The New York City transit system is loaded with advertisements promoting season 2 of the Food Network show, Ace of Cakes, which follows the everyday foibles of kick-ass, no-holds-barred pastry chef, Duff Goldman.

I realize it's pretty difficult to simultaneously communicate "bad ass motherfucker" and "bald guy who bakes special occasion cakes shaped like stuff that isn't cake." That made it so much more refreshing to discover that the creative team responsible for creating the ads rose to the challenge and decided the best way to telegraph Duff Goldman's cool factor was through the liberal use of the blackletter "Motorhead" typeface, and dressing Duff Goldman in a leather jacket and sunglasses. Cool people wear sunglasses ALL! THE! TIME!

If I worked for Duff Goldman and saw him walking around the bakery in sunglasses I suppose I'd have the same impulse I have whenever I see any sighted person wearing sunglasses indoors. I would want to walk up to him and, with a voice dripping with earnest concern, say, "Hey, I think you forgot to take your sunglasses off." This always seemed like a good approach to me—much preferable to saying, "excuse me, sir, but I think you forgot to stop acting like a complete nutsack"—because 99% of the time that person will pretend that, yes, he did forget to take off his sunglasses and then remove them, even if it does crush his heart just a little bit. The other 1% will get angry and threaten me with violence-by-fist-and-foot, which—let's face it—is totally cool.

I haven't seen ACE OF CAKES yet, but I think I can pretty much sum up its charm this way. You see, most pastry chefs are all, "La la la. I like marzipan, and I can make a cake shaped like a circle or a rectangle or some shit because I'm a FAIRY." But Duff Goldman (definitely his real name) is like, "Whatever, dude. You want a cake shaped like one of our show's corporate sponsors? No probs. Let's LIGHT IT UP MOTHERFUCK!!" And that's just what Duff Goldman does. He drives his motorcycle right up on the pastry workspace and revs his engine to mix the batter. Then he cakes it up hard and drives off to do some cool shit like drink an American beer or do a graffiti or maybe get a tattoo of a pastry tube squirting blood or some shit, you know? And then at the end, when he's all finished, instead of being like most pastry chefs and acting all, "well, I think we have outdone ourselves with this confection!" Duff is just like, "BOO-YA! LET'S ROLL 9/11!!!" And then he delivers the cake to Shaquille O'Neal in his motorcycle sidecar and Shaq eats the whole cake in one bite and is psyched! Cut to: Duff celebrating his latest cake by doing a guitar solo with his blues-funk band, The Master Bakers, while his employees are forced to watch and smile and stuff when they'd rather go home and play Nintendo. The end.