ISRAEL
I was up last Monday, feeling pretty much recovered from my week of being in bed sick. As of Saturday, two days before I left, I was a wreck, and seriously wondering how I could manage, let alone perform well enough to justify my presence. But, on Sunday, my condition had improved greatly. And thus on Monday, I felt quite good. On those days, it was a far cry from my usual state of very overworked--can't open my eyes in the morning, think constantly about being back in bed. I actually woke up with enthusiasm to face the day, and was quite prepared when the shuttle picked me up for the long transfer to Charles de Gaulle. At least it wasn't Terminal 1, I find this part of the airport far too small, dingy, lacking in services and tediously slow in every aspect--security lines are too few, luggage can take over an hour to show up on the belt, etc.
El Al operates from Terminal 2, down on the end, in a heavily fortified area away from any other airline check in counters. Soldiers prevent anyone from getting too close unless they can demonstrate they are supposed to be there. And, long before you can check in for your flight to Tel Aviv, you are asked to respond to a few security questions.
Now, I live in France but I'm not a resident, officially (my marriage to Dominique allows me to stay in France/the EU 180 days at a time--and I can assure you, with my frequent trips to Norway, not an EU member state, I have never come close to overstaying my welcome). But, questions about my family life--I am already an unusual subject. My wife's name: Dominique Sassi. Yes, she has the same last name as Nizar Sassi, a French citizen captured in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay for several years. Yes, my passport has numerous stamps in Arabic squiggles from Islamic Republics. Yes, I am going to stay with a friend I've never met...anyway, I am sure my vagabond/international lifestyle fits in with no current profile and thus is a curiosity bordering on threat. Off I went into the little gray cubicle. The El Al agent had a look in my shoes, in my pants, and of course went deep into my luggage which held even more curiosities. In the end, I spent a lot of time waiting. Even though I had arrived quite early for my flight, even before the check in was open, it was by now getting pretty close to the flight time. I was still in the little inspection room, reading a newspaper. I still didn't have any shoes.
Finally, the agent came back and said my electric toothbrush, charger and the beat-to-shit transformer that allows it to operate outside the US was not going to come with me, and I could pick it up upon my return. I was given back my shoes, but my computer bag was not going to come with me on the plane either, it was going to be checked, end of story. OK. Well. I was allowed to pull a book out and then I was handed my boarding pass and my claim checks. The flight was going to be boarding any second. I did notice that my claim checks were stamped "VIP". And for the rest of the transition I was treated like one--I was walked thru the employee security line, and handed off to handler, who walked me past all the people waiting to board the plane and put me in my seat (and she was a fan of
Shy Nobleman, who had organized my visit).
Upon landing that night, my VIP bags indeed came out first, and I had no problems with passport control, they had absolutely no interest in determining the nature or purpose of my visit. Another question they didn't ask me was whether or not my passport should be stamped--so, it appears that I won't be doing any shows in Lebanon, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen or Syria until this passport expires in 2011. Unless things change in the region for the better in terms of relations between Israel and these countries.
Shy was there to greet me upon my exit from passport control, and after a short search for his car, we headed out and got acquainted during the drive. There wasn't much to see as it was long past sundown, but of course even small glimpses of a new place are tantalizing too.
Shy first contacted me in 2004 when he was looking for a producer for his second album. He sent me his first album "How to be Shy" and I was definitely into working with him, but 2004 was the year that I made
Soft Commands,
Every Kind of Light,
In Space and
Around the Sun--followed by touring for all of them. I was pretty much booked solid til 2006 and Shy, understandably, couldn't wait that long. But we stayed in touch--I tried to organize a visit to play Israel earlier in the Soft Commands touring period, but for different reasons of time and money it didn't work out til now. I saw that December was going to be relatively quiet in my schedule, and wrote to Shy to see if December was a favorable month for playing in Israel, and he responded very positively; eventually he put together two shows, where he would perform with his band and I would open the shows solo, and we could do some songs together too. It wasn't until long after we had been working on the project that he told me he was getting married just a few days after the last show!! I was astonished that he took on the project given how much he'd be involved planning and preparing for the wedding, but that's the kind of guy he is, a very generous one.
