- 13 hours ago
This introspective episode combines interesting clips from previous episodes with behind-the-scenes footage of Tony and interviews with some of those he worked with, including the couple who had to flee Iran after helping him film there.
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00:00How do we make a show that looks completely different than the show we did last week?
00:14It's nice if you really, really liked last week's show, but I'm not going to do that one again.
00:21Certainty is my enemy. You know, I'm all about doubt.
00:23I started doing this late in life. I can't say that I'm evolving or maturing or doing anything differently.
00:36Same dick I was 13 years ago.
00:38I took a walk through this beautiful world.
00:45Felt the cool rain on my shoulder.
00:49Just bouncing in here in this beautiful world.
00:57I felt the rain getting colder.
01:02Sha-la-la-la-la-la.
01:06Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la.
01:09Sha-la-la-la-la-la.
01:12Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la.
01:15What do you think he did, I mean, in terms of the impact on television?
01:23Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
01:27I think that prior to Tony on television, food TV, such as it was, and travel TV, such as it was, were both, essentially, service-based.
01:36It was very top-down.
01:38There's an expert showing you what to do when you're in an unfamiliar situation.
01:42I don't know how to make this. Here's how you do it.
01:44I don't know what to do when I'm there.
01:45Here's what you do. Here's what everybody does.
01:48What I wished for often was specificity.
01:51Take me to a place. Show me that real place.
01:53Show me what motivates people.
02:03People traveled with him.
02:05You were sitting in your couch in your home,
02:07but you were with him wherever he went.
02:09He would be overseas in the Far East one week
02:12and then maybe in the Bronx, you know, the next week,
02:15or in Miami the next week.
02:17He wasn't worried about protecting a boxed image
02:21of who he was, right?
02:23It's like, I'm going to put myself in this experience
02:25and it's going to be what it is.
02:27I perceived him a little bit like Indiana Jones.
02:30He could be on the road in a T-shirt, having a beer,
02:34or in a kitchen talking to the line cooks,
02:37and then he could come home and put on a suit and tie
02:39and be a man about town,
02:41giving a tribute speech to his publisher.
02:43You know, he cleaned up good,
02:45but he was also really comfortable out in the wild.
02:48You see a man step foot into the world,
02:51kind of shaky at first, kind of unsure,
02:53increasing in confidence in who he is
02:56as he's buffeted by a larger world full of doubt,
03:00full of ambiguity, full of questions,
03:01full of unknowable things, and react accordingly.
03:04I would describe myself as a lucky cook
03:18who gets to tell stories.
03:19I think any other...
03:21I'm certainly not a journalist.
03:24I'm not a chef anymore.
03:26I'd like to flatter myself by saying I'm an essayist,
03:30but I'm a storyteller.
03:32I see stuff.
03:35I talk about that.
03:38I talk about how it made me feel at the time.
03:40I think that's the best...
03:41If you can do that, honestly,
03:42that's about the best you could hope for, I think.
03:45I just...
03:50I don't feel I'm capable of going back
03:52and having an intelligent conversation about my experience.
03:54I feel all messed up emotionally.
03:56But I think this means that you truly came here
03:58because when you get close to something,
04:00you understand that you don't understand what's going on.
04:02When you're far from it,
04:03it seems kind of solvable and simple.
04:05When you go into it, you say,
04:06hey, it doesn't make any sense, you know?
04:08So it means that you've really been here.
04:10It is post-apocalyptic.
04:13It's like a science fiction film.
04:15What the hell happened here?
04:17Well, it is post-apocalyptic,
04:19except for the fact there's 700,000 people living here.
04:25So the conventional wisdom seems to be...
04:27He's trying to get out of Camden.
04:28Why are you still here?
04:29Because the need is in Camden.
04:31If every decent person in Camden leaves Camden,
04:33then we never have a chance.
04:35You're going to stay?
04:36I'm not going anywhere.
04:37My pop-pop didn't leave.
04:38I'm not leaving.
04:39I'm not leaving.
04:40This is the only reason they're gone.
04:45This is the only reason for,
04:47just to protect my children and my wife.
