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- [00:02]
Jake Brennan
This is exactly right. Double Elvis Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts I I can't stop scratching my downtown. Yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI. Chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24.
- [00:39]
Sponsor/Commercial Announcer
7 Healthcare just got less painful
- [00:46]
Jake Brennan
during Memorial Day at Lowe's Shop Household must haves for less. Save $80 on a Char Broil Performance Series 4 Burner Grill to chef up something special plus get up to 45% off. Select major appliances to keep things fresh. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's Lowe's we help you SA valid through 527 while supplies last selection varies by location. See lowe's.com for details. Visit your nearby Lowe's
- [01:14]
Sponsor/Commercial Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures all right
- [02:15]
Jake Brennan
discos, what is going on? Listen to say that I'm excited to bring you this week's rewind episode on Anthony Bourdain. It's an understatement. Bourdain is an outsized influence in my life, mainly his writing, his books, his TV shows, you know, his rock and roll ethos, his aesthetic. All of it left its mark on me. Anthony Bourdain wasn't a rock star, but as far as chefs and writers go, they don't make them more rock and roll than Anthony Bourdain. So I just had to cover him. For Disgraceland. Anthony's life was fascinating. His late in life success, his struggles with heroin and his death was tragic and complicated. All of that makes for incredible storytelling. Now this is more of a tribute than it is an expose, but it's all very much Disgraceland. So if you're like me and you're starved for more Bourdain content, I think you're going to dig this episode. Consider it and you know, a moosh bouche, a tease of the palate before the Bourdain biopic is released later this year. All right, discos. I hope you dig it. Here's my story on the late great Anthony Bourdain. This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The story is about Anthony Bourdain are insane. As a struggling cook and writer, he chased the romance of a heroin addiction through the restaurant kitchens and grimy rock clubs of 1980s Manhattan. He published his first book of nonfiction at the age of 43 and became an overnight success. He parlayed success as a writer into success as a TV host, traveling all over the world, dining with rock stars, presidents, and everyone in between. He dodged bullets. The real and figurative kind. The figurative kind from the tabloids having the most impact. And through it all, Anthony Bourdain made great art. Nothing like that cheesy loop I played for you at the top of the show. That was not great art. That was a preset loop for my melotron called high stakes stakeout mk2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Maria Maria by Santana featuring the product gmb. And why would I play you that specific slice of nylon stringed Spanish Harlem cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on May 22, 2000. And that was the day Anthony Bourdain published Kitchen Confidential, forever changing his life and enriching ours. On this episode, chasing heroin through lower Manhattan. An overnight success. Beers with the President, and insatiable lust for life in Anthony Bourdain. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgrace. Chapter one, the not so Blushing Bride. Provincetown, Massachusetts. The edge of the world. Some might say the beginning of my world. At least that's what they'll say when I'm dead, when all the dust has settled, when the tabs have lost interest, and when the truly curious are still hanging around to pick through the remains of what once was, if not a perfect life, a damn interesting one in P town as they call it. The point isn't to lose oneself on the edge of nowhere, but to find yourself. Or perhaps to find who you might one day become. Wait a minute. Hold up, hold up. This is not this. This is something else. This is this. Bobby was giving it to the bride from behind. Like a drunken pirate, she panted in delight. She was bent over a 55 gallon drum of cooking grease. Bobby's apron was pulled up over his belly. His pants were down around his head ankles. Her white wedding gown somehow still looked pure under the Provincetown moonlight. Myself and the other dishwasher and the cooks howled up the moon from the back door of the kitchen, egging on Bobby, our head chef here at the Dreadnought. Inside the dining room at the bride's wedding reception, neither her assembled family nor her newlywed husband had any idea what was happening out back with the kitchen staff. That was Anthony Bourdain's secret weapon. Most of the world had no idea what was happening out back with the kitchen staff. He used that secret knowledge to carve out a writing career unlike any other, beginning with his debut work of non fiction, Kitchen confidential, published in 2000, which became an instant smash hit and transformed Anthony's life overnight. From capable chef in a good, not great Manhattan restaurant to a New York Times bestseller and in demand media darling. Anecdotes like the aforementioned not so Blushing Bride. Of course, an anecdote that Anthony Bourdain claims made him want to be a chef, had a lot to do with the book's success. Anthony, or Tony as his friends called him, approached his subject, food and the culture of chefs and the people who made kitchens run. Like his hero, Iggy Pop, godfather of punk, approached his own subject, rock and roll, with a potent mix of danger, truth and charisma. At times it seemed like danger was the point. Danger was where the action was. Give me danger, little stranger. Food or making it wasn't merely a job or a