Here’s what I miss… listening to my pirated digital music while waiting for the bus, T, commuter rail, Fung wah bus. Dennis Dyer and his wonderful liquor store in Watertown. Twin donuts croissant breakfast sandwiches. Walking down mass ave in Central Square and feeling the diversity amongst the MIT students, crack addicts, yuppies and bums. Newbury Street on a pretty day and the witch that roamed the Back Bay. The burbs and the quietness of it all. Walking into a video store and renting any movie that’s out. Saturday hangover lunches at Bottega Fiorentina and their daily specials “Penne Fedora – of course!”. Harvard square and all its nooks and crannies. Leah. Sweating at the door over your fake id. Live music at the Middle East. Being the only Arab at the Field, and drinking de guinessh wit de oirish. Storrow Drive. Complaining about paying a dollar in tolls on the Pike and how they’ve raised the prices. Learning to distinguish the real people from the fake ones, but still loving them all. Trio – only for lulu. Walking from Avalon to Axis to listen to some real music. Reminding Yankees fans that they suck the big one. Live shows at the paradise. Greasy spoons and my artery clogging breakfasts. Getting thanked for holding the door open. The steak at the Franklin café and my desire to be the only straight regular there among all the other south enders. The model café, the world’s greatest dive. The museum of science. Fenway Pahk and the 7th inning stretch. Breaking parking meters with a dime wrapped in paper. The 24hour CVS in Watertown. Taking my time eating my bagel and reading the Sunday paper. Supermarkets and mind boggling wholesale clubs. Sangria, Serrano y mis amigos. Explaining where Bahrain is on the map. Reading the Improper Bostonian for the upcoming events – yes it’s even cooler than timeout. Sunday brunch at the Charles hotel. My quest for the best cheeseburgers in Boston. Wednesday nights at M80 – reserved only for real party animals. Jarritos and steak Quesadillas at Anna’s Taqueria. Waking up at 8AM on a Saturday to watch the English footie. Being the only English footie fan amongst Pats fans. Movie Nazi on Saturday afternoons at the cinema. Real clam chowdah and oyster shots uughh. “Couch patrol” at the Enormous room. Really fast Internet connections. Making friends with all the Arab gas station clerks. Getting the shit kicked out of me for talking my mouth off – and learning to talk less. Bribing my landlord with cigars (thanks J). Becoming a regular at the comic books store and the anime store. Horrible karaoke at Maluken. Learning to grease palms well. Road Trips. Maine and getting sick from too much butter on my lobster. The cape. Driving out to dinner/ club /lounge /bar in shitty shitty weather. After parties in 1008, 303, 711, 275, wherever. Underground, ultrahip t-shirts. The Kebab Factory. Always discovering. Meeting celebrities and realizing that meeting celebrities is such a letdown. Watching my roommate hit on a drag queen and letting him continue until it was almost too late. Falco’s “comatose couches” at 199 Coolidge. Decent driving – compared to here. Knowing the city like the back of my hand. Drinking my chocolate milk in the morning, no matter where I was. Dancing on tables or chilling out at the bar or both – why not. Learning about people and what makes them tick. Opie and Anthony and Whip’em out Wednesdays. Falling in love with Afghani food. Overcoming my fear of snakes as I sent 4 mice to their impending doom. Deep Sea Fishing – and the bar on the boat. South American Accents – Colombians sound the nicest. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, 4rth of July, and all the other holidays I would have never celebrated. Wiffle ball. Water balloon launchers from my dorm window freshman year. The family of Neighbors I had at Spring Street. Videogames and Kozmo.com while ordering wings at Mohi & D’s place at union. cooking with lulu. Great drives along the river. Shoveling snow and waiting till the car warms up. THE INTENSE COLD… Swearing at the ref in Arabic while watching Italian footie in the north end cafes with the Italianos, and being totally accepted. my sister's morning coffee-run - thanks for always buying me nesquick sis. Knowing the free parking spots in the city. The pizza place between aria and venu, whoa… Great Music… “cold tea” at Ginza in Chinatown after 2AM. Sneaking little nips into the Olson’s residence. Ararat restaurant, and being the only person the “mother” would speak to, it’s cause I was the most polite – I miss their Yalanji. Walking… laying out on the grass at the common on a nice day… walking around Beacon Hill… Curious Liquids before they shutdown… The Dominicans playing their baseball on Sunday in front of Douglas Park. Hustling people for dinner playing fifa on the playstation. Getting invited to nice dinners when someone’s parents are in town. Learning the fine art of turning cup of noodles soup, into a satisfying meal. Baulking at Lulu’s super expensive shampoo and conditioner and stylist – I was happy with hong kong hairplace cut your hair very very good. Buying tobacco from Levitt & Pierce in Harvard Square. Rud d? thai food with Ahmed, and then dealing with the aftermath. Working and learning what it feels like to be independent & loving it. Flyers being passed around. Omar’s sets on the decks. Always getting to pick the wine. Never liking anything from Dunkin Donuts – but still loving it. Falling in love with lulu.
