Funky Arabs

The name is Jad Chouiri, famously known for his slut-y ways directing female singers in a sexual videos that looks like 80s soft porn movies, and sharing the fun with couple of videos for himself, showing the "true" Lebanese in him.


The title is "Funky Arab" a new song by Jad Chouiri, and it's the talk-about nowadays in the office and in front of the coffee machines.


In the video, you can watch it by clicking here, Chouiri is raping his way inside a nightclub, a Lebanese one by the look of it, with his friends, they all look extremely glamorous, wearing Prada and D&G, and the new collection of the gay blogger/designer/celebrity Perez Hilton, with flashes of people from both sexes flirting, man-on-woman flirting, man-on-man flirting, and orgy-flirting, if there's such a thing.


as he goes in the club, full of people wearing Shirts with slogans like "FUCK REHAB" or "TEAM PEREZ", he sings about the fact they we (Arab boys and girls) are not what you (Non-Arab boys and girls) see on CNN and BBC, we can be funky and we got guts, we know how to turn you on, and dance with you till the break of down.


We're sexy, we have color and we know how to party.


The song is actually nice, the beat is quite interesting and goes with the flow, and the cinematography is superb, but I just can't make my mind up about it.

I like it, I seriously do, Do I agree that all Arab are like the people he point to in the video?! of course not! I can't name three people other than myself who're into the dancing scene and who doesn't give a crap about anything but to live and let live.

Is this song a good way to communicate with non-Arab people and deliver the message that we're not riding camels anymore, and that we actually can pronounce two words other than "Come buy"?! I dunno, but I guess that it's a way!


There are two kind of people in the world, who study for themselves, and those would know how we're living and understand us, they might have a different or oppose view on us and our life but they know us.

and there's the other kind, the people who doesn't know us at all, and if Jad Chouiri is the one who's going to show them the Arab world, even through Club music and semi-naked Arabs, they be it!

The Beauty and The Blogger

In what you might call a modern-day spin on the Beauty And The Beast fairytale, a cat-fight started couple of days ago in the event of "Miss USA pageant" between famous celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, and Miss California Carrie Prejean.
Perez - openly gay and known to be the owner of a very controversial blog - asked Miss California if she believes in gay marriage, which she replays with an answer he did not expect.
To watch the video, please click HERE


The 21 beauty started her answer complimenting her country, before stating her believes; a marriage is something between a man and a woman, for which was booed according to a latter-on interview with Perez Hilton, but the TV broadcast censored that.

Prejean didn't get the crown that night, taking the place of the first runner-up, which Miss North Carolina went home with the title.


On the other hand, Perez went home furious that night, didn't change his clothes, didn't bother to feed his dog, he jumped in front of his laptop camera and posted THIS video on his website, a blog that had more than three millions clicks over a day.

In the Video that lasted for 2.25 minutes, Perez went on calling the woman a damn bitch and a stupid person, assuring us that her answer should be the worst answer in the history of Miss USA pageant, which I'm sure he knows by heart.


To be honest, I'm sure Perez knew that the whole thing is not about his fight for homosexual rights or his hurt feelings over the answer he was given, it was about more clicks on his website, more gossip about himself over all TV channels, that was his re-born 15 minutes of fame, and he needed to take advantage of it asap.

The guy who calls a 15 years old singer a slut, and draw penises over people's mouth in his blog, got to be on Larry King Live two times in less than a week, three different interviews with other TV channels, Jimmy Kimmel - a famous comedian - made a parody about the whole incident, and people are talking, and talking and - yet more - talking.


The whole thing was a shallow superficial TV gossip, and everyone is taking his turn to show up, styling the thunder from the actual Miss USA, everyone is so into it to the extent of everything being ridiculously over-spoken about.

The whole thing has never been about a small group of people fighting for rights, it was about Perez Hilton and Miss California and the shallowness of the people following up, more clicks on the famous blogger website, more people tuning in to Fox News to see the interviews with the 21 years old woman, who makes sure to say the Lord's name every three seconds.

