Original subtitles

- How do we make a show that looks completely different

than the show we did last week?

It's nice if you really, really liked last week's show,

but I'm not going to do that one again.

Certainty is my enemy. You know, I'm all about doubt.

I started doing this late in life.

I can't say that I'm evolving or maturing

or doing anything differently.

Same dick I was 13 years ago.

♪ I took a walk through this ♪

♪ Beautiful world

♪ Felt the cool rain on my shoulder ♪

♪ Found something good in this ♪

♪ Beautiful world

♪ I felt the rain getting colder ♪

- ♪ La, la - ♪ Sha la, la, la, la

♪ Sha la, la, la, la

- ♪ Sha la, la, la - Sha la, la, la, la ♪

♪ Sha la, la, la, la, la

- What do you think he did, I mean,

in terms of the impact on television?

- Yeah. - It's so multifaceted, so...

- Sure.

I think that prior to Tony on television,

food TV, such as it was, and travel TV, such as it was,

were both essentially serviced-based.

It was very top-down.

There's an expert showing you what to do

when you're in an unfamiliar situation.

"I don't know how to make this." Here's how you do it.

"I don't know what to do when I'm there."

Here's what you do. Here's what everybody does.

What I wished for often was specificity.

Take me to a place. Show me that real place.

Show me what motivates people.

- You did travel with him.

You were sitting in your couch in your home,

but you were with him wherever he went.

- He would be overseas in the Far East one week

and then maybe in the Bronx,

you know, the next week, or in Miami the next week.

- He wasn't worried about protecting a boxed image

of who he was, right?

It was like, "I'm gonna put myself in this experience,

and it's gonna be what it is."

- I perceived him a little bit like Indiana Jones.

He could be on the road in a T-shirt having a beer

or in a kitchen talking to the line cooks.

And then he could come home and put on a suit and tie

and be a man about town giving a tribute speech

to his publisher.

You know, he cleaned up good,

but he was also really comfortable out in the wild.

- You see a man step foot into the world

kind of shaky at first, kind of unsure,

increasing in confidence in who he is

as he's buffeted by a larger world full of doubt,

full of ambiguity, full of questions,

full of unknowable things and react accordingly.

- I would describe myself as

a lucky cook who gets to tell stories.

And I think any other... I'm certainly not a journalist.

I'm not a chef anymore.

I'd like to flatter myself by saying I'm an essayist,

but I'm a storyteller.

I see stuff. I talk about that.

I talk about how it made me feel at the time.

I think that's the best... If you can do that honestly,

that's about the best you could hope for I think.

I... I don't feel I'm capable of going back and having

an intelligent conversation about my experience.

I feel all messed up emotionally.

- But then I think this means that you truly came here,

because when you get close to something you understand

that you don't understand what's going on.

When you're far from it,

it seems kind of solvable and simple.

When you go in to it, you say, "Hey,

it doesn't make any sense," you know?

So it means that you've really been here.

- It is post-apocalyptic.

It's like a science fiction film.

What the hell happened here?

- Well, it is post-apocalyptic

except for the fact there's several hundred thousand

people living here.

- So the conventional wisdom seemed to be,

"It's time to get out of Camden."

Why are you still here?

- Because the need is in Camden.

If every decent person in Camden leaves Camden,

then we never have a chance.

- You're gonna stay? - I'm not going anywhere.

My pop-pop didn't leave. I'm not leaving.

♪

- This is the only reason they're gone.

This is the only reason for...

Just to protect my children and my wife.

- 20 years, 30 years... - Yeah.

- will things be better?

- Not 20 years and 30 year. - Hope now.

Next year, thing goes better.

- To me, I really feel a strong need to forgive...

- Mm-hmm. - And then forget.

And then move on.

- You used to be a tour guide. - Yes.

- I know you have to bring people over

to the American War Museum.

In your lifetime, is there gonna be a time

when that's not gonna have to be a stop?

No one will remember.

Or should people always remember?

- I think it's good to remember.

And I think it's good that... That...

It's important that we know about history...

And to make sure it's never happen again.

- In conversations that I had with him, you know,

he'd say, "Look, I'm not a journalist."

And it's funny because, you know, I'm a journalist,

and I work with and live with another journalist

and spend a lot of time with journalists.

And going and talking to people, telling stories,

hearing people's stories that illuminate a place,

if that's not journalism, I'm really not sure what is.

- How often do you get to sneak out for a beer?

- Very rarely.

First of all, I don't get to sneak out, period.

- The beauty of TV to me is that it is a cumulative medium.

It's a serialized storytelling.

Every emotional moment

we get to in season four of a show is earned.

It's built on the back of everything that came before.

There was a comfort level there.

We knew each other.

He knew he could push us.

We knew that he would try to push us.

- People felt like they knew him.

They felt like if they met him, he would look out for them.

That sounds weird, but I think

that's how people felt about him.

They felt like he was in their corner.

They felt like he was a force for good.

They felt like his heart was in the right place.

They felt like he was willing to stick his neck out for people.

- He was honest about anything he saw,

not to censor himself

whether positive or negative.

I think that's very important,

and that's why many people connect,

'cause they see he's talking about... like,

even the words that he threw out sometimes.

I was like, "Jason, can he say that on TV?"

He was like, "Tony can."

- What is the perception of Mr. Putin these days?

After 14 years, he's in power.

- My... my perception? - His personal...

- Do you really want to hear it?

- I'm not sure, but let's see.

- A former mid-level manager in a large corporation.

Short. I think that's very important.

Short.

- Who has found himself master of the universe.

And like a lot of short people, if you piss them off,

bad things happen to you.

He likes to take his shirt off a lot.

Let's be serious, I mean...

- He strikes me as a businessman...

- He is. - A businessman with an ego.

Okay, so he's like Donald Trump, but shorter.

- Increasingly the show became about the world around him

and the frame outside of where he was standing.

And 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,

so that he could put the people

who otherwise would never be on camera on camera,

so he could put the cultures and the traditions

that have never been seen before on camera,

so he could show us something,

not just show us him seeing something.

- You have a very highly educated public here,

one of the most literate nations on Earth.

- That's funny. - We are highly educated,

like you said, but we're behind

concerning internet and all that stuff.

Most of us have access to only the official media,

the official newspaper.

If internet comes,

and I think that government is trying to delay it,

if that comes, then I think we change.

People who will have access to different points of view,

and I don't think our government wants that.

- A lot of things happen in a lot of different

parts of the country sort of simultaneously.

Kind of amazing that all of these people

came together very fast.

- How did it happen? - Yeah.

- Easy. Twitter.

- Twitter? - Yeah.

- It was really like that? - Yes.

- Did anyone think it was possible that in their lifetime

they were gonna see the end of this son of a...

Most people are telling me they'd never dream.

- I don't know if you can call them dreams, hopes, wishes.

It was just something in the sky,

- something I look at every night. - Right.

- But when I hit that point and got into Misrata

and stood on Gaddafi's body, any dream will come true.

- This is a big oil-rich country.

Why doesn't it look like Dubai?

- Well, I... I hate to be on this show and talk Niger down...

You know what it is... because

you hear all these things all the time.

So... so yes, there is corruption. It is about corruption.

It's about the fact that the resources that are supposed

to be used for people aren't being used for people.

Years of military rule meant that people were brutalized.

There was a fight against thinking.

Imagine if they were all well-educated,

if they had access to finance.

I believe if you're a black person,

whether you're African or you're African-American,

you're never going to get any respect

unless there's a successful black nation.

- Even if you've been traveling nearly nonstop

for 15 years like me, there are places

that snap you out of your comfortable worldview,

take your assumptions and your prejudices,

and turn them upside down.

They lead you to believe

that maybe there is hope in the world.

- Uh, I eat a lot of meals.

I'm told about 400 per shooting season

um, off and on camera.

Many of those meals are good.

Many are really bad.

Many are memorable for reasons good and bad.

A few are epic, truly epic.

They... but they do come along probably

with more regularity in my life than yours,

and I will gloat about that on Instagram

whenever possible, by the way.

- Tony, get closer.

- You are totally sending me every one

- of those pictures by the way. - Yeah.

- Wow. Look at that.

This style of dish goes back

long before cameras,

but it's perfect.

Is there a more perfect

assortment of colors and textures?

Everything great about cooking is encapsulated in this dish.

Often the ugliest dishes are

the ones that are the most hauntingly delicious.

- Raw blood soup.

- Are we eating out of an open wound?

- Whole live frogs with garlic.

- That's one of the many stomach of the cow.

- Alternately unrecognizable, scorchingly hot, or both.

Well, I'll tell you, those are some of

the best beans I ever had, no doubt about it.

- You serious? - This dude's been everywhere.

- Come on, man.

- There not just delicious.

They're luxurious.

- What can you do to make it better?

- It's perfect. - There's no improving this dish.

- No. Now nobody talks. - Only we eat.

- Right. - Total silence.

You put far more on the table than

anyone could conceivably eat. Is that...

- If you don't like your guest, you don't put anything.

- Look, I've eaten at a lot of

great restaurants around the world,

and there was still a little part of me that was saying,

you know, "This is gonna be bull..."

- The guy is out in the field

yanking leaves out of the ground.

I really didn't expect it to be as good as it was.

It was delicious.

It was amazingly delicious for me.

- What's fascinating to me as somebody who first

knew about Tony when his first successful book,

"Kitchen Confidential," came out

is I've always thought of him as a chef

even though it had been years

since he had been a practicing chef.

You know, "Kitchen Confidential."

What was the title, the subtitle?

"Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly?"

I mean, "underbelly's" a little bit of a dark word,

but that's sort of what these... his shows were.

He gave you the full 360-experience of this stuff.

What was its history? What went in to making it?

What made it great?

And his descriptive powers were so great

that even though you as a viewer...

This is the great flaw, I think, in any food television...

Can't taste what you're watching,

he could convey what it tasted like or smelled like

or what it evoked in him.

And that, I think, was kind of the magic of it.

- It was sweet, sweet memories of this Stegosaurus-sized

shank of cured pork boiled and boiled

until it literally falls away from the bone

steaming and moist, this symphony

of meat and gelatin and good, good stuff.

God is hiding in there somewhere.

Some things shouldn't change. I come here to feed my soul.

It's the antidote to every other place.

♪

Roast bone marrow with parsley and caper salad.

Thank you. Yes.

It's a simple good thing, but it's

one of the most influential dishes, like,

in the last 20 years.

As I've become older, I've noticed

the food that I yearn for is food that

I react to in an entirely emotional way.

Mmm. Oh, man.

Wow.

Now, is there an appropriate way to attack this?

Does one go straight in, or does one

go at it from an angle?

- It depends what kind of man you are.

If you're a coward, you would go from the corner.

- From the corner. - Well, I'm a manly man.

- So you go in the middle. - All right.

- For somebody who does what I do,

write about chefs for people who are chefs,

I think Tony was, like, as cool as they came, right?

Everyone wanted to... It was that classic line.

"Everybody wants to be him."

He was a cool guy. He could write.

He was natural on television.

"The chef swagger," that's Tony.

I mean, that started in some ways with Tony,

or he epitomized that.

Confident, smart, super computer brain

that could spit out these incredible witty things.

But he would go to these places,

and he would evidence, I think, an incredible humility.

He was genuinely curious.

He wasn't trying to teach them.

He wasn't trying to show off.

- How long does that broth have to simmer to get good?

- An hour. - Wow. Really?

I would've guessed, like, 14 hours.

I want to see how much you put in there.

- You got to make it look really red in there.

That should be blood red.

- Nice burning feeling on my lips, flop sweat, happy.

People are put on Earth for various purposes.

I was put on Earth to do this, eat noodles right here.

At the end of a long night,

decisions good and bad, friends old and new,

a night spent playing or a night spent working,

all across the world wherever cooks stumble out of work late,

there's a place like this.

- Gentlemen. - Hey, Tony.

- How are you? - Nice to see you again.

- Good to see you. What's up? - Nice to see you again.

- It's the city that never sleeps.

24-hour Mokatal, right?

- This place is very democratic 'cause, like,

everybody comes late at night,

taxi drivers, hookers, and cooks, because we can be...

- Yeah. Why is it that hookers and cooks always, like,

are welcome at the same place, you know?

Where... the... The same social standard.

I'm ready, man. I am hungry.

I have had nothing to eat all day.

- Yeah? - I am starving.

- I think Tony's appreciation for sort of the rank-and-file

members of a kitchen team was always there.

It was something that I think he felt very profoundly.

I think what he took from that profession was

a real curiosity and a sincere love of food.

You know, somebody once said to me,

"Great food is an adventure,"

and I think that's where the beginnings

of what he transitioned into came from.

- I mean, if you don't like food,

if you're not interested in food,

it's... it's really a problem.

It's a relationship non-starter.

It's like someone saying, "I don't like music."

You know, conversation's kind of over.

But I mean, I'll always look at the world from that per...

I mean, all... all my values, every important skill,

any good things about my character,

any good characteristics I have,

all the important lessons of my life

I learned as a dishwasher or as a cook.

And I'm always gonna look at the world through that prism.

- A few years back, I got the words

"I am certain of nothing" tattooed on my arm.

It's what makes travel what it is:

an endless learning curve.

Well, it's a popular metaphor for India-Pakistan is

"Twins separated at birth."

- We were never twins, I mean...

- One. - It was one country.

- You could say dismembered. - Right.

- You know, if you cut a body in two,

they're not gonna become twins.

- The joy of being wrong, of being confused.

Critics of the government, critics of Putin,

bad things seem to happen to them.

- Yes. Unfortunately existing power represent,

let I say, Russia of 19th century.

- You could kill a journalist and get away with it.

- Why are you still here? - It's my choice.

My choice is fight.

I really believe that

good journalists can change the world.

- At first you see what you see in so many places,

busy markets,

the noisy streets.

But look just a little bit longer,

a little bit deeper, and you'll see

it's not so different

here from anywhere really.

- It's incredible thinking back how fearless he was.

You know, he went to CNN, which is a network that

travels all over the world and goes in to war zones,

and he saw that, I think, as a challenge.

And he was not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions,

go to uncomfortable places, poke at uncomfortable scabs.

That's kind of amazing, you know, to... to...

As you grow more comfortable in station

to become more eager to engage in uncomfortable truths

and uncomfortable situations and uncomfortable questions.

You would think it would go in the opposite direction,

but with Tony it never did.

- Iran. Finally.

I've been trying to get in this country five years now.

It's been the big blank spot on my things-to-do list.

The Iran I've seen on TV and read about in the papers,

it's a much bigger picture.

Let's put it this way, it's complicated,

And I think it's gonna shock the hell out of you.

- People couldn't believe it.

Iranians in Iran and Iranian-Americans

were genuinely really happy and appreciative

that he would come and do this show there.

In a place like Iran where visitors from abroad,

and especially visitors from America,

are few and far between, it matters.

- As print journalists,

our job's difficult,

but it's also kind of easy,

'cause there's so much to write about.

You know, it's... 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.

- Jason Rezaian is "The Washington Post's"

correspondent for Iran.

Yeganeh, his wife and a fellow journalist,

works for the UAE-based newspaper "The National."

Jason is Iranian-American.

Yeganeh is a full Iranian citizen.

This is their city, Tehran.

The official attitude towards fun in general

seems to be ever-shifting.

How... is fun even a good idea?

- There's a lot of security. - There's lots of rules.

There are a lot of people in place to make sure

you do the right thing and not do the wrong thing.

But there's 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... - Right.

- It's everywhere now. - Now it's everywhere.

- 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?

- I brought up the experience of being on a show

just a few weeks previous to... to our arrest.

And I said, "Look, you know, this thing is coming.

It's not gonna play out well for you."

- At some point towards the end,

my interrogator brought a picture.

"Who is this guy? Is he your dad or his dad?"

I was like, "No. You really don't know him?"

And he was like, "No."

I said, "Well, this is a very famous guy.

If you are interested in traveling, food, dah-dah-dah,

you should watch his show."

But he told me, "There was nothing

in your conversation with him about food."

I was like, "No, we discussed a little bit of rice and fish

"and things like that, but it was mostly

cultural topics, social life, things like that."

And he said, "So it's gonna be another punch in our face?"

I was like, "No, no, no. It's not gonna be like that.

"He's not that kind of guy.

He's gonna tell the truth no matter what it is."

And interestingly, I remember

I told them about one discussion

we had with Tony, 'cause at some point

we talked about the situation of women in Iran.

- You know, one of the first things that people will say

when you say, "Well, I'm going to Iran."

"Oh, yeah, but don't they make women

- do this, this, and this?" - Yeah.

- Actually... not so much.

- Yeah. - Not as much as our...

- Friends. Yeah. - Friends.

- Compare and contrast.

Women aren't allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.

- That's right. Or vote. - Or vote.

- You can drive. You can vote. - Yeah, of course.

- Can you own a business? - Of course.

My sister is an accountant. She has her own company.

Girls are allowed to do almost everything, uh, except

we want to go and watch football which is like...

- Can't go watch football? - We cannot.

- 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?

- That's a great question. - It's a really good question.

- I'm happy that you asked that question.

And I sort of, like, told the story to my interrogator.

It was like, "Okay, sounds like a good conversation.

So he... he likes us?"

I was like, "He likes Iranians. He likes Iran."

So that was kind of convincing.

I was able to cool things off finally...

- Do you like it? - You happy here?

- Look, I... I love it,

and I hate it, you know, but it's home.

It's become home.

- Are you optimistic about the future?

- Yeah. - Especially if this nuclear deal

finally happens, uh, yeah.

Very much actually.

- 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,

that you just generally don't approve.

- Yeah. - I think those are exactly

the sort of places you should go.

- Totally.

- See who we're talking about

and where we're talking about here.

- I think it's almost un-American

not to go to those places, you know?

♪

- I don't know that I can put it in any kind of perspective.

I feel the, you know, deeply conflicting,

deeply confusing, exhilarating,

heartbreaking, beautiful place.

- Yeah, exactly.

- 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's pretty much gonna be some place

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.

I never had any dreams of

growing up in socialist wonderland.

Like, when I was a brief period where I was a hippie,

the idea of living in a commune, not attractive to me.

- I was born in a communal flat with three other families

- sharing one john, one kitchen. - No way.

- They would feed me when I had no food.

- No way. - I share my toilet with no man.

♪

- Well, I'm looking forward to the week.

- Yeah.

- This is a low-impact show.

- What is a low-impact show?

- It means I'm not, you know, paddling upriver.

It means I get a flush toilet,

eating well constantly.

- You like luxury. - I do. Look, I do.

I like a fluffy hotel towel. I like a bidet.

Look, I like warm jets of water squirting up my ass.

I mean, who doesn't?

♪

I... I'd say I feel cleansed, but that could be the diarrhea.

I really don't understand this whole purging thing.

People are like... No, is it purging?

Cleanse... a juice cleanses, right?

Just travel with this show for a while.

I'll tell you. I'm feeling pretty good.

But my crew? Clean as a whistle.

You could pour mineral water through them,

and it would come out crystal clear.

That's no fault of the fine cuisine here, by the way.

I'm convinced it was the shiny ham at the hotel buffet.

You warn them. You warn them. You warn them.

Do they listen?

I made a potentially lethal mistake this morning.

- I did something I never do. - Which is?

- I ate a western breakfast at the hotel.

I'm feeling it already.

How do you do this and be a good person?

I don't think you can.

Like, if you wanted to do this regularly

for the rest of your life...

I would like to spend three months out of the year

in a hammock looking out at the Caribbean

in a secluded beach like this.

You'd have to do bad things to do this, right?

You feel guilty eating this well?

- I do. - You do?

- I do.

- I'm feeling guilty now, but it will pass.

- 'Cause guilt keeps coming back.

You keep bringing up the guilt.

- You're right. - I feel guilty.

- Then don't do these shows.

What are you doing here if you feel so guilty about it?

- I know. I know.

I feel guilty about not feeling guilty.

- That's more to the point. - Right.

- Now you're starting to be honest with yourself.

- Right.

- If you have a film crew and a network

willing to send you places,

chase the things that interest you.

If you wanna... if you're gonna go to Japan for the 19th time

on someone else's dime, make it about tentacle porn.

That's cool. Teach us something we don't know

or haven't seen before, because why not?

Contrary to what some critics may say, it's important to me

that we saw him work the system some times.

- You couldn't actually show humans penetrating each other.

- So I invented tentacles... - Right.

- To be evasive about the law.

- So how big is the, uh, sadomasochistic community?

How many people are active participants?

I would never do that as a responsible journalist,

but I'm interested in investigating it.

- Thank you, sir. - Did you smoke it?

- Yeah, I can't compare and contrast,

because I've been trying them all one after the other.

- I'm trying to be respectful of

a five-century religious tradition here.

Uh, I'm not sure about the teeth.

We got this.

- This is the necklace one. - Ooh.

I'm trying to think of a circumstance that

you could wear that around your neck.

Aw, jeez, it's a cock-alanche.

♪

No. No, it can't be over.

Not yet. No!

- There was kind of a gleeful juvenilia to Tony

that was appealing on some level

but a little bit tiresome after a while.

There were stories that he went back to again and again.

There were punching bags that he just could not resist

punching again and again.

But I think every one of us

who was willing to put up with them, because

one of the pleasures of watching the show over time

and watching him over time was watching

the punching bags transform into people

and watching those people turn into friends.

One of the more fascinating aspects was

the friendship with Eric Ripert.

There was a feeling of inferiority.

- Stop trying to suck up to teacher.

I saw that. Apple polisher.

You basically just rip your ideas off of small businessmen.

- You got that, right?

- And in fact, Ripert turns out to be this goofy, kind guy

who doesn't mind being the butt of literally everyone's jokes.

Who saw that coming?

- Do you have pizza experience?

- Never did a pizza in my life.

- Does he know this?

Look at this line.

Stop dicking around with your insane perfectionism.

He's new. He's new.

I... I can't do anything with him.

- You think you are going to the moon or what?

- You'll be bitchin' in those things.

- No, man. - Yeah, you'll look cool.

- You wish me bad luck. - No, I don't.

I just think you should have proper footwear, man.

Your ability to drink leads to

a number of assumptions about you,

you know, your general manliness, penis size,

your worth as a human being.

- I'm comfortable with my size.

- Oh. - Jeez.

- Not all the time.

- Oh... whoa... hey! - Whoa!

- My jacket.

- Oh, yeah, blame your jacket.

There you go.

- Oh!

- U.S.A. - [both laugh]

Whoo. I've never seen him so happy.

- All right. - It's Miller time.

- These were men who loved each other,

and we got to see that on television,

and they weren't really shy about hiding that.

It was goofy, and he made Ripert eat

Sichuan chilies until he wept.

But it all came from a place of love and affection

that is rarely captured on television

and honestly would be very, very hard to replace.

- Whoa. - I'm telling you,

I'd feel a lot more comfortable if

you hadn't had two portions of eggs.

- This is amazing.

Come in my selfie.

Oh, it's a video. Hold on.

- Eric's a Buddhist with really good, solid,

like, you know, values.

Like, I've never seen him wish ill on another human being.

He really does live up to his Buddhist faith.

It's rather incredible that he could be friends with me.

I know it's caused him problems at times.

Everyone who appears on television should be so lucky

as to have a... An Eric Ripert in their life.

