Anthony Bourdain is celebrating 100 Episodes of No Reservations on Monday, September 6. Got a tribute for Tony? Say congrats or tell him what you would do 100 times. Upload your message to YouTube or post it to Twitter. We might even show it on the air.
Anthony Bourdain
July, 2010 Archive
100 Is Not Enough
The Original (Goodbye Splendor)
A few days ago, the city of Cleveland lost a truly great and important man. And I’m not talking about LeBron James. A hundred years from now, few–other than a few sports nerds–will remember him as much more than statistics on a long ago basketball court.
They will, however, remember Harvey Pekar, whose life and works will surely remain an enduring reference point of late 20th and early 21st century cultural history. Like those other giants of their eras, Twain, Whitman, Dos Passos, Kerouac, Kesey, the times he lived in cannot adequately be remembered without him.
In it, to Win it!
In other news, over at http://bourdainmediumraw.com, we’re running a contest associated with my latest book. The best 500 word essay gets published in a future paperback edition of MEDIUM RAW.
My publisher and I thought this was a pretty good prize for a previously unpublished writer of a short essay. But it has been widely suggested that this was in fact a cruel, cynical and exploitative exercise in “crowd-sourcing”. That instead of writing a few new paragraphs myself, we decided that this was somehow an easier, more cost-effective strategy for providing “content”–ripping off eager aspiring writers.
Your Pretty Face Goin' Straight to Hell
As is all too apparent, I’m getting old fast. An upcoming special–shot independently in 1999, illustrates (painfully) how old and how fast: I look–only 11 years ago–as someone who could pass for my own son. But the latest edition of Cigar Afficionado has just saved me from any delusional moves towards convertible coupes, lift and tuck or Just For Men.
I’m walking through an airport and passing a Hudson News and from a hundred feet away, I see something…strikingly…unreal against the back wall. It’s an image that sticks out a mile from all the other magazines. A big, doughy, lumpy, unnaturally black and tan image—-like a cartoon, gaping out at me.
GRACIAS!
I’m done.
My mad run cross country, held up by copious amounts of Afrin, Sudafed, throat spray, asperin, Woodford Reserve, Red Bull and beer is over. I’d gripe about grim hotel bathrooms and sleeping on airport floors but instead want to thank all the people who had it a lot worse than me–who cheerfully drove for hours, stood out in the heat and sun, lined up in sweaty theater lobbies, got stacked into bookstores with struggling air conditioning, were herded into lines–and then flung in the general direction of yours truly –all for a blurry photo and a hurried signature.
I hope I spelled your name right.
