Cabbies

I have a problem.  I’m insensitively curious when I meet people from other countries.  My problem is that when someone tells me where they’re from, the first things I usually ask about are national tragedies…  Mostly because that’s either all I know or all I care about their countries.  For example, I had a Sri Lankan driver a few days ago.  I waited a few minutes into the conversation then had to say it…  “So, that was one terrible tsunami you had 4 years ago.”  His immediate response was pretty typical to my insensitive questions, “ohhhhh… very bad… very bad.”  He was lucky enough to be living in the hills at the time but had a clear view of the carnage below.  At the time he worked for an NGO that was helping drug addicts and alcoholics at some retreat up in the hills (let that be a lesson to you kids: crack addictions ultimately save you from tsunamis).  Being the good guy that he is, he ran down to help people who were trapped.  But most of the damage was already done by then and he described a pretty terrible scene which I’d rather not talk about due to my sarcastic setting here...  I think that would be even more insensitive of me.  He said he took pictures of the devastation and I nearly asked him to send them to me, but again, I think I’d been enough of an ass for the day.

The next day I had a Pakistani Shiite Muslim driver who was very talkative.  He wasn’t so good with the listening… But he could sure dish it out.  After his 5 minute tirade about how all Sunni Muslims were evil and aggressive ‘modder fawkers’ with big ugly beards (and the Shia were perfect, of course), I tried to reason with him (mostly to defend my boys Waz and Naz).  “Well most of my Muslim friends back in the States are Sunni and they are very nice guys and they wouldn’t hurt--”, I was cut off.  “No no no, sunni no good, Shia good.  Sunni no good.  Very bad and mean, Sunni”.  (I’ve learned that many of the Pakistani and Indian guys around here like to repeat themselves when speaking English to make sure I caught what they were trying to say because usually it takes at least both times to get it.)

He continued “Al Qaeda is sunni, America fight al Qaeda, so shia and America are same same. You, me, same same.  You see?”  Actually I did not see (as flawless as that argument was)... Again I tried with the reasoning, “But Hezbollah is Shia…  Iran is mostly shia…  And Hezbollah shoots rockets into Israeli cities at civilians.  That’s a little aggressive don’t you thin--”, I was cut off again, “no no no, al Qaeda bad, America good.  We same same.”  At this point I realized logic was not going to be present in this conversation, so I just smiled and nodded in agreement with the angry, bitter driver.  Unfortunately though, my polite nodding led him to think we were buddies.

“My friend, my friend, you help me get Amrika visa!”

“Uhhhhh..  I’m not really allowed to do that.”

“Very easy, very easy.  You tell embassy I’m good guy.  I’m good guy, no?”

“Well you seem good to me, but I don’t think it works that way.”

“You think I’m bad?” He actually had a sad face. :(   <-- like such.

“No, no.  You’re good.  You’re good.”

“I get tourist visa to states, you find me girl to marry and I get green card. OK?”

“…Yeah….  You’re gunna have to take a rain check on that.  I don’t know any girls that I could just call up and ask to marry you.  Not that you’re not a great guy or anything.”

“Fine fine, you just tell embassy I’m good guy.  And your family can tell I’m good guy too.”

“Well the thing about it is, I’m actually not on good terms with the department of Homeland Security.  I’m probably marked as a terrorist suspect so I don’t think I can help.”

“Ahhh you very funny.  Very funny.”

“No I’m serious!  George Bush is a paranoid asshole.”

“Noooo.  George Bush very good.  Same same.”

He could tirade about Sunnis all he wanted, but this wouldn’t stand.  “Actually, George Bush is a very bad man.  Almost as bad as Dick Cheney, who should die of gonorrhea by the way.  Very big asshole, George Bush.” (I started talking like him!)

He just stared at me in the rear view mirror because he didn’t know what to say to that.  Either because he didn’t understand what gonorrhea was, or why the hell I wished my own vice president would die from it…  We arrived at the mall and I pulled out my wallet.