profession. It was just like rock and roll, a lifestyle. And for guys like Tony Bourdain, the journeymen, the back of house pirates, the guys who steered ships of 20 or more staff, many of them alcoholics, drug addicts, ex cons, immigrants, both legal and illegal. It was a romantic lifestyle. Ask any writer and they'll tell you that romance can be a great tool for storytelling. That goes for works of non fiction and for three chord. Punk was Tony's story about the P town bride who was defiled on her wedding night true? Or was it just a way of romanticizing his backstory? Who cares? It was a great story. Was I Wanna Be youe Dog true? Who cares? It's a great song. Truth isn't the point. Storytelling is the point. Creating is the point. And to create is to love. To bring love into the world, which Anthony Bourdain most certainly did with his writing. The love he inspired brought him unimaginable success. Success that eventually led him to standing on a beach with his hero, iggy pop. In 2015, more than a decade after that story about the bride was published. Tony asks Iggy Pop what his definition of a perfect day is. And Iggy goes on to describe his perfect day. It involves a beach, the big Florida sun sparkling on the ocean, and the positivity one can derive from such an experience, particularly when it's spent with a loved one. That's a far cry from what one would expect from a man who once proclaimed to the world that he was a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. And Anthony Bourdain looks bewildered by his hero's answer. Because Iggy Pop gave Anthony Bourdain the truth. And the truth is hard for a romantic to come to terms. Throughout 20th century American culture, the concept of the junkie has been thoroughly romanticized. From Miles Davis to William S. Burroughs to Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain for a certain type of subversive leaning, literary minded rock and roll bent, transgressive dudes who maybe paid a little too much attention to Lou Reed's lyrics. Dudes who were always first in line to do whatever new drugs showed up to the party last, who were always taking more, doing less, aspiring to little. To these dudes, heroin wasn't something to be avoided. Heroin or junk was something to aspire to. 1980. Young Tony Bourdain didn't know who exactly he was looking for, but he knew what he wanted. He and a friend slowly cruised Second Avenue in a beat up Volkswagen Rabbit. The Manhattan street was dark, near dead at this hour and the two white boys were hunting for dope. Or more specifically, hunting for a dope dealer. Actually a dope dealership in those days. Dealers didn't text you on a Friday to see if you were set for the weekend and then run the small baggie of brown up to your apartment via bike messenger. No, in those days, in the bad old days, you had to swipe your sharpest, stealthiest knife from the kitchen, conceal it in an Item of clothing that wouldn't result in you stabbing yourself and head into the part of town that took no prisoners and produced only casualties. New York's Lower east side, looking for a fix. Just like Iggy Pop, just like Lou Reed, just like Johnny Thunders. And you weren't on the lookout for some pimp in a big straw hat standing on the corner either. You were looking for a hole in the wall the size of a Dodge Challenger. A hole in the wall that looked about as inviting as a den of hungry wolves. A hole in the wall that served up one thing. Heroin. Even cops didn't fuck with places like these. But you did. Because you were different. You weren't like those other guys, those pajama boys back at Vassar or the snobs back at CIA. The Culinary Institute of America upstate, where you learned a lot, but nothing as important as how to keep your knife sharp and your wit sharper. The snobs and the pajama boys had a lot in common. For one, they were fucking philistines. They couldn't tell you the difference between George Orwell or Orville Redenbacher. And they had no fucking heart either. You had heart. The Vassar boys, your classmates at CIA, they'd never know the thrill of scoring in a seedy Lower east side drug den like you did. And they'd never know the complication of having to score heroin between staff meal and the first rush, either. A necessary challenge your junkie ass now had to solve every night to keep from puking all over the entrees as they flew off the line. Yet you figured it out because it was the early 80s. And yeah, other than a new heroin habit and a shitty job you took an outsized amount of pride in, you had little. But you were Anthony fucking Bourdain. And the one thing you did have was a lust for life. Foreign.
- [14:49]
Sponsor/Commercial Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA NSIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Amazon Pharmacy
- [15:51]
Jake Brennan
presents Painful Thoughts of course I see my co worker in line at the pharmacy. Can he tell I'm picking up prescription hemorrhoid cream? I'm probably standing weird. Why is he smiling? He knows he's gonna call me Hemorrhoid Lloyd tomorrow.
- [16:08]
Sponsor/Commercial Announcer
I know it.
- [16:09]
Jake Brennan
I gotta quit my job. Next time, avoid awkward conversations and get fast free delivery. With Amazon Pharmacy, Healthcare just got less painful.
- [16:20]
Reese Witherspoon
Picture this Me, Reese Witherspoon in London ordering fish and chips so often they might start wrapping me in paper. I'm traveling with my Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card, so I earn rewards wherever I book travel five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Imagine getting rewarded for eating a toad in the hole. Wait, what is a toad in a hole?
- [16:45]
Sponsor/Commercial Announcer
Visit wells fargo.com autographjourney Terms apply.