I’m sure there’s more, but I guess this is a decent sum up…
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Sunday, March 06, 2005
iamwhoiam...ohhwhoami?
My first memory of peer pressure racism started when I was probably in the 5th grade… Running around in school having fun being a total kid, when all of a sudden a couple of friends stopped me and asked “hey, are you Shia or Sunni?” “umm well I don’t know” “what do you mean you don’t know?” then the another kid goes “I bet you he’s Shia” in my head I start thinking, crap.. What are they talking about? should I pick one? I mean I don’t know what I am. Then one of the kids decides to do his own detective work… “how do you pray? With your hands down to your side or on your stomach?” Shit shit and triple shit… what am I going to do now? I don’t pray, what will happen if I tell them I don’t really pray? should I take a guess? (On a side note: before you label me, I was taught how to pray and my mother is a devout Muslim, it’s just that it’s MY RELATIONSHIP with God, not anyone else’s.. you dig?) Rrrrrrrriiingg… aaahh saved by the bell… It’s amazing, but that was one of the first brushes I had trying to figure out who I am, Shia or Sunni… I went home after school still puzzled, so I decided to ask my parents… My mom gave me the typical answer, “if anyone asks you, you tell them you’re Muslim… There’s no difference..” and that was that, the answer sufficed me, there’s no difference…
I went back to school and waited for the next religious question encounter. When that came, my reply was “I am Muslim and there’s no difference” “pffffft, yeah right there’s no difference, I bet you he’s Shia, come on lets go play football…” and they ran off as if I had just been diagnosed with a rare contagious disease transmitted through the mucus of an infected monkey that made it’s way to Bahrain… I thought, fine, let me go ask my friends… Some of them didn’t know either, while others admitted they were Shia or Sunni (they were just happy to know what they were) but we all had the same feelings, what is this divide that even us kids have to start thinking about? Deep down inside we all felt that people have to be pretty fickle to want to make a divide…
It didn’t take long before I found out who the Shia and the Sunnis were, and who I was… I’ll spare you the details of their history, but I will tell you one thing… It’s all because of a couple of instances involving a continued power struggle that this divide happened and that’s it in a nutshell… People have spent their lives researching and gathering information, but to me, Muslim is Muslim, and even more importantly than that, a human being is a human being, just like you, me and everyone else on this rock called Earth.
