http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00E7D7...37A25756C0A9669C8B63

Anthony Bourdain's New York Times review of Mark Sudeen's Car Camping is a revealing misadventure. Anthony's greatest episode would be to reunite his lost East Coast roots with this revealing book of the loss of the West. Sudeen captures a human chapter across an unmythical place we now call the West and gets a sublime magic for anyone who's lived hardship in the Western States. Bourdain can capitalize on the mythical travelougue as filtered through Kerouac and Thompson, but he can't prove the true loss of all those who don't get a reality TV show paycheck. I found Sudeen's book in a used bookstore and after reading it, found Bourdain's
New York Times review dismissing Sudeen as "dry, juiceless cynicism." I grew up on the West Coast and lived for over a decade on the East Coast: the CBGB's of Anthony Bourdain's validation has so many dead souls attached to that name-he should pay his dues to the dead. And those who dare live it without Reality TV shows and New York Times freelance salaries are the real Kerouacs and Thompsons.

Soupspoon_New Mexico