12 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
THE BATTLE BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARK
RICHARD SHOTWELL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEBETO MATTHEWS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Anthony Bourdain at the Creative Arts Emmy
Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
Designer Kate Spade posing among handbags
and shoes from her collection in New York.
Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain’s suicides rattle us all
physical pain can drive people not normally given to despair to suicide.
Neither Kate Spade nor Tony Bourdain were poor, unemployed or homeless. They
lived in the public eye, surrounded by friends and supporters. To the average observer,
it seemed they had everything: money, power, stature and control over their own lives.
They were creative types blessed with talent and vision.
They did share in common, however, a history of depression and in Bourdain’s
case, a history of substance abuse. After her death, Spade’s husband told Page Six
of the New York Post, she had been drinking heavily. Bourdain readily shared in
interviews he’d been a heroin addict. He was a former cocaine user. He never gave up
alcohol.
You may have noticed how angry many people feel when someone takes their life.
Suicide is often called the ultimate selfish behavior.
The battle between the dark and the light is a hard one. Bourdain was a dark and
mordant personality; despite his love of food and his joy of eating it with others, it
was his darkness, his “bad boy” status, that drew us to him. He is famously quoted for
having said, “I should’ve died in my 20s. I became successful in my 40s. I became a
dad in my 50s. I feel like I’ve stolen a car — a really nice car — and I keep looking in
the rearview mirror for flashing lights. But there’s been nothing yet.”
I never owned a Kate Spade bag. Her style was never mine. But I admired her
verve and her ability to position herself within the ranks of Great American Designers.
What I loved about Bourdain was his honesty and capacity for self-effacement.
While his death is sad, terribly sad, I choose to view it with sympathy, not judgment
or anger. I accept he decided, for whatever reason, to surrender to his dark side. Given
the extent of his depression, I thought he fought valiantly for the light. He brought
us joy in the form of food, travel, humor, generosity and his fabulous animal allure. I
celebrate those parts and honor the truth that, for decades, he was a soldier against his
own darkness. CW
By EVE MARX
FOR COAST WEEKEND
I
was still digesting the sad news about the handbag designer Kate Spade who
abruptly ended her own life when I learned the celebrity chef and world traveler
bon vivant Anthony Bourdain had killed himself.
I woke up the morning of Friday, June 8, thinking only of coffee. Scanning my
news feed on social media, I saw a post from a friend, a successful young man
who is the beverage manager at a restaurant in Manhattan and a partner in two
other New York City dining establishments.
“Never knew or met Tony Bourdain, but have been a tremendous fan and
follower for years,” he wrote. “Along with millions of other restaurant profession-
als, I’ve watched and read his work obsessively; he’s single-handedly been the
most impactful influence on my outlook and passion for food and my industry as a
whole, not to mention, somewhat painful in its irony, a lust for life and the world
around us. This one hurts.”
Bourdain, an American chef, author and television personality, ended his life
only days after Kate Spade, an American designer, ended hers. Both of these
brilliant, talented, wealthy, charismatic and driven people chose hanging as their
method. As is true with any celebrity suicide, news programs, talk show hosts,
experts on mental health and culture pundits burst into action, discussing suicide,
how to recognize those who might be in danger, and how to prevent it.
While most people cleave to the idea that mental illness is the only explanation
as to why anyone would end their life, I think there are other factors. There is an
increasing awareness that homelessness, job loss, loneliness, poverty and chronic