I’m not going to tell you racism doesn’t exist in Bahrain, there’s racism on every single front: Shia & Sunni, and then they even go deeper into it in terms of the different ethnicities between the two sides… With the Shia: the Bahranis (original inhabitants of Bahrain), the Ajam (of Persian descent), the Subcontinent Shia, the Hassawiyah (Shia from Saudi.. ooops sorry Saudi doesn’t have any Shia), etc. Then you have the Sunnis: The Arab Sunnis, Holees (Sunnis of Persian descent), Subcontinent Sunnis, and from all over the world. We’ve got so many different people from all sorts of walks of life, and we do have racism (it happens all over the world), although we are working at limiting it… Feel free to interject an ethnicity that I’ve forgotten to add…
It’s such a taboo subject to be discussing… There’s unnecessary hatred that has led to some crazy things being said… I had a fellow student in college once tell me that there are Shia families that get together, turn off all the lights in the room and would have a full on scale orgy… I don’t know what drove me to trying to choke him, the fact that he was insulting “my sect” or the fact that he was stupid enough to believe something as absurd as incestuous orgies… Dada, you’re still an idiot for saying that, but I forgive you… I’m writing it off as just some insane brainwashing you were spoon fed from some uneducated fuck of a cleric that was probably molested or wishes he was molested by a member of his family.
This divide,, this racism exists because of one thing and only one thing, and that’s uneducated people who still think there’s a reason to make a difference… It’s people like this that think they’re better than the other person, and it’s people like this that will slow our progress… You shouldn’t sit there and pass any judgment on anyone but yourself…
I went back to school and waited for the next religious question encounter. When that came, my reply was “I am Muslim and there’s no difference” “pffffft, yeah right there’s no difference, I bet you he’s Shia, come on lets go play football…” and they ran off as if I had just been diagnosed with a rare contagious disease transmitted through the mucus of an infected monkey that made it’s way to Bahrain… I thought, fine, let me go ask my friends… Some of them didn’t know either, while others admitted they were Shia or Sunni (they were just happy to know what they were) but we all had the same feelings, what is this divide that even us kids have to start thinking about? Deep down inside we all felt that people have to be pretty fickle to want to make a divide…
It didn’t take long before I found out who the Shia and the Sunnis were, and who I was… I’ll spare you the details of their history, but I will tell you one thing… It’s all because of a couple of instances involving a continued power struggle that this divide happened and that’s it in a nutshell… People have spent their lives researching and gathering information, but to me, Muslim is Muslim, and even more importantly than that, a human being is a human being, just like you, me and everyone else on this rock called Earth.
I’m not going to tell you racism doesn’t exist in Bahrain, there’s racism on every single front: Shia & Sunni, and then they even go deeper into it in terms of the different ethnicities between the two sides… With the Shia: the Bahranis (original inhabitants of Bahrain), the Ajam (of Persian descent), the Subcontinent Shia, the Hassawiyah (Shia from Saudi.. ooops sorry Saudi doesn’t have any Shia), etc. Then you have the Sunnis: The Arab Sunnis, Holees (Sunnis of Persian descent), Subcontinent Sunnis, and from all over the world. We’ve got so many different people from all sorts of walks of life, and we do have racism (it happens all over the world), although we are working at limiting it… Feel free to interject an ethnicity that I’ve forgotten to add…
It’s such a taboo subject to be discussing… There’s unnecessary hatred that has led to some crazy things being said… I had a fellow student in college once tell me that there are Shia families that get together, turn off all the lights in the room and would have a full on scale orgy… I don’t know what drove me to trying to choke him, the fact that he was insulting “my sect” or the fact that he was stupid enough to believe something as absurd as incestuous orgies… Dada, you’re still an idiot for saying that, but I forgive you… I’m writing it off as just some insane brainwashing you were spoon fed from some uneducated fuck of a cleric that was probably molested or wishes he was molested by a member of his family.