He asked with a slight smile “So, no visa then?” :(

“Sorry, I guess not.”  I felt kind of bad.  I was crushing his dream of moving to the United States... to drive a Taxi. (true story)

“Ok, 6 dirhams then.  Thank you my friend!”

Bizarre

I’m working with a Syrian man named Zeyad.  Zeyad is a very entertaining and tough guy.  While offshore, he survived a helicopter landing on top of him!  Not only once but it bounced 3 times pinning him on top of a generator.  Because of that I allow him to take all the rest he needs when he says his back hurts... After his incident, they decided it wasn't safe to lift equipment with choppers anymore. 

He told me a very bizarre story (in between his rants about American foreign policy, which I will also be forwarding on to you) that I wanted to share. 

Many years ago Zeyad’s grandfather died.  Before his death, he asked his son (Zeyads father, Mohamed) to never ride a motorcycle again because it had almost killed him before.  Mohamed promised his dying father that he would never ride again.

Years later, a 10 year old boy showed up at their house.  The boy greeted Zeyads father and said “Hello son!  How have you been?”  Obviously, Mohamed was confused what the hell this kid was talking about.  They brought him inside and talked with him.  The young boy claimed to be Mohameds father, and he wanted to come back and see the family and see how they were doing.  As people entered the room, he would greet them by name.  To prove he was the grandfather the boy began recalling stories from years past, way before this kid was born, and stories that only the family and the deceased grandfather would have known.

This was obviously weird and disturbing, but they didn’t know what to make of it.  So off the boy went back home (The boys parents were confused as well).  A few weeks later Mohameds brother fell ill at home and had to be rushed to the hospital.  Within an hour of his hospitalization, the boy showed up at the hospital to check on “his son”.  No one called this boy or informed him that his claimed son was hurt, he just said he sensed it.  The boy called the rest of the family, who promptly drove to the hospital.  Most of them had no idea who this boy even was that was calling them.

As the family started arriving the boy was waiting outside with most of them.  Mohammed arrived a little later, jumped off his motorcycle and came toward them. When he got there the boy reached up and slapped him across the face.  Everyone froze and had no idea why this random 10 year old kid would slap an old man.  Mohammed asked him what he did that for, to which the boy replied “What did I tell you about riding that motorcycle!?”

Freaky…  They still dont know what to make of it!

Sad Day

No joking today.

Last night one of the helicopters that regularly ferries me to the offshore rigs crashed.  While lifting off the rig, whether from pilot error or strong winds, the tail rotor collided with one of the legs. With the rotor destroyed the helicopter spun out of control and fell nearly 100 feet into the sea.  All 7 on board were killed.

This is the same type of rig as the one involved.  It’s a jack up rig so in shallow waters the legs rise very high in the air.  Notice how close the helicopter landing pad is to one of the legs…

I feel terrible for the family and friends of those onboard.  Luckily none of the helipad crew or anyone else on the rig was hurt.

Picasso Exhibit in the Emirate Palace

The Emirates Palace is one of the most over-done and over-priced places in the world. I can’t imagine a place more extravagant and pretentious… Well except the Burj al Arab hotel an hour away in Dubai which touts itself as the only 7 star hotel in the world. Service is uncompromisingly excellent. There’s an attendant in every bathroom who immediately dries the sink when you’re done using it, hands you a nice hand towel from the huge towel pyramid, and I suspect he’d wipe your butt for you if you asked him nicely.

Emirates Palace in front of fake sunset

I went to see the Picasso exhibition in the Palace. I have to say that only one of Picasso’s paintings impressed me in terms of artistic quality. The rest were just bizarre mixtures of paint strokes that begs the question “what the hell drug was this guy on?” Seriously, if you ever get a chance to look at a Picasso painting, get really close to it and look at the individual paint strokes. They all look as if he started the painting 2 hours before a deadline. Most of the strokes are very heavy and blobbed on the canvas with seemingly little regard for quality. His genius was his unique view on the world, not attention to detail.

