DISGRACELAND - Anthony Bourdain: Junk, Romance, and a Lust for Life

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Anthony Bourdain had a lust for life. He went all in on adventure, indulgence, food, romance – including the romance of a heroin addiction that he chased through the restaurant kitchens and grimy rock clubs of 1980s Manhattan. For years he was a struggling cook and writer, but his first book, published when he was 43 years old, was an overnight success. He parlayed success as a writer into success as a TV host, traveling all over the world, dining with rockstars, presidents, and everyone in between. He dodged bullets, the real and the figurative kind, the figurative kind from the tabloids having the most impact. But in the end, he was unable to dodge the truth, which to a romantic like Anthony Bourdain, was hard to come to terms with.To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com.This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners, including sexual assault and suicide. If you’re thinking about suicide, or are worried about a friend or loved one, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTERFollow Jake and DISGRACELAND:InstagramYouTubeX (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan GroupTikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the exactly right network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Anthony Bourdain. are insane. As a struggling cook and writer, he chased the romance of a heroin addiction through the restaurant kitchens

and grimy rock clubs of 1980s Manhattan. He published his first book of nonfiction at the age of 43 and became an overnight success. He parlayed success as a writer into success as a TV host, traveling all over the world, dining with rock stars, presidents, and everyone in between.

He dodged bullets, the real and figurative kind, the figurative kind from the tabloids having the most impact. And through it all, Anthony Bourdain made great art. Nothing like that cheesy loop I played for you at the top of the show. That was not great art. That was a preset loop for my Melotron called High Stakes Stakeout, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the right. to Maria Maria by Santana, featuring the product GMB. And why would I play you that specific slice of nylon-stringed Spanish Harlem cheese could I afford it?

Because that was the number one song in America on May 22, 2000. And that was the day Anthony Bourdain published Kitchen Confidential, forever changing his life and enriching ours. On this episode, chasing heroin through Lower Manhattan, an overnight success, beers with the president, an insatiable lust for life in Anthony Bourdain. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Chapter 1, The Not So Blushing Bride,

Province Town, Massachusetts, The Edge of the World. Some might say the beginning of my world. At least, that's what they'll say when I'm dead. When all the dust is settled, when the tabs have lost interest, and when the truly curious are still hanging around to pick through the remains of what once was, if not a perfect life, a damn interesting one. In Peatown, as they call it, the point isn't to lose oneself on the edge of nowhere, but to find yourself, or perhaps to find who you might one day become.

Wait a minute. Hold up. Hold up. This is not this. This is something else. This is this. Bobby was giving it to the bride from behind like a drunken pirate. She panted into light. She was bent over a 55-gallon drum of cooking grease. And Bobby's apron was pulled up over his belly. His pants were down around his ankles. Her white wedding gown somehow still looked pure under the Provincetown moonlight. Myself and the other dishwasher, and the cooks howled up the moon from the back door of the kitchen, egging on Bobby, our head chef here at the Dreadnought. Inside the dining room at the bride's wedding reception,

neither her assembled family nor her newlywed husband had any idea what was happening out back with the kitchen staff. That was Anthony Bourdain's secret weapon. Most of the world had no idea what was happening out back with the kitchen staff. He used that secret knowledge to carve out a writing career, unlike any other, beginning with his debut work of nonfiction, Kitchen Confidential, published in 2000, which became an instant smash hit and transformed Anthony's life overnight, from capable chef in a good not great Manhattan restaurant to a New York Times bestseller and in-demand media

darling. Antiquets like the aforementioned not so blushing bride, of course, an anecdote that Anthony Bourdain claims made him want to be a chef had a lot to do with the book's success. Anthony, or Tony, as his friends called him, approached his subject, food, and the culture of chefs and the people who made kitchens run. Like his hero, Iggy Pop, godfather of punk, approached his own subject rock and roll, with a potent mix of danger, truth, and charisma. At times, it seemed like danger was the world. point. Danger was where the action was. Give me danger, little stranger. Food or making it wasn't merely a job or a profession. It was, just like rock and roll, a lifestyle. And for guys like Tony Bourdain, the journeymen, the back-of-house pirates, the guys who steered ships of 20 or more

staff, many of them alcoholics, drug addicts, ex-cons, immigrants, both legal and illegal, it was a romantic lifestyle. Ask any writer and they'll tell you that romance can be a great tool for storytelling. That goes for works of nonfiction and for three-cord punk. Was Tony's story about the P-Town bride who was defiled on her wedding night, True? Or was it just a way of romanticizing his backstory? Who cares? There's a great story. Was I want to be your dog, true? Who cares? It's a great song. Truth isn't the point. Storytelling is the point. Creating is the point.

