Comin' to America...

TODAY!!

American vacation

I'm leaving for the U.S. tomorrow, and people, I simply cannot tell you how much I've been looking forward to this. My time in Dubai has been a roller coaster... definitely worthwhile, and often incredibly fun, but very trying sometimes too. I'll post some darker stories after I come home for good, in August.

Four months in Dubai has felt much longer to me than the ten months I spent in Paris. Obviously, Dubai as a city isn't comparable to Paris, but I don't think that's why it feels different. Just like in Paris, I have friends here and plenty to do to keep me busy. It isn't the cities, but I who have changed.

27 is very different than 21. In those six years I've become a new person, and one of the big changes, I've realized, has been my level of attachment to family and friends. My family knows we've always been close, but it's fundamentally different now that I'm an adult. I've missed my family -- my extended family on both sides, but especially my mom, dad, and sister -- far more powerfully than I did when I lived in France. Back then, I missed them like a teenager, which is to say... not that much. At least, not so much that it bothered me.

Missing your family as an adult is almost a regression. It's like being a child again. A small child feels the absence of family very sharply, and so have I.

Anyway, I'll be in Washington, DC between Friday, April 29 and Monday, May 9. I am so excited to see my family and my friends, I can't put it into words. If you're an out-of-town friend or relative, can you please give me a call sometime that week? Day or night is OK. I know it's crass to ask in such an impersonal way, but I don't care, because I want to talk to a lot of people and I won't have a chance for three more months after this. I would call out, but I don't know your schedules, whereas you know mine: I'm basically free all eleven days. Call me at (£0%) 7&4-7*^9***. And check back in to the website -- I'll try to post a few times. And if anybody wants a souvenir from Paris, where I'm stopping, better ask me real soon.

***Internet freaks: Do not call.

American culture, like the Lord, works in mysterious ways

In the TOEFL English textbook, there is a grammar problem about Joan of Arc. I was teaching this problem recently to two students, a Lebanese boy and an Emirati girl. The girl was draped in a full-body abbaya, only her eyes visible, but like all the local girls I've taught, she was extremely high-spirited and very charming.

"Who's Joan of Arc?" they asked. I explained – a 14-year-old French peasant girl who led an army to kick the British out of France. She believed she heard the voice of God, I said. The Emirati girl nodded.

But the young man snorted. "A girl? Leading an army? No way."

I didn't really want to discuss it and was ready to move along. But the conversation grew unexpectedly heated when the young woman interjected fiercely from behind her veil.

"I believe it!" she cried, her eyes wide. "Why couldn't she do it? She led the army because she was chosen by God!"

Pause.

"Like Buffy."

This time they've gone too far

The latest casualty in America's war against fat people:
Cookie Monster.



Cookie has fallen victim to our paranoia about obese children. Now he will be some sort of "fruit and vegetable monster." He will no longer sing, "C is for Cookie – it's good enough for me," but instead will sing "A cookie is a sometimes food." Oh, those bastards.

And the worst part is Senator Doctor Bill Frist, one of the great assholes of modern times. Just as he thought Terri Schiavo's sad life was somehow his business, he now feels it's his job to intervene on Sesame Street. Here's what he said: "Even Cookie Monster is learning to control his cravings. His sage advice opened our eyes to the simple joys of a tasty cookie, and now reminds us that moderation is the key to healthy living."

How's this for moderation, Doc: I hold you directly responsible for the death of Cookie Monster! You (expletive linked to)!!!!

Also, does anyone else find it disturbing that the banana that Cookie will presumably eat has a face?

Flacks* and their snacks

I love it when I can bust out with a rhyme in the title. Johnnie Cochran, that one was for you, man.

Anyway, I read in the washingtonpost.com this morning about Cookie Monster and his diet. I want you to know that I already wrote on this topic, but I'm saving it for publication next week. Elktown has never gotten scooped yet by the Washington Post, and we're damn well not going to start now.

But there were some other things in the Post article that I didn't know, which were pretty funny.

We learn that Ronald McDonald has come in for a promotion at McDonald's. He's accepted the position of "Chief Happiness Officer." I hope he got a good pay raise, because that sounds to me like a big increase in responsibilities. Here's what he had to say:

"'It's great to know you can have your cookies and eat fruit, too,' The Ronald said, via e-mail. 'It's cool to try different foods and fun to stay active and fit. The way I look at it, it's what I eat and what I do and I'm lovin' it. Let's do lunch!'"

