See that tiny flesh-colored dot there, below the big gray screen? You do?  Oh good, that makes one of us, then.

That right there, my friends, is one Anthony Bourdain.

Way back when Charlie and I started dating, he offered to take me to my first concert, which was Type O Negative (may Peter Steele rest in peace). I’d never listened to Type O before (and haven’t since), they weren’t really my thing, but I liked Charlie, and I wanted to enjoy the things that he liked, so I went with him.

Simply put, even after the concert, they weren’t for me. At all.

I was worried that there would be a reverse repeat of the situation, and Charlie would be bored the whole time, and wonder why I’d brought him. Charlie spent the whole night smiling and laughing, even guffawing louder than me during some parts of the show. True, he didn’t get how awesome it was that Zamir introduced Mr. Bourdain before coming out, but he couldn’t stop chattering in the car about what he liked about the show, what he agreed with, and agreed that he needed to read Anthony’s books.

Last night’s show touched on all of the major themes that Bourdain talks about in his books and his show: food as an art and a cultural unifier, how to be a student of the world and a good steward of cultural relations, and using both of the aforementioned themes to build a better world. All of course, injected with the intelligence and humor that is his signature style and why I keep going back to his books and any show he’s on.

It was more than worth the price of admission. And it really solidified the gelatin of an idea I had in my head that I have all of these things that I love, and I need to see them in person to add a different layer to the painting. This means making a point to go to book signings of authors I like, to a comedian’s show, maybe going to a tweetup or a ‘Con. Something like that.

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And in small world news, I ran into the couple that had sat down the table from me when I went out to dinner at Momocho in August. While waiting for my date for the evening, I started chatting with them about food and the food scene around Cleveland, and had mentioned that Anthony Bourdain was coming to Cleveland, and I’d bought my tickets. Turns out, after I’d gushed so much, they read some of Bourdain’s books, watched the show, and bought tickets to the show. I didn’t get to say goodbye when they finished their dinner (I was pretty hammered on Happy Hour margaritas at that point), but I thought about them from time to time. So weird that I ran into them: I think it was a circle that was meant to be connected.