And to create is to love. To bring love into the world, which Anthony Bourdain most certainly did with his writing. The love he inspired brought him unimaginable success. Success that eventually led him to standing on a beach with his hero, Iggy Pop, in 2015. More than a decade after that story about the bride was published. Tony asks Iggy Pop what his definition of a perfect day is. And Iggy goes on to describe his perfect day.

It involves a beach, the big Florida sun sparkling on the ocean, and the positivity one can derive from such an experience, particularly when it's spent with a loved one. That's a far cry from what one would expect from a man who once proclaimed to the world that he was a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. and Anthony Bourdain looks bewildered by his hero's answer. Because Iggy Pop gave Anthony Bordane the truth, and the truth is hard for a romantic to come to terms with.

Throughout 20th century American culture, the concept of the junkie has been thoroughly romanticized, from Miles Davis to William S. Barrows to Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain. For a certain type of subversive, leaning, literary-minded rock-and-roll, bent transgressive. Dudes who maybe paid a little too much attention to Lou Reed's lyrics, dudes who were always first in line to do whatever new drugs showed up to the party last, who were always taking more, doing less, aspiring to little.

To these dudes, heroin wasn't something to be avoided. Heroin or junk was something to aspire to. 1980. Young Tony Vordane didn't know who exactly he was looking for. for, but he knew what he wanted. He and a friend slowly cruised 2nd Avenue and a beat-up Volkswagen Rabbit. The Manhattan Street was dark, near dead at this hour. And the two white boys were hunting for dope, or more specifically, hunting for a dope dealer.

Actually, a dope dealer's ship. In those days, dealers didn't text you on a Friday to see if you were set for the weekend and then run the small baggy of brown up to your apartment via bike messenger. No, and in those days, in the bad old days, you had to swipe your sharpest, stealthiest knife from the kitchen, conceal it in an item of clothing that wouldn't result in you stabbing yourself, and head into the part of town that took no prisoners and produced only casualties. New York's Lower East Side, looking for a fix, just like Iggy Pop,

just like Lou Reed, and just like Johnny Thunders. And you weren't on the lookout for some pimp in a big straw hat standing on the corner either. You were looking for a hole in the wall the size of a Dodge Challenger. A hole in the wall that looked about as inviting as a den of hungry wolves. A hole in the wall that served up one thing. Heroin. Even cops didn't fuck with places like these. But you did.

Because you were different. You weren't like those other guys. Those pajama boys back at Vassar or the snobs back at CIA, the Culinary Institute of America, upstate where you learned a lot, but nothing as important as how to keep your knife sharp and your wit sharper. The snobs and the pajama boys had a lot in common. For one, there were fucking Philistines, and they couldn't tell you the difference between George Orwell or Orville Redenbocker. And they had no fucking heart either. You had heart. The Vassar boys, your classmates.

at CIA. They'd never know the thrill of scoring in a sceny lower-easide drug den like you did. And they'd never know the complication of having to score heroin between staff meal and the first rush either. Unnecessary challenge your junkie ass now had to solve every night to keep from puking all over the entrees as they flew off the line. Yet you figured it out, because it was the early 80s and, yeah, other than a new heroin habit and a shitty job, you took an outsized amount of pride in, you had little. But you were Anthony fucking Bourdain. And the one thing you did have was a lust for life.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.

I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the Girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

Dennis Leary. I wake up, and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance, like he's about to attack me, like, making karate noises. And his entire, the Kardashians family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yello-O.

I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie to Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien.

And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the criterion closet? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film, grape I got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end.

So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over it, from hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Chapter 2. Nancy with the laughing face. The heart of Manhattan beats from the working class. Bus drivers and busboys.

Working stiffs and waitresses. Bartenders pouring punch-out cold ones to stiff up her lips. Taxi drivers and doorman with more information than you need. Daily rag scribes and night watchmen. Cops, construction workers, dealers too. And if you're not careful, you'll get caught up in the grind and miss the beauty of the sweat and the hustle. Lose it all to the bustling sound of the lonesome streets, wake up in a midtown high-rise with a mortgage and a wife and a kid in a separate apartment.