04:4920 years, 30 years.
04:50Yeah.
04:51Will things be better?
04:52Not 20 years, I'm 30 years.
04:54I hope now, next year, things go better.
04:57To me, I really feel a strong need to forgive, and then forget, and then move on.
05:14You used to be a tour guide.
05:15Yes.
05:16I know you have to bring people over to the American War Museum.
05:20In your lifetime, is there going to be a time when that's not going to have to be a stop?
05:27No one will remember.
05:28No one will remember.
05:29Or should people always remember?
05:30I think it's good to remember.
05:33And I think it's good that...
05:35It's important that we know about history.
05:44And to make sure it's never happened again.
05:53In conversations that I had with them, being said, look, I'm not a journalist.
05:58And it's funny because, you know, I am a journalist and I work with and live with another journalist
06:06and spend a lot of time with journalists.
06:08And going and talking to people, telling stories, hearing people's stories that illuminate a place.
06:17If that's not journalism, I'm really not sure what is.
06:21How often do you get to sneak out for a beer?
06:25Very rarely.
06:26First of all, I don't get to sneak out, period.
06:32The beauty of TV to me is that it is a cumulative medium.
06:35It's a serialized storytelling.
06:37Every emotional moment we get to in season four of a show is earned.
06:42It's built on the back of everything that came before.
06:45There was a comfort level there.
06:46We knew each other.
06:47He knew he could push us.
06:49We knew that he would try to push us.
06:51People felt like they knew him.
06:53They felt like if they met him, he would look out for them.
06:58That sounds weird, but I think that's how people felt about him.
07:01They felt like he was in their corner.
07:02They felt like he was a force for good.
07:04They felt like his heart was in the right place.
07:06They felt like he was willing to stick his neck out for people.
07:08He was honest about anything he saw, not to censor himself, whether positive or negative.
07:16I think that's very important.
07:17And that's why many people connect because they see he's talking about, like, even the words that he threw.
07:24Sometimes I was like, Jason, can he say that on TV?
07:27He was like, Tony can.
07:29What is the perception of Mr. Putin these days? After 14 years, he's in power.
07:35My perception?
07:36He's personal.
07:37Do you really want to hear it?
07:40I'm not sure, but let's see.
07:42A former mid-level manager in a large corporation, short, I think that's very important, short, who has found himself master of the universe.
07:52And like a lot of short people, if you piss them off, bad things happen to you.
07:58He likes to take his shirt off a lot.
08:02Let's be serious.
08:03He strikes me as a businessman.
08:06He is.
08:07A businessman with an ego.
08:08Okay, so he's like Donald Trump, but shorter.
08:11Increasingly, the show became about the world around him and the frame outside of where he was standing.
08:17And I think he really understood the real power in his position was getting the cameras to the place in the first place so that he could turn them around.
08:25So that he could put the people who otherwise would never be on camera, on camera.
08:29So he could put the cultures and the traditions that have never been seen before, on camera.
08:33So he could show us something, not just show us him seeing something.
08:41You have a very highly educated public here.
08:43One of the most literate nations on earth.
08:45That's funny.
08:46We are highly educated, as you said, but we are behind concerning internet and all that stuff.
08:52Most of us have access to only the official media, the official newspaper.
08:58If internet comes, and I think the government is trying to delay it, if that comes, many things will change.
09:06People will have access to different points of view.
09:09And I don't think our government wants that.
09:15A lot of things happen in a lot of different parts of the country.
09:18Yeah.
09:19Sort of simultaneously.
09:20Kind of amazing that all of these people came together very fast.
09:23How did it happen?
09:24Yeah.
09:25Easy.
09:26Twitter.
09:27Twitter.
09:28Yeah.
09:29It was really like that.
09:30Yes.
09:31We sent so much information to nature via Twitter.
09:32Did anyone think it was possible that in their lifetime they were going to see the end of this son of a bitch?
09:35Most people are telling me they never dreamed.
09:37I don't know if you can call them dreams, hopes, wishes.
09:40It was just something in the sky.
09:43Something I look at every night.
09:45Right.
