Discombobulated: Dispatches from the Wrong Side - Softcover

Morrison, Simon A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1900486733 ISBN 13: 9781900486736

Publisher: Headpress, 2010

Synopsis

Simon A. Morrison describes his journalism thus: "I climb into the story and start drinking until things go wrong." And you know what? They tend to. Discombobulated tentatively started as a hands-on study of global youth cultures, but fell into disarray somewhere on page three; it stands now as the chronicle of a trip into the Wrong Side, following the author's modus operandi, which is to combobulate, go to a disco and shortly thereafter discocombobulate. During the course of the many adventures that make up this discordant operetta, Simon Morrison has a gun held to his head by a celebrity gangster, goes raving in Ibiza with a holiday grandmother, is trapped in a gay bar in Leipzig, sings happy birthday to Kylie Minogue, disco dances in a San Franciscan titty bar, is deported from Russia, travels the white heights of the Alps through to the gutters of Brazil, and still picks himself up in time for tea with boy band Take That.

About this title

About the Author

Simon A. Morrison was brought up in the discotheques of Upper Manhattan by a family of wild divas. Indeed, such was the peculiarity of his upbringing throughout those shimmering 70s, that for much of his life he believed the moon was a glitter ball and the walls of his life would forever be mirrored. Since then he has been destined to pursue the beat from West Coast to East, dispatching his findings back to the pages of the International magazine, DJ, where these stories appeared for eight years and are collected now for the first time.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 19 - Sharm El Sheikh Cairo. I have something approaching a half litre of Scotch inside me and I'm trying to ride a camel (for the purposes of this Dispatch we shall call him Colin). Colin is doing his level best to keep me vertical while he ferries me around the pyramids; the site of which is enough to knock anyone off their dromedary. Only it won't take that much to separate me from Colin - Duty Free at Heathrow was enough to do that all by itself. I haven't slept in a couple of days and I'm in the same clothes as last night. I vaguely remember drinking in a hotel bar, smoking hookahs, lying on a beach, looking up into the Arabian night. But right now I'm on a camel. What really makes the experience so deliciously Wrong is that I'm not supposed to be here at all. The press pack were staying in a resort called Sharm El Sheikh on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsular, but since we were delayed in Cairo, someone suggested making a break for the pyramids; catching me, and the luggage of my inebriation, somewhat off guard. The pyramids took like, a kigillion years to build, and I've got ten minutes to take it all. Ten whisky-soaked minutes. I'm laughing that hard I can barely keep a hold on Colin and by the time we climb back onto the bus back to Cairo I can only vaguely recall the experience at all. Wrong. Sharm was a whole different kettle of fish, or rather magic lantern of dreams. Sharm is where the Arabs go to play and will soon become another disco destination for this planet's wandering tribe of clubbers - playing that enormous game of join-the-dots between the finest dancefloors of humanity. This was my first time in the Middle East, or indeed Africa and I wanted to get out amongst it, get out in search of hookahs and the Truth. And there is no-one better to show you around than Adly El Mestekawy, a man who ditched his 9-5 life in Cairo some 20 years ago to become one of the first people to stake a claim in Sharm, building the Sanafir hotel where we stayed and played. "For me, living in a tie and a suit, being an employee, I wanted to feel free," he told me on our first day, as we boarded a boat and set sail onto the Red Sea. "And once I came to Sharm I felt that, this is freedom. The Bedouin philosophy is just great. It's the opposite of a consumption society - when you don't have to consume, you don't have to work for money, so life is reduced. But at the same time it gives space for your brain to think, for wisdom.

Edition details

• Publisher: Headpress
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1900486733
• ISBN 13: 9781900486736
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 248