tv Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown CNN February 16, 2014 9:00pm-10:01pm PST
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tangier. it's morocco. but from 1923 through 1956, it was loosely governed by the major powers, an international zone. for years, it seemed, everything was permitted. nothing was forbidden. at the northern tip of africa, a short ferry hop from spain, tangier was a magnet for writers, remittance men, spies and artists. if you were a bad boy of your time, you liked drugs, the kind of sex that was frowned upon at home and an affordable lifestyle set against an exotic background, tangier was for you. matisse, genest, william burroughs. many have come this way, staying a while or hanging around. but no one stayed longer or
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became more associated with tangier than the novelist and composer paul bowles. in works like "the sheltering sky" he created a romantic vision of tangier that persists even today, a dream that's become almost inseparable in the minds of many from reality. i'm here to find that dream city. the place burroughs referred to as "interzone." ♪ tangier, like i said, was a city of ex-pats -- people with pasts, people who simply didn't like where they were and craved somewhere and something else.
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the grand socco is the gateway to the medina where you could find the kasbah, which means fortress, by the way. the port of tangier is to the east. and right in the middle of it all, the petite socco, what uncle burroughs called the last stop, the meeting place, the switchboard of tangier. reasons for settling in tangier dwesh, but everyone eventually comes to cafe tingas. jonathan dawson came to this city over 20 years ago as a journalist and he never left. he lives a life not too distant from burroughs' fantasy. cake and tea at 4:00 every day served by his man servant. he may not have a gazelle, but a pet rooster will do. and every day he makes the
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rounds of the cafes, seeing all the old faces, ending up sooner or later here. >> this is the petit socco? >> this is the petit socco. yes. it existed in venetian times, existed in roman times, in the portuguese times and the english were here for 22 years and then the international city until 1956, now here. this is a very historic square, very historic. >> as a writer, i've noticed everybody who comes here to do the article does the same article. >> it is so damn boring. they all do hobos and the beat generation, and there are lots of other stories in morocco apart from that. everyone likes the beat, bill burroughs and all that, tennessee williams. they were all here. that's a small part of horrock can history. that's a 15-year page. there was a life before that and a life after that. you're here. >> yeah. it was inevitable. let's pretend those guys never came.
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what is this place? >> the reality is, you can read the story and live it. people do come here and try to live it, but they don't stay very long. they smoke a little dope, go to a cheap hotel and go home with bedbugs. >> and a great story. >> and a great story. >> the attitude here is different than other parts of morocco. i think they have a higher tolerance of tradition of bad or outrageous behavior. >> they have a high tolerance of mad people, you know? but moroccans essentially are very tolerant people. they quite like madness, as well. they kind of celebrate that a bit. you know? >> how moroccan is tangier? >> it's a moroccan city with a european outlook. you can stand up on the boulevard and see spain and gibraltar and see all sorts of people passing through, but it is a moroccan city. i'm 62 years old. i didn't know it in the international days which finished in 1956. but at that time i think the europeans may have outnumbered
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moroccans in the center of this city. it's not the case now. there's very few europeans actually living here full time. >> the notion of living a life apart, of being somewhere else, there are those who like that feeling. i like that feeling. then there are those who may live apart, may live somewhere else, but they're not entirely comfortable. it's the difference annoys them or is a burden. >> it did, and it frustrates them. some people have to leave home to find their home. i'm one of those people. whereas i didn't feel at home in the country i was born in at all but here i feel okay. i feel very, very happy here. >> there is indeed something special about this place. burroughs described the native quarter of tangier as a maze of sunless twisting streets filled with blind alleys. its smell was particularly
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notable to him, including a mix of hashish, seared meat and sewage. tangier, before anything else, is essentially a port city, with all the things that traditionally come with port cities. it's situated at the choke point between the atlantic ocean and the mediterranean sea. the moroccan coast is a rich fishing ground and a lot of people make their living from the sea. onshore they use a method called sein haul fishing, where weighted nets basically drag fish across the bottom of the sea. some of that fish, the good stuff, anyway, ends up here. the saveur de poisson, or restaurant populare or popeye's. the place has a lot of names, but locals and ex-pats alike who have been coming here for years say it has some of the best tagine in town.
