Up until that point I had been lugging my giant PC to my illustrious DJ gigs around town so I could run Scratch 1.1, I figured with version 1.5 released specifically for the new laptop the days of carrying that big ugly rig in and out of taxis were over. The next night I was playing a dinner reception for a group of bank execs in from the UK (call me the wedding singer, that's how it felt) and figured after a few hours of testing the laptop would be good to go. Well .... not so much.
In the first hour of the gig Scratch crashed twice, and the second time the laptop also went down with it. Fortunately at that point I was playing dinner lounge music, so nobody noticed me flip over to the trusty backup iPod while I rebooted the machine. By the time the post-dinner speaches were over the rig had crashed three more times - not exactly inspiring when you know you have to throw down a two hour 'party music' set which I knew would probably degrade into a Robbie Williams and Madonna set that would make even the frenchman blush. (did I mention that at least I was getting paid for this?)
Fortunately I had installed a cheapo software mp3 program the day before which enabled me to bypass Scratch entirely and limp through the evening unscathed, oh, except for the last half hour when the stragglers started requesting Bananarama, but I digress...
Has anyone had any problems with Scratch 1.5? I don't completely trust this laptop yet so I can't rule out the possibility that it's the machine. Either way, I guess for the time being it's back to lugging ol' faithful around again. Le sigh.
As a federation of emirates with specified powers delegated to a federal government, the UAE is essentially ruled by a royal family. Although their outlook is far more liberal than many other countries in the region, as a culture they still take many leads from the Islamic faith, particularly on issues of morality. Things like sex, drugs, alcohol, and generally having too much fun are looked down upon by many as vices imported from the west that should be avoided by the virtuous. That must make Dubai a sin city by every traditional Islamic measure.
Early on it was realized that if they were going to be importing western ex-pats en masse to build the city into the international spectacle it has become, they were going to have to put up with some of their shenanigans, just as long as they don't draw too much attention or cause them any embarrassment. In Dubai it is permissible drink as much as you like, but you'd better not be visibly intoxicated when you decide to walk out of the bar at 3am to get some fast food and happen to pass by a cop with nothing better to do. In Dubai it is also possible to pick up a prostitute of any nationality within a 3 block radius of our apartment building on the side streets of Bur Dubai, but you can't flip through the latest issue of Vogue Magazine at the supermarket without every somewhat-revealing photo of a woman having been black-magic-markerered-out by a state censor .... riiiight.
The application of censorship to the internet has been treated with a similarly uneven hand. Courtesy of a country-wide filter ironically named 'Smartfilter', all top level Israeli domains are blocked outright, regardless of content, as is any website containing what is deemed to be obscene or pornographic material. The obvious problem of course is the question of who defines what is unacceptable. In addition to it's automatic filtering software that finds and blocks websites based on keywords, Smartfilter employs a small army of censors (think of them as the internet equivalent of meter maids) who's sole purpose is to browse the web and black list objectionable content. Caught in the crossfire are community websites such as flickr, boingboing, and myspace, where anyone can contribute content - but thanks to one or two questionable posts these entire sites are blocked.
Here's a short list what gets through and what doesn't pass muster.
ok
blocked
- http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/
- http://www.flickr.com/
- http://www.boingboing.net/
- http://www.playboy.com/
It would then seem the objective of internet censorship here is to impose morality rather than ideology. But what I find most interesting is the complete lack of censorship of political discourse and dissent against the government. Rather than use brute force to control thought and opinion, the UAE has taken the western approach of having a free and relatively unregulated media where although any sentiment may be published, if it falls outside of the mainstream discourse it will quickly become marginalized and easily dismissed. As Benjamin Ginsberg was quoted by Noam Chomsky in Necessary Illusions,
Since we'd rented a car this past weekend, I figured instead of dealing with the flight I'd follow my friend's advice and do the 1.5 hour drive to the Omani border, cross over, and then turn right around and re-enter the UAE. Then I could stop by Hatta (which is right on the border) to grab lunch and shoot some guns on the Hatta Fort gun range. Sounds like a perfect way to spend a day off, or does it?
What my friend didn't tell me was how whack getting in and out of these contries can be. There's about a 15km no-man's land between the Oman and United Arab Emirates border checkpoints, and Allah forbid you didn't stop at the right office to get the right piece of paper with a stamp on it, cuz the border cops just love sending the gringos (I don't know the Arabic eqivilent, but I'm sure they have one) all the way back to the other side. Trust me, I got sent back twice.
Oh, then there's this little detail about Omani car insurance. Sure, it makes sense that my Dubai insurance isn't valid in Oman, but since I wasn't actually going to be driving into Oman, other than to drive past the checkpoint and make a u-turn, I wouldn't need insurance, right? Wrong. You can't get an entry stamp for Oman without buying a day's worth of auto insurance from the government office convieniently located right next to the customs and immigration desk. Bastards.
