Johnny Ob-Knoxville

There are SOME valuable lessons to be learned from the Jackass videos. We have only to dig deep, to look beyond all the asshole-isms. This group of grown-ass men acting like total jerks, abusing themselves and those around them, is a fun and quite accurate example of the kind of men our MTV generation has produced. Forget dignified, educated leaders. Forget hard-working, compassionate, ambitious individuals. Those were our fathers. We are a generation of beer-bellied, vomit-eating, fart-smelling, physically destructive hee-haw machines. THIS is art for us. This is creativity: taking extreme sports to a whole new Jackass level.

Sure, they inspire me. Hey, just because they're disgusting doesn't mean they don't pull at my heartstrings. After watching the whole lot of them defy all sense of reason, I felt a surge of spunk, of bravery if you will, almost recklessness. How am I from this generation when I'm such a sissy? I can't even ride a bicycle, and I'm terrified of water.

They made me want to at least TRY to push my limits, to step out of my comfort zone. Those amusement park rides don't seem so scary now in comparison to their madcap stunts. I envy them their carefree dispositions.

Of course, most of their adventures were just so repulsive I could SMELL them through the TV screen.

And because I am (and will always be, no matter what I say) a member of our uptight, judgemental society, one question nags me:

"Where are their parents?"

Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Party Boy, Ehren, Steve-O, Dave England, Ryan Dunn, Wee Man, Raab Himself (*salutes* what an original name!), all of them remind me of my cousins, my brothers, our friends, all the guys I hang out with. They are SOMEHOW charming because they are REAL.

"Hi, I'm Johnny Knoxville, and this is Jackass."

Birthday Greetings

I've missed too many birthday greetings. Not that it's THAT important to me. But birthdays are the perfect excuses to shower the people you care about with presents and attention. Unfortunately, they usually come around at a time when you are broke, or otherwise hanging by a very thin financial thread.

For the record, I acknowledge Kaka Nora, Kaka Khai, Kaka Amic, Alla, Al-Nemery, Emil, and Kaka Reham.

Albom's Law

Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet In Heaven is a brilliantly tight-weaved piece of work. It does lean towards romanticism, but thankfully not to the Coelho extent. Having read it in less than 24 hours brought me back to my One Night Stand with By The River Piedra I Sat and Wept. Once again, thank God for the absent mysticism, forgive the pun.

So, romanticism. I don't just say that for snobbery's sake. I can understand the significance of the four people Eddie met in Heaven, except for that one. I mean, okay, the Blue Man saved his life (by getting killed), the Captain saved his life during the war, Ruby indirectly caused his death (seeing as how the whole amusement park business wouldn't've been made had it not been for her glorious self), and then there's the little Filipina (might I add) girl he "killed".

So where does the wifey come in? I think she only served as the mood-light to set the tone of the story. She was the focal point of love, that phenomenon without which the world would not 'go round'. Hey, I love romance. But I abhor sentimentality. Even more than that, I abhor sentimentality disguised as romance. It's like when the unreal parades itself as the surreal. Thin lines, people. Thin lines.

So what's a good book (or movie, or any work of art) without a one-liner, eh? The less it makes sense, the more profound it seems. The more contradictory, the more meaningful it becomes. Some highlights:

"All parents damage their children. Neglect. Violence. Silence."
I can write a book on this one. You know, do a La Toya Jackson.

"Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them."
I can write a sequel to the one above with THIS one.

"We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the people who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. ...Forgive."
So much easier said than done. To forgive someone would take incredible strength. We see it as a sign of weakness, a symbol of giving up and submitting oneself to the enemy. Pride has a vise-like grip on people's subconscious. I have a long way to go before I can even think of forgiving certain people.

This novel can be likened to a single piece of embroidery picked out from a huge pattern; it's not the beginning of a story and it's definitely not the end. It continued from five people and it will continue on to five more people. Very not unlike Friendster and MySpace.

It might be a good idea to start taking notice of the people you meet on earth, to stop taking things and people for granted, and to stop complaining.

Life is good.

A Blast From The Past

Talk about the best of both worlds.

At the risk of crude sentimentality, I'd say I had an amazing time last night.

On the blue corner, my old friends.
On the red corner, my new friends.

All of them are now, officially, friends-in-law.

My old friends:
a) Sheriff Ahmed (of Who Shot The Sheriff fame), an old classmate
b) Muneer Taleb, also an old classmate
c) Ahmed Selim, an old classmate of my brother Zen
d) Dudut, a very good friend of my whole male posse

Muneer was quoting an old saying, "Mountains never meet, but people do." Mother of all surprises, I AM NOT A MOUNTAIN. I haven't seen Muneer and Sheriff in 9 years. We used to spend N hundred hours couped up in a Filipino-dominated classroom. Introducing them to my new friends was quite the experience. On the one hand, these are people who know everything about me; I do not have a single memory of my whole childhood and tweenhood that didn't have them in the background somewhere. There is no space or need for any kind of pretension with them. We shared high-school teachers, lame jokes, minor discrimination, and eggheadism. That's enough to sustain a relationship.

On the other hand, my new friends are just beginning to see other sides of me. Incredulity is not uncommon. Yes, I was a monster. Yes, I used to beat up boys and girls. Yes, I used to laugh at peoples faces. No, I wasn't always nice and all-brown-sugar-ish.

We all met at the Serafi Megamall. The little impromptu reunion started with the boys calling me to fetch them at the Danube supermarket. I was their only ticket to that glitzy glamour-world called Malling. As per contempo-Saudi tradition, young men are not allowed into the malls without the supervision of their female counterparts. After the prerequisite gasping and you've-gained-so-much-weight comments, the walk down memory lane commences. We talk about dorky days and even dorkier school-people, laughed at former red-faced moments, and tsk-tsked about how we turned out.

Yeah, it's funny how things turn out. And funny how things don't.

People do change. But how much of us has changed?

The Bacon

Sometimes, I feel the urge to explore further my growing obsession with KEVIN BACON, the biggest factor to this being the fact that my brothers practically forbade this occurence by laughing at his unusual nostrils and wimpy built.

They know nothing of his deep, blue eyes.

***
No one can fully comprehend my propensity for watching... watches, given my tendency towards wasting-time. I have a digital watch by my bed that gives me the exact time - down to the seconds, and I have a clock directly across my bed, positioned so that it's the first thing I see every morning when I wake up. It is also visible at every conceivable point in my room.

And yet, each time I awake, I go through the same motions: check the digital, then the wall-clock that's 5 minutes late, and finally, as if to make absolutely sure, I check the time on my mobile phone.

***
What's the world come to when a person goes for a smoke not because she wants to, but because she CAN?

I'll go for a smoke because I can. Never mind the pain in my throat, or that queasy feeling I have before a fever sets in. I CAN. Therefore I WILL.

***
A line in this rap song moves me.
"You silly girl, you better start talking."

Nothing profound. I know. But still.

***
People gasp in horror at the incredulity of our non-existent relationship, my mom and I. I will allow them to. It's the perk of ignorance: to be allowed certain reactions.

The Great White Overhaul

In honor of the new year, ladies and cats, welcome to this blog's Great White Ass-Haul.

Predictions:
1. Less pounds.
2. More responsibility.
3. No more Marlboros (and less Davidoffs).
4. Less pretentions.
5. Maturity.
6. Shoes.
7. No. More. Lies.
8. More Action, Less Talk.
9. But more words.
10. Possibilities.

Who Shot The Sheriff?

Whod've thought that I would see an old friend after what, 500 years? I don't know who he is anymore. It's disconcerting, the changes, time, the now-gone similarities, no common ground anymore. What did we have in common anyway? Half a nationality? Mr. Basman? A school building?

There's a certain level of out-of-bounds curiousity; of wanting to know what goes on in his head, how he turned out, how different or alike we are from each other considering our similar backgrounds and experiences. More like trying to understand my predicament, what brought me here, what pattern I followed.

The important question here is, is it fair to use him as a mirror? Maybe there are more differences than likenesses.

*****

Maybe I wasn't as mean to him as I remember, but knowing myself, I know I was to some degree, quite the bully.

The truth is, the Sheriff shot me.

To all the people I bullied, whose opinions and points-of-view were unimportant, non-existent to me; what gives me the right to contemplate their (newfound) intellects now? Their senses of humor? Their rugged features, their grown-up ways?

I do not have a right to claim them as my friends now. I have NOT EARNED IT.

I have no right talking to them, listening to them, introducing them to my other friends.

In so many ways, I needed the people I bullied. I did it for acceptance. I wanted to be funny at their expense. I'd lure them with the silhouette of friendship, kindness, generosity, so that they end up trusting me and thinking I'm their only friend. And then BAM. The Mighty Mighty Turnaround. The Poking-Fun. The Locking-In-Bathrooms. The Laughing-At-Faces.

I'm probably beyond karma. I am fortune's fool.

Because We Love Metaphors

Friends may be likened to songs.

Some are catchy, like pop songs; in the moment, fashionable, a sign of the times. You make friends with people around the same age as you.

Some are like hip-hop beats with a good hook. They make you want to get up and dance or nod your head. They are smooth and cool, almost savvy.

Some are old-fashioned; not necessarily classic, but more unimaginative and common.

Some are annoying and high-pitched, repetitive.

Some are seasonal, like Christmas carols, or novelty songs.

Some songs, like some of your friends, you like especially because they reflect your background, your roots, your origins, where you're from.

Some friends you just get sick of because, like a song that's over-played, they've become too familiar and you just want something new.

Some friends would remind you of a collaboration between two musicians of different genres, a duet. You might come from opposite points of a spectrum and yet be in harmony. Aerosmith and Run DMC. Jay-Z and Linkin Park. Sting and Craig David.

Some are just forgettable in their shrillness. They hurt your ears.

The friends I like most are those that inspire me to be a better person, musician, writer. They stretch my imagination and pull me up to their level. I strain to keep up, and in so doing, unknowingly go through a certain amount of growth. They are like those brilliant songs by ingenious musicians that I look up to. Sergio Mendez. Lauryn Hill. The Beatles. Pharell Williams. Marvin Gaye. The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

What song are you?

Twenty Oh Seven

New Year's Eve

Where I Spent It: Friday's, Andalus Street

What I Was Drinking: Pepsi

What I Was Wearing: My new abaya with the crimson spots on the sleeves that looked like cheese gone baaaaaad. Oh, and blood red nail polish courtesy of Linzi.

Who I Was With: The Ghamdis, the Noordin girls, Nadia, Linzi, Rami, Asmaa & Esraa, Yanni, Rami, and Squeek (briefly).

What I Was Thinking: How I wished it was a mixed crowd with more people; how it's my first New Year's party sans alcohol; how I could negotiate with my dad to pick me up much later than the 12:10 am that he did; and how my brothers were having a blast with my cousins sans me.

What I Was Reading: Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo

What I Last Watched: Just Like Heaven starring Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo, which I loved to pieces and watched twice in 24 hours.

What Song I Loved: Please Baby Don't by Sergio Mendez featuring John Legend

Last Magazine I Read: Newsweek and Time

Major Local News: Hajj updates and Saddam Hussein's execution