So, we dropped my stuff at his flat and proceeded directly to the biggest college radio station in Israel, where I taped a long interview and selected songs of mine, Shy's and just things that I like for an hour or two. You know how it is on college radio, just kind of meandering and free form, which I love. By the time we finished it was getting close to 11pm--I had eaten almost nothing for breakfast, and a light lunch on the plane, so I was ravenous. Turns out that the same worries about getting decent food on a Monday night that would be unassuaged in Seattle (save for the
Palace Kitchen, thank god) and Paris (save for
La Poule au Pot--well, P. au P. is closed on Mondays. If you do go there, the walls are covered in plaques with the names of celebrity diners--look for the Posies plaque!) are nonexistent in Tel Aviv. Shit is *always* open. We ended up at Havasi, a nice little diner serving up shish kebab and what you will find to be ubiquitous in Israel--'salads'. In addition to your main course, most sit down places will offer 'salads' as a starter--which means the table is covered in maybe 15 little plates of delicious items-hummous, baba ganoush, pickles, cabbage, eggplant dishes, on and on. You could feed ten people with 'salads' for two, especially at Havasi where they are extremely generous. I had shish kebabs of goose liver (the house specialty. 'Havasi' means something like 'goosie' as in calling a dog 'doggie') and also of sweetbreads.
Jewish people have been subject to persecution, massacre and bad vibes at numerous points in European history, and sometime in the 1800s European Jews started to organize the project of returning to the Holy Land, that culminated in the creation of Israel in 1948. The biggest groups of returned Jews fall into the following categories: Jewish people from Russia; from Ukraine; from Germany & Poland; from Morocco; from Iraq and other Arab countries. There are also large populations of Muslim and Christian Arab people; and a few other interesting peoples--the Druze, the Samaritans, and the Bedouins. Anyway, we all know what you get when you mix diverse groups of peoples from very different parts of the world. Yes. Hot chicks. Nature LOVES recombined DNA, and rewards the recipient richly.
One other observation: Nobody lives in a state of drama. In general, in the Old City of Jerusalem, people weren't glaring at each other; no one was going apeshit with a backhoe, either. The Jewish folks prayed at the Wailing Wall, The Muslim folks prayed at the Dome of the Rock, the Christian folks kissed the icon in the Holy Sepulchre. I'm not talking about the state of tension in Gaza or its border crossings; I'm just talking about Israel. Interestingly, the day I left, the Cease Fire between Israel and Hamas was set to expire.
After dinner, bless him, since I didn't have time to change money, either, Shy bought me a toothbrush.
Tuesday we were up quite early to rehearse together--his bandmates were only available in the morning, so we were at a rehearsal place in the warehouse district, called 'The Florentine.' Shy is a real aficionado of 60s pop, and his selection of songs for us to do together reflected it--of all the Posies songs, he chose 'My Big Mouth', a song that is rarely performed by the Posies or myself--I think of it as a bit silly, but actually it's fun to revive songs from the past instead of doing the same songs with every collaborator. We worked up 'Harry Braff' a Bee Gees song from their 1967 album 'Horizontal'; and 'Ballad of El Goodo' by Big Star. I also got them to learn 'My Life is Right' on the spot.
From there we went directly to a radio station that is essentially Israel's armed forces network--but it is a widely listened to national radio, maybe the most widely listened to. I performed 'You Drew' and 'It'll Be A Breeze'--my first performances since being sick, and even tho it had only been a week and a half since I'd performed in public, the fact I was bouncing back from illness meant that I had a lot of energy stored up to emote, and the performances were quite intense. I kid you not, but a young girl in uniform actually stormed into the room and declared she was in love--she nearly collapsed when I shook her hand. Woah!