- [16:54]
Jake Brennan
Chapter 2 Nancy with the Laughing Face the heart of Manhattan beats from the working class. Bus drivers and busboys, working stiffs and waitresses, bartenders pouring punch out, cold ones to stiff upper lips. Taxi drivers and doormen with more information than you need. Daily rag scribes and night watchmen, cops, construction workers, dealers too. And if you're not careful, you'll get caught up in the grind and miss the beauty of the sweat and the hustle. Lose it all to the bustling sound of the lonesome streets. Wake up in a midtown high rise with a mortgage and a wife and a kid in a separate apartment. But if you keep your ears open each night, you'll hear the sound of the Mission bell, that universal sign that it's time to blow off steam. Quitting time. And when you're too tired to think and too wired to go home, this is the time when you're reminded of your station in life. Reminded of where you're supposed to be bellied up to the bar with the rest of your kind. Cursing your boss's greed and your customers stupidity. Toasting your co workers on a job well done. Barely ready for a four hour crash, an inevitable hangover and unspoken gratitude for the fact that you get to get up too early, too sore and too smart to know any better so that you, my friend, can go back to work and do it all over again. To an outsider, the kitchen during the nightly rush looked and sounded like chaos. But you've got it all under control. Sure, the slips are firing in muy rapido, senor, and the floor staff looks haggard and scared, and the dishwasher's gone on one of his mid shift sabbaticals in the back alley, and the sous chef may have just quit or he may just be in the can with explosive diarrhea and no one will acknowledge that the phone has been ringing unanswered for what, you swear to God has been all frigging night long and the owner just decided that right fucking now of all times is the time to pop in to bust your balls in front of his investors. Yes, that all may be happening at the moment, and it might spell chaos for the uninitiated civilian looking in on your kitchen. But you're no civilian. You're a professional chef, or at least a very capable cook, and this is your kitchen, even if you don't own a piece. Even if you're fighting a daily heroin jones, even if you're a functioning alcoholic, even if you haven't seen your new wife in the daylight in six weeks. And even if you can't speak Spanish yet. That's all. All that most of your employees speak. Even if your fish guy went on the lamb and your meat guy isn't returning your calls. None of this matters because you thrive in this chaos. In fact, this isn't chaos at all. This, to you, for some unexplained reason, makes sense. It's organized. At least to you it is. You know your way around these challenges. You and you alone know how to solve solve these problems. But these are the only problems you know how to solve. Kitchen problems. Outside the kitchen. That's chaos. You haven't paid your rent on time. Well, ever. You're perpetually three months behind in dodging your landlord, the creditors are after you, and the taxman looms. You haven't been to a doctor for a preemptive checkup for what seems to be your entire adult life, and you're barreling towards middle age with a needle hanging out of your arm during a time in history when intravenous drug use can spell instant death. It's July, and your Christmas tree is still standing in the corner of your apartment, deader than Vince Giraldi and twice as pathetic as Charlie Brown. You and your wife Nancy are too ashamed to even bring it down to the corner for the trash man to pick up for fear of what your neighbors might think. You have next to no social life. You subsist on deli sandwiches and Simpsons reruns. Life as you live it is barely any life at all. But work is where you thrive. And after work is when you come alive. The sun ruled. The sun king on the beach crashed out, tanning away the heroin power, asleep in the sand. In the late morning hours before that, it was the train out to Rockaway, nodding out, having finished the last of your smack, freaking out the civilians on their early morning rush hour commute. Club 57, the Mud Club, CBGB, wherever junkie guitar players reigned supreme on stage, you were there. Pass the line of pedestrians to the sympathetic doorman who'd been bribed with steak sandwiches from your kitchen. The kitchen you'd closed hours ago. You hit the bar after closing with a couple employees. Someone thought 96 tears by question Mark and the Mysterians was a good idea. And they were right. It blasted from the jukebox. A fat line of coke was laid out on said bar along the length of the entire bar. The adult portion of the evening was now in full effect, commenced by you mounting the bar, getting down on all fours and hoovering as much of that long line of blow as your aching heart would allow. You needed the bump, something to come back from the weakness brought on by the illicit rendezvous in the dry goods area with the cute waitress. Hey, it happened. So what? You don't know how it got started. It just did. Sort of like this night. It just got started. Sort of like all the nights you scammed, you sprinted, you ran hard and fast, hard and fast away from yourself until finally you ended up right back where you started. In the kitchen. Unless of course it was a day off. Then you couldn't run away. You couldn't hide from yourself or from what you'd become. A junkie. When there was nowhere left to go and no more drugs left to do, no shifts to pick up, you found yourself where you feared you