09:46But when I hit that point and got into Masrata and stood on Qaddafi's body, any dream will come true.
09:53This is a big oil rich country.
09:56Why does it look like Dubai?
09:58Well, I hate to be on this show and talk Nigeria down.
10:02You know what it is?
10:03Because you hear all these things all the time.
10:06So, yes, there is corruption.
10:08It is about corruption.
10:09It's about the fact that the resources that are supposed to be used for people aren't being used for people.
10:16Years of military rule meant that people were brutalized.
10:20There was a fight against thinking.
10:23Imagine if they were all well educated, if they had access to finance.
10:28I believe if you're a black person, whether you're African or you're African American,
10:33you're never going to get any respect unless there's a successful black nation.
10:39Even if you've been traveling nearly nonstop for 15 years like me, there are places that snap you out of your comfortable worldview,
10:49take your assumptions and your prejudices and turn them upside down.
10:54They lead you to believe that maybe there is hope in the world.
11:00I eat a lot of meals.
11:09I'm told about 400 per shooting season off and on camera.
11:15Many of those meals are good.
11:18Many are really bad.
11:21Many are memorable for reasons good and bad.
11:27Few are epic, truly epic.
11:32But they do come along probably with more regularity in my life than yours.
11:37And I will gloat about that on Instagram whenever possible, by the way.
11:45Tony, get closer.
11:47You were totally sending me every one of those pictures, by the way.
11:50Wow, look at that.
11:51This style of dish goes back long before cameras, but it's perfect.
11:55Is there a more perfect assortment of colors and textures?
11:59Everything great about cooking is encapsulated in this dish.
12:03Often the ugliest dishes are the ones that are the most hauntingly delicious.
12:07Raw blood soup.
12:09I'm eating out of an open wound.
12:11Whole live frogs with garlic.
12:13That's one of the many stomach of the cow.
12:16Alternately unrecognizable, squashingly hot for both.
12:21I'll tell you, those are some of the best greens I've ever had, no doubt about it.
12:24This dude's been everywhere.
12:25Come on!
12:26They're not just delicious, they're luxurious.
12:28What can you do to make it better?
12:30It's perfect.
12:31There's no improving this dish.
12:32No.
12:33Now, nobody talks.
12:34Only we eat.
12:35Right.
12:36Totally silent.
12:38You put far more on the table than anyone could conceivably eat.
12:43If you don't like your guests, you don't put anything.
12:46Look, I've eaten a lot of great restaurants around the world, and it was still a little
12:51part of me that was saying, you know, this is going to be bullshit.
12:56The guy is out in the field, yanking weeds out of the ground.
13:00I really didn't expect it to be as good as it was.
13:03It was delicious.
13:04It was amazingly delicious for me.
13:06What's fascinating to me, as somebody who first knew about Tony when his first successful
13:11book, Kitchen Confidential, came out, is I've always thought of him as a chef, even though
13:16it had been years since he had been a practicing chef.
13:18You know, Kitchen Confidential, what was the title, the subtitle?
13:21Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly?
13:23I mean, underbelly's a little bit of a dark word, but that's sort of what his shows were.
13:28He gave you the full 360 experience of this stuff.
13:31What was its history?
13:32What went into making it?
13:33What made it great?
13:34And his descriptive powers were so great that even though you, as a viewer, this is the
13:39great flaw, I think, in any food television, can't taste what you're watching, he could
13:45convey what it tasted like, or smelled like, or what it evoked in him.
13:50And that, I think, was kind of the magic of it.
13:53It was sweet, sweet memories of this stegosaurus-sized shank of cured pork, boiled and boiled until
13:59it literally falls away from the bones, steaming and moist.
14:02A symphony of meat and gelatin and good, good stuff.
14:07God is hiding in there, somewhere.
14:12Some things just shouldn't change.
14:15I come here to feed my soul.
14:17It's the antidote to every other place.
14:21Roast bone marrow with parsley and caper salad.
14:25Yes.
14:26It's a simple good thing, but it's one of the most influential dishes, like, in the last
14:3120 years.
14:32As I become older, I've noticed the food that I yearn for is food that I react to in an entirely
14:37emotional way.
