Banner Pic #2

This photo was taken one day when I was bumming around Jerusalem solo. I had spent most of my time, even when I was with Jamie and David, in the Christian and Arab Quarters of the Old City. This particular day I had wandered from my youth hostel back down King David Street to the Jaffa Gate — and instead of going through the Jaffa Gate to the New City as I usually did, I made a left at the plaza and begun exploring the Armenian Quarter. The Armenian Quarter is what you might consider the ghetto of Old Jerusalem — as I felt a bit unsafe there, but only because of the very militent fliers posted onto the walls, the chain link fences with barbed wire, and the gates on the windows. The people there seemed very — hard. They seemed like people who had been beaten and now were just angry.

This was all in stark contrast to the Christian and Arab Quarters — the Christian Quarter having been a shrine to pious atttitudes, rituals, and shrines divided by denominations, and the Arab Quarter being home to the barters and slick salesman but also the very kind runners of hookah establishments and juice and schwarma stands.

After exploring the Armenian Quarter and Mount Zion, just outside the city gates, I went back in the Old City and walked the ramparts to the Jewish Quarter, which was mostly closed up to the fact that it was Shevat, their holy day. The Burn House Museum was closed, as was a few other points of interests. I truly had no idea where I was in the city and was completely lost — but I kept walking deeper and deeper through the tattered walkways of the city, thinking about all those that have come before and what it must liked to have lived there.

I know I was nearing the City of David and Mount of Olives, only because I could see the spire of the Church of Transfiguration in the distance. Then, suddenly, the Jewish Quarter came to an abrubt stop and I found myself on an old staircase ledge, starring out at the Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, and the huge amount of above-ground crypts covering the Mount of Olives just behind it.

I took this picture about halfway down the staircase, before I entered the courtyard of the Western Wall silently and respectfully, and stood among the praying Jews. The wooden ramp in the picture is what is used to access the top of the Temple Mount on non-holy days, and is how you can come to stand at the front entrance of Dome of the Rock and walk above the Western Wall.

The tunnels just to the left of the ramp are how you get to the Wall from the Arab Quarter, and is how we came to the Wall the first time. It really is intense and dramatic standing here, looking out upon this scene, knowing that this very place has been the scene of such destruction, prayer, torment, and war since the beginning of time.

We’ll Never Stay the Same

I left work promptly at 4pm yesterday … and between getting caught up in conversations with my manager, and then my coworkers in getting the details of the evening worked out, didn’t actually roll off campus until almost 5pm. After getting on the incredibly slow-moving I-10, I called Arica to see if she wanted to come tonight, and also placed calls to Tim and Crispy, and they all passed, but KT Lewis finally agreed with an enthusiastic heart.

Once on my beloved US 60, I got off at Dobson and swung by Fiesta Mall to try to find a new black shirt for work, but was unsuccessful in finding one I liked. Hot Topic had a decent shirt, but some of the words written onto it were way too emo … something like “There are lots of problems in the world, and all of them are mine.” Yeah. I left Fiesta Mall empty handed, but swung by Starbucks to get some tea for the slow drive home. There I ran into Ambie, my good friend from back in the day who moved to West Hollywood last year to pursue working as a finance officer for a major record label. She told me she had tempoarily moved to Valencia, but was now back down in West Hollywood. She also told me of the drama that was created recently when Burbank’s 818 area code was split into the new 661 area code (which my friend Beau, from Santa Barbara, also now has), and I mesmerized her with stories of when the 213 split into the 310 in Los Angeles and the protests — yes, protests — that were held when the 714 was split in half by the new 949 (the former prestige of the 714 OC area code has now come to mean the ghetto north county of Anaheim and Huntington Beach while the 949 was become synonmous with Newport, Laguna, and even Irvine. Tustin is still the akward stepchild that really fits into neither, but sorely wants to be of 949 class but is stuck with 714 phone book stereotyping).

I finally got home with the intent of taking a good nap before we ventured out to the sparkling lights and gothic dungeons of downtown Phoenix for the evening, but ended up getting caught up in television, then filling out a myspace survey, then fielding calls from friends about where we are going to meet for the evening (making me wander why in the hell the phrase “Stapley Starbucks at 8:30″ is so difficult to comprehend). I then showered, dressed in my finest denim jeans (the same pair I always wear), a styling black button down (the same one I always wear), used massive amounts of hair gel to fully bring out my oft-not-used faux hawk haircut, and liberal amounts of black eyeliner, and I must say, “damn, I do Goth well.” Off to Stapley, and while I waited for everyone else, spent some time catching up with Ricky and Neil, as well as barista KayeLynn, who reminded me with happy smiles how much she was in love with my boyfriend, and then hugged me saying, “You’re okay, too!” Thanks dear!

We drove out to Phoenix — and it felt so liberating passing the off-ramp for Sky Harbor and subsequently UOP — and the city looked different through the passenger’s seat. The palm trees were waiving and downtown curved in the distance as we sped along the 10, and the night — our Friday night in a car full of friends blasting acoustic Brand New, Jimmy Eat World, and Nine Inch Nails — the night seemed filled with an air of excitement and invincibility. My mind briefly drifted back to two years ago when “The Perks of Being A Wallflower” was the best book to read and how Charlie and his friends felt “infinite” driving into downtown Los Angeles late one night. This evening was significant in that I didn’t wish to be driving into Los Angeles, Seattle, or even Portland or Tel Aviv for that matter — Phoenix and the night before me was what brought my happiness and my satisfaction.

In downtown we bummed around Roosevelt and ventured into the galleries — including the one that the City of Phoenix condemned half of last month, and the other ones that closed early now — 8pm — because city fire code recently reemed the owners for exceeding maximum occupency every First Friday (so long Eye Lounge and The Modified). We crossed Roosevelt and watched two young, semi-nude college students dance in a window with Samurai swords to pounding Japanese music until a cop came by and warned them of indecent exposure laws.

An hour hour later we searched up and down Garfield, Central, and Roosevelt for the ravers, the flame throwers, the sword-swallowers, the bands-in-the-back-of-pickups and the Goth magician who would contort his body out of 400 pounds of steel chains. We searched for the First Fridays that we knew of last summer. We didn’t find a single one — but we did find plenty of officers to check the contents of any styrofoam cups we might be carrying (nevermind our flasks of vodka poured into a cherry icee), and every other car that passed down the main drag behind Westward Ho was a patrol car.

Oh — at last! — at last! — c’mon — a crowd has gathered! A street performer! We spent twenty minutes watching a man walk on glass and break out handcuffs, perform tricks of physical skill and entertain the crowd with quick quips. But then three police cars pulled up and six cops in riot gear flooded out and surrounded us on the dirt lot of Roosevelt & 1st Street with our Goth makeup, as one officer approached the magician and asked to see his performance permit, which he was without. We were then commanded by the fine folks of Phoenix Police to remain where we were, and that we were all to be cited for our disorderly gathering. The men in riot gear then huddled, and many of us slipped back onto the quiet and over-regulated city sidewalks while scenes from “V for Vendetta” and the government’s most recent faux “Oh Look! Terror Thwarted! Aren’t You Lucky You’re Protected? Oh By the Way, No More Toothpaste on Airplanes” played in our heads.

But then we were all freed and our lemon drop martinis consumed and we could be free to gather around and fucking dance. And talk. Within the confines of Tranzylvania, we watched as the clock struck midnight and the red-and-black decor gave way to Underworld Goth, and the vocals of Trent Reznor were followed by the chords of Tool and the warning pleas of an over-governmentalized society were sung by Marilyn Manson; and the warnings fell on anything but deaf ears.