Given the number of restaurants in his empire (as it were), Gordon Ramsay would be a very busy man even if he didn’t have a TV series. As it happens, however, he actually has four of them: “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Kitchen Nightmares,” “Masterchef,” and, most recently, “Hotel Hell.” With less than a 10-minute window available for a chat after his appearance at the Television Critics Association press tour last month, Chef Ramsay and I didn’t have a chance to get terribly in-depth about any topic for Bullz-Eye, but I was able to get a little bit of insight into how he transitioned from the soccer field to the kitchen, how he handles himself behind the camera, and how long his “Hell’s Kitchen” winners tend to stick around his restaurants.

Bullz-Eye: The first thing I must tell you is that I have a seven-year-old daughter who says she’s pretty sure that she can cook scallops better than some of your contestants on this go-round of “Hell’s Kitchen.”

Gordon Ramsay: So has my daughter. [Laughs.] I have three daughters – 10, 11, and 13 – and Megan, the oldest, said, “Daddy, I can cook scallops better than any of your sous-chefs on ‘Hell’s Kitchen.’” So it gets a little bit embarrassing. But, you know, it’s not the one portion, it’s cooking for an entire restaurant that gets them, because it’s down to the timing. No one can prepare you better for that service than experience. You can’t just walk into it. You’ve got to be prepped big-time. So I suppose the big frustration at home, with everyone saying, “I can do better than that,” is because they’re looking at one portion. Yet the most important thing is cooking the scallops perfectly across the entire night.

BE: To start at the very beginning, I understand you were actually on your way to a career in football – by which I mean soccer, of course – at one point.

GR: Yeah, wow, a long time ago now. Yeah, you’re right, but, I mean, what do you do? Do you sit there and get bitter and think ‘it could’ve been’ or ‘it may have been’ or ‘what happens if,’ or do you get on with it? So I picked myself up. Mom and Dad were going through a real shitty divorce at the time, so it was sort of getting out of one big negativity spot and following your second dream. I think everybody deserves a second chance in life, and nobody’s perfect, so with head down…

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A hallmark of attending the Television Critics Association press tour and the various panels and events surrounding it is that you really never know who you’re going to end up chatting with. On one evening this time around, I went to the Paley Center and found myself chatting with Joe Regalbuto (known to most for “Murphy Brown”, though I’ll always remember him best as Rex Smith’s scientific sidekick on “Streethawk”) and “Waltons” creator Earl Hamner, Jr., then had a chance to say “hello” to one of my past interview subjects for both Bullz-Eye and the Onion AV Club, Ed Asner. But that was a special Warner Brothers event celebrating the history of the studio’s TV series, so I wasn’t entirely blindsided by their appearances there…unlike the gorgeous blonde in a traffic-stopping dress who strolled into the CBS all-star event even though, I felt quite certain, she wasn’t actually on a CBS show.

I mean, you wouldn’t forget someone who looks like this, would you?

And I was right, as it turns out.

Well, sort of, anyway: Iliza Shlesinger isn’t on CBS, per se, but she hosts the syndicated dating show “Excused, “which – provided it appears in your market – appears in on your TV screen courtesy of CBS Television Distribution. Funnily enough, I’d worked with her publicist on several past projects, which is why the publicist came up to me and asked, “Would you like to talk to Iliza?” Like I’d turn down an offer like that…

(Plus, as I told Ms. Shlesinger a few minutes later, I also immediately thought, “Hey, I’ve actually watched that show, so I won’t have to sit there bluffing my way through the next several minutes!”)

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Now that I’m back from the January 2012 TCA Press Tour, I’m very, very tired…and, trust me, if you knew how much work I’d done during the course of the tour – January 3 – 15 – then you’d understand why I’m so very, very tired. I tried to attend as many of the panel coverage of the next six months of television as I possibly, but given that I was bouncing between one-on-one interviews throughout the day and trying to round up a few more every night, I’m not going to pretend that I was able to attend them all. I attended enough of them, however, that it doesn’t take a great deal of effort to produce a collection of my favorites quotes of the tour. That’s not to say this is all of them, mostly because some of the panels (like, say, “Archer”) were very much of the you-had-to-be-there variety, but it’s enough to give you an idea just how entertaining the last two weeks have been.

Tiring as hell, but definitely entertaining.