14:41Oh, man.
14:44Wow.
14:45Now, is it an appropriate way to attack this?
14:47Does one go straight in or does one go at it from an angle?
14:49It depends what kind of man you are.
14:52If you're a coward, you would go from the corner.
14:54From the corner.
14:55Well, I'm a manly man.
14:56So you go in the middle.
14:57All right.
14:58For someone who does what I do, write about chefs, for people who are chefs, I think Tony
15:04was like as cool as they came.
15:06Right?
15:07Everyone wanted to be.
15:08It was that classic line.
15:09Everybody wants to be him.
15:10He was a cool guy.
15:11He could write.
15:12He was natural on television.
15:13The chef's swagger.
15:15That's Tony.
15:16I mean, that started in some ways with Tony or he epitomized that.
15:19Confident, smart, super computer brain that could spit out these incredible witty things.
15:27But he would go to these places and he would evidence, I think, an incredible humility.
15:33He was genuinely curious.
15:36He wasn't trying to teach them.
15:38He wasn't trying to show off.
15:40How long does that broth have to simmer to get good?
15:43It's an hour.
15:44Whoa, really?
15:45I would have guessed like 14 hours.
15:48I want to see how much you put in there.
15:51You got to make it look really red in there.
15:54That should be blood red.
15:56Nice burning feeling.
15:57I'm on my lips.
15:58Flop sweat.
15:59Happy.
16:00People are put on earth for various purposes.
16:02I was put on earth to do this.
16:04Eat noodles right here.
16:07At the end of a long night, decisions good and bad, friends old and new.
16:13A night spent playing or a night spent working.
16:16All across the world, wherever cooks stumble out of work late, there's a place like this.
16:22Gentlemen.
16:23Hey, Tahir.
16:24How are you?
16:25Nice to see you.
16:26Nice to see you.
16:27What's up?
16:28It's a city that never sleeps.
16:2924-hour mocha tall, right?
16:31This place is very democratic because, like, everybody comes.
16:34Late at night, taxi drivers, hookers, and cooks.
16:39Yeah, why is it that hookers and cooks always, like, are welcome at the same place?
16:44You know, with the same social standard.
16:47I'm ready, man.
16:48I am hungry.
16:49I had nothing to eat all day.
16:50Yeah?
16:51I'm starving.
16:52I think Tony's appreciation for sort of the rank and file members of a kitchen team
17:02was always there.
17:04It was something that I think he felt very profoundly.
17:07I think what he took from that profession was a real curiosity and a sincere love of food.
17:17You know, somebody once said to me, great food is an adventure.
17:21And I think that's where the beginnings of what he transitioned into came from.
17:27I mean, if you don't like food, if you're not interested in food, it's really a problem.
17:35It's a relationship non-starter.
17:37It's like someone saying, I don't like music.
17:39You know, conversation's kind of over.
17:42But, I mean, I'll always look at the world from that.
17:46I mean, all my values, every important skill, any good things about my character, any good characteristics I have,
17:56all the important lessons of my life I learned as a dishwasher or as a cook.
18:01And I'm always going to look at the world through that prism.
18:05A few years back I got the words, I am certain of nothing tattooed on my arm.
18:19It's what makes travel what it is.
18:22An endless learning curve.
18:25Well, that's a popular metaphor for India, Pakistanis twins separated at birth.
18:30They were never twins.
18:31I mean, it was one country, you can say dismembered.
18:34Right.
18:35If you cut a body in two, they're not going to become twins.
18:37The joy of being wrong, of being confused.
18:41Critics of the government, critics of Putin, bad things seem to happen to them.
18:45Yes.
18:46Unfortunately, existing power represent, let I say, Russia of 19th century.
18:52You could kill a journalist and get away with it.
18:56Why are you still here?
18:57It's my choice.
18:58My choice is fight.
19:00I really believe that good journalists can change the world.
19:06At first, you see what you see in so many places.
19:10Busy markets.
19:13The noisy streets.
19:15But look just a little bit longer.
19:17A little bit deeper.
19:19And you'll see it's not so different here.