would inevitably end up. Alone. Not even your junky wife could help. She was nodding off on her own trip. So it was just you. Just you in the deep dark dirty mirror, alone at rock bottom. Fuck this. Cold turkey you kicked. No 12 steps, no self help gurus, no meetings. Hardcore, like the man said, except in the other direction. You used methods to wean off, but your biggest weapon was your lust for life. You Turned that junky appetite around and gobbled up whatever life had left to give you. You were still a young man, and there was still a life to be had. You went from line cook to Chef Les like you. It wasn't great. It was good. Good enough. You worked that restaurant hard and fed that yearning to be something else, something more, something better. After hours on your typewriter, you wrote two crime novels, Bone in Throat and Gone Bamboo. The critics pretty much said the same thing, that both books were like the restaurant you ran. Good, not great. You kept going because what else were you going to do? Moving forward was all you'd ever done in this life. You worked even harder, kept that kitchen humming, and you continued to write. Writing replaced junk. You couldn't not write. It was the first thing you did every morning. Well, it was the second thing, actually. The first thing you did was smoke a cigarette. Then you wrote before even brushing your teeth, before kissing your wife, Nancy, before taking a shit. You wrote what you knew. Now, Sally the Wig and Chef Tommy were fun and all, but who were you kidding? You weren't Don DeLillo. You were Raul Duke and Chef's Whites. And this new writing was fresh because it was desperate. It was all you had left. It was a junkie move. All in. No bullshit. Okay, a little bullshit. Like the bit about Fish on Monday and perhaps the Provincetown bride over the barrel. But I digress. You sent a couple thousand words into the New Yorker. David Remnick wouldn't give you the time of day until your mom. Your mom used a connection to get him to read it. How uncool is that? Having to get your mom to help you get published. But what did you care? Lou Reed moved back in with his parents after he was in the Velvet Underground and went to work for his dad's accounting firm again after he was in the Velvet Underground. Things weren't yet that bad for you. So fire away. Mom, it worked. David Remnick loved what you wrote. Of course he did. The piece you wrote that Remnick published in the New Yorker. Don't eat before reading. This was the type of magazine phenomenon that is hard to imagine in this day and age, the modern era of the Internet. There you were, walking down Park Avenue on your way to work, like you did every day, except perhaps today. You were walking with a little bit more swagger than usual. The New Yorker article was the shit. A unique. Knew it. Nancy knew it. Everyone knew it. There was only one problem. Did your boss, the owner of les did he know it? Or was he pissed did all the behind the scenes kitchen exploits rub him the wrong way? Shit. Were you going to peacock into work today? Get fired? You rounded the corner and there they were. News trucks outside your restaurant waiting for you. You. Your article prompted a mini media sensation right there on Park Avenue. And oh how delighted the news crews were when they jammed their microphones in your face and blasted their sun guns only to realize that you were naturally camera ready. And they weren't the only ones to notice. The article led to a full on book deal, Kitchen Confidential. And this my friend, was no mini sensation. This was the real deal. A phenomenon. A New York Times bestseller, Oprah, Letterman, high fives from construction workers as you walked down the street. Kind of famous. You ate it all up. You took every opportunity your newfound publishing fame brought you and you knew all too well what it was like to not be famous. And now you had life by the throat and you weren't gonna let go. So when they showed up looking to talk to you you about a TV show idea, you were skeptical. But you listened. Then you got on a plane. Then you got divorced. Then you ventured out into truly uncharted waters towards something you'd never fully experienced before. Happiness and self contentment. We'll be right back after this. Word, word, word.
- [27:36]
Sponsor/Commercial Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by OpenT, Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Amazon Health
- [28:38]
Jake Brennan
AI presents painful thoughts why did I
- [28:42]
Reese Witherspoon
search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem?
- [28:46]
Jake Brennan
Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole
- [28:48]
Reese Witherspoon
filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores
- [28:51]
Jake Brennan
in various stages of ooze.
- [28:54]
Reese Witherspoon
I can clear my search history, but
- [28:57]
Jake Brennan
I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole.
- [29:01]
Sponsor/Commercial Announcer
Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful.
- [29:07]
Reese Witherspoon
Picture this Me, Reese Witherspoon in London ordering fish and chips so often they might start wrapping me in paper. I'm traveling with my Wells Fargo Fargo Autograph Journey card, so I earn rewards wherever I book travel 5 times points with hotels, 4 times with airlines, 3 times on restaurants and other travel, and 1 point on other purchases. Imagine getting rewarded for eating a toad in the hole. Wait, what is a toad in a hole?
- [29:32]
Sponsor/Commercial Announcer
Visit Wells Fargo.com autographjourney Terms apply.
