Somehow, they started calling me "Vic,"anytime I refused, for instance, to ride an elephant around a town square or eat breakfast with an orangutan for a scene (Both real examples). I well recall Lydia - after I said, "I ain't eating no breakfast with a monkey" - saying, "It's not a monkey, Vic, it's an APE!!" Over time, "Vic" became my alter-ego, what they called me whenever they felt I was being "difficult," or standing in the way of quality TV-friendly yuks-or when I began to balk at 14-hour flights in economy class. There was "good" Tony-who'd obligingly stick with the program and "bad" Vic, who (often speaking of himself in the third person) would make his unhappiness known-usually in pungent terms -- as with "Vic," who doesn't want to go to the Halloween party at Motel Dracula. Vic wants to run away and have tiki drinks in his room.

I'm a pretty happy guy these days and in no hurry to live up to any reputation as a snarkologist. I don't see myself as being in the business of travelling around the world pissing on people who are just trying to be nice. I don't go to Iceland or Romania, for instance, looking to make fun of anybody. That's no way and no good motivation to travel. A happy and successful show for me (honestly) is one where everything goes right, where everything is delicious, everyone I meet engaging and everything I see, genuinely interesting to me.


The Azores were a destination I'd long been thinking about. I'd been meaning to make a show there for a long time, largely because of my heavy exposure to Azorean-Americans in Cape Cod early in my cooking career. I was fascinated by the food (so different from mainland Portugal) and curious about the close connection between the populations of New England Portuguese communities and these mysterious islands in the middle of the Atlantic, about which so little seems known.


Now, ordinarily, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to see and do when we arrive at a destination. There's been a lot of back and forth between me and the pre-production team about what, exactly, we're going to do by the time we hit the ground. And during the planning phase of the Azores show, when I saw a "water scene" at the site of some beloved geothermal blowholes in the lovely town of Furnas, I knew immediately that this was not a scene I was likely to be enthusiastic about.

Water scenes - minutes of air time spent looking at me tasting water, or water dribbling out of a faucet or even water emerging from a hole in the ground as steam does not strike me as riveting entertainment. "Know thyself," the saying goes, and I just KNEW that this proposed scene was not going to hold my interest. I swiftly sent off a memo saying "KILL the water scene." Yet, weeks later, arriving in the Azores, I look down and there it was on the schedule. "Sacred Water Scene. Blowholes. Furnas."

Like I said, I try to be nice. I don't want "Vic" emerging from his dark trailer in the deep, ugly - recesses of my subconscious. I loved the Azores and Azoreans. It's beautiful there. The people are great. I have a vested interest, a history if you will, with the Azorean community here. But the combination of having to stand in front of a sulfurous blowhole and find something to say - the fact that I find the word "blowhole" irresistible for purposes of low comedy and my general displeasure with my producers at having ignored Vic's insistent memo to avoid this scene altogether ...well ...You will see the result Monday. Minute-after-minute of sheer snark and bile, the rotten egg smelling clouds issuing from the earth behind me, not the only source of steam. It's clearly visible coming out of my ears.


Same thing happened this past week. I'm happily playing tea party with my daughter, contemplating future good works, thinking about sending a fruit basket to my producers (who I'd abused so badly after the blowhole incident), generally in the kind of mood that makes me want cuddle stray dogs, adopt a kitten, sing Cumbaya with the homeless crackhead who hangs outside my neighborhood supermarket - when the text of Alice Waters' open letter to the President hit my Inbox.


The new guy in the White House has a lot on his plate - as a recent trip through America's Rust Belt had just brought rather poignantly home. So I found the allegedly chronic non-voter Waters' offer to head up a "kitchen cabinet" - an advisory board guiding the new administration to a new, organic, locavorean foodie Valhalla - well ...presumptuous. Particularly in light of the Normandy invasion of chefs, logistics and ingredients for the series of benefit meals which followed. I had a hard time visualizing all these guys foraging for vegetables in D.C. in January. The combined carbon imprints of these talented interlopers - alone ...seemed at odds with the high minded sentiments in the letter.


Out pops Vic and next thing you know, my comments are all over the blogosphere, attacking the Mother Theresa of the food world, viciously sinking my snaggled teeth into the shanks of St. Alice of Berkeley - possibly the most beloved and revered figure in the world of food.


