Duke79′s Blog

Food Will Win the War

Music can do a lot to us. It can strike a chord with our emotions as it reminds us of someone or an event that has shaped who we are. Music also has the ability to bring us together or tear us apart. Music can move us to tears, make us smile, or even rip a divide inside a day. For me – music sometimes transports me to other places inside imaginations whether my own or history. As I write this–cigarette and glass of wine in hand I listen to the first album from Brooklyn based band Food Will Win the War called A False Sense of Warmth. I think back on meeting front man Rob Ward as we sat down on several occasions and chatted about his band.
An anonymous scholar once wrote, “Food Will Win the War’s music sounds like it was taken from Rob’s journal. Bound in brown leather it sits on a mahogany nightstand under dimly lit oil lantern light. His music is truly American. It is a modern folk- laced (semi-colonial at times) bazaar celebrated in large open fields as the masses construct large monuments in celebration of our country. There are long wooden tables where thousands sit eating corn, bread, and venison. As others bring more food from their own crops. Beer flows into enormous copper jars and glasses. As the band plays patrons take to their feet and begin to dance.” 
Or (in reality)it’s just a good damn time! 
 
Rob Ward is a tall skinny guy with a deep baritone voice that at first can catch you off guard. He spoke of his childhood as we finished our first round of pints from a growlier. As a Military baby he grew up all over the place like Virginia, Florida, Delaware but now resides in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where he is completely content saying his neighborhood is a“driving feeling to create. [New York City] is un-parallel to anything”.

While Rob’s mother was a flute teacher, he chose to study viola at a very early age and moved onto guitar after he purchased one at a garage sale. As middle school took hold he picked up a pen along with his guitar and began writing music. As high school rounded the corner and gave way to college Rob took everything more seriously as he would perform at school parties. But it wasn’t until 2005 that his band Food Will Win the War was born. I then asked him why the name, responding “it was a fun name with deeper implications”. Being that this is not a history lesson I will give the readers who do not understand the chance to google the hell out of that[their name]. 

Ok, hint:
It was a food program and it had to do with war.

Enough of me being a jerk. I will move along. As our evening went on and the beer still flowed over a dirty ashtray people near us spoke of the middle east and current events. So I decided it was about time to move in for the obvious question. “Rob, being that your band’s name is about war and actual government programs do you pay attention to the news and get inspired by what is going on now in the news, especially war and the Arab spring”? Rob responded with a chuckle and told me that although he does read a lot his music is more “profiles than political statements”. It was then he said that he did write a score to the story of the Texas Seven and their escape from jail. Quite a funny story because they fled for the border… Not to Mexico but Canada. 

So has Rob ever had to run for the border? No, but he probably would have made the same choice as the Texas 7 because Canada is the obvious choice. “Have you traveled much(outside the U.S.)?” “A bit. Europe, mostly. But also Israel”, stating that it is “beautiful” over there. “Well how do you feel about food?”, I asked. He told of his love of Akamaru Modern Ramen at Ippudo. That is where we got stuck for a couple minutes. I think he started to think that the interview I was conducting was horse shit s we moved on because that topic has absolutely nothing to do with this article. He then went on to describe how a song is born and how it is “nonlinear” in most aspect as a “song goes where it goes. Sometimes three or four things going on at once.”

After Mr. Ward has found the meat to a song he has written he calls on his band of well behaved musicians. Between the Glockenspiel is the violin which is adjacent to the bass that is in front of the drums standing behind the accordion and keyboard. The band’s personality is light and fun as Rob says “We enjoy working together…And I love performing. You never know what is going to go wrong. One time in Sarasota [Florida] on the Fourth of July someone threw a flip flop at me,…thinking about what happened to President Bush, BEEN THERE.”

So as many would ask is where does the music come from and is the new album any good. Those are just stupid questions! Joking. Rob exclaimed to me the soundtrack of the city. “The East side has always been it for me”, he said telling me of many bike rides over the bridges into Manhattan. I then began to talk about the album itself. Is it good? In all honesty, It’s great. Senor Rob told me about each song and where they came from. Some songs coming from good times with friends out drinking themselves silly to abstract songs about astronauts. All in all it’s fun to listen to, but maybe you should figure it out for yourself and pick up the album. Soon Food Will Win the War will be going on tour so dates and cities will follow soon. Make sure to keep up with them on Facebook and on their website. Their album can be downloaded as well on itunes.
www.foodwillwinthewar.com

http://www.myspace.com/robward

“WELCOME”

“WELCOME,” he says. Rafat Hussein Mohamed Osman, a middle aged Egyptian Bakala(corner store) owner living in Hawalli, Kuwait. He sips his morning shai(tea) and smacks his hands together clearing away the crumbs to shake your hands. Two kisses to the cheeks of his better friends. His eyes still sag from fatigue, but every day, with a smile, he greets each customer. It’s 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday. It has been over four months since I first met Rafat in August. He used the only word he knew in English, “welcome,” which he used and still uses in place of “hello”. I was new to this neighborhood, this country, the 135 degree heat, and he made me feel welcome. “WELCOME!”

Months have passed and I have come to know this man only a little so I sat down with a translator and inquired about his life, his childhood, his daily routine, memories of his homeland, and a war televised for all the world to see; Desert Storm.

Shoes off, we sat on a Persian carpet, drank hot tea, smoked sheesha, and talked. In the background an old Egyptian movie was playing about their national hero to the likes of “che,” he said. His tiny kitchenette is tucked away behind a corner in the back and two twin beds sit at either end of his living room. The apartment is small but the company welcoming. His front iron door always remains open when he is home screaming, yes, screaming, “Salam” to his neighbors passing by. He spreads his life’s contentment to everyone that he comes within contact with.

Rafat is a humble man of simple beginnings; he grew up outside Luxor, Egypt with his family on a farm in a small village. On October 4, 1967 he was born to Hussein, his father and mother Fawzeya. Corn, wheat, onions, beans, tomatoes, and sugar cane were and are still grown on premise. His mother cooked bread in their clay ovens as Rafat brought hay to feed the livestock with his donkey after school in the afternoons. I asked about his family and the land that they own, answering, “My parents will never leave their land, the family must stay together.” A house built by the family with their own hands. .The first level was used to keep their livestock and feed, the second level is used for sleeping. At six every morning the whole family; one brother Mohamed and two sisters, Baderia being the oldest and Sanaa the youngest, would wake and prepare breakfast, together. Everything was made at home from their land and from their animals. The romance of this and the simplicity of such an extremely hard life.

As an Egyptian young man a two year military duty is mandatory. Rafat trained as paratrooper Special Forces commando for six months. This was at the time when Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi forces invaded the small country of Kuwait. With 10 percent of the world’s known oil reserve, Kuwait was allied by over a 34 nation coalition force , one being Egypt. Rafat was deployed with his company 666 of 8 thousand to Saudi Arabia to fight along side American forces in Hafr El Baten. Hafr El Baten lays only 100 meters from the southern Kuwaiti border.

It was at this point in the story where the translation paused and was double checked. My commando/ Bakala friend was explaining how he felt during this time. “I had lost everything, I had nothing to live for, for certain, I thought, I was going to die.” He then began to describe the exodus that began to take place where the Kuwaitis and whatever they could gather flocked into Saudi as refugees. These events happened 19 years ago while I ate dinner and watched it on TV in the safety of my own home. This exodus was the super wealthy loosing everything, fleeing for their lives, and becoming refugees.

