10 Radios to Simulcast Tribute After Gavin Ford Laid to Rest in Lebanon


On Sunday, Gavin’s family, friends and fans gathered in Beit Meri’s St Sassine Church to remember all the fond memories and put him to rest in the country he loved so much.

The church was full, with all the voices you’re familiar with from Lebanese radio stations, the UK ambassador in Lebanon and all of Gavin’s friends present for the ceremony performed in English. Instead of flowers, participants donated money to Gavin’s favorite non-profit organization: Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon. You can also donate to CCCL in honor of Gavin by going to this link.

The devastation was clear on everyone’s faces, but it was Fred, Gavin’s dog, who seemed the most upset, crying and sighing as she looked on from the car parked next to the church. Fred will be going back with Gavin’s sister to the UK.

10 Radio Stations to Broadcast Tribute Show Simultaneously


Radio One, Virgin Radio Lebanon, Power FM, Light FM, Nostalgie, Mix FM, NRJ, Fame FM, Ciel FM and Sawt el Ghad will all broadcast Gavin’s Tribute show on Friday December 7 at 9AM and will be rebroadcast at 5PM the same day.

This is the first time we see so many radio stations come together, put aside their rivalries and create a tribute show fit for Lebanon’s favorite radio superstar for the past 20 years.

Olga Habre and Dan Harper are preparing the special pre-recorded show, and make sure you get in touch with them if you have a fond memory, or recording, you have with Gavin over the past two decades.

The show will also be streamed online and then uploaded for all of you abroad who can’t tune in to the radio this Friday morning.

Justice Will Be Served

Even though the suspects have been arrested, there’s still a long way to go till we see justice done for this horrible crime. We hope the judiciary issues the verdict soon, and that the suspects get nothing less than a life sentence for their crime. We also hope that all leakers already identified be penalized, and the remaining leakers identified and dealt with too.

Two State Security Officers Arrested for Leaking Homophobic Report Following Gavin Ford Murder


I have been outraged at how the media and security officials have handled Gavin’s horrific murder this week. However, I held my tongue because first, Gavin was a friend and I was devastated, and second, because I wanted us to focus on what’s important: catching the suspects.

Now that the Information Branch has hunted down the two suspects, it’s time to talk about how bad the leaks were, and how we need to make sure this stops happening every single time such a crime happens in Lebanon.

State Security Officers Arrested

Honestly, when I read that victim-blaming, homophobic preliminary report that was leaked and sent everywhere, I was horrified that they were trying to somehow justify Gavin’s murder because of his sexuality.

Even though we didn’t go public with our suspicions of who leaked it, we were in constant touch with Lebanon’s security forces and judiciary explaining how unacceptable the leak was, and how unforgivable the language and insinuations in it were.

Lebanon’s General Prosecutor Samir Hammoud proceeded to demand the leakers be identified and strict legal measures taken against them for their unprofessional behavior.

Today, two State Security (Amn Dawle) officers were arrested, and are currently in custody pending their trial in a military tribunal for the illegal leak.

Next is Arresting the Photo Leakers

After the agents that leaked the preliminary internal memo were identified and arrested, we ask that those who took the photos of the body also be arrested and legal measure taken against them so this horrible practice stops.

Imagine if you or someone you love was murdered, do you want those investigating it to take photos of the body and send it to their friends, or worse, sell it to some tabloids?

Treat Victims with Dignity

Gavin’s many friends and fans made sure that measures get taken, but less beloved and famous victims need to be treated with dignity too, and those that share such photos for money or gossip, need to know they cannot do that without being punished, especially law enforcement agents who are held up to a higher standard than passerby and ordinary citizens.

I’d like to extend my deep thank you to Joe Maalouf, a good friend of mine, and a friend of Gavin’s who has been keeping the pressure up on relevant authorities and lambasting them for the mistakes done by their subordinates. I will keep you posted with every development in this case.

Nader Saab’s Desperate Story Deleted from Tayyar.org


The rich and powerful in Lebanon often get a say in how they’re portrayed in the media. Local media on the other hand keeps whining about how broke they are. Combine these two, and you get a surrealist masterpiece like the one Tayyar.org deleted that purported that disgraced plastic surgeon Nader Saab “saved” a Middle East Airlines flight on the DXB-BEY route, get this, from some turbulence.

The Sensational Non-Story

The title included “And Doctor Nader Saab Rescues the Passengers”. Reading that, I thought “damn, the pilots must have been killed and the plastic surgeon took over and saved the plane from a certain crash!”

The Reality

Turns out it was just a bit of turbulence, which happens on almost every flight around the world. Apparently, it was a bit rough this time, and some passengers got worried.

All Saab did was calm them down and check one passenger’s blood pressure and handed her an anti anxiety pill.

I was able to talk to three passengers on this said flight, and all three were able to confirm that Saab was in the Business class of the flight, which the flight attendants closed off from the Economy class when panic started. One passenger said there was screams of terror coming from behind the Business class curtains.

I also got in touch with someone close to MEA, who corroborated the reports I was able to get from the three separate passengers earlier.

The MEA flight crew were the ones calming everybody down in Economy, meaning there’s a slight possibility that Saab tried to calm down the folks in Business. Regardless, talking anxious passengers down and measuring one woman’s blood pressure is far from “rescuing passengers of a flight”

The Advertorial Dilemma

Remember when MTV was blasting Saab after he tried to cover up a patient’s death? Like every other outlet? A few days later, MTV started attacking every other outlet and defending Saab. Now, if we take the proposal they sent to the sewage-blocking Eden Bay Resort as an example, I guess it’s safe to assume that cost a fortune for Saab, but worked with MTV.

Luckily, Tayyar.org chose to delete the sensational work of fiction after users started ridiculing it online. So, they get props for that, even though such a thing should have never been published on what alleges to be a news site, at least not without a huge SPONSORED CONTENT at the top to people know it’s just a disgraced plastic surgeon trying to recover what’s left of his reputation after years of malpractice and horrible ads.

Tayyar.org might have deleted this one, but who knows how many haven’t and just passed as “news” for the less inquisitive reader? This article was deleted, but many false and fabricated news segments remain online on stations like MTV.

Editorial content should never been an ad, but with dwindling ad revenues and an almost complete lack of journalistic ethics, ads masquerading as editorial content (advertorials) are almost indistinguishable. This one was particularly bad though, and easily called out. After all, the Dubai-Beirut route is a busy one, and with dozens of passengers on the flight, the truth was eventually gonna come out.

Threw MEA Under the Bus

MEA is guilty of airing that horrifyingly hideous minutes-long Nader Saab ad for years. Yet, the man threw the airline under the bus by suggesting that the flight and its passengers were in danger, when they never were. I hope MEA never run an in-flight ad of his ever again after this pathetic fluff-piece he pulled to try and look like a hero, not the crook and liar most of the Lebanese see him as now.

Stop Publishing Bullshit

We all gotta make money, and sponsored content is becoming an essential part of every publication. However, you can’t completely give up on every last shred of journalistic integrity. No editor on earth would let a KG-level article of bullshit like that run on what’s supposed to be a news site. But hey, at least they deleted it, and I hope they stop running such Saab heroic fantasies no matter how much the budget is.

Remembering Gavin Ford


Like the rest of Lebanon, I’ve been a fan of Gavin since back when we used to listen to him on the ride to school in the late 90s. His always positive mood, the way he’d make fun of horoscopes, his timeless granny impression… He was how thousands upon thousands of us made our morning commutes from hell just a bit more bearable.

In 2011 I feel like I got promoted from a huge fan, to a friend of Gavin’s. It was in the first couple of years of writing this blog, and I was dumbfounded and honored when he mentioned one of my articles on air out of the blue. I was lucky enough to meet him at an event, and then many, many events after that. I realized that he was even kinder, funnier and more humble in real life than he was on air.

Gavin was a sweetheart. He was always very kind, conversations with him were never shallow and he always had a smile on and could lift the mood of a country always down.

If you pause for a moment and think about it, Gavin was on air before the Israelis withdrew in 2000. He was on air when we were kicking the Syrian regime forces out in 2005. He was on air throughout the bombing and assassination campaign that terrorized the country for years. He has stuck with Lebanon in all the rough patches we’ve had over the past two decades, and the few great runs. That’s how long we’ve gotten used to his voice and jokes in the morning, and for most of you reading this, that’s most if not all of your lives.

