Goodbye, Desert. Hello, different Desert.

Tomorrow, I am leaving Dubai for Bangkok.  I didn't pay for the plane ticket.  I'm getting picked up at the airport and I'm getting chauffeured to my new apartment, including MAID service, which I don't have to pay for, and I'm going to settle in for the next two years.  You may ask, Why didn't he have to pay for any of this?  Tim is certainly less qualified, has a lot less going for him, and is quite possibly retarded.  I'll tell you why:  Because, when I leave tomorrow, I will only have 2 bags (technically I will be carrying on 1 additional).  I won't have anyone weeping at the security gate when I leave, I won't have anyone giving me a gratuitous kiss when I arrive, and if my 2 bags get lost in transit I won't care.  Because I don't own those bags, and those bags don't own me.

The reason I keep moving, even as I enter my sunset years, is neither to "remake myself" (as every American expat will tell you) nor to get rich (as all the other ones twaddle on about).  I move to feel real.  After I finally graduated college (and yes, I have the diploma), I moved back to Richfield Springs to feel the fear of the unemployed.  I left RS and moved to Delaware for a real job.  I left DE and moved to Indianapolis for a real love.  I left Indy and moved to Suffern due to real fear.  I left Suffern for Brooklyn for real friends.  I left Brooklyn for Central Islip for a real girl.  I left CI for Dubai for a real wakeup call; I'm leaving the Dubs for Bangkok for a real change.  I keep leaving for something which makes me feel real.  Perhaps if I had an actual definition of what "feeling real" means, or at least a substantive, personal relationship with that "real," I would stop moving.  But it's elusive.  And I am enamored with it.

So, that being said, I'm going to start a new "Living in Thailand" blog.  Here are some names I like:  Thailand Daze, Bangkok Knights; The Curmudgeon Express; Smith-ereens; Dissolute isn't a Bad Thing; The Lowbrow Life; Constantly Entertaining Strangers.  I'm not sure which one is the winner, but once I've lived there for 3 days, I'll have my answer.  Anyway, I've been here for 2 years, and I made 2 lists: Things I didn't do which I thought I would, and Things I did but never dreamed I would do.

Things I didn't do but thought I would:
Learn Arabic.
I can't speak a non-coherent sentence, let alone a comprehensible one.  Arabic isn't the lingua franca here.  I can insert some appropriate words, but I've never been forced to learn anything beyond Ramadan and Haraam.  That'll give you a pretty decent idea about how Arabic is spoken here.  Even when I was in Saudi, the language on the street was Hindi, not Arabic.  Because the men on the street were from India, not the desert.  I'm not upset I didn't learn the language.  It's guttural (pejorative).
Enter a Mosque:
The first year I was here, I didn't enter a mosque because I was scared I might offend everyone.  My second year, I didn't enter one because I knew I would.
Go on a Desert Safari:
Driving from Dubai to Ras Al Khaimah several times (enough already....really) was plenty safari for me.  I didn't stop to take pictures, because sand is always photogenic.  The feral camels lining Emirates Road like sentries were enough for me.  I didn't need to pay to go see the same thing.
Go to the top of the Burj Khalifa (nee Dubai):
The first week the tallest building in the world was open, the elevators broke.  As in, they BROKE.  Yeah, I've seen the slave labored buildings here, and I wouldn't trust any of them.  I may be stupid, but I'm not dumb.  Wait...I may be dumb but I'm not...hold on...
Only eat local food:
Dates.  Dates are the local food.  And camel.  I've had both.  But after a moment, the palate yearns for more.  Something more...not desert.  Because Dubai is a desert and historically speaking, deserts aren't known for their culinary bounty.  I've become a huge fan of grills, kebabs, hummous, hammour, and other Lebanese cuisine.  I like me some good Indian food.  But local?  No thanks.  Palm fronds are good for waving, not for making soup.
Visit the Burj al Arab:
The Sailboat Hotel.  The 7 Star wonder.  Within 1 week of living here, I knew I would never go see it.  Gilt and poor craftsmanship.  The difference between Gatsby and the Buchanans.  I didn't truly understand that difference until I was in England and saw...old buildings.  Then, when I was in Armenia, I saw older buildings.  And those buildings are still standing.  Here's my prediction:  The Burj al Arab won't be standing in 10 years.  The roof is already leaking, and it doesn't rain here.  Tell me how that happens.
Mix with the Locals:
The Emiratis are a completely closed population.  I was propositioned by a local once, but then I asked him what the book had to say about extra-terrestrials.    No more free drinks after that.  That'll teach you to look a drink-horse in the belief.
Quit my job in fury and rage:
Usually I tend to do that.  This time I didn't.  Weird.  It's probably because I like what I'm doing, but just didn't like the people I was working for...thus, Bangkok.  Doing the same thing, but for different people.

Things I did but didn't imagine I could:
This list is pretty boring, but I'll sum it up:  it's all pretty awful stuff.  I didn't know I had the capacity.  Apparently I do.  Ahhh well.  At least the kid I fathered...oh...whoops, can't say that anymore.  Perhaps that one time...nope, I lost all dignity there, too.  Of course, I've never had a huge store of dignity.  So I move on.  And I try to be truer to myself.  And I will continue to try and make myself feel real.

If you are of the Abrahamic bent, you are necessarily nuts.  The recent attacks in Norway, the constant suicidal bombings in Pakistan, and the Israel/Palestinian conflict all prove my main thesis.  If you believe in a singular, judgmental god you are a crazy person.  And I hate your belief.  All of it.  I am willing to say that there is NOTHING GOOD about what you believe, and I'm willing to say your belief is singularly poisonous.  The Sun-god faiths rely on judgement, but that judgement is placed into the hands of an indecipherable and unknowable god.  How do you know what your god actually thinks?  How?  From a book which brooks no amendment, from a christ who wasn't, from a kingdom which hasn't happened?  As soon as you tell me "god thinks" I know you are retarded.  It would be better for you if you had a genetic disorder, because then you would have a reason for saying something so entirely stupid.

My friend Brian posted this entry on his blog (eloquent and thoughtful as ever):
http://sojourney.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/ramadan-in-jordan-2011-an-outsiders-perspective-ramadan-basics-part-1/

He, also, is retarded.  Religion should no longer be under the "divine edict" clause.  If it's stupid, it's stupid.  If it's hateful, it's hateful.  There's nothing worse than reading about the way "one side" is right and the other side "is wrong" but heaven forbid if you denigrate the other side.  Heinous.  The whole idea is heinous.  Sectarian violence is religious violence: Darfur's situation is the result of islamic, religious warfare, Somalia's famine is a direct result of the Catholic Church's refusal to ok birth control, 12 people were killed in Afghanistan because of the burning of the book, Thailand's southern tip is torn apart by Malay islamists demanding...something stupid.  It's all so stupid.  Somewhere in the belief of a loving god, all abrahamists have gone astray and cleaved to the judgement and the righteousness.  I am sickened.