And thank God he's got a sense of humor,

'cause when he makes television with me,

he's always gonna need it.

- I think that Tony never shied away from the fact that

he was changing the narrative.

He was changing the story.

He was bending reality.

This was his experience in the world,

that he never shied away from suggesting that

people go out and find their own experience.

♪

The beauty of making so many episodes

and traveling so many times and revisiting so many times

is that there is always more to see.

There is a large story, and then there's a small story,

and if you peek inside that small story,

there are a thousand more stories.

And his willingness to let those stories be told

and find the right storytellers for each one of those

was incredibly impactful.

♪

On the one hand, they are this perfect expression of a guy

who was an aesthete, who had very strong tastes.

He had very good taste in a lot of things, not just food,

and felt very strongly, clearly,

about expressing that in the show.

There was no bullshit.

If he wanted a certain type of music,

he would get that musician to play that music.

If he wanted stylistic reference, I'm sure

he would make everyone on the crew

watch a hundred movies until you got it exactly right.

That has value in and of itself,

but what he did with that reference was purposeful.

What he taught me about working-class cinema

and about the absolutely inextricable connection

between an artist and a place,

that's much more meaningful

than just dropping a loose reference.

It's a beautiful package

to Trojan-horse some other thought inside of it.

♪

♪

♪

- After all these years traveling,

and when you look back, what resonates?

- I see a lot of poverty. - I see a lot of cruelty.

I have reason to feel angry or frustrated

or heartbroken frequently.

It angers me to see a place like, you know,

Detroit, a great American city,

that... that's failed, or been... Or allowed to fail.

To see New Orleans post-Katrina makes me angry.

To see Camden, New Jersey in my own state

that I grew up in, it... it makes me angry.

Yes, there's a lot of scary, ugly stuff in it,

but there is much more, I still think,

beauty and kindness

and humor and people doing the best they can

in... in often very, very difficult situations.

It is a magnificent planet filled with fascinating

and more often than not beautiful people.

♪

Where's that sandwich?

- I've been thinking about this a lot recently.

This is a man who traveled the world...

You know, what was it, 200 days a year, more?

At this point, every place he went,

he had dozens, if not hundreds, of people

who considered him a good friend.

And he made every single person feel like he was their friend

for the time that they were together.

That boggles my mind.

- We get recognized from being on that show.

And when I say restaurants, I'm talking about, you know,

greasy spoons all the way up to fine dining establishments.

People come over to the table and they say,

"Did we see you on Bourdain's show?"

"Yeah, that was us."

Sometimes we don't have to pay for the meal.

- There's a million of these

Tony Bourdain stories out there

of just how decent and nice

and accessible he was to everybody.

- Mmm.

- But 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.

- And I think that, you know,

Iranians have that experience of feeling like,

"Hey, this guy saw the value in us."

Obviously people in Africa have that experience.

People that work in kitchens have that experience.

- I don't know how he did it.

I will never know how he did it,

the 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

to be able to break bread with anybody,

to have a toast with almost anybody.

♪

- To victor, Roland.

Victory in our time.

- Uh-oh. - Don't be afraid.

- Don't be afraid.

My first turbo. Cheers.

Cheers.

- Cheers! - Oh!

- Oh, yeah. - Just like old times.

- I 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.

- Just 'cause I'm a bit of a dick,

- I have to ask this question. - No, I love it.

- Oh, okay.

Well, I hope the food's good at this thing.

- It'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.

You don't have to have a lot of money.

- Tony's part of history,

everywhere's history,

every nation's history.

- The excess of evil may not exist in him.

So just normal evil

like everybody else, yeah?

- You were a guy who at 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.

- Yeah.

- You've had many, many adventures.

- I know. - Given that,

what thrills you now?

- The nicest stuff right now... - This is very embarrassing,

but it's really emb...

Being loved and actually

appreciating the people that are giving that to me.

- And I guess that's what we all want as human beings,

isn't it? To be loved, to be cherished.

- This is Anthony Bourdain, CNN.

Good night, and eat more SPAM.