Middle-class women, like everybody else, were redefining their roles in society, redefining themselves – and having too good a time doing it for the … - Anthony Bourdain

And, well, for most of my life I’d been way too far up my own ass to be of any use to anyone — something that only got worse after Kitchen Confidential. I don’t know exactly when the possibility of that changing presented itself — but sometime, I guess, after having made every mistake, having already fucked up in every way a man can fuck up, having realized that I’d had enough cocaine, that no amount in the world was going to make me any happier. That a naked, oiled supermodel was not going to make everything better in my life — nor any sports car known to man. It was sometime after that. The precise moment of realization came in my tiny fourth-floor walk-up apartment on Ninth Avenue. Above Manganaro’s Heroboy restaurant — next building over from Esposito Pork Shop. I was lying in bed with my then-girlfriend — I guess you could diplomatically call it “spooning” — and I caught myself thinking, “I could make a baby with this woman.

As well, there’s the age-old syndrome common to fans of musicians with passionate and discerning cult followings. When the objects of adulation are crass enough to become popular, they quickly become a case of “used to be good.

What’s the most frightening thing to a child? The pain of being the outsider, of looking ridiculous to others, of being teased or picked on in school. Every child burns with fear at the prospect. It’s a primal instinct: to belong. McDonald’s has surely figured this out — along with what specific colors appeal to small children, what textures, and what movies or TV shows are likely to attract them to the gray disks of meat. They feel no compunction harnessing the fears and unarticulated yearnings of small children, and nor shall I. “Ronald has cooties,” I say — every time he shows up on television or out the window of the car. “And you know,” I add, lowering my voice, “he smells bad, too. Kind of like … poo!” (I am, I should say, careful to use the word “alleged” each and every time I make such an assertion, mindful that my urgent whisperings to a two-year-old might be wrongfully construed as libelous.) “If you hug Ronald … can you get cooties?” asks my girl, a look of wide-eyed horror on her face. “Some say … yes,” I reply — not wanting to lie — just in case she should encounter the man at a child’s birthday party someday. It’s a lawyerly answer — but effective. “Some people talk about the smell, too… I’m not saying it rubs off on you or anything — if you get too close to him — but…” I let that hang in the air for a while. “Ewwww!!!” says my daughter. We sit in silence as she considers this, then she asks, “Is it true that if you eat a hamburger at McDonald’s it can make you a ree-tard? I laugh wholeheartedly at this one and give her a hug. I kiss her on the forehead reassuringly. “Ha. Ha. Ha. I don’t know where you get these ideas!” I may or may not have planted that little nugget a few weeks ago, allowing her little friend Tiffany at ballet class to “overhear” it as I pretended to talk on my cell phone.