Bourdain, Last Month

I’ve been surprised by the lack of mention regarding a certain luminary from the 60th UCSB Arts and Lectures series. I guess I was never slated to meet Anthony Bourdain, but I got very close. An event going on at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum early May lured me from across the street to see what was going on.

Without my glasses I could barely make out the figure leaning easily against a podium, speaking of pressing things and bracketed with “painfully acquired nuggets of wisdom that will allow you to reach your finest you.” I stood by one of the barricades and strained to hear the speaker but, because of my recent foot surgery, I moved on.

A virtual calendar month later, I connected the speaker was none other than Anthony Bourdain, here to host a benefit looking to raise funds for A & L Programming and Educational Outreach Programs. He had just returned from Bali and, no doubt, was heading for parts unknown. Little was the world prepared for what would be his final journey.