But if you keep your ears open, each night you'll hear the sound of the mission bell, that universal sign that it's time to blow off steam, quitting time. But when you're too tired to think and too wired to go home, this is the time when you're reminded of your station in life, reminded of where you're supposed to be, bellied up to the bar with the rest of your kind, cursing your boss's greed and your customer's stupidity, toasting your coworkers on a job well done, barely ready for a four-hour crash, an inevitable hangover, an unspoken gratitude for the fact that you get up too early, too sore, and too sore. smart to know any better so that you, my friend, can go back to work and do it all over again. To an outsider, the kitchen during the nightly rush looked and sounded like chaos, but you've got it all under control. Sure, the slips are firing in, Louis Rapido, Signor, and the floor staff looks haggard and scared, and the dishwasher's gone on one of his mid-shift sabbaticals in the back alley, and the sous chef may have just quit, or he may just be in the can with explosive

of diarrhea and no one will acknowledge that the phone has been ringing unanswered for what you swear to God has been all frigging night long and the owner just decided that right fucking now of all times is the time to pop in to bust your balls in front of his investors. Yes, that all may be happening at the moment and it might spell chaos

for the uninitiated civilian looking in on your kitchen but you're no civilian, you're a professional chef or at least a very capable cook and this is your kitchen. Even if you don't own a piece, even if you're fighting a daily heroin Jones, Even if you're a functioning alcoholic, even if you haven't seen your new wife in the daylight in six weeks,

and even if you can't speak Spanish yet that's all that most of your employees speak, even if your fish guy went on the lamb and your meat guy isn't returning your calls. None of this matters because you thrive in this chaos. In fact, this isn't chaos at all. This, to you, for some unexplained reason, makes sense. It's organized. At least to you it is. You know your way around these challenges.

You and you alone know how to solve these problems. But these are the only problems you know how to solve. Kitchen problems. Outside the kitchen. That's chaos. You haven't paid your rent on time, well, ever. You're perpetually three months behind and dodging your landlord. The creditors are after you and the taxman looms.

You haven't been to a doctor for a preemptive checkup for what seems to be your entire adult life and you're barreling toward middle age with a needle hanging out of your arm during. during a time in history when intravenous drug use can spell instant death. It's July, and your Christmas tree is still standing in the corner of your apartment, deader than Vince Giraldi and twice as pathetic as Charlie Brown. You and your wife, Nancy, are too ashamed to even bring it down to the corner for the trash man to pick up for fear of what your neighbors might think. You have next to no social life.

You subsist on deli sandwiches and Simpsons reruns. Life as you live it is barely any life at all. But work is where you thrive, and after work is when you come alive. The sun ruled. The sun king. On the beach, crashed out, tanning away the heroin pallor, asleep in the sand in the late morning hours. Before that, it was the train out to Rockaway,

nodding out having finished the last of your smack, freaking out the civilians on their early morning rush hour commute. Club 57, the Mud Club, CBGB, wherever junkie guitar. players reigns supreme on stage, you were there. Passed the line of pedestrians to the sympathetic doorman who'd been bribed with steak sandwiches from your kitchen. The kitchen you'd closed hours ago. You hit the bar after closing with a couple employees.

Someone thought 96 tears by question mark and the Mysterians was a good idea, and they were right. It blasted from the jukebox. A fat line of Coke was laid out on said bar, along the length of the entire bar. The adult portion of the evening was. is now in full effect, commenced by you mounting the bar, getting down on all fours, and hoovering as much of that long line of blow as your aching heart would allow. You needed the bump, something to come back from the weakness brought on by the illicit rendezvous in the dry goods area

with the cute waitress. Hey, it happened. So what? You don't know how it gets started. It just did. Sort of like this night. It just got started. Sort of like all the nights. You scammed. You sprinted. You ran hard and fast. Hard and fast. Awe. from yourself until finally you ended up right back where you started in the kitchen unless of course it was a day off then you couldn't run away you couldn't hide from yourself or from what you'd become a junkie when there was nowhere left to go and no more drugs left to do no shifts to pick up you find yourself where you feared you would inevitably end up alone not even your junkie wife could help She was nodding off on her own trip.

So it was just you. Just you in the deep, dark, dirty mirror alone at rock bottom. Fuck this. Cold turkey. You kicked. No 12 steps. No self-help gurus. No meetings.

Hardcore, like the man said, except in the other direction. You used methadone to wean off, but your biggest weapon was your lust for life. You turned that junky appetite around and gobbled up. whatever life had left to give you. You were still a young man and there was still a life to be had. You went from line cook to chef, layout. Like you, it wasn't great. It was good. Good enough. You worked that restaurant hard and fed that yearning to be something else, something more, something better. After hours under your typewriter, you wrote. Two crime novels, bone and throat and gone bamboo. The critics pretty much said the same thing.

that both books were like the restaurant you ran. Good, not great. You kept going, because what else were you going to do? Moving forward was all you'd ever done in this life. You worked even harder, kept that kitchen humming, and you continued to write. Writing replaced junk. You couldn't not write. It was the first thing you did every morning.

Well, it was the second thing, actually. The first thing you did was smoke a cigarette. Then you wrote, before even brushing your teeth, before kissing your wife, Nancy, before taking a shit. You wrote what you knew now. Sally the wig and chef Tommy were fond and all, but who are you kidding? You weren't Don De Lillo. You were Raoul Duke and Chef's Whites.

