601660 mah mahmoud ahmed
19 aUG 2008 TUESDAY
My trip to New York starts w/ my missing th 3:00 p.m. bus by five minutes, which almost never happens. Normally, real time slows down just enough to synch up w/ Filipino time, and I make it w/ half a minute to spare. My travelling partner Simon Saiz txts me from th bus. First: "I'll try to get the driver to wait up." Den: "Hurry." And finally: "You'll have to hop the 5:00."
I txt him back: "If ah hadna missed th bus ah woulda never seen this bespectacled black guy in a tracksuit riding a Segway." He is segwaying in th neighbourhood where Abraham Lincoln died; this is an omen that a black man will soon be president. Although I do not know how good a president Obama will be, I am happy to have provided him a small psychic push by missing my bus and witnessing this confluence of technological, historical, and black power.
I walk by Ford's Theatre and Madame Tussauds. Lincoln and I, I notice, have th same facial hair; mine is an earlier stage of his. 6,940 miles or 11,170 kilometers away in Beijing, a 22-year-old Jamaican named Usain Bolt--new Olympic champion and world-record holder in th 100-meter dash--is one day away from breaking th world record in th 200-meter dash by .02 seconds. "I was looking at myself and saying, 'That guy's fast,'" Bolt will say upon watching a replay of his race. "I was saying, 'I look cool.'" My bus line is called BoltBus. Coincidence? This trip to NY will be so fast and so cool.
I fall asleep across two seats dreaming of being decapitated in th Canadian fashion. Th purpose of my visit is to meet up w/ Internet people to attend a concert by Ethiopian legends Getachew Mekurya, Alèmayèhu Eshèté, and Mahmoud Ahmed, and Dutch legends th Ex. Eshèté is often referred to (on th Internet) as th Ethiopian James Brown. Mekurya's nickname is th Negus of Ethiopian Saxophone--pronounced "niggas".
"Well, if Alèmayèhu Eshèté is James Brown, what's Mahmoud Ahmed, then?" asks Rome, who knows full well that Mahmoud Ahmed is th Mahmoud Ahmed of Mahmoud Ahmed.
"I dunno," I say. "Sam Cooke, I guess? Yes. Sam Cooke."
I have just seen th Ex play w/ Getachew Mekurya in Washington, D.C. a week ago. It is pretty funny to see th Ex try to wrap their brittle, nervous punk bashing around some supple Ethiopian grooves and actually succeed. On stage, th Ex + Getachew look exactly like me and my friends, normal to th core:
20 aug 2008 WEDNESDAY
@ Rome's bare pseudo-apartment, Simon and Sascha and Rome and I start drinking @ 3:30 p.m. Rome and I are drinking; Simon and Sascha are not drinking; but I am hopeful that by evening's end non-drinkers will be contact tipsy. What ah'm after is th spirit of th thing, not a commitment to self-medication or communal bad behaviour. Rome refills an ice cube tray. We drink bourbon on th rocks mixed w/ limes. College was wasted on me; I still get confused over what bourbon is, what whiskey is, what whisky is, what Scotch is. When Rome retrieves th ice tray from th freezer, something strange has happened. A single spire of ice has risen high above th surrounding cubes, a stalagmite. This is happening for th first time to all of us.
Several hours and drinks later, we[1] are rushing th stage to become as enveloped as possible in Mahmoud Ahmed's radiation. Sometimes he looks like this:
--but mostly, because of my head's motion, he looks like this:
We're front and center, right next to th hotts, for whom th only man in th world is Mahmoud Blessed Ahmed. They are screaming his name, compressing their temples w/ th heels of their palms, trying to span th 20-foot distance between th stage and th security fence w/ their fingers, mentally throwing all of their clothing onto a pile on Mahmoud Ahmed's bedroom floor. Mahmoud Ahmed, 67, can never stop smiling or levitating. When he dances I see two angels on either side turning two ropes double dutch. It's getting humid around here in a female way. Rome goes for a piggy-back ride on me.
Ben suggests a nearby moderately-priced Japanese restaurant for dinner. Our waitress is named Yoshi, and Rome hums th theme from Mario Kart, and she recognizes it and laughs.
"Yoshi," he tells her, "this is Mario." I smile @ her in a way that conveys deep respect for her driving skills. Erikka passes me th raw octopus. Kat passes me th monkey brains, Natalie th chicken heart, still beating. "You don't have to chug sake," Simon Saiz says. It turns out that moderately priced means 40 bucks/person, but it's really worth it for how thoroughly we colonized their menu.
Almost everybody has to work early tomorrow, but not me. @ th shōchū place I'm th designated finisher of other people's drinks. Faced w/ th option of crashing out early @ Kat's or staying out all night, I choose th one that involves an umbrella:
It turns out that I'm not drunk @ all, just in a good mood and surrounded by people who share their food and are not on a computer. One week into th future I'm reading what some blogue has to say about Booker T. & th MGs, about drinking, about talking, about most things: you don't have to play two notes when one will do.
________
1. "We" in this account refers to various combinations of: furbetcha, sadotter, romolio, wordasobject, roofwalking, betchka, and maria_sputnik, but not to th delinquent uberdionysus.
