Rick Bayless and Burger King - Part 2

[mamster]

And BBQ afficianadoes around the country are screaming at the idea that "flame broiling" followed by "heat lamping" followed by "crap saucing" equals "BBQ".

I hear Flavor Flav got a job heat lampin' after Public Enemy broke up.

[Toliver]

Am I the only one who has seen the second Bayless spot, for the Smoky BBQ sandwich? It's even worse.

At least Rick bites it in this one.

[zilla369]

I hear Flavor Flav got a job heat lampin' after Public Enemy broke up.

Matthew, you just made my day.

[fresco]

He says 100% of his fee went to some small farmer's coop.

Does this mean he's no longer the devil?

[tan319]

Sorry to be coy.

I can't remember the first half of the commercial--it may be Bayless walking through a BBQ competition, something like that. It probably doesn't say what state he's supposed to be in. But at the end he ends up at you-know-where, saying, "You know, some of the best BBQ around is at Burger King. That's right, Burger King."

The Smoky BBQ Chicken features the same chicken patty, same "baguette," same onions and peppers, but with barbecue sauce instead of "Southwest sauce". I haven't tried the sandwich and won't, but I said this ad is worse because I don't care what stupid town Bayless is in, some of the best BBQ is not available at BK. Obviously, paying people to lie in ads is how business is done, but we're talking about a respected chef who knows full well that the line he is saying is patently false. What else could we pay Bayless to say? Some of the best tacos around are at the Bell? The best steak in the world is served at Tad's?

Right when I thought this thread was going to go away... this comes up.

He's a schill, no other way to describe it.

I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, tried to apply the same reasoning I gave to some of my fave rock people like Bowie selling 'Heros' to Microsoft, for instance. It's gotten a little harder to understand people like Zep or the Who but I gave up on those guys because they kind of made it obvious they're whores for dollars anyways.

Groups who just are starting out placing their songs in commercials get my support because it's a way of getting exposure.

But this food thing is such a different animal. Bayless could be endorsing All clad or caphalon stuff, getting his own line of something like that and donating his proceeds to these farmers, etc.

I have to make something clear here.

I don't hate fast food. I eat it probably twice a month, sometimes more. I'm a chef, I have a kid, sometimes I can't cook for the family unit and we go for it (wife doesn't cook much). We go for Micky D's or Sonic.

I understood the Santa Fe thing a bit, at least it hooked into where he is coming from as a chef, regionally, more or less.

BBQ?= Bullshit.

[hollywood]

I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, tried to apply the same reasoning I gave to some of my fave rock people like Bowie selling 'Heros' to Microsoft, for instance

Bowie & Iman are now signed to do Hilfiger ads.

[mags]

Ohhh yeesh, we are ALL whores for dollars. That's what working for a living means: Doing stuff you wouldn't absolutely choose to be doing, in which you don't necessarily believe with all your heart, in order to collect a paycheck. Life is trade-offs. Sure, most of us have lines in the sand, stuff we wouldn't do no matter how many zeros were attached, but beyond that line...the sands get real shifty. So many of the posts here seem to assume that there are only two options available: Sainthood or consignment to the ninth circle of hell. Most of is live in the vast gray area in between, and I don't understand the demand that people we've annointed as heroes -- whether it's Jimmy Page or Rick Bayless or IMAN, fer chrissake -- adhere to a stricter moral code.

Somebody is going to come along and say "Speak for yourself," and I very definitely am. When I was acting, I made heaps of commercials for stuff I thought was mediocre at best. As a bookseller, I refuse to carry certain books; as a reporter, I refuse to write or put my name to things I don't believe to be true. But I sell plenty of books I think are crap. I write plenty of stories that bore me or don't strike me as the most important thing for people to think about. And the magazine gets published every month and the ConEd bill gets paid, and that's the way it goes. And yeah, if someone came to me now and said "Look, here's a check for $500K, and it's yours if you'll carry 'American Psycho' and 'The Prophecies of Nostradamus,'" I'd be on the phone to my book-distributor faster than you can say "Ain't nothin goin on but the rent."

