Dear Bourdain.

I can’t read it in any other voice but that punk-rock-smug-ass-run-on-sentences-acerbic-and-world-weary tone that lazily admits his own flaws and resigns himself to bearing them through the next rotation of the earth. Penance enough to just be him, at least he could indulge in the next beer, the next cigarette, the next meal.

His voice was so vibrant through the pages of A Cook’s Tour, I couldn’t tear myself away from his sensual descriptions and intimate adventures. The perfect birthday present from a friend who had taken her own adventure across the country. [And later, the book itself would take the trip back and forth again. A shared reading experience that I think Bourdain would have found equal amounts of stupid and resonant]

We’d grown up idolizing his life on No Reservations and Part Unknown.

See, my family has a hard time sitting at the same TV. Dad watched Financial reporting, Mom watched British Melodramas, we just wanted to watch Animal Planet and Cartoons.

But Food. Food was the equalizer. Around the dinner table as around the TV screen. Mom was an outstanding cook, and Dad, Peter, and I had appetites as big as our eyes.

And between Bourdain and Andrew Zimmerman, the living room became a feast for wild travels to foreign places giving rise to fantasies and fetishes for weird and delicious food anywhere but our dreary Long Island suburbia.

See, I grew up an Asian-American who couldn’t find himself. I was trapped. On one side parental heritage. The other; communities I couldn’t quite navigate. Bourdain promised a world of adventure and exploration and acceptance.

Bourdain was the dream. In part because he had this idyllic job; eating, drinking, smoking, and traveling, all on someone else’s dime. He had fame like I could only imagine. He was a talented writer and speaker.  Translating love and family with authenticity and snark all at once. But above all, he was the badass, who had seen more than you, done more than you, survived more than you, and didn’t care what you thought of him; clad in the alloyed armor of self-confidence and arrogance that he wore so naturally.

Everything is survivable, except the last thing.

I’m going to miss him.

When the news of Bourdain’s suicide broke, I didn’t just feel sad. I felt hopeless.

I called the suicide hotline, because I always post the number, but I don’t know what it’s like. Hold music for one. But on the other end, Heather was kind and patient and understanding. We talked about the high-profile deaths recently and how they seem invincible from afar, but you never know. She had been shaken by Chester Bennington, Linkin Park’s lead singer. I thought about all those touching renditions of Numb that flooded the internet after his death. Chatting with her reminded me that a real person is on the line, and maybe she’s a complete stranger, but she’ll listen. We wished each other well, and I did feel better.

I’ve forged my hope anew Tony. I’m going to beat you. I’m going to fix this world, bit by bit, poco a poco. I know we’re all good people out here. I know it doesn’t always feel like that. I know it moves slowly, if at all, if in the midst of huge steps backwards. I know that some times feel like despair and desolation.

But my optimist is stronger than my cynic. Strangely, they both sound like you. And they both want a beer frothing with wanderlust.

And yes, they will have a drag.

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