Fiddy and Co.

It’s been a busy two weeks since I posted last. Since then, I went to Scandinavia for four days; found an apartment; saw a ballet; finished Russian as a Second Language (RSL) finals. I wrote a post about Scandinavia called “Perfectland” but I never finished it. The crux was this: Scandinavia is just more developed and refined than Russia in every way (I wondered indeed if any large societies on Earth work better). Going from one to the other is like going from a seedy two-star hotel to a five-star. Upon my return I went through a brief period of soul-searching; I asked myself why I was in Russia and not somewhere, you know, more comfortable. The obvious answer, and the reason I never finished the post, is that my choice to be here has nothing to do with comfort or logic and it shouldn’t. Its true: many places in Russia are dirty; stairwells often smell bad; there are stray dogs in the subway; the traffic is horrendous and particularly noxious (the motor fuel here is less refined than elsewhere); it’s generally very dark and wet outside; the government is autocratic; the food tends to be mediocre; television sucks; strangers can be pushy and humorless. Yeah, so what? None of that is a reason for me not to be here; none of it even factors into the equation. I love this place––it challenges and fascinates me as nowhere else. There’s more to it, but let’s leave it at that for now. The fact is I went to a 50 Cent concert last night and I’d like to talk about it.

I had been planning to keep a low profile for the concert. I was sure this gig would attract the rabble: all the wanna-be gangsters and disaffected young men who connected with Fiddy’s talk of ghettos, drugs, and broken homes. These guys would be big, drunk and pugnacious.

A few of these fellas showed up, but they vastly outnumbered by U-17s and even U-14s. The atmosphere was closer to Chucky-Cheeze’s than South Jamaica, Queens, NY where Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, grew up. On the floor I watched two unsupervised seven-year-olds chase eachother as carelessly as if they'd been in one of their backyards. Many of the kids had come alone, but an equal number had come with their parents. Excluding the wanksters and the kids, everybody else was just normal––a little bit wealthier than the average Russian (tickets cost $32 and up, which is considerable here) and extremely well behaved. The most violent incident occurred when somebody accidentally spilled a beer on my friend’s scarf.

50 Cent himself was not impressive. He basically spent ninety minutes doing karaoke (a word of Japanese origin, literally ‘empty orchestra’) to his own stuff. I couldn’t understand what he was saying and neither could the Russians (at one point one of his assistants told all the 'fellas' to put their hands up, a word which perhaps 5% of the crowd understood.) From what I could understand, Fiddy isn't a particularly creative lyricist. He certainly isn't a creative performer; he just stands in one place moving his arm up and down then switches places with one of his assistants and does it some more. He can’t dance or sing (he did try a few times). By far the most impressive thing about the concert was the number of times he changed his clothes––I counted three of four. One time he even changed his shoes!

Fiddy's whole show was built around gangster violence, which reminded me of the first thing I heard about him, the first thing anybody hears about him "that guy's been shot nine times!" There were guns on the jumbotrons, in the sound effects, in his lyrics, and in the very hand gestures he used. His concert is all about seeing a REAL gangster up close. In other words, its a freakshow.

PS- The photo is from a fish shop on the Russo-Finnish border. All the Russians swarmed the counter and spent their last kroners on salmon, herring and sturgeon.

Election Day

In the days leading up to the election I had fantasies about how I would cover it––boldly, for one. I would sneak into a polling station; I would cast ten votes; I would confront random strangers on the street, probe their politics until I struck the root. Of course they would tell me, an obviously non-Russian twenty-something without credentials. And if they didn’t, if they told me to screw off, well it wouldn’t hurt my feelings a bit. Life on the edge rarely comfortable, but always interesting.

But by the time I woke up Sunday I’d made other plans; I was going to church. I’d met this Oklahoman through a friend, peppered him with religious questions when I heard he was a believer. “I don’t get it, why do you need Christ? And what exactly is a non-denominational church?” He had his shit together.

It never occurred to me until now, but almost everywhere I’ve lived outside the US for more than two weeks I’ve ended up going to church. Costa Rica, the Bahamas, and now Russia. This was a Lutheran church, I think. No, the Lutheran church was on the first floor and this one was on the second floor. Two different sects, one building.

The crowd upstairs was young and in a good mood. My friend seemed to know everybody. He also lent me his glasses, which I thought was a Christian thing to do.

The foreplay of the service begins: Debbie is deft on the electric keyboard, Igor plays a clean acoustic, and Sergei goes beserk on the bongos. It was the same arrangement that Guster uses, and to cement the comparison Igor, who did most of the singing, went about his work just like Guster’s lead-man, 
placing the microphone at normal height then distorting his entire body to physically sing up to it as though pleading with an imaginary god inside. I call it the foreplay because the songs that come at the beginning are all about getting you in the mood. It makes the sermon twice as convincing. Then they sing a whole lot more songs at the end and you walk out of the church like you're coming out of a dream phase, or a trance. I couldn't remember exactly what was said, just that it felt true––more elemental indeed than any experience I could have outside the trance.

The handsome graying man who handed out the––let’s call them programs––turned out to be the pastor. My friend leaned over and told me he speaks Russian, English, and Chinese fluently. What a sophisticated fellow! The service was conducted in Russian and English. He'd say a few words, then the tall, pale Scottish girl standing to his left would translate them. Every once in a while he'd correct her, which caused these petite, fluttering fits of embarrassment. The British have perfected embarrassment by the way, and I’m not just talking about Hugh Grant.

When the service was over I thanked my friend and left. I walked to the election center near my apartment––an elementary school. I went up to the door, then two puffed-up security guards came out to smoke cigarettes and I spooked. Russia’s already paranoid about spies and foreign meddling; best not to tempt fate. Putin loyalists ended up winning 89% of the seats in parliament. The other 11% went to the communists.

I took the metro to Finland Station. Figured I’d pay Lenin a visit. Finland Station is where he arrived in Russia from exile to put the revolution into high-gear. The locomotive he used is encased in glass; the man himself––his likeness, I mean––stands in an eponymous square situated between the station and the Neva, hand outstretched. Just once I’d like a different statue of him: Lenin pays his taxes, Lenin thinks the milk tastes funny, Lenin balances his sideburns.