GiB#2 | Be a PLAYBOY and Get Some PUSSY

B-rated local Red Bull energy drinks… just what the Lebanese dude needs to get through a hectic summer.

GiB#2 | All Day Sobhiyye with Matinée

It happened. Last Sunday gorgeous Riviera Beach opened up its doors for the long awaited pool party by Matinée. A perfect day in the sun for hundreds of ‘beautiful people’ to wander around the pools showing off those abs (and implants) and dancing all day long to housy tunes by international and local DJs. My hat goes down for the local DJs especially the closing set by Madjam, to the Matinée beach balloons floating in the pool and used as GiB carrier pigeons, and the Matinée logos made of foam passing above our heads. My hat stays on however for the stage ‘performances’, sorry but a well crafted costume alone doesn’t make up for a good show.

The venue was a bit too spread out, and in my mind GiBs and friends don’t need that much 'sectionization' (what’s with the VVVVVVIP thing?!), although it didn’t prevent the party from getting wild at times. With twice as many guys per square meter in the pool and half as many girls at the party, this could have seemed like a Matinée party in Europe... but it doesn’t make it any less amazing for Lebanon! It was great fun indeed.

Kudos to the Ghazal brothers for putting all this together, it was a definite success guys. Hope this is a first of many more to come!

GiB#2 | "Gaylebanon on MIRC sent you a message on Facebook”!

It was hard to believe when I read this email subject line last week – way for a single line to take me a decade back in time…

As much as I miss my teens, I can’t say I miss the early days of online GiB dating.

As some of you may remember, to meet fellow GiBs online in the 90’s, we had to log in through the crappy mIRC application to the shady #GayLebanon channel on creepy 192.168.0.1-type Undernet servers – or was it Dalnet?

The nicknames were freaky, people remained religiously anonymous, and dishonesty prevailed. Could have been my young age, or how gay Lebanon was back then, add to it the whole ‘hacker’ culture of the time: in either case it sure felt like we were doing something illegal, something wrong at best.

GiBs had to go a long way to take a breath through this narrow window – it was the times of the shady Internet cafés and the stuttering dial-up Internet connections – but mIRC’s #GayLebanon was all there was. It’s where it started.

As such, #GayLebanon’s dictators clique of “admins” and “operators” can tout themselves today of being the pioneers of online gay cruising in Lebanon!

But is it really much different nowadays? Granted, GiBs can now pick and choose between Manjam, Gaydar, GayRomeo, Helem’s chat, the newcomer gaylebanon.info, Facebook or even the BBM service on Blackberry… then cherry-pick from thousands of GiB faces and asses on display…

As far as I'm concerned it still feels like the same hit-or-miss shooting in the dark, the same fear of fakes, the same hate of flakes, in that everlasting gloomy atmosphere… So come to think of it, it wasn’t that bad in the 90’s!

(Visual concocted by GiB#1)

GiB#2 | Oh Jimmy Come On

Lebanon’s “first male stripper” got himself some quality airtime last winter.

In this funny article from the Jerusalem Post (!), this hot Lebanese hunk who goes by the name of Jimmy, self-proclaimed himself the first professional male stripper in Lebanon. Perhaps rightly so, as Jimmy seems to emphasize what he means by ‘professional’: a fully-booked schedule, an outfit for every occasion, a pair of handcuffs, and a kick-ass rate that dwarfs his day job’s as a personal trainer.
As far as us GiBs, here’s what PT Jimmy had to say: "Lots of gay men ask me to strip for them but I only strip for women." "I don't dance alone and I only dance with girls.” "I don't want to be people’s bitch." "I do this for fun and extra money, so I have my rules and I want to be seen as respectable."

So Jimmy doesn’t do boys? Not that it matters so much – you can probably score a male-for-male stripper on Manjam in no time. But I doubt that Jimmy is telling the truth, because it’s his number that my GiB friend was given out once when he was shopping around for a male stripper for his (male) friend’s bachelor party.

Jimmy says he charges $500 for 20 to 30 minutes and that he plans to raise the rate to $750 this summer.

Any GiBs out there willing to outbid Jimmy with that killer-offer-he-can’t-refuse? Oh come on now Jimmy. I know you can do it.

[For Jimmy’s contact, contact the GiBs!]

(Photo from linked article)

GiB#2 | Two Summers This Year

It should come as no surprise that the summer cadence of the DJ events started as early as May this year.

If two big-name DJs, Carl Cox and Tiesto, are playing in Beirut on the same night (tomorrow, Saturday July 3rd), it’s not just because the producing companies Crystal and Mix FM are in one hell of a dog fight. Everyone knows the times of the massive events that draw 15,000 people are gone, but although they’ve been much smaller lately, their cadence has gone way up.

The reality is, this year the producers have been trying to get as much done as possible before the month of Ramadan kicks in. Ramadan this year is from August 11 to September 9, and from what I can recall from previous years, nightlife tends to slow down a lot during that month. This will leave time, however, for another mini-summer in September to catch up on August… if we’re not completely broke and exhausted by then, that is.

(Photo taken on the Corniche)

GiB#2 | W.C.ruised

I was hanging out at the Beirut Souks a couple weeks ago, keeping an eye out for a cool swimsuit – the one thing I still need to get for the summer. I find one but it’s for $200 at Aizone, and the 30$ one at H&M is just not it. Boring. I need to pee.

After looking for the restrooms for about 10 minutes, I finally figure out that the access is through the stairs from inside the restaurant. It’s quiet and secluded up there, and sounds empty except for one guy washing his hands. I walk in towards the urinals, all three of which are empty. They have no partition between each other, an unusual thing in prude Lebanon.

I admit to choosing the middle one – perhaps randomly, perhaps because I’m a man of the middle, indecisive as a Libra; perhaps it’s the adventurous GiB lost in lust who picked it, the anywhere-anytime type of guy. The fact of the matter is, I chose the middle one.

A few seconds later, I hear the guy’s now using the hand dryer. But instead of leaving then, he walks back to the urinal next to me and unzips as if to pee. I’m thinking, who the hell does the hand-washing before the peeing? Ten seconds later he’s still standing there, but there’s no sound of any fluids. I feel he’s peeking at me. When I turn to look at him, he’s indeed staring, and oh, he’s also jerking off.

This is gross and embarrassing, and the guy’s not my type. And even if he was, I’m not up for it today: my date of the moment is meeting me at the Souks in about an hour, and I already have enough weight on my conscience for dating this guy, a friend of my ex. So please spare me also having to cope with the idea that I had a quickie in the restroom while waiting for him.