- [29:40]
Jake Brennan
Chapter three Otavia Love, as they say, is a many splendored thing. They also say love is a burning flame and that love will tear us apart. I found all three of these quotes to be true at various parts of my life, but perhaps the most truthful quote about love comes from my hero Uncle Lou Lou Reed, who said, you do what you you love or you get arrested. Anthony Bourdain Made it out of the Kitchen Anthony Bourdain was freed from the Grind Anthony Bourdain was a best selling author. Suddenly, to the surprise of everyone including himself, Anthony Bourdain was now a television star and Anthony Bourdain was in love. 2005 Five years after Kitchen Confidential was published, Anthony Bourdain's television series no Reservations debuted for the Travel Channel. It was not your normal food or travel show. It was almost entirely subjective, more gonzo journalism presented through a different medium and for a different millennium. This wasn't early 2000s reality TV and it wasn't some cuddly roly poly chef molded for middle America. This was a street walking cheetah ready to get his eat on. The show's concept was simple. Best selling food author Anthony Bourdain would travel to different locales around the world, sample the local fare and comment on it. But the show was different because of, well, Anthony Bourdain. Tony was a total unique character. Tall, lanky, dark, strangely handsome and armed with a lifetime of blue collar kitchen experience, hard working experience that was relatable and that softened his cutting wit and obvious intelligence. Tony displayed an encyclopedic understanding of culture, of books, movies, music, the things that bind people together that don't come out of a kitchen. All of this constituted a totally unique point of view that Tony delivered with humor and curiosity and the dude could write. His narrations for episodic TV remain some of the best examples of subjective journalism that I've ever heard. Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Dominic Dunn, Anthony Bourdain. His writing was that good. Almost instantly, Tony elevated himself to to the level of some of the greatest to ever do it. He was fearless when it came to his point of view and he was nothing if not curious and empathetic. Part of the show's appeal was Tony's ability to break bread with people from all walks of life from completely different social and economic backgrounds. Montana ranchers, Sardinian pig farmers, Muslims, Jews, Ted fucking Nugent, didn't matter. Politics were. Religion, whatever. If you liked to eat, if you had ears and could open them up and listen, then Tony Bourdain could find common ground around the dinner table. Hunger was at Tony's core. He went at his job and his newfound success with an insatiable energy. You could sense that he had life by the balls finally and that he wasn't going to let go ever. And we didn't want him to. We, like him, were hungry for more. But Tony's hunger was a junkie's hunger. All consuming. There are no part time heroin addicts. And though Tony kicked his addiction years before becoming successful, the addiction never kicked him. Tony just shifted his addiction from heroin to work and then to Otavia. Anthony Bourdain's television career was responsible for the end of his first marriage, and he was also responsible for the beginning of his second. Otavia. Beautiful, strong, smart, take no shit Italian, wholesome, from a big loving family on the other side of the world. The type of woman that a guy like Tony Bourdain looks at and goes, oh yeah, this is who I've been waiting for. He went all in. And so did she. They shared secrets. Tony's were darker than she expected. The Caribbean island of St. Martin's a few years after Tony's success, just after the split from his first wife. A dark time that no amount of accolades or money or opportunity was going to fix. This was the type of pain and hurt that was not going anywhere. You were going to have to go through it, get over it, or collapse under it. If you're like me and raised on rock and roll and have spent the better part of your life socializing with degenerate rock and roll animals who view life through a dusty lens of romance, cynicism and hyperbole, then you've no doubt heard one of your friends along the way say these. That Song saved my life. Or that album or band saved me. Perhaps you said it yourself. If so, congratulations. You're as equally full of shit as I am. Music cannot literally save any of us. Only we have the power to save our own lives. Saving your life is a dramatic move. It requires action, agency, music. Specifically listening to music is a passive experience and as such, is incapable of saving your life. It might make you feel better, it might help shape your identity, but it isn't pulling you out of a fiery car wreck before you burn up into a crispy black piece of toast. But music did save Anthony Bourdain's life. Or so the story goes. The island DJ played whatever the hell he wanted, and this suited Anthony Bourdain just fine after stumbling drunk and stoned out of the St. Martin whorehouse and shoving a dirty shawarma down his throat. House of the Rising sun by the Animals or Iggy Pop's Lust for Life, or hell, even Louis Armstrong's what a Wonderful World. These songs would make the world wobbly. Island you were about to drive blind ass drunk across seem a whole lot more tolerable. On the other hand, if the DJ was to play, say, Jimmy Buffett or Billy Joel or, God forbid, the Grateful Dead, then it could spell the end bedtime for Bonzo. Lights out at the no Reservations hotel, all permanent like. You'd take your final drive, crash into the wall. Or perhaps you drive off the road over one of those big island cliffs, suicide via.50,000 watts. That's what you told Otavia anyway. That's how thin the line had gotten for you. It was AM Radio Roulette. You started the engine to your rented 4x4 lit what was likely your 10th joint of the day, choked down the urge to vomit up the day's countless beers and greasy food, gave the accelerator your full foot and took off into the dark night back to your hotel. Or perhaps hi ho Silver Odo. To deliver yourself from nowhere. It depended on the song the DJ played. Life or death in the hands of an unknown islander with erratic, sometimes great and sometimes highly questionable taste in music. The island roads were dark, unpaved, poorly graded, and populated with drivers who were likely