tv Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown CNN July 9, 2016 9:00pm-10:01pm PDT
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♪ 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 ♪ ♪ sha la la la la sha la la la la la ♪ ♪ sha la la la la sha la la la la la la ♪ ♪ ♪ >> anthony: tangier. it's morocco. but from 1923 through 1956, it
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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. ♪ >> anthony: matisse, genet, william burroughs. many have come this way, staying a while or hanging around. but no one stayed longer or became more associated with tangier than the novelist and composer, paul bowles.
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in works like "the sheltering sky," he created a romantic vision of tangier that persists even today. a dream that has 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. ♪ ♪ >> anthony: 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. the grand socco is the gateway to the medina, where you can find the kasbah, which means
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fortress, by the way. the port of tangier is to the east. and right in the middle of it all, the petit socco. what uncle bill burroughs called "the last stop, the meeting place, the switchboard of tangier." reasons for settling in tangier diverge. but everyone, sooner or later since the beginning of memory, comes to café 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 four every day served by his manservant. he may not have a gazelle, but a pet rooster will do. and every day he makes the rounds of the cafes, seeing all the old faces, ending up, sooner or later, here.
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so this is the petit socco? >> jonathan: this is the petit socco, yeah. this socco existed in venetian times. it existed in roman times. it existed in the portuguese times. the english were here for 22 years. then, the international city until 1956. and now it's completely moroccan. but this is a very historic square, very historic. >> anthony: as a writer, um, i've noticed everybody who comes here to do an article does the same article. >> jonathan: well, it's so damn boring. they all do it. paul bowles and the beat generation. and, uh, there are, there are lots of other stories in morocco apart from that. but everyone likes the beats. bill burroughs and all that stuff and tennessee williams. and, uh, they were all here. >> anthony: yeah. >> jonathan: uh, but that's a small part of moroccan history. that's a 15-year period. there's, there's a life before that and a life after that. you're here. >> anthony: yeah, it was inevitable. let's pretend those guys never came. what is, what is, what is this place? >> jonathan: well, the reality is, if you can read a paul bowles story, you can live it. and the people do come here and try and live it, but they don't stay very long.
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>> anthony: right. >> jonathan: they smoke a bit of dope and they live in a cheap hotel and they go home with bedbugs. >> anthony: right. >> jonathan: that's not a lie. >> anthony: and a great story. >> jonathan: and a great story. >> anthony: but i mean, the attitude here is different than other parts of morocco. uh, i think they have a higher, uh, tolerance and tradition of, of bad, or outrageous behavior. >> jonathan: they have a higher tolerance of mad people, you know. uh, but moroccans, essentially, are very tolerant people. they quite like madness as well. they kind of celebrate that a bit, you know? >> anthony: how moroccan is tangier? >> jonathan: it's a moroccan city with a european outlook. you know, you can stand up on the boulevard and you can see spain and gibraltar. so you see all sorts of people passing through, but it's a very moroccan city. i'd, as, 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 the moroccans in the center of this city. it's not the case now. there are very few europeans actually living here full-time. >> anthony: the notion of living a life apart, of being somewhere
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else, there are those who like that feeling. >> jonathan: mmm-hm. >> anthony: i like that feeling. um, and then, there are those who, they may live apart, they may live somewhere else, but they're not entirely comfortable. it's, the difference annoys them or is a burden. >> jonathan: it is. 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. >> anthony: 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 notable to him including a mix of hashish, seared meat and sewage.
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tangier, before anything else, is essentially a port city, with all the things that traditionally come with port cities. it's situated at the chokepoint 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. on shore they use a method called seine-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 seville de poisson, or restaurant populare, or popeye's. the place has got a lot of names, but locals and ex-pats alike who have been coming here for years say it's got some of the best tagine in town. >> anthony: mohammad boulage, the owner and head chef, is from the nearby rif mountains. and he sources a lot of his stuff, his produce and his greens, from there and he's real proud of them.