My favorite part of the exhibit was seeing the reactions of people. Some people thought they were experts or connoisseurs (BTW, it took me 3 minutes to spell that word close enough for the spell checker to even realize what I was trying to spell). You’d hear phrases such as “I think the emotion he was trying to invoke was….” Or “Ahhh, what a delightful reference to…” Whereas I was mumbling to my friend “What the f*ck is THAT supposed to be?! Seriously, is that a tree or a woman?”

Picasso may have been an inspired artist, but he lacked inspiration when naming his pieces. For example, the following is called “Woman With Cigarette”:


No shit, Pablo.

And yet some pictures were titled the same way but were not as obvious. The following is called “Woman in armchair”:
(I’d like to do an experiment to see how men and woman view this picture differently, because I immediately noticed breasts in the picture way before Welsh girl Liz did. And yes, I did giggle.)

The following is the recreation of my analysis process:

(Poorly photo-shopped on purpose! If I ever run for President you know this would turn up)

Ohhhhh! Of course!

Its funny that I was trying to be all high class and civilized at the Picasso exhibit at the Emirates Palace, but the night before I was getting drunk in the club on the other side of the building. I joined my friends group and got a nice table by the dance floor and we purchased a delightful bottle of Vodka - for $300. Most expensive hangover ever. (note to self: own a club in emirates palace, 95% profit margins).

Hilary Duff?!?

I thought everyone knew that when you have headphones in your ears it’s the international sign for “piss off and don’t talk to me!” Apparently not. The woman on the plane next to me was seemingly unaware of this rule, nor that I could not even hear her for the first part of her attempted conversation. After grudgingly pausing my song I conversed back with her (half assed, I might add), just to be nice. No matter how many times I tried to bail out by picking up the iPod and headphones she’d fire the conversation back up again. Look lady, you seem nice, but I really don’t give a crap about your childhood trips to Delaware. Yes! I’ve seen cows before! You don’t have to tell me about them. I’ve seen a cow give birth and then subsequently eat the placenta as if it was a nice chocolate cake – but you don’t hear me talking about that, do you! Maybe I should have, that might have shut her up faster, or got her to say “Well I never!” which would have made my day.

I’ll let you in on a little secret… Sometimes when my iPod battery is dead and I don’t want to be bothered, I’ll just stick the headphones in my ears and pretend to be listening to something. It’s a great excuse to ignore people without being overtly rude! I almost got caught once though. After ignoring someone I pulled out the earphones and said “Oh sorry, didn’t hear ya there! (snicker)”

He said “So what are you listing to?”

Oh shit. I’ll let you in on another secret: I’m a terrible liar.

“Hilary Duff??” I semi said/asked back, because even as I said it I thought “why the hell am I saying this??!” I actually said it as a question, as if I was on a game show taking a shot in the dark answer to the question; “Name the number one song you could be listening to right now that would lead me to question your sexuality.”

I’d have won.

I wish I said that!

I’ll start by bitching about the set up on airplanes. They board first class passengers first, then subsequently march those of us in coach through the first class cabin so they can all glare at us over their latest issue of The Economist. It’s the airline walk of shame, and I absolutely hate it. I put on a sad face and hope for one of them to throw me a gold trinket. No luck yet.

During my latest trip, I was sitting on the plane from London to Chicago. It’s a looooonggggggg flight, especially when riding in coach (So nice they don't call it 3rd class seating). Due to the tight quarters and duration, any little annoyance from the people around you is amplified to tortuous levels. Someone chewing on potato chips might as well be a jackhammer banging on my skull. And you know you either have to put up with their obnoxiousness or try to escape the plane from 35,000 feet.

I always make sure to have some battery power on my iPod in reserve so I can block out the sounds of people who chew with their mouth open (A capital offense in my book). I maintain just enough power to crank up the volume long enough to block out 3 bags of airplane pretzels from the guy next to me. But I wasn’t prepared for what was coming. And thanks to the uncivilized man sitting to my right and his industrial sized bag of what can only be described as “super-mega-crunchy petrified” chips, my battery was at critical levels.