On February 22 U.S. President George H. Walker Bush issued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to withdraw his forces back to Iraq. On the 24th at 3a.m. Rafat with his company, armed with Kalashnikovs entered Kuwait on foot. This was the beginning of the ground war. Rafat told stories of the Egyptian forces heading towards the Egyptian embassy to raise the Egyptian flag. Reminiscent of the famous raising of the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima, the most brutal ground war in all of recent history during World War II. The events are so similar, in that they didn’t mark the end of a war but trumpeted a sense of pride in a nation.

Rafat also spoke of February 26 when Saddam Hussein ordered the withdrawal of all Iraqi forces. The infamous “turkey shoot.” He said on fourth ring road in Kuwait city bodies could be seen as far as the eye could see. I pictured him, smoke and ash, gun in hand, shoulders slouched, absolutely devastated, sad, and weary. His face slicked in oil soaked rain. His lips quivering prayers for his fallen “brothers, muslims.” His uniform patched with the flags of his nation that he longed to return to. I pictured his mother and father standing in the fields he grew up in, wondering if he was alive and praying for their son to return home.

Rafat still sat on the ground speaking deliberately, smoking his sheesha. He looked at me and said “We had a different purpose.. I came to help, they came to kill.” Still throughout some of this difficult story he had this gleam in his eye and that smirk that makes me feel “welcome” everyday in a land so far away from my own. The movie on the television still played as it neared its end. “CHE” he called him, the hero, the freedom fighter, he became him, not the “Che” of a nation but of his own survival. Rafat was soon to return home to his family.

 

Abdul Hussein-an Iraqi man in Kuwait

ABDUL HUSSEIN

Agitated sands and dust transform back into stone. Beads, thread through with colorful yarn. Counted and collected they have been admired over the years. The present speaks of the past, of iridescent beads – symbols reflecting upon themselves from the words of Abdul Hussein.  Cell phones, the cinema, and Souk Sharq. Bowling alleys, HD TVs, personal drivers, and door to door delivery. Air conditioning, accents, architecture, and airports, Maids, the Queen, masters, marvels and masterpieces – leaps in time and technology. Crude colors of black drilled from cracked earth began fueling industry. Banks, high rises, the Kuwaiti Towers, and large passages of asphalt lead into the distance. Malls are mobbed with consumers buying all the latest fashions from Italy, Britain, France, and America. Much has changed since the Kandari with buckets of water dangled from rods over struggling calloused shoulders. Soft white – stories of men diving for pearls now sit in archives. There was a time when produce was trucked in from Basra, Iraq, and water was imported by sea farers on large dhows in barrels from Iraq and Iran, and life, was a lot simpler. The world was changing at an unfathomable pace around them, spiraling in directions as sandstorms of western thought were carried over the sea by harsh winds into the gulf. From Boshera, Iran, the British came with spheres, platforms of organization and sermons of ideas for the future. This was the beginning of Kuwaiti Nationalism with documentation, citizenship, and census taken to count the lands’ true settlers, inhabitants, and nationals. These ideas were new to Kuwait’s people. Many people wondered why they needed these papers stating where they were from, confused with words like “notarization.” Hussein told of the skeptics who did not follow suit – as they were to become the Bedoun{(without nationality) not to be confused with Bedouin}. Why did everything have to change? Some have watched this all take place. In America they call these witnesses “The Greatest Generation.” I sat with eyes from another country and listened to his words, his poetry of the past and how life used to be. Eyes that gleam, lips shutter with each syllable, and hands that dance along – carving the air as he points in the direction of how things use to be – “a lot simpler.” There is something beautiful, sometimes painful about reminiscing. The saying “I remember when.” What he remembers is what I wanted to know. So on a Friday evening after the sun had sank, my friend and I set out to talk with Abdul Hussein, an old Iraqi man, about his life and the changes that have taken place around him. Tucked in the middle of Kuwait City surrounded by skyscrapers, large roads and round-a-bouts lies Souk Mubarkia (the old market). Inside and around the corner from the grocers and butchers sits a quant shop built on top of Russian wood frames. Facades of concrete – where plaster bandages the cracks (the same now as it was before) – nestled in between many – the similar, along the alleyway. The owner dressed in a white button down shirt and blue trousers counts his beads. Perfect pleats and creases shoot sharply down the center of each pant leg. Amongst friends and stories of old, he works each day and into the night. His spectacles – perched on his face mirror the shimmers – sparks of light surging in large glass bulbs that dangle from electrical wire, like strings sewn through the corrugated metal roof above. He reminds me of my grandfather, his face – grizzled, scratching his 5 o’clock shadow with the top of his hand. His mannerisms, movements – slow – and planned, I presume. He loves to talk about the past when he was a voice of freedom against the past Iraqi system, now a voice of beautiful anecdotes strewn together like amber and ivory beads in meticulous detail and fashion. Each bead; from wherever it may be from tells a different story as he clutched them in his left hand. I was about to be taken back along the thread of his mesbah to the days of the “old” old souk. His feet have sauntered paths in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Australia and England, but his heels are dug in deep to his little neighborhood. The shops, the people, and the stories become spools of yarn, unraveling. A walk in the past with a great guide seated on a sadu (Bedouin pillow) we drank tea, and he remembered when…… Kennedy had been assassinated a year prior, the Beatles released their first album, plans to build the World Trade Center were announced, the Italian government asked for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over, the Rolling Stones released their first album, Rola Dashti was born, people walked and shopped in the old souk, and Abdul Hussein arrived in Kuwait. It was 1964. The Beatles have since broken up, the World Trade Center no longer stands as the Leaning tower of Pisa still leans, Rola Dashti is now in Kuwait’s Parliament, people walk and shop through the old souk, and Abdul Hussein still sells his mesbah. It is 2010. As parts of the world built UP – Kuwait built outward. People were only from Sharq and Jisbah then. Safat was a place where only sheep were sold. Farwaniya, Jabriya, Salmiya, Mahboula, and Fahaheel; now bustling neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city were all just distant barren sands. You could count schools on one hand. People stayed close, stayed simple, stayed familiar and stayed safe. As we sat and discussed these changes many people old and young came to greet this man who has made a stamp on his neighborhood – a “notarized” expert as a merchant of the fashionable and religious (beads). They came in droves of shuffling sandals asking questions, inquiring about purchases, and inquiring about his day. “Old fashioned”, some call him, but he thinks not. He began to tal k about everyday life here in Kuwait and how from the Bosom of England things changed. He remembers the times when foreigners would bring water barrels to each home on a dolly and with ladles they would scoop out what was needed for the day. Keeping count, “one, two, three, water was too precious”, he said. Then as time went on motorcycles revved down the streets that the dollies once rolled up. Keeping count “one, two, three, water was precious then too”. I asked if they boiled the water to try to purify it. He said, “We used a cloth to filter it. Sometimes there were worms in the water.” Every day Abdul would walk to the market to buy fresh fruit, meat and fish for the day as he still does. He is a family man saying “I only eat from my wife’s hand (her own cooking), what we have left over from lunch we eat for dinner.” He never orders out. “Do you have a phone?” I asked. He hesitated and said “yes,” as he pulled an old Nokia cell phone from his pocket, “only for emergencies.” I then asked him about retirement. “Retirement? This is business, not a job.” Abdul said he will never stop. He spoke of Kuwait now and how everything is money driven, more money, more, more, more. At this point a man brought us shai (tea) on a tray from around the corner. A small exchange of money was given. He then spoke of cell phones and the death of personal communication. “We used to be eight brothers in one house, now I don’t see my brother. Families used to be together, close to each other and technology has separated us (in more ways than one)”he said. I understood what he was saying but I still had a question about technology that I wanted to ask him so I made my advance, “what, as a man from the greatest generation, thinks the highest achievement is in technology?” He answered with a short, “it should have stayed somewhere in the middle.” “Old Fashioned?” Abdul remembered back again speaking of a ship docked at the port where a maiden slept in the night. The maiden was queen Elizabeth of England. He told the story where his friend and he stood on the corner down the street from his shop that she walked with the Sheik. She sauntered slowly, regally – gazing at the market around her. She stopped and he put out his hand, “my family used to work with the British military,” he said to her. She then grasped his hand like a friend, not as a queen and gently peered into his eyes and said, “Whenever you run into bad times you come (to England), your names will be there, and there they shall remain.” Like names in the books and inscribed into walls on Ellis Island (New York City) of the families of the tired, your poor, and huddled masses yearning to breathe free (The New Colossus 1883) were his family names to be written in London. As he told this story rays of light permeated from his body, his mannerisms taught with kind strength, and his smile wrote that history. “I was the only one that spoke to her, she called me courageous,” he said. “It happened right there, she walked down this Same street and then she said, “Now – this is Kuwait, This is your identity, Let it Remain!” And this street, this same place has remained. As all around her has spread, grown, and in some instances moved on, Souk mubarkia and Abdul Hussein through time and agitated sands have remained the same and will always “remain.”

Pilgrimage To The Black Waters of Krishna

Cycles of Earth: rock and sea; from ice to water—from water to rain. In the lower Himalayas, stupendous peaks called the Banderpooch slope down to the Yamunotri Glacier. Dripping continuously it feeds the largest Tributary River of the Ganges in India.

Cycles of life: people tied to the land that gives and takes. The river feeds the spirits and takes their sins and carcasses downriver to moksha (liberation). They are washed away with petals, colorful peace offerings of magenta and luminescent yellows. The Prayers of the pilgrims and the Sadhu (mystics and sorcerers) flow softly south. It is on these banks of the river Yamuna in Mathura where many come, pray, bathe, drink—tempt fate.

The city of Mathura is In the Trans-Yamuna region of Braj in Utter Pradesh. Like Bethlehem to Christians and the holy water from the Jordan, like Mecca and the sacred Kaaba stone to Muslims, is Mathura to Hindus. A Doab, a tongue of land caught in the middle of the “twins”, the Ganges and Yamuna, is a sacred place of prayer and pilgrimage to their god, Krishna (in Sanskrit Krishna means black).

Krishna, an avatar for many, a deity for some, and the “supreme being” to others, was born in Mathura, and on the Ghats of Mathura he rested after killing King Kansa. It is at these Ghats, steps to the theetham (holy water), that believers come to cleanse, washing away the unholy with the slow black current.

I am Christian but I became a pilgrim as well. An Ibn Battuta, the traveler going east to find knowledge and wisdom. I flew into Mumbai on an early morning and only had one day before my sleeper train left for Agra. CST Train station, Asia’s largest train station, touts slice off and feed on the venison and veal of the young and unsuspecting tourists. Large machine guns stand at the front of soldiers surveying each pedestrian. Trains arrived from the countries’ stark and densely populated distances. I boarded and we soon trudged along stalking the distance, swaying on thick metal vines leading northeast.

Through panes of glass on the Punjab Mail-In open dry fields lay smooth silken mounds of grain sifted from a funnel, perfect golden piles of finely uniformed flakes shimmering light like a beacon showed the conductor the way to Mathura. Flowing like cool waters through my Retina, impressionistically painted scenes we wobbled along- click, click, click. Straw and mud huts (mills) to keep last season’s harvest stood in fields of light greens, browns, and gold. Streams, tangents from the Yamuna, slashed through the heat while tiny figures swam in toxic waters. Click, click, click. Land was transformed from kneaded clay by the hands’ of Vishnu into violent waves of dirt beyond the bleak prairies-Trans-sub-continental. 24 hours passed-click, click, click.

Mathura is not a large city but once you have reached the heart of town you come upon several temples dedicated to the blue god. Architecture carved from stones sit in whites, blues, and oranges. Large, dark and deep halls-dirty tiled floors covered with pilgrims sprawled out asleep in the heat. Cows, revered as holy, walk freely down the streets. There are few smiles to be found as I walked on the city’s dirt paths to make my way to the river. Droves of people sat lethargically, watching and waiting, patiently for the sun to lose its light on the holy Himalayan water.

Some like the Sadhu, have given up- let go of a lifestyle and consumer obsessions afflicted on modern age-dedicated through meditation, yoga, and renunciation. It is a lifelong choice to live a life of poverty. There is not a seminar or a weekend retreat in a forest or the mountains. There are no books to study or movies to watch for tutorials. They spend years with a Guru before being ready to go off on their own. Spending most of their time in meditation they have no jobs and survive on natural resources and bhiksha (alms) provided by others’ generosity. The Sadhu renounce everything, some live in caves, forests, or temples and some walk with an arm straight up for long periods of time-Ritualistic behavior to reach a point of moksha-liberation from conforming to societies advertisements. Most sit on the ground or walk with umbrellas down twisting alleys. Cloaked in sheets of fabric often in shades of ochre they smoke herbs and meditate. Some paint their foreheads and other parts of their body are covered in ash. Most women’s hands and ankles are covered in tattoos. Using a wooden chisel or comb, the artist taps the tool to break the skin, injecting black pigments into the wound of the dermis for decoration. Pierced noses with large decorative gold pieces jolt out from the skin-body modification in the name of fashion and religion.

Like the journey of the waters from the Yamunotri Glacier in the Himalayas is the path of the pilgrims. Life revolving around itself-rock, ice, water, and grain- the River Yamuna will always carry mystical stories of Krishna- and the city of Mathura will sit on its banks and filter the stories of the Sadhu, the sorcerers, and each traveler that flows through it. Lanterns twinkle on black waters, peace offerings in magenta and luminescent yellows.

Freeze Frame

Theroux writes in his prologue in Ghost Train to the Northern Star, “You think of travelers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on Earth of passing the time.” I began to read this book, as negative as the beginning was. It made me think, “Am I a traveler?” “Do I think this way?” I sort of became a traveler by accident. I didn’t grow up and dream of distant lands, I just read about them or watched movies about these journeys. The journeys I had no cares for, yet as I grew older even in my young age leaving America was quite simple. I fell on this decision almost over night. I was fed up with my life, bored, and angry. I, like so many others had dreams and ambitions of becoming something larger, living larger, thinking larger. I graduated from college and there I was moving with the advertising rat race. Trying to keep up with the latest designs and designers. Self absorbed in a look and how to look. Which car to drive, where to live, which kind of woman do I want to date. Did I find that traveling was easier, fold the time, pass the time between the drinks, long sleep, and awe-inspiring spectacles of different cultures? My life in the past several years has been a bag of spontaneous decisions that have snow balled into something else, grander- maybe, difficult at times, yes. But it seems that my decisions have taken a horrible turn from the American logic. I needed to conform to what is American. American as apple pie? American as McDonalds, American as the stock market? No, American as go to school, come into large sums of debt, loose sleep over loans that exceed $100,000. Get a job, begin to pay the loans, still live paycheck to paycheck and wait for the next raise, buy a house and car, meet a women, get married, have spoiled little brat kids(“daddy, daddy buy me this and I want that”) and prepare for a mid-life crisis. I was already going bald and could see my mid-life crisis on the horizon. I was only twenty five, the rest of my life in front of me and still felt empty. “Is this it?” I asked my self on a daily basis. It was a conversation over a couple of glasses that I had with a friend that changed everything – and I mean everything. I wasn’t thinking outside the box as I normally did as an artist. I wasn’t the run of the mill kid that did exactly what his parents said and did. So I looked at a map beyond the vast borders of my country, breaking the perimeter. There is so much the world has to offer and I, already, with years of unconscious decision making, I was already making logical-illogical decisions made off of these things I call “Americanisms.” Now that I have been gone for some time and yes, I have gone back to my country to reboot – my family, my friends, and even the small things like pizza at the corner store dripping in grease, then my heart slows. My only friends are my books, my passport, and my camera now. How much more does my passport have to say than those weekends I had in New York and Philadelphia, “what do you do for a living? Married? Kids? Did I tell you my wife and I painted the living room, we should have you over so you can see,” ummmm, pause – breathe, “I think I’m busy.” But as I travel, the first questions I always receive are somewhat the same, “where are you from, what do you do? Married? Kids? But, I did paint my apartment, you should come and see.” Humorous at best, but as different as most cultures are, the same questions come, just in a different language, a different tone, and in a different setting. Korea? The same questions. Europe, the same, South East Asia, and even the Middle East. The thing now is that I want to hear stories that drive me, inspire me to keep going. I want to listen; I am an American who wants something a little different. But as the world becomes smaller and when it comes down to it, three out of ten people I meet are writing a book as well. I have, in a way joined a different type of rat race. Some things have even become a pissing contest with these people/they are mist rains, not seasons. “Where have you been? What have you seen? Where to next? I’ve been here and I’ve been there.” Who cares, right? Only the people that I left back home. They care, right? I left everything. What I have learned is that my Americanisms have become more apparent. Growing up the way I did, molded from a pop-culture fabricated by shallow minds has in some ways remained with me. As much as I despise these platforms of entertainment, thinking, and ways of life I am still part of it. I wanted to leave all of it but I still brought it with me, years later I am still haunted by these thoughts but an unusual pride has grown. This is who I am and yes I am American. I still hate pop-culture; which is no problem. I have learned that these people all over the magazines and television shouldn’t dictate what a true “American” or “Americanism” is. I shouldn’t be embarrassed to be an American. I am not my government and I am NOT pop-culture. Does America have culture? Years ago I strongly said NO! But as I have experienced more my answer has become a strong yes. Yes, America does have culture. Lots of it. I didn’t see it when I lived there but living away from my home I see it everyday, in myself It also seems that traveling has changed…..Steinbeck opened the world to positano, Hemingway in between a lot of booze wrote some brilliant stuff, some people paint, some take trains, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, some cycle from country to country, what is so special about what I have done, what am I doing? These questions I ponder every day. What will become of all of this? Will I become that guy who all he talks about is traveling, will I become a father and the only advice I can give is to “talk to your mother about that because I just don’t know how to answer these questions. Just talk to your mother because at that time in my life I was in the Middle East, living that different life.” Have I become numb to my own country, lazy and walked away from the difficulties of success that I was creating. Manifest destiny (they used to say)? Or have I taken the difficult road and decided the next step for myself and not the normalcy of staying in the same city or town for the rest of my life. Or, and this is difficult to even write; am I scared to go back home? Have I reached that point where my home has become foreign to me? And foreign has become home. I go home once a year excited and ready. Bags packed weeks in advance as my passport waits to be stamped in anticipation. I take that long journey home through layovers, time zones, three microwaved meals, bars, pointless conversations and then I arrive. Home? I have conversations with people and nothing has changed, or everything has changed. People have gotten older, gotten married and had kids, bought a new house and a new car. Some of their children I have not met and going back they now have a three year old,- changed jobs or lost jobs. I go back to this frame of a place each year, the snapshot I took before my departure. My checklist of all the things that at that point in time were normal, are all out of skew a year later. Some on the other hand stayed frozen in time, and I think that what has and had not changed is history. When I sit with friends we can reminisce, our stories of growing up have not changed and will not change ever, no matter how much the world and as people we grow or decay. Have I changed? Conversations with family and friends certainly have. Is it because our interests have matured, changed? If I remember correctly four years ago my interests were all the same but my opinions on the world have changed drastically. Change, I almost hate this word now. Change has become routine/status-quo.

 

 

StoneHenge to Puerto Rico

This is the story of my travels over the last summer. From England to Scotland and west towards Puerto Rico. Events from present day that echo stories of the past and seem to meet in places so far away from each other in time, distance , and thought.

PART I: STONEHENGE

10 km and 30 minutes to the airport, 4,652 km and 6 hours from Kuwait to London Heathrow, 137 km and 3 hours from Heathrow to the camp site in Wiltshire, and just another 5 km and 3 hours to Stonehenge. Almost a year for every kilometer traveled is how old this monument is. 191 kilometers short of 5000 years. 5000 years ago people got together and navigated over harsh lands carrying stones weighing upwards of 50 tones. 5000 years later- present day. Over 18,000 people gathered to celebrate summer solstice, the longest day of the year, on June 21st 2010. 5000 years, people have gathered at this one place on that one day, so a total of 5000 summer solstices….Incredible.

While the Egyptians built the pyramids an indigenous group of people in what is now present day Britain built Stonehenge, one of the seven wonders of the world, with Bluestone, Sarson, and Welsh sandstone. Taking thousands of people thousands of years to build; they dragged these stones long distances in the name of worship, sacrifice, and or death. Large funeral processions; maybe, no one is positively certain but human remains have been excavated. People still travel from all corners of Earth to ramble on in the fields and celebrate life under the spirit in the sky. Dancing, singing, and watching in anticipation for the break of dawn and the coming of the year’s longest sun. A festival has taken hold and has endured since before the Battle of Bean hill, when the government tried to stop the public from assembly. The smoldering fist of Blackbeard struck down again, the plundering of freedom and thought. Since then the festival has returned again to the revered grounds.

Today, O’er the lea many traipsed towards stone monuments masked in darkness on the hill. Standing like colossal pillars to secrets of the past, mysteries, rumors, and theories. My mate , Dr. Hunter S. Thomson and I had walked over three hours through the English country side in ahibriation from our campground. Beginning at sundown around 11 p.m., we footslogged along narrow roads barricaded with large walls of bush. We passed others in the chilly night through clouds of smoke. They had blank faces covered in cold sweat, quiet sewn mouths, and beady empty pupils. I looked towards my mate with gonzo eyes and Doctor Thomson said, “I think we’re in bat country.” My eyes played tricks on me as my smoke reached its end. Tired, my shins burned and my shirt began to stick to my back. I wanted to lay down on the side of the porous gravel in the ditches under the large bushes. As cars sped by blinding us with their headlights, screams came from the windows sending cringes down my bony spine. they slowly dissipated as they disappeared into the dark,lost in the darkness. Lost, lost, we finally saw great lights coming over a hill in the distance. Small dots emerged from the bottoms and moved towards the light like ants, visions of beings from another world gathering for close encounters from above and beyond inside large crop circles. Circles of pressed wheat and grass, so large they seem to be open uncultivated dead granges of rolling hills. We finally made our way closer as the night became stronger in it’s height and we arrived to the ancient site.

Hours past like minutes as festival go’ers danced to an archaic drum cadence on the hallowed ground upon the heath. I thought I heard murmurs from Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin in the early morning as harmonicas played and voices sang, “cryin’ won’t help you, praying won’t do you no good, goin’,goin to Chicago”(Led Zeppelin, when the levee breaks). I had been taken back to the late 60s and early 70s to a place that seemed ripped from the pages of great books. Novels that had been taken off the shelves and put into large piles to burn. Unreadable, atrocious material with unapologetic passages about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Or WAR-Vietnam and napalm dripping with skin off of innocent children, soldiers returning dead, scarred from events following the drafts. The Battle of Chicago- gased, faces bludgeoned by police batons, crowds protesting in the streets for free speech and freedom, pirated freedom from the government Captain Hook. Stonehenge; it seemed, had brought me to these places of horror in history. Yet it was freedom that over-powered me. The people around me, that danced with themselves, were happy in their moment. Moments, went by and I became slowly relaxed and began to enjoy this great experience. I was free, I was alone surrounded by thousands.

And alone under brilliant stars I looked out onto vast expanses of lonely moors undulating under the moonlight like deep green carpets lifted and stretched above the summer’s cool air. On my blanket I laid over wet grass and began to fall asleep on the perimeter of the henge, dreaming of the way things use to be.

It was then, in my sleep, I saw Duke (Hunter S. Thomson) walking away from the stones towards the piers as the song “Spirit In The Sky” by Norman Greenbaum played over the immense billowing clouds. Ships on the high skies carried the sounds of riffs from a buzzing electric guitar, rattling tambourines, snare kicks, and cheering crowds. The sounds headed in all directions voicing freedom. With one last smile I climbed to my feet from the lush grass and peered around at my surroundings, 5000 years old. Over 5000 summer solstices, for I had traveled almost 5000 kilometers. “You haven’t seen it all yet son, you haven’t gone to the edge.” “What is the edge?” I said. “The edge? there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. the others, the living, are those who pushed their control as far as felt they could handle and pulled back or slowed down, but the edge…is still out there.” Dr. Thomson looked at his astrolabe for directions and we then sailed on Moby Dick, a white 1971 Chevy Impala convertible away from our social pirates towards new shores of rest… the edge. The Doctor turned on the radio, looked at me ,and said, “that’s it, that’s MY funeral.”

(singing)

When I die and they lay me to rest

Gonna go to the place that’s the best

When I lay me down to die

Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky

When I die and they lay me to rest

Gonna go to the place that’s the best

Spirit In The Sky

 

Part II

Millions of years ago two volcanoes spewed ash, rock, and lava into the southern Scottish air. Deep gapping angry bowels leading to Earth’s core began to cool as the Ice Age arrived forming large glaciers. These god-like sheets of frozen water rubbed and filed down the heated jagged peaks. From Magma to fire, from fire to rock. From water to ice, from ice to glacier; mountains to mounts, and hills. Edinburgh City grew, forming from powerful rock. These rocks set the strong foundations for buildings that would stand over half a millennium and guard the “history” told through rocks, told through stone, and stories passed on from writers, painters, and evil-doers bent on tarnishing Edinburgh’s name.

 

What stories come from cold volcanic rock?

 

After a long drive through the Lake District in North-West England we crossed over into Scotland on our way to Edinburgh, a city of witches and ghosts. The doctor and I had looked forward to seeing this city in all it’s enchanting glory and hear the stories. Haunting stories and a walk back in time to days of savagely cold hunger, murder, and superstition. A city built on the stories of old, horrifyingly dark alleys lit with lanterns echoing the hum-drums of spirits that refuse to leave memories of the refuse clogged streets that they once walked. Like water poured on a fire, glaciers on a volcano, smoke rises from the city streets…

As we came into the city there she stood like a looming burden of bleak reminders from the hardened past. Edinburgh Castle , stands gothically regal atop  a mass of volcanic rock. It was the end of June and the night was briskly chilly as the sun hung in the sky until late evening. Our latitude had increased since landing in London, South- East England. People walked aimlessly down the Royal Mile after drinking their last pint at the pub. The castle’s changing of the guard moved like a ballet under groaning drawn-out notes from bagpipes echoing under a sinister blanket of air, massaging city roofs with numb hands.

The doctor and I parked our car and began our dawdled ascent up to the main street leading down from the Castle, the Royal Mile. We trudged up the pavement toward the ghostly brick building and soon decided to take a right turn down a steep winding street flanked by many dark alleys with high thin steps leading into the dark. The buildings stood at their pinnacle ten stories high.  Dotted with lit windows, shadows of people moved like apparitions behind the glass encased by stonewalls. Down this street a long time ago the poor slept and flat owners tossed their own excrement out their windows on the sewage caked streets. A smell pungent and hideous, it drove the average person insane. Cloaks and canes, the sound of a slow gait-clicking heels and the hammering of a walking stick upon the steps of a dark alley. Voices echoed off the walls traveling as they bounced in different directions through the city. The distance of sound cannot be measured amongst the obtrusive ghostly architecture.

We continued to walk. Looking left, “I think he frequents this place”, the doctor said and we pushed open the front door and walked into the pub. A large wooden phonograph began to play Tchaikovsky with 1812 Overture’s weeping violins. Horse main strung bows made long soft and solemn strokes across the strings. Whispers came from the bar and other booths around the pub as glasses clinked as they drank. Bright chandeliers hung above the bar reflecting in the large smoky mirror behind rows of liquor bottles.  The bar tender whom had been washing the bar looked towards us with suspicion cocking his head back in disappointment and asked us what we would like. “Pint, Scotch?”he said. He was not pleased to see two foreigners in his bar. We walked towards the end. The doctor slammed his fist on the bar and said, “two Luphroags”.

Looking right, to a booth tucked into the corner there sat a man in a deep black coat. He had long grey hair that sat in messy tufts. Large crow’s feet jetted from each bloodshot eye. His nose was large and red and spoke of many years of drinking. His five o’clock shadow looked more like he just hadn’t shaved in days. He was musty and beaten down, worn out and drunk. He must have been in his late sixties, I thought. With a haggard, throaty voice he bellowed to the barkeep, “One more, mate”, slurring his voice, “Then e gotta git uhhhh mee home to mee wifffe.”  He took large gulps of his drink as liquid ran from his mouth down his chin. You could hear each time he put the drink up to his mouth, the glass hit his front teeth and the sound of air and liquid entered a cavernous mouth as beer ran over his filthy gums. He banged his glass on the table every time he put his glass down.

The Doctor and I sat in the booth behind the old man and began to enjoy our drinks when suddenly the sounds of horses galloping down the way smashed down on the streets hammering the cobblestone with shoes made of iron. The horsemen smacked whips against their beasts and hollered with their approach. The bar keep took off running towards the front door smacking off the lights. The record screeched to a halt and the place went quiet. The only noise you could hear was the breath of the outside air on the windows and that awesome clacking of hooves.  The old man began to breathe deeply and you could sense his panic as he looked over the side of his booth towards the door. He had large rabid eyes as liquid frothed at the corners of his mouth and dripped off his chin onto the wood floors. He then took his coat sleeve and ran it across his face whipping the mess of mucus and beer off. It was an evening from Jekyll and Hyde.

He then disappeared around the side of the booths and a clamor was heard.
I turned around to look towards the old man and he had gone. The sound of  feet pounding on steps and the slam of a door in the back had given away his escape. “Why was he running, and from whom”? The front door swung open and two men entered. One smacked his lips together and removed his hat. They looked like savage men, men with no conscious. Or maybe they were just rusty ol‘ chaps looking for the night’s last pint. The bar man knew these two blokes and said with a broad stutter, “evening D-D-D-Deacon, even-n-ning Mr. Brody”. The rest of what was exchanged I could not hear. Mr. Brody leaned over the bar shoving his finger in the bar man’s face. I looked at the Doctor to see his reaction. He had none.

I imagined they had been looking for a man named Burke. He supposedly has been accused of heinous crimes. He had been hiding in small pubs that lead to Mary King’s Close. Mary King’s Close was a foul place of crime, prostitution, and all other sorts of vile things located below ground. In 1753 the Government buildings were constructed over the old streets.  People still lived an impoverished life there for over 100 more years. The Doctor looked at me, “lets follow, it will be a mad adventure,…closer to the edge”. The doctor then leaned over towards me and said,  “leave these shifty characters behind, they; here, think us shifty anyway…we’re all mad”. So we finished our drinks with one last swig and with a crack exited the bar out the front doors. Once we had crossed the threshold the record player came back on and back through the windows I could see that normal pub activity had resumed.  The patrons at that pub had thought of us as shifty, the doctor was right.

I had heard stories before of this place, stories of awkward shifty people, witches, body snatchers, and murder. It then sounded like the whole cities “engine” was thrown into neutral. Gassed for acceleration but paused in its stillness. People walked with fear down the uneven streets. No one had a face and everyone was a stranger yet they all seemed to notice the doctor and I. The rain began coming down cold, brutally cold, soaking my hair. Large crows circled above blocking the moons light, waiting like vultures for their prey to die. I looked up and I imagined these walls of alleys crumbling around us breaking the ground beneath us and dumping us into an underground pit of refuse. Bodies grouped on top of each other gasping for air with open mouths. Animals pushed below street level and rock laid on top of their heavy heads and hearts. Demons of men were loose in this place yanking on the feet of the poor, pulling them down closer to hell. The smell was rank. Black smoke from burning coal poured from the cracks of broken windows. Not only were there shadows from above in the light but now they came from below, appearing and disappearing with the shoving of the filthy coal smut greased masses. In the distance the sounds of rope and fire crackled as bodies hung, swinging slowly with the breeze from the toll booth gallows and witches screamed as they burnt under high flames at the stakes. A ship on the Firth of Forth struck sail and large fog horns could be heard yawning from the water. People in masses clung to the ship’s old decrepit hull, gun fire was shot into the sky, and it sailed north and westward to the Americas. All that remains are memories of smoldering fires under charred feet and the vague ambiguous flickering light of the lantern hanging from the deck of that ship.

I opened my eyes and Hunter and I were alone. A voice came from a small door behind us telling us to follow. I thought it to be Burke but there was no knowing. People in this city used to woo the unsuspecting poor into warm places and out of the cold only to murder them and sell their bodies to science. I looked towards my companion and he nodded in my direction. We followed the voice.

Why was Edinburgh such a beautifully horrid place? What was it in the volcanic rock that brought people to such madness or had this place made me mad? All I wanted was to leave this place. This nightmare, I had gotten too close to the edge.

 

Part III

“There it is, the door, do you see it slightly ajar”? the Doctor said. When we got to its opening I opened it slowly and we both entered to see a man holding an oil lamp signaling for us to follow.  He began whispering to us about a writer who had left for Puerto Rico, who had gone with vial men. He told us about those two men in the pub who rode in on horses. Those men were looking for the writer for reasons he would not tell us but he said that it was only the Doctor who could help him and the writer. So we headed down to the piers at the Firth of Forth and boarded our ship to Puerto Rico. It was a large black ship with 3 masts and 40 canons. A crew of about 200 was loading the ship with foods, water, whiskeys, and rums. The men grunted and groaned under heavy shouldered cargo loads. It was dark and the rain still poured down onto the cold earth. The rain hit the sea bouncing up onto our pant legs as I looked up to the silhouette of a demonic figure at the bow of the ship. It was the captain, our captain. His shape took an even more sinister shape as lightning strikes over the water. A strange glow surrounded him. Rain water poured from each of the three corners of his hat. The doctor then looked at me and said, “if you make this journey you must do as I say”, “ok”, I replied. “ok, then, hold still”. He grabbed the side of my face and with a needle pierced my nose. Shoving the long thick piece of metal through my left nostril I let out a howl and my eyes began to well up with tears. “This is tradition, boy. It’s basically acupressure for sea sickness. This is what all the pirates and seafarers do, be a man, damn it”. He took his left hand and hit me on the shoulder. “Jesus, Doc, you could have at least warned me what in the FUCK you were going to do.” He walked away chuckling as he boarded the ship up the long plank and walked towards our captain. As I watched the doctor walk away from me I began to think if I was actually dreaming or whether or not I had gone mad with the last week’s events. Each day, it seemed was spiraling more and more out of control. And if this was all real what year was it?And the BIG question was Who is this Doctor and has he been here before? Where was he bringing me? Am I at the quintessential EDGE, per se?” Reluctantly I boarded and found a cozy enough piece of the deck to sit and clear my head. Before I knew it I had fallen asleep again amongst all the noise and movement. I had no idea that we had already left port and were on our way to the Americas. Several days passed and behavior on the ship had gone from bad to downright disturbing. Several of the crew had disappeared in the night and were believed to be over board. The captain seemed not to care as he stood above us, manning the helm of the ship. My eyes connected with him for a short period of time. He smiled at me with a feverous grin and winked. It was utterly disturbing. The Doctor had then come up on the deck carrying a journal by this writer we had heard about. He came close to me; he had been drinking heavily and did not look well. A cigarette dangled from his pale white lips and he began to stutter. “Man, I found something, I found, I found something, man”. “What did you find?” “A journal written about this ship,..it’s basically the ship’s log written by some guy. His name is not here, but all the hand writing is the same up until they approach puerto rico”. The doctor dropped onto the deck and sat down next to me. “You have got to hear this, man”. He then looked at the book and then back to me. “Oh man, do you know who our captain is? Edward Low”, he said. “What, how is that possible? Edward Low was born in the 1720s in Westminster, London. What the hell does he have to do with Stonehenge, Edinburgh, and this? Where the hell are we, and what kind of sick and demented trip are we on, Doc? Tell me that!” “I don’t know what is happening, son. I have no idea but if our captain is named Edward Low we are in for some real trouble. He was a pickpocket and thief when he was a child, and somehow ended up in Boston after murdering his father. It was then he worked on a ship and tried to murder his captain, but failed. He later became a pirate and captured over 140 ships in a couple years”. “uh-huh”, I replied. Has the Doc lost it or is he just telling me a great tale? He then continued, “Captain Low is known for his torture, he would cut off the ears of his captives and make them eat it. Listen to this”….. At that point waves began to run across the bow spitting salt in our eyes. The boat keeled from side to side. Buckets, barrels, bowled from starboard to port and back again. The wind howled and the doctor began to read from the journal: He then snatched his blade gripping his face and said “now bo.o.o.oy, stick out your tongue.”  The boy did and with a snarl the captain leaned in, smiled, winked and said “Now try to speak again, I dare you.” Slowly cutting off the tongue with the dull blade like a drunk butcher. Blood began to pour from the boy’s mouth onto the captain’s glove dripping onto the deck. The young man made sounds like a dying animal but could not fight back the brute force of the captain. He then let go of the boy’s face and with tongue in hand looked at the crew and said, “there will be no more talk on this voyage or I’ll have your tongue.” The young boy fell to the ship’s deck spitting out blood  as he began to cringe and cry. The captain with his large black boots turned towards the boy, tilting his head as if he felt empathy but with a full thrust slammed his sharp heel into the boy’s jugular crushing his larynx and snapping his neck. excerpt from the journal of …   The doctor put the journal in his lap and took a large breath. We were approaching the coast of Puerto Rico. Whistles blew and flickering lights could be seen in the distance of El Moro Fort. Canon shots began to fall off our bow. The doctor tapped me on the shoulder and began to sing as he whispered in my ear: I come for you at low tide I come for you at high I pillage from o’front n’ side I’ll cut your out tongue and skin your hide….   A battle was about to ensue. Men ran from all corners of the fort readying the canons. Small sloops were set to sail in the bay to guard old San Juan. Crowds ran from the bars and cafes dressed in their extravagant evening wear. Fear had come over the town and grasped tight reigns on some of the crew. Captain Low stood at his helm looking through his glass towards shore. Then the Doctor began to read again:   The captain made us believe in him, or he made us fear him. It was fear that his narcissism grew and his pride began to take over his logical seamanship. He had made too many enemies over the years and little did he know that his time had come to an end. Canons from the fort shot straight over us and all around us. We were out gunned and completely out manned. He had killed us all with his hubris. Ships began closing in and our crew began to jump overboard in fear that they would be hung from the gallows. The captain screamed at his cowards and tried to fight off the combatants who began to board our boat. Low put up a fight, slashing several men with the blade of his cutlass until finally he had been exhausted, dropping his sword to the deck…The men put Low on a small boat docked to the side of the ship and paddled back into shore. Captain Low was to be hung at the gallows immediately. excerpt from the journal of … “We are at the edge, boy”, he said. The doctor was right. My whole life I tried to be a part of something, to do something that would mean something. But I hadn’t. I followed, like a coward sheep down imaginary roads in my imagination towards nightmares guided by a diabolical reincarnation of a man who had been mad in reality. There is a reason why certain events in history happen in certain places and at certain times. I had conjured up ways to combine these stories with hideous consequences. I had made dire mistakes in these dreams and these writings. I had reached the edge. That’s it, this is my funeral. The Doctor and I climbed up the mast higher and higher to evade the warm blue seas that were swallowing our ship in the wake of Puerto Rico’s shores. In the distance on an immense green lawn beyond the white cemetery we could see Moby Dick. The 1971 Chevy Impala was striking its high beams over low mists. Our beast had come to take us beyond, to calmer greener days. The ship lurched and spun round in the sucking sea. The doctor looked in my direction and said, “The writer was with us the whole time, you did this to us, boy. You did this!” I was Burke, I was the man in the alley, I was Deacon, I was Brody, I was Captain Low, I was Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, I was the writer. Doctor Thompson looked off with empty eyes towards the shores as the sun set through the breaks in stone that was the henge shaped fortress.  People were gathered in the thousands laying in clusters like constellations on the heath.  Large drums beat with archaic cadences and violin bows snapped to the sounds of iron hooves from galloping horses mounted by garrisons. Canons belched clusters of sparks that seemed like shooting stars into the darkening sky.  The doctor held his chin up and said “So with one last lurch our ship sank under the calm Caribbean waters. Together, Jekyll and Hyde we take our last breathe as we go under to the other side, over the edge.” From London to the hills of Aubrey and north on to Edinburgh, From the English Channel, the Firth of Forth, and the West Indies. Gathered stones were dragged across great expanses- erected as a henge for ceremony of sacrifice- spirits and ghosts, Witches burnt at the stakes in the north and onwards to the Americas Stevenson pens Treasure Island- pirates and sea farers plunder the seas of merchants and travelers. Images depicted in paintings by Pyle and Wyeth Across oceans to the gateway of the Caribbean. Isla Encanto, Puerto Rico, the stories of  brutal murderers and thieves romanticized by Robert Louis Stevenson and Barrie, Odes to Long John Silver and Captain Hook. Happy Halloween

 

A Drive To Jahra,Kuwait

An hour drive out of Kuwait city north west is Jahra, where people are known to just disappear.  I have heard many stories of foreigners driving into town to never been seen again. They disappeared from the hands and whips of violence, kidnappings or they have been lost as numbers amongst the hordes of forced laborers. It was September 2009 during Ramadan.

I sat in the back of a filthy taxi as the sun set on the horizon. Akram, my building’s Egyptian super invited me to eat dinner with his friends. Traffic streamed like blood through clogged arteries. High levels of cholesterol- fought through a by-pass for the days break of fast, Iftar. The driver and Akram screamed at each other in different dialects of Arabic as they bickered over the price of the fare and which route to take. I stared out the window, sat back, took a couple breathes and told myself everything was going to be just fine.

As we kept going large green highway signs breezed over our heads as we cleared away from the congestion into lighter veins of road towards the desert. Smoke poured into the air from burning cars abandoned on the side of the road. The sky was a burning red that turned the views into sepias and oranges of low contrast. Finally, we merged off the road into a town that looked like a bomb had been dropped on it. Buildings were sad with malcontent like  pathetic dogs who are no longer loved or like a widow who stared at pictures of her lost love lamenting as life passed her by. Paint peeled away from the blocks of buildings where people lived clamped down into vices. They cooked large meals behind slabs of concrete that hung pendulously from metal frames. Falling below, the broken walls released a cloud of smoke. Like chalk board erasers clapped together by a young student, the dust irritated my eyes as I snapped my head back with repugnance. As the area slowly disintegrated like broken dreams folding in on themselves; the sun finally set on Kuwait.

Our transport moved to a crawl again as people took to the streets. Under the muttered voices of pedestrians trash was kicked and dragged by poorly made leather sandals. Again the air became a multilayered screen of sand masked in the shadows of car headlights. Like deprogrammed drones masses traipsed with blank faces. It seemed as if evil lived in their blood soaked stares while they squinted in agony. Their arms swayed at their sides in abeyance with the absence of a late night breeze. There was no smile to be seen in any direction for miles. The neighborhood, coughed and gagged on itself. It was a place of dead memories that people could not leave.  A place where one day of hell lives on over and over again.

The automobile rounded a corner and roared to a skidding halt, my door flung open and I emerged into the oven. Spitting the sand from my mouth, I walked into the dust towards the apparition of a growling mass. As I looked up at the building I wiped the soot from my brow with the sleeve of my shirt. Feet galloped behind me, “Come come”, Akram said with a crazed smile. “you hungry? Come.”

