Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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33anda3rd
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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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I think of it more in the way Diddy put it--chasing something rather than running from something. Bourdain liked to travel and eat and talk to folks because those things made him feel something. I don't know what, in particular, those feelings were for Bourdain, but it's something I can relate to because food and the people who make it are things I'm very passionate about and I know how it makes me feel to experience them together in a specific place whether it's my first or 50th time there. When I travel to eat, and almost all my travel involves a lot of food and drink planning, I'm not running away from anything, I'm looking for something.

Yesterday I had a talk with someone that made me think about Bourdain more, and in a different light. Two of my good friends are AA. One is the chef of a place I'm doing the beverage program for, the other is the GM of that place. Yesterday the chef was super down, and he's one of those guys who wears it--when he's up you know it, down the same. He's like 18 months or so sober. He was down because he has a new girlfriend, been dating two months or so. She's already been home to Boston with him to meet his family, he's already met hers, within a couple weeks he was spending every non-work moment with her and was basically living at her place. It got very serious very fast. He's a chef and she's the type who drinks a smoothie for dinner and obsesses about food and her weight. She is upset because she's gained 8 pounds since meeting him, and doesn't want to eat out so much, and that hurt his feelings.

So I was talking to the other guy and he was saying that when you get sober you become co-dependent. For the chef, he's replaced alcohol with the girlfriend, and every little ripple in the relationship becomes a really big thing and in his mind it's much bigger than it is because much like he needed alcohol before, he needs the relationship with the girlfriend, and for it to be perfect. Bourdain was probably in some way big or small replacing the drugs with beer and travel and writing/TV work and food. He was filling up something in him that he needed to have filled up, because his personality is codependent and requires it.

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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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https://news.avclub.com/rose-mcgowan-ur ... 1826741757

Some heavy stuff in this open letter from Rose McGowan on behalf of Asia Argento.

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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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I didn't notice it until now: how long has every suicide article included the number for the help line?

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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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MAGA wrote:
Tim wrote:
MAGA wrote: In SC? Interesting.
Yes.
I have some questions for ya. I’ll PM you.

https://youtube.com/watch?t=2s&v=bct8stbZafI

Here’s a clip of Bourdain visiting the Waffle House. He could really be pretentious about food like most modern hipster food enthusiasts, if he wanted to, (except he actually knows what he’s talking about and didn’t read two blogs and label himself an expert) but he never was.
Remember that poor old woman who wrote a straightforward Olive Garden review in Grand Forks, ND? The entire internet did a giant dog pile on her. Bourdain was one of the few people to stand up for her. He was an uncynical person in an extremely, almost insanely, cynical world. He even helped her publish a book and he wrote the forward to it.

I think if you look at that incident - standing up for a sincere 88 year old woman against thousands of terrible internet monsters with irony poisoning - it gives you a glimpse of the scale of the fight he was going through in his own mind.

Writer of viral Olive Garden review grateful for Bourdain
A North Dakota newspaper columnist who received online vitriol in 2012 for her glowing review of an Olive Garden in Grand Forks said Saturday she was grateful that Anthony Bourdain came to her defense as others ridiculed her prose about the town’s hottest new Italian restaurant.

Marilyn Hagerty catapulted to internet fame after her Olive Garden review, in which she marveled about the chain restaurant’s chicken Alfredo, crisp greens and “two long, warm breadsticks.” Then, she learned what it’s like to go viral.

Bourdain, who died Friday in France in an apparent suicide at age 61, was among those who stood up for her on Twitter. The celebrity chef and TV host asked to meet her for coffee while she was on a media tour in New York, and he ended up publishing a book of her columns, “Grand Forks: A History of American Dining in 128 Reviews.”

In the foreword, Bourdain wrote: “Anyone who comes away from this work anything less than charmed by Ms. Hagerty — and the places and characters she describes — has a heart of stone. This book kills snark dead.”

Hagerty, who’s 92, said she enjoyed meeting Bourdain, whom she described as “handsome.” She said they talked for a couple of hours about her life, North Dakota and a birthday party he held for his daughter, who was 5 at the time.

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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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Socnorb11 wrote:That sounds about right, Arthur.

I know people that go to a "meaningless" job every day, and they're giddy about their life.

I know others who "live it up", and they're miserable.


None of those things, by themselves, are fulfilling. I don't pretend to have all of the answers, but for me it seems like it's more about relationship. My wife and I can walk through a mall and make it seem like Disneyland. I've been on some business trips to some cool places that should have been pretty enjoyable, but I couldn't wait to get home, because I didn't connect with the people that I was traveling with. For me, it's rarely about "what" or "where"......... it's all about "who".
I do think that lack of meaning in our lives (or "fulfillment") is an enormous problem today and it leads to tons of mental health problems. But depression really is a disease. It's very hard to think of it that way because at some point all of us have been sad, disappointed, heartbroken, suffered loss, and so on. That stuff can be a symptom of depression, but those things by themselves are not depression. Tim talked a bit about this earlier in the thread (feel free to correct me if I misspeak here at all).

