Tony Bourdain was a comedian, writer, podcaster, and podcaster. On this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, we talk about the Tony Bourdain Podcast, the Bourdain Documentary, and the tragic news of his death. We also talk about what it was like to be a fan of Bourdain's, and what it's like to work with him on his new book, "Tony's Last Words." And, of course, we get into the aftermath of the news that Bourdain died at the age of 61, and how it has changed the way we think about him and the impact it has had on the world. Thanks to everyone who reached out to us and everyone who shared their condolences. We really appreciate it, and we really do appreciate you. Thank you to all the people who sent in their condolences, and condolences to the family and friends of Tony and the many others who lost their lives this week. We'll see you next week! -Joe Rogan's Note: This episode was originally published in the New York Times on Nov. 22nd, 2019. It has since been updated to reflect the new information about the death of Anthony Bourdain, and is no longer available on most major news outlets. We apologize for the delay. We re working on transcribing the audio quality in this episode. We are working on fixing the audio in this version of the show. Joe's Note is much better in the future, we promise you that it will be much better, much better quality in future episodes. Thank you for all the love and support we ve gotten over the past week. -J.R.'s Note: We appreciate all the support and all the kind words you've been getting from the support we've gotten so far. We appreciate your support and we appreciate all of the love you've shown over the last few months. We're working on the support. -- Thank you, Joe's Back! -Jon Sorrentino - Thank you so much, Jon's Back to you, Jon Rogan, Thank you Jon's Note - The Joe's and Jon's back from the last episode of the podcast. and we'll get back to the rest of the world soon. "The Joe's back with the rest in the next episode. . -- Tom's Back with more soon! -- Jon's Next Episode: Back with a new version of this episode!
00:00:42.000I knew exactly where one of the places was, that it was the AI, but the vast majority of that film is Tony's actual voice, and I think that really got lost in the discussion around the film.
00:05:55.000He was deeply in love and I think he was realizing that this relationship maybe wasn't what he thought it was or that it just...
00:06:02.000I think he felt humiliated, honestly, you know?
00:06:05.000And I mean, that's a hard thing for a private person to metabolize.
00:06:12.000And then, you know, your extremely public person who has been extremely public about this relationship, I think it was a lot for him to handle in that week.
00:06:41.000I don't know that a normal reaction to romantic trouble is to take your own life.
00:06:50.000Clearly, there are plenty of people who have trouble in their relationships who stay alive.
00:06:59.000You know, he was a really complicated guy.
00:07:01.000He was a really, I think as public as he was and as much as he shared about the way that his mind and his heart worked, I think there was a lot that he didn't share.
00:07:11.000And I think he was more troubled and more lonely and sad than I think any of us knew at the time.
00:07:19.000You know, in the intervening three years, I've learned a lot.
00:08:58.000He was so good at giving you that look.
00:09:01.000I've said a couple of real stupid things to him, too, and I'll just never forget.
00:09:06.000We were standing in the telephone store trying to upgrade my phone, and I was kind of new to the job and nervous, and I was like, what are we going to talk about for 10 minutes?
00:09:17.000So I just said, how do you decide who to respond to on Twitter?
00:09:22.000And he just gave me this look like, you're the fucking stupidest person I've ever met in my life.
00:09:26.000You know, and I know he respected me, and I know he liked me, but I was just like, oh, God.
00:10:14.000I'm sure you were probably an influence.
00:10:16.000I mean, Tavia obviously was the biggest influence, but I'm sure knowing that you did it, too, was another strong reason to get involved with it.
00:10:50.000But it's not like, it's very intimate, where someone is literally practicing killing you, and you're trying to resist that.
00:10:58.000And so to watch him get really into it, and then to watch him watch his personality sort of like shift, Into that, there's sort of a jujitsu mindset that you get when you start doing it all the time.
00:11:14.000You start training, you start building confidence, and you start getting really into it.
00:12:09.000He's like, do you think you would ever do it?
00:12:11.000After he's telling me about, like, you know, your nose is basically in somebody's asshole and you've got, like, blood under your nails, you know, and it's disgusting.
00:12:54.000I made him do it for like, I don't know, six months.
00:12:56.000And then it was clear that like, I mean, he didn't hate it to the point where he was like crying, but like he did have a couple of like anxiety stomach aches in the car and I'm like, suck it up.
00:13:13.000I try to make them finish what they start, just so that they have this thing, like, okay, I started this, I'm going to finish it, I committed to being at these practices, I'm going to show up, but then when it's over, it's over.
00:13:30.000You just get a kid that's resentful, and then whatever this thing that you're trying to get them to do that might have some real benefit to them, they're never going to realize that benefit, or it's going to be harder for them to realize that benefit.
00:13:59.000When did you, like, how did your relationship with him start?
