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August 29, 2007 >> And one last thing about Dubai...

My camera is somewhat dysfunctional. It has sand in it maybe, or it got injured in my pocket when I fell down a sand dune, having failed to balance myself on a child's snowboard. It can still be coaxed into shooting photographs, but now it is a negotiated process rather than the camera simply accepting its job. I am now very relieved to see the WARNING!!! BATTERY EXHAUSTED!! sign rather than the CAMERA LENS ERROR!!! sign. One can be fixed in a calm, rational manner; the other is corrected through bashing the camera off the inside of my hand. Technology is mine to wield as I see fit!

There are some rather amazing sights here in Dubai, if you know where to look. Or if you have somebody nice to take you there. Orange-pink sand dunes that stretch out to forever, punctuated only by mammoth power lines and the occasional shrub. Mosques. More mosques. Rows and rows of shops, fancifully titled "Trading Companies", which each sell the exact same selection of knock-off Gucci handbags as their neighbour. Or the same huge adhesive decal of a famous Sheikh lookin' badass to put on your car windshield. The Sheikh'll keep your leather seats cool, yeaaaaah, and yes that is a wolf howling in the background.

I have always wondered how these near-identical shops stay in business without anything to really distinguish themselves from the competition... it was the same deal in Bangkok, and in Beijing. You get the sense that the entire street is one big family, getting together to have an after-dark laugh after the tourists have scuttled home. Swapping tales of fleecing the foreigners, one-upping each other with stories of gargantuan rip-offs and retards reaching eagerly for fat wallets. I imagine Cheshire Cats grinning out of darkened doorways, one shopkeeper fading into the next into the next. Capitalism seems to take a rather xenophobic bent in these places, but maybe it's just me.

We did, however, meet a lovely Pakistani man and his son last night, when we drove out into the desert towards Oman. They were, as was the trend, selling silk rugs and 'authentic'-looking pottery from a roadside shack. After some agreeable haggling, we all sat down and had a cigarette and took classy pictures of each other. The old man told us that the rest of their family resides in Pakistan, living off the money sent home from the rug-stall. This is quite common out in the Middle East, Scutt tells me: men leave their families to go work in unfamiliar countries, sending large portions of their paycheque back home. They'll be estranged for upwards of ten years. Lonely, supporting a wife and children that they haven't seen in a decade... not a very enticing lifestyle for these dudes.

It is a fearsome balance, here: between the skyscraper and the crane, between the dressed-up baller and the rag-tag labourer. I do not think I have ever been to a place that has such a sharply juxtaposed division of class, such an immense divide between the haves and the have-nots.

Tomorrow we fly to Cairo, perhaps there I'll be re-educated.

Posted by Chris at 05:58 AM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink

August 28, 2007 >> And another thing about Dubai

Dubai is totally not very cheap, at least not as cheap as I had imagined. I imagine it could be easy on the wallet if you lived in one of the ramshackle slum villages which warily circle the outside of the metro monolith. But here on Sheikh Zihad Road, the rich get richer and the poor busily construct ever more elaborate residences for the future rich to live in. Cranes own the sky and they, too, light up in splendor when the horizon grows dark.

Drinking is a somewhat paradoxical pasttime here: Arabic culture frowns on the imbiber, but the nature of Dubai is such that there is honestly nothing else for ex-pats and business folk to do. The result is a rather comical dance-mis-dance, where horrible house clubs have a near-monopoly on alcohol and restaurants feature sheesha instead. Everyone who comes into the United Arab Emirates is pretty much required by friends and acquaintances to visit the Duty Free shop at the airport and purchase the maximum (4 bottles). Those who forget have missed an invaluable opportunity and must find their own way home.

Consequentially, the laws of supply and demand which apparently pwn the roost here mean that booze is not cheap. It's pretty expensive, except for women who enjoy a seeming 1-to-9 ratio with men and are showered with bountiful Ladies Nights and Free Drinks for Chickie-poo until 2 AM and Here, Have Another Daiquiri and Maybe You'll Fuck Me Later? Says the Burly Egyptian Businessman. If you are a girl you will do very well here, and if you are a guy you'd better be super attractive or able to out-bid the Saudis for the very best golddigging whores. It is interesting how alcohol becomes a commodity within commodity in Dubai, as the conduits of its access seem to lead directly to sexual capital. Money, booze, sex; and Allah fits in there somewhere too, I guess.

