Anthony Bourdain

LIBYA

I’ve made a lot of hours of television over the years, but I think I’m proudest of Sunday’s Libya episode. I believe it is the best piece of work I’ve ever been part of. Some of that pride comes from recalling how difficult it was. My crew and I are not exactly seasoned veterans when it comes to shooting in “conflict zones”. We had to adapt to a whole new style of shooting—where prior preparation, instead of being a religion—became a security risk. Destinations couldn’t/shouldn’t—to the greatest extent possible, know we were coming. We had to learn to keep moving, spending only a short period at each location before moving on. We changed hotels frequently, spent as little time as possible milling about between vehicle and destination, refrained from social media, rarely went out for dinner off-camera.

Whether any of this was “necessary” is beside the point. Libya is a place where there is every likelyhood that everywhere you go and with everyone you meet, you will be greeted warmly, treated generously, welcomed with a smile or a thumbs up. It is also a place where very bad things happen to nice people—where things can go very, very wrong in a heartbeat.

While we were there, the close associate of one of our interview subjects was kidnapped. In Misrata, a popular elected official was assassinated with a silenced pistol. In Benghazi, the British Embassy was telling its citizens to leave. Generally speaking, highly trained security dudes do not want to even consider their idiotic on-camera “talent” charges anywhere near weapons—much less imagine the possibility of their operating one. During one tense moment, I was blithely reminded that “selector is on the left, clip release on the right. Extra clips in the seat back—and above you.”

It was not uncommon for my crew and I to be roused by our security late at night, told to pack our bags, grab our passports, get ready to head for the airport. These incidents were usually followed by group discussions—borderline arguments, really—where we would debate the issue of “stay or go”. I am very, very grateful to my stressed out crew that we stayed. As you will see the amazing result of their work on the screen.

Again, I’d like to underline that none of the stress, the heightened security measures, the omnipresence of weapons (wielded by the young, militia members from Misrata who looked after us when things started to get..tense) meant that anything bad happened to any of us. There were NO near death experiences. No close calls. (Okay. A bottle rocket ricocheted into my hair. Setting it momentarily on fire. It hurt for a second. Ouch.) Everywhere WE went, people were, more often than not, lovely to us. At one point, we unwittingly rolled up on the front gates of the internal security forces’ HQ, intending to shoot some cool graffiti. Some very sinister looking dudes were extraordinarily and unusually cool to us. Almost anywhere else, we would have been arrested immediately. In Misrata, the overwhelming concern of the various “militias” seemed to be to keep us safe, to keep order, to not let their city—for which they’d fought so hard—slide back into chaos. Even the Tripoli militia who you’ll see shutting us down while trying to shoot in the ruins of Gadaffi’s palace complex—they weren’t overtly hostile per se. It was more an armed version of a bureaucratic squabble over jurisdiction. These things happen when you’re talking about a “new” nation emerging from 40 years of maniacal autocracy. There is not, currently, much of a government. Order, to a great extent, is a DIY affair, maintained on what one might call: a volunteer basis.

What will stick with me about Libya, however, is not the tension—or all the things that might have gone wrong but didn’t. What will stick with me is the faces of the people we met—most of them very young. Young people in their twenties who, only a few weeks before the rebellion, were playing PS2, studying medicine, working abroad, learning to skateboard—who then rushed to fight. Again and again, these young people looked at our cameras and, in answer to a simple question, told us extraordinary things. The mix of hopefulness and pain in their faces is something I will always remember.

At one point, one young man, who had helped storm the Gaddafi compound, sat down with me to eat American style fast food chicken at KFC knock-off, “Uncle Kentacki”. “This is the taste of freedom”, he said, joyously, un-ironically—and with considerable pride. There was something beautiful in that.

The food in Libya is often delicious—with influences from Moorish Spain, Italy, across North Africa. The seafood in particular is excellent. It is a beautiful country—with perhaps the best preserved (and fantastically under-attended) ancient Roman City in the world—the magnificent Leptis Magna.

But what I hope people take away from this episode is a picture, a glimpse, of WHO we are talking about when we talk about Libya—and Libyans. It is a far more nuanced, complicated matter than what we might get from brief news stories.
I met a lot of people I liked. I hope you will like them too.

INTERZONE

“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
-Hassan-i Sabbah

When I was an angry young man, disillusioned with the world, disenchanted with my generation, disappointed by the “counter-culture” and looking for role models, William S. Burroughs’ paranoia and loathing, his anti-social appetites, his caustic, violently surreal wit, and his taste for controlled substances seemed to perfectly mirror my own aspirations.

I wanted to write. I wanted to be apart from everything I grew up with. In short, I wanted to be elsewhere. And the Tangier—the “Interzone” that Burroughs described—where he’d found himself exiled, strung out, writing the pages that eventually became “Naked Lunch” sounded, to my naïve young mind, like an exotic paradise. 

Tangier, of course, is part of Morocco—and however accepting it was of badly behaved expats, however “international” a city—it was always part of that nation. Traditional Arab/Berber life went on, always, around the dreamers, refugees, libertines and romantics who flocked there. 

This week’s show is not about Morocco. Nor is it about Tangier precisely. It’s about the intersection between the old world and the new, the modern and the ancient, the real world of real Moroccans and the fantasy created by generations of foreigners who came to Tangier to create, to one extent or another, an “Oriental” fantasy.

Unlike Burroughs, the author Paul Bowles genuinely loved Tangier. Unlike Burroughs, he stayed there, plunged deeply into Moroccan art, music and culture. He came as close to seeing the place for what it was as any who’ve visited. Not as a playland, but as an entity all its own—with fascinations far more lasting and important than hashish, majoun and inexpensive flesh for rent.

A culture as deep as Morocco cannot be “explained” in 42 minutes of television—much less 4 hours. And what you’ll see on the show is hardly a comprehensive overview or even, necessarily a helpful guide to the sights.

It will, I hope, give the flavor of a truly remarkable place—and inspire you to look deeper. There is no place like it in the world. It looks, smells, sounds and tastes like no other city. It is all to easy to lose oneself in the romantic ideal—more difficult to assess the place as it is: an increasingly modern port metropolis situated only a short boat ride from Europe.
It’s probably a good idea to do both: Live the dream for a bit.
But keep your eyes open. 
And be careful.
As you’ll see, many visitors came to Tangier for a short vacation and remained for life. It’s that kind of place. 

Colombiana

I’d thought my unconditional love for Colombia was well established there. I’d visited for speaking engagements. I’d made a giddily enthusiastic episode of a previous series in Medellin and Cartagena. I’d waxed poetically and often about how well I’ve always been treated, how thrilling it is to see how far the country has come from its bad old days. I’m a fan of its people, its music, its food and its disarmingly injured pride. But coming out of the remote jungle village of Milaflores, I made a mistake.

I tweeted a photo of myself, standing under a shade tree, surrounded by young Colombian military recruits. My old friend and Top Chef colleague, Tom Colicchio tweeted right back: “ Too soon.” – connecting the appearance of machine guns with the then recent Newtown massacre. I tweeted back that “this what it looks like in FARC country.” Of course, I meant, “territory recently controlled by the FARC”—the very unpleasant Marxist guerilla group who’d been terrorizing Colombia for decades with kidnappings assassinations—and worse. They operate hand in glove with the cartels—essentially shaking them down and providing them with protection—in return for funds. And indeed, not too long before I arrived at the dirt airstrip, merchants in the small town are said to have accepted payment for basic goods and services with coca paste.

Now, Miraflores is swarming with army and police. The FARC, by almost all accounts, have been beaten back significantly. The phrase “FARC country” was not, however, interpreted as intended—as meaning an area, a neighborhood, a territory once under FARC control. Not in Colombia. Colombians were outraged. “I do NOT live in FARC country” and “how come you glorify those bastards?” were common responses. The twittersphere blew up with pissed off, deeply offended Colombians, reading second hand reports of what I was believed to have said. Many misidentified the young soldiers in the photo as being guerillas. Our fixers and drivers were very, very unhappy—in the uncomfortable position of being closely associated with someone (me) who was (for the next couple of days, anyway) widely thought to be a FARC sympathizer. Things bled into the print media and it was a tough couple of days. It was a clumsy, ill worded and foolish thing for me to have done.

Colombia is NOT, for the record, “a FARC country”. Far from it. As I should well have known, the struggle between the FARC, the cartels, and various right wing militias has been deeply felt by nearly every Colombian family. Opinions—even perceived opinions—can have consequences. Just about everybody you talk to—even in a present day Colombia that is much, much safer and secure—has lost someone to violence from one side or the other.

Colombia—more than anyone—has paid a terrible price in lives for the world’s seemingly bottomless appetite for cocaine—and for the greed of a relative few. And if you ever wondered “how come they don’t get a handle on things down there”, all you need do is look at the place. The country is huge. It is about 70% sparsely populated (and gorgeous) jungle, mountains and coastline opening up onto both the Caribbean and the Pacific. It is ideologically divided. And it has neighbor problems. Venezuela next door has been all too happy to provide safe haven and even covert military assistance to the FARC. Panama’s Darien Gap offers some of the world’s most impenetrable jungles. Colombia has been very successful in recent years in its war on cartel and FARC related violence. But the ludicrous futility of any fully successful “war on drugs” is apparent with a single look out of a plane window. In spite of all its painful history, Colombia is emerging as what SHOULD be a vacation wonderland. Have I said yet how beautiful the place is? It’s incredible. It’s fun. And yes—it’s safe. Every day, more so. Cartagena has some of the most beautiful colonial architecture you’re likely to find anywhere in Latin America. A great bar scene. Amazing food and architecture. Medellin is a modern, sophisticated, enormously enjoyable place to spend time—as far from its image as a murder capital as you can imagine. And people are heartbreakingly welcoming and happy to see visitors who have come to their beautiful country for something other than to talk about narcos and violence. Cali is a party town to rival Miami. The beaches along the coasts are as unspoiled as your wildest fantasies. And yet many people still don’t go.

I would urge you to put aside the stereotypes. If you want to find bad people in Colombia, you can surely find them—as you could in New York or Los Angeles. But nowhere have my crew and I been treated better or with more kindness and generosity. I’d bring my family on vacation there in a heartbeat. And hope to soon. As I said before: Colombians are proud. Let them show you what they are proud of.

That said, this week’s Colombia episode of PARTS UNKNOWN marks another great moment in Bourdainian stupidity. Faithful viewers of my previous program on that other, less good network, might remember my previous misadventure on an ATV. You’d think I would have learned from that experience, a long barrel roll down a sand dune, wrapped around a few hundred pounds of metal and machinery. I was very, very lucky to have emerged from that experience with limbs and skull intact. That maybe I’d be smart enough to realize that maybe off road vehicles were just not for me.
No.
In Colombia, I saddled up once again—and as you’ll see—managed to fly off the seat, drive my head straight into the ground (helmet-less, of course), and (my producers insist) somehow succeed in running over my own head. Though I was “out” for a brief micro-second there—I remember bounding to my feet, unwilling to be embarrassed by the glaringly obvious: I should have worn the helmet they offered. I should have driven more carefully. I probably shouldn’t—given my record—been driving the damn thing at all. Comedy Gold.

K-TOWN

“What, exactly, is ‘parts unknown’ about Los Angeles?”

It’s a fair question that cuts right to the heart of what we’re trying to do.

Of all the locations on earth, Los Angeles has probably appeared on film or tape or memory card more than any other. In fact, making Southern California look like somewhere else has been a primary concern for filmmakers since the beginnings of Hollywood.  My partners at Zero Point Zero production and I have shot in LA before. Twice.

So, where the  **** do we get off trying to shoot something “new” about Los Angeles?