Now, that was an extreme reaction, but I found in general the Israeli audience well tuned to what I was there to provide. The level of education there seems very high; the level of English comprehension is extremely high. It seems that people there love to talk, too, and I found myself in many interesting conversations. E.g., Doron, the bass player for Shy's band, 's g.f., Noa, is something like 23--and at dinner her sophistication in conversation was remarkable; I just could not imagine a conversation like that with an American 23-year-old; and I had quite a few talks with people like her. Pretty much everywhere I went I found people to very hospitable, engaging and honest. I mean, I never got reamed by a cabbie, e.g. Israel would be a hard place for me to perform badly. I was made both directly and indirectly (by the warmth and attitude of the environment in general) made to feel so welcome that excelling was easy.
After this radio visit we went to
Levontin 7, the venue I'd be playing that weekend, to tape a
live performance of 'Death of A City' on their grand piano. We did a few takes, and I think the video turned out quite good.
Then we were free--after a bit of recuperation at Shy's, we went to dinner, Shy and his wife (as of today--congratulations!) Billy; the aforementioned bass player and g.f. and I went to
Nanutchka a place that could be described as hip and trendy, but somehow in my travels in Israel hip and trendy was always tempered by tremendous warmth--no place felt exclusive by any means. Nanutchka serves Georgian cuisine, fantastic Israeli wine, and the bar is packed with dancers grooving out to a variety of DJ'd music that somehow was never too loud, even tho we were just in the next room. The food was superb and I don't know if they really eat chicken with tamarind and pomegranate in Georgia but the results were too good to get picky on those kind of details. My first alcohol in some time left me pretty woozy, but we had enough bearings to navigate successfully to a bar called 'Riff Raff', which had the impromptu feel of a Swiss squat bar, populated but not packed with hipsters. Billy, Shy's mrs. is an accomplished video artist and
musician thus she has the keys to the city big time. I get the impression that Tel Aviv is a pretty small town in terms of hipsters so with my guides, getting to the epicenter was effortless.
Wednesday I met friends (including my handler from El Al) on King George St., sort of the Sunset Boulevard of Tel Aviv, at Bacco, yet another cool, stylish place (but again, sort of with an impromptu feel, rough around the edges in a very appealing way--underground, but on the main drag), and then set out on a bus for Jerusalem.
Now, to get the vibe of Tel Aviv--it has several distinct architectural styles. Some of it looks like Modesto. Some of it looks like Nagoya--a bunch of squarish things all piled at random. Some of it looks just fucked up and third world--'hey, rather than repair the gaping holes in the plaster, I think I'll just use wire and rusty nails to hang a kind of corrugated metal shed off the back door'). There are a few high rise office buildings and some imposing, enormous hotels. If you dig deep enough, you find the oldest neighborhood of Tel Aviv (Tel Aviv itself is a relatively new creation--its suburb, Jaffa, where Shy lives, used the be the big city, but the settlers wanted a fresh start with urban planning), Neve Tzedek--which looks like Havana/New Orleans/a more lush version of Beverly Hills. It's beautiful, flowers and vines spilling over elegant and colorful old homes. They say its where artists prefer to live--I'm sure they'd prefer to, but this is not the neighborhood of cheap garrets for absinthe addicts; this is a Serious Money zone. But still, it's a neighborhood you can walk thru, enjoy a coffee, and see kids and dogs running around. Again, relaxed and welcoming seems to be the vibe just about everywhere you go in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.
I took a bus to Jerusalem, meaning, I crossed the entire country (depending on whose vision of the borders you endorse), which takes about 45 minutes. All of a sudden the land starts to rise, and you're there. The bus wound its way into the center, and I disembarked and found my way thru the terminal, to a broad street that seemed to point towards the Old City. On the way out, I saw people touching the mezuzah, a little metal thing, that adorns doorways in Jewish homes (and hotel rooms) and some public places in Israel. It looks like a solid bar of metal but actually it is hollow and contains a little prayer on a piece of parchment.
