The World Will Be Less Interesting Without Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown TV show was one of the best shows on TV. Bourdain’s lyrical musings on cities, countries, and people and their food brought us closer to the rest of humanity. I will miss him.

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Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown TV show was one of the best shows on TV. Bourdain’s lyrical musings on cities, countries, and people and their food brought us closer to the rest of humanity. His show was interesting.

I guess “edgy” is the word that comes to mind when I try to pigeonhole Bourdain.

A recent episode about Armenia was fascinating and revealing about a part of the world few knew or cared about. His trip into the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Armenia’s enemy, Azerbaijan, was an act of bravery and his incessant curiosity. It was one of his best.

Not all of his shows were brilliant, but even the weed-induced gigglefest about Seattle gave insight into their dope culture.

One could not escape the fact that he was the guy who would “speak truth to power”. He seemed not to care too much about the consequences to himself, or as he would have put it, “I don’t give a shit about what people think about me.”

Consequences must have been painful for him after he filmed a segment in Iran. His lengthy interviews with American-Iranian Washington Post reporter Jason Rizaian and his Iranian-born wife, Yeganeh Salehi, resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of Rizaian and Salehi by the regime. Salehi was released after a couple months. Rizaian was jailed and held as a political pawn for 544 days.

People commit suicide because they can see no way out of the pain they are in. Perhaps it’s a selfish act, but we aren’t standing in his shoes. Bourdain hid his pain pretty well. Like many suicides, it’s a mystery to those on the outside looking in. Looking back, he never struck me as being a happy person and he was frank about his troubled past. The booze and the weed gave him a lift but he and his commentary were serious … but with little levity.

His pain is over now and I will miss him.