I don't think by any chances that the fight between people who want to accept gay people and the people who're not accepting gay people shouldn't be held between a silly 21 years old beauty queen and a 30something years old drama queen.
Both of them shouldn't be the face of such an important fight.

Al-Khan: Taking Comics to the next level

If you're a fan of "Daily News Egypt" you've already seen "Al-Khan", and if you haven't, then maybe it's time for you to.
Al-Khan is the first-of-a-kind comic strip here in Egypt, although the art itself was out and about in the Status and Europe starting the 30s and the 40s, but it never been published in the Arab world, maybe because of the stereotyping anything with drawings to Children Art.

Of course, that's not true, giving the fact that the idea of "Gig-a-Day" is mainly aimed for adults, as a daily response to society's day-to-day news using characters the readers are used to, and how the news are effecting their lives.

Tarik Shahin, a famous comics artist and cartoonist, started publishing his daily "Al-Khan" comic strip around May of last year, and it started to give a buzz couple of months afterward, giving the fact that his characters are lovable and interesting, showing the different levels and mintalities of the Egyptian socieity in a daily witty and funny way.


Shahin took the idea of daily caricature to the next level, adding more value to it, and make it a way to express different points of view through a comic strip that will make you think and respond rather than just read and laugh, and actually gives you a deeper look to the mentality of different people around you.


Shahin makes sure that he won't stand on one side of the river, he gives all of his characters the chance to show how they think, what are their reasons and what impact they have on each others, in a way that's both funny and logical.


the book was really one hell of a read, I enjoyed 80% of it, and the other 20% I didn't get for reasons I think is related to me rather to the book.



The book is published by Dar Malamih, the same publisher of "Metro".
P.S: the photos in this review belong to Tarik Shahin and Daily News Egypt, no copyrigt violation was intended.

Waking Up in Cairo!

- If Beirut is the New York of the Middle East, Cairo should be called "Vegas".

Ray told me that weeks ago in the middle of a conversation that I can't remember, and I can't figure out why I kept thinking of it all morning long.
Maybe it was the too-strong of a sun that hit my face and reminded me that, just like Vegas, we're in the middle of the desert.

Maybe, just maybe, it's the taxi drivers who're usually ex-cons or something, who fuck you over everytime you get in their car, but you just don't know any other way to go around the city.

Maybe because Thursday night was just too blur to know what you've done, where you've been and why the hell are you wearing your T-shirt inside-out?!

Maybe because you always feel like telling the next person to shut the fuck-up, or put his money where his mouth is.


Maybe because we're always partners in a crime, wither it's drinking till we drop, having outta married sex, making out with whatshisface, dirty dance with whatshername or ending up sleeping on the coach of a person you don't even know.

Now, we need a taxi 'cuase you're hang-over, and I'm broke.

inspired by "Waking Up in Vegas" by "Katy Perry".

Metro, a Damned Book!

The book cover

"Metro", the first graphic novel in Egypt was released around this time last year, I didn't get to read it and I'm not sure what exactly is its plot but that doesn't change the fact that it's a book, a book that a writer and a illustrator made an effort to write, and it deserves to be published.

Mohamed Magdy, the artist behind the book

The book was banned in Egypt weeks after its distribution by Malamih publishing house, which also printed the book, and both the writer "Magdy El-Shafie" and the publisher "Mohamed El-Sharkawy" are up for a trial because of it ever since, the book - Naturally - is still banned here.

The Publisher

Unfortunally I couldn't attend the press conference that was held yesterday somewhere downtown Cairo to discuss the latest updates that took place durning the court session that was held couple of days ago, what I've heard through Facebook.com is that the trail was pushed to a later date and the whole supject is still bending at the moment.