00:14:03.000How did your working relationship start?
00:14:05.000So I had been Mario Batali's assistant for a number of years, like in the late 90s, early 2000s.
00:14:12.000And Mario and Tony became friends sort of at the same level of rising celebrity in New York in the restaurant world and in media.
00:14:21.000And I was leaving the job with Mario and Tony asked him if he knew anybody that could help him with a cookbook that he was starting to work on.
00:14:30.000It was called Anthony Bourdain's Layal Cookbook.
00:15:27.000And I had been to cooking school and I worked a little bit as a cook.
00:15:31.000And so I knew how to deal with a recipe.
00:15:34.000I knew how to cook and kind of what my way around the kitchen.
00:15:36.000So I... Would take those recipes, scale them way down, kind of put them into a more accessible language for a home cook, and then test them at home.
00:15:46.000Make sure that when I change the proportions and everything, the timing and the temperatures, and that it all still worked for a home cook.
00:15:54.000So, were these, like, dishes meant for large groups of people?
00:15:58.000Like, how did you have to scale it down?
00:16:00.000Well, because when you're making it in a restaurant, you know, you're preparing enough for 60 portions in a night, you know?
00:16:07.000Like, certain side dishes and things like that?
00:19:22.000He really didn't buy into his own bullshit at all.
00:19:25.000So when you would talk to him about it, he was like, this could fucking end terribly at any moment.
00:19:31.000Yeah, I remember being with him in the green room.
00:19:34.000He did a book tour for the cookbook Appetites that we wrote together in 2016. And he did a series of lectures, basically like a one-hour stand-up routine in these theaters and then book signings.
00:19:47.000So we were at the last one at BAM, Brooklyn, in the green room.
00:19:52.000And he was just like, oh, God, I fucking hate this.
00:20:13.000It's really illustrative to me to hear him talk like that, to realize he doesn't think he's as great as we know he is.
00:20:23.000That's a common thing amongst, at least my people, amongst comedians.
00:20:30.000In many successful people, it's called imposter syndrome.
00:20:34.000And it exists because you have a certain...
00:20:37.000Sort of a set perception of who you were just going through life sort of anonymously and then it radically changes and it doesn't feel real.
00:20:45.000And so to other people who've just discovered you, they love your show, they love your writing, they love your take on the world as you travel and eat everywhere.
00:20:54.000You know, you think, like, I'm the same fucking idiot that I was, you know, he's probably thinking he's the same guy he was in 95, and now here all these people love him.
00:21:09.000But that's also why he was so interesting, is because, like, the people that are, like, legitimately fool themselves and really think everything they're doing is great are gross.
00:21:27.000And it's such the opposite of what anybody ever wants to hear.
00:21:31.000And maybe you could say it in jest and people think it's funny, but...
00:21:36.000For the most part, the people that are really enamored with themselves and their work are just not nearly as interesting as the people that are tortured by it.
00:21:47.000It's like a guy like Tony, who is such an interesting, fascinating person just to talk to, just to have a conversation with, because he had such a clear perspective on things, the way he looked at things.
00:22:20.000I think, too, there was this disconnect between the guy that he was before he got famous and the guy after.
00:22:26.000And I think he always thought about how the old guy probably would have made fun of the new guy.
00:22:31.000Or he and all his buddies who were cooks stuck in the kitchen would sort of hate this guy with the expensive shoes and the nice apartment and flying first class.
00:22:59.000It's fascinating because so many people are really They're haunted in a lot of ways by the past.
00:23:07.000And there's sort of like this rebellious, rigid attitude that you develop when you're struggling, when you're coming up.
00:23:17.000You know it becomes like the structure of where your attitude comes from and then when that structure is sort of removed by success in Tony's case and then you're left with Okay, I'm not even like in his eyes He had done all these hours of being in the kitchen,
00:23:36.000the real work, those long days and long nights, and there was something noble about that.
00:23:44.000And then, all of a sudden, he's just going to visit these guys, and he's not in the game anymore.
00:23:50.000And, you know, he's going to visit these incredible cooks and seeing these amazing dishes and these insane restaurants.
00:23:58.000And I think part of that he felt like a little bit of a fraud because of that.
00:24:05.000He was always very careful to say, I was not a great chef.
00:24:09.000You know, I think it's very, people kind of just, in the same way that people thought that, you know, the whole, with the AI thing, that it was all of the movie versus 45 seconds.
00:24:19.000There's just a glossing over kind of sloppiness of recollection.
00:24:49.000I don't know, insecurity, but just a recognition that he wasn't the kind of chef like Eric Repair, his good friend, or any of these guys that he really admired, and he wanted everyone to know that he knew that, too.
00:25:02.000Yeah, it's just the genuine humility about him.
00:25:05.000But it's also like that, you know, there are so many layers to the way he looked at things and described things.
00:25:13.000It's what made No Reservations and then ultimately the other show.
00:26:49.000And it's just his take on all kinds of things, on music and culture, and it just made for, you know, if he maybe, I don't know how good of a chef he was, but man, he was a fucking amazing host of a television show.
00:27:10.000I mean, that's really what broke him through out of the kitchen.
00:27:14.000It was not his television presence, which was a little clunky at first.
00:27:18.000You know, I mean, he didn't spring fully formed as the, you know, confident guy that we saw in later years.
00:27:26.000If you go back and when you're ready to watch the film or you'll see in the book, too, you know, he was...
00:27:32.000He was a little awkward and quite more than a little hesitant on television at first.
00:27:36.000But what he always was was a fucking fantastic writer, you know, from very, very young age and worked really hard at that to develop that craft.
00:27:45.000And that's – I mean that's what comes through on television too is all that voiceover.
00:27:49.000He wrote that, you know, and the way that he could speak off the cuff like it was something that was written and edited and perfective.
00:28:15.000It's like, there's a way that a person can behave.
00:28:19.000Whether they're the host of a show or a radio host, whatever the fuck they're doing, there's a way that we know what a professional sounds like.
00:28:29.000There's a way we know, and that way is boring.
00:28:34.000Because you've heard it too many times and you know that's not really who that person is.
00:28:37.000This is a really funny video, I don't know if you've ever seen it, but there's this black guy who's working for a television station.
00:28:46.000And he's doing the news somewhere on location and a bug gets on him and he switches and goes full ghetto in the middle.
00:28:54.000So he's in the middle of his talking like this, like this motherfucker and like this bug is on him and it's hilarious.
00:29:00.000And I'm like, man, if someone could talk to that guy and say, man, we got to figure out a way to let you be who you really are because that was hilarious once the bug was on you.
00:29:10.000But when the bug wasn't on you, then you're just like this normal, bullshit, cookie-cutter, programmed robot.
00:29:18.000And, you know, the thing about No Reservations was it was who he actually was.
00:29:25.000So if he was clunky or if, you know...
00:29:28.000Or if he was fascinated by something, it came across as being genuine.
00:29:33.000It was very obvious that he wrote everything, too.
00:29:35.000It was very obvious that he wrote the monologues.
00:29:37.000You're not going to get some TV hack to write that kind of shit, especially for the fucking Travel Channel.
00:29:45.000I noticed, I watched the Montana episode of Parts Unknown that you guys were on together and there was that enthusiasm.
00:29:52.000There's a scene where he goes down into the mines, copper mines, old copper mines, and they hook up all the wires and he gets to be the one to press the lever or whatever to make the shit explode.
00:30:39.000Because of the drug abuse past, the addiction past, and then the end of his life, the boozing in particular, it's like there's obviously a lot going on there that wasn't that healthy.
00:30:55.000You know for whatever reason and whatever whatever it was a masking thing if it was a genetic addiction issue thing Yeah.
00:31:04.000It's, you know, it's really hard to say, you know, and I always try to be very careful not to diagnose or to, you know, all we can do is speculate and think about what, you know, we knew when he was around.
00:31:17.000I mean, he was very upfront about his heroin addiction and his, you know, heavy use of cocaine and crack later.
00:31:23.000And then he kicked those things, you know.
00:31:25.000But I think that As somebody who has been sober for a couple of years and has kind of myself dived into the whole exploration of the 12-step thing, I can see what it is to be an addict.
00:31:39.000And I don't think it's talking out of turn to say that Tony was an addict.
00:31:57.000You know, just went after more and more and more stimulating experiences in a way that it didn't ever seem there was going to be enough of whatever it was to fill that place, you know, that addicts are trying to fill.
00:32:10.000When we were drinking in Montana, that was one of the things that was shocking that he wanted to keep going.
00:32:50.000Just in the time that I knew him, you know, the years that I knew him from the, like, I don't know how many years it was, seven, whatever it was.
00:33:16.000Yeah, I think, you know, I mean, that kind of lifestyle, or the multiple lifestyles that he had, you know, working as a cook, doing a shitload of drugs, drinking, smoking, you know, a couple packs of cigarettes a day, all of that, you know, plus he was, there's some actually some funny stuff in the book about his addiction to tanning.
00:34:48.000And he was, you know, because he was super into his cardio, so he wasn't smoking.
00:34:52.000There was a point where he was getting ready for a competition where he was like, you know, I'm sure you've done this too, right?
00:34:58.000It's like no, like only basically like boiled chicken with no salt, you know, and maybe like some vegetable, but really just like the no salt boiled chicken.
00:35:07.000Well, he got no carb, but he went no carb, right?
00:35:32.000You run into these guys at the gym, these sort of, like, bro scientists.
