HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM BEYOND

In 1999, during the days leading up to The New Millennium, like many people, I began reflecting on life: historical events I had witnessed, personal goals that I had achieved and all the things I had accomplished.

But what seemed to really dominate my thoughts were the many significant relationships I had with family and friends. I was blessed with so much love, nurture and support. I thought of the many special people who were there for me not matter what… friends and relatives who shared their lives with me, gave me affection, support and influenced my creative and artistic endeavors.

One of these individuals was my friend and belly dance mentor, the late Zein Abdul Al Malik.

Zein was a male dancer of prodigious talent. Well over six feet tall and lanky, he had piercing green eyes and performed draped in luxurious folkloric garb, wrapped in antique Egyptian Assuit, a traditional mesh fabric that has small strips of silver hammered into it to form designs.   Zein looked imposing and exotic balancing a huge brass tray with a full tea set and candles upon his regal head.

Zein began his career in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid 1970’s, dancing with one of the mothers of contemporary belly dance, Jamilla Salimpour.  He went on to live in Morocco and Saudi Arabia, where he resided in one of the royal palaces, thanks to his Saudi prince lover.  Zein lived and breathed Oriental Dance, performing, teaching and doing research.

After we met in 1990, he took me under his wing- me, a beginning baby belly dancer with barely any skills- but somehow he saw my potential and nurtured me. Zein would have me over to his apartment- a wonderful, mysterious enclave of inlaid North African furniture, luxurious plants and relics from the Middle East.

He’d make me fresh mint tea in a silver Moroccan teapot and we’d spend hours together while he showed me steps and technique, discussed belly dance traditions, and watched vintage clips that he’d taped from the television in Saudi Arabia, featuring 1940’s and ‘50’s Golden Age Egyptian movies which starred famous dancers like Naima Akef, Samia Gamal, and Tahiya Carioca.

 Zein also helped me select costumes, heartily encouraged my dancing, and got me my very first dance job at Hollywood’s Moun Of Tunis Restaurant, where he worked.  More than two decades later, whenever I am in Los Angeles, I still perform there.

Appropriate music for Middle Eastern dance was hard to find in America back in those days, and Zein made me many Arabic mix tapes- remember, there were no CD’s back then- with the cassettes featuring everything from classic live Om Kalthoum performances to the latest in Egyptian pop and Algerian Rai music.

 Every cassette Zein made me also had a special cover that he thoughtfully put together by hand. Some featured Middle Eastern clip art others  photocopies of vintage Turkish cigarette boxes and pictures of famous belly dancers like Nagwa Fouad and Soheir Zaki.

Tragically, Zein died about five years after I met him. By that time, we were close friends and because of his encouragement, we were also gigging together regularly. I was absolutely devastated. I remember speaking-or rather blubbering through a speech- at his memorial, my face wet with flowing tears, but I don’t remember a thing I said.

I thought of him often, so many things reminded me of him. At gigs when I felt pre-show jitters, I would think of the way he used to calm my nerves through  his twisted humor right before we  both went on. Wrapped in a turban and wearing a brocade galibiya, shimmying to warm up, with an ever-present Marlboro in his mouth, Zein would sense my anxiety, catch my eye, make an exaggerated coquettish gesture then and whisper in a feminine falsetto,

“How’s my hair?”

Somehow, our private joke never got old, and always made me laugh. Whenever he did that, I had a great show, entering the stage with a huge grin on my face. Even though Zein has been departed for years, I always think of him just before I go on.

So…fast forward to New Year’s Eve 1999, at five minutes of midnight. Of course I was at a belly dance gig, in a dressing room, wearing a brand new costume- my first costume for the New Millennium.

The dancer I was working with that evening asked what music I was planning to dance to for my first dance set of the century.

“I don’t know, “ I said, pawing through my CD binder, “I’m so sick of all my music!”

My gig bag was full of the usual belly dance accoutrements: stray finger cymbals, perfume, hair accessories, mis-matched sequin armbands, loose aspirin tablets, safety pins.

Suddenly, something fell into my hands, a small plastic case. Though my suitcase was always chaotic, there was a method to my madness, and it was always re-packed before every show. The little plastic box was decidely an unfamiliar object that I didn’t remember packing. Recognizing what it was in the dim dressing room lighting by the feel of it alone, I wondered how it got there.

“Hey, no way, there’s a cassette in my dance bag!” I cried, kind of amazed.

“You still use cassettes?” the other dancer asked incredulously.

“Well, no, not for years”, I answered, dumbfounded,

“I have no idea what it’s doing in here!”

“Well, maybe we can dance to it,” she said, “What is it?”

I glanced at the clock- it was now one minute before midnight. Thinking we’d better figure our music out, I turned the mystery cassette case over in my hands. 

The cover featured a black and white drawing of a 1920’s flapper lounging in a champagne glass.

In hand-lettered Art Deco font, it read:

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!  LOVE, ZEIN”.

As the clock struck midnight and the new century began, I got chills.

CAIRO CARAVAN 2012: Dancers And Sailors And Ghosts...Oh, My!

Cairo Caravan is one of the largest- and oldest -belly dance festivals in America. For the past thirty five years, The Middle East Culture And Dance Association (known as MECDA) throws the gigantic party every year on the first weekend of June, with non-stop performances, workshops and a gala show… and over four thousand belly dancers, drummers, fans and aficionados in attendance.

Personally, I hold a large and very mushy soft spot in my heart for this event… back in the days when it was called Cairo Carnival, it was the first belly dance festival I ever attended.