as piss drunk as you were. The air whipping by felt good, and that was about all that felt good. The pain was thick. You could barely think straight, but still you had it all figured out. You gun that 4x4 as fast as it would go, throw all caution to the wind, and if you crashed and burned, so be it. If you made it out of town and out onto the remote road that brought you up to the cliffs, over the pass and down toward your hotel. If you made it up onto the cliff road, then you'd kick things up a notch and put your fate in the DJ's hands. You hit the cliff road and the music blared from the truck's speakers. The better the song, the more aggressive you'd drive until you hit that big bend up high, right up high on the cliff. At that point, you had to slow down and cut the wheel to the left to avoid careening off of the road into the air and soaring down the side of the cliff to a certain fiery death. Slowing down and making the turn was no problem unless the DJ played a shitty song. If the song sucked, then you'd let go of the wheel and fly away. But if the song was good, good, you'd slow your roll and turn with the road and down the hill safely to your hotel. That was the deal you made with yourself. And you did this every night. The music gods were on your side. But tonight felt different. The DJ had a heater going. MC5, James Gang. Stone fucking Roses. It was too good to be true. There was a turd of a tune coming soon after or later. And at the pace you were driving, it was starting to feel like Neil Young was onto something. Tonight was the night. As the stone rose, as his I want to be a door wound down. You wound your way toward the bend up on the cliff road. This was it. Put up or shut up. Fucking Dave Matthews or the Bee Gees or Loggins and Messina were bound to burst through those speakers at any moment and you'd get the answer you were looking for. A reason to let go. A suicide solution. I Want to be adored Faded to an end. Here it was, the moment of truth and silence. Wind. The fucking Chambers brothers. Fuck. Time has come today. Time. You love this song. You slowed down, turned the wheel, made the curve of the road successfully and rolled down to your hotel safely. Eventually, you'd make it off the island back to Manhattan, into the arms and bed of Ottavia, the woman you thought was the love of your life. You knew she loved you too when she heard you tell this story and didn't run. She made you swear off the horror, but otherwise accepted you as you were. You got back into your work, making great television. You and your crew almost ended up casualties of war in Beirut. It was the type of experience that alters your point of view, that changes you from the inside out, that makes you focus on what really matters in life, love, family, acceptance. Atavi was pregnant. Life was short. You two were standing inside City hall saying I do. Your child was beautiful. Her and Ottavia were everything. And for a minute there you had it all. And then that junky Jones hit again and the road pulled you back into the work. Traveling 250 days a year and filling the dark days. You weren't on the road. Capitalizing on endless opportunities. TV appearances, awards shows, writing more books, starting your own publishing company, attempting to launch your own eataly inspired multi concept restaurant emporium and eventually a new TV show. More reach, more resources, grander creative aspirations. The big time CNN where you and your crack produce production team at zero point zero Productions pledged to push yourselves to make every episode bigger and better than the last. Sneaking into Hanoi for dinner with the sitting President of the United States kind of bigger and better. That kind of rush is tough to follow. You have to chase it constantly. Happiness is no match for addiction. Anthony Bourdain Blissful family life was short lived. Tony and Ottavia split up in 2016. Strange things happen in the desert. It can bring out the outlaw in you. Having grown up and lived in and around Palm Desert in California, Josh Homme from the band Queens of the Stone Age understood this better than most. Which is why Josh was playing it cool inside the dusty Joshua Tree Saloon and across the table from the drunk golf bro giving him and his good friend Anthony Bourdain shit at the moment. The fucking guy wouldn't let up. He came on all starstruck to Tony, looking for an autograph, but then got ugly with Josh. Josh Homme isn't a small man. He stood and carefully grabbed the dude and started to escort him to the Burr's bouncer and the dude flipped. Then Josh's loyal friend Tony flipped, screaming to the drunk, that's my friend. That's my friend. Referencing Josh of course, who the drunk dude was unsuccessfully lashing out at. Tony was now at Josh's back trying to get the drunk dude Josh was trying to subdue. It was one of those flash in the pan shit shows that are there and then gone with an equal amount of quickness and drama. But when the dust settled and the drunk dude was taken away, Josh Homme knew one thing for certain about Anthony Bourdain when it came to their friendship. Like most things in Tony's life, Tony was all in. Chapter 4 the Italian actress when you go hard and fast and give yourself fully, when your crew and collaborators do the same, when every piece of television you make has to outdo the last when the distance between the destination and the truth gets harder and harder to traverse, when the shine from the spotlight blinds instead of illuminates. Well, my friends, it might be time for the band to break up. All good bands do, even the great ones. Ted Nugent, the Motor city madman, the 70s rock guitarist known for his Meat and Potatoes riffs and his hits like Cat Scratch Fever and the most excellent Stranglehold, is about as far away politically from Anthony Bourdain as floppy Florida is for Maine. Yet there, Anthony Bourdain was on camera on Ted Nugent's ranch, firing away gleefully with an assault weapon and enjoying beer and barbecue with Ted and his boys like he was among long lost friends. I think that Barack Hussein Obama should be put in jail. It is clear that Barack Hussein Obama is a communist. Mao Zedong lives and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. This country should be ashamed. I want to throw up. That's a Ted Nugent quote. Fast forward a couple years to Anthony Bourdain interviewing the leader of the free world, Barack Obama in Hanoi