Did the Food Network cancel my main man Tyler?

Over the last month or two, my favorite Chef Tyler Florence has become extremely scarce on the Food Network. You can no longer find him in his customary 8:00 AM slot week days, nor can you really find him anywhere else. This is very disturbing.

Of course, Tyler may just be on hiatus at the moment, recharging his batteries. Rumor has it that he has been opening a new restaurant in Mill Valley California, one of my several former addresses, and things have not been going well with the staff. These things may be pre-occupying him. We hear further rumors that he will be appearing as a judge on new season of "The Next Iron Chef".

On the other hand, there are rumors that his last mini-series (The Great Food Truck Race) belly-whop-flopped in the ratings, and the Food Network handed him the responsibility for the loss. I will admit that I thought it was a whacky way to introduce us to an interesting development in the food industry these days. The introduction to the Food Truck movement was actually a lot more interesting than the rest of the series.

Incidentally, I should mention that the Kogi truck was parked right out in front of a new Condominum complex in my neighborhood this morning and afternoon. I have been mulling over the options of buying into this over-priced joint for several months now. The appearance of the Kogi truck at this location was like an appearance of the albatross at sea. It was a sighting of the bird of good fortune.

I was quite pissed-off that it just too damn early after surgery for me to try out their unique Korean/Mexican fusion cuisine. Oh well... Some other time.

For those who don't know about the Kogi truck, it is probably the most celebrated food truck in all of Southern California. This team has been the subject of numerous pieces by NPR, PRI, the Food Network, and the Cooking Channel.

Roy Choi, the owner and executive chef, is absolutely hysterically funny in most interviews. I will never forget the time he described himself as a "Culinary gangsta; a straight-up street thug slangin' tacos out of the back of a truck in the hood!"

No shit, eh? But I digress...

Let's hope Tyler hasn't broken his dick introducing us to an assortment of culinary gangstas slangin' food out of the back of a truck. Let's hope Tyler gets back on the tube quickly with a new show and a new format.

So you would really like to understand just what the hell happened to the global economy?

Just thought I would take a moment to line up the two most helpful resources I have found on the topic of the Great Depression II.

The first is an award winning radio documentary by PRI {Public Radio International} called "Giant Pools of Money". You can download the MP3 file or you can listen to it on the web here. This one is just tremendous. I hardly have a critical word to say about it. This is the critical foundation of your understanding of the financial market that was prior to the collapse, and how it came to be.

To understand how the house of cards collapse, you need to have a look at a video documentary by PBS Frontline called Inside the Meltdown. You can view the entire documentary here. The quality of the video stream is very good. This one is very dramatic and powerful, but not as expository and educational as the first. The great difficulty is the bias of the authors. They scarcely deal with the nationalization of Fannie and Freddy. Why? A sharp focus on quasi-public agencies established by a famed Democrat for progressive purposes might be damaging to the authors interests. The focus is sharply on Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers. This is generally good. These two malefactors are close to the core of the meltdown. In truth, this documentary should have been 3 or 4 hours long. They just didn't have enough time to document this incredible sequence of events that comprised the Meltdown.

Nevertheless, Inside the Meltdown is a powerful history of just what happened in 2008. I strongly recommend it.