Tony Bourdain was a writer, a traveler, a chef, a complex man with problems and a father. As a fan of good writing, travel and food I was with Tony almost all of the time. We may not have agreed politically and he made a lot of choices I never would. A former heroin addict, he struggled to overcome his demons and I was rooting for him when he had discovered the eastern religion of Shinto and had taken up Judo to get himself healthy. I was sad to see him get re-hooked on cigarettes and when he started dating a screwy Italian actress/director I was concerned that bad things would come of it.
He committed suicide in France a few years ago after what many would consider a very successful life doing what he loved, he left no note, he had no drugs in his system, and his best friend true chef Eric Ripert will spend the rest of his life trying to forget that he was the one who found him.
Suicide is the most selfish event one human can inflict upon another. I am a strong advocate for getting people with mental health problems help, but I am an equal advocate in stressing that we each of us make our own mistakes and have to own up and face them, and that we can never truly overcome any struggle until we ourselves alone make the decision to do so.
You’ll note that I listed Tony’s accomplishments as a father last, that was intentional. By all reports he was a doting father but leaving your 11 year old with the sad fact that your father just committed suicide doesn’t get you a spot on the Mount Rushmore of Fatherhood.
I’ve met a lot of celebrities over the years, but I never met Bourdain. We were slated to be at the same event with our mutual publisher Dark Horse Comics (he was the author of graphic novels and loved the art form) but he left this mortal plain before that came to be. I’m not sure I would have wanted to meet him, I was certainly a fan of his work both with his book KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL and his TV show’s, first NO RESERVATIONS and to a lesser extent his excursion at CNN with a slightly edgier version of the same show now called PARTS UNKNOWN. Not one to watch Travel Shows which before Borurdain were things like Rick Steves PBS Series which makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit, and Andrew Zimmer who has a show where he travels to a place and eats the strangest thing on the menu, Tony’s shows weren’t afraid to tell us that the hands down best most amazing food can sometimes be found at a LAWSON’S Convenience Store in Japan. Specifically the fluffy Egg Salad Sandwich but I’d also strongly advocate for or the pancake sandwich which is a packaged little pair of pancakes with a dollop of butter and syrup placed between the layers. Either one can be had for less than 300Y. Who says you can’t eat well and cheap in Tokyo?
I liked Tony’s style, an older guy with moxie, and although I find both Tattoos and Cigarettes repulsive I liked that during his travels he would admit if a bit of food was less than stellar rather than only choosing pre-selected items on a menu giving the viewer the impression that everything about an area was amazing.
It took me over eighteen months before I could go back and watch any reruns of his show, and I started with my favorite episode of NO RESERVATIONS in which Tony and his sometimes travel buddy Russian Icon Zamir visited Romania and the tourist trap known as Dracula’s Castle. It was one of Tony’s worst travel experiences and it made for what I consider the best episode of the series.
It’s painful to watch knowing Tony’s pain, as with all suicides those left behind are wondering what they could have done to make a difference, and Bourdain’s suicide emphasizes the impact that’s felt even among people who didn’t actually know him.
Tony’s weathered rock star appearance made for great television, and his writing, as I’ve said in other posts, is on a level with Hemingway and Chandler, two of my favorite writers, the first who wrote directly and with no nonsense and the second who often waxed poetic while maintaining a masculine feel to his writing. Tony seemed to combine both;
“The only other sign that anyone had ever lived there was a lone chef’s jacket on a hanger in one of the closets — like an artifact, evidence of an ancient astronaut who’d been here before me.” From Tony’s KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL
It’s his voice-overs, almost always written himself during the show which makes them stand out from other inferior travel shows.
I still can’t binge watch his shows as I used to. I hope that someday I will, but for anyone thinking the world would be better off without them I’d urge you to get some help, recognize the selfishness of this kind of thinking, and the untold damage you’ll do to countless people inside and outside of your own circles who will be affected.
Because they will be.