Anthony Bourdain on a life hard-lived: ‘Another thing you did . . . another place you’ve been.’

June 09, 2018

Is it possible to be both shaken and stirred at the same time?

I know that feeling today.

I never met Anthony Bourdain in person, but I feel like he was in the seat beside me while I was winging my way to Namibia, literally halfway around the world from where I live, a few years back.

I had loaded my iPad with Africa-centric episodes of Bourdain’s lively, live-and-let-live CNN series Parts Unknown, and I knew enough about Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Ethiopia and Tanzania — all countries Bourdain passed through during his 11 seasons of making Parts Unknown — that, and there’s no delicate way to put this, he was no bullshit artist.

Whatever he was, and he was plenty, he did not take fools gladly. And he wasn’t about to sing the praises of a travel destination if there were no praises to sing.

He had a way of winning the hearts and minds of those he broke bread with, and he was both a lively TV host and, more importantly, a lively and entertaining dinner guest. He was incurably curious, even toward the end, and that’s rare in those who’ve succeeded beyond all expectations, and in the public eye at that. He had every right to be jaded, even at age 61, but as those who’ve watched his most recent sojourns through Uruguay, Armenia and Hong Kong know — all episodes that aired earlier this season on CNN, with episodes based in Berlin, Bhutan and “Cajun Mardi Gras” yet to air — he still had the wide-eyed curiosity of a little boy flipping through a world atlas for the first time and wondering whether they serve fries with that, whether it’s in the French Alps or Southern Italy, on “the Heel of the Boot,” as he put it.

He could be loud, abrasive, outspoken and in-your-face — he famously banned a certain New York real-estate mogul, blowhard and leader of the free world from his restaurant in the nation’s capital — but he was a terrific listener.

Many TV hosts don’t bother with listening, but Bourdain not only listened; he genuinely cared. As I say, no bullshit artist. I frankly doubt he could have lied to spare someone’s feelings even if he wanted to.

Anyone who watched Parts Unknown — whether regularly, like a habitual pilgrimage to a favorite restaurant, or on-and-off, like an off-the-cuff, impromptu sampling of the dishes at an unfamiliar buffet — is likely to have come away with favorite moments.

As I try to come to grips with Friday’s news that Bourdain is no longer with us — he was only 61, for crying out loud — I’ve narrowed my choice memories down to two, that for me encapsulate everything I enjoyed about Bourdain, his travels, his personality, his countenance, and the way his mind worked. (Personal confession: I am arguably the world’s worst stay-at-home cook, an avid believer in takeout and an unapologetic junk-food junkie, and so whatever appeal Bourdain’s programs No Reservations and Parts Unknown held for me, pretending to be a worldly chef is not among them.)

First, Bourdain was a fine writer — another attribute not particularly common among either celebrity chefs or TV presenters — and he always tried to frame his programs around a singular narrative that reflected the place or culture of the place he was visiting. This wasn’t contrived or forced, either; an avid book reader and dedicated follower of pop-culture, he had a way of viewing even an unfamiliar place through a familiar lens, but without appearing to be patronizing or condescending. He reminded me most of the fine travel writer, essayist and novelist Paul Theroux, one of my favorite writers, and it was a thrill to see Bourdain swap tales with Theroux in person during a 2015 tete-a-tete over Hawaiian stew in Honolulu, near where Theroux now makes his home.

My two memories — yours will no doubt be different — are of Bourdain’s sixth-season return to Borneo, after a 10-year absence, and his eighth-season sit-down at a noodle shop in Hanoi, Vietnam (“one of these classic, funky, family-run noodle shops you find all over Hanoi, where dinner and a beer cost about six dollars”), when a fleet of black SUVs pulls up and he’s joined by that other leader of the free world — you know, the one who was born in Kenya — who complains, in a free-wheeling, free-ranging conversation, about uncouth eating habits, over a bowl of bun cha (pork patties and pork belly, served in a broth of vinegar, sugar and fermented fish sauce, with chillies and sticky cold noodles, “and get ready for the awesomeness”).

First, though, my fondest memory is of one of the very first Parts Unknown’s I happened to see, Bourdain’s return to Borneo, which first aired on Nov. 1, 2015. “When I first went up this river,” Bourdain opened his voice-over with, in an Apocalypse Now-inspired opening up a jungle river, “I was sick with love. The bad kind. The fist-around-your-heart kind. I ran far, but there was no escaping it. It followed me upriver, all the way. That was ten long years ago. A previous episode of a previous series, of a previous life. Yet here I am again. Heading up to that same longhouse in the jungle.”

