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Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
Anthony Bourdain: Prime Cuts Season Four. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 26, 2015 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:12] ANTHONY BOURDAIN, HOST: When putting together a list of where we're going on any given year, there's a really unhealthy fascination with my relationship with plumbing, shall we say. So basically if I'm going without a crapper for extended periods of time on one show, the next show is pretty much going to be someplace with good hot water pressure and, you know, a degree of flushed toilets that even the most skeptical and cranky person would find curiously pleasing.
(MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So just so you know, this is for Shanghai, Bronx, Paraguay, Iran Vietnam, Tanzania, Massachusetts and Jamaica.
BOURDAIN: Gosh.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have 32 episodes in PARTS UNKNOWN and this is the fourth clip show. How did this happen?
BOURDAIN: Another clip show. I'm so ashamed. I hate clip shows. I don't know why you watch them. When I watched "The Simpsons" and it slowly dawned on me that it's actually -- was a clip show, I was so terribly betrayed.
How did this happen? I don't know. I'm a barely willing participant in this cynical enterprise. That's all I can tell you. Clip show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: It's kind not how I pictured it. Even the toilet has a nice view. This is pretty much what you see as you're sitting on. The snakes. OK. Here it comes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leave now. It's dangerous.
BOURDAIN: This is the first time I've ever driven a car on the wrong side of the road. I mean knowingly. I've never been stopped and frisked.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wonder why.
BOURDAIN: I've been arrested.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No trace of tan on your face.
BOURDAIN: Dude, my hair is white. I have the pictures. I think I'm the longest living male Bourdain in possibly ever.
Did he die by the sword? Did he die of old age? Did he die of syphilis? I have no idea. I'd like to know.
I'm sure I'll be fine. I watched the deadliest catch.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pussies.
BOURDAIN: You know I know what you're thinking already. You're not going to do what I think you're going to do, are you? You're not going to go out there and shoot some beautiful animal in the brain,. No. Answer no.
That's a peacemaker. Any road Nazis we can shoot, no? And while I'm told that baboons can get rabbis, there were no knocks on the door. Worked all night, drinking, getting high. This doesn't seem like a good idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, what are your thoughts on the cold open?
BOURDAIN: So cold open is before the show starts. It's either a teaser giving you little hints of the excitement to come or it's starting right in the middle, cutting it off, and getting back to it later. A disorienting, yet enticing, hopefully, a few seconds before the title starts that hook you and want you to wallow deeper into the body of the show itself, so to speak.
I love cold opens. Preferably you don't need any writing for that other than maybe a sentence that sort of hangs enigmatically in the air. I'm trying to think of a good example of that, but I'm pretty sure we'll dig up in some of the clips. I had to have written a good first line somewhere.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: What are our expectations? Which of the things we desire are within reach? If not now, when? And will there be some left for me?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:06:40] BOURDAIN: Clip shows, you know what? What do clip shows love? Clip shows love -- you know, it's always the low hanging fruit, right? I mean, the easy joke. There's a direct correlation between number of Dick jokes and how the show is going. More Dick jokes, less content. More content, fewer Dick jokes.
If I'm standing somewhere out in the jungle telling Dick jokes, what that probably means is sidekick didn't show up or the scene has somehow evaporated, and I'm just standing there -- yes, trying to come up with something to kill time between commercials.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BOURDAIN: Exactly who was in that grotto before me? Did (INAUDIBLE) just leave the grotto? Am I the first one in the grotto? Did someone change the water in the grotto?
Over thankfully cold beers, I learned who is really the most dangerous animal around here. Yes, that's right, Mr. lovable, funny hippo. Always in a tutu in the cartoons. A vicious, unpredictable and apparently incredibly fast-moving killer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, you have to leave here and go for a pee behind the tree there.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And come face-to-face with this hippo. A hippo would easily outrun you. One big chump, the big tusks go straight through you.