Anyway the point of this post is that I am financially impotent and will likely end up dead in Cairo by the weekend.

Posted by Chris at 05:56 AM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink

August 27, 2007 >> A slice of Dubai

I have pretty much forgotten how to write, but a brief interlude in the vigorous activities of Being Hot and Chillin' With Arabs demands, at least, the attempt.

Dubai is crazy. It's a city, a mish-mash of skyscrapers each of which would, anywhere else, would be the centerpiece of an otherwise drab cosmopolitan skyline. One that looks like a gothic-style chess piece. One that's red with neon blue windows. One that's spiky and one that's round. They're so fucking cool but in their current arrangement, lined up and mushed together, it's hard to appreciate any of them because the combined effect is somewhat like Allah's wrathful kaleidoscope aimed directly at your scorched retinas. Note to SimCity self: you need a few boring buildings to accentuate the architecturally cutting-edge ones.

Down below drive the luxury automobiles, the people who walk and strut and sleep in dark alleys. Devout Muslim women, covered head to toe in black, remind me of science-fiction for some reason. They sort of glide here and there, always in small flocks, tending to the herds of children and menfolk where religion permits. It is pretty strange to see one of these very... ceremonious? ... women walking hand in hand with a fat Arab man wearing a Reebok t-shirt. In a mall. They are going to check out the latest sales on consumer electronics.

Scutt has arrived at an elaborate theory whereby Dubai-ians kill their children if they have any deformity or turn out to be "developmentally challenged". And it's true - I've seen many Arabs in the last few days, but not one non-conformist Arab. No Down's Syndrome Arabs, no Parkinson's Arabs and definitely no AIDS Arabs. Either we are looking at a very healthy lifestyle here in the Emirates, what with all the chain-smoking and construction fumes, or something fishy's going on. Racism, that's what's fishy.

Moving away from absurd conspiracy, the people here have either been really friendly or really stand-offish. At one end of the spectrum is the smiling tout in the warrens of a souk (market): he calls you friend, he has a brother living in Canada! Or a sister, whatever. He bargains fiercely, and tells you that you will kill his children with starvation if you can't pay more than 50 dirham for those sunglasses. A master of bullshit, like most marketers, but you can't help but like them whether you come to an agreement or not. They slap hands and it's like you're part of some timeless dance where they try to fuck you and you try not to get fucked. It's honest dishonesty.

On the other end is the taxi driver who pulls over, despite already having a passenger: "Where you go?"

Scutt: "Gold Souk!"

Taxi driver: *pulls away quickly*

Scutt & Clemens: "Oh."

Posted by Chris at 06:32 AM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink

August 21, 2007 >> Adventurers Ho!

I'm on my way to Dubai in the morning, a journey that can only be heightened by

a) my near-total lack of research on the city-state and

b) a dearth of funds so grave that any troublesome mishaps will result in my imprisonment where I'll be too poor to pay corrupt officials to get out.

Still, this is where knowing that somebody is on the other end, at your destination, turns a decidedly stressful overnight flight into a minorly stressful one. I suppose it has a lot to do with putting your fate into that somebody's hands: assuming that once you stagger off the plane, bleary eyed and xenophobic, they'll be there to pick up the pieces and steer you away from acts of unmitigated stupidity and madness. Or help you carry them out, at the very least.

Posted by Chris at 11:34 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink

August 18, 2007 >> me and me and me and mecha-godzilla

Tiny Bobblehead Scutt recently brought to my attention the following: nobody wants to hear about a dream if it wasn't about them, nobody wants to see a picture if they're not in it. I mean, these things are okay and all, but one's interest is greatly heightened by one's inclusion.

I agree that this holds true for Aunt Mabel's endless slideshow of Mexican cabana boys, but what about creepers on Facebook? The stalkings of exes, the tentative pokes beneath the surface of some new acquaintance? Those dudes who try to friend-add girls with hot pictures who they've never met, but want to wank to? Of course, in the case of the creep-wank then it really is about them, which sorta supports the theory.