This is made only more awkward by the fact that we'll soon be appearing together in a panel discussion in Connecticut. I cringe, imagining myself in the green room, sheepishly extending a hand over the tuna wraps, Fiji water and complimentary spanokopita, mumbling something like, "Wow ...like, sorry I compared you to Pol Pot. Perhaps that was a bit ...excessive." Next, I'll be accusing Tom Hanks of cannibalism.


All I can say is: It wasn't me. It was Vic.

It was one of those chance mash-ups of very different backstories: me and my crew, Felicia and hers, some pipefitters on lunch break at the next table, a shared silly moment that could only happen in America.

If you haven't seen THE WIRE, the single finest, best written, best made, best acted, most ambitious series in the history of television, then go buy the boxed set NOW. It got me to Baltimore again-a city with which I had unpleasant history (through no fault of Baltimore's). In the space of two days, I found myself sitting down for pit beef and crab cakes respectively with two people who appeared on that show: legendary homicide investigator Jay Landsman on whom the HOMICIDE and LAW AND ORDER character, Detective Munch (played by Richard Belzer) was based, and "Snoop," who played, brilliantly and with truly chilling authenticity, the remorseless, teenaged assassin of the same name.

Both have seen the very worst of America's streets-and yet both have had improbably wonderful things happen to them.

Landsman describes seeing Snoop for the first time, shooting someone from the back of a bicycle, mid-wheelie, on the show-impressively, but entirely too proficiently, he thought. And Snoop describes Landsman, and Ed Byrnes and all the other veteran cops who worked on The WIRE (as well as producer creator David Simon) as "family."

I don't know what the Chamber of Commerce will think of the Baltimore segment-or the city fathers of the other cities we're visiting on what we're referring to privately as the "Rust Belt" show, but I can tell you that I am already a big fan of pit beef, the wonders of "lake trout" (neither trout-nor from a lake as it turns out), and the heavy but wonderful, vodka soaked charms of Detroit Polish food and Macedonian pastries. And I wonder what my Russian friend and sidekick, Zamir is making of all this, the bombed out, half deserted inner cities, the abandoned Ford plant, the funny, tough-as-nails hard working people we're meeting whose jobs are either gone or under threat. I told Zamir I'd show him America and that's what I'm doing.

There is-in spite of it all-a fierce pride, a toughness-and a uniquely American sense of dark humor, shared by everybody we've met, that's given me an uncharacteristic sense of optimism.

I had to travel all over the world, to find my way here, I think. And to feel the way I'm feeling about an America they don't usually show you on the hotel channel.

This Monday, it's Venice. And if nothing else, one of the most beautifully photographed episodes of NO RESERVATIONS. I'm proud of the look-and hope we managed to give a sense of how delicious the everyday food of the city can be. I draw attention-for benefit of any tech and film wonks reading this-to the use of our new toy, a 35 millimeter lens-adapted to DV cameras, which gave the episode the look of a big screen movie in parts. I'm besotted by Italy lately-and this was a fun one to make.

Even in the middle of tourist season, we managed, I think, to make Venice look hauntingly empty. A single street sweeper in an otherwise deserted Piazza San Marco, backstreets populated only by Venetians, sipping their drinks and looking idly out at the world, a private world of simple good things set against a backdrop of Europe's most beautiful living museum, slowly sinking into the Adriatic. Baby softshell crabs, slowly stewed cuttlefish, cooked in its own ink, sweet and sour sardines, pastas you'd cheerfully kill your own best friend for a taste of-and the best damn risotto I've ever had.Eat first-or watching will be a torment.

Became aware of a NO RESERVATIONS-related anomaly in Colombo. Watching the New Orleans show on Travel and Living Channel in my room, it slappped me upside the head: "Where's the final scene with Donald Link of Cochon restaurant? What happened to the suckling pig scene in his backyard?" Gone. Replaced by an artfully re-edited pork-free ending. It dawned on me: Malaysia. Java. Singapore. A lot of muslims for whom the sight of yet another identifiable cloven hooved beastie can be well….offensive. I don't know in what little office-or where-some poor guy has to nip and tuck our increasingly pig-centric show into an hour of de-porked entertainment, but they've sure got their work cut out for them.