That’s instructive to remember today, the day Bourdain’s sudden passing was announced, because while he was always clear about his drug taking and boozing in his misspent younger years, it was on that Colonel Kurtz-Marlon Brando inspired journey up a jungle river in Borneo that he exposed his heart of darkness to the world watching on CNN.

Far up the river, far removed from civilization, thunder rolls and a gray sky descends. Bourdain must kill a pig for the night’s feast — as the honored guest, it’s a village tradition — and Bourdain, shades of Apocalypse Now, has mixed emotions about it.

“I’d like to tell you that this is never easy, that I felt this time like I did the first time: sad, nauseated, complicit, aware that I’d crossed a line, been changed by the blood, the violence and the awful noise,” he told the camera. “But that would be a lie. This time, I plunged the spear in without hesitation or remorse.”

Cue dark, electronic music, and blood mixing in the river water.

“When the pig dies,” Bourdain continued, “finally gives it up, I feel only relief. I had been hardened by the last 10 years. I don’t know what that says about me, but there it is.”

Later in the hour, Bourdain is back at the booze, downing shots of homemade river hooch with his village companions. “At this point, I think, my body is like an old car. Another dent ain’t going to make a whole lot of difference. At best, it’s a reminder that you’re still alive and lucky as hell. Another tattoo, another thing you did. Another place you’ve been.”

Fast forward two years, and Bourdain was sitting at that noodle shop in Hanoi, across the table from the previous leader of the free world, over a bowl of bun cha.

Is ketchup on a hotdog ever acceptable, Bourdain asked.

“No,” was the reply. “And I mean that. That’s one of those things that . . . let me put it this way: It’s not acceptable beyond the age of eight. I’m sorry. It’s not acceptable.”

Bourdain’s daughter was eight, he told his lunch companion, and the other day she asked if she could put ketchup on her hotdog.

The then-leader of the free world laughed gently.

“That isn’t happening,” he said.

And this is where Bourdain, and Parts Unknown, soared; the conversation turned to weightier issues, including the fact that they were eating lunch together at a roadside noodle shop, unmolested by their fellow lunch companions, despite sitting in the middle of a tiny room on rickety chairs at a rickety table, the kind of place where working people eat on-the-fly and mind their own business.

“Seeing how other people in the world live seems useful at worst,” Bourdain said, “and pleasurable at best.”

His lunch companion concurred.

“It confirms the basic truth that people everywhere are pretty much the same. The same hopes and dreams. When you come to a place like Vietnam and you see former American Vietnam vets coming back, and you see somebody like a John Kerry and a John McCain, two very different people politically and temperamentally, but who were able to bond in their experience of meeting with their former adversaries. You don’t make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies.”

As the father of a young girl, Bourdain wanted to know: “Is it all going to be okay? Is it all going to work out?

“Is my daughter going to be able to come here, five years, ten years from now, and have a bowl of bun cha and the world will be a better place?”

Bourdain’s daughter Ariane is, today, just 11-years-old.

“Sure,” the then-leader of the free world replied. “Progress is not a straight line. There are going to be moments in any given part of the world where things are terrible. But . . . having said all that, I think things are going to work out.”

“Thank you so much,” Bourdain said. “Cheers.”

And they clinked glasses.

No, Anthony Bourdain, thank you. It was good getting to know you. Even if it was from afar, on an iPad, somewhere over Africa, at 30,000 feet.

‘But we should not give up:’ elegy for a white rhino named Sudan.

March 22, 2018

Much of the world may not care, but make no mistake: The planet shed a tear when the last known male northern white rhino died this week.

“The world’s last surviving northern white rhino has died after months of poor health, his carers say,” BBC News reported under the heading Northern white rhino: Last male Sudan dies in Kenya.

Sudan, who was 45, lived at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. He was put down Monday after age-related complications worsened to the point where his carers decided he was in significant pain and unlikely to recover.

Sudan had lived at Safari Park Dvür Králové in the Czech Republic until 2009, when he was repatriated to his ancestral home in the arid thorn-bush scrublands of northern Kenya.

Dvür Králové is the only zoo in the world where northern white rhinos have successfully given birth, but here’s the catch: The last calf was born in 2000.