The festival has taken place at many different venues over the decades, but for the past few years, thanks to MECDA president Blume Bauer, Cairo Caravan has made it’s home on board the grand ocean liner The Queen Mary, which is permanently at port in Long Beach, California. This unique location is perfect; not only are there plenty of ballrooms on board for the workshops and stages for the performances, there is the added advantage of participants being able to stay on board in the darling Art Deco cabins, many of them furnished with the ship’s original accoutrements. This adds a whole new dimension - or shall we say “ another dimension”- to the festivities, because The Queen Mary is seriously haunted! But more on that later…

The theme for Cairo Caravan 2012 was “ A Moment In Time”, which was just a teensy bit ironic, because this year, there was so much to do during the festival, I seriously doubt anyone had a free moment! I know I didn’t- and neither did any of the other headliners. In fact, some of them, I didn’t even get to see, on or off stage!

Cairo Caravan always offers a wide range of workshop instructors, from cabaret to tribal, from dancers and musicians extremely traditional to envelope-pushing postmodern. This year, CC featured cabaret artists Zahra Zuhair, DeVilla, Amara from Texas, Sandra (who was seven months pregnant) Penny Collins, and yogi/masseuse/dancer Lori Edwards. Fusionistas included Onca O’Leary and The Mezmer Society, Samantha Riggs, Marjahni Bella Morte, Sooz, and from Mexico, up and coming star Alejandra Escarcega, who dazzled everyone. Rounding out the line up were musician Raquy Danziger and Liron Peled of Raquy and The Cavemen, deejay Amar, and musician/dancer Karim Nagi, who doesn’t really fit into any genre unless you count “exceptionally talented” as a category.

Backstage, things were incredibly hectic and silly as usual; that’s always where the real show is. Liron from Raquy & The Cavemen warmed up his throat for singing by bellowing into a drum case while DeVilla tried not to get gold body paint all over her fellow performers. But, depending on how you look at it, things either rose- or sank- to a new level when all the lights went out backstage in the middle of the show. As volunteers valiantly tried to get the power back on, Karim somehow started everyone singing a rousing a Capella version of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the pitch black, substituting the Arabic word “gallibaya” for “Galileo”. The song, getting so loud that it’s shocking the audience didn’t hear it, got almost to the end before the lights came back on! The unanimous vote backstage was that Karim needs to include this as a cover version on his next CD.

The parts of the “Moment In Time” gala show on Saturday that I did get to see were spectacular, what a display of amazing talent, all in a gorgeous Art Deco ballroom. Each act was so different; it was hard to look away. Zahra Zuhair was elegant, fluid and classical; Alejandra staggered the crowd with her power and flexibility, and Karim Nagi brought the house down with his outrageously fun stage presence and tireless, energetic dancing…all while playing spot-on tabla! DeVilla and her Isis-Siren-Sekhmet troupe did a really cool 1960’s period piece. The gals in her troupe completely hid her with their gold Isis wings, then revealed her, completely covered in metallic gold as she danced on top of a tabla, as a statue of Isis come to life! Sam Riggs is one of my favorite Bollywood dancers; she almost looks animatronic as she hops up and down, with incredible stage presence. Amara did a fusion piece with pre-planned audience participation: she got on social media and had a number of people bring flashlight to artistically light up the audience as she danced her way to the stage. My piece was a tribute to Egyptian Golden Age cinema, and also included a pre-planned surprise… to the delight of the crowd Karim joined me onstage for a live drum solo. Our rehearsal that morning had been fun, but onstage it felt electric. As a baby dancer, I cut my teeth dancing to live music in Arabic clubs, and I have to say that there’s still absolutely nothing like dancing live to a great drummer!

Cairo Caravan also featured non-stop free lectures and seminars on a wide range of dance –related topics, including everything from injury prevention to embroidering sheesha mirrors, to Arabic culture to reading Tarot cards. There were continuous shows on The World Of Wonders sideshow stage, the ShimmyThon competition (won by Turkish dancer Nilay Elgin) a Friday evening concert, and of course dozens of vendors.

A cool feature just started recently is Cairo Kids, an entire area deep in the ship's belly that was full of children’s activities, like arts and crafts and tyke-centric dance classes, all run by MECDA’s amazing staff of volunteers. I wandered through Cairo Kids a couple of times and the tots were having a blast- it seems so logical to have a safe and fun place for children to go to at a festival where ninety-five percent of the participants are female, but I think Cairo Caravan is the only festival to offer this!

Another thing MECDA offers is full and partial scholarships to their events, which is magnificent not just for those wishing to attend but being short on dollars, but also for building a healthy dance community. Again, more festivals should take a cue from this.

In sync with the “Moment In Time” theme, there were some spectacular highlights which focused on the history of Oriental dance in America.

First off, Los Angles-based dancer Suzanne McNeil - aka Jenza- organized an incredible Vintage Costume Fashion Show, which featured gorgeous hand-made creations created by dancers “back in the day” and modeled on a runway, to retro music. I had the pleasure of shimmying down the catwalk for this event, but also got a close-up view of these stunning works of art backstage…legendary dancer Helena Vlahos, who also modeled one of the costumes she made, constructed my two favorites, a golden serpent -embellished costume and a stunning blue and silver masterpiece. The intricate beadwork and attention to the tiniest details on her costumes was seriously mind-blowing: I have always bowed down to her as a performer, but she is a true artist in the design department as well!

The second historical event was the Q & A panel entitled Tales of The Golden Age Of The Night Club Dancer, featuring dancers from the 1960’s and the 1970’s, including Kamala Almanzar, Nabila, Tonya Chianis, Lee Ali (who runs the 1970’s Belly dance page on Facebook) Marguerite, and the afore-mentioned Zahra Zuhair, Helena Vlahos and Jenza. These women- many of them still actively continuing their performance careers, were not only full of knowledge and nostalgia, but also had the audience in stitches.

