Name: How Anthony Bourdain Dealt with Fame
Uploaded: 2021-08-26T17:10:02.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Anthony Bourdain Dealt with Fame' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-26. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Anthony Bourdain Dealt with Fame' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-26. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience when you were doing this he was just a local celebrity
in the New York restaurant scene right no reservation started yet or this was
Kitchen Confidential yeah so Kitchen Confidential came out in 2000 so he was
already on the rise I think he was a season or two into a cook's tour which
was the very first iteration of Tony on television but there was no you know he
was always would say like I've got my 15 minutes I have no expectation that
this
is gonna you know last forever I'm gonna do as much as I can while I can but I
think he was always waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under him you
know as far as being a celebrity whatever yeah he was it was really interesting
it's like it's it's hard for people to realize that other people appreciate
them
I think especially people that are genuinely humble you know what like he's a
he was a genuinely humble person like you really didn't buy into his own
bullshit at all right so when you would talk to him about it he was like this
kid fucking then terribly at any moment you know mm-hmm yeah I remember being
with
him in the green room he did a book tour for the cookbook Appetites that we
wrote
together in 2016 and he did a series of lectures basically like a one-hour
stand-up
routine yeah in these theaters and then book signing so we were at the last one
at
BAM in Brooklyn and in the green room and he was just like oh god I fucking
hate this I
feel like such a what's the word he was such a fraud yeah and I was like what
are you
talking about you just had like 13 sold-out shows the book is doing amazing
like
you're literally Tony Bourdain he was like yeah it's it's I just it's all
bullshit I'm embarrassed that
people have paid money to come and see me talk you know it was really illustrative
to me to hear him talk like that you know to realize like he doesn't he doesn't
think
he's as great as we know he is you know that's a common thing amongst at least
my people amongst
comedians it's it's it's in many successful people it's called imposter
syndrome and it exists because you
have a certain sort of a set perception of who you were just going through life
sort of anonymously
and then it radically changes and it doesn't feel real and so to other people
who have just discovered
you they love your show they love your writing they love your your your take on
the world as you travel
and eat everywhere you know you think like I'm the same fucking idiot that I
was you know he's he's
probably thinking he's the same guy he was in 95 and now here all these people
love him it doesn't make
any sense and just feel like this is gonna fall apart this is fake yeah but
that's also why he was so
interesting is because like the people that are like legitimately fool
themselves and really think
everything they're doing is great are gross yeah they're gross they come off
gross when you see
someone write like I'm the shit you know like what like that is so gross yeah
and it's such the
opposite of what anybody ever wants to hear you know and maybe you could say it
in jest and you know
people think it's funny but for the most part the people that are really enamored
with themselves and
their work are just not nearly as interesting as the people that are tortured
by it it's it's such a
conundrum right it's like a guy like Tony who is such an interesting
fascinating person just to talk to
just to have a commute a conversation with because he had such a clear
perspective on things the way he
looked at things he was very aesthetic he had like a very into like yet us he
enjoyed a certain style
of communication and of hanging out and like he had there was an art to just
conversation with the guy
so it's like it makes sense that he hated himself yeah you know in the most
fucked up way possible it
makes sense yeah I think too there was this disconnect between the guy that he
was before he got famous and
the guy after you know and I think he always thought about how the guy the old
guy probably would have
made fun of the new guy you know and or he would have he and all his his
buddies who were cooks stuck in
the kitchen would would sort of hate this you know guy with the expensive shoes
and the nice apartment and
flying first class you know yeah that's what happens you know you you want to
be punk rock and then all
of a sudden you have a million dollars in the bank you're like hey yeah yeah I
think I'm gonna eat it
in a nice place tonight you know I think I'm gonna I think I'm gonna buy a
watch you know it's it you
really can feel like a fraud it's fascinating because so many people are really
they're haunted you
know a lot of ways by the past and you know there's sort of like this rebellious
rigid attitude that you develop when you're struggling when you're coming up
and you know it becomes like
the structure of where your attitude comes from and then when that structure is
sort of removed by
success in Tony's case and then you're left with okay I'm not even like in his
eyes he had done all
these hours of being in the kitchen right the real work those long days and
long nights and that's there
was something noble about that right and then all of a sudden he's just going
to visit these guys and
he's not in the game anymore and you know he's going to visit these incredible
cooks and seeing these
amazing dishes and these insane restaurants and I think part of that he felt
like a little bit of a
fraud because of that yeah yeah he was always very careful to say I'm I was not
a great chef you know I
think it's very people kind of just in the same way that people thought that
you know the hold with
the AI thing that it was all of the movie versus 45 seconds there's just a
glossing over a kind of
sloppiness of recollection and so because he was a chef everyone you know would
say oh he was the
all great chef or a celebrity chef or a famous chef you know and he was always
really careful to say I
wasn't you know I was like I was good at leading a kitchen I was good at
getting food out on time
but I was not in any way a world famous creative chef I was a leader of men you
know and there was I
think a lot of uh I don't know insecurity but just a just a recognition that he
wasn't the kind of chef
uh like Eric repair his good friend or any of these guys that he really admired
you know and he wanted
everyone to be to know that he knew that too no yeah it's that just the genuine
humility about him
watch the entire episode for free only on Spotify