Producer Tom Vitale looks a little queasy today. The room temperature "pizza" squares, sitting under an anemic heat lamp in the airline lounge screamed "Warning!" to me-but apparently not to Tom. He had curiously little appetite at dinner, in spite of the fantastic array of Vietnamese goodies coming our way. As I've told the crew before: I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but I've done a LOT of travelling and eating these last 8 years. If, as you approach a pre-wrapped egg salad sandwich at an English sandwich shop, or ponder the jambalaya option on the menu in Namibia, the chicken Caesar in Puebla-or consider the exotic delights of Sri Lankan airport pizza, you see me shaking my head and smiling fiendishly? Maybe you shouldn't eat it.

It's Christmas Wonderland in the lobby at the Majestic. Snow capped tree, a vast landscape of elves and reindeer, brightly colored packages, twinkling lights-the North pole. Then you step onto Dong Khoi Street and there's no question where you are. Back in Viet Nam.

Took a walk down to the square in front of the Continental and Givral's and the opera house, appropriately buying a pirated copy of The Quiet American on the way. ( I read it every time I come to Viet Nam). Nothing has changed and everything has changed since last time I was here. More cars, fewer bikes. Everybody wears helmets now. There are Vuitton and Gucci boutiques where the bric-a-brac shops selling fake wartime Zippos used to be-but it smells the same, and once sitting on a low plastic stool with a glass of strong iced coffee, eating banh xeo (sizzling crepes filled with pork and baby shrimp and sprouts, I am reassured that all is right with the world.

Philippe (from Les Halles) arrived from Vientiane last night-and has the same blissed out grin on his face I have. Happy to be alive and in Saigon. Looking forward to our first bowl of pho with a ferocity bordering on the desperate.

Ended the day with the crew at the rooftop bar. Gin and tonics while watching the ferries fill with scooters then disgorge, a current of headlights fanning out on both sides of the Saigon River….. .

So there's the "Labor Day" show coming up (actually a clip show/behind the scenes extravaganza--mostly sweepings from the proverbial stable floor, some previously unseen stuff of varying interest). And that's it for original episodes of Season 4.

In the interim between seasons, there will be some "specials" from time to time--stand-alone projects and ongoing mini-series-within-a series on various food and travel themes.

But rest assured, we are already hip deep into production of Season 5. Which is how I'm writing this from Lombardy, where I'm taking a few days rest and family time after the Mexico shoot, girding my loins for the rigors of the upcoming Venice show. Tracey, Todd, Zach and Nari, are, I‘m told, taking a mule train over the Alps to meet me.

As you may or may not know (or care), we like to use visual and audio "cues" for each new episode of the show--a particular and distinctive sound and look, usually ripped off from a movie we admire. We looked, for instance, at a lot of early Japanese films before shooting the recent Tokyo/Kyoto show, trying to ape that wide-screen, slow panning, carefully composed frame stuff you see in some of them. For the Hong Kong show, we boned up on a grab bag of "New" Asian, from Ringo Lam, Takashi Miike and Kenji Fukasaku, to some of the kookier Korean thriller directors--also the insane "Tokyo Fist" and the "Tetsuo" films.

William Friedkin's terrific "To Live and Die in LA" was the whole and entire inspiration for the LA show's oil rigs and brown hues. For an upcoming DC show, author George Pelecanos's superb Washington based novels--and his work on the greatest dramatic series EVER on television, "The Wire" formed a kind of center of gravity. Our Chicago show was filmed in a state of full-on hero worship, as I've been long besotted by Michael Mann's Chicago-based film, "Thief". For Venice we're looking hard at Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now" and Paul Schrader's creepy "Comfort Of Strangers".

Let me stress here that I'm not comparing our shows to any of these masterworks. I'm just saying we like 'em a whole helluva lot--and try to rip off ideas from their cinematography and soundtracks as best we can (in our own cheesy, low-tech way). I'm very proud and happy when commentators--especially those from within the industry-- notice that the camera work and editing on the show have really stepped up this past couple of seasons. Much hard work and a lot of truly ingenious innovation have gone into making the shows: difficult camera movements, jury-rigged platforms, mobile camera mounts, and acts of foolhardy athleticism on the part of the shooters.