So, after much back and forth and many conversations had in broken English, I finally entered Oman, turned around, re-entered the UAE, went through even more back and forth between customs and immigration, and finally got my new visa. The cost of that stupid little stamp on my passport by the time you add up all the customs and insurance fees? 300Dhs, or about $85Cdn. But the story doesn't end there.
There isn't much to see on the drive back from Hatta to Dubai, just a few small towns, some camels, and a lot of sand. On one of the long stretches of highway I noticed ahead of me a big herd of goats that were wandering around on the road. As I approached I noticed that they were eating some vegetables that had fallen off a truck and weren't really interested in moving, no matter how much I honked my horn or slowly drove at them. So, I pulled my quality rental Renault off onto the shoulder to try to go around them. Bad idea. What I thought was gravel was actually soft sand, my front tires sank like stones and I was stuck in the middle of nowhere on a day that was pushing 44 degrees C. Farking fantastic.
After about a mile of walking in that opressive heat a local who was driving by actually picked me up and drove me to the next town where I could hire a tow truck, of course he was driving like such a maniac I actually wondered if my chances would've been better on foot. Anyway, 5 hours later I was back in Dubai with a very expensive stamp to show for it. Next time I'll take the bloody flight.
Hatta is one of those places frozen in time. Unlike it's shiny plastic neighbor two hours drive to the west (Dubai, that is) Hatta remains a traditional Arabian town complete with three mosques, an old fort, and its very own non-airconditioned meat market (you can just imagine the smell ... eeeckhh!). Aside from the nearby hiking, climbing, and off-roading spots in the mountains, the only other thing to do in Hatta is to visit the Hatta Fort Hotel to grab a nice lunch and shoot guns on their desert rifle range (nice to know the true spirit of the redneck is able to span cultures).
We were only there for a short visit, but it was nice to take them to the UAE equivilent of cottage country and show them was the real middle east is like.
Barely-famous people's births:
- 1404 - Constantine XI Dragases, last Byzantine Emperor
- 1441 - Alisher Navoi, musician, artist, scientist, and great statesman of the Huroson State, what is now modern Uzbekistan (wow, farking fantastic)
- 1885 - Alan Berg, Austrian composer
- 1943 - Joe Pesci, really annoying actor
- 1963 - Travis Tritt, country singer and allaround redneck
- 1965 - Lennox Lewis, heavyweight boxer
- 1863 - Fire extinguisher patented by Alanson Crane
- 1923 - Soviet Aeroflot airlines formed
- 1943 - WWII: Battle of Guadalcanal ends
- 1945 - WWII: Iwo Jima invated by United States troops
Like every day here now it was pretty damn hot out - the sky was clear and the sun was beating down, so it was essential to take shelter under one of the big umbrellas. At least I've finally adjusted to the temperature here, even two weeks ago I would've melted at the prospect of sitting outside during the heat of the day. The beach and ocean were fantastic, we were next to one of the new Palm Island developments which meant that we were sheltered from most of the waves, so the conditions were ideal for just floating around. What really blew me away was how warm the water was - though not quite hot-tub conditions yet, it certainly isn't what you'd consider a cool refreshing ocean swim either. I've been told that by July the ocean is too warm to swim in during the day, and now I believe it. Apparently during the summer the only thing to do is to head to the beach at night, and on a weekend any beach around Jumeirah is packed between 10pm and 2am. Now that I have to see for myself.
And I had just agreed to be the DJ - the only DJ - for these parties which start around 6 or 7pm and run sometimes as late as 1am. They asked for the evenings to start off fairly mellow, so the first two hours were to be mostly lounge core and triphop kinda stuff. As the evenings rolled on they wanted to bring up the tempo, so I was to switch over to more uptempo house (as well as some shamelessly bad dance/trance numbers I decided to throw into the mix, think club mixes of Gypsy Kings and The Killers).
The first and second evenings both went well, we had a pretty decent turnout and with five open bars in full swing the crowd was definitely in good spirits (bad pun intended). During the afternoon of the third day I was told that the final party would be off the chain - they were expecting a near capacity crowd and the room would be busy all night. That night we brought the levels up and I dropped all kinds of shit, even threw down a two hour breaks set. As the evening rolled on and I was into my huge-pure-gino-beat set word came in that it was time to shut the night down and we were packed up a little after 1am. After it was all over Christine and I grabbed a few drinks with some of the guys from the event production company and called an end to a very long three days.
Nobody was more surprised than myself that the three nights went off without a hitch (as I'm about as much a house DJ as Dolph Lundgren is a ballet dancer), though I worry sometimes that this may have been the first move down a slippery slope towards a new career spinning bad arabian dance music.
The step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is all too brief.