BOURDAIN: Just get between them and their mud hole and they'll be all over your like Justin Beiber's bodyguards. It can get ugly.
What are hippo penises look like? I --
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No idea.
BOURDAIN: A hippo never emerges in the water where --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
BOURDAIN: A hippo hard on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not that I've seen.
BOURDAIN: Really?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. They're underwater. I don't go snorkeling.
BOURDAIN: I find that comforting to know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: What can I tell you? The people who do the clip shows are not our usual producer. They work in another division of the show, of the company. May be you've seen their other shows such as "Burger Wars" and "Rodeo Taste Off," and your previous work with such stars as Ryan Jeremy. Most of his titles I can't -- I really can't mention here. But I think their numbers two, three, and four. The word rampage was involved. The other word I don't think I can say on CNN. Can I say anal on CNN? I can probably say it. Yes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:12:05] BOURDAIN: I think the most compelling way to tell a story about a place is to have a sidekick who has a point of view, who has a personality, to have someone stand there and just say, you know, welcome to my home, founded in 1782 by, you know, Mennonites, that's not compelling storytelling. Somebody who has skin in the game, talking about things that have affected their life, that's what we're looking for, or someone who is just really, really funny.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Bowe Gribbon. My father fished and I was pretty much raised here my whole life. Where I'm from, it's who I am.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Scott Rowe, I'm a commercial fisherman. Sea scallops. Fourth generation. I started when I was 5. I wicked proud of my heritage and I would never do anything else. This is my office, man. Look at it. I'm going to do this until I can't move anymore. So you ready?
BOURDAIN: I'm ready.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Time to press the fun button. Clear. All clear. Used to be that this was the best thing in the world. They're like the greatest thing about fishing was you were kind of like a cowboy, you're like a pioneer. You could go out and as hard as you could push, competition was welcome. We were fiercely independent. Independence is little by little taken away.
BOURDAIN: So why in the -- are you doing this?
BOURDAIN: Still, we love to do. The best part of it, the anticipation, to see what's in there. Every tow, I'm like I just can't wait. Like, what's going to be in there? What's going to be in there? Sometimes it's a disappointment. But -- a lot of times it's a disappointment. How many did we get?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A few.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there? All right. We're out. It's why it's fishing and not catching.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It'll taste all that much better. Yes, baby.
BOURDAIN: Wait a minute. I recognize these. You guys eat scallops?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Cheers.
BOURDAIN: All right. Thank you, guys. Cheers. This is going to end badly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cheers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you married?
BOURDAIN: No, not yet. I'm not -- I'm not a big fan of marriage.
BOURDAIN: You've been to weddings, yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Have you ever crashed a wedding before?
[20:15:02] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
BOURDAIN: It's going to be a little weird. I mean, we don't know anybody there. Well, I hope the food's good at this thing. You'll probably have a lot of drinks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It could be really crazy.
BOURDAIN: Oh, really?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Uh-oh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They drink a lot.
BOURDAIN: Really? So ready to crash a wedding?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, let's do it.
BOURDAIN: All right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cheers. I think we'll cross a road here.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
Chinese weddings, generally speaking, mean the presence of a number of formalities. First, meet the bride and groom upon entering. Red envelope, also known as the hongbao, like in "Good Fellas," it's a little something for the bride and groom, help them get started in their new life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
BOURDAIN: OK. Table setting. Often with some must-haves present. Booze, whiskey, smokes for the guests. And there is, of course, drinking.
It begins. When I first came to China, it was for business and one after the other everyone at the table came up and said, Mr. Bourdain, I would like to do a drink with you, and then all of it. I didn't know how to politely say no. I can't. I just kept doing it and doing it. I got super. I ended up going to karaoke. I ended up singing a Billy Idol sing. I think I sang "White Wedding."
She's making it a principal mission to get me seriously drunk. I just want to know how you got out of that. When I sat down, and I look around the table and I try to figure out, OK, who at this table is going to try really hard to get me drunk. I wouldn't have guessed it was going to be her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: What do I know about these places? Chances are very little. What do you know about these places? Frequently not so much. Best-case scenario is when we can successfully look at that place through somebody else's eyes. If there's a personal story involved, there's more at stake.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was visiting my grandfather's house and I got goose bumps because I knew during the war in 1968 lots of people were killed and they were buried on all the sidewalks there. And I walk around there and I feel it. It's dark and its -- it's somber and the history is there. Riding a boat along the river. You feel there are things living in the water and the trees and the darkness out there.
But you cannot help thinking about these people who died when they're young, who died for no reason, who just got caught in the firefights.
BOURDAIN: In 1968, Wei became the site of the most bitter fighting in the world. The North Vietnamese, to their enduring shame, had, while controlling the city, rounded up anyone seen as a potential enemy and either disappeared them away to unknown prisoners or killed them outright.
Most notoriously when they massacred almost 3,000 people, rolling them, many of them still alive, in a mass graves in around Wei.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are families here who don't have a death date, which is huge. A death anniversary in Vietnamese is when you do the ceremonies, you pay attention to the dead. You cannot do that if you don't know when they really died. You just assume that these people are just not never liberated spiritually, that they are stuck in that space.
It was like that for my father because he was in prison. We had no news from him. You couldn't set up an altar. You just hoped that he was alive, and that stuff stayed with me for 40 years in my mind.
I don't know how many Vietnamese have that kind of experience. At the same time, I come back to where my hometown, my family's hometown, I'm glad people are alive, people are living, things are happening, things are changing. We need to let the country open up and let the people have a moment of enjoyment, have a better life.
[20:20:28] BOURDAIN: I mean, obviously I'm an outsider, but it just seems to me as a casual observer you can pretty much survive anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what my brother reminds me. I used to get all upset about things that happened in Vietnam. He said, look, it survived 4,000 years. It will do OK. And then he asked me to hopeful. I'm hopeful because it's a young country. It's a young population. It's energetic and that drives me, that gives me hope, that makes me young, that makes me want to believe in this country, and this town. It's such a wonderful place to be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: The Iran show is one that I'm really proud of. It took five years to get permission to be able to go in with cameras and put together the show that we did. Very emotional show, very beautiful show. One I'm very proud of. It doesn't show all of Iran. We never show all of anything, but I think it shows a side, a hopeful one, a confusing and compelling and often very beautiful side of a very poorly understood country.
[20:25:16]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi.
BOURDAIN: I am so confused. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Of all the places, of all the countries, all the years of traveling, it's here in Iran that I'm greeted most warmly by total strangers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.
BOURDAIN: The other stuff is there. The Iran we've read about, heard about, seen in the news. But this, this I wasn't prepared for.
Look, we know what Iran the government does. George W. Bush famously called them part of the axis of evil. Their proxies in Iraq have done American soldiers real harm. There is no doubt of this. But I hope I can be forgiven for finding these undeniable truths hard to reconcile with how we're treated on the streets everywhere we go.
So forget about the politics, if you can, for a moment. How about the food? Well, it looks spectacular.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't have this in a restaurant. Persian cuisine has to be experienced in somebody's home.
BOURDAIN: You put far more on the table than anybody can conceivably eat. Is that --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. If you don't like your guests, you don't put anything.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And here we (INAUDIBLE), which is a large meatball.
BOURDAIN: (INAUDIBLE), ground beef, onion, and cooked rice, walnuts, dried apricots, boiled egg, and barberries.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anyway, they are very interesting dish.
BOURDAIN: And very confusing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Extremely confusing.
BOURDAIN: The contradictions are just --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Enormous.
