Egypt7000

My name is Mujahid. I am a stand-up comedian, and tonight, the Laugh Garage is my coliseum…

I arrive at 8:30. The show starts in thirty minutes, add to that the fifteen “Warm up” minutes the MC will perform, and I’ve got 45 minutes to get ready and go through my “preparations”. I actually don’t have anything special to prepare before the show. Well, one thing I do when I play this particular club is I always make sure I go into the adjacent convenience store. The shopkeeper is from Egypt. And due to the current events undergoing, our conversations always went in the same direction, more crazy shit happening in Egypt. Last night, I saw protestors on horse AND camelback charging at other protestors. Watching that from Sydney seemed surreal. I wondered if they thought that camels could dodge bullets.

The moment a comedian walks into a venue, he starts tasting the air. Are they a happy crowd? Can you get away with improvisation or do you need to do a tight set? A million questions, for an outdoor gig, we even look at wind direction, as it can either spread the laughter wide or make you feel you are speaking in the eye of the storm. A jazz trio plays Frank Sinatra and does a very good job of it. The mood seems positive and everyone is acting and dressing very relaxed. The type of audience is like a cat, you keep their attention focused on you the whole time like a dangling string. They don’t know why they cant look elsewhere as long as you keep dangling the string. And if they find something slightly more interesting then you have lost them and your momentum. All you can do then is wait for a big laugh and close the set. Your last joke is what you will be mostly remembered by, not the preceding fifteen minutes.

Fareed, the shopkeeper swears profusely in Arabic. If for anything, Arabic is the queen of swear languages. The possibilities are endless. It’s like a Middle Eastern Fusion kitchen. Anything goes with anything. For example, “If I catch Hosni Mubarak, I hump the dead peoples of his mother” Nice going, just get him madder… A barrage of insults hits me like giant flashlight on my face. In the Middle East we say if you ever get into an argument with an Arab, pray that he is not Egyptian! They have a mouth that won’t quit. My favorite Egyptian swear is called “Khaltak” or “Your auntie”. The idea is to listen to what the other person says, extract something rude out of it and just “Is your auntie” to the sentence. FOR EXAMPLE: “Ali! How is my favorite Palestinian werewolf?” Response: “The werewolf is your auntie!” Now that was an easy example. The Egyptian swear dictionary is not FIFA accredited. This means that there are no rules, and the field is twice as wide, but we will get back to that later. “Later is your auntie!”

The crowd is nice and warmed up. The MC did a great job. His role there is the Unknown Soldier. You are basically are a reconnaissance soldier, first charging infantry, and a human shield. You engage the crowd to prime the room so that the other acts can ascend smoothly. It is no secret in the industry that a good MC can sail 4 average acts safely and mostly painlessly to the other side while 4 great acts are forsaken if they have a rubbish MC. As he brings me on he throws the customary black joke. I grin, as I climb the stage I throw back what seems like a witty comeback. I am actually grinning because they don’t know that that whole thing was staged. The MC had warned me that he is doing that joke so I can use my comeback to double the time it would usually take to built rapport with audience. If you seem smart and quick from the get-go then you are halfway there. The Unknown Soldier does it again.

Fareed tells me of all the hardship that his family is going through back in Egypt. Having many Egyptian friends like in my case meant that since this debacle started I have heard stories that I can’t even repeat. In my moments of frustration, anger and anguish, I felt like a buying a plane ticket and going there. I didn’t don’t know what I would do once I got there though. I was a paramedic for three years so I could do that. With the bodies lining the streets, there would always be work for me I assume. I fantasized about picking up all my friends in a big convoy to safety, to freedom, to a better life. Then I realized that I could fly there but I had a snow ball’s chance in hell in making it out of the damn airport, according to the news. This thing would probably boil over while I am trying to find a cabbie that would agree to drive straight through road blocks. I saw the cities burn. I discovered then one the strangest pains in the world. To see a building you walked through for hours up in flames is an intensely sharp pain, like part of you is burning in that building, and you sadly certain that, no how well they rebuild the building or your soul, it will never be the same again. Every street on the television was sadly familiar. The café on the corner of Tahrir (Liberation) Square that made the best bean (foul) stew. The In-the-middle-of-the-city’s-biggest-intersection kiosk that sells magazines and tahini flavoured gum, and yes it’s as horrible as it sounds. Watching Egypt being eradicated so that it somehow becomes better was and still is like being forced to watch someone you deeply care being violated over and over again and all you can do sit there and watch. An Arabic writer, Ahmed Toufik, wrote a line about what to do when you are unable to save someone you love:

“I may not be able to save you, but do not worry, for l choose to die before you. For a life without you in it, is not worth living…” I felt like dying as I watched everyday struggling Egyptians who worked for $40 a month actually die. The regime was killing them and now the revolution is killing them. Some people have no luck.

First joke, bang! I got them in the palm of my hand. Like a snake charmer, I must keep playing and keep moving. You are a joke sniper, you only get one shot per joke, and then you have to keep moving between targets. So far, the first 6 jokes where like shots to the head –sorry Mrs. Griffin-. Time to bring out the big guns. In a comedy “battle”, small jokes like small arms, they go first and the “caliber” of your joke must increase with every shot. Your last shot must be the “money shot”. It has to be the BIGGEST of all your joke “bombs”. Like I said earlier, the only thing that anyone remembers from a fight is the knockout punch, so make it better than good. Make it phenomenal. I cruise through the rest of the set with no problems. I even have to stop a few times for applause. These are the nights that cemented our addiction the stage. Your comedy career does not really start until you “bring the house down” of your own merit. From then on, you are a “stage junkie”, waiting for the next “hit”, praying that every high will feel like the first time you were up there. I improvise slightly as the mood of the evening permits it. The new jokes work as well. You check the imaginary clock in your head and curse, saying the same thing every comic says at this very moment. “Damn! I could be up here forever…” Amen. I wrap it up with my biggest joke “bomb”. I wrote it years ago but like the collective will of the Egyptian people, we never really realized the power that was in our hands. I get constant applause, six years of work paying off. A few whistles and a hoot and I bow and walk backwards into to the darkness in the back of the stage. I instantly breathe a huge sigh of relief. That twenty minute skirmish can still sap a lot of your energy in the process. It didn’t matter. Mission accomplished.

Farid giggles mischievously when I tell him cynically that I think shooting a dictator like Mubarak would be a waste of a bullet because a criminal like him must given to the people so that they can teach him that payback is bitch. I also tell him jokingly that King Fahad of Saudi Arabia has reserved Mubarak a castle next to the castle of president Zain Al-Abdin of Tunisia so they can be neighbors and hang out together, listening to Fairouz. No, they are unworthy of listening to Fairouz, she is a queen of the people, the woman who once famously sang “The road to Jerusalem is down a barrel of a rifle.” No, these two idiots can sit there reminiscing to the old days while listening to “Smack That” by Akon.

I wave goodbye to Farid as I leave the shop. That conversation was a good twenty minutes. He looks happy to see me every time and seeing him being so stoic and relaxed, yet instantly cursing like an Arab sailor reminds me of where I come from and there is still hope. Assuming that 80 million Egyptians will have 5 percent of the population classified as geniuses, then this means that there are at least 4 million intelligent, gifted, and free thinking Egyptians out there just waiting for a chance to make right. The ones on the streets are just the tip of the iceberg. “Your auntie is an iceberg”.

To my brothers and sisters in Egypt. The kindness and compassion that you have engulfed me with when I visited Egypt last year I have never felt elsewhere outside my home. Believe me when I say that, if it meant repaying your kindness, I would be more than willing to trade places with you right now. We are thinking of you every day and every night. You are often in our dreams but always in our prayers. Your quest for democracy and free thought is our quest. With your actions you remind us all that life is simply a matter of which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn. You also remind us that it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. I salute you. We salute you.

My brother Fizo and the Asmar Family, Mousa and his family, Kareem Kamatcho and his family, Arafa, Ahmad, The families of Haytham, Eman, Ahmed Jo, Ahmed Moenis, and Al-Nahda National Schools, Class 11AS, 2000.Please be safe. Ali… your mom is my auntie…

Iron Bars - Stephen Marley ft. Mr. Cheeks

28 today

I turned 28 today which, certainly made it a time to ponder. For starters, I realize now that I should be thankful for many things. I have now come to the conclusion that at every critical junction in my life, I was headed for sure disaster, someone or something slightly adjusted my trajectory so that I avoided collision albeit with a few cuts and bruises. It is these bruises and scars that remind me that what happened was very real.

