Big Storm

March 30, 2009 | Filed Under Main | 4 Comments

It rained last night. Around 12:30, I was in bed and thought I saw a flash of light around the room. It happened one more time and then the thunder rolled in and the rain began. Rained well into morning – which is unusual. When I got up, it was raw and wet and a bit cold. And the rain had managed to short out the elevator in my building. Now there are only two ways to get to the parking area in the basement: the outside electronic gate or the elevator. And where was my electronic key? In the car. So I walked outside, preparing to climb over the gate in my work clothes. But someone had left the gate partially open, which saved me a great deal of embarrassment and probably bruises.

After lunch, my usual group walked the parking lot and saw the sky begin to darken again. We walked over to the back of our building – to the water side – to watch for lightning. The wind wasn’t too strong so the clouds took their time. The water had taken on an incredible shade of blue – sort of a metallic aqua. Strangely looking like it was lit from beneath. Between the sky and the water, there had to have been at least six different shades running from top to bottom. Across the water, we could see the sand on the other side bright as day. The belching chimneys of the electric plant were already being drowned in rain. Then a light shower began. We went inside.

Maybe a half hour later, the downpour began. This is the first rain I have seen in broad daylight – 2pm in the afternoon. And in a place where it doesn’t rain much, a downpour will find its way in. Our ceiling sprung leaks in a number of places. Oddly – the sound of rain water dropping into trash bins was very familiar and reminded me of offices past in the City. A short while after the rain stopped, I noticed the birds flying by my window again. The shades were down and I didn’t think much of it because they are always zooming near the windows. But this one was a bit different. When I looked out through the slats – there was a bird looking back. It was pacing up and down my ledge and looking in. Then it would leap up, hit the window and keep pacing. It definitely wanted to be inside and kept looking at me as if to say, “Hey, would you mind…?” I don’t know what kind of bird it was, so don’t ask. It was a greenish-yellow little fat finch-like bird (close enough?) The storm must have totally thrown it for a loop and it was nervous. I watched it try to find its way in for about twenty minutes before some of the maintenance men came around and it took off… hopefully to a nice, quiet place to soothe its jangled nerves.

Entering Year Three

March 28, 2009 | Filed Under Main | 2 Comments

I started Gorky two years ago today.

It’s been a rather eventful two years, I must say. I’m sure this particular year will be no different. I believe in cycles in life. I find that my life has always run in three year cycles (though occasionally five). That is the time it takes to come around to a new position – to move forward. And let’s use the board game Life for reference. So you’ve taken your little plastic car all the way around the board – collected those little pegs that are you wife and children – and you finish. Then you start again. Only in real Life everything you gained (or lost) stays with you. You follow the same route around the board, but you need a much sturdier car and a ton of insurance. And better glasses.

Anyway – here we go. Let’s see where Life takes us…

Wall Street

March 25, 2009 | Filed Under Main, Politics | 2 Comments

I never really trusted Wall Street, but lately it just seems to be in total chaos. It is acting shell-shocked. It jumps at everything! CitiGroup says it made a dollar and the market goes up. Bernanke eats a bad shrimp and the market goes down. A report comes out saying unemployment is up and Wall Street drops to its knees in agony. Hell – they need a report for that? Was the report a surprise?

What is God’s name is going on? Whatever happened to investing for the long term? What about all the garbage they taught us about 401ks – always with a condescending look in their eye? Talking to children about big finances. “We know you don’t understand, but trust us. We’re experts.” Where are those experts now?! At least we laymen thought they would better understand a company’s worth and value. That doesn’t seem to matter anymore. What matter is how Wall Street feels. Does it feel good or does it feel uneasy? I swear – the government is acting like a parent with a stubborn child, offering treats for good behavior. WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO FUNDAMENTALS??

Aren’t we glad they didn’t put our Social Security money in there?

Facebook

March 24, 2009 | Filed Under Main | No Comments

So I’ve joined the ranks of Facebook. It’s the wife’s fault. She brow-beat me into it. ;-)

I can’t say how much time I want to spend on it. Facebook is like a chatroom. It gets very noisy. I get the impression of being at a large mixer in an airplane hangar. Sure – you know the people and you like them, but there’s no focus, the sound is bad and the place is overlit.

I like it better out here (though fewer people come to visit). But I figured – “Why be a Luddite?” Hey even Christopher Walken can Twitter.

Who am I to deny technology?

Added to iPod

March 21, 2009 | Filed Under Music | No Comments

And of course I picked up music in Paris! A shout out to Crocodisc on the Rue des Écoles. Tons of vinyl (which I stayed away from with great willpower) AND Cds. Most of this stuff has not reached the States.

Indochine – “Paradize” A big French New Wave band back in the ‘80s. This was their 2002 comeback disk. Think Depeche Mode in French…
Silent Poets – “To Come…” Probably one of the best chillout disks I’ve heard. These are two Japanese guys mixing and programming and – sadly – they are defunct. The CD package is a limited edition features some moving photos taken in Khabarovsk, Russia. (I don’t know why…)
Tom Waits – “Live In Austin:Romeo Is Bleeding” I never heard of this release before, but there it was at Virgin Records in Paris. From the Blue Valentine tour.
Anaïs – “The Cheap Show” and “The Love Album” I read a little bit about this singer on Amazon before I left, so this was just a shot in the dark. Wow. Anaïs is an immensely talented young French singer (and pretty good in English, too). The Cheap Show is her debut album recorded live with just her, a guitar and a tape loop box. She is passionate and fun, with a great sense of rhythm and a damn good sense of humor. Reminded me a bit of Imogen Heep, but with all the funk and ‘tude of Ani DiFranco. She can be wistful, but she ain’t gonna take your shit! The Love Album was produced by well known hip-hop auteur Dan the Automator (Gorillaz) and though it has some beats, it also shows AnaÏs well versed in pop music. It even has a lovely duet with Chris Isaak. Why are we subjected to all these tween gas bags when they are singers like this out there? Why???
Nitin Sawhney – “London Underground” and “Prophesy” I read about this man’s recent CD in Songlines. Turned out I had a few songs from him on the iPod from different techno disks. But neither tags are correct. In fact – tags do not function here. Nitin Sawhney is writer, producer, arranger, programmer, piano player, guitar player – but mainly we are talking about the “vision thing” here. Sure – maybe Prophesyhangs a bit closer to the techno moniker. More world beat, if you want to call it that. But basically these records are journeys. Point A to point Z and everything in between. London Underground is about London and ALL its people. A piece of R & B fades to some hip-hop poetry fades to a wonderful vocal by Sir Paul McCartney into a slice of the Arab world that’s moves into a gorgeous Chinese lyric backed by classical piano and ends with a duet with Anoushka Shankar. Can’t describe it. You can only listen to it as the work of an artist who understands and cares about his world.

And it’s NOT on iTunes and it’s NOT released in the States. Some crimes leave me speechless.

Politicians = 4th Graders

March 19, 2009 | Filed Under Main, Politics | 3 Comments

… not to insult fourth graders.

A year ago, New Jersey’s politicians were saving the world from Foie gras. Today – Behold!

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey is drawing the line when it comes to bikini waxing.
The state Cosmetology and Hairstyling Board is moving toward a ban on genital waxing altogether after two women reported being injured. Both women were hospitalized for infections following so-called “Brazilian” waxes. Technically, genital waxing has never been allowed — only the face, neck, abdomen, legs and arms are permitted. But because it wasn’t specifically banned, state regulators haven’t enforced the law.
The board will decide on April 14 whether to adopt explicit language banning genital waxing, which it has already done preliminarily.
The earliest the ban would take effect would be sometime in May.
Salons which continue to perform the bare-it-all “Brazilian” could face fines.

What’s next? Itchy toilet paper?

In Kuwait news…

March 18, 2009 | Filed Under Main | No Comments

I heard that the Cabinet resigned yesterday. Again. This is about the third time they have tendered their resignation since I arrived. The Cabinet are government officials appointed by the Amir. Each time they resign, things go on hold for a while until the Amir appoints a new Cabinet… who look remarkably similar to the last. The Cabinet has been resigning because of their difficulty in dealing with members of Parliament.

Parliament is made up of elected officials because – after all – Kuwait is a Democracy. And these elected officials perform the same function as elected officials everywhere: they protect their phony-baloney jobs by not doing anything that they can be blamed for. That is why Kuwait’s development is stagnant compared to that of its sister countries. There’s a development just outside the city that sits vacant and unfinished because there is no electricity. And there is no electricity because one MP decided to save hundreds of thousands by NOT building any more power plants (though they did pay the developer for screwing up his plans). There has been a stimulus package to deal with the financial crisis (here as well) sitting at their desks for months that has yet to come to a vote. Add to this that the Parliament consists mostly of hard liners and Islamists (freely elected by the people) and you can see why the Cabinet keeps resigning. The main reason this time has been the constant calls from the Islamists to ‘grill’ the Amir to see if he is as holy as they are.

So rumor has it that the next step for this little, America-friendly democracy is that the Amir will dissolve Parliament for two years. This is a move that a lot of people – especially expats and the business community – are hoping for.