“When (Johnny Carson and I) talked, after 12 years of writing him, in 2002 he finally actually called me, and I thought it was a joke when on the PA it said “Peter, Johnny Carson on 601.” And he said, “Peter, it’s Johnny Carson. I want to tell you, you write a damn fine letter, but I’m not going to participate in anything on my life because, you know what? I don’t give a shit.” He said, “One day something may get done, and you know what? You’re probably the guy to do it. But it will never happen while I’m alive. I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do. I’ve said anything I want to say. There is nothing more.” – director Peter Jones on trying to secure an interview with Johnny Carson for the long-gestating “American Masters: Johnny Carson”

“To be honest, it’s one of two minutes in a 90 minute episode, and it’s pre the 9 o’clock BBC watershed. There is nothing that you see. It’s very suggestive. It’s very clever camerawork, and it’s just a character device. It’s not about nudity being displayed in ‘Sherlock.’ She’s a dominatrix. Nudity is nothing to her, but it was no mean feat for me to shoot it being naked for eight hours in just a pair of Louboutin shoes. (It) was a challenge…and one I’ve never met before.” – Laura Pulver on her nude scene in “Sherlock II”

“One of the things that is amazing is to look back at a song that is so inevitable, like ‘Over The Rainbow.’ That’s like a folk tune. We all know it so well. And I discovered that (songwriter) Yip Harburg was having trouble coming up with an idea for the words that proceeded ‘rainbow.’ ‘Somewhere beyond the rainbow.’ ‘Somewhere near to the rainbow.’ It just didn’t feel right. And then he came up with ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ because, as a lyricist, he realized that the ‘o’ sound sang well, and it was a pleasing for a singer. And, technically, it worked right, and it gave him the right setting for the word ‘rainbow.’ ‘Somewhere over the rainbow.’ And then I discovered that, the end of that song, they were having trouble with it.

“Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen, Arlen being the composer and Harburg being a lyricist, they were having trouble with the last line of the song. And they were working at Ira Gershwin’s house, and they couldn’t come up with the idea to end the whole thing. They’d gone through the whole song, and they couldn’t come up with the end. And they were working for hours at Ira Gershwin’s house, and he was tired, and he wanted to go to bed. So he said, ‘What about ‘Birds fly over the rainbow. So why can’t I?’ And they said, ‘Hey!’ And he gave him the idea, the whole end of it, and then he came up with this: ‘If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why, oh, why can’t I?’ And when Mr. Gershwin was alive, I said, ‘Ira, why did you meddle in somebody else’s songwriting?’ He said, ‘Because it was late and I wanted to get to bed.’” – Michael Feinstein on “American Songbook II”

“I had great Italian American family that were in the grocery business. And it was during the Depression, and we were all very, very poor. The whole country, the majority of the country was really, really poor, a lot worse than it is today. And so my father died when I was ten and my brother and sister and I would entertain my family because my family all my uncles and nephews and aunts and relatives they all would come over on a Sunday and make a circle around my brother, sister, and I. And they were so knocked out with trying to make my mom feel good because she had to work on a penny a dress to raise three children, and the whole family felt so much for her, but they wanted to show her how much they loved her children. And they treated me and my brother and my sister with so much love, and they I remember at a very early age, they said to me, ‘Look at the way he makes us feel good, you know, and he’s so happy, and he’s always doing something to make us feel good, and look at the way he paints flowers and all that.’ I remember very clearly saying, ‘This is who I am. My family is telling me that I sing and I paint,’ and they created a tremendous gift in my life to continue that, and each year it’s become stronger and stronger. I will never retire, and, you know, if my voice goes, I’m still going to paint. I just want to keep improving as I go on, and it’s just taught me what a beautiful life it is to be possessed with. It’s not that I want to do it. I have to do it. And it will always be that way. I will never retire.” – Tony Bennett on the secret to his longevity

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The publicity train for “Outsourced” keeps rolling on, and I have no problem catching it whenever I have the option to do so. Even though I’d already talked to Diedrich Bader and Parvesh Cheena during the Winter 2011 TCA Press Tour, I hadn’t talked to them together, so when NBC offered them up as part of the satellite tour for the show, I said, “Sign me up.” Now, granted, I thought I was going to be getting a video clip of their side of the conversation, and I didn’t, which is kind of a bummer, but the guys’ ability to ad-lib and bounce off each other is in great evidence here, so I’m still glad I took the time to chat with them again.

Diedrich Bader and Parvesh Cheena: Hi, Will!

Bullz-Eye: Hey, guys , how’s it going?

DB: (Suspiciously) Say, didn’t I just talk to you the other night?

PC: (Laughs) Good to talk to you again!

BE: Well, you guys are making your 10:30 PM debut with an episode filled with Bollywood dance numbers, singing, guitar playing…the perfect opening salvo for the new timeslot.

DB: Absolutely. We’re entering with a bang. And a sitar.

PC: And a tabla, too!

BE: So, now, was this huge episode by design, or was it already in the works before you got word of the move?

PC: Well, I had a little bit of creative input, and it was very nice, because I said, “Anisha can kind of sing, and her character’s so quiet, anyway, so we might as well give her a little bit of something to do.” But primarily it was more for me to showcase my t-shirt making ability for my fans. The Guptees. Our album will be dropping later this spring, by the way. It’s called Hey, Hey, We’re the Guptees.

DB: By the way, none of this is true. He just made up all of that.

PC: No, no, no.

DB: Uh, yeah. (Laughs) We were going to do a big musical episode, and we kind of wanted to start off the new timeslot with a splash, and…you’ll see what a deep bench we have, talent-wise, because Anisha can really sing, and Parv…does what he does.

PC: He’s just a little sore because I did not use any of his original choreography.

DB: (Growling) Yeah.

PC: I decided to go with Fred Tallaksen, who is a big choreographer here in LA. He choreographed two of Madonna’s tours.

DB: (Sarcastically) Oooooooh, Madonna! Who’s Madonna?

PC: (Dismissively) All right, Diedrich, sorry she’s not Lady Gaga…

BE: So there are worse places to be than following “30 Rock.” Are you guys pleased to be part of NBC’s great 3-hour comedy experiment?

PC: Yeah, it’s going to be awesome: comedy night done right all night.

DB: (In awe) That’s so good!

PC: Thank you. I came up with that, too, so it’s nice to know that I’m gaining a little bit more traction in marketing and branding.

DB: Oh, yeah, he’s very good at that. He’s like Madonna.

PC: Lady Gaga, I thought, was your favorite. You can’t have both.

DB: No, that’s true. But they’re basically the same person.

PC: No, Diedrich. No, they are not.

BE: Diedrich, your fellow cast members seem to have been mildly surprised to discover what a consummate professional you are. Have you always taken your comedy seriously?

DB: No. I don’t take it seriously at all, and I think that’s very helpful. I don’t learn my lines or know any of the cast members’ names. Or anyone, really. I just come in and I do what I do, which is offend everyone as much as I possibly can. And then I leave after I’ve slapped most of the cast.

PC: He’s called me many different names.

DB: Who are you, anyway?

PC: On set, he’s called me Parvaish, Gupta, Bara, Rajel, and a bunch of others.

DB: And sometimes I just say, “Hey, you, get me a cup of coffee.”

PC: And I do.

DB: Yeah. He does.

PC: Because I was taught to respect my elders.

DB: (Bursts out laughing)

BE: Parvesh, Rizwan Manji said that you once took a video of the inside of his nose. Do you have directorial aspirations or just an odd nasal fetish?

PC: No, actually, I do have… (Takes a deep breath) Being a director is one aspect that I’m very good at. I do also do, like, the crevices of the human body. In between the toes is going to be my next visual. For all of those who like feet, I’ll be video-taping Rebecca (Hazlewood’s) and Anisha (Nagarajan’s) toes. So that is a definite niche market.

DB: Oh, yeah. ‘Cause it’s Anisha.

PC: (Bursts out laughing) It’s the niche of Anisha!

BE: Speaking of Anisha, she’s of the belief that Gupta has been slapped by just about every character on the show. What do you think it is about him that brings out physical violence in others?

PC: You know, I like to think of it as a mirror that’s held up to everybody. Gupta really just wants you to be the best, and sometimes people aren’t ready for it.

DB: This is something that the writers took from real life. We like to beat up Parv as much as we possibly can. I was just chasing him around a little earlier, before the interview started. I didn’t catch him, so I’m hoping that when we cut I can catch him and just slap him around. It’s kind of a thing: the writers pay attention to our real lives. That’s what’s exciting about the show.

PC: Apparently, it’s something like, “If you catch him, you get to slap him around a couple of times.”

DB: That’s right. It’s kind of a game. Now, the crew’s taken it on, because, you know, we love our crew, so they’ve started to beat up Parv, too.

PC: But it’s also helping me, because I was 225 pounds before.

DB: He’s lost a lot of weight. A whole other Parv, basically.

PC: It’s true. I’m down to 210. So something’s working.

DB: It’s really exciting. For all of us. Although he is faster now. But, you know, we’ve all lost weight. We’re all coming down together.

PC: I’d like to think that the fat has converted to muscle. It’s all right here in my thighs.

DB: Right. (A beat) You can think that.

BE: Lastly, what can we expect from the rest of the season? Or at least for the next couple of episodes, anyway?

PC: Oh, you have a big episode.

DB: I have a big episode coming up where Charlie finds out that Tanya and Todd are dating, and it breaks his heart. And he kills somebody.

PC: So I’d like to start saying my goodbyes to everyone. It’s been really fun being on national television.

DB: Oh, way to let it out of the bag. I guess you’ve got the scoop, Will: we kill Gupta.

PC: Yes, but since this is India, I am reincarnated the next episode. And, you know, we don’t lose a beat.

DB: He’s like a phoenix. He rises from the ashes again and again and again.

PC: Yes. (A beat) Actually, I like to think of myself as a cat.

DB: Of course you do.