If you’re reading this then you are already well aware of how the mainstream global media has been remembering, memorializing, and honoring celebrity chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain non-stop since his suicide in a Paris hotel room on June 8.
We’re all going to die one day. Like anyone else out there, I suppose reactions to my passing will be a mixed bag. If I were to go tomorrow, there would surely be a few who would curse my name. Then there would be my loved ones, co-workers, and friends who would mourn for me. Finally, there would be the vast majority of people who never even knew I was here at all. After all, I’m no celebrity, icon, or household name like Bourdain.
When us little people meet our maker, there’s no global campaign to push a fictitious legacy of extraordinary fatherhood or exceptional selflessness and no whitewashing of the bad behavior and hateful beliefs that also contributed to who we were. No, there’s what we did and how we lived—and then there’s the story of Anthony Bourdain.
Instead of getting realistic depictions of who the man was, we’re bombarded with politically and culturally weaponized articles like Yahoo’s Anthony Bourdain Was the Best White Man, NPR’s Anthony Bourdain: Serving Up Inclusion, and Sacramento Bee’s Anthony Bourdain’s Gift? Embracing Those We Too Often Demonize. Bourdain wasn’t a saint, but merely a soldier in a culture war.
While a reasonable debate could certainly be held on whether or not I’m an ***hole, I’m a decent human being with a conscience. I always put my children first. I don’t cheat people. I don’t steal. I feel bad when I hurt someone even though I realize that it’s sometimes unavoidable—even necessary. I try to do the right thing in all situations though I sometimes fall short. Still, I’m a constant work-in-progress. I offer that to say this: Badmouthing a dead man is not a part of my normal repertoire—but I never called for the genocide of an entire race of people like old Tony did either. More on that later.
Though some might think I’m way out of bounds, there are some things about Anthony Bourdain that need to be said. I just can’t ignore the glaring hypocrisies at play regarding the glowing remembrance of Anthony Bourdain being pushed in the media. Fact and fiction are generally indistinguishable in today’s mainstream media, but facts still matter. Like it or not, here they are.
First and foremost, the man left behind an 11-year-old daughter when he ended his own existence by hanging. I wouldn’t even be penning this opinion piece right now if it weren’t for articles such as Anthony Bourdain Taught Me How to Be a Badass Dad: Mourning the Loss of a Really Good Man and a Really Good Father on Fatherly.com. We all make our own decisions in life and only God can really judge, but let’s be clear—Anthony Bourdain was a careerist over anything else in his life. He should be remembered for that, not for being the world’s best dad.
As a globetrotting adventurer said to have been traveling 250 days out of the year by People Magazine, how can Fatherly even consider using the words “really good father” to describe Bourdain and still claim to be some kind of authority of fatherhood? Rule number one is to be there. You can’t call yourself a father if you’re not around. Some might even call you a deadbeat but I won’t go that far. I’m sure he reconciled his absence with cold hard cash in his conscience.
The statistic alone doesn’t make Bourdain a bad person, but it clearly illustrates that he prioritized tracking down indigenous cuisine from every corner of the earth and being a moralizing church lady for inclusion and globalization over raising his own daughter—but don’t take it from my mouth. When asked about Bourdain’s suicide, close friend and chef Eric Ripert had this to say:
“He was always very, very tired. He pushed himself extremely hard. Most producers and crew don’t work on every single episode, it’s just too much especially if you have a family. But that wasn’t an option for Tony.”
Even though he had an 11-year-old girl that probably knew him as a face on a screen at best, prioritizing family over work every now and again simply “wasn’t an option” for Tony Bourdain. Fatherly.com clearly doesn’t know the first thing about parenting to publish such disconnected baloney as they have here. I’ll go a step further and posit that painting Bourdain this way is harmful to the very fabric of our society. If Bourdain meets our collective “A+ dad” standards, then we’re all doomed. No thanks, Fatherly, I’d take advice on fathering my two girls from Marilyn Manson over your authors any day of the week. It really is just intellectually and morally dishonest sewage.
Another pattern I’m seeing is how People Magazine and other outlets have been using the “overworked” angle as an excuse for why the 61-year-old father killed himself. People Mag, you can’t praise a man who chooses to work himself literally into killing himself as a wonderful father and person. There are many accounts of how unpleasant the man was when the cameras stopped rolling. When questioned by People about retirement prior to his death, Bourdain had this to say: “I gave up on that. I’ve tried. I just think I’m just too nervous, neurotic, driven…I would have had a different answer a few years ago. I might have deluded myself into thinking that I’d be happy in a hammock or gardening. But no, I’m quite sure I can’t.”
So, in Bourdain Land it was either the fame, travel, food, booze, women, and platform to constantly virtue signal and moralize to the unwashed masses 250 days per year—or a hammock and gardening. On the record, Bourdain makes no mention of a desire to be anything other than an absentee father for his 11-year-old as a factor that gets weighed into any decision on retiring. Meanwhile, we praise him for being a great father after he permanently removes himself from his kid’s life…with a rope.
I don’t even want to be writing this, but this is the problem with our society as I see it. If the media would just tell the truth, we’d all be better off. If the MSM wasn’t fabricating a legacy that never existed out of thin air, others like Owen Benjamin [Viewer discretion is advised on this one] wouldn’t have to call out Bourdain for being a coward. Listen to Benjamin sound off on Bourdain and what it was like to have a father who constantly threatened suicide as a situational power-play to gain back control throughout his childhood.
Here’s the other thing about Anthony Bourdain. While the MSM describes a legacy of humanitarianism, inclusiveness, diamonds, platinum, and gold—I’m going to remember Bourdain as a guy who banned white chefs from an episode of his CNN show Parts Unknown that he did in Houston last year. Speaking of Parts Unknown, I’ll also remember Bourdain as a man who once pontificated on how the world will be a better place when the genocide of the white race is complete. I can only imagine how pleased CNN was as Bourdain casually claimed that a world without whites is the “only solution” over dinner with fellow elitist chef Rene Stessl in Cologne, Germany. To these men, Utopia would be “a world with no more white people anymore, just cappuccino colored people.” Finally, I’ll remember Bourdain as the guy who said he would poison President Trump with hemlock if he were ever asked to cater a White House event.
Ask yourself this: How might the MSM be remembering Bourdain right now if he banned blacks, Hispanics, or Jews from that show in Houston? Kiss goodbye your CNN gig, Adolf. How would the legacy media be memorializing Bourdain if he expressed that he wanted to see Muslims, Asians, or gays cleansed from the earth? Good riddance, Goebbels. Would there have been a single piece penned by any of the usual suspects to honor the life of Anthony Bourdain had he joked about murdering President Obama with poisoned food? Of course not, that’s hate speech. Ultimately, I’ll probably remember Bourdain and the media’s fawning promotion of his beliefs as a good case study for why white folks are feeling increasingly threatened and the Alt-Right is growing as a result.
As a cop, I’m no stranger to suicides and their aftermath. Though I’ve been much harder on Bourdain here, my OpsLens piece Morbid Day at the Office will give you a glimpse at the reality of the selfishness and cowardice that can sometimes be involved.
There are already enough people who will remember Anthony Bourdain as a model human being. May he rest in peace, but I’m not one of them.
