Play it Again?
OK, let’s start with now, then work backwards, jump around a bit, then come back to close to now… I have to start with the Blue Night while it is still fresh. I was going to go to bed around 1 am, but decided I had to have one last drink and see the Blue Night Discotheque. According to the pictures in the hotel, it is a hip place to drink and check out women—especially the ones dancing around the room. I asked the man at the front desk if there was a dress code, and he said “no problem, tell them you are my friend.” I walked across the lobby to the tacky mirrored door and rang the bell. The door slid open and a man welcomed me in. I walked into a dark, mostly empty club. Despite the dim light, it was evident that the carpet, tables, and most of the surfaces were blue. The room was about 30’ by 20’ and in the middle was a small stage. It had about a 6’ square checkerboard dance floor in the middle. It was surrounded by Corinthian columns holding up a mix of lights—most of which were off. About 8-10 tables surrounded the tiny dance floor, and there was a balcony that wound around the room. Off to the right was the bar—that had about 10 seats. There was a couple sitting at one of the tables—tough to tell whether they were a “real” couple or a transactional couple. There were three men at the bar. One was about 40, and clearly wasted. The other two were in their fifties, short, balding, and overweight. I proceeded to the end of the bar farthest from the door where I entered. I ordered a Casablanca, wondering if it was going to be a $5 or $25 beer (I found out when I paid it was a $12 beer). I sat and turned towards the dance floor, and noticed the projection screen on the wall. It was running a one-minute loop of some kind of National Geographic shark special. The title was in French, and flashed whenever the loop began. Great whites jumped out of the water chomping on seals. I was not clear of the significance of the video. I sat for a few minutes taking in the scene—the three men at the bar, the couple at the table, the shark video, the Arabic techno music, and the Corinthian columns. After a few minutes, a young and suggestively-dressed women walked into the room from behind me. She was reasonably attractive, but did not look at all Moroccan. Despite being a brunette, she looked more European than anything. She wore a tight, short black dress with a slit on one side that was heading pretty far north. She had on cowboy boots, and was showing legs that were worth nibbling on. She walked to the bar and put down her bag. She spoke with the bartender for a moment, and then walked toward the middle of the room. One of the other employees gestured towards the stairs, and she walked up into the balcony and disappeared in the dark. I turned back to the shark video, which was still showing the same loop. Then, the young drunk at the bar got up and started moving in a dancing-like fashion. He was doing a classic drunk shuffle. He looked like a cross between a Dave Chappele skit and Gabby from Blazing Saddles. He “danced” for a minute, then sat down again and bobbed over his drink. A few minutes later, Miss Montana came back down the stairs. She looked at me briefly, and then sat down at the bar. She picked up a Corona that was waiting for her, and began drinking it out of a straw. She then took a tissue and began wiping her nose rather aggressively. I grew up in Boston where the flu is an intrinsic part of life, and I have to say that even at my most congested I never went at my nose with a tissue the way this woman was. At that point I figured one of a couple of possibilities—she was just showing up to work for the evening, and had gone upstairs for her “payment”, and was then going to start working the room. In that case I figured I would be her prime target, not because I’m exactly a prize, but in that room I actually was—and everything is relative. The second option was that she had been working and had gone upstairs for her “payment”. Either way, it was clear there was some funny business going on. She drank her beer, talked on her cell phone for a minute and then wandered around. I kept waiting to see if she was going to check out my bulge (my wallet, thank you), but then she wandered out the front door and didn’t come back. After that, I was relegated to watching drunk boy do his cerveza cha-cha. He staggered off his stool, and stumbled onto the dance floor—alone. He stood facing the mirrors on the wall, and took off his jacket and actually started flossing. I kid you not. He did a scarecrow dance for a few minutes and then stumbled back to his seat. At this point the whole thing seemed like something from off, off, the strip in Vegas, or a lost chapter of Fear and Loathing that even Hunter thought was too pathetic to write about. But, had this been in Vegas, there would have been at least a half dozen women working the room that would have looked like Heidi Klum to Mr. Bo Jangles, but would have in fact looked like Marty’s mom in “Back to the Future II.” Anyhow, I turned to the shark video again for a moment, and it had actually proceeded on to the actual documentary. I turned my head back to the bar, and Mr. Staggering Drunk had disappeared. I then noticed that the male half of the one couple in the room had also left. I watched to see what the woman’s next move was, and it appeared nothing more than lighting a cigarette. Then, the two middle-aged guys wandered out, and I decided to split before anything could get any more stupid. I paid for my ludicrously overpriced beer and made it back to my room where I sit now. Now, to close a few other details. I’m sitting in my room at the Hotel Rivoli in Casablanca. It is 2 am and I am drinking a Casablanca Lager—a surprisingly tasty beer. This is not the hotel where I spent the last two nights. I originally booked two nights at the Novotel because I wasn’t sure of my schedule, and didn’t want to lock myself into a hotel and then need to change cities—I know, typical guy. So, this morning when I asked to extend for another night, I was informed the hotel was fully booked. I spent an hour online (in the midst of my regular work setting up interviews and mapping out plans), and finally calling American Express Platinum services before I found another room in Casa that wasn’t either the Hyatt or a hostel. So, I relocated to the Rivoli—a truly past its prime (not sure it ever had one) cliché of a place. I then spent the afternoon working—doing interviews and meeting with journalists to help map out the rest of my trip. After I finished, I walked across town through the Medina. I guess in daylight people are more aggressive, because this time through the winding streets of merchants, far more people tried to woo me to their wares. Unlike every other souk I’ve visited in the Middle East or Asia—where I would here “My friend” or “good price”, these folks were all saying “mon ami” or something else in French. That made it all the easier to ignore them and walk past. I got back to the hotel, and spent an hour on the phone with the office. Then, down to the business center to use the Internet since my blackberry was no longer receiving email. I’ll skip my rant about the useless hour I spent on the phone with the useless T-Mobile people in an effort to resolve the problem with my, at that moment, useless device. Then, the ultimate bite in the ass. I haggled with the taxi drivers in front of the hotel for a ride to Rick’s Café—yes it is a Catch-22. You feel like a dork for going to such a manufactured place, but I know that when I get home people will ask if I went, and I’ll feel like a dork if I didn’t. Anyhow, I find a driver willing to charge me the meter fare, rather than the 50 Dirhams the others were trying to extort. The ride takes less than five minutes and the fare comes to 12.50. I hand him a 20 expecting change and he says, “thank you”. I point to the meter indicating he owes me change and he starts explaining something in French about why he doesn’t. It was a fruitless argument since we weren’t going to understand each other, and he had the money in his hand, so I had to eat the extra dollar. I hopped out of the cab and walked to the door of the café where two bouncer types stood. I immediately had a bad feeling. I gestured towards the door, and they asked if I was with the party. I wasn’t at my sharpest at that moment, and said, “no.” They told me it was closed the entire evening for a private party. Can’t say that was welcome news. So, I decided to walk back to my hotel—through a few unsavory neighborhoods. Probably wasn’t the best decision I’ve made, but I managed to get back to the hotel unscathed. Oh, and a couple more points about the piece of crap Rivoli Hotel. The TV did not carry a single English language news channel, nor did the TV have a remote. The rug was pocked with burn marks, and every piece of furniture looked like the stuff you never wanted from your grandmother’s basement.