00:35:38.000And some of them still have like 1990s knowledge where you're supposed to eat like just plain chicken with no skin and broccoli and they don't really do that anymore.
00:35:48.000Like most people, even if they're trying to lose some weight, they eat a lot of healthy fat.
00:35:57.000Like you have to have a certain amount of glucose.
00:35:59.000It's like it's even in like there's certain hydration supplements that are electrolyte supplements and they have sugar in them because that's the best way your body absorbs all the different electrolytes.
00:36:22.000I go, no man, you should find someone who's gonna like do your blood work and comprehensively like go over it with you and like Too much effort.
00:36:31.000Yeah, you want the quack that's going to give you the solution fast.
00:36:36.000He just wanted to get juiced up so he could compete.
00:36:39.000Well, when he was telling me he was training every day, I go, every day?
00:37:40.000Yeah, and then they put on this ridiculous, like, big yellow, looked like a piece of Swiss cheese from a Tom and Jerry cartoon, and it was just kind of...
00:38:23.000I mean, there was definitely, in my job as his assistant, which I did for about 10 years, there was definitely a lot of, I got very familiar with all the doctors.
00:38:32.000So there was, you know, there was the occasional draining or the chiropractor or the, you know, the skin doctor because there would be a weird staph infection from, you know, filthy mats or, you know, he really, yeah, he went really, really hard on the jujitsu.
00:38:46.000But he was, you know, he was mentally, I mean, he was He was really happy.
00:38:51.000You know, he was, I mean, he was, it was insufferable sometimes to listen to, like I said, but he was like, he had so much energy.
00:38:58.000And he just was like, you know, the guys that would shoot on the show with him said it made such a difference.
00:39:03.000If he would train in the morning, he would be Yeah.
00:39:08.000I think human beings, men in particular, need a certain amount of physical conflict.
00:40:14.000Like my friends who do CrossFit, what they love about it is it's so fucking hard, which seems like, why do you love something that's so hard?
00:40:22.000Because in doing something hard, it makes regular life easy.
00:40:26.000Because when you are doing these box jumps and you have 25 to go and your legs are rubber and you're like, I can't do this.
00:41:11.000And he really respected, I mean, anybody that had an expertise in anything, you know, he was really, like, just very teachable, very willing to listen.
00:41:21.000You know, he was really always about, you know, the more I know, the more I realize I don't know.
00:41:27.000He had a great respect for people that were really doing whatever the fuck it was that they were doing.
00:41:38.000People that were really committed to anything.
00:43:05.000I think he really enjoyed it, you know, but it's like he really respected the craft of comedy, you know, and he understood that it was something you had to work at and develop just as much as anything else.
00:43:45.000Not only to get a black belt in three years is crazy, but to win the Mundialis in three years is even crazier.
00:43:49.000And he and I were talking about this on the phone, and he was saying that he met this guy, and this guy was getting really good at jiu-jitsu, and he's like, man, that's incredible, you know, you're training hard.
00:44:01.000And the guy suddenly goes, man, he goes, I'm addicted, just like you!
00:44:06.000He goes, and then I realized, yeah, fuck, that's what it is.
00:46:09.000I mean, I will say that I found a lot of the way that he lived to be very romantic and very inspiring, and, you know, I was kind of a mess, and I thought, well, you know, this is...
00:46:21.000Tony would approve or I'd talk to him about whatever kind of messy shit was going on in my life because I knew he would think it was funny or he could relate.
00:46:31.000So again, I don't want to blame him because it was on me, but for sure it was very much okay to be a little bit of a mess and to work for him.
00:46:41.000As long as you got your shit done and you showed up on time and you were good at your job.
00:47:03.000But yeah, I think it was hard for me as someone who identifies as an addict of a kind, it was hard for me to see him as an addict until I really sort of saw myself and what my own behaviors were.
00:47:17.000Like, oh, that's why, you know, he did this or that or, you know.
00:47:20.000In those moments, those moments of camaraderie and the moments of looseness and of booze and smoking, there's a funness to that.
00:50:44.000I mean, if he died at 50 and left behind all those great books that he wrote when he was fucked up, he would probably be even more romantic, unfortunately.
00:51:25.000They're coming up with some great shit.
00:51:27.000You can do some pretty amazing things in your body as you age in 2021. When you're writing these books, did you take notes while you were working with him?
00:51:42.000Did you have to go back and re-envision these moments in your mind?
00:51:50.000Well, so the biography, the full title is Bourdain the Definitive Oral Biography.
00:51:55.000So what that means is that this is not the strict, the biography that, you know, where the writer interviews a bunch of people and then writes their own thing.
00:52:05.000This is, I did about 100 interviews with people who knew Tony from all aspects of his life.
00:52:13.000And by and large, I let them tell their own story.
