RIP Anthony Bourdain

[vash]

Swan’s Oyster bar was lined around the corner. Apparently it’s his first stop when he visits SF. Always.

The news crew were there. He love that city.

[RANDY P]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

Are we sure the divorce was about his work?

Was he partially involve as a producer? Did he have some say on the traveling?

According to him, yeah. Too much time on the road.

Does seem excessive.

What sux is this truly ends any 'new' broadcast programming I was watching. No more shows to watch. I can throw away my DVR now.

rjp

[Baz]

[Baz]

Here's an entire episode......

[recycled sixtie]

Being in the public a lot changes things. AB was not a normal guy who could own a Porsche and spill his guts on a Porsche forum like this. He probably felt too detached in his public life to reach out. This forum has the back of many folks and will continue to do so.

A simple mistake made by a person has consequences not foreseeable. We don't know for sure what he did or did not do. I know that suicide is illegal and amazed at why and how people do it. A sense of community is essential for a person's well being and the internet does make that connection.

[widgeon13]

An intriguing personality for sure. I don't think he had any phoney in him, what you see is what you got. I didn't realize that he was into heroin and crack at some point in his life. He must have really been troubled to take his life after so much success.


He may very well have been the best that CNN had to offer!

[recycled sixtie]

Originally Posted by widgeon13

An intriguing personality for sure. I don't think he had any phoney in him, what you see is what you got. I didn't realize that he was into heroin and crack at some point in his life. He must have really been troubled to take his life after so much success.

If he did take heroin and crack then he was not concerned about his health. My doc told me once that I did not have an addictive personality which I consider a good thing. I get hung over on two beers anyway. Obviously there are people out there that do have an addictive personality and then it becomes a slippery slope.

[widgeon13]

The news of Anthony Bourdain‘s apparent suicide has rocked the entertainment and culinary worlds. The chef-turned-TV host was found dead in his hotel room in France where he was filming his hit CNN show, Parts Unknown. He was 61 and leaves behind an 11-year-old daughter.

While circumstances around his passing are unclear, an untimely death is something the acclaimed author had discussed throughout the years, given his openness about substance abuse and his struggle to get clean nearly three decades ago.

“Drugs and addiction are two different things,” he reflected to Biography.com in 2016. “All I can tell you is this: I got off of heroin in the 1980s. Friends of mine from the ’70s and ’80s, they just got off five, six, maybe 10 years ago. And we’re the lucky ones. We made it out alive. There are a lot of guys that didn’t get that far. But you know, I also don’t have that many regrets either.”

He added, “Look, man, the only thing that matters is life or death. That’s the edge. Embarrassment, shame, humiliation, I can live with those. I’m used to it. Why hang onto it, though?”

Bourdain wasn’t quick to label his life “charmed.”

“I don’t know about ‘charmed.’ But I’m still here — on my third life, or maybe fourth. Who knows? I should’ve died in my 20s,” he said. “I became successful in my 40s. I became a dad in my 50s. I feel like I’ve stolen a car — a really nice car — and I keep looking in the rearview mirror for flashing lights. But there’s been nothing yet.”

Bourdain was working as the executive chef at Les Halles in 2000 when he published his memoir, Kitchen Confidential that changed everything. He was never shy about discussing his past drug use — something that was rampant in his world. He first dabbled with drugs in high school when he fell in love with an older girl, Nancy Putkoski. He followed her to Vassar College in 1973 — before dropping out after two years and enrolling at the Culinary Institute of America — and the two wed in 1985. (The marriage ended in 2005.)

“That kind of love and codependency and sense of adventure — we were criminals together,” he said in a New Yorker profile last year. “A lot of our life was built around that, and happily so.”

Bourdain told the publication that he bought his first bag of heroin on Rivington Street in 1980. “When I started getting symptoms of withdrawal, I was proud of myself,” he stated, saying he copped every day as it held a special allure. But that grew thin.

“Getting ripped off, running from the cops,” he recalled. “I’m a vain person. I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror.” Bourdain switched to methadone, but quit cold turkey around 1987 after getting over it. Then he spent several years addicted to cocaine. “I just bottomed out on crack,” he told the New Yorker. It was so bad that sometimes between fixes, he would dig paint chips out of the carpet in his apartment and attempt to smoke them on the off chance that they were pebbles of crack.

Bourdain recalled an instance when he was riding in a taxi with three friends after getting heroin on the Lower East Side. He was telling them about an article he read on the statistical likelihood of getting off drugs. “Only one in four has a chance at making it,” he told them. In Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain wrote that he made it and his friends had not. “I was the guy.” He got clean around 1990, but still drank alcohol, as evident on his shows No Reservations and Parts Unknown.

“Most people who kick heroin and cocaine have to give up on everything. Maybe because my experiences were so awful in the end, I’ve never been tempted to relapse,” he wrote in his first memoir. “You see me drink myself stupid on my show all the time. And I have a lot of fun doing that. But I’m not sitting at home having a cocktail. Never, ever. I don’t ever drink in my house. … When I indulge, I indulge. But I don’t let it bleed over into the rest of my life.”

The television host also discussed thoughts of depression. In a 2016 episode of Parts Unknown, Bourdain traveled to Argentina for psychotherapy — something widely popular in the country.

“Well, things have been happening,” he says on camera. “I will find myself in an airport, for instance, and I’ll order an airport hamburger. It’s an insignificant thing, it’s a small thing, it’s a hamburger, but it’s not a good one. Suddenly I look at the hamburger and I find myself in a spiral of depression that can last for days.”

“It’s like that with the good stuff too,“ he added. “I have a couple of happy minutes there where I’m thinking life is pretty good.”

Bourdain also spoke about feeling out of place. “I feel like Quasimodo the hunchback of Notre Dame — if he stayed in nice hotel suites with high-thread-count sheets, that would be me. I feel kind of like a freak, and I feel very isolated,” he admitted.

He also opened up about his trouble with communication. “I communicate for a living, but I’m terrible with communicating with people I care about. I’m good with my daughter,” he said. “An 8-year-old is about my level of communication skills, so that works out. But beyond that I’m really terrible.”

Bourdain also told the therapist about a recurring dream he’s had “for as long as I can remember.”

“I’m stuck in a vast old Victorian hotel with endless rooms and hallways trying to check out, but I can’t,” he said. “I spend a lot of time in hotels, but this one is menacing because I just can’t leave it. And then there’s another part to this dream, always, where I’m trying to go home but I can’t quite remember where that is.”

Regarding his depression, Bourdain brushed off the public’s response. “I’m not going to get a lot of sympathy from people, frankly,” he said on the episode. “I mean, I have the best job in the world, let’s face it. I go anywhere I want, I do what I want. That guy over there loading sausages onto the grill, that’s work. This is not so bad. It’s alright. I’ll make it.”

As much as Bourdain loved his job — which had him traveling about 250 days a year — he often described life on the road as lonely. “I’m living the dream,” Bourdain told People in 2016. “I have the best job in the world and I’m very grateful for that. And I don’t plan on walking away from that any time soon, I can assure you — but it comes at a cost.”

His marriage to Ottavia Busia ended earlier that year with his schedule being partly to blame. “I now wake up alone in lot of faraway places looking at beautiful vistas and doing interesting things,” he said. “But the truth is I’m alone for most of that time.”

Busia and Bourdain are parents to Ariane, now 11. In an interview with the magazine a few months ago, he said he felt “some responsibility” to “at least try to live” for her.

“I also do feel I have things to live for,” Bourdain explained. “There have been times, honestly, in my life that I figured, ‘I’ve had a good run — why not just do this stupid thing, this selfish thing … jump off a cliff into water of indeterminate depth,’” he said, referring to a stunt he did on his Travel Channel show.

Bourdain also scoffed at the idea of retiring.

“I’ve tried. I just think I’m just too nervous, neurotic, driven,” he told People. “I would have had a different answer a few years ago. I might have deluded myself into thinking that I’d be happy in a hammock or gardening. But no, I’m quite sure I can’t.”

