On Anthony Bourdain free porn video

"On Anthony Bourdain" Suicide? You stupid FUCKTARD! What the FUCK were you thinking!? There. I said it. That's my opinion, short answer. So that's enough of that. As fucked up as my life has been, oh yeah, I've thought that subject through more than once. Working on your feet sixteen hours a day, sometimes seven days a week and the arthritis is here now and getting worse and there's nothing you can do about it. Wondering why you barely have enough gas in your car to drive to work every morning and now that the car is older you have the audible mantra well in mind every morning before sunrise when you hop behind the wheel and twirl that key in the lock "come on baby, one more time." You realize you'll have supper tonight though, you've still got a few slices of dry bread and maybe some of those cheese flecked bologna slices in the yellow plastic package and that last can of tomato soup to be made with the remaining dash of milk that hopefully, isn't too far past its expiration date. And you know there won't be any steak dinners anytime soon, because now with a "bone condition" the old choppers are starting to thin out anyway. And then? You're off to your seasonal job with no benefits and no future. That "five-bucks-an-hour-and-all-the- coffee-you-can-drink" job description all too ingrained in those of us old enough to understand that mantra too. I remember the night John Lennon was assassinated. Up in the high north of the Midwest snowflakes were just starting. I was at a stop sign with the blinker blinking, about to turn and head home for the evening. It was around 10:10 CST. The AM jock came on and said, "John Lennon shot in the back! Rushed to the hospital." They said he had a chance. But as soon as I got home I hollered at my dad who never missed Monday night football. "John Lennon's been shot, but he might still make it!" I said. Then my dad looked away from the screen and said, "He's dead." I went slack-jawed and felt the color go out of my face. "Howard Cossell just reported it right over the football game," he finished. I knew it was real then and there, because nobody breaks into a football game with news, never. And that was it. There would be no Beatles reunion, not now nor ever again. My Pearl Harbor moment. But now, there is another. It was this year, June eighth, 2018. I'm a writer. I got up for coffee and dialed up the internet on one computer then activated my Final Draft program on another to start my day, the grey screen and blank white page glaring at me once again with their eternal mocking "fuck you" as another day in my "pit of solitude" was about to begin. I took a strong hit of coffee and lit a cigarette and waited for the writing "muse" to appear, but she was late as usual. I glanced on my main screens internet page and there on the title page was a picture of Anthony Bourdain smiling at the camera. Ah! I smiled at seeing his picture. I hadn't seen his show in a while since I dumped my cable television but I was always on the lookout on Youtube, Netflix or Amazon Prime. Was it another show episode? Another series concept? Or maybe another kitchen book or novel? My mind raced! I saw your picture and your name posted and all those thoughts raced through my mind in a happy flash that happened in a mere instant. And then I read just why your picture was posted so large and so prominently. Then I read the whole text: "Anthony Bourdain, 61, dead, suicide!" My second Pearl Harbor. I started out learning about you by seeing your television show "A Cooks Tour." Cable had become a wasteland so there I was, I'd stumbled into one of those high channels, a cooking channel dumped between two shopping networks. I caught a few interviews you did and kept watching as you moved through "No Reservations," "The Layover," and finally "Parts Unknown." I also heard your voice on the speaker one night and sat down to see your latest venture on yet another boutique show "Raw Craft." I'd learned you were a writer, who luckily escaped the kitchen grind with old age nipping at your heels by writing your first kitchen book entitled: "Kitchen Confidential," the one you thought nobody would ever read. That's how it works sometimes. I well understood your thoughts. Starting with the fact that we're both guys, grey hair, and nearly the same height, and I'm only a year younger I looked further and found we had a lot more in common, even thoughts of suicide, but I've come to grips with the sorry state of this country and life in general and the breaks that seem to always go to someone else but never me and a third mantra "I work ten times harder than everyone else but only get half as far." But Suicide? Ain't in my vocabulary anymore. Ain't gonna happen. No way. No matter how tough things get I'm going out always getting back on my feet and back on that horse to give it just one more try, and ride just a bit longer and farther to see what's over that next hill. The Beatles hung with the maharishi looking for the real meaning of life. They never found it. I guess I was looking for a new guru when I found you. Someone who could maybe make sense of this shitty world we all now live in. Being older and wiser I realize that you most likely couldn't have the answer either. But the way you were able to lay things out I guess we were all hoping you did. It's extremely rare to happen upon a true five-star threat. A gifted author, narrator, executive producer, world traveler, and oh yeah, a chef. But there was more, so much more we never saw, all those