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mohamud, the owner and head chef is from the nearby rif mountains. and he sources a lot of his stuff, produce and the greens from there. and he's real proud of them. the back room is dedicated to sorting and drying various herbs which he blends into a secret mix that he claims has all sorts of healthful and boner-inspiring benefits. look, if every dish i have been told over the years would make me strong, i would have a permanent pup tent going down there. so i take all that with a grain of salt. >> hi. >> hello. his son delivers the food. it all starts with fresh olives, they're in season now and roasted walnuts. some warm, very good bread. squishy. >> juice. >> oh, yeah, and you get this stuff. everybody gets it. a pulpy puree of figs, raisins, strawberries and full of mohammed's potent herbs and spices.
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of course. >> all night, 24 clock. >> yeah, yeah, yeah, i get it. it's supposed to make me more manly. you know what? i'm eating. let's not talk about that, okay, sunshine? what is a tagine, anyway? it's a traditional moroccan stew that can include vegetables, maets, or fish. tonight, baby shark, calamari and monk fish with fresh mountain spinach slowly cooked over charcoal in the clay pot that gives the dish its name. the domed top is supposed to force the condensation back in to the dish and keep it moist and tender. that's delicious. with these greens and aromatics and herbs, i have no idea what they are. i've never had anything like that. tangier version of farm to table. >> hi. >> wow. when's that? thank you. and a whole turbo, brushed with olive oil, salt and pepper and
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some coriander, then grilled perfectly over the coals. cuddled up next to the fish, tiny shark kabobs. cute. wow, spectacular. good value. all of this for 20 bucks? i thought we did a pretty good job on mr. fish. that'll teach you. [ speaking foreign language ] >> he's freaking me out. it's like that guy with, you know, you're tripping and does this to you? for dessert, strawberries, pine nuts and honey. like the whole meal, it's eccentric and delicious. thank you. >> you're welcome. >> i haven't had so much fruits and nuts since altaban.
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i told, mick, this is a bad crowd. get back in the shop. but he's like, man, we can't disappoint the fans. ah, memories. [ male announcer ] it's simple physics... a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. plus, in clinical studies, celebrex is proven to improve daily physical function so moving is easier. celebrex can be taken with or without food. and it's not a narcotic. you and your doctor should balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, like celebrex, ibuprofen,
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in tangier, i lived in one room in the native quarter. i have not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes or removed them, except to stick a needle every hour in the fibrous gray wooden flesh of terminal addiction. i never cleaned or dusted the room. empty ampoule boxes and garbage piled up to the ceiling. light and water long since turned off for nonpayment. i did absolutely nothing. i could look at the end of my shoe for eight hours. i was only roused to action when the hourglass of junk ran out. the words of william seward burroughs, one of my heroes. he came to tangier in 1953, shortly after shooting his wife to death in a drunken accident in mexico city. he was a heroin addict, a
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homosexual and an inspiration to those protohipsters who became to be known as the beats. burroughs, however, was not a hipster. there was nothing beatnik about him. he was a somewhat stuffy, well-dressed son of a st. louis family gone wrong. he was also to my mind the greatest writer of the whole damn bunch. on the road, you can have it. his classic "naked lunch" was written here. a nonlinear, dark, dry humored searingly critical and satirical and profane masterpiece. burroughs was apparently high for much of the process on heroin or locally valuable available prescriptionian opiate. of course, the daily staple of many in these part, hash sheesh, kish a h and madune.