He added, “I’m going to pretty much die in the saddle.” In the interview, Bourdain described himself as “happy.”

[craigster59]

For someone who loved the written word and was a writer himself, you would think that he would leave a suicide note explaining his reasons for ending his life. I haven't seen any mention of one in the articles I've read, in fact there seems to be an odd bit of "radio silence" on any facts surrounding his death since it was first reported yesterday, besides the fact he used his bathrobe belt to do the deed.

[widgeon13]

Originally Posted by craigster59

For someone who loved the written word and was a writer himself, you would think that he would leave a suicide note explaining his reasons for ending his life. I haven't seen any mention of one in the articles I've read, in fact there seems to be an odd bit of "radio silence" on any facts surrounding his death since it was first reported yesterday, besides the fact he used his bathrobe belt to do the deed.

No more bathrobes in the finer hotels!

[vash]

Damn. Kate Spade hung herself too.

[pavulon]

Originally Posted by vash

Damn. Kate Spade hung herself too.

Am of the opinion that people who hang themselves hate something so deeply and are in such emotional pain about it that they want to manifest all of it into a final physical experience and statement.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by recycled sixtie

If he did take heroin and crack then he was not concerned about his health. My doc told me once that I did not have an addictive personality which I consider a good thing. I get hung over on two beers anyway. Obviously there are people out there that do have an addictive personality and then it becomes a slippery slope.

you probably already know this... but an addictive personality can have many different manifestations, workaholic (oh, he is just driven), sex - with other people or viewing porn, food, co-dependents that need to control everyone and everything around them and the list goes on (whatever sets off the endorphins in your brain will do).

All normal things except when taken to the extreme, if you can enjoy a glass of wine great, if you drink two bottles at a time not so good.

Like speeder said, a lot of people don't understand suicide, I would add a lot of people don't understand addiction. No kid grows up thinking "I want to be an addict" but we have millions of drug addicts around us... and they are not all street people...some drug addicts are doctors, police, and other high functioning members of society.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by widgeon13

Bourdain also told the therapist about a recurring dream he’s had “for as long as I can remember.”

“I’m stuck in a vast old Victorian hotel with endless rooms and hallways trying to check out, but I can’t,” he said. “I spend a lot of time in hotels, but this one is menacing because I just can’t leave it. And then there’s another part to this dream, always, where I’m trying to go home but I can’t quite remember where that is.”

"You can check out anytime you want... but you can never leave..."

[masraum]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

"You can check out anytime you want... but you can never leave..."

Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything, but I heard the music when I read that too.

[RANDY P]

I gotta say, it is annoying as hell to be passed when the person doing the passing pulls back in right in front of you- and just matches your pace.

rjp

[masraum]

Originally Posted by RANDY P

I gotta say, it is annoying as hell to be passed when the person doing the passing pulls back in right in front of you- and just matches your pace.

rjp

Yep, whether that's for this thread or the other one, yeah
But then most folks that seem to think that don't realize that I had my cruise control on and over the last half a mile I'd been steadily gaining on them, but then after I've passed them, they aren't going the old speed any more, they are now matching my speed (I did mention the cruise control, didn't I?). But, the other way does happen to, someone passes (because they want to be in front) but then doesn't keep up the speed differential.

[pavulon]

Originally Posted by RANDY P

I gotta say, it is annoying as hell to be passed when the person doing the passing pulls back in right in front of you- and just matches your pace.

rjp

are you saying this was the last straw for AB?

[astrochex]

Just don’t get the place of humor in a topic about a suicide.

[RANDY P]

Originally Posted by masraum

Yep, whether that's for this thread or the other one, yeah
But then most folks that seem to think that don't realize that I had my cruise control on and over the last half a mile I'd been steadily gaining on them, but then after I've passed them, they aren't going the old speed any more, they are now matching my speed (I did mention the cruise control, didn't I?). But, the other way does happen to, someone passes (because they want to be in front) but then doesn't keep up the speed differential.

Oh my god. I'm so ****ed up.

Sorry Anthony Bourdain - didn't mean to ruin your thread.


rjp