00:52:17.000So this narrative, it starts at the beginning of his life and goes all the way to the end.
00:52:21.000So it's pieces of those interviews sort of stitched together in a narrative.
00:52:26.000So it starts with his mom and his brother talking about early life.
00:52:43.000You know, Tony told a lot of his story already in Kitchen Confidential.
00:52:58.000He started from Early childhood memories to about age 40. So a lot of that story is already out there.
00:53:05.000But it's, you know, Tony was a storyteller, and he was not averse to kind of sanding down the edges of a story or embellishing something or...
00:53:16.000As you do to make it like a really good story that you can tell and that has good beats and lands well.
00:53:23.000So even the stuff that we know about from Kitchen Confidential, there's a lot more nuance there.
00:53:28.000People that were there with him in the bad old days of the 80s in kitchens and in Provincetown as a teenager.
00:53:38.000It was about asking the right questions and listening to people, letting them really tell their stories and helping them to really remember as much as they could about him.
00:54:02.000But at least to have the book started, to have something to work on was really valuable to me, just to kind of keep moving forward in life.
00:54:14.000And then the one that came out in the spring called World Travel, I was working on it simultaneously, but a little quicker because it was due, the manuscript was due before the biography.
00:54:25.000And World Travel is a book that we actually started working on together, Tony and I, before he died.
00:54:30.000We didn't get too far into it, but we did start and it was intended to be co-authored with a living author.
00:54:37.000And of course, that changed quite a bit after he died.
00:54:40.000But I did want to Make something of it.
00:54:43.000So it's a version of the book that we had intended to write together.
00:54:49.000So world travel is basically an atlas of the world according to Tony Bourdain.
00:54:54.000So it's not every place that he went in the world because there are just too many of them, but it was all the places that he truly loved that he wanted to recommend that you go to.
00:55:04.000So it's a It's like a little travel guide, but it's got tons of his writing in it.
00:55:10.000So I ended up taking a lot of stuff from his television voiceover or stuff that he had written in books or stuff that he had said in interviews and kind of wove it into this travel book format.
00:55:21.000I mean, it's not like your typical voters or, you know, whatever the travel books Lonely Planet, but it has aspects of that.
00:55:28.000It has a lot of practical information, but it has Tony, you know, talking about getting the shits in Brazil after eating the Dende oil or, you know, stuff that's very specific to him and his voice.
00:55:40.000Well, he literally traveled to almost every place you could go to.
00:57:31.000Well, you know, he was super interested in Graham Greene, The Quiet American, and Heart of Darkness, and Apocalypse Now.
00:57:39.000I mean, Apocalypse Now was sort of a seminal film, you know?
00:57:42.000And, you know, being of the age that he was, I mean, kind of growing up with the Vietnam War going on when he was in his adolescence, I think it made a big difference.
00:57:52.000But yeah, then he got there and it was, you know, and it is an extraordinary place.
01:01:15.000But, you know, in talking to him, one of the things that he was really interested in is just the authentic way people existed wherever you went.
01:01:28.000And to really understand people, to really get an appreciation of all the amazing things this world has to offer, you kind of have to go to all these different places.
01:01:38.000And every time you go, it's like it removes a little layer of the onion.
01:01:41.000You just get a little bit better understanding of what it means to be a human being on Earth.
01:01:46.000And that there isn't just this one set sort of culture that we're so accustomed to, particularly in America, where we're kind of arrogant about our culture.
01:02:07.000Like, why are they so, why are they celebrate so much in Brazil?
01:02:12.000You know, as you do visit all these different places, I think he had this almost bottomless appetite for that sort of exposure to new cultures and meeting new people.
01:02:27.000And was really good at listening and being able to hear and engage with an argument or a point of view that didn't match his, which I think, you know, I mean, there's a million reasons why I wish he were still here.
01:02:42.000But that is one of the, you know, right at the top is this capacity that he had to have a conversation with people who disagreed with him, you know, without just trying to shut them down.
01:03:15.000It's a very valuable thing if you can do it, to be able to just talk to people, even if you disagree with them.
01:03:23.000And it's really rewarding to have a conversation with someone where you completely disagree with them, but you're very friendly.
01:03:30.000And at the end, you really enjoy that person's company and you actually like them.
01:03:35.000There's quite a few people I have on this podcast where I agree with very little of what they have to say.
01:03:40.000But I like to talk to them, especially if they're kind, if they're nice people.
01:03:44.000And then we sort of have this interesting relationship over the years of these kind of conversations, where they know that I'm very different than them, and I see things different, but we're nice to each other, and so we can talk about stuff.
01:03:57.000And so I can find out what it's like to be this person who thinks about things politically, socially, religiously, sexually.
01:05:04.000You know, from everything, like, one of the most enthusiastic things he ever told me was how disgusting fermented shark meat was in Iceland.