Sorry dude, no-go it is. So much for ever doing it in a public restroom, maybe some other time – I’m out of here!

Although not-so-hot, this furtive GiB episode kept me wondering. I can’t imagine how a straight guy would have reacted in my place, getting cruised by a random guy at the urinal – I mean this is Lebanon, and this thing could easily turn into a gay bashing scene. I’m not straight, so it was not a big deal.

For having lived abroad, I know that public restrooms often serve as gay cruising spots in other countries. I also know that GiBs are getting way out of control these days... But GiBs cruising in public restrooms of Beirut's malls?! That sure is news to me…

GiB#2 | What is This Mykonos?!

I didn’t get to go, but I hear SuperMartxé did turn out to be one hell of a huge fun GiB party, at least according to some friends who stayed there till 6.

Now it’s the turn of Matinée, the organizers of the famous Circuit Festival in Barcelona (the gay festival par excellence), to make a stop in Beirut for their World Tour. For one whole day on July 18, GiBs will turn the swimming pool of the Riviera hotel on the Corniche from Silicon-Botox Beach to… well GiB Beach.

… and these parties are all firsts. It’s kinda crazy this year!

Do gay men eat fastfood?

Using the LGBT cause to win customers is quite debatable. The following TVC was launched by McDonald's France the past months.

Remember, beyond the positive discrimination, this campaign concept is nothing but a copy of a Lebanese campaign: COME AS YOU ARE was launched by Crepaway, a major casual restaurant chain in Beirut, back in 2005. They had all sorts of funny situations portrayed in posters, billboards, web campaigns; but never included the GiB element. McDonald's started their campaign in 2008. Are international brands following the footsteps of our local companies. Will GiBs break the stereotype of cozy home-cooking and go for a fast burger served by a clown? So many unanswered mysteries..

GiB#2 | When Nature Wins Over

Beirut is no Green city.

Only a handful of public green areas still exist today within the city, like Sanayeh or Sioufi. Large privately owned lands like the American University of Beirut’s campus or the French ambassadors’ Residence des Pins (el Horch), are among the very few lots that have survived rampant urbanization. The recent efforts to plant trees on street borders remain marginal (often at the expense of the sidewalk, only adding to the already dreadful pedestrian experience). Our waste treatment company Sukleen has the monopole (of poor recycling). Our numerous NGOs are too often helpless… And the government’s efforts to fight air and water pollution are nearly non-existent: we have free ventilation coming from the sea, don’t we?

…So to remind us of this windy blessing, on hot windless days, the Qarantina waste treatment facility (or is it the livestock containers from the Port, or maybe the nearby slaughterhouse?) emanates nauseous smells into the entire Northern part of the city… and no need to mention noise pollution as the cherry on the cake, as it’s far too alien of a concept around here.

Yet, I like to think that things might be taking a Green turn. Certainly not through marketing gimmicks of political parties like the Marada’s latest campaign pretending to be “Green”, but perhaps through combined public/private Green efforts such as these: A recent article in TimeOut states that a major project is almost underway, that would turn the banks of Beirut River into public garden spaces; The man-made island facing Qarantina is supposed to turn into a public garden. Solidere has long promised to create public gardens in Downtown and in a large part of the reclaimed coastal land around Biel. As for air pollution, there are talks about reviving public transportation including the historic tramway and railroad; and the call is growing to harnessing renewable energy in Lebanon.

In the midst of these all-too-pale green prospects, my most enjoyable spectacle is that of Mother Nature claiming back some of its rights, not by design this time, but by force.

This fig tree in the first photo of a bridge in Beirut, took advantage of our negligence in maintaining our road infrastructure, and found its nest in one of the water evacuation holes.

Green-haired botanist Patrick Blanc made a good choice by choosing Beirut, joining forces with up-and-coming architect Karim Begdache to develop one its famous vertical gardens: sometimes our walls naturally do that! (second photo of a wall in Gemmayze).


My own favorite is when nature reclaims the stones of our city’s abandoned mansions. In the third photo which was taken not in Beirut, but in Sour (Tyre), this blossoming pomegranate tree (grenadier, remmene) was able to develop its whole roots vasculature up in the air, without any contact with the ground, feeding off a leak in the sewage pipes…

Say GiBs, don’t you just love it when nature wins over?

GiB#2 | It’s Getting Warm in Here

A few weeks ago I put up a post that was sort of an open call for a true gay festival in Beirut. Judging by the parties going on in June, I think we’re getting closer to it every week!

 As one would have expected, Danny Tenaglia’s gig last Saturday was as GiBby as it gets. The crowd was perhaps smaller than usual, but GiB attendance was massive for this exceptional performance of the gay DJ who went on till dawn.

But watch out: Even bigger GiB-oriented events are coming up next.

Supermartxé, the famous label from Spain, is kicking off its summer 2010 world tour in Ibiza on June 18, then flying straight to Beirut where it will throw a potentially huge party at la Marina Dbayeh on June 19. The advertising campaign is now in full motion. The flyers were all over the place last Saturday in Hamra, discrete yet suggestive... let’s hope the gig lives up to its promise!

GiB#2 | Enough Already: Save Beirut Heritage!

Not a GiB matter per se, but definitely a noble cause that calls urgently for some more GiB-type sensitivity.

The sharks of the construction and financial industries. They’re changing the face of Beirut every day. They’re building their skyscrapers by destroying its old buildings. “Modernizing” the city at the expense of our architectural heritage.

Not a day goes by without them tearing down another colonial, Ottoman or traditional Lebanese mansion in Beirut. Stone after stone, one landmark after the other, they’re burying historic Beirut. Taking away its charm, its character. Violating its memory, its culture. Their crimes happen overnight, as they come down like thieves, while we watch helplessly.

I’m not being overly nostalgic and sentimental. Let’s be clear about something: As average Lebanese, we don’t mind “modernization” and the Dubai-type towers. We might even find some pride in them, as they serve our country’s ambitions of grandeur, don’t they, and they might well signify our economic comeback. As average Lebanese, we don’t mind the contrast of new v/s old – it’s actually part of Beirut’s charm. But why do we have to tear down the historic buildings to be able to have skyscrapers? Why not just build them elsewhere, or at the very least try to get creative with half measures like this?

Why not try to attract investors who actually give a damn, people who can see the value of owning and preserving one bit of Beirut paradise lost?

