You want to move? No, you just want here to be better

I don’t go for much reality tv, but of late there are a couple of programs on the Travel Channel that I regularly catch. The main one is “No Reservations” by Anthony Bourdain. The Rust Belt episode was on recently, you know with (e:Jbeatty) getting a lot of face time at the end. It’s become one of my favorite programs. It’s not just a food show, more of a food and culture show. There really isn’t anything like it, largely because of the host. Equal parts learned traveler, professional appreciator and snarkmeister, Bourdain does not play tourist, so much as seeks out the actual reality of a given location. It is definitely a job I want.

Lots of people were jazzed here about the 14 minutes he afforded Buffalo. It was nice video. I don’t really care that Schwabl’s made the cut instead of some other Beef on Weck joint. I am getting a little old to go celebrity spotting when he was here. It was too friggen cold for that. It was nice to see Ulrich’s get some face time, along with Nietzche’s in an unnamed cameo. Bourdain writes a lot of sentiments that I wish I’d written. One of those hit home last night when he was summing up Buffalo along with Detroit and Baltimore.

I've seen this episode a bunch of times before being a fan, but he hit on something that struck me.
At the end of the program, he showed a collage of folks from each spot, making themselves at home because it is home. It dawned on me that there is something to that. There is always that possibility that things COULD improve if you head out somewhere else, but that is a really big COULD. Might have made quicker hay elsewhere, but home is that for other reasons. I was reminded about that when some former classmates got together. My kids and my folks know each other and play a role in their respective lives. You can’t put a price about on that.

It’s the little things like that that cause the greatest amount of consternation when the Mayor pontificates or when the State Senate breaks down like an old Nash Rambler. The outline of a good thing is there and too many folks aren’t out to genuinely make it better. But you pick your places to make you stand in spite of those things. You look at what works around here and the vast majority of the success stories come in spite of the elected leadership.

I wrote about this a little in my own blog site and it got picked up by a journal writer in Baltimore who was a little miffed that Bourdain effectively gave a Berlitz style primer over the three cities as part of a large thesis. Each town is different and with its own set of problems. You could probably spend an hour in each region for a show but that probably will never be practical when you are talking about Buffalo, Baltimore and Detroit.

You take your cues from what effects your surroundings. My folks have never stopped looking for ways to improve our immediate surroundings and my former spouse and I have taken up that mantle with our lot.
Looking at Bourdain’s video postcard and a few scenes from “the T.O. show,” you could pick worse backdrops.

Cold beer at a reasonable price, indeed, Tony