I should make particular mention of the brilliant, home-made "Owl-Cam" rig used in the Saudi desert. Basically, it was TWO DV cameras, mounted on a wooden platform so that their shots overlapped, resulting in a super-wide yet cost-effective Cinemascope-like panorama. The work of the editors, too, only gets better and better. Tasked, for instance, with cutting the Tokyo/Kyoto show "as if there's gonna be NO eventual voice-over!" or "make it look like you dropped acid and went to Hong Kong!" they again and again rise to--and exceed the challenge. And the increasingly daring post-production graphics by Adam Lupsha have been adding a new dimension of weirdness to the mix: At the end of the Southwest show, he managed to "make" a 16 wheel tractor trailer jack-knife in front of my car, filling the screen. It was a truly astounding shot. Terrifying--even if you knew it was coming and knew how it was achieved. I thought it was the perfect ending to the show. But, people at the network imagined that BMW, who'd lent us the car, might be displeased to see what appeared to be their proudly displayed vehicle "crushed" into a crumple of blood, hair and brake fluid at the end of the show. Too bad. It was an amazing feat of animation.

When I brag about "the Best Food Porn Ever", it's entirely because of the people I work with, the kind of talent at work on this show--behind the lenses, and back at ZPZ Central. I'm very aware that there would be no show without them (I certainly wouldn't go about the fairly undignified business of appearing regularly on TV without them) --and I am enormously grateful.

What else is coming up? And where?

It's (finally) back to Vietnam. The Philippines.. The Azores. Thailand. Provence. Sardinia. And a Detroit/Buffalo/Baltimore hybrid show which (I hope) will pay low rent homage to Curtis Hansen, Vincent Gallo and John Waters respectively (There will NOT be a Pink Flamingos finale, however). Ethiopia (we hope) Cuba. (We hope) . Back to Beirut (eventually). And beyond.

I get to go to a lot of fantastic places on this show. But you should know that when you see a four minute scene of me eating in a three star restaurant, it represents four HOURS of work for three camera people while I enjoy myself at the table, three to five more--for whoever arrived early to shoot kitchen prep and countless more for the post-production people back in New York. A full "hour" show can take up to NINE WEEKS to edit, mix, color correct and so on.

That said, last week, we were in Puebla. Carlos, my old friend from Les Halles, told us to pull the production van over at the side of the road near his home. The follow cars full of relatives pulled in behind us. And then, there we were, no cameras, only me, the crew, Carlos, Martin (our old Mexico fixer from Cook's Tour days), Carlos's Mom and Dad and cousins and nieces, gathered around the thin wooden board constituting the counter of a tiny, neighborhood taco wagon under a naked light bulb. We stood there, drinking Tecates after a long, long day's shoot; the crew happily tearing into tongue, brain, head, eyeball and tripe tacos dressed with fiery sauce. I was proud then too.

As I said, I get to go to a lot of fantastic places--and see many beautiful things on this show. But none more beautiful to me than today, looking out at the town square, my wife spooning that last bit of foamed milk from the bottom of the cup, my little daughter feeding herself olives with two fingers.

Later, around the next corner, on the next cobblestone street--or maybe the one after, there is the promise of gelato.

And I was happiest during my stay in Egypt sitting under those same stars, a fire crackling and throwing off sparks nearby, belly full of roast lamb, surrounded -- as far as the eye could see -- by nothing but the dark rises of an ocean of sand. But Cairo was another matter.Egyptians are surprisingly friendly towards Americans. One hears "Hello!" and "Welcome!" from passing strangers all the time. And there's something truly wonderful about the drivers in this unbelievably crowded and unruly city. Though there are precious few traffic lights, somehow cars move at a good clip through the bumper to bumper streets. There's apparently a language of car horns -- coded beeps, taps and honks -- containing a fairly vast vocabulary of implications. Cars and pedestrians intermingle in impossible to perceive patterns and yet keep moving. Parking in the narrow, dog-leg back streets of Cairo is a mysterious and cooperative effort often involving driving backwards for great distances. Pythagorus would have been dazzled by the way eight or ten cars move forward or backward to allow one car in or out.

