Too tired to think of a title...

Can anyone tell me why all morning shows are dumb? Is this done on purpose? I mean is there a logic behind it? When I wake up, usually, I mean always, I am half stupid, it takes me hours before I get my brain powers back, and not fully back, the process is gradual and complicated. It depends really on the ratio of milk to coffee in my cup. If I am lucky and the ratio is correct and I don't go mad making another coffee, then the process can start. Otherwise my brain goes into a reboot mode that takes another hour, in the meantime, and if I don't find the remote control that is usually right under my nose, I end up staring at two pretty and dumb presenters, they are not even pretty to be honest, talking nonsense. With a half functioning brain, I don't need any more stupidity. That doesn't help. The story is that I couldn't sleep last night. I don't know the reason but I was awake most of the time trying to shut up my thoughts and telling myself that these thoughts can really wait till tomorrow, but they kept swirling in my head like a tornado. But it was one important night, because I left the bed at around 4:30 and that's a.m., very uncharacteristic of me, and I had taken a few serious decisions, and changed my mind over a few others. Besides those very decisive moments, I had a huge fight in  my head with a driver at work. This was maybe the main reason that kept me up all night. This driver has been lying to me over the past weeks, this I knew, but refused to deal with, until I heard how he was mistreating another driver at work. I went mad when I knew how this driver has been tricking the other driver and taking his overtime money. See? it is such small injustices that deprive me of sleep, big injustices, such as how the world is unfair and why babies die in wars don't. This I am somehow used to. So, I was sort of rehearsing a fight with this driver in  my head until I decided to leave the bed. I went to the balcony for some fresh air. It was freezing cold at this hour. The calm streets helped me restore some calm in my insomniac brain. I made coffee, luckily worked well from the first time, put the TV on, I watched a stupid movie for two hours. It was then, after the movie was over that I stumbled on the two dumb TV presenters. It was morning show time and it was a bad decision to watch, because then I got ready to go to work, remembered that I have to go fight with the driver, I put on my tennis shoes as one puts on combat costumes and head to the office so early, so furious, and so ready for the war. Then I see the driver approaching. What I said to him was a revenge for every time I had to say something and didn't. The calm tone I used made things even worse, the intimidation he felt was beyond anything I imagined doing in my imagined fight. I rub my hands as if moving the dust off in victory, leave the battle field and decide to call it a day.

Nostalgia

In cities suffering from acute chauvinism, tourists and foreigners feel such a compassion to every other stranger in the city. Locals kind of become the enemy who knows where everything is, where to go, which taxi not to take, and which to take, which coffee not to drink, and which places give you food poisoning, they know road shortcuts, when the sales season begins, cheap bookstores... and you miss that place you used to own like no one. 

Is talent overrated?

Which is worst: a wasted talent that you fail to nurture or a wasted effort on a talent that you don't even have? Here are some answers I got to this question. A "talented" Lebanese musician once told me: "there can't be a wasted talent for talent doesn't make you sleep at night until you do something about it".  But this seemingly famous violinist Pablo Sarasate had said "for 37 years I have practiced 14 hours a day and now they call me a genius?". Who do I believe?

The dust is in the system

I was asked today by the head of cleaners at the office where I work, to give my feedback about the cleaners, or the one cleaner to be  precise. To be honest, the cleaner is a nice guy who throws the same joke at me everyday that smoking is unhealthy. But objectively, he is the worst cleaner I have seen. Not that I care much, and I don't. My theory is that the more work you have, the cleaner your desk would be. It is the absence of work that would make it dusty. But then, you would have plenty of time to clean it yourself. Common sense. Other colleagues have been complaining a lot about the cleaner but I was to give the feedback because I am the only Arabic speaker. I thought about it for a moment, though lousy as he is, I don't want the guy to lose his job, the other colleagues won't understand Arabic so I can say whatever I want. I also thought that I would report bad managers who are not doing their job but why wouldn't I report a cleaner? Am I letting any sense of pity cloud my judgment? I hate that feeling. But wouldn't the bad boss deserve to be kicked out more because he makes much more undeserved money? Then the thought that the system has strong safeguards protecting lousy managers but loose ends at the bottom of the chain made me frown, give a serious look of anger, and say in Arabic: he is great. Everyone loves him here.

For once...

Okay I have to say something on women's day. A lot has been written today about the fight for our rights, the patriarchal system, and the long road that still stretches ahead of us. That's all good. But I want to add this: in the meantime, and as you go back tomorrow to starving yourself, taking daily measurements of your curves, and enduring painful lazer sessions, why don't you start training your muscles, a little bit more everyday, and when the time comes strike back as hard as you can, literally.

Why buy when you can print

Get Fairuz out of the list. That's first. Then omit maybe one or two more names, print out the rest and use as a toilet paper roll.

