In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain

by Tom Vitale

Thirty years later and I still didn’t believe anyone would choose to go back to Kansas after having experienced Oz in Technicolor. That’s what travel was like for me.

But traveling for work is a lot lonelier than you would imagine, especially when you get home.

Frankly, the whole thing was a mind-fuck.

When in the right mood, he could fucking talk, elevate the mundane into high art. Extreme, subtle, sentimental, amused, apoplectic, or sarcastic, his reactions spanned the gamut, and it was ideal when the content flowed naturally, but sometimes he needed a little help.

“It’s getting bouncy,” Tony said. “Bouncy not like in a fun bouncy-castle kind of way, bouncy as in a pulverize-my-spine, turn-my-kidneys-to-gel kind of a way.”

Tony paused and looked back out over Bagan. His hand fidgeted. “What happens to the people that we leave behind?” Chapter Three APPETIZER I

Both old and young at the same time, full head of curly gray hair, cigarette in his mouth, standing tall at six-foot-four, sunbaked, half-hidden behind a pair of solid black Steve McQueen Persols. Tony always seemed in a hurry, like he might disappear at any second.

My relationship with Tony was complicated. Tony was hard to be around, and painful to be away from. He was intellectually stimulating beyond compare, and his energy would suck you dry. Frustrating, difficult, and even terrifying at times, but always fascinating, bigger than life.

One of the best things about the show, if not the best thing about the show, was how Tony used his platform for good. From Mexican cooks to Palestinian shop owners, Tony championed the marginalized and gave a voice to the voiceless, stuck up for the little guy.

ONE OF THE SECRETS TO Tony’s success was a fearless risk-all attitude that was at times indistinguishable from self-sabotage.

A NATURAL-BORN EXAGGERATOR WITH A superb taste for the absurd, Tony was the ultimate storyteller. Tony’s way of looking at the world, his ability to transform the bland everyday into a fantastic reinterpretation of reality, only seemed to add more meaning and truth to the original event.

It’s about the moral quandary of travel and white privilege. The camera is a liar. Drawing attention to it calls into question our own reliability and shows our hands aren’t clean. I want to show how manipulative even ‘honest, tell it like it is’ TV can be.”

That was one of the great things about Tony. He never shied away from complicated topics or from presenting himself in an unflattering light. And Tony wasn’t just honest about it, he often bent over backward to highlight just how manipulative the TV machine could be.

“The best piece of writing advice I can offer is to kill your baby. Lose what you think is your best line. It’ll be better.”

Manic depressively and schizophrenically different. Always pushing forward, doing the hard thing, even the stupid thing, as long as it was the different thing. Tony was a big believer in failing gloriously in an attempt to do something interesting, rather than succeeding at being mediocre. “If it’s not interesting, we may as well be working a lunch counter,” Tony said.

He challenged the editors, camera people, directors, and producers to come up with crazy shit, to innovate, and he fiercely guarded our freedom to try new stuff and to have fun while doing so. The point wasn’t to be sensational, it was to innovate by fucking with the format.

TONY WAS CHAMPION OF THE misunderstood, stragglers, stalwarts, pioneers, lovable drunks, the marginalized—those left behind or left out or fallen by the wayside. Maybe it was because he knew what it was like to be an outsider.

But our line of work had taught us there was a difference between people and their government.

Iran was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of trip. We’d been given a real opportunity to tell a different story, and it was of the utmost importance we got it right. This episode had the potential to do what Tony had always aimed for and I was proudest of: challenge stereotypes while resisting the othering of people we met by treating them with dignity, respect, and approaching a complex situation with an open mind. The Iran episode also served as a reminder of what could happen to the people we leave behind.

Tony brought so much joy as well as so much pain. Though I don’t think he did it on purpose, Tony’s demons ensured he was a difficult and, at times, fearsome person to be around. Anthony Bourdain was a great man, even though he could, at times, be a less successful human being.

indefatigable

Tony gave all of us the heart to bring people from far away to feel closer together, realize that people who are different aren’t our enemies, and gave us the courage to do the things we wanted to do.

Tony could strike up a conversation with someone he’d never met, and twenty minutes later they’d be talking like old friends. He possessed a charisma that made him distinctly accessible, familiar even. His magic radiated out through the television to people he never met. Complete strangers greeted Tony with a sense of intimacy, like they’d either already shared a beer together or, if they offered one now, Tony would just sit down and the two of them would casually pick up the conversation where they left off. It was one of Tony’s super powers, and befitting a man of his complexity and contradictions, it was both a blessing and a curse.

Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind. Unfortunately, the footage was unusable because of an unrelenting dog barking in the background, but I transcribed what Tony said, repurposing it as a line of voice-over for the end of the episode, and it became my favorite quote about travel.

The Iban then commemorate the experience with a hand-tapped tattoo, à la “travel leaves marks.” It was literally a perfect theme for an episode of TV about travel.