existential wine writer. wine makes me feel
Sulfites And The Politics of Fear
Tannins, Headaches and Internet Trolls…Oh, my!
Working Man’s Hero
We were never supposed to like Anthony Bourdain. On the surface he could be abrasive, confrontational, and downright mean. For years he worked in restaurants, an environment where casual viciousness was not only accepted but a way of life. His drug use alone makes him an unlikely hero for any cause. But make no mistake, he was a hero… and will continue to be.
When Bourdain released his debut book Kitchen Confidential,is observations of the restaurant industry, as well as of himself in it, were hard-hitting and brutally honest without shame or apology. The candor he brought to the page was instantly relatable to anyone who had ever worked for a living. Bourdain’s was a voice of someone who had been there without privilege. He was dirty with experience. He was one of us.
Bourdain became the Johnny Cash of the food world. He was that imperfect rockstar from humble beginnings that spoke truth to power. His truth. He spoke it in way that we all want to speak: with authority and confidence (maybe with a little arrogance) with his own experience being the backbone of his convictions…even if he was wrong. He was the example that an everyman could not only be heard, but can make it to that next level.
And yet, no person is one thing. That was certainly true for Bourdain. In the same sentence he could be erudite and corse. Brash and generous . It is impossible to define him in one sentence. The same could be said of how he conveyed his experiences. While the subtext of his writing could be examined on a political and or sociological level, ultimately, he shared the experience of being alive through the exploration of the one thing everyone human on the planet has in common: food.
Joseph Campbell, mythologist (author of Hero With a Thousand Faces), defines a hero as “Someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” By that definition, Mr. Bourdain deserves red boots and a cape. He travelled around the world to bring us sights, sounds, and flavors not easily available. He taught us not to fear the unknown. And, he did it the whole time fighting his own personal demons. A fight he recently lost. Every hero has his Ragnarok just as everyone of us will have that moment of no return. In his passing, as in his life, Anthony Bourdain is a series of contradictions. Those contradictions in no way affect the mark he left on food, culture, and the world. He is hero to the working man not because he brought his experiences to us, but because he lifted us up to his.
Marion Keisker
On July 18th, 1953, Elvis Presley drove his truck from Tupelo, Mississippi to the Sun Record Company in Memphis, Tennessee. He then paid $3.98 to record two songs as a gift for his mother’s birthday.
Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Record had been looking for someone like Elvis for some time. Phillips had this idea that the combination of road house boogie and black blues would capture white listeners if packaged correctly. That package was and would become Elvis Presley.
That chance meeting between Presley and Phillips changed the world. Elvis becomes the first truly international superstar. His celebrity changed the way music was listened to and by who. It gave music a new identity. Rock ‘n Roll would became a symbol of America to the rest of the world. It would come to represent freedom, independence and democracy. When Eastern Europe became closed off to the rest of the world, it was food, blue jeans and Elvis records that got smuggled across borders.
That’s right, owning an Elvis album become a political act of defiance. All because these two men met back on a hot summer’s day in 1953.
Except of course… it never happened.
Elvis did come in that day in July but Phillips wasn’t there, He was in an another county recording a gospel group. It was his assistant, Marion Keisker, who did the actual recording and who had the foresight to take down his contact information. And, it was Marion who, when Phillips listen to the acetate months later and couldn’t identify the artist, told him about the young Elvis. It was Marion who suggested to Sam to invite Elvis to audition for the label.
Elvis did… and he bombed it. Seriously, he was awful. He couldn’t play well enough, he didn’t sing well enough. Sam Phillips couldn’t see the potential and sent him on his way. The truth was Elvis wasn’t ELVIS…yet.
But again, Marion convinced Sam to give Elvis one more try a couple months later. Elvis was far from great, but this time, Sam saw something in him. Something he could mold. Someone he could work with. And he did. He assigned Scotty Moore, their studio guitarist, to be Elvis’s first manager. Along with drummer DJ Fontana and bassist Bill Black, they began to practice. A lot and hard. Philips then sent them on tour throughout the South. Lots of gigs. Elvis was not so much born as he was made. The rest as they say, was history.
As impressive as a Elvis would become as a talent and Sam Phillips was as a producer, it’s is Marion Keisker that intrigues me most. In our time when apathy seems to rule day and cognitive disengagement tends to be the new normal, Marion Keisker is a reminder that being engaged and passionate in the everyday things we do can make history.
Sometimes we are Elvis, sometimes we are Sam Phillips, however, we are always Marion.
Cheers!