JACK REBNEY REPORT

• current

some of you know about found footage festival. 2 classy guys collected a bunch of home videos and old exercise tapes and now present them to live crowds, with commentary. they tape the shows and then sell them as dvds to fans (meeee).

*the* classic clip is of jack rebney, the extremely disgruntled rv salesman. today i can relate to him, i quote "my mind is just a piece of shit this morning."

• news - dubai

we just got back from japan yesterday and then went straight to the yacht to celebrate majid's birthday. we took the yacht to a club that was throwing a beach party ... it was straight from the movies but maybe more extravagant. at the same time, it wasn't particularly enjoyable. neither haider nor i drinks ... everyone there was rich or trying to go home with someone that was rich ... it was amusing to view for awhile, but no fun to be around for long. of course then the party moved onto the yacht and there was drinkingsleepingpassingoutgirlsandboys DRAMMA and we slept for a few hours and then took out the other boat to go fishing at 7AM. we caught some huge fish (hammour) immediately, it wasn't sooo much fun because the poles are electric reels and there are like 5 crew on deck to help us bring in the fish once the motorized reel is done pulling it in.

yes, we did eat our catch for lunch.

butttt on the plus side we did get to spend some more time around some of majid's friends. actually cool people. some of them study in the states (virginia and DC) and one was actually born there (vegas) and then moved to saudi and then UAE. the guy studying in the states was talking about a jewish history class he took - which was cool because of the way the UAE feels about jews/israel. it was the first time anyone on this trip has brought up the notion that something interesting has ever happened in a classroom.

• morale

i could launch into a monologue about my general discontent with the culture here in the UAE but i'll spare myself the typing. to stay concise, i don't find this lifestyle rewarding enough to merit the cost (time, mental and physical and social effort, commitment, etc).

• news- japan

i have gone on without even wrapping up japan
a) i suppose i need to interject and point out that KITKAT chingching was the unofficial sponsor of our japan tour.
b) we saw people walking around inside the imperial palace which is crazy because people are only allowed in twice a year (and this wasn't one of the days) so we saw divine people.


c) i nearly died at the tokyo tower because i was certain that i was going to fall thru the glass displaying how high in the air you are.

d)on our last night in toyko we went to a small sushi joint run by a husband and wife. it was me, the arab brothers (majid and hamad), the pakistani (haider), and our tour guide. the only other guy was an 80 year old retired biznizman. after downing too many rounds of octopus, eel, tuna, and fish eggs we were invited to 'an interesting place' by the geezer.

he said we would go to a place with beer and 'nice chinese girls'- but we wouldn't have to drink. i tried to steer our group clear by pointing out that none of us had enough cash on us to enjoy the facilities, whether we would be drinking or not, but the group as a whole was too determined to see the chinese girls to be dissuaded. the octopus in my stomach rolled as i thought back to my last strip club experience. while in montreal, my roommate of freshman year had insisted we go to the cheapest strip club in the city and for the rest of that night i was stuck trying to avoid the flat beer that was being spilled on me and instead focus my attention on the 45 yr old women on stage ...

so when we walked into this german place called 'Beer' the lighting was too good, the floor to clean, and the clientèle too sober to be, well it was simply a normal restaurant. we sat down and the 80 year old's fav. waitress came over to take our order, a 20 year old chinese girl dressed in full german attire. he laughed with her and pointed at us and i sighed in relief when i was certain she was going to keep her clothes on. the language barrier was pretty serious ... but he drank sake and ordered us a round of raw horse to eat as we talked about ... chopsticks, dubai, and chopsticks again.

e)after tokyo we spent a night in hakone and then left from osaka. hakone is an area in the mountains that used to be a checkpoint for those traveling to edo. it's a hot spring area, so it smelled just like yellowstone park. we climbed one of the mountains, at the top they hardboil eggs in the thermal water until the shells earn black and then serve them to be eaten. for each egg you eat, you live 7 years longer, so despite the sulphuric smell i managed to down one for longevity's sake.





we spent the night at a traditional japanese inn and spent all of our short time there either at dinner or in the hot springs. we dressed in trad. clothes too so check it out
majid isn't pictured here because he slept literally the whole time we were in hakone.
toooo many other pictures to share, hakone was the best.

the hot springs/sauna/cold tubs were super relaxing and akira san our tour guide snuck in to take nudie photos of us while we bathed. i don't have any digital copies of the photos, but he did provide us with a photobook including hard copies, so maybe a few of you lucky readers ..

• end
  

• back to the daily grind of dubai tomorrow. and then by the end of the week we have to give our japan presentation to mr. omar and all of the directors. really i think we have to do some serious work before thrs and i am struggling to find a theme around which we can frame our 'learnings' as brett would call them.

haider has a friend, osmoon, from pakistan in town. we had dinner with him tonight and he is cool.

i am trying to go to abu dhabi this week to meet up with a friend (amine) of a friend (mark) for dinner.

i just bought the oldiegoodie 'shogun' by james clavell. i think i read it in middle school but those 2 weeks in japan made me really want to read the one thousand page version of the last samurai...

paris. 2 weeks. doyleson family reunion. be there or be []