There's those pyramids. Though I never saw them except as shapes, seen through the haze from the window of a passing car.

I was not at ease in Cairo. It wasn't the gun-packing security types we were required to have along at all times. They were nice enough. And our fixer was a great guy. It was the Egyptian standard breakfast of "ful". And the fact that the tourism types didn't want us to see it. (See Rennik Soholt's excellent entry on "The Crew's Blog" to get the backstory on how we managed to actually get that scene). Ful (pronounced "fool") is a bowl or plate of mashed or semi-mashed fava beans which have been cooked in a copper pot -- usually with onions and some garlic -- and served with a healthy dose of olive oil. You eat it with flatbread. A LOT of bread -- usually a big stack which you use to sop up every bit. It's affectionately referred to as a "stone in the stomach". And they mean that in a good way.

Since pharonic times, the poor and working poor have filled up on the stuff as pretty much their principal meal of the day. If you're doing well for yourself, you can get a chopped, hard-cooked egg on top. And some pickled vegetables on the side. Problem is, very few Egyptians are doing well. In fact, most are living on or way below the poverty line. That bread is often the greater part of breakfast lunch AND dinner. And bread, recently, has doubled in price (with the rising cost of flour worldwide). Price supported bakeries, run (ominously) by the army, have been forced to ration, cutting their hours drastically.

The government, such as it is, is of the kind where enormous pictures of a Much Younger Looking Than He's Been in Years Fearless Leader are everywhere. Members of the opposition tend to get arrested just before elections. So Egypt felt like an inappropriate place to be doing a "food" show. Frankly, I didn't feel up to the job. When I found myself on a felucca, shooting a "majestic" waterborne scene on the Nile, and ten minutes out, the mast snapped off under a bridge, it seemed a perfect metaphor for the entire dubious enterprise. We limped around for an additional hour or so, the producer trying in vain to make the best of things, hoping, I imagine, that the audience would be oblivious to the huge, dangling spar, the sagging, sorry-ass sail, the fact that we were limping along like a gimped seagull.

Maybe it's that I particularly like Egyptians and wish the best for them. That our stunted sailboat seemed a metaphor for the hopes and dreams of the many good hearted people I met. Or maybe it was because Egypt was the last episode of season four, and I was just really, really homesick.

In any case, we're well into season five as I write this from Mexico City. I'm down here with my friend Carlos, the chef of Les Halles, and tomorrow, we head out for Puebla to meet his parents, sit down for a big Llaguna family meal. It'll be nice to see where the guy who worked by my side and who now has the job I once had comes from. It's a happier situation for sure. In every cantina, pulqueria, fonda we've visited, there's music. All the songs are very sad -- yet Mexicans seem always to find the beauty, the irony -- and even the humor in often hopeless situations -- and sing about them.

A short, sweet-faced, matronly woman made me quesadillas of fresh cheese and zucchini blossoms in the street today. The fillings cooked inside blue corn tortillas which she made by hand in front of me. They puffed and blistered on the hot metal . As she proudly presented me with the finished product, folding the quesadilla with a final squeeze and passing it to me with her hands, I noticed her fingers were dusted with indigo colored corn flour.

They were beautiful.

The hapless, ZPZ tape-loggers, caffeine-jacked myrmidons who toil away in the filthy sub-cellar of our corporate headquarters, reviewing hour after hour of mind-numbingly repetitive and boring video tape, noticing this spectral apparition, began to lose their already tentative grips on reality. One scene after another, a glimpse here, a face in the crowd there, lurking suspiciously in the background in another scene, down the bar a few positions, pretending he doesn't know me in another -- or front and center; there he is.

It's Albert's very ubiquitousness in the raw footage, his omnipresence -- even in the scenes where the viewer won't see him, that tells you all you need to know about Spain -- and how damn good it is.

Understand: Albert, along with his brother, Ferran, is a chef/owner of the three Michelin starred El Bulli, the hardest to reserve, restaurant table in the world. He's a national hero, an international superstar in the world of chefs and restaurants. Suffice to say that just about anywhere in the world of fine dining, from Shanghai to San Francisco; when Albert walks in the door, the whole place goes on Red Alert. He's used to the very best. If there's a downside to his life in the culinary firmament, it's that too much foie gras, truffles and expensive wine come his way.