My trip to New York starts w/ my missing th 3:00 p.m. bus by five minutes, which almost never happens. Normally, real time slows down just enough to synch up w/ Filipino time, and I make it w/ half a minute to spare. My travelling partner Simon Saiz txts me from th bus. First: "I'll try to get the driver to wait up." Den: "Hurry." And finally: "You'll have to hop the 5:00."
I txt him back: "If ah hadna missed th bus ah woulda never seen this bespectacled black guy in a tracksuit riding a Segway." He is segwaying in th neighbourhood where Abraham Lincoln died; this is an omen that a black man will soon be president. Although I do not know how good a president Obama will be, I am happy to have provided him a small psychic push by missing my bus and witnessing this confluence of technological, historical, and black power.
I walk by Ford's Theatre and Madame Tussauds. Lincoln and I, I notice, have th same facial hair; mine is an earlier stage of his. 6,940 miles or 11,170 kilometers away in Beijing, a 22-year-old Jamaican named Usain Bolt--new Olympic champion and world-record holder in th 100-meter dash--is one day away from breaking th world record in th 200-meter dash by .02 seconds. "I was looking at myself and saying, 'That guy's fast,'" Bolt will say upon watching a replay of his race. "I was saying, 'I look cool.'" My bus line is called BoltBus. Coincidence? This trip to NY will be so fast and so cool.
I fall asleep across two seats dreaming of being decapitated in th Canadian fashion. Th purpose of my visit is to meet up w/ Internet people to attend a concert by Ethiopian legends Getachew Mekurya, Alèmayèhu Eshèté, and Mahmoud Ahmed, and Dutch legends th Ex. Eshèté is often referred to (on th Internet) as th Ethiopian James Brown. Mekurya's nickname is th Negus of Ethiopian Saxophone--pronounced "niggas".
"Well, if Alèmayèhu Eshèté is James Brown, what's Mahmoud Ahmed, then?" asks Rome, who knows full well that Mahmoud Ahmed is th Mahmoud Ahmed of Mahmoud Ahmed.
"I dunno," I say. "Sam Cooke, I guess? Yes. Sam Cooke."
I have just seen th Ex play w/ Getachew Mekurya in Washington, D.C. a week ago. It is pretty funny to see th Ex try to wrap their brittle, nervous punk bashing around some supple Ethiopian grooves and actually succeed. On stage, th Ex + Getachew look exactly like me and my friends, normal to th core:
20 aug 2008 WEDNESDAY
@ Rome's bare pseudo-apartment, Simon and Sascha and Rome and I start drinking @ 3:30 p.m. Rome and I are drinking; Simon and Sascha are not drinking; but I am hopeful that by evening's end non-drinkers will be contact tipsy. What ah'm after is th spirit of th thing, not a commitment to self-medication or communal bad behaviour. Rome refills an ice cube tray. We drink bourbon on th rocks mixed w/ limes. College was wasted on me; I still get confused over what bourbon is, what whiskey is, what whisky is, what Scotch is. When Rome retrieves th ice tray from th freezer, something strange has happened. A single spire of ice has risen high above th surrounding cubes, a stalagmite. This is happening for th first time to all of us.
Several hours and drinks later, we[1] are rushing th stage to become as enveloped as possible in Mahmoud Ahmed's radiation. Sometimes he looks like this:
--but mostly, because of my head's motion, he looks like this:
We're front and center, right next to th hotts, for whom th only man in th world is Mahmoud Blessed Ahmed. They are screaming his name, compressing their temples w/ th heels of their palms, trying to span th 20-foot distance between th stage and th security fence w/ their fingers, mentally throwing all of their clothing onto a pile on Mahmoud Ahmed's bedroom floor. Mahmoud Ahmed, 67, can never stop smiling or levitating. When he dances I see two angels on either side turning two ropes double dutch. It's getting humid around here in a female way. Rome goes for a piggy-back ride on me.
Ben suggests a nearby moderately-priced Japanese restaurant for dinner. Our waitress is named Yoshi, and Rome hums th theme from Mario Kart, and she recognizes it and laughs.
"Yoshi," he tells her, "this is Mario." I smile @ her in a way that conveys deep respect for her driving skills. Erikka passes me th raw octopus. Kat passes me th monkey brains, Natalie th chicken heart, still beating. "You don't have to chug sake," Simon Saiz says. It turns out that moderately priced means 40 bucks/person, but it's really worth it for how thoroughly we colonized their menu.
Almost everybody has to work early tomorrow, but not me. @ th shōchū place I'm th designated finisher of other people's drinks. Faced w/ th option of crashing out early @ Kat's or staying out all night, I choose th one that involves an umbrella:
It turns out that I'm not drunk @ all, just in a good mood and surrounded by people who share their food and are not on a computer. One week into th future I'm reading what some blogue has to say about Booker T. & th MGs, about drinking, about talking, about most things: you don't have to play two notes when one will do.
________
1. "We" in this account refers to various combinations of: furbetcha, sadotter, romolio, wordasobject, roofwalking, betchka, and maria_sputnik, but not to th delinquent uberdionysus.