Chester Cheetah also weighed in with his thoughts on good health:

"'Although it ain't easy being cheesy,' Chester says, also via an e-mail statement provided by his company, Frito Lay, 'it is easy to balance your diet. Keep up the good work Cookie Monster, we are proud of you.'"

You want to know something? I don't think those messages were written by Ronald and Chester at all. Call me cynical, but I suspect that some well-paid flack deep within the bowels of the McDonald's (and Frito Lay) corporation is really writing those messages. Imagine! A flack impersonating beloved children's figure Ronald McDonald! These flacks, have they no shame?

Or maybe these suspicions of mine are simply bubbling up because the thought of Ronald McDonald sitting down at a computer keyboard and plunking out emails with his grotesquely oversized clown fingers is too disturbing to even imagine.

* ELKTOWN does not condone the use of this derogatory term for public relations professionals. Any usage of the word "flack" is strictly coincidental.

No escape

I fled to the Middle East to escape him. But no matter where I go, he follows me:



The truck was parked right in front of al-Manama supermarket, home of the lambs' brains.

More interesting yet is the Chili's-mobile:



How I chased it! It was a freaking bus! A Chili's bus! But this is the only picture I could get. And of course, there's our van, the finest in the Middle East. Yeah, that's right, we ride around in this thing, OK? You got a problem?



Scott, this is what your name looks like in Arabic:

Spell it out

Can't let the day go by without a little wackiness. I was checking my email a few minutes ago, and the proprietor of the email cafe came over to say hello. I had mentioned my visit to the U.S., so he always asks me when I'm going. This time he sits down next to me and starts whispering.

He has a heavy accent, so I couldn't understand him. Something about his crazy friend wanting something from the U.S. He was asking me to get it for him. "What is it?" I asked. His voice drops to a whisper. He looks around furtively.

He leans over and opens Microsoft Word on my computer. Then, right there on my screen, he types out "v-i-b-r-a-t-o-r."

The wisdom of taxi drivers

Most taxi drivers here are quiet and efficient, though they tend to drive like maniacs. Once in a while they want to chat, and this is rarely a good thing.

A few weeks ago, I got into a raggedy-ass cab that had clearly driven down to Dubai from al-Sharjah, our northern neighbor whose role model (and sugar daddy) is Saudi Arabia. Sharjah is the Wahhabist emirate: no drinking, no loitering, and so help them God, absolutely no cavorting. And ladies, don’t get caught without a full-body abbaya! And don't ride in cars with men, obviously, unless you like jail.

Anyway, this cab was from there. Why did I get in it, you ask? It was hot and I couldn't find another cab. You're right, you're right, I shouldn't have.

So immediately, the cabbie – and I won't lie to you, he bore a remarkable resemblance to Osama bin Laden – immediately the cabbie starts to chat me up. It takes about twenty seconds for him to get to what he really wants to ask me: What religion are you?

This is not an issue I discuss around here. But I don't have to lie, either: I tell him that I'm religious but that it's a private matter. He persists. This is something I haven't encountered in Dubai, though it could be more common in al-Sharjah – evangelical Islam. It isn't pleasant. On and on he goes, Prophet Muhammed, the Qu'ran, and so forth.

Finally he gets to the part that really sticks in my memory. We're driving along, sailing around bends in the road at frightening speeds, nearing my office. His pushy religious lecture is making me more and more nervous. Then he quiets for a second, and says, "You, me, we die in one minute."

… … …

… oh, f-u-c-k.

So, that was not a pleasant moment for me. There were a few seconds of white knuckles and no breathing. But then he was chattering on in his broken English, and I realized what he meant. "Any of us, we could die at any moment," he was trying to say. "We must live life to the fullest… blah blah blah." That sort of thing. He was actually a very nice guy, the way even the most insufferable evangelical Christians usually are. But I was sweating when I got out of the cab.

The Wonderful Journalism Ethics of the Middle East, Part III

As you've no doubt heard, Britney Spears is with child. The news hit the Middle East like a tidal wa…
uh, like a… like a very big, important piece of news hitting a region.

It made every front page I saw: The good ones (Gulf News), the shitty ones (7Days), the unintelligible ones (six dozen Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Hindi papers). Britney Spears is clearly a cultural touchstone. The world cares, is what I'm saying, people.

Yet not all the coverage was sweetness and light. 7Days – the Harry Potter of newspapering, conjuring photos out of thin air – was actually quite vile towards Britney. "There is little evidence suggesting that Spears is anything other than trailer trash. In another life she would be on Jerry Springer," they wrote. And that's no opinion page – that was the news article. What we in the journalism business call "the separation of church and state" – that is, the total partition between news and opinion writing – is not functioning here, apparently. Much like the real separation between church and state, come to think of it.

This failure of journalism ethics is bad enough… but could it be even worse than we think? Could the sheikhs actually be trying to undermine American global power by chipping away at the very underpinnings of our society… the ideals we hold most dear… our precious celebrities? They couldn't be that nefarious… could they?

One more word about Britney

This fantastic news out of Louisiana – or wherever Britney and her baby daddy live – has had a profound effect on me. As many of you know, I have been in a deep funk ever since January, when Brad and Jen announced their split. The knowledge that Britney has created new life has finally lifted my spirits. Someday this youngster will entertain us! Either with her musical talents, or by spectacularly flaming out in the public eye, or even by getting dangled off a balcony! The possibilities are endless!

So our celebrities have delivered (as it were) again. Out of Brad and Jen's suffering has come joy. One tabloid chapter closes so another can begin. It's the great wheel of American celebrity, turning. It's the endless chain of being, et cetera, and so forth. Are you as moved as I am?

(Thank you to my celebrity correspondent, Liz J., for alerting me to this momentous story, far in advance of the Middle East news cycle.)

Shady Ramadan

That's the name of a student in one of our classes. Just say it to yourself a couple of times. Shady Ramadan. If I was an Arab rapper that would be my name.

Modernity unfinished

Here's one I wrote a few weeks after I arrived, but forgot to publish until now:

I love writing about the ways this Arabian city draws such heavy influence from the West and America. I haven’t stopped marveling over the hilariously American brands – Kenny Roger’s Roasters! – found everywhere and copied into Arabic script, or the bizarre westernizing impulse that inspired Emiratis to design one of their malls in the gilded style of fifteenth-century Florence. Such modernity wrong-footed me a little after I had psyched myself up for months to prepare for severe culture shock. The culture shock was flying so far, only to step off the plane and drive by the same old KFC on the way to my new apartment.

But once in a while I experience things that remind me that modernity here is just an illusion – or at least, incomplete. Here’s a small example: Waiting at a taxi stand one night, two friends suggested I tuck in my shirt; we were evidently headed to some shi-shi hotel. I unbuttoned the waist button on my slacks and unzipped a few inches, trying to be discreet while tucking down my tails. My friends, Americans and normally very chill dudes, started hopping up and down and making noises of warning and severe discomfort.

OK, I’ll admit it, unbuttoning your pants in public is on the borderline of etiquette even in America. But come on, if you do it quick, and hide behind a planter, and you’re wearing boxers and you’re careful not even to let those show, you’re not going to cause a fuss. But my two friends, veterans here and wise to the culture, told me afterwards that I had run a very serious risk of major trouble. A local woman could have raised the alarm, and what I had done could have been considered against the law.

Another American teacher got caught by an Emirati policeman one night while in the front seat of his Jeep, giving his Swedish girlfriend a passionate kiss goodbye before she left town. The cop was ready to arrest him. His salvation was that he’s lived here awhile and has made the effort to learn Arabic. White boys speaking Arabic are a rare and charming thing to the Emiratis, and the teacher talked his way out of what could have been a huge problem.

Sometimes it doesn’t work out so well. My former boss told me a story his brother brought back after living in Dubai. A British woman he knew, living in Dubai, married a local Arab man, an Emirati. The Arab husband went off to Britain on a business trip and left his wife in Dubai. The husband came home from the trip early and caught his wife having an affair. Then he did exactly what Emirati law allows him to do: He had his British wife locked up and threw away the key.

Why the SAT is like geopolitics

Since this is my own personal website, I don't have to be politically correct. So I'm going to lay it out for you: Arab students are much, much harder to teach.

Now listen: This doesn't mean I don't like Arab students. In fact, the sweetest students I've had – the ones you just want to hug sometimes, but you don't because you don't want to be fired or arrested – have been Arabs. Arab students can be immensely lovable. But Arab students, especially in large groups, are near impossible to handle sometimes. They are just so chattery, to use a soft word. Many of them never learned to sit still and listen to a teacher.

So, my fellow teachers and I have developed a strategy. We each developed it independently, and so we were happy to find out the other day that all of us do it. This is the strategy: When you walk into a class full of Arabs, just kick one or two of them out right away. Pick the mouthiest kid and boot him. If he begs to stay, all the better. But no chance.

Most of the time, this isn't necessary. But if they're particularly squirrelly, you just do it, no agonizing, no pleading. The rest of them shape up right away. It's a cliché you've probably heard too many times, but they really do respect authority – especially the boys. Their dads kick their asses – figuratively and in some cases, literally – and as soon as you remind them of their dads, they will shut up and listen to you. And the meaner you are, the better they like you. I swear to you this is true. I've torn kids' heads off in class only to have them practically bow to me afterwards.

Now the geopolitics: We decided the Iraq war can be viewed as a very simple case of our strategy in action.

"Saddam, what is your problem? How many times have we warned you not to talk while we're talking? I asked you to open your book to page 47, and you're still trying to develop nuclear weapons! I'm not going to ask you again!"

"That's it, we've had it with you, Saddam. You're done here, buddy. Take your pencil, calculator, and your uranium-refinement centrifuge technology and get out of my class. No, I said right now. Report immediately to the barber/delouser."

And voila, everyone else will behave for the rest of the class.

Corniche

Doha is shaped like a horseshoe, with the Persian Gulf filling the interior to form Doha Bay. Around the edge of the horseshoe is the corniche, a 9km walkable beach park. Arabs seem to love parks just as much as Americans, and this is a great one. It was packed Friday morning.

Gary Porter and the Mystery of J. Lo

My Chechen student had some trenchant things to say about the latest celebrity news. We were flipping through 7DAYS, Dubai's trashiest little rag, and he sees a picture of Julia Roberts.

"Do you know who that is?" I ask.

"Angelina Jolie," he answers promptly. As his teacher, this irritates me. Angelina?? It's obviously Julia!

Next to Julia is Brad Pitt. "What about that, do you know who that guy is?" I ask.

"Uhhhh... Bobby," he says. "Bobby... Beautiful." He has unintentionally created the finest nickname for Brad Pitt in history.

We turn the page and read an article about J. Lo, who has announced that she no longer wishes to be known as J. Lo. Evidently that was all a big joke that we, the public, just never really got. Now it's "Jennifer Anthony." She's not a diva, OK? It's time for the "real Jennifer" to take the spotlight, she says. Don't be fooled by the rocks that she's got, people.

M absorbs the article quietly and then offers an almost Buddha-like wisdom. He points at her picture and says, "Eric. She wery, wery... wery stupid."

Jessica Simpson news

If you search "Jessica Simpson" on FemaleFirst.co.uk, here is the list of articles that pops up:

• Jessica Simpson Mocked Over Buffalo Wings Comments
  
• Jessica Simpson cringes when watching 'Newlyweds'
  
• Jessica Simpson Kept Telling Herself: I'm Beautiful
  
• Jessica Simpson Hospitalised After Collapse During Oprah
  
• Jessica Simpson trusts Nick Lachey completely
  
• Jessica Simpson frightened of dolphins
  
• Jessica Simpson Feels For Pitt And Anistons Relationship
  
• Jessica Simpson spent years trying to stretch legs!
  
• Jessica Simpson’s mum used to stretch her legs every night
  
• Jessica Simpson's Dad Joe Has Sold His Soul To The Devil Say Critics
  
• Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's Marraige On The Rocks
  
• Jessica Simpson's bully hell
  
• Jessica Simpson 'to renew vovs' [sic]
  
• Jessica Simpson urges 'be role models'
  
• Jessica Simpson 'wants to run round the house naked!'
  
• Jessica Simpson boosts S. American economy
  
• Jessica Simpson 'I'm addicted to sex!'
  
• Jessica Simpson: Bond girl?
  
• Simpson confesses to picking nose
  
• Jessica Simpson cancels tour dates
  
• Jessica Simpson toning up as Daisy Duke

How am I supposed to get any work done when there's this much fascinating material to get through on the Internet?

Doha II

The architecture in Doha is fascinating. In Dubai, architects do ultra-modern. In Doha, they've made an effort to meld the modern and the traditional. The style here is western words set to an Arabic tune.













A close-up on the dome:










Close-up:






A villa:


More roundabout art:






The Qatar post office:


And my favorite building:

East of East

I had one very dizzy moment a few weeks ago while exploring a new neighborhood near my office. I saw four men kneeling towards Mecca, but my mental compass started spinning when I realized that east was not the direction I thought it was. I got very lost before finally realizing my mistake: In Dubai, Mecca is to the west.

I got my bearings, but it provoked a few hours of that sensation I wrote about a few weeks ago: the feeling of being very, very far from home.

A Doha parking lot

Our hotel in Doha had a balcony, and when we stumbled out onto it on Friday morning, we were greeted by one of the most interesting sights I've ever seen.



It's very common to see small groups of men at prayer in public. But as a non-Muslim, it's very, very difficult – impossible, really – to catch a view like this. Most mosques in Dubai are walled off and the privacy of the grounds is jealously guarded.

This is an overflow crowd, though you wouldn't know it by the perfect rows the men fashioned. An ordinary parking lot, with dumpsters and cars strewn about, was utterly transformed.



They spilled deep into the back lot.



Every man has his own prayer rug.



In perfect, almost startling unison, the men bowed…





…and then knelt.

Doo-hoo

I made a one-day visit to Doha, Qatar about a month ago. Our nickname for Doha is "Doo-hoo," and the word has now come to mean the hinterlands, anything far away, remote or small-time. Did you park your car in the sandlot five blocks away? You're out in doo-hoo. Have to take a business trip to Omaha, or Shreveport, or Gary, Indiana? Doo-hoo.

The original Doo-hoo was not half-bad for a day trip – definitely much better than Gary, Indiana. I ate the best Arabic food of my life, that's one thing. And the architecture there is fundamentally different from what I've seen in Dubai. All in all, it was a day well spent. I'll post a couple pictures next week.

In the meantime, this is a view of a minaret from the sandlot behind my apartment.

...from the Et Cetera Files

Random photos, both strange and beautiful. Well… mostly strange.


These are the Thai women who work at the Thai food counter at the mall. Sometimes I want Thai food, and when I do they make a big fuss over me. "Teacher, teacher!" they shout, placing their hands together, as if in prayer, and bowing furiously.

Other times I don't want Thai food, but to get the food I do want, I have to walk by the Thai women. Those days are more problematic. "Teacher, teacher!" they shout. "Teacher!! Why no Thai food today? Cashew chicken, five minutes! Teacher, where are you going?"

You may have noticed that they are posing with a baby in the photo above. A customer was pondering the menu and rooting through her purse, and she actually gave her baby to the Thai women to hold. Let me repeat that, because it is fairly astonishing: She gave her child to the restaurant workers to pass around. For, like, ten minutes. Mom, is motherhood really that much of a grind?

I have to admit: The Thai women and the baby seemed to get along very well. The kid was probably used to being handed to strangers, and the Thai women are naturally very social. There's absolutely no evidence that the child ended up as part of a curry dish.

Dammit America! (a rant*)

I went to the Gulf Education and Training Exhibition this morning. It's an enormous regional conference featuring schools and educational programs from all over the world. You wander through the pavilions, marveling: "Look, there are the French schools! Oh my, there sure are a lot of Canadian schools! My goodness, how will we ever find time to visit all the British schools?" And I didn't even go in the Asia and Middle East areas, which were huge.

But then your reverie fades, and you say, "Where are the American schools? I see Grambling State University, of Louisiana. A fine school. And there's Southeast Missouri State University, of Cape Girardeau. Good of them to show up. But where, in heaven's name, are the rest of the American schools?"

I absolutely hate that we don't seem to be even trying to compete for the world's talent. You could make the argument that if we're already the prime destination for the world's best students, we don't need to spend too much effort recruiting. But that's bullshit, for two reasons. First of all, I think I continue to see McDonald's advertising, even though we can be reasonably sure everyone knows about this hamburger establishment. Second, we're wrong to think that we're still the world's unquestioned first stop for education. Our population of foreign students has plummeted since 9/11, while the student populations of Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia and China are soaring.

This is how you lose the War on Terror in the long run.

Students who come to the U.S. fall in love with it; how could they not? Students who want to come here but find the door slammed in their faces harbor lifelong resentments. These are the kids who will grow up to become the ruling classes of their own countries. This is how reputations are won and lost in the world.

America's reputation in the world has certainly changed since 9/11. But from what I see here, it isn't primarily because of the war in Iraq. It's because we're snubbing this region. They want to love us and live in our country, but we give many of them the finger when they try.

I hear students talking about their desire to study in America, often followed by their regret that it no longer seems possible. I see students heading for Germany and Australia instead. These kids -- future opinion makers in the Middle East -- want to join our team. We should want them to. I'm pissed off for the same reason I was pissed off that we were the only country without a pavilion at Dubai's Global Village. It sends a message loud and clear: We don't give a shit about you. These are the messages that speak louder than anything President Bush can say about how much we love freedom. I think Bush was right to want to bring democracy to Iraq and the rest of this area. Much as I don't care for him personally, I admire his instincts on this and he may one day be seen as visionary.

But from my little perch here in the liberal part of the Middle East, we're not making the right moves. Our country comes off as huge, attractive and uncaring. Sometimes even a little hostile. Anybody who's ever been snubbed by an attractive but arrogant person -- whether a member of the opposite sex or not -- knows how infuriating it can be, how belittling.

Almost every influential person you hear about in the Gulf region either lived in the U.S. as a student, or studied at the American School of Beirut. Back then, we welcomed them, and that's why we have friends in the Gulf today. We're not going to have these friends tomorrow, I think. Couldn't we make a showing here at these conferences? Would it be so much trouble? If a tiny little Missouri bootheel school can make it, we don't have any excuses. Goddammit, it just bothers me.

* Tomorrow: Back to silly jokes and pictures.

Haircut II: The Scalpbuster

Haircut II went much smoother than the original. I'm happy with the result, and nobody had to unbutton my shirt to get there.

Kathleen, you'll be happy to know that the dog-petter scalp massage of Haircut I was taken to a whole new level in the sequel. This time, the guy practically attacked my scalp, like he was pissed off at my scalp for some offense and was determined to make it pay.

It was like the drive-through carwash. First they rinse off your car, then they spray it gently with cleaning products. Then, without warning, the rotating brushes of fury descend, beating and smacking against your car so that you can feel the thudding in your feet. It's violent and frightening. This scalp massage was like that. It was awesome.

The guy's hand was like an out-of-control ceiling fan falling on your head. It was everywhere all at the same time. It felt almost kung-fu. I think this guy could have kicked even Jackie Chan's ass, if the contest were barbering.

Then the guy worked on my neck with a vibrating neck-massage thingy. Everything got blurry as my eyeballs bounced and churned in their sockets. It was the best haircut ever.

Five bucks. My horse race winnings covered it!!!

Tough man... tender chicken

We at elktown bid a fond adieu to Frank Perdue, 84, chicken magnate, who invented the slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken." My entire life's experience suggests that this is a deep truth.

We would also like to point out that Perdue's famous slogan was mistranslated into Spanish, so that billboards appeared all over Mexico proclaiming, "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."*

So let's take a moment to ponder Perdue's achievements. Gaze into his face, above, just as the Mexicans must have, and consider: In his remarkable career, the man must have aroused billions of chickens.

* Source: the Internet

Pictures?

I need your help, readers. Sometimes I can't see the pictures on the website... is this a UAE issue (crappy networks, affects me only) or a photo-hosting thing (affects everybody)?

If you happen to be browsing the archives, and you see pictures that won't load, could you leave a comment below and tell me which ones? Or if they're fine, let me know that. If the pictures are broken, I'll fix them, but it takes lots of time and I don't want to do it unless necessary. Thank you, my estimated five loyal readers.