©Ami Vitale/National Geographic Creative

Sudan’s death leaves just two females, his daughter and granddaughter, of the subspecies.

There are five species of rhinos, of which the white rhino is the largest. There are two subspecies: The southern white rhino, which is native to South Africa and neighbouring countries, is at risk but not yet critically endangered. (Wild populations outside South Africa are hard to ascertain, but it’s believed southern white rhinos may already have vanished from several southern African countries, owing to a recent spike in poaching driven by the insatiable demand for rhino horn in Asian countries.)

“His death is a cruel symbol of human disregard for nature and it saddened everyone who knew him,” Jan Stejskal, an official with Dvür Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic’s Labe (Elbe) river valley region of Bohemia, told the AFP news agency, as reported on BBC News’ main website Tuesday.

“But we should not give up.”

An elegy — a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead — might not seem appropriate for an animal, but as anyone who has spent time around animals knows, they’re sentient beings, capable of emotion and, in many cases, the ability to feel pain and know sadness.

What’s telling about the outpouring of sentiment on social media, from those who saw him on a day-to-day basis at Ol Pejeta and by those who barely knew him, except from wildlife films and photo essays in nature periodicals, is how raw and open the emotional wounds are — at least, among those care about about species extinction and somehow finding the right balance between Nature and a fast-growing human population.

It may not be easy to remember now, but northern white rhinos were actually quite widespread, as recently as the 1970s and ‘80s. They ranged from Uganda and Kenya in East Africa to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR) in central Africa, to Chad in northern Africa, and to Sudan itself, after which Sudan was named (obviously). A poaching epidemic in the mid- to late 1980s for both rhino horn and elephant tusks proved catastrophic for one species and near-catastrophic for the other, all to service the demand for use in traditional Chinese medicines and the quaint notion that ground rhino horn is both an aphrodisiac and a cure for cancer. (Spoiler alert: It’s neither.)

Rhino horn was also used for dagger handles in Yemen; it’s hard to assess, given the present turmoil in Yemen, exactly how much demand remains for dagger handles.

The World Wildlife Fund declared the northern white rhino extinct in the wild in 2008.

Even the mere idea that an iconic species like a rhino that could still be found in the Congo as recently as the early 2000s should be virtually extinct by 2018 should be cause for alarm, but it clearly isn’t — not when a recently U.S. administration can look at a melting polar ice cap and put it down to a Chinese hoax. The only Chinese hoax is the insistence that rhino horn is a cure for cancer.

(To be fair, China has become politically active in the past year on the issue of climate change and in species extinction, in no small part because many Chinese cities are on the verge of being unliveable, due to air pollution and wild swings in the weather. The current U.S. administration, on the other hand, remains bereft of ideas and unwilling to accept that there’s even a problem.)

Sudan was 45 — or 90 in human terms — when he was put down by veterinarians. He was being treated for degenerative deterioration to his muscles and bones, and was unable to stand. He also suffered from extended bruising and skin wounds. Putting him down was the humane thing to do.

Sudan’s genetic material has been collected and stored, in the hope that science might one day find a way to clone extinct animals from DNA. Rhino IVF (in vitro fertilization) is relatively untested and is considered both an invasive and radical procedure. And expensive. Geneticists, conservationists, veterinarians and wildlife biologists put the price as high as USD $10 million.

Then again, some might argue — and they have a case — that no price is too high where species extinction is concerned, especially a species as familiar and symbolic as a rhino.

https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Sudan-northern-white-rhino-death-Ol-Pejeta-Laikipia-lessons/1056-4350838-4mq77dz/index.html

Not yeti — at least, not yet.

January 31, 2018

I shared an elevator not so long ago with Matt Moneymaker. In a Beverly Hills hotel. He saw my TV Critics Association name badge, looked at me quizzically and said, “Didn’t you write about me?”

Moneymaker, the Finding Bigfoot guy, had seen something I had written at the time for the local paper in Vancouver — the wilderness surrounding Vancouver in southwestern BC is Bigfoot country, or said to be, at any rate — and this was his way of saying he hadn’t appreciated my tone in the article. That tone was not so much skeptical as, well . . . satirical. I saw his lifelong ambition — well, nine seasons and counting of Finding Bigfoot — as parody, and had decided that while Finding Bigfoot was rousingly good TV, it was not exactly good science.

