Via Caitlin comes this link to a great essay by Anthony Bourdain about what it was like to live in New York City in 1977. I really like how he is working at deromanticizing the punk era with statements like this:

The irradiated spawn of tormented loners who had grown up listening to the Stooges and the Velvets, wannabe poets, failed romantics -- anyone with enough enthusiasm or anger to pick up a guitar, it seemed, converged on the only place that would have them.

I'm really liking Bourdain lately. His Without Reservations show is good, but above and beyond that:

• His show used a Gentle Readers song as the background when they were at the Bada Bing.
• He had Harvey Pekar on a recent episode.
• He pointed out the sanctimonious fullness of shit of Sting in an episode from Peru. His point was that when Sting wants to preserve the way of life of indigenous people in the rain forest, he is asking them to stay in a brutally difficult lifestyle, working 14 hours every day of their life to survive in poverty. Bourdain pointed out that you might not be doing those people a favor and maybe it's time for that traditional way of life to end.

All in all, I think Bourdain has got it going on.