Mc Chris is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I can't say that I stand behind any particular album as 'good', but he has some songs that I really enjoy. This is off his new album, it's called Pizza Butt.
I would like to take a moment to give the comments their day in the sun. These are some of my favorites comments I've received in the last week.
On the post Scorpion Bowab -
The ball-grabbing sounds right up your alley. You should probably get hip to blood feuds, too. They may even be big in Richmond by the time you come back to visit. -Can't type sandwich
On the post Halloween in Egypt's Capital -
life in general
pokinatcha
on the cover
and a little bit of teenage politics
good
-john upton
On the post Tonight
"There are things that I assume will jiggle forever"
Wait, like that animated gif of that frolicking green dinosaur thing with the four sets of boobs?
I know you know it.
Just like you know about sunglasses that come in magazines. -Natalie
and
You could have said that you were just there to buy the band's demo CD and excused yourself. -Cantypesandwich
In reference to the Japanther Review
I've been meaning to let you know that your Hamburger(Hotdog) blog helps me get through the day.
I also completely agree with your Japanther review. -Chris
On the post Coming Back to America
Yeah, but we're gonna medium party to the MAX!
-DrewGood
and
Don't stay too long or you might be forced to join the armed services and perform a 2 year stint before being allowed to go back to your foreign job you hippy. We miss you and welcome you in our home. Both our toilets, as you may remember, face north... so in case you've switched from being a Protestant, we've got you covered. Safe travels homie. Love and stuff. -Antonious Maximus
...well, for a little bit anyway.
dec 12th - fly into dc. i'll have a layover in amsterdam and be post 18hr flight so friday may be a take it easy night unless something awesome is happening.
dec 13th - Fun times in DC! Hot tubs, sparks, general good times.
dec 14th-21st - party hard in richmond. bikes, friends, drinkfour, general danger.
dec 21st - dec 29th - party medium in vb, hang with the fam, dance nights with drew
dec29th-jan4th - wide open. it'd be nice if great wolfe lodge happened again.
jan 4th - fly out of dc
When i convert my money to USD i will basically have none so if you want to take me out to lunch, dinner, or buy me drinks/nerds ropes it would be much appreciated.
I love you all.
I got the text from my mom at 7am my time, "Obama won." I also got another text from America that had a similar sentiment. Then I wake up to find that he received almost twice the amount of electoral votes and that the democrats have control over the house and the senate.
Also, this is like my friday, I have tomorrow off of work.
What a great day. Great job America. Great job.
It stinks that I'm so many hours ahead during election day. By the time that the polls close in california it'll be 10 hours later here. I do get to leave work early to attend an art exhibition on Obama and the election parties will have no choice but to run til the break of first call to prayer.
One thing I forgot about the super shady bars is maybe the best and most important thing: you could spit anywhere.
I'm not saying I did, but having that kind of freedom is reassuring.
My old roommate, Nick, has a constant problem with his name. Nick in arabic means the same thing as the 'F' word. This can be humorous when we're out and about.
Tonight he took me to this amazing dive bar he found. The beer was cheap, they were playing the 'football' game that I wanted to see, and they give you a free salad and these bar peas you that you eat. Anyway, we watched the game and had a couple of beers in one of the only legitimate dive bars that i've been to here.
Then nick told me to go look upstairs. I seriously didnt know what to expect, but after the game we both went upstairs. It turned out to be a brothel! It gets better. Imagine a medium sized room that looks like a backroom party at a mexican restaurant. At the opposite end of this rectangular room there is a keyboard player. In front of the keyboard player, about 15 feet away from you, is the vocal entertainment. Its a guy that walks with those arm cane things, so he only had one connected to his arm and the other held the microphone. Why didn't he have a mic stand? We were immediately greeted by the 'sweet ladies' and who i assume were the pimps. I had no idea what to do, but fortunately nick got us out of there without either of us having to buy overpriced beers. so that was weird and shady.
Then we went to a shady bellydancing place. There are 2 requirements to be a belly dancer in a shady bellydancing place here: 1. Must have belly 2. Have never seen anyone belly dance. ever. It was gross and terrible. When the music sped up I actually dry heaved. There were things that i assume will jiggle forever.
On the bright side, it looks like Egypt will win the Africa Cup this year.
I wasn't really in party mode, but the party was a 2 min walk from my house so to not go would have been lazy. The big party of the night was put on by the marines from the us embassy, but i didn't feel comfortable supporting that situation. Anyway, there's not much to say, I went as 'guy that throws stuff at the world bank.' Next to me is my roommate nick, who went as 'guy that bought weird sunglasses and fake gas mask' and Maher who went as Zorro. My favorite costume of the night was my friend Karem who came in a full KKK outfit. It's pretty hilarious watching an egyptian dressed up as KKK dancing with a Sudanese refugee, that his boss is dating. Oh, and I had a conversation with someone about which MxPx albums were 'good'.
I should have left for work 30 minutes ago, but I'm listening to the album and felt I should post something about it.
Japanther - Tut Tut Now Shake Your Butt
The long/short of it is that its a really good, solid album. I could use more japanther in my japanther album though. It has 11 tracks, 4 of which are non music tracks, leaving you feeling its more of an ep than an lp. That's just japanther though, they are a combination of fun punk and performance art. This time they teamed up with Crass co-founder Penny Rimbaud and produced a more focus, but still unpolished, album. I really enjoyed the last lp, Skuffed My Huffy, but I'd say that this album is mildly superior and my favorite release by this band so far.
Of the songs that are on there, I think the standout track is Radical Businessman. I wish i had the know how to put the song up but maybe you should just go to a show and if you like it, buy the album. They play on Nov 7th in Richmond.
I didn't really know you could vote early without any reason at all in a lot of states. I got to vote via mail and I guess it worked because my horse is winning the race. I just read the poll numbers and it seriously said that McCain is up by 21% among NASCAR fans.
I feel like all the time I spent following politics was a waste. I could have just as easily waited until the last minute, found out who had the NASCAR vote, and voted for the other person.
McCain - The uncharismatic 72 yr old leader of uneducated middle America who has a 1 in 3 chance of dying in the next 4 years and leaving Palin in charge.
Please don't forget to vote.
Please.
A bowab is a doorman, handyman, trashman, etc. in this culture. My bowab is named 'Gad.' I met a girl that used to live in the same apartment as I do. Apparently Gad tried to stop a fight a couple years ago and somehow 'accidentally' killed a man. The problem came when it was found out that the man that he killed was from the same village in upper Egypt and was from the opposing side in a long standing feud. She said the door was always locked and there were plenty of times when she had to wake him up to open the front door, only to find him sleeping with a sword.
oh, and apparently he likes to play this game where you chase each other around and grab at each others balls. these are true stories and this man is the security of my building.
life is good
Every single day I see something that is so amazing that my brain gets flooded and I can't think straight. So in an effort to appreciate each thing to its fullest I decided to start blogging about things I see in cairo each day. Today I noticed that Egyptians must think 78 degrees is quite cold as 1 in 5 seem to be wearing jackets, scarves, etc. I was sweating by the time I got to the bus station, but everyone else around me appeared to be cold. I ate my granola bar and yogurt drink and even 'cheers'd' a guy that was staring at me from 6 feet away.
as a side note, I like saying oddly offensive things in public situations in which there are no native english speakers. nothing says funny like ordering 'cocknipples' at a restaurant.
anyway, the guy that sat next to me on the bus was wearing a canadian tuxedo and felt the need to read the koran and sing his prayers. This is one of those things that gets old really fast but you can't do anything about it. All you can really do is pray about it and hope that your god is stronger, cooler, or has more of a respect for people around him than this guys god.
Last weekend I got into a cab for an expected 40 minute ride (this costs ~$5). The driver had no cassette player or radio so he did what anyone would do in this situation...he selected a ringtone, let it play, chose another one, let it play, etc etc. occasionally he'd come back to one he liked but i think he had a bit of a playlist in mind. Keep in mind he is doing this while driving a 30+ yr old fiat with manual transmission through some crazy traffic. Also, he did not have a nice phone at all, it was one that you could get in the US for free 6 years ago so it was all midi tones.
The weather in Cairo is amazing right now. It's in the upper 70's all day and at night it drops down to the mid 60's. It's just enough to feel like fall, only it's egypt so it never rains...or does it?
I was able to see rain for the first time since having to ride motorcycles through monsoons in July. I have a friend who lives on the 34th floor of an apartment building. You can easily see the pyramids from the windows, it's amazing. Anyway, it got really windy so we had to shut the windows and then you could see this massive dust storm coming across the dessert into the city. It was just like in the movie The Mummy, giant face and all. Then just as the dust storm passed it started to rain, but not like rain in the states, this rain was so light that it floated around like snow. I ended up just staying at my friends house and watching My name is Earl on dvd because I was afraid the next thing was a plague of locusts or frogs dropping from the sky.