Lee Ali’s tales of the Philadelphia clubs where she danced as a teenager were hilarious. One story involved drunken Greek sailors brawling and throwing rocks outside a club, another was a long-winded and hysterical epic about a famous dancer who used typically used to hide on top of the commode in the ladies room to get out of doing her last set…until the night a bit of her costume hung down below the stall door and the club owner discovered her trick!

Another thing that makes Cairo Caravan so unique is the fact that many ghosts that call the Queen Mary home. 
The Queen Mary is considered by many to be one of the world's most haunted places. Forty-nine souls died under mysterious circumstances on board, and there are allegedly over 150 spirits in residence. Full apparitions in vintage clothing, clouds of colored mist and balls of light have been reported frequently, as well as scents and sounds, including clanging metal, rushing water, muffled screams, and ringing telephones… with no one on the other end of the line.

In 2010, I lead an all-belly dancer paranormal ghost tour on the ship, and I repeated that again this year as well. Before you go thinkin’ I’m some sort of nut, there’s plenty of history, lore, legend, and confirmed eyewitness sightings- not to mention youtube.com videos to prove this point. Just ask any of the ship’s crew- there are even memorial/historical plaques placed around the winding corridors, where phenomena has occurred regularly, and been witness often, on many occasions. The ship’s staff used to keep it quiet, but more recently, have been prominently featuring the paranormal aspect as part of The Queen Mary's appeal and charm.

The ghost tour itself was cool, and a wonderful way to explore the creepiest parts of the grand ship- of which there are many. My two co-leaders were Samantha Riggs, a tall-ship sailor as well as dancer, who recited interesting historical maritime facts, and dancer Crystal Ravenwolf, who is a paranormal investigator in addition to her dancing- and she brought all her equipment along.

But the stuff that happened to me personally, at random times during my stay on the ship – all witnessed by other people- was what really blew my mind.

As Crystal and I rehearsed the ghost tour route during the daytime by ourselves, her equipment picked up numerous entities and an EVP recording of a voice saying “Major”- which was apropos considering that The Queen Mary had served as a troupe ship during World War Two.

That evening, as I prepared for the ghost tour, I was in my cabin by myself running the facts and anecdotes out loud, and as soon as I got to the part about a brutal wartime incident (where the ship’s cook had been stuffed into an oven in the galley and literally burned alive) the fire alarm went off! I almost hit the ceiling before dutifully leaving my cabin and filing outside, the way everyone else on board did. False alarm…. But for me, anyway, the timing was extremely odd.

Later on, when I finished the ghost tour, I tried to call my boyfriend since I hadn’t spoken to him all day. I dialed and it started to ring, then the screen on my iPhone came up like this:

PRINCESS FARHANA AND TWO OTHERS ARE CALLING HOME

What?!

I’d never seen any message like that before, and I’d had the phone for over a year. I showed it to the gals standing near me, and they too stared in disbelief.

As I was getting ready to turn in for the night, I saw a gigantic pearl on the floor of my cabin… that hadn’t been there just minutes before. Mystified, I rationalized that it had probably rolled into the center of the rug, but upon closer examination, the pearl was the decoration sitting on top of a six-inch long vintage hatpin. I put it on the bureau and went to sleep. The next morning, I asked my roomie Onca O’Leary if it was hers, thinking I’d seen something similar in her bouffant nest of dreads.

“Never seen it before...though I have five that are similar,” she said casually.

I ventured that it might’ve fallen out of her hair, at which point she showed me the five she had…which were safely tucked into a make up bag in her fully zipped, not-yet-un-packed suitcase.

“Well, here’s another one for you,” I said, handing it to her as I left for my classes.

Standing at the elevator, I happened to look down…and there was another pearl hat-pin at my feet!

That afternoon, two strange things happened at the Vintage Costume Fashion Show. The first was a cold draft in the dressing room; something that wouldn’t seem odd except for the fact that it was just in one spot, and there was no air conditioning vent or fans anywhere nearby. Since spirits sometimes manifest as cold spots, all the gals getting into costume back there kept making jokes about the voyeuristic ghost!

After I walked the runway, I went into the crowd for photo-ops…and as I took pictures, my camera-started smoking! Everyone close to me saw it, a thin but very visible stream of smoke was steadily issuing forth from my camera…. I guess the pix I was taking were smokin’ hot! The camera itself didn’t feel hot, and it didn’t affect the pictures or the camera itself. My friend tried to take a video, but though the smoke couldn’t be seen on video, though lots of people saw it as it happened.

Later that afternoon, walking to my cabin on one of the ship’s endless corridors, I stepped through an area of the hallway that fairly reeked of tuberose perfume. Suddenly, I realized that there was no one at all in the hall ahead of me, and since I was midship, no cabins on either side where the fragrance could be coming from. Slowly I turned around, and nobody was behind me, either. I walked a few paces forward and stepped out of the scented area, then realized that I may have been experiencing another manifestation of a spirit. Like a crazy bag lady, I walked around in a small square, sniffing avidly like a bloodhound on a trail. Self-consciously, I realized that someone might be watching me, so I had a paranoid look around to make sure that no one was! The smell was contained to one area, just a few feet in diameter! Hmmmm….

Anyway, the whole festival was over way too soon, and it was time to go home. This year was the best Cairo Caravan ever, but then I say that every year!

I’m urging you to think about attending next year, from May 31-June 2, 2013. I’ll be there again, and other confirmed instructors so far are Rosa Noreen and Amani Jabril.

And of course, the ghosts (who now know every word of an Arabized “Bohemian Rhapsody”) will be very happy to see you!

