I drove to Mexico this weekend for a wedding. If our nation organized its wars the way this wedding was organized, there would be friendly governments from Iraq to Iran (if one started from Baghdad and went west around the world to Tehran).
I didn't do any driving once I reached the resort where the wedding was held, but I will consider the following when I return to Baja California:
I passed from the United States to Mexico merely by momentarily slowing down my car. The trip from L.A. to our destination between Rosarito and Ensenada took three hours on a weekday morning.
The documents proving my Mexican car insurance were not checked or asked for at any time, but I still think the $90 I paid to AAA was a good investment.
I crossed the border at San Ysidro into Mexico by momentarily slowing down. The drive through Tijuana was pleasant. When hookers would approach the car, I would point to the passenger seat and say "Tengo uno ya." Big laughs all around.
Aside from Mari, the resort's head of housekeeping who babysat our tots splendidly and affectionately (all without knowing a word of English), I found the service pretty surly. I tip well, I order in Spanish, and I take a vacation once every five years. Why was I made to feel my business was not welcome in a place where the only money came from the north? That attitude would not fly at In 'n' Out Burger.
The food was great, and despite the best efforts of Donald Trump to sully the coastline, the beaches were beautiful.
Everyone takes dollars. I got dirty looks when I asked "Cuanta costa en pesos?"
Crossing back at midday on Sunday, the line to get into the United States took two hours, and then there were stupid accident rubbernecking delays in the United States that consumed more time. It took six hours to get home. Next time I will return under cover of darkness.
Churros sold on the road to U.S. Customs are the best churros.
I handed the U.S. border guard my and my wife's passports and our tots' birth certificates. He then asked where my son and daughter were, and I pointed to them in the back seat. I was momentarily scared that, after waiting in line for two hours, we would be indefinitely delayed. All he would have had to ask my three-year-old is if we had kidnapped her at gunpoint and she would have said "Yes." Children are not reliable witnesses.
On the way home, we stopped at a McDonald's in San Ysidro that figures prominently in my memory. It was built a few hundred yards up the road from the site of the biggest mass murder in U.S. history (at the time), when a former welder named James Huberty opened fire at a McDonald's, killing 21 people. After the murders, that McDonald's was torn down and its replacement opened a few doors up San Ysidro Boulevard.
My father and I had been having a fight in July of 1984 when this happened, and as I left the room he returned to his paper, where he read the word "Huberty" aloud. I thought he'd said "Puberty" (I was 14) so I thought he was negating all my significant points by reducing them to a phase. So I responded "Senility." Then we figured it out. No big laughs all around. That's not how it worked back then.
For years I have cringed upon hearing the word "grasses." I feel that grass, like sheep and moose, should be both plural and singular. I believe it has earned that right.
This grass lives in Malibu Lake, near some gooses.
Yesterday I needed to get to the Corman Federal Building in Van Nuys, the San Fernando Valley counterpart to the federal centers in Los Angeles proper. I decided to take public transportation because gas prices make it almost convenient.
I bought an MTA day pass for five bucks, which would cover the bus to the subway station, the subway to the articulated busway, and the articulated bus to Van Nuys, and back. I loaded my bike to the front of the bus, locked my bike at the train station, and arrived in Van Nuys unfettered 90 minutes from when I left home.
In my five years attempting to squeeze value and enjoyment out of riding subways in L.A. (which includes the articulated bus, or Orange Line, for purposes of fares), I have had my ticket checked maybe three times.
When one descends into the subway in L.A. one buys a ticket, which must be shown to any MTA employee on demand. There are no turnstiles or gates, but if a rider is caught without a ticket he may be fined $250.
That said, the honor system can't be working too well, as the MTA announced it will be adding high-tech turnstiles soon, and the occasional MTA officer assigned to ticket detail must feel abashed doing a job that might better be assigned to a basket (I feel the same way about toll booth operators).
Anyway, the complex in which the Corman Federal Building stands also houses the Van Nuys Division of Los Angeles Superior Court as well as the offices of probation officers and a radiating web of bail bond companies. So I was riding on the Orange Line with a bunch of ex-cons going to see their parole officers and families going to see their relatives on trial.
The bus was met at Van Nuys Station by four uniformed police who checked everyone's ticket (I just flashed mine, but there was no way for the officer to really see it. He didn't follow me) and apprehended at least five people and let one family go with a warning.
That the cops were out in force at the Courthouse but where one might not be seen for months elsewhere on the route seemed unbalanced, but I guess if there's a quota to fill of scofflaws who will be stuck with $250 fines because they can't afford five bucks, it's a smarter move to go where the poor people are.
Filled with rightewous indignation at the end of the day and carrying no currency but my day pass in my pocket, I made the long journey back to Hollywood where my bike was, and pulled a book from my pocket, waiting for the bus that would take me home.
As you know, I am a vagrant magnet. In 2009 I will have my own entry indicating this in the Periodic Table of the Elements. In a crowd of people I will be the person a vagrant asks for money, and they never believe me when I say I don't have any change.
As I was reading my book in the group of four people, I heard a strange honking coming toward me and knew, without looking up, that it was the voice of someone coming to ask me for money. I figured the guy deserved at least the courtesy of my looking up, plus I wanted to see the type of person who honked, so I looked up.
"Honk honk honk," