Naked in Dangerous Places

by Cash Peters

  “Want to know something funny?” Nick asks chirpily “The architects were British, right? And when they were designing the building they included a gigantic white crucifix.”

  “They did? Where?”

  “You can't see it from 'ere. It's on the ocean side.”

  How wise.

  Seems the white cantilevered shelf the hotel uses as a helipad cuts across a white vertical steel rod at just the right point to form a cross. I wonder how long it'll be before someone important finds out, and, when he does, if in a fit of rage he'll have the whole place torn down and indiscriminately order someone to be thrown into jail for five years.

  “The company has never admitted it was deliberate, of course,” Nick tags on, “but if you believe the rumors, it was their big F.U. to the Muslim community.” And he laughs again.

  Don't you just love this guy? His corner-of-the-mouth gossip, his candor. The sort of candor you'll only get from the British, who have a nose for the truth and tongues unafraid to speak it—contrasting starkly with Dubai City, which somehow, to the nonpartisan observer, feels like a very big fat expensive lie, a pricey diamond half-blinding you with the many-faceted brightness of its riches, while never quite allaying the suspicion that what you're looking at is really just a huge dazzling chunk of Diamonique. Mutton dressed as lamb. The Emir's New Clothes, if you will.

  “The Burj is reputed to be the world's only seven-star hotel,” Nick throws in. Seven stars! Wow! That's two more than they could ever need.

  If true, such braggadocio is typical of the city's juvenile clamoring for the world's attention, by breaking records, putting up buildings that graze the stratosphere, and generally being the biggest and best at things that the rest of us don't really care about.

  Tallest flagpole in the world, anyone?

  Largest number of men called Mohammed assembled in one place?

  And on it goes. One shameless ploy after another. Extremism for its own sake. Underscoring a broader principle: “If you can't see us, then we may as well not exist.”

  The $400 billion that continues to be pumped into making this the center of the earth has produced other important firsts: the world's tallest free-standing structure, the largest housing development ever; the largest shopping mall containing the world's largest aquarium, the glitziest financial and media center; the sprawlingest airport; the biggest amusement park—Dubailand1—and the largest working refrigerator, which, because nobody has any use for a refrigerator that big, they turned into an indoor ski slope twenty-five stories high instead.

  We stopped by Ski Dubai briefly. An enclosed alpine wonderland of chairlifts, pine trees, and frosted railings, it boasts five different runs of varying difficulty, plus what's hilariously called a Freestyle Zone, reserved for those whose technique could broadly be described as “wanting.” Mainly it amounts to falling over and slithering the rest of the way on their ass. All in all, then, a totally self-contained and convincing world, as long as you don't look up at the ceiling, which is studded with lights and also vents from which showers of real snow fall every morning.

  Afterwards, I was chatting with a stunning Jordanian model called Samar. I met her in Starbucks. Though, since we're in Dubai, no way could I just meet her, as that would be against the law. Our accidental rendezvous had to be set up in advance. And not in any old Starbucks, either. Theirs turned out to be a grandiose, sprawling coffee mosque-type affair, crowned with a magnificent domed blue ceiling worthy of Versailles. I have photos.

  “I don't understand,” I said. “Why would they build a ski slope in a place where nobody skis?”

  Her answer was trite but true, and went a long way to explaining everything else about this country in a nutshell. “Because,” she said, “they can.”

  That's it. Three words.

  Because they can.

  A basic fact of life when you're loaded. The rest of us just have to accept it.

  Once the Ski Dubai shots are over and done with, we're slated to visit the world's largest flagpole. Another outlandish white elephant that someone here thought they might as well build “because we can.” Yet for some reason our enthusiasm, already tepid to begin with, wanes to almost nothing the closer we get. And by the time we're half a mile away, some of us are even feeling pangs of hostility toward it. Seems nobody cares about the world's largest flagpole. Nobody cared before they built it, nobody cares now. So instead we do something far more interesting: we take a detour to Nick's favorite vegetarian café for an early lunch.

  Much of the food in Dubai is wonderfully westernized. The best of any of our trips so far. Whatever your diet—including special weirdo demands such as “no oil on anything”—they'll accommodate it here, and in unwieldy portions. Although be warned, it's pricey. Last night at the hotel restaurant, for instance, I got into a squabble with my waitress after she tried to charge me thirty-one dollars for a side salad from the buffet. And just so you don't think I was being obnoxious for the sake of it, let me define side salad for you: two pieces of lettuce, three cherry tomatoes, and a couple of slices of cucumber. That's all I had for thirty-one dollars, a price they charge, no doubt, once again “because they can.”

  Well, Sir wasn't standing for it.

  “I'm sorry,” I said, after calling over the maitre d', “there's been a mistake.”

  “No, my colleague is correct,” he intoned with forced politeness, inspecting the check. “It says here ‘thirty-one dollars.’”

  “Yes, I know it says it there, but that's outrageous.” I moved to the buffet table for a full demonstration. “What you're telling me is that if I take a plate and eat everything here, everything, all of this stuff”—pointing—“until there's none left, you'd charge me the same price you did for a tiny fraction of it, namely some lettuce, three tomatoes, and a couple of slices of cucumber.”

  I may appear to be a wimp in certain circumstances—when asked to sleep in spider-ridden huts, for instance, or while digging holes with sticks in the jungle or going down opal mines—but on my home turf of a first-class hotel, I am invincible. A fearless conquistador demanding fair play.

  “Does that seem fair to you? Does it?”

  And I glared—something I don't do lightly.

  “Well…”

  Five minutes later, a smallish fat guy, with more mustache than any man could possibly have use for, came charging into the room with some urgency. The manager. Suddenly, I was trapped by a black-tied cabal of forced-smiling hotel employees circling my table. Yet did I give an inch of ground? Not likely.

  “I insist you change this at once,” I commanded to all three, waving the check.

  By now, more guests were drifting in, watching this unpleasant scene escalate. Feeling the heat, and tired, obviously, of dealing with a cheapskate who couldn't see that being ripped off by high prices was part of the whole “Dubai experience,” their resistance collapsed like a faulty card table, as begrudgingly—you should have seen the ire on their faces; it was Solvang all over again—they took the bill away and made a suitable adjustment.

  “Thank you. I appreciate it,” I said coldly, handing over five bucks or so, and left.

  Frankly, I'm surprised they get any return business. Next time, to hell with them all. I shall dine in my private club. For free.

  Time to shoot some B-roll.

  “Now … 'til you … come … spot… top!”

  Huh?

  “Okay, we're rolling!”

  Under a blazing noonday sun, I'm stumbling along the ridge of a flawless golden dune shaped like a croissant, one of thousands stretching in every direction. From this lofty vantage point I can make out a shifting smudge of shadows in the far hazy distance, inching south across the sand. Camels. Driven from behind by a solitary bearded Bedouin herdsman in flapping white robes. Otherwise, I see nothing, neither another living soul nor another set of footprints, and even my own are eroded within seconds by the wind.

  It doesn't take much to picture the rulers of Dubai a long time
ago traveling across this exact patch of desert, feeling thoroughly depressed at how desolate it all was, how empty, and thinking to themselves, “Let's face it, fellas, the tide's never coming back in again,” resolving there and then to put their crowned heads together and figure out something interesting and unique to do with their country.

  Once I'm finished walking across the ridge, I stop to mop my reddening forehead and to check back with Kevin, who's some distance away, naked from the waist up, with a floppy hat on protecting his face, to see if my walking bit was okay.

  It wasn't.

  From behind his tripod, he shouts more orders: “Top … ridge … beat… curve!”

  I cup my ear, but I still can't make out a word he's saying. The wind's against us. And his crazy arm gestures don't help. Nevertheless, I return to my starting point and try again, a little further to the left this time. Pure guesswork, and obviously nothing like what he had in mind, because moments later I see him throw a small fit—first time he's done that, ever—and come sprinting over.

  “Jesus, Cash, are you deaf? Go behind the ridge!” he calls up to me. “Wait ten seconds, then start climbing. Walk over it toward me—okay?”

  Aaaaaaahh! So that's it. “Sorry, Kevin.”

  By now I have sand inside my shoes, my ears, my armpits, my foreskin, and crunching between my teeth. After a brief pause, I do as instructed and clamber up to the top of the ridge again. Taking no chances this time, I reach into my box of well-tried expressions and pull out the ultimate crowd-pleaser: my Mystified Look. I squint across the wide-open landscape as if to get my bearings, glance right, glance left, glance right again, then bumble out of shot with the brooding air of a man who, if he's asked to do this one more time, may fly off the handle and punch someone, even if it means risking a spot of jail time.

  “And … cut. Great.”

  Kevin's not the only one showing signs of cracking. Everyone's testy today.

  I blame Dubai. Something about this corner of the world screws with your mind, I think. It's in the air. Even on a good day, you're on edge the whole time. You know that frazzled feeling you get when, halfway to work, you suddenly think to yourself, “Jesus! Did I turn the oven off?” Well, it's a bit like that. Nothing too major, nothing you can put your finger on exactly, but enough to cancel out most traces of good humor during your stay and make every molehill feel like an unassailable mountain.

  Good example: this morning, first thing, the normally quite unflustered Kevin had a run-in with Jay over camera angles. And then Jay had a run-in with me in front of the whole crew about some continuity point or other. All very fleeting, and easily patched up, but unsettling at the same time. As it is, we're already making big allowances for Jay. Before we came on this trip, he blew out one of the discs in his back and is currently half-crippled with sciatica, poor guy. Though this is a mere blip on the sonar compared to the real firestorm we're facing right now.

  Mike—Kevin's soundman—has lost his gear.

  THE gear. The fifty-pound sound-mixer box of tricks he wears around his neck during filming, together with his microphones, cables, and whatever else he uses to record interviews. All of it failed to turn up on the carousel at the airport, which was a staggering blow to the production, because as wonderfully sumptuous as Kevin's pictures may be, they're not strictly television unless they make a noise. (These aren't my rules, it's just the way it is.) So until he finds it, he's forced to lease or borrow equipment in every location we visit.

  Numerous calls throughout the day to American Airlines by Mike at his most charming …

  “Hey, buddy, how's it goin'? Cool. Listen, dude, I wonder if you can help me?”

  … have failed to produce the breakthrough he's hoping for. As of now, nobody, least of all the airlines, has any idea where the equipment went. And I say “airlines,” plural, because these trips rarely involve direct flights on a single carrier. Too often, in the name of being economical, we're booked onto multiple carriers, which means multiple layovers in multiple airports before we reach our destination. Sometimes the layovers are really out of our way, too. In the past month alone, for example, I've visited Madrid four times. Four times! Which would be fine if even one of our shows was set in Spain, but it wasn't.

  Over lunch, Mike calls American again, angling for an update. Still they're unable to say what happened. “Stolen, probably,” is their best guess. Unhappy, he follows this with a call to the office in L.A. to take up the matter with them.

  I can't tell you what Fat Kid's response is to these concerns, because I can't hear it. All I know is, by the time Mike hangs up, he's very, very unhappy. Furious even. Which is highly unusual for him. Bear in mind who we're talking about here: a California surfer dude. A cool, mellow Buddhist who practices yoga every morning. His elfin face, with twinkling gimlet eyes, is generally awash with good humor, revealing a man wonderfully at ease with himself and his world …

  “Man, this is all such bullshit.”

  … just not while he's working on this show.

  “I've never come across a crew more at war with its own producers,” Nick admits to me later that night at his townhouse on the outskirts of the city.

