Talking about addiction, I watched Amy Winehouse documentary last night. It was beautifully shot. We could get glimpse of her life before things got out of hand. Alcohol and drugs will eventually take over if you can’t stop and it doesn’t matter who you are. Some people will be there quicker then other but it’s only a matter of time until it wreak havoc on your body. Your body might not be a temple, but its surly not immune to alcohol and drugs.
Jo Ann Towle wrote in the Chicago Tribune and I agree with the article. Alcoholism is a problem that one view only as a thing that you push under the rug. I would also put mental health in the same boat. I think we need to tackle with them. It will only get bigger as we move forward.
I didn’t know Anthony Bourdain, but felt like I did in one small important way. In him, I saw a drinking alcoholic with a front-stage vigorous attempt to do it successfully. His was a fantastic life-embracing show, with drinking taking a prominent role in the joie de vivre, and sometimes that made it hard for me to watch.
When he threw back shots, indeed got wasted, I saw a fellow alcoholic living dangerously whereas most viewers, I imagine, saw “a man who knew how to drink, knew how to live.” His state of mind will be called depression, and who can argue with that in the wake of his suicide. But can we please, people, start connecting the dots to alcoholism (also a disease of the mind), at least when it is screamingly evident?
Maria Bustillos’s interview back in February with Bourdain before his sudden death. Ill be honest, Im still shocked by it. Im glad it opened a discussion about mental health and it’s implications, depression and alcoholism which were not in the mainstream media. I hope it will be in the forefront for the next decades. With the current state of affair, I really do hope alcoholism will be more researched and talked about. Its a nasty poison.
Anthony Bourdain had started smoking again, was the first thing I noticed as he sat down with me last February. He was a bit hung over from a recent working trip to south Louisiana for Cajun Mardi Gras; “Harder partying than I’m used to, I gotta say,” he said, laughing. Despite his great height his leonine head seemed just huge, and a little fleshier than I’d imagined; there was this slight dissipation to him.
But no—who could be troubled about the wellbeing of Anthony Bourdain? Just look at him, so debonair, so completely at ease. A veritable prince of savoir vivre. Sixty-one, and still very elegant in his looks; the word sexy came to mind. Almost an old-fashioned word now. The sort of person who seems to think with his hips, his hands. He was in love, he would later admit; he and his new girlfriend, Asia Argento, had started smoking again together. He was a little rueful about the smoking, had the air of someone who meant to quit soon.
As he started to talk, everything about him became familiar at once; he slipped so effortlessly into the sleek carapace of his fame. The very air of vulnerability he projected, along with the rough candor, was part of this persona. But in fact he was a very private person, as his assistant, Laurie Woolever, reminded me after his death. Something I’d already known, from reading his books; he’d liked the piece I’d written about him and sent me an unbelievably kind note about it, which was what had emboldened me to ask for an interview. That, and he was famously generous to writers in general.
I loved this passage about him redefining of what luxury means and it begs the question, do you really need alcohol to be happy? Im on the spectrum that it shouldn’t. I do understand the feeling of eeriness, just pushed through the day and now letting go of all the care in the world.
My happiest moments on the road are always off-camera, generally with my crew, coming back from shooting a scene and finding ourselves in this sort of absurdly beautiful moment, you know, laying on a flatbed on those things that go on the railroad track, with a putt-putt motor, goin’ across like, the rice paddies in Cambodia with headphones on… this is luxury, because I could never have imagined having the freedom or the ability to find myself in such a place, looking at such things.
To sit alone or with a few friends, half-drunk under a full moon, you just understand how lucky you are; it’s a story you can’t tell. It’s a story you almost by definition, can’t share. I’ve learned in real time to look at those things and realize: I just had a really good moment.
He was quite special and I wish he was still around.