Randazza: Trying to make sense of Bourdain

By Marc J. Randazza

I did not know Anthony Bourdain. But, he was a good friend to a good friend. I'm upset about his death for a few reasons. First, and foremost, a good friend lost a good friend. Selfishly, I always had it as a given that I would have drinks with him one day. Any time I wanted, really. I just had to ask. It never occurred to me that he would be gone before I made the time.

And now that he is gone, the post-mortems are oozing like honey out of baklava. Messy, sweet, and getting on everything. Almost all of them are flattering, as they should be. Yeah, there's always one douche with something awful to say, but lets not focus on those few bitter nothings. Every account of him that I've ever heard was a man who had plenty of time for everyone. He may have had his faults, but he spread respect, understanding, and curiosity. The world was better because we had Bourdain in it.

Most everyone thought so, even before he died.

After a celebrity takes his own life, the questions are predictable, and fair. This was no tragic accident. This was no cancer-took-him-too-soon. This was a bright bright neon light that turned itself off. How does someone with the best job in the world, at the top of his game, with seemingly everything, "throw it all away?"

If I could really answer that question, I would get a Nobel Prize, I imagine.

I can't. But I'll try. I hope in trying, I do no harm. Regular readers will agree that I am really good at irreverence, but have little demonstrated experience with reverence. May this piece only pop corks on bottles of compassion. To the extent it has a shred of douchetasm in it, I hope my reader understands that at worst, any harm I inflict is negligent. And nothing in this piece should be interpreted as me saying that I know a goddamn thing except this: What I do know is "why would he throw it all away?" isn't the right question. And if you're asking that question, you might be asking someone you know the wrong questions.

So do I get it? The fuck I know. Can I try? I'll try.

Lets look at who Bourdain was – at least to me. To me, he was "one of us." By that I mean those of us who were misfits who succeeded in spite of ourselves. Bourdain was very open about his prior drug use – not shy at all about it, in fact. He regularly dropped references to his prior heroin habit. I loved that about him. "Yeah, I used to shoot smack, and look at me now." He was not a "say no to drugs" guy. He was a keep-on-raging guy, even if he did gain a high degree of responsibility in his older age. He let that flag fly, and in doing so, he sent signals to some of us who understood him on that level.

Bourdain was not the kind of guy to get an honorary degree and then give a speech extolling the virtues of studying hard and working hard. Bourdain was a pirate. I can think of no higher praise than to call him that.

After he died, a wise man wrote: "Very successful people often become successful because they are unhappy." And that makes sense when you look at Bourdain. Nobody shoots heroin because they are happy. A demon chases you into that place. That demon talks to you. He lies to you. He tells you to go ahead and jam that needle into your arm, because you are different. It won't hurt you because you're different – and that difference makes you alone, and that heroin makes you forget about being alone. Not the "alone" like being in the house all by yourself. The "alone" someone feels while they are the center of attention in a huge crowd. That alone. That cold-alone that is more alone and cold than you'd be if you were strapped to Voyager One like a freezing dark hood ornament. That alone that isn't even black – because at least you can lose yourself in blackness. Blackness and darkness at least has quiet and tranquility. That evil aloneness is grainy. T.V.-static-alone. That alone of "did I just hear something?" And you didn't hear anything. You wanted to. You wanted to hear something so badly that your ears start creating sounds that make sense in the static. The noise. Just. One. Fucking. Sound. That. Makes. Sense. Please. God. Fucking. Dammit. Or at least, some quiet. And the quiet won't come. And the sounds won't organize into voices that speak to you. And you just want to hide.

Heroin is an awesome place for someone like that to hide. Those of us who have been there, with lost weeks, months, even years, know that quest for tranquility and how heroin can get you there. For a while.

Of course, Bourdain quit heroin – as you must to in order to achieve anything except knowing where to buy heroin. For most junkies, heroin is a disease. For them, it is usually easy. Step one: Quit heroin. Step two: Get better.

For people like Bourdain, heroin is a symptom. The steps defy logic. Quit heroin, problem remains. Seek new cure. Fail. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

I can picture Bourdain now, the smart junkie, with everything as sanitized as possible. The candle burning. The spoon over the flame. The water. The powder. The little tiny bit of cotton to filter out the impurities. Apply heat. Watch just the edges of the water boil. The powder vanishes like magic and there's just a clear shot of liquid in the spoon. Push the cotton into the middle of the water, and draw it all into the syringe. The strap around the arm digs in and makes that vein bulge out – creating a target for the stinger. As it pierces the skin, it settles into place, and *puff* … a little red flower blooms inside the syringe as the blood pressure pushes just a kiss of blood into the clear watery mixture. The thumb goes down, and …. whoosh…. his pupils pull tight into little pinholes. His head gets lighter than hydrogen. Every pleasure center in his brain is switched on. And he floats. In tranquility. For a while.