I am writing this entry also, to say that I am thankful that at every critical turn in my life, love in one way, shape or form that helped me avoid that collision. This love -in many of our cases- was not necessarily the love of another human being. Sometimes that love was as simple as song that hit the right note at the right time. Buffalo Soldier by Bob Marley, Me Against the World by Tupac spring to mind. So, thank you, Bob and thank you, Tupac. You saved my life more times than you can imagine… Jah BLESS! Thank you all for the faith you have had in me when even I didn’t have any in myself.

It is this love that keeps going today. After living in Sydney for 6 months, I am trying to stay standing despite the repeated emotional and financial blows to the sternum (upper chest) and solar plexus (stomach). In Adelaide I left a job, a partner, good friends for what’s in the” box”. And so far, the “box” that is Sydney has been a mixed bag of little joy, new friends, new enemies, but mostly, more blows to the sternum. I am not complaining as much as I am being descriptive. Well, maybe complaining a little bit but I am amongst friends. According to my buddy Saif, I am “built for rugged terrain”. Sounds flattering, but it makes me feel somewhere between an Arabian camel and gas guzzling sports utility vehicle.

So, Happy 28^th birthday, you 6 foot, chocolate Adonis! May your next years be filled with crazier adventures, tons of laughter, hours of self-indulgence, and a date with Miss Venezuela of any year. And yes, go Tony Abbot, I have seen it all, except an apocalypse!

“Sometimes the beauty of an event is lost in all its detail”

Nelson Mandela

Rude Awakening

SPLASH! With that, my best friend Saif, and so-called “gentle giant”; came down on me like a bucket of ice-cold water on the face of a sleeping Chinese political prisoner. The gentle giant, was gentle no more. Good friends listen intently and suggest alternatives to your dilemmas; better friends deliver the pain, tell you things you NEED to hear rather than what you WANT to hear. And when you add his cold and calculating bluntness with his plethora of profane-yet profound choices of vocabulary, you were in for a mental and verbal beating of the highest caliber. After listening to him tear my Sudanese ass in one simple email, I now have two mental black eyes and a critically collapsed ego. Time for physical recovery, 2 weeks. Time for mental recovery, at least a month. Psychologists used to recommend that a person undergoing a mental breakdown should be slapped firmly on the face, my buddy Saif -I think- figured that if a slap can bring someone down to their senses, then a good ass-whooping will do no harm. Thank you, my friend.

Realizing that one is wrong is horrible feeling, realizing that you are wrong but choosing to remain stubborn is a worse feeling for me. When I first started studying, I wanted to be a physician, a life saver, -actually my mother wanted me to be physician and I went along until my third year of university when I realized that saving lives does not only have to happen in hospital-. However, I have songs that have saved my life, and don’t think that 2pac; Bob Marley and Sade had medical degrees. The point that I am getting to is that I was taught to be persistent and patient when lives were at the stake. Somewhere along the way, that ethos was transferred to my everyday life. I became persistent and stubborn about ALL my endeavors. Whether it was in my work or relationships, I never gave up on anything or anyone even when the situation clinically dead and I needed to move on. I was the guy giving a dead person CPR hours after the flat-line life monitor told the story more clearly than anyone. Someone needed to get me off the dead person and inside where I can wash up. I’m just thankful that like many, many other times in my life someone cared enough to whack me upside the head and tell me to move on.

Mojahed? (I hate the way he insists on spelling my name) Stop playing necro with dead person and let’s go for a smoke!

Sounds like a plan! Why didn’t you say this earlier?!

I was admiring your tenacity with the dead cause there. Beside I already had a smoke but I will be happy to share yours!

You’re all heart, Saif

And you got to first base with a cadaver!

