The death of extremism at Macquarie, Leb night out
THE LEBANESE NIGHT OUT
Being of Lebanese descent allows me to make fun of Lebanese things. But there are things in life that we know will never change - usually they give us comfort when we feel like reverting back into a childhood state. Freud would no doubt import some psycho sexual connotation about this attraction to occasionally doing things we know have always been the same. A night out at a Lebanese "night club" when a visiting singer from Lebanon comes is one such thing - and no Lebanese person or Australian would want to miss the experience. These people are so passe they are funny. Bodyguards flank these singers wherever they go. The more popular, the more bodyguards. And of course, these bodyguards don't make themselves discreet. When Bill Clinton is covered by hundreds of secret service agents, you hardly notice their presence. When you go to Parliament House in Canberra, you wouldn't even think there is security (which is probably true!). But not the Lebanese singer. Full of self importance they come with their entourage as celebrities. And they are. People pay up to $135 for a ticket.
FOOD AND INSTRUMENTS
But it's the show that stands out. A night of food which includes the obligatory Tabouleh with fake lemon juice, and various nuts to chew on. If there are main meals, they'll always be greeted to whispers by middle aged ladies saying "it's not as good as the cooking at home!" It is the hardest thing in the world to be a Lebanese chef - you actually have to compete against home cooking which is usually more authentic, better tasting and cooked with love.
As for the instrumentalists, you have your dreamy derbakeh player (lebanese drum) - who looks out over the horizon as if demonstrating "hey, i play this instrument so well, i don't even have to give a sh*t about what's going on in this place. i hope i get paid." In fact, it's more demonstrative of how easy the thing is to play. Just keep a beat, and you're set. If the derbakeh player is not looking over the horizon, he's looking at the chic with the mini skirt on the second table. The violin player is so under utilised in the Lebanese band that he's there basically to show off how rich the performer is that he can get a lebanese violinist to play. I've even seen a blind lebanese violinist (he could've been blind for compo reasons though). If he was playing, it wouldn't matter whether he was in a totally different key palying a different song. The only exception to this rule would be those from the Fairouz school, where classical instruments are used effectively and within the Lebanese tradition. There's also the keyboardist, who wildly moves his hands while playing as if to say: "i've been playing this thing for years, and look where i am now, supporting some big leb singer. He doesn't even let me do a proper solo." You'd think he was playing the cadenza of a Rachmaninoff piano concerto, not some second rate improvised riff. And the synthesizers do so much work now, you don't even know how much the keyboardist is really playing. There are many who are like the Spice Girls; all show, no talent. ouch. As for the Aout player (guitar), his job is to try and get in as many repeated quarter tones in as possible, trying to out trill the singer whenever the singer finishes his elaborate recitatives (the opening bit of a song that leads into an upbeat dance song - i.e. the Hoowarah).
THE AUDIENCE AND THE SINGER'S RECITATIVE
As for the audience, there is a special sort of interplay. When the singer does his trilly bit at the beginning of the song, at the end of each phrase, the audience, as if amazed by the vocal agility of someone that can trill on and on and on longer than a Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston duet, says: "Ohhhff" - An Aussie would think that means "off", as in, get off the stage. But no, it's a compliment. The louder the Ohhff, and the longer the oh vowel gets held, demonstrating the extent of the compliment. Generally, after the extra long trilly bit, resulting in ecstatic applause and a very long OOOhhhhhhhhhffff! The derbakeh player comes in with the dance beat. This is really what the audience wants. They've come here to dance the Hoowarah, or any form of the dabkeh. Hek, if the trilly bit the singer sang at the beginning had any form of rhythm, they'd be dancing too.
THE WEDDING SINGER WAS AN UNDER-EXAGGERATION
If any of you saw the fashion contained in the wedding singer, well, the male singer is always dressed in even more out-dated colours. In fact, I wonder if there is a special category of jacket called "Lebanese Cheap Green". It's as if Lebanon will never get over the fact it has Cedar's. And from the green jackets, things get worse. When the Western World thinks fashion - there's the 60s, 70s, 80s, Heroin Chicc. With Lebanese stars, there is no category. It's been the same. And that's why we love to occasionally go watch it all. Nothing ever changes about the fashion. Like God, it has always been, is, and will be forever. And the fake smile they put on as they prance around. And I use the word "prance" because it's not exactly a walk, and not exactly a dance. They might wave their hands in the air, or be seductive if they're a woman, but I have not to this date seen the equivalent of a dance routine in a Lebanese singer's show. That's why if you had a Lebanese boys band or spice girls, you'd kill the market. IT would be like a revolution: "WHAT??? Sing AND DANCE at the same time? Cancel the bellydancer!"
THE DABKEH CHAIN
At the head of a dabkeh (a dance where all the people dancing, hold hands forming a chain moving around in circles) is usually a man who holds a handkerchief. I'm sure this is where Pavarotti got his routine from. Unfortunately, the people that get in at the head are ageing men who are drunk and therefore have a false sense of confidence about their abilities. They'll jump up and down wildly but almost always on the wrong beat or on the wrong part of the phrase. Good Dabkeh dancing is an art form and it's cringe-worthy seeing these old men dancing as though they had snorted viagra. We lebs are all conspiracy theorists, so I'm sure there's a plot between the USA, the singer and the venue to get the oldest man they can find drunk, and put him at the head of the dabkeh so as to not overshadow the singer.