As a chef at El Bulli, hugely respected pastry chef -- and as the owner of a casual eatery in Barcelona, he can surely have the very best Spanish ingredients delivered anywhere he wants, quickly, with a phone call. You'd think, he'd be a bit .....jaded by it all.

Yet, there he was at Espinaler, gobbling up those supernaturally delicious, canned cockles and razor clams and mussels like he'd never had them before. Tagging along at Quimet and Quimet, shoveling in the tapas with a big smile on his face. Out in the country, with a silly red bib, a blissed-out expression, sucking down the calcots and the red wine like it was his last meal on earth.

I've never seen anyone so happy to be in Spain -- and (this is my point here) HE FREAKIN' LIVES THERE!!!

All that magnificent food -- all those cool little tapas bars, they're right down the street--and yet, it was like he just landed in Barcelona from Mars. His enthusiasm for his own country, his own heritage, the everyday places and things of Spain was something to see.

Naturally this made me misanthropic and deeply envious.

Why can't I have that? How come I gotta go halfway across the earth -- to like, Singapore, or Hong Kong (or Spain), for instance, to really get MY culinary jollies these days? He's on a magic carpet ride in his own town and I'm like a full-bloom junkie, the honeymoon period over, needing a higher and higher dosage to get off in MY home town of New York!. Why?

The sad fact is, we'll never -- and I mean NEVER have it so good as in Spain. It's not like we don't have great restaurants in Manhattan - -and will surely have many more. And certainly, we can get many of the same ingredients jetted over (more or les s-- if at a steep price). No. It's attitudinal. You can faithfully reproduce the look of a Spanish tapas bar in New York City. You can stock it with all the best, most authentic ingredients, just-jerked from the rivers, streams, soil and seas of Spain. You can staff the joint with the best cooks, dragooned off the streets of the parta vieja. And you'll still never be close to the real thing. Because what your tapas bar needs -- really needs -- is three or four or eight OTHER tapas bars (or casual Spanish eateries within walking distance).

You can't really enjoy this kind of food in a vacuum. You need to graze -- or at least know that you can graze (should the urge arise), bouncing from one place to another, a mouthful or two of what's good here, a glass of tinto, a few mouthfuls of what they do well over there -- another glass of tinto and so on. In fact, the whole customer base has to re-groove to accommodate this notion. They'll have to accept the idea that a small can of tuna -- or clams -- can actually be better than fresh stuff. And worth about $150 bucks.

That the fat of Spanish acorn fed pigs is the stuff of which dreams are made. That there's nothing unusual about growing up with Goya, Dali, Bunuel, and Gaudi. That midnite is a normal time to sit down to dinner.

The best example of What They Do In Spain that We Can and Never Will Do is to be found in the Extebarri scene near the end of the show. Here, at a rustic pub in the mountains near St. Sebastian, grilling has been raised to unthinkable zen-like heights. Hand made charcoals. A separate fire for each individual order. Separate grills -- and custom designed and crafted pans and implements to best achieve perfection.

Ingredients of a quality undreamed of by most mortals. This, in a simple, neighborhood-looking joint with a smoky bar and a self-taught chef who grew up in the village. It's where the Adrias, Arzaks and Aduriz's go for their own pleasure -- high end comfort food.

Back before cable, if you took a baseball bat and smacked it upside a television set in the middle of a show, there'd be a black and white sputter, a flash -- and then white noise and static. That was what my first bite of grilled elvers was like there. And the grilled gambas. And just about everything else in that chilly, wood-smoke smelling kitchen. A jarring, flood of endorphins, then brain overload, and for a second, a blinding light. Momentarily, the synapses shorted out. Sensation returned in a warm, intensely pleasurable afterglow of flavor. It was a sensation that related directly to the experience of a few weeks before -- in Tokyo. At Sukibayashi Jiro. Two seemingly simple things done well -- as well as they can be done. In Tokyo: old school sushi.
In Spain, grilled stuff with a little salt and a light spritz of oil.
Nothing, as it turns out, could be better

The on camera demonstration of high speed butchering techniques and BBQ prep in the RV kitchen caused, I suspect, bleeding brain-sweats at Travel Channel legal department. "Don't Try This At Home, Kids!" Every once in a while I get to do a show that's total playtime. The car? Free (for the duration of the show). All I had to do was drive it. The people silly enough to entrust me with this expensive piece of high performance equipment only asked that I "have fun." "How does it handle off the road?" I asked, expecting to frighten them. Nope. I was encouraged to beat the shit out of the thing. And I did my very best.