And this new writing was fresh because it was desperate. It was all you had left. It was a junkie move. All in. No bullshit. Okay, a little bullshit like the bit about fish on Monday and perhaps the Provincetown bride over the barrel, but I digress. You sent a couple thousand words into the New Yorker. David Remnick wouldn't give you the time of day until your mom,

your mom used a connection to get him to read it. How uncool is that, having to get your mom to help you get published? But what did you care? Lou Reed moved back in with his parents after he was in the Velvet Underground and went to work for his dad's accounting firm, again after he was in the Velvet Underground. Things weren't yet that bad for you, so fire away, Mom. It worked. David Remnick loved what you wrote.

Of course he did. The piece he wrote that Remnick published in The New Yorker Don't Eat Before Reading This was the type of magazine phenomenon that is hard to imagine in this day and age, the modern era of the internet. There you were walking down Park Avenue on your way at work like he did every day,

except perhaps today you were walking with a little bit more swagger than usual. The New Yorker article was the shit, and you knew it, Nancy knew it, everyone fucking knew it. There was only one problem. Did your boss, the owner of Laal, did he know it? Or was he pissed? Did all the behind-the-scenes kitchen exploits rubbed in the wrong way?

Shit, were you going to peacock into work today? Get fired? You rounded the corner and there they were. News trucks. Outside your restaurant. Waiting for you. Your article prompted a mini-media sensation right there on Park Avenue. And oh, how delighted the news crews were when they jam their microphone.

phones in your face and blasted their sun guns only to realize that you were naturally camera ready. And they weren't the only ones to notice. The article led to a full-on book deal, Kitchen Confidential. And this, my friend, was no mini-sensation. This was the real deal, a phenomenon. A New York Times bestseller, Oprah, Letterman, high-fives from construction workers as you walked down the street kind of famous. You ate it all up. You took every opportunity your newfound publishing fame brought you. You knew all too well what it was like to not be famous and now you had life by the throat and you weren't going to let go. So when they showed up looking to talk to you about a TV show idea, you were skeptical but you listened. Then you got on a

plane. Then you got divorced. Then you ventured out into truly uncharted waters, towards something you'd never fully experienced before in self-contentment. We'll be right back after this There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends,

Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed.

I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark.

Like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises.

And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going. And the air marshal is trying to. grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been at sleepwalk. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Madarazzo from Stranger Things.

Tena Monsu. Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter

arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast. Dear Movies I Love You from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the Criterion Clause? Go ahead, dude.

They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film, Gripe I got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra P and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites.

New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chapter 3. Otavia. Love, as they say, is a many-splendered thing. They also say love is a burning flame and that love will tear us apart. I found all three of these quotes to be true at various parts of my life. But perhaps the most truthful quote about love comes from my hero, Uncle Lou.

Lou Reed, who said, You do what you love or you get arrested. Anthony Bourdain made it out of the kitchen. Anthony Bordane was freed from the grind. Anthony Bordane was a best-selling author. Suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, including himself, Anthony Bourdain was now a television star, and Anthony Bourdain was in love. 2005, five years after Kitchen Confidential was published,

Anthony Bourdain's television series, No Reservations, debuted for the Travel Channel. It was not your normal food or travel show. It was almost entirely subjective. More gonzo journalism presented through a different medium and for a different millennium. This wasn't early 2000. reality TV, and it wasn't some cuddly roly-poly chef molded for Middle America. This was a streetwalking cheetah ready to get his eat on. The show's concept was simple.

Best-selling food author Anthony Bourdain would travel to different locales around the world, sampled the local fair, and comment on it. But the show was different because of, well, Anthony Bourdain. Tony was a totally unique character, tall, lanky, dark, strangely handsome, and armed with a lifetime of blue-collar kitchen experience, hard-working experience that was relatable and that softened his cutting wit and obvious intelligence. Tony displayed an encyclopedic understanding of culture, of books, movies, music, the things that bind people together that don't come out of a kitchen. All of this constituted a totally unique point of view that Tony delivered with humor and curiosity. And the dude could write. His narrations for episodic TV remain some of the best examples of subjective journalism that I've ever heard.

Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Dominic Dunn, Anthony Bourdain. His writing was that good. Almost instantly, Tony elevated himself to the level of some of the greatest to ever do it. He was fearless when it came to his point of view, and he was nothing, if not curious, and empathetic. Part of the show's appeal was Tony's ability to break bread with people from all walks of life, from completely different social and economic backgrounds. Montana ranchers, Sardinian pig farmers, Muslims, Jews, Ted fucking Nugent.

It didn't matter. Politics, religion, whatever. If you like to eat, if you had ears and could open them up and listen, then Tony Bourdain could find common ground around the dinner table. Hunger was at Tony's core. He went at his job and his newfound success with an insatiable energy. You could sense that he had life by the balls, finally, and that he wasn't going to let go, ever. We didn't want him to. We, like him, were hungry for more. But Tony's hunger was a junkie's hunger, all-consuming. There are no part-time heroin addicts. And though Tony kicked his addiction years before becoming successful, the addiction never kicked him.

Tony just shifted his addiction from heroin to work, and then to Atavia. Anthony Bourdain's television career was responsible for the end of his first marriage, and it was also responsible for the beginning of his second. Atavia, beautiful, strong, smart, take no shit Italian, wholesome, from a big, loving, family on the other side of the world. The type of woman that a guy like Tony Bourdain looks at and goes, oh yeah, this is who I've been waiting for. He went all in, and so did she.

They shared secrets. Tonys were darker than she expected. The Caribbean Island of St. Martin's, a few years after Tony's success, just after the split from his first wife, a dark time that no amount of accolades or money or opportunity was going to fix. This was the type of pain and hurt that was not going anywhere.

You were going to have to go through it, get over it, or collapse under it. If you're like me and raised on rock and roll and have spent the better part of your life socializing with degenerate rock and roll animals who view life through a dusty lens of romance, cynicism, and hyperbole, then you've no doubt heard one of your friends along the way say these words. That song saved my heart. life or that album or band saved me. Perhaps you said it yourself. If so, congratulations. You're as equally full of shit as I am. Music cannot literally save any of us. Only we have the power to save

our own lives. Saving your life is a dramatic move. It requires action, agency. Music, specifically listening to music is a passive experience. and as such is incapable of saving your life. It might make you feel better. It might help shape your identity. But it isn't pulling you out of a fiery car wreck before you burn up into a crispy black piece of toast. But music did save Anthony Bourdain's life.

Or so, the story goes. The island DJ played whatever the hell he wanted, and this suited Anthony Bourdain just fine. After stumbling, drunken stoned out of the St. Martin Horhouse and shoving a dirty shwarma down his throat. House of the Rising Sun by the Animals, or Iggy Pop's, lust for life, or hell. Even Louis Armstrong's, what a wonderful world.

These songs would make the wobbly island you were about to drive blind-ass drunk across seem a whole lot more tolerable. On the other hand, if the DJ was to play, say, Jimmy Buffett or Billy Joel or God forbid the Grateful Dead, then it could spell the end, bedtime for Bonzo. lights out at the No Reservations Hotel, all permanent-like. You'd take your final drive, crash, into the wall, or perhaps you'd drive off the road over one of those big island cliffs.

Suicide via 50,000 watts. That's what you told Atavia anyway. That's how thin the line had gotten for you. It was AM Radio Roulette. You started the engine to your rented four-by-four, lit what was likely your tenth joint of the day, Choked down the urge to vomit up the day's countless beers and greasy food, gave the accelerator your full foot and took off into the dark night,

back to your hotel, or perhaps high-ho silver rodeo to deliver yourself from nowhere. It depended on the song the DJ played, life or death, in the hands of an unknown islander with erratic, sometimes great and sometimes highly questionable taste in music. The island roads were dark, unpaved, poorly graded and populated with drivers who were likely as pissed drunk as you were.

The air whipping by felt good. And that was about all that felt good. The pain was thick. You could barely think straight. But still, you had it all figured out. You gunned that four by four as fast as it would go. Throw all caution to the wind. And if you crashed and burned, so be it.

If you made it out of town and out onto the remote road that brought you up to the cliffs, over the pass and down toward your hotel, if you made it up onto the cliff road, then you'd kick things up a notch and put your fate in the DJ's hands. You hit the cliff road, and the music blared from the truck speakers. The better the song,

the more aggressive you'd drive until you hit that big bend up high, right up high on the cliff. At that point, you had to slow down and cut the wheel to the left to avoid careening off of the road, into the air, and soaring down the side,

side of the cliff to a certain fiery death. Slowing down and making the turn was no problem, unless the DJ played a shitty song. If the song sucked, then you'd let go with the wheel and fly away. But if the song was good, you'd slow your roll and turn with the road and down the hill safely to your hotel. That was the deal you made with yourself, and you did this every night. The music gods were on your side, but Tonight felt different.

The DJ had a heater going. MC5, James Gang, Stone fucking Roses. It was too good to be true. There was a turd of a tune coming sooner or later, and at the pace you were driving, it was starting to feel like Neil Young was onto something. Tonight was the night. As the Stone Roses as I want to be a door while I'm down,

you wound your way toward the bend, up on the cliff road. This was it. Put up or shut up. Fucking Dave Matthews or the BGs or Loggins and Messina were bound to burst through those speakers at any moment. And you'd get the answer you were looking for, a reason to let go. A suicide solution. I want to be adored faded to an end.