I think there are two amazing things which have happened to the Western World:  The Plague (because it weeded out a lot of the unnecessary children and their procreaters) and the Enlightenment.  Not the schism of East vs. West high churches, not Luther's nailed theses, but the event which killed 1/3 of Europe and the event which showed the remaining few how to think.  Unfortunately, those of the Abraham faiths have stopped thinking.

I am currently living in an Islamic country, and I challenge anyone, who thinks his government should be anything other than secular, to live here.  Then, and only then, would that person understand that while it's swell to be in the religious majority, it really stinks to be in the minority.  I am, literally, prohibited from drinking water in public here during R*m*d*n.  I also couldn't buy alcohol in Delaware on Sundays.  You tell me which law makes more sense.  R* has 28-30 days, depending on the moon, but every year has 52 Sundays.  Which is more onerous?  Which is more stupid?  New Jersey closes retail outlets on Sunday, the Middle East stops working for a month.  Sure...that other one makes sense.  If you deny a prophet, you deny a new truth.  Ugh.



The problem with the faiths of the desert is there is such a forced dichotomy between "believer" and "not really a believer" and "apostate."  No christian wants to acknowledge that Anders Behring Breivik may have...gasp...believed in Jesus and his saving grace.  Musta been a different Jesus.  That's the same rhetoric Muslims claim about terrorist attacks.  Its all so savage.  So savage.  

While the mainstream press has been identifying Breivik as a “Christian terrorist,” “Christian fundamentalist,” and “Christian extremist,” several media commentators and actual Christians have been vehemently attempting to set the record straight about “Christian” being used so carelessly.
(full article here: http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-set-record-straight-on-alleged-norway-shooters-faith-53069/)

Islam, a religion of mercy, does not permit terrorism.  In the Quran, God has said:

 God does not forbid you from showing kindness and dealing justly with those who have not fought you about religion and have not driven you out of your homes.  God loves just dealers.  (Quran, 60:8)

(full article here:  http://www.islam-guide.com/ch3-11.htm)

But look how easy it is to twist words, how easy it is to judge.  It's sickening. 

i dream about small, pale things.

small things which eat my tongue,

pale things which turn my fingers into poorly handled knives.

i hope jesus loves me.

i laugh at inappropriate things:

gimme a good dead baby joke

(you can't empty a truck full of bowling balls with a pitchfork),

a too-soon 9-11 one

(the last thing through their minds was an airplane),

and i'm rolling. hahaha. really, really funny.

give me a mumbai terrorism joke, it's not as funny:

two indians walk into a bar, neither one leaves alive;

a muslim asks a girl child for directions to paradise

but before she can answer

he straps a bomb onto her and calls her “map.”

didn't they know jesus loved them?

i told (yet another) a philippina she was beautiful

even though her braces carried traces of an afternoon meal

and her hair was tortured into a bun only monotheists could love.

she said she was sinful and wasn't beautiful.

i tried to tell her she was beautiful because she was sinful.

doesn't she know jesus loves her?

i stumble a lot when i talk.

i don't stutter, i don't lisp, i just stumble.

i feel a boulder of rock-solid hatred

suspended precariously over my left shoulder.

i don't want to start the boulder's inexorable roll,

because once it starts i can hate everyone.

everyone.

i know i can hold that boulder up,

and i know no one can stand withstand it.

so i stumble with my words. and i suffer.

jesus loves me. even me.

i wish i had saved my ring.

yeah, my wedding ring. well, my used-to-be-wedded ring.

i haven't worn a watch since star wars was in the theater;

i didn't have a class ring,

i don't wear necklaces or new shirts.

i keep my memories safe in pictures

and slyly concocted journal entries.

i wish i had something more concrete,

like that slim band of cheap gold that reminded me

i was loved by something real.

shouldn't jesus love me?

perhaps my favorite memory

is of an orphaned squirrel.

that poor, fluffy, doomed, rodent.

or maybe the baby rabbit, also orphaned.

either way, they both died.

heartbreak? starvation? thirst? fear?

i just remember holding them (separately)

cautiously, tenuously, fearfully.

i remember jesus forgot them,

and i remember knowing jesus forgot me too.

i went into the desert and i saw stars,

so drastically different from the ones

i saw when i held her hand.

now i remember i didn't care 

about the sky,

the stars,

jesus,

when i was with her.

and so i was healed.

2nd stupid poem in as many months

when i answered the doorbell,

i found myself face to face with mustafa,

the maintenance guy who scrounges up

extra cash by selling bottled water.

i have a good relationship with him,

but didn't have any cash on me,

so i ordered two bottles on credit.

he peered into my apartment and asked if i was moving out.

i told him there are more things inside my apartment than when i moved in.

mustafa wouldn't deliver the water until i paid him.  upfront.  and in cash.

a pigeon family has roosted on my balcony.

they nest behind an old bicycle and laundry rack.

the chicks start squalling at six in the morning,

the mother starts calling at seven.

i storm onto the porch, shake the bicycle and the rack

in an effort to get some peace and quiet.

the chicks stop making noise but can't fly away,

unlike the mother, who wings away in fear and rage.

in the later hours of the morning i feel terrible

and throw pieces of bread to them to make up for my sins.

the dance continues.

i told the taxi driver to take me someplace to eat.

where? he asked.

i don't know. someplace good.

you like american?

no, i don't. take me to where you eat.

it's far, sir.

it's ok.

he took me to the outskirts of town,

where the buildings melt into the dunes

and streetlights are merely an afterthought.

a concrete block struggled up against the horizon,

industrial fans whirled like falling angels in gash-like windows.

two callow lights glimmered in the blighted night.

here is where i eat.

oh.

i expected him to take me to a place that had running water.

there is a simplicity to cooking rice i never understood:

put your finger into a pot, pour rice in until it's even with your cuticle.

place your finger on top of the rice and add water

until the water is level with the first knuckle of your finger.

boil. perfect rice, every time.

i asked her if she had a simple recipe like that for everything.

she smiled and said “only for food.”

food was the only thing i was asking about.

if i knew i only had twenty four hours to live

i would shoot someone in the leg, just to see what it felt like.

i would pet a dog, hug my sister, feed someone,

and tell that one girl i still love her.