Depression can be triggered by a traumatic event but it does not always have to be like that. Maybe it comes on because you didn't get enough sleep or you drank too much or you got a cold. Or maybe you can't even tell what triggered it. Depression can be related to childhood trauma, too, but doesn't have to be. It really is a disease. It may even have a genetic component to it in some cases.

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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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33anda3rd wrote:I think of it more in the way Diddy put it--chasing something rather than running from something. Bourdain liked to travel and eat and talk to folks because those things made him feel something. I don't know what, in particular, those feelings were for Bourdain, but it's something I can relate to because food and the people who make it are things I'm very passionate about and I know how it makes me feel to experience them together in a specific place whether it's my first or 50th time there. When I travel to eat, and almost all my travel involves a lot of food and drink planning, I'm not running away from anything, I'm looking for something.

Yesterday I had a talk with someone that made me think about Bourdain more, and in a different light. Two of my good friends are AA. One is the chef of a place I'm doing the beverage program for, the other is the GM of that place. Yesterday the chef was super down, and he's one of those guys who wears it--when he's up you know it, down the same. He's like 18 months or so sober. He was down because he has a new girlfriend, been dating two months or so. She's already been home to Boston with him to meet his family, he's already met hers, within a couple weeks he was spending every non-work moment with her and was basically living at her place. It got very serious very fast. He's a chef and she's the type who drinks a smoothie for dinner and obsesses about food and her weight. She is upset because she's gained 8 pounds since meeting him, and doesn't want to eat out so much, and that hurt his feelings.

So I was talking to the other guy and he was saying that when you get sober you become co-dependent. For the chef, he's replaced alcohol with the girlfriend, and every little ripple in the relationship becomes a really big thing and in his mind it's much bigger than it is because much like he needed alcohol before, he needs the relationship with the girlfriend, and for it to be perfect. Bourdain was probably in some way big or small replacing the drugs with beer and travel and writing/TV work and food. He was filling up something in him that he needed to have filled up, because his personality is codependent and requires it.
I can relate to all of this. I'm a little further along than your friend in a similar situation in terms of codependence and sobriety. I perceive small things as betrayals in my relationship and I'm hyper-vigilant with strangers. Before I make ultimatums and threaten to end the relationship or start yelling at someone about what an awful member of society they are in a parking lot, I've learned to just make a therapy appointment.

As for Bourdain, even though he was presumably able to abstain from banging smack while still drinking, since he was an addict who struggles with depression it was still a terrible idea for him. I think that's probably most of the story.

Conversely, in terms of travel, I'm sitting on the beach in the keys right now and feel like I've got [expletive] to take care of at home and work that I'm neglecting right now and my motor is still running pretty hot. Not my idea of a great time, even though it's lovely.
Last edited by haltz on June 12 18, 11:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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Diddy wrote:Seems more like chasing something then running from something to me. Your chasing that high, the unknown, the euphoria that comes with it. Then its not there anymore. The tenth trip to Paris doesn’t feel the same as the first few. You try to find it, recreate it, but it’s just not the same anymore. There’s nothing new under the sun. You’ve chased that high around the world and it’s not there anymore.

I try to look back and analyze things in my life. I had a ton of fun and n high school. Looking back a lot of it wasn’t anything particularly fun. Sitting in the square talking with friends or complaining about our parents. But when you leave the house that night in your washed up truck with way to much cologne on all your thinking about that s how that hot girl from two towns over that smiled at you last week might be there. Someone’s older brother might be in town and buy us some beer. When you leave that house at 17 the perception is that anything can happen and that produces a rush of excitement and emotions. As an adult I’m found I’m chasing that feeling. Not reliving high school or a lack of responsibility, just that “anything can happen” feeling.

I’m rambling. I’ll stop.

I think that's a really good point.

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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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haltz wrote:As for Bourdain, even though he was presumably able to abstain from banging smack while still drinking, as an addict who struggles with depression it was still a terrible idea for him. I think that's probably most of the story.
He's always drank, but there was also a noticeable uptick in on-camera pot smoking/references. Maybe he always was smoking, and changing attitudes/laws made it more acceptable to show.

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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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If anyone is jaded on all their travels, feel free to transfer your frequent flier miles to me.

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Re: Anthony Bourdain dead from apparent suicide

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brief discussion

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