over a cold beer and hot noodles, where Bourdain asked Obama, somewhat playfully, if it was okay that he got along with Ted Nugent, who had said many, many deeply offensive and hateful things about him personally. Obama responded, of course, and that that was exactly the sort of person we should be talking to. And Ted Nugent knew who Anthony Bourdain was and that he was a classic liberal, the opposite of Ted, a libertarian bent conservative. Yet Ted, of course, allowed Tony into his home for barbecue. Ted Nugent said of Tony, he's my Killet and Grillet blood brother. And Tony said, I'm proud of the fact that I've had as dining companions over the years everybody from Hezbollah supporters, communist functionaries, anti Putin activists, cowboys, stoners, Christian militia leaders, feminists, Palestinians and Israeli settlers to Ted Nugent, you like food and are reasonably nice at the table. You show me hospitality, I will sit down with you and break bread. Anthony Bourdain, or his television show at least, was political in the best way, which is to say that it was subjective first and foremost and seemed to be almost completely detached from whatever popular political narrative of the day was being algorithmically force fed to both the left and the right. The show, like the man, seemed to project an empathy that was entirely real and unconcerned with virtue signaling. That is, until Aja Argento. There are women men consume themselves with, and there are women that consume men. By the time Anthony Bourdain moved on from his second wife, Ottavia, and became romantically involved with aja Argento in 2016. His relationship with his work life had run face first into a wall. The grind of making television had become more intense than the grind of running a kitchen. Anthony Bourdain was burnt out physically and creatively. Enter the Italian actress. Like Ottavia, Aja was beautiful, strong, smart, Italian. But unlike Ottavia, Aja set herself and her own interests ahead of any relationship with Tony. Tony. The fact that she was less interested in the famous badass chef and the best selling author than she was herself made her unattainable, which made her more attractive to Tony, which made Tony's old familiar junkie instinct kick in, and then made Tony pour all of himself into his relationship with her. He put her above family, he put her above work, and he put her above friends, which without context doesn't sound that bad. But when you get down to the details, in the end result, it was of course disastrous. There are many juicy, bullshit, gossipy personal anecdotes about Tony and Aja's relationship that we could go into to give you this context, but it feels icky and frankly, you can get that stuff with three clicks in a search bar. Nonetheless, if we're going to continue this story, we need to mention to fully understand how Anthony Bourdain was changed by his relationship with Ajay Argento. I'll do my best to list them as quickly as possible. Despite his split from Ottavia, the pair remained close as friends and co parents of their daughter. By all accounts, Tony remained, if sometimes absent, an attentive and proud dad age. Argento could not accept this and was threatened by Tony's relationship not only with Ottavia, but with his daughter, going as far as demanding that Tony not share photos of his family on Instagram. Fact two, Tony Bourdain was keen on helping Aja's career as a director by involving her in the production of his CNN show Parts Unknown. Now you have to understand that by the time Tony and his production team team were making Parts Unknown, they were running a finely tuned production machine. You've seen these episodes, they're expertly made, they didn't happen by accident. Again, enter the Italian actress, but this time behind the camera, directing Tony and his seasoned crew. She was woefully incapable, a disaster. And she relied on a relationship with Tony to win pissy little creative battles on set. It got so bad that she insisted Tony fire his longtime award winning cinematographer, Zack Zamboni, whom Tony had worked with and had a friendship with for a decade and Tony fired him on the spot. Fact number three, human growth hormones. I'm not even going to get into this because it's gross. You can look it up yourself. Me too. This was the big one. When Ajjia Argento found herself at the center of the MeToo storm, she pulled Anthony Bourdain in fast and without an umbrella. And Tony, who up to this point seemed to toe the old Groucho Marx line when it came to causes. The one that said, quote, I refused to join any club that would have me as a member and had lived his life as someone who proudly was not a joiner but instead instead an independent minded liberal with a unique superpower that allowed him to both view and articulate this messy world with deft nuance. Suddenly, that dude was at the vanguard of a political movement on the front lines with his girlfriend who had gone public about her rape at the pudgy hands of Harvey Weinstein. I get it, I do. Who's to say how any of us would act if we were in the same situation? But again, context, supporting your girlfriend and subverting your character to support your girlfriend are two different things. Suddenly, Anthony Bourdain was in Twitter Beasts with Matt Damon and turning his back on friends. At the end of 2017, Anthony Bourdain's good friend Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, the same friend Anthony had been quick to to defend a few years back in a potential bar fight, was on stage when, overcome with the energy and emotion of a rock and roll performance, he inexcusably kicked a female pool photographer's camera as she held it up in front of her face, injuring the photographer, who then posted her injuries online with the hashtag MeToo. Given the moment America was in, controversy ensued. Josh Homme was quick to unequivocally apologize for his actions. In later statements, Josh provided context, referencing the violent, inadvertent stage actions of Johnny Cash and Iggy Pop. But at the moment, none of that was relevant. All that mattered was that a man kicked a woman, the pitchforks were out and Josh's friend Anthony Bourdain grabbed one and headed to Twitter saying, waking up in Bhutan to the Josh Homme shit and still in the WTF phase. Senseless and a weak ass apology. Say what you will about Tony's comment and or Josh's actions or apology, but if a good friend of mine