Of all the people I've met, I've never been more intimidated, more anxious, more starstruck than when I met Iggy Pop.
Some of his lines in that episode:
"When I was young, this man [Iggy]was a role model, an ideal, a road map for bad behavior... His music, it turned out, was the soundtrack for most of my life."
He really related to Iggy's music, and while I am a big Iggy fan, I certainly don't share Bourdain's view of what rock music should be about:
As a final note, I encourage anyone reading this to buy, first, the Stooges' classic "Fun House," which functions as a reminder of what rock 'n' roll should be about -- has always been about: sex, aggression, rage, self-hatred, frustration, heartbreak, love and the occasional burst of pleasure. Then listen to the song "Penetration," on their album "Raw Power," and feel your face melt right off your skull.
Iggy Pop's Twitter account today:
MESSAGE FROM IGGY: “I’m in shock having just heard that Anthony Bourdain has passed away. I loved the guy, and he was a light of kindness and good vibes in my life. Iggy Pop”
Here's a photo of them. And a GQ interview with both of them in which they discuss death.
Iggy says, "So I've actually decided consciously to have a little bit of a shorter life. I don't really want to sit around till I'm 90."
Iggy: The death thing is a real hard one to think about. Will I be deaf? Will I be blind? Will I get an ulcer?
Boudain: I'm hoping for a mob-style execution.
Iggy: Yeah, that sounds like something you could get.
Boudain: Or eating some very expensive sushi. You know, I'm eating sushi at Jiro in Tokyo and then somebody slides up and bang! I would not be unhappy with that as my last meal.
Boudain: You don't want to be hit by, like, an ice-cream truck. Then caught up in the wheel well and dragged down the street with the ice-cream truck playing happy music. This is my worry.
Iggy: That's true, we have a good [truck] here, called El Suavacito.
Boudain: I'll give it a wide berth.
Iggy: And he has the music, like Mister Softee music.
Boudain: That isn't what I want to hear as I bleed out.
Also in the interview, Boudain addresses his anger issues:
Well, I'm often angry. I think some of Iggy's best music was angry music. I think it's a valid feeling. A lot of Raw Power and Fun House in particular, when I was an angry young man, those songs, some of those songs, I needed to hear those songs very, very badly. I was very unhappy, angry, frustrated. You've got to be careful about what you do with that anger. I think fear is a much more dangerous emotion. I think what we are seeing in America is more an ugly reaction to fear than anger. Anger is a byproduct of fear.
One thing Anthony and Iggy had in common was overcoming heroin addiction. On getting clean, Bourdain told Biography:
I got off of heroin in the 1980s. Friends of mine from the ‘70s and ‘80s, they just got off five, six, maybe 10 years ago. And we’re the lucky ones. We made it out alive. There are a lot of guys that didn’t get that far. But you know, I also don’t have that many regrets either.
People quotes his book Kitchen Confidential:
In Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain detailed the many drugs he used with friends in the ’80s. “We were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in at every opportunity to ‘conceptualize,'” he wrote. “Hardly a decision was made without drugs. Pot, quaaludes, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms soaked in honey and used to sweeten tea, Seconal, Tuinal, speed, codeine and, increasingly, heroin, which we’d send a Spanish-speaking busboy over to Alphabet City to get. We worked long hours and took considerable pride in our efforts-the drugs, we thought, having little effect on the end-product.”
In response to the question of the interviewer in the Biography article as to whether he now leads a charmed life, he said:
I don’t know about “charmed.” But I’m still here — on my third life, or maybe fourth. Who knows? 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.
The flashing lights must have started popping up recently in his rearview mirror. By all accounts, and looking at his own Instagram postings, he clearly had periods of happiness, especially with his daughter, his girlfriend and his work. While his weathered face made him seem older than his 61 years, his personality didn't seem worn out. Whatever demons were inside him must have gotten the best of him. I'm sad for him and particularly his daughter.
