Another topic I didn't expect to ever really write about... it would be more in line for me to just have done a book review sort of thing, but this is so much more than that to me and there's also way more than just books so whatever. I'll be real, I'm a little drunk right now so if there's spelling mistakes or I'm saying incomprehensible shit, I'll probably notice + fix it sooner or later.
I don't really know when exactly I fell into Bourdain's work and all that. Definitely recent in the grand scheme of things, but it has been a little while. Started with me bored and watching A Cook's Tour a lot and it actually made me really happy. That was the first thing. Things are obviously different now because that was all like 90's - early 2000s, but it just brought so much joy to me. Plenty of places in the world you don't often see get positive attention (or attention at all), and here's all this beauty, here's all this culture through food. It impressed me!!!!!!!! I never really had any inclination towards food as an art or cultural touchstone or whatever, call it being a stupid white boy American or whatever. That changed my mind fast.
I wound up picking up the book copy of A Cook's Tour at my local library, and that made me even happier. It was one of the most touching things I'd read in a very strange way... I know Kitchen Confidential is supposed to be like, "the" Anthony Bourdain book (and I have read it. Copy is sitting on my bookshelf right now), I dunno, I just find it a lot more compelling when international culture is more heavily tied in with all of this. Felt like more than just Travel Bullshit or just Food Show Bullshit. I like his voice and how he tells things. I'd consider that a deeply satisfying comfort book for me, but unfortunately I haven't been to the library in a while (and I hate reading books off a screen unless I absolutely must) so I haven't picked it up again.
Something bothered me though for the longest time. I was so enamoured with all of this, and so jealous of how he saw all the beauty in the world. Found it very profound. Like, wow, he's seen so much, he's seen the beauty in humanity. That's fucking fantastic. So why kill yourself? I mean, he was quite open about a lot of different struggles, but just through the lens I was looking at it all-- it made me miserable. Is there hope for me? If I'm sitting here knowing that beauty exists, and I've always been depressed, and I can't see that up close like he did, what hope do I have? But that makes it sound like he sent me in a depressive spiral. He didn't. I carried on being happy and loving the world. I wondered what made him end his life in a world full of love and good people and blah blah blah...
Not to make it some kind of moral thing, but I'm generally just uncomfortable with the focus on celebrity suicide and struggles with depression where it gets so dissected and turned into some kind of story, for lack of a better phrase. (Watching Montage of Heck was a personal little hell for me..) But in my own suicidal spiral, in looking to him for comfort, a lot of the reasoning became clear as day. That isn't something I'm going to go into, because I do just feel it isn't my business and I even feel guilty and reductive by mentioning this at all. Still, I get it now. I don't want to project onto him, but I guess you can see some of the best things this world has to offer and still feel neglected by it. My realized fears of abandonment and isolation took me out of that amazing world I felt I was part of, and now I'm just sitting in my room, trying to survive, hoping it magically gets better soon if I'm just Good Enough. Trying to say I can't understand his exact, specific circumstances- but my confusion was answered. Regardless, I wish he lived. Of course I wish he lived. And I hope that I live too. I want all of us to live.
Hey, you wanna get fucked up? Try being 5'2" and rapidly careening towards being underweight and then you'll probably just get totally screwed no matter what you're drinking. That's where I am right now. Okay. Keep marching on soldier.
I watch Parts Unknown now. Things feel a bit less food focused than A Cook's Tour or No Reservations, but I don't mind. Still great. I don't think I'll ever watch Roadrunner and I think I probably already made it clear why... although there is also that issue of them having used an AI model to read things in his voice-- what on earth... ugh. Not gonna touch that.
Everyone always ends these talks with saying shit about how "you're not alone!!" and links to resources you're never going to use. Maybe you are alone. Maybe you weren't before, but now you are, and there's no good reason for it. Maybe you're like me. Maybe you've contacted a hotline before and realized that if they're not calling the cops on you, they probably can't help you that much at all. Maybe you have people but you still feel alone. Whatever the case is, I'm around, and I care a lot about the world and I care a lot about people. So I'm here and that's something. Watch or read some Anthony Bourdain and don't kill yourself. I'm going to eat something. Meow. Meow meow meow.