Archive for August, 2009
Madonna, Faith No More, MGMT: all live in Israel this week!
Tomorrow night sees a biggie for music fans in Israel. Tomorrow night also kicks off the last month of really good gigs to look forward to, possibly until next summer, so if you haven’t splashed the cash up til now, here’s your chance…
We all know about Madonna and her visit to her beloved Israel, right? She’s by far the biggest star to perform in Israel this year but I’m actually a little surprised at the lack of hysteria around this one; could it be that Israelis have been spoilt by the sheer number of stars performing here this summer and a teeny weeny bit of apathy is setting in? Depeche Mode’s gig back in May seemed to grab the headlines more, at least in my opinion, although that gig was the first of the summer and probably did a lot to promote Israel as a safe and popular place for other artists to come and visit.
But did you realize there’s another big night of music at the Trade Fair Center in Tel Aviv, just across the road from Madonna’s show? If you’re more into indie/electronic music the Heineken Music Conference could be right up your alley. Spread over two nights (Tuesday and Wednesday), with a lineup that includes MGMT, Faith No More, Dinosaur Jr., James Murphy & Pat Mahoney from LCD Soundsystem, The Dallas Guild and The Monotonix, you might find your own sweet and sticky moment without the Big Lady across the road…
Here are some clippy moments for you to enjoy. I’ll be at the Madonna show on Wednesday night (the second gig), but have a feeling the inner guitar hero within me will be across the road…
Picture of the Week XVI
Time for another great picture. This time, an old tourist favorite gets a shot at fame and glory. That’s right, the faithful old camel, perhaps the most eagerly anticipated mode of transport for the would-be Israeli visitor. However, once here, expect to be disappointed: they’re not exactly roaming the streets of Tel Aviv…
The shot below was taken by Gabe Monfried, who hasn’t got too many pics in his collection, but this one just stood out for me. Colors are just the way they should be, and those whiskers, what can you say…
Maccabi Haifa face Bayern Munich, Juventus, and Bordeaux!
Following Maccabi Haifa’s great result on Tuesday night, when they made it through to the group stages of the European Champions League for the first time in seven years, you might be stoked to find out that they’ll be facing the might of Bayern Munich, Juventus, and Bordeaux. Oh yes, Bayern Munich, Juventus, and Bordeaux, coming soon to a Holy Land near you!
As it looks now, you’ve got to say that the draw has not been kind, but then again, were Maccabi Haifa ever going to stand a really good chance of making it through to the second round? Anyway, we say good luck to them! Their first Champions League game is on September 15 (at the Ramat Gan stadium, and not in Haifa), against four-time European Champions Bayern Munich, so I guess that’ll give us a good indication of whether they can do something special this year…
Whatever happens, we’ll just be happy to see some top class footie round these parts. Can’t wait.
European glory nights coming soon to an Israeli soccer stadium near you!
A big congrats to Maccabi Haifa, who last night qualified for the group stages of the European Champions League. A 3-0 home win over FC Salzburg meant a 5-1 aggregate result, and in the end, quite a comfortable ticket through to the luxurious stages of the elite European competition. Luxurious in so much that Maccabi Haifa stand to pull in some 12 million Euros over the next few weeks, which in Israeli footballing terms is a huge amount of money.
It’s only the second time an Israeli team has ever qualified for the group stages, the first being back in 2002, when, yes, you guessed it, Maccabi Haifa had its moment of glory (including a very glorious and fondly remembered victory over Manchester United). Hopefully this year Maccabi Haifa can do the unthinkable and get enough points to squeeze through to the second round…naahhh, that’s getting too cheeky!
I actually almost went to the game; my brother-in-law had tickets but not a spare one. A phone call that would have indicated he’d managed to buy an extra ticket from a tout never materialized, so I watched most of the game on TV.
Despite my dislike of local football (really, sometimes watching paint dry is more entertaining) this game caught my imagination and interest. I can’t say it was for all the right reasons; if I’m totally honest it’s probably down to my hoping that Arsenal get drawn in the same group as Maccabi Haifa and I get a chance to see my boys (in red) live and kicking in the Holy Land.