01:05:15.000He was, like, fucking animated with his hands.
01:06:03.000And then all the people that are alive all these years later just kind of celebrating the fact that their ancestors survived off this dog shit.
01:06:53.000And I think it really is just Viking DNA, like this idea that there was these giant marauders that showed up, a lot of them on mushrooms, by the way.
01:07:41.000Yeah, I had gotten into hunting while I knew him.
01:07:44.000I had gotten into hunting because I had come to this sort of ideological impasse in my life where I was like, okay, like, you're...
01:07:56.000You claim to be a person who thinks things through and you care about life and the world around you, but you're eating fucking Jack in the Box, right?
01:08:17.000And I had done vegetarianism when I was competing.
01:08:20.000Back in my martial arts competing days, because I was trying to make a weight class that I was too big for, and I'd starve myself, and I was really fucked up.
01:08:32.000But then when I went back to eating meat, I felt so much better.
01:08:35.000And then it was like the best of my competition years were all I ate so much meat.
01:08:41.000And then I was like, you know, an older person trying to think about what my place in the world is, And seeing these videos, I'm sure they don't represent most farming, but it was enough to know that that was out there and that perhaps I had participated in that.
01:09:51.000I think a lot of people, that was his form of friendship with a lot of people, was we gotta have a reason to be working together so that we can have a reason to hang out.
01:10:00.000So, yeah, I always love those hunting scenes.
01:10:04.000I grew up in a, my dad's a big hunter, still is a big hunter, so I, I always knew my parents were going to like that episode and not complain about it.
01:10:13.000It was always interesting to see him, Tony.
01:10:17.000He was almost like travel host Ken in a way.
01:10:20.000You put him in the hunting gear and he hunts and then you put him in some other thing.
01:11:01.000I'd never been pheasant hunting before, and it's a fun experience, too, because you're just kind of walking through these fields hoping these birds freak out and fly away.
01:11:09.000And you've got to be ready at any moment.
01:11:46.000I mean, he also could get by on very little sleep.
01:11:48.000I mean, when he was writing Kitchen Confidential, he would talk about how he would work until 11, go out, drink until 1, go home and sleep for a few hours and get up and write.
01:12:00.000And whether or not that was sort of a little bit of self-mythologizing, maybe he didn't do that every day, but he did it enough to very quickly write a best-selling book.
01:13:07.000I mean, it's also much sloppier than the military, I would think, in most cases.
01:13:11.000But pirate ship maybe is a better metaphor.
01:13:15.000I always love how he gave so much credit to the cooks that were working underneath him, too.
01:13:20.000And he was like, the backbone of this city is these immigrant cooks that come in, and some of them can barely even speak English, and they're the people that are serving people and making these amazing meals in these incredible restaurants.
01:13:48.000Yeah, call them out by name and really acknowledge that they're incredibly skilled, incredibly hard workers, cheerfully sweating 12 hours a day making beef bourguignon and french fries.
01:14:27.000You're consuming these incredible meals and you want to have great wine and a great whiskey and, you know, there's something to all that that it kind of fits in together.
01:14:37.000Yeah, it's hedonism as a product and hedonism as a lifestyle, but, you know, also as a way to sort of dull the pain of, you know, your aching body and your tiny paycheck and your busted up relationships.
01:14:52.000I mean, it is, you know, it's really Island of the Misfit Toys.
01:15:36.000Why is it that these people that do struggle and do have all these obstacles and all these problems and yet keep showing up every day, they're so exceptional.
01:15:48.000So many of those people that I meet are so interesting.
01:15:52.000They're the ones I want to talk to at the bar.
01:15:54.000They're the ones I want to sit next to.
01:15:55.000I mean, it's a certain, maybe it's another form of addiction, or it's just, I mean, yeah, all the cooks and chefs that I know, it's just, it is who they are fundamentally.
01:16:05.000I mean, you could leave the business and go sell used cars or whatever, but fundamentally, you're always going to be a cook and a chef and have that thing.
01:16:47.000When you get into that flow state and, I mean, at the highest level or even just a chef of a, you know, mid-level steakhouse, I mean, they're Taking the tickets.
01:18:57.000And same with travel TV. I mean, you know, and again, I talk about it a little bit in the biography that a number of people said, you know, people who work in television, they get all these pitches like, this is going to be the next Bourdain or the Bourdain of this or the Bourdain of that.
01:19:52.000It was, you know, writing about maybe talking to a chef who has something interesting going on using a new or interesting ingredient or, you know, I did a lot of like very just basic kind of service stuff like this, you know, new restaurant opened up in this place and here's 25 words about what their menu is and what the dining room looks like.
01:20:15.000I went to Sri Lanka, actually with Tony.