Just a stupid poem

I went to an Indian dance club

and was immediately reminded

of the strip club in Terre Haute

and the scarred dancers

who attacked the pole as if it were

a terrible memory;

I was reminded of the club in Beaverton

where I saw my first full frontal show.

A dancer showed me

her baby-maker, her baby-feeders,

but not her why-baby-why.

I am not immune.

I went for a walk and saw the towering buildings,

the blue garbed sub-continentals

toiling to re-brick this city.

A Nepalese cab driver ferried me

across Sheihk Zayed road,

the vein feeding this desert, deserted kingdom.

I marveled at the amazing ability of sand.

I am not immune.

The call to prayer started at 4 am.

Keening, vowel ridden words

soared in the humid air,

driven by claxons mounted on every corner.

I stood on my balcony, smoking and watching

the faithful, scattered few scurry to the mosque.

And I hated them.

I am not immune.

I walked along the Arabian gulf,

stepping around the jellyfish

which were washed up on the sand

like discarded, translucent pennies.

I wanted to pick one up, hold it to my chest

and embrace the unavoidable sting.

Because I wanted to feel something.

I am not immune.

I taught a girl how to light a fire.

I remember because I had to hold her hand

while she placed the match under the twigs.

A girl taught me how to make vegetable soup.

I remember because she cradled my hand

while she stirred the broth with a broken wooden spoon.

I remember I soaked her hair in tea, colored her toenails with a purple marker,

touched her face with such infinite trepidation.

I remember because I failed.

I am not immune.

Istanbul and Getting Rooked.

So, I visited Yerevan Armania last year.  I swore some allegiance to Mother Armenia, pledged to never hurt the country of my heart.  Then I was invited to visit Turkey.  I kinda forgot my new found Armenian heritage, and flew to Istanbul.  Regardless of the statistics: www.truthandgrace.com/Armenianholocaust.htm (this website is blocked in the uae, so I don't know exactly what it says) and in light of the fact that I had fallen out of love with the Armenian proprietor of the woodcutting museum and her little dog (she was broken nosed hot, and I mean that in the best possible way.  I would have given up everything to pet her dog and kiss her to sleep each night), I didn't think much of the flight to Istanbul, because I was surrounded by Turks.  As I was disembarking the plane, I remembered I had that Armenian Visa on my passport, and the alert Turkish border guard would certainly put up a fuss about my switched allegiance.  Trouble, I was sure.  But $20 later, I strolled onto the the sovereign land of The Islamic Republic of Turkey.

Mother Armenia, may I remind you, has statues regarding the ethnocide delivered by the Turks (I'm coining the word 'ethnocide" here and now):

See?  Sad Armenia.

The first thing I noticed about Istanbul was the chill. It was quite cold (well, cold compared to the arid climes I'm used to).  It's really one of the unheralded wonders of this modern world to be able to walk from a desert, sit down for a while, and walk out into a cold world.  Amazing.  Really.  Anyway, I successfully navigated the currency exchange, the taxi stand (which wasn't as daunting as the one in Thailand), and the tittering Eurotrash who were dressed for the weather better than I, and found myself on the way to The Sultan Eyes Hotel.
Now, I didn't (don't) speak Turkish, and my driver didn't (doesn't) speak English.  All I had to go on was my journal entry regarding my hotel.  We got along famously.
My taxi driver knew where Old Town was (and like it's name, it really was old), but he refused to acknowledge that the car he was driving had a clutch.  If you've ever had to listen to the squeal of gears and brakes and revving engines, I'm assuming you've heard Indian music.

Anyway, we finally found the hotel, and I was shown to my room.  After the initial shock of how small it was (I could brush my teeth and take a shower, and if I needed to I could also evacuate my bowels...at the same time, in the same space), I opened the window and set out for the hilltops.

I thought this was the Blue Mosque, because I was unaware of the way the invading forces had ruined a architecture (invading forces=koraninites--I'm coining that word too). 









From another view, I thought this was a really beautiful mosque.  Then I realized it used to be a real church, without the battle stations errr... minarets.  That being said, I don't blame the m*dians for desecrating this place, and I don't blame them for erecting an even better architecture, the Blue Mosque.

Meaning, this.

After swooning because of the gorgeous architecture, I decided that perhaps I should walk around a little more (as I tend to do).  I saw this wonderful alley lit by green lights, and immediately after I walked past it, I got accosted by a guy who wanted to show me "pretty Turkish girls who no say no."

After that, I headed toward the Sultan's Eye's Hotel, but got caught up in the lights, the smiles, and the Australian coeds swarming the streets.  But then I saw this, found a great meal of goat and cream cheese and finally went to sleep.

The next day, I had my meeting with the owner of TPR, Istanbul.  It was pretty boring, and he didn't offer anything other than the chance to be an illegal worker in Turkey.  Not the sharpest move for someone of my advanced age. Anyway, it was a pretty boring meeting.  Afterwards, I went to Taksim square in search of adventure (you would think that, by now, I would be adverse to adventure).  Not true.

I found statues 



.

I found Churches

And , of course, I found the guy who robbed me.  Istanbul is quite hilly, and so I was walking down the hill from Taksim Square (because I'm not normally one to walk UP a hill), in search of the underground train to lead me to the train which would then take me back to Europe (I was on the Asian side of Istanbul).  I found the Underground, but because I couldn't understand how much the trip cost nor where to get off the train, I decided to let gravity take control, and I started down the hill towards the bridge back to The Sultans Eye hotel.  So far, so good.  I managed to semi-stumble my way down the hill and I was on the precipice of the final, unsteady staircase when a shoeshine boy, trudging up the hill, dropped his shining brush.  Because I'm not smart, I picked it up and called out "You dropped something."  Then I continued on my way.  Just as I was about to take that first step onto the perilous staircase, a wooden stool, a boy, and the brush appeared at my feet.
  "Sir, please," I heard.
"These shoes don't take I shine," I said.  I didn't say it because I was being cheap, but because I was wearing sneakers, and historically, Nike's just don't take a shine. Before I stopped speaking, the boy was assiduously scrubbing my right sneaker with a toothbrush.  In my head, I was telling myself the whole situation was bad, but in my heart I was convincing myself that "he's really scrubbing hard, and who cares about wet shoes?"  Like a sucker, as soon as he tapped my left calf, I switched feet on the stool so I could get my left food drenched as good as my right one.
Less than a minute later, he straightened up and said "25."  I thought the price was slightly excessive, but I wasn't in the mood to argue so I pulled out my wallet from my front pocket (a little lesson learned from Thailand) and handed over 15 lira.  (The US dollar is about 1.6 Turkish Lira.)  Then I started thumbing through my wallet for another 10 lira.  I couldn't find the 10 I thought I had, so I produced a 50 lira bill and asked if he had change.  He shook his head sadly and said "Only 15."  I'm magnanimous to a fault, so I said "Ok, 15."  He gave me 15 lira and trudged his way up the hill, and I took my change and carefully navigated the stairs down to "street" level.  Halfway down, I realized exactly what had happened:
Me---->Shoeshine boy:  15
Me:  Looking for 10, Shoeshine boy doesn't return my original 15
Me---->Shoeshine boy: 50
Shoeshine boy---->No change, only 15
Me:  Happy-ish with 15 change.
It was only while I was walking through the open air cheese market (it exists...it exists) that I realized I got rooked, and paid the kid 50 lira (approximately $27) for the honor of having wet socks.  And I realized that I had been taken by the oldest game in the book.   For a while, I thought I should just pin money to my shirt and walk around, thus dispensing with all the formalities people have to go through to take my money away from me.  But looking back, I really admire the innocent face, the ease of working a mark, and the fact that he at least worked on my sneakers for a minute each.  This again reinforces the thing my friends tell me (which I try to disagree with at all times) that I still believe in the better nature of people.  I guess I could be doing worse. 