Come the draw for the groups, I might well get my wish…but in the meantime, once again, congrats Maccabi Haifa!
Picture of the Week XV
This week it’s the turn of Israeli architecture to get a look in. And a trip up the road to Afula, a town most people only know as a passing point on the road up to the north of Israel.
The picture was taken by mbmayorka, a guy from Spain, who looks like he was on holiday in Israel in 2006. I’m not sure those colors are for real and it’s probably not the best quality picture ever taken in the Holy Land, but I really like the shot anyway! mbmayorka’s got some other fine shots in his set collection on Flickr, go check him out.
Which section would you fancy living in?
Lady Gaga likes floating in the Dead Sea, Israel!
Yesterday saw the Musix Festival hit Tel Aviv, with Lady Gaga headlining. Whatever you think about her, and those legs, she’s got star appeal. She also has a great voice and can play a mean piano, so let’s give her a break. Especially as her star looks set to climb higher and higher and she had the balls to come and play in Tel Aviv…
Nice to see that she also put out a good word for Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. In fact, as she put it, you can float in the Dead Sea and “feel like motherfucking superwoman!“.
And here she is performing her biggest hit yet “Poker Face”, in an acoustic and smothering herself all over the piano stylee.
How I ended up in the Holy Land. And stayed…Part 8
Continuing on with my tale of woe and joy of how I ended up in Israel…tales of a non-Jewish potential Kibbutz volunteer who falls in love with Tel Aviv, dodges Scud missiles, lives and works illegally for years on end, gets besotted by one Israeli girl despite the best attempts of a legendary Jewish mother, but ends up marrying and divorcing another… and then marrying yet another to join suburbia and the hi-tech revolution, while becoming the seemingly respectable owner of an English school.
In case you missed them; Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7
Part 8: Making Israel my home!
So, like it or not, I was getting firmly entrenched in the Holy Land. Saddam had tried his best to convince me otherwise by throwing a few Scuds at my double love affair with Ofira and Israel, while my mum’s sickness a few months later had even brought me back to Blighty for a bit. But there was only one destination in my heart in those days and not a lot was going to stop me from getting back there: that little slice of land in the Middle East known as Israel. And a beautiful army girl waiting for me in a 2nd floor apartment somewhere in suburbia might just have swung it.
Back from England, things felt a bit strange. Ofira had welcomed me with perhaps the biggest hug ever recorded and she felt great to squeeze back, but the summer was over and I’d been out of the loop and people had come and gone. I was no longer a tourist, I wasn’t flying back into the Holy Land and needing a bed in a cheapo hostel – I had my own little sofa to kip on in Petah Tikva!
I did manage to locate some old pals from the Purple House, who were still in Tel Aviv; I met up with Mark, the old barman, and we caught up over a beer (though not a crate this time!), while Peter was also back in the center of the country, after leaving his moshav in the north. I’d been away a couple of months but in that time, he’d gotten married to an Israeli girl and was going to be a Dad, living in leafy Givatayim.
I distinctly remember one morning sat on Dizengoff street, drinking beer with these two guys (Peter and Mark), reliving the last few months, coming up with memories that seemed so long ago, yet were just a few months old…I think it was from this session that a weekly beer session was inaugurated. Peter and myself arranged to meet up every week in Tel Aviv and escape the routine of life in the ‘burbs, while we’d meet up with Mark occasionally (Mark went on to settle into hostel life for a good while longer).
Those weekly beer sessions proved to be a lifesaver on many occasions. Getting accustomed to life in Israel ain’t easy, and being stuck within a Hebrew/Israeli environment on your own for most of the time made the need for a few beers critical. But little did I realize that these sessions were being monitored closely by the Mossad, aka Ofira’s mother, who really was sticking her nose into both mine and Peter’s lives without our even knowing it, more of that to come in the next episode…
So, my 3 month tourist visa quickly ran out once more with no solution in sight other than to hope and pray on my next exit out of the country. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to work on a tourist visa but it’s never hard to find something if you’re young and prepared to put the graft in. I kipped on the sofa at Ofira’s place while a variety of odd-jobs ensued, including: painting apartments in Tel Aviv, washing dishes, furniture removal, and even cleaning houses.
