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Anthony Bourdain

The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,163 Posts
edited December 2005 in Strut Central
dude is dude.

  Comments

  • SwayzeSwayze 14,705 Posts
    dude is dude.


    my favorite tv host by far.
  • tallbobsmoketallbobsmoke 715 Posts
    I read most of his book where he traveled around the world looking for the perfect meal. It seemed like he was trying really hard to prove how "tough" he was. He also had weird asides about sex and other ego pumping type things when I just wanted to read about food.



  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,028 Posts
    I read most of his book where he traveled around the world looking for the perfect meal. It seemed like he was trying really hard to prove how "tough" he was. He also had weird asides about sex and other ego pumping type things when I just wanted to read about food.




    Word, Kitchen Confidential was the better book. Too bad the TV show hit the skids.
  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,987 Posts
    It seemed like he was trying really hard to prove how "tough" he was. He also had weird asides about sex and other ego pumping type things when I just wanted to read about food.


    He's a New Yorker....and you have to admit that eating the Cobra heart while it was still beating as it went down his throat was
  • tallbobsmoketallbobsmoke 715 Posts
    No argument there. There were some great bits and pieces, but what he used to try to tie it all together as a book became really annoying (to me).
  • PEKPEK 735 Posts
    No argument there. There were some great bits and pieces, but what he used to try to tie it all together as a book became really annoying (to me).



    I suspect this is partly a result of his aspirations as a novelist (which he's acted on, having written a couple of fiction books) - and likes to see himself through the lens of a modern day Graham Greene, which is why he's apparently decamping to Vietnam w/ his wife for a year or so sometime around the end of 2006/7... I'd also prefer his travel writing to assume the anecdotal free form style of a Paul Theroux...
  • AserAser 2,351 Posts
    I wouldn't call him out as an aspiriing novelist, granted they're not his strongest works. You make it seem like he got a free pass due to his success on tv and such. Which is far from the case as this guy is the genuine article. He really is a charming bastard in real life, his prose translates well in conversation. He injects a dose of understaed eloquence interspersed with gutter talk, a perfect combination if you ask me.



    watch his show on the travel network prease....



    also, remind me how he tied the book together, what exactly did you find annoying. I haven't read the book in 3-4 yrs.
  • tallbobsmoketallbobsmoke 715 Posts
    I wouldn't call him out as an aspiriing novelist, granted they're not his strongest works. You make it seem like he got a free pass due to his success on tv and such. Which is far from the case as this guy is the genuine article. He really is a charming bastard in real life, his prose translates well in conversation. He injects a dose of understaed eloquence interspersed with gutter talk, a perfect combination if you ask me.

    watch his show on the travel network prease....

    also, remind me how he tied the book together, what exactly did you find annoying. I haven't read the book in 3-4 yrs.


    It's been 3-4 yrs for me too, but he just seemed to talk about himself more than I remember wanting to hear. And it came off (to me) as more of an ego thing than related to stories. It could have been my expectations that were the problem. Specifically the I remember a part about oysters or clams and sex that seemed like it was just thrown in there because he wanted to talk about it. Basically I stopped reading the book and I usually don't put books down so that's why it gets the ...
  • PEKPEK 735 Posts
    I wouldn't call him out as an aspiriing novelist, granted they're not his strongest works. You make it seem like he got a free pass due to his success on tv and such. Which is far from the case as this guy is the genuine article. He really is a charming bastard in real life, his prose translates well in conversation. He injects a dose of understaed eloquence interspersed with gutter talk, a perfect combination if you ask me.

    watch his show on the travel network prease....

    also, remind me how he tied the book together, what exactly did you find annoying. I haven't read the book in 3-4 yrs.

    A -

    Having read both his non and fiction work, I'd say he's better as a non-fiction writer, concentrating on the nuances of the food industry and trawling the world for different foodstuffs... That said, he does refer to Greene a whole lot and almost uses said author's 'The Quiet American' as one of his touchstones w/ regards to Indochina - I'm not casting him in any malignant light, in fact he's quite the romantic from what I understand despite the ruff hewn public exterior: was so enamored w/ his wife Nancy Putkoski that he matriculated alongside her @ Vassar (although he didn't finish his studies there)... I understand his mother also was an editor @ the NYTimes... And to keep it record related, his late father was a record company executive...

    As for tying the book together, that's a question that particular poster will have to address seeing that I didn't make that assertion...
  • PrimeCutsLtdPrimeCutsLtd jersey fresh 2,632 Posts
    I read an article on him in Gourmet magazine. He was talking about music that was played in his kitchen. He said all kinds of music was played due to the diferent backrounds of the employees'. The one rule he had was that everytime Billy joel or the Grateful Dead came on the radio the station had to be changed. I thought that was funny. I work in a kitchen and we have the Aerosmith rule. Not that am a huge hatter on Aerosmith, just the songs you usually hear on the radio. Anthony Bourdain tells it like it is and he's more like the chefs I worked with. Way more than knuckleheads like that Rocco guy. Rocco's tv show made me ill!
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