I met Saif for the first time in 1997. We were in high school and he was a friend of someone who I thought was my best friend. Somehow, someday we caught up without that friend and realized that we had real tag-team partnership going. I was the level-headed, polite friend who his parents loved the supposed “influence” of. Saif was life sized, adventurous fun-loving Lucifer, but the good kind. Little that Saif’s parents know that you can lead Saif to water but you couldn’t really make him drink. Why? Because Saif never wanted to drink from the watering hole that everyone else frequented, he always wanted to drink from the watering hole that was forbidden to everyone else. And so, the adventures began with me in the passenger seat of a stolen 4x4, and Saif putting pedal to the metal and dishing out his own brand of street justice to unsuspecting peoples of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and everywhere in between. Our friendship also included a “spin-off” year where Saif did America and I tried to do Australia. Eventually, both shows were taken off the air due to the graphic violence, high intensity car scenes and the copious amounts of “herbal essence” but we always remained friends. He’s a busier man these days, a father of two and married, which is great but I think we both know and feel that, like anyone who lived a fast-paced life in the past, which you can’t help but get a twitch when someone mentions the crazy past. It’s the same feeling a retired fireman gets when he hears about a massive fire burning out of control, or even a retired rodeo person –Don’t know what they are called to be honest. Idiots trying to combine bestiality and voyeurism?- when he hears about a bull no one can “ride”. You just want in for that challenge and then to go back to your slow-paced life. In cheesy American movies someone often screams when the hero is nearby: “Is there anyone out there that can stop this madness?!” You bet your ass there is lady! But first, I need to find Mojahed and drag his ass along whether he likes it or not!

“But Saif, I exclaim, vandalism of private property is a felony, not a misdemeanor! No one will buy that you did it under martial law! I’m too pretty for jail!”

“Shut up, you try to confuse! –a common Saif random catch-phrase- Now wait in the car and play “My love is your love” by Whitney Houston and pump that shit real loud, it’s a good getaway track!!”

As a result of sitting in the passenger seats of a speeding Porche, BMW, Land Cruiser, Mitsubishi, and Mercedes over the past 13 years, I have to confess that I no longer have fear of sitting in any speeding vehicle. Not because I have blind faith in the driver –I do Saif, don’t get mad-, but I figure, there were at least TEN situations in the last 13 years where I had lost all hope making it and actually began wondering if Saif and I would be given beds in the same hospital ward –I’m a sucker for punishment I guess- and nothing happened. So that if something does happen, I was given so many get-out-jail cards in the past that when it does happen, its karma for the other ten times nothing happened! Some people bungee jump, some sky-dive, I sit in the passenger seat of my best friend’s car, buckle up and blast “My love is your love” by Whitney Houston...

The truth is what you make of it”.

Once a lion, always a lion

“With all due respect, sir. I would still relish the opportunity to be a partner in your firm. I have applied twice already and been rejected both times. I am here stating my claim a third time despite the fact that I know your patience is wearing very thin.” Both times that I was rejected, I was flung a sliver of hope. Maybe it wasn’t hope, maybe it was the liquor talking. Either way both times, the “no” was linked with a feint, feint “yes”. You can deny it all you want but like I said, the truth is what you make of it.

“Listen, son. This position is unavailable. How about we give you a non-operational role up here with us? You won’t be assigned any critical duties, but we can have lunch together on a more regular basis! Let me find out who sits in office 36, it’s got a good view, and from up here you will be able to see how the company works and maybe one day –when you’re ready and if we are ever ready- we can look at this partner application of yours again”

“It won’t be necessary, sir. I don’t think –after all this time- that I can accept anything less than a partner position and I think it will best we both go our separate ways”.

“Hold on. Why do you want this partner position so bad? There a million other useful things you can do around here without having to swap your current role? You can help the firm grow and who knows what might happen in the future?”

“Again with all due respect, sir I will try to answer your question. I did not approach your firm seeking a mid-level opportunity that may or may not lead somewhere. I said in my first interview that I would like to make partner as soon as possible and you indicated that that possibility may or may not occur sometime in the near future once the company got its affairs and restructuring in order. I took up the temporary position I offered purely on that premise. In fact, the chance to see the inner workings of the company has not soothed my ambitions but rather poured gasoline on them and threw in a stick of dynamite for good measure. I spoke up every chance I got, but you should know that as much as you wanted to domesticate a tiger, I cannot guarantee his actions at the faintest opportunity. In any other circumstances, I would have told the person offering me that temporary position, that he could have stuck it “where the sun don’t shine”…

My so-called brazen and spontaneous actions at the last meeting I do not regret. Deep down I knew that it was probably going to signal my very last board meeting. You have to realize that since I started working here, I have been caught between two fires, the fires of inaction and the fires of dramatic action. I am sorry if I had offended you or anyone.