19:24From anywhere, really.
19:32It's incredible thinking back how fearless he was.
19:35You know, he went to CNN, which is a network that travels all over the world and goes into war zones.
19:40And he saw that, I think, as a challenge.
19:42And he was not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions, go to uncomfortable places, poke at uncomfortable scabs.
19:49That's kind of amazing, you know, to, as you grow more comfortable in station,
19:55to become more eager to engage in uncomfortable truths and uncomfortable situations and uncomfortable questions.
20:02You would think it would go in the opposite direction.
20:05But with Tony, it never did.
20:09Iran.
20:10Finally.
20:11I've been trying to get in this country five years now.
20:15It's been the big blank spot on my things to do list.
20:20Iran I've seen on TV and read about in the papers.
20:39It's a much bigger picture.
20:42Let's put it this way.
20:43It's complicated.
20:44And I think it's going to shock the hell out of you.
20:49People couldn't believe it.
21:08Iranians in Iran and Iranian Americans were genuinely really happy and appreciative that he would come and do this show there.
21:16In a place like Iran, where visitors from abroad, and especially visitors from America, are few and far between, it matters.
21:26As print journalists, our job's difficult, but it's also kind of easy, because there's so much to write about.
21:32You 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.
21:41When you walk down the street, you see a different side of things.
21:45People are proud.
21:46The culture is vibrant.
21:48People have a lot to say.
21:50Jason Rezaian is the Washington Post correspondent for Iran.
21:54Yeganeh, his wife, and a fellow journalist, works for the UAE-based newspaper The National.
22:00Jason is Iranian American.
22:02Yeganeh is a full Iranian citizen.
22:05This is their city, Tehran.
22:08The official attitude towards fun in general seems to be ever-shifting.
22:13Is fun even a good idea?
22:16There's a lot of security.
22:18There's lots of rules.
22:19There are a lot of people in place to make sure you do the right thing and not do the wrong thing.
22:27But a lot of push and pull, a lot of give and take.
22:32When I first started coming here, you wouldn't hear pop music in a restaurant.
22:37It's everywhere.
22:38No, it's everywhere.
22:39We have police.
22:40They arrest girls or women for having bad hijab or not being covered enough.
22:46But it's not that we live with the police in our head, you know?
22:50I brought up the experience of being on a show just a few weeks previous to our arrest.
23:17And I said, look, you know, this thing is coming.
23:20It's not going to play out well for you.
23:22At some point towards the end, my interrogator brought a picture.
23:26Who is this guy?
23:27Is he your dad or his dad?
23:29I was like, no.
23:30You really don't know him?
23:32And he was like, no.
23:33I said, well, this is a very famous guy.
23:36If you're interested in traveling, food, da-da-da, you should watch his show.
23:41But he told me, there was nothing in your conversation with him about food.
23:45He's like, no, we discussed a little bit of rice and fish and things like that.
23:49But it was mostly cultural topics, social life, things like that.
23:55And he said, so it's going to be another punch in our face.
24:00I was like, no, no, no.
24:01It's not going to be like that.
24:02He's not that kind of guy.
24:03He's going to tell the truth no matter what it is.
24:07And interestingly, I remember I told him about one discussion we had with Tony,
24:12because at some point we talked about the situation of women in Iran.
24:16Well, you know, one of the first things that people will say when you say, well, I'm going to Iran.
24:23Oh, yeah.
24:24But don't they make women do this, this, this, this?
24:26Yeah.
24:27Actually, not so much.
24:30Not as much as our friends.
24:32Yeah.
24:33Compare and contrast, women aren't allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.
24:37That's right.
24:38Or vote.
24:39Or vote.
24:40You can drive.
24:41You can vote.
24:42Yeah, of course.
24:43Can you own a business?
24:44Of course.
24:45My sister is an accountant.
24:46She has her own company.
24:48Girls are allowed to do almost everything, except we want to go and watch football, which is like…
24:55Can't go watch football.
24:56We cannot.
24:57Women's issues are often at the spear point of change or possible change here.
25:02On one hand, prevailing conservative attitudes demand certain things.
