Customer: Could I see that book up there? “Hit Man?”

German used bookstore owner: It’s not a joke.

He hands book to customer.

Customer: Yeah, I know.

German used bookstore owner: It’s the real thing.

Customer: Yes, I’ve –

German used bookstore owner: Real information. You could use it.

Customer (looking at sticker back of book): You sell this for $230?

German used bookstore owner: Yeah. Undercut the competition.

“…someone gets out of jail after three days, you offer them a shower. That’s just common sense.”

Here she is workin’ it for the camera

Soaking up the sun, Sheryl Crow-style

Life’s a Beach

Ingrid’s grandfather may have narrowly missed playing Tarzan, but he did get his own comic book.

Here’s a 2000 article about him meeting Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

And here he is more recently:

He and Joyce still run Kiefer (where you can get everything you need for swimming “but the water”).

Time to come clean. As the article reveals, Mike didn't really experience the full-on alien abduction he seems to recount in "Hood." The truth is, I asked him to relate his extraterrestial experiences and he sent me an hour-long audio recording recounting in great detail ten-plus years of psychic and subconscious encounters with a vague foreign entity. I then selectively edited down and manipulated his statement to create a more "cinematic," Close-Encounters-of-the-Third-Kind narrative.

I met Mike when he moved to Prague, the Czech Republic in 1995, while I was living there. We had a mutual friend. This friend and I went to Prague's Ruzyne airport to greet Mike upon his arrival. The first thing I remember is he had a small duffel bag that was incredibly heavy. I picked it up and it felt like I was carrying an anvil. Turned out Mike had brought his entire, extensive collection of crystals from back home in La Mesa, CA.

Mike ended up renting out an apartment from a Czech UFO enthusiast with contacts to "Astro" magazine. They got to talking, and Mike ended up getting profiled. 

Mike and me in Prague, summer 2001 

Click here to read the full "Astro" article on Mike.  

He prefers ground transport to air, so on the way over he took the train. When it came time to head back home, the train was sold out for a few days. So he decided to take "the dirty dawg."

Right before he embarked on his three-day journey from Port Authority, he bought a disposable video camera. 20 minutes of memory, no rewinding, no "editing." Click below to see the movie he made, a depiction of the tedium and joy of going cross-country by Greyhound.

YOU Take the Bus

Here's a little "director's commentary," in case you were curious about Lashayshay (taken from our IM conversation):

the "garage" as roland calls the st louis station is about five blocks away from downtown i had a two hour layover so i boldly took that walk to buy some Stag beers shared a few with a street dude who was doing some kind of hustlin' (he showed me where to get the togo's hence saving me the money of going into a bar and thus earning himself some juice …then i took the shot of the christian church and headed back to the "garage" I got a few more beers on the way , ran into the street dude who wanted another , so I said I needed all I had for the long journey…but I was feeling pretty good, soI said," I can offer you a good luck buck!' which he was thankful for. then i set out across the four or five block wasteland setting the garage apart from the city . I turned around to get the skyline shot which had me standing right smack in the middle of wasteland and lashea shea came up. i thought she was walking away so i yelled"bye!' and then she came back saying that for 20 bucks she would "do something for me" I said "DO something?" then explained that i was making a movie which is "basically a joke", . I said ,"the whole thing is basically a big joke about my trip across the country" she said,"Oh I gotta joke for you, gimme a beer"

We also decided to let our friend Mark do all the driving. Driving in Syria makes you long for the nice orderly traffic of Rome or Athens. On the plus side, being able to make a U-turn in the middle of the highway is pretty convenient.

Dave Dudley can say what he wants, but those Syrian gearjammers know a thing or two about hauling heavy loads too.

Is it just me, or does it seem like the Christian quarter gets their decorations up earlier every year?

Here we have the courtyard of the Grand Mosque of Damascus, also known as the Umayyad Mosque. It's one of the oldest and largest mosques in the world:

As for the guys… uh, just take off your shoes and you should be cool.

This is how you keep your prayer times straight.

You can hear the call to prayer here.

These posters are everywhere. That's Syrian president Bashar al-Asad on the left. He's slowly introduced some reforms (he let the country get on the Internet when he took over in 2000), but he's still a dictator who more or less inherited the country (and an abysmal human rights record) from his father. Next to him is Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. The poster reads "God, protect Syria and Lebanon." 

Syria's connection to Hezbollah is one of the reasons it is on the U.S. State Department's shit list of terrorism supporters. Syria is hostile to al-Qaeda, however, for those of you interested in such distinctions. Here's a handy round-up of where Syria stands terror-wise from the Council on Foreign Relations. And here's what the U.S. Department of State has to say.

The U.S. currently maintains only "low-level" diplomatic relations with Syria. President Bush (portrayed above by Timothy "That's My Bush!" Bottoms in Showtime's laughable 9-11 docu-drama/'04 campaign propaganda, DC 9/11: Time of Crisis, which we caught on a Dubai satellite channel) has said this won't change until Syria stops harboring terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. 

But the Iraq Study Group (chaired by Bush's dad's old Secretary of State, James A. Baker, III), suggests that we be more pragmatic, and seek Syria's (and Iran's) cooperation in cleaning up the mess in Iraq. It is right next door, after all.

It's not as if the U.S. hasn't enlisted Syria's help in the "War on Terror" before. In fact, Syria has helped us "interrogate" at least one "terror suspect." "Extraordinary rendition", anyone?

Another entertaining American show we caught on TV in Syria. Must have been "sweeps week" or something. 

Sorry for the inexpert and incomplete primer on U.S./Syria relations. Just a little something I needed to do before moving on to some more… aesthetically-pleasing history. You know, the kind that's been safely "wrapped up" for hundreds of years.

Cannaanites, Hebrews, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, European Crusaders and more have all occupied Syria over the years. This has made for some spectacular–and extremely well-preserved–ruins.

Here we are at Palmyra, home of the Warrior Queen of the Palmyrene Empire, Zenobia. You could easily spend days wandering through these ruins.

This is Apamea. I know, yawwwwn, another incredible ruin in the middle of nowhere. Those columns go on for something like a mile. 

And this is one of Syria's ancient "Dead Cities," Serjilla. Like Palmyra and Apamea, it was all but deserted when we were there. We should've packed a picnic. 

———————————-
 
Syria makes it hard for some people to be themselves, but there's no law against being a fun and stylish host. This guy owns the Al Kalaa restaurant near the old Crusader castle, Crac des Chevaliers. He was hilarious and served up a roast chicken that was one of the best meals of the trip. I wish I took a hundred pictures of him. 

I also wish I had a picture of our tour guide at the Mar Sarkis monastery in Maaloula. She recited the Lord's Prayer for us in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. This is the only place where people still speak Aramaic, outside of Mel Gibson movies.  

One cool thing about road tripping in Syria, if we ever got tired or down, all we had to do was drink a nice tall glass of…

The solution for peace in the Middle East?

What–they were out of Stepfather Cheese Curls?

One thing you have to watch out for is the evil eye. That's when you've got something so nice (like a sweet, late-model Iranian-made taxi) that people stare at it longingly. The force of their envy can cause it to break down or otherwise go bad. That's why you'll want to stick some eyes on there. It can also apply to kids. Instead of gushing over how beautiful someone's perfect new baby is, it's better to take subtle approach, and say "Masha' Allah" (God has willed it). 

(The sticker on the back window of the taxi is the President's face. They're about as ubiquitous as "Live Strong" bracelets are over here.)

To me, the craziest, most "intense" part of the trip was the souks, especially the one in Aleppo. I've never seen so many people crammed together to shop (except maybe at the Barney's Warehouse sale — just kidding). It's easy to get stuck. Everyone–from little kids to old ladies–just barrels their way through like pushy jerks. Once you give up your precious idea of "personal space" and join them, it's a lot easier to navigate — and start focusing on the fabulous bargains:

Spices

Stylish ladies' headwear

fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice

fresh-brewed perfumes

and sheep parts

I've seen so many mobs of angry Arabs on the tv news, I have to admit being adrift in a sea of turbans, robes and red-and-white scarves made me a little nervous at first. How many of these people want to chop my head off?

I soon realized that the only thing most of these people wanted to chop were their already low, low prices - all the better to get me to spend my money on ridiculous souvenirs:

To paraphrase Sting, The Syrians love their tourists too.

 
These scarves seem a little less "terrorist-y" once you see shoppers rummaging through piles of them like they're 3-packs of Hanes crewnecks.

Some memorable sales pitches from the Aleppo souk:

"I will make you exploding offer."

"I give you temptation price."

"You are from New York? You know Steve Austin? Six millions dollar man?"

"My nephew, he looks like Bette Midler when she was little girl." (actual quote)

The above Divine Miss M lookalike worked in his uncle's scarf shop. We all hung out there for a while, drinking tea, while Ingrid chose some stuff. The uncle told us he was related to Moustapha Akkad, Aleppo-born director of 1976 story-of-Islam epic "The Message." I had never heard of it. That night in the hotel, it was on TV.

Turns out it's a bit of a holiday tradition (we were there during Eid ul-Adha) to watch this movie — sort of a Muslim "It's A Wonderful Life." 

Rent the DVD to find out how they made a movie about the birth of Islam without being able to depict Mohammed onscreen. 

Moustapha Akkad is also famous for producing horror classic "Halloween" and its many sequels. He and his daughter were killed in 2005 when a wedding they were attending in Jordan was bombed by terrorists.

—————— 

Something else about Eid ul-Adha. It's called the Festival of Sacrifice and commemorates Ibrahim's (Abraham, to you Old Testament readers) willingness to sacrifice his son to God. Which explained why we kept seeing herds of sheep in the city. Everyone was taking delivery on the sacrifical sheep they ordered (people reserve them ahead of time, like Thanksgiving turkeys). You have to kill your sheep, then divide up the meat and give some to your neighbors and/or the less fortunate. 

***SPECIAL BONUS SECTION***

They dress their kids alike!

They think our alphabet looks weird and hard to write!

They keep up with current events!

 !عن الحاجة تنظيف القطط

They watch "The View"!

They want to know what your problem is!

They anthropomorphize their meat!

They're midnight tokers!

They let their babies wear makeup! 

A lot more photos here.

Mark Dinning, "Teen Angel"

Ray Stevenson, "Tell Laura I Love Her"