How can we turn a blind eye to the fact that this construction frenzy in the last three years might actually be just another “real estate bubble” that can only burst open? We’ve seen it happen elsewhere: if and when it happens here, it will be too late for Beirut.

And it’s not too far fetched of a scenario. The truth is that the overpriced multi-million luxury apartments they’re building are often bought by Arab investors as financial placements, they remain empty 11 months a year, and they alienate from large parts of the city the 99% of Lebanese people who can’t afford them, including in our new flamboyant, plasticky, ghost-town Downtown.

Who’s to blame here is one hell of a tricky question.

- The owners of the historic properties? They often can no longer afford maintaining their old family house, let alone renovating it after 20 years of war and another 20 of abandon. They’re not offered any help or incentives for doing so, while they get hammered by the entrepreneurs with juicy buyout offers.

- Blame the entrepreneurs? Well they are business people, ruthless sharks ruled by money and driven by profit – and God knows there’s profit to be made from turning an old 2-story mansion into a 20-story modern building. What could you expect from them as they wander around free from legal regulation?

- Or maybe blame the state? What state?! Oh… you mean the corrupt “urbanism” authorities that give away corrupt construction permits to corrupt entrepreneurs?

It’s such a deadlock situation that in this total passivity (collusion?) of the official authorities, we’re almost tempted to blame the non-profit organizations like UNESCO and the NGOs for not classifying enough properties, not protecting enough buildings, not countering enough projects, not rallying enough forces, and not standing strong enough in the face of the state/entrepreneurs duet… Isn’t it ironic?

Enough already! This is happening too fast, too blatantly, too savagely. It’s a saddening reality even for the most down-to-earth among us. We have to do something about this. Save Beirut Heritage!

(Photos taken on the same day around Monot and Gemmayze).

GiB#2 | Gayly Ever After

So last Monday (May 17) was the international day against homophobia. The next day, Portugal joined the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, Norway, Sweden, South Africa and 5 U.S. states in recognizing gay marriage. Big week for gay rights.

It might be that I didn’t really look for one, but I’m not aware of any GiB activity in Lebanon for the occasion. As far as I’m concerned the celebration boiled down to watching a debate on French TV on the topic “Is France homophobic?”, where gay activists were complaining about France not being enough ahead of the curve, about the persistence of occasional gay bashings and some kids being kicked out from home for being gay.

As for Lebanon, the conversation I had with my friends while we were watching the program sums it up well:

- “Would you say Lebanon is homophobic?”, my straight friend asked.
- “This level of debate doesn’t even apply here”, my GiB friend and I responded in sync.

Not to belittle how far along Lebanon has gone, where it stands right now, the efforts we’re putting and where we’re headed - We’re actually doing much better here than anywhere else in the Middle East except for Israel. I do believe that gay tolerance is on the rise in Lebanon, and it’s happening right before our eyes. I mean seriously, where else in the region would they dare to use a sign like this new GiB joint in Monot did?

GiB#2 | Off the Beaten Track

Summer holidays are right around the corner, but that’s not always good news as far as going out at night.

Indeed when it comes to going out during high season, Beirut's all-year-round partygoers come out worse than spoiled kids.

On these nights the debate quickly shifts away from what to do tonight, to which places to avoid tonight. Suddenly it all seems too crowded, too touristy, too wannabe.

And so it’s a time when we go out less on weekends, more on weekdays, try to think outside the box, get out away more often from Beirut, discover new places, await the occasional house parties, and stay on the lookout for the all-too-rare off-parties.

Judging by the ever-changing listings in TimeOut, Beirut nightlife might be bustling indeed. But the reality is, it would get quite boring if it weren’t for its alternative/underground scene outside the mainstream/commercial spots.

… So as the summer settles down I call on you Power of the (Safer) Underground, please keep us stumbling again on wall posts like this one from a private Beirut rooftop party last summer!

(pics from The  Basement (v1.0), and somewhere in Gemmayze).

GiB#2 | r u c/uc?

Many guys still have me, many lost me at birth, some took me off later on, and some have grown me back; I separate the world’s men into two groups… who am I?

Yep, you’ve guessed it, this one’s about the foreskin. For those with any interest in this little piece of extra skin - or the absence thereof -, here is the factsheet for Lebanon!

Most Lebanese men, at least 75% of us, are circumcised. It’s a common procedure across Lebanon’s hospitals, that is done on baby boys generally at birth.

You don’t have to sleep with a statistically significant sample of Lebanese guys (like we GiBs did) to verify this figure: just run a quick search on the online cruising websites, and you’ll quickly notice that the vast majority of profiles indicate “Cut”.

This high proportion makes sense, given that over half of Lebanon’s population is Muslim, and Muslims practice circumcision routinely. That’s that.

What is more surprising however is the case of the Christians, who comprise somewhere between one-third and one-half of the Lebanese. In fact, the Christians of Lebanon also practice circumcision widely, especially the non-Maronites among them.

Now considering that the vast majority of the world’s Christians do not circumcise their newborns, this makes Lebanon’s Christians one of the most circumcised Christian populations in the world, similar to the Copts in Egypt, another Christian minority living in a Muslim environment.

Another exception is the United States, which today remains the only mostly-Christian country that circumcises infants on a routine basis with no need for medical justification. The figures are much lower, or trending downwards, in the other mostly-Christian and first-world countries.

So it seems that whether or not a newborn Christian boy of the world gets circumcised or not, depends less on specific Christian beliefs, and more on local culture and habit. Under this assumption, Lebanon’s particularity owes more to the long-lasting influence of Judaism and Islam in this part of the world, and less to matters specific to Levantine Christianity.

Now on to the GiB facts.

Digging a little deeper in the online research, you’ll notice how many of the “Cut” GiB profiles also indicate under Fetishes: “Cut”. What’s more, some guys have it listed as their one-and-only Fetish… another way of saying “Cut Only Please!”

Over the years I have noticed that GiBs have not just a slight preference for the cut, which is understandable as it is the norm around here, but rather, that they tend to have quite a strong preference for the cut.

So the minority of uncut guys in Lebanon must cope with this noted GiB preference for the cut. Luckily, this matter remains of secondary importance to a lot of GiBs, who don’t pay it more attention than it deserves.

The awkward part however, is that all-too-many GiBs seem to associate “uncut” with “bad hygiene”. It could be out of experience, or due to the lack of it, but in both cases these GiBs don’t acknowledge that hygiene is a matter of each individual, that it comes with education, and that one can have bad surprises on either side, whether it be with a guy who is cut, or uncut.

