11th July, 2008:
Metal-Hurt
I always wanted to get... Why do I always start with this sentence? ... a couple of bands' t-shirts. I made some trials to obtain one and if you are my friend on Facebook, then you could have came across a note of mine speaking of my most successful and most failed trial of making a t-shirt rather than buying one. But anyway, I was in City Stars one day, attending a birthday of a friend of mine when I met a guy, Amr, wearing a Nightwish t-shirt. We chatted a little to find out that he got it from Hip-Hopna, a shop in El Mohandseen district which is quite far from where I live. I already heard about it and was actually going to get an Opeth t-shirt from there but they were sold out by the time my friend went to buy it. So anyway, back to my conversation with Amr... When I asked if he knew other shops, he told me there are three beside each other in Genena Mall. Cool, so I go there and after a long tiresome searching, I find them on the third floor. I go through the whole collection to find Slayer, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Avenged Sevenfold, Cradle Of Filth, and loads others. I was meaning to buy something, anything... But each t-shirt (or shirt for my extreme surprise!) had some kind of problem, either I don't really like them, or I still didn't hear the album on the piece of cloth, or I don't know much about the band, etc... But finally, I found a Led Zeppelin one and minutes later, a Black Sabbath one. Tried the Black Sabbath since I thought it would be small and bought both only to discover that I tried the wrong one since the Led Zeppelin turned out to be XL which is like a pool to someone of my size.
About several months ago, I came to dislike the term "Metal-head". Sure, I like and respect Metal but I'm not a "Metal-head"... I listen to Music of each and every genre starting from Opera and Classic, passing through some Jazz and Blues, going to Classic and Hard Rock ending up at Heavy and Death Metal. So I guess I'm a musician (for lack of a better term!) but not in the sense of being an actual musician. So anyway, a couple of days after I bought the t-shirts (which my sister has her eyes on by the way!), I go to Heliopolis wearing the Black Sabbath t-shirt. At first, nothing interesting happened. I took the taxi to the square and stopped there to get Al-Ahram. The 50 year old guy selling them must have realized that I'm a Metal-head (Heliopolis and City Stars are full of them!) and therefore a "Satanist" (whether in the literal or actual meaning!!) and was getting irritated? I had to get some change for the cab but he refused to give me change of Five L.E.!! Seriously? You have a drawer so fucking full of change that you can change a 50 by one L.E.s!! So, I tag alone since I'm still sleepy and I really need that newspaper. So I go back to the cab and tell him that I got no change only to smoothly manage our financial transaction. I return to the dude and give him the oldest one L.E. I had in my wallet and just snatch my newspaper. Ok, fine, I admit it, I did have some change, but I needed the change for the cab!! And even so, the guy never saw the inside of my wallet and even if he did, he should be presenting a better service and start focusing on how to please his customers rather than looking inside their wallets. But what do you expect from a guy who will play "El 3enab El 3enab" at his daughter's wedding?
So I'm going home at about 8:30 PM the same day and I wait for a cab... Several passed refusing to provide their services (don't know if that's related to my t-shirt or not, but that place is usually rich with free cabs!) and I wait only to find a cab with two unveiled (I have no idea why that detail mattered, but I noticed it!!) 20 year old gals staring at me. [I won't even comment on the t-shirt, I'm going to present you pictures so that you can judge by yourselves, and if I'm missing something, please, for the love of God, tell me.] At the end, the evening goes smoothly, with a cab driven by an old man who was just... nice.
All in all, I don't think I've tasted a sample of what
Metal-heads experience especially in City Stars. City Stars, the
best and worst thing that happened to Egypt, the beloved home of
many Metal-heads, was the same place that provided the police officers to
arrest them. But seriously, so far, it doesn't feel good to be labeled. I
don't know about you, but these small, short, and bitter-not-so-sweet
experiences of that day is going to make me truly believe that
our beloved Egypt can only be devas yb tra.
[Gallery]