Bourdain dead at 61 of Apparent Suicide

John Utah wrote:

yoyomama wrote:

Two rich and successful New Yorkers commit suicide this week. I enjoyed Bourdain's shows and he was clearly a force in international cuisine media. Who carries the torch from here? David Chang?

Guy Fieri

?

John Utah wrote:

yoyomama wrote:

Two rich and successful New Yorkers commit suicide this week. I enjoyed Bourdain's shows and he was clearly a force in international cuisine media. Who carries the torch from here? David Chang?

Guy Fieri

My vote is Andrew Zimmerman, but I also like Fieri. They discuss much different cuisines however, in most cases. Never watched Bourdain, from what I have read, he seemed to be a bit insufferable. It also always mystifies me why people kill themselves. I knew 5 that have over the years, including my brother. Perhaps they feel that the afterlife will be better than the current life. I however take the Stephen Hawking view of life, or rather, the end of it.

Right To Die wrote:

I don't see suicide as a bad thing and respect everyone's decision to do it even if it's not that best decision.

Better than a battle with cancer or a heart attack IMO. Or being miserable or having to take psychiatric medication.

I don't think you're wrong, per se, but I believe that we can figure out the reason that so many people are miserable. I believe that we can fix it. I think the answer is more analog than we want to believe. I don't think it'll come with pills.

I don't think simply sitting back and saying, "well, let's just let them kill themselves" is the way to go. I liken that to saying, "well, cancer is a real PIA but I guess in the end it'll just kill them all." I think we can find the answer, here.

News starting to come out now.

May have been dumped by his girlfriend this week.

Oh man wrote:

I don't think you're wrong, per se, but I believe that we can figure out the reason that so many people are miserable. I believe that we can fix it. I think the answer is more analog than we want to believe. I don't think it'll come with pills.

I don't think simply sitting back and saying, "well, let's just let them kill themselves" is the way to go. I liken that to saying, "well, cancer is a real PIA but I guess in the end it'll just kill them all." I think we can find the answer, here.

Yes, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The big problem is the fear of going to talk to a shrink or psychologist and being labelled as crazy and also cutting funding to healthcare and mental health.

Depression comes and goes and if most people get help when it's bad they will have happy times again and forget about being depressed. For some reason they just can't remember the happy times when they're depressed.

Anthony Bourdain was a heavy drug user and possibly self medicating underlying issues. Not to sound Freudian, but it's usually a traumatic childhood or genetic.

+1. All this.

As two guys who love food and cooking my dad and I really enjoyed watching his show over beers on a Saturday night. To my surprise, we could get past his shoehorned political BS (i.e. the recent West Virginia episode) because he is on CNN after all and it was pretty brief. The counterpoint framed fairly. He seemed the same to me.

Pretty bummed out about it. This one hits like Philip Seymour Hoffman’s OD.

For sure so many people underestimate the devastating impact of depression, especially if you've not lived with it. However, I don't know that you can write off every suicide in this way. Life is not that simple I don't think. I think there is a lot to be said about the path you take in life, the choices you make, your attitude, your mindset, your values, etc. As far as I know he lived a life seemingly weighed down by drugs, debauchery, cynicism, and a lot of negativity and disdain for folks not sharing his worldview. That takes a toll. I'm not judging as I'm no better than him, but I think these things should be reflected upon. That said, he was a talented and entertaining guy and it's very sad to see someone pass when he had so many years left in the tank. Sad for both him and his family and friends. RIP

axcds wrote:

News starting to come out now.

May have been dumped by his girlfriend this week.

He seemed particularly enamored with his latest gf. Sad if that was the reason, if nothing else for the child he left behind. We’ve all been through it and it’s easy to see how a break up could lead to this. As others have posted, his persona had shifted in recent years and he was troubled. Sorry to see him go.

Agreed. I guess I see an increase in people sharing this mindset and it scares me. People can be forgiven. People need to know that redemption is possible (not a political jab). The negativity is contagious and it is only increasing. Let's stem the tide.

Messages like this are the reason I always read the message boards.

Thank you for your thoughtful post Sir.

Gravy wrote:

Suicide rates in the US are up 30% since 1999.

No they aren't. Re-read the report and then correct your number.

Eastern Motors wrote:

Gravy wrote:

Suicide rates in the US are up 30% since 1999.

No they aren't. Re-read the report and then correct your number.

Oh, and I did a deep dive into suicide statistics, and most of what you see is misinformation.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

He had been a heroine addict, did he relapse?

Regardless mental illness is the illness we all struggle to understand. We're thinking rationally and the mentally ill are seeing things with a very very skewed view.

catlitterhottub wrote:

He had been a heroine addict, did he relapse?

Regardless mental illness is the illness we all struggle to understand. We're thinking rationally and the mentally ill are seeing things with a very very skewed view.

. . . No

OLD SMTC SOB wrote:

My vote is Andrew Zimmerman,

He has the former NYC drug and alcohol addict, chef, and published author parts on the resume.

John Utah wrote:

For sure so many people underestimate the devastating impact of depression, especially if you've not lived with it. However, I don't know that you can write off every suicide in this way. Life is not that simple I don't think. I think there is a lot to be said about the path you take in life, the choices you make, your attitude, your mindset, your values, etc. As far as I know he lived a life seemingly weighed down by drugs, debauchery, cynicism, and a lot of negativity and disdain for folks not sharing his worldview. That takes a toll. I'm not judging as I'm no better than him, but I think these things should be reflected upon. That said, he was a talented and entertaining guy and it's very sad to see someone pass when he had so many years left in the tank. Sad for both him and his family and friends. RIP[/quote]

This, along with several other responses, is a mature way to look at the issue of suicide and the factors impacting its likelihood. I loved Bourdain's work, particularly his writing, and have a more profound and extensive professional connection to him and to said writing than most, if not all, people on this board. I happen to agree with many of his political views as well, particularly his feelings about Henry Kissinger and Cambodia. But Utah is right that Bourdain's life was weighed down by multiple demons, demons he was refreshingly honest and open about. But he seemed to replace a hardcore drug addiction with severe alcoholism and probably fell short of dealing with some other things that encouraged his depressive tendencies as well.

Although a great fan of Kitchen Confidential, my favorite Bourdain piece was an episode from his first show that was set in Brazil. The episode concludes with Bourdain visiting a poor black family who cook his favorite type of food, the most basic national dish eaten by common folk, in this case feijoada. The portly woman who cooked him the meal clearly was taking a liking to Bourdain, a fact that didn't seem to register with the star.

Along with eating his fill, Bourdain drank himself into a stupor and ended up falling asleep in the backyard of the woman's house while the crew was still filming. The woman eventually lumbered down next to him and there they slept, embracing, in the grass. The scene highlighted Bourdain's continued chemical dependency, but also his ease with people very, very different from himself and his enjoyment of common, simple cultures the world over, no reservations. Of course, he wrote an eloquent little soliloquy to the episode as well, a charming literary feature of that first Food Network show that became more sporadic as he became a bigger and bigger star with more and more shows. I always appreciated Bourdain's writing ability and the fact that he would often feature or frequently allude to the work of a local writer in his shows.