future accomplishments still out there, still over that next hill. You'd hit your mark, your stride, and it would soon be a near certainty you'd work something else up to amaze. You might have had the time to learn the bass. If only you'd have just hopped back onto that saddle at least one more time. You read all the time about suicides, people with hopeless, tough lives that feel that everything is gone and that it ain't ever gonna come back, ain't ever gonna get better. But there are also the people that decide to die because they have too much, and they are too successful now. Their thoughts "Why have I been so lucky?" Bothering them to the point of embarrassment so profound that they decide to check out in case they are discovered to somehow be a fraud. Strange thought but very true. But that's for someone with a diploma in psychiatry to ponder, not me. So, here I sit, sad and wondering just like Zamir Gotta, your Russian friend who is knocking back the vodka shots between tears now and your good friend chef Eric Ripert who will always wonder "why" whenever he can work his thoughts past the horrible and indelible memory of discovering you hanging from a shower rod. And all the rest of your associates and family and the millions upon millions of friends the world over you left behind still wondering "why" themselves. It was interesting to hear you say that everything you have ever written has been published, even your notes that ended up in the newspapers. Not that your novels are up to "Gone With The Wind" standards,(while I believe your cooking stories are). That is interesting, and more than rare, or as you prefer medium-rare. I'm into my writing game right here, right now as you once were, grinding out "Kitchen Confidential" with no hopes of making a sale or getting ahead. For me these days, only something to keep busy with in my early retirement. With the exception of my self-published masters thesis dealing with geography and urban planning which pondered why homes in my locality were sliding off hills and how such a thing could happen that's about it. Dry words on dusty pages sitting on a dusty archive shelf, that will probably never be read nor see the light of day ever again. Nothing more than a text between expensive bound faux- leather covers that satisfied one of my advanced degree requirements. But there are other works. Two years out of college with still no decent work in sight I began writing of sorts. I happened upon Michael Pillar, once a show runner for Paramount Pictures Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He was on one of those schlock pitch networks selling copies of Phasers and Klingon knives and Tribbles and other curios and he mentioned they had an open door policy as far as spec teleplays were concerned. I had been fed up with Star Trek: The Next Generation for a long time at the poor writing and figured anybody could write better than that and I was game to give it a try. I got stuck writing a dry-as-death thesis so how hard could it be to actually write something fun? I sent my first story in and they ended up keeping it five months. Of course it didn't sell. I continued on writing other stuff and kept at finding an agent and luckily bumped into one who asked about my Star Trek script. When I mentioned they kept it for five months he said: "you were close." That got me signed. So now it's two complete teleplays, one a Star Trek: Voyager episode. That one only lasted two weeks until it was returned no sale, my last of two allowed chances with Star Trek. I ground out another seven or eight feature length screenplays and then a 427 page science fiction novel on time travel I was especially, and still am trilled about. And now this latest novel. More of a treatise on current events so far but we'll see where it goes. For now I'm only seeking the truth. I'm not looking for any quick sales. You wrote how you grew up, how you traveled to France on the Queen Mary and hated the beret and shorts you were forced to wear on vacation. And then you mentioned having the connections to get into the CIA cooking university but never mentioned how you were able to afford such an expensive school. I'm guessing your family was of far better means than mine. You say you missed your dad when he died so young and how you wondered why your mother had you. I never had those problems because I started out in an orphanage. A gothic inner city building in old Minneapolis, built in the late 1800's with large open rooms that had been taken up by the local Lutheran Social Services. They filled one of the large rooms with dozens and dozens of cribs filled with babies, 61 in all. While I, number 62 on the other hand was wheeled out into the front room and up against a wall near the reception desk as some kind of infant overflow. Others ended up there but I was the first. Unwanted - twice. I often joke by saying: "I started out life in an orphanage, and things went downhill from there." A virtual truism with one of the few grand exceptions of my life, the wonderful parents I was truly blessed with at the young age of three months. And in being stuck in being the odd-man- out all alone in the reception area maybe it really wasn't so bad. 61 babies in the one large room past the glass paned wooden double swing doors being watched by maybe five overworked nurses. They would feed the babies(sparingly) and change diapers. And once they laid that baby back down and he looked ok, that nurse was off once again in her white seamed stockings and sensible white shoes while