Category Archives: Lebanon

Welcome Lebanon’s Newest Singing Sensation: Lara Kay

Remember Lara Kay? Lebanon’s version of YouTube reality star wannabes?
Well she’s back. And she has taken a few lessons from the likes of Myriam Klink in how to get people talking, which shouldn’t come as a surprise with it involving singing.

Her song is “ataletleh l a7lem” and it is not as “trashy” as Klink’s “3antar.” She’s basically depressed about life in Lebanon. So she decided to sing about it.

Shou we2fet 3laya? L kel beddo yghanne.

Problem is even with auto tune, she’s out of tune and the video she has going with the song is simply boobs galore.

Now please, for the love of God, don’t tell Nemr Abou Nassar about this. Let’s keep this among ourselves, have fun with it for a week max, and not turn it into a matter of national security.

Ramadan Iftar Offers from Some Lebanese Restaurants

For those who are fasting and in need of food and those who are in need of good deals for dinner from July 20th to August 19th, I’ve gathered some of the Ramadan offers by select Lebanese restaurants.

1 – Crepaway

2 – Zaatar W Zeit:

3 – Deek Duke

4 – Amarres

5 – Chili’s

 

6 – Momo’s ($40 per person)

I should be trying the Amarres formule this coming week. If I stumble on other offers, I will update this post. Until then, Ramadan Kareem.

Jessica Ghawi, One of the Aurora – Colorado Theatre Shooting Victims, is not Lebanese

She narrowly escaped a shooting at Toronto a few months ago. But Jessica Ghawi’s fortunes were not as good this time when she was shot dead at one midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora Colorado. She is one of 14 who were killed by neuroscience PhD student James Holmes.

Jessica Ghawi, who goes by the name Jessica Redfield, is a 24 year old known sports anchor, a blogger and an active Twitter user. She was sending tweets up until the moment she sat down in the movie theatre. It was then that the room got filled with smoke, causing many of those inside to duck for cover as rounds were fired into the room.

Jessica’s friend, who was with her in the theatre, heard her scream as her lower limb received a round of bullets. He pressed on her thigh to control the bleeding but he was hit as well. He kept trying to control her bleeding until he didn’t hear her scream anymore. Jessica was gone. So he crawled out of the movie theatre and called her mother.

On the Toronto shooting that she escaped, Jessica Ghawi wrote:

“I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath.”

Her words resonate true today. It seems the Lebanese diaspora never manages to miss a tragedy. May she rest in peace.

Update: It seems Al Jadeed was mistaken. Jessica Ghawi is of Palestinian origins according to the Lebanese Consulate in the United States. 

Gebran Bassil is an Awesome Stand Up Comedian!

Poor Gebran Bassil!

Didn’t you hear? He hasn’t had electricity in his house for FOUR days! FOUR! Even his generator is busted. How unlucky can one get? You would think the other few million Lebanese have a worse electricity situation.

But no. Gebran has it worse than all of us.

In fact, he has it so bad that his wife had to go out with her friends because they couldn’t do a surprise birthday party for her at their house. He had to take care of the kids.

Such a great dad too!

And you know what’s worse?

He’s also a victim of the Summer wedding season. And he attended a wedding where the bride and groom, as well as those attending, were melting from the heat because the Church didn’t have electricity to turn on the AC.

Poor, poor Gebran Bassil. My heart is breaking. How can someone not sympathize with such candid awesomeness by the minister of energy?

And he’s got news, fellow Lebanese. The electricity situation is about to get worse. How many hours do you get it per day? 2? Make those 30 minutes. That should be enough, no?

Don’t blame Bassil for the electricity crisis. He’s providing much needed comic relief! Who needs A/C again?

And he’s got a request for you…. You need to take it down to the streets. Because he – and you – can’t tolerate this anymore.

7ayet l wazir se3be ya jame3a. 

Happy birthday to his wife! Alla ywaffe2 l 3ersein.

Click here and jump to 26:45.

Now in all seriousness, how can a minister fathom sharing such stories in a press conference about one of the most serious matters in the country and still be taken seriously?

There’s a limit to what you can say and, regardless of what you think about Gebran Bassil politically, sharing stories about his wife and weddings he’s invited to is not something you talk about. Never. Not even to illustrate a point.

He’s not the reason behind the electricity crisis? Sure. But his handling of it is so laughable that Gebran Bassil turns out to be quite awesome… at being a stand up comedian that is.

Nemr Abou Nassar who?

 

A Song for the Lebanese Army by Nancy Ajram, Assi el Hellani, Wael Kfoury, Nawal El Zoghbi and Samir Sfeir: Jeish Lebnan

Because the only thing our singers and artists do when it comes to them being “active” is to, well, sing about it, we have a brand new song for the Lebanese Army.

Written by Nizar Francis and composed by Samir Sfeir, who also sings on it, the song is what you’d expect a song like it to be: dabke-ready with overly patriotic lyrics along with copious use of tebyid tnajer.

“Kan sa3b l 3eish wel nas khifanin. Sar 3enna jeish wel jeish lebnani.”

Life was hard and people were scared. And then we had an army, the Lebanese Army.

I’m not sure if it’s the collective of these five artists having millions of dollars among them but life is still hard for almost everyone else and people are still scared. But yes, let’s sing about it. Because that is the best way to support the army.

“Majd Lebnan houwi jeish Lebnan.”

The glory of Lebanon is the Lebanese Army.

I won’t even comment on that sentence.

You can listen to that song, which I think is absolutely useless, here:

If these artists wanted to support the army, how about they stop singing about it to make money and open up their credit cards and start donating?

I’m sure our army would appreciate their cash more than their song.

Oh wait. That’s what the Lebanese are good at. We’re all talk (or singing) and no show. Yalla 3al dabké fida l jeish!