A few years back, fresh off the success of Kitchen Confidential and new to the ways of life outside the kitchen, I found myself staying at a hotel in West Hollywood where the kitchen staff were fans. They were also Korean. And in the course of events, I found myself accompanying them to places that I—though I’d been to LA a few times—had no idea existed.  Even though LA was newly in the grip of some of the country’s most restrictive anti-smoking laws, every place these cooks brought me were packed with young Koreans, drinking soju, eating and smoking at the same time. Many of the places they brought me—in what turned out to be a fairly drunken bounce from one place to another to another—first denied being a business, then, on what appeared to be the basis of my wrong ethnicity— denied me entrance, only admitting me after being shouted at in Korean by my posse of cooks. Interestingly, many of these businesses continued serving alcohol long after what I had previously believed local ordinances permitted.

The next day, I didn’t remember getting home but I did remember what I’d gotten a glimpse of the night before: another world—existing right under the noses of another one.

So, I thought, for this episode, we’d try to shoot Los Angeles entirely from the point of view of people who grew up in Koreatown. We’d shoot this most over-photographed of cities as if no one BUT Koreans—and their immediate neighbors (Mexicans, Sri Lankans, Filipinos…) existed. As if the Hollywood sign,  the Hills, the movie industry,  and white people in general just…never happened. In our episode, K-Town would be Center of the World.

I thought about recent discussions with my friends, the chef and author, Roy Choi—and the artist, David Choe, about the effect the LA riots of the early 90’s had on their world view and that of their families. As I know many Koreans—and because all of them seem to suffer from some dark,  unarticulated burden—an unspoken  pressure to be something other than how they see themselves. I began to explore the Korean concept of “han”, an existential sense of pain and rage that is said to pass from generation to generation and wondered how I might discuss that in the show. 

A window into the soul of the Korean American? Nah…I wouldn’t go that far.  At very least, this episode will be a window into some VERY delicious Korean food. If you’re not hungry after this one—there’s no hope for you.

Film nerds might notice our shameless rip off of the “look” Michael Mann gave to the driving interiors in the film “Collateral”.  Or they might not. This episode also marks our first use of a “drone-cam”, a small, remote controlled , flying helicopter-mount for our cameras. 

Onwards!

BURMA FAREWELL

It’s a very special moment when you arrive someplace, look around at a vista that is clearly, awe-inspiringly fantastic and realize: “Holy ****! Almost no one else has SEEN this!”

After many years of looking at some pretty impressive vistas, I have to be honest: It makes it better. Let’s face it, the first French dude to push aside some jungle brush and look upon Angkor Wat was probably a hell of a lot more excited about it than I was. (And I was pretty excited). It’s a greedy, selfish instinct—the notion that this is all for you, that you are singularly fortunate to have seen this—that you—and only you, get ALL the cake.

I don’t know what Hiram Bingham thought when he looked up at Macchu Piccu for the first time. He certainly hadn’t “discovered” the place. He was probably just the first non-Indian to have gazed upon it. But I’ll bet he felt pretty smug about his accomplishment. “Will you look at that! Wow! And it’s been here all along! Dumb bastards been traipsing through these parts for centuries and they missed THIS!”

That’s kind of how I felt looking out at the ancient temple complex of Bagan in Myanmar. An unlovely instinct, I grant you. But like I said; I get to see a lot of beautiful vistas. Way too many of them, after all these miles, take on the importance of moving wallpaper. So it’s something really special to be thrilled by ruins—hair stand-up-on-back-of-neck- excited by a view.

Of course, plenty of visitors have been through Bagan over the years. But for Americans, the country now known as Myanmar has been mostly a place to avoid. I’ve avoided it for years—in spite of a terrific curiosity about the place— because I didn’t want to help a very unpleasant, totalitarian government stay in power.

But things have really started to shift in Myanmar. It’s still a military regime in charge. They are still up to some very nasty business in the parts of the country they do not let Westerners go. But the people are now, for the very first time in over half a century, relatively free to speak their minds. From a society where huge segments of the daily papers were routinely—and without explanation—hacked out by censors, where having an opinion could be a very dangerous thing..and where just about everybody with an opinion has been to jail—it’s pretty remarkable to see what’s happening.