I started to walk hoping I would hit the Old City and could navigate to my hotel. It was already dark, and I probably didn't go on the most direct route, but I did get there. At one point I asked a cornershop if King David street was nearby. "Never heard of it" they guy said. King David street has Jerusalem's most expensive and iconic hotels. It's a bit like a New Yorker saying he's never heard of Central Park South. Anyway, I got to my hotel (not the most expensive one, by any meants, but not at the hostel level either). And before too long, I was meeting up with Hilla and Michal, my guides to the city--again, I landed directly on two people with keys to the city. Hot damn. Hilla had interviewed me for the local newspaper. We first loaded up on fuel--we went to a little place whose specialty was a mixed grill of chicken hearts and chicken meat, and of course the salads made an appearance. I wanted wine, and we know that most bars serve terrible wine, so we decided to stop by
Mia, which was a bit yuppie for my friends' tastes, but happened to have great wine, and Guy, one of the bartenders was quite knowledgeable and super friendly. I picked up 2 bottles on my wish list--the
Yatir red wine, although the Robert Parker-praised 2003 wasn't available, the 2005 was; and the
Tzora Vineyards Gewurztraminer dessert wine 'Or', 2006. Add to that a Carmel winery red that Hilla picked up and we were well supplied for the night. We ended up at a very friendly bar that had originally made a bid to have my show, and the owner treated us to a bottle of wine there as well, so we needed to enlist a few friends to help. And on this we were successful!
Thursday I spent the day exploring the Old City. Now, the really old city, from Israelite or Roman times, is long buried beneath the rubble of the ages. The 'old city' as we know it, was an accumulation of sites from Byzantine, medieval and Ottoman times. The walls and ramparts were built by the Ottoman Sultan in the 16th century. I entered at the Jaffa gate and just wandered aimlessly. It wasn't really high season there and I often found myself walking alone down the tiny alleys--thru the Armenian quarter, the Jewish quarter, the Christian quarter. I stumbled upon the Wailing Wall plaza first. I kept a respectful distance and observed the observant. You've probably read my views on organized religion, and my ambivalence towards it, if you've followed this blog at all. And in fact, I felt like a bit of an intruder. This is a good frame of mind to have has a tourist, I think--better than being an oblivious bull in a cultural china shop. I wanted to go up on the Temple Mount but the site is closed during Muslim holidays, and this week was the week of Eid al-Adha, one of the most important ones. Why would the site of the third holiest shrine in Islam be closed during this holiday? It's not closed to Muslims, that's why. They get to have it for themselves without tourists...which I can respect. So, I walked around, and found my way, after some lunch and many, many wrong turns, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is supposed the be the spot where Jesus was crucified, and also where he was chucked into a cave, and found to have disappeared, on his ascent to heaven. The site was chosen a few centuries after the time of Jesus, by the Byzantine emperor's mother, when the empire had converted to Christianity. She went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and selected what she felt were likely spots for historical events. A hill was chosen for examination, and the excavation produced some crosses. Hence, it became the spot. Was it the spot? Impossible to say, really. But it is now, and believers take it seriously. The Crusaders built a bigger church over the small Byzantine one, but most of this was ruined in an earthquake and a fire in the last two centuries so what you see now is a restored 19th century church built on top of and including walls of the Crusader church. You enter, and if you turn right and go up some stairs, you are supposedly standing on Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion. If you turn left, you enter an enormous cupola, which is pierced by two shafts of light--one from above, at the peak of the dome, and one from whichever window on the side is facing the sun. It's a lovely effect. Under the done there is a wooden shrine, inside of which is the alter that represents where Jesus was interred and was resurrected. I waited in line to go in, hustled thru by a gruff kind of doorman. Russian women kissed the icon inside. Again, I was reminded how in religion, a story becomes a myth, and then the myth becomes a reality to the believers. Those women weren't entering the spot that *represents* Jesus' burial site; they were sure that they were on the actual site. Again, I knew that I was not sharing the perspective of almost everyone there and I felt like an intruder to some degree.
The center of the old city is a functioning souk, I think it's not for tourists unless tourists are really into buying cheap blenders and frozen giblets. And socks that say 'Brazil' on them....
Later in the afternoon/evening, Hilla arranged for me to visit
Domaine du Castel, one of the most celebrated wineries in Israel. They make a Chardonnay that is remarkably similar to a Meursault, and two Bordeaux-style blended reds. Ariel Ben Zaken, runs the business with his brother, and their father. Ariel was a fantastic host, and gave me a tour of the fermenting, aging and other parts of the winemaking operation, and then sat down with us for a lenghty tasting, accompanied by some fine Israeli cheeses. He spent almost two hours with us, really remarkably generous with his time.
JERUSALEM, 12/11
We drove back into the city and Hilla dropped me at the Lab, a brilliant theatre/bar that is a bit off the beaten path of the city, in a kind of warehouse district. The show room has a large stage, and is seated around the sides and back. We did our soundcheck, and then I went up to check emails til showtime came along. In the meantime, the recently elected mayor of Jerusalem came to speak to a gathering of young volunteers for an organization that seeks to keep youth culture alive in Jerusalem; most young folks head off to Tel Aviv as soon as they graduate university. The ironic thing is that most of the people there left as soon as the speeches were done, and the crowd dwindled down to about 75 people, which is exactly the kind of thing that everyone in and outside of Jerusalem says always happens, which is why shows don't come to Jerusalem as often as they should. BUT, I was happy, 75 people is plenty of materiel to work with! And work I did. I played just a handful of songs...most people sat in the seats towards the back, and my cables weren't long enough to get me to them, but they definitely enjoyed my performance, and I could wail enough to fill the room no problem. I played a short set and said I would play more if people wanted at the end. Shy and his band played their happy pop rock set, and people actually danced, it was great, I hadn't seen dancing like that since the Posies played JC Fox and Sons in 1980's Seattle. Anyway, we did our miniset together, which was super fun...and then Shy gave me the stage and I went on with a couple of songs on guitar, then took everyone remaining, about 20 or so die hards, to the bar, where there was a grand piano. I performed for another 40 minutes, and of course this was my favorite part. The people gathered in closely, and listened intently, and I was able to relax, not being under any time pressure. Lovely! After words, one of the staff of the Lab, Shai, and I closed down Mia.
On Friday I took a taxi, my ultimate destination being Masada. We made some stops along the way; first, we paused at the Mount of Olives to look down on the city, and give a few coins to the kids that beg from the tourists there. Then we headed on towards the Dead Sea. Now, technically we are crossing the border into the Palestinian territories, as far as I can tell, but there is no apparent border crossing, at least not going outward. This confused me, as I had imagined that movement here was very difficult--and it may be, for Palestinians. But, for all intents and purposes, it was not apparent that I was crossing into any special kind of region, from a political point of view. But certainly the land changes: suddenly the pines and cypresses of Jerusalem disappear and you are in total desert. Not the dunes of the Sahara but rolling hills of compressed dirt and rock, seemingly devoid of life--you have to look closely to see that a few tiny shrubs here and there. Also, nestled into valleys you see some Bedouin dwellings. Basically little shantytowns, corrugated shacks and the like with a camel parked out front. These were small settlements that appeared to house one family or so--on the road going from Masada to Tel Aviv to the south I saw what looked like Bedouin favelas, bigger settlements some housing perhaps a few thousand people, judging from the size.
As we descended into the lowest spot on earth, the ground leveled out and we were in a land of kibbutzim, oases, and Dead Sea resorts. The Dead Sea has been shrinking quite a bit in recent years--down south in Ein Bokek, the Sea has gone quite far from the expensive resorts that were once on its shores. We stopped at Ein Gedi, which has a small resort where you can take the waters. For a small fee, I got a towel and a locker, and changed into my board shorts. Behind the building, there's a kind of train--a tractor pulling some open cars, to take you down to the receded shoreline.
