pearls, secret-drinking, ethnic-surname-concealing, compulsive-ironing-of-linen-at-two-in-the-morning way. Really, it’s always the repressed snarl that thrills us to our hollow core.

Your excellent grammar and impeccable use of commas not only were as catnip to us (a well-placed comma can be the equivalent of a kiss behind the ear), but also suggested that you are an educated woman, and thus, clearly, not Rachael Ray’s target audience.

We understand why she appeals to men. She’s non-threatening and has [...]* bazooms. She appeals to men for the usual reason that women with big mouths appeal to men. And we mean big mouths in the literal, rather than metaphorical, sense. Not wishing to be vulgar, that is all we will say on the subject; consult an anthropologist or Maxim if you need to.

But why you should come to her defense puzzles us.

We know that in some quarters Rachael Ray is held up as some kind of example of American populism, but this is pure poppycock. Since when did populism have to be equated with idiocy?

The woman talks as if every member of the audience were a thalidomide chimpanzee, as if we might not be able to figure out breathing if she didn’t break it down into cheery, manageable steps for us. (“Now, open up those alveoli. Can you feel that Oh-Two entering your lungs? Yum-o! Now get rid of that See-Oh-Two into the garbage bowl of the atmosphere!”)

But, to quote Edwina Margaret Rose Monsoon, “We’re not all blithering idiots. We don’t all need nursemaiding.”

We find it loathsome that she should be used as prima facie evidence of the truth of H.L. Mencken’s statement that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence (or taste, as some versions have it) of the American public. What can it mean about us as a country when a woman with the intellectual heft of plankton is talking down to us? Verily, it offends our patriotic sensibilities. That’s right; you heard us—liking Rachael Ray is un-American. Rachael Ray is hurting America! Get Bill O’Reilly on the case. Surely he would object to television hosts dumbing down discourse and patronizing the American people.

Now for the substance of your note, Gentle Reader. We appreciate your keeping your references (Psych 101, Dear Abby) simple and Yum-o! for us. Given, as we are, to mentioning Anaïs Nin and Søren Kierkegaard in the context of Ms. Ray, your throwing out references to Jungian shadow selves or the letters of Lord Chesterfield might have reduced us to mouth-breathing stupefaction. (That “at least” after “Dear Abby” was an especially piquant flick of the cat-o'-nine-tails; hurt us good, Bad Connecticut Mommy!)

Just one little thing. Darling—and here we hesitate to be logical and what-not—but mightn’t one say that by calling us “snide losers,” and intimating that we are listless and unsuccessful, you are, um, “tearing [us] down so that you can forget about your own failure and self-hate?” And wouldn't that then make you into a “snide loser”? Mind you, we don’t say that; we are listless losers, after all, so what do we know? (Though Miss XaXa disagrees, saying, “We’re failures, but at self-hatred.”)

At any rate, thank you for writing, luv. And if you ever feel like calling us “snide losers” while wearing a leather bustier and Lucite heels, your comma and our period joining together to make sweet, sweet semicolons, well, just drop us another line. We promise you a good time (or, as Miss XaXa defines it, a vodka stinger, a cheese log, and a cheap motel).

* The adjective "large" was removed as per reader observations.

Rachael Ray Reveals Origins of Her Fan Club: Is That a Gun in Your Pocket or Are You Just Super Unhappy to See Me?

Just in time for Christmas, Rachael Ray is speaking to TV Guide Magazine(the existence of which is yet another sign straight out of the Book of Revelations) about The Ordeal That Shaped Me, or How My First Number-One Fan Made Me the Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse.

The ordeal began in her apartment building in Queens, New York, when Rachael Ray was but a mere apocalyptic filly of 23.

The year was 1991 and Ray…was returning to her…apartment after a long day at Agata & Valentina, the Manhattan gourmet food store where she worked as a buyer and manager. While fumbling for her keys, two teenagers approached from behind.

“I’m such a moron, I'm thinking they live in the building and want to come in,” Ray says. “I'm standing there apologizing to them for taking so long.” Without warning, one of the boys flashed a pistol. In similar circumstances, most people hand over their wallets. Or beg for life. Or cry. Or . . . something. Not Rachael Ray. She grabbed her Mace, spun around and sprayed one of the assailants. They both sprinted off. “It was a very, very scary moment,” Ray says. “And I probably should have left the city right then and there.”