The T.V. Static loneliness turns to black. The good kind. The calming kind. The static is squelched.

It wears off and the noise comes back. Maybe that night he hits it a few more times. Maybe he takes the day off the next day. Maybe a week. Maybe not. But, in general, days run into weeks, into months, and every time that flower blooms, it is a little less beautiful. Every time that lightness lasts just a little less time. The blackness doesn't ever go to that pure pure black that it was the first time. And, eventually, Bourdain figured out "this is not going to save me anymore."

Figuring that out about heroin is easy. Everyone knows heroin is bad. You want to quit heroin? You find lots of friends. Everyone wants to help you. Friends will babysit you. You'll get excused for puking at inopportune times. "He's drying out from junk." Hell, you can almost act any way you want when people know you're kicking a junk habit. For Bourdain, a famous curmudgeon, the kicking-the-habit time must have been mentally satisfying, even if physically grueling.

When he came out of that sicknness, finally, it didn't likely feel like he crossed a finish line. The junk habit goes away slowly. It is as if the sickness has a half-life, and every day it gets a little less sickening and painful – until finally, he couldn't remember what the sickness really felt like. He was in the clear.

But then that demon that put the stinger in his arm starts talking to him again. The T.V. static loneliness starts to creep in again. The noise. It hurts. There must be a cure.

For a lot of people, that means going right back to the old bad habit. For others, especially intelligent ones, there is a recognition that you don't want to go down that path again. That was a dead end, so they try something else. Religion. Family. Gardening. Compulsive masturbation. Whatever the fuck. But, something needs to get laid over the crackling hiss of loneliness and alienation. For some, the cure is called "success." And people like Anthony Bourdain chase it the same way that a junkie chases that feeling he had the first time he shot up.

Success is a wonder drug for people like Bourdain. Strapped to the rack of his own insecurities and unhappiness, he mainlined success. He dragged a lot of people along with him too — my friend Mike, for example. Bourdain shared his success with him, promoting his book and doing whatever he could to contribute to his success. Bourdain was a curmudgeon, but not an asshole. He kept climbing that mountain of success – from his first column in The New Yorker to his acclaimed show to his ascendancy as a cultural icon. Bourdain was not just a celebrity chef, but an ambassador. Bourdain was Bourdain.

Bourdain being Bourdain was a man climbing a mountain to conquer that solitude that heroin couldn't crush. Every step he took on that climb toward the summit put him in more rarified air. As he looked up, and it seemed that the summit was in reach, the air got thinner and thinner, making each step exponentially harder than the one before it. Like climbing a smoking volcano, where it gets colder, and the air more sparse, and each step is not not just on rocks that might slip and tumble beneath his boots – but now into crusted snow. And the air gets thinner and thinner. He looks back at those who couldn't get there with him, who turned around, or who were satisfied at where they reached. All the while, that smoke coming out of the volcano – noxious gas – is under nobody's control. One shift of the breeze and sulphur dioxide can come streaming toward his face.

And now you, dear reader, start to ask yourself: Am I reading about rising up to the greatest heights? Or am I reading about a dangerous agonizing climb toward not a summit, but a crater?

The answer is "yes."

From our comfortable chairs down at the base-camp of life, it looked like he was a legend. How fortunate he was to see things from that height. How strong he was to climb that volcano. How could he "throw that away?"

He didn't "throw it away."

Bourdain climbed that volcano – racing away from the loneliness to try and find the summit. But, every step up was toward more alienation. Every success was another shot that just temporarily made the pain go away and brought a bit of calm, but that pushed him toward disaster. And, unlike heroin, the drug of success and achievement wasn't something he could just tell his friends "I gotta dry out," and find a shower of support. The climb was a trap. Not just an addiction, but an addiction for which there is no treatment – and for which each shot put him further away from a cure.

He lost who Bourdain was. He lost that, because (in part) of us. Bourdain wasn't "Anthony" anymore. He became "Bourdain." Quit success? How could he do that? Why would he do that? The eyes were on him. The drug was in him. But he did not "rise." He climbed. Climbed toward the sun, trying to find that quiet. Climbed to run away from that voice and noise. The pressure on him to keep climbing, because that's what you do when you're a success. His seemingly positive pattern of self-medication through triumph pushing him up higher and higher.

Until that day in that hotel room where he just couldn't climb anymore.

We all lost Bourdain, when he just decided to finally, once again be Anthony.

Lonely, confused, Anthony. Just wanting the static and the noise and the hurt to go away.

Anthony couldn't carry Bourdain up that mountain anymore. So Anthony sat down in the snow and waited for the wind to shift that sulphur dioxide toward him, and breathed in its searing heat to just make it all stop.

Do I know? The fuck I know anything.

Copyright 2017 by the named Popehat author.