Category Archives: Lebanon

Russell Peters in Lebanon – Show Review: Lame

Russell Peters’ show yesterday could be divided as follows:

40% of the time, he was picking on a man named Bassel.

20% of the time, he was picking on a 16 year old Saudi teenager called Khaled.

20% of the time, he was rehashing old jokes made at previous shows.

20% of the time, he was offering the audience new things.

The end conclusion is 100% of lameness.

I have watched most of his previous DVDs. So the idea I had pre-conceived about Russell Peters was that he was a good enough comedian to have a great show, albeit with a few slow moments stranded here and there. I wasn’t complaining. You can’t have it all over the top.

But what I had to go through on Saturday night at Platea Hall was definitely not something I had expected. Not in the least.

To begin with, the sound quality of the hall was horrible. Being on a limited monetary income, we couldn’t splurge to get the high-end tickets of the “lucky” front-rowers. So us, the poor commoners in the back, had to sharpen our hearing senses to be able to hear Russell Peters who seemed determined not to get the mic close to his mouth. Some had even tried to shout at him that “we couldn’t hear” but he was busy going at it with Bassel, a 38 year old man who happened to have huge eyebrows. Or caterpillars as Russell called them.

At the times when he wasn’t making fun of Bassel’s eyebrows, he was alluding to the masturbatory habits of 16 year old Khaled from Saudi Arabia. It might have been funny at first but when he interrupts a joke more than once to allude to it, it gets redundant and silly.

After feeling Khaled and Bassel became worn-out issues with the crowd, he moved on to a rehash of his previous jokes, the most famous of which is his father’s Indian heritage and accent. Car blinkers, child punishments – all retold with an Indian approach. Been there, done that.

The newer jokes, however, were not all that bad and some, especially those culturally relevant to Lebanon, were quite good. My favorite was an observation about how rampant plastic surgery has become in Lebanese society. Even the government is giving loans for people to do plastic surgery. We can’t accept ugly people here, he joked. Then a fashionably late Lebanese woman walks in. Peters looks at her and complements her breasts – or governmental breasts.

This leads me to another observation of the night. Lebanese people have redefined the concept of fashionably late and Russell Peters pointed it out. The show was supposed to start at 9:00 pm. It started at 9:30 with an opening act. Russell Peters was on stage at 9:45 and some people were still being ushered to their seats at around 10:00 pm. How hard could it be to get there on time, I have no idea.

When the opening act was better than the main show, you know something was messed up. I felt Russell Peters was unenthusiastic, disinterested, going through the motions to simply get things done and be out of there. He wasn’t really performing like he usually does. He was reciting.

I may be either too serious a person or Lebanese people are way too easily entertained because some were going gaga over the show as it ended. I’d like to think it’s the latter because I can appreciate a good comedy show when I see one. This was not one.

6/10

Lebanon 3rd on Best Places to Celebrate Easter List

20120324-202331.jpg

A recent list published by Reuters features Lebanon as the third best place in the world to celebrate Easter. The list was compiled by “Cheapflights” and says Lebanese streets, shops and restaurants are decorated for Easter with chocolate eggs and bunnies. Selling chicks in many shops is common.
Good Friday celebrations where the Stations of the Cross enactment is spoken about. Easter Sunday is described as a big celebration and the “maamoul” sweets are also highlighted.

Easter is one of my favorite times of the year. I love the spirit of it and I’m glad that Easter in my country is apparently distinctive enough. Way to go Lebanon!

The full rankings are as follows:
1 – Argentina
2 – Greece
3 – Lebanon
4 – Scotland
5 – Spain
6 – Sweden
7 – France
8 – Germany
9 – United States
10 – Canada

Gas Prices in Lebanon: 38,000LL and Counting. Where Do We Go Now?

The wages increase that workers got lately is being eaten away fast by dramatically increasing prices all around. But none is more prominent, perhaps, than gas prices which are nearing an all-time high at 38,000LL. It is expected to reach over 40,000LL in the coming weeks.

I remember when prices were even less than this last year and people were up in a fit against the former governmental establishment. Former minister of finance Rayya Hassan got into a byzantine debate with current minister of energy Gebran Bassil before a 5000LL fee got deducted from gas prices.

Where’s that 5000 now? We’ve already gotten it back and then some. Why isn’t anyone discussing this? Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?

The sad fact is that half of that 38,000LL goes to the government in taxes. One of those taxes is progressive, increasing as oil prices increase worldwide. More money for our country’s coffers, surely. We’re not paying for a product. We’re paying for a privilege.

So from now on, fellow Lebanese, simply do not warm up the car when you turn it on. That’s over 5000LL of gas right there, wasted. Don’t leave the car turned on while you’re stuck in traffic. That’s at least a gallon wasted. If you’re having a hard time to find a parking place in Beirut, don’t be stingy, take the car to a parking lot. You’ll actually be saving money.

Or you know what, the weather is beautiful, spring is here. How about we take some camels and wander around Downtown Beirut? You know the tourists will be happy, it’s eco-friendly and it will fit right in with the stereotypes.

I remember the long gone days when Gebran Bassil said he’d never sign on gas price increases.

Where do we go now? to the stables, of course.

 

What Lebanese Racists Say

This video, titled Shit Lebanese Racists Say, couldn’t have come at a better time. When the country is slowly forgetting about Alem Dechassa, the Ethiopian Maid that committed suicide after being publicly abused, the Anti-Racism Movement has come up with this video that is highly poignant to say the least.

Without further ado, here it is:

Lebanese Muslim Students Request Prayer Room in Maronite Antonine University

We might be the only country in the world where such a request can spark a controversy. Popular Lebanese blogger Rita Kamel wrote about the issue yesterday. Muslim students had requested a prayer room in the Antonine University, an institution conformant to the Maronite order. After their request was refused, the students saw it fit to pray in the university’s courtyard as protest.

There’s nothing wrong with students praying. But provoking their university’s administration in such a way is totally unacceptable. Going to the Antonine university, those students were aware of its regulations and its rules. If that university had had a zero-tolerance policy as some people were inferring, it wouldn’t have accepted students from outside the sects it “prefers” to begin with.

When it comes to such an issue, we tend to tred sectarian lines lightly. Any wrong sentence and all hell would break loose. But let me ask one simple question. If I, a Christian, had decided to go to Al Nour University in Tripoli (I’m assuming one exists), fully knowing that it is a Muslim university with such leanings, is it my right to ask for a chapel? In simple terms – absolutely not.

A university is supposed to be an educational institution where you go for classes and for a new life experience. It shouldn’t be a place for anyone to flaunt their religious beliefs, which are surely respected by the Antonine University simply because it allowed people from all faiths to enroll without imposing on them religious courses.

The fact remains, however, that many Muslim students have found ways to pray on many campuses without making a big deal out of things. For instance, the Lebanese Southern Club at the American University of Beirut uses the club room for praying at specific hours. It doesn’t interfere with other students nor does it make a big deal out of it.

At the end of the day, when a student applies to any university with religious leanings in Lebanon, they are more than aware of what they’re going into. If a Christian student is bugged by an Islamic-leaning university, he/she can always transfer. The same applies to Muslim students. And in case students don’t feel like attending any religious institutions, there are always a multitude of secular universities for them to go to. It’s just the way things are. No, it doesn’t reflect on our sectarian system in Lebanon negatively because universities with religious leanings are present all around the world and have administrations which would have behaved in the same way in such circumstances.

The only difference is that we, as Lebanese, tend to see any negativity surrounding our religion as a personal threat. We tend to forget that our relationship with God is not one which needs to be shown for any passerby. We tend to forget that praying is a personal matter that shouldn’t be made into national headlines. The students have a right to ask for a prayer room. The administration has the right to say no. There should be no hard feelings and there should definitely not be talks about sectarianism on the rise in Lebanon because of such an incident.