New Reads And This Sopranos Nonsense

Finally got a hold of Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour. I read Kitchen Confidential when it came out years ago and really enjoyed it, but why they tried to turn it into a sit-com...I dunno. His show on the Travel Channel, however, is very good. The Food Network is awful anymore and I can't watch it, so No Reservations gives me my exotic food and travel fix. I wanna read The Nasty Bits and Typhoid Mary, but I'll prolly stay away from Bourdain's novels, despite my admiration for his writing style. I can't seem to get into fiction anymore. I may re-read an old favorite, such as Fred Exley's brilliant A Fan's Notes, or Donleavy's The Ginger Man, two books that are never far from my nightstand...uh, I mean milk crate, but fiction doesn't do anything for me lately. There's so much to learn out there and so little time. Certainly, fiction can often get closer to the truth of something like human emotion, but I'm a frickin' robot, so...And I like history.

Which brings me to America's Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon, by Mark Hamilton Lytle. "The Sixties" have always been grist for my mill, so I'm really lookin' forward to this one. Also in my bailiwick is Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950's and 1960's. (I seem to favor books with subtitles). Mort Sahl, Woody Allen, Dick Gregory, my man Lenny Bruce, and many others, analyzed and put into historical perspective.

I've always been a fan of The Sopranos, but I'm not gonna pollute the InterWeb with a tiresome assessment of the series finale. I enjoyed it and thought it was fitting. To those idiots who insist on speculating beyond the ending and the dimensions of the fictional world that is The Sopranos I say, "Get over it!" Did you see Tony get whacked? No! Then he didn't get whacked. Case closed. Yes, it's fun to use one's imagination, but television is not a highly participatory form of entertainment. Your input doesn't matter. We weren't voting on Idol. Ya' wanna participate, get a box of crayons!

You may notice that I have finally terminated my boycott of YouTube. I mean, fuck, I"m BLOGGING fer chrissakes, so what the hell.

My computer seems to be limping along okay so hopefully I'll be able to post more and more often...like anybody gives a shit. HULLO? Hullo? hullo? Dig that echo.