What are your thoughts on Anthony Bourdain?

[Anonymous]

Lots of the most fascinating, original, influential people in the world are are jerks. It takes some arrogance and/or lack of balance to stand out from the crowd. You might not want to be married to or parented by such a person, but anyone who says he seemed like a jerk in real life so I simply can’t get the fuss over his death is a rank idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I liked him. He was deeply troubled, flawed, and romantic and wayward. I didn’t know about the cheating thing, but I can see it.. he was hard and rough, but tender and wide eyed. To me, that was his appeal.

He never tried to be, in many ways. He represented the punk era to me.. the Johnny Rottens and Sid Viciouses, the men who are so angry and lovely. The immense respect for the bigger things, the impatience for the inconsequential minutiae of “proper life”. Tolerance for the great street food of some back corner, but disdain for the pomp and fluff of office people like PP mentioned - I get it. A searcher’s spirit whi never feels like they belong. Walk into almost any “anonymous” meeting around the world, and you’ve got 50 of those in one room.

He was a jerk at times, but he also never hid it or pretended otherwise, and that, I appreciate. He was always reaching, learning, wandering, and growing. He shared and thirsted and didn’t hold back. And that, I appreciate.

All of this. I admired him and was terribly sad when he died.

[Anonymous]

He was a visionary genius and brilliant writer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m horrified by the impulsive nature of his suicide. I had assumed that he had been troubled for a long time, but to find out that he did it (and was making other bad choices) due to a woman who was cheating on him was just a gut punch.

He WAS troubled for a long time. He was drug addict at a very young age.

Suicides can seem impulsive, in that they have triggers (a break up or firing, for example), but people who are healthy and strong when they encounter life's disappointments do not generally chose that option.

[Anonymous]

I HATED Kitchen Confidential. He came across as a blowhard who thought very highly of himself as a bad-ass because he knew how to chop an onion. I've grown up in restaurant kitchens and have worked in them as an adult. He portrayed kitchen work as something only degenerates and immigrants (with few other choices) would take on. Just because you were a vile person in the kitchen, doesn't mean everyone else is too, Tony. That being said, I enjoyed his travel shows, even though his attitude seemed to follow two extremes - pure reverence or total snark towards the locals.

[Anonymous]

Seemed like a total jerk. I'm sorry he didn't get more help before he took his own life.

[Anonymous]

Total dick. And I thought he was incredibly ugly. World is better off without him.

[Anonymous]

Saw him first on his show. He gave off an unhappy vibe, so I never really go into him. Sad to hear of his passing as I would of anyone cutting their life short.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I HATED Kitchen Confidential. He came across as a blowhard who thought very highly of himself as a bad-ass because he knew how to chop an onion. I've grown up in restaurant kitchens and have worked in them as an adult. He portrayed kitchen work as something only degenerates and immigrants (with few other choices) would take on. Just because you were a vile person in the kitchen, doesn't mean everyone else is too, Tony. That being said, I enjoyed his travel shows, even though his attitude seemed to follow two extremes - pure reverence or total snark towards the locals.

I've always kind of wondered if the success of Kitchen Confidential and its "we're-a-lawless-pirate-crew" schtick was just a symptom of the macho, harrass-y culture of restaurants or also a partial cause of it.

[Anonymous]

To the pp's who spoke of him being punk rock and like the johnny rottens in the world, I agree....He was brilliant but he had an underlying anger, maybe a rage (maybe sadomasochistic dynamics ) and an inability, as he said himself, to let himself be loved. That's a deep problem. He was also enormously talented and loveable despite these demons.

I think he was on the run...from what, we will never fully know. But I do know one of the most poignant moments in the documentary was his talking with Iggy Pop. Pop was radiant basically as he talked about just learning to be in a moment, to just feel love for who he was with and to let himself be loved...bourdain seemed floored and unable to relate. Maybe he had very early trauma that changed him deeply, (I think his severe drug use suggests this) . Maybe he suffered from an unrelenting, nasty depression that was never far away, maybe he was angry, maybe he was humiliated by his girlfriend's betrayal and in his rage about her failures, turned against himself. In the end he was a sort of crushed idealist I think....angry at the world, himself..no one could measure up, he could find no light to hold on to and he took it out on himself, which was a huge, damn shame. He suffered for a long time I think and I suspect the disease process of suicidality was in play for him over much of his life. (There is a recent book out written by a writer who named his suicidal attempts and preoccupation with death as a disease and I think it's a compelling idea). May he rip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A bright, complicated, talented person who couldn’t escape the darkness within. I loved Kitchen Confidential and found watching him on Parts Unknown absolutely riveting.

I envied him for his lifestyle, imaging that I could be his side kick. But he had many demons and never discussed his childhood so he died a mystery man to me

RIP Tony, wish you could make an episode from wherever you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Total dick. And I thought he was incredibly ugly. World is better off without him.

No he took us to places we wouldn't have the guts to go to. He was an educator.

[Anonymous]

Loved no reservations. Didn't like when he was on CNN. Loved kitchen confidential.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m horrified by the impulsive nature of his suicide. I had assumed that he had been troubled for a long time, but to find out that he did it (and was making other bad choices) due to a woman who was cheating on him was just a gut punch.

He WAS troubled for a long time. He was drug addict at a very young age.

Suicides can seem impulsive, in that they have triggers (a break up or firing, for example), but people who are healthy and strong when they encounter life's disappointments do not generally chose that option.

"Suicide." I'm still not convinced.

He said just a few days before he died that he "had things to live for." He also hung himself with a bathrobe belt, which would likely not support a 200 pound man's full weight which means he probably tied it to a doorknob and sat down. Dude's best friend found him first, my personal theory is that is was a choke and stroke gone awry and his friend did him a final solid and zipped him up so it would look like suicide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I adored his writing style.

This was most of it for me. He was an enormously talented writer with an original voice. I found his books and shorter works captivating, and was especially struck by the way he never white-washed anything when describing his somewhat sordid past.

I loved his writing.

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold. Oh, I'll accomodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate', if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.”