25:07On the other hand, Iranian women are famously assertive, opinionated.
25:12It's a striking difference from almost everywhere else in the region.
25:15So why are we so friendly with the Saudis again?
25:18It's a great question.
25:19It's a really good question.
25:21I'm happy that you asked that question.
25:29And as soon as I told the story to my interrogator, I was like, okay, sounds like a good conversation.
25:36So he likes us.
25:40He likes the Iranians.
25:41He likes the Arab.
25:43So that was kind of convincing.
25:45I was able to cool things off.
25:52Do you like it?
25:53Are you happy here?
25:54Look, I love it and I hate it, you know?
25:58But it's home.
25:59It's become home.
26:00Are you optimistic about the future?
26:03The future?
26:04Yeah, especially if this nuclear deal finally happens.
26:08Yeah.
26:10Very much, actually.
26:12Let's assume the worst.
26:13Let's assume that you cannot see any way to reconcile what you think of Iran with your own personal beliefs.
26:21You just generally don't approve.
26:23Yeah.
26:24I think those are exactly the sort of places you should go.
26:26Totally.
26:27See who we're talking about and where we're talking about here.
26:30I think it's almost un-American not to go to those places, you know?
26:37I don't know that I can put it in any kind of perspective.
26:39I feel deeply conflicted.
26:41Deeply confusing, exhilarating, heartbreaking, beautiful place.
26:46Yeah, exactly.
26:47When 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.
27:13So 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 flush toilets that even the most skeptical and cranky person would find curiously pleasing.
27:32I never had any dreams of growing up in a socialist wonderland.
27:37Like when I was a brief period of where I was a hippie, the idea of living in a commune, not attractive to me.
27:42Not attractive to me.
27:43I was born in a communal flat with three other parents, sharing one john, one kitchen.
27:48No way.
27:49They would feed me when I had no food.
27:50No way.
27:51I share my toilet with no man.
27:52Well, I'm looking forward to the week.
28:03Yeah.
28:04This is a low impact show.
28:07What is a low impact show?
28:09It means I'm not, you know, paddling up river.
28:12It means I get a flush toilet, eating well constantly.
28:17You like luxury.
28:19I do.
28:20Look, I do.
28:21I like a fluffy hotel towel.
28:22I like a bidet.
28:24Look, I like warm jets of water squirting up my ass.
28:27I mean, who doesn't?
28:28I'd say I feel cleansed, but that could be the diarrhea.
28:40I really don't understand this whole purging thing.
28:42People are like, no, is it purging cleansing?
28:44Juice cleanses?
28:45Right?
28:46Just travel with this show for a while.
28:47I'll tell you.
28:48I'm feeling pretty good with my crew.
28:50Clean as a whistle.
28:51You could pour mineral water through them and it would come out.
28:55Crystal clear.
28:56That's no fault of the fine cuisine here, by the way.
28:58I'm convinced it was the shiny ham at the hotel buffet.
29:02You warn them.
29:03You warn them.
29:04You warn them.
29:05Do they listen?
29:06I made a potentially lethal mistake this morning.
29:09I did something I never knew.
29:11What's here?
29:12I ate a Western breakfast at the hotel.
29:14I'm feeling it already.
29:18How do you do this and be a good person?
29:20I don't think you can.
29:21Like, if you wanted to do this regularly for the rest of your life,
29:25I would like to spend three months out of the year in a hammock,
29:29looking out at the Caribbean,
29:31in a secluded beach like this.
29:34You'd have to do bad things to do this, right?
29:37Do you feel guilty eating this well?
29:39I do.
29:40You do?
29:41I do.
29:42I'm feeling guilty now, but it will pass.
29:44This guilt keeps coming back.
29:46I do.
29:47You keep bringing up the guilt.
29:48You're right.
29:49I feel guilty.
29:50Then don't do these shadows.
29:53What are you doing here if you feel so guilty about it?
29:55I don't.
29:56I don't.
29:57I feel guilty about not feeling guilty.
29:58That's more to the point.
30:00Now you're starting to be honest with yourself.
30:02Right.