BOURDAIN: Enormous. So good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
BOURDAIN: You see this scorched relationship between America and Iran for many years. How do you think most Americans will react when they see this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will start coming.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very important for us as Iranians to get true, to make sure that we are seen as humans here, not the so-called enemy or the darkness of Iran. You know, like, you go to anybody's house in Iran and I'm sure that they will welcome you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The axis of evil, we're not the axis of evil. Just normal evil like everybody else.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: We were treated with incredible hospitality and kindness everywhere. It did not look, feel, taste, smell like the Iran we've been led to expect. And then, of course, you know, we ran up against what we run up against a lot. You know, it was a discouraging, a very discouraging and very disheartening that Jason and Yeganeh were arrested shortly after we filmed the show for no reason at all.
It's a reminder of another side of Iran that we don't have to live with. You know, that I guess Iranians have to deal with every day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Military.
BOURDAIN: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's some military place. Don't shoot please.
BOURDAIN: Don't shoot?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let us cross here.
JASON REZAIAN, "WASHINGTON POST": As print journalists, our job is difficult, but it is also kind of easy because there's so much to write about. You know, the difficult part is convincing people on the other side of the world that what we're telling you, we're seeing in front of our eyes, is actually there. When you walk down the street, you see a different side of things. People are proud. The culture is vibrant. People have a lot to say.
BOURDAIN: Jason Rezaian is "The Washington Post" correspondent for Iran. Yeganeh, his wife, and a fellow journalist works for the UAE based newspaper "The National." Jason is Iranian-American. Yeganeh is full Iranian citizen. This is their city, Tehran.
The official attitude towards fun in general seems to be an ever shifting -- is fun even a good idea?
REZAIAN: A lot of push and pull, a lot of give and take. When I first started coming here, you wouldn't hear pop music in a restaurant or --
BOURDAIN: Right.
YEGANEH SALEHI, JASON'S WIFE: It's everywhere now.
REZAIAN: Now it's everywhere.
REZAIAN: We have police. They arrest girls or women for having bad hijab or not being covered enough. But it's not that we live with the police in our head, you know?
[20:30:05] BOURDAIN: You know, one of the first things that people will say when you say, well, I'm going to Iran, but don't they make women do this, this?
REZAIAN: Yeah.
BOURDAIN: Actually not so much, not as much as our friends. Compare and contrast, women aren't allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.
YEGANEH SALEHI: That's right. Or vote.
BOURDAIN: Or vote. You can drive? You can vote?
YEGANEH SALEHI: Yeah, of course.
BOURDAIN: Can you open business?
YEGANEH SALEHI: Of course.
My sister is an accountant. She has her own company. Girls are allowed to do almost everything, except if you want to go and watch football, which is...
BOURDAIN: Can't they watch football?
YEGANEH SALEHI: We cannot.
BOURDAIN: Women's issues are often at the spear point of change or possible change here. On one hand, prevailing conservative attitudes demand certain things. On the other hand, Iranian women are famously assertive, opinionated. It's a striking difference from almost everywhere else in the region.
So why are we so friendly with the Saudis again?
REZAIAN: It's great question. It's a really good question.
YEGANEH SALEHI: And I'm happy that you asked that question.
BOURDAIN: Do you like it? Are you happy here?
REZAIAN: Look, I am at a point now after five years where I miss certain things about home. I miss my buddies. I miss burritos. I miss having certain beverages with my buddies and burritos. Certain types of establishments. But I love it. I love it and I hate it, you know. But it's home. It's become home.
BOURDAIN: Are you optimistic about the future?
YEGANEH SALEHI: Yeah. Especially, if there is no clear (inaudible) finally happens. Yeah. Very much, actually.
BOURDAIN: Despite the hopeful nature of our conversation, six weeks after the filming of this episode, Jason and Yeganeh were mysteriously arrested and detained by the police. Sadly in Iran, this sort of thing is not an isolated incident.
(on camera): Let's assume the worst. Let's assume that you cannot see any way to reconcile what you think of Iran with your own personal beliefs. You just generally don't approve.
REZAIAN: Yeah.
BOURDAIN: I think those are exactly the sort of places you should go.
REZAIAN: Totally.