Here it was. The moment of truth and silence. Wind. The fucking chambers brothers? Time has come today. Time? You love this. fucking song!

You slowed down, turned the wheel, made the curve of the road successfully, and rolled down to your hotel safely. Eventually, you'd make it off the island, back to Manhattan and into the arms and bed of Batavia. The woman you thought was the love of your life. You knew she loved you, too, when she heard you tell this story and didn't run. She made you swear off the horrors, but otherwise accepted you as you were. You got back into your work, making great television.

You and your crew almost ended up casualties of war in Beirut. It was the type of experience that alters your point of view that changes you from the inside out that makes you focus on what really matters in life. Love, family, acceptance. Ottavia was pregnant. Life was short. You two were standing inside City Hall saying, I do. Your child was beautiful.

Her and Atavia were everything. And for a minute there, you had it all. And then that Junkie Jones hit again, and the road pulled you back into the work, traveling 250 days a year, and filling the days you weren't on the road capitalizing on endless opportunities. TV appearances, awards shows, writing more books, starting your own publishing company, attempting to launch your own idly-inspired multi-concounterly. restaurant Emporium and eventually a new TV show. More reach, more resources, grander creative aspirations,

the big time, CNN, where you and your crack production team at 0.0 productions pledged to push yourselves to make every episode bigger and better than the last. Sneaking into Hanoi for dinner with the sitting president of the United States kind of bigger and better. That kind of rush is tough to follow. to follow. You have to chase it constantly. Happiness is no match for addiction. Anthony Bourdain's blissful family life was short-lived. Tony and Atavia split up in 2016. Strange things happen in the

desert. It can bring out the outlaw in you. Having grown up and lived in and around Palm Desert in California, Josh Hami from the band Queens of the Stone Age understood this better than most. Which is why Josh was playing it cool inside the dusty Joshua Tree Saloon and across the table from the drunk golf bro giving him and his good friend Anthony Bourdain shit at the moment. The fucking guy wouldn't let up. He came on all starstruck to Tony looking for an autograph, but then got ugly with Josh. Josh Hammy isn't a small man. He stood and carefully grabbed the dude and started to escort him to the bar as bouncer.

And the dude flipped. Then Josh's loyal friend, Tony, flipped, screaming to the drunk asshole. That's my friend! That's my friend! Referencing Josh, of course, who the drunk dude was unsuccessfully lashing out at. Tony was now at Josh's back trying to get the drunk dude Josh was trying to subdue. It was one of those flash-in-the-pan shit shows that are there and then gone with an equal amount of quickness and drama. But when the dust settled and the drunk dude was taken away, Josh Hami knew one thing for certain about Anthony Bourdain.

When it came to their friendship, like most things in Tony's life, Tony was all in. Chapter 4. The Italian Actress. When you go hard and fast and give yourself fully, when your crew and collaborators do the same, When every piece of television you make has to outdo the last, when the distance between the destination and the truth gets harder and harder to traverse, when the shine from the spotlight blinds instead of illuminates,

well, my friends, it might be time for the band to break up. All good bands do. Even the great ones. Ted Nugent, the Motor City Madman, the 70s rock guitarist known for his meat and potatoes riffs and his hits, like cat scratch fever and the most excellent stranglehold is about as far away politically from Anthony Bourdain as Florida is from Maine. Yet there Anthony Bordane was on camera on Ted Nugent's ranch firing away gleefully with an assault weapon and enjoying beer and barbecue with Ted

and his boys like he was among long-lost friends. I think that Barack Hussein Obama should be put in jail. It is clear that Barack Hussein Obama is a communist. Mount Saitung lives and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. This country should be ashamed. I want to throw up. That's Ted Nugent quote. Fast forward a couple years to Anthony Bourdain interviewing the leader of the free world, Barack Obama in Hanoi over a cold beer and hot noodles,

where Bordane asked Obama somewhat playfully if it was okay that he got along with Ted Nugent. who had said many, many, deeply offensive and hateful things about him personally. Obama responded, of course, and that that was exactly the sort of person we should be talking to. And Ted Nugent knew who Anthony Bourdain was, and that he was a classic liberal, the opposite of Ted. A libertarian-bent conservative, yet Ted, of course, allowed Tony into his home for barbecue. Ted Nugent said of Tony, he's my kill it and grill at blood brother. And Tony said, I'm proud of the fact that I've had as dining companions over the years. Everybody from Hezbollah, communists, communists, anti-Puton activists, cowboys, stoners, Christian militia leaders, feminists,