Sorry I've been lax about the posting. The job has been keeping me increasingly busy and I had another bout of sickness. I'll be better, I promise.
Last night I ventured out to an exhibit opening at the Goethe Institute. It was a graffiti exhibit in which the artists we allowed to put up big pieces on the side of the former East Germany embassy. Some pieces were amazing, some mediocre, but the standout part was the fact that there was a rap group and a break dancing group. It was all in arabic so I have no idea if they were any good, but their name was 'Arabian Nights' although i never saw it written down so it could be 'Arabian Knights.' It was fun, beers were cheap and there were a lot of kids I hadn't seen at the normal foreigner hangout spots.
This all happened just a few days after I saw an upper egyptian man in traditional dress with stainless steel fronts.
Then I saw two pairs of twins in one morning and ate curly fries at hardees.
Also, Hardees does not serve the '5th meal' here, they don't even open til 11am. I guess there's no old people here that enjoy biscuits and gravy.
so i forgot to say what the pizza egg was...
basically it was flat bread, like a pita type thing and on top, in the middle was some cheese and olives. inside it was seriously some combination of tomatoes and hotdogs i think. i had to throw it away.
as a side note, you should know - hot dog pizza is something that is on every menu that involves pizzas. i think they thought 'what do americans like? pizza. hot dogs. done.'
i'm not sure where the 'egg' bit came into this pizza egg thing, but i'm sure they scrambled an egg in there somewhere.
When you call my phone it now plays Bootylicious.
This is made funnier by a few things:
1. I'm in Egypt
2. There were only a few English options and one of them was Bootylicious
3. I'm in a position of responsibility and I have to use this phone for work
4. Everytime someone calls me it plays a dated song about how you're not ready for my jelly.
5. It only cost 1 dollar to have this done
6. My body truly is too Bootylicious for you baby
7. Since I am probably the first website in a long time to have the word 'Bootylicious' typed so many times, if you google 'bootylicious' Hamburger Hotdog will probably be on the first page.
I am ordering something called a 'Pizza Egg' from a delivery place by work. No one here knows what it is because the Arabic is just the words 'Pizza Egg' written again. I'm so excited. I always thought of pizzas as mammals.
I have a new goal: Socotra. It is located pretty close to here, but there are no available flights at this time and when there are they only go to the island once, maybe twice, a week and there are monsoons for half the year. I will travel there. It will be mine.
In July, I sold most of my my belongings and moved to Cairo. My goal was to work in the field of journalism without any real experience or anything lined up beforehand.
Last month I started doing freelance writing. Then I basically just kept showing up to the magazine where I saw the most potential. I became a staff writer within a couple of weeks, and yesterday I officially became Senior Editor of an international design magazine.
Apparently my corporate background came in handy, as they really needed someone to come in and organize the entire editorial staff. It's the first time in my life I don't mind working long days. I never look at the clock until the end of the day, and that's only to wish I had a few more hours to complete necessary tasks. I officially have a career, not a job.
The magazine needs a lot of work, and I'm just the man who is grossly unqualified to turn it around.
Well...my internet has been out at my house for a minute, I'm being promoted at work on a consistent basis, and I went to Dahab for Eid (post Ramadan feast/week long party).
As you can tell from the photos i'm still telling stories/jokes and wearing the same shirts i've owned for 10+ years.
Quick story, then I have to get to work -
The guy in the middle of the picture is an Iraqi refugee named Hassan. He loves America. His family is still in Iraq and he is being relocated to DC pretty soon. You seriously couldn't meet a sweeter guy. But...one time during our trip we had planned on going to the dessert with Bedouins and watch the sunset, see the stars, etc. The cars that were supposed to pick us up were over an hour late, so our friend Danny called and complained to the drivers and then called off the trip (after much yelling) and demanded the deposit back. This was not going to happen -ever- according to the drivers. Hassan grabs the phone and tells the driver "I don't care about the deposit, just tell me where you are right now. Why? Because I'm going to take my thumbs and pull out your eyes." We ended up getting our deposit back and had a huge group dinner with the money. I'll put up the pictures on facebook and flickr today.