From there you just, walk in. Easier said than done if you aren't wearing aqua socks. The entire floor of the dead sea is coated with crystallized salt--it is rather like a kind of coral, but a solid sheet underneath any area covered by water. In exposed areas the salt breaks down, giving the mud the look a glazed donut, but where the water is, it is solid, seemingly unbreakable. Hard and pointy. I took my time to walk out in the water. Jerusalem had been very cold; I wasn't prepared for that. But on the desert side, it was warm and pleasant--not hot, but warm enough for me to be outside in just board shorts and not be miserable (I am super sensitive to cold). The lake itself is quite warm too. The water feels a bit slick but generally, it's like a normal body of water, but your body starts behaving strangely. You just can't sink. Your legs keep shooting up and out of the water if you lay on your back. Anyway, I floated and rested. It's dodgy to try to swim--first off all, your increased buoyancy means you can't really dig into the water or get a comfortable position; second of all, you must avoid getting the water in your eyes or mouth. I received just a tiny splash on my lips and it was quickly unpleasant. Luckily, the resort has forseen this possibility and there are several floating platforms with piped in fresh water under pressure, making it quite easy to spray off your hands and face.
After I floated for awhile, I headed back up to the resort building (I say resort, but the vibe is more YMCA than Four Seasons) and spent some time floating in the heated pools--murky green baths, stinking of sulphur, heated to a reasonably warm but not hot tub level of temperature. All in all, I found the experience extremely rejuvenating, I had a nice glow around me the rest of the day. It was quite cheap to be there, too, maybe $20 to use all the facilities and use a locker and towel.
I did smell like gunpowder the next days tho.
We went on to Masada, and I paid my fare and bid farewell to Adam, my driver. I was dropped at the Masada guest house, which sits at the foot of the hills that rise up suddenly to become the enormous mesas, the most dramatic of which is Masada. On this mesa, Herod, the puppet king installed by the Romans to rule the region during the last years before the birth of Jesus. He was a fat cat, a plutocrat who used his political position to accumulate great wealth--which he spent on many enormous building projects, including a 'refuge' out by the Dead Sea. Despite the fact that it sits on a 1300 foot high mesa in the desert, and the local lake is hypersaline and basically poisonous, he managed to have at his disposal a bathhouse, including a steam room; a swimming pool and other other luxuries. This was achieved by a brilliant system of aqueducts and cisterns--when rain did come, it would flash flood, and the channels of the floods were diverted in to aqueducts that sluiced the water into waiting cisterns on the slope of masada. Then, pack animals would carry water up the path, presumaly in amphorae and skins, and this would be dumped in cisterns at the top level.
It seems Herod croaked before he actually got to use the place. Some years later, a Jewish revolt against Roman rule was centered here--the palace was taken, and used as a base of operations for their resistance. The Romans encircled and lay siege to the fortress for some months, until, at last the wall was breached and the fortress overrun. The remaining 1000 Jewish people in the fortress had chosen mass suicide rather than enslavement/execution at the hands of their captors. It is a central part of the Jewish people's history--their commitment to death before dishonor is used to inspire fortitude and bravery: the site is used for the swearing-in ceremonies of the
IDF.
I was extremely mellow upon arrival to the guest house--it's called a hostel but it's really a hotel, albeit one where you make your own bed. I didn't have the energy to scale the heights, and it was getting dark, and besides: I had a plan.
No phone, no postage stamps, no internet. Not much I could do but watch brain-melting movies like 'Red Heat'. Dinner was a buffet, and I went as soon as it opened--the main dishes were sort of like school lunch fare, but the salad bar was excellent. I can tell you this much: hummous is much, much better in Israel than in the States or Europe. It has a more pungent, nutty flavor--by comparison, the hummous I am used to is bland by comparison.
I enjoyed the Tzora dessert wine in my room, and fell asleep at about 8pm.