For more information on Cairo Caravan or any of MECDA’s other incredible events, such as the second professional Dancers Conference and Retreat in October 2012, please visit:

http://mecda.org/

Photos:

Golden Age- Karim & me backstage; Vintage Costume Fashion Show backstage: IrinaXara & Helena Vlahos; Madame Onca and "The Queen" herself; "Hey Sailor!" emcee Laura & me on The Red carpet before the Gala

THE WILDEST RIDES OF 2011: OF POWER OUTAGES, BATS, BETTY BOOP AND PORN STARS

I spent most of 2011 on the road, which wasn’t much of a change from the previous few years. Though I could definitely live without the scary airport food and the hassle of condensing my cosmetics in a TSA-approved quart baggie, I love most aspects of traveling. To this day, I feel blessed grateful that I am not only doing something I love- performing and teaching dance- but that I get to travel all over the world to do it!

But life on the road isn’t always glamourous as you might think… I often joke that every year, I lose at least fifty IQ points to jetlag!

Traveling seems to generate unusual incidents, at least for me it does. I’ve been through four separate hotel fires: Vancouver, BC, Memphis Tennessee, on board the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, and at the Mena House in Cairo. I’ve missed countless planes and had my suitcase handle break off on an English train platform… while the train departed... and my suitcase remained at the station! I’ve been delayed and searched at international borders, spent the night in a Cairo police station, and bump into all sorts of random people at airports, including rock stars. Ron Wood from The Stones helped me get my bags off the carousel once, and I walked right into Alice Cooper at the airport in Athens, Greece. I see people I know in foreign places, too. On a flight from Heathrow to Cairo, the only two people that were in First Class were Jillina and I…and on the return flight, which transferred through Paris, I was coincidentally booked on the same plane to LAX as my ex-husband!

Beyond that, once in a while, it gets even wackier. Sometimes it’s just a matter of not understanding the language or confusion over local customs, but other times things get so totally out of hand and downright bizarre that I actually start to think:

“There’s the signpost up ahead… The Twilight Zone!”

In 2011, I was in five different countries before Valentine's Day, and wasn’t home longer than a week and a half until just before this past Christmas. As per usual, I spent a lot of that travel time on a bullet train to Crazy Town… so I’m gonna share with you my year’s re-cap, The Wildest Rides Of 2011.


In February 2011, I went on a solo European dance tour. Not only did my luggage get lost three times on flights to three different countries, but also the two and a half hour ferryboat ride from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia was completely surreal.

To begin with, Finland and Estonia are so far north that in February, it doesn’t get light til about 10:00am, and darkness sets in again a little after 3:00pm. That alone is disorienting to a California Sunshine Gal like me. The median temperature while I was there was 28 degrees BELOW zero. My nostrils literally froze and my eyes ached every time I went outside. I don’t know how those gals look glamourous in winters like that, but they all do!

The morning I was leaving Helsinki to go to Tallinn, I had to be up super early, check out of the hotel, and get to the ferry dock two hours before the ship departed at 9:00 am…. or, as I took to calling it, “dawn”. I was meeting my Estonian sponsor Berit and the other gals from her belly dance studio Mustika, at the Helsinki dock, because they’d come to Finland for my workshops.

In my haste, I didn’t have time for breakfast, so I grabbed a hard-boiled egg from the buffet and shoved it into my purse.


The dock looked like Ellis Island- I didn’t know the ferry was going to be so big, it was the size of a cruise ship. The embarkation line stretched outside, into the darkness and falling snow. Also, the ocean was completely frozen. The boats all had ice cutters on the prow and as they pulled in and out of the harbor huge chunks of ice flew up like a gigantic blender!


I finally found the Estonian girls, and we got on the ferry. It was three stories high, there was a duty free shop, a huge casino, restaurants, and a bar lounge that had karaoke, where we settled. Beiritt said it was the best place to spend the journey, and asked if I wanted breakfast or coffee from the bar.

I dug in my purse and pulled out my egg, confessing I’d had no idea there’d be food onboard.

All the Estonian dancers laughed in disbelief.

“You look like an old Russian grandma!”, said Daisi, a burlesque artist from Tallinn, as Berit took off her scarf and wrapped it around my head like a babushka. “What else do you have in your purse?”

The ship started sailing and the moment we had our coffee, a lounge singer came on, singing Beatles and Johnny Cash songs in Finnish, Estonian and Russian.

“Oh shit,” Daisi groaned, “This is not helping my hangover!”

Soon the karaoke began. As Daisi winced in pain and the other girls kept joking about my egg, we were treated to hideous versions in various languages of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” and the enduring all-time Euro-trash hit, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.

Soon, a young, wholesome looking guy dressed all in white, with a tousled blonde bowl-cut took the microphone, and before he started singing, everyone burst into applause.

As he launched into a terrifyingly off-key rendition A-Ha’s “Take On Me”, the Estonian dancers started laughing hysterically and whispering amongst themselves.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, utterly confused since they were speaking Estonian.

“Oh, this man singing is the biggest porn star in Estonia!” Yahna exclaimed.

“No way!” I said, convinced they were making fun of me in all my jet lag.

“No, really, he is!” Daisi assured me, “ Everyone knows him in Estonia, and he is very, very famous for his bondage and latex videos!”

As I sat dumbfounded, Berit added,

“ His name is Arnold, but we call him “Second Arnold” because “First Arnold” is our president, Arnold Ruutel!”

Just before “Second Arnold” launched into Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me”, I started to believe them, because a few audience members went up to him and had him sign autographs on napkins.

“ I can’t take this any more,” Berit, declared, “I’m going to Duty Free.”

When she returned, Second Arnold was still hogging the mic. He was on his sixth song, much to the delight of the crowd. A few matronly older women stormed the stage, giggling like schoolgirls, taking pictures.

“ I got you something to go with your egg!” Berit cried, handing me a foot-long plastic sperm, with big googley cartoon eyes.