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the backroom of the place is dedicated to sorting and drying various herbs which he blends into a secret mix, he claims has all sorts of healthy and boner-inspiring benefits. look, if every dish i've been told over the years was going to make me strong worked, i'd have a permanent pup tent going on down there. so i take all that with a grain of salt. >> hassan: hi. >> anthony: hello. >> hassan: how are you? >> anthony: boulage's son, hassan, delivers the food. >> hassan: this is olive. >> anthony: it all starts with fresh olives. they're in season now. and roasted walnuts, some warm, very good bread. >> anthony: squishy. >> hassan: juice. >> anthony: oh, yeah. and you get this stuff. everybody gets it. a pulpy puree of figs, raisins, strawberries and full of mohammad's potent herbs and spices, of course. >> mohammad: all the night, 24 clock. [ vibrates tongue ] [ laughs ] >> anthony: yeah, yeah, yeah i get it. it's supposed to make me more
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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, meat or fish. tonight, baby shark, calamari and monkfish with fresh mountain spinach, slowly cooked over charcoal in the classic clay pot that gives it its name. the tagine's dome top is supposed to force the condensation back into the dish and keep it moist and tender. that's delicious. i think it's these greens and aromatics and herbs. i have no idea what they are. i've never had anything like them. the tangier version of farm to table. >> hassan: hi. >> anthony: oh, hi. wow, what's that? >> hassan: [ speaking darija ] >> anthony: thank you. and a whole turbot brushed with olive oil, salt and pepper and some coriander then grilled perfectly over the coals. cuddled up next to the fish,
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tiny shark kebobs. cute. wow. spectacular. this is a good value. all of this for 20 bucks. i think we did a pretty good job on mr. fish. that'll teach you. >> mohammad: [ speaking darija ] >> anthony: he's freaking me out, man. he's like that guy when, you know, you're tripping, you know, who goes like this to you. >> mohammad: [ speaking darija ] >> hassan: hi. >> anthony: for dessert, strawberries, pine nuts and honey. like the whole meal, it's eccentric and delicious. >> hassan: thank you. you're welcome. >> anthony: i haven't had so much fruits and nuts since altamont. i told mick. i said, "mick, this is a bad crowd. get back in the chopper." but he's like all, "no man, we
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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 non-payment. 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. [ typewriter clicks ] 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 homosexual and an inspiration to those proto-hipsters who came 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, st. louis son of a good family. gone wrong.
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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 non-linear, dark, dry-humored, searingly critical, satirical, and profane masterpiece. burroughs was apparently high for much of the process. on heroin or a locally available prescription opiate called eukodol. and of course, the daily staple of many in these parts, hashish, kief, and majoun. hashish is the concentrated tch-rich resin of the cannabis plant, as well as a varying amount of its flowers and leaves that have been separated from the buds and compressed into sheet or brick-like form. kief, a more local and indigenous product, is the part of the plant containing only the strongest concentration of psychoactive ingredients. majoun is a confection made from
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kief, 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. kief is first chopped into fine granules and then slowly added to melted butter and chocolate over a low heat to toast it and release the psychotropic goodies within. while the binder element of the majoun is slow 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-lased butter chocolate is added along with plenty of honey to bind together all the ingredients.
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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 rips in "the situation room," i will of course, abide by these rules. because that's the kind of guy i am. there is one particular café in the heart of the kasbah that has drawn in foreign dignitaries, rock stars, aristocrats, and artists since it opened its doors in 1943. café baba.
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♪ sweet mint tea and a thick, slow-moving haze of smoke that smells like my dorm room, 1972. >> anthony: good evening, hello. >> george: hi, i'm george. >> anthony: this is george bajalia and zineb benjelloun. thank you for having me. >> george: yeah. welcome to café baba. >> anthony: i should say right now, i have no direct knowledge or awareness of either george or zineb smoking any illegal substances nor do i have any contemporaneous recollection at this time of me doing anything untoward in their presence, because that would be like wrong, dude. uh, some tea. george is here on a fulbright scholarship, and zineb is an artist from rabat. others in the room, however, well, don't give me that innocent look, you young punks. i know somebody in here's smoking reefer. >> anthony: so how stoned are people here? >> zineb: well, we can ask. [ laughter ] just ask. >> george: just ask someone. >> anthony: uh, you know, you're not getting totally ripped here? >> george: no, it's a functional part of daily life.