On women's day

So it is women's day and I have to say something about women, except that I don't want to say anything about women right now, this only reminds me of school days when you are asked to write an essay about freedom while all you feel writing about and all the ideas that come to your head are about friendship for example, so after one or two sentences about freedom, you start talking about friendship and from there on all you write are arguments trying to convince the teacher that the two topics are actually connected and that the teacher should keep reading because here it comes, here it comes, and two more pages on friendship then time ends up and before they snatch the exam paper from you, you manage to scribble: In conclusion, unless you appreciate friendship, you will never know what freedom tastes like. Happy women's day.

Never?

How often do you hear someone say: I am just an ordinary man, there is really nothing special about me.

The Dictator: Intellectual Crisis

"The Dictator" is a play currently being performed in Beirut, Al-Madina theater. I really am not an expert of any kind of this performing art, not even close to being one, and this is not a critique, but if you care to hear the opinion of someone who happened to watch it, someone who by no means represents anyone else who happened to be there, and someone who left the theater hearing the masses parroting: wow, beautiful, genius, the best play ever, and other words that only bounced back as they touched my ear, and despite that remained someone who left the theater with the feeling that if a torture ritual can heal you and wash away your sins, then I am definitely a re-born person now, and if that was the purpose then the play is indeed a great success, but I have to say this: I found the acting to be good, but between us, this is not the most difficult genre of acting, and the set to be okay, because there wasn't any, I mean it could have been performed in my living room and it wouldn't have made a difference, but the most annoying part was the script, which is by Issam Mahfouz, the guy this play is intended to honor. I am not going to say more especially that I respect the Director Lina Abyad and I have watched and liked some of her other plays, but I advise you to go and watch it and maybe you could tell me if it is the play itself or maybe just me being in a cranky mood. It could be. But before you judge me tell me if this particular genre of drama is an elite art that is addressed to an elite audience then no need to sell tickets widely and next time perform it in a smaller theater and if it is something beyond the grasp of the layman then spare us the torture of feeling intellectually inferior because not everyone is going to cheer what they find hard to appreciate. But if this is a play addressed to us, the masses, then allow me to say that I just don't like it, and that it is most probably not my problem.

P.S. Most people in the theater did like the play, so do go and watch it. I told you others did find it stunning. Here is the trailer, and here are some photos.

Brainwashed

Sometimes my mind becomes numb from constant exposure to conflicting brainwashing ideas. Can you please brainwash me one at a time?

Shame

I watched this movie "Shame", a kind of controversial film if you ask me. People either hated it or loved it. I am not going  to judge the movie myself or tell you what I think of it, but I am just going to say this: the movie is about a sex addict and here is the full synopsis: there was once a sex addict. The End.

Beirut Hotel: Waste of time

I watched Beirut Hotel. Again, I think we started to see some Lebanese production with a good script, good acting (especially Fadi Abi Samra and definitely not Rodni Haddad) and good shooting techniques, but does that alone make a good movie? I mean come on, where is the story? The movie claims to be a spy movie or a thriller; I wasn't thrilled at all, not even for a second, throughout the whole movie. I didn't laugh, I didn't cry, I didn't feel anything, I didn't think about anything, it just wasted two hours of my time. When is someone going to come up with a Lebanese movie without all those cliches about Lebanon and without all those "this is Beirut", and "this is how we live", and "I am Lebanese, if you lie to me, I kill you"? what does that have to do with you being Lebanese? The main idea of the movie which was bluntly and explicitly mentioned is this: "if you think you understand Lebanon, that means it wasn't well explained to you". So here is another Lebanese movie that reinforces all those cliches about Lebanon, the complex country that is beyond explanation, beyond the grasp of humankind, the unique (in a bad way this time but still unique), the exotic, confused, complicated, different, etc. well, you know what? Lebanon is not so complicated and if you find it hard to explain it maybe that's because you don't understand it yourself so how about you don't make a movie about something you do not understand, because to me it is simple. Complications in Lebanon are no less than in any other country, you just think your country is special, and complicated in a special way. The problem is square and simple: Lebanon is a racist, sectarian, selfish, hypocrite, fake, and pretentious country with people who whine all day about miseries they brought upon themselves, who misread their history and keep recreating it, who victimize themselves to shy away from facing what they really are: racist, sectarian, selfish, hypocrite, fake, and pretentious people. What are you trying to tell people here Danielle Arbid? You want to make a spy movie with unnecessary sex scenes, go ahead, but I still don't get the point. So now instead of the virgin woman living in the village, you bring the sexy liberal woman who lives in the city? how creative! Now the movie should never have been censored. But again, was it really censored or did Arbid sign an agreement with the censorship committee (funny there is such a thing) which she later violated? The censorship committee gave her permission to shoot the film on condition she doesn't mention the Hariri Assassination to which she allegedly agreed. Arbid should have made her case against censorship back then and refuse to sign but instead she produced the original script ignoring the condition and later made her case against censorship. It was stupid to impose such a condition by the committee in the first place but it wouldn't have made any difference if Hariri was not mentioned. But forget about all of that, say you are not Lebanese and you are watching the movie without any background about Lebanon, say you are a Vietnamese watching it, assuming you get through the first few minutes and you don't switch to something else, unless you are just waiting to see some boobs as someone mentioned to me, you would be watching a movie that tells you from the start that there is a conspiracy going on, and so you wait till the end of the movie to see how all of this is going to end (is the French lawyer a spy? is Abbas an Israeli agent? does he know too much? or was he just a victim of a bigger conspiracy?) only to realize after two hours that the conspiracy, the riddle you want to see solved, will never be solved, and you will never understand anything, why? because this is Lebanon, one of the characters tells you in case you didn't realize that two hours had already passed and there is no more time to give you answers. You would end the movie with one thought: Thank God I am Vietnamese.

