A few days ago, Anthony Bourdain’s show No Reservations took a trip to the sunny climes of Cleveland, Ohio. I watch this show fairly regularly, and though I love Bourdain in foreign locales, I also like when he tackles America. Watching him outside of a Chili’s restaurant in Texas and decrying its watered-down, insulting cuisine was an inspiring televised moment for me.
I like Bourdain not only for his wry attitude, but for his no-bullshit, merciless take on cuisine. He is equally comfortable in high-end restaurants as he is at a rural Mexican taco stand. He does seem to prefer the latter, but not for any elitist reason: he appreciates both ends of the food spectrum, from street stands in Singapore to the best of French restaurants. And when he dislikes something, his wit and verbal jabs are razor sharp.
Harvey Pekar, in contrast, is very much a working-class hero. Though I know little of his food likes and dislikes, he strikes me as the diner-and-coffee-shop sort of guy. His comic-book series American Splendor was brilliantly immortalized in on e of my top biopics, American Splendor, which first introduced me to Pekar’s immortal phrase “ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.”
It seemed natural for the producers – with Cleveland-based writer Michael Ruhlman acting as another go-between – to set up a meeting between Pekar and Bourdain. And so it happens, Pekar showing up with his arm in a sling, grumbling that he hopes to get some money from the producers for this job, and they proceed to have a great time at Zubar’s landmark bookstore (housed in a closed Twinkie factory, with Twinkie-ooze still seeping out of the ceiling pipes), eat at Sokolowski’s University Inn, and visit a meaty, greasy, mouthwatering place called The Sausage Shoppe (with Michael Symon). All in all, it’s a satisfying episode of one of my top TV shows of the moment.
Pekar created a fitting comic strip in which he offers his take on the proceedings.
Filed under: non-music | Tagged: american splendor, anthony bourdain, harvey pekar