Up at 4. I had heard that the site was open at 5am, and that it was must do to see the sunrise. I think they meant the entire site, including the trails (for those who don't want to trudge up the sheer face of a mountain, there is a cable car, starting at 8am). With no internet I wasn't sure when sunrise actually was. So I headed out at 4.15 and started to walk towards the trail head. I was aided by the presence of a highly luminous full moon. But still, the mountain was in shadow. Walking thru the Tatooine-like eroded geologic forms (which really look like an alien city) in the night, I started to wonder--am I nuts? I am all alone here, and what kind of jackals or what have you roam this place? But, I got over it. No Tusken raiders bludgeoned me. I was OK. And even tho the size of the mountain soon blocked the moon, my eyes adjusted. The fact is, I had the mountain to myself, and it was fantastic. I hiked up the Snake Path, my heart pounding in my ears as there were no other sounds to compete with. I walked into the facility after 45 minutes of solid uphill hiking, and explored a bit in the darkness. Eventually I found my way to the highest lookout point next to the guard tower (there was a light on inside and I didn't want to be chased off by a park ranger) and had the pleasure of watching the sun rise over Jordan and the Dead Sea. It took an hour, at first there was only the barest suggestion that the sky was purple instead of inky black, but soon it was awash in glorious pinks and gold. I still had the site to myself. I went down the side of the hill to explore some ruins that stick out on the 'prow' of the ship-shaped mesa, and even hopped over the guard rail to look into a few holes, naughty boy.
A few folks started to trickle up the path at about 7. I explored the various ruins, which were well identified by signage in English. There were the dovecots, towers with little niches to attract doves, for eating. There was the church built by Byzantine Monks in the 7th century, that had portions of its tile floor intact. By 8am, when the cable car started up, I had pretty much covered all the highlights, and I was ready to take breakfast. One great moment when I was alone on the mountain was peeking over the edge and seeing eyes peeking back up at me--then another pair, then another: a family of ibex were walking along a tiny path on the cliff face, essentially sticking out at a 30 deg. angle to look at me. Determining I was too far away to be a threat, the exposed themselves on a flat area, and nibbled some bushes. Also running around on the top of the mountain were numerous quail.
I came back down, just as the sun was starting to bake the area. I had breakfast--where I discovered the joy of
Jachnun, a pastry made of tightly rolled dough, left to cook on very low heat overnight, so as to not violate the sabbath's dictum against operation of ovens on the sabbath. So, it has a soft but tough texture. You spread a pulverized tomato sauce on it; results delicious. Back to bed I went!
When I got up and went to check out at noon, the reception was closed. Again, my pace was slowed by outside forces and I took it upon myself to enjoy the circumstances. Eventually, a cab was called, and I headed back to Tel Aviv.
Instead of heading north along the Dead Sea and going back thru Jerusalem, we went south to Ein Bokek and turned north elsewhere. We passed the aforementioned Bedouin towns/homesteads. This drive gave you a view of the have-nots in Israel. You tend to think that everyone is modern and comfortably prosperous in Israel hanging out in the cities. Out in the country, it's very third world, reminiscent of my visits to Mauritania. A bunch of shacks, the occasional beat to shit car, the occasional camel. Maybe one tree every 10 miles or so. Not sure if the people there are intentionally dropped out or if they are shut out from the system, but they are definitely not part of the prosperity that urban Israelis enjoy.
TEL AVIV, 12/13
I pulled right up to the club, and found that I was the first musician there. Daniel, one of the owners of Levontin 7, is very cool, and set me up with a cafe. Things were pretty much shut down on Saturday night in the neighborhood--Saturday in Israel is more like a Sunday in Europe or the US. One small issue: the sewer had backed up, rendering the restrooms, which were in the basement adjacent to the showroom, inoperable. But, in a typically friendly Tel Aviv fashion, the tiny bar at the end of the block was happy to have L7's customers come in and use the facilities no questions asked.