If you can honestly say that every minute of your working life is devoted to activities to which you see no downside, activities every second of which is simultaneously noble and fascinating....then you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

Edited October 29, 2003 by mags (log)

[fresco]

Ohhh yeesh, we are ALL whores for dollars. That's what working for a living means: Doing stuff you wouldn't absolutely choose to be doing, in which you don't necessarily believe with all your heart, in order to collect a paycheck.  Life is trade-offs. Sure, most of us have lines in the sand, stuff we wouldn't do no matter how many zeros were attached, but beyond that line...the sands get real shifty.  So many of the posts here seem to assume that there are only two options available: Sainthood or consignment to the ninth circle of hell.  Most of is live in the vast gray area in between, and I don't understand the demand that people we've annointed as heroes -- whether it's Jimmy Page or Rick Bayless or IMAN, fer chrissake -- adhere to a stricter moral code. 

Somebody is going to come along and say "Speak for yourself," and I very definitely am.  When I was acting, I made heaps of commercials for stuff I thought was mediocre at best. As a bookseller, I refuse to carry certain books; as a reporter, I refuse to write or put my name to things I don't believe to be true.  But I sell plenty of books I think are crap.  I write plenty of stories that bore me or don't strike me as the most important thing for people to think about.  And the magazine gets published every month and the ConEd bill gets paid, and that's the way it goes. And yeah, if someone came to me now and said "Look, here's a check for $500K, and it's yours if you'll carry 'American Psycho' and 'The Prophecies of Nostradamus,'" I'd be on the phone to my book-distributor faster than you can say "Ain't nothin goin on but the rent."

If you can honestly say that every minute of your working life is devoted to activities to which you see no downside, activities every second of which is simultaneously noble and fascinating....then you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

Mags,

All true.

PLUS--Bayless has said he's donating his entire fee to charity. Think this guy deserves the benefit of the doubt--that he's doing this endorsement in the hope of encouraging a better way for fast food, and understanding entirely that it is a very, very small step.

[Jinmyo]

Ohhh yeesh, we are ALL whores for dollars. That's what working for a living means: Doing stuff you wouldn't absolutely choose to be doing, in which you don't necessarily believe with all your heart, in order to collect a paycheck.

Mags, not true at all.

I'm not. And many cooks and chefs would say the same.

I can even say that now, adter many years, there is not a minute of my working life that is devoted to activities to which I see a downside.

But I'm not Gunga Din 'cause I'm not a man.

[foodpsycho]

I would agree with that statement as well.

[mamster]

mags, do you recommend books you personally think are no good? Not, "I didn't personally enjoy this, but people I know who are into this genre did," but actually say, "This is a great book," just to sell it? I'm betting the answer is no. I used to work retail in a kitchen store, and I would regularly sell items that were worse than useless. If someone is determined to come into the store and buy something stupid, I was happy to sell it to them. If, on the other hand, the person asked, "Is this good? Does it work?" I would shake my head and recommend something else, no matter how expensive the item was.

Maybe you don't see that as any different from what Bayless is doing, and there's a natural and sometimes unfortunate tendency to rate sins of omission as less severe than sins of commission. Maybe you and I are just as bad as Bayless. But I really don't think so. I've never been in the position of being offered a ton of money to endorse a lousy product, and I don't know what I'd do. I hope I'd say no. But it might be impossible to turn down the kid's college tuition, in which case I hope all of you purists on eGullet would be ready to roast me over the coals, Santa Fe style. I'd deserve it.

Come to think of it, though, I don't see Bayless's commercials as being any worse than any number of lousy chef-endorsed products like Wolfgang Puck's soups or Masaharu Morimoto's sauce packets.

[fresco]

Ohhh yeesh, we are ALL whores for dollars. That's what working for a living means: Doing stuff you wouldn't absolutely choose to be doing, in which you don't necessarily believe with all your heart, in order to collect a paycheck.

Mags, not true at all.

I'm not. And many cooks and chefs would say the same.

I can even say that now, adter many years, there is not a minute of my working life that is devoted to activities to which I see a downside.

But I'm not Gunga Din 'cause I'm not a man.

If I recall Bourdain's kitchen memoirs right, he spent most of his time behind a stove pushing out stuff that he absolutely did not support. And still, he came out of it whole, or close to whole. Think there's a whole lot of cooks and chefs like him.

[tan319]

Ohhh yeesh, we are ALL whores for dollars. That's what working for a living means: Doing stuff you wouldn't absolutely choose to be doing, in which you don't necessarily believe with all your heart, in order to collect a paycheck.  Life is trade-offs. Sure, most of us have lines in the sand, stuff we wouldn't do no matter how many zeros were attached, but beyond that line...the sands get real shifty.  So many of the posts here seem to assume that there are only two options available: Sainthood or consignment to the ninth circle of hell.  Most of is live in the vast gray area in between, and I don't understand the demand that people we've annointed as heroes -- whether it's Jimmy Page or Rick Bayless or IMAN, fer chrissake -- adhere to a stricter moral code. 