YOU MUST GO DEAF
Why is it that all the integrity of the singer's voice must be lost with the volume booming out of huge loudspeakers scattered all over the place. Even live death metal doesn't get this loud. Anyone who wants to claim workers comp for industrial deafness only needs to go to one of these nights on a Saturday, and they will pass any deafness test up to the following Tuesday. Once I improvised at St Mary's, and the Hoowara was so implanted in my eardrums that it came through in what i was playing. Of course, the people there liked it cause it was something different. So there are some benefits to this form of deafness.
THE BRAWL vs. THE WALKOUT
The night ends, either with a drunken brawl over one old man fighting another old man over the head of the dabkeh chain, or a walkout by the singer for political reasons or to avoid an oncoming brawl. I think you can buy odds on what happens first, the brawl or the walkout. You can find odds of 10000000 to 1 on there not being a brawl or walkout.
HANGOVER
As you might imagine, I actually hardly ever hear any music during the night out as i'm always laughing. But behind the jokes and the sniggering lies a fondness for this tradition. People really do have a great night out. I end up having one by default. And there's always something interesting hapenning. You see the familiar faces, the stories about the "sleazy" club owner, the obligatory moustache of the singer, the self important walking around, the deaf inducing volume and the venue itself, which is never sufficiently air conditioned or ventilated, resulting in a smoker's cough when you wake up with a hangover the next morning. And the best thing for those of us who don't drink is that it doesn't matter how much you drink - you will wake up with a hangover.
THE DEATH OF EXTREMISM AT CLUB MAC!!!
Universities often have a reputation as being extreme left wing - you know, tree huggin' free lovin' drug takin' hippies and all. Extremism was always "in" at uni. Well, the 90s has seen a new rebellion - a rebellion against extremism. It's very rare that you'll find even an experimental anarchist. Indeed, one of our tutors almost had a seizure when not one student would argue the case for a reading that advocated anarchism as a geniune philosophy or mode of organisation of a society. Our university lecturers - re-living the glory days of holding hands with boys who dig girls who dig boys who dig boys like they're girls (i.e. students across the spectrum) - bemoan the loss of the spirit of protest that beset our country's students in the vietnam era. I suppose it's hard to get all teary eyed and militant about tax reform. And it sure is hard to be paranoid and angry about everything the govt does when your diet no longer revolves around the inhalation of marijuana. Even Government changes to HECS barely caused a ripple. Were our lecturers telling us the truth when they said that the most recent revolutions and social changes started off with uni students (re: indonesia, iran, etc)?
The final bastion of extremism was the university paper and student written publications. We could always get a rant on the virtues of vegetarianism and of course a recitation of the evils of multinational corporations, particularly Nestle for killing off poor African children (i mean, they would have died of AIDS or poverty anyway - Nestle is doing them a favour). And I mean, everyone loves bagging corporations - even the wicked witch of the west (from THE WIZARD OF OZ) was representative of them - but it's so fashionable at uni to attack corps - particularly when they result in the deaths of starving kids!
Another rant I particularly loved was an explanation of all the different types of illicit drugs, how to injest them, the sensations that come with them, but then putting in a disclaimer to cover their legal backsides by saying they didn't condone the use of illegal drugs. This was in spite of the author writing this about all the illegal drugs that would follow alcohol:
"hey, alcohol is a drug, so anything else that comes after this one is comparable."
I was upset however, that they didn't call for the legalisation of all the comparable drugs and instead stuck that disclaimer in. Even our publications could not withstand the 90s though they were certainly trying. And they were trying two years ago, when the university almanac (given to all students on enrolment) discussed pregnancy and abortion and here is what they wrote about having a baby:
"IF YOU CHOOSE TO GO AHEAD WITH YOUR PREGNANCY, YOU MUST REALISE THAT YOUR LIFE WILL DRAMATICALLY CHANGE!"
This was contrasted to abortion, which was a painless procedure that would let a woman lead a normal life without having to make any changes at all to her status quo:
"an abortion can be performed safely until the eighteenth week (four months)"
I enjoyed reading this loony advice (avoid having a baby at all cost). I enjoyed the contradiction of their fighting against Nestle which aborted the lives of african babies, and their support of abortion for convenience sake. It was certainly refreshing to see at least one organisation care more about african babies than middle class (mainly white) 'foetus'.
And now, their time has expired, and the newspaper has gone conservative after the people running it before were voted out. It is still left leaning, but compared to what we had before, it's like having the order of fascism. To rub it in to the prior occupents of newspaper space, they have in two issues published on the evils of abortion, and have inserted politically incorrect jokes. A sampling:
Q. "If you have a leb, an asian, and an
aborigine in a car, who's driving?"
A. "A cop".
Q. What do you call an Australian who has an
abortion?
A. Smart.
Q. What do you call an Asian who has an abortion?
A. Crime Stopper.
I'm almost expecting a positive piece on the GST. Though (i suspect) even some conservatives hate that, and somehow i think that chikkas isn't the only one that will have experienced the voters' boot by the end of 2001. So, here at the AV, we mourn the loss of the student newspaper to more conservative and rational voices. We enjoyed reading the ludicrous logic of the loony left... Thank God though, that the people that have taken over have a bit of "wog" in them - we've already had a wog edition, and ii'm looking forward to the "yobbo" edition. We've moved from the era of a high intellect uni paper (anti-corporations, sustainable veganism, communism as saviour to third world poverty) to something more accessable to the ordinary club mac uni student: hot rods and VBs.