Rachel Ray and Soundgarden

At the gym tonight, trying to treadmill away a few bottles of wine, I clicked on the TV to the food network. I normally don't do this, and normally can't stand the treadmill for more than five minutes, but I was armed with a new set of headphones and wanted to try out the individual treadmill TV with said headphones. I usually try to run to CNN with no sound - no 'phones = no sound - and the 4 minute news cycle is perfect for my limited appreciation of the charms of the treadmill.

But tonight, I switched on the Food Network and there was Rachel Ray (hereafter referred to as RR). RR was making chili mac. She didn't call it that, just kept referring to the combination of pasta in meat sauce with chili. But it was true chili mac, and a nice one. I watched, listening through the new headphones, for a good fifteen minutes. At the commercial break, I popped the plug out and back into my ipod. I picked Soundgarden's "Badmotorfinger". Easily one of the best three albums of all time. I kept running, picking up the paste with 'Rusty Cage".

Then RR came back on. Silent, of course, but digging the food and the camera, moving lushly around the kitchen, smashing a garlic clove with that huge smile, and leaning over to show that huge rack, and I got it. Again. I love RR. And I love Soundgarden. And the modern heavy metal grunge of Badmotorfinger fits perfectly with RR' curves and obvious love of food.

Confused? I was too. Now, four hours and two glasses of wine later, I am working to tease the connection out of my mind. Why? I love Soundgarden. Great sound, great album (BMF) that changed my perception of music forever. Blasting and morose and brutal and beautiful. Described by one reviewer as a "funeral dirge for the millennia" or somesuch. Peak of their creativity and of grunge heavy metal.

I also love RR. She is fun and loves food and loves life and laughs loud and a lot. I'd like to spend a long weekend with her in a t-top Camaro touring northern Arizona with a bottle of vodka in a bag of ice on the floor. Rob a convenience store with squirt guns and hole up in a Holiday Inn. Laugh all day long and grab burgers from the diner and sleep 'till noon. Not creepy or sexy, just blasting through the sun and having a ball and throwing litter out of the car as we finish burger and beer.

How do they go together? I feel it, but struggle to say it. The small town teenboy, cruising McDonald's Friday night cranking Rush and digging the girls with the tight Chic jeans, too young yet to run to fat but definitely headed there, he digs them both. The chef that just wants his music and his food to be bold and powerful, simple and strong on the surface with a complex detail accenting the basic, he digs them both. The man that longs for the simple, solid sounds and tastes, but unable to let go into solid stolidity, he digs them.

Rachel Ray and Soundgarden.

For President.

http://www.last.fm/music/Soundgarden/Badmotorfinger