There are so many great things about working at BookStore1. We give and get smiles from super savvy customers, share the mountains and valleys of everyday life with our co-workers, shelve and research books and even write reviews.
A bonus is two of my co-workers share my film passion. Scott recently hipped me to the doc “City of Gold” about Jonathan Gold, the first food critic to win the Pulitzer Prize who dominated the Los Angeles area with sage restaurant critique. Sadly, Gold died in 2018 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 57.
In fact, how apropos that I watched this on the cusp of what would have been Anthony Bourdain’s 63rd birthday on June 25th. Anthony actually attributed some of his ideas to Gold as, “the first guy to change the focus from white tablecloth restaurants to really cool little places in strip malls”.
City of Gold, written and directed by Laura Gabbert, is a moving tribute to a man who loved food, music and family. As a kid growing up in South Central before the riots of the 60’s, he describes a halcyon world where all races lived in harmony.
Gold truly loved the city of L.A. and he gave back in spades by writing moving food reviews that inspired chefs and helped literally make dreams come true. If Gold thought a restaurant was worthy and wrote about it in the LA Times, it was pretty much destined for success.
The litmus test of a documentary in my eyes, is to make you want to be a better person. Recently, “Ask Dr. Ruth” accomplished the task and now so has “City of Gold”. I want to improve my writing, and actually thought of ideas while watching the doc on how to jazz up my restauarant review podcast (Jackontherox.com) and film podcast (Baker & Mollasis At The Movies on Spreaker.com. So look for future innovation all thanks to Jonathan Gold via Laura Gabbert via Scott. And R.I.P. Anthony Bourdain, gone but not forgotten.