We hurdled over piles of broken concrete walls up a small incline to the buildings reception. Beige sands led to beige tiles that sat at the feet of beige walls under blinking fluorescent bulbs. “People live here”?, I thought. The building was alive as it slowly died inside it’s diabetic coma, malnourished. It’s skin fell of with each gentle touch. Akram walked over to the elevator and hit the “up” button giggling like Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter. The doors slowly opened to the dungeon that was its’ cavity of darkness. The elevator began to jump from all the weight from passengers as I clung on to my sanity. Packed like dirty laundry into a bag, the claustrophobic pungent smell burned. The men dressed in dish dashas were mundane and full of melancholy. Everyone greeted each other, “salaam”, “wa ahlakem salaam”, It seemed forced like a mother smacking the back of her child’s head, “now be nice and say hello”. With his eyes to the ground the “little boy” says “hello”. The silver doors covered in handprints closed and we soon ascended one, two, and finally three floors. The elevator again jumped trying to become flush with the third floor. Akram and I quickly leapt off and scampered down the crooked leaning hallway. The wallpaper peeled back and water dripped onto moldy carpets from poorly constructed ceilings. The sounds coming from each apartment echoed off the moist walls. Televisions sounded like drowned out voices from megaphones. Pots and pans banged as everyone was preparing for Iftar. That is when Akram pounded on a door and it quickly swung open to large group of men reading the Koran.

It was a dismal place, ho-hum, and sad. The men had come from work ,where they clumsily constructed concrete condominiums- to pray and eat  together at home-covered in dirt. Their odors filled the small cramped apartment. I thought them to all be guests of Akram’s friend. I was inaccurate in my generalizations of their situations, for they all lived there under one crumbling roof in Jahra. We entered and sat on old ripped up green couches with golden victorian prints. The cushions were broken and gave no support as I fell into its’ bucket. Twisting wire springs seized to support under my oppressive weight. Cigarette smoke rose from full ashtrays on broken arms of several chairs as the television crackled muffled prayers from the Koran under heavy static. Sounds of shuffling came from a tiny dark kitchen. Three more men came into the living room. Numbers now exceeded over 10 residents. An eleventh, then 12th came from the bedroom and began looking at me with suspicious eyes. All these men worked, slept, and ate together.

The living conditions were vial and the hygiene was also disgusting. The apartment was an ecosystem of its own. The men had torn shirts and jeans all covered in grease and mud. From the looks of it they had never been to a dentist as plaque grew on their teeth like fungus- mushrooms from the roots of trees. Long hairs turned into blankets of moss that grew from their ears and head as small insects climbed over small clumps of soil lodged in knots. Spiders spun their webs in the corners of the walls and beneath the floral patterns of the couches. The floral decorations came alive and grew into the roots of the shag carpeting. Their beds were laid next to each other under a dim lightbulb. Soiled sheets from sweat lay tangled under torn pillows. The apartment was a petri-dish experiment forced on them by survival and forced labor. Did these hellish circumstances drive these men to a point where they gave up and waited for death while they prayed to a god who never helped? The forest of filth and trouble grew with each day harder and harder to clean up or even fix. Men cast out of society.

The men brought in large pots of rice, plates of thin Iranian bread, and a pot of chicken stew. One man covered the carpet with plastic wrap and newspaper and we all sat at its perimeter indian style. Tea was poured into small cups and the food was placed in the center of our group. Conversation was quiet and few amongst the dwellers of ill. We began to eat using our hands as rice and chicken dripped from their chins onto the surface. The sounds of teeth and jaw- bone crushed under the speed of ravenous mandibles made it all the more uncomfortable. They ate like ravenously  starved men with no time for haste. Stripped of money and stripped of time they suffered under oppressive conditions. Shortly, the dinner  came to an abrupt end and all the men stood ripping the roots that had emerged from their skin planting them into the carpet. One by one each filed over the threshold of a broken gated door that was wrapped in poison ivy. Exiting the the green groves of a densely germinated forrest they walked towards the heat of the barren desert, returning to work under angry fists of tyrannical masters they began to sob in a cappella.

This apartment was just one example of how awful conditions can be for laborers living in Kuwait. Some even live in trailers near the Iraqi border in villages with no running water or electricity. There is also a building across the street from mine that is missing part of its roof. In 1990 it was bombed during the invasion and was never fixed or cleaned up. Couches, pictures, refrigerators lay in large piles of rubble inside the buildings broken walls. Graffiti lines the outside with phrases like “help me”, and  “fix me”. People live there, squatting has taken up a massive residence in my disgraceful neighborhood. What disgusts me really is when citizens drive through this area in their country they don’t become embarrassed. Where is the sense of pride in their own country? Where in the hell, is it??

A Funeral of Fingerprints-sending a message that you are worthless

About a half an hour on the outskirts of the city limits sits a shed like building on the edge of the eternal beige carpeting of desert. It looks ill-managed and condemned in its battered demeanor. Camouflaged in brown ,laborers poor in and out of its doors with sporadic ebb and flows. Most  wait on the ground sweating with tired patience. Some rub their heads  scratching the film of sweat off their brows and cheeks. Others poor water on their faces. I pulled up to this building on a Sunday afternoon in September of 2009 to get fingerprinted for my residency papers just like all the laborers that waited outside the beige walls of brick. We waited under searing suns on that unforgettable day. We were Refugees waiting for relief on unknown borders to places that had no name. We were to cross over and cross back through this building after being stripped of our dignity and self respect returning to the same despicable place, less than same. On empty dirt lots drove a car stirring sand into the air, it was 10 past 5 o’clock. The car slowly found a parking spot, parked, and casually a man emerged dressed in a dish-dash-a and…..He sauntered towards the door past everyone into the building. He did not look anyone in the eye. The crowd parted and opened up like he was Moses crossing the Red Sea, or a King, An emperor, the commoners looked on in awe. After an hours wait the man finally arrived to work. By this time hundreds had gathered outside. They poured inside like ants into an anthill. Streams of them bustling across dead ground they entered through the doors.

Finally my group and I managed to make our way into the building. One man worked in the other room applying the ink to mens‘ hands and hands to cards. It was dismal! A man saw us standing in back of the line and quickly ushered my group to the front of the hoard of laborers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. As I walked past them I felt dirty, disgusted, and grotesque in my skin. Just because my skin color and my passport I had become more important than these people that had been waiting longer than I. To the staff, my time was more important than the masses with darker skin. Some of these men had wives and children at home somewhere waiting for their husband to return, “but he won’t be home soon because the whites were ushered in first, wait your turn you dirty, uneducated piece of trash”. I felt hundreds of eyes on me, harsher than the sun outside. I believed in equality and this was the most disgusting display of a manufactured pecking order and artificial caste system. Racism at its most awesome!

Brought into another room we remained in a line peering around at the windowless walls. It was a prison, shackled fingerprints on the walls. There was a sink but no soap and no hand towels. Thousands of people have entered this room to be fingerprinted. Part of them was taken and part of them was left behind. Stains of their hands smeared down the walls. There was a subtext of  “know that you count for nothing”. And we all felt like nothing. I felt demeaned and abused. It was a place where your humanity was stripped and filed away onto a card.  Hands became the only reminders of peoples existantces, black hands on a wall. So many stories, so many people, personalities, so many lives entered this room and now are part of it. We were all shit inside that monument’s walls- exiting, we all became trash blowing in the desert winds.

Even though I had been treated as lesser there was a fury that burned in my stomach for the others. An apologetic feeling came over me. I wanted to approach those eyes and say I’m sorry and that I hope they will be okay. I pray that their hand prints on that wall doesn’t become their last mark, their funeral, their tombstone buried behind khaki walls in a dismal desert.