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hashish is the concentrated thc resin of the cannabis plant as well as the leaves and flowers that have been separated from the buds compressed into sheet or brick-like form. keif is the part of the plant containing only the strongest concentration of psychoactive ingredients. majune is a confection made from keef, fruits, nuts, chocolate and honey. i was, of course, fascinated by this product since reading about it and inquired of some local contacts who shall necessarily go unnamed. how was it made? this is what i wanted to know. they were kind enough to demonstrate. keef is first chopped into fine granules and slowly added to melted butter and chocolate over a low heat to toast it and release the psychotropic good east within. while the binder element is slow
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cooking in the pan, a combination of spices are blended with cashews, almonds, walnuts and dried fruit. this will be the framework to suspend the thc-laden goodness in the next step. the cannabis-laced butter chocolate is added along with plenty of honey to bind together all the ingredients. then mix. ♪ last, you roll the entirety of the mixture into a ball and either refrigerate or dig right in. of course, network standards and practices prohibit me from even tasting this delicious and reportedly mind-altering treat. i'm guessing, anyway. so until i see chris, john and wolf doing bong riffs in "the situation room," i will, of course, abide by these rules because that's the kind of guy i am.
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there is one particular cafe in the heart of the kasbah that's drawn in foreign dignitaries, rock stars, aristocrats and artists since it opened its doors in 1943. cafe baba. sweet mint tea in a thick slow-moving haze of smoke. it smells like my dorm room 1972. good evening, hello. >> i'm george. >> this is george bajalia and zenb. thank you for having me. i should say right now that i have no direct knowledge of either george or zaneb smoking anything illegal substances nor do i have any recollection of me doing anything untoward in their
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presence. because that would be, like, wrong, dude. george is here on a fulbright scholar and zaneb is an artist. others in the room, however, well, don't give me that innocent look, you young punks. i know somebody in here is smoking reefer. how stoned are people here? >> we can ask, just ask. >> you know, you're not getting totally ripped here. >> no. it's a functional part of daily life. for a long time, the rest of the country and the government didn't really like tangier a whole lot. it was seedy. there were foreigners who came here and -- >> he likes? >> he likes. it makes money. >> he sees it as a future economic super power as i understand it. he's talking condos, boutique hotels. is many good or bad? >> for moroccans, it's work, but of course ex-pats want to keep tangier like they know it before. >> i mean, this cafe is very similar to the way it was, but there's a tv right there. >> flat screen. >> that's why people come here. they come to watch soccer games. >> you can well imagine the american guy who's lived in tangier for 30 years. he comes in, there's a flat screen tv on the wall.
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he's like -- what? you've ruined the authenticity and the integrity, but the moroccan guy at the next table is, like, wait a minute, asshole, you have a flat screen at home. i want one, too. what is wrong with that? >> there are people here who probably have never heard of -- if you follow that, there's no progression, no progress, no change. >> the think about cafe baba, just sitting here, taking in the atmosphere, you begin to appreciate the place. >> there's something different happening here. >> contact high, whoa, i'm hungry. wait until the spanish tortilla dude across the street opens for business. this is abdileh. he specializes in making one thing, and he makes it well. an omelette. well, it's actually more like a
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spanish tortilla, but, like, stonier. the potatoes are boiled, diced, mixed with beaten eggs and cooked in a cast iron skillet. oh, yeah. the eggs. the egg man. i am me and we are you and where is my omelet, dude, because i am hungry. >> one, two, three? >> abdileh is waiting for you when you come stumbling out of cafe baba. coincidence or not? you be the judge. >> ketchup and mayonnaise. everything. >> ketchup and mayonnaise? sure. why not? condiment options i will be hard pressed to turn down at this precise moment anyway. >> love the mayonnaise. >> hmm. dude, that's awesome. i'll have 12 more. that's a man interviewing for a job.
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paul bowles lived in tangier for 50 years, and sherry nutting was part of his inner circle near the end of his life. she was his friend, record keeper of sorts, and photographer. you arrived when? >> i came in the '70s, but went down to marrakesh. in '86, i wrote a letter to paul bowles and said i had to meet
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him and take his picture. he wrote back and said, come and visit. well, i never left. >> a lot of people came here to live that dream or to live that life. has the reality come to resemble his perception? of the reality? >> the tangier that i see is paul bowles. i still see it. i still feel it. you can still find the magic. >> the market or souk in tangier is one of the best in morocco. the food stalls and vendors are still pretty impressive. wander the markets long enough and you're sure to stumble across the unexpected. hooves? sure. how about a lamb's head? here nothing goes to waste. charbroiled to crispy burnt perfection, the meat is served on a crusty lunch bread. not so adventurous? the grant socco's indoor market officers a variety of smoked, cured and fresh meat. smells good in here. the stuff looks good. i've heard this cheese is
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amazing. >> it's good, yeah. >> could i have one? >> a berber favorite, fresh goat cheese wrapped in palm leaves. >> yeah, they're beautiful, aren't they? >> it's good. [ speaking foreign language ] >> a little cheese, a little flat bread, the perfect moroccan breakfast to go. we're headed in to the jabal foothills of the rif mountain range about 80 kilometers south of tangier to a place called jouka. the village is home to the people of the al sharif tribe, which loosely translated means the saintly people. jajouka is also home to one of morocco's better-known musicians, bashir attar. jazz and rock and roll musicians have traveled all over the world to jajouka to meet this the guy.
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bashir is part of a lineage of master musician, all from this small mountain village. ♪ >> famously dubbed as a 4,000-year-old rock band, by william burroughs, bashir, his son and these musicians maintain one of the oldest still living musical traditions on earth. ♪ we're invited for dinner. it's family style, of course, beginning with braywine, like a kefta pocket, hand formed envelopes of dough seasoned with seasoned beef, baked until golden and then crisped in oil. i'm good for now -- well, one more.
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uh-oh, here we go. the main event, tagine of chicken. >> welcome, tony. >> thank you. just gorgeous. first, chopped onions, garlic, parsley and turmeric are blended with olive oil. the bird is generously coated an stuffed. then after simmering in a touch of olive oil and water, it is fried until crispy, served with roasted almonds and olives, paprika and ginger. nice! >> he smells the food. >> like anywhere else in the arab world, eating with your hands, always the right one, is proper dining etiquette. >> this is spinach. >> it's wild spinach. it grows in the mountains? >> yeah.
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>> vocalized chopped mountain spinach. garlic, cilantro, hot and black peppers finished with lemon and olive oil. that's delicious. >> i heard you are the greatest taste for food in the world, man. >> i love good food. this is good. >> yeah. >> after dinner some fruit, some mint tea, and let the music begin. for centuries, the master musicians of jajouka have been the musical choice of the royal families of morocco, excused by the country's rulers from manual labor to devote themselves to musical training. ♪
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♪ their powerful style of sufi trance music has inspired most many music seeker, including most notably, perhaps, paul bowles, who wrote about them and recorded them and spread the word. brian jones was here and recorded "the pipes of pan at jajouka" with these musicians. the word spread and the master musicians have ended up being albums by annette parker and nacio jones and the rolling stones. for years, if you were a rock god, you had to come here, dig
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[ man ] i don't know if this is gonna be a first or second, but this is gonna be a medal! [ man #2 ] and it looks like we could have another one of those photos! [ female announcer ] every minute. every medal. every screen. the nbc sports live extra app gives you unprecedented access to every moment of nbc universal's coverage of the sochi olympics, now on your tv. the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. anyone who comes to tangier inevitably ends up lost in the old part of the city. the medina is just what you want it to be. the ancient world residing just next to and around the new one.
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you can walk around inside the movie in your head, play the bogie character you never were, all against an all too willing, all too genuine backdrop. ordinarily just about the last thing in the world i would be interested in doing is antiquing, but buried in the network of twisting narrow streets of the old city is boutique majid, owned and operated and personally curated by this man. and he is one interesting guy. thank you. >> come in. >> when he was a little kid back in the '60s, majid left his hometown of fez and came here where he would earn money emptying ashtrays at wild and extravagant parties being thrown here by wealthy expats. he saw what people would buy for themselves, how they decorate their homes and he started to look around for himself, scoring, then reselling art and antiques.
