#219 Tony Bourdain: The Definitive Biography

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high. So I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today. And I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th.
Tony's unexpected death in June 2018 meant the end of anything new from him.
All that he had ever written, drawn, recorded, or filmed in the world was done. A complete body of work. Tony's death also marked the beginning of a years long process of discovery in which I interviewed 91 people who had known him to hear their stories and learn more about him than what he'd already shared in the pages of Kitchen Confidential, his subsequent works of non-fiction, and on television.
This book is the result of that process.
As his assistant and occasional co-author, I thought I'd already gotten to know Tony quite well.
However, in talking with the people who knew him in his youth as a wayward college student, a fledgling cook, dedicated beach bum, thrill-seeking drug addict, journeyman chef, ambitious young writer, semi-reluctant television star, steadfast spouse and father, supportive friend and collaborator, I came to realize that I'd really only known a fraction of who Tony was, what motivated him, his ambivalence, his vulnerability, his blind spots, and his brilliance.
As he said once he became famous, you never know the consequences of getting what you want until you get what you want.
When I agreed to be Tony's assistant, I'd been juggling writing and paycheck type work for many years, and there were times when I grew frustrated with the more mundane aspects of the job.
But if I was going to do the work, I knew there was no one better than Tony to do it for.
And now I feel compelled to add that I'd gladly trade this life of being a real writer to resume the privileged burden of making his hotel reservations and scheduling his dishwasher maintenance if it meant that Tony could still be here among us.
Barring that, I'll settle for having helped the people he loved tell the following version of his story.
That is an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Bourdain, The Definitive Oral Biography and is written by Laurie Woolever. So I've said a number of times before that one of the benefits of reading biographies and autobiographies is not only do you learn a lot from the life experience of somebody else, you get the profit and benefit from that, but at the end, you really feel like you know some, the person that you read about. You get a sense of who they were as an individual, as a fellow human, right? And that feeling comes after you read the biography. Out of the over 200 biographies that I've read so far for this podcast, this is the first time where before I picked up the book, I felt like I knew this person for a decade, maybe even longer. I was a huge fan of Tony Bourdain's work. I read his books. I've watched every episode of his shows. And I've learned a lot about the world from him and his work. And so I was one of the millions of people around the world that were just absolutely shocked and devastated when he decided to kill himself.
And what I discovered over the last week, I spent 30 hours studying Anthony Bourdain, including reading this book.
I watched the documentary, Road Runner, a film about Anthony Bourdain that was just recently released, and spent several hours watching his shows and listening to him talk. And what I discovered through all this is like, was there's just so much more to who he was and his story that I just did not know before doing all this research and reading this book. So I have no idea where this podcast is going to go. You and I are going to have to figure this out as we go along. All I know is this is going to be, I think, the first podcast I've ever done where the subject matters. A person I felt like I loved and identified with before reading and spending just so many hours immersed in his life story, which obviously has a very tragic and dark ending, which makes it all the more confusing. So I'm going to go ahead and start. I have a lot of highlights, obviously. I'm just going to jump into the book. This is a very unique biography. When she titled, when Laurie subtitled the book, it's the definitive oral biography.