Episode #161 | 2.20.24
Anthony Bourdain: Junk, Romance, and a Lust for Life
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In this episode
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.
Sources
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, by Anthony Bourdain
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook It, by Anthony Bourdain
Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, by Laurie Woolever
Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain, by Charles Leerhsen
Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain (2021, dir. Morgan Neville)
Credits
Hosted and written by Jake Brennan.
Copy edited by James Sullivan.
Scored and mixed by Matt Beaudoin.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraker.
DISGRACELAND theme song, “Crenshaw Space Boogie,” written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava, and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak