My Experience on "Check, Please!" was Most Unsavory

By Jad-Marc Tailor

Reposted from Jad-Marc's Blog, "The Finer, Diner and Winer Things in this Crazy Beautiful Thing I call, 'LIFE.'"

It was showtime. The lights... no wait, it was, like, a minute before showtime, because we were commencing taping at 4 pm, I believe, or thereabouts, and it was 3:59, for I distinctly remember glancing at my watch at that moment, when Alpana raised her spotless wine glass, quarter-filled with Cabernet Sauvignon (2004, hint of mint, splash of oak: superb), and said, "To new friends, good food, delectable wine, a fine crew," grunts of approval from behind cameras and lights, "and an amazing show! Cheers!" Glasses clink, held by Alpana herself, Joseph Pettibon (Elementary School Principal - Albany Park), Stephanie Yang (Bartendress - Wicker Park), and me, Jad-Marc Tailor (Investment Banker - Lincoln Park). And it was all downhill from there.

Truth be told, I knew it would be all downhill from there, because the restaurants my two co-stars (or perhaps "adversaries" would be more appropriate) chose were patently abysmal; pedestrian, at best. What I didn't know was how much of a disaster the actual taping would turn out to be. But first, in case you missed the episode, the restaurants:

Joseph Pettibon chose Stephen's Tex-Mex Building in Albany Park. I went there with my girlfriend on a Friday night after drinks and dancing and Karaoke (I completely nailed Staind's "It's Been a While") at Starbar. We took a cab and got to Stephen's Tex-Mex Building at around 3 am and it was CLOSED. My girlfriend and I were both deeply perturbed and after she threw up on Stephen's restaurant's front stoop we got in another cab and went home and had sex.

Flash-forward to the show:

"Wait, Jad," says Alpana, in her delightfully cute squeak of a voice which I vividly imagine enveloping my cock as she gags on it.
"Jad-Marc," says I.
"You mean to tell me that you didn't even go to Stephen's Tex-Mex Building?"
"I did go. It was closed."
"What time did you go?"
"3 am."
"3 am?"
"Christ, Jad-Marc," says Joseph, bent-out-of-shapely. "It's a family restaurant."
"But it was a Friday," says I. "On weekends, sir, with all due respect, I don't, nay, can't eat dinner until I'm drunk."

And we moved on:

Stephanie Yang chose Restaurant of Chinese Fair Delicacies Within (big surprise) in Chinatown. When I received the notice in the mail from the "Check, Please!" producers, I exclaimed to my girlfriend, "Fuck, babe. We have to go to Chinatown for this shit," to which she responded, "You're on your own then, hun. I'll go out with my other boyfriend." So I called up my other girlfriend and we headed down to Restaurant of Chinese Fair Delicacies Within last Saturday. We got there at 2 am after a night of drinks and dancing and Karaoke (I completely nailed that one Journey song that was the White Sox theme song when they won the World Series that one time) and, luckily, it was still open, and would be for the next several hours, and the next several hours after that, and so on until the end of time because the restaurant is open 24 hours and the Chinese are pagans who don't celebrate holidays.

The show:

"So," says Alpana, reluctantly turning to me, "Jad-Marc. Dare I ask what you thought about Restaurant of Chinese Fair Delicacies Within?"
"Well," says I, composed, collected: the essence of amateur restaurant criticism, "The service was fantastic and felt like good old Chinese hospitality. A very noble people, and their conduct reflected as such," insightfully. "The food was fast, but it sure wasn't fast food!" I, intelligent, clearly, yet down to earth, jocular with the folk, as shown by laughter erupting from mouths of adversaries.
"Sounds like you liked it," Alpana says, composing herself, wiping tears from her eyes.
"It was delicious. I got the Egg Foo Yong, and I had to scarf it all up before my date stole it!" Again jocular, again laughs, again Jad-Marc: capturing hearts. "I said to my date, my girlfriend: 'Oh, don't you worry, sweetums, you'll get plenty of egg in your mouth later, but just the whites.'" That's right, Jad-Marc, reel 'em in. The money shot. Don't stop now. "And my girlfriend just laughed. People were staring at us. 'Or maybe you want those egg whites now, baby, huh?' And I forced her under the table and she sucked me off right there in the middle of Restaurant of Chinese Fair Delicacies Within, me alternating between slapping the table and her ass, exposed now due to my ripping of her skirt, and cooks out from the kitchen, three of them, standing not ten feet away from us, laughing and jerking, jerking and laughing." Silence in the studio, aside from my seemingly resonating and reverberating disappointment in my adversaries' attitudes, as we all slowly sipped our wine.

