The first morning we wake up in Israel--by Mark Freeman
Today is August 1, the first morning we wake up in Israel, not on a damn plane. The ride could have been worse; at least there was a gorgeous Israeli in shorts and an Abercrombie t-shirt lying next to me all night. Okay, he was across the aisle, and Ken was two rows up, but we all had at least two seats to stretch out in, as for some reason not everyone wants to travel to the Holy Land this week. I only spoke a few words, asking "Tov?" --is the in-flight movie any good, but I maintained an awareness of his goodness, or at least his gorgeousness, all night. My guess is that a theme is developing here.
Today is also the day Daniel should be coming to our house in Bernal Heights. We only met him a week before we left, in the rare San Francisco thanks-to-George-Bush global warning heat wave, at Dolores Park. There on the "gay beach" of nearly dried grass in the park named after the basilica of the Sorrows of Mary, on the street that was El Camino Real, the royal road connecting the Franciscan friars' missions in California del Norte, that is the first street in San Francisco, a brief friendship (and thence this overly-phrased and now sufficiently run-on sentence) began. He was alone and tall, darkly handsome in a semi-Semitic way, and young. Twenty-one, it turned out and not Palestinian but Syrian, from a family that grew up in Iraq and wisely left for Modesto in our Central Valley. Daniel, even more wisely, was moving to San Francisco to go to City College and study art, and was looking for a room in a house to rent.
A few days later he was staying in a hostel for a week, still looking, and we invited him to the Stud for our pal Deena Davenport's 4AD label theme night at Trannyshack. What is it like, he asked, as a never so secure kid his age does, but I had no way to describe it except to say that it wasn't like a regular gay bar and he would like it. He did, agape at the over-the-top pre-emo performances of the city's most brilliant queens even though he did not know the songs of the Cocteau Twins, the Pixies or even This Mortal Coil that Ken sang along with word for indecipherable word. Daniel was either the wrong age or in a different place in the early Eighties (much like myself). No, wait, he wasn't born yet. A few days later we met him at an outdoor screening in Dolores Park featuring, of all things, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the wonderful and superficial American take on the Middle East. You see, the coincidences are already accumulating.
Sitting in the fog and waiting for that Indy epic to begin, we introduced Daniel to some of the radical faeries we'd come there to meet to celebrate the 40th birthday of Stuart, once Downy and now Yoga Daddy, a Jew-Hindu mystic and force for good in the community. We particularly wanted Daniel to meet Benjamin, our oft-critical friend whom we love nevertheless, and who studied in Jordan and speaks fluent Arabic. We heard Daniel talking to him about not having found a room yet (because he is too young or insecure or who knows why roomie interviews go wrong) and we looked at each other and though we hadn't spent more than three hours with him, decided to offer our place while we were gone. Like, sometimes you have to not worry, just trust someone, and let go. Of course, I had a list of household reminders for him, and one request: that he was welcome to stay but to please not bring other folks over. I was not thinking of an army of Assyrian assassins, but rather of any bedtime tricks, among who at least one was sure to be a speed-freak, thief, murderer or at least a destroyer of other's interiors. Daniel quickly agreed, and we gave him a key and showed the bus routes. He is smart and I am not worried, really.
But I am thinking of him this morning, since I woke up in our new time zone three hours early before our departure for the South, the Negev desert, Eilat on the Red Sea and tomorrow, our dream of seeing Petra in Jordan (site of a later Indiana Jones movie, we think it is the one about the Holy Grail). In fact, I have not slept more than four hours at a time since we left, whether due to anxiety, anticipation, discomfort of whatever. You only live once, as young people keep reminding me, why waste your time sleeping? I am also thinking of of the handsome Moroccan Jewish boy we sat next to on bar stools at Evita, the stylish gay lounge that we found after a long walk through the streets of Tel Aviv, the city that never sleeps, past the Carmel Market at night with its feral cats and odors of meat and rotten fruit (as in the city that never sweeps?) and after meeting the two "straight" but hip guys who were closing an organic bread store. I saw the drawing of animals on the wall and asked if they sold sheep. No, only goats, the tall tattooed one riposted, listing types. No blow-up sheep? No but, do you want a loaf of bread, it is cheese and black olive rye, take it, we are closed. We do, and they confirm our directions to the gay bar and encourage us to go.
You know, I love this country, and Ken may be beginning to. His opinion certainly went up a peg in the bar, where actually every single person there could only be described with the term "hottie." The Moroccan guy next to us turned out to be a soldier, assigned to the North. "DON'T ask me about it," he quickly insisted, "I am on vacation." We didn't, and found out about his French boyfriend (they only share English as a language), met his gorgeous girl cousin who was the waitress in the little black dress there ("Of course she is gorgeous, we are Moroccan!") then hugged him goodbye with instructions to "be nice, be safe, be well."
But to return to the moment. Unable to sleep after 5 this morning after a too-short 4-hour fall into the arms of Morpheus, I read. At The Entrance To the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope With the Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land by Yossi Klein Halevi, an observant Orthodox Jew and writer for the New Republic. It is good, and after an hour or so I realize what my prayer for today must be.
