• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Anthony Bourdain died

#21
Sad, for sure. I've been watching him from the beginning. One of the more memorable shows was when he was eating guinea pig. I can't remember what country it was, but he was saying how tasty they were and that you can get them for a couple of bucks at any American pet store. The guy was funny.
 
#23
jchrisk1 said:
Sad, for sure. I've been watching him from the beginning. One of the more memorable shows was when he was eating guinea pig. I can't remember what country it was, but he was saying how tasty they were and that you can get them for a couple of bucks at any American pet store. The guy was funny.
Click to expand...
He was likely in Peru eating cuy.

I, too, am bummed at the news. I'll miss his probing questions and irreverent humor.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jchrisk1
#24
Saw the news this morning and it was a huge hit. Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour were both fascinating reads and his shows always had such unique perspectives on not just food but the world as a whole. He'll be greatly missed.
 
#26
jchrisk1 said:
Sad, for sure. I've been watching him from the beginning. One of the more memorable shows was when he was eating guinea pig. I can't remember what country it was, but he was saying how tasty they were and that you can get them for a couple of bucks at any American pet store. The guy was funny.
Click to expand...

"What's a squeezle?" Outstanding episode.
 
  • Like
Reactions: J-Bassomatic and jchrisk1
#27
When I heard the news, my first reaction was that he died of too much success. Here is an excerpt from "A Cook's Tour." There is a lot of self-loathing going on:

Here’s the part where I reluctantly admit to something about which I’m deeply conflicted – even ashamed. I’d lie about it if I could. But you’re probably going to find out about it anyway, so here’s a little preemptive truth telling: Almost the entire time I would travel, there would be, somewhere in the vicinity, at least two people with digital cameras. They’d be wearing headphones. One set of phones would be recording, or at least monitoring, every word, curse, and belch issuing from my mouth. When I went to the bathroom, I would have to remember to turn off the little clip-on mike attached to the transmitter on my hip. I had, you see, sold my soul to the devil.

‘We’ll follow you around,’ said the nice man from the television production company. ‘No lighting equipment, no boom mikes, no script. It’ll be very inobtrusive. Just be yourself.’ ‘It’ll be good for the book,’ said my editor. ‘We’ll take twenty-two episodes,’ said – God help me – the Food Network. Okay, it would make things easier. In Russia, for instance, when I wanted access to a Mafiya nightclub, it helped to have television producers from New York Times Television making the arrangements. The words New York Times, particularly when traveling in Communist countries like Vietnam, or in de facto dictatorships like Cambodia, tend to open doors that might otherwise remain closed.

But you want to know what it’s like making television? Even a completely nonscripted, cinema verité, make-it-up-as-you-go-along travel and food show, where you do whatever the hell you want and hope the cameras can keep up? It’s being poked in the head with shotgun mikes so often, you feel like the leading lady in a late 1970s Ron Jeremy flick.

There is no halfway. You don’t, it turns out, sell out a little bit. Maybe you thought you were just going to show a little ankle – okay, maybe a little calf, too – but in the end, you’re taking on the whole front line of the Pittsburgh Steelers on a dirty shag carpet. There’s a punch line to a joke – ‘We’ve already established you’re a whore. Now we’re just haggling over price’ – that fairly describes my predicament. I sold my ass. When I signed on the dotted line, any pretense of virginity or reluctance – of integrity (I don’t even remember what that is) – vanished. It means when the shooter says, ‘Wait a minute,’ you wait to enter the restaurant, jump in the river, or light a cigarette, so he can get the shot. When they want you to enter the restaurant again, shake hands with the owner, tell him how delighted you are to be eating fish head at his establishment – even though you just did that five minutes ago, when you meant it – you do it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Quantized Harmonic, Oddly, catcauphonic and 6 others
#28
I only just discovered his No Reservations series & enjoyed the episode about Jeddah, Saudi Arabia:

093949376c1bbfb0f2fd03e6bf7ea1c3--no-reservations-jeddah.jpg
 
#33
It’s way too easy to passively watch an interesting and well-produced show like “Parts Unknown” and think Wow that must be the best easy gig in the world. :rollno:

I want to read his books and dig into his previous stuff now.

