BAR RESCUE, HELL’S KITCHEN and The Benefits of a Good, Honest, Righteous Yelling

This happens a lot on Bar Rescue. Like, a lot, a lot.

Taffer’s fury rises as he runs through the litany, leading to the final question in a tone both booming and fuming. I’m right along with him, and then laughing.

There’s no bones about it: I freakin’ love Bar Rescue.

I do. Not just like it or enjoy it. I freakin’ love it. I can watch any episode as a pastime. If Bar Rescue’s on, likely I’m watching.

On a Sunday night, it comes on the same time as The Walking Dead (AMC). I enjoy a good episode of the gore-and-gloom slog featuring Rick “Kill ’Em All” Grimes & Co. as much as the next one of roughly 16 million people who watch each week. But I pick Jon Taffer yelling at hapless bar owners over Carol going Survivalist Rambo on everyone to watch live.

Sorry, guys. Catch you on the DVR or VOD.

Yes, I choose the Taffer Tip rather than Daryl’s arrow tip. Sunday needs some comedy, man, ’cause Monday is coming.

I know, I know: Call in my geek card now.

Thanks to Bar Rescue and Catch A Contractor (Adam Carolla?!?), I’ve seen more Spike, the longtime home of lame-brain dudebros, than SyFy. For now, anyway. SyFy is parlaying its Sharknado relevance to get back on its actual sci-fi game with 12 Monkeys and about a half-gazillion upcoming shows that show promise.

I appreciate a good, honest, righteous yelling.

I appreciate it even though yelling overall is largely out of favor. We live in times where, in the average workaday world, yelling at people is gauche if not considered low-level assault. Yelling is left to no-class aggressors, marks, thugs and hoochies populating reality television – the thing we all hate and love at the same time.

The same thing that, with the Love & Hip-Hop and Real Housewives of the world, you hear more than enough times in the black community as setting our people back. (But many of those same folks laugh in ridicule if somebody blames rappers for white kids using “the N-word.”)

Now, if they went on The Walking Dead …

Furthermore, I understand why yelling has its current low reputation. In the hands of bullies, yelling is abusive, destructive, soul-crushing and nihilistic. Getting yelled at can unleash a spiral of negativity and nastiness. It’s enough for people to ban yelling altogether. Abusive people have ruined a lot of it.

Simultaneously, while all this is going on, I also feel that at times feeling that the anti-yell attitude is colored by our no-more-authority, amateurism-centered, anti-expertise, decentralized way of living in the early 21st century first world. Then, spend a life being told everyone is equally special and everyone’s opinion on anything is equally valid, enhanced by technology that allows us all to do exactly that, and the slightest criticism turns into venomous attack.

This is exactly why I refer to the good, honest, righteous yelling.

Good. Honest. Righteous.

It’s a yelling born from caring, and the achievement of quality and respect and attention that is both self-aware and other-directed. It all says there’s something bigger at stake, and sometimes a person needs to be shaken from that complacency or ruinous behavior.

It’s a hard slap of consciousness in the face of unreason, a rattling of the cage to get at the real problem, and attempt to fix it. The yeller draws out anger, pride, caring, and the emotions bond to memories and the learning and improves the yellee.

I’m trying to help you!

When done well, and handled like the volatile but powerful chemical that it is, a good, righteous yelling sets someone on a better path. It’s part of coaching. Sometimes there’s the breaking down needed to build a person up.

Undercooked food in unclean conditions can sicken or kill a person. I want someone yelled at for that if they remain cavalier when presented with such a fact. Passing off low-quality spirits for top-shelf goods cheats people of their hard-earned money. An unlistening ear deserves to be yelled at for that until it takes heed.

The good yelling is fair, too. It’s often not the first response, and it has to be summoned. Someone shows they don’t care, then the yell is gonna come.

It’s always the goddamn scallops on this show.

I enjoy a lot of Gordon Ramsay’s reality shows, too. After years of watching Ramsay blow his top on Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares and such, there’s a difference between a yell and being loud.

In high-pressure atmopsheres with lots of noise, and money spent and earned in a hurry, there’s little margin for unaccounted-for error. You have to be loud to get that point heard in the fray. The loudness can deliver a threat or acclaim, as Ramsay often does.

But the real yelling? He saves that for the dinner service-derailing levels of fuck-ups. He saves it for raw food in a pan, rotten food in a walk-in kitchen, unclean hotel rooms. In those moments, people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake. If we can’t yell about that, then what?

So, sorry Stephen Marche of Esquire magazine, but I’m siding with the March 2015 issue’s ombudswoman Ellie Kemper. Commenting on Marche’s criticisms of Ramsay as a bullying loudmouth, Kemper said, “I worry this generation doesn’t appreciate a good yelling. As my SoulCycle instructors advise me, ‘It’s not supposed to be easy.’ They also urge me to ‘get comfortable with getting uncomfortable.’ And they suggest, ‘Please wipe down your bike seat when you are finished.’”

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star has a point. SoulCycle is ridiculous bullshit. And a good yelling comes about stuff that isn’t supposed to be easy. When done right, yelling doesn’t mean that you’re not good enough, but that the job you’re doing isn’t good enough. Stand by your work; do your best to be your best. Show you care.

When Ramsay’s restaurants get their acts together, or when Taffer’s bars gets professional equipment and a rededicated staff to match, the yelling gives way to embraces and laughter and tears.

A good yelling, in showbiz and life, starts with caring.

Bingo.