Dance Fever Brunch

In the frenzy to build Dubai up from its sandy origins, the ex-patriot community here maintained a six day work week for many long years. Mercifully, things have normalized somewhat, although the current five day work week does seem to include quite a few twelve hour (or more) days and, adding to my confusion, runs Sunday through Thursday. Work to live I say, not the reverse.

Dubai's penchant for workaholicism, has propped up another popular "holicism" with the advent of the fancy brunch. Born of the intense need to counteract the cubicle blues, Dubai's toiling Poms, Kiwis, Aussies, and Seeth Ifricans of yore began a tradition of bacchanalian friday feasts. Let us pause to examine this ratio; six long days of transacting business in the Islamic world, and one day of riotous western excess within the enabling confines, and devil may care pricing, of a large hotel. 

Hotels play a central part in ex-pat night life because they are cultural embassies of a sort. They represent mostly neutral ground with regards to Islamic Law, and have the market cornered on public drinking establishments. Hotels are the only places serving lunch during Ramadan, and are the unofficially sanctioned locus of prostitution. Let me add here that freelance writing is going just fine thank you, and that I'm not referring to my own career prospects here.

You can drink in your own home in Dubai, provided that you're not Muslim, and that you complete an application for a liquor license, which includes a letter of consent from your employer and a cap on booze spending based on a percentage of your income.  This also seems like a good time to mention that grocery stores feature a walk of shame section where pork products are sold and where, inevitably, a sign announces that "this section is not for Muslims." According to my pal Tom, the liquor stores will reward reaching your sauce quota with a couple bonus bottles of whisky, ostensibly to get you through the impending rough patch. Alcohol is bought at what Pennsylvanians might call a "state store," and like PA, whoever's connected enough to get one of these state sanctioned liquor contracts is making a killing. Although plenty of folks drive to Sharjah to get their supplies from a place called Barracuda, thus circumventing the license laws, much like Philadelphians buying in Jersey.

This past Friday, we attended our good pal Jane's hippie themed 30th birthday party at Yalumba, a supposedly Australian restaurant, that serves Indian, Japanese, and Arabic food alongside grilled surf and turf and the requisite chocolate fountain. Either by coincidence or design, Yalumba was 'asses to elbows' with birthday revelers, hosting at minimum, six independent celebratory groups. We arrived a tad late, unsurprisingly, but the last brunch we'd been to hadn't really started until an hour and a half after the appointed time, so I guess we thought that was normal. Dubai is not a punctual place in general, as the crippling traffic and habitual detours have rendered the pace fairly languid. Who really knows when anyone will arrive?

As is my habit, I elected myself designated driver, a choice informed by Dubai's zero tolerance DUI laws, and my own genetically enhanced tendency to smell like I've just bathed in Maker's Mark after downing a single beer. I don't know why this is, perhaps I'm some sort of human distillery with untapped potential. So I left the champagne to the others, and loaded my plate in diplomatic style, representing several corners of the globe in an ad hoc food U.N. Turns out proper Ice Cream recipes appeared around the same time in both 18th century England and America, but early American ice cream was easier on the teeth, as anecdotal evidence no doubt supports. 

After brunch the tables and chairs were cleared away to reveal the dance floor, and a hidden DJ began cranking out every cliched wedding dance floor hit in Wizard of Oz fashion. At first I suspected that it was actually just an iPod spewing funk pheromones from it's tiny plastic hide, but when a middle aged lady (possibly my hilarious pal Ricardo's long lost aunt) began hiking up her skirt suggestively to Tom Jone's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" the mystery DJ revealed his or her professionalism, immediately toning things down thereafter with Sinatra. Who, by the way, strikes me as more of a fighter than a lover.

After six or so hours at Yalumba, which I should emphasize was really fun, even if the British clearly don't "get" my dancing, there was no way I could hang in there for the after party at Fibber McGee's.

Fibber's, as it's often referred too, is like a Disney World version of an english pub, that somehow miraculously happens to be full of English people due to some strange coincidence of tourism. Perhaps it's Manchester United Supporters' day in Orlando, and Virgin Atlantic is offering a two for one from Old Blighty to New Shiny. 

Whenever I think of Orlando I think of Shaq, who apparently plays for Miami now and is planning to enter law enforcement upon retirement. Who knew? Still, being virtually a Disney character himself, I imagine the big guy spends a lot of time in the magic kingdom, maybe he'll even seek assignment there when he becomes a cop-- how'd you like to get tasered by that guy? Fun stuff.

So Fibber's is always full of UK ex-pats, who, from the relative clarity of my designated driver's position, seem to be having a depressingly good time. These people are, quite possibly, even better drinkers than lapsed Mormons-- it's that impressive. The reason I find Fibber's challenging, is certainly not because I resent the fun they're having, you should see our pal Phil (the fellow dancing with Ness above) at these events, singing along as the cover band belts out the Proclaimer's solitary hit. His glee is infectious. The thing is that Fibber's just reminds me that I'm living in a vacuum, a place that's neither Western or especially Eastern, but in fact many places all on top of another, and that the only authentic American counterfeits in Dubai are horrible places like Chili's and T.G.I. Friday's. Which, by the way, should really be called T.G.I. Thursday's here given the work week. I'm morbidly curious to poke my head into one of these places and see if it might be full of rowdy bolo tie wearing Texans, except, the only thing I can ever think to say when I happen across a fellow countryman, is "hey, you talk funny."

And finally, a post script: Despite appearances, Jane is not attacking Vanessa on the dance floor, I think she was just grooving REALLY hard. [EDIT: image removed at Jane's request]

Also, we ran across these similarly dressed Kuwaiti nationals (in the last picture) at a gas station, and were trying to find out if they're in a boy band. "Are you a dancer?" Vanessa asked, "Sometimes." The guy with the Nelly band-aid replied.