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Death doesn't discriminate
Between the sinners and the saints
It takes and it takes and it takes
I always hoped some day I'd get to meet Tony Bourdain. I daydreamed about taking him to places in LA he wouldn't have already been tipped off about - not Plan Check or Chego's, good as they are, but to Ruen Pair followed by a grab bag from the Thai dessert places on either side of it or maybe to the izakaya Furaibo or the food court in Mitsuwa if he was missing Tokyo.
I found a surprising reason this last year to like him even more than I already did. He was one of the very few men who spoke out for the women spearheading #MeToo, straightforwardly supporting people who had been sexually harassed and coming out against the ones doing the harassing. This seems like a low bar, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the male celebrities who reached it. He also wrote about his own part in creating a society where harassment is acceptable, not to excuse himself but to say it was wrong and he's not doing it any more. This is not an easy thing to acknowledge - again, hardly anyone has - and even fewer put their efforts into making things right. He did.
Sometimes if you really love life, if you appreciate all the wonderful things in it - the egg salad sandwiches at Lawson's in Tokyo, a bowl of pho by a roadside in Vietnam, a raw oyster in France - when those moments stop making you happy, it can feel like there's nothing left, like you're a ghost unable to touch and taste this beautiful world, and that nothing is all the more bitter because of the memory of what it was like when all of those moments could make you incandescent with joy.
I'm talking about myself, of course. I can't know if I'm talking about him too. All any of us can do now is guess.
I hope he had as much joy in his life as sorrow. I hope all the moments when he seemed happy, he was. I hope my daydreams were wrong and someone else took him to Ruen Pair and ordered him the crumbled pork with black olives and the sautéed morning glory stems.
Tom Colicchio wrote, RIP doubtful. Tony’s restless spirit will roam the earth in search of justice, truth and a great bowl of noodles.
Between the sinners and the saints
It takes and it takes and it takes
I always hoped some day I'd get to meet Tony Bourdain. I daydreamed about taking him to places in LA he wouldn't have already been tipped off about - not Plan Check or Chego's, good as they are, but to Ruen Pair followed by a grab bag from the Thai dessert places on either side of it or maybe to the izakaya Furaibo or the food court in Mitsuwa if he was missing Tokyo.
I found a surprising reason this last year to like him even more than I already did. He was one of the very few men who spoke out for the women spearheading #MeToo, straightforwardly supporting people who had been sexually harassed and coming out against the ones doing the harassing. This seems like a low bar, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the male celebrities who reached it. He also wrote about his own part in creating a society where harassment is acceptable, not to excuse himself but to say it was wrong and he's not doing it any more. This is not an easy thing to acknowledge - again, hardly anyone has - and even fewer put their efforts into making things right. He did.
Sometimes if you really love life, if you appreciate all the wonderful things in it - the egg salad sandwiches at Lawson's in Tokyo, a bowl of pho by a roadside in Vietnam, a raw oyster in France - when those moments stop making you happy, it can feel like there's nothing left, like you're a ghost unable to touch and taste this beautiful world, and that nothing is all the more bitter because of the memory of what it was like when all of those moments could make you incandescent with joy.
I'm talking about myself, of course. I can't know if I'm talking about him too. All any of us can do now is guess.
I hope he had as much joy in his life as sorrow. I hope all the moments when he seemed happy, he was. I hope my daydreams were wrong and someone else took him to Ruen Pair and ordered him the crumbled pork with black olives and the sautéed morning glory stems.
Tom Colicchio wrote, RIP doubtful. Tony’s restless spirit will roam the earth in search of justice, truth and a great bowl of noodles.
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