The news hit me like a ton of bricks, and tuning into 105.5 to listen to classical music play in honor of Gavin, made me tear up. Gavin felt like a good friend, even for those who never had the honor of meeting him live. I remembered sitting in the corner with him at a movie theater last summer during some event and poking fun at the other folks attending for a good hour, and giggling like school children about it. I remembered seeing him just a few weeks ago at an event at KED.

Perhaps you expect me to talk about the rumors and disrespectful posts and comments after news broke out of his murder. I will not. I will remember the Gavin I knew, not the one the unprofessional police are “investigating”, or the one shitty tabloids are trying to generate clicks from. If you’re one of the people helping share all that in your Whatsapp groups, pause for a moment and think if that makes you a better, or a worse person.

I wholeheartedly send my love to all his friends and family. Gavin will be sorely missed. Thank you for all the laughs over the years. Thank you for brightening up Lebanon’s politics and religion infested airwaves with your wit and love.

I hope the authorities find the killer or killers ASAP, and make sure they spend the rest of their days behind bars for this heinous crime that robbed us all of an amazing friend.

Gavin ❤

Not Necessarily Famous Presents: FRAME in Beirut


Launched in 2017, Not Necessarily Famous (NNF) has already created and hosted more than two dozen events in the Middle East and across the globe.

NNF’s ethos goes far beyond your average weekend party, and instead focuses on art in many shapes and forms to create an immersive, multifaceted experience that combines music, visuals, designs and even software coding to live up to its “Conceptual Art” promise.

FRAME

NNF’s debut in Beirut is going to be a special one, which is why I’m writing about it before it even happens to let you all know. The lineup includes three headliners from different corners of the world, coming together at KED in Beirut on November 29, 2018. To get an idea of what to expect, here’s the lineup with a sample of each creator’s work I chose.

DVDV

aka Phyllis Josephine (Berlin)

dvdv can be best described as an all-round multimedia creator. She’s a musician, a video editor, a graphic designer and a software coder. That’s why her debut album „ai am” had its own interactive website, which I HIGHLY recommend you check out and play around with. I spent a solid hour playing with the visuals and exploring the eerie, otherworldly sounds created.

dvdv’s inspiration is from our generation being digital and our confusion when it comes to differentiating between technology on the outside, and ourselves on the inside. The result is a sublime experimentation with sonic textures that have been passed through a series of neuronal nets, helping erase the border between human and machine.

Abbi Press (New York)

Abbi Press music is definitely unique and unlike anything you’ve heard before. Her songs wash over you like a warm summer’s day as she builds each song from a symphony of electronics lightly massaged by her soulful voice to create pieces of art like the above. She orbits the realms of Alternative Pop / Downtempo / Indie / R&B with her sound, which is fueled by influences like Little Dragon, Solange, Beach House, and Four Tet.

Salem Rashid — Bedouin Records 
United Arab Emirates

Salem Rashid is creative director and founder of Dubai-based record label Bedouin Records and its subsidiary Bastakiya Tapes. Since its founding in 2014, Bedouin Records has released a total of 25 albums, some on vinyl and even some on cassette! Presenting a bevy of talented contemporary artists, Bedouin Records albums have earned international acclaim on platforms and publications such as Monocle, BBC Radio 1, Resident Advisor and The Wire. Recent projects include a two-day pop-up art installation and concert called Execute Trajectory at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai.

See you on November 29!

I won’t spoil what the peeps at NNF have in store, but KED is going to be completely transformed to fit the three different styles and mindsets intersecting on that night. From ethereal and dreamy, to industrial and coarse, NNF’s FRAME is something new and different on the increasingly similar scene in Beirut. Think of this night as an exhibition, an experience, not just a party. Somewhere where you can experience a showcase of different soundscapes and sonic textures, blended perfectly with visuals and design of the space in Beirut’s Karantina neighborhood.

https://www.facebook.com/events/324697111660597/

Military Parade Turns Lebanon Into Underwater Parking Lot for 400K Cars


It’s one of those things that inevitably happens almost every November, even though it’s an absolute disaster almost every year.

