Tangier Dangier
From Casablanca I decided to make by way to Tangier. I had extremely romantic images of this place. As the bus trudged its way forward, I thought about how every other marauding European kingdom had left its indelible mark on the city. The Phoenicians arrived in the 5 th century BC, the Romans followed suit 400 years later. The mad Vandals swept across North Africa through Tangier; the town was later subsumed into the Byzantine Empire and then changed hands between the Arabs, Portuguese, British and Spanish! This was a place that had become enslaved by the lure of its own strategic location between the southern tip of Spain and the northern tip of Africa.
Tangier has also been safe haven and sybaritic capital to many aesthetes and artists including Allen Ginsberg, Truman Capote, William Burroughs, Pawl Bowles, Henry Matisse and the Rolling Stones. Ruminating on the idyllic beat spirit of the place I heard my dad’s croaking Dylan impression. “If you see her say hello she might be in Tangier.”
I did find her. She was not the women who had left Dylan “last spring,” the one who makes him invoke the “yellow moon.” She had in fact become a hideous moroccon prostitute on a bar stool offering up her body and cheap romance to a middle-age Spanish huckster who thought he was a libertine. Tangier was a rude awakening for me. My tendency to romanticize places by weaving together a tapestry of “exotic” facts and fanciful impressions that wildly departed from the truth, had to stop. I spent a night walking around the city and saw its dark underbelly. Little boys tried to sell me hash, aggressive hookers followed me around (“I give you full love for 1000 dirham”) and the only English speaking person I met was a dodgy looking British guy who had just finished serving a prison sentence for trying to smuggle hookers AND hash across the border. I asked him how he thought he could get away with such an egregious crime. He looked back at him with cadaverous eyes and said “that’s why the Morrocon’s say Tangier Dangier man….but sometime dangier can lead to big reward..you got to take your chances man.” He lit a cigarette and blew smoke into his Moroccan “friend” who giggled flirtatiously at me and licked her lips seductively. Feeling that I was in the tenth circle of hell, I beat a hasty retreat to my hotel room, ate a cold sandwich and buried myself in Tom Robin’s Jitterbug Perfume. I drifted in and out of sleep thinking about Alobar’s quest for immortality, the Bandaloops and vice-ridden Tangier.
After a fitful night of sleep, I awoke to the sound of loud Moroccan music from the streets. The day proved to be much better. I walked to the Grand Socco (socco = Spanish for souk = market) soaking in the sun, the smells from fruit stalls and the cacophony of sounds from street vendors and hustlers. I made my way to the medina and passed the Church of Immaculate Conception (which was built by the Spanish in the late 19th century) and eventually to the Kasbah which is perched at the highest point of the city.
I spent two hours under a tree in the Sultan’s gardens and the remainder of the afternoon contemplating and admiring Moroccan zellij (tile work). Every door of every house I passed had a distinctly different style of abstract tile work. I took out my camera and clicked away indiscriminately. The evening was spent drinking mint tea, learning how to play backgammon with two locals and gazing into the Straight of Gibraltar from the terraced gardens of Café Hafa – a favorite joint of the Rolling Stones. Spain looked tantalizing close and I wondered if I should jump into the next ferry and explore southern spain. But Fez beckoned and my realism got the better of me
There is a Sanskrit word called “Darshan” which means seeing the divine. I like to think of it as a “way of seeing,” a philosophical viewpoint. Tangier was dirty and ugly in many ways but if you looked close enough, and if you saw through the right lens, it had its moments of beauty.
Tangier has also been safe haven and sybaritic capital to many aesthetes and artists including Allen Ginsberg, Truman Capote, William Burroughs, Pawl Bowles, Henry Matisse and the Rolling Stones. Ruminating on the idyllic beat spirit of the place I heard my dad’s croaking Dylan impression. “If you see her say hello she might be in Tangier.”
I did find her. She was not the women who had left Dylan “last spring,” the one who makes him invoke the “yellow moon.” She had in fact become a hideous moroccon prostitute on a bar stool offering up her body and cheap romance to a middle-age Spanish huckster who thought he was a libertine. Tangier was a rude awakening for me. My tendency to romanticize places by weaving together a tapestry of “exotic” facts and fanciful impressions that wildly departed from the truth, had to stop. I spent a night walking around the city and saw its dark underbelly. Little boys tried to sell me hash, aggressive hookers followed me around (“I give you full love for 1000 dirham”) and the only English speaking person I met was a dodgy looking British guy who had just finished serving a prison sentence for trying to smuggle hookers AND hash across the border. I asked him how he thought he could get away with such an egregious crime. He looked back at him with cadaverous eyes and said “that’s why the Morrocon’s say Tangier Dangier man….but sometime dangier can lead to big reward..you got to take your chances man.” He lit a cigarette and blew smoke into his Moroccan “friend” who giggled flirtatiously at me and licked her lips seductively. Feeling that I was in the tenth circle of hell, I beat a hasty retreat to my hotel room, ate a cold sandwich and buried myself in Tom Robin’s Jitterbug Perfume. I drifted in and out of sleep thinking about Alobar’s quest for immortality, the Bandaloops and vice-ridden Tangier.
After a fitful night of sleep, I awoke to the sound of loud Moroccan music from the streets. The day proved to be much better. I walked to the Grand Socco (socco = Spanish for souk = market) soaking in the sun, the smells from fruit stalls and the cacophony of sounds from street vendors and hustlers. I made my way to the medina and passed the Church of Immaculate Conception (which was built by the Spanish in the late 19th century) and eventually to the Kasbah which is perched at the highest point of the city.
I spent two hours under a tree in the Sultan’s gardens and the remainder of the afternoon contemplating and admiring Moroccan zellij (tile work). Every door of every house I passed had a distinctly different style of abstract tile work. I took out my camera and clicked away indiscriminately. The evening was spent drinking mint tea, learning how to play backgammon with two locals and gazing into the Straight of Gibraltar from the terraced gardens of Café Hafa – a favorite joint of the Rolling Stones. Spain looked tantalizing close and I wondered if I should jump into the next ferry and explore southern spain. But Fez beckoned and my realism got the better of me
There is a Sanskrit word called “Darshan” which means seeing the divine. I like to think of it as a “way of seeing,” a philosophical viewpoint. Tangier was dirty and ugly in many ways but if you looked close enough, and if you saw through the right lens, it had its moments of beauty.
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