BOURDAIN: See who we're talking about and where we're talking about here.
REZAIAN: I think it's almost un-American not to go to those places. You know?
BOURDAIN: I don't know that I can put it in any kind of perspective. I feel deeply conflicted. Deeply confusing, exhilarating, heartbreaking, beautiful place.
REZAIAN: Yeah. Exactly.
BOURDAIN: After ten weeks, Yeganeh was finally released. But as I read these lines, Jason remains a prisoner. His future, the reasons for their arrest, are still unknown.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[20:33:35]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [20:37:06]
BOURDAIN: I come out of 30 years of preparing food for other people in a restaurant situation. Most of those places had tablecloths. And I enjoy from time to time, of course, very much, eating in fancy restaurants.
That said, I'm happier experiencing food in a purely emotional way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUSTIN FORNAL, "BARON AMBROSIA": The Bronx, it's so multifaceted, but for some reason this is the first place I always take people. This just oozes and emanates kind of that flavor of the Bronx.
Cuchifrito itself is basically fried pig. The ears, the tongue, chopped up and deep fried.
BOURDAIN: So off-cut pig parts, deep fried. What's not to like about that? Is that the shank there.
FORNAL: Yes, the shoulder. We're going to get that in there.
BOURDAIN: Oh, yes.
FORNAL: Big piece of the skin, just chopped up.
BOURDAIN: So skin.
FORNAL: Skin, fat.
BOURDAIN: Skin and fat?
FORNAL: Yes. It's almost like a little meat candy bar.
BOURDAIN: That's amazing. Amazing. This is pretty much the center of the pork universe as I've ever seen it in New York. I don't any place porkier than what I'm looking at.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOURDAIN: You know, I love a mutant burger. I would prefer a mutant burger, in fact, than like a bad -- like a lackluster hotel burger. Every culture seems to have their own sort of strange, either cargo cult riff or just insane, drunk version of the burger. And, you know, I have a restless and curious mind. I would like to experience such things when possible.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOURDAIN: You know you want it. It's late. You've had a few. No, you had a lot. You want something greasy, savory, juicy and nasty.
An egg, a little runny please. Some kind of meat, like beef patty thing. Throw on your lettuce and tomato. Two sauces -- no idea what they are, and frankly don't care. Soy sauce I think too. Of course, because, yes. Layer it like the ruins of ancient Troy, egg on top of cheese on top of meat. Now get in my stomach now.
Mmm, sandwich is awesome.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Awesome good.
BOURDAIN: Good awesome. All my greasy meat dreams have come true, that's good.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOURDAIN: I'm happiest eating when I don't have to think about the technical aspects of the food. I don't want to be thinking about what the busboy may or may not be doing. I don't want to be listening to the little bell in the kitchen. I don't want to have to think about if the waiter is pouring his wine correctly. It takes me out of the moment.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOURDAIN: Say you're going to Zanzibar and people will tell you about the street food, it's pretty impressive.
Oh, yes, I would love some of that.
The bird is slathered with a mixture of garlic, lime, coriander,
[20:40:00] ginger, salt and pepper. Then, it's grilled and served either as a satay or whole pieces topped with Tamarind chili sauce.
Damn, that's good.
The famous Zanzibar pizza. Awesome.
Weird and wonderful.
Let me try some of the octopus. Octopus, chewy but tasty. Too spicy for you, man. No, believe me. Only one of us is going to be shitting like a mink (ph) tonight, and it's not going to be you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOURDAIN: I mean, I love hot, spicy stuff in a bowl, hopefully involving noodles. In the hierarchy of noodles, for me, the bumbaway (ph) hits the mountain top. That's it. That's as good as it gets. It's made well. It's got it all. It's perfect.
I like Ramen and I like pho, but higher - higher and closer to God is bumbaway.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN QUI DUC, AUTHOR/JOURNALIST: If I'm going to die, I'm going to go to prison, they give me a last meal, this will be it.