Independence Day Parade

November 22 is when Lebanon celebrates its Independence from the French Mandate. This year, it’s the 75th anniversary. However, this morning almost half a million cars were stuck in traffic as the large storm forecast for this week hit.

The reason is because the Lebanese Army wants to prepare and train for the military parade held for the occasion, that is closed off to the public and only our corrupt officials can attend. The parade happens in the Central District, next to the Port of Beirut entrance and all the way down to Beirut Souks.

The training is scheduled every morning on the following days: this Friday, Saturday and next Monday and Wednesday.

Why not on Tuesday you ask? Well, because it’s an official holiday. Which means training only on Monday and Friday rush hours, but not when people have no school or work? Makes perfect sense.


We Love our Army, but Solutions are Easy

Our collective anger and rage today is not aimed towards our Army, it never is. We know that our brave men and women in uniform are just following orders of our terrible elected officials. Please do not see this as criticism of the army that defeated ISIS and protects us day and night across the country.

However, this event isn’t for the army, it’s for our three presidents and their stooges to show off their new sun glasses as they pose for the camera and watch the military parade.

The price for doing this parade is massive, with thousands of work hours wasted, millions of dollars lost and let’s not forget all the urgent ambulance missions that our brave men and women of the Lebanese Red Cross can’t complete in time due to the traffic and drowning in flooded streets.


Do it Somewhere Else

A few times, the parade was held at the Military Academy’s stadium. Why not do it there always? Why do it in the heart of the city where all freeways terminate? Especially when none of us taxpayers are allowed to attend? Let our failure of a government take the shots they want reviewing our US-donated military equipment somewhere where the rest of us don’t need to be trapped for hours and days. Our thoughts are with a young woman who GAVE BIRTH in the hellish traffic, as many of us heard on the voice note circulated after a radio intervention on one of the morning talk shows.

The pregnant lady and her newborn weren’t the only ones to suffer today. Heated tempers led two drivers to get into a fight over the road rage, and one was stabbed as a result. No security forces showed up for the victim left lying on the street, only our heroes in red from the Lebanese Red Cross.


Enough Humiliation

Our country is worse than a pigsty. It’s stinky, dark, moist and slowly killing us off with the toxic fumes and garbage. We are humiliated a million times every day. Why humiliate us more for absolutely no good reason?

Street Flooded in front of the Interior Ministry this Morning

When I posted the stories of the traffic jam today, many followers replied that they wished we had never gained Independence from France. One even told me she canceled her ticket back home for Christmas. Is this what our government wants? Is that what they are trying to do to us?

We demand that the government rethink it’s decision to repeat this traffic jam for THREE MORE DAYS, including MONDAY morning. Feel with your constituents for once. Be decent human beings, just for once in your octogenarian lives. Just once.

5 Lebanese-Americans in the US House of Representatives


If you’re like me, you probably stayed up last night watching the US midterm election results. It’s no secret I am terrified of Trump and what his GOP is doing to the US we know and love.

I was very happy to know that 1.15% of US congresspeople were of Lebanese descent, given the Lebanese diaspora is just 0.2% of the total population.

So, as of today, 5 out of the 435 representatives are of Lebanese origin. 3 of them were on the Republican ticket, so not sure how I feel about them being in Trump’s party… But I’m happy to see two reps winning as Democrats, including a congresswoman in Florida.

I hope these representatives, from both parties, can help lessen the damage the current administration’s policies have had on our part of the world. I also hope they can help Lebanon avoid the brunt of sanctions the Trump administration is putting on Iran and Hezbollah.

Democrats

Donna Shalala — Florida’s 27th Congressional District


Shalala was the Health and Human Services in Bill Clinton’s administration (1993–2001). She also served as the president of the University of Miami from 2001 till 2015. The district Shalala has been elected to represent is in traditionally Democratic southern Florida, and includes a large part of Miami, Miami Beach and Little Havana.

Charlie Crist — Florida’s 13th Congressional District


This was a very significant win, given Crist was able to flip a seat held by Republican representatives for decades. Crist is of Lebanese and Greek descent, and used to be a Republican till he endorsed President Obama and 2012 and became a Democrat.

Republicans

Ralph Abraham — Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District


Abraham got re-elected last night as the US representative of Louisiana’s 5th congressional district.

Garret Graves — Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District


Graves, another US representative from Louisiana, easily kept his seat in the state’s 5th congressional district.

Darin Lahood — Illionois 18th Congressional District


Darin won a seat in the Illinois 18th district where his father Ray Lahood served as congressman for 7 terms.

Governor Chris Sununu — New Hampshire


At the moment, Sununu is the youngest state governor in the US. His father was also NH governor and White House Chief of Staff, John H. Sununu. He has Lebanese and Palestinian roots.

Lebanese Tourism Minister’s Outrageous Sexist, Xenophobic Interview


Avedis Guidanian is undoubtedly the worst minister of tourism Lebanon has ever had. Who can forget when the guy we pay to promote Lebanon, chose it second after his ancestral home of Armenia?

Today, a good friend of mine sent me a Daily Star link. From the second paragraph, I had to double check that it was actually the Daily Star, not some parody news site.

Egypt “No Place Dirtier”

This is an actual quote, from an actual minister of tourism that your taxes pay the salary of.

“We love to say in the media that Lebanon is covered in trash, that the sea is polluted and that it’s the most expensive tourist destination in the world — well, you’ve ruined Lebanon’s image,” Guidanian said, speaking in a recent interview with The Daily Star.

“I mean look at Egypt is there a place dirtier than it? People are louder than us, there is more traffic than here — people live in graves, OK? But there is tourism, because they know how to sell that country,” he said.

soure: Daily Star

Sorry to break it to you man, but Lebanon is covered in trash that your government is the cause of. The same trash that gives thousands of your constituents cancer, you know, cause you dump them in Burj Hammoud.

And what the fuck happened to him in Egypt? “is there a place dirtier than it?” “people live in graves, OK?” And again, maybe a stroll in one of Beirut’s many shanty towns will remind him how most of Lebanon lives in squalor thanks to his government’s horrible policies.

And if you wanna “sell” our country, maybe try not to put it second after your ancestral home when you’re the fucking TOURISM minister. I agree with him on that, we definitely don’t know how to market (that was the word you were looking for Mr minister) if we appointed a guy who wouldn’t answer Lebanon to a no-brainer question on a TV show.

Misogyny at its Finest #MinElFelten

He didn’t stop after his ruthless attack on Egyptians, but went on to drop this gem from 1850:

“We have a lot of freedom of the press, which is very important, but it is being used wrongly. I always give the same metaphor: I have a daughter. If I say she doesn’t come home, she smokes hashish, she goes out with many men … will anyone proper come and ask for her hand?” he said. “This bad image of Lebanon abroad is bad because of the media.”

Source: Daily Star

First, I hope if you have a daughter that the government never arrests her for smoking Hashish, tortures her, humiliates her and destroys her life like your government does to thousands of young men and women in Lebanon every year. To see such a misinformed and damaging quote from a guy my taxes pay the salary of, is disgusting.

That’s just the beginning though, given that his excellency thinks that the ultimate goal of a daughter is to keep her a virgin till he marries her off. All this while the country is embroiled in a campaign to raise awareness against treating Lebanese women like they’re not even human beings, reducing them to objects of sexual desire and outdated beliefs that a woman should stay home.

You Are The One Ruining Our Image Minister

Disgust is the only word I can think of when I see this man’s name. I am ashamed that the tourism minister of my country is a racist xenophobe who thinks the only value women hold is being asked for marriage as long as she doesn’t “go out with many men”.

I hope he apologizes for these disgusting comments ASAP, and I hope from the bottom of my heart he never gets appointed to any office again. What a disgrace to Lebanon and the Lebanese.

#MinElFelten Campaign Revealed


It seems that not a single week passes without an enraging social experiment flooding our feeds. Cynics might say it’s a battle between ad agencies for awards. However, despite that shallow assessment, if you dig just a bit deeper, it’s a worrying symptom of our stagnant and slowly slipping society.

Whether it’s RFDL’s forced child marriage issue, or Abaad’s demands to punish rapists, one thing is clear: the Lebanese and their government couldn’t give less of a fuck unless a blood-boiling social experiment exposes just how bad things are, and how unwilling our failure of a parliament and failure of a government and of course, failure of a judiciary are willing to try and make things better.