30:03If you have a film crew and a network willing to send you places,
30:07chase the things that interest you.
30:09If you're going to go to Japan for the 19th time on someone else's dime,
30:13make it about tentacle porn.
30:14That's cool.
30:15Teach us something we don't know or haven't seen before.
30:18Because why not?
30:19Contrary to what some critics may say,
30:21it's important to me that we saw him work the system sometimes.
30:25You couldn't actually show humans penetrating each other.
30:30So I invented tentacles to be evasive about the law.
30:34So how big is the sadomasochistic community?
30:39How many people are active participants?
30:42I would never do that as a responsible journalist,
30:44but I'm interested in investigating.
30:49Did you smoke it?
30:50Yeah.
30:51I can't compare and contrast because I've been trying them all one after the other.
30:55I'm trying to be respectful of a five-century religious tradition here.
31:01Oh, I'm not sure about the teeth.
31:04This is the necklace ones.
31:06Oh.
31:07I'm trying to think of a circumstance that you could wear that around your neck.
31:11Oh, jeez, that's a cock-a-lanch.
31:14Oh, wait!
31:15Oh, wait!
31:16Oh, wait!
31:17Oh, wait!
31:18No!
31:19No!
31:20No, it can't be over!
31:21Not yet!
31:22No!
31:23There was kind of a gleeful juvenilia to Tony that was appealing on some level,
31:29no no it can't be over not yet no there's kind of a gleeful juvenalia to tony that was appealing
31:37on some level but a little bit tiresome after a while there were stories that he went back to
31:41again and again there were punching bags that he just could not resist punching again and again
31:46but i think every one of us was willing to put up with them because one of the pleasures of
31:50watching the show over time and watching him over time was watching the punching bags transform into
31:55people and watching those people turn into friends one of the more fascinating aspects was the
32:01friendship with eric repair there was a feeling of inferiority stop trying to suck up the teacher i
32:07saw that apple publisher you basically just rip your ideas off of small businessmen got that right
32:16and in fact repairs turns out to be this goofy kind guy who doesn't mind being the butt of it
32:23literally everyone's jokes who saw that coming do you have a pizza experience never did a pizza in
32:29my life does uh you know this look at this line i'm digging around with your insane perfectionism
32:35he's new he's new i i i i can't do anything with him you thought you were going to the moon or what
32:40we bitch in the nostrils yeah no man you'll look you'll look cool you wish me uh bad luck no i don't
32:46i just think you should have proper footwear man your ability to drink leads to a number of assumptions
32:51about you you know your general manliness penis size your worth as a human being i'm comfortable with
32:58my jacket oh yeah blame your jacket there you go oh usa
33:19i never seen him so happy
33:27these were men who loved each other and we got to see that on television and they weren't really shy
33:32about hiding that it was goofy and he made repair eat szechuan chilis until he wept but it all came
33:38from a place of of love and affection that is rarely captured on television and honestly will be very
33:44very very hard to replace whoa i'm telling you i feel a lot more comfortable if you hadn't had two
33:49portions of eggs this is amazing come in my selfie
33:59oh it's a video
34:01eric's a buddhist with really good solid like you know values like i've never seen him wish ill on
34:07another human being he really does live up to his buddhist faith it's rather incredible that he could be
34:13friends with me that i know it's caused him problems uh at times everyone who appears on television
34:18should be so lucky as to have uh uh an eric repair in their life and um thank god he's got a sense of
34:26humor because when he makes television with me he's always going to need it
34:30i think that tony never shied away from the fact that he was changing the narrative he was changing
34:46the story he was bending reality this was his experience in the world that he never shied away
34:52from suggesting that people go out and find their own experience
35:01the beauty of making so many episodes and traveling so many times and revisiting so many times
35:06is that there's always more to see there is a large story and then there's a small story and if you peek
35:12inside that small story there are a thousand more stories and his willingness to let those stories be
35:16told and find the right storytellers for each one of those was incredibly impactful
35:34on the one hand there this perfect expression of a guy who was an esthete who had very strong taste
35:55he had very good taste in a lot of things not just food and felt very strongly clearly about expressing
36:01that in the show there was no bullshit if he wanted a certain type of music he would get that musician
36:05to play that music if he wanted stylistic reference i'm sure he would make everyone on the crew watch
36:09100 movies until you got it exactly right that has value in and of itself but what he did with that
36:15reference was purposeful what he taught me about working class cinema and about the absolutely
36:21inextricable connection between an artist and a place that's much more meaningful than just dropping a
36:27lose reference it's a beautiful package to trojan horse some other thought inside of it
36:57so
36:59so
37:01so
37:03so
37:05so
37:07so
37:09so
37:11so
37:43After all these years of traveling, when you look back, what resonates?