After getting rooked, I walked across the bridge which connects Asia and Europe, and I saw one of the main attractions (which I had been standing at, prior to the shoe shine debacle) of Istanbul, Galata Tower.  Neat.

On the bridge, there were a lot of folks with fishing poles in the river:

And I could see the Imperial Mosque:

And the Marmara Sea

A statue

A Roman Arch

Thailand II (no pictures)

The next morning, I woke up to her curled up at the head of my bed, flipping through the hotel's phone book. As soon as I rolled over, she passed me a cup of bad coffee and gave me a dazzling smile. For a split second, I forgot the fiscal nature of our relationship, the fact that I was (and still am) trying to escape myself by escaping geographic locations, that I would never see her again. But for that brief second, I was happy. She ruined the moment by getting dressed and putting her face on. After a moment I, ever the sharp one, realized that it was time to show her the door, and my wallet. After putting on some shorts and a shirt (there's nothing worse than being tossed out of your hotel room, naked), I intimated that our night was at an end: “How much?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“You asked me my name, you asked where I was from, you asked about my family, you massaged my feet. Nothing.”

“Uhhhhhhhhhh.” There's nothing like a money transaction gone your way to make you speechless. “Here's some American money.”

“I don't need it.”

“I don't want it.” We stared at each other a moment, then she took the $30 (910 Baht), clapped her hands over her head, bowed, and left. I don't know if I've ever felt worse about myself than when I closed the door.

Anyway, after taking a quick nap (it's hard to sleep with a Cambodian in you bed....Pol Pot and all that), I took a tour of the city in a TukTuk. Wow.

Golden Pagodas; garlands of exquisite flowers strewn around small altars like after parade confetti; red-robed monks under yellow parasols disembarking from boats, whose provenance and sea-worthiness were questionable at best; a vegetable market so consumed by chaos that after a the first few mesmerizing minutes it actually seemed orderly, like a fractal; an abandoned amusement park; houses cobbled together from the rusty blue hoods of Ford trucks and purloined corrugated metal; the children.

The children half naked and rail thin, limping on a stump or running with a head full of steam with hands stretched out for a baht or two; the children prostrate on the pavement with torn 7-11 cups on the pavement in front of their heads and arms ready to receive alms from this unexpected visit from the bulky red-head foreigner (apparently word spreads quickly in the poorer sections of Bangkok). And of course my heart broke for all of them. But, without tossing a single baht, I ordered the Tuk Tuk to take me to the nearest bar so I could drown out the sorrow and the noise, as per usual. So, I wound up at the The Goose, on Suhkumvit Road.

The Goose was an uneventful, laid back bar (thankfully) and though I was greeted by the smiles and clasped hands of waitresses I just got my drink on. Again, as per usual, I drank too much and ate too little because the little voices of those poor bastards on the road were eating into my heart. After a while, I left and started to weave my way back to S15. Sukhumvit road is underneath the metro tracks, so there are a lot of shadowed overpasses one has to walk through in order to get to where one wants to go, and it was in one of these shadows that I was accosted by “Lisa.”

Lisa was tall and skinny, willowy even, with eyes streaked hazel and grey. Her hair fell in luscious curls (a weave, I'm assuming) onto her bare shoulders, her red dress fitted her body in the exact opposite way my clothes fit mine. In other words...wow.

Anyway, Lisa sidled up to me and told me to take her with me to my hotel. Having been sated the night before, I declined (politely, I might add). As soon as I said that, she gave me a hug, took my hand for a moment and whispered “Sure?” into my ear. I nodded, sagely, just to confirm my previous statement, because I couldn't quite get my other parts to work. She gave me another hug, then asked me to sit with her for a while. Because I can't help myself, I sat down on the curb with her. She smelled like the best possible mix of a candy cane and summer. While we were sitting in an even darker part of the street, the doorstep of a shuttered store, she offered me a breathmint from her handbag. “A true lady,” I thought as I accepted the mint. Almost immediately, Lisa whipped her phone out from some unseen pocket of her dress, mumbled into it for a while then announced that she had to go meet her friend. I wished her well, hauled myself to my feet, and continued to stumble down the street in search of the 7-11 across from my hotel (7-11s are on every corner in Bangkok, just fyi) because I needed cigarettes and a bottle of water.

At the register of the correct store (only 1 mishap on the way), I pulled out my wallet to pay and, to my (continued) amazement, I found I had no cash money. When I left The Goose, I had $200, 4,000 baht, and 150 UAE durhams in my wallet. At that register, at that moment, I had exactly nothing. “The Cunt Robbed Me” I shouted accidentally. Then it hit me: I still had my wallet, I just didn't have any money. My ATM cards were intact, my credit card was still there, my driver license and Dubai work permit and Notary Public and Security Guard Trainer and First Responder cards were all still safely ensconced in their normal spaces. In short, Lisa took my wallet from my pants, snatched the cash, AND replaced it without my knowledge. So I stood there, and even though I had been robbed, I wasn't upset. I was amazed, because she hadn't taken anything of value. Just money.

