LA Observed Notes: Bourdain's LA, Villaraigosa fades to black

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Anthony Bourdain's Los AngelesThe suicide in France of writer, CNN travel host and former NYC chef Anthony Bourdain has hit a lot of people hard, in the media and out. Here is the statement by Asia Argento, his partner and collaborator on some episodes in the CNN series "Parts Unknown." Chef Eric Ripert, a friend and frequent guest on Bourdain's shows for CNN, the Travel Channel and originally for New York Times Television, was with Bourdain shooting an episode in Alsace last week when the death occurred. Barack Obama, who appeared with Bourdain in Hanoi, also posted a tribute on Twitter.

Bourdain has done several episodes in Los Angeles through the years, always staying at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset, but venturing out to report on restaurants and food culture across the city. His suicide prompted written tributes by LA Times columnists Jonathan Gold and Carolina Miranda, and an op-ed piece by Gustavo Arellano that reveals how Bourdain had been a hero to Latinos in the food industry here. Arellano had been a guest in a recent Bourdain season.

His TV shows — “No Reservations,” “The Layover” and most recently “Parts Unknown” — were easy to enjoy. A whip-smart chef travels the world to eat with the gentry and rabble alike — what’s not to like? But he wasn’t a mere gastronomy tourist. His programs ultimately were about the dignity of humans. Bourdain tackled politics and culture and history and music with ease and genuine curiosity because his muse was working-class people and the food that they sweat over making and smile while eating. He broadcast their hopes and fears and joy with a depth and warmth that the mainstream media still really doesn’t bother to learn or seek out.

Bourdain understood his privilege and used it as a cudgel to force Americans to think about our role in the world. He was particularly unsparing to our hypocrisies on Latino immigration. He spoke throughout his career about how Latinos (since he was a New Yorker, specifically Ecuadoreans, Salvadorans and Mexicans from the state of Puebla) were his eternal compadres, because of their work ethic and hilarity and giving ways. Anyone who opposed more of them coming into the United States, he said, was simply deranged.

“Mexicans do much of the work in this country that Americans, probably, simply won’t do,” he wrote a couple of years ago. “In nearly 30 years of cooking professionally, just about every time I walked into a new kitchen, it was a Mexican guy who looked after me, had my back, showed me what was what.”

Couple more: The writers at LA Taco, and a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz. Here is Bourdain's 1999 piece in the New Yorker that became his breakthrough book "Kitchen Confidential."

There's six new short segments on the Parts Unknown website with Bourdain exploring parts of Los Angeles, including one with Carolina Miranda in the Westlake district. I can't see how to embed them here, but here's a
video piece for Eater from 2015 on his love of In-N-Out burgers.

Murray Fromson, 88Murray Fromson, the longtime CBS News correspondent and retired USC Annenberg professor of journalism, died last week at age 88 after living with Alzheimer's Disease. Here is the Associated Press obit — Fromson was a former AP reporter — that ran in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. Sample:

He was a founding member of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit organization that provides legal representation and resources to protect the rights of journalists.

Tony Mauro, a U.S. Supreme Court correspondent for the National Law Journal and a member of the organization’s executive committee, said Fromson was critical in gathering other reporters to form the nonprofit.

“Back in 1969, Murray was one of the first journalists to see the need for our profession to formally challenge government officials who were seeking to interfere with our ability to do our jobs through subpoenas and gag orders,” he said. “We thank Murray for his role as a pioneer for press freedom and mourn his passing.”

Our columnist Bill Boyarsky, who also worked at AP and knew Murray well as friends here in Los Angeles, posted a nice tribute on his LA Observed blog.

Murray was a phenomenal journalist and professor, and a grand friend. Thank you for this column, Bill. https://t.co/rFLnznBqEZ

— patt morrison (@pattmlatimes) June 10, 2018