...I was floored when I turned on the news this morning at 6 to hear of Anthony Bourdain's passing....Even more floored and really saddened that it was apparently by his own hand.
He was a really unique voice in the TV wasteland. I'd seen him when he was on the Travel Channel and dug his approach. I guess I knew he had a cooking show on the Food Channel, but never caught that, so i was really not tuned into him from the culinary aspect, even though cooking and food were the conduit he used for his glimpses into the lives of people he found interesting and real just for who they were, where, and how they lived.
I was totally onboard when he moved to CNN and watched religiously as he traveled and opened windows into other cultures. He was never overtly political, but didn't whitewash or sugarcoat any of the struggles people in other countries had in keeping their lifestyles and traditions alive.
He was real to me. The kind of guy I just wanted to meet. He seemed to take pleasure in the humblest of surroundings, in strange and humble foods, with folks that lived in moments of each day with what they had available.
There were several episodes last season where he was smoking weed right on camera, no apologies offered at all. I thought for a guy in his sixties, working for a big network...That was pretty ballsy and damned cool too.
I cannot imagine the pain he was feeling...Pain so great he felt he could not live anymore.
I just hope the following weeks don't show he had some great embarrassment coming, one so great he felt he could not stand the heat from it. Or that it is discovered he got knowledge of some horrid disease upon him and didn't want to face a slow painful decline.
I just am really sad in his passing. Sincerely....On a John Lennon, Robert Kennedy level.