The Embassy
July 30, 2008 | Filed Under Main | No Comments
In the Middle East, all the airports LOVE to stamp your passport. Stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp! Thus my formerly little used passport now had about three clean pages left (they also paste your visa in there). I learned that you can add pages to your passport at the Embassy, so I went over there today. I also had never been to an Embassy before. I seemed like a cool idea to check it out.
First, I made an appointment – which is key to getting into an embassy of any kind. It wasn’t hard to find as Kuwait is actually pretty small. I didn’t get lost once. I DID go into the wrong entrance first – thinking that the maze of jersey barriers was a dead giveaway. But actually the entrance I wanted was down the road about 100 yards into the open parking lot. Once you get to the gate, the security guys (not American) drive you in a little golf cart to the front doors… all 20 yards. It’s a rule. They let you off 15 seconds later in front of the big “Embassy of the United States of America” sign and a leftover tank from the Gulf War. Then you walk over to the dark, plexi glass station to more security (not American) and show them your appointment. Then you go into a line, as you are allowed in one at a time through the door. But this was just the metal detector and, carrying a blue tray of the contents from your pocket, you go outside again and head to the Embassy (of course refilling your pockets and leaving the blue tray on the table outside the door). I started to walk toward the main entrance of this two story adobe-looking building when another security guard (not American) pointed off to the side. I went over to the door marked “Consular Services” and entered a small space that could pass for Motor Vehicles anywhere in the States. There were two areas filled with folding chairs facing walls with two plexi-glass windows in each. AND NO ONE THERE WAS AMERICAN! Here I am in the American Embassy and STILL the only white man in the room.
I took a number and sat. Not long though. The guy at the window took my passport and my form and told me to come back in about three or four hours. Short, terse, no conversation. I came back later and the passport was retrieved outside where I started – after another 15 second ride in a golf cart. (Granted, when I came back there were one or two Americans picking up their extended passports)
So once again a shot at adventure was blow out of the sky by bland tedium. God help you if you actually needed this place for something important. Without a form - you’re lost.
Added to iPod
July 24, 2008 | Filed Under Music | 2 Comments
So what else do you do when you’re bored and depressed except download cat pictures?
You buy music.
The first three I bought at a used CD shop in town. They even have a little sticker that says “Licensee For Saudi Arabia, UAE and Lebanon”
Rickie Lee Jones – “Ghostyhead”
Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Broken Arrow” This is an odd, disjointed one for him, but the first three songs – clocking in around 25 minutes – are worth the price of admission.
Don McLean – “American Pie” A classic. Wanna fight?
Then I raided iTunes:
Donovan – “The Essential” Can anyone really live without Mellow Yellow or Sunshine Superman?
Spiritualized – “Songs In A&E”
Soundtrack to “I’m Not There” Great movie and a two-disc set of everybody from Sonic Youth to Eddie Vedder to Ramblin’ Jack Elliot doing Dylan songs. It’s a blast!
Then I went a bit Irish. You can never have enough. So I picked up Flogging Molly’s new one “Float” for the modern, drinking Irish. Then Altan’s 1992 record “Harvest Storm” which is more traditional. And finally the band Dervish (who I read about recently) and their album “Decade”, which is sort of a retrospective of their first decade of performing. This is very traditional. Someone online described it as pub music, where the whole family gathers to listen to the band play and sing. Most of the songs are brighter than Altan and Cathy Jordan’s vocals are sweeter (lighter?) than those of Maighread Ni Mhaonaigh, but either way I’m a sucker for a lass singing in Gaelic.
I Can Has Cheezburger?
July 23, 2008 | Filed Under Main | 1 Comment
One of the greatest websites. Don’t show the dog…
more cat pictures
Watchmen
July 19, 2008 | Filed Under Main | 6 Comments
Most of you probably don’t care, but the first real trailer for the movie The Watchmen is out and it is sweet! Watchmen is one of my favorite comic books (or “graphic novels”) and the trailer is perfect. I’ve seen it four times already (and I’m still amazed at how they get Billy Crudup to look tall!). I think it is showing with “The Dark Knight” this weekend. Or you can see it here:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/watchmen/
BTW - for more useless knowledge - I have been watching the third season of The Twilight Zone (part of my DVD collection) and have you ever noticed that, when Rod talks to the camera, he usually has a lit cigarette in his hand? Times have changed…
Reality Check
July 16, 2008 | Filed Under Main | 4 Comments
I would like to tell you all more about my life in Kuwait… but I don’t have one. I work 60 hours a week, eat alone, watch my DVDs or read, and sleep. There is nothing else to do.
You can’t meet anyone unless you have children. Families are everything here in Kuwait. If you aren’t attached to a family, you are avoided. There is no art; not even religious art. There is a rare exhibit someplace that you don’t hear about until it’s over. There is a two-day jazz festival once a year. The movies are censored and there is one little community theater that is closed for renovations. I can shop but, being a guy, I shop commando style: get in, get what you need and get out before anyone knows you were there. A satisfying shopping experience takes less than thirty minutes. It would be shorter, but to go grocery shopping in Kuwait, you must navigate through large families in every aisle. Any shopping is a communal experience in Kuwait. The whole family goes - right down to the grandparents, all the children and their nannies. And – as you can imagine – these stores are much smaller than your average Shop Rite.
So – as a person without children under 18 – there’s not much going on. I don’t even think I’m allowed to go to the various amusement parks without a child chaperon. I can shop or go to one of the many frightening similar American fast food restaurants (is there a difference between Ruby Tuesdays or TGI Fridays?). I can sit in coffee houses ‘till late at night and drink coffee and smoke like all the other men, but there may be health risks to that. I can’t even go to the beach because the heat (over 120) and the dust (constant lately) make it somewhat un-enjoyable. To add icing - work has not quite risen to expectations. For such a large firm, they are incredibly… let’s say “provincial” in the way they do business. The big leagues this ain’t.