Palestinians, and Israeli settlers to Ted Nugent. You like food and are reasonably nice at the table? You show me hospitality? I will sit down with you and break bread. Anthony Bourdain, or his television show at least, was political in the best. best way, which is to say that it was subjective first and foremost and seemed to be almost completely detached from whatever popular political narrative of the day was being algorithmically force-fed to both the left and the right. The show, like the man,

seemed to project an empathy that was entirely real and unconcerned with virtue signaling. That is, until Aja Argento. There are women men consume themselves with, and there are are women that consume men. By the time Anthony Bourdain moved on from his second wife, Atavia, and became romantically involved with Aja Argento in 2016, his relationship with his work life had run face first into a wall. The grind of making television had become more intense than the grind of running a kitchen. Anthony Bourdain was burnt out physically and creatively.

Enter the Italian actress. Like Atavia, Aja was beautiful, strong, smart, Italian. But unlike Atavia, Aja set herself and her own interests ahead of any relationship with Tony. The fact that she was less interested in the famous badass chef and the best-selling author than she was herself made her unattainable, which made her more attractive to Tony, which made Tony's old familiar junkie instinct kick in, and then made Tony pour all of himself into his relationship with her. He put her above family, he put her above work, and he put her above friends, which, without context, doesn't sound that bad.

But when you get down to the details, in the end result, it was, of course, disastrous. There are many juicy, bullshit, gossipy personal anecdotes about Tony and Ash's relationship that we could go into to give you this context, but it feels icky. And frankly, you can get that stuff with three clicks in a search bar. Nonetheless, if we're going to continue this story, we need to mention to fully understand how Anthony Bourdain was changed by his relationship with Aja Aragento. I'll do my best to list them as quickly as possible. Fact number one. Despite a split from Atavia, the pair remained close as friends and co-parents of their daughter.

By all accounts, Tony remained if sometimes absent, an attentive and proud dad. Aja Argento could not accept this. It was threatened by Tony's relationship not only with Atavia, but with his daughter, going as far as demanding that Tony not share photos of his family on Instagram. Fact number two. Tony Bourdain was keen on helping Aja's career as a director by involving her in the production of the CNN show, Parts Unknown. Now, you have to understand that by the time Tony and his production team were making parts unknown, they were running a finely tuned production machine. You've seen these episodes. They're expertly made.

They didn't happen by accident. Again, enter the Italian actress, but this time, behind the camera, directing Tony and his seasoned crew. She was woefully incapable, a disaster. And she relied on a relationship with Tony to win pissy little creative battles on set. It got so bad that she insisted Tony fire

his longtime award-winning cinematographer, Zach Zamboni, whom Tony had worked with and had a friendship with for a decade. And Tony fired him. On the spot. Fact number three. Human growth hormones.

I'm not even going to get into this because it's gross. You can look it up yourself. Fact number four. Hashtag Me Too. This was the big one. When Aja Argento found herself at the center of the Me Too storm, she pulled Anthony Bourdain in fast and without an umbrella. And Tony, who up to her and up to herm,

to this point, seemed to toe the old Groucho Marx line when it came to causes, the one that said, quote, I refused to join any club that would have me as a member, unquote, and had lived his life as someone who proudly was not a joiner, but instead an independent-minded liberal with a unique superpower that allowed him to both view and articulate this messy world with deft nuance. Suddenly, that dude was at the vanguard of a political movement. On the front lines were this girlfriend who had gone public about her rape at the pudgy hands of Harvey Weinstein. I get it.

I do. Who's to say how any of us would act if we were in the same situation? But again, context. Supporting your girlfriend and subverting your character to support your girlfriend are two different things. Suddenly, Anthony Bordane was in Twitter beast with Matt Damon and turning his back on friends. At the end of 2017, Anthony Bordane's good friend, Josh Homme, of Queenie, of the Stone Age, the same friend Anthony had been quick to defend a few years back in a potential

bar fight, was on stage when overcome with the energy and emotion of a rock and roll performance. He inexcusably kicked a female pool photographer's camera as she held it up in front of her face, injuring the photographer, who then posted her injuries online with the hashtag Me Too. Given the moment America was in, controversy ensued. Josh Hami was quick to unequivocally apologize for his actions. In later statements, Josh provided context, referencing the violent, inadvertent stage actions of Johnny Cash and Iggy Pop. But at the moment, none of that was relevant.