Sure, I had to walk to an ATM, navigate through the unintelligible menus of the Thai banking system, had to walk back to that 7-11 bashfully and give the cashier the ATM-smelling bills, but I still wasn't upset. Because Lisa had left me with everything that has ever mattered to me: my sister's senior picture (the one she wrote nice things on the back of, not the other one), a love poem Brenna wrote me during my freshman year in college, a short letter I wrote to myself 15 years ago, a weathered card with a fading heart stamped onto it. In short, Lisa only took money and left me the more important things. Money is replaceable, memories that I can place my hands onto aren't. When I'm on my deathbed and I can still put my hands on these little things, things which prove there was a time I could love and be loved, I will thank Lisa for not taking them. And I will be grateful for the lesson I learned: what is precious to me needs to be treated as if it were precious to me.

Which leads me straight into Istanbul.

The backstreets of heaven part I

I can't decide if I should go for a play by play recount of my misadventures (and yes, my days were all misadventures) in Bangkok, or a piecemeal recount of my impressions.  Misadventures are funny, the impressions are slightly less so.  So I'm pretty well forced to go with a mix of both.



After I landed, I spent an hour inside Suvarnabhumi Airport before realizing I didn't need to fill out additional immigration forms (unlike those poor suckers from the Balkans and, more recently, the Egyptians).  After strolling through customs, I stepped outside to have a quick smoke and reset my bearings (I have an almost unerring sense of direction, but only if I can see the sun and/or a compass).  It was like stepping nose first into the humid sweat glands of Armageddon's equestrian riders.  I thought Bangkok would be chilly this time of year.  I should know by now that thinking isn't really my strong suit.  After smoking a quick one, I strolled down to the taxi level (because I couldn't find the van my hotel was supposed to send me).

The taxi stand at the airport had a pre-printed complaint form.  I didn't take that to be a good sign, but I tossed my bag into the back and agreed to take the highway to my hotel.  The ride took a little longer than expected, mainly because there was a car accident (a flipped SUV and a Nissan pickup with a shorn bed).  Other than the gristly accident scene, the view from the taxi was beautiful.  Vibrant green plants everywhere, strong rooted photosynthesis machines overpowering pavement and temples and the bitter acidic air.  I saw tin roofed shacks, supported by twine strung between palm trees and surrounded by bicycles lacking wheels; I saw food carts hiding from the sun under Coca-Cola emblazoned umbrellas, and all of the tired and holed umbrellas looked as if Pepsi-Co financed a purge in the near past but had failed.  Because every red and white scripted banner...was.  Each one was, and that was amazing.  The slumping buildings fancied up as we got closer to the city's center, and then we popped onto Suhkumvit Road, where the buildings' facades are glass but their foundations are the cloth covered stalls housing the poorest of people.



 Digression #1:
I'm very used to the diatonic musical scale.  It's normal, it's coherent to me, it sounds pretty. It's based on the idea that there are equally subdivided steps between notes, and so one can play chords which sound tonal. On the other hand, almost all of the ambient music I hear in Dubai is based on the atonal scales of India or other mid-eastern notation and/or rhythmic beats.  I know what the true difference between the scales is: harmonics.  Harmony was first identified by Pythagoras, but he was just a little off in terms of his math (stupid Greeks and their lack of calculators).  (If you are truly interested, this very dry article about Pythag's miscue in the harmonic world is interesting:  http://ray.tomes.biz/alex.htm).
Indians, Sri Lankins, Persians, Arabs, etc use a very different, very terrible scale when playing.  It sounds so unpleasant.  The women singers sound as if they are being eviscerated by a pissed off goose with a chronic cough, while the male singers are apparently mimicking the death throes of bull elephants. 
Thai, Malay, Laotian, and Korean pop music reminds me of good ol' 'Merican pop music.  Thus, the Thai song.  Also, the lilt of the Thai language is literally eye-watering.  (And though I have no idea what she's singing about, I really like it.)
--End digression--



I got dropped by the curb of S15, my hotel, and as soon as I stepped out of the taxi, I started sweating like a whore in church.  The humidity was dreadful.  Upon walking into the lobby and looking like an American, I got a sweet, nonsmoking (important) room on the 6th floor.  So I deposited my bag in my room and started exploring Suhkumvit road.  I got no further than the Korean Barbecue across the street (literally...across the street) when I was approached by Roy.  A down and out Englishman, drinking a 40 of Singha beer, he initially asked me what time it was, then he asked me if I'd ever been to Bangkok.  Upon hearing my answer ("no"), Roy regaled me with stories of the wonders and the beauties of Bangkok.  Because I'm retarded, I listened to him.  It wasn't until he asked me how much I was paying for my hotel that I realized something was....weird.  Roy said I was too white to be an expat (I still have a tan), that I was staying in an excessively expensive hotel, and then he asked me for 100 Baht.  I gave him 20 Bht and said I had to go.  

--Digression 2--
Every ex-pat I met in Thailand was friendlier, yet more willing to steal, than anyone I've met in Dubai.  I don't truly know which is worse:  being aloof, or being friendly for gain.
--End--


I wound up in a small bar, sitting next to a completely drunk Zimbabwean.  (I don't think that's how his nationality should be spelled, yet...there it is.)  He had the gin-blossoms I'm scared of, the weird hair, the ability to really drink and think that nothing around him was strange.  I knew I was in trouble.  




Then, while I was walking back to S15, I came across a little girl and her dog.  Begging.  The dog was awesome.  It had a cup in its mouth, and the girl knew the dog's face was how she was getting her money.  It made me think:  what the fuck is so terrible about my life, when the truth is I've never had to worry about anything?  A roof, a kiss in the morning, a book to read?  I've either worked for, suffered through, or paid for everything.  I realized the "woe-is-me" syndrome is a pharmacological lie sold to the west.  What the fuck is so wrong with me?  I can tell myself my parents were distant, that I moved a lot, that I can't understand stuff but I've never had to beg for dinner.


Day #2
I slept in, luxuriated in the huge shower, thumbed through the phone book, and finally exited S15. I stepped into the languid arms of Suhkumvit road, sweltering and homey, and decided I should go left.  I walked away from my hotel, and got mixed up with the weird traffic signals and the fact that Thailand, like its previous colonizers, demands driving on the left side of the road.  Certainly it isn't wrong, but it always adds to the fun whilst attempting to cross a street.  I found a small side street populated with noodle vendors and beautiful children holding balloons.  At one of the carts (the one with the oldest person), I pointed to noodles, vegetables, and vague meats (yeah...double meat...that's what I like).  After she cooked it, she gazed at me and whispered something I didn't understand.  I offered her 500 baht (the smallest denomination I had in my possession), but she shook her head.  I thought I had found the dream:  a free meal and a smiley-faced cohort to eat with.  Then she gave me a bottle of Pepsi, and whispered something else to me.  I offered her 700 baht (because a bottle of Pepsi is about 150 baht), but she shook her head again.  I looked around for salvation, for something/someone to tell me what I was doing wrong.  I found no such help and started to walk away, but she grabbed me by the arm and escorted me to the single plastic chair she had set up in front of her cart.  I tried to physically ask if I was being too cheap (hands high with the baht bill, then low with the bill), but she wouldn't answer me with any sort of hand signals other than pantomiming that I should eat.  I stood up from her chair, but she put the softest hand (ever) on my shoulder, rubbed my hair, and pushed me back into the chair.  So I ate.  And I was so thankful and grateful and so willing to believe in the beauty of people.  Until the girls came out, 20 minutes later.  







