Something I learned from Anthony Bourdain
Sad news about Anthony Bourdain this morning. When some people pass on, even though you didn't personally know them, you feel as if you did. This is one of those cases where I feel like a family member has passed. I'm going to a friend's funeral later today and the news of Kate Spade earlier this week makes it a very sad week.
I wrote a story here in the Grapevine in November after watching one of Anthony's shows. This story stuck in my head. Anthony's whole story telling technique always sticks in my head. He used food as a common denominator for all of his story telling. Here's a repeat of the post I published in November.
I was watching Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, the episode was about Seattle.
They were taking about all the changes in Seattle due to the tech industry. If we think we have a lot of construction in Miami, it is worse there. They are building in Seattle to accommodate all the new tech guys and girls and rents and property values are going up and old neighborhoods are being taken over by new development. Amazon owns a lot of land there and they are part of the redevelopment.
The last segment of the show was an interview with musician Mark Lanegan who is from the Seattle area, but he's been living in Los Angeles for 20 years. Mark had an interesting way about him and his music and performance is really great, he reminds me of Jim Morrison of the doors.
Anyway, Anthony asked Mark about the changes in Seattle and he wondered if Mark ever missed the old days and if he laments the changes in Seattle and Mark said that it was part of life. He said you could miss your grade school or high school days, but they are gone. He missed people he used to know, but they are gone and that's life, what are you going to do.
And that got me thinking. Do we need to fight what people call progress? I mean it really hit me what Mark said. What is the point of fighting the movement of time? Are we going to stop these developers? They are steam rolling ahead.
It's something to think about.
I told the story once before. I met a guy once whose family owned the land where Jaguar is now and where the Kwik Stop is. It was all pine trees and forest. His family sold the land and they built the Kress 5&10 there. Remember that? We all have good memories of Kress, but at one time, that forest was destroyed to build the Kress. People back then, I think he said it was the 1930s probably didn't like the destruction of the forest.
It's history just repeating itself over and over.
I wrote a story here in the Grapevine in November after watching one of Anthony's shows. This story stuck in my head. Anthony's whole story telling technique always sticks in my head. He used food as a common denominator for all of his story telling. Here's a repeat of the post I published in November.
They were taking about all the changes in Seattle due to the tech industry. If we think we have a lot of construction in Miami, it is worse there. They are building in Seattle to accommodate all the new tech guys and girls and rents and property values are going up and old neighborhoods are being taken over by new development. Amazon owns a lot of land there and they are part of the redevelopment.
The last segment of the show was an interview with musician Mark Lanegan who is from the Seattle area, but he's been living in Los Angeles for 20 years. Mark had an interesting way about him and his music and performance is really great, he reminds me of Jim Morrison of the doors.
Anyway, Anthony asked Mark about the changes in Seattle and he wondered if Mark ever missed the old days and if he laments the changes in Seattle and Mark said that it was part of life. He said you could miss your grade school or high school days, but they are gone. He missed people he used to know, but they are gone and that's life, what are you going to do.
And that got me thinking. Do we need to fight what people call progress? I mean it really hit me what Mark said. What is the point of fighting the movement of time? Are we going to stop these developers? They are steam rolling ahead.
It's something to think about.
I told the story once before. I met a guy once whose family owned the land where Jaguar is now and where the Kwik Stop is. It was all pine trees and forest. His family sold the land and they built the Kress 5&10 there. Remember that? We all have good memories of Kress, but at one time, that forest was destroyed to build the Kress. People back then, I think he said it was the 1930s probably didn't like the destruction of the forest.
It's history just repeating itself over and over.
posted by Tom Falco at 8:30 AM
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2 Comments:
You are just growing up! People get old, people die.New people come with new ideas and no memories. That is life!
Tom, thank you for your words. I too was deeply saddened by the news about Anthony's passing. What a reporter at CNN said something like "what's so hard and confusing is that we everyone wanted to be Anthony. I did. We all did."
I really admired the guy. His humor, his wit, his "coolness" and of course the way he took me on trips to fascinating faraway places that I'll never see.
I feel like I've lost a friend.
Chris Pearson
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