An American Terrorist in Dubai

Halloween 2007 – Springfield, Missouri 


…So there we stood outside the bar in ripped leather pants.  We all had our long wigs, silver chains, and black eye makeup.  I had one of my old guitars strapped around my back.  Collectively we'd spent like $400 on the costumes but it was worth it because we looked exactly like Motley Crue.  Exactly like Motley Crue. Right down to the fishnet stockings on our arms.  We were ready to make our entrance into the costume party but before we did, my buddy Kyle reached into his backpack and pulled out 4 cucumbers.  We all looked at him like, Dude I thought we were invading this club as Motley Crue not characters from The Veggie Tales, but then he stuffed one down the front of his skin-tight leather pants and we all understood…


Two Weeks before Halloween 2012 – Abu Dhabi, UAE


When I get to this part of the story my friends at the table are in stitches. We are passively glancing through our menus. I’m offering up my best Halloween costume story hoping to spark some good costume ideas.  The Devil’s Holiday is just around the corner in the UAE and we have decided that we’ll all go to Dubai for the weekend and do Barasti, Dubai’s go-to-bar for expats. We’ve heard that this multi-level beach bar in the heart of the city is an international madhouse on Halloween, so it only seems natural that we attend.  


When we sat down to eat, though, no one had come up with an idea for a costume yet.  We’d talked it over some on our way to the restaurant, popcorning a host of unispiring ideas. A zombie? Nah, too trendy.  Maybe a superhero?  Are we five?  A ghost?  What?  And waste a perfectly good sheet? 


“Okay, look,” I interrupted as we sat down at the table and took our menus from the waiter’s hands,  “What’s the best Halloween costume you’ve ever worn?  Maybe if we tell some stories that will get the creative juices flowing.”  I scanned my circle of friends waiting for an onslaught of great costume stories but they all just rubbed their chins and blinked at their menus.   


“Okay, I’ll start.”  And that’s when I unraveled my Motley-Crue-Halloween yarn.  


“…But then he stuffed one down the front of his leather pants and we all understood. One of the guys, my buddy Tim I think it was, marched right up to the DJ booth and he demanded the DJ play Girls, Girls, Girls.  The DJ took one look at us in our world-class costumes, complete with leather bound cucumbers, and he cut the music mid Brittany Spears.  Suddenly Motley Crue was pumping out of the speakers and we were thrust onto the DJ’s stage where we fake-played our guitars and lip sang to a sea of cheering Playboy bunnies and Frankensteins. Every person there was singing along and cheering for us.  It was epic.  The place went wild!  None of us paid for a drink all night, and maybe it was just the cucumbers but the way I remember it we attracted far more lady attention than any of us were used to.  At the end of the night the DJ announced that there would be a $400 prize for the best costume.  They gave us each $100, just enough to recover the shameful amount we’d spent on the costumes."


"Ha!  Nice, Adam."  


"Love it." 


"Mate, your buddy Kyle sounds bloody brilliant."  


“So did that inspire any ideas?” I ask. 


“I’ve got it!” Cries Leah as she spanks her menu against the table.  “That’s what we need to do.”


“What?  Go as Motley Crue?” I ask, skeptically. I’m not sure Motley Crue would be as well received in Dubai as it was in Middle America.  "I think we need something with more universal appeal.  Remember we’re working with an international crowd here.  You’re Canadian and I’m American so we know Motely Cure, but most of the people at Barasti in Dubai wouldn’t know Motley Crue if Nikki Sixx snorted a line of coke off their eyelid.  Plus, there are way too many of us – The Crue was only 4 people.”


“No. We need to do a group costume.”


Suddenly there is life at our table.  Yeah, a group costume!  Eyes light up and menus are snapped shut and ignored.   We all offer up a frenzy of ideas while our waiter taps his foot next to the kitchen door.  


It doesn’t take long, though, for us to realize that this isn’t going to be easy.  In a setting like North America, finding a group costume that everyone at the party recognizes is a breeze.  What person north of Mexico doesn’t know who Motley Crue is?  We all have common culture and a shared knowledge base there.  But Dubai is not North America.  And Barasti is as Dubai as it gets.  


On any given night, hundreds of countries are represented at this one place. Clubs in Dubai are like the Olympics of socializing.  On Halloween even more so.  What costume could we possibly put together that would be recognizable to a trendy young architect from Italy, a swimsuit model from Brazil, a financial planner from India, a computer programmer from Canada, a surf instructor from New Zealand, etc?


“Maybe we could do the cast of a TV show,” suggests Heather.  


“Okay, good.” I say.  “What TV show has enough international exposure that everyone on earth recognizes its characters…Baywatch?”  The girls at the table all glance down at their chests and grumble.” 


Can't blame a guy for trying.  


“Maybe we could do a sports team,” An Irish girl at the table suggests?  “What’s the most internationally recognizable sports team?”


I pipe up before I give it much thought – “Maybe we could go as the Chicago Bulls during their dynasty with Jordan and Pippin…”


She nods agreement but says she reckons she’s not really into American football and she doesn’t want to wear a helmet all night.  Irish.  It’s getting obvious by this point that finding an international common ground is going to be hard work.  Eyes drift back to menus.  Fingers stroke chins.  Appetizers are discussed.  And then, just as our waiter sees a moment of silence and his chance to sneak in and get our order, Leah strikes gold


“I know,” She boasts, sending the waiter pivoting on his heel and back to the door.  “The one thing that everyone at Barasti will know is drinks. What if we all dress as different, you know, alcoholic beverages!?”  


Drinks.  That’s it.  No matter where you come from, if you’re at a bar you know about drinks. It’s brilliant!  My head spins with possibilities.   How did I not think of it myself?  A tall furry white hat, white skirt, and white furry boots transform a girl into a White Russian.  Knock the stuffing out of a decorative pillow and glue it to your belly and, wahlah, a fuzzy naval.  The opportunities are endless.  


“Like for instance,” Leah’s head is whirling with drink puns now too, “I could maybe wear a nametag that says Hi, my name is Mary and then all I need is some Heinz ketchup dumped over my shirt and I’m a Bloody Mary.”


“This just might rival your Motley Crue costumes, mate.”  


We have a plan! What we don’t have is any-idea that while the other drink costumes will garner mass approval from the swanky Barasti crowd, my drink costume will start an international squabble.  What we don’t have is the foggiest idea that my costume will reinforce the world’s worst stereotypes about Americans and that I’ll have to rip it off in a bathroom stall just to save myself from being slobberknockered into a Bloody Adam.  


“Can I take your order?”  This from the waiter who finally sees a window of opportunity to take our orders.  


“Can we see your drink menu?”


Halloween 2012 – Club Barasti in Dubai 


When we walk into Barasti there’s a live band bopping out Marley tunes while rich young jetsetters from around the globe dance under dazzling costumes. On down the beach a DJ pumps strobe lights and trance music over a crowd of girls dressed as sexy kittens and tan guys dressed up as a P90X endorsements.  In every corner there are fellas holding drinks and exotic ladies tossing their heads back laughing.


Leah, dressed as a White Russian, tells us she’s heading to the tiki bar to get our first round of drinks and what do we want.  Heather, whose skirt is made from Corona boxes and who has a lime stuck in her straw hat, says she wants a Corona – for consistency.  Shannon, who is dressed quite seductively as a Bikini Martini orders a Sex on the Beach, I suppose for consistency as well.


“Beer for me,” I say.  “Actually, I’ll come with you.”  I’m ready to introduce Barasti to the best-dressed drink.  I swagger behind Leah into a crowd of gyrating bodies, anxious to let people see our (specifically MY) brilliant costumes.


I’d spent the weeks between our meeting at the restaurant and our date at Barasti carefully planning and executing it.  I didn’t want to be just-another-drink in the group; I wanted to be the Crème-de-le-Menthe, the guy whose drink costume snags him high fives from trendy Italian architects and playful smiles from the Brazilian swimsuit models.  I wanted to be the hottest Toddy at the party, and I had put together what I thought would be the ultimate drink costume.


The Irish Car Bomb.  


For the Irish part, I’d dried up 10 orange and green fabric markers making my white shirt to look like the Irish flag.  My Irish buddy Finn had nodded his approval at my handiwork and told me that an Irishman should also have a tattoo on his arm.  Pog Ma Hon – he’d recommended - It’s Gaelic.  I’d tattoo the words down my forearm with green magic marker alongside a shamrock. (Irish?  Check).


For the car portion of the costume, I’d purchased a package of Hot Wheels from Toys R Us and strung them up on a chord that I hung from my neck.  (Car?  Check).  


Now for Bomb.  For the dynamite cartridges I’d purchase seven rolls of paper towels and liberated the cardboard rolls from the center.  After spray painting them red and waiting for them to dry, I had a friend strap them tightly across my midsection.  For the bomb’s timer, I’d gussied up a round piece of styrofoam to look like the face of a clock and attached it to the dynamite cartridges. (Bomb? Check).


My drink costume is top shelf.  And it's go time.


“Hey.” This from a guy I don't know who has grabbed my shoulder.  He stands a good six inches taller than me and he's yelling quite loudly to be heard over the band and the trance music.  His scrubs and the stethoscope dangling between his pecs tell me he’s supposed to be a doctor, but he looks more like a body builder dressed up as a doctor.  “What’re ya s’posed to be?”  His accent sounds roughly Russian.  


Leah sees me stop to talk to him about my costume and gives me an approving nod. You’re a hit! She tips an imaginary bottle into her mouth that lets me know she’s going to go ahead and get the drinks without me.  


“I’m an Irish Car Bomb,” I yell back at him.


“Ya, man.  I can see you have the bomb.  You are the terrorist for Halloween, no?  Where you are from?” Apparently the cars around my neck and my flag shirt are being overshadowed by the bomb strapped around my midriff. 


“America,” I say back.


“Huh?”


“AMERICA!” I practically scream it trying to be heard over the loud mixture of Buffalo Soldier and trance beats that collide around us.


The band resolves the song and for just a moment there is quiet.  “American?  In united ARAB Emirates.  Muslim country.  And you dress like the terrorist?”  He scolds me.  “This is stupid!”


“No, no, no. I’m not a…” But the music starts back up and the word terrorist drowns under electronic thumps and the intro to No Woman No Cry.  Where is Leah with those drinks?  


“This American -" He yells to no one in general, "- No good! Why you dress like terrorist to the party?”  He shakes his head at me, and then steps over to a table with 3 other guys, built similarly.  I duck into the crowd hoping to avoid being beaten with surgical precision by the enraged doctor and his cronies, but out of the corner of my eye I see him pointing me out to his friends.  They all squint my direction, crack their knuckles,  and take long drinks of what looks to be tall glasses of straight vodka.  


If you’re reading this and you’re American – there are some things you should probably know about how the world views Americans.

How the World Views Americans

1. America is a nation of Islamophobes.  The rest of the world has access to the same American News sources as we watch, (Including Fox) and they don’t approve of our Muslim bashing.  I’ve had countless conversations with people from every corner of earth and they all want to know how it is that Americans can be so intolerant – yes the 9/11 thing was horrible, the argument goes, but think about Hiroshima.  That didn’t make Japan or the rest of the world anti-Christian.  
2. Americans are ignorant because they don’t travel. The fact that almost half of all Americans don’t even have a passport is insulting to the rest of the world, for whom travel is inevitable.  Foreigners sometimes say, with obvious disdain, that I’m the first American they’ve ever seen outside of America.  How can you claim to the leader of the Free World, the argument goes, when your only experience with The Rest of the World is a weekend in Cancun?  
3. America is just the nation-version of the popular-girl clique at school.  We’re the ones that sit together at lunch and never let anyone else sit with us.  We don’t even acknowledge the other kids in the cafeteria.  Look at them, the argument goes, sitting there in isolation thinking they’re so great when no one else really likes them anyways.    

I slice through the crowd, hoping to avoid a beatdown and feeling a not a little silly that I’m reinforcing the worst American stereotype. And there is Leah, standing at the bar handing over her money in exchange for bottles and glasses.  I run over a couple people trying to get away from the pissed off Russians and I hope no one can tell I’m American just by looking at me. There goes another asshole American.  Always in a hurry and too rude to say excuse me.  


“I got you a beer.”  She says.  I’m relieved to see it’s a Tiger beer from Singapore. Not an American Budweiser product.


“Great.”  I take a swig and stand on the footrest of a bar stool and scan the crowd looking for my assailants.  “Listen, I think my costume is a little misleading.”  


She starts to say something, but before she can, a couple of guys squeeze up to the bar between us.  One of them looks at me; he’s not in costume and neither is his friend. They're both well dressed and look to be about my age. 


“Hi, mate.  Is that the Irish flag you have on your shirt?”  His accent tells me he's British, and to my relief he's neither big nor angry like the last person who asked about my costume.   


“Yes, it is actually. I’m glad you get it.” I say, still inspecting the crowd and ready to make a dash for it.


“Sure, mate, you’re the bloody IRA, right?  I didn’t know Americans knew about the IRA.  Hey, Michael,” He grabs his buddy by the shirt “This American bloke is dressed up as an IRA member!” 


Michael, who has just finished placing his order at the bar, looks me up and down. "Aye, lad.” He rolls out in a guttural Irish accent. “Is it the IRA, ya are?  Yer costume ain’t the kinda thing I’d be a wearin’ ere, but it’s bloody accurate it is.”


If you’re reading this and you’re American – Here are some things you probably didn’t know about the IRA.  I sure didn’t.

The IRA

1. For centuries England has been trying to place Northern Ireland under British rule.  Both Ireland and England consider the region to be theirs.  The IRA is a group of Irish guerrilla fighters who’ve killed thousands of Brits in their attempts to permanently claim the land.  
2. Members of the IRA usually speak Gaelic, Ireland’s original tongue, because they see the English language as another overstep on the part of the Brits.  The words tattooed on my arm - Pog Ma Hon –are Gaelic for kiss me arse, which is Irish English for kiss my ass.  A battle cry, I suspect, that an IRA member would say just as he pushes the detonate button.    
3. The IRA uses bombs, specifically car bombs, to kill British occupants and British sympathizers.  Although the relationship between Northern Ireland and England is mostly civil now, guerrilla warfare still goes on occasionally, and it’s a source of never-ending tension between the Irish and English.  Sometimes an Irish guy and an English guy will be chatting over a beer only to find out that someone in the Irish guy’s family was in the IRA and killed someone in the English guy’s family 10 years ago.  

Michael, the Irish lad, and this English bloke are now staring at each other.  My costume has stirred some bad blood between the once amiable neighbors.  The bartender has placed two beers on the table for them but neither one of them reaches for their drink.  


“No, no, no.  My costume is not IRA. I’m an Irish Car Bomb!”  


“Like IRA car bomb.” Says Michael. He doesn’t take his eyes off of the English guy.  


I try my best to make an appeal.  “No, not IRA!  I’m an Irish car bomb the drink, you know with Guinness and...”


Michael interrupts and looks at me now, “Look, lad, I’ve not ‘eard uh this drink.”


“Okay, well what I’m trying to tell you is that there is a drink made from Guinness and Bailey’s Irish cream.  You’re Irish for God’s sake, man.  Surely you’ve heard of it!” 


“No, lad.  Never ‘eard of it.”


“Nah, mate.  Me neither.”


If you’re reading this and you’re American – Here are some things you probably didn’t know about Irish Car Bombs.

Irish Car Bombs

1. They're completely an American concoction.  No one else in any part of the world, even Ireland, has heard of the drink.

And that’s when I see the Russian Doctor and his posse pushing through the crowd towards the bar looking for someone, presumably me.  Michael and his English friend are still having an awkward look at each other, no doubt wondering whose family killed whose, when I take off for the bathroom. I can feel people’s eyes on me as I push through the crowd trying to get to the safety of the restroom.  I hear words being spoken in my wake.  Words like “bomb” and “terrorist” and “bloody American.”  


The bomb part of my costume is apparently all anyone sees, and word has traveled quickly.  Did you hear that there’s some American idiot dressed as a terrorist here? Here we are in the most western-friendly Muslim country in the world, and this guy can't have a little tact even on Halloween night. Young Arab men, typically the friendliest people on earth, shoot eye darts at me as I push through them in queue to the bathroom.  


Safely locked in a stall, I peel the bomb off of myself and stuff it into the trashcan.  I lean up against the wall and stare at the ceiling.  And it's here that for the first time since I left, I long for America.  America, where I won over the Halloween crowd with a long wig and a cucumber stuffed in my leather pants.   America, where no one thought the Chicago Bulls were a football team and everyone knew the song Girls, Girls, Girls.  America, where I never had to learn about disputes between Ireland and England because my country always had enough disputes of its own to keep my mind occupied. 


Now that I've got my costume off, I realize that no matter how much I try to make myself out to be a world-savvy traveler; I'll always be mostly an ignorant American.  And that whole world-savvy traveler thing, that’s just a costume.