I miss Anthony Bourdain

But I may have found his replacement

I’m not a foodie by any stretch. I like food, but I have no desire to travel the world sampling delicacies and writing about them. However, I loved watching and listening to Anthony Bourdain do those things, but my fandom had as much to do with food as it did with air travel.

Photo Credit: CNN

But I didn’t watch Bourdain as much as I listened to him. Sure, I watched all his shows, from No Reservations and The Layover to the last episode of No Reservations. I also relished his time on Top Chef, his voiceovers on various documentaries, and his snippet in The Big Short.

In my opinion, there was no greater modern storyteller than Bourdain. I would put him on the same level as Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, or Carl Sagan for their ability to capture the awe and wonder of their audiences by stringing together words in artistic ways that entertain and resonate.

I miss Bourdain so much. I’ve sought out his modern contemporaries for years, and though it’s a lofty expectation, I believe I’ve found that person.

I stumbled across Blake Kasemeier several months ago when one of his videos crossed my Explore feed. In an instant, I found myself watching, no, listening to dozens of short stories told as narration over video montages of the mundane normalcy of life.

If you were born anytime between 1968 and 1993, go to his account and pick any of the hundreds of Reels, and if you do not find some resonance with the stories he tells, I’ll be surprised.

This week in storytelling

I’ve mentioned Blake many times in The Hungry that those readers might be tired of me talking about him. In fact, Blake might even be tired of me talking about him, too, but I believe he is a once-in-a-generation talent.

But I’m not enamored with Blake because he can tell a good story, although that is a significant part. What I see in Blake is exactly what I saw in Bourdain, in a shorter form.

They are the same in how they can talk about the minutiae of daily life with such vivid color it feels like wizardry. Listening to Blake talk about music, jiujitsu, parenting, and grief makes me believe I could do the same, but I don’t possess the right magic.

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In another video, Blake mentions the famous quote by Ira Glass about the gap between talent and taste, where we know how good we want to be, but the chasm to cross to get there often seems broad. In that video, Blake discusses his feeling of lack of talent compared to his taste, and in an ironic twist of fate, I wish I could tell stories like Blake, knowing full well that I am miles behind.

I’m sure someone else would make the exact inference about me, which is disturbing and comforting at the same time. It’s disturbing because it’s the reality that we are all on the same hamster wheel, scrambling to get to the next elusive level despite it always being just out of reach.

It’s comforting because I know we’re all going through it together, and when I forget where I stand, I always have Blake as the beacon. But if I ever told Blake he reminded me of Anthony, he’d probably scoff and put me in an Omaplata until I recanted.