But as 1991 moved into 1992 and the hot, steamy summer beckoned, there was an inevitable return to my more touristy roots. I started sleeping over at the Gordon Hostel (with a balcony overlooking the Med, of course) just to save me the hassle of catching buses back to Petah Tikva. Ofira’s army service also meant that she wasn’t home every night of the week, so I made the most of my freedom with some beery nights in Tel Aviv.
And it wasn’t long before I was actually working at the Hostel, just to pay my way. I mainly did a few night shifts on reception, keeping tabs on the comings and goings and making sure Adam the Barbarian didn’t go on the rampage with his baseball bat too often. Adam was a Brit who hated Israelis with a passion and didn’t need much of an excuse to go off on one, but would you believe it took a haircut of all things to convert him into a normal human being. With a dashing new look he fast became a connoisseur of fine Israeli women…and his baseball bat soon hit the trash can.
They were actually nice nights, despite the crazy hours (something like midnight – 7am). I read books, listened to the great Voice of Peace, and fended off a few advances from some crazy Israeli girls. I even had one girl follow me all the way from Petah Tikva to the hostel (on the bus), and she actually stayed and chatted with me all night. She seemed a bit “lost” but a few months later I met her in Dizengoff and she had metamorphosed into a vivacious suntanned beauty, and we had a laugh about “that night”.
But as the year wore on, and I stopped working and hence stopped over less at the Gordon Hostel, I needed something more. My Hebrew had improved a lot over the last few months, largely due to too much time on my hands and a great copy of the ulpan book Peter gave me (as a new citizen through his marriage to a local girl, he was entitled to free Hebrew lessons at a Hebrew school – known as ulpan - but had given up, hence my new reading material). And I used my new language skills to search for jobs in the local newspapers. With a little help from Ofira, I landed myself a new job as a Percy Thrower wannabee – that’s right, a gardener.
After meeting the two beautiful Israeli girls who ran the advertised gardening business a short bus ride from Petah Tikva, I was a happy camper. They were paying me peanuts, something like 1700 shekels a month for a full-time gig, but the work was fairy easy and they weren’t too bothered about the lack of a proper working visa.
This little gardening job opened my eyes to life in Israel, in many ways. I got to meet some great people, and some not so great people. I’m still in touch with a couple of my ex-work colleagues, some real top-class blokes. Others were less classy, but it was a real experience with some of them as they couldn’t speak a word of English – it did wonders for my Hebrew! Ah, strange old Eli, I wonder what you’re up to these days!
And as the weeks flew by and my hedge trimmer worked overtime, little did I know the greatest summer of my life was just around the corner…
Next up: The summer of ’93!
A towel shortage in Eilat looms
‘Tis the silly season over here in Israel, as the mercury breaches new heights on the thermometer. And talking of heat, something I’ll never understand is the Israeli passion for Eilat in the summer months – like it isn’t hot enough in Tel Aviv/Jerusalem/Haifa, you need more?
But a recent incident is beginning to make it all a lot clearer. Apparently an Israeli family was nabbed with 63 towels in their suitcases, after vacationing at the Sheraton Moriah Eilat hotel in Eilat. So that’s it – silly or not, the summer months in Eilat are peak towel-grabbing months!
But, hang on, it’s not only the towels – the same family were also caught with some 370 bags of instant coffee!!
In response to questions from the police, the mother of the family indicated that she hadn’t stolen anything – she was just taking what every other Israeli takes when on holiday. So, if you’re planning on vacationing in Eilat, don’t forget to pack another suitcase, for the “freebies” of course…
The Sheraton hotel didn’t notice a large number of towels missing; their theft only came to light when the police came to the family’s house a few hours after they had returned from Eilat, on the suspicion that drugs were in the house.
We say: Crikey!
