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Chapter 3 Ottavia 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 fair and comment on it. But the show was different because of, well, Anthony Bourdain. Tony was a totally 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 Dunne, Anthony Bourdain. His writing was that good. Almost instantly, Tony elevated himself 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, religious, 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 the 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, it 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 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, 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 sooner 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. Time has come today. Time. You love this fucking 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 and into the arms and bed of Otavia, 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 horrors, 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. Otavia 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 junkie Jones hit again and the road pulled you back into the work, traveling 250 days a year and filling the 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 production team at 0.0 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 Wayne's 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 bar'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 four, 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 Florida. 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 Aggia 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. Ajay Argento could not accept this. It 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 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. Fact four, MeToo. This was the big one. When Agia 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 tow 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 not a joiner, but 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 Argenta, 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 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 rockstar 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 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. 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. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections and early early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad bad man.