I don’t think I am better than everyone else. I KNOW I am better than them. I AM the best. You yourself have referred to me as the “total package”, very early when we first met. And I know and you know that I can walk into any firm on this island and be asked to a partner under my own conditions, but I knew as soon as I got here that this was the firm for me. I knew you were facing aftermaths from bad partners in the past and I was willing to work with you on overcoming them. I would have worked for free because it was a personal ambition to see this company at its best once again. In hindsight I don’t think either of us picked each other. I am not a spiritual man (Aside from the occasional spliff), but I think that for a cosmic reason, your firm appeared when I first arrived and that’s how we are where we are now.”

“Son, you’ve overstepped your boundaries. I going to have to send you back to the mailroom so you can cool off” We will talk again once you’ve understood your place and worked your way up to just office 36, boy. Maybe then we can discuss if you have a future in this company”

“On any other day, I would have gladly obliged you, sir. But I think its best that we go our separate ways. Good luck with everything. I have no intention of going back to the mailroom ever in my life again”

“You’ll be back, boy…”

“I won’t and by the way, office 36… the one by the window? That’s my office, I have been there since I started here, and we have already had lunch every other day and I have met your family. Not that you would remember…”

“You’ll be back, boy!!”

Belated Intro

Firstly, thank you all for your support. Your amazing words of encouragement drive mine. Without them I think my rants would have just remained rants.

When I was in third grade I was being bullied by two other students. We started having “paper message fights” where you write something demeaning of the other person on a piece of paper and throw it at them. This went back and forth until –for some reason- I decided to get creative and wrote this message:

If I am poo, you are an old latrine in a third world country-worse than this one-

If I am a donkey, you are an ugly animal zoo that goes on tours daily, -can I get discounted tickets?-

And finally you called me retarded. How does it feel to be shot down and owned verbally by the retarded kid?-excuse the drool on the paper-

I never got a reply back from them. In fact, they took my note and handed it straight to the teacher, which is a clear breach of the Convention Pertaining to the Use of Paper Messages in Urban Conflict, which they both must have signed and ratified since they got to third grade. But then again, getting to third grade back then just meant not wetting your pants and being able use clay without ingesting too much of it.

The teacher took one look at the note and –I assume- thought to herself: “They don’t pay me enough to deal with this level of dissent. This is of epic proportions!”, and sent me straight to the principal’s office. I have to say here that, any other principal would have given me ten smacks with the cane on each hand and made me stand in the sun until I saw God. Mrs. K. however, was not any principal. Sudanese by birth, but a graduate of the University Of Boston, Massachusetts. In the eighties, she came back from her studies and was immediately labeled a heretic. Apparently she went on about “going beyond the curriculum as part of the education process” and “girls can be anything they want. Not just wives, teachers, and nurses”. Wow, with a mouth like that, she made Galileo seems like quite the conformist. Mrs. K. read my note carefully, tried very hard to hide the grin on her face, but failed miserably. She then looked up at me and said: “It’s a shame that you waste your gift on words like this.” And “With great power comes great responsibility”. Actually she didn’t say the latter. It’s a line from a Spiderman comic which I thought was very fitting here!