As Second Arnold began to croon Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf”, I held the giant sperm in my hand, regarding it mutely, quite unsure of reality at this point.

“Some cream for your coffee!” Yahna laughed, as Berit unscrewed the sperm’s head and poured a whitish-yellow substance out of its body and into my cup.

As I stared in shock, Berit assured me it was Bailey’s Irish Crème… and, thankfully it really was!

Arnold didn’t stop singing for the rest of the voyage.


* * *

It’s June 2011, and I’m in Cairo, which is curiously quiet and sedate due to the social unrest that has plagued Egypt for most of the spring. There are practically no tourists anywhere, and the Ahlan Wa Sahlan Belly Dance Festival has only about 200 attendees, as opposed to about 1,500 the year before.

My jet lag has grown to new proportions, as it always does by mid-year. I am no longer sure what time it is anywhere. The jetlag to Egypt is always really bad, but this year, it seems worse. I literally haven’t slept in three days.

So, I’m talking to a really nice lady about buying some traditional Egyptian galibayyas. She has a beautiful, friendly looking face, and her hijab perfectly matches the pink bowling shirt – embroidered with a huge Betty Boop- that she is wearing over her own galibayya.

She speaks very good English, and I’m trying to stay focused on the conversation, but I’m so spun out from lack of sleep, my eyes keep drifting from her face to her shirt. There’s English writing on it, but as she moves around, unfolding garments for me to look at, I can’t see exactly what it says. Eventually, I sort of make out the slogan…and it seems to me like something a crack whore would be wearing in a Laughlin, Nevada trailer park.

I remind myself that I am, in fact, In Cairo, and there’s no way in hell this gracious Egyptian woman would be wearing a shirt with an obscene joke on it.

Finally, after I’ve paid for the galibayyas, she stands still for a second, and I realize that her shirt indeed says exactly what I think it says:

IF YOUR GONNA RIDE MY ASS, AT LEAST PULL MY HAIR

I can’t stop staring in utter amazement, it’s as though I’m hypnotized… and then she notices me looking.

“Uh…. I like your shirt,” I manage lamely.

“Oh yes!” she says enthusiastically, pointing to Betty Boop,

“ I AM SO LOVE CARTOON!”

Suddenly, I realize she has absolutely no idea what her shirt says…and apparently nobody else does, either…. otherwise she wouldn’t be wearing it!

I tell her that her English is very good, and ask her if she reads English as well as speaking it. She shakes her head no.

“What it says?” she asks me, as if on cue, “Read shirt to me!”

Since her hair is covered, I know she is religious. If I tell her what the shirt really says, she will be absolutely humiliated. Beyond humiliated. I think there’s a good chance she will run to the bathroom, crying hysterically, and I don’t to embarrass her in any way. I can’t think of anything to substitute for what is written on she shirt, and I’m panicking.

Finally, I come up with a solution. I ask if she’s married. When the answer is affirmative, I know it’s safe to say to her,

“I can’t tell you exactly what your shirt says, but in America, this shirt is very funny…and…” I let my voice drop to a confidential whisper, “ Well…it’s also a little bit sexy!”

“Oooh!” She gasps in delight, her eyes widen and her hand flies up to her mouth as she chortles conspiratorially,

“I like very much sexy!”

Since she has made a good sale, we’ve had a nice glass of tea together and now, we are both laughing out loud she insists that we take a picture together…so, of course I oblige!


* * *

It’s September 2011 and I’m furiously preparing for The Las Vegas Belly Dance Intensive. Not only am I performing and teaching at the event, my brand new line of Egyptian costumes- Princess Farhana For King Of The Nile- will be making it’s debut at there, in three fashion shows. I’ve spent the past two and a half months on Skype to Cairo with my partner Yaz Taleb for hours every day, approving designs and seeing finished products. I’m also going crazy trying via email to corral the fourteen belly dancers models- from seven different states- to pin down their availability for the fashion shows.

Yaz emails that he’s sent the costume boxes from Egypt, but when I try to track them, all that comes up is a notice saying:

ALL DELIVERIES DELAYED INDEFINATELY DUE TO HURRICANE IRENE


I try to breathe evenly and ignore my impending sense of doom, but I can’t help it.

A few days later, as Yaz arrives in America and the tracking shows that the boxes arrived…. Thank God!

All is going well until the Friday of Labor Day weekend, when I somehow re-injure my neck. Two years ago I was in my car at a full stop when an SUV plowed into my vehicle, resulting in my suffering severe whiplash and six- yes, six- herniated discs. During my extensive treatment and healing process, my doctors had warned me that my spine would " never be the same", and that sometimes, the “jelly” inside the disc would bulge out and create discomfort.

Well, I’m here to tell you that I have never, ever experienced pain like this before, not even when the accident had first occurred!

I called every doctor I could, but because it was a holiday weekend, nobody was in. I began icing immediately, swallowed insane amounts of ibuprophen and paced constantly like a lunatic because the pain was so intense. It felt like there were electric screwdrivers in my neck and blowtorches on my shoulder, it was nuts. I can't sit or sleep, and I'm moaning and keening out loud like a wild animal that's just been shot. This goes on all weekend.

Monday is Labor Day, and it’s Tuesday morning before my doctor calls me back.

The doctor diagnoses me with a cervical disc that is bulging onto my nerve channels and sets me up with steroids and a new pain medication that I’d never had before. I take it and feel sweet relief…. finally! After taking the second dose a few hours later, I feel almost normal, and decide I to pack for Vegas, since I was leaving the very next day.

I don’t realize how high I am, because I’m literally “feeling no pain”. Halfway through packing, I trip over my suitcase, fly across the room and land spread-eagle on my floor. Laughing like a crazed junkie, I just continue to pack.