All that mattered was that a man kicked a woman. The pitchforks were out, and Josh's friend, Anthony Bourdain, grabbed one and headed to Twitter, saying, waking up in Bhutan to the Josh Hami shit and still in the WTF phase, senseless, and a weak-ass apology. Say what you will about Tony's comment and or Josh's actions or apology, but if a good friend of mine finds himself in an international media firestorm, I'm calling him first to get his side of the story before publicly piling on. That's who I am, and I'm sure that's who you are,

because that's how most people are. Most people are. Most people are reasonable people. Anthony Bourdain was up until this moment in time an excessively reasonable person. That changed. Then, inevitably, as is the case with most cause-focused charlatans, the rot of hypocrisy cracked through the thin veneer of virtue. In 2018, the New York Times reported it had obtained evidence supporting the claim that in 2013, while she was 37 years old, Aja Argento sexually assaulted a fellow actor,

a boy two days past his 17th birthday, plying him with alcohol. Aja Argento denied the incident, but I encourage you to search online for photos of the two, as well as text messages between them and come to your own conclusion. In any event, Antity Bourdain swooped into defense mode. The mob mentality might have been good for Josh Haamy, but now the shoe was on the other foot and it just wouldn't do for his Italian actress girlfriend,

to whom he had given nearly every ounce of his energy over the last few months. She was at the vanguard of the Me Too movement and Tony wasn't going to let the movement eat its own. Aji's alleged victim was threatening a $3.5 million lawsuit rather than let the courts adjudicate the matter. Tony, as Charles Learson in his book, Down and Out in Paradise, reported,

Tony reportedly hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on the kid. Dirt that could be used to blackmail. In the end, Tony just paid the kid off. 380 grand to shut up and not pursue further legal action. The move was like something a character from one of Tony's unsuccessful novels would have done. A junkie move. An all-in move. Absolute, without nuance. That's what Tony was. All in on Aja Argento, come hell or high water.

The feeling, despite all that he did for her, despite the financial help, the career help, the public support, despite putting her above his family, his colleagues, his friends, his career. Despite all of this, Aji Aragento was not all in on Anthony Bourdain. Ajiarigento had it bad for someone else. And that, as they say, ladies and gentlemen, ain't good. June, 2018, Anthony Bourdain and his 0.0 crew, along with Tony's friend, chef Eric Repair, were in France filming an episode of Parts Unknown.

Aji Argento was in Italy with a handsome journalist, and the tabloids in the internet let Tony know all about it. And it broke him. What happens to you when you give every bit of yourself to something and get nothing back? Thankfully, I've never experienced this specific type of heartbreak. Like all of you, I've loved and lost, but I've never lost like this. I've never bet the farm, the dog, my first born in the horse and buggy I rode in on and lost it all. That kind of pain is unimaginable.

Add worldwide humiliation to that reality and suicide. a romantic concept Anthony Bourdain had entertained in both a literal and literary sense going as far back as his first published works. That type of big ending, given the context anyway, starts to become objectively understandable. I say this as someone who has lost many close relatives and friends to suicide. But the truth is that no one understands why someone else kills themselves. No one. It is the most personal action.

an individual can make. I believe, though, that Anthony Bourdain died long before that night he hanged himself in a luxury hotel in France, heartbroken, stewing over being betrayed and publicly humiliated by the one person in the world he'd given himself over to entirely. Somewhere down the line, he stopped being Anthony Bourdain. Let me say that again. He stopped being, which is shocking, because Anthony Bourdain seemed to continuously feed the character of Anthony Bourdain, and we loved him for it. We found him endlessly entertaining, compelling, even lovable.

We were more than comfortable looking into corners of the world we'd never visit with his eyes, tasting things we'd never taste with his acerbic tongue. I'm not sure when the real Anthony Bourdain died, but I'm pretty sure the wheels were coming off by the time he turned up in Miami to film that episode of Parts Unknown with his hero, Egy Bordain. pop. Tony asks his rock star hero, given that he'd been the template for nearly every rock and roll front man that came after him, from David Johansen to Julian Casablancus, and that Iggy had experienced

millions of adventures at this point, late in life, what now thrilled him? Iggy answers from the heart with being loved and appreciating the people that are giving that to me. Tony looks like a deer in headlights when he's. Iggy says this. Because like Iggy Pop, Anthony Bourdain was a romantic. But I believe by this point, love for him was a fleeting proposition. Anthony Bordane's friend, the filmmaker, Amos Poe, said, it's great to be romantic, but never be romantic about romance, because it'll take you down. Like a junkie, a romantic goes all in, all in on love, all in on indulgence.

all in on traveling to the end of the fucking world and back, and most admirably, all in on empathy. When Anthony Bourdain went all in, his lust for life rewarded him with a career, a family, fame. But when he went all in on the wrong romance, he got nothing back, and it killed him. It's a disgrace.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month.

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He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever.

And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? You'd rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yelloo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaiton Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Mangeau, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Ones. IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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