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for a long time the rest of the country and the government didn't really like tangier a whole lot. because it was seedy. there are these foreigners that came here and did god knows what. >> anthony: the new king is -- the new -- >> george: he likes tangier. >> anthony: he likes? >> george: yeah, it makes money. >> anthony: he sees it as a future economic super power, as i understand it. he's talking condos, boutique hotels. is that good or bad? >> zineb: for moroccans, it's work. >> anthony: right. >> zineb: but of course, ex-pats want to keep tangier like they know it before. >> george: i mean, this café is very similar to the way it was, but there's a tv right there. >> anthony: a flat-screen. >> george: and that's why a lot of people come here. they come to watch soccer games. >> anthony: you can well imagine the american guy who's lived in tangier for 30 years, okay? he comes in and there's a flat screen tv on the, on the wall. they say what the -- you've ruined the authenticity and integrity. but, the moroccan guy at the next table he's saying, "wait a minute, wait a minute, asshole. you have a flat screen tv at home. i want one too." >> george: right. >> anthony: what's wrong with that? >> george: yeah, there are
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people here who have probably never heard of paul bowles. >> anthony: right. >> george: if you only follow that, there's no progression. there's no progress. there's no change. >> anthony: the thing about café baba is that just sitting here taking in the atmosphere you begin to appreciate the place. >> george: there is something, something different is happening here. >> anthony: contact high. whoa, i'm hungry. wait until the spanish tortilla dude across the street opens for business. this is abdullah. he specializes in making one thing, and he makes it well, an omelet. well, it's actually more like a spanish tortilla, but, like, stonier. the potatoes are boiled, diced, then 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's my omelet, dude, 'cause i am hungry. >> george: assalamu alaikum. one, two, three?
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>> anthony: abdullah is just waiting for you right when you come stumbling out of café baba. coincidence or not? you be the judge. >> george: ketchup and mayonnaise, everything. >> anthony: ketchup and mayonnaise? sure, why not? condiment options i would be hard pressed to turn down at this precise moment anyway. >> george: that's a lot of mayonnaise. it's a good munchie. >> anthony: dude, that's awesome. i'll have 12 more. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ kellogg's® frosted 8 layers of wheat... and one that's sweet. for the adult and kid in all of us.
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♪ >> anthony: paul bowles lived in tangier for over 50 years and cherie 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? >> cherie: i came in the '70s, but i went down to marrakesh. >> anthony: mmm-hm. >> cherie: and then, in '86, i wrote a letter to paul bowles and said i had to meet him and take his picture. and he wrote back and he said, "come and visit." well, i never left. >> anthony: like, a lot of people came here to live that dream or to live that life. uh, has the reality come to resemble his perception of the reality, or --? >> cherie: the tangier that i see is paul bowles, and i still see it. i still feel it. you can still find the magic.
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>> anthony: the market, or souk, in tangier, is one of the best in all 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 scraped off and served on a crusty lunch bread. not so adventurous? the grand socco's indoor market offers a variety of smoked, cured, and fresh meat. it smells good in here. this stuff looks good. oh, i've heard this cheese is amazing. >> cherie: it's good, yeah. >> anthony: could i have one? a berber favorite, fresh goat cheese wrapped in palm leaves. >> cherie: yeah, they're beautiful, aren't they? >> anthony: it's good?