Somebody is going to come along and say "Speak for yourself," and I very definitely am.  When I was acting, I made heaps of commercials for stuff I thought was mediocre at best. As a bookseller, I refuse to carry certain books; as a reporter, I refuse to write or put my name to things I don't believe to be true.  But I sell plenty of books I think are crap.  I write plenty of stories that bore me or don't strike me as the most important thing for people to think about.  And the magazine gets published every month and the ConEd bill gets paid, and that's the way it goes. And yeah, if someone came to me now and said "Look, here's a check for $500K, and it's yours if you'll carry 'American Psycho' and 'The Prophecies of Nostradamus,'" I'd be on the phone to my book-distributor faster than you can say "Ain't nothin goin on but the rent."

If you can honestly say that every minute of your working life is devoted to activities to which you see no downside, activities every second of which is simultaneously noble and fascinating....then you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

I've always thought of Bowie as an underdog.

I've alway's been mystified by people as rich as a Jimmy Page (beyond rich) who sell stuff for even more money.

I'm aware that the stand I took on that issue seems naive, immature, whatever ( "hey, that song used to MEAN something to me! Why did you sell it???!!!) but , hey, just telling the truth.

Why would someone have to pay you 500k to carry a book?

We're not talking about people who need help to pay the ConEd bill by doing commercials, are we?

Hey, if Bayless was selling Hillfiger, I would think it was pretty cool. Bowie selling it, it fits, cool.

Thomas Keller is doing commercials for something, can't quite remember which product but' it's a close call. Ditto Trotter.

My life has ( and has had) plenty of downsides, working and otherwise. What does that have to do with this?

Don't you think Bayless ( and Rachel Ray, to a certain extent) look kind of silly doing these ads?

Are they that broke ? Does Rick pull up to BK after a hard night at Frontera or Topalabampo and order a BBQ sandwich? (BTW, just saw the ad for the Bayless BBQ thing. )

Does Rachel, after a day's worth of taping motor over to 'the king'.

If they do, I'll take it all back.

Edit: Did using the "Whore" word rile everyone up?

Or just my expectations ?

Edited October 29, 2003 by tan319 (log)

[Jinmyo]

Ohhh yeesh, we are ALL whores for dollars. That's what working for a living means: Doing stuff you wouldn't absolutely choose to be doing, in which you don't necessarily believe with all your heart, in order to collect a paycheck.

Mags, not true at all.

I'm not. And many cooks and chefs would say the same.

I can even say that now, adter many years, there is not a minute of my working life that is devoted to activities to which I see a downside.

But I'm not Gunga Din 'cause I'm not a man.

If I recall Bourdain's kitchen memoirs right, he spent most of his time behind a stove pushing out stuff that he absolutely did not support. And still, he came out of it whole, or close to whole. Think there's a whole lot of cooks and chefs like him.

Sure.

But not everyone is a whore for dollars.

And not everyone has the same point of view of personal integrity as Chef Rick.

[fresco]

Ohhh yeesh, we are ALL whores for dollars. That's what working for a living means: Doing stuff you wouldn't absolutely choose to be doing, in which you don't necessarily believe with all your heart, in order to collect a paycheck.

Mags, not true at all.

I'm not. And many cooks and chefs would say the same.

I can even say that now, adter many years, there is not a minute of my working life that is devoted to activities to which I see a downside.

But I'm not Gunga Din 'cause I'm not a man.

If I recall Bourdain's kitchen memoirs right, he spent most of his time behind a stove pushing out stuff that he absolutely did not support. And still, he came out of it whole, or close to whole. Think there's a whole lot of cooks and chefs like him.

Sure.

But not everyone is a whore for dollars.

And not everyone has the same point of view of personal integrity as Chef Rick.

If he donated his entire fee to charity, I can't see that he has become a "whore for dollars." And if he does indeed see this as a step in the right direction for fast food, can't see how his integrity is tarnished.

[Fat Guy]

as any accountant can tell you, it means absolutely nothing just to say that the money will go to a foundation that you're already giving money to. Money is fungible. Say Bayless gave $250,000 last year to this foundation. Say the BK ad gets him $100,000. How do we know he will give $100,000 plus $250,000 plus an adjustment for inflation to the foundation this year? For all we know he will simply give the $100,000 from Burger King and $100,000 less of his own money.