the babies could only sleep or just lie there in wide eyed Tabula-rasa while I had a receptionist lady all to myself. I also caught another break. In the life-sucks department, I can also add that I have never been a babe-magnet. The old joke "couldn't get laid in a whore house" comes to mind. Just never worked out. But back then I looked pretty good If I do say so myself. What saved me was a nearby secretarial school. Back in the day before computers secretaries actually had to learn how to type and take dictation with real shorthand. That was another old building, a forboding Liverpoolesque looking block or so up the street from the orphanage. After the school girls finished for the day most of them trudged the three or four blocks down the street to line up at the bus stop for their ride home. One day, I guess it was raining or cold, one of the young girls stopped by, her bus stop at the end of the block, the bus still ten or more minutes away. She noticed the babies like all women do and she noticed me in my entrance hall crib first. Well, instead of me continuing to lay around all day like a pool float she picked me up and began playing with me. I don't remember but I do understand that babies do like attention. It wasn't long until there were dozens of those petticoated, swirling skirted June Cleaver look alikes storming the Bastielle. The nurses didn't like it, these young women disturbing the babies like that but then the head nurse had second thoughts, babies do need attention. So the place became a type of infant petting-zoo and in no time the cries of loneliness changed into echoes of giggles and laughter. Kinda worked out for all involved. All the girls, ah. Wish I could remember. Being in the reception area I would always be the first one they'd reach for. When my future mother first entered the place hoping to look into adoption I was the first one she noticed. And nearly daily after the cuddles I must have been filled with kisses because she used to laugh and tell me she often had to dab her handkerchief on her tongue to wipe off the half dozen different shades of lipstick on my lips, nose, forehead and cheeks! That was what caught her eye and must have sealed the deal because she next brought along my future dad and I soon broke out of that place and got a second start. Early 1970's I went to cooking school too. Of course not at your level. Mine was, shall we say a bit more conservative. High School Vocational Cooking School. A one year course in the how too's of cooking. To prepare basic food without poisoning anyone and hopefully without cutting yourself too badly and learning enough "moves" to get around a real kitchen and avoid burning yourself on all the hot stoves. I did about well enough to get by but made the mistake of cooking a slab of beef, basically by accident that was so good I nearly had to go to a state wide cooking talent cook off! Nothing fancy, just spiced it up, tossed it around the pan a bit and browned it with butter to kill time in class then after a half hour turn in the oven I slid it on a clean, hot plate, added a sprig of parsley and a twist of carrot for garnish then lined it up on the serving line. I had no concept of turning this small roast into any real meal. I just called it South Dakota Beef Steak. The teachers from the whole school arrived then grabbed napkins and knives and forks and jotted down their notes as they moved down the line and chewed away. Luckily, a friend of mine and a pretty good cook had made a far more ambitious swiss steak in a smooth, mushroom deglasse sauce. He won the contest and ended up having to attend the South Dakota Cow-belle Cooking Contest half way across the state and waste an entire weekend to re-cook that same fabulous meal. It was mostly all women with a cowgirl on the contest entry. How humiliating for us few guys in the cooking class who'd already been teased in the halls for being sissies or queers. Funny how those pricks never entered the kitchen when us guys had our sharpened chef knives in hand. I was more than happy to come in a strong second place that day. And Kevin? Well, he did just fine. After high school he went to work at the town's top prime rib and steak joint and ended up as head chef. In addition to the class work you had to get a job in an actual kitchen and actually cook or at least try. Luckily my dad ran the local bowling lanes in town. Back then in the early 1970's there weren't any Arby's or McDonalds, not around here anyway. And as my dad used to say: "the best hamburgers are always at the local bowling lanes." That as they say was my "in." I started out as a dishwasher/prep monkey, mostly making Reuben sandwich specials and those finicky layered toasted club sandwiches you spike with tasselled toothpicks and slice into four quarters then add a handful of hot fries. I learned to portion bare handed and got tough hands and used to the heat as there was never time to look for a set of tongs. However, I was told that I always added too many fries. Still learning about portion control. I had big hands I guess. I remember well your little story addition about being really sunk in the kitchen, "being totally in the weeks." We'd heard about it and been warned about it in school but we all laughed and only considered it a myth. In reading your book and in seeing that hour of video with you and Eric Ripert behind the grill really made it for me because somebody else besides me actually understood! Cooking, at least my base number of being a short-order cook was the toughest