Name: Laurie Woolever Remembers Anthony Bourdain
Uploaded: 2021-08-26T17:08:30.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Laurie Woolever Remembers Anthony Bourdain' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-26. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Laurie Woolever Remembers Anthony Bourdain' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-26. Transcript available.

I tried watching the Bourdain documentary, but I just got too sad. I couldn't
do it.
And did it feel weird? Did you watch it, Roadrunner?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Did it feel weird when you knew that the voice was AI, sort of a recreation of
his words?
It didn't feel weird to me because, honestly, it was less than 45 seconds in a
two-hour film.
Oh, okay.
So, no, it didn't feel weird.
I knew exactly where one of the places was, that it was the AI, but the vast
majority of that film is Tony's actual voice.
And I think that really got lost in the discussion around the film.
Oh, it certainly did. Yeah, I was under the impression that the whole thing was,
that's how people are.
They're so gross.
They always want to find the one thing that's negative about things.
Yeah, yeah.
It really bummed me out because that was the dominant conversation on opening
weekend.
And it really kind of took away, for me, from, you know, it's a beautiful film.
I was a consulting producer, so obviously I have a dog in the fight, and I want
people to love the film.
But I think it's great.
It is really sad.
How far into it did you get?
I just started it, and I shut it off.
Yeah, yeah.
I just got too sad.
Maybe it was my mood that day.
I just wasn't ready to watch something like that.
I was just like, I can't do this.
Yeah, I understand.
You know, I've been steeped in all things Tony for, you know, over a decade.
But since he died, I've been making these books and working on the film and
talking about him.
And so I've kind of got, I think, a layer of numbness in a way.
But sometimes stuff gets through.
The first time I saw the film, I cried like a baby.
When I was home by myself, I was really glad to be alone, you know.
There's always this feeling when someone takes their own life, like if I could
have just talked to them, like if I was there, if I could have talked to them.
That's, you know, I talked to David Cho, and he had that same take on it, you
know.
It's just, you just don't know.
You know, you feel like you fucked something up.
Like, you feel like, it's just, there's no, there's no, there's no peace, you
know.
If you're always, if I think about him, I, I, I just always think, like, what a
shame.
What a shame, you know.
Like, a guy who was so interesting and so loved, you know, to, I found out
about it from Maynard Keenan from Tool.
Do you know the story?
I, I listened to you, uh, talk to, uh, Tom Papa right after, uh, Tony died.
So, yeah, I, he made kind of a joke, right?
Yeah, Maynard's a funny guy.
And he was joking around, he said that, you know, he knew that Tony was really
into jiu-jitsu.
And Maynard really into jiu-jitsu, too.
And he's like, we should have a celebrity match.
He said, that would be awesome.
And he was talking about it.
And then he texted me and said, I guess the celebrity match is off.
And I was like, what does that mean?
Like, I guess he just assumed that I would have already known about it.
But I was in Chicago and I had just woken up.
So then I googled it and I was just like, oh.
Yeah, that's not a great way.
I mean, there's no good way to find out that news.
But that's, sounds like a particularly painful way to, uh, to hear it.
It was confusing, you know.
It's, it's painful, but it's like, it's, it's almost like it's painful later.
In the beginning, it's just like.
Shock.
You're baffled.
Like, how?
What?
Not there anymore.
Like, this person's not there anymore.
Like, if I text him, it's not there.
Yeah.
I have a phone that I won't get rid of.
Because it has text messages from him.
Mm-hmm.
And it's like.
I can always go back and look at them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Same.
I have, I'll never get rid of my last texts with him.
I mean, it's.
And what you were saying about, you know, you just wish you could have done
something.
I mean, believe me, that is, that is a conversation I have had with so many
people.
And I think to myself, like, if I had just been a little more, I don't know,
something.
If I had said, if I had said something or if I had been more supportive or, you
know, I just, I knew he was in trouble that week.
But I didn't, it never occurred to me that he would take that action that he
did.
And the fact is, he had a lot of people around who were very close to him, who
loved him.
And he had other people that were offering to come and be with him because they
knew he was having a hard time that week.
And he said, no, don't come.
So it's.
Why was that week so particularly hard?
He was, there was some stuff in the media with, with him and his girlfriend
that was, you know, not great.
You know, he was very, very in love.
And I think there was some, I mean, this, I'm not saying anything that isn't
public record.
And I'm always hesitant to talk too much about, about all of that.
But it's, you know, it was, it's out there.
It was in the Italian press and maybe the French press that, that his
girlfriend had been maybe or maybe not with another guy.
There were a lot of pictures that made it look not great.
And I think that was really hard for him.
And, you know, you'll see, they talk about it.
He, it gets talked about in the film.
It gets talked about in my book.
You know, I think he was, he was deeply in love.
And I think he was realizing that this relationship maybe wasn't what he
thought it was or that it just, I think he felt humiliated, honestly, you know.
And, I mean, that's a hard, that's a hard thing for a private person to metabolize.
And then, you know, you're extremely public person who has been extremely
public about this relationship.
I think it was a lot for him to handle in that week.
Yeah, there's not much you can do when that happens in terms of, like, talking
to a friend.
Like, words just don't work.
Yeah.
You know, like, they don't, you don't, you're not going to absorb them.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's, you know, it's, I don't know that someone, I don't know that a
normal thing, I don't know that a normal reaction to romantic trouble is to
take your own life.
I, you know, clearly there's, you know, there are plenty of people who have
trouble in their relationships who stay alive.
You know, he was a really complicated guy.
He was a really, I think, as public as he was and as much as he shared about
the way that his mind and his heart worked, I think there was a lot that he
didn't share.
And I think he was more troubled and more lonely and sad than I think any of us
knew at the time.
You know, in the intervening three years, I've learned a lot more about him.
And I thought I knew him inside and out.
I was his assistant for 10 years.
You know, we wrote a book together.
I had done some traveling with him, not extensively, but I did a handful of
trips over the years.
You know, we were in contact every day.
And, you know, when I started to talk to people after he died, there was just a
lot, a lot more to him, a lot more to his story.
Yeah, whenever anybody recovers from a serious drug problem, but yet still
parties, I was always like, hmm, how's he pulling that off?
Like the first time I hung out with him, I knew that he had gotten over the
heroin thing.
But I didn't quite realize how hard he drank.
I was like, whoa.
Yeah, yeah.
Was that in Montana when you guys were there?
No, that was later.
That was after I'd known him for quite a while.
I mean, I think the first time I hung out with him was in Vegas.
Pretty sure.
It was when he was married to Octavia.
And they were there for the UFC.
And I met him backstage.
It was like, wow.
Watch the entire episode for free only on Spotify.