From way back on this thread. The charity-donation claim, standing alone, could easily be nothing more than a clever bit of misdirection. A cynical view? Indeed it is. But Bayless has done everything in his power to encourage cynicism. He could have floated this plan in advance with his Chefs Collaborative colleagues, and he could have revealed his intention to give the money to charity in advance rather than doing it in what appears to be an ass-covering maneuver. As I said before, these are all things that could have been cleared up if he had acted responsibly and with integrity in advance, rather than betraying his colleagues and covering his tracks after the fact.

[SobaAddict70]

to appear in tomorrow's DIGEST:

Burger King is the winner with its smoky barbecue and Santa Fe grilled chicken sandwiches on not-baked-long-enough baguettes instead of pasty hamburger rolls. Toppings are red and green peppers and onion and for the barbecued sandwich there is a tomato-based barbecue sauce. The sandwiches weigh in at 350 calories, 5 grams of fat and 4 grams of fiber, according to the restaurant. (All nutritional data in this article came from restaurant Web sites.) The barbecue version clocks in with an amazing 1,450 milligrams of sodium; the Santa Fe with 1,100. These sandwiches are also offered as part of a "lite combo meal": the sides are salad and bottled water instead of French fries and a soft drink.

Health Food Converts The Faithful Of Supersizing (Marian Burros)

Soba

Edited October 29, 2003 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[fresco]

Fat Guy,

I don't think we're ever going to agree on this one.

Bayless never interested me much before, he seemed entirely too one dimensional. Now that he's taken a position on Burger King and the future of fast food, he's somehow seems much more human and appealing. I don't see it as hypocrisy and selling out his colleagues, but perhaps that's just me.

Indeed, one of the most appealing aspects of Bourdain that he has worked in some of the shittiest, most dishonest dives around and still retained an appreciation for honest food and people.

Bayless seems to be trying to find some redeeming qualities about fast food, which most people consume some of the time, and some people consume most of the time, and I can't bring myself to piss on him for that.

Edited October 29, 2003 by fresco (log)

[wagyu]

I just saw Chef Bayless' second ad today for the first time. Looks like he's their official whore now. Does anyone else (who has seen it) find this second ad to be oddly surreal? Rick making his way through some kinda of crazy biker/BBQ scene? Wtf is that?

[tan319]

I just saw Chef Bayless' second ad today for the first time.  Looks like he's their official whore now.  Does anyone else (who has seen it) find this second ad to be oddly surreal?  Rick making his way through some kinda of crazy biker/BBQ scene?  Wtf is that?

Maybe 'ho' would be less offensive, knowwhati'msayin'?

Rizzo, you got da dilliyo on dat,yo?

[hollywood]

PLUS--Bayless has said he's donating his entire fee to charity. Think this guy deserves the benefit of the doubt--that he's doing this endorsement in the hope of encouraging a better way for fast food, and understanding entirely that it is a very, very small step.

Actually, I'd have more respect for the guy if he hadn't come up with the charity angle. It smacks of a guilty conscience.

[mags]

Ohhh yeesh, we are ALL whores for dollars. That's what working for a living means: Doing stuff you wouldn't absolutely choose to be doing, in which you don't necessarily believe with all your heart, in order to collect a paycheck.

Mags, not true at all.

I'm not. And many cooks and chefs would say the same.

I can even say that now, adter many years, there is not a minute of my working life that is devoted to activities to which I see a downside.

But I'm not Gunga Din 'cause I'm not a man.

Yeah, but Jinmyo, you think people are depraved for eating dessert. And you said at one point that you had no problem turning down $350K because you didn't need the dough.

More seriously, I'm not sure what kind of cooking you do -- and forgive me, I don't at all mean to cause offense through ignorance -- but one of the things I've heard a lot of chefs on this board bitch about is having to have such-and-such an item -- crab cakes or molten chocolate cake or whatever -- on the menu because customers demand it. If that's not true of you, you must be in a very fortunate position. But it seems as though a lot of the chefs and professional cooks here do indeed need to spend a fair amount of time churning out food that they don't adore, because those crabcakes pay the damn rent.

[mags]

mags, do you recommend books you personally think are no good? Not, "I didn't personally enjoy this, but people I know who are into this genre did," but actually say, "This is a great book," just to sell it? I'm betting the answer is no. I used to work retail in a kitchen store, and I would regularly sell items that were worse than useless. If someone is determined to come into the store and buy something stupid, I was happy to sell it to them. If, on the other hand, the person asked, "Is this good? Does it work?" I would shake my head and recommend something else, no matter how expensive the item was.

Maybe you don't see that as any different from what Bayless is doing, and there's a natural and sometimes unfortunate tendency to rate sins of omission as less severe than sins of commission. Maybe you and I are just as bad as Bayless. But I really don't think so. I've never been in the position of being offered a ton of money to endorse a lousy product, and I don't know what I'd do. I hope I'd say no. But it might be impossible to turn down the kid's college tuition, in which case I hope all of you purists on eGullet would be ready to roast me over the coals, Santa Fe style. I'd deserve it.

Come to think of it, though, I don't see Bayless's commercials as being any worse than any number of lousy chef-endorsed products like Wolfgang Puck's soups or Masaharu Morimoto's sauce packets.

In answer to your first question, Mamster, no, I don't recommend books that I think are lousy. And in some -- relatively rare -- situations I will steer people away from lousy books, even if they haven't asked my advice. But most of the time, if they walk up to my register carrying the latest "and then I put electrodes on her nipples" opus from James Patterson, I'll just ring up the sale and say "Would you like a bag for that?"

But -- and here's where the gray area comes in -- I will absolutely make recommendations within a genre that I think is essentially crap. I think most serial-killer books are lousy. (Bear in mind that I sell only mysteries, though we use a very broad definition.) However, I have lots of customers who like them. So I'll recommend John Connelly or A.J. Holt or even Philip Margolin, rather than Patterson. I don't necessarily think they're good books. (Actually, I think Connelly and Holt are terrific.) But I think they're a....step in the right direction, to quote Mr. Bayless. They're better, perhaps a lot better, than the literary equivalent of McNuggets, even if they're a pretty fur piece from the grilled Thai chicken that I -- a book AND a food snob -- think my customers should be buying.

I've also made "sins" of commission. I spent several years living fairly well off the proceeds of a series of hideous radio spots for a chain of TRULY hideous Long Island furniture stores, and I did another series of ads for some god-awful gym where the marketing gimmic was to make people feel as lousy about themselves as possible. That one I'm not sure I'd do again. My personal line in the sand came, oddly enough, with one of the classiest offers I ever got, the U.S. debut of an Alan Ayckbourn play. I turned down the role because I found it incredibly offensive and mysogynistic, though at the time I was ravenous for both money and acting work. Actually, though, my objection wasn't a matter of principle: I simply felt that if I spent six months playing that particular character, I would put on 60 pounds and start making passes at my wrists with sharp objects.

And no, I don't see Bayless' commercials as any "worse" than Puck's soups and frozen pizzas. More to the point, though, I don't really see that I have the right to judge Bayless' moral standing. And that's really the heart of my issue here.

[mags]

>>Why would someone have to pay you 500k to carry a book?<<

Cause I think some books are actively destructive, the literary equivalent of a cholesterol bomb, and I don't want to pimp for them. But there are very very few books on my "won't carry" list.

>>We're not talking about people who need help to pay the ConEd bill by doing commercials, are we?<<

(shrug) I think everybody's definition of "needing money" is different. And it changes over time.

>>My life has ( and has had) plenty of downsides, working and otherwise. What does that have to do with this?<<

Speaking purely to the working-life downsides, any time you devote your time and energies and talents to a project (even if it's a ten-minute project) that doesn't embody everything you view as noble and desirable and hot-shit, you're selling those energies and talents for money. You're whoring your talents. But understand, I think we all do it to some extent. In fact, I think recognizing that we have to do it is part of uhhh.....growing up. Fifteen-year-olds can get away with whining that Authenticity is All. Once we hit 25, it's less attractive.

>>Don't you think Bayless ( and Rachel Ray, to a certain extent) look kind of silly doing these ads?<<

Hey, doll, I think Rachel Ray looks silly in her TV shows. I don't think she looks any sillier in the ads. Though, to be fair, I haven't seen the ads. Does she wear a funny hat?

[tan319]

Mags,

What does nobility and honor have to do with Burger King?

He had the benefit of the doubt for the Santa Fe sandwich. The BBQ makes him shillish., to me at least.

Puck Makes his soup ( at least the recipe) It's HIS product.

I could see RR doing FHM to get publicity more then her BK thing too.

Doesn't really matter, anyways.

Just waiting for Batali to endorse...Ragu or something now.