Two hours later, I wonder why my foot still hurts. Looking down, I realize I’ve broken the last two toes on my right foot! Now, I’ve broken toes before, and the most a doctor can do is tape them up, and I certainly wasn’t going to a doctor again!

I stare in amazement at their shiny purple hue, all fat and swollen. I eat another pill, and, gritting my teeth, yank both toes back into their regular positions, post about it on Twitter (!) tape up the toes, and continue packing.

The next morning I leave for Vegas, and from the moment I’m there, it’s crackers, just non-stop. The fashion shows go great, and my show with House Of Tarab goes pretty well too, considering I was hardly putting any weight on my right foot!


I don’t know what I would’ve done without my dear friend DeVilla, who came to model for me, but winds up being my personal assistant all weekend.

My workshop was another story entirely. I knew I could teach with my neck jacked up - I'd done it when I was healing from the accident, after all- so that wasn’t a problem. But the broken toes kind of threw a wrench in the matter of doing floor work, which was one of the advertised aspects of the workshop… and since I broke my toes the day before I left, and I was going to be at the Intensive anyway, I thought it would be idiotic to cancel the class.

I explain this turn of events to the students, hoping they’ll understand, and have DeVilla come up on stage to be my demo-model. As soon as I start warming up, breathing in and out, all the lights in the ballroom begin dimming and coming up, in rhythm with breathing and the way my arms rise and fall.

At first, I don’t think anything of this because I often have weird experiences with electricity- until all the lights go completely off and come up a few times, strobing like disco lights. This goes on non-stop for a few minutes…. like, ten minutes! By now I’m completely distracted, and the whole class is murmuring and making jokes about it, too.

My “electrical disturbance” as I call it, has been with me since childhood. Cell phones and computers fail regularly, I can make my television turn on and off with a wave of my hand, I cause streetlights go out when I walk beneath them, and light bulbs sometimes actually explode as I go past. This usually happens in times of stress…and I guess my stress has reached a head by now.

“What’s up with the lights?” I yell across the room to one of the festival volunteers.

“I don’t know,” she hollers back, they’ve been fine all day and there were four classes in here!”

Great!

DeVilla pushes me out of the way, steps up to the mic and regales the workshop attendees with stories of my "super powers", and how many crazy electrical incidents she’s seen during the numerous times we've traveled together. She’s telling so many stories from so many places I’m beginning to get really embarrassed… it’s not like I can control this “talent” I have.

The lights ultimately settle down, and we get on with the class. For the rest of the trip, DeVilla received her “punishment” for blabbing about my electrical secrets. Poor girl, she’d anticipated a weekend of modeling, gambling, and laying poolside with a margarita in hand, but instead has to play Nurse Maid. She makes sure I take my pills, she brings me ice, tapes up my toes daily and changes the lidocaine pain patches on the back of my left shoulder every few hours.

I couldn’t have done that weekend without her- I owe her big time!

And if you happened to be in my class at The Intensive, now you know why it was so insane!

* * *

It’s November 2011 and I’m doing a couple of dates in the Midwest - Kansas and Missouri, to be exact. I love the Midwest, and I’ve been there a lot. America’s heartland is beautiful, and so laid back and calm compared to Los Angeles, and a lot of the other places I go. The dancers are always a lot of fun, and I look forward to my workshops there, because I can always be assured of a calm, peaceful trip.

Not this time!

The Manhattan, Kansas-based belly dance troupe Eyes Of Bastet are sponsoring me for my second-to-last trip of the year. Cathia, Nashid and I had a long, laughter-filled ride from the airport, a great barbecue dinner where I met the rest of their lovely troupe, and I’m now ensconced in my really plush hotel room, more modern and higher-end than most places I’ve stayed at in major cities. I sink gratefully into my Tempur-pedic hotel bed and I’m on the brink of sleep when I feel an all-too-familiar rolling sensation.

Bolting upright, I panic, thinking it's an earthquake…then I realize I’m in Kansas, not Los Angeles, and it’s probably just a mind-trick being played by my perpetually fried jet lag brain.

The next morning, I walk into the large gymnasium for my workshop and thirty-five women yell simultaneously,

“DID YOU FEEL IT?”

It turns out what was I felt the night before really was a rather large earthquake; the epicenter was in Oklahoma, but everyone in Manhattan, Kansas could feel it!

After a great full day of workshops, I am in my hotel room preparing for the show with Maharet, my Missouri sponsor who'd arrived in Kansas that afternoon. Maharet is taking me back to Missouri after this event, for more workshops and another show the next weekend.

Suddenly, there’s another earthquake. This time, since I am wide-awake, I know it’s real.

“You brought that with you from LA!”, Maharet declares, as we leave for the show.

As I take the stage for my entrance, I spy something out of the corner of my eye, swirling around in the air. I think it’s my veil flying from my spins, until I notice many concerned audience members whispering to each other pointing animatedly to the stage.

I look up, and notice there is a large bat flying around the stage… and he's upstaging me!

The show grinds to a halt while bat is captured in a trashcan, and removed during intermission by helpful belly dance husbands. I accompany them outside to watch it’s safe release; as they let it go, I realize that without the full wingspan, the bat is much smaller than I initially thought.

Back at the hotel, Maharet and I laugh about the earthquakes and the bat. We set our phones for 7:30 am, confirming to each other that the clocks are being turned back that night. On the dot at 6:30am, her phone rings loudly. She mumbles that we still have another hour, we go back to sleep. At 7:30 both our phones go off and Maharet is surprised that hers had rang at 6:30. I wonder aloud if it’s the time change, and check the clock on the bed stand, but it’s not on.


“Our clock’s broken”, I announce sleepily, and try turning on the lights, which also doesn’t go on. The bathroom light isn't working, either.

"Is this your electrical disturbance?" Maharet asks.

Peering out into the hallway, all I see are the EXIT signs. Finally, my eyes make out two teenage girls in pajamas shambling down the hallway like zombies.

“ Are the lights out in the whole hotel?” I inquired.

They answered yes, and I ask, “ Do you know why?”

“ No,” shrugged one, “We just accepted it.” With that, they shambled off into the darkness.

I feel my way through packing my class materials like Helen Keller as Maharet gets us the last two cups of lukewarm coffee from the lobby.


We arrive in class and luckily, the lights have been restored. Apparently, a huge apartment complex that was under construction has burned to the ground, causing a power outage in most of the city.

The next day, as we prepare to leave for Missouri, Maharet discovers she suddenly has no brakes in her car; it turns out there’s a huge leak. We buy a large container of break fluid, dreading the fact that we’ll have to pull over every few miles on the long drive to Missouri to replenish the supply for safety’s sake.

We hear a loud, odd sizzle and look up towards the noise, watching in horror as a poor little squirrel gets fried to death on the electrical lines above us. He hangs limp, his tail sadly blowing in the wind.

The moment we get on the highway, it begins pouring rain. A few exits later, it becomes worse, the rain is torrential, it’s going sideways. After about an hour, it’s so bad that we pull over for coffee, hoping for the storm to pass. It doesn’t, so we decide to drive again.

As Maharet puts the key in the ignition, the burglar alarm goes off. It’s a relentless, rhythmic honking of the car’s horn. She removes the key, and somehow, the alarm continues to wail. After about five minutes of chaos, Maharet calls her husband, and yells above the noise, trying to get him to figure out what’s wrong. He can’t, so we sit in the car, until a middle aged, mustachioed trucker tries to come to our aid. “Tries” is the key word here, because he can’t figure out what’s wrong, either!

Finally, the noise dies down and we take off, thinking the car alarm’s battery has died. No such luck: as we push forward through the driving rain, every time Maharet even taps the breaks, the alarm sounds wildly. We steel ourselves to the din, turn up the radio and scream to each other over the music, gossiping and telling stories.

An hour later, approaching Kansas City, it’s now completely dark. The rain hasn’t let up one iota… and neither has the alarm! It’s rush hour, and the beltway around the city is crowded. Since the weather is so bad and the highway is backed up with cars, Maharet is on the brakes constantly, and the horn is sounding non-stop. Truckers are flipping us off; people are flashing their lights –as well as really dirty looks- at us.

An hour after that, we’re driving through the hilly, unlit roads of rural Missouri. It’s so dark and deserted, I almost expect a UFO to appear right above us…but the sound of the alarm, which is still going off, probably prevents our abduction.

Somehow we make it home. Her husband Bill comes to the door before the car is even parked, saying he heard us approaching from very far away. Once in the house, Maharet heads directly to the liquor cabinet, pulling out a two glasses and a bottle of Wild Turkey, which we down immediately before staggering into bed.

The next day, Bill starts the car, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, the alarm seems to have magically fixed itself!


Happy New Year my dear readers, and May your 2012 be filled with adventure… because I’m relatively sure mine will be!



ALL PHOTOS BY PRINCESS FARHANA


Excerpt from the book, " Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere: My Life Onstage, Backstage, And On The Road", scheduled for publication in early 2013.

A MID-SPRING NIGHTS DREAM?

My boyfriend and I live in a Hollywood canyon, in a ramshackle Craftsman bungalow house that is almost 100 years old. We definately believe that our house is haunted... both of us-as well as our neighbors- have experienced crazy paranormal type things, including clouds of mist, flickering lights, appliances turning themselves on and off, apparitions, and unexplained movements of inatimate objects. Since our canyon is one of the oldest in Hollywood, we have no doubt that we live among spirits.

Our house is surrounded by gardens, and we have a bounty of produce, including orange, lemon, fig and avocado trees. We grow herbs and tomatoes, peppers and pumpkins, as well as fragrant "volunteer" vines of Honeysuckle, Morning Glories, Passionflowers and Night Blooming Jasmine. The whole place is overgrown and jungle-like, the perfect playground for our four cats. In our yard are dense clumps of Birds of Paradise and Nile Lillies, and a big patch of Nasturtium, plus a grand old tree full of squirrels. We get big fat toadstools when it rains, and have beetles, ladybugs and large grasshoppers. The property is populated with families of skunks, opossum and raccoons, as well as humming birds, wrens, doves and lots of butterflies. My sister jokes that coming over to my house is like visiting Snow White!

In our yard, there's also twinkling strings of Christmas lights up all year, wind chimes and old-school garden statues... all of which some people believe will attract fairies.

My boyfriend swears he's seen fairies before, and though I have definately experienced the paranormal activities in and around our house, I have never had the pleasure of seeing ( as they have been referred to in various storytales, folklore and legends) "The Wee Folk" or "Them Ones".

Last night, our cats went CRAZY in our front yard.

Though they usually love to sleep with us, and spend their evenings hanging out in our living room, that wasn't the case yesterday around midnight. They were participating in what we call "kitty hi-jinks" : running around chasing things we couldn't see, pouncing at each other and at patches of weeds, and generally acting insane. Though we tried to call them in quite a few times, and they are usually obedient and come when called, they wouldn't come in last night...even after we tried our sure-fire methods of tempting them to come in by shaking bags of treats and offering catnip!

This morning, in the front yard, right where our cats had been galavanting last night, imagine our surprise when we found this tiny little cornflower-blue felt coat.

It was laying on the ground, not standing up as pictured. I "posed" it that way this afternoon, because we took it into the house to examine it.

Sure, it could be a coat from a doll a child dropped...but where was the doll?

What was it doing in front of our house?

And why was the little toggle-button undone, as though someone had slipped out of it?

I have STILL never seen a fairy... Have you?

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM BEYOND

The Holiday Season itself is always a bustling blur of parties, family get togethers, gift-shopping, decorating and celebrating...and this season is no different. But there is also always an under-current of craziness, too. This may involve family dysfunction, anxiety and seasonal depression, or monumental events... and not always the good kind.

This year has been stressful for many, due to the economy. Personally, though I have been well, a lot of weird things have happened around me. A close friend fell off her roof the day after Thanksgiving. Thankfully, she will be OK, but she has a long road of recovery ahead of her. My neighbor's dog was hit by a car yesterday. She too will be ok. There has also been a lot of death around to me this year...but it seems that many deaths of those close to me have always been a constant in my life.

To me, The Holidays have always been a time to remember people I have loved who have passed away... and this year in particular, as a new decade is about to start, I am reminded of a heartwarming but completely unexplainable and yes, paranormal incident that occured just when the new century was dawning.

In 1999, during the days leading up to the Millennium, like many people, I began reflecting on life: historical events I had witnessed, personal goals that I had achieved and the things I had accomplished. But what seemed to really dominate my thoughts were the many significant relationships I had with family and friends. I was blessed with so much love, nurture and support. I thought of the many special people who were there for me not matter what… who shared their lives with me, gave me affection and influenced my creative and artistic endeavors.

One of these special individuals was my friend and mentor, the late Zein Abdul Al Malik.

Zein was a male belly dancer of prodigious talent. Well over six feet tall and lanky, he had piercing green eyes and performed draped in luxurious folkloric garb, and wrapped in antique Assuit, balancing a huge brass tray with a full tea set and candles upon his regal head.

Zein began his career in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid Seventies, dancing with Jamilla Salimpour, and went on to live in Morocco and Saudi Arabia, where he resided in one of the Royal palaces. He lived and breathed Oriental Dance, performing and teaching and doing research.

After we met in 1990, he took me under his wing- me, a beginning baby belly dancer with barely any skills- but somehow he saw my potential and nurtured me. Zein would have me over to his apartment- a wonderful, mysterious enclave of inlaid North African furniture, luxurious plants and relics from the Middle East. He’d make me mint tea in a silver Moroccan teapot and we’d spend hours together while he showed me steps and technique, discussed belly dance traditions, and watched vintage clips that he’d taped from the television in Saudi Arabia, featuring Golden Age Egyptian movies which starred famous Oriental Dancers like Naima Akef, Samia Gamal, and Tahiya Carioca. Zein also helped me select costumes, heartily encouraged my dancing, and got me my very first dance job (at Hollywood’s Moun Of Tunis Restaurant, where he worked) where, when I am actually in Los Angeles, I still work today.

Appropriate music for Middle Eastern dance was hard to find back in those days, and Zein made me copious amounts of Arabic mix tapes- remember, there were no CD’s back then- with the cassettes featuring everything from classic live Om Kalthoum performances to the latest in Egyptian pop and Algerian Rai music. Every cassette he made me had a special cover that he thoughtfully put together by hand, too- featuring Middle Eastern clip art, photocopies of vintage Turkish cigarette boxes and pictures of famous belly dancers like Nagwa Fouad and Soheir Zaki.

Tragically, Zein died about five years after I met him. By that time, we were close friends and because of his encouragement, we were also gigging together regularly. I was absolutely devastated. I remember speaking-or rather blubbering through a speech- at his memorial, my face wet with flowing tears, but I don’t remember a thing I said. I thought of him often, so many things reminded me of him. At gigs when I felt pre-show jitters, I would think of the way he used to calm my nerves through humor right before a show. Wrapped in a turban and wearing a brocade galibiya, shimmying to warm up, with his ever-present Marlboro in his mouth, Zein would sense my anxiety, catch my eye, make an exaggerated coquettish gesture then and whisper in a feminine falsetto,

“How’s my hair?”

Somehow, our private joke never got old, and always made me laugh. Whenever he did that, I had a great show, entering the stage with a huge grin on my face. Even though Zein has been departed for years, I always think of him just before I go on.

So…fast forward to New Year’s Eve 1999, at five minutes of midnight. Of course I was at a belly dance gig, in a dressing room, wearing a brand new costume- my first costume for the New Millennium.

The dancer I was working with that evening asked what music I was going to dance to for my first dance set of the century.

“I don’t know, “ I said, pawing through my CD binder, “I’m so sick of all my music!”

My gig bag was full of the usual belly dance accoutrements: stray finger cymbals, perfume, hair accessories, mis-matched sequin armbands, loose aspirin tablets, safety pins. Suddenly, something fell into my hands, a small plastic case. Though my suitcase was always chaotic, there was a method to my madness, and it was always re-packed before every show. The little plastic box was definately an unfamiliar object that I didn’t remember packing. Recognizing what it was in the dim dressing room lighting by the feel of it alone, I wondered how it got there.

“Hey, no way, there’s a cassette in my dance bag!” I cried, kind of amazed.

“You still use cassettes?” the other dancer asked incredulously.

“Well, no, not for years”, I answered, dumbfounded, “I have no idea what it’s doing in here!”

“Well, maybe we can dance to it,” she said, “What is it?”

I glanced at the clock- it was now one minute before midnight. Thinking we’d better figure our music out, I turned the mystery cassette case over in my hands. The cover featured a black and white drawing of a 1920’s flapper lounging in a champagne glass.

In hand-lettered Art Deco font, it read:

“HAPPY NEW YEAR! LOVE, ZEIN”.

As the clock struck midnight and the new century began, I got chills.


***

Photo Of Zein Abdul Al Malik from the cover of Arabesque Magazine, January/February issue 1994