job I ever had. The afternoons always started out easy, like a cosmic tease. The old guy in for his daily hamburger steak, hash browns and toast, or on a different day he might swap the burger out for a fried ham steak and maybe with a lettuce salad on the side this time. A few ladies stopping by for coffee and a light chef's salad? No problem. Add a few walk ins that wanted the burgers either deluxe or plain with onion rings or fries and it was a no brainer, easy. But then you'd always know at the back of your mind that supper was on the way and it wasn't going to be pretty. And unfortunately, there were only three people in my kitchen on any given night, me, myself, and I! I enjoyed the slow times, usually around ten at night. While waiting for the grill to cool I'd usually make a few pies and restock the pie case and I'd always restock my " mese-in-place ", fixings for sandwiches and such and I'd get the salad container ready and fresh for the next day, always making sure to add a few gratings of carrots for color before draping a damp kitchen towel over the large bowl before putting it in the low boy. It was a good part time job that paid as good as any in the place. I even kept up when the busses would pull in with the fans and cheerleader squads on Friday afternoons before the basketball games. Thirty hungry kids that I knew would be fresh in from an all day drive and more than hungry. We often got many local kids as well. I would usually take the chance and immediately start thirty or so burgers on the grill and get a huge fresh bag of fries from the freezer opened and dumped into both bins of the hot deep fryer. By the time they were seated and ordering I was already dropping the burgers, double cheeseburgers and pizza burgers with fries on the slide to be picked up, the waitresses could take their pick. But, in addition to the cafe the place also had a full lounge. The bar crowd didn't often eat but when they did that kitchen really got slammed. I can, to this day well remember my best and most famous beat down, my "trip into the weeds." For some reason it had been a busy day, very busy. The lunch rush was a killer and afterwards it took another hour to load the dishwasher, stack plates, haul garbage and mop and restock the sliced meats, and the veg and cheese trays. There were piles of huge pots and pans to soak and scrub too. I got through that and the lady head cook that left for the night wished me well and made sure to tell me as she always did to keep the place clean, especially the grill. She'd be the first one to see it in the morning so the grill was always a priority with me, spotless. The busy day which was unusual seemed to raise the hair on my neck while scrubbing pans, that warning shot as the breeze cools and changes direction and you turn to see the dark storm clouds forming on the horizon. You're alone, supper shift is heating up, even the waitresses seemed to be stretching their arms and legs, and you just knew there was no escape. The truly macho, killer disaster trip into the weeds was just around the corner. I prayed it wouldn't happen but as the parking lot began to fill with cars I knew it was already too late! As the supper hour started I was busy at the grill, my shirt and brows already soaked, the sweat dripping off my nose. The cafe was filled and the board looked like fucking Normandy! The order tickets usually stacked neatly in line above the grill under the rubber holder on the long aluminum line was now not only full but the tickets were double and triple stacked on overlap, half over the one after the other, there wasn't any more room for tickets so I'd have to stop and double check each one before putting the orders up. New tickets went under a coffee cup on the corner of the work station until they could fit on the rail. And the grind went on. Another hour in and nothing had changed, the tickets were still overlapped and then the bar crowd started! More tickets but these were from the bartender now and instead of just burgers it was chicken dinners and full on steak and baked potato dinners with all the trimmings! Now salads were added to my duties. My head spun but I soldiered on. Then about a half hour later one of the bowlers on some team had made a bet on a steak dinner. Evidently he lost and the whole team plopped down in the bar, a full on six-top and it was all steaks, expected in flawless, various hues of done-ness. My mind reeled, I prayed that someone might just swing by and toss on an apron and lend a hand. But alas, there was nobody there to help. I can't blame them either, one would be a fool to walk into a nightmare like that just to join me in the weeds. I was falling behind and since most of the guys in the bar had been drinking while bowling and even more while waiting at their table they were the first ones I could hear complaining, an audible barometer about the food being slow. And up front? A few folks were already coming into the place and turning around because every chair and booth was already full, while many were still waiting for their food. I tossed another dozen dinners on the slide to keep the waitrons happy but it didn't make a dent. The grind was in full swing. And then the real disaster happened! We still had over an hour to go, maybe an hour and a half on this Twilight Zone night-of-nights. I half expected Rod Serling himself to show up or worse yet, Alan Funt to step in with his clipboard to wave and laugh telling me the whole evening had been a joke. But I couldn't think those thoughts, there just