38:06I see a lot of poverty. I see a lot of cruelty.
38:09I have reason to feel angry or frustrated or heartbroken frequently.
38:15It angers me to see a place like, you know, Detroit, a great American city that's failed or been allowed to fail.
38:22To see New Orleans post-Katrina makes me angry.
38:28To see Camden, New Jersey in my own state that I grew up in, it makes me angry.
38:34Yes, there's a lot of scary, ugly stuff in it.
38:38But there is much more, I still think, beauty and kindness and humor.
38:48And people doing the best they can in often very, very difficult situations.
38:52It is a magnificent planet filled with fascinating and, more often than not, beautiful people.
39:04Who's that sandwich?
39:05I've been thinking about this a lot recently.
39:08This is a man who traveled the world, you know, what was it, 200 days a year more.
39:14At this point, every place he went, he had dozens, if not hundreds of people who considered him a good friend.
39:20And he made every single person feel like he was their friend for the time that they were together.
39:25That boggles my mind.
39:29We get recognized from being on that show.
39:32And when I say restaurants, I'm talking about, you know, greasy spoons, all the way up to fine dining establishments.
39:39People come over to the table and they say, did we see you on Tom Bourdain's show?
39:43Yeah, that was us.
39:45Sometimes we don't have to pay for the meals.
39:47There's a million of these Tony Bourdain stories out there of just how decent and nice and accessible he was to everybody.
39:55But the idea that he could feel self-conscious or he could feel humbled or he could feel unable to form a sentence, again, I think that's how most people felt around him.
40:07And I think that, you know, Iranians have that experience of feeling like, hey, this guy saw the value in us.
40:16Obviously, people in Africa have that experience.
40:20People that work in kitchens have that experience.
40:23I don't know how he did it.
40:24I will never know how he did it.
40:26The ability to walk into any room in any country in the world and appear to be at ease, at least at ease without overcompensation, without overconfidence, and to make others feel at ease.
40:40To be able to break bread with anybody, to have a toast with almost anybody.
40:46The victory ruined.
40:48Victory in our time.
40:49Uh-oh.
40:50Don't be afraid.
40:51Don't be afraid.
40:52My first turbo.
40:53Cheers.
40:56Oh, yeah.
40:57Just like old times.
40:58I think that's probably the best way to understand Tony Bourdain on television is that he was nominally the host of these shows, but he really was the ultimate guest.
41:06Just because I'm a bit of a dick, I have to ask this question.
41:12Oh, okay.
41:16Well, I hope the food's good at this thing.
41:18It's so important to Tony's mission to remember that to eat the food of the world, you don't have to have a lot of frequent flyer miles.
41:26You don't have to have a lot of money.
41:28Tony's part of history.
41:30Everywhere's history.
41:32Every nation's history.
41:33The excess of evil.
41:35We're not the excess of evil.
41:36No, just normal evil like everybody else.
41:40You're a guy who had various points in life, has pretty much, one way or the other, been able to have a lot of things that ordinary people would never have.
41:50You've had many, many adventures.
41:52I know.
41:52Given that, what thrills you?
41:55The nicest stuff right now is, it's just very embarrassing, but it's really embarrassing.
42:03Being loved and actually appreciating the people that are giving that to me.
42:13And I guess that's what we all want as human beings, isn't it?
42:16To be loved, to be cherished.
42:19This is Anthony Bourdain, CNN.
42:22Good night and eat more spam.
42:23Good night and eat more spam.
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