Kono mosque at dusk (looking from the balcony of my guesthouse)
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(c) MRP 1988 – 2008
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Tag Archives: social issues
VIDEO ART: Islam – Peace be Upon You
I have had the pleasure of travelling across much of the Islamic world – these images are from Iraq (1989) & Yemen (2005).
>>> ENTER art exhibition here (or click image)
A cold beer never felt so freeing; only two hours ago I was busted for grass and sweating it in a Colombian police station …
So there I was finishing photographing the huge Spanish-colonial San Felipe fortress from the old city walls of Caribbean Cartagena shortly as dusk collided with the rushing traffic and three teenagers smoking pot on the riverside walls, having left this scene as a dodgy dude approached me and decided to give him the berth before I lost my entire camera bag when a cop on a motorbike sees me, slows, turns and is suddenly searching me and then a flash from fuckin’ last night.
Hooker and that small but obvious stash and papers in my Marlboro box and after my left pocket searched the gear is found. He grins or was it a growl, I dunno cos I knew I was in the shit having carried it around all day having forgotten all about it. BUSTED.
For a few minutes I tried to reason with him that I had fuck-all dope but he kept insisting I get on the back of his motorbike and go to the station and after he threatened to handcuff me on the street, traffic and bunged up buses slowing for the spectacle, I agreed to go for a ride.
I remember my unsmiling resigned expression mirrored on astonished locals watching as we whizzed down alleys avoiding the rush hour.
At the small station it was all go as he showed another officer his catch, his small haul equal to a joint or so. They searched my camera bag thoroughly, taking interest my condoms and quizzing the crystal silica bags and I knew it was getting bad cos I had two expensive Sony digital cameras for them to play with, ponder, plunder; one guy wanted-to know how it worked and away he was outside with the video camera and I was seriously wondering how insurance would respond to the claim of busted for drugs, both cameras stolen by the cops.
But seriously the searched me extensively for more gear and were pretty shitty but when they couldn’t find any more they still talked about 5 days jail and that was a relief; thought it would be longer.
They asked for my passport and they were amused when I didn’t even have a copy (it’s illegal here not to carry ID) which I wasn’t carrying but they they seemed to warm to me when I showed them some of my tourist history books of their city and when they found out I was from Nueva Zealandia I felt hope at paying my way out trouble but with such expensive cameras on me I had no way of pleading poverty.
Yet my poor Spanish really helped me faint incomprehension but the word PROHIBITO is very clear. I agreed, Si Si.
They asked, how much I paid for it and where it was bought and I had to tell them a pro had bought for us and that it was only a small packet for around 5000 pesos – less than $2.
The other cop returned from outside my camera for me and I knew things would improve as they found no more gear and the measley amount wasn’t worth their time.
He asked if I wanted libertadade for a price. I emptied my pocket of local cash expecting to be stripped of everything before official processing began and to my surprise he handed back my dope and I left the station complete with cameras but minus about $US 15 in local pesos.
I guess my friendliness, the tiny amount, maybe simply their money making activities saw my release … I thanked him and gave him the nice one / everything’s okay Brazilian thumbs up gesture and with a sense of life again and a bewildered smile I walked stunned by my escape, down the street.
I smoked that menacing, forgotten joint back in the guesthouse courtyard and now, reflect … never has a cold beer felt so freeing.
> photos of Cartagena & Colombia
The smell makes me sick … and if YOU’re here, you’d probably puke.
This aroma isn’t just that sweet, sickly street stench of rubbish and car exhaust left festering under a day of Rio’s baking sun and constant humidity but something still alive, well, sort of … it comes from the broken-line of street sleepers crashed on the pavement a few feet from my hotel entrance …
In particular there’s an old white guy, gray-haired, skinny-sick, with a black-blood-bandaged-leg of rotten pus stench – FUCKIN’ WATCH OUT – pull ya throat in fast; am passing on fried chicken for a week; would rather eat shit than approach this guy again.
Like so many societies gripped by severe contrast, Rio’s beauty is often thwarted by its share of the planet’s serious social issues …
People often ask why I sleep with prostitutes – so I’ll tell you.
Okay, I love travel and I like sex too much – for sure, and yes, encounters with strangers excites me. But simply it’s the effortless transaction of sex and company (and often real-fun) for money, sure, that’s the business, and that’s the key for me. I like to loan the lady’s time – using freelance, not brothel-bonded chicks – and treat them as a girlfriend for the night; and not as rent for the hour piece of meat so that we can ease into each other over drinks and smoke and laugh and relate, rather than the typical, mechanical, launderette love of a hurried solitary orgasm. Fuck that … no fun there; finished once, and bye bye, Mr.
Anyway, for me this beats what the average male does: going to a club, a pub, a restaurant and spying someone they like and then chasing-falsely for the catch. Yet, everyone I speak to on this subject says that they like the chase. Both male and female. But me, I don’t feel this way.
You’re in a hot club, where it’s a market of sexuality and macho idiot male competition, where you meet a chick, often shouting inanely to converse above the music, to have two minutes to impress and two minutes to keep her attention before she floats towards another offer.
Basically, I can’t be bothered with the primitive ritual of male impress-succeed, dance right, spin the shit right, look right and act abnormal in the pursuit of sex; and too often, conversation is hollow laughter and at the end of it she says: I’ve a boyfriend or have to work early tomorrow, or simply, nice to meet you but I’m not interested. And even after the chase and after the great deed, you both know that by morning you’ll not be compatible, anyway.
Why waste the energy? Why tempt the exasperation of failure or play dumb mind-games – which, is not me – when all I really want is the sure-guarantee of a nice, kissy chat, the feminine scent, a cuddle & orgasm(s); an agreeable outcome that keeps most men happy …
[ Thoughts from Colonia del Plata - URUGUAY, 2002, after partying intensively in Buenos Aires for many weeks ]
I’d crossed the West Bank from Jordan to arrive in Jerusalem two days after the second anniversary of the first Intifada – uprising.
Palestinians had demonstrated in the streets and two young men had been killed by Israeli soldiers. This day I stubbled into the riot that followed the men’s funeral.
Soldiers
One, experienced
a mean-looking guy who’d seen fist-fights
riots and wars
He whistles, raising his baton
then barks the orders
Another man in green is nervous
terrified
see his eyes
watch his hand
–shake
finger squeezing an M16
barrel held @ 75 degrees
Warning shots
Pushing, running, shrieking
women, men
Soldiers
Stones
Now, an empty street
of discarded banners
shoes
scarves
and an abandoned coffin.
It happened fast – Israeli soldiers threatened me & my camera if I took photos. Disturbed by the experience, I returned to my guesthouse in Arab East Jerusalem; the owner listened to what I’d just seen – then told me a young-Israeli-female soldier had just been stabbed-dead in the old city.
Illusive peace – Jerusalem, Palestine/Israel, 1989 (c) MRP ART
