pinzoner and the blog

you need to start watching ‘anthony bourdain: no reservations’ on the travel channel, stat. to be perfectly honest, i don’t honestly believe that there is a single cable-having, digital switch-anticipating (time warner-cursing) soul out there that intentionally misses this show.  or maybe my standards for people are set too high. whatever.

i just dig this guy in an esoteric, middle school-crush sort of way. sigh.

having wanted to be a writer ever since i received my first print-related compliment, i am a sucker for anyone who can write like they speak and speak like they think. anthony bourdain’s narrative is so fluid, it doesn’t require transition words. my (respect? appreciation? obsession?) respect for his existence is too much for words. it’s not just his writing, it’s not just his global free fall, it’s not just his smugness. it’s him.

anthony bourdain has the polite apathy of the cool uncle, the life experience of a homeless vet, and the charm and arrogance of a supervillian. and oh-my-gawd does it work [for me]. he is regal, yet unrefined; profound, yet relatable  (“what can I say, I happen to be an aficionado of the dive bar”). by george, anthony bourdain could narrate the ‘roni lynn deutch, the tax lady’ commercial and i’d stiff the IRS just so i could qualify.

even if you don’t like ”food shows”–this is not a friggen “food show”–his on-going metaphor for all that is ingested is borderline tantric;  he likens food, in all of its masochistic decadence, to deliriously mind-blowing sex. hand check.

and what better way to familiarize oneself with a complete stranger than to read their witty catchphrases- one-liners that have better timing than other sentences and are too bold to be considered a punchline:

“when tony gets hungry, things die.”

“my house is run, essentially, by an adopted, fully clawed cat with a mean nature.”

“i’ll make fun of the french, thank you very much.”

“it’s not as much an expose as it is a memoir, with some things that seem to have shocked and horrified some of the civilian population.”

“it’s beer o’clock.”

“while strangely uncomfortable with the term ‘man’s man,’ I am honored to be included.”

“i was a rotten kid with a big vocabulary.”

ugh. insert “three” “greater than symbol” here.