wasn't time. My wrists hurt now from all the grill turns and my back ached from being on my knees, swinging long-armed into the low boy and the sweat still dripped, the floor becoming spotty slick and more dangerous by the minute. I tossed, finished and stacked two more salads then turned to see the entire grill filled with meat and hash browns-we rarely had to light the left side of the grill but now we were in full combat mode. And both deep fryers, all four baskets filled and dumped, rows of plates lined up and some toast was now burning in one of the toasters. I saw the smoke and went into immediate brain-lock! I forgot everything, even how to cook! Nothing but all that food right in front of my eyes that was going to burn on the grill and overcook in the fryers. The place was packed and I was the comedian on the stage, I was failing and I could see the crowd watching and they weren't smiling. I was totally fucked! I was way more than in the weeds, I was now in the ditch! Punk bitch high school kid I was, I wanted to cry. I wanted to run away, run home and hide in bed under the covers, a total fucking sweaty failure smelling like sweat, scraped grill grease and burned french fries. And my friends? None of them worked, probably sitting in my buddies dad's garage right now splitting a joint up in the rafters in the hidden fort or smoking cigarettes or his dad's Swisher Sweet cigars and reading old Playboys. But me? I was in the battle of my life! This was getting all too real. Then, it was another smell that really brought me around. The first round of steaks were getting a bit more done than ordered. My training kicked in tougher now, I'd flip the steaks, cook less on side two and put the heavy side down, praying nothing got burned. Because that just wouldn't do at our restaurant, no way. I wiped my brow, flipped the steaks and another stack of burgers and being six-foot-three and with long arms managed to reach both french fry baskets in the far deep fryer and put them up on the hooks to drain. I flipped another six burgers to side two and added cheese to half of them then swept the now toasted buns off the grill and onto the prep line. And then reached for the bubbling chicken filling another fryer in another basket. I reached for the already slippery long metal handle and made my grab blind as I worked the burgers. It was the closest fryer to the grill and I'd done it before as my "moves" came fully into play. Then I really fucked up, I felt myself being burned as never before. I glanced just long enough to see that I'd missed the handle completely and dumped my right hand wrist and all deep into the scalding 350 degree oil! The Earth stopped spinning on its axis-- I grimaced hard, the sweat rolled over my brow and burned my eyes. I couldn't see and felt as if my hair was on fire. I felt my legs buckle and then felt the muscles tense then felt faint as the searing pain flooded right down to my toes. I managed to pull the chicken out of the oil with my good hand as well as the cooking fish and rush to the walk- in area. I grabbed up a bar glass tub, filled it from the ice chest and dove my already glowing red hand into the ice. Near instant relief! But I could still hear the grill, hissing louder now, as if it was a bit more than angry at being left alone, teasing me, shouting it was going to show me no mercy and destroy half the nights work right then and there. The moments ticked by. Notice I didn't say minutes? There wasn't time. I hauled the ice chest back into the kitchen and managed to wash the grease off my hands and face and get back on the track. But it was tough. The barmaid wandered into the kitchen, she wanted those steaks toot-sweet, and those cute little mini skirted waitrons were stacking up in front in their sensible work shoes tapping the sides of their order books on the slide. They did that on purpose. Few things pissed me off more then being given the rush when I was doing 99% of the work while they got all the tips. Then they'd stand on tiptoes twirling their hair and popping their bubble gum as they glared into the kitchen wondering just what the fuck the cook was doing! Did they care I had been badly burned? I doubt they even realized. They were more concerned with looking good for their boyfriends and customer tips, and of course when I'd do a good job on a meal I could read a customers lips from the kitchen and across the room when he'd hand over an extra buck to the waitress and say: "See the cook gets this would you dear?" She'd nod with a smile and I'd watch as she'd put the dollar in her apron pocket and that would be the last I ever saw of it. Did she forget? Could be, but over the time I was there I saw a lot of tips go into a lot of apron pockets and not once, or at least to my memory did that money ever end up in my pocket by the end of the night. I did get called into the lounge one afternoon where some banker gave me a folded cash tip personally after I delivered his favorite bowl of chili-extra hot, that one I do remember. Back on the grill now, sweating again, the hand throbbing and on fire but I held on. I'd been pounded on this job, But I was a thoroughbred now at Santa Anita, I was being driven hard with the whip and rounding the forth corner but the weather was threatening and the track was wet. I could see the flag but it seemed ten miles away. I felt my strength wane. When the burning and throbbing would get too much it was back to the ice chest I parked on the right side of the steam table. By now the blisters were in full