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wow. it became something of an obsession. now his artifacts from morocco, and all across northern africa are bought by collectors from all over the world. carpets, antiques, wood carvings, julie and old doors. wow, these are incredibly beautiful. tell me about that. >> amber, coral, shells. these used to be currency. these shells. >> how old is this? >> this is early '20s. the amber is millions of years old. >> how much are you selling it for? >> by weight. >> by weight. >> quite heavy piece, this one. 429 grams. so it comes like 42,000 -- >> so that's how much in dollars? >> almost $5,000. >> about $5,000. >> almost. >> should we look at another floor? >> oh, yes, follow me.
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there's a nice collection of things from sahara. >> so you travel a lot? >> not like you. >> oh, this is for pounding -- >> yes, this is from the gon tribe. from mali. >> how much will this sell for do you think? >> around $300. >> really? for this? that's very reasonable. >> yes. >> i'll be buying that. that's going to be an old friend. >> also memory. >> also memory of tangier as well. >> majid suggests lunch at andalous, a local's only place nearby. as a moroccan, so many westerners who come to tangier come with a romantic notion of a tangier they read about in books. do people have a realistic expectation when they come here? are they looking for morocco or this phantasm? >> it is a phantasm. it is. when you get here, you know morocco, you feel that you are
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in morocco but you are not. there's a lot of mediterranean attached to this town. also the history, people hear story about tangier that it was -- when i first came in the '60s, everybody said that you came late. >> right. >> now i'm saying the same thing as the young now. they come and they saw wow, i say -- >> what was better about those days? >> well, for me at that time i was young, and it was the boom of hippies, and it was a destination. you know, cafe baba, meet bob dylan, and the parties was going on. i miss these kind of parties. people fly from everywhere to the party, and they make the whole town move. blue and white party, white and gold party, hat party, you know, it's amazing. you see people coming in with amazing hats, like a cage with a bird, extravagant hats, you know. they put so much energy and time into the parties, you know?
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look at -- >> now, that looks good. >> tomatoes brushed with local olive oil, garlic and coriander. liver kabobs, beef liver to be exact, grilled over charcoal. that looks very nice. for fish, a bit of swordfish and some orange roughy. >> that is just beautiful. >> how do you like the tomato? >> the swordfish is amazing. so how else have things changed? >> you saw how many tourists it was today? >> they were in a hurry. >> if they come to the shop, even try to avoid your eye contact. they afraid if you get my eye contact, i'm going to rip you off or -- >> or make you buy something? that they don't want. >> i don't know. i don't know. >> do they buy? >> they don't even say hello. >> they don't buy? >> of course, we call them penguins. they have short hands that don't
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♪ when tangier was interzone back in the day, it seemed to some i'm sure as if the ex-pats outnumbered the locals. that was never true, but you certainly could live a life apart, make your own world within the existing one. reinvent yourself and live entirely within a universe of your own creation. far from the grand socco is a 14-acre estate owned by christopher gibbs, a well-known dealer of antiques and longtime ex-pat. today, he's having a garden party. who's coming?
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jonathan you know. maggie dean is from scotland. she's been living here for more than a decade. gp, a frenchman who has a hand on a lot of businesses, including a cafe in the kasbah. years lived here, unknown. bee anke an american. she's been here forever, led many lives i gather, and occasionally translates books from magrabbi to english. and the dashing and mysterious baron, an artist from chile, who's been living and working in the kasbah since a hasty exit from puerto rico for reasons never fully explained. on the menu, bastilla, a meat or often pigeon pie as traditional moroccan as it gets. today made by gibbs' full-time cooks. jamilla and fatima.