There hasn't been one single movie about me (except for Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla, but I was in a rubber suit so you can't really tell), but I've seen a lot of them anyways. Is it because I feel emotionally close to Tom Cruise and his stupid wife, whats-her-name?

I don't really get why people read People magazine. It should be called Pedestal, or Dr. Expert's Marital Adventure Tour (inside: ten ways to get invited to those star-studded weddings!). If you went to some movie star's wedding, would you actually go talk to these famous guys or would you stand in the corner hyperventilating with a hand over your mouth to keep from throwing up? Would you tell them that Scientology sounds pretty cool, but it's too rich for your blood?

If you're reading this, does it piss you off to be bombarded with rhetorical questions? Are you wondering how in God's name I've strayed so far from my original premise and (until this paragraph) somehow arrived at yet another ill-conceived rant about Hollywood celebritydom? Me too, me too. It's a bit too early in the day to be spiraling into a spice typhoon.

If a blog is narcissistic - and it is - then the person who writes it must, according to the premise above, be the most interested in the blog out of anyone in the world. It's like looking at picture upon picture upon picture of yourself, smiling at your reflection, putting your thumb over the infidels who dared to poke their heads into your shot. You're doing a kegstand... someone must be holding your legs, but who? Doesn't matter, you're doing a kegstand and the focus is on the trickle of beer and vomit running down your inverted forehead. The average blogger haphazardly slings their own wretched opinions onto the internet, hungry for expression and probably very smug about it too. The reader, on the other hand, is 'meh'.

I thought about this though. If I am indeed my own biggest fan, then why don't I comment on posts more often?? This lack of participation is hardly obsessive-compulsive enough to cement me as a Clemens willing to give his own insignificant life for his hero, Clemens.

Posted by Chris at 11:41 AM >> Commentations (9) | Permalink

August 16, 2007 >> death and rebirth of the silver god

After about three years the mighty Silver God was at last brought crashing to its knees, the victim of cyber-sabotage. By this I mean that I fucked up. A warez site, the internet equivalent of a stranger with candy, promised me audio-visual delights of the nostalgic persuasion: I wanted to play an old computer game that needed a SPECIAL PATCH but instead I got a herpesface full of virii and malware. Anyway, three years is a long time for a continuous iteration of Windows to last, so I buried that particular baby with mixed feelings of regret and relief.

And then I almost lost all my university papers that I've ever written in my entire lifetime - - - HEARTSTOPPER! ... but then I didn't. AND THEN an almost tear-jerking joy as one realizes that one isn't quite as stupid as feared. One of you in particular may remember this remarkable turnaround in fortunes, distilled through the text-y emotions of MSN.

In the future all emotion will be run through a text filter before being cleared to land. If you can't type it, you can't feel it. If you feel it without typing it, you're "emotionally reserved". If you can't type at all then you get to be a cyborg death-soldier.

Posted by Chris at 11:15 PM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink

August 10, 2007 >> Surgeon General's Warning

I am trying to imagine the possible circumstances under which a smoker might pick up their half-empty pack of cigarettes and actually read the warning label on the front. Perhaps said smoker has had an uncomfortable thought and is looking for diversion. Look at the coffee table: phone bill, ingredient list on an empty beer bottle, university alumni 'newsletter'. Chances are that all of these things will trump the cigarette pack's grave warning about the link between smoking and impotency. Sure the picture's funny, but does anyone want to know the sordid details?

There is something to be said for the rift between the message and receipt, between well-meant intentions and actual practice.

Posted by Chris at 01:10 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink

August 08, 2007 >> One, Two, Three Strikes You're Out

Last night I was compelled to emerge from my hot and sweaty hermitage to watch the Jays get ass-thrashed by the New York Yankees. The good folk in Communications and Culture, perhaps in an attempt to make grad school something more than 'book-learnin', reserved a block of tickets in the much-coveted 500 level far above third base. I was the first one at the Skydome... er... corporately corporate Rogers Centre, and the nice man behind the ticket wicket foolishly gave me the entire fat stack of tickets. I briefly thought about scalping all but one, but at 9 dollars a pop retail there wasn't too much of a profit margin there. I also didn't want to watch a baseball game by myself, since baseball is boring. And finally, perhaps my self-imposed days of solitude have made me a better person? Bua ha ha! Anyway I gave most of the tickets back and tromped up to the skyward levels, where I was treated to a wonderful exhibition of dudes soaking and raking the sand around all the bases. For 45 minutes.