Let’s face it, two days without a shower and the uncut gets worse than the cut… but does that justify such an anti-uncut bias among GiBs?

(Photo taken in Paris)

GiB#2 | A quand un Festival Gay Digne de ce Nom à Beyrouth?

... Pour que la ‘majorité silencieuse’ sorte enfin de ses cocons, que la foule (les folles?) de l’Acid se mette en maillot ‘une-pièce’ pour aller danser, et pour que les touristes gays d’Europe, d’Amérique et des pays Arabes (qui n’attendent que ça) puissent enfin se fixer une date pour faire un voyage au Liban.

... Pour regrouper une foule de gens, une masse gay et gay-friendly (pour ne pas dire « hetero-friendly ») avec tous les L, les G, les B, les T et leurs amis; qu’elle puisse se réunir enfin au grand jour, dans toute sa diversité et sa normalité, le temps d'une fête.

... Qu’elle se fasse grande et belle à la face du Libanais lambda, histoire d'accélerer sa prise de conscience, de lui montrer clairement et une fois pour toute qu’elle existe bel et bien, qu’elle vit parmi eux et avec eux, pacifique, festive, créative...

On ne peut pas dire qu’il n’existe rien de tel à Beyrouth, ou qu’on n’est pas sur la bonne voie pour y arriver. Helem a bel et bien organisé des (mini) gay-pride a Beyrouth, et l’organisateur de séjours Lebtour continue bien d’organiser sa ‘croisière’ annuelle BearArabia.

Or du fait de son alliance avec BearArabia, Lebtour s’adresse en grande partie a la scène bear, un groupe finalement assez niche et communautaire. Je n’y suis jamais allé, et ne suis pas prêt de le faire. Sans vouloir paraître moqueur, je ne peux pas m’empêcher de sourire en pensant a tous ces durs-au-coeur-tendre (et poilu ?) jouant des hanches sur les derniers tubes de Nancy Ajram.

Celà dit Lebtour a au moins le mérite d’avoir osé, de l’avoir fait et refait plusieurs années de suite, d’avoir créé le rendez-vous (début Mai – c’est dans 10 jours!), et surtout d’avoir démontré a quiconque serait tenté de se lancer dans ce business, qu'il ne risque pas d'être embêté par les forces de l’ordre, et que ça pourrait bien marcher...

...et je serais flatté si on le baptisait le « GiB Festival » !

(Photo prise à la Laïque Pride de Dimanche dernier (25 Avril 2010) au Centreville)

GiB#2 | Does Damascus

There are quite a few places not too far from Beirut to go on a weekend getaway, and certainly many reasons to want to take a break from this exhausting city.

One such place is Damascus, the capital of neighboring Syria. I went there last weekend and it was such a change of scene for me that I look forward to doing it again – Here are some things I learned on this trip for you to consider before your next Damascus escapade!

- It’s a smooth drive and only 3 hours away: Beirut-Damascus is a 3-hour trip door-to-door, that’s including a stop of about 1 hour at the Lebanese and Syrian borders (also including another stop in Chtaura to munch on the delicious local dairy and exchange money). It is a generally smooth ride if you go outside the peak hours, as there could be more traffic on ‘Damascus Road’ and more chaos at the two borders, especially at the Lebanese border. The trip is also inexpensive: it costs about 15$ per person each way using a shared (and decent) taxi from the Charles Helou station in Beirut, to the Sumariyya station outside Damascus, more if you use the local taxi companies or don’t want to share the cab with other passengers. One of the bummers is that the cost for crossing the borders will vary depending on your nationality, all the way from free for Lebanese to 30$ for Europeans to 50$ for U.S. or Canadian citizens.

- Experience an authentic Arabic metropolis: Damascus offers an urban tourism experience that is very different from Beirut, but a little bit similar to the other two major cities of Lebanon, Tripoli or Saida, which are smaller and more conservative. Although a 'fun scene' is definitely emerging in Damascus, its yuppies will continue to come to Beirut for a few more years, when they need to get a breath of fresh air, despite the fact that going out in Beirut is much more expensive than going out in Damascus: Indeed, there is no such thing as busy barhopping, heavy clubbing or ongoing cultural events in Damascus. The other way around, interest from the Lebanese in visiting Damascus is growing, as it offers the ideal opportunity for a change of air, to spend a couple days wandering around for hours across its picturesque side streets and getting lost in its endless souks, while getting impregnated with authentic Arabic culture and energy -- things that Westernized Beirut has lost a long time ago, or perhaps never really had.

 - Meet a mixed crowd of friendly people: Damascus is a cosmopolitan city and the faces on its streets are amazingly diverse, starting with the Syrians who are quite a mixed (and good-looking!) people. Then there’s the hordes of Iranian and Pakistani pilgrims hopping around the hundreds of mosques of this ex-capital of the Islamic empire. But you also see many foreigners on the streets of Damascus. As it turns out, many of them are not just visiting on tourism, but actually living in Damascus, from students studying under an exchange program to learn Arabic to young people working for local NGOs, to business people who went there trying to take advantage of Syria’s awakening economy. Most importantly, people in Syria seem to be under less stress and seem to be less worried about the hassles of life than the Lebanese (and God knows they have many!). It is immediately noticeable: people in Syria smile more easily, help out more readily, and get mad less quickly.

- Pamper yourself with affordable little pleasures: One of my pleasant surprises was that you can actually eat well in the restaurants of Damascus, with the added benefit that the bill is so low that coming from Beirut, you’re surprised you’ve actually had good food for this price. As for shopping, the streets of Damascus are a place where you can still use your bargaining power to buy anything and everything, from Arab/Ottoman antiques that are way overpriced in Beirut, to good quality cotton linen to delicious oriental sweets. Unfortunately, much like in the souks of Lebanon, the rest of Damascus’ souks has become mostly made-in-China crap. And then, after long hours of walking around, nothing beats a traditional hammam experience. And don’t say you couldn’t find any, for Damascus has over 20!

- Get a glimpse of the emerging GiD life: If like myself and like Paul you know how to appreciate the erotic energy of the hammams, Damascus is the place for you. Some of the historic and/or renovated ones are of exceptional architecture. A couple of them are said to be kind of gay, and one of them is way gay (Al Jadid). But despite Damascus’ huge size and a population of over 4 million, gay life in Damascus boils down to only a handful of spots beyond the hammams: a few gay-friendly hangouts, a couple cruising zones like Shaalan… and the rest of it is confined to the realm of the Internet. I did get the chance however to meet a couple of GiDs (Gay in Damascus), and definitely think there is room out there for much more GiB/GiD synergy!