In a reaction that would become typical of her fans, and seeing that she hadn’t gotten the message, the assailant returned a week later to finish the job.

As Ray again began to enter her complex, he emerged from nowhere, jabbed the weapon into her gut and ordered her to walk toward a passageway that ran beneath the building. “That's when he started pistol-whipping me,” Ray recalls. “I think he was embarrassed from the last time and he wanted to get even.”

In the true-to-form pattern of the dreck-and-drivel genre, our plucky little end-of-days filly didn’t let The Ordeal get her down. As TV Guide Magazine relates,

In the mind of Rachael Ray, the genesis [of her Evil Empire] goes like this: Without the mugging, she might have remained in New York City, content in her role at Agata & Valentina. “It would have been a nice life for me. A happy life,” she says. “I’m sure I’d still be working there to this day, and it would have been great.”

Oh great. Now you tell us.

Now, now, before you think that in our glee we are advocating violence against Rachael Ray, let us assure you, we're not. Oh, alright, maybe a little light pistol-whipping, or a couple of thwacks with a bottle of EVOO, but that's it, really. It is, after all, the season of good will towards men, women, and My Little Apocalyptic Pony.

Still, what really gets us is how clear it is that the mugging was a foiled 12 Monkeys/Terminator operation from the future, when, not content with her television, book, and mass-market crackers empire, she becomes President of the United States or Empress Palpating. A plucky band of rebels send a borg back in time to prevent it all, and he simply mucks it up. Nicely done, plucky band of rebels! Couldn't you have sprung for a better-quality borg?

Well, God and Miss Bette Davis bless us, every one.

Rachael Ray Wedding Album: Is That a Spitcurl Over His Eye?

Rachael Ray Goes Crackers

This will not come as a surprise to you, but we do not subscribe to People Magazine.

However, one of the benefits of Miss XaXa's recently diagnosed magazine kleptomania is that we occasionally get a glimpse of what our fellow citizens are--well, we won't say reading, so let us say, perusing.

(Miss XaXa strenuously denies the kleptomania diagnosis. She says, rather, that she is on a mission of mercy, redistributing magazines to where they will do the most good, e.g., taking the salon's copy of Vogue and leaving it at the JiffyLube for the hunky mechanic who looked more intently at her Louboutins than he did at her breasts, exchanging it for Popular Mechanics and Playboy, which she left for the two cat adoption ladies at PetSmart, and leaving Cat Fancy and a copy of the International Male catalogue for the pastor of the megachurch down the street.)

At any rate, after growing tired of Confessions of a Justified Sinner and our extremely expensive eBay copy of If I Did It, we turned to the year-end issue of People that Miss XaXa had brought home. The double issue of the magazine kept opening up to a special advertising insert featuring the Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse herself, Rachael Ray, ear seemingly pressed to a closed door and inviting us conspiratorially to enter with her, like an equine Anaïs Nin in A Spy in the House of Love (yes, that is the first and last time you will ever see Rachael Ray and Anais Nin in the same sentence).

When we opened the insert, it turned out to be an invitation from Nabisco to discover Rachael Ray's holiday recipes. Oh, we said to Miss XaXa, we have an idea of what her holiday recipes are like. We imagined, in the words of AbFab's Edina Monsoon, Rachael Ray "in a wood in a hood," a freshly killed chicken, a mandrake screaming as it is doused in EVOO and baptized "Yum-o," and a whore-you-hear-me-a-whore!-who-is-paid-$500-a-session-to-spit-on-decent-women's-good-for-nothing-husbands-for-kicks being trussed up and delivered to Old Nick in exchange for a magazine and a daytime talkshow.

"Rachael Ray's hawking Wheat Thins!" we chortled to Miss XaXa.

"Wheat Thins?" asked Miss XaXa. "What are these Wheat Thins?"

Once we explained that Wheat Thins are thin little biscuits made from hoo-eet flour, she said, "If Rachael Ray's endorsing them, shouldn't they be called Wheat Huskies?"