Day #3:

(From journal)
The taxis here are painted garishly and haphazardly, unlike the sterile desert tones of the cabs in Dubai.  The sidewalks are crowded with foodstalls, grim-faced women hovering over an eternally bubbling oil and every cart cooker offers the same thing.  The variety of meats and vegetables is stunning.  The cart ladies don't speak english, and apparently the worst thing I could've done was to try and pay for a bag of noodles with a 500baht note.  Because the noodle lady I offered the 500baht to dragged her daughter out for me and threw her into me.



Gross.  Then I looked at her (the daughter) face; I looked at her ( the daughter) body...and I remained strong.  I've never fucked children and I think those who do should be chemically castrated and then killed.

So I went back to S15 (my hotel), and sat in front to have a cigarette (no smoking in the room, and I don't screw around with that rule).  I was approached by My Le (or Mi Lia) while I was sitting there on the plastic chairs of S15.  Mi Lia, a 40 year old Cambodian woman, asked if she could sexy me.  I, ever being trapped between the gentleman and the grossly "fucking for fuck's sake" beast, asked for more information about this "sexy" she was offering.  She showed me her breast, and I showed her into my room. 

Still working on my prose Thailand post....but here's something special

normally, I reserve all terrible thoughts and words for my Father.  But Roger isn't with me anymore.  He's still alive, I think, just not with me.  So I'm jumping out of turn and specifically speaking to the issues in the Middle East.

Tunisia was the Harper's Ferry Rebellion in the Middle East.  And, unlike the actual Ferry Rebellion, it produced a winner (not JWBoothe).  Egypt.  Mubarak has been forced out, not because of the demonstrations, but because his government stopped all communication with the outside world.  If he hadn't done that, he would still be in power.  I'm not talking about normal censorship, Mubarak cut it all off. But no country, at this point (with a couple of exceptions:  Canada, New Guinea, North Korea, US), can survive without the outer-world connection Egypt cut off.  So Mubarak had to step down because of his own foolish decision.

That's what the sand religions do to you.  Makes you impervious, makes you not care about consequences, makes you the eternal victim.  I have no intellectual reason to be nice to Is***.  It's the worst thing in the modern world.  Sure, there are nice ones, modern  Muhammadians, but the actual ones are worse than Fundamentalist Christians.  Both camps are illiterate and/or only subscribe to one version of the truth.  Unfortunately, that truth means death.  So stupid. 

I don't have much hope for this world.  I'm sure even the moderates on every side will eventually have to look at a dead family member and say that God killed him/her.  And when that realization hits, we will all be free.  Not that God took anyone to a better place, but that your God killed someone.  That someone is my mother, is someone's sister, is a father.  All of your Gods killed my mother because all of you said he saves people.  Dumbasses.  All of you.

This is what happens when you don't have lists:

I'm in Bangkok, Thailand, and I forgot my camera cables.  Like a jerk.  Because I didn't make a list of things to bring with me.  Even though I knew full well that when I don't make lists I forget a lot of things...Anyways, here are some pictures of Riyadh in lieu of Bangkok ones.

Hooka Dreams

While I love sleeping, I hate going to sleep because I almost always wake up feeling bereft.  I don't have nightmares, usually, but I often have dreams such as these (I was lucky enough to have these over the span of 2 days):
I dreamed of a rabbit and a baby being held over heated iron spikes, and I was told to pick which to save.  I tried to defer, to abdicate, to demur. I did everything I could to not have to pick one.  I wasn't allowed to.  So I saved the rabbit.  The entity which made me choose thundered displeasure about my decision, and all I could think was that I knew the rabbit was innocent but couldn't say the same about the baby.




I dreamed of sitting on a bench, on a seaside vaguely reminiscent of Ocean City's boardwalk.  I was just sitting there, lost in thought when I noticed there was a woman sitting next to me, talking.  She asked me to walk with her, to buy her a slice of pizza, and to wait with her until the sun came up.  Not being a fool, I agreed to her request.  We ate pizza on the sand, sipping 7-Ups while watching a meteor shower, and we saw the dawn approaching.  She looked at me, and I realized she had been crying the entire time we were sitting in the sand.  She placed her cup of 7-Up in the sand, removed her sandals and walked into the ocean.  Just as she was chest deep, she looked back at me and waved.  I think she tried to shout something over the tide, that implacable watery mouth, then she turned to the rising sun and drowned.

I dreamed of living with wolves. They were indomitable and they loved me.  A beautiful winter night, when I could see their voice in the air (because of the thermal imbalances and all that), I knew that I had to kill them.  And they let me.  All of them.  And in that same cold night, as their life steamed out into the cold air, I realized I couldn't see my own breath. 
I dreamed of butterflies that talked to me:  they were scared of the winter-because their wings would freeze, they weren't sure their children would fly like they could, they asked me to call them "flutterbys" without shame.  They walked on me without fear and gave me grace because their generosity wouldn't allow them to do anything else.  I squashed them and ate their shimmering blue wings. 
I woke up after squishing flutterbys and felt so desolate.  That's not the right word.  I felt arid.  Bereft.  Barren. Inhospitable.  Mean. 

During the day,  I don't think of my dreams.  It's only when I'm getting ready to bed down for the night, in a sparsely furnished studio with the AC turned on too high, that I remember the dreams of the previous night.  And I get too scared to go to sleep.  Because I'm worried that my dreams will concoct something more terrible than choice, loss, betrayal.  I'm terrified that I will wake up only to find my dreams were a sanctuary.

rats...I forgot to add this

More about Riyadh, and ODD

There are no pictures here, because it takes over one hour to upload each individual one.  It actually takes longer to upload a photograph here, now, than it took to upload photos in Delaware 1998 when I had a dial up modem and an AOL screen name.

Anyway, my final thoughts regarding Riyadh:  dogs, children, and women. 

