alt.hn

7/5/2026 at 9:46:07 AM

I wanted to be Anthony Bourdain–until I met him

 https://cailey.substack.com/p/i-wanted-to-be-anthony-bourdainuntil

by FinnLobsien

7/5/2026 at 12:39:30 PM

Maybe controversial, but I think it’s always a mistake to idolize people instead of strictly something that they did. That’s enough, you enjoy their work, you don’t really need to turn it into an obsession about the person. You can just let the person be who they are and not some projection of your imagination.

by Isamu

7/5/2026 at 1:14:14 PM

I guess the question is always to what degree one can do those things without being the person.

You may admire the reckless behavior and carefree attitude of the rockstar in part because you’d like to worry a bit less about what other people thought or whether that party will compromise your sleep score.

Not because you’d like to do the exact same thing they do.

by FinnLobsien

7/5/2026 at 6:47:07 PM

It's also worth flipping the view - imagine being idolized with all of your own faults and flaws?

To me, at least, the idea seems an uncomfortable and absurd idea from 1 person much less many people

by homeonthemtn

7/5/2026 at 6:32:08 PM

Very true. Bourdain did amazing things for the idea of "authentic" travel and cuisine (yes, as authentic as you can get with a camera crew and production staff).

But he was (obviously) deeply troubled.

Parts Unknown, S6E6 - Borneo, to me, shows this the most. He is invited by a tribe to slaughter a pig for the Gawai harvest festival and says that initially he thought he might have a hard time with it. "But, I have been hardened by the last ten years", and follows it by saying that it ends up being easy and that he only feels relief when the pig finally dies, and admits "I'm not sure what that says about me".

by FireBeyond

7/5/2026 at 4:58:17 PM

I think this is a pragmatic healthy way to enjoy someone’s work. It is pretty much how I go about it. And it helps that my heroes are all long dead (Michael Collins, for instance ).

Where I think that does not work is when there is a deep resonance in shared experiences, these two had many including some really dark problems of addiction and thoughts of self-harm. I think the author is calling out all of it.

by kmbfjr

7/5/2026 at 4:32:24 PM

I believe the people begin to get idolized when they can repeatedly pull off interesting work. Then they themselves become interesting because they have some internal mix of factors going on that enables them to do what most people can’t and this makes them fascinating.

by dyauspitr

7/5/2026 at 1:57:25 PM

Maybe controversial, but your comment hints that you did not read the article.

It´s not about Bourdain being unpleasant at all, much by the contrary, its about the author realizing Bourdain path was not for everybody, and it seems, not for the author at the end.

by tcp_handshaker

7/5/2026 at 2:06:35 PM

I did read the article, all the way to the end. I liked the article the more that I read.

And I didn’t imply Mr Bourdain was unpleasant or anything else. My point is that you cannot conclude much accurately about a person based on their works.

by Isamu

7/5/2026 at 10:03:32 AM

I missed out on the whole Bourdain-thing, but being a huge fan of The Stooges is was literally sobering for me to read Iggy’s biographies and understand why the Rock’n’Roll animal really is not a thing to be, no matter how self-destructive your tendencies as a youth.

by delis-thumbs-7e

7/5/2026 at 1:08:17 PM

I think the same happens with startup founders and other tech types who get idolized and speak at conferences.

You can admire their dedication to the mission, their wealth, ingenuity, etc.

But it’s easy to forget that for many of them, it comes at the expense of seeing their kids, spending time with their spouse, and their own health.

I’d much rather sell a company for $20m and have a happy marriage than be a billionaire stuck in a cycle of divorces and estranged children.

by FinnLobsien

7/5/2026 at 3:48:21 PM

Haha I'll be lucky if I can gather 2m & still have sacrificed much work life balance just because my type of stupid is an obsession

by __s

7/5/2026 at 2:41:41 PM

But you would have the freedom to give your children absolutely ridiculous names.

by euroderf

7/5/2026 at 11:38:31 AM

It all seems so punishingly and unendingly overstimulating.

by Obscurity4340

7/5/2026 at 6:34:53 PM

You might want to read "Adios, Motherfucker: A Gentleman's Progress Through Rock and Roll" by Michael Ruffino, bassist for The Unband. Bourdain published it, and called it one of the books that made him laugh most.

by FireBeyond

7/5/2026 at 4:01:49 PM

It was a pleasant surprise to see that the article wasn't about bashing on Bourdain at all. I was a little scared when I opened it.

Like the author, I'm also a little conflicted about travel and tourism. I love seeing how other people live life differently than mine, but I wonder to what extent this becomes a weird poverty fetishization. I also haven't fully decided how to feel when a once-niche place becomes big. On the one hand, it brings life to the local economy, but on the other hand, somehow it loses "authenticity", whatever that means. I currently only travel when I have a specific reason for being there like a certain event or attraction because I find it rather hollow to just be going from tourist attraction to tourist attraction, but maybe that's just a me problem.

by woopah

7/5/2026 at 4:11:21 PM

An interesting read but from what I have experienced of his work it seems to reinforce what I’ve come to believe he is: a good essayist and travel journalist (one who brought uncommonly-traveled-to places to a TV audience) mythologized by tragic romantics who primarily experience him through a one-sided parasocial view of his itinerant life. His death (and perhaps the manner of it) canonized him for these people.

Perhaps he’d reject such a role but it’s fairly typical of such posthumous worship that saints have their desires and humanity stripped in exchange for being transformed into a two-dimensional shadow that validates the worshippers' beliefs.

There’s also the other fan club of food maximalists but those seem to just be looking for a food tour with little of this false intimacy with a public figure. For all that people allege shallowness there, it seems far more healthy, in that what he did can actually give these people what they want.

by arjie

7/5/2026 at 4:41:28 PM

I do think there’s a bit more depth here.

One is that he worked as a middling chef for decades and only had his breakout success in his 40s. I think this made him much different than your generic essayist/journalist, and also let him speak to different kinds of people. He became a symbol that international travel, trying new things, and living life to its fullest doesn’t have to be an early 20s thing followed by decades of monotony.

He was also uniquely principled (he’d finance some episodes himself) and speak to people on all sides politically, without pandering to either.

by FinnLobsien

7/5/2026 at 4:59:20 PM

That's true, and perhaps reflective of the fact that the modern essayist/journalist is one who has been solely an essayist/journalist in comparison, perhaps, to someone like George Orwell who was a policeman, dishwasher[1], and tutor among various other things.

I recall someone on the Internet[0] lamenting this change in writers in general, where their input material is other textual content and is not particularly influenced by a first-person encounter with reality. That's not guaranteed to produce a mushy result but often creates a work with an inauthenticity that disengages readers without an identical background.

Fair point on the other.

0: Perhaps classical oil-painter Kendric Tonn? Perhaps Paul Graham?

1: Amusingly, before his most famous works I'd read, as a young student, The Sporting Spirit (clever one), and Down and Out in Paris and London (more relevant to this conversation. A Western student would doubtless find it funny - since Orwell is best known here for 1984 and Animal Farm - that I didn't know he's The Dystopian Sci-Fi Guy

by arjie

7/5/2026 at 6:26:06 PM

A wise article! It's not about Bourdain at all, but about all of us--- how we live a life unexamined, and how to stop doing so.

by ripe

7/5/2026 at 1:49:45 PM

Nicely written longform article!

by jschveibinz