Guy Fieri

Last week I was on a Jet Blue flight to Miami. I usually try to read while flying, but on this particular journey I was in the mood for some entertainment. Something mindless and terrible, like a show on the Bravo network or perhaps a documentary about the end of the world. Sadly this was not to be, because all the screens in my row were temporarily out of order. Every other row seemed to have working screens, which was frustrating, but this was a full flight so I was stuck where I was. I tried to read but that was useless so instead I decided to watch what the person in the seat diagonally in front of me was watching. This just so happened to be one of the many cooking shows available on television today. 

The show the stranger in front of me was watching…in back-to-back episodes…for the entire time that we were on the plane…was Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. The show’s host is Guy Fieri, a chef and also a dead ringer for the heat miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus. He travels across America in search of the best “greasy spoon” restaurants in our country. There are innumerable establishments like this sprinkled throughout the 52 states, so Mr. Fieri keeps himself very very busy. 

Without sound, all I could see was Guy’s bloated yet optimistic face as he drove around the country in his red convertible hot rod sampling food from all the diners, drive-ins, and dives that he visited. In each episode Guy meets the proprietors of several establishments and samples the dishes that the place is famous for.

And...it was disgusting. Absolutely gross. Repulsive. But, like with a car crash, I simply could not look away. I'm not sure exactly what was being cooked up as I didn't have sound but I can tell you what I witnessed visually. He went to one diner famous for something that to me looked like road kill but was actually a very large taco shell stuffed with meat and cheese and peppers and onions and more cheese. Then the whole thing was dipped in some sort of thick, gluey-looking mess and deep fried. Once out it was covered with more cheese, guacamole, a fiery red sauce and what looked like a stupid amount of bacon bits. The final plate was a horrific mess that could easily feed five people but of course, this was a dish for one. 

Next he went to a state fair with a “jumbo double-fried corn dog” on the menu. This was a 12-inch long “double wide” hot dog that was coated in batter and then deep fried. It was then cooled, coated with cheese, and placed lovingly in what looked like a full loaf of bread dripping with melted butter. Once "done" it was placed on a flimsy paper plate and covered with a helping of viscous and seemingly gelatinized baked beans and slices of what looked like pepperoni. What the hell even is pepperoni? I’m not sure I want to know. 

The desserts were even worse. Mountains of deep-fried ice cream and Snickers bars and massive plates (again for one) of fried dough covered in thick ribbons of chocolate sauce, caramel and whipped cream. I was nauseous…and riveted. But it was not so much the double-deep frying and melted gooey cheese and caloric content of these monstrosities that hooked me, it was the commercials between the food segments that had me fascinated.

They were almost exclusively for medications that will help treat you once you have ingested all the food that Guy Fieri is pushing.

These back-to-back commercials addressed all the things that will happen to you if you eat like Guy, especially if you consume the recommended portion size. The ads offered remedies for bloating, indigestion, constipation, excessive sweating, tooth and gum decay, heartburn and acid reflux. These commercials touted the efficacy of medications for flatulence, high blood pressure, diabetes, diarrhea, asthma, joint pain and most importantly, obesity. “Eat whatever the fuck you want,” they seemed to say. “As long as you are taking our drugs you’ll be fine.” The cooking segments were constantly interrupted by commercials for every semaglutide out there. As well as old faithful, Ozempic, I saw spots for Mounjaro, Wegovy. Zepbound, and something new called HERS. Enjoy yourselves folks, and never you mind that these quick fix weight loss drugs are now linked with vision loss and, in the worst cases, complete blindness. Because while these semaglutides do indeed help you eat less, they also constrict the flow of blood to the optic nerve causing a condition known as NAION, or non-arteric anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. In fact, seven out of nine patients taking semaglutides report new vision problems and in the worst cases complete and irreversible vision loss. When I brought this news to a friend of mine who was going back on Ozempic for the third time she laughed and said “well, I might be blind but at least I’ll be skinny.”

I couldn't hear the show or the commercials because I was not watching on my own screen, but the whole experience felt surreal. “Eat crap - take meds” seemed to be the overwhelming theme of everything that I saw during the three hours that I sat there, spellbound. In fact the only time I saw even a flash of what looked like healthy food (a large platter heaping with eggs and raw red beef surrounded on all sides by fresh fruit and veggies) was in one long and beautifully lit commercial….for dog food. 

The whole experience made me think of one of my favorite movies, Zoolander, when Will Farrell, as designer extraordinaire Jacobim Mugatu, screams out in frustration during a design meeting “I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!!!” 

And what would those space aliens currently flying over New Jersey in their “drones” think if they watched what I had watched? The inhabitants of planet earth simply cannot control themselves or their urges. “This is one messed up place,” I imagine them telepathically messaging each other. “Let’s get out of here.”

As an alcoholic and drug addict this entire experience made exceedingly clear to me what I’ve known for quite a while now. Everyone is addicted in however small a way to something. It’s human nature to reach outside of ourselves to make our insides feel better. Or at least calm down for a few minutes. For me the things that I put in my body to take myself out of my mind were drugs and alcohol. For others it might be a cheese steak, spicy mayonnaise and french fry sandwich - also known as “the heart attack.”

This is not to say that I don't occasionally eat troughs of cereal or vats of popcorn for dinner. But when I do fall back on any unhealthy coping mechanism I know exactly what it is I am doing. And through years of trial and error I have come to a hard-won conclusion. There is a voice that calls to me from my lower self. It beckons to me with the promise that if I do THIS, NOW, I will, for at least a minute, experience some relief, some well-deserved peace. But I have finally learned that that voice is (as Guy Fieri himself might say in his good ol’ boy, down-home drawl) “a goddamn, rootin’ tootin’, good-fer-nuthin’ liar.”