In the below video, the young woman is luckily an actor. What’s scary, is that all the young men whose faces are blurred, are not acting. This is who they really are. This is what they really think. Makes my stomach turn, especially when I know that due to pressure from religious conservatives, the rapists and killers will get away with their heinous crimes with a pat on their backs by the regressive, religiously-fueled patriarchy we all live under.

It’s time we all pause a second and acknowledge that sexual assault is not the victim’s fault, and that those guilty of rape and harassment need to be punished for the trauma they cause women in Lebanon and across the world.

And get your shit together Lebanon. It shouldn’t take an elaborate stunt and mass SMS campaign that got so many of you paranoid about your infidelities, to care about issues plaguing our society.

“Feltene” or “loose” needs to stop being so many people’s reaction when a woman is assaulted, and the man needs to pay when he is a rapist or killer, unlike that fucking bastard who killed Rola Yaacoub and got away with it.

Recycle Beirut Co-Founder Was Living in Lebanon on Tourist Visa for 4 Years: Sources in General…

It seems the Recycle Beirut thugs are at it again, this time more deranged and untruthful than they’ve been before (and that’s saying a lot).

The prolific blockers and comment deleters have been hounded for days now by people who know the real reason their American co-founder was not allowed to enter Lebanon when he tried to 2 weeks ago after a short trip to Cyprus. (At the end of this post is just a sample of the comments they delete)

Dozens of commenters, that are now blocked and their comments deleted, asked why the co-founder didn’t have a residency in Lebanon or a work permit. Recycle Beirut never replied before deleting each comment.

After seeing these comments, I was already checking to see with the labor ministry and other public institutions why he wasn’t allowed back into Lebanon. However, as we all know, access to information is still difficult, and even when it is given, rarely is it on paper, especially when it’s about the privacy of a person or the inner workings of a security apparatus.

However, two different sources have confirmed that the reason the Recycle Beirut co-founder was barred from entering Lebanon (and not deported) is because they discovered he’s been living and working in Lebanon, and even has a business, without a residency or work permit.

The Tourist Visa Loophole

Many western expats do this, they come here, stay 3 months, then jump to Turkey or Cyprus for a day or two, come back in on a new tourist visa before their previous one expires.

Usually though, they’re here for less sinister reasons, such as learning Arabic or enjoying discovering the country, and maybe an odd job or two on the side, but none had the audacity to not only create a business, but one that abuses refugees and lies when their free money scheme doesn’t pan out for them.

Not Defending Anyone, Just Learned to Never Trust the Recycle Beirut Thugs

This is in no way defending the EU. If the outlandish claims of corruption are true, let’s see them show some evidence so the Lebanese or European courts can resolve it. However, before they prove their co founder was living and working here legally, it’s just another lie in the endless lies of this predatory business making hundreds of thousands of dollars by abusing people’s trust in their fake activist rhetoric.

I hope the EU sue them already though, especially for their (of course now deleted) claim that an EU employee is working for “Israel”, when he was in fact working with NGOs in Occupied Palestine. Guess Recycle Beirut’s palestinian founder believes in Israel, not his occupied homeland. How low can someone get? Makes me sick. The pieces of shit even put the Israeli flag on their page of filth. Then deleted when they realized no one was buying that bullshit. Cowards.

It’s funny they deleted the photo of an EU employee with Israeli flags on it. Just like they delete all the stuff that show how dishonest and unhinged these thugs are.

Don’t Help Them Steal and Lie Anymore

They even had the nerve to do a petition asking people to help. Disgusting bunch of entitled money grabbers that have a white savior complex and think they can abuse Lebanese law and extort Lebanese people because they get refugees to work and then use their arrests for a disgusting political and economical agenda.

Stop falling for their lies. I hope Recycle Beirut apologizes and starts being decent humans, cause if they don’t, then we will keep working to unveil every single disgusting lie of the money-grabbing thugs pretending to be activists and fooling good-hearted people who don’t have time to factcheck their word vomit every fucking day.

Alex, you should have done your papers like everyone else. Stop lying that you were deported, they just finally caught you committing fraud this time. Enjoy Cyprus!

Here’s some of the comments they deleted. Don’t fall for these disgusting thugs’ lies anymore. You guys are better than this!