It was the first time anyone said anything positive about my writing. I felt like most teachers looked at my writing the same way sweatshop workers looked at cans of soybeans. They saw that there were more than four different words in an essay, ticked the paper and moved on to the next one. She made me promise her that I will improve my English and ignore my enemies –I wish she was George Bush’s vice president too-

After telling me this, Mrs. K. made me stand in the sun until I saw God. That was the last time I engaged in paper message battle in primary school. High school however, is a place where you often find yourself challenged to a verbal or physical duel every day, whether you wanted to or not. By that time I was a level 3 wordsmith. Quicker and deadlier, yet very shy. For some reason, I irked someone, another thing I had a natural gift for, apparently. This boy wrote what he considered an insulting poem about me using rhyme. In my opinion, I was sure that I had met goldfish that could write better rhymes –but that’s my opinion-. In my rebuttal, I wrote a poem in Arabic of one line which roughly translated to “I would kick your behind but your behind looks rather rotund and possibly pregnant, and I don’t want to cause a miscarriage”. At fifteen and a half, it was like a left hook from Mohammed Ali in the first round. “Don’t bother counting to ten; he ain’t getting up…” (Richard Pryor)

That poem became his theme song for the next three years. I felt like a song writer for Britney Spears, Shakira, Lady Gaga, Miley Cirus, Fergie, Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, MIMS, and Soldier Boy. I had put a few words on a piece of paper as a joke, and came out with a number one single. I’d like to thank God.

He proceeded to beat the life out of me until I saw God. It’s ok. I got beaten up in high school for many interesting reasons which often gave solace. One kid beat me up because during the summer break I hit puberty and became much taller than him! One person was mad that I exchanged meaningless conversation in assembly with his ex-girlfriend two girlfriends ago and never consulted him, sitting in the front of the bus –RIP Rosa Parks, the struggle continues! - And the list went on and on. All good, that was in the past, and a yellow belt in karate or steel-toed Timberland shoes does mean you can formulate a sentence in English. This little fact was also often a balsam for my hurt pride and bruised ribs, abdomen and lips.

Year 11, I got a “promotion” if you can call it that. I got promoted from “the guy no one likes but speaks English good” to “the guy who can write nonsense in English that seems to impress girls”. Within one school semester, I went from being a level 3 wordsmith prodigy to a common street level verbal pimp. A job is a job, right? There was literally a line in front of my desk at recess of athletes, break dancers, footballers and everyone in between. I had never heard of Cyrano De Bergerac but, he only had one person to write for, I had a flipping classroom! I have to say that even though I didn’t like my new “promotion”, but it was a healthy change from “I am punching you because you are taller than I am”. Hey, with working conditions like that, who could complain? I could be sewing soccer balls in Karachi for less than a dollar a day.

Yet again however, my apparent gift, which I had no choice in –I would have preferred athlete, break dancer or footballer- came back to bite me. We had to write a fictional essay for year 11 English class. I wrote an essay about an assassin, who is hired to kill a celebrity starlet using a laser-guided sniper rifle from the roof of an opposing building during the Grammy’s –ha ha!, I know, people who assassinate Grammy artists should be given medals! - He was foiled by someone spotting the reflection of his rifle lens and arresting him after a dramatic chase scene.

For some reason, the English teacher could not believe that a 16 year old hormonal adolescent can have such a vivid imagination –there was not satellite TV back then- She wanted to know where I had copied the story from. I honestly didn’t know whether that was silent compliment or that there were words in the essay she couldn’t understand –vernacular, vantage point, .38 millimeter high caliber, hollow point slug (before the days of school shootings. This kind of discourse was normal…-. Anyways, I was suspended for a day and had to hand in 2 essays instead of one for the rest of the semester. I wasn’t mad; I was kind of amused to be honest. I had heard of the “accidental hero”, but this was getting silly. Ten years later, I really don’t know if any of the above experiences were “educational” but can’t say that there were no benefits in them somewhere amongst the punches, kicks to the shin and sun strokes.

It is a very strange introduction that I have chosen for this blog. I guess I needed you to know who I am, in an indirect way. I am a product of people who found me occasionally gifted, but most of the time, people who found their armor of ignorance highly vulnerable to my logic, and a witty poem here and there about their pregnant behinds and beat the crap out of me. My best friend Saif, a six foot, 210 pound gentle giant would have been a great help had I met him when I had so many enemies –one Saif equals one really fast getaway car or 6 guys getting a pounding-. Things happen for a reason however, and because of that I learnt that blows to solar plexus should be avoided.

I will keep writing.

Jah Bless always.

Mrs. K., wherever you are, thank you. I think standing in the sun for that long at nine years of age must have triggered some dormant gene which lead to all this. Two lifetimes will not be enough to say thank you. I sort of see “it” now.