Oopsie!

I totally forgot that I forgot to tell you guys about my Anthony Bourdain encounter until you posted your book review, Sandy! It was such a major experience, akin to having a child, it seemed like everyone must already know about it.

Anyway. So the cocktail hour started at 7 and we were supposed to be seated for dinner at 8. That made me think we'd be stuck in some room "mingling" with people we didn't know at all for a full hour, so we showed up at 7:20, and the other 150 people were already there! The dinner was on the third floor of this bar/restaurant place, and when we got to the entrance, my brother informed us that Tony was behind the bar with the head chef, Tim McKee. There he was - 20 feet away! This was exciting enough, but then the elevator... When my brother said, "OK, I guess you can get on," I think Tony's exact words were, "Well, I don't know who YOU'RE here to see, but I'm here to eat Tim McKee's food. I can't wait for that!" Tim was on the elevator with us too, and he was all Aw Shucks about it. I thought it was a very gracious and sweet thing for Tony to say.

Our 30 seconds of shared air ended, and when we got into the dining area, there was a big line at the bar, and Tony just went up and started chatting with people. He was in a great mood, full of smiles. (By the way, he is taller, a little less skinny, and more attractive in person. I think I thought he would look more haggard, but honestly I think the cameras aren't that kind to him.)

Before we started eating, Tony took the podium and said, "I saw that line at the bar, and I see two glasses of wine at each seat, so I expect you to all get stinking drunk during dinner, because afterward we're going to have a Q&A, and I don't want any stupid bullshit questions. No 'what's the weirdest thing you've eaten?' OK? I want you to fucking get drunk, and think up some really interesting, sick, scandalous questions, and I promise to answer all of them."

After dinner, he got back up to the podium and said that one of his tablemates had asked him, "Are you just going to do the same fucking talk you give at every book signing?" and he said, "YES! I'm going to give that same fucking talk!" But instead he just decided to do all Q&A. I was instantly concerned, as both of you would be, given our experience with film festivals. Overall, people were OK. Some dumb questions clearly aimed at making Tony Bourdain think the asker was an amazing undiscovered comedic genius; some aimed at making Tony think the asker was MUCH more cosmopolitan than their humble Midwest surroundings make them appear; and one HELLA annoying woman who basically wanted a private conversation with Tony regarding her laziness about cooking real meals for her family. Otherwise, he was hilarious and vulgar and delightful. One comic genius asked who was more annoying, Rachael Ray or Gail Simmons (the judge from Top Chef), and he said that Gail was really very nice and smart and had a great pallate. His rant about Rachael got pretty heated and ended with him saying, "I mean, fuck that bitch." HA.

At the end, he signed books for everyone, and Bud and I had one of our books signed to our friend Nick who tried to see Tony the previous evening at a free event at a bar and was brutally rebuffed (along with about 150 other people who weren't among the lucky 500 who made it past the velvet rope). Tony told us that that had been a great event too. I thanked him for doing this and he looked saucily in my eyes and said, "Absolutely. I've had a great time." And then he leapt across the table and we made out! Just kidding.