BOURDAIN (on camera): This will be it.
NGUYEN: This will be it.
BOURDAIN: Let's do it, man.
(voice-over): Here Kim Shao (ph) creates an elaborate broth of mixed bones scented with lemongrass, spice, and fermented shrimp paste. At the bottom, rice noodles garnished -- nay, heaped -- with tender slow- cooked beef shank, crab meat dumplings, pig's foot, and huyet, blood cake. Garnished with lime wedge, cilantro, green onions, chili sauce, shredded banana blossoms and mung bean sprouts, it's a wonder of flavor and texture. The greatest soup in the world.
How long does that broth have to simmer to get good?
NGUYEN: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
NGUYEN: An hour.
BOURDAIN: Wow, really? I would have guessed, like, 14 hours.
Look at that, man, that is just unbelievable.
The sauce. I want to see how much he put in there.
NGUYEN: You've got to make it look really red in there. It has to be blood red.
BOURDAIN: And the broth is wonderful. People are put on earth for various purposes, I was put on earth to do this. Eat noodles right here.
NGUYEN: When I was a kid, we used to tell each other, do not take a date to go out to eat this stuff, because if you start sweating, your hair will stick up.
BOURDAIN: Really? I would definitely bring a date to this, because if she doesn't like this, there's no hope of a relationship.
NGUYEN: Exactly.
BOURDAIN: If she said, "Oh, I don't know, there's, like, blood. There's icky stuff in there," that would be a relationship ender to me. I mean, I'm not kidding.
NGUYEN: I mean, here you are having it in a market like this. She makes this in a place like New York or Paris, it would be real cuisine.
BOURDAIN: It's just -- I mean, this is as sophisticated and complex a bowl of food as any French restaurant. It really is the -- just the top of the mountain.
I'm getting down to, like, the pepper residue at the bottom.
Nice burny feeling on my lips, flop sweat, check. Happy. So, we can pretty much cancel the rest of the show. I've achieved the -- my happy zone. It's really all downhill from here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[20:43:35]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:47:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Great. Act five. What are your feelings about your more personal episodes? The Massachusetts episode explored very happy times and very dark times in your life. What goes through your mind when you're watching that material?
BOURDAIN: Gee, I look at that show and I think, gee, what a downer! I wrote an editorial once. I was commenting on somebody else's drug addiction years ago. And I casually mentioned, well, I used to be a drug addict. And a family member, a distant family member, let's put it that way, called up really outraged. How can you let people know this? You can't let people know this! People will find out if you talk like that.
Well, yeah. I don't know. It just seems to me if you're going to have an opinion, if you yourself have a long and painful experience in that area, it's worthwhile mentioning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOURDAIN: If you put on Marvin Gaye right now, I'd burst into tears. What do you do? You're young, you go to the beach, you know, you get laid, and you get high.
It was here, all the way out at the tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown, Massachusetts, where the pilgrims first landed. And it was where I first landed.
1972, washed in a town with a headful of orange sunshine and a few friends. Provincetown, a wonderland of tolerance, long time tradition of accepting artists, writers, the badly behaved, the gay, the different. It was paradise.
The joy that can only come with an absolute certainty that you're invincible, that none of the choices that you make will have any repercussions or any effect on your later life. We didn't think about those things. I don't even know what I thought I was going to be. At that point, I certainly didn't think I was going to be a cook. I don't know what I thought I was going to be. I was just, you know, hanging out in a beautiful place.
A golden time. I look back on those fuzzy memories, and they seem golden anyway. Oh, there's John Waters. First love. And there's me. You know, I was an angry young man. What the hell was so I angry about? It came as a rude surprise to me when I turned 30 because I always sort of figured I'd be dead by then.
I was still quite some time away from my first bag of heroin, but, you know, in a lot of ways, it was a foregone conclusion. My whole life was sort of leading up to that point. To my first bag of dope.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BOURDAIN: My drug addiction, I hope, is not the most interesting part of my life. In fact, I don't find it particularly interesting at all, but there it is.