bloom, the sharp ice squares roughing the skin further, the skin at my wrist beginning to roll now in a deep second degree burn. I wanted to quit, fuck it. I'd go back to being a Pinchaser full time, work behind the bowling machines shagging stuck balls and spotting pins and fixing machines like I already did three nights a week. But, ten- fifteen seconds later and it was back to the grill. I was going to pull this one out, other cooks had walked out before but that laughing, hissing grill was starting to piss me off. I heard the grind as I grit my teeth then with more of my moves I slapped the spatula hard on the grease drain ledge at the mid base of the grill and yanked it away, wiping it on my dry prep cloth by my apron, clean once again as if the sword was leaving the scabbard for the last time. With me having to hold my sore right hand up and as far away from heat as humanly possible while running the grill spatula with my left, I was grateful that fortune had smiled by making me left handed, and with me in whites I looked like some spastic French Olympic swordsman dueling in a life or death match! But finally, the pain began to fade and I continued getting all those burgers, fish-wiches, and fries out as well as all those chicken dinners, steaks and baked potatoes, with salads and toast to boot. The restaurant customers quieted down as they began to salt their fries and dab their ketchup while the boozers in the bar ordered yet another round they attacked their steaks. I heard the forks and sharp knives as they clicked against the heated steel trays on their steak plates. No complaints and no returns all night. I knew they were happy. I'd done my job. I'm a smoker and what you might say, an accomplished drinker these days. I'm older now, and fortunately slowing down as I should on both fronts. I was too young to qualify for a beer after my shift so I cleaned up that night with a tumbler of Coke, slowly and with my Marlboro clenched between my teeth I swept and hot-mopped the floor, as my eight track rolled off Ringo's Goodnight Vienna album in the background. So, yeah Anthony. I've been in the weeds for sure. I guess that makes me an official member of sorts. I'm not a chef, never have been but I was once heck of a short order cook. And as I don't have to ever tell you, there is something magical, almost God-like about that, isn't there? Surviving a night of total disaster, all alone in the weeds and then rising up at the end of the night like a Phoenix, arms raised, fists clenched. I fucking did it! I made it! Nothing feels like that! Nothing! And when the crowds go home happy and those storm clouds part at the end of the night and the moon and stars arrive in a crisp clean sky it is a feeling like no other. A true master-work. And until you have done a night like that and not given up and survived, you my friend will never know. I paid my dues to prove it. About the toughest job you'll ever have! Like I said, we're similar in a lot of ways. We both drink, smoke Marlboros, lights for me though. We're both college grads. I've been a cook, I'm a writer, I've done radio commercials and voice work and have written and produced a few radio commercials and shot a few television spots. But for now, unfortunately mostly just minor league stuff. But I'm still on that horse. I was hoping to get caught up in the near future, maybe find a way to write you a note or maybe become a real writer myself, get famous enough to finally actually meet you. I was really shooting for that. To maybe get together and do some cooking or maybe at least have a few beers and bat a few stories back and forth about the drunk times and the sore ankles and all the cuts and remnant burn marks and other scars I still have on my fingers and hands from cooking. Sure would have been nice Mr. Bourdain, sure would have been nice. So, even though we never met, I'll miss your voice-overs on film, they'll hang forever now like the immortal words of Bogart, and those long steps and that easy strolling gate and your smile as you walk and wave and look around a market or two or an eatery someplace where you continue to study the cultures and people of the world. Believe it or not you leave an indelible legacy of someone who was real and never phony. That is a keystone point with me. And like you said, "you can't learn character. You either have it or you never will," and "the kitchen never lies." One night in the weeds will sort you out for sure and that's no shit! I remember well. You are someone who left the world a better place than he'd found it. And that my friend is truly rare and is still my goal, you cannot ask for anything higher. That doesn't happen anymore, not in this day and age. It's a worthy goal and you were an astounding success. That says a lot! I feel and understand many of our common interests. We are alike in so many ways. It's just such a shame I was never able to meet you. And that, like the loss of John Lennon is a loss that I will remember. You might not have known it but I've counted you as my friend for a long time now. I think it was your "weeds" story that did it. And if you could have heard my story I think you might have smiled and nodded in your easy way and shook my hand and maybe even accepted me into your circle as someone who'd paid his dues as a real cook, someone who'd been in the trenches. I can imagine that smile and that knowing twinkle in your eye and the pat on the back that says well done. Thanks for being a friend Tony. Take care- Scott Richardson MS, Short Order Chef