My place is only a ten minute walk from the Capitol Building at one end of 'the mall' here in DC, the centre of town. The weather has been warm to hot, up in the 80+ degrees farenheit. Not as I expected.

So, I met John the other day. He is, but won't be for long, the executive program producer for Al-Jazeera English in the Middle East, and he is the guy that invited me over here. Sunday night at his nice 5 star hotel, with a few of the crew he says. few of the crew means little to me, in fact I was thinking some of the production fellas would be keen for a drink in the lobby, but no. No, not at all. It was one of John's seniors, Paul; the director, Rick; the young sound and light director, Jamie; and the host of the show Jasim al-Azzawi. there they were all astonished I had made the trip to DC. Was I crazy?

So Sunday was the beginning of a very long, very interesting, few days that culminated in the 2 shows on Wednesday. It has been an amazing experience and I have met people that exist only in this political world that may as well be fiction (cos it goes like a story), but is actually very real.

I watched Jasim interview Colin Powell's ex-chief advisor (Wilkerson) push the buck and condemn all the top neocons and CIA leading upto the Iraq War. He also said something about some tree or Bush being too light up top to grow any seeds - off record.

Today, I watched Scott Ritter and Joshua Moravchik slam it out verbally, scoring extra points with the flambouyant hand waiving and face clenching. I also watched Tony Benn explain to us how he would throw a grenade too and how churchill would have done things alot different (that guy should have his own show - a Commonwealth treasure).

I ran around George Washington University telling people about al-jazeera and iraq and to come to the show (or did the bastards hear al-qaeda in Iraq? cos they didnt bother coming). I asked General Kimmitt a nice little question on international television that he answered way to easily. straight out of the script!

so much going on in the last 3 days it felt like 2 weeks. tomorrow, ill be seeing DC with Jasim, Rick, Jamie and John. hard work i guess. after that I should be helping out on the Riz Kahn show for a week. that'll take me upto friday next week and then upto NYC and then back to melbourne thru tokyo on the following monday.

Roots

my little cousin bobby and I at the top of Mt Muwattum overlooking Cairo.

My uncle Sherief in the Qeyt Bey Fort in Alexandria.

Uncle Sherief and my half-uncle Amr's extended family in Alexandria.

photos 21.04.07

Me and the Sun overlooking Jordan towards the Jordan river and palestine/israel.

another shot from upstairs (South China Sea i think)

that little largely abandoned town in the middle of the nullabor plain, Western Australia.

jet lag

well here I am. after arriving in NYC yesterday evening and staying in a hostel in manhattan for the night, i have just settled into a house in Washington DC with Maria and John, my homestay hosts, where I will be for the next 12 or so days.

to be honest i was rather anxious about entering the US. I have been here before. One year before 11/09/01, or 9/11 as many remember that particular day (those wacky Americans put the month first, then the day, then the year). Since that most destructive and infamous of days, I have heard and expected US immigration to have become a bit more of a challenge. In particular, a young man by the name of Hisham Moustafa, who occasionally relaxes the shaving routine, who recently disappeared in the Libyan desert for two weeks, who is Muslim and Arab looking, and who even had an uncle who professed he would not get on a plane with him (satirically?), might find this process especially daunting.

So there I was at immigration, careful to smile and speak in clear and concise english, battling over whether to empasize the Peter on the immigration forms - my middle name. However, I should not have concerned myself. An upstanding young gentleman such as myself had no trouble, and I flew through, leaving only my finger prints and dental records innocently behind me. (actually no dental records were given, although the white coats, that strange light, and later that feeling of de-ja-vu i vaguely and queerily remember, tell me something was slightly amiss... along with that strange new lump i can feel under my left eye.

Nonetheless, I found myself no a bus on my way to manhattan and to the hostel i had booked on 30th street near 8th avenue. there, i was stuffed into a small two-bunk bedded room and then stuffed myself into the tiny closet they called a shower. after returning to a state of comfort I grabbed a chicken teriyaki sandwich from subway and returned to the hostel to check my emails and relax. after chatting with some argentinians about Maui and Honolulu, i was invited into a game of texas hold 'em with 3 young germans. these vibrant germans (oxymoron?) liked a drink and we proceeded get more and more disinterested in the game, prefering instead to discuss languages, masculine, femine and neutrals (in language, ie. the gender of words), and then just the feminine. I politely said goodbye and left to bed at about 1am after staying awake for well over 30 hours.

ofcourse, it would be rude of me not to mention Japan, which i didn't get to see enough of. my 24 hours there consisted of going back and forth from the airport to withdraw some cash, eating wedges for dinner, checking email, bowing my head, and buying a cable channel card for $10 only to get access to one movie channel, which was showing 'the ring' - i dont even like horror movies that much.