[20:50:00] It is part of my life. It changed me, and it allowed me to, I think, better understand some things about life, about myself and what I'm capable of doing, And it's given me a certain, on one hand, empathy for some people, and a complete lack of empathy for others. That's something I felt I should talk about.
I see this particular moment as a -- as a clear example of how we might change our drug policies, and I thought you should know why it matters to me. It's that simple.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Given the opiate, heroin epidemic in our community, we'd like to start the conversation. Just kind of sharing with one another, you know, what happened at that point of our life, what that was like.
BOURDAIN: The first time I shot up, I looked at myself in the mirror with a big grin. You know, something was missing in me, whether it was a self-image situation, whether it was a character flaw. I came from a stable family, the suburbs, you know, I had a lot of advantages. There was some dark genie inside me that I very much hesitate to call a disease, that led me to dope. You know, I didn't have anyone else who could have talked me out of what I was doing, but intervention wouldn't have worked. I didn't have a child. I have a seven-year-old daughter now, who I never would have had. I never would have thought -- I looked in a mirror and I saw somebody worth saving, or that I wanted to at least try real hard and save.
You know, anybody can find themselves very easily in this situation, and, you know, I look back on that and I think about what I'll tell my daughter, you know. You know, that was daddy. Ain't no doubt about it, but I hope I'll be able to say that was daddy then, this is daddy now, that I'm alive and living in hope. Thank you, guys.
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[20:52:19]
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[20:56:06]
BOURDAIN: Where am I going this season? I forget. Where have I been? I mean - I'm in Ethiopia now. God, where else have I been? It's all a blur.
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BOURDAIN: Korea, land of enchantment, land of contrast, land of drinking a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're really Korean, you can drink well and recover.
BOURDAIN: Well, we're going to find out, aren't we?
CROWD: Whoa! Whoa!
BOURDAIN: I do not love myself this morning.
Dried squid, M&Ms, and mixing your alcohols?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BOURDAIN: Problem for me is I'm generally older than everybody in this country. My glass is always full.
(INAUDIBLE) is pretty awesome!
I think a culture with liberal attitudes towards Spam is a good and great culture.
Yeah, shake that moneymaker, girl. Hey, wait a minute. That's me.
Korea, as I know it, anticipates the future very, very well. Did I mention the drinking?
We're going to show these sniveling American punks we have what it takes. Tomorrow be there or be square. That's good.
The Scottish Highlands. One of the most savagely beautiful places on earth. You get to wear cool clothes, shoot animals, drag them back. Cook them and eat them. Problem is there's hills. After that hill, there's another hill and then another one and another one and another one.
Eight months ago, no way I would have made this walk. You would have been carrying me home by now. The Scottish Highlands for me the most physically challenging episode of my life. It hurts. It hurts a lot.
So here we are again. Miami. I keep doing the same things again and again every time I come here. I go to the Club Deuce. It's always a good time to come here. Stay in the usual hotel. If there's sun, I try to lay out. Maybe splash around in the water. I'm not that creative actually, but let's face it. What's interesting about Miami?
Is Miami America?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
BOURDAIN: Is it a state? Is it the South? I'm sure all the things I love about Miami kind of come down on the no side. I love Miami for the same reason I love the places I love most around the world. It's the mix here. It's big, messy, dysfunctional, hellbroth of people from all over the world that make it so awesome and a place I want to keep coming back to. Also the food's good. (END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any closing thoughts, feelings, emotions, you'd like to share?
BOURDAIN: This is not a food show, though there is food. This is not a travel show, though there is travel. I don't know what it is. All I'm going to say is, Bill O'Reilly, if you'd like to experience a report from a real combat zone, you can come on over to Henzo Gracie Academy any day I'm in New York. You can get your ass kicked by a 59- year-old man.
That will be (SINGING) - danger zone!