I thought about Moneymaker when I came across a recent heading in The Guardian: “DNA sampling exposes nine ‘yeti specimens’ as eight bears and a dog.”

“Huge, ape-like and hairy,” the Guardian science correspondent Nicola Davis wrote, “the yeti has roamed its way into legend, tantalizing explorers, mountaineers and locals with curious footprints and fleeting appearances. Now researches say the elusive inhabitant of the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau has been unmasked.”

It turned out that scientists studying nine DNA samples of hair and teeth, ostensibly from yetis, found the samples belonged to bears. One sample, though, proved to be different — the exception that proves the rule? — and not just because it had been taken from a stuffed yeti, as opposed to a yeti that had been hit by a car on the Alaska Highway or shot by a fat dentist from Minnesota.

The sample in question turned out to be a genetic mélange consisting of the hair of a bear and the teeth of a dog. Bear bites dog, or dog bites bear: take your pick.

Either way, the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the yeti was decidedly a ‘no.’

Darn scientists. Ruining everything with their, ahem, facts.

“It demonstrates that modern science can . . . try and tackle some of these mysteries and unsolved questions we have,” spoilsport-in-chief Dr. Charlotte Lindqvist told The Guardian, Lindqvist, a trained biologist, specializes in bear genomics and was co-author of the study at State University of New York at Buffalo, a public research university formerly known as the University of Buffalo. SUNY Buffalo counts NASA astronauts Ellen Baker and Gregory Jarvis and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer among its alumni, and is the largest public university in the state of New York. The school’s motto is Mens sana in corpore sano — “Sound Mind in a Sound Body” — and academic standards are high. We’re not talking about Trump University here, so any research findings have to be taken seriously.

Dr. Lindqvist herself studied at the University of Denmark in Copenhagen and conducted her postdoctoral research at University of Oslo, Norway, specializing in “speciation processes, polyploidy and hybridization in animals and plants, particularly marine mammals.” Her current projects include the study of polar bear evolution — critically important now, considering the effects of climate change on Arctic polar bear populations — and microbiata in marine mammals.

It seems the yeti of myth and mountain lore owes more to the Tibetan and Himalayan brown bear, genetically speaking, than the Abominable Snowman first hinted at in mountaineer B.H. Hodgson’s account of journeying through northern Nepal in 1832, as published at the time in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Closer to home, there have always been suspicions that Bigfoot is a distant cousin of the yeti, in the same way the North American grizzly is a distant cousin of the Himalayan brown bear.

The skeptics may be a dime-a-dozen, but Moneymaker is having none of it. Skepticism, that is.

“Actually there’s every kind of evidence that these things exist, except bones, except a carcass,” he told TV critics in Los Angeles. “There’s sound recordings, there’s videos, there’s photographs, there’s footprint casts, there’s hairs. There’s everything except a carcass. And they’re very rare. They’re not everywhere. And animals, when they die out in the woods, usually they’re in places where people aren’t going to stumble across them.”

Moneymaker is a real name, by the way. Or so he says.

“It’s actually a translation of the last name ‘Geldmacher,’ which is very common in Germany. It was translated in 1789. It means coinmaker in the Middle Ages.”

Meanwhile, back in the world of science, Lindqvist’s findings may have temporarily dashed cold water on a tantalizing “what if” tale, but they’ve provided plenty of fodder in social media chat rooms.

Hikers in Tibet and the Himalayas need not fear the monstrous yeti, goes one salient piece of advice, but they’d l better carry bear spray if they do.

As for Finding Bigfoot — in which the lads search far and wide, but never actually catch up to one — one skeptic on YouTube asked, somewhat pointedly, “How come everybody sees a Bigfoot except them?”

“Shouldn’t they at least have found a dead one?” another doubter wanted to know.

“We asked the hosts of Finding Bigfoot why it’s taking them so damn long,” the science-technology website Gizmodo said of Moneymaker and Bigfoot “evidence analyst” Cliff Barackman, back in 2016, when Bigfoot was in its eighth season.

That answer should be self-evident, one doubter groused on the site’s message board.

How is this show still alive, another demanded to know.

Well, that part’s easy.

If Bigfoot — or the yeti for that matter — doesn’t exist in real life, surely the show can last forever.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/aug/10/travelbooks.samwollaston

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/yeti-dna-ancient-polar-bear-scientists

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/no-joke-b-c-minister-laughs-off-lawsuit-claiming-proof-of-bigfoot-1.3656876