Fighting With Bin Laden

Well it’s just after 5AM and I’m returning from my first night out in Cairo (other than to dinner) since returning from Afghanistan more than four months ago. It is Christmas Eve for Egypt’s Coptic Christians, and after spending the day touring the pyramids with my closest remaining friend in Cairo’s two Turkish guests, I was awakened (sleeping in my friend’s flat I was so exhausted) by a call from my Coptic friend (American-raised and Stanford-educated, here for a year to apply to law school and learn Arabic – sound familiar?), who we’ll call Lord of the Dance (because I like to tease him about a post-modernist “fixed location dance performance” he did as a commentary on vertical mobility amongst immigrants in California while part of a Stanford dance team), or LoTD, telling me that he was lonely on Christmas Eve, away from family etc., and had made MIDNIGHT reservations (to break their fast – Copts spend the MAJORITY of the year fasting, although their fast sort of just means “eat vegan”) at an Egyptian restaurant in Zamalek, and invited another Coptic friend of ours as well as an American guy who is SCANDALOUSLY slutty and basically fluent in Arabic (ie: my total opposite).

I’ll fastforward through the dinner except to say that the slutty American kept making eye contact with the Gulfis at the table next to us and actually TOOK OFF HIS SHIRT to reveal his tank top underneath, which prompted one of them men to say in Arabic an expression akin to: “I adore God but I worship the devil,” or something that basically means “God help me in this moment to resist temptation.” LoTD has been wanting to go out, go dancing, explore explore explore (and gossip gossip gossip) – which I find quite boring and actually extremely depressing, and it’s such a reminder to me of how much happier I have been the past 5 months NOT going out. Anyway, we compromised on going to the Hard Rock Café, because it’s not AS high pressure as Latex (our one REAL nightclub), there are a lot of “khalijiis” (Gulfis), and LoTD has been itching to try one, and neither he nor the slutty American had been. The Copt dropped us off at Hard Rock (which, to continue with my theme, is at the Grand Hyatt lol), and we paid out 150LE cover fee (which you use towards drinks which are basically 50LE each), and moved on. The music is a weird mix of hip-hop club remixes (decent) and belly-dancing music (bad) and the scene is one that deserves more commentary than I’ll devote to it, here.

The club consists of two main groups and two lesser groups. The two main groups are young Gulfi men looking for, well, anything, and the second group (in a MUCH smaller proportion to the first) are prostitutes willing to give them just that. It’s really awkward, because you need to picture women TOTALLY done up to look “cute,” false eye lashes, bedazzled belts, bags, and nails, and lip liner galore, all floating around trying to look like the picture of glamour and NOT like trash. It’s kind of sad and awkward. The guys either give off cruisy heterosexual prostitute-seeking vibes, or obviously homoSOCIAL inward-looking vibes, but in any case the scene is very weird. The two smaller groups are the few non-Gulfi tourists who come, and the few Cairene residents (Egyptian and expat) who are there. I’d say that tonight, though, well over 65% were Gulfi men.

I should preface this by saying that I had heard that the Bin Ladens owned all the Hard Rock cafes in the Middle East, because a friend from AUC told me, last spring, that she once witnessed an American student wearing an “I hate Bin Laden” t-shirt at the Café in Cairo asked by the Bin Laden entourage to remove his shirt (they were apparently polite) and offered a free Hard Rock shirt in return. I was always a bit skeptical, and never really cared either way (the few times Desi and I went to Hard Rock it was a total disappointment). I can now confirm: the Bin Ladens own the Hard Rock and they are very much there.

One of the bouncers kept politely reminding me and LoTD to not stand on the steps leading from the dance floor/walkway to the upper bar level (just two little steps), and I assumed it was because we were blocking a passageway, so when I caught myself or LoTD or our other friend standing near it, I’d jokingly pull them back and sort of smile at the bouncer. WELL, just after 4AM, when it had again happened (me pulling LoTD away from the stairs that he had unconsciously floated too near to) and this time a man in plain clothes started pushing LoTD away, and we were almost ON a table away from the stairs and thus not in anyone’s path, the fight began. The bouncer and especially the plainclothes guard began to get very aggressive with LoTD, and I was trying to say (in a thumping club to people who spoke almost no English) that we weren’t anywhere near the stairs and I didn’t see the problem. It then became clear, when a thuggish guy sitting next to his friend, got up and ALSO started yelling (after having short discussions in whisper to both security guys who would then return to their spat with us) that this was NOT about the stairs, but was about these two guys’ table. I was still puzzled, though, because we were not blocking their view. I then though (as ended up being the case, but I still think it’s a weak argument on their part) that maybe we were too close to the women at the table next to them (with the table we were standing at being BETWEEN the men and the women), but we were clearly not talking to the women (and were CERTAINLY not interested in them) and were also not blocking their view. Finally LoTD’s fight with the security guys has escalated to such a degree (in part because he raised his voice an octave and was screaming in a banshee headvoice) that he was being forcibly removed from the club.

