In Tricky Mind Fields

Anthony Bourdain, Remembered

Text : Farzana Contractor

There will never be another Anthony Bourdain– the man was too unique. There was just too much he was carrying. And in his inimitable style, at the peak of his career he decided to call it quits. Went ahead and stepped off the planet he roamed so freely in.

June 8, 2018 was indeed a sad day. The unbelievable and shocking news of Anthony Bourdain´s apparent suicide instantaneously spread in the culinary world, in a loud inaudible gasp! There was total shock and the outpouring manifested on social media. Family, friends, fans, celebrity chefs, posted messages of grief, as well as pictures of their friend, "Tony´. expressing disbelief and sadness.

Anthony Bourdain was just 61 years old! And so successful! No one could quite fathom why on earth would someone in his position take his own life. There was everything, everything going for him. Name, fame, money, accolades, awards, praise from all quarters, zillions of fans, even someone to love and be loved by! The Italian actress, Asia Argento.

He had a busy, rewarding life. Travelling the world, far and wide, doing what he loved doing best. Bringing, through television, food and culture of varied and exotic nations right into our living rooms. People were fascinated with Bourdain´s culinary adventures and there were many in the trade who admired, even loved him inspite of his plain-speak and hurtful straightfowardness. A brutally honest and opinionated guy who never minced words, Bourdain called a spade, a spade!

Like most who value such talent I too was totally shook up by Bourdain´s suicide. I couldn´t stop reading about him in the aftermath. I learnt a lot more after he was gone and discovered I liked him even better.

Here was a human being who was very sensitive but never cared to show that side of him. And he had a sense of humour and endearing quirks. He despised food trends, hated brunches, never fried his bacon, preferring to roast it in an oven. He could eat, at least once, just about anything; bull penis, live snakes, pig bung! He admitted he had a weakness for "an unholy and guilty attraction" to a fast food– macaroni and cheese! And even though he drank himself silly on his shows, he never drank at home. He kept himself in super shape and had more than a passing interest in jiu-jitsu, the martial art he practised seriously.

The man whose first job was a dishwasher travelled to parts of the world in all seven continents but never wanted to go film in Switzerland! A country most of us would consider "safe´ was for him frightening. He couldn´t explain why, saying it may have to do with some childhood fear and a psychological block.

Anthony Bourdain got himself tattoed frequently, but I understood why, only now. He explained his reason for covering his body with tattoos. He said, despite the countries he´d travelled to and the people he´d dined with, he didn´t need a camera to document his life. He had stopped taking pictures a long while ago. Going through his Instagram account I noticed it is pretty deviod of glamorous travel shots! But tattoos were different, he had them done, gleefully. To remember a "moment in time.´ "There´s this realization that the lens is inadequate to capture the moment, so maybe I´m just looking to mark time in another way that´s very personal," he said, memorialising his adventures in ink etched onto his skin. Keeping a travel diary of sorts, he let everyone in on its creation. If you check on YouTube, you can watch Bourdain get a star tapped into his chest by mallet-wielding Iban tribesman in Borneo, just as you can watch Takashi Matsuba stick and poke a chrysanthemum– possibly the last tattoo he received– into his upper arm in Brooklyn. Tattoos gave Bourdain an endorphin rush.

"Look, I´m 60 years old. I well understand that any additional tattoos are not going to make me any younger, any hipper, any more relevant, or even more attractive," he said in an interview recently, not exactly lavishing praise on them, calling his body an old car and his tattoos dings in the metal: "It´s filled with dents. One more dent ain´t gonna make it any worse than this." I can visualise him chuckling.

And now according to reports, Bourdain´s mother Gladys Bourdain, who never quite approved of his tattoos is getting one of her very own, her first: "Tony" tattooed in tiny letters on the inside of her wrist to personally memorialise her son. Gladys, a former New York Times editor, told The Times that she would use his tattoo artist. She has been devastated by his death, "He is absolutely the last person in the world I would have ever dreamed would do something like this," she said.