I don't have a television in Dubai, because I'm easily lured into the mindless activity and there are a host of other equally mindless things I would rather do, so I watched TV in the Golden Tulip Andalusia hotel in Riyadh.  The cable was comprised of Arabic or English commentaries on football (soccer) or cricket, and Animal Planet.  Guess what I watched.  AP was the one channel I could understand and so it was an unadulterated pleasure.  There was one show, in particular, I enjoyed:  Dogs 101.  In KSA, there are no dogs; in Dubai, there are only a scattered few.  I love dogs, but I have never owned one and living in the Middle east, I have become inured to the very idea that I don't see them.  This program, however, made me want to go out and get a puppy.  So I made the only New Year's Resolution I will ever keep:  at some point, before I die, I will have a dog.  I think that's pretty reasonable.
I didn't see many children during my 3 1/2 weeks in KSA, nor did I see/hear any playing.  I'm pretty curmudgeonly regarding the kids, but I'm used to hearing them, and that lack of baseline pleasure provided by the laughter of children made KSA seem incredibly lonely and joyless.  I haven't resolved to have children, but I will try and be more tolerant of them in spite of knowing that they will grow up to be huge pains in the ass.  All of them.
Finally, the women.  I'm as misogynistic as the next man so when I heard there were no women drivers, my initial reaction was:  fewer accidents.  That is patently untrue, because KSA has the highest traffic mortality rate in the world.  Even that statistic is far outstripped by the number of non-fatal accidents which happen every day there.  Even more, it is a strangely alien landscape when all one sees are men in the driver's seat.  It just feels wrong that gender precludes or includes one from certain activities.  Who knew I was such a feminist?  Not me.
Anyway, when I heard that all women had to wear the abaya (the black outer garment worn by muslim women) regardless of religion, I was relatively apathetic, because neither the hijab (head covering) nor the burqa (face covering) is mandatory.  The truth is, although KSA doesn't demand the wearing of the burqa, the boorish behavior of the leering men prescribes it.  What I truly didn't expect was to never ever see a woman unaccompanied by a male.  Ever.  The coffee shops, the bookstores, the grocery stores, the mall...the separation of the woman's body, hair, face, hands from those around her turned her into a child and made me get all ODD.  The KSA woman can't leave her house by herself.   She needs permission.  She is a dog.  Even worse than a dog.  Because at least a dog isn't allowed or, if it is, it is venerated.  So sad.  For the Western Expat woman living in KSA, I have nothing but total disdain.  I can't even say how disgusting I think the idea of bowing to money in lieu of freedom is.  I have no words for the sorrow.  But:


At the Tamimi market on "Al Farouq 'something some name I don't care about' Saud" street,
I saw a statuesque woman sheeted in the obligatory abaya.
But her blond hair swung low like that sweet chariot.
Seeing her hair, on December 24, 2010, I felt like the Magi.
Drawn to something unknown, something beautiful, something so terrible,
something so utterly far away.

ODD:
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior toward authority figures which goes beyond the bounds...(the rest of the entry talks a lot about kids, but not about adults with the same behavior)

I can't help myself.  I get angry at authority.  I get hostile.  I do all the wrong things, almost all of the time.  I'm ethically flexible and morally unreliable, but if anyone tells me he/she is in charge...something happens to my head.  I have lost every job I ever had because someone said "I'm your boss."  They all said it, and I looked at them square in the eye and said "No, you aren't."  (Except for the first Pinkerton job I had, when I quit because the office people were screwing me over.)  It happened today, in Dubai.  The Veej came over to me while I was checking my schedule, laid his hand on my shoulder and said "Is everything ok?  How was Saudi?"  "Fine" I said.  "I'm your boss, you can tell me anything" he said.  I looked him square in the eye for a second, and said "You are not my boss."  Then I got up and walked away. (I'm not fired, because I'm too valuable...weird, right?)  It's a serious problem I have.  It's the same reason I'm fucking over Mohammed Saud in his quest to cheat the GMAT:  he said he was in charge of me.  He's not.  No one has ever been in charge of me.   Quote from one of emails to him:  "I have an inestimable capacity to fuck over those who think they are in charge of me."  Sometimes, I know I would like to submit.  But I can't.  
Because I think of kids who can't fight for themselves, I think of animals which can't fight for themselves, I think of adults who have given up the fight to keep themselves.  I'm not insane enough to think I'm a beacon, nor delusional enough to think I matter in the grand scheme of things.  But for this tiny world I inhabit, the very little I might be able to do I will, even if it's only for the cat I tried to adopt or the children my sister is trying to make hers.  I don't accept any authority.  And I don't have it within myself to ever accept.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t43VgJ4U9_Q

Christmas in Riyadh, 2010

I wound up in Riyadh in My December in order to teach Mo Saud the strategies to enable him to get a higher standardized test score, so he can get into a better college, fulfill all of his dreams of success, and all that other good humanitarian stuff. Before I left Dubai, I was informed that Mo is in the royal Saud line. Which means that if every Saud in the order of succession died, he would be the ruler of Saudi Arabia. In other words, that means he's an heir of the kingdom. Not that I've ever been a huge fan of the “benevolent” part of my work, but I now cared even less. I knew what the story was as soon as I met him and his group: Mo needed to finish his application by January 3rd, 2011, which meant he had to take the *, and he was looking for miracles. Being royalty, Mo is semi-averse to work. Being me, I'm incredibly averse to work. And so, my first ever attempt at corporate sabotage was hatched in the land of the Sauds.

Initially, it was a scheme to a) stick it to the man and 2) financially secure myself for the short term. An unintended yet welcome side effect was the buildup of goodwill and influence (Wasta) with the House of Saud. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself here. So once he and I met and I assessed the situation, I started floating some stories of the shenanigans happening in the UAE offices which administer the * (things along the lines of fake passports and “forgetting” large sums of money at the testing centers). Fortune smiled on me, for Mo immediately latched onto the idea and decided I should take the test for him. And I agreed. Wasta, man!!! I'd be like those early oil magnates from Houston, who happened here and traded money for crude and thus granted the Sauds wealth unimaginable. Except on a smaller scale. Because, you know...it wasn't like I was digging for oil.

We came up with several scenarios, the most outlandish of which involved direct impersonation, makeup artists and exorbitant bribes and the least complicated involved a rigging of remote cameras and an elaborate system of communicating the correct answers via telepathy or electroshock Morse Code (I preferred the latter, Mo the former). But try as we might, an actual and viable plan wasn't forthcoming. Every idea postulated needed some enhancements from outside forces, a Deus Ex Machina, or just a really attractive blonde in a short skirt. So my visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was spent with the days deep in schemes and diagrams and blueprints of buildings, and the nights I had free to roam and explore Riyadh as I would.