Loaded up the iPod with a "desert-driving mix of ZZ Top, Lynrd Skynrd, Taj Mahal, the Stones, Tito and Tarantula, James Brown, John Fogerty, Prodigy, Steppenwolf and every song I could find with the words "Road" or "Highway" "Wheels" in it. Chris, by the way, my supposedly responsible executive producer and head of the freakin' company, sitting in the passenger seat? Hardly the voice of moderation. "Faster!! Faster!!" he'd hiss, through spittle flecked lips. "Make it jump! Get some air!!" he'd shriek, urging me on -- when already off the road, tearing along at 60 through some dusty arroyo. I gotta work this product placement vehicle racket more often. And I'm open to suggestions from any gearhead fans on what cars might be fun to misuse next.

Other than my first act of product-related whoredom, the Southwest Road Show was notable for a few other features: The return of veteran cameraman Jerry Risius being the most welcome and obvious. As some commenters have noticed and wondered about, we tend to rotate key crew members on tours of duty. Producer Tracey Gudwin, for instance, has been living in Berlin since shortly after the Berlin show and returns for the Egypt and upcoming Venice shows. Jerry, recovering from the cumulative effects of a nacho-related head trauma in the Texas/Mexican Border show and the Beirut experience, returned for the Road Show -- filling in for Zach Zamboni (who was busy shooting the more lucrative feature film Naughty ButtMasters #7).

Nothing is better for a brain bruise and a nervous breakdown than being forced to competitively shove a 72 ounce steak, fried shrimp, bread, salad and potato down your gullet in front of a crowd of hooting Texans (and our cameras). And of course, there was Alice. Cooper that is. About the nicest, most normal guy you could ever meet. It actually makes perfect sense that he own a sports bar -- as he's a sports nut. And I could have spent ten hours easily shooting the shit about 60's era Detroit bands and baseball. I almost worked through some trauma of my own: a Randy Johnson related problem I've had since the Yankees lost to the D-Backs in the play-offs a while back.

It was inevitable, if you think about it, that I should make television, eat BBQ and play with large caliber automatic weapons with Ted Nugent. It was, I think, only a matter of time. In fact, midway through shooting a scene at "The Nuge's" ranch, I got a text from Mario Batali -- inviting me out for drinks or some kind of mayhem. I texted back that I regretted being unable to join him as I was currently unloading a belt-fed M-60 machine gun at Ted Nugent's place. His totally unsurprised response was "Of course you are."

I didn't seek Ted out, by the way. I was summoned. He called a while back, said we should make television together - -and then told me exactly how. When the Nuge says jump? You ask only "How High?" and "How much ammo will I need?" In TedWorld, by the way, it all makes perfect sense.

And finally, this was the episode where I, at last, got to settle the score with Switzerland. Perhaps launching an ICBM at them was a bit much -- but my skin really and truly crawls at even the sight of an Alpine vista. I don't know why exactly. Maybe it has something to do with Helmut, the Swiss/German barber I had to go to as a child. He had one of those wall murals of Lake Geneva with snow capped alps in the background -- and I always associate those images with getting an ugly and humiliating haircut from a stern-looking old guy with a scary German accent. Followed by bullying at school. Even Ricola commercials make me break into a cold sweat.

Lederhosen, Alpine hats, cuckoo clocks, St Bernards, cross country skiers and the Sound of Music make me phsyically ill. They remind me of hair clippings itching my nose, a coiff that would make a middle Brady blush, and the feeling of many tiny little fists in my face as from behind, someone goes for the atomic wedgie . So it was with real joy that I initiated launch sequence. Hell, I ain't ever making a show there anyhow. And their cheese? It sucks.