We did our soundcheck, and Issar, Shy's drummer, took me to a place whose name translates to 'small kitchen', near Tel Aviv's open market. I had nothing but the famous salads--most of the restaurant's ingredients are sourced fresh from the adjacent market. The bathroom is lined with these small posters, evidently educational illustrations from Mexican schools, which have lessons in history, technology, and of course drug abuse rendered in brilliant technicolor religious-tract style. The leering trees overlooking the psychedelic mushrooms make you want to run out and score shrooms immediately!
Back to the show: actually, there were two shows this night. Levontin tries to offer as much programming as possible, so there was an early show by Balkan horn ensemble
Marsh Dondurma, who are incredible. Veering into many styles and rhythms, including Afrobeat and Latino, they are roughly 15 people, all playing horns, except for a couple of percussionists. Udi Raz plays the bass lines on sousaphone.
After their show, they cleared the house, and upstairs in the bar commenced a brief set of hip hop, I didn't catch the MC's name, but listening to him speak later I am pretty sure he's American. I enjoyed their performance as well.
So, then, me. I played the piano, which was onstage and sounding great. The club was really full, and people were incredibly into it. When I played things they knew--like songs that are on my myspace--they greeted the opening chords with applause. Shy played his set, and we played our set together, and I continued on. And on. And on! It was the longest show in Levontin 7's history, I was told. By the time we finished, somewhere around 2am, we were down to maybe 40 people, crammed in front of and on the stage. I was genuinely moved, and I think the audience was too. I got lots of hugs and thank you's after the show. My voice was a bit raw, I hadn't 100% recovered from my previous week's sickness plus the cold weather in Jerusalem and running around sightseeing and socializing had taken their toll and set me back a bit. But, this added an emo dimension to things and everyone seemed OK with it.
As we drove back to Shy's place that night, he asked me what time my flight was the next morning. It wasn't, it's early Monday morning. Ah, he said. Well, Billy and I are leaving, to go stay with our respective parents on the nights leading up to our wedding. So, no one will be at our place.
I knew that in the neighborhood of Jaffa they live in, the chances of me finding a taxi at 5am were slim to none. So, I decided to wing it. They dropped me that afternoon at Levontin, who were happy to host me. My plan was to have a white night at Levontin and head to the airport afterwards.
I spent the afternoon mailing postcards and exploring Neve Tzedek. While I was out, I received a call from Daniel explaining there was a problem, and I needed to come back quickly. I hoofed back to the club, and found everyone outside. The sewer problem had gotten worse, and the club was closed for the night while repairs were underway. I had to run in and rescue my stuff in a cloud of stench on the edge of bearable. Daniel had assigned one of his staff, Anat, to take care of me, and she did a marvelous job. She made sure I was entertained--we went to a concert at another venue, and I met up other friends there, including Gali who was playing with Trouble Over Tokyo when we toured together in May! Her mom lives in Tel Aviv. The show was kinda cheesy, very mainstream pop, but the venue was pleasant. Before that we hit up Time Out Israel's selection for best wine bar in Israel,
HaTraklin which has a more slick and chic atmosphere than the more primitive counterculture spots that seem to be the norm in Tel Aviv. But that's not to say it was unpleasant, quite the oppsite. Very friendly and cool.
After the show, I was really beat, I blew off the white night concept and and begged for couch space. Which I received. Sharing a small front room with a dog and a kitten, and finding no hot water, I opted to head for the airport a little early. Not that I'm ungrateful! My hosts were really friendly and cool.
I received less scrutiny getting on the plane that morning-and the fact I had a poster in my luggage that showed I played with R.E.M. and Neil Young got a few oo's from the security staff.
TLV offers free wifi. How nice.
El Al offers really shitty inflight movies, which was also nice, since it gave me no choice but to go to sleep.
Since being home, I've been fighting a cold, and been really unable to face work. I've been laying low, and getting ready for Christmas, and resting up for my trip to Oslo this week to work with the Disciplines on new songs.
I think I'm taking tonight off, too.
My sincere thanks to Shy and Billy for their hospitality and their efforts on my behalf I hope to repay you with equal generosity!
Love
KS
Paris