In Dubai, an edict was issued this week to clamp down on those bawdy, noisy and drunken tourists that it caters to. The new rules make it a crime to wear short-shorts in public or be caught exhibiting public displays of affection. Bikinis on public beaches are a no-no, as are public dancing, loud music or swearing. I wish them luck with this. I mean – you have to remember where you are. In Dubai, people tend to forget they are in a Muslim country. Remember that American boy in Malaysia who was whipped for spitting gum on the ground? That British couple who was caught having sex on the beach SHOULD have been thrown in jail for a spell. But this act will be a problem for Dubai. First – they are bleeding money and any further blow to tourism will wreck the place. Their main source of revenue is wealthy Westerners, celebrities and the Russian mob. Neither group is very good at rules. Then – the numbers are against them. Right now the ratio of expats to Emerati is probably 20 to 1. The ratio of non-Muslim to Muslim may be around 10 to 1. That’s a HUGE amount of skirts to be checking the length of – and we’re not even talking about the prostitutes.

Strange days, indeed…

Internet Radio

March 14, 2009 | Filed Under Main | No Comments

It’s Saturday.

I’m not supposed to be working… officially. But I have come in every Saturday since I got here. Not like there’s much else to do – though yesterday I went to the new Sultan Center in Hawalli to do my grocery shopping (whoopee).

But it has been part of my Saturday ritual to listen to WMVY Radio from Martha’s Vineyard on the Internet. It’s a bit too “lite FM”, but I always liked it on the rides up to Falmouth (when we got in range). And it’s kind of fun to listen to the tail end of the overnight shift. To listen as the day goes from dark to dawn and just beyond. It has a different sound. The DJs are a bit sleepy – not quite on their game – and the music doesn’t get too noisy. And there is little or no talk! (Thank the Lord) Mainly – the station just reminds me of home…

News?

March 8, 2009 | Filed Under Main, Politics | 4 Comments

The Media must die.
Or at least take a vacation.

Too many outlets, too much time on their hands and not enough REAL reporting. How can there be enough space to reprint every half-baked rumor and outright lie and yet NO time for investigative journalism. The Media has become purveyors of Spam and news is just processed cheese-food on a cracker. Bad enough that every website I open sings out to me of which third rate former TV star is now arrested for DUI. Bad enough that ‘OctoMom’ can rightly see a meal ticket in giving birth to a basketball team and now I have to feel for her because of the ongoing backlash. BAD ENOUGH even that every program from “Hardball” to “John & Kate Plus Eight” show the Wall Street ticker at the bottom of the screen like some kind of macbre death-watch!

But now the Media demands that I know that all our members of Congress are busy “Twittering” during sessions? And I thought it wasn’t possible to think less of them! What the hell is Twitter anyway? What vile scum created THAT? Why do we care what members of Congress are doing since they are obviously NOT DOING THEIR JOB? Why can’t they just drink like our fore-fathers??!

And I’m a billion miles away from y’all. So my options for news are the icky-gushy, melodramatic brain freeze that is CNN/FOX/MSNBC or the death and destruction of the rest of the world that is Al Jazeera. I could watch even less than I do, but I might miss something.

Vacations

March 4, 2009 | Filed Under Main | 2 Comments

Paris was… well, Paris. Sometimes you just walk around like Carmella in the Sopranos and say to yourself – “Who built this place?” It is quite a wonder. Saw much art, had great food and many beverages. Alas – like with every other vacation – we did not get to see any live music. Our days work like this: From late morning to mid-afternoon, we walk until our legs fall off. Then we come back to the apartment and rest. Then we go out for a fabulous meal and a bottle of wine and then we go back to the apartment to pass out. These seem like full days to me. How does anyone go out after the meal? Is it the Red Bull?

The flights were okay. I saw two decent movies – Rachel Getting Married and WALL-E. The first had great acting and the second was probably one of the most original films made last year. The flight out was a bit cramped for me, but coming back I was on the end of an empty row of four. However – as luck would have it – behind me was a young French boy (maybe 6?) who did NOT SHUT UP for the entire flight. Singing, yelling, climbing over the seats and basically making it imperative that I remain under the iPod. Even taking the bus to the terminal, he was still going. That’s when I noticed he had an older sister. She never said a word the entire time. As this kid careened off his mousey mother (who never reprimanded him and kept referring to him a ‘monsieur’), I looked at the girl and got the impression that she sees this often at home with any male in her mother’s life.

Everything came in on time and all the baggage and parcels made it. Then came the food poisoning.

Don’t know whether it was the indescribable ‘snack’ that was served on the flight from Doha or the fast food Arabic chicken I picked up at the airport before heading home, but the next 24 hours were rather grim. Ever heard of the phrase “the sluices were open at both ends”? I have but I had never experienced it until now. After six hours of that, the fetal position was about as good as it gets. Amazing the number of muscles that kind of illness takes. I am still sore all over.

Yes – back in the Q…