Parts Unknown

I’ve learned to take a deep breath before opening my daily news summary each morning. Always glad I did. But this morning even that reserve breath was blown away by news that Anthony Bourdain had committed suicide. My shock was similar to what I felt on the day I heard of Robin Williams’s suicide. It wasn’t that either man didn’t allow his personal demons to be on public view—always--but that both were so genius and impassioned about their respective pursuits in life that one wanted to believe that it would be enough to pull them through their darkest hours. 
I’ve been an avid fan of Anthony’s show Parts Unknown on CNN since its inception. At first the double meaning of the title clearly leaned on the parts unknown of the animals, fish, and other growing things that Anthony would cheerfully, often daringly, ingest in his travels through remote corners of the world. That was a big part of my early fascination. Though not the finicky eater I once was, I’m still very particular about what I put in my mouth. And I’m a little ashamed to admit that I’ve never been one to put courtesy over my distaste for or aversion to eating certain things. My youthful ambition to be a politician was probably killed as much by the fear of having to eat corn dogs to win the Iowa primary as anything else. (John Kerry refusing to have Cheez Whiz on his Philly Cheesesteak? I’m with you, man. Forget Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes.)
But Anthony never turned his nose up (on camera anyway) at any food presented to him by any of his hosts from around the world. And it’s clear after watching him for years that it was that show of good sportsmanship that created the bond he had with so many of the diverse people his camera crew invaded.  
In recent years, however, he began to emphasize more heavily the other meaning of unknown parts…the various subcultures of our world as they have been formed by geography, arts, music, literature, politics, and human aspirations. In the past two years, Anthony seemed to be on a fervent mission to show us in each hour episode how interwoven we are through our diversity, not in spite of it. The exotic food became less an end in itself for the show and more of a medium through which Anthony explored cultures with intelligent, articulate people who were often both passionate advocates for their cultures and dispassionate observers of them. In a recent show over a meal of sheep’s head with three young professional women in Armenia he asked about the prospects for the better future of Armenia they were all working toward. One of them answers, “History is not a stable thing we can depend upon.” It was typical of the unscripted insights Anthony was able to elicit again and again from strangers he met in his travels or old acquaintances he’d renewed. 
Some of the episodes were so personally enlightening for me that I saved them in my dvr queue for repeated viewings…and I highly recommend them here for anyone who missed them:  
Houston —I admit to holding most of the biases against Texas typical of one of my background…too much guns, god, and greed. But Anthony’s show on Houston was a real eye-opener, revealing a rich, diverse culture made up of Mexican, Asian, and African influences…and a broad, colorful swath of “minority” people actually taking pride in being Texan.  
Montana —The cruel irony of the “Big Sky Country” is that the earth below was turned into the most toxic on earth in the frenzy to extract natural resources. As he did in most of his shows, but especially recently, Anthony explored how things got to now…how the corporations with the complicity of job hungry unions allowed their environment to be pillaged and polluted. And he talks with…not down to…the survivors of this environmental rape about the crueler irony of having to turn to government taxes and regulation to clean up their country.
Singapore —It is the showcase for globalization, bursting with tall, glistening buildings, headquarters for giant global corporations all drawn to its shores by indulgent government tax and regulatory policies. And in the shadows of the skyscrapers, a bright, industrious population voluntarily surrenders individual freedoms for the promise of lifetime jobs and housing. 
Vietnam —This was probably Anthony’s masterpiece…featuring deep, revealing conversations with participants on both sides of the war, topped off with an enjoyably thoughtful conversation with Barack Obama in a Hanoi restaurant. 
There were some misses along the way. Most disappointing for me, an avowed Italophile, were his episodes on Sicily and Southern Italy. In Sicily, some local vendor tried to con him by planting the shell fish they were supposed to dive for together, and it visibly pissed Anthony off for the rest of the visit. And on the mainland in Southern Italy he seemed to turn it over to the new love of his life, Italian director Asia Argento, and it ended up being far more style than substance.
Anthony’s self-admitted and self-evident vices and/or weaknesses actually made the show more compelling, albeit uncomfortably so sometimes. His journey from his roots as a chef in Provincetown to the roots of his drug addiction in Western Massachusetts may be one of the best, least sensational TV productions on the insidious nature of opioids and heroin. Then there was the excruciating episode with his oft-time traveling companion Eric Ripert. It’s clear the two men are fond of each other, but in their visit to Sichuan province in China Bourdain took unseemly delight in taunting and humiliating his good-natured friend. That seemed a stark demonstration of the “bro culture” Anthony admitted to promoting in his biography Kitchen Confidential. After viewing one show, I said to Lorna, "I like my Anthony on TV. I think he might be a little too much as a personal friend." I may have been wrong about that.Bourdain was open and unsparing in his self-assessments, which made his voice so unique in our popular culture. There was nothing whiny or exculpatory when he took ownership of his errors. His recent confessions to the #MeToo movement are typical.  

I had to ask myself, particularly given some things that I’m hearing, and the people I’m hearing them about: Why was I not the sort of person, or why was I not seen as the sort of person, that these women could feel comfortable confiding in? I see this as a personal failing.  I’ve been hearing a lot of really bad shit, frankly, and in many cases it’s like, wow, I’ve known some of these women and I’ve known women who’ve had stories like this for years and they’ve said nothing to me. What is wrong with me? What have I, how have I presented myself in such a way as to not give confidence, or why was I not the sort of person people would see as a natural ally here? So I started looking at that.

I’m going to miss that voice. And if there was one person I wish could take a camera crew to the greatest part unknown of them all…death…Antony Bourdain would be that person.