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a little cheese, a little flatbread, the perfect moroccan breakfast to go. we are headed into the jibala foothills of the rif mountain range. about 85 kilometers south of tangier to a place called jajouka. the village is home to the people of the ahl-srif tribe, which loosely translated means "the saintly people." jajouka is also home to one of morocco's better known musicians, bachir attar. jazz and rock and roll musicians have traveled from all over the world to jajouka to meet this guy. bachir is part of a lineage of master musicians all from this small mountain village. ♪ ♪ famously dubbed as a 4,000-year-old rock band by william burroughs, bachir, his
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son and these musicians maintain one of the oldest still-living musical traditions on earth. ♪ ♪ >> anthony: we're invited for dinner. [ laughter ] it's family style, of course. beginning with braga, like a kefta pocket. hand-formed envelopes of dough filled with seasoned beef, baked until golden, then crisped in oil. i'm good for now. well, one more. >> bachir: mmm. >> anthony: uh oh, here we go. the main event: tagine of chicken. >> bachir: yeah, welcome, tony. >> anthony: thank you. just gorgeous. first, chipped onions, garlic,
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parsley and turmeric are blended with olive oil. the bird is generously coated and stuffed. then after simmering in a touch of olive oil and water, the chicken is fried till crispy. served with roasted almonds and olives, paprika and ginger. nice. >> cherie: he smells the food. >> anthony: like anywhere else in the arab world, eating with your hands, always the right one, is proper dining etiquette. >> man: this is special spinach. >> anthony: it's a wild spinach that grows in the mountains? >> man: yes. >> anthony: bakoula is chopped mountain spinach, garlic, cilantro, hot and black peppers finished with lemon and olive oil. >> anthony: oh, it's delicious. >> man: yes. >> bachir: i heard you have the
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greatest taste for food in the world, man. >> anthony: i love good food. [ laughter ] >> bachir: yeah. >> anthony: 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. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> anthony: their powerful style of sufi trance music has
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inspired many musical seekers, 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 featured on albums by maceo parker, ornette coleman and the rolling stones. ♪ ♪ >> anthony: for years, if you were a rock god, you had to come here. dig the crazy percussion and strings and pipes that took you to another place. it's intricate, hypnotic, beautiful. and if you're in the right uh, frame of mind, mesmerizing.
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you can walk around inside the movie in your head, play the bogey character you never were, all against an all-too-willing, all-too-genuine backdrop. ordinarily just about the last thing in the world i'd 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, abdelmajid rais el fenni. hello. >> abdelmajid: how are you? >> anthony: and he's one interesting guy. thank you. >> abdelmajid: come on in. >> anthony: when he was a little kid back in the '60s, majid left his hometown of fez and came here where he'd earn a few dirham a night emptying ashtrays at the wild and extravagant parties being thrown here by wealthy ex-pats. he saw what these people would buy for themselves and how they decorate their homes and started to look around for himself, scoring, then reselling art and antiques. wow. it became something of an obsession.
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now his artifacts from morocco and all across northern africa are bought by collectors from all over the world. carpets, antiques, wood carvings, jewelry and old doors. wow, these are incredibly beautiful. tell me about that. ♪ >> abdelmajid: amber, coral, shells. these used to be currency, these shells. >> anthony: how old is this? >> abdelmajid: this is, uh, early '20s, late 19th. the amber is millions of years old. >> anthony: how much are you selling this piece for? >> abdelmajid: this is priced by, by weight. >> anthony: by weight? >> abdelmajid: it's quite a heavy piece, this one. 429 grams. so it comes like, uh, 42,000 dirhams. >> anthony: so that's how much in dollars? >> abdelmajid: like, uh, like almost $5,000, $4,500. >> anthony: about $5,000. >> abdelmajid: yeah. almost. >> anthony: shall we look at another floor? >> abdelmajid: oh yes, follow me. yeah, there is a nice collection of, uh, things from the sahara.
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>> anthony: so you travel a lot? >> abdelmajid: little bit. not like you. [ laughter ] >> anthony: oh, this is, uh, for pounding -- >> abdelmajid: yes, yes, this is from the gond tribe from mali. >> anthony: how much will this sell for, do you think? >> abdelmajid: around $300. >> anthony: really? for this? that's very reasonable. >> abdelmajid: yes. >> anthony: i'll be buying that. that's going to be an old friend. >> abdelmajid: also, memory of tangier. >> anthony: and a memory of tangier as well. majid suggests lunch at andalus, a locals-only place nearby. >> anthony: 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 are they looking for this phantasm? >> abdelmajid: no, no. it is a phantasm. it is. when you get here, you, uh, if you know morocco, you feel that you're in morocco, but you're not. there's a lot of mediterranean attached to this town.
