I have a love hate relationship with Anthony Bourdain. If I'm being totally honest, then it has a lot to do with plain ole' jealousy. I mean, why does he get to jet around the globe, hanging out with locals in cool, exotic and sometimes uncharted territories while the rest of us have to pay to go on lame-ass vacations and are lucky if we find that great experience where the food and the people are welcoming and authentic?Why Does He Get to See This? My Ancestral Homeland (the Azores)
I mean who wouldn't want his life? But it's something else too that makes me cringe... just a little at the sound of his New York hardened, ex-punk rock, former chain smoking, liquor swilling voice. Something that makes me feel like he's trying just a little too hard. Something not altogether authentic. Something false.
Something that those witty guys at Magnet Magazine so deftly illustrated a while back in this really funny article. I've meaning to post this for a while. It cracked me up because I could honestly take both sides.
Anyway, take him for what you will. I live vicariously through his many adventures while I sit at home, working my normal, non-thrill seeking job, taking my sad little one week vacations where try as I might, I inevitably do touristy stuff and have experiences that are hardly authentic. I only wish I could be as false as Tony.
Funny, I have a love/envy thing going with Bourdain, too. The show gets a little too cute sometimes, the drama and comedy too labored. But he gets some important things right: hit the markets, eat the street food, avoid anything described as "the best X in all of Y", don't be afraid of the gelatinous bits, try to eat some local home cooking if you can. I grew up eating Azorean food, the most exotic stuff I ate till I left home, so I loved that episode, too. I've been to a lot of the places he visits, but I still learn things from it. He's also a useful reminder that waving your punk-rock credentials after a certain age is just embarrassing.
ReplyDeleteugh
ReplyDeletewith all of the lovely and loving people appearing in these pages, why are you including a photo of that arrogant prick on your blog.
he reminds me of the kid in highschool that worked really, really hard to appear like he didn't care what people thought of him.
Anthony's not hip or cool - he's a prick that smells like greasy meat and cigarettes.
i know, i know. he sorta sucks. however, i will say that they don't do a terrible job with the program. it's shot well, they find some great people to visit, there is amusing banter, and as slim said, they get some of the important things right but i'm certainly not giving tony all the credit for that. i do hate his animal superiority complex which i think is all for show. that whole "if you're dumber than me and slower than me" thing. gimme a break. i love a good steak but do we need to hear you say that about a cute little puffin.
ReplyDeletepoint well taken. i posted the photo only to illustrate how unworthy he is! the unfairness of it all...