01:20:17.000I went to Sri Lanka and spent a lot of time on my own learning about Sri Lankan home cooking and got recipes from these different women who would teach me what they were doing and then wrote a feature about Sri Lanka.
01:20:30.000What is the style of cooking in Sri Lanka?
01:20:45.000I mean, of course, you know, Indian cuisine is a huge, you know, it's varied, you know, it's such a big place.
01:20:50.000Sri Lankan tends to be a lot of coconut meat and coconut milk, super intense spices, a lot of warm spices, not a ton of meat, you know, a lot of seafood, because they're a little island nation.
01:21:03.000So it's, you know, it's obviously related to Indian, but it's really its own thing, too.
01:21:13.000Now, how complicated is it to recreate dishes like that?
01:21:15.000If you're a person who goes to Sri Lanka and you sort of learn from someone who's cooking specific dishes over there and then you write down the ingredients, can you even get most of the ingredients in America?
01:21:29.000And putting it together in the way they cook, how specific is their implementation?
01:21:38.000I'd say now with the internet, there were very few ingredients that I couldn't get back in the States.
01:21:46.000There were a few things that I picked up in Sri Lanka because I knew I wouldn't be able to get that specific spice blend or certain preserved fruits and stuff.
01:21:55.000But for the most part, anything you want, you can get it now, as long as you're willing to pay sometimes exorbitant shipping.
01:22:03.000I mean, I'm not going to cook something exactly the way that this auntie taught me to do it, but I took a lot of notes, I took a lot of pictures, I took video in some cases, voice recording, to try and get as close to it as possible.
01:22:18.000And then when you do that and you try to recreate it, how difficult is it to recreate it on your own?
01:22:50.000And I just, at some point I just gave up and was like, that's not something that, you know, if I can't replicate it myself at home, I'm not going to write this recipe and tell somebody that's reading the magazine to try it, you know?
01:23:21.000I just realized this is not an endeavor that's worth it for my dollar a word article for this very small circulation magazine.
01:23:29.000I'm gonna let the hoppers go and just focus on stuff that's easier for the home cook to do.
01:23:35.000Now that you're done with these books, obviously your main focus will now be promoting them and getting them out there, but what do you do with your life now?
01:23:46.000I mean, you had a decade of working with him.
01:25:39.000It's, you know, I feel like having worked for Tony for so long was such a gift and, you know, having these books has raised my platform a little bit.
01:26:05.000I mean, the last real job I had was working for Tony, and I just don't see myself working as an assistant for anybody else.
01:26:13.000I had already kind of aged out of the assistant gig, but when Tony came along, I was like, well, obviously, yes, I'll work for you, but I don't want to be a glorified secretary.
01:26:23.000Do you feel tied down to the food genre?
01:26:27.000I mean, it's a lot of what I've done, you know, but not necessarily.
01:26:31.000I realize that, you know, there's a lot more out there for me.
01:26:36.000You know, I mean, I've tried to develop myself as a writer over the, you know, since I've always, you know, so no, I guess the short answer is no.
01:26:47.000I'm interested in writing about and learning about other things.
01:26:50.000Being connected to him, though, it's sort of like there's high expectations on whatever you do put out.
01:26:56.000Well, you know, and he himself kind of drifted away from food a little bit in the later years.
01:27:02.000I mean, obviously, there was always still food involved in whatever he was doing for television.
01:27:06.000But the focus really had started to shift to people, you know, and maybe food as an initial way to kind of break the ice with people.
01:27:15.000But he really got away from food porn, you know, except in special cases.
01:27:22.000What does the food tell me about how you live, you know, or what you do or don't have or what your government is or isn't, you know, providing for you?
01:27:31.000So, you know, I see Tony kind of forging a path there of going beyond just like what's delicious on the table, you know?
01:27:40.000Well, that seemed the shift of Parts Unknown.
01:27:42.000Parts Unknown seemed to shift more into a sort of an exploration of these different cultures as much as their food.
01:27:51.000And almost the food was like sort of, okay, we got to do this too.
01:27:56.000I mean, some places, you know, he went to Lyon, France, and that was, like, all about the food, you know, because it's so intrinsic to the culture.
01:28:03.000In other places, it was like, well, what's the, you know, what's the specialty?
01:28:06.000All right, we're going to shoot that, and then we're going to talk to, you know, this guy that was a political prisoner for 10 years, or, you know, something that, there were plenty of scenes toward the end that had nothing to do with food.
01:28:15.000Yeah, there were so many wild moments.
01:28:17.000Like, what was, wasn't there an episode where they sat around and ate a camel?
01:28:32.000I think they were all sitting around eating a camel because I remember you had to eat it with your hands and there was very specific rules to where they did it.
01:28:57.000I'd have to go back to the archive, but it seems totally in the realm of possibility.
01:29:01.000I mean, he went to Egypt, he went to Oman, and I mean, just everywhere, you know?
01:29:09.000Is it when you're looking back on this time that you shared with him and then you put all this down in these books, do you feel like you've in some way closed the chapter?
01:29:26.000Does this give you closure in any way?
01:29:32.000I mean, I think there will be a time when both of these books, this one will be out in the world, the biography, the travel book is already out and the promotional period will end and that will be it.
01:29:45.000And I think it will be a very sad time for me because I think I have kept some sense of Tony's memory alive by working on these books.
01:29:59.000I feel like the more time that goes by, the less closure I have in some ways.
01:30:03.000This morning watching the Montana episode, it was like just every time I see something that I haven't seen from him in a while, it kind of breaks my heart open again and just makes me realize how fucking incredible he was.
01:30:18.000I think working for him, you kind of lose perspective when you're talking to somebody every day and you're working with them and you sort of forget that they're How great they are until they're gone.
01:30:29.000So, yeah, you know, I mean, I think very early on after Tony died, I had to, and a lot of us that were close with him had to sort of tell ourselves right out of the gate, this is not our fault.
01:30:41.000You know, this is not something that we could have prevented.
01:30:44.000As much as I still to this day think about, like we said at the top of this conversation, what if I had said this or that?
01:30:52.000What if I had, you know, alerted somebody?
01:30:55.000And you have to believe that this is a decision that he made that didn't involve anyone else.
01:31:04.000But yeah, I think that with the nature of the way that he died, I think there's always going to be an open wound of regret and of just, you know...
01:31:15.000Playing out the million scenarios that, you know, had things gone differently.
01:31:19.000You know, I think about, God, if he were around right now, what he would, you know, A, he would be so...
01:31:24.000I have this fantasy that he comes back and I'm like, dude, there's a pandemic, you know, and just how like, you know, like he would be in his sort of like nerdy, enthusiast way.
01:31:47.000That's sort of like the daily heartbreak, is like all of these things that are happening, that the world has gone on, and he stopped in June of 2018, and he's not getting to see the way that the people that he lifted up are continuing to grow professionally,
01:32:03.000to see his daughter, all of these things.
01:32:08.000I don't think there's ever any closure to that.
01:32:10.000There's just peace, trying to make peace with it personally and somehow try to understand it.
01:32:18.000And unfortunately, and I say this with all hesitation because I know it's a fucked up thing to say, there's a certain romantic aspect to even the way he died.
01:32:28.000One day when people review the life of Anthony Bourdain, that will be a part of the legend.
01:32:36.000Be a part of the chaos of who he was and the pain and suffering and then ultimately what he felt like was betrayal and humiliation and he takes his own life and he's missed so dearly by everyone.
01:32:49.000It's just it's part of the romantic legend that is that person and this wild Unforeseen ride from writing that one book to becoming this person that affected so many people that became in a lot of ways a cultural icon for travel and for the exploration of different regions of the world and different people and different cultures.
01:33:35.000You know, and he, I mean, you know, it's just not a surprise to say that, you know, he made a million throwaway suicide references as a joke, you know, always, there's a million of them, you know, in the TV show, in conversation.
01:33:52.000I just have to think that it was a spontaneous, shitty decision.
01:33:59.000Oftentimes that's the case, apparently.
01:34:01.000I've talked to people who are, air quotes, suicide experts.
01:34:05.000And that's one of the things I say is that you'd be surprised at how many people commit suicide with literally an off-the-cuff, random thought, and they just fall through with it.
01:34:17.000And, you know, we'll never know, really.
01:34:20.000But, you know, I wish that he had made a different decision.
01:34:24.000I hope that, you know, people who think that it's a romantic way to go out will listen to the voices of the people that he left behind and see that, you know, the tremendous amount of pain that that caused.
01:34:47.000But the rest of us are here kind of picking up the pieces.
01:34:52.000We're left wondering what his take on the world at large today.
01:34:59.000I mean, in so many ways, a lot of the facade of what we imagined was a rigid structure of government and And society has eroded so rapidly before our eyes over the last year and a half plus that it would have been fascinating to see his take on that because it really has revealed the true character of all these human beings grasping at straws,
01:35:28.000trying to find relevance in this weird time that we find ourselves in because it is unprecedented.
01:35:35.000So for a voice like his, which had been so sorely needed in a time like now, to not have him around...
01:35:48.000It's a fucking shame for every reason, but that's just another one.
01:36:50.000He would never tell you that he was a super well-read guy, but he absolutely was.
01:36:55.000Well, he was interested in things, right?
01:36:57.000It didn't really matter what his actual formal education was.
01:37:00.000He was interested in things and the pursuit of those things and trying to understand stuff, which also contributed greatly to his enthusiasm as a traveler.