This divide,, this racism exists because of one thing and only one thing, and that’s uneducated people who still think there’s a reason to make a difference… It’s people like this that think they’re better than the other person, and it’s people like this that will slow our progress… You shouldn’t sit there and pass any judgment on anyone but yourself…
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
DVD Joe…
Ohhh, what I would do for a proper DVD/Video rental store… A large well lit shop, with stacks of movies organized by genre and then organized in alphabetical order, a shop where they have at least three copies of each new release. Since you don’t have that luxury here in Bahrain yet, you need to find others means of sorting yourself out. See in Bahrain, renting movies is a very intricate issue involving a lot of relationship building, good credit, and a lot of charm… You can’t just expect to walk into a rental shop, get a membership and walk out with your movies. Allow me to explain the typical rental shop: they are much smaller than you’d think, with one guy running the show (your “go to guy”), and they rarely order more than one copy per film, so if you don’t play your cards right, you can wait a couple of weeks maybe even longer before you’ll get to see that movie you’ve been patiently waiting for…
Shmoozing is very important… the dvd “go to guy” is key to your rental bliss: he’s the guy that unpacks the stock of new arrivals, he’s the guy that always hides movies under the counter for the special customers, and if you’ve got a good rapport with him he will be your best friend and call you up when a movie comes in. My “go to guy” is DVD Joe… he has a real name, but I don’t think he minds it if I call him Joe, I’m the only guy who calls him that so it saves me trying to remind him who I am over the phone… If you don’t have a “go to guy”, don’t worry too much about it… you can always get yourself one, and no matter how bad you’ve ruined your relationship with the guy, it’s always repairable, always… Y’see it’s all about the relationship, he needs to know he can trust you with bringing the movies back on time, and he also needs to know that you don’t have a problem with coughing up a late fee (being cheap here pulls you a couple of rungs down the important renter list)… Here’s what you have to do to build or repair your relationship with the guy: rent a movie and return it within 24 hours… do it a couple of times, and then he’ll realize that you’re trust worthy… Once you’ve gotten past the trust part, then you can start badgering him about the movies… Ask him what are his latest releases, and then ask him what’s behind the counter reserved for people… I know this is pretty dick, taking someone else’s reserved movie, but hey, I’ve taken the time to build a relationship with DVD Joe, I’m his friend, we joke around, and I will take your movie… tough… As your relationship with Joe progresses, he will then start calling you with new releases, keeping them reserved for you… It’s also important to joke around and keep the conversation light.. I find discussing Denise Richards’ behind, hangovers, and good Indian trucker food stops to be good…
One problem associated with having a “go to guy” is that he’s going to want to push his taste of movies on you.. and if his taste is anything like DVD Joe’s, it’s gonna be gruesome… I think I hurt his feelings once when he tried to push the latest Steven Segal movie on me… It takes a while, but if your Joe is as smart as mine, then he’ll start to monitor your tastes and save dvds accordingly…
Dvd renting etiquette is that you can’t let everyone at the shop know you and dvd joe are buddies… See he’s lying to customers telling them this movie isn’t available or that movie isn’t available, when the truth is that he’s got the movie hidden behind the counter waiting to get picked up by you… When other customers are in the shop, it’s always good to remain quiet and quick with the transaction… you don’t want to raise any suspicion from the other customers…
Another problem you have to watch out for with renting is dvd breakups... I had a friend who had the perfect “go to guy, ” everything taken care of in terms of the newest releases, with a set schedule and all, they even used to play a couple of rounds of play station at the shop, it was a dvd match made in heaven. Only problem was that “go to guy” found another job and was leaving the rental store. I don’t have to tell you this but my buddy was gutted, no more hiding the movies for you, no more nothing … So what do you do when your “go to guy” leaves? Well you either start working on a relationship with the new guy, or you pack up and find another movie rental shop…
Before Bahrain adopted it’s current copyright and piracy laws, you could find copies of anything on VHS… illegal copies, uncensored movies, VCDs from the Far East, even movies that you didn’t even know got released in Hollywood (did you know there’s a con air 3 with Ray Liotta? I didn’t). Now if you’ve got a better than normal relationship with Dvd Joe, then you can start getting anything you want… Many of us kids growing up in Bahrain developed a vast porn empire due to the diligent copying and distribution of Johnny from a certain Video shop on Adliya back in the mid nineties (man that guy made a bundle from us kids) – oh please, like you didn’t know, everyone knew…
