Medium Raw

I remember now, from a distance, my earlier, dumber self, watching Emeril hawking toothpaste (and, later, Rachael endorsing Dunkin’ Donuts and Ritz Crackers) and gaping, uncomprehending, at the screen, wondering, “Why would anybody making the millions and millions of bucks these guys are making endorse some crap for a few million more? I mean…surely there’s some embarrassment to putting your face next to Dunkin’ Donuts—what with so many kids watching your shows—and Type 2 diabetes exploding like it is…Surely there’s a line not to be crossed at any price for these people, right?”

Later, I asked exactly that question of my fellow chefs—backstage at Top Chef one evening, while waiting for the camera crew to set up for the next shot. I was talking with two chefs far more talented, far more creative—and more accomplished than I had ever been—guys with (unlike me) actual reputations to lose. Where does one draw the line, I asked of them? I mean…there they were, avidly comparing notes on which airlines gave you more free miles in return for “menu consultation,” which products were offering what moneys—and at no point was either of them saying about any particular product: “Burger King…not ever…no WAY!” or, after considering the question for a moment, “Okay. Mmmm. Lemme think. Astro-Glide? No. I don’t care how much money they’re offering. I ain’t endorsing that!” Like I said, I asked, “Where. Exactly. Is the line for you guys?”

The two of them looked at me like I had a vestigial twin hanging from my neck. Pityingly. They actually mocked me.

“Are you asking, ‘How much would I have to pay you to taste a booger?’” said one, as if talking to a child. The two of them resumed their conversation, comparing soft-drink money to frozen pasta dinners, as if I were no longer there. This, clearly, was a conversation for grown-ups, and they considered me too clueless, too dumb, too unsophisticated about the world to be included in the discussion.

They were right. What was I talking about anyway?

The notion of “selling out” is such a quaint one, after all. At what point exactly does one really sell out? To the would-be anarchist—invariably a white guy in dreadlocks, talking about forming a band and “keepin’ it real” while waiting for Mom and Dad to send a check—selling out is getting a job.

Certainly, anytime anyone gets up in the morning earlier than one would like, drags oneself across town to do things one wouldn’t ordinarily do in one’s leisure time for people one doesn’t particularly like—that would be selling out, whether that activity involves working in a coal mine, heating up macaroni and cheese at Popeye’s, or giving tug jobs to strangers in the back of a strip club. To my mind, they are all morally equivalent. (You do what you’ve got to do to get by.) While there is a certain stigma attached to sucking the cocks of strangers—because, perhaps, of particularly Western concepts of intimacy and religion—how different, how much worse, or more “wrong,” is it than plunging toilets, hosing down a slaughterhouse floor, burning off polyps, or endorsing Diet Coke? Who—given more options, better choices—would do any of those things?

Who in this world gets to do only what they want—and what they feel consistent with their principles—and get paid for it?

Well…I guess, me—until recently.

But wait. The second I sat down for an interview, or went out on the book tour to promote Kitchen Confidential…surely that was kind of selling out, right? I didn’t know Matt Lauer or Bryant Gumbel or any of these people. Why was I suddenly being nice to them? In what way was I different than a common whore, spending minutes, hours, eventually weeks of my rapidly waning life making nice to people I didn’t even know? You fuck somebody for money, it’s cash on the barrel. You pick up the money, you go home, you take a shower, and it’s gone—presumably having used as much emotional investment as a morning dump. But what about week after week of smiling, nodding your head, pretending to laugh, telling the same stories, giving the same answers as if they’d just—only now—occurred to you for the first time?

Who’s the ho now? Me. That’s who.

Jesus—I would have given Oprah a back rub and a bikini wax, had she asked me when her people called. Fifty-five thousand copies a minute—every minute Oprah’s talking about your book (according to industry legend)? I know few authors who wouldn’t. So I guess I knew—even back then—what my price was.

There’s that old joke, I’ve referred to it before, where the guy at the bar asks the girl if she’d fuck him for a million dollars—and she thinks about it and finally replies, “Well, I guess for a million dollars, yeah…” At which point he quickly offers her a dollar for the same service. “Fuck you!” she says, declining angrily. “You think I’d fuck you for a dollar? What do you think I am?” To which the guy says, “Well…we’ve already established you’re a whore. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”