A manager came over to me to take me aside, as the two men form the table got up to explain to me what was happening (one of them still clearly angry and thuggish), as I insisted that we were not blocking anyone or anything, and I didn’t understand what was so special at that table and why we were not equal to those men. The manager took me across the room to the side of the bar and was trying to explain to me that everyone is equal, that it was just a matter of blocking the tables, etc. (which were all bullshit and which angered me more), and so I physically drug him by the hand outside, while condemning him for letting someone touch LoTD so roughly, until we were outside the club in front of all the people trying to enter, the cashier, etc.

To rewind: when I was checking out who, in the room, was using their Bluetooth communication program on their mobiles, I came across the ID “No.70AmrBinLaden,” and tried unsuccessfully to message him (people don’t normally accept Bluetooth files from people they don’t know), so I figured that what I’d heard about the ownership of the club was true, and that he was there. When the manager took me outside, I finally told him that I didn’t want him to bullshit me, that it was clear that that table was special, and that I wanted to know why. He told me that the man in the blue (the non-thuggish one) was the owner. I wasn’t impressed. I told him that I don’t care who the owner is, everyone should be treated equally, certain standards of decency have to be met, it was improper to rough-up my friend when we weren’t doing anything wrong, and it is also inappropriate for someone in plainclothes with no ID to be speaking to us as an employee/representative of the club, let alone touching us. I added that “I know he’s not the owner. The owner is Amr Bin Laden” (taking a risk). His reply: “He is the owner and he is Amr Bin Laden.” I then played it cool by immediately saying that I didn’t care who he was, it’s HIS obligation as an employee of the club to protect paying customers, and he or Amr can give us our money back. I also sort of pushed him on his deference to the owner’s authority, asking: “Do you call him pasha? No? Do you call him Bey? No? Why? Because we are all equal, then why are you worried about your job and impressing him.” I told him that I didn’t care about his job, that I don’t care who owns the place, and that I do care about what happens to my friend, there.

Enter Bin Laden. Bin Laden comes with the plainclothes guard, his thuggish friend, and another Hard Rock employee, and while LoTD continues to scream at everyone, I take the “this is so shocking and uncivilized approach” with Bin Laden. Our exchange was really humorous and I have to say that I was sort of funny and self-possessed. I told him that his thuggish friend was speaking in a really uncivilized way, that no one should be touching LoTD that way, and that I was disappointed that he was running an establishment with these hierarchies of privilege. He apologized, had his friend calm down, asked us how much we paid (300) and told them to give us back double the money. He tried to explain the nature of Saudi men (I told him that I knew it well and loved Saudis lol), and also explained that “the women don’t like to dance too much, they just like to watch,” and so us being there, close to them, and potentially in their way, was a problem. I explained to him that he only needed to have one person ask us politely in once sentence: “We would be more comfortable if you were not so close to these ladies. Could you please move?” and we’d have immediately been fine. He was dripping with the hugest gold and diamond-encrusted Bulgari necklace, chest hair fully exposed, and at one point I jokingly unfolded his shirt collar, which had tucked under itself, to cover more his hair (he thanked me lol). I also interrupted him once, when I recognized one of his rings (plain silver) from last season’s Bulgari collection, and also had some fun with him when he tried to tell me that none of his guards could tell me politely what was happening, because they didn’t speak English – I told him that he has the money to hire a bodyguard who speaks 10 languages, and he could even hire LoTD who speaks Enlgish and Arabic both lol. He told me that the guards had been putting up with Egyptian troublemakers (most people in the club being bad, he said) since 10PM – 4 hours before we arrived – and treated us the same way. I told him that they should work form the presumption that customers are good, and not that they are bad. He understood. He was trying to get us back inside, and I told him (in Arabic, but only this was in Arabic) that after this it was Latex and forever after Latex – Hard Rock is done. He asked why, and reiterated that he apologized, and I told him that he knew why I wasn’t interested in coming back. I jokingly asked him: “So are your bodyguards beating up our other friend inside, too, or is he still ok?” and Bin Laden laughed. I also told him, in relation to the point that most patrons are bad, that MOST patrons are prostitutes, and he doesn’t seem to mind that, and that we are not the ones he need to worry about. He welcomed us back again, and I added: “If your guards upstairs institute a couples only policy preventing men without women from getting in, then we can’t see you again here” (a police that is more biased against Egyptian males), and asked if that was another of his decent policies, and he told me no that that’s Egyptian local police who make and enforce that rule themselves. Our last funny exchange came when we re-entered the club to retrieve our friend, and two prostitutes came up to him and shook his hand, and I gave him the knowing/powerful “tisk tisk” with my finger, he said to me jokingly “now I have to wash my hands,” and so I gave him a friendly handshake and we left (not asking for the refund).

6AM and I now can’t keep my eyes open, but I’ve been getting so many blog requests that here you go!

XO

VC