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and also the history, people hear a story about tangier that it was. like when i first came in the '60s everybody said to me, you came late. tangier. [ laughter ] >> anthony: it's -- right. >> abdelmajid: now i am saying the same thing as these young now, too. they come and they say "wow." i say, "no." >> anthony: what was better about those days? >> abdelmajid: well, if you see, for me at that time, i was young and it was the boom of hippies. and it was the destination. café baba, you meet bob dylan, you go, you catch 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. a blue and white party. a white and gold party. a hat party. you know, it's amazing. and you see people come in with amazing hats, like a cage with a bird. extravagant hats, you know? it's, like, people put so much energy and time into these parties, you know? look at that. >> anthony: ah, now that looks
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good. tomatoes brushed with local olive oil, garlic and coriander. liver kebobs, beef liver to be exact, grilled over charcoal. oh, now that looks very nice. for fish, a bit of swordfish and some orange roughy. that is just beautiful. mmm. >> abdelmajid: how do you like the tomato? >> anthony: yeah. oh, and the swordfish is amazing. >> abdelmajid: yeah. >> anthony: so, how else have things changed? >> abdelmajid: you saw how many tourists there was today? >> anthony: they were in a hurry. >> abdelmajid: if they come to the shop, they even try to avoid your eye contact. they're afraid if i -- if you get my eye contact i'm going to rip you off, or i don't know. >> anthony: or make you buy something that they don't want. >> abdelmajid: i don't know. i don't know. they have this -- >> anthony: do they buy? >> abdelmajid: they don't even say hello. >> anthony: they don't buy? >> abdelmajid: of course. we call them penguin. they have short hands doesn't get to the pockets. [ laughter ]
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♪ what if there was a paint that made you look at paint differently question everything you know and what you don't know what if it's built with better ingredients given super powers and even a secret base to test those powers. since benjamin moore reinvented paint, it makes you wonder is it still paint?
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>> anthony: when tangier was interzone, back in the day, it seemed to some, i'm sure, as if 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 long-time ex-pat. today, he's having a garden party. who's coming? jonathan, you know. maggie dean is from scotland. she's been living here for more than a decade. g.p. de richmont, a frenchman who has his hands in a lot of businesses, including a café in the kasbah. years living in tangier, unknown.
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bianca hamri, an american. she's been here forever, led many lives, i gather, and occasionally translates books from maghribi to english. and the dashing and mysterious baron de coqueiros gondareus, 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. [ laughter ] on the menu, bastilla. a meat or often pigeon pie, as traditional moroccan as it gets. today, made by gibbs' full-time cooks, jamila and fatomah. in bastilla, the meat on this particular day is chicken, which is slow-cooked in broth and spices, pulled or shredded and then folded into an egg mixture, cooked in the reduced stock from the boil. this is layered with blanched almonds, powdered sugar, and cinnamon. and then, the whole lot is then wrapped in feuilles de brick, a
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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. >> blanca: 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 in this country. >> anthony: what was that first moment when you said, you know, i could live here? >> christopher: oh, i'm still quite unsure about that. um, i came here first in 1958, when it was quite different. um, everyone wore native dress. but islam is still the throbbing motor of life here. i have very tender feelings for morocco and the friendliness and courtesy of the people and the children who, you know, they don't say, "---- off, granddad," like they do in england. >> blanca: no, no, no. >> christopher: they say, "bonjour, monsieur."