My Moon My Man | by Art Hake

My boyfriend is killing me. He works non-stop, goes out all night, then returns home vegging next to me on the couch, considering late-night TV sessions as “spending time together”. This is no relationship counseling but when I look around, I can only confirm the obvious: relationships are a whole lotta shit to deal with.

Straight friends? Forget it. They don’t communicate, they never say what they think or do what they say and they’re too insane. Complicated, immature & selfish. Imagine that coming from a GiB! What we share with those is the anxiety of commitment; but we deal with that just fine. At least, when we play around we have the decency to assume it. And we don’t mind crowded games.

Gay friends? Diddo. We’re moody and unstable. Plus, our relationships are often based on our “condition” and that shapes our dealing with our BF. Are we out? Are we gonna see each others again? Are we fcuked up from closeted behavior and overexposure to society’s homophobia? We have difficulty finding our soulmate (someone please kill gay social networks), we have issues meeting in public (or at least most of the public spots -knowing not all of us necessarily enjoy flamboyant ghettos) and we are left with a delicate choice of 2 alternatives: be an open couple or an exclusive couple. We know by now that one of those don’t really work, so good luck with the patch work.

Around my couch, I see few single men & women. One girl friend left her BF of 5 years, because of lack of commitment. One GiB friend suffers from CUS (Chronic Undertwenty Syndrome) -they never learn! One other GiB friend has been lonely for so long he’s successfully passed the 24/24 horniness stage. Then another one anxiously awaits seasonal vacations, hoping to binge on European sweets. His diet forbids any local flavors. I also happen to regularly see 2 happy straight couples, but that’s boring, since they make it a point to rub it in your face. And I confirm one successful local normal adorable GiB couple. How swell, they even have a dog!

We all have issues, blah blah blah. My beau and I have been together for a while now, which helps. We screw up but we end up fixing things. Whatever we do, works. At least for us.

In Happy Life, if you have a cute; loving boyfriend, keep it! And before changing others, change yourself. Who’s in for a drink?

GiB#2 | Beirut Down Under

I knew I had reached rock bottom when I ended up visiting one of the “porn theaters” of Beirut last year. Tired of the useless social-flirting and the pointless online-dating (a common condition known as the GiB Boredom Syndrome) and feeling horny as hell, that’s where I went to get anonymous, right-here-right-now sex.

Picture an old movie theater, probably dating back from the 80’s, torn down so bad it has obviously never been renovated since the glory days of Beirut Cinema. Ignore the 007-type posters in the lobby and forget the 5$ entrance fee (when a regular movie theater is no more than 8$). Then come on in to an extremely dark room where the only source of light is a faded screen showing straight porn from a classical French movie; One in every two seats is broken and the smell around the bathroom area is abominable.

It takes less than a minute to want to flee this place. But I stayed, and it took me another minute to get used to the dark inside and to start noticing by the fire of their cigarettes that there are actually guys sitting here and there in the room, scattered across the rows. Most of them sit there apparently alone, but in some instances I could see the silhouette of two heads next to each other, suggesting there’s some action going on.

Once I thought I had figured out how this place works, I started walking around the room. I chose a guy who looked decent and around my age, sat in the seat right next to him, fooled around for a few minutes until I came, and left without a word... talk about a quickie!

Who are the regulars in these places, I haven’t been able to figure it out. Of about ten people I came across that day, a few were 20-something Arab workers, a couple were old fat guys, a couple others were mid-aged taxi-driver-type guys, one was a total queen… and one was an adventurous GiB lost in lust (that would be me). Go figure if there's a pattern.

My other unsolved mystery remains: is everyone there gay? Or is it more of a place for those nasty straight guys who get so horny and with no woman around, they’re willing to take a walk on the wild side for some sexual attention?

From Lebtour’s online cruising guide:

Cinemas & Dark rooms
AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Commentary: All "At Your Own Risk" and specify clearly what you want and whether money is involved:

-    Cinema Al Khayyam located in Jeanne d'Arc str. Hamra - Beirut
Cinema showing old films and straight porn. Best for cruising on Sun afternoons.

-    Cinema Morocco located in Mar Doumit str. Sin el Fil – Nabaa - Beirut
Movie theatre showing old movies - straight porn and mainstream films. Cruising and pick-up area's for men. Some "action" in the upstairs seating and bathrooms.

-    Cinema Royal located in Cornish el Nahr – Nabaa side - Beirut
Movie theatre showing old American & international movies - straight porn and mainstream films. Some "action" in the upstairs seating and bathrooms used as a dark room.

-    Cinema Plaza located in Mar Doumit str. Sin el Fil – Nabaa - Beirut
Best on Sun afternoons. Very busy. Best crowd can be found here.

GiB#2 | Party Treats

Unless one really doesn’t want to see it, the drugs are all over the place in Beirut and this also holds true in the GiB community. Lebanon’s rehab centers and anti-drug NGOs are being kept quite busy (photo of Skoun’s latest brochure).


How could it be any different when the drugs are constantly grown and smuggled into and out of the Beqaa valley, en route to and from Europe and the world, all under political inaction, not to say political cover?

Yes, they’ll set on fire some of the fields each year; they’ll occasionally arrest a few low- or mid-level dealers; shut down the local ecstasy lab, but no, people are never left sniffing Xanax lines in Lebanon as they are in Dubai.

Blame it on the war, on the hippies or on the country’s decadence as a whole, but it’s been the same status-quo for decades if not centuries. So who knows, they might well review the legislation one day! (photo taken in California).

GiB#2 | Summer’s Gonna be Hot

It was time for a good night dancing, and all I had to do was choose from the multitude of DJs gigs going on that weekend and the following one. Big names playing in town both weekends, and even bigger ones announced for April. It’s still only March but the cadence looks already like June!

So it was the Cosmic Gate & John 00 Fleming gig at Forum de Beyrouth last Saturday. Another success by NRJ/Poliakov, although the music was not my favorite, and the crowd not the hottest.

It seems like yesterday when we were offered our first true “laser show” experience at an event in Beirut. But today, it looks as though it has become standard for a Beirut gig of this scale, to boast incredible lighting, laser show, sound system, VJ’ing, not to count the dancers, fire blowers, and other aliens marching in the crowd – all by keeping the entrance around 40$.

If this is not just a temporary Spring revival and it keeps going the same way till summer, it’s about to get really, really hot around here…

GiB#2 | Arab Naïveté and the Silk Cocoons

Picture Lebanon as one of its trees, the mulberry tree / shajrit toot / mûrier; Picture its people as the silk-making worms.

The worms wander around the branches all day and night, going back and forth between the small and larger branches, feeding on fresh leaves or weaving silk cocoons, much of it ugly, some of it nice.

The worms are all living some kind of a love-and-hate relationship with the naturally beautiful tree that is their country. Many of the worms have long turned butterflies, and have gone seeking new horizons on Faraway trees. The tree gets busy around summertime, when many native and foreign butterflies, black or bright, come visiting.

Many worms, most notably GiB worms, are busy most of the time nesting their silk cocoon. Cocoons around their life at home, their life at work and their social life.

Some GiB worms wait impatiently for the weekend to come down from their little branch, and gather with fellow GiB worms on the tip of a handful of little Beirut branches, to feed together on Acid and Milk leaves.

Some GiB worms occasionally bump into each others on shady branches called Corniche or Freeway. Other GiB worms prefer to meet GiB worms from the comfort of their cocoons using Internet branches called Manjam, Gaydar or Facebook.

Time goes by on this sun-bathed tree as the majority of its GiB worms stays quiet, untiringly wrapping their repressed and e-based double-lives in thick and sick cocoons.

You can tell the many GiB-ophobic worms by their traits of the family, macho and conservative type, but the GiB worms have learned to deal with it by just ignoring them. Generally the straight worms don’t seem to mind the GiB worms, some actually feed on them for fun or business, but the reality is that the majority of straight worms can’t even tell a GiB worm.

Remember this is a third world tree, it’s Arab and it’s messy. So messy that the subtly-GiB looks and acts of GiB worms easily go unnoticed and unquestioned around the branches, at least in Beirut. What holds true for these two presumably GiB-ophobic worms getting intimate after an exhausting day at the construction site (Photo from Charles Fred’s Flickr), also holds true for borderline-gay appearance and behavior of GiBs on the trunk, Beirut.

Because Lebanon’s worms know by instinct that they would be left alone to die if the tree were to dry, keeping the tree alive remains the common struggle of all. So after going through many storms and droughts, the tree’s got used to feeding on substances called “Whatever Happens”, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and “Live and Let Live”.

Now add to the mix a touch of this common naiveté that prevails in third-world trees, naiveté about the reality of GiB matters and other disturbing things – a powerful substance made up of misinformation, self-denial and taboo. The result is plain and simple: the existence of GiB worms on the tree might be considered positive by some, negative by others, but it is, by any scale, so very secondary…

…for the tree’s crowded, but it’s here to stay, sexy and cruel, selfish and poor; good thing it’s got some fine silk and pretty butterflies, too!

GiB#2 | Rainbow Tea Tasting

It's a first. Starting this Sunday, the GiBs might have a new weekly hangout for Sunday afternoons, a European style tea dance party that promises to be fun, hot and trendy.

Taking place at EM Chill in Mar Mikhael, which has been making strides lately in promoting musical diversity and local talent. Does Beirut have a Tea Dance Party of its own at last? Let's make it happen!

GiB#2 | Go FAG Yourself!

Who the hell would call a shop “FAG”?!

Well, this guy in Jdeide did.

We should have him pose (proudly) in front of his shop and give him free publicity. How's that for an anti gay-bashing revenge? I bet he won’t even have a clue.

GiB#2 | Cotton Candy HIs and LOs

A couple years ago a bunch of folks realized – rightly so – that Beirut’s night scene could use a little more (pink) spice indeed. They went ahead and created a label, and started to throw out gigs, about once a month, that brought together a growing crowd of partygoers. They picked unusual, underground venues, hopping from a warehouse to an artist’s loft, from a rooftop to a deserted cinema, from a pool to a hotel suite.

Building on hype and word-of-mouth, in the beginning and for some time Cotton Candy has been able to build a fun, eclectic, LGBT-friendly crowd of likeminded party people. Every regular likes to remember their own favorite, that unforgettable Cotton Candy night.

Cotton Candy is still going, but since year 2 the parties have been hit or miss. On the good ones, the in-house DJs DJette, Tia & Romax, Jade (Basement) or Ordinary K set the place on fire so bad, the venue is trippy, the people pretty and the theme witty, and the vibe turns out great.

 At too many other gigs however, especially during the course of 2009, Cotton Candy seemed to be falling in the hole it dig for itself. Alternative turning Commercial. Eclectic turning Wannabe. Underground turning Suffocating. BYOB (bring-your-own-bottle) turning $50-Covers. Adult Adolescent turning Teenager. Creative turning Junk. Trashy turning Cheap. And GiB Loyalty was turning Boycott...

But then came the last two months’ Cotton Candies which fell more on the better side. Did the organizers get the wake-up call, and is Cotton Candy getting back on track? We GiBs certainly do hope so!

GiB#2 | Growing Up a GiB Village -- Monot Scores One (Half)

Another GiB joint opens up in Monot. Seems to be targeted at the bear(ded) scene - Wolf beware!

Is the crown on the logo that of a queen or a king? Can't decide...But I can already picture the bunch of self-proclaimed Kings bellydancing at Boshka on a boys-night-out.

Anyway, I hope it won’t turn out as crappy as the signs.

GiB#2 | Up for a Scrub?

Gay bathhouses (or ‘saunas’) are well rooted in Western gay culture and in many large cities of the world. Beirut doesn’t have any gay saunas worthy of the name, however history left us GiBs with a somewhat similar thing: the Hammam’s (aka Turkish baths). It used to be that the public baths played a social role during the Ottoman influence on the region (lasting until the 1900’s), a place where men – and women on specific days – would go to unwind, purify their body and socialize. I don’t know exactly who used to go there back then, if it really included intellectuals and politicians as they say, and whether the Hammam used to have a gay or libertarian connotation at all. It might be that the lines were more blurry back then anyway... But since then these Ottoman relics have clearly taken a sharp GiB turn!

After many of them closed down through the years, two authentic hammams are still standing today: hammam el Nuzha (1920’s) off the Ring in Beirut (the pics are from its entrance and lobby area), and hammam el Abed (1800’s) in the old souks of Tripoli. These two look so kitsch that going there is like taking a trip back in time. There’s also a third bathhouse, this one more modern, called Shehrazade near the stadium in Bourj Hammoud. To the curious and the horny, these can be interesting and fun places to visit.

But unlike the openly gay bathhouses abroad, Lebanon’s bathhouses have nothing nearly as explicit as the closed cubicles, the dark rooms, the sling rooms and the gloryholes that are commonplace elsewhere. The amenities here are usually limited to a steam room, a dry sauna, showers, and massage rooms, although Shehrazade also has a pretty big Jacuzzi. On the downside, the amenities are not very well maintained, making the hygiene of these worlds of water highly questionable: you can’t help but think twice before putting on the flip-flops and towels they give you as you come in, and wonder whether you’re not actually stepping into a world of fungus instead.

 Until it closed down a couple years ago, Hammam el-Sheikh near the Cola roundabout was the closest thing Lebanon ever had to a real gay bathhouse. It seemed to be a quite successful business in the beginning, which was astonishing given its location in this populous and mostly Muslim part of the city. At some point, el-Sheikh looked like it was becoming the official pre-party for Acid on weekends. Picture GiB queens in une-pièce swim suits gathered in an old-style picturesque architecture, dancing to Arabic music around a large indoor pool with bar area, tiptoeing along the watercourse connecting the pool to the Jacuzzi, then sneaking in to the shady waterfall tunnel leading up to a not-so-secret 5mx5m dimly-lit vault, the 'darkroom'. Isolated by water from outside sight, light, and sound, GiB-in, GiB-out, this one room was probably the most private and safe kinky public GiB spot (ever) in Lebanon!

If you’re going to visit (what remains of) the bathhouses for action, things won’t be as straightforward as you would hope. Action between customers is quick and furtive, and it feels like the staff are constantly playing police with the men getting touchy. As for the local staff – mostly Syrians and Egyptians of all ages – they have access to the private rooms where they provide optional services such as massage, soaping and body scrubs. 

It’s your choice whether to go for the experienced 60-year old scrubber and get a quality treat, or choose the 20 year-old hunk pretending to know massage, who’ll try to include a 5-minute rental of his body into the deal, only to then remind you incessantly not to forget to tip him through the cashier on  the way out since you’re not carrying any money on you. Now how’s this for embarrassment, as you’re paying for your services on the way out, when the cashier shouts out loud for the whole place to hear: “w 3achra la 7assan! w 3achra la shebeb!” (“+ 10 for Hassan, and 10 for the boys!”).

 

GiB#2 I Male Arabia in-a-box

It strikes me every time I return from travel, how much testosterone flows in the streets of Beirut.

It can’t escape you as soon as you get there: The drive from the airport towards the city center takes you right through the southern suburbs of Beirut (until they build the next bridge to ride above it), one of the most densely populated areas of the city. The sex ratio on the streets of Beirut Suburbia is obvious, weighted heavily towards men, unlike what they say it is in the clubs. For the streets are full of men who hang around outside all day, seemingly with not much to do, while their women are probably hanging out at home somewhere in Lebanon or back in Syria, Egypt, Iraq or Soudan.

Mostly your average working-age Arab guys – shop owners, mechanics, street merchants, or free-floating workers on the hunt for underpaid work hours. They’re typically wearing undershirts and jogging pants, work uniforms or old-fashioned clothes, and maybe underwear like these ones I saw in Souk-el-Ahad. As far as the physics of it,  there is certainly one for every taste. Skin tones ranging all the way from light to dark, hair colors from black to red (great-grandma had a fling with a Crusader), bodies from skinny to buff, from soft to hairy. Ugly, fat, cute or pretty. But as far as chemistry for us GiBs, this is probably not boyfriend material and not our cup of tea at least for those more into the metrosexual type. Although a GiB friend tells me all sorts of great things about the now-regular (paid) lover he picked up from the crowd!

Based on some tourist feedback I got, it is these raw and masculine Arab men, and not the guys-next-door of Beirut (or the sophisticated GiBs for that matter), that make up much of the erotic energy that emanates from this city, that seeds its ground. It took me an absence from the country to be able to see this manly mass as a feature for Beirut, as it clearly creates a fertile ground for a middle-eastern flavored fantasy!

GiB#2 | Growing a GiB Village -- Monot or Mar Mikhael?

 The newcomer to the GiB map, Avant-Garde (off the ‘Ring’) is not quite as avant-gardiste as advertised. The bar/resto/club seems to be confused, and confusing, in many ways: how it’s set up, what it tries to be, its music and its lighting strategies. The few times I tried it, it was wannabe DJs spinning for a non-festive crowd, and always seemed to be either too empty, or too crowded. That said, GiBs certainly welcome this new addition to this underserved niche that is the GiB night scene, which is not only small, but also fragmented into sub-niches catering to different crowds. I must say however that I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food there and the new faces. Not to mention Wednesday Karaoke which can be hilarious if you get the chance like me to trip over a GiB doing Dalida.

But what Avant-Garde gets the most credit for is its location, at the lower end of good old Monot. For many of us 20- and 30-somethings, GiBs and others, our first barhopping (or even drinking) experiences are set across, under and over the side streets of Monot in the 90’s. It’s the first bar district worthy of the name that our generation ever had, and it still embodies these memories. Sad story for Monot after its boom in the late 90s, as it was hit by the residents’ lobbying campaigns against the disturbance caused by its extending night scene, later followed by the security issues in that area starting 2005. By which time the competition from Gemmayze had fully kicked in, leaving Monot to melt down back to its basic spots around Pacifico.

In this context, the flourishing Avant-Garde might well be signaling the start of a grass roots effort taking place in Monot, if other spots decided to pursue this effort to maybe one day make Monot the gay district of Beirut. In my opinion Monot has at least as much character and charm as Gemmayze, which has gone too mainstream and far too crowded, and it sure has the past experience and the potential it needs to rebuild an underground scene from the ground up and become GiB land. To those who get bothered at the thought of having a “Village” in Beirut, which would do nothing but ghettoize the GiBs, I hear you. But considering that it would be located in the heart of the city, right there where it all started, would certainly be a plus.

The other area that is a strong contender in my mind to become the future ‘GiB Village’ of Beirut is Mar Mikhael. Unlike Monot, Mar Mikhael is starting from scratch, with a new hangout opening every month or so, and while it seems to be very dynamic and GiB friendly lately, it faces the risk of turning into nothing but a pale continuation of Gemmayze street, which is itself extending further every year. But for now Mar Mikhael sure is on the right track, and it’s not me being too Gibby-minded to see it evolving in the GiB direction. Check out this piece from our infamous gay journalist and DJ ZM, who also writes under a couple pseudos in L’Orient Le Jour (way to write as a she!), where he describes Mar Mikhael as “le Marais beyrouthin” (le Marais is the gay village in center Paris).