On top of all this, the cute little girl behind me, bless her heart, was at the age where she is learning how to count. And her mother - bless her heart as well – who, based on her enthusiasm must have lost her mind years ago or is jacked up on some wonderful drug that she really should be sharing with the rest of us. Cough it up woman!! The little girl would count from one to ten and attempt to go higher until she got stuck. Every time she hit her numerical ceiling, her mom would enthusiastically congratulate her and tell her the next number in the sequence. At which point she would start over again from one. I didn’t expect this game to last very long, and I actually found it cute at first. But after 20 cycles I didn’t think it would ever end. I was not prepared at all for this unexpected sequence of events. After her 30th or 40th round (its hard to keep count in a countless counting-situation like this), my iPod battery expired. At which point I immediately had the urge to strangle Steve Jobs to death. Damn you Apple and your 3 hour battery life!!

And on and on she counted, “One.. two.. phree.. fowr.. fife.. sick.. sefen.. ate.. nine”…

“Fuckingggggggggg ten,” I added under my breath.

I should mention that I do a lot of day dreaming when I fly. The following is one of the scenarios I played out in my head, which made me smile and brought me back to sanity. I really wanted to do this, but when I looked back, it turns out that crazy hyper-enthusiastic mom was kind of a milf. So I refrained-- I couldn’t yell at a hot mom, no matter how insane her daughters counting made me. Also, as much as I’d like to be, I’m not an asshole. But man – it’d be fun if I was!

Girl: … “13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20!”

Milf: “Very good!!! You made it to twenty!! Good job sweety. I’m so proud of –“

Out of nowhere a head swings around from the row in front. They both immediately spin their heads forward and stare at this stranger with the look of death on his face.

Me: I’m not freaking impressed little girl!! 20! big fuckin whoop! You want to impress me, tell me the derivative of ln(x)???? HUH? ?!

(Blank stares, jaws dropped.)

Me: "That’s what I thought. And YOU, (pointing to the milf), Hey, hows it goin? Maybe we should hang out later..."
Milf: "Go to hell!"
Me: "That sounds about right..."

Man that would have been sweet!

The UN Finds a Dive Bar

That picture was the first night we went to this dive bar. A week later I went back with 3 other guys for some drinks. After the first round a band was setting up to play. I should mention that I am being very generous with the word BAND. It was actually two 70 year old guys with a guitar and a tambourine. I decided they needed a name for their band, maybe a punk band name, something like The Raging Colonoscopies. Also, keep in mind that this bar has only 9 people in it, including the waitress and the crack-whore fiendishly searching through her cell phone (more on her shortly). Before the Raging Colonoscopies started the concert, the "lead guitarist" felt it necessary to fine tune his amplifier as if he were about to kick off Woodstock.

CHECK CHECK
... (tweek the gain)
CHECK CHECK
...(tweek the gains)
CHECK CHECK CHECK ... CHECK
... (tweek the gain)
CHECK CHECK
...

And just when you think he was done..

CHECK!!

-- Oops, too loud.

And it went on like this for 5 whole minutes!!! I don't have any idea how he felt it necessary to make such fine adjustments in that setting. First of all, the bar has the acoustic qualities of a bathroom in a cave (let me say, that joke would KILL in an acoustical engineers seminar). And more importantly, the entire audience is within a 10 foot radius!! Yes, we can freakin’ hear you!

After the 5 minutes of adjustments they started to play their first song. They made it to the second chorus and then just stopped.... to take a 10 minute break. Guess all that checking was exhausting.

During this break we all started talking again, and from out of nowhere a woman snuck up right next to me and asked "You guys got any shit?" A long awkward pause ensued... No one else at the table wanted to say anything so I took a stab at it. "Define shit," I said back to her.

"You know, crack, cocaine, whatever". Oh, snap! After another awkward pause I tried again "Look lady, I just got back from Bible school so I really don’t--" She cut me off because she apparently didn't believe that I was the Bible school type. Probably because what I actually said "fucking Bible school". Me and my damn foul mouth... She eventually got bored with us and moved on. Its a good thing crack heads have shorter attention spans than Golden Retrievers.