Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

I will never be young again.

Or any younger than I am today.

I will never be faster or more flexible.

I will never win competitions against 22-year-old wrestlers

in my weight class.

I will never be a black belt.

None of those things will happen,

but none of that matters anymore.

San Francisco is changing.

We all know it.

You can't stop it.

Were you born here?

Yeah. Both generations of my grandparents

from San Francisco.

My dad's side came out for the Gold Rush, in the 1850s.

Author John Birdsall grew up in this town

and he's a close observer of the changes happening here.

When I came here, I was making the same tired jokes

everyone from New York to San Francisco makes.

The granola and the bread.

Yeah.

In fact, nothing can be further from the truth.

San Francisco is an outrageously dirty town.

It's grimy.

You guys have actual street hookers in this center of town.

It's a two-fisted hand me drinking big martini,

big steaks heavy smoking old school '20s

mentality still.

Yes, but it's vanishing.

Google is not too far from here.

According to many locals, the whole character of the city

is being leached out by an invasion of tech people,

the flood of tech money.

It's the triumph of the nerds,

out with the old, in with the new.

No place epitomizes that better than where we are now.

I tell anyone to come and meet me here,

they sort of laugh at me.

It's this thing that doesn't really exist

in San Francisco anymore.

It's not self-consciously diving,

It has this faded worn out, smells kind of sour.

Sinbad's, lost in time yet its time running out,

living out its last stand on San Francisco's Pier 2,

just south of the neck beards and man bun vapors

buying coffee a few hundred yards away.

My mom used to come here and was a secretary.

There was a place that catered to unglamorous office workers.

Those are rarer and rarer.

- Is the relentless wheel of history going to roll - over this place?

Yeah, it will eventually roll over this place.

The location is too good.

One of the best views in San Francisco.

A last drink or two before the grinding wheels

of the apocalypse turn through,

leaving what in their wake?

They want to put a ferry terminal here, is that right?

Yeah. They want to build a fancy ferry terminal.

Young people coming here in the tech industry

are insulated from the culture of San Francisco.

Since the Beat Generation or the Second World War,

people came to San Francisco

in their 20s to do a very specific thing.

San Francisco is a place you can have an acid trip

and see the kind of thing you thought about

yourself is kind of bullshit.

Even though culture is changing and horrifyingly expensive...

Right.

There is still something like that

that exists in San Francisco.

You will always have that.

San Francisco will always make an impression on you.

San Francisco was built on toughness.

It's a boozy town, a saloon town.

Red meat, sex and dirt.

Every morning, every morning,

7:00 a.m., I'm here.

For the next hour or two hours

or sometimes more, I'm just getting crushed.

Humility, Jiu-jitsu gives you that, in spades.

In 1914, Mitsuyo Maeda, a master prizefighter,

emigrated to Brazil.

He befriended Gastao Gracie and ended up teaching his sons

Carlos and Helio

and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and the UFC

all goes back to the Gracies.

My home academy is Renzo Gracie in Manhattan.

I'm telling you because the reason I'm doing another show

in San Francisco is to train here.

Ralph Gracie Academy,

one of the toughest and notorious...

That's it! So now, pass it!

...and most admired.

To a great extent because of the relationship

between the terrifying Ralph...

Gracie looks at you like he's got a problem.

Those eyes are menacing.

...and this man, Kurt Osiander,

the beloved figure in the Jiu-jitsu community

because of his remarkably honest and unvarnished

move of the week videos.

So, he gets stuck and he gave the guy an underhook.

A long time ago, it's so bad now you have to work really hard.

To my knees, head up!

Getting some control over the other guy.

When you see an MMA fight,

when they strike, it's usually

boxing or muay thai or karate.

When they throw or trip their opponent,

it's judo or wrestling,

but when it hits the ground,

you better know Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.

Object: to choke your opponent or lock his extremities

in such a way to make them submit.

I do not want this getting my guard broken.

That's bad. It sucks.

There's full mount.

Arm bar.

Ezekiel choke.

Rear naked choke.

Bow and arrow.

Then, as they say, my choices become very limited.

It's tap, snap, or natural.

You have his pants,

now start to rotate and extend your arm.

Don't lift him up.

Put your head this way, extend this arm.

Yes, pass it.

Hands a little bit tight.

You can always adjust it.

In case you haven't noticed,

I'm an old school guy.

I'm sentimental about some things,

nautical themed restaurants, puppies.

And places like this.

I'm fully aware of the fact...

I can hear it already...

Every show you've ever done in San Francisco, you come here.

Yes. That's correct.

True love cannot be denied.

I need a counter with some

familiar faces on the other side.

Good morning.

What am I having?

- I'm having crab back of course. - I'll get you one.

I need a cold draft beer.

I deserve this beer, been eating healthy.

I'm like a Real Housewife of New York City,

I drink only vodka, because it's low carb.

And I eat shellfish.

Look at the size of that one!

Here it is, a crab back!

Dude!

I guess somebody throws this away,

tear the legs off and eat them and throw this out,

stupid people, all that good stuff,

the grains and fat and magic, it's like unicorn juice.

Mm.

Swan Oyster Depot, a touchstone in my worldwide wanderings,

a happy zone.

If I read about myself dying at this counter

I say to myself, that was one lucky guy.

Sweet! Nice plate of crab legs,

maybe a little Louie on the side?

I guess.

So good.

Tony, here you go, babe.

I got...

I got local Tomales Miyagis.

I should eat these before training.

Gives me super human strength.

On the other hand, coughing up oysters all

over the front of my gi might not be cool.

The Bay Area is changing forever.

Will San Francisco's new overlords find place in their

hearts for this?

Trader Vick's.

One of the last of its kind.

Started in Oakland, a wave of

tiki themed Polynesian fancy

restaurants and bar clubs for a time spread across America.

I definitely need the drinks menu.

I've been beaten like a chicken fried steak.

You were doing some sort of martial art, too.

I want the mai tai wave?

What's the mai tai wave?

It's a flight of mai tais.

Really?

It's a surfboard with three different mai tais.

Not many places left that do this.

Very few do it, without irony.

This is not the first time you have been here?

No, I practically grew up in this place.

Really?

My parents used to take me from like age 3.

It was like a home at Trader Vic's.

Author Shawn Wilsey, grew up San Francisco.

His parents were regulars at the original downtown Vic's.

I used to drop acid and go to Hawaii Kai,

so this kind of thing is a taste of my childhood, too.