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blah, blah, blah. >> blanca: i always feel welcome here. i never consider that this is mine. it's theirs, and they've allowed me to live here in a very nice way. and i feel recognition. they know who i am. they know who i am. >> anthony: there is a side-by-side aspect to life here that's very unusual. >> blanca: very unusual here. it's mostly, you can do whatever you want if you do it with good manners. >> anthony: but it is a sort of a station of the cross for, you know, the bad boys of culture. i mean, verlaine, rimbaud, iggy pop, the stones. >> christopher: burroughs and guyson. >> anthony: burroughs writes about, he came here to be a writer. >> christopher: he was a junkie before he was a writer. >> anthony: as so many of us were. [ laughter ] but i think this was a place where if you wanted to think of yourself as a writer, you would
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come here and somehow you were working within a romantic tradition. >> christopher: yes. >> anthony: burroughs said right upfront -- >> blanca: yes. >> anthony: to me, a writer, from when i was a little boy, a writer was a guy who lounged around in a smoking jacket or a kaftan smoking a hash pipe or an opium pipe -- >> christopher: oh, yes. >> anthony: in a beautiful anointed house with, uh, littered with, sleeping boys. >> blanca: yes, or girls. >> anthony: to what extent did that world exist and to what extent did -- was that world created by the people who showed up with that expectation? >> christopher: since bill departed, rip, dear, wonderful, marvelous man. since he's gone, it's a little bit tame now. >> blanca: it is tame. >> anthony: well, he was -- >> christopher: bit genteel now. >> anthony: he was, he was the very opposite of genteel. he was an outlaw from every society. >> blanca: my husband knew him very well. and he was selling the yes bill and i said, "he said i cured him of being a drug addict." i said, "how?" he said, "i turned him into an alcoholic." [ laughter ] >> anthony: who smokes hashish at this table? please raise your hand. >> blanca: is the camera on? [ laughter ] >> maggie: blanca. put your hand up, blanca. [ laughter ]
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most cities of 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 of ville nouvelle. otman nosaeri is from a generation of moroccans far removed from the romantic conceits of the bowles/burroughs era. he's invited me out for a casual snack. bocadillos, spanish-style sandwiches with tuna, veggies, hard cooked eggs and a healthy wad of mayo.
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a crispy layer of french fries within the sandwich. >> anthony: this is delicious, by the way. the bread here is very good. you work in a magazine? a journalist? >> nosaeri: yeah, i am not a journalist, but i own an urban magazine here in tangier, to inform moroccans we are living in a place that's pretty special. it's not for any purpose that william burroughs or paul bowles or henri matisse. all these people came to tangier. this city has something which makes it different from other, you know, from other cities. >> anthony: well, what about young artists, young writers, young musicians? did they come here expecting this romantic paul bowles wonderland of the '50s? >> nosaeri: some were, some weren't, i'm going say too, bohemian. >> anthony: too bohemian? >> nosaeri: yeah, because, they thought that, like, you know, coming and being an artist like -- >> anthony: is going to be enough? >> nosaeri: is going to be enough. it's not, today it's not enough. >> anthony: right, yeah. >> nosaeri: it's pretty tough for them. and most of them pack their bags. >> anthony: right. >> nosaeri: there, today, we have so many investments going
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on here in tangier. thanks to our king investors are here, have been attracted. tourists are attracted. but the most important part of it is that we should keep the old parts of the city intact, the kasbah, the medina. >> anthony: the medina. >> nosaeri: that's what's hard to do because when you have, european purchasing power coming over here to tangier -- >> anthony: they come. well, like we come. we embrace it. other people want to come. and then we -- it all up. will tangier's unique character survive? ♪ >> nosaeri: i hope so. [ laughter ] i really hope so. ♪ ♪ >> anthony: tangier is morocco. always was morocco. and recently the country's leadership seems to have embraced it, in all its ill-reputed glory.
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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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♪ clear clear -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> anthony: after nine days of threats of imprisonment, confiscation of footage, and what was the most chaotic, difficult, yet amazing trip of my life, the last thing that stands between us and our flight home is the reason we came, the congo river itself. >> crew member 1: a un truck just said he's been here since this morning. >> crew member 2: i'm going to tell him straight, i've been held up for days. >> crew member 3: what's up, freddy? >> crew member 3: they're starting the engine. awesome. it just broke down again. yeah. >> crew member 4: we now have one hour of daylight left.
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