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the meat on this particular day is chicken, which is slow-cooked in broth and spices, pulled or shredded and folded into an egg mixture, cooked in reduced stock from the boil. this is layered with blanched almonds, powdered sugar and cinnamon. the whole lot is wrapped in a crepe-like dough. after baking to a golden crispiness, the final touch is a dusting of even more cinnamon and sugar. it's got a sweet savory thing going on, and it's quite tasty. >> if you get nervous when you go in a room and you touch the light switch, and the lights don't come on, you shouldn't be living in this country. >> what was that first moment when you said, you know, i could live here? >> i'm still quite unsure about that. i came here first in 1958. when it was quite different. everyone wore native dress, but islam still the throbbing motor
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of life here. i have a very tender feelings from morocco and the friendliness and the courtesy of the people and its children. they don't say granddad like we do in england. it's bonjour. [ speaking foreign language ] >> i always feel welcomed here. i never consider it's mine. it's theirs and they've allowed me to feel here in a nice way. i feel recognition. they know who i am. they know who i am. >> there is a side by side aspect to life here that's very unusual. >> very unusual here. it's mostly you can do whatever you want if you do it with good manners. >> but it is a sort of station of the cross for bad boys of culture. i mean, rambo. iggy pop. the stones. burroughs writes and came here to be a writer. >> he was a junkie before he was a writer. >> as so many of us were.
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>> i think this is a place if you wanted to think of yourself as a writer, you would come here. and somehow if you were working within a romantic tradition, burroughs said right up front, to me a writer to me lounged around in a smoking jacket or a caftan and smoking littered with sleeping boys. >> yes. >> or girls. >> to what extent did that world exist and to what extent was that world created by the people that showed up with that expectation? >> since bill departed, iep, dear, wonderful, marvelous man, he's gone, it's tame now. >> it is tame. >> well, he was -- >> genteel now. >> he was the very opposite of genteel. he was an outlaw of every society. >> my husband knew him very well and he was saying that i cured him of being a drug addict. i said how? he said, i turned him into an alcoholic.
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yeah. i heard about progressive's "name your price" tool? i guess you can tell them how much you want to pay and it gives you a range of options to choose from. huh? i'm looking at it right now. oh, yeah? yeah. what's the... guest room situation? the "name your price" tool, making the world a little more progressive.
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it's my last night in tangier and i'm headed out. thank you, yes. most cities in the islamic world, getting a beer can be difficult. not here. as long as you're outside the medina, nearly anything goes. tangier reverts to its libertine past. here, western influences become very apparent. ♪ any night of the week is a good night for young moroccans to take to the streets. he's from a generation of moroccans far removed from the romantic con seats of the bowles-burroughs era. he's invited me out for a casual
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snack. boca dios, spanish style sandwiches with tuna, eggs, and a healthy wad of mayo. a healthy layer of french fries within the sandwich. this is delicious. by the way. the bread here is very good. you work in magazine journalist? >> i'm not a journalist, but i own an urban magazine here in tangier to inform moroccans we are living in place that is pretty special. it is not a place for burroughs or paul bowles or other people came to tangier. the city has something which makes it different from other cities. >> what about young artists, young writers, young musicians? do they come here expecting this romantic paul bowles wonderland of the '50s? >> some were. some weren't. too bohemian. >> too bohemian? >> yeah. because they thought that, like, you know, coming and being an artist -- >> is going to be enough? >> is going to be enough.
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today it is not enough. it's pretty tough for them, and most of them pack their bags. >> right. >> today we have so many investments going on here in tangier thanks to our king. investors are here. tourists are attracted. but the most important part of it is we should keep the old parts of the city intact. the kasbah, the medina. that's what's hard to do because when you have a european purchasing power coming over here to tangier -- >> they come like we come. we embrace it. other people want to come. and then we grow up. we'll, will tangier's unique character survive? >> i hope so. i really hope so. >> tangier is morocco.
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always was morocco. and recently the country's leadership seems to have embraced it. in all its ill reputed glory. the days of predatory poets in search of literary inspiration and young flesh are probably over for good. hippies can just as easily get their bong rips in portland or peoria. but the good stuff, the real good stuff, the sounds and smells and the look of tangier, what you see and hear when you lean out the window and take it all in, that's here to stay.
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for most of my life, libya was a word with bad associations. libya meant gadhafi. libya meant terrorism. >> pan am flight 103 went down in a blazing fireball. >> libya meant a place where a dictator was the absolute power. nobody in libya was laughing. in 2011, what was previously unthinkable happened. the
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