Women of Africa – Putamayo World Music PUT-223-2
Eleven years ago I was brought to Las Vegas to report on a gargantuan computer exhibition. I call it the ‘little Dublin Mammy odyssey.’ It was ‘all American’ in the worst possible way and I was the worst possible person to send. I was put up in Caesar’s Palace, a hotel so large that every evening I had to seek the assistance of a nice centurion to show me back to my room, apparently in the Forum, which was tastefully decorated in ‘brothel red’ and boasted a circular sunken bath. Funny, I got no feel for ancient Rome during my sojourn in Caesar's Palace. I did battle gladiator style though to hack my way through the foyer of hundreds of one-armed-bandits and roulette tables operated by clones from the Jeremy Kyle show tastefully wrapped in stone washed denim and crowned with perms that extended halfway down their backs.
I was an anachronism walking down the Strip to the Da Vinci Hotel every morning – me and the parents of the Yorkshire couple who opted for the Vegas wedding. They looked like characters from Last of the Summer Wine; I looked like ‘a little Dublin Mammy.’ It was in the Da Vinci hotel - a rebuild of Venice, canals and all - that I communed with impeccably quaffed and dressed technocrats, trying my best not to collapse into a catatonic sleep before their very eyes as they drawled interminably about the selling points of some futile piece of security technology that would be an antique in six months time. I was far more interested in what would appear next on the rolling buffet.
Da Vinci was where all the big computer guns were – square jawed Roger Ramjets, comfortable in their gaucheness. Of course they all had roots in some godforsaken corner of Ireland and wondered if I knew the progeny of the losers who stayed behind; not having the back bone to take a coffin ship to Canada in Black '47 and walk the rest of the way to the USA. I could see how I had come from the 'weaker' line; unable as I was to conduct the bragger and swagger that for them passed as normal communication and routine modus operandi. They loved me though; I was the only hack with no computer or recorder (the reason for which I cannot explain here). They seemed reassured that the ‘old sod’ had not succumbed to the evils of technology. The home of their ancestors was safe from modernity. "Thanks be God," I confided to myself, "that ex-pats don't have the vote in Ireland. If they did, the country would resemble Darby O'Gill and the Little People."
It was hard on a ‘little Dublin Mammy’, especially on the night when we gathered in an aircraft hangar (all 4,000+ of us) to listen to the main man talk about his powerful company. Bill Cosby provided the entertainment – unnecessary in my opinion since I was surrounded by stock characters. As we all know, Mr, Cosby has featured in the news in recent times for misdemeanors far more serious than being a right wing entertainer for a giant corporation.
Anyway, it all got a bit nationalistic when Cosby suggested that we stand in silence for two minutes for ‘our boys in Iraq’. Our paltry group of pale skinned hacks from Ireland and the UK decided to remain respectfully seated. We did so in the shadow of large men in baseball caps and bomber jackets. That was the longest two minutes of my life.
By the end of the week comfort eating had come and gone. I could no longer face another mammoth platter of carbs. No longer could I face a lunch that would feed an average family for a week back in the ‘old sod’. Furthermore, my opinion of myself plummeted further each time I bought something in a shop from a twig with a mop stuck on top. I felt like a sack of 'lumper' potatoes; I needed to get home as soon as possible to feel average again. With not a book shop, museum or gallery in sight, or indeed anything remotely connected with that great tradition of Western culture that has evolved over the last millennium, I de-stressed in the local Virgin mega-store; the biggest record store I had ever been in. I submerged myself in the world music section and when I eventually came up for oxygen I was tightly grasping a jewel - a CD featuring African women from Algeria to Zimbabwe covering social and political issues in jazz, popular and traditional genres.
I left the store and re-entered Lego Land; only one more day to walk between ancient Rome and Renaissance Venice. I looked at the Eiffel Tower but I wasn't fooled. I couldn't wait to get home and play my African jewel on loop. The only similarity between Las Vegas and Africa was the burning sun and the desert sand that seemed to gather at the end of every street.