We will never know what went on in the recesses of the mind of this man, but suffice it is to know, something was. Though he was pretty upfront about his addiction to heroin and cocaine in his early life, he never spoke about his depression, except very discreetly.But he did take the extreme step and I just can´t stop wondering why a man who said he had "the greatest job in the world" would it.

All that comes to mind is, fame and fortune do not protect someone from suicide. According to Dr. Anne Schuchat, Deputy Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "Depression is not a condition that´s related to success or failure."

But success-related suicides are harder to evaluate than lifetime failures. No doubt depression plays a role. But according to the CDC, over half of those who commit suicide do not have a mental problem. So is the increase in suicide the result of societal problems? No one can tell. Each mind, each heart, beats differently.

But Bourdain was different sort. He did things differently. He did not do television for the sake of television. And from the time he started as a television host to the time he finished, his television and the underlying principle had changed vastly, meaningfully. He understood the power of this medium.

Bourdain, for example was very aware that featuring a place on TV could change it forever. If he thought there was the possibility the publicity would ruin a little local hangout, they made the decision to film it in such a way it was impossible to find for anyone who didn´t already know about it. "I don´t want to hurt people. I don´t want to change the world in a bad way..." he said, making him a nice guy.

Bourdain was on the road to such an extent that if ever he went on a holiday, he never ate at restaurants. He preferred to cook for himself or eat at tiny eateries, ones he never turned the spotlight on, just so that his favourite, personal hideouts would remain just that; his very own! Far away from publicity! I guess when you travel for work as much as Bourdain did, the line between going on vacation and work trips would blur and he needed to do this for himself.

A couple of quotes from him, on the subject. "I don´t go out to restaurants when I´m not working, or  maybe just a few, a very tight cluster of regular places that I would never put on television–just to keep them mine."

"When I´m on vacation, I live a very different life, I cook because it makes me happy. I want to forget who I am and I want to go to places where no one knows who I am."

A place no one knows him, where no one recognises him... that would be a tough call, considering Bourdain had been everywhere on the planet, to all seven continents, even to the most remote parts and he must have the most recognised television face in the world of food and restaurants!

Well, there are cooking shows and there are travel shows and then there is Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. While most travel shows turn to the most popular destinations in the world, Bourdain and his small crew went in the opposite direction. They brought cuisines from around the world to viewers who might never otherwise have contemplated them. But Bourdain´s shows were always about so much more than cuisines. Yes, they tried a lot of amazing food but they also uncovered some moving stories in places such as Armenia, Myanmar, Tanzania, Tehran, Beirut, Borneo and many more. Bourdain humanised the faces in strife-torn countries we merely read about in newspapers.

So, food apart, let´s talk about the side of Anthony Bourdain that many don´t know.

The man´s approach was different, his perceptions fine-tuned. Let´s say if you heard references of Beirut and Lebanon, you would probably think of a place torn apart by relentless war and strife. Bourdain saw something else: "It´s a beautiful city, with layers of scars the locals have ceased to even notice. It´s a place with tremendous heart... It defies logic. It defies expectations. It is amazing," said Bourdain who had fallen in love with Beirut, the first time he was there.

This was in 2006 for his programme No Reservations. It was something of a turning point for Bourdain. It was there that he decided to start telling the stories of the people he saw behind the front lines, those just trying to get on with their lives against a terrifying backdrop of conflict. That´s when the seeds of Parts Unknown were planted, and it´s the reason why Bourdain later decided to visit places like Gaza, Libya, Cuba, and Haiti.

But Beirut first; Bourdain and his crew had been in the city for 24 hours when they became trapped in the beginnings of the Lebanese-Israeli conflict. They were rescued and taken to Cyprus, before flying home.
In Parts Unknown, Bourdain revisited Beirut in 2015, and in his field notes, he looked back at his first trip and how it inspired him to do television differently.