For some of you, everything I’ve said makes a lot of sense, others, you just can’t relate… well I feel sorry for you… cause guess what gumby? I’m watching the movie I wanted to watch, while you’re stuck having to make a decision on whether to watch a chick flick or the Disney comedy with the 15-year-old twins solving the mystery… you make the call…
Shmoozing is very important… the dvd “go to guy” is key to your rental bliss: he’s the guy that unpacks the stock of new arrivals, he’s the guy that always hides movies under the counter for the special customers, and if you’ve got a good rapport with him he will be your best friend and call you up when a movie comes in. My “go to guy” is DVD Joe… he has a real name, but I don’t think he minds it if I call him Joe, I’m the only guy who calls him that so it saves me trying to remind him who I am over the phone… If you don’t have a “go to guy”, don’t worry too much about it… you can always get yourself one, and no matter how bad you’ve ruined your relationship with the guy, it’s always repairable, always… Y’see it’s all about the relationship, he needs to know he can trust you with bringing the movies back on time, and he also needs to know that you don’t have a problem with coughing up a late fee (being cheap here pulls you a couple of rungs down the important renter list)… Here’s what you have to do to build or repair your relationship with the guy: rent a movie and return it within 24 hours… do it a couple of times, and then he’ll realize that you’re trust worthy… Once you’ve gotten past the trust part, then you can start badgering him about the movies… Ask him what are his latest releases, and then ask him what’s behind the counter reserved for people… I know this is pretty dick, taking someone else’s reserved movie, but hey, I’ve taken the time to build a relationship with DVD Joe, I’m his friend, we joke around, and I will take your movie… tough… As your relationship with Joe progresses, he will then start calling you with new releases, keeping them reserved for you… It’s also important to joke around and keep the conversation light.. I find discussing Denise Richards’ behind, hangovers, and good Indian trucker food stops to be good…
One problem associated with having a “go to guy” is that he’s going to want to push his taste of movies on you.. and if his taste is anything like DVD Joe’s, it’s gonna be gruesome… I think I hurt his feelings once when he tried to push the latest Steven Segal movie on me… It takes a while, but if your Joe is as smart as mine, then he’ll start to monitor your tastes and save dvds accordingly…
Dvd renting etiquette is that you can’t let everyone at the shop know you and dvd joe are buddies… See he’s lying to customers telling them this movie isn’t available or that movie isn’t available, when the truth is that he’s got the movie hidden behind the counter waiting to get picked up by you… When other customers are in the shop, it’s always good to remain quiet and quick with the transaction… you don’t want to raise any suspicion from the other customers…
Another problem you have to watch out for with renting is dvd breakups... I had a friend who had the perfect “go to guy, ” everything taken care of in terms of the newest releases, with a set schedule and all, they even used to play a couple of rounds of play station at the shop, it was a dvd match made in heaven. Only problem was that “go to guy” found another job and was leaving the rental store. I don’t have to tell you this but my buddy was gutted, no more hiding the movies for you, no more nothing … So what do you do when your “go to guy” leaves? Well you either start working on a relationship with the new guy, or you pack up and find another movie rental shop…
Before Bahrain adopted it’s current copyright and piracy laws, you could find copies of anything on VHS… illegal copies, uncensored movies, VCDs from the Far East, even movies that you didn’t even know got released in Hollywood (did you know there’s a con air 3 with Ray Liotta? I didn’t). Now if you’ve got a better than normal relationship with Dvd Joe, then you can start getting anything you want… Many of us kids growing up in Bahrain developed a vast porn empire due to the diligent copying and distribution of Johnny from a certain Video shop on Adliya back in the mid nineties (man that guy made a bundle from us kids) – oh please, like you didn’t know, everyone knew…
For some of you, everything I’ve said makes a lot of sense, others, you just can’t relate… well I feel sorry for you… cause guess what gumby? I’m watching the movie I wanted to watch, while you’re stuck having to make a decision on whether to watch a chick flick or the Disney comedy with the 15-year-old twins solving the mystery… you make the call…
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