"May God grant that not one beloved Jew, not one impassioned Shia Lebanese, not one blessed Christian Arab, not one beautiful Palestinian, nor even anyone who buys into none of these systems yet has a good heart, die of violence today,"
You may add your Amen if you choose.
--Mark Freeman
Today is also the day Daniel should be coming to our house in Bernal Heights. We only met him a week before we left, in the rare San Francisco thanks-to-George-Bush global warning heat wave, at Dolores Park. There on the "gay beach" of nearly dried grass in the park named after the basilica of the Sorrows of Mary, on the street that was El Camino Real, the royal road connecting the Franciscan friars' missions in California del Norte, that is the first street in San Francisco, a brief friendship (and thence this overly-phrased and now sufficiently run-on sentence) began. He was alone and tall, darkly handsome in a semi-Semitic way, and young. Twenty-one, it turned out and not Palestinian but Syrian, from a family that grew up in Iraq and wisely left for Modesto in our Central Valley. Daniel, even more wisely, was moving to San Francisco to go to City College and study art, and was looking for a room in a house to rent.
A few days later he was staying in a hostel for a week, still looking, and we invited him to the Stud for our pal Deena Davenport's 4AD label theme night at Trannyshack. What is it like, he asked, as a never so secure kid his age does, but I had no way to describe it except to say that it wasn't like a regular gay bar and he would like it. He did, agape at the over-the-top pre-emo performances of the city's most brilliant queens even though he did not know the songs of the Cocteau Twins, the Pixies or even This Mortal Coil that Ken sang along with word for indecipherable word. Daniel was either the wrong age or in a different place in the early Eighties (much like myself). No, wait, he wasn't born yet. A few days later we met him at an outdoor screening in Dolores Park featuring, of all things, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the wonderful and superficial American take on the Middle East. You see, the coincidences are already accumulating.
Sitting in the fog and waiting for that Indy epic to begin, we introduced Daniel to some of the radical faeries we'd come there to meet to celebrate the 40th birthday of Stuart, once Downy and now Yoga Daddy, a Jew-Hindu mystic and force for good in the community. We particularly wanted Daniel to meet Benjamin, our oft-critical friend whom we love nevertheless, and who studied in Jordan and speaks fluent Arabic. We heard Daniel talking to him about not having found a room yet (because he is too young or insecure or who knows why roomie interviews go wrong) and we looked at each other and though we hadn't spent more than three hours with him, decided to offer our place while we were gone. Like, sometimes you have to not worry, just trust someone, and let go. Of course, I had a list of household reminders for him, and one request: that he was welcome to stay but to please not bring other folks over. I was not thinking of an army of Assyrian assassins, but rather of any bedtime tricks, among who at least one was sure to be a speed-freak, thief, murderer or at least a destroyer of other's interiors. Daniel quickly agreed, and we gave him a key and showed the bus routes. He is smart and I am not worried, really.
But I am thinking of him this morning, since I woke up in our new time zone three hours early before our departure for the South, the Negev desert, Eilat on the Red Sea and tomorrow, our dream of seeing Petra in Jordan (site of a later Indiana Jones movie, we think it is the one about the Holy Grail). In fact, I have not slept more than four hours at a time since we left, whether due to anxiety, anticipation, discomfort of whatever. You only live once, as young people keep reminding me, why waste your time sleeping? I am also thinking of of the handsome Moroccan Jewish boy we sat next to on bar stools at Evita, the stylish gay lounge that we found after a long walk through the streets of Tel Aviv, the city that never sleeps, past the Carmel Market at night with its feral cats and odors of meat and rotten fruit (as in the city that never sweeps?) and after meeting the two "straight" but hip guys who were closing an organic bread store. I saw the drawing of animals on the wall and asked if they sold sheep. No, only goats, the tall tattooed one riposted, listing types. No blow-up sheep? No but, do you want a loaf of bread, it is cheese and black olive rye, take it, we are closed. We do, and they confirm our directions to the gay bar and encourage us to go.
You know, I love this country, and Ken may be beginning to. His opinion certainly went up a peg in the bar, where actually every single person there could only be described with the term "hottie." The Moroccan guy next to us turned out to be a soldier, assigned to the North. "DON'T ask me about it," he quickly insisted, "I am on vacation." We didn't, and found out about his French boyfriend (they only share English as a language), met his gorgeous girl cousin who was the waitress in the little black dress there ("Of course she is gorgeous, we are Moroccan!") then hugged him goodbye with instructions to "be nice, be safe, be well."
But to return to the moment. Unable to sleep after 5 this morning after a too-short 4-hour fall into the arms of Morpheus, I read. At The Entrance To the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope With the Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land by Yossi Klein Halevi, an observant Orthodox Jew and writer for the New Republic. It is good, and after an hour or so I realize what my prayer for today must be.
"May God grant that not one beloved Jew, not one impassioned Shia Lebanese, not one blessed Christian Arab, not one beautiful Palestinian, nor even anyone who buys into none of these systems yet has a good heart, die of violence today,"
You may add your Amen if you choose.
--Mark Freeman
posted by Ken | 12:25 AM
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