I chose The World Diner in Lincoln park, housed in which is every single taste you can ever imagine. Every single delicacy from every single corner and nook and cranny of this crazy spinning rock orbiting this crazy solar system can be found here. And you can mix and match and create your own tastes, too! Want a curry-fried-green-chile rice pizza? Will be ready in 3 hours. Want a Yakburger with Filipino eel-fries? Will be ready next week. Want a Jaegerbomb? Have three while you wait for your strawberry-gyro-pie! It is located underneath Lincoln Park, in a sort of multi-level cave dwelling, a la Gangs of New York. To enter, you must rub the Goethe statue's marble genitals not once, not twice, but thrice. After doing so, the earth itself opens up, and the World Diner awaits one hundred feet below. Unfortunately, neither Alpana nor Stephanie nor Joseph could find the elusive restaurant, and after the taping I was immediately and hastily escorted out of the WTTW studio.

On Novel Writing.

Sir Terry Toynbee Windus, gent.

Veni, Vidi, Dormivi

Surprise be it to me that, upon reaching jolly Londontown againe, after the customary pause and rest of a fortnight anon three days in Willy-Wompus-Whole-Upon-Hamptonshire, I was celebrated, besmitten, and dined by the gentle LORDS and LADIES of that noble CITIE, and for nothing more, it seem’d to me, then my latest, SAUCY WORDS regarding Prime Ministers, CHURLS and CHARLATONS—sine cume patrium. Aye, I report, supple goose-legs dunked in a-goat’s milk! wrapped in rabbitsbutter’d liverwinkle and DELICIOUS London SAUCE! And, oh by Mount Parnassus, the welcoming I received in Heathsbridge! A gentle masque, produced for my HONOUR, with forty and a hundred boys in feathers, caste unto the air, a’covered with colored tunics of parrot hues a million, twisting and turning and twisting so as to herald God’s own GLORIE, and not that of their own soft NETHER-PARTS. But, Hark! I thought, in a flashe—not un-alike the jowly beard and glinting eye of ZEUS himself. What be this? What do these city gentles know of my WORDS and OPINONES? How have they a’read them, scanned them and weighted them for their WORTH? It appeared, they explain’d, a noble, rich, ambitious PAMPHLETEER had acquired them, without my knowing, and published them in a pamphlet—City Town Opiniones of noble worth and KNOWING, and of Noblisse and Towing, concerning the Body-Health a’Politick of London and its Surrounding Regions, of the North, the West, but not of the East etc. A wonderous title, me thought. But what scourge! What betrayel! I left the masque inflammed and marched across towne to this word-thief’s home. Bloated with ale, dripping with LAGER, I demanded an answer and REBUFF, for all his many INDECENCIES. Aye, but his wit was stronge, his purse was deep, and he knew how best to TAME me, and now I write to you, with happy hand and full, the new SERIAL writer for TOBIAS TRUNKET’S WONDER PAMPHLET, of GOODE SIZE and SHAPE, NOT THIRTY PAGES or MORE, DELIVERED EVER’Y THURSDAY ON MID-DAY, THE WEATHER, TRAFFIK, AND OUR LORD GOD PERMITTING.

Now my station is secured, I wonder, what to write? I scanned my brain for topics of wholly pamphlet worth. These new LOCOMOTIVES, perhaps—vile, black, dusty things that tear across the earth with the speed of Hermes’ winged brain, blowing and gushing with black-headed smoke and low, lonesome wails. But what does a country gentle know of traines? I am a sporting man, of the muddy earth and natural oak brambles. Of the horse’s flexing LOINS, his powerful chest, and sweaty FLANKS. I eat supper at home, in the glinting care of Margarate, my wife, Joseph, my son, and Ishmael, his barrel-chested Island Topangan friend. Eat well I do with leek and potato belly stew, pine cone pie, and macaroons. Nothing of blackened steel do I know. Away with you, low trains. Of you I have no use!

But, lo, I think: what of novel writing? This new fashione to sweep the gay parties of Londone, Oxenford, and Cambridge? Not a once have attended a masque or curtain party and not heard of the latest release from the jolly publishers on Cranklin Street. Words, ah yes words! My downy bedfellows! My companions, deepest friends and confidants. The happy vessels of my thoughts! The lusty hoppers of my brain! Of words I know and trust. Of words I shall write! The novel--Away! 

The history of this most peculiar of art forms is most peculiar of its own. It is whispered, in St. John’s wood and beyond, that a Sarah Horon Billingsdick wrote the first English novel, all of her own, the duration of her imprisonment atop Billingsdick tower, near Bristol, which she was serving for the humble crime of knocking clam pails with a Welshman. Her father was of Norman blood and proud, and had no use for the clam sucking Wester, locking his daughter away for nigh twelve years, though much the lady did protest! But a prudent mind the Welsh-leaning Billingsdick possessed, writing forty two novels in those long years. Not of a horses turd are any a one of them worth, though every Englishwoman, from Hastings to York, now emulates Lady Billingsdick in drawing pen to paper and letting their bouncy chests burst free with eager thought and emotion. Fathers be damned! Try and draw your young daughter away from a Billingsdick serial and face certainly being bitten, clawed at, struck— the ravenous screams of your prim rose of the most startling and unsavory STOCK. Some NOBLE English minds agree, the novel is a SCANDAL, and not for the nation builder, the clophopper, the tree chopper, the English Man, to participate in.