Looks like all seasons of “Parts Unknown” can be streamed from Amazon Prime.

EDIT: Perusing Amazon. I had no idea Bourdain was such a prolific author. Lots of interesting stuff there to check out.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Oddly
#34
I've watched every episode of No Reservation dozens of times over the the years and often have a repeat on in the background as I work on something else....Love to listen to his narratives.

R.I.P Ant.B.
 
  • Like
Reactions: OldDog52
#35
I worked in the travel industry for many years and have never much liked TV travelogues for many reasons. I admit I had dismissed Mr Bourdain as just some sort of hybrid foodie/travel "personality," albeit gritty and offbeat, and paid his shows little attention.

Until I watched his "Parts Unknown" piece on Invalid Link Removed just a couple of weeks ago. For a TV journalist to present such an honest and artful portrait of America (not just one city) seems to me exceedingly rare in our media mad world.

RIP Anthony. Gonna look up your other stuff and pay attention this time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: arbitrary, knumbskull and OldDog52
#36
I wouldn't normally post a celebrity tribute to another famous person in an RIP thread here, but this one is pretty cool and kind of relevant to TB.

questlove
Just saw the news this morning about Anthony Bourdain’s passing. I have so many thoughts about him—memories, emotions, and unanswered questions—that right now it’s sort of a jumble. I feel so thankful for him to introducing me to a world I never knew, the world of food and especially food around the world. It was through Anthony that I learned about the sushi master Jiro Ono was and that recommendation (seeing the Jiro doc & making a pilgrimage to Tokyo by any means necessary) singlehandedly changed the course of my professional and creative life.

Anthony also believed, and talked often, about how all forms of creativity were connected: how chefs and drummers and comedians and actors and directors and painters all drew on the same well of thoughts and emotions. That feeling stuck with me. Watching him take trips to faraway lands to get a taste of heaven (and, just as often, to show how life on earth can be hell for people under the thumb of cruel governments or oppressive poverty) was the equivalent of my many trips to obscure record shops continents away.

Lastly I’ll miss our endless banter about the merits (or lack therof) of Yacht Rock. Anthony came on Fallon often, and every time he liked to warn me that his walk-on music better have “some umph to it.” He wanted power and attitude. I’d agree with him, and then I’d play another Billy Joel song, which infuriated him. A few years back, to thank him for writing the foreword to my book, I started the ultimate troll project, though I never got to give it to him. We had an “argument” over Herb Alpert’s “Route 101”: I made the case that the song’s good-feeling/good-time vibe couldn’t be denied, and he made the case that he denied it, and the more heated the argument got the more we laughed. I told him imma make him the mother of smooth-pop playlists and then he would see the light. I’m finishing that playlist, and when I do, I’ll name it after him, just so I can imagine that laugh of his.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: TC424, arbitrary, Oddly and 7 others
#39
bsjIxGg.jpg






Look Away


Now he was blond and she was dark
They called him thunder 'cause he had the spark
The dream he dreamed was straight and pure
But the confusion of life was gonna get him for sure

Look away look away

They shared their clothes and their cowboy boots
Left them all over the floor while they dyed their roots
They live the dream and they went non-stop
They did' ok 'til the band broke up

Look away look away look away look away

Unfortunately the needle broke
Their rock and roll love like a bicycle spoke
I found her in a back street with her looks half gone
She was selling something that I was on

Look away look away

Now thunder and me did not part friends
What we did once I wouldn't do again
So he stayed with the pure dream and followed the moon
'til the drugs in his body made his mind a cartoon

Look away look away
So a few years later thunder died broke
Sable had a baby back at her folks
Me I went straight and serious too
There wasn't much else that I could do

Look away look away

So now that I'm straight I'm settled too
I eat and I sleep and I work like you
I got lots of feelings but I hold them down
That's a way I cope with this poopy town

Look away look away
Look away look away


Songwriters: James Osterberg
Look Away lyrics © BMG Rights Management US, LLC
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back