CHRISTOPHER BOURDAIN: Apart from filming a few episodes of TV with him, I took one other trip with Tony, on my own. We went out to Park City, Utah, for two or three days. That was actually a fun trip, because it was just me and Tony, and I think it was my idea. I said, “Hey, would you be willing to meet on a Thursday at LaGuardia and we just go to Park City?”
I always had a lot of fun on trips with Tony. I think it was José Andrés, at Tony’s memorial service, who said, “If you got to travel with Tony, you were then waiting, for the next three years, asking, ‘Is he gonna call me again? Am I gonna get to go travel with him?’” It was very true. I mean, I felt that way even before he was famous.
This is a very personal thing with me, and it impeded my relationship with Tony in many ways for years, but I never wanted to ask him questions in a way where I sounded like our mom. I never wanted to ask the question that was riddled with bad feeling, or, “I’m feeling slighted,” or, “I want more of your time.” I just never wanted to be that type of voice with him, bccause our mom was always grumbling about something that was making her unhappy, and I just didn’t want to be that way. Every conversations between them, there was always a loaded conversation of some kind.
I screwed myself, honestly, because probably if I had been a little more pushy, I would have seen Tony a lot more. And I wanted to, but I never wanted to be the resentful-toned person who was feeling slighted, or wanted something from him, because everybody wanted something from Tony, you know? Everybody wanted a piece of him. And I didn’t want to be one of those people who wanted a piece of him.
No comments:
Post a Comment