I interviewed Anthony Bourdain for *********. He was driving his car somewhere, so he put on his car speaker and I chatted with him as he owned the highway, like William Daniels and the Hoff, if the Hoff was a genius writer and not a clown.
His response to my last question was so good, but so potty-mouthed, that I had no choice but to cut it from the story.
Can you imagine the following paragraph running on *********?
I’ve always wanted to know this: If you know the Travel Channel is going to bleep the expletives out of your narration, why do you put them in?
It’s the way I talk to my friends, I talk that way to my loved ones. It’s the way I talk, period. So I’m not gonna change. I’m incapable of it. I don’t feel that proprietary about my writing. Besides, you never know what slips in. They don’t know what I’m talking about half the time. I’ve gotten a lot of shit in under the wire. I think I’ve gotten in bukkake, facials, fisting, felcherific, reach-around. So I think I’m doing pretty well. Every time I slip one in, Ted Allen — we used to be on Top Chef together — he’ll send me an e-mail within 20 minutes saying, “Good one!” He’s keeping track.
For the genteel clickers at ********, I ended the answer at “a lot of shit in under the wire,” and I turned “shit” to “sh*t.”
I shared it here, just for you and me, where no one needs to know about it.
He’d make a sailor blush, but gay guys love that sh*t