The Debt

I watched this movie "The Debt", a Zionist propaganda film that intends to show how humanitarian, good-hearted, and well-intentioned the Mossad is! Now the movie is bad in all respects so they get a very good cast, but even with that the movie is unbelievably boring. What is funny though is that despite all the propaganda, you could still see how incompetent, stupid, deceiving, and hypocrite the Mossad agents are. That at least is true.

He wasn't good at Math

The weather forecast has been announcing for days now that the storm will hit Lebanon today. I wake up this morning and put on all my clothes. Everyone in Beirut had done the same: people have emptied their closets only the storm did not arrive. Someone must have made a small mistake while calculating wind speed in relation to distance. It happens, here, only all the time.

P.S. Someone commented on this saying that someone just wanted to sell some umbrellas. It happens too.

I will never drink again! ever... ever...

Among the very common phrases you hear and say on the morning following New Year's eve are: "Oh... my head", and "what happened last night?" (usually while your hand is still on your head), and "where do all these bruises come from?", and you could say "where am I?" and "who are you?" but the winner of all time is "I will never drink again".

Happy New Year

Let me tell you about my last year's resolution. I closed my eyes, squeezed them real hard, and pledged to blog more in 2011. This is what I got: 116 posts in 2011 as opposed to 226 posts in 2010 (although I was unemployed for the most part of the year) which means in simple mathematics that I need to make 110 posts between today and tomorrow (almost as much as I blogged this entire year). Even if I had a factory of ideas, I won't be able to achieve that. But still, this blog did survive somehow and it is now 3 years old. You can close this tab now and come back next year. Oh... and Happy "New" Year!

P.S. Some progress: 117 posts if you count this one!

I mean, seriously?

Seriously, if you feel the urge to tell me the story of your life, write a book, a memoir, and I promise to read it. And since you have such a talent of remembering every single detail of your life, making links to other tiny details from your days on earth, describing where every furniture in your house was placed and where you bought it from, and opening parentheses and closing them a hundred times per minute, then you should seriously consider writing that down, because, it is very unlikely that I will listen to you beyond the first sentence. Look, summaries would do just fine here, give me room to imagine the rest, I promise I will decorate the setting you describe myself, beautifully too, not exactly as it is in your head, but does it really matter? Let's make a deal, if we are conversing over a drink, the story of your life should either end before I finish my first drink or let me lend you a piece of paper and a pen.

Seriously?

Music can make you dance and nothing surprises me about that. It is somehow evidenced. But if it does make you orgasm too, then please tell me how, do share the knowledge please, because until then I will think that you look ridiculous.

Stereotypes

Stereotyping isn't funny but this one is. I was at an international conference a few days ago and a number of humanitarian organizations had stands displaying some of their promotional material. A white European woman in one corner was so happy when she was approached by a guy who said: hello, I am from Afghanistan, can I have a brochure please. The woman said: Oh, sure, we have them in Arabic too! here. The Afghan only said: I'll take the English one, thank you.

Come on...

I joined a conversation where some very boring people were discussing car manufacturers. Of course I had nothing at all to say on the subject matter but I was about to laugh when the topic suddenly turned into General Motors, a subject, ironically I know a lot about (if you read a previous post on that). My face suddenly lighted up, no one understood the sudden change from bored to entertained. I wasn't entertained by the discussion. It was deadly boring, but I was laughing inside at a joke between me and myself. I still didn't say anything, because I was thinking about how to sneak away unnoticed. Instead I played an episode from "Family Guy" in my head (peter addressing members of congress with come on... come on). It works. I laughed when they laughed only for a different reason. Boring people have an incredible ability to laugh at unfunny situations. Well, if everything happens for a reason, then in my case, they have been happening for a bad one.