I’m sort of in a void here. Kuwait is different enough to make me long for things back home (like art or the occasional beer), but it is not unique enough for me to lose myself in its culture (or even find its culture). Sure – part of the issue is that the installation I’m doing at work has been a nightmare. Yes, I am paid and treated well. And yes, it has only been just over six months.
But that’s work. Kuwait – I don’t think – will change.
Garland Jeffreys
July 12, 2008 | Filed Under Music | 2 Comments
Our good friend Wikipedia puts is succinctly: Garland Jeffreys is an African-American and Puerto Rican singer-songwriter from Brooklyn. Is that hyphenated enough? In actuality, he was one of the best singer-songwriter’s to come out of New York. And tragically underrated. He had the unfortunate luck of having his three greatest records of rock-soul-latin boogie come out at the end of 70s, when punk and new wave was making all the noise. He had a hit with the classic “Wild In The Streets” of the Ghost Writer album but the pop charts eluded him. Ghost Writer, One-Eyed Jacks and American Boy and Girl were deft forays into the back alleys of Brooklyn and the racial tensions all over the city. He could be as romantic (“New York Skyline”) as he could be bleak. One of my favorites - “City Kids” from American Boy And Girl – is a harrowing, eyes wide open account of being a poor teenager trying to get by on the streets of the city: “and I’m only fifteen years old/I could be black/And I could be white/But for sure I’m young and bold.” Then the sax brings you to the break, as he talks about sitting around listening to jazz while everybody gets high, and then he sings “shooting dope, shooting dope” about twenty times to be sure you get the point. And the music! How can you go wrong with Dr. John, Steve Gadd, Anton Fig, Michael Brecker, Roy Bittan, Danny Federici and countless other luminaries of the industry playing along?
But that’s the bitch of it. In a world where Vanilla Ice can still make records, none of those Garland Jeffreys albums are available on CD. The CD I’m showing you here is from 2007 and is called I’m Alive. It’s sort of a ‘best of’ collection with a few new cuts thrown in. It was only released overseas and I found it in the cut-out racks at the Virgin Megastore in Abu Dhabi. A long way to go for an American singer from the streets of New York.
He stills plays around the area and occasionally shows up at the Jersey Shore. Check out his website:
http://www.garlandjeffreys.com/
Food
July 7, 2008 | Filed Under Main | 6 Comments
Have you ever eaten a thick piece of cardboard with cinnamon sugar on it? I have. It’s called a Low Fat Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tart. Ghastly thing. I think they use them to make houses in Indonesia.
I truly appreciate the concern folks out there have about my (our) health. But let’s not get crazy. Sometimes you take natural foods – foods that have been around for centuries! – remove the fat and replace it with chemicals. Bad, bad chemicals. I came home from my short day of work Saturday and realized I had not eaten lunch. So, I made myself a couple of PB&J’s to tide me over. That was around 3PM. Around 7:30, I was just having dinner and I started to have cramps. I ran to the bathroom… and repeated that trip many more times until somewhere around midnight. It was the “Reduced Fat” JiF I somehow managed to buy. Totally screwed with my system.
And what are you people in New York doing? Banished the “trans-fats”, have ya? Made them a crime, eh? And replaced it with what? Do you know what they are feeding you now? Probably not. So now the only place I can get a real cannoli is… Italy?? For those two or three times a year I have a cannoli?! Why don’t they just legislate behavior? Have a real cannoli twice a week – no danger. Have a box of cannolis every day – “trans-fat” or no – and you are obese! Come on! How many guys drinking Coors Light are skinny? How many?! You should have to sign in every time you walk into a MacDonalds so the gangly, dweeb manager can say, “Sorry, Mr. Clark. You’ve been here three times already this week. You’re cut off!”
But that’s a politician for you. That’s why we live in a “Nanny Society” in the States. They are always looking for that easy, no-harm-no-foul vote. Balance the budget (which is their job)? Forget about it. Pass a law to ban a food (not their job)? Right there to get it done… and then go back to sleep. What imbeciles.
Flying
July 4, 2008 | Filed Under Main | 3 Comments
With young Christopher in Crete with his friends, our little family is each in a different country for this Fourth of July. What does that mean…?
I am right now in Abu Dhabi. Had to visit the office yesterday. Today is my six month anniversary of being in the Middle East and, so far, the only good thing to come out of it is travel. I like traveling. I like airports and hotels and being in different countries. I even like being on planes. The flight to any of the other offices is one and a half hours tops. Hell, I was on buses into New York longer than that. I was a late bloomer to international travel. The first time I flew over seas was at 26 when we went to Mallorca for our honeymoon. (That may have been my first time on a plane period.) I was nervous and that was given added dimension by the intense security at the airport in Barcelona. At that time, there were a rash of terrorist highjackings (yes, Virginia – there were terrorists all those years ago. They just never told President Bush) and the military was out in force. Nothing like seeing a bunch of 18 year olds with Uzis at every checkpoint.
It was ten years before I flew overseas again. Once I hit 40, I always looked for reasons to travel. You learn a great deal getting out of the country every now and then. It gives you some perspective. We know now that we can’t take the media’s word for anything. So it’s always best to go out and see for yourself. I want to go back to Spain, maybe see a bullfight before they stop them. I want to see Istanbul and see the famous mosque Sofia. I need to see Ireland, of course. Maybe even somewhere Scandinavian like Finland or Sweden (because I do have some of those genes as well).
It’s a big world and if I get anything out of this gig, it will be the chance to see more of it. Some countries are much closer here than they would be from home.