this morning i got up at about 7:30am to get to dowtown manhattan for a bus to Washington DC. I felt fine actually, but this feeling only lasted until the bus started moving. then tiredness and grumpiness set in, and accompanied me for the 5 hour journey south. some hours into the trip, hile trying to sleep on my back with my head on the two seater and legs high up over the chair, I began to notice this incredibly annoying sound every few seconds like someone blowing their nose. I could have sworn it was this guy a couple of rows back. I couldnt believe how many times he had to trumpet his nose. he just went on and on and on. my temper began to boil as I wondered how long it would take for me to abrogate my social temprement, arise from my frustrating sleeping position and approach this guy and tell him to shut the damn hell up. it just kept knawing away at my fragile, jet-lagged mind, but luckily enough, i did retain some sense of awareness and reality and figured out it was not him, in fact it wasn't anybody... i still don't know what could have made that sound. perhaps my mind was just trying to piss me off.

so im now at John and Maria's place. they have been very nice and we've already had some interesting conversations. I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks and tomorrow I will meet John, who will put in more detail for me what the hell im doing here in the US. He is the executive program producer of Al-Jazeera english news channel and he is producing a 2 part 'Inside Iraq' special here in DC. I'll get to look in on Jasim al-Azzawi and his guests (like John Bolton, Clare Short, Muwafaq ar-Rubaie - the Iraqi national security advisor and possibly more) and perhaps meet some lobbyists here in the states. shuold be a great experience. i will let you know more about it when i do.

the picture above was shot over the South China sea i think on my way from Melbourne to Tokyo. those colours really appear as is shown.

from Tokyo

really? well yea, i got back to melbourne and all of a sudden got an invitation to the US from an old colleague at uni. will divulge more info soon, suffice to say it`s a great opportunity, albeit bloody expensive. worried about getting into the US seeing as i went into hiding in the Libyan desert for 2 weeks recently... and with Leena Shawerma as well. anyways, currently im in transit in narita, Japan and i hope to write something from the other side.

hooroo

melbourne

back to melbourne tomorrow. been in perth and canberra. caught a train across the nullabor, but have caught back up on sleep. still im tired maybe cos i'm not looking forward to melbourne as much after all. but you'll be there... right? so talk to me, take me out. take me out for a drink. maybe even a shisha...?

hello darkness my old friend

woah.... so i made it back to aus. and my my aus is still how i remember it but never how i knew it. i learn something about this place every now and again and aussie this time round is a really remarkable place. the australian accent can be out there, crude, in your face... but someone reminded me that you gotta love it, and although i did, being away for so long, i had confused myself between the attitudes and the accent... something which shoudnt be done. sometimes the accent reminds me of bigots and ignorance. but this is a poor excuse i realised cos this association was biased and founded only on uneven examples from negative exceptions. generally, the aussie attitude is really proud of life, accepting, fun loving and very often insightful and gracious. aussie is a place so far from other places, yet still it remains humbled to the greater way of things but uniquely and positively confidant (and this perseveres without John Howards long sought after 'values'). anyway, that's my quirky patriotism. a word i never use, up until now, in an affirmative manner.

but nice to talk with you again. i saw the guy from wolfmother the other night. i dont wish to brag about people i dont even know and really only appreciate cos the artist in them is easier to access, but these stories seem to interest people and give me a social card i can use when deemed appropriate. so for those of you who care, i was neatly dressed up in my polished black shoes, suit pants, shirt, waist coat and cravette. anyway, i found myself beside a door when a girl opened it and asked me if i was working there. my sharp wits told me to tell her i did, but when she dragged me in, stood me next to 'wolfmother guy' and told me to get him a bucket of ice, my sharp wits proceeded to fail me pathetically and i refused on the grounds of exploitation and a righteous rejection of anything 'a-list'. after a couple of minutes and a number of demands to get the bucket i was seen for the normality that i usually inspire (although pretty nicely dressed) and shoved back out the magic alice in wonderland secret door.

i stand by my decision to this day (btw, it only happened 2 days ago), but always wonder which personality would have fallen in love with me had i found a way to stay in that the red carpet room of wonder.

oh then... the following day i got into the blues and roots festival in freo. just caught the end of john mayer and a couple other crazy blues bands, then got up close for ben harper. enjoyed a number of tracks and sneaked off to catch bo didley. HEEEEYYYYY BO DIDDDLEEEYYY! amazing guy and awesome music. he's like 80 yrs old or something. the keyboardist looks like your middle aged auntie but grooved the shite outta us all anyways. her solos were crazy. same with the bassist. after a quick set rejoined ben and his huge numbers of fans and danced away the last coupla songs before waiting an hour for a cab ride back to stueys place (who btw never gave me the $50 for entry that he owed me when he bet i wouldnt get in to the fest - but we forgive him cos of the hospitality, food, drink, pool and table tennis that i have taken advantage of at his place).

and thats not to mention jases bucks and wedding and all the rest of the fun i have had over here in perth and freo with all the crew. next time...