9/5/07

T.V. Revision







I know that my last television post was a little outdated, with the Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Carnivale on the list, even though most of those shows are over.

So here goes my attempt to update the television offerings:

1. Living with Ed - I have only seen this once, but I am slightly amused at how Ed Begley Jr. and his wife trade cheap shots while he defends his decision to penny-pinch, like keeping a 17-year old carpet (it looks fine, what's wrong with it?), It might not turn out to be a great t.v. series, but for me it's worth checking in now and then to keep up on what his neighbor (Bill Nye) is up to.

2. Anthony Bourdain - No Reservations - Now this tight, intellectual show from the Travel Channel has become one of my must-see shows during the week. Any time I get to watch a famous chef get hammered in Hong Kong and eat squid balls (with the black ink) or cruise around the desert with a vagabond-hippie-character straight out of a Hunter S. Thompson book headed for Vegas, well, it makes for good t.v. in my opinion. What really gets me is his witty writing, his humanist views, his genuine curiosity and openness regarding strange food from other cultures. Add in his eloquent, timely narration and his penchant for beer and hard alcohol, and you have a winner. A recent show in Mexico focused on the border and how the two cultures exist.

He basically states that on the border there is an unavoidable mixing of the cultures, Americans and Mexicans working and living side by side, their lives intertwined by relation, work, food, and friendship and are only separated by those who are obsessed with lines and boundaries, and their attempts to keep the "others" out.

See it. I'm asking you to do it once. Watch it.