“I mean, that would be sort of ridiculous if Jamaicans can’t go to the beach in Jamaica.” How all Anthony Bourdain wanted to do after a year on the road in places like the Islamic Republic of Iran was kick back in a hammock and relax with a rum punch — and ended up help save a public beach.
Ja-maica me crazy.
Tom Vitale, Bourdain’s longtime colleague, confidant and creative collaborator, devoted an entire chapter to behind-the-scenes conniving, conspiracy and cosplay in Parts Unknown’s Jamaica episode in his book In the Weeds, and why not? June 2014 had been one of the most bizarre months of his life. It began with his 34th birthday in Iran and ended with Bourdain’s 58th birthday in Jamaica, and a (heck) of a lot happened in the time between.
Jamaica opens with an homage to the opening titles of a James Bond film, complete with widescreen underwater special effects in slo-mo and jazzy credits (‘Filmed in Zambonivision’) to the strains of jaunty John Barry-style music: Jamaica, after all, was where the recovering WW2 spy handler and would-be writer-in-residence Ian Fleming created the character James Bond and set down roots in his private, out-of-the-way beachside villa he dubbed “GoldenEye.” Fleming would go on to write Casino Royale, Diamonds Are Forever, From Russia with Love, and Dr. No, among others, and Bourdain was a big fan. Bigly so, you might say — though if you said that to Bourdain’s face, he’d likely throw you to the sharks in that shallow cove down by the beach.
Bourdain’s affinity with Bond and his admiration of Ian Fleming as a writer weren’t the only reasons Parts Unknown’s brain trust chose to close the program’s breakout fourth season with an episode filmed in the sunswept Caribbean. After the trials and tribulations of filming in Iran while trying to avoid having their footage confiscated by the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary overseers — or being held hostage by the Bisaj (Iran’s ultra-righteous religious all-male youth wing) — Vitale noted, “Tony made it extremely clear that the top priority for our next location — and the last shoot of the season — was ‘some low-impact beach time’ and accommodation of ‘unspeakable luxury.’”
Cue GoldenEye. Sequestered on Jamaica’s wild, read: less touristy, northeast coast, where old banana plantations and dense jungle spill down to a coastline of rocky coves and white sand beaches, where waves break against coral cliffs. GoldenEye itself, a luxury compound highlighted by a villa with gleaming white walls perched on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean behind a barrier of tall trees — “gated, guarded, and absolutely private,” as Vitale describes it — would be the perfect place to relax, unwind, and plot to take over the world. True to the Bond ethos, the compound came complete with a winding staircase that led down 60 feet to a private beach that included a grotto. A grotto! A grotto, Bourdain noted in his wry voiceover, that had the added, not inconsiderable benefit of never being used by Ron Jeremy. A winding staircase leading down to a private beach! Shades of Scaramanga’s island lair in The Man with the Golden Gun. Where movie audiences had to make do with Christopher Lee, however, CNN viewers got Tony Bourdain, and in fine fettle, too.
At the time of filming, Fleming’s original villa was the de facto presidential suite of the larger hotel complex; at a cool $12K a night, it certainly fit the Bourdain bill of “unspeakably luxurious accommodations.”
As is his habit, though, Bourdain strays farther afield, to Dr. Hoe’s rum bar, where “the Alligator Fund” — about $1,000 per shoot — went a long way, and barflies were just steps away — literally — from the eponymously named James Bond Beach. It was here, no doubt, that Bourdain became Dr. Yes ™®.
The farther afield Bourdain strays, though, the more he becomes attuned to the divide between the haves and have-nots. The big companies that own the beach resorts — well … they want more of the beach.
“Who gets to enjoy paradise?” Bourdain says. Exactly. Certainly not you, he says, and certainly not the locals who actually live there.
The tone of the program shifts, and suddenly Jamaica is not just fun downtime on the beach but rather a Bourdainian spin on Bob Marley’s anthem of the people Get Up, Stand Up.
Take, for example, Margaritaville.
“All I knew,” Vitale wrote in In the Weeds, “was that the vacation-themed bar and restaurant chain was owned by Jimmy Buffett, who Tony had practically made a career of publicly trashing.”
What could go wrong?
Well … nothing a little rum can’t solve.
”You should have a rum punch,” Bourdain tells Vitale at one point. “They’re excellent.”
Vitale: “I can’t. [The new production manager] is really clamping down on our drink bills.”
Bourdain, looking over his iPad at a hovering minder:
“I’d like sixteen rum punches, please,” and then, turning to Vitale: “You can have one of mine.”
The more of the island Bourdain and the crew see, the more difficult it is to ignore the harsh contrast between the resorts and the communities that serve them.
Vitale again: “Shockingly, it appeared Jamaicans didn’t really have much access to their own beaches, unless they worked in the resorts.”
By this point, far from the season-ending day at the beach Jamaica promised, it is fast becoming another exposé of what really goes on in foreign climes … in other words, the show CNN thought they were getting in the first place.
Bourdain being Bourdain, though, this is no dry lecture. There’s a sharp wit, a cutting edge to his observations.
From In the Weeds:“‘Where’s my robot piranha? Summon the robot piranha! (Expletive) fat herpetic with a novelty drink. Someone should put a stop to his reign of (expletive) terror right now and every other bald (expletive) with a ponytail. Things to do tomorrow: Destroy Margaritaville. Start worldwide revolution… Where’s the fixer!?”
Make it so.
And there it was. Parts Unknown’s fourth season was a wrap.
Bourdain: “If this were a Bond film,” he tells Vitale, “you’d be being torn apart by piranhas now. Piranhas would be swimming in ten different directions with your (naughty bits).”
The fixer arrives, rum punch in tow.
Bourdain. “Thank you, sir. Life is beautiful. I’d like twelve more of these, please.”
Conscience intervenes, as it always seems to do where Bourdain is involved.
Bourdain: “How do you do this and be a good person? If you wanted to spend three months of the year in a hammock, looking out at the Caribbean on a secluded beach like this. Could you do that and also be a good person?
“No, you have to do bad things to do this. Right? James Bond’s a hustler. He gets this for a couple of days before he moves on to the next location.
“The guy who lives here is the Bond villain. That’s what I’ve been missing.
“Ian Fleming was much closer to Blofeld or Hugo Drax. Those guys had lots of leisure time, sitting in hammocks, trying to figure out how to take over the (expletive) world.
“Lots of downtime in world domination. Bond was working-class …”
Bring in the crabs. One down, 49 to go.
Jamaica is sweet.
Jamaica first aired on Parts Unknown on Nov. 16, 2014. Today, ten years later, give or take, Winifred Beach is still there … and it’s still public.
Supplementary reading:
https://explorepartsunknown.com/jamaica/bourdains-take-jamaica/
https://explorepartsunknown.com/jamaica/episode-intel-from-jamaica/
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