And so I did. Pardon the paucity of photographs, but I was certain the Mutaween  (crazy religious police) were tailing me and waiting for me to snap a picture of some innocent and unaware Saudi woman, her hand innocently raising her burqa to scratch her chin. I had also read that taking photographs of the wrong things and or people was a quick way to find out what the inside of a Saudi jail is. So, all pictures were taken with utmost secrecy or speed or a lot of loitering in an area until the coast was clear.

The first thing I noticed about Riyadh is that it is a city with no financial stress underscoring its continuing growth:

There are no parking meters in Riyadh. There are no fiscally motivated engines of justice patrolling the streets in search of the traffic alchemists' stone: the ability to turn double parked cars into gold, transmuting single metal coins into riyals as solar powered timers inevitably count down to zero. Riyadh is missing the boat on the potential gold mine of traffic infractions. In fact, there are only two traffic control devices I saw during my visit, and neither of them generate revenue. First, the ubiquitous camera radar, positioned on highways and at all intersections governed by traffic lights, takes pictures of those driving too fast, taking perilous left turns from right lanes, and running red lights. But no fine is issued. The only penalty is that points are deducted from licenses in a half-assed attempt to make the roads less deadly. The radars are not deterrents. The second device I noticed was the green and gray garbed police officers, who control the exit and entrance ramps of the main thoroughfares with what can only be described as a laissez faire attitude. Again no fines, just a slowly dwindling allotment of driver license points for those unlucky to be motioned to the side of the road. (The license point system is, like many other things here, heavily biased: ex-patriots receive fewer initial points than Saudis, who in turn start with fewer than the Sauds. Conversely, the Sauds are not penalized as many points as ex-patriots are for infractions of minor or severe natures.)

Another interesting thing about Riyadh is that the municipality itself, as well as those firms which construct it and or constitute it, fears no lawsuit. Gaping construction sites plead to be fallen into, holes dot the sidewalk like mouths hungry for a turned ankle, dire physical danger lurks within 10 steps in any direction, but no recourse to civic law is available. So the denizens of Riyadh have learned to keep an eye on their feet and not on the the skyline, searching for personal injury attorney's billboards.

Additionally, the skyline of Riyadh is home to 2 tall buildings: Kingdom Tower (which looks like a gigantic potato peeler), and the pyramidal-type one with a sphere hanging just below the physical apex of the building. There is a law in KSA that no building may have permanent residences (including offices) above the 30th floor. These two buildings maneuvered around this temporary roadblock by housing restaurants and observation decks in the higher altitudes. It also helps that they were both constructed, and owned, by HRH 'whatever the fuck his name is' Saud.

At ground level once again, every restaurant is necessarily immense, as each one requires separate dining areas: one for singles (men, either alone or in a group), one for families (women escorted by males). There is no third room for women alone or in groups unattended by some roving male family member. In fact, the common consensus is that if a woman tries to eat alone in a restaurant, she is a prostitute. The singles portion of the restaurant is either outside or inside, in which case it is always windowed and well lit. Groups of men laughing or scowling or calling for service can be seen by any casual observer walking on the street. The family section, on the other hand, is secluded, curtained (if there is a window to curtain), and has individual booths which are also curtained for additional privacy. The first time I saw the curtained booths beyond the curtained windows (I was peering through the window), I thought the extreme privacy excessive: single guys aren't prowling around, hoping to catch a glimpse of an unburqaed woman sloppily chewing french fries (well, except for me). But then I realized that if a restaurant had more than one family in the room at a time, the more modest woman would be unveiled before a score of, possibly lecherous, eyes. Thus the privatized booth in the privatized room.

The sole exceptions to the single/family bifurcation I saw were ramshackle kitchens intended for the coolies who construct Riyadh. Those kitchens were the only restaurants I ate in, because the more compliant ones just seemed depressing from the outside. A necessary hazard to this gustatory approach was that these small rooms had no menus or english speakers, just glowering cooks behind a half wall. So I was reduced to pantomime at almost every establishment I ate in, and what was for dinner was always a surprise but never a disappointment.

Something I found surprising on the was the wealth of bookstores and printing companies. Within a ten block radius (the same radius I felt I had to stay within unless I wanted to tempt injury or death), I counted 4 printing presses and 7 bookstores. I walked into a bookstore, expecting it to have at least a smattering of English publications, but instead I was greeted with a less than sincere “Salaam Aleykum.” I retorted with a semi-acceptable “Aleykum Ah Salaam,” and wandered through the store, getting an eyeful of strictly Arabic texts (mainly the Qur'an or dissertation on same) and racks of toys. It reminded me of venturing into Christian bookstores I remember from my childhood: to the uninitiated, those bookstores cater to the codger and the child, but not the middling adult. After pretending to browse for an appropriately polite number of seconds (a ruse that wasn't exactly convincing), I left before the impressively bearded proprietor could convince himself to stand up.

Much has been said about the oppressiveness of wahabism, its form of government and pursuant, necessary oppression, so I'm not going to add anything to the documented facts, but I had some personalized observations about the little I saw from the few I saw: The practice of Islam is not forced on the average individual, but modesty of dress and propriety of action are compulsory, and no other religion is allowed to be observed openly. During the 5 daily calls to prayer, a portion of men did not join the shoals of the devout flocking to the mosque, nor did the Mutaween hand out citations, or even the stink eye, to those of us who were not washing our hands or removing our shoes in obeisance.

However, all businesses (those of the mercantile type only, not the hospitality or emergency services types) locked their doors and shuttered their windows for approximately 30 minutes for each call to prayer. Some KSA websites follow the same rules. As a point of law, clerics have a pretty good reason about this: The purpose of commerce is to serve religion, not serviced by it. Therefore, shops should be closed to reinforce the hierarchy. It's the same philosophy which closes retail stores in New Jersey on Sundays, why liquor stores are not open in Delaware, why the strip clubs in Oregon don't allow full frontal for 24 hours, ad infinitum. While the daily practice may seem onerous to shopkeeps, it wasn't that long ago that Americans had to follow a similar standard. It's easy to criticize if one isn't aware of the similarities of theology behind the same ritualized behaviors. In keeping with strict Wahabism, there are no bars, no movie theaters, no bowling alleys, no pool halls, no dogs barking, no women driving, and no music other than the semi hypnotic ululations broadcast from huge, pole-mounted speakers to indicate the time has come for us to pray.

More to say, with a few pictures...only I'll say it when I can do it without censorship.