Then other people showed up. It occurred to me that I hadn't been to a baseball game since the ancient days when Ozzie Guillen played for the White Sox, and even then I was more interested in why baseball fans were idiots than the actual game. Not a lot changes in 15 years. What was rather odd were the large number of little kids (and not-so-little kids) in New York attire. What is it about this city that makes normally rational and patriotic citizen-entities drop all allegiances and jump on the NY bandwagon? Is it the crazy overpaid roster the Yankees boast? Is it something about East Coast hip-hop? The fact that like 75% of all romantic comedies, both film and television, take place in New York? The Big Apple has some sort of universal pull, a mystique which renders other, lesser cities helpless and impotent.

In the first innings of the game, one man delivered an "85 MPH split-finger" directly into another man's muscular thigh, an event which resulted in a frightful hullabaloo around the pitcher's mound. The gates to both bullpens opened up and the relief-pitcher cavalry rushed to the aid of their respective teammates, who were engaged in some feverish shoving and perhaps the exchange of some naughty words too. What I wanted to know was: which bullpen decided FIRST that their team needed additional bodies in the general pel-mel, and opted to run the entire breadth of the field to get there? The second bullpen obviously had to respond in kind, to equalize the numbers, but if both had just stayed put... This is why relief pitchers are retarded.

Roger Clemens, my estranged biological father who has never once sent me child support or any kind of birthday card, did a good job for the Yankees considering he's so, so, so very old. He had his own baseball video game in like 1985. Apparently even when a 100 mile per hour fastball slows down to a paltry 89, experience wins the day.

Whose job is it to watch the pitcher and report what they throw? Rogers Center has this display up by the scoreboard which lists the speed/type of pitch thrown: 78 MPH change-up, 86 MPH slider, and so forth. Someone's gotta be hiding around down there with a speed-gun and a ridiculously good eye for how the pitcher's holding the ball. Do the pitchers ever turn and look at an incorrect call on the pitching display and think, "Ha, that invisible idiot... didn't see that knuckleball coming. I don't even know how to throw a knuckleball!" If I were a pitcher, I would fuck with the stats spy whenever possible. Even if it meant losing the game. That's why I'm not a pitcher. It has nothing to do with the fact that I can't throw.

I don't think a lot of people in my program know much about baseball, but that's okay because I don't either. "It's not my area," is the usual line when you encounter some question or problem which doesn't directly relate to your chosen academic expertise. Of course, saying that something "isn't your area," doesn't mean you don't stick your contribution in anyway, it's just a disclaimer for if you happen to be wrong. If you're wrong about something that is in your area, you're pretty much screwed. Thankfully and unsurprisingly, baseball is Nobody's area.

Posted by Chris at 03:52 PM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink

August 02, 2007 >> Hot summer nights

It is sweltering today, far too hot to attempt lukewarm fiction. The temperatures don't match up, y'dig?

I am somewhat pissed off at God for including sweat as part of the human condition. I understand how it might be useful if you were a hunter-gatherer, with little to no time to bathe properly. Sweat washes away dirt and mammoth blood and tiny creepy-crawly bugs. But us contemporary Westerners, well, we take a shower in the morning. Eight or nine subsequent showers washing down stickily from the forehead seems a tad excessive. It's a tasty glaze for hungry mosquitoes and thirsty flies.

Boiling sedately in my apartment is what I do these days. Summer classes are finished and I now face a three week stretch without any obligations, without any external motivation to ever leave. Not since the summer of first year undergrad have I had so much free time to cook. Back then, I was driven by uncomfortable feelings of apathy and financial destitution to take a job in a small-parts plastics manufacturing plant. That worked out poorly: my feet smelt horrible, and I was strangely and routinely compelled to injure myself so I could go to the air conditioned emergency room at the hospital.

The heat sucks all the energy right out of you, leaving a husk. The husk plays Guitar Hero and reads the daily news, but the husk is somewhat of a waste-case. It types, but the sweat dripping from its fingers threatens to short out the keyboard. It feels, but the feelings are tempered by irritability and often come in the shape of an ice cream cone.

Posted by Chris at 05:07 PM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink