Our Man in Beirut

Read my interview with Medea Azouri Habib in the August | September issue of L’Officiel. 

The last week has been what you would call the opposite of a slow news week. It started off last Friday when a delusional terrorist (is there any other kind?) decided to take the lives of 68 innocent people in Oslo. The following day Amy Winehouse was found dead in her apartment at the age of 27. Then, during the week, a beloved Lebanese landmark was supposedly threatened with destruction, and a Lebanese singer was briefly thrown in jail for a song he recorded three years ago.

What do these events have in common? Not much on the face of it. I guess, in a way, they show various aspects of the tragedy of the human condition. Heavy stuff. But on a far simpler level, all these events took over my Facebook news feed over the last few days, and quite rightly so. Where LOLcats, Justin Bieber jokes and wedding photos once reigned supreme, people were now discussing terrorism and addiction.

However, I have some observations I’d like to share. I can almost hear your sigh of exasperation seeping through the screen, but bear with me.

Let’s take the first two events. The day the bombing and subsequent mass-shooting took place in Oslo, I could hardly believe what I was reading. I had to reread the story a few times before it sunk in. This was human atrocity at its basest level. I sent out rather pointless messages to my Norwegian friends, which were more of a sign of shared humanity than anything else. But at this point my news feed remained rather barren. Then, the next day, Amy Winehouse passed away. And suddenly my mini feed was packed full of condolences and heartfelt agony. And this got me rather angry.

A day after no one had reacted to one of the worst terrorist attacks in years, everyone suddenly seemed to be bereft over a celebrity who had been on a path to self-destruction for years. So I posted a status to that effect, wishing for some perspective on the scope of human tragedy. And the comments started pouring in. People angry that I was comparing tragedies that weren’t comparable.

They might not have been comparable as tragedies, but they were comparable on Facebook as entities of concern. I obviously can’t quantify human suffering, but I can quantify responses to it. And the disproportionate amount of people who cared more about Winehouse than about Norway felt rather grotesque.

It seemed to completely exemplify our obsession with celebrity over the past decade. Most of the comments were along the lines of “Amy touched me with her music, and I knew more about her, so it affected me more”. Well I’m sorry, but the day you identify more with a multi-millionaire drug addict than with innocent teenage bystanders, there’s something wrong with the world….

Pick a street in Beirut. Any street. Look in front of you, behind you, above you. Chances are, within your line of sight, there is an ad for some form of physical enhancement, a woman who looks like a cross between Najwa Karam, a disco ball and a Czech pornstar and a guy who has consumed enough steroids to make Schwarzy look like a girly man whistling at her. This unholy trinity of visual queasiness is starting to get very annoying.

I am by no means conservative when it comes to social mores. I’m a Godless libertarian. But the socio-visual landscape in Beirut is becoming repugnant. I actually wouldn’t mind it if everyone was actually bumping uglies, but it’s the blatant hypocrisy of it all. Our society has become hypersexualized, with a distinct lack of actual sex.

Let me explain. I don’t mean no one is having sex, obviously. I mean, Beirut is one of the rare cities I’ve seen where they sell every kind of Durex condom under the sun at the Duty Free checkout counter at the Airport. You know, in case you’re thinking of joining the Mile High Club and you haven’t planned ahead. What I’m saying is that if you walk into a club in the UK, your chances of leaving with someone and getting up to no good are about 70%* (*highly unscientific guess). Your chances in Beirut, where I would say everyone is dressed and acting about the same, is 15% (*again, highly unscientific guess).

There is something misleading about the way we function. Everyone is always dressed up to the nines. Everything is enhanced. Breasts are augmented, fat is reduced, hair disappears. Eyes go green. Lips go red and plump. Pecs appear, bisceps bulge. And yet, very little actually every happens between the sexes on a casual basis.

I know I keep coming back to the opinions of tourists I meet, but they’re a highly useful objective and external vantage point. Every time I take them somewhere, they gasp and say something like “Jeez, it looks like everyone here is getting some tonight”. I proceed to explain the complex dichotomy between appearance and reality, which is an immense buzz kill to the pack of marauding horny Italian Eurotrash men.

Much like the oversexualized women in Arab pop videos, Lebanese women are expected to be alluring and seductive, yet remain virginal. Walking through a shopping mall or making limp-wristed vaguely Oriental dance moves in a club, most seem to be reprising their role as themselves in the movie of their life. It’s a symptom of the Blingification of the world. Everyone wants to be in a hip-hop video. So the men and women of Lebanon flock to Skybar (Note: Other Rooftop bars are available), tanned and toned, their bloodstreams a mix of vodka and champagne, their nostrils flaring at the smell of fireworks. They sway and flirt. But there is no dancefloor. Ever. There is no communal space for people to interact and meet, dance and sweat together.

Everyone lives in a proverbial music video for a few hours. Then they leave the blinged out universe of faux-independence and fleeting adulthood and return to their parents’ homes. Their parents’ homes replete with marble floors and gold chandeliers and expectations of virginal daughters.

Of course, for the men it’s different. They are coached from their earliest age to have double standards, namely that Lebanese women are pure and respectable and foreign women are to be used as vessels for sexual discovery. Many Lebanese men have their first sexual experience at the hands, quite literally, of Eastern European prostitutes in seedy hotels North of Beirut filled with the pungent odour of desperation and lost youth.

Men then go on to embrace this concept of the “Western Whore” and consider anyone remotely blonde that they meet ripe for the taking. Like unevovled cavemen, they whistle and gawk and grope. It’s an embarrassing sight. When I dated a Russian girl in London for two years, and I’d tell anyone in Lebanon where she was from they’d give me a knowing wink and I suppose they’d imagine her with her legs wrapped around a pole, upside down, her blonde hair caressing the stage floor. When I would explain she wasn’t a stripper, or blonde and was the epitome of class, I’d get confused looks for a few moments. It was as if I was pulling the rug from under their every assumption about relationships and sexuality. Then they’d chuckle, as if to say “I’ve just erased what you’ve said, and gone back to my parochial social dynamics. Phew, that was close”. Sigh….

Besides being undoubtedly the youngest looking 61 year-old in the world, Goran Bregovic is also the Balkans’ most prominent purveyor of neo-gypsy beats. But he’s also kind of the embodiment of the Balkans themselves, born in Sarajevo, in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, to a Croatian father and Serbian mother.

I don’t know much about him, but from what I’ve read he appears to be a mish-mash of Balkan influences. Which is saying a lot, and probably explains why his work is so layered and universal.

See, the Balkans are very much like Lebanon, more than either of us would like really. On a trip to Zagreb a couple of years ago, I was struck by how similar a lot of the discourse is to our own. Of course, the Croats themselves hate being assimilated to the Balkans, so for the sake of sematics, let’s call the place ex-Yugoslavia.

Most of us grew up with images of bombings and massacres perpetrated in these countries not so long ago. It seemed so surreal, countries at the heart of Europe, deeply beautiful countries, committing atrocities at the end of the 20th century. A lot of the scars of that conflict remain, and it doesn’t take long to sense them. And sense the similarities with Lebanon.

Religion still plays an important role, as does suspicion and fighting for scraps of land and influence. They’re still hunting down their war criminals 15 years after the conflict has ended. Much like Lebanon, history is never far in ex-Yugoslavia for anyone willing to look….

I got a message from a French friend of mine the other day asking if Beirut was a safe place to visit. I’m never quite sure how to answer that question. And it comes up quite a lot. On the one hand, walking the streets at night in Beirut is probably safer than anywhere I can think of. There are no hooded youths on the streets waiting to steal my Blackberry and use it to film me as they go about on a happy slapping rampage. On the other hand, we tend to pepper our existence with Ak-47s and the occasional car bomb. Armed with these two realities, I gave my usual answer, which is “it’s safe until it’s not”.

This particular French friend was planning on visiting as a tourist but was also interested in the ins and outs of life in Beirut, beyond the security situation, because she intends to move here to take up a rather exciting job opportunity. She asked me how easily I thought she’d make friends, because she doesn’t know anyone in town and she’s a bit concerned about that. I chuckled to myself as I told her not to worry, everyone in Lebanon loves foreigners and that she had the added advantage of being both French and Female.

There was a time when the word tourist in Beirut basically meant anyone from the Gulf who couldn’t be bothered to make it all the way to Europe for a long weekend intended to smoke a chicha at Grand Café. And that was about it. I don’t have a problem with that kind of tourism, but it’s the Lebanese equivalent of a lobster-red English tourist in Mallorca in a Newcastle United shirt who thinks he’s mastered the Spanish language because he can say “Oi, Manuel. Dos cervecas por favor. Innit.”

It also meant hordes of returning Lebanese expats, with bulging wallets. But even though the Ministry of Tourism loves counting them in its statistics, they aren’t really tourists at all. They sleep at home with their extended families and basically use the country as a large spa for the duration of their stay. They get medical checkups, see the dentist, get a haircut, load up on zaatar and head back to work….

Marcel Proust famously answered a personality questionnaire when he was aged 13 and then later when he was 20. The questionnaire has gone through a bunch of iterations, probably most famously on the back page of Vanity Fair. As I was moving some books yesterday, I found a book that included the responses of various public figures to the questionnaire and it made me want to take it myself. So here goes.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

I grew up in the UK, we tend to favour wistful melancholy. Happiness just isn’t a very English trait, or a very Lebanese one for that matter. If I had to answer at all costs, I’d say being with friends and family around a swimming pool at night, with bossa nova playing in the background. But then it would probably rain or something.
What is your greatest fear?
Failure. But that’s a fear that’s surmountable, through success. Oh and people dressed as rabbits. That scares the bejesus out of me.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Mr Bean.

Which living person do you most admire?
At the risk of sounding like an immense cheesball, it’s very honestly my parents.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
The fact that I feel compelled to make up silly dances everytime I go out, and I force everyone around me, including strangers, to learn the moves.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
The inability to park correctly, or signal when making a right turn. And a general lack of respect.

What is your greatest extravagance?
It used to be spending copious amounts of money on spirits in plush West End clubs in London, trying my best to convince Eastern European goldiggers that I was incredibly wealthy. Which I was, and am, not. Now, I’d probably have to say it’s travel.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
What’s a virtue?

When and where were you happiest?
Happiness? Again? Was Proust American or something?

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
I’m a large hairy Lebanese man. There’s a lot to dislike.

Which living person do you most despise?
Pretty much anyone who has neon lights under their car. And anyone who double parks.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Fuck. Dude. Enno.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Leaving a promising yet soul-destorying job as a banker in London to become a penniless struggling writer in Beirut. Best decision ever. And I can live off crackers and water, right?

On what occasion do you lie?
Never. Or always. I can’t remember which.

Which talent would you most like to have?
I’d like to play the accordion. And look cool. Preferably simultaneously.

What is your current state of mind?
Contemplative. I’m mainly contemplating what sandwich to have for lunch.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
The pleat in a Hollywood starlet’s Lanvin skirt.

What is your most treasured possession?
My books. All of ‘em. Even the shitty ones I used as coasters.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Being surrounded by bubbly happy people talking about inane matters. And being alone when I don’t want to be. That’s no fun.

What is your most marked characteristic?
I’m 1m96, 110 kilos, with a full beard, I’d say my most marked characteristic is my eyelashes.

What do you most value in your friends?
Their silence. Badda bing. Eh, fuggetaboutit.

Who are your favorite writers?
Bukowski, Beigbeder, Flaubert, Easton Ellis, Baudelaire, Hage, Brooker, Hunter S. Thompson. Any self-destructive womanizing alcoholic basically.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Captain Planet. You know, because he was our hero, and he was going to take pollution down to zero. And he did.

Actually, hang on…

How would you like to die?
Not anytime soon, thank you very much.

What is your motto?
Some people never go crazy, what horrible lives they must live.

The Reel Festival kicks off tonight at the Metropolis Cinema in Sofil. Check out the schedule over the coming days, and keep your eyes peeled for my coverage of the event over at Hibr.me

One of my pet peeves about Beirut for years was that it always seemed to lack some sort of ambient artistic activity. I mean the city wasn’t lacking in artists, by any means. Writers, musicians, filmmakers and so on have a compulsion to create during difficult times, to make sense of them, and we call agree we’ve had more than our fair share. But the city lacked a certain public art scene, pervasive and visible.

That has changed over the last couple of years. The city has seen a plethora of art galleries opening their doors, as well as non-profit entities like the Beirut Art Centre and the Beirut International Exhibition Centre. Some galleries, like The Running Horse, are pushing the boundaries of what we normally see in Beirut. It’s fun and easy and intellectually stimulating at the same time.

I’m writing this whilst sitting at Bread Republic in Hamra, and there’s a wall in front of me literally plastered in posters for art exhibits, dance performances, concerts and so on. Not only are these posters informative, they’re part of a visual landscape. So even if you never end up going to whatever show it is, you’ve seen the poster. You’ve been affected by it. You’ve given the poster at least a second’s fleeting thought. And we shouldn’t underestimate how important that is.

When it comes to music, there’s no shortage of talent. There was a time in the 1990s when the only alternative to Wael Kfoury was Soap Kills. That’s far from the case today. Bands and solo acts are springing up faster than you can say “The Lead Singer is in it for the women”. Bands like Mashrou’ Leila, Scrambled Eggs, Lumi, Slutterhouse and many more, make textured, layered and appealing music. Music with subtext and context and, as the kids say, killer beats. They have lyrics that speak to a generation disillusioned by their surroundings. The most engaged and engaging are the hip-hop artists. Fareeq Al Atrash and Zeinedin deserve their place in the pantheon of masters of the Arabic language just as much as Said Akl.

This month sees a renewed flurry of cultural activity. First off, there is next week Reel Festivals (9-15 May), which I’ll be covering for hibr.me. The festival pulls off the petty unique feat of creating a cultural exchange between Scotland, Lebanon and Syria. Cue jokes about haggis and hummus. But a cursory look through the program reveals a hell of an interesting line-up covering poetry, music and film.

Then from May 18 to June 12, there’s the Beirut Music and Arts Festival. I’m happy to be involved with the organisers to help spread the word about this event. I’ll be going to some of the concerts and live tweeting photos to the BMAF blog, as well as covering stories in and around the performances. The almost month-long festival promises to bring international and local musicians and artists to the heart of downtown Beirut. And anyone who’s walked through downtown Beirut recently knows how much it needs an injection of sincerity and life. The ascepticized fakeness of Downtown, its forced prettiness will be infused with something real for once.

I’m particularly looking forward to seeing Sarajevo-born Goran Bregovic and Marcel Khalife live for the first time. I’m also very excited about the Band Village, which will feature 45 local bands. A lot of my friends are in local bands, and I’ve often been to lazy to make it to their gigs (my bad) and this means I get to see them on a stage worthy of their talent…

As I’ve written before, I love Mashrou3 Leila. And their fresh sound just got fresher, thanks to a collaboration with Marc Codsi. You might be familiar with Codsi’s work with another kick-ass Lebanese band, Lumi. Check out both their Facebook pages: Mashrou3 Leila / Lumi Oh, and check out the tune. Mashrou’ Leila Fasateen (Marc [...]

Before you get all excited, this isn’t some steamy Beiruti version of the seminal Bertolucci film. It is, however, a post about tango. If you’ve ever seen me on a dancefloor, you might be confused as to why I’m writing about anything involving dance. I usually shuffle around like a middle-aged man at a wedding, [...]