Personally, I think that any book has the right to be published even if it was offensive to some people, any writer who has the creativity in him/her should be able to say whatever he/she feels like saying, and the debates between any two groups should take place in more neutral atmoshpere than a court.

The freedom of speech in Egypt is not a political concept at all, it's a human right that should be giving to anyone who's asking for it, a right to talk about any subject that any Egyptian can talk about without the fear of being pushed to court, or damned by any group of people, or even the leaders of any religion.

The book might be right in some places and wrong in others, I didn't read it so I wouldn't know, but no person should be banned or attacked because of his/her thoughts or the way it was expressed, and any creative act just be treated jently and with care.

and from now til that happens in Egypt, If ever, Metro would join a gorup of other books that was banned or attacked, a group that included some of the best Arabic writers in the world.
the list would start with "Nagib Mahfooz" and won't stop with "Metro".

First To Fight

For the first time in I dunno how many years a forward email actually was true.

usually I don't read the emails a certain person keeps on sending me, and I do have a reason for that other than totally hating that person (which I do!), and my reason would be the fact that 99.99% of his emails are about the conspiracy theory that Israeli people or American people are plotting to kill all the Arab (why?! are we more important that the Chinese for example?!).


This time, the email was about this new video game on Xbox, a game where the children has to shoot the "pages of Quarn" to gain more points and kill Islamic peaceful people to pass the time.
I was like "Yeah, Right!", shooting the pages of the Quarn won't be in a game for a simple reason, it's not challenging enough for young boys who're the main audience for such games!

I deleted the email, and started working, but I notice something, the name of the game the email was talking about does ring a bell, "First to Fight" you say ?!

I googled it, and what-do-you-know, here come the Wikipedia page of the game.
the game centers around Marine Corps Lance Corporal with the callsign Gladiator 2. The Lebanese Prime Minister becomes ill, and must temporarily leave office to recover. Seeing a prime chance to control Lebanon, Syria and Iran begin supplying a local militant group, the Atash Movement, led by Tarik Qadan. As things escalate, Marines are inserted into Beirut for the third time.

isn't an amazing plot ?! wow!
after all of those years making fun of myself being an Axe of Evil, I turned out to be one indeed.

I couldn't stop myself laughing when I read the following:
The game is not officially endorsed by either the US Department of Defense or the United States Marine Corps.

seriously now?!

I did get offended, giving the fact that I'm Syrian after all, and for more realistic reason as well, I just don't want a 12-year-old boy in Texas to hate me while playing a game and eating a burger.

GAYraini ..

Abdul-Fatah Graini raise to fame last year, with an album the blow minds and a style of hair more likely that you'll see it in the fabulous 60s rather than an Arab popstar.
Graini gained so much fame as the hip new singer, who really connect with young girls and hash smoking boys, he looked like one of them really, and made sense to them.
couple of days ago, Graini was throwing a concert in one of the Cairo downtown cafes, he did some OK job, and some people actually stoped him in the street asking him for photos.


Not that I disapprove or anything, it's always cute to see the love in the eyes of people, but, don't you find it really weird that Graini couldn't let go of the hand of his "friend" to take a photo, let's take a second look.


How lovely, another piccture just for you to get the "picture".


Oh Graini, darling, love is really in the air, and all this love songs you write and sing to impress young girls are just really true.
Doesn't that interview that Graini took couple of weeks ago, and talked about the "girl" of his dreams just has a whole different feeling to it now.

I kinda understand why some people in Cairo can be double faced, sometimes they're being themselves not expecting someone to see, but when they know someone is looking they take that "persona" they have created for themselves, it's really fine to decide to hide who you're from the eyes of the puplic specially in a city like Cairo.
I wish that someday people who're hiding behind a mask to be able to work in a certin carrer or have a semi-normal life style in Egypt to just drop that mask, but till then, Graini, sweetie, let the fuck go of your boyfriend hand, and try not to get killed, both carrer wise and actual wise.