Talking Epstein in Amman
[Amman, 6/30/25]
I’m catching on. To drink coffee around dawn, I must walk up half lit steps into the lowest heavens. (According to some cranks, earth must be the highest hell.) When I entered the third floor Jerusalem at 5:40AM, this guy asked if I wanted to smoke shisha? Men and women do that all day long here. “No, just coffee,” I answered in English, plus a hand gesture, but he had no idea what I said. An English speaking customer on the veranda helped us out, though, so I’m settled for life, or at least this morning.
Yesterday’s first café is called A Moment is Enough. I figured that out with Google Translate, so thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg. What would us cattle do without Jews? The second was Café Cairo in an alley. Customers were mostly older men in old yet neat suits. There were no T-shirts with weird English. In my áo bà ba, I belonged enough.
Bringing my bitter cup, the barista shouted, “You’re welcome!” In Cairo, old guys often yelled that as I walked by their shops. They just mean “welcome.” Yesterday on the street, a middle aged man asked if I was “alsiynia.”
“Vietnam!” I answered.
“You’re welcome!”
At a sidewalk bookseller, I noticed a fairly large selection in English. Among garbage like How to Win Friends and Influence People and Rich Dad Poor Dad, there were books by Orwell, Neitzche, Dickens, Hugo, Shelley, Woof, Alcott, Dostoyevsky, Chekov, Saint-Exupéry and Sun Tzu. Kafka was represented by Letters to Milena. I never got through that. Had to sell it, along with so many others, when cash ran out decades ago. In desperation, I gave his Letters to Felice to a girl. It was wrapped in silver duct tape.
Books of local interest included Said’ Orientalism, Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard, Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and Ten Myths About Israel, Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry, Masalha’s Palestine—A Four Thousand Year History and two collections of stories by Ghassan Kanafani.
If JD Vance thinks 21st century Chinese are peasants, Arabs must be camel herders. Has Vance, Trump or Hegseth read just one of the just mentioned authors? I remember seeing framed portraits of Khahlil Gilbran, Niza Qabbani, Saeed Akl, Mahmoud Darwish and Marcel Khalifa at Good2Go in Beirut. Is there even one NYC café that honors American writers like that? Judeo Christian Satanists have ruined gorgeous Beirut, so Good2Go is dead.
The owner of Hamoudah, my one-star hotel, is Palestinian. Marwan’s been to the USA, six European countries, all over the Middle East, of course, and even four Southeast Asian nations, including Vietnam, which he prefers over Thailand. We had a great chat yesterday.
In Thailand, Marwan ran into a 40-year-old from Oman who was there for a sex change. A three-day procedure cost this progressive freak 20 thousand bucks.
“He changed his voice, up here, but not down here.”
“So he still had a penis?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t work.”
“He’s still a man!”
“But his face, and up here, he looked like a woman.”
“No woman or man would want to sleep with this guy.”
Marwan just shrugged. I changed the subject, “You should visit Cambodia and Laos.”
“Laos?”
“It’s similar to Thailand, they speak almost the same language, but the people are more relaxed. It’s nicer.”
“No ladyboys,” he laughed.
“Some ladyboys, but not like Thailand. You know, during the Vietnam War, American soldiers, and Australians too, went to Thailand for sex. American contractors, plus journalists from everywhere, also went there. I mean, they already had prostitutes, but the Vietnam War made it much worse. It became an industry. Now, you have Arabs and Indians also going there.”
Since we were talking about sex tourism, I mentioned the most exclusive version, reserved for aging white leaders. Having all that power, money and access to beauty queens made impending death even more painful. Since they had never hesitated to ruin countless small lives, why not, before that bitter coffin, fuck the tiniest bodies? Jews could easily facilitate this. To my surprise, Marwan had never heard of Jeffrey Epstein or the Lolita Express.
“Look it up, man! Trump went there so many times, and Clinton, too. That’s why these American politicians must do whatever they’re told by Jews. Everything is on camera. All you have to do is lean into a girl. That’s enough.”
Carrying Ukrainian or Polish passports, Jews have shown up at Hamoudah. Most vehemently, they objected to this Palestinian calling his homeland Palestine. “It’s Israel!” they would shout in anger.
I finish this at One Moment is Enough. After one more cappuccino, I will head back to Hamoudah for some humus, falafels, cheese and an egg.
Last night, Al-Hilal beat Manchester City 4-3. As a lifelong fan, I can’t be happier. Devious Brits deserve their humiliation. Who cares if only one of their stars is an Englishman. That’s about right for today’s UK. Waving a fist westward, I curse the memory of Glubb Pasha!
[Amman, 6/30/25]
[Amman, 6/30/25]
[Amman, 6/30/25]
[Amman, 7/1/25]