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A Tribute to Anthony Bourdain
Twitter is like my morning newspaper. I open it up on my iPad and start scrolling down through the various tweets to catch up on the overnight news. I follow a variety of sports, local and national and financial news tweeters, so it really is just like a newspaper.
As I scrolled, a few references to Anthony Bourdain appeared. What’s this, I thought. Then I saw the official news that Anthony Bourdain had taken his own life while in France.
I am a big fan of Parts Unknown. I’ve watched every episode, some multiple times thanks to Netflix. I’m a lover of food and travel, so Bourdain provided the opportunity to live vicariously through his travels around the world.
What I remember most about him was his love of the simple foods. Michelin star restaurants with their celebrity chefs serve up amazingly creative and fascinating food, but it’s out of the reach of the masses. I believe Bourdain was, at his core, a simple man and his love of exploring cultures didn’t include the fine dining but the simple, unique foods. Eating at street carts in Thailand and fried chicken diner in Mississippi meant more to him than a $500 dinner. And it was relatable.
Beyond the food, I loved how he explored the culture of each place in an unvarnished way. The show was at times raw, and he was as unfiltered as one can be on cable TV.
Of all the memorial tweets about Anthony Bourdain this morning, this one I appreciated the most.
Anthony Bourdain describing Waffle House is the single-most important description of America that has ever been articulated. pic.twitter.com/Up2mF7yisX
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) June 8, 2018
RIP, Anthony Bourdain. You will be missed.
Published in Entertainment
I too loved Bourdain. Here is I’ve of my favorites….
Bourdain’s Big Apple
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2005/aug/14/foodanddrink.features28
An excerpt …
For late-night bad behaviour, I am a devoted regular at Siberia Bar, located on 40th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, a few doors east of 9th Avenue. There’s no sign: just look for the unmarked black doors under the single red light bulb – and leave your conscience at the door. If Satan had a rumpus room, it would look a lot like Siberia: squalid, dark, littered with empty beer cartons, ratty furniture stained with the bodily fl uids of many guilty souls. It’s my favourite bar on earth. It has a great juke- box of Seventies punk classics and, no matter how badly you behave at night, no one will remember tomorrow. The crowd is dodgy and unpredictable.
When I mentioned Siberia to a rather proper editrix (of a glossy mag), she blushed at the memory of her night there: ‘Oh God! Siberia! Oh Jesus! I threw up into my Prada bag…it was absolutely the best night I’ve ever had in a bar. What I remember anyway…’ You never know who’s going to be draped over couches, or listening to live bands in the dungeon-like cellar – rockand- rollers, off -duty cops, drunken journos, cast and crew from Saturday Night Live, slumming fashionistas, post-work chefs, kinky politicos, out-of-work bone-breakers or nodding strippers. It’s heaven.
Alas, like Bourdain, Siberia, too is gone.
Bourdain was a welcome contrast to the culture of celebrity chefs and the pretentiousness of much of today’s “foodie” scene. I enjoyed his work, and, interestingly enough for such a globetrotter, always liked his shows in plain ol’ NYC. So . . . suicide. I can’t pretend to be inside his head, or anyone else’s who goes that route, but it’s just not something that I can find justifiable, especially for someone with family and loved ones.
Yeah. He had an 11 or 12 year old girl. Kate Spade a 13 year old girl. I can’t understand ….
FWIW, his Wikipedia article states that, as a lifelong and rather infamous smoker, he gave up smoking several years ago for his daughter. I understand that this is likely the product of profound depression (some of his history suggests self-medication), but I still don’t really comprehend.
I have always had suicidal tendencies; believe it or not, I actually also consider myself happier than most people, and have seen the same thing in others who struggle with depression: great joy and great pain often go together. I was raised in a very pro-life family, and that inoculated me to a large extent against suicide: I have never made an attempt.
I have to believe that those who do it just have no concept of the pain they leave behind. One of my cousins was murdered at age 31 in 9/11. The husband of a woman I grew up with killed himself at age 55; the pain left by suicide is infinitely worse than the pain left by murder, I promise you: I have attended funerals of both. Suicide is worse, so much worse. I wish more people understood that.
The suicide rate has been going up for a while now. When I came home from the funeral of my friend’s husband, I gave my own husband permission to leave me if he felt he needed to, to cheat on me, whatever: I told him that I would support him in anything he wanted to do as long as he never killed himself. I don’t know how to solve this problem, but we need to be kinder to each other.
Well said.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Parts Unknown but I have seen some No Reservations shows. He was very good at what he did. I spent my career with XOM traveling the world and would seek out foods and places he highlighted. Food brings so many memories. What a shame that he took his life. Thanks for writing the tribute – it has brought back some good memories.
I was really shocked to learn of Anthony Bordain’s passing. I loved his down to earthness and he clearly drank too much – you could see he was more comfortable sucking oysters in the bayous of Louisiana than the best restaurants in the world. I remember his friend Sameer would always turn up in Eastern Europe and Russia – he would push the envelope, asking questions you can’t ask in countries that aren’t free. I remember when he met his brother at a bistro in France and they talked about their French heritage, where he chose to end his life. So very very sad – this is happening too much.
I am 2500 miles away from home for the summer, and I wasn’t homesick in the least until the Detroit episode of Parts Unknown came on. I watched it and was homesick for the first time in my life. This was a few days before he died, and it made the news all the more devastating.
Rest in peace, Mr. Bourdain.
Contrary opinion here…Bourdain was a condescending snob. The way he spoke about other chefs reeks of insecurity. Ask Emeril if Bourdain is a “good guy”.
I get irritated at the post mortem canonization of folks who have spent their lives drinking and doing drugs then off themselves in a fit of depression. Why the adulation of them and not my next door neighbor who had a stroke? I don’t begrudge him death if that’s what he wanted, but I find little to admire.
I find little to admire in your comment. Where I come from, we try to say nice things about anybody who died, unless the person was Hitler or something. No one has written a post about your next door neighbor who had a stroke because we didn’t know about your neighbor. Maybe you could write a post telling us about what a good neighbor he or she was? That would be a nice way to honor and remember your neighbor.
The link below is to a story which tells how much Anthony Bourdain was loved in West Virginia. He did a segment there very recently. If it turns out that some people liked him, some people loved him, and some people hated him, that makes him no different than most of us. May he rest in peace, and prayers for his family.
http://wvmetronews.com/2018/06/08/west-virginia-remembers-anthony-bourdain-for-full-meals-open-mind/
We need to be kinder to ourselves.
How miserable life must be to refuse to acknowledge the good in people.
Nope. Life is good. No one is all bad or all good. I just dislike the wall to wall adulation of celebrities after their deaths.
I’m glad you feel free to bring this negative attitude into an post about someone who’s work I appreciated. I’ll remember this and avoid writing such posts in the future so you won’t feel the need to spoil it.
Feelings are what they are.
Suicide like this is a tragedy. Alas, I think there is a growing social component to it.