Most remarkable, I think, was how open people were with us—how willing they were to talk –how not shy they were with our cameras, when only a little over a year ago, talking with a Western film crew could land you in prison. The door is opening in Myanmar—and we are very proud to show you some of what’s happening inside.

Parts Unknown

Before I set out to travel this world, 12 years ago, I used to believe that the human race as a whole was basically a few steps above wolves.

That given the slightest change in circumstances, we would all, sooner or later, tear each other to shreds. That we were, at root, self-interested, cowardly, envious and potentially dangerous in groups. I have since come to believe — after many meals with many different people in many, many different places — that though there is no shortage of people who would do us harm, we are essentially good.

That the world is, in fact, filled with mostly good and decent people who are simply doing the best they can. Everybody, it turns out, is proud of their food (when they have it). They enjoy sharing it with others (if they can). They love their children. They like a good joke. Sitting at the table has allowed me a privileged perspective and access that others, looking principally for “the story,” do not, I believe, always get.

People feel free, with a goofy American guy who has expressed interest only in their food and what they do for fun, to tell stories about themselves — to let their guard down, to be and to reveal, on occasion, their truest selves.

I am not a journalist. I am not a foreign correspondent. I am, at best, an essayist and enthusiast. An amateur. I hope to show you what people are like at the table, at home, in their businesses, at play. And when and if, later, you read about or see the places I’ve been on the news, you’ll have a better idea of who, exactly, lives there.

“Parts Unknown” is supposed to be about food, culture and travel — as seen through the prism of food. We will learn along with you. When we look at familiar locations, we hope to look at them from a lesser-known perspective, examine aspects unfamiliar to most.

People, wherever they live, are not statistics. They are not abstractions. Bad things happen to good people all the time. When they do, hopefully, you’ll have a better idea who, and what, on a human scale, is involved.

I’m not saying that sitting down with people and sharing a plate is the answer to world peace. Not by a long shot. But it can’t hurt. 

Anthony Bourdain
Hotel El Minzah, Tangier

FIGHTING MAD

“I don’t know karate—but I know ka-razy” –James Brown

For the past eight years, I’ve been making a television show called NO RESERVATIONS. I wrote it. I executive produced it. And I appeared in it. My partners and I always tried hard to make it good. 

During that time, I understood the way the world works. Television programs are paid for by television networks—who make their money selling advertising. And it would be ridiculous to hope or expect that I could ever have control over who buys commercial time in the breaks between segments. But my name and image are my own. My name, arguably, might not mean that much—and my face may not be pretty, but they’re mine.

In the brave new world we live in these days, fewer and fewer people watch their favorite television programs in their scheduled time periods. They DVR them, they record them, they download them on-line. People tend, under such circumstances, to skip—or speed through—commercials. For this reason, there’s pressure from networks to “integrate” products into the body of the actual shows whenever possible: to slip images of brands right into the action, or to transitions into commercials in such a way as to make the viewer think that it’s still the show they’re watching. 

I’m aware of these pressures and have been, as a result, very very careful about resisting them. A while back, I agreed to use a credit card on a limited number of episodes of my show. The network made money off the deal. It helped assure me and my production company  the budget we wanted. And I got paid. My fans were not pleased, however. Not at all. The backlash was considerable and angry. People felt betrayed. As a result, I became even more careful and even more reluctant to do them.

Fortunately, I had made sure, in my agreement with Travel Channel, to include very specific language about this kind of thing. We had both agreed to terms where my name or image was never to be used to either endorse, or imply use of a product without my specific agreement. It was clearly expressed in writing, clearly understood and agreed to that I would not use or mention any products  in my show and my name and image would not be used in connection with any products in return for anything of value or any other consideration without my specific agreement.