  True to Fat Kid's new edict, I must sleep in someone's home each episode for a minimum of five hours. To prove that I did, the crew has been given a Sony mini-DV camera equipped with night vision. Called “the Tuck-in Cam,” it's rigged up at my bedside to make sure I really lie down and sleep, in case anyone challenges us later. However, the tapes usually run out after an hour and the machine switches off automatically. That leaves me free on this occasion to get up again, trot downstairs, and wait out the remaining four hours with Nick and his wife, and grab a beer or two 'til a taxi arrives to ferry me back to the hotel.

  Unfortunately, this being Dubai, alcohol laws are so strict that you have to apply for a license to drink in your own home! So I settle for tea and nibbles, while Nick stands out on the patio smoking, one of the few vices you don't get jailed for around here.

  “Why are your people at the office being such pricks?” he asks, exhaling into the night sky.

  “I don't know that they are. It's hard coordinating all of this, the trips, the flights. I'm sure they're doing the best they can. It just doesn't seem that way when you're here.”

  Off duty, Nick's chipper-Dan raciness lifts like a burka to reveal a degree of glum dissatisfaction beneath. The way he tells it, he's one of thousands of people who left England for a new life here—80 percent of the labor force is made up of ex-pats, a lot of them British—only to find that the new life they'd run away to wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

  “You get 'ere, and everything seems wonderful,” he explains, “and yes, sure, mate, there's tons of money to be made. Tons. It's very lavish. Plus, the weather's great, and everything's new and exciting, know what I mean? But then after a while it… I dunno, something 'appens. It starts to get on your nerves, wears you down.”

  “What does?”

  “The chaos. The temperature. The unfinished roads. The language. Culture barriers. Just the general atmosphere here. You must have noticed it.”

  I admit that I have, and that I too find it subtly menacing. Their gargantuan malls, ski slope, perfectly landscaped racetrack, ritzy airport, their art gallery to rival the Louvre—a thousand dazzling baubles and novelties heaped up and brimming over and meant to be so very enticing, when all they do really is transmit a shrill cry of warning, letting the rest of us know that Dubai, one of the tiniest countries on earth, has possibly the most terrifying Napoleon complex ever, like a needy, insecure child jumping through hoops, clamoring to be the center of attention after centuries of being ignored on the world stage.

  “Dubai tries to be as westernized as any place can be, but first and foremost it's a Muslim country and there are limits. Myself, I reckon,” he says, stepping inside and closing the patio door, “I've got another year to go here. Maybe less. Then I'm off.”

  “Oh yeah? Where to?”
r />   “New York. I've always wanted to live in New York.”

  “Ah. A real city, you mean.”

  We exchange looks and laugh. “Yeah, a real city.”

  The final showdown has arrived. Time to meet the monster everyone's been warning me against. The top-ranking government official who, with a few words in the appropriate ear and a “clap-clap make it so,” could have the lot of us evicted from Dubai—which, strangely, is something I would actively welcome by this point. It's nothing anyone's done specifically, just that, after everything Nick told me about life here, all the dos and don'ts, the way the rich treat those who aren't as fortunate as they are, I can't help feeling jittery and vulnerable. It's only been a couple of days, but I'm ready to scram and never return.

  Jay comes limping over, stoically soldiering on despite the constant nagging pain of his sciatica. “Remember, you can't needle this guy the way you do other people.” Last-minute instructions. “Don't ask him any difficult questions. Go easy on him.”

  I won't. I will. Stop worrying.

  We rendezvous inside an elegant creamy-white showpiece auditorium that someone has striven to make perfect, and in so doing scrubbed it clean of all personality, like so much else around here. It's reached by crossing a bridge decorated with towering palm trees made from beaten copper. These are continued in the interior.

  On the shout of “Action!” from Jay, I enter, wearing My Mystified Look again. As I do so, a cultured and charming man with an easy smile steps out to greet me, his frame concealed beneath a gleaming white dishdasha.

  “Hello, Cash, how do you do, I'm Hamza.”

  Conveniently overlooking the anomaly of why a senior figure in Dubai commerce would be just standing there in the room, ready to talk about his projects to a guy he doesn't even know, wink wink, we shake hands and do our spontaneous interview.