"One day I was making television about eating and drinking. The next I was watching the airport I´d landed in a few days earlier being blown up across the water from my hotel window."

"I came away from the experience deeply embittered, confused–and determined to make television differently than I had before. I didn´t know how I was going to do it or whether my network at the time was going to allow me, but the days of happy horseshit– the uplifting sum-up at the end of every show, the reflex inclusion of a food scene in every act– that ended right there."

He added: "Our Beirut experience did not give me delusions of being a journalist. I just saw that there were realities beyond what was on my plate, and those realities almost inevitably informed what was– or was not– for dinner. To ignore them had come to seem monstrous."

"And yet I´d already fallen in love with Beirut. We all had– everyone on my crew. As soon as we´d landed, headed into town, there was a reaction I can only describe as pheromonic: The place just smelled good. Like a place we were going to love."

A crew member has this to say about Bourdain, "He came and saw this thriving country as an example of what it could be if it wasn´t for all the chaos, war and uncertainty. He was just so fascinated." He said he thought people connected with Bourdain because he was honest and genuine, and always said what he meant.

CNN too, highlighted just how much of an impact Beirut had, saying not only did it change the way Bourdain did television, but on a personal level, he had considered naming his daughter after the city. Without Beirut, there would have been no Parts Unknown, says the television channel which aired Bourdain´s famous show and which still has in the cans more destinations by Bourdain which I am sure will be aired, in future.

Well, to carry on, Iran was another place that made an impact on Bourdain. When he visited the country in 2014, he said he came back with a confusing picture of the country, for what he saw and experienced was very different with what he understood of the country as portrayed by the US government through the media.

He wrote: "What we saw, what we came back with, is a deeply confusing story. Because the Iran you see from the inside, once you walk the streets of Tehran, once you meet Iranians, is a very different place than the Iran you know from the news. Nowhere else I´ve been has the disconnect been so extreme between what one sees and feels from the people and what one sees and hears from the government."

He went on: "I have said that Iran is the most outgoingly warm, pro-American place we´ve ever shot, and that´s true: In Tehran, in spite of the fact that you are standing in front of a giant, snarling mural that reads "DEATH TO AMERICA!´ we found that you will usually be treated better by strangers– meaning smiles, offers of assistance, curious attempts to engage in limited English, greetings and expressions of general good will– than anywhere in Western Europe."

Bourdain had his heart in the right place. And he certainly was an intelligent, astute human being who could be critical of people, yet be a loyal and fearless friend.

In 2014, Bourdain interviewed Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and his wife, journalist Yeganeh Salehi, for the episode on Iran. It was only a few weeks later that CNN reported both journalists had been arrested, and while Salehi was released quickly, Rezaian spent the next two years in jail facing espionage charges.

Bourdain continued to advocate for him during his confinement, and he was ultimately released as part of a prisoner exchange. Rezaian later lauded Bourdain for putting a face to those who were struggling against oppression, and credits the interview he did for Parts Unknown as opening the door that allowed other news outlets to cover his detainment.

He also credited Bourdain with helping him through the difficulties that came with having to adapt to life as a free man, saying it was only with his professional and personal friendship that they were able to get through the ordeal. Later, he agreed to tell his entire story with Bourdain´s encouragement and help– Rezaian´s book was published by Harper Collins Publishing. Bourdain had his own line of books with the publishers.

Bourdain´s trip to Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 2013 was perhaps his most controvertial. And he knew it would be.

He opened that episode with a disclaimer: "By the end of this hour, I´ll be seen by many as a terrorist sympathiser, a Zionist tool, a self-hating Jew, an apologist for American imperialism, an Orientalist, socialist, a fascist, CIA agent, and worse."

In his description of the area, he said: "It´s easily the most contentious piece of real estate in the world, and there´s no hope–none–of ever talking about it without pissing somebody, if not everybody, off."