My inclination, I should point out has always been to do NO product integration of ANY kind. I do not have a merchandise line. I don’t sell knives or apparel. Though I have been approached to endorse various products from liquor to airlines to automobiles to pharmaceuticals dozens of times, I have managed to resist the temptation. Though not quite a virgin, I have tried to remain fairly pure. To the extent I am known, I think I am known as a person who expresses his opinion freely about things—and I was sensitive to the possibility that if I was seen taking money for saying nice things about a product, my comments and choices and opinions would become, understandably, suspect. Did I really like this particular beer I was seen drinking on the show? Or had I simply been paid to say so?

As described above, I took money from a credit card company once. Never to be repeated. And I drove a BMW once—for which I got the car that I drive today. That’s it. Any other brand—of beer, cars, whatever—that you saw me use on the show—I used because that was what I liked and thought appropriate or fun for the circumstances or setting at hand—or simply because they were what was available.

I like to think I’m a man of my word. If I tell you I’m going to meet you tomorrow at a movie theater to see a film at twelve o’ clock, I will be there. And I’ll be there early. I will expect the same of you. If I make an agreement—especially about something as personal as the use of my name and image, I expect that agreement will be honored. So it came as a shock and a disappointment to turn on the TV for the last two episodes of my show, and see that someone had taken footage that me and my creative team  had shot for my show, cut it up and edited it together with scenes of a new Cadillac driving through the forest. Scenes of me, my face, and with my voice, were edited in such a way as to suggest that I might be driving that Cadillac. That, at least, I was very likely IN that Cadillac—and that if nothing else, I sure as shit was endorsing Cadillac as the vehicle of choice for my show. All this following seamlessly from the actual show so you were halfway through the damn thing before you even realized it was a commercial.  

The network made a commercial, with me endorsing a product, and hadn’t even bothered to ask me. After the first airing of the commercial, I let the network know of my extreme displeasure. Fair warning one would think. They ran it again anyway.

I have no problem with Cadillac, by the way. A couple of people have come up to me after reading my enraged twitter rants on this subject and asked me what my problem is with them. No problem. With them.

I have had a long and mostly very happy relationship with Travel Channel over the last eight years. For almost all of that time, they were incredibly supportive of what me and my partners were doing—and of me personally. A number of different owners, a number of different administrations came and went. But in the last year or so things started to take a definite turn for the worse. There was the news that, unbeknownst to me, the network had decided  to add THREE “special episodes “ comprised entirely of clips from previous shows to the final bunch of only seven. Had we not agreed to edit them ourselves, they were well on their way to doing the shows without our participation. Best I can tell, they are, unfortunately, well within their contractual rights to butcher our painstakingly shot and edited footage as they choose. It’s something of a creative signature of the new guard at Travel, best I can tell—to cynically and cheaply “repurpose” existing material to create additional “content”. In such circumstances, as some of my on air colleagues agree, no one wins. Presenters look exploitative and lazy.  Fans feel used and misled. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about that.

But I CAN do something when my name and image (such as they are) are used to sell a product without my consent and in violation of prior specific and well crafted legal agreements. And I intend to.

It’s an inglorious way to go out—after 8 seasons of television programs of which I—and all the people who worked on them—are very proud. I miss the happy times at Travel, the first Big Cheese there, a Mr. Pat Younge, in particular, who really took a lot of chances on us. Who believed in us, understood us, appreciated the work we did and how much it meant to us. Who understood that keeping faith with our fans in the long run meant something more than short term profit.

I apologize to the guys on the production line at Cadillac, for finding the thing YOU make, and I have no doubt, are very proud of, in the middle of a rancorous disagreement.  

I was—and remain—angry.

While this would seem to be a problem most people wouldn’t mind having; I can only ask how you’d feel if somebody was out there using your name for purposes of their own—without your knowledge. If they presented you as someone you are not, as holding opinions you don’t hold, and making money off those misrepresentations—however embarrassing to you.

All of us on the show would have preferred to go out on a high note—and we tried to do that as best we could, turning in a strong, final season that we are very proud of. We wanted to go leaving a lot of great shows—and nothing but good memories and good will behind.

But things just didn’t turn out that way.