Mon carré des Bermudes
Par Marguerite K. | 23/12/2009

Hotte d’or
Il y a un carré magique. Dans un quartier magique : Mar Mikhaïl. J'ai dit à Houssam, un jour qu'on s'y promenait : c'est le Marais beyrouthin. Le petit Berlin. Le laboratoire de cette capitale-tentacule où se cuisine tout ce qui sera hype et hyperbranché dans quelques mois. J'aime marcher dans Mar Mikhaïl. Je déambule. Et c'est une tour de Babel. On y parle toutes les langues, on y voit toutes les couleurs et on y renifle des odeurs qu'on croyait perdues. On touche même des espèces rares. Dans la boutique de la rue se croisent l'ouvrier en manque de conserves, des haricots souvent, et la jeune architecte suprabranchouille qui cherche une lampe. Il y a aussi la concierge d'un immeuble Yacoubian made in Beyrouth, le photographe en mal d'amour, un jeune couple qui ne comprend plus rien et ne veut plus rien comprendre, et puis une vieille folle et son canari. Ce quartier me plaît parce qu'il survivra à tout, même à une explosion nucléaire ; ce quartier s'autosuffit. Ce quartier est magique et il y a un carré magique. Un : Papercup. Cette librairie-salon de thé a été rêvée par une Rania Naufal mi Anaïs Nin mi Dita Von Teese. Andy Warhol aurait adoré s'y étendre. Cet espace dédié au beau et au bon est bourré de surprises. C'est une petite oasis européenne où s'agglutinent ceux qui veulent découvrir et ceux qui restent couverts, ceux qui veulent revoir et ceux qui veulent être vus. J'aime. Deux : Paula K. Dans cette boutique tenue d'une main très Veuve Clicquot par la over-Bree Van de Kamp Joumana Abillamaa Comaty, il y a les folies de Paula K. Elle invente puis réinvente le vêtement d'une femme et chaque femme devient Farah Diba, chaque femme devient toutes les femmes : le tissu est anamorphosé, c'est de la dentelle virile, même Houssam s'émeut et exige que je ressorte de la boutique rhabillée de la tête aux pieds. Trois : Tawlét souk el-tayeb. La cantine du délicieux Kamal Mouzawak. L'hymne à la vie, l'hymne à l'amour, l'amour d'une terre, l'amour d'un pays, donc l'amour de sa cuisine, ce garçon aime nourrir les gens, les rendre heureux, sa viande crue fond dans les bouches, c'est du patrimoine estampillé Unesco, les serveurs sont jolis. Quatre : l'antre de Caline Chidiac. Là où elle fantasme des playlists d'une simplicité et d'une efficacité infernales. Cette sorcière des platines est aux DJ ce qu'Agynes Deyn est aux mannequins : une comète, un ovni, une jalousie et les réceptions d'ici et de là-bas implosent en un feu d'artifice de décibels, la Chidiac ferait danser une guillotine, un lit de mort, une pétasse beyrouthine, même moi j'ai succombé. Il n'y a rien à dire : j'aime Mar Mikhaïl, et mon carré magique, Rania/Paula/Kamal/Caline, est terriblement miam miam.
margueritek@live.com 

Got Milk? | by Art Hake

I was going through some archives related to Gay activism throughout the world and found this angelic face throwing an inspiring speech at an LGBT rally. I had no idea who he was: Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter, Academy Award winner for his work on Milk (2008).

I wanna step into 2010 with positivity, so I decided to write about this, even though it’s kinda irrelevant to the blog purpose.

This blog is really about Beirut and the underground life of GiBs. For whether we throw a party attended by few hundred GiBs or open a shop with a hidden gay-friendly tag, don’t fool yourself: we still live underground. And no matter how blue the sky may seem, we don’t get to see it except from the corner of a window, behind obstructing curtains.

Some of our fellow local activists try to change things. We have associations, but it seems their own members don’t get along quite well. The “Abolish 534” group on Facebook is short to 3,000 members. The straight alliance for gay rights is a good cover-up for GiBs who can’t stand up for themselves –and I don’t blame them.

Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera ("Help yourself, and heaven will help you"). We can’t rely on others to help us out of our own shit, even though we never asked for it in the first place. Life’s unfair, hell yeah! But what can we do about it? Isn’t it time we do something about it?

California is debating same-sex marriage laws and we can’t even go out in the daylight. I just wish we had more inspiring personalities around us. Leaders we respect. People we can look up to. People who’s presence and support would help us fight for our rights in a more efficient way.

This is what Dustin said about Harvey Milk: “If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he would want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, or by the government, or by their families, that you re beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon I promise you, you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours.”

Happy New Whatever | by Art Hake

Recovery took longer than expected; after all, it was New Year’s Eve and Lebanese parties are not really limited by dawn!

Best wishes to the GiB community, may we have a breakthrough year in terms of social rights, freedom, blablabla*

Seriously, what the f*ck happened this year? As usual, my plans were drawn as the evening went by. So I had my fair share of hopping from place to place, swinging like Tarzan on his liana, but without the scream, although it could’ve come in handy -anyway, it was all within walking distance, including (not so) private residences, pubs, streets and random WC’s. New Year parties are always something around here, but that one was kinda exhilarating. While the BCBG crowds overbooked the various restaurants and upper-scale clubs promoting constipated entertainment at crazy rates ($450 for an Elvis lookalike party or an average of $1,200 per person in the main hotels), we GiBs along with the “others” decided (quite randomly I tell you) to merge throughout the streets of Downtown and Gemmayzeh.

The Cotton Candy party attracted quite a GiB crowd (mostly undertwenties, drove me nuts) but the streets were overflown with real sweets. People were striving for attention: dress codes, attitudes, a perfect blend of sassiness and provocation. There were people dancing on the police trucks, the ones that are supposed to remove your car if you’re parked on the wrong lane. Many Arab fellows everywhere, Jordanians specifically, or did I strike Jordanian repeatedly? At some point, I found myself with a bunch of Italians but we had communication problems. Then a Brit came from behind (sorry for the bad choice of word) and started asking the weirdest questions. I snoozed him, many times. Yeah that one was completely off tracks!

But even that did not make me berserk. What did were the horses. Not the ones you see after popping many themed pills. Real horses, with cops on them! That was our government’s gift, unleashed in Downtown on the 31st : a mounted force (what an exciting label). We can now claim to be a JiD. Jungle in Development. I hope that won’t scare Tarzan off…


* Seriously, I mean it!