Aye, but bouncy chests aside, the novel can be a lusty ship for the haughty Englishman to board as well. Jarvis Jellybutton, Marvin Baumer, and Soothy Hall Summerton—three of the most broad shouldered, long-bearded, well be-sausaged Englishman this modest island has at once produced all a three write novels. But, their sterling packages not forgotten, these three craftsmen have seemed to begotten dull blades in recent years. Their cutting humor, shimmering wit and musky prose have seemed to wither on the page. If these three outdoors men, fine riders all, cannot satisfy the burning need, the heaving chest, the eager crotch of an entire nation and its literary tastes, what hope is there for us mortal Albions?

End of Part 1...

Lost Chapters Un-Lost: Ernest Hemingway

The following is the first in a series of lost writings from famous American wordsmiths. Composed early in his career, when his bold, muscular prose was first coalescing into a unique style, this newly discovered chapter is an alternative opening to Hemingway’s first enduring work, The Sun Also Rises. The Funion Institute of Angry Writers and Their Lost Work is both honored and excited to bring you fresh writing from this embattled American icon.

Harold T. Schnobb, Director of the Funion Institute of Angry Writers and Their Lost Work

The Sun Also Rises, an alternative opening.

Jews are good at boxing. I went to Princeton. I met a Jew there. He was good at boxing. I think he was good at boxing because he was so small. And because he was a Jew. He liked to punch people in the face because they made fun of him. That’s why he got so good at boxing. People made fun of him and he had to punch them. Right on the nose.
This good-boxing Jew got married right after college. I did not get married right after college. I drove ambulances in the war. What a bite that was. I suffered. But my Jew friend did not get to go. He had jaundice at the time, and webbed toes. The doctor took one look at him: “No.” He said, “You cannot be in this war.” So my Jew friend did not suffer. He had a rich mother. She died, he got a little cash, and he left for Europe with his wife. They didn’t work. They just lived off this cash, see.
This wife of his was jealous. She was not a Jew. I think she was Anglican. She was jealous of my Jew-friend-boxer because he was dark, and small, and he boxed. “What girl would not love that?” She thought. She thought too much. After a few years, when I was working in Paris, my Jew friend got a mistress. She was young. She was a student. My Jew friend got real scared. “What if his wife found out?” He thought. He thought too much. He decided to leave his wife. He wanted to go to South America.
“Come to South America, Jake.” He said, sitting in my office. He looked up at the ceiling.
“Why would I do that?” I said. I had work to do. I did a lot of work.
“There are beautiful women there.”
“There are beautiful women here.”
“That is true. But there are truly beautiful women in Brazil. Everyone is beautiful, in fact. You walk down the street and think, ‘My God. What is going on with these people? They are so beautiful. Where have I gone?’”
“That sounds nice.” I lied. I had work to do. At least that’s what I told him. Why would my friend want to leave Paris, I thought. “All places are the same.” I said. “You’ll go to South America and then you will want to leave. Maybe you will want to go to China. Who knows?”
My Jew friend got sad. He left, tipping his hat to me. “See you at dinner.”
At dinner we ate rolls and fish and we drank wine. It was my friend, his wife, and I. I wanted to cheer my friend up.
“Maybe we can go to Genoa.” I said.
“Really?” He asked.
“Why not? I know a girl there. A real swell girl. American, I think. She’ll show us around. Great legs.”
His wife got mad. She looked at me. She looked like she was going to hurt me. She stepped on my foot under the table. “Really great legs.” She stepped on my foot again.
Later on I was sitting on the Rue de Saint Mart, watching people walk by. A girl walked by on the street and she smiled at me. I smiled back, sipping some absinthe. She walked up to my table and sat down.
“The river looks beautiful.” She said.
“Yes it does.” I lied. I sipped some absinthe.
“Is that absinthe?” She said.
“Yes.” I said.
“May I have some?”
“Of course.” I said.
“Have sex with me.” She said.
“No.” I said.
We looked out at the river.
One time I was in Michigan with my father. He had a long rifle. I wasn’t old enough to have one. My uncle was with us. He was drunk. We were walking through tall grass. We were hunting duck. We came to the edge of the grass and the water popped out. The smooth-shouldered lake was so bright my uncle and father stopped. The ducks flew up. They could not see them. The ducks got away. The lake was beautiful and we looked at it. Later on my uncle shot his foot cleaning his gun.
I sat watching the river with the French girl. She may have been Corsican. She was ugly when she smiled and I was getting sick of her. I wanted to leave Paris.
"Sweet sweet darling lips," Brett said to me. "Leave Paris with me." So I did. 

THE END