Nonetheless, Bourdain set out to discover the questions of where falafel comes from and who makes the best hummus. While that was his culinary mission, the episode unraveled as a thoughtful exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We all bring stuff along when we travel–your preconceptions, your personal belief system, the full weight of your life experience," he said. "It´s going to come to bear on the way you experience a place. But whatever you may think, and whatever baggage you may bring to this place, you should see this."

Much praise for Bourdain came over his attention to Palestinians in that episode, as well as his words of support for the Palestinain people.

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian human rights lawyer who has worked on the peace process, tweeted a quote by Bourdain after the news of his death: "The world has visited many terrible things on the Palestinian people, none more shameful than robbing them of their basic humanity." It was part of an acceptance speech Bourdain gave for a Muslim Public Affairs Council award in 2014.

Buttu told CNN that she appreciated the way Bourdain saw the Palestinians as people, rather than mere numbers in a conflict.

"It was very refreshing when Bourdain came here. It was very revealing that after the segment aired and when he talked about Palestinians that he made sure to mention the issue of dehumanisation, that Palestinians had been deprived of their humanity," Buttu told CNN.

"He saw Palestinians as human beings–it´s sad we have to say this in this day and age, that someone saw us as human beings, but he did and that for me was very powerful. He not only loved food but all of the things that surround food–love, humanity, culture, tradition. It was powerful because he was bringing his love and passion for food and coupled it with the story about Palestinian deprivation." she concluded. There is much to prove Anthony Bourdain´s extraordinariness!

One would think Bourdain had it all, including a life that made almost everyone envious. But one 2016 episode of Parts Unknown hinted that all was not well, and it was an episode filmed in Argentina. He wrote in an essay for CNN: "One odd and endearing feature of Argentina is how common it is to see a psychologist or psychiatrist. It seems nearly everyone´s got one. So I saw one too. So welcome to the dark crannies of my skull."

Throughout the episode, viewers got a glimpse into Bourdain´s sessions with a therapist, where he talked about recurring dreams filled with a sense of hopelessness and desperation, feeling alone and isolated, and on depression that would last for days. It was a dark episode, one publication even started their review with, "Should we be worried about Anthony Bourdain´s mental health?"

In his CNN essay, Bourdain apologised for the use of his therapy sessions as a way to frame the episode, but did finish with the fact he was extremely proud of the way it turned out. An eerie episode indeed, in hindsight and in view of what was to soon be.

You might think that after visiting so many places and travelling so much, Anthony Bourdain would have been looking forward to wrapping up his time on Parts Unknown and switch to the quiet life. But he spoke with People less than a month before his death, and said he had no plans to retire or to end the show. Some of the episodes hadn´t even aired yet, and while he did say he always enjoyed the days he spent at home with his daughter and girlfriend– and noted that he especially loved the sound of doing laundry– he had no plans to quit the show.

"I just think I´m too nervous, neurotic, driven. 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. I´m going to pretty much die in the saddle."

Bourdain and his crew were on the road for an average of 250 days a year, and he said in an interview to People that all the travel and time away from home only helped to solidify the small Parts Unknown crew into a "dysfunctional family." While it´s impossible to tell just how many miles they´ve covered, consider this: in 2018, Bourdain was working, getting his 12th passport stamped with entry and exits!

That´s an enormous amount of travelling, by any yardstick. And so, when National Geographic asked Bourdain about some of his favourite places, he gave some interesting answers. Tokyo, he said, was the city that had it all, Uruguay and Argentina were the most underestimated destinations, Spain hosted his most memorable dining experience, Iran was the most surprising, Sardinia was the place he´d love to live, and Vietnam was the place he would go "if everything went wrong in my life and I ended up alone and drinking too much."

How I wish Bourdain had boarded a flight to Saigon instead of reaching out for that darn rope he hung himself with. Today he would have been alive and the world would have been a richer place for that.