Copyright Berni Dwan 2014
Eleven years ago I was brought to Las Vegas to report on a gargantuan computer exhibition. I call it the ‘little Dublin Mammy odyssey.’ It was ‘all American’ in the worst possible way and I was the worst possible person to send. I was put up in Caesar’s Palace, a hotel so large that every evening I had to seek the assistance of a nice centurion to show me back to my room, apparently in the Forum, which was tastefully decorated in ‘brothel red’ and boasted a circular sunken bath. Funny, I got no feel for ancient Rome during my sojourn in Caesar's Palace. I did battle gladiator style though to hack my way through the foyer of hundreds of one-armed-bandits and roulette tables operated by clones from the Jeremy Kyle show tastefully wrapped in stone washed denim and crowned with perms that extended halfway down their backs.
I was an anachronism walking down the Strip to the Da Vinci Hotel every morning – me and the parents of the Yorkshire couple who opted for the Vegas wedding. They looked like characters from Last of the Summer Wine; I looked like ‘a little Dublin Mammy.’ It was in the Da Vinci hotel - a rebuild of Venice, canals and all - that I communed with impeccably quaffed and dressed technocrats, trying my best not to collapse into a catatonic sleep before their very eyes as they drawled interminably about the selling points of some futile piece of security technology that would be an antique in six months time. I was far more interested in what would appear next on the rolling buffet.
Da Vinci was where all the big computer guns were – square jawed Roger Ramjets, comfortable in their gaucheness. Of course they all had roots in some godforsaken corner of Ireland and wondered if I knew the progeny of the losers who stayed behind; not having the back bone to take a coffin ship to Canada in Black '47 and walk the rest of the way to the USA. I could see how I had come from the 'weaker' line; unable as I was to conduct the bragger and swagger that for them passed as normal communication and routine modus operandi. They loved me though; I was the only hack with no computer or recorder (the reason for which I cannot explain here). They seemed reassured that the ‘old sod’ had not succumbed to the evils of technology. The home of their ancestors was safe from modernity. "Thanks be God," I confided to myself, "that ex-pats don't have the vote in Ireland. If they did, the country would resemble Darby O'Gill and the Little People."
It was hard on a ‘little Dublin Mammy’, especially on the night when we gathered in an aircraft hangar (all 4,000+ of us) to listen to the main man talk about his powerful company. Bill Cosby provided the entertainment – unnecessary in my opinion since I was surrounded by stock characters. As we all know, Mr, Cosby has featured in the news in recent times for misdemeanors far more serious than being a right wing entertainer for a giant corporation.
Anyway, it all got a bit nationalistic when Cosby suggested that we stand in silence for two minutes for ‘our boys in Iraq’. Our paltry group of pale skinned hacks from Ireland and the UK decided to remain respectfully seated. We did so in the shadow of large men in baseball caps and bomber jackets. That was the longest two minutes of my life.
By the end of the week comfort eating had come and gone. I could no longer face another mammoth platter of carbs. No longer could I face a lunch that would feed an average family for a week back in the ‘old sod’. Furthermore, my opinion of myself plummeted further each time I bought something in a shop from a twig with a mop stuck on top. I felt like a sack of 'lumper' potatoes; I needed to get home as soon as possible to feel average again. With not a book shop, museum or gallery in sight, or indeed anything remotely connected with that great tradition of Western culture that has evolved over the last millennium, I de-stressed in the local Virgin mega-store; the biggest record store I had ever been in. I submerged myself in the world music section and when I eventually came up for oxygen I was tightly grasping a jewel - a CD featuring African women from Algeria to Zimbabwe covering social and political issues in jazz, popular and traditional genres.
I left the store and re-entered Lego Land; only one more day to walk between ancient Rome and Renaissance Venice. I looked at the Eiffel Tower but I wasn't fooled. I couldn't wait to get home and play my African jewel on loop. The only similarity between Las Vegas and Africa was the burning sun and the desert sand that seemed to gather at the end of every street.
Copyright Berni Dwan 2014