finds himself in an international media firestorm, I'm calling him first to get his side of the story before publicly piling on. That's who I am. And I'm sure that's who you are, because that's how most people are. Most people are reasonable people. Anthony Bourdain was, up until this moment in time, an excessively reasonable person. That changed. Then, inevitably, as is the case with most cause focused charlatans, the rot of hypocrisy cracked through the thin veneer of virtue. In 2018, the New York Times reported it had obtained evidence supporting the claim that in 2013, while she was 37 years old, Aggia Argento sexually assaulted a fellow actor, a boy, two days past his 17th birthday, plying him with alcohol. Agia Argento denied the incident, but I encourage you to search online for photos of the two as well as text messages between them and come to your own conclusion. In any event, Anthony Bourdain swooped into defense mode. The mob mentality might have been good for Josh Harmony, but now the shoe was on the other foot. And it just wouldn't do for his Italian actress girlfriend, to whom he had given nearly every ounce of his energy over the last few months. She was at the vanguard of the MeToo movement, and Tony wasn't going to let the movement eat its own. Adgia's alleged victim was threatening a $3.5 million lawsuit. Rather than let the courts adjudicate the matter, Tony. As Charles Leerson in his book down and out in paradise reported, Tony reportedly hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on the kid. Dirt that could be used to blackmail him. In the end, Tony just paid the kid off 380 grand to shut up and not pursue further legal action. The move was like something a character from one of Tony's unsuccessful novels would have done. A junkie move. An all in move, absolute, without nuance. That's what Tony was all in on. Agia Argento, come hell or high water. The feeling. Despite all that he did for her, despite the financial help, the career help, the public support, despite putting her above his family, his colleagues, his friends, his. His career. Despite all of this, Asia Argento was not all in on Anthony Bourdain. Agia Argento had it bad for someone else. And that, as they say, ladies and gentlemen, ain't good. June 2018. Anthony Bourdain and his 0.0 crew, along with Tony's friend chef Eric Ripert, were in France filming an episode of Parts Unknown. Aggia Argento was in Italy with a handsome journalist. And the tabloids and the Internet let Tony know all about it. And it broke him. What happens to you when you give every bit of yourself to something and get nothing back. Thankfully, I've never experienced this specific type of heartbreak. Like all of you. You I've loved and lost, but I've never lost like this. I've never bet the farm, the dog, my firstborn, and the horse and buggy I rode in on and lost it all. That kind of pain is unimaginable. Add worldwide humiliation to that reality and suicide, a romantic concept Anthony Bourdain had entertained in both a literal and literary sense, going as far back as his first published works. That type of big ending, given the context anyway, starts to become objectively understandable. I say this as someone who has lost many close relatives and friends to suicide, but the truth is that no one understands why someone else kills themselves. No one. It is the most personal action an individual can make. I believe, though, that Anthony Bourdain died long before that night. He hanged himself in a luxury hotel in France, heartbroken, stewing over being betrayed and publicly humiliated by the one person in the world he'd given himself over to entirely. Somewhere down the line, he stopped being Anthony Bourdain. Let me say that again. He stopped being Anthony Bourdain. Which is shocking, because Anthony Bourdain seemed to continuously feed the character of Anthony Bourdain, and we loved him for it. We found him endlessly entertaining, compelling, even lovable. We were more than comfortable looking into corners of the world we'd never visit with his eyes, tasting things we'd never taste with his acerbic tongue. I'm not sure when the real Anthony Bourdain died, but I'm pretty sure sure the wheels were coming off by the time he turned up in Miami to film that episode of Parts Unknown with his hero, Iggy Pop. Tony Ass is rock star hero. Given that he'd been the template for nearly every rock and roll frontman that came after him, from David Johansson to Julian Casablancas, and that Iggy had experienced millions of adventures at this point late in life, what now thrilled him? Iggy answers from the heart with being loved and appreciating the people that are giving that to me. Tony looks like a deer in headlights when Iggy says this, because, like Iggy Pop, Anthony Bourdain was a romantic, but I believe by this point, love for him was a fleeting proposition. Anthony Bourdain's friend, the filmmaker Amos Poe, said, it's great to be romantic, but never be romantic about romance, because it'll take you down like a junkie. A romantic goes all in all in on love, all in on indulgence, all in on traveling to the end of the fucking world and back. And most admirably, all in on empathy. When Anthony was Bourdain went all in his lust for life rewarded him with a career, a family, fame. But when he went all in on the wrong romance, he got nothing back and it killed him. That is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, the Exactly right Network and iHeart Podcasts. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening, as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook. Description Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man. All right, Discos, what did you think of this Anthony Bourdain classic episode of Disgraceland? Give us a call, let us know. 617-906-6638 voicemail and text at Disgraceland pod on the socials Coming up next in Disgraceland, our new episode on Weezer. Don't go anywhere. Paramount is now the home of all your BET favorites. What? Yeah, with all new episodes of Tyler Perry's Divorce Sisters you've always liked, a little drama. Plus a whole new world of movies like Gladiator 2. Now I will control an Empire original series like the Shy. Just make sure we protect each other. And live sports like ufc. Welcome to the history books. New home, same family. Your BET favorites are now on Paramount. Subscribe Now.
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