We think she has a point. Nabisco Marketing Department, are you listening?

Rachael Ray Singlehandedly to Destroy US Space Program

To the moon, Alice! Er, Rachael.

Yes, mes enfants, as if exploding shuttles, falling tiles and inadequate budgets weren't enough, there's yet more trouble afoot for our troubled space agency.

As the Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse herself told People Magazine, "NASA asked me to create meals for the space shuttle. Thai chicken was the favorite. I flew in a fake space shuttle, but I have no desire to go into space after seeing the toilet."

So if we were ever to encounter intelligent life in the universe, this is the best we can do? When we were beaming things out there, you know, to tell the aliens how cool and civilized we were, we used to send recordings of Mozart symphonies and Shakespeare monologues. And now this is what we're countering with? Rachael Ray is our manifestation of intelligent life? Thai chicken by bloody Rachael Ray (a native and booster of Phuket if ever we saw one) is our nation's idea of "the right stuff"?

If that's the case, we might as well give up. Remember that black slab from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the one that transformed apes into sentient human beings? Well, we're afraid that once the aliens get wind of Rachael Ray's chimp-like antics, they'll think we never bothered using the black slab, or that it didn't work, and they're gonna want it back. And when they do, Will Smith may not be around to save us, and what'll we do then, huh? What'll we do?

Spitting Image

Normally, we try not to think of Rachael Ray.

We regard her in the same category of tragic unmentionables as Olestra and PCBs, pollutants and substances liable to cause what Frito-Lay, in a public relations coup, termed "anal leakage." We're annoyed by everything about the woman, from the extra "a" in her first name (a bugbear of ours) to the fact that she looks like she's walking around on stumps (Miss XaXa's pet peeve). But really, who isn't?

We always have to be careful around Iphigénie, our white Paraguayan parrot. The television alcove at Withering Depths is upholstered in hand-tooled aubergine morocco, and whenever Iphigénie hears that distinctive taxicab-horn voice as we're flipping around the channels, she flies into a rage and starts ripping out chunks of morocco. Such is the effect of Ms. Rachael Ray on the animal kingdom.

In moments of charity, we like to endow her with substance and self-awareness. We conceive of a previously unsuspected Rachael Ray, a sort of existential chipmunk (look at those eyes!) on a treadmill, performing a noble service to humanity by giving us 30-minute glimpses into the abyss of curdled perkiness and Kierkegaardian despair. Rachael Ray as memento mori, if you will.

Of course, such moments of charity are as fleeting as macaroons from Ladurée, and arise only after we have hit the bottle of (perfectly legal!) Swiss absinthe once too often. Nonetheless, we had one such moment last week, when we heard about the incipient Rachael Ray Sex Scandal. According to those unimpeachable bastions of accuracy and reliability, The National Enquirer and The New York Daily News, Rachael Ray's husband had a kinky, five-year affair with a woman he met outside a lesbian bar (!) and whom he paid to spit on him.

When we mentioned it to Miss XaXa, she quipped, "With her food, he must have plenty of practice spitting up." When we cleared up that he wasn't the one doing the spitting, she said, breaking into fluent headlinese, "Yucko!!! Rachael Ray Spitting Mad: Spittoon Hubby Loves Loogies, Lesbians."

Sure, we cackled. Sure, we guffawed when we read the woman's claims that Rachael Ray's husband paid her up to $500 per session, and that she virtually supported herself by spitting on him. But then we felt a completely unknown tingling in the general thorax area. Could it be...pity? We think it may well have been. We found ourselves saying, "Sure, she may be the Clydesdale horse of the Apocalypse, but that's still kinda rough."

And then yesterday, during an all-too brief respite from a particularly vexing weekend (Lady Chatterley didn't know the half of it when it came to stablehands, or, for that matter, stable hands), we chanced on an episode of "Iron Chef America" pitting Rachael Ray against Giada de Laurentiis. Well, that did it. We began frothing at the mouth, and when the Chairman intoned, "Today's secret ingredient is..." we hissed, "Boobs!" Then Miss XaXa began yelling at the television, "I speet on you, Rrachel Rray," and we decided it was time to mix another batch of sidecars.