la la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la >>> once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a place, a very special place, a clean, orderly, and nice place. usually i hate clean, orderly, and nice. the air smells fresh and physically fit, statuesque blondes pedal through streets lined by old buildings and canals. i read something very disturbing on my way here. apparently denmark is, like, the happiest place on earth. they actually keep stats on this. apparently denmark is far and away number one the happiest, most content place on earth. >> well, the colleges are the same for everybody. >> free? >> free. >> that's un-american. that's socialism, isn't it? >> yes. i mean, here, that's not a bad word. >> okay, they pay, like, 60% of their earnings in taxes. but then they do get things like free health care. 52 weeks maternity leave on full pay. >> when i had my kids two rooms down, that's where the future king had his kids. >> there's no, like, beyonce suite. >> no. we're all there. we're all the same. that makes people more happy. >> th

la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ >>> in july 2013, when i went to south africa, 95-year-old nelson mandela was critically ill. in the country he freed from white minority rule was already in mourning. and already fearful of what the future might be without him. >> i pray that he -- somebody takes baton from him. >> i wish him a speedy recovery. and come back to his people. ♪ >> so a good friend of mine, a really great travel writer, said something. the more i travel the less i know. i feel that particularly strongly in south africa, a place i came in a state of near total ignorance. loaded with preconceptions. for the first part of my life, the south africa i knew was not a happy place or a good place. it was a pariah state. outrageously divided into black and white. a throwback to attitudes we thought we'd long learned to reject. ♪ >> the nationalist government in south africa enacted apartheid laws in 1938. who you could marry. where you lived. where you could walk, be educated, everything decided by racist laws backed by police, arm

la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ >> it's one of the most beautiful places in europe, a place whose roots are very much the roots of the town where i live, but somehow i've never been able to get it right. to tell the story, any story of sicily. it's the biggest island in the head -- mediterranean. two main towns of palermo and catania on opposite sides. i'm done a show in palermo before. it was an epic goat rodeo, an failure of humiliating scale. this time i was going to get it right. there's the sicily we know from films, an evocative, deeply felt history that's not quite reality but cool anyway, right? there's the simple fact of its location, tucked away under the boot of italy, part of but not really part of that country. its own language, culture, its own history of norman, arab, spanish, roman, turkish, egyptian interlopers, all leaving their mark and their influence. i grew up in new jersey which was pretty much sicily on the hudson. the italian-americans next door weren't from milan, i could tell you that much. i guess what i'm telli

la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ >> it's one of the most beautiful places in europe, a place whose roots are very much the roots of the town where i live, but somehow i've never been able to get it right. to tell the story, any story of sicily. it's the biggest island in the mediterranean. two main towns of palermo and catania on opposite sides. i'm done a show in palermo before. it was an epic goat rodeo, an failure of humiliating scale. this time i was going to get it right. there's the sicily we know from films, an evocative, deeply felt history that's not quite reality but cool anyway, right? there's the simple fact of its location, tucked away under the boot of italy, part of but not really part of that country. its own language, culture, its own history of norman, arab, spanish, roman, turkish, egyptian interlopers, all leaving their mark and their influence. i grew up in new jersey which was pretty much sicily on the hudson. the italian-americans next door weren't from milan, i could tell you that much. i guess what i'm telling you i

la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ ♪ >> i was raised without religion. one side of the family long ago, catholic -- i think. the other side, jewish. i've never been in a synagogue. i don't believe in a higher power. but that doesn't make me any less jewish, i don't think. these guys sandbagging me at the wailing wall, they don't seem to think so either. >> only half. >> jewish? >> yes. >> you writer? >> i'm a writer, yes. [ speaking hebrew ] >> now you're bar mitzvahed mazel tov. >> mazel tov. thank you, gentlemen. i've never felt so much like i'm mas ka -- masquerading as something i'm not. i am instinctively hostile to any kind of devotion. certainty is any enemy. i'm all about doubt, questioning one's self in the nature of reality. constantly. when they grabbed hold of me and in a totally nonjudgmental way essentially -- god's happy to have you, here you go. oh, man. my treachery is complete. just because i was raised outside the faith with no particular attachment or loyalty to israel doesn't mean that plenty of people on this earth don't h

la, la, la, la ♪ sha la, la, la, la, la ♪ sha la, la, la, la, la ♪ sha la, la, la, la, la >>> the western myth has pretty much captured the american imagination. none of us can escape it. for ages, we identified ourselves with the image of the lone cowboy, the perception of frontier values, self-sufficiency, rugged individualism, the freedom of wide open spaces. few places in america still manage to embody that mythic landscape of the imagination like the state of new mexico. what does freedom mean? it's different things to everybody, it seems, but something about this place manages to capture the overlap between a whole hell of a lot of very different cultures. old route 66 runs through new mexico like a collapsed vein, right through santa fe and albuquerque. it must have seemed like magic once. families loaded in a massive chrome and steel chariots with powerful v-8 engines and took off down that blacktop highway. they slept in whimsical motor lodges and bungalows, swam in kidney-shaped pools. then it all went redundant. route 66 was decommissioned, chopped up, largely forgotten, except

la, la, la, la ♪ sha la, la, la, la, la ♪ sha la, la, la, la, la ♪ sha la, la, la, la, la >>> the western myth has pretty much captured the american imagination. none of us can escape it. for ages, we identified ourselves with the image of the lone cowboy, the perception of frontier values, self-sufficiency, rugged individualism, the freedom of wide open spaces. few places in america still manage to embody that mythic landscape of the imagination like the state of new mexico. what does freedom mean? it's different things to everybody, it seems, but something about this place manages to capture the overlap between a whole hell of a lot of very different cultures. old route 66 runs through new mexico like a collapsed vein, right through santa fe and albuquerque. it must have seemed like magic once. families loaded in a massive chrome and steel chariots with powerful v-8 engines and took off down that blacktop highway. they slept in whimsical motor lodges and bungalows, swam in kidney-shaped pools. then it all went redundant. route 66 was decommissioned, chopped up, largely forgotten, except