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November 20, 2008 | Filed Under Main | 6 Comments

The one I couldn’t take.

I am in Abu Dhabi again for a couple of days, staying at one of the older hotels – Le Meridian. It’s a Starwood hotel and I say it’s older not because of the tiles on the walls but because it only has five floors, which is unusual for a hotel in this neck of the world. My hotel is in walking distance to the Abu Dhabi Mall, Trader Vics and another hotel – the lovely Beach Rotanna. This hotel was hosting the Abu Dhabi Jazz Festival – and of course I went.

I arrived for the second act and went to grab a drink. But the music was only okay, so my eyes wandered to the beach. As I sat down in the sand – with the huge hotel behind me – I looked out at the not-so-distant skyline. Where ever you looked across the water loomed the state bird – the crane – and all the multi-story skyscrapers it was giving birth to. They were well lit as the second shift began to gear down and handover to the third. Everything around me seemed to be manmade, all concrete and steel, hewn for out of the sand and desert. Just as I started to get cynical about my surroundings, a school of kellies (bigger than kellies actually) started to splash around by my feet. They moved back and forth and leaped into the air and chased each other until they swam off to play in a new spot.

The music for the evening was mostly smooth jazz in nature. That is until the headlining act – Guy Manoukian and his band – who were SMOKIN’! Manoukian is an excellent pianist and composer and they played music from all over this region with verve and style. (I will be looking for CDs.) I say at a table across from a Palestinian man and we talked about the band (who he had seen before) and music in general. At one point, he told me that he loved America – just not our current President (no surprise). He said he wished us well with our new president because “the American people deserve better”.

So, when you look at the big picture – Wall Street, the election, the rest of the world – are we collapsing or expanding? Is the world we know failing or evolving?

I’d like to believe the latter. Ask any animal – evolution is painful.

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6 comments so far
  1. Tommy November 21, 2008 1:55 pm

    The ‘problem’ with evolution is that it is impossible to predict what the end result will be as well as when it will come. So how do we know when it stops evolving? how do we know that this isnt the end product? evolution is painful but perhaps we arent evolving for the better. Some yuppie nutcase pulled a gun on my sign installer today because he didnt like the way he was doing something. Is that the evidence of the process or the product. I, like you, would also like to believe the latter you are referencing but there are more examples of collapse than there are of expansion. However I am 26. i dont think i can get more cynical than i am right now.

  2. mburma November 22, 2008 12:16 am

    That’s the tricky part. You don’t know you’re evolving anymore more than you know if you have an appendix (are all babies still born with an appendix?). The case you site is a good example. Maybe shortly ALL Americans will own guns because we don’t want to be the only fool on the bolck without one. Though, frankly, you’re guy just needs to be tossed in jail since it WAS a crime. The other night, I was sitting in a group of about 500 people – of which maybe 30 were American – enjoying some music. There were five different nationalities at my table alone. Thus my perspective was a bit more positive.

    But as the great seer Bill Hicks once said – “Hey, that’s just me. Libra Rising – the Scales!… or Shiva the Destroyer.”

  3. Mike November 24, 2008 8:09 am

    Speaking of Mr. Hicks, I believe his third TV special is on tonight, “To Hunt and Kill Miley Cyrus”. Since the first show, “To Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus”, was such a success, might as well go after the daughter as well. Hopefully the whole set will be out on DVD by the time Easter Weekend hits, so I can do something other than play Sonic Hedgehog.

  4. Anne November 24, 2008 1:57 pm

    Carl, What’s a kellie?

  5. mburma November 24, 2008 10:52 pm

    I may be spelling it wrong, but in Jersey that’s what they call these small fish that swim in schools by the shore. Chris used to catch them in a bucket and sell them to the bait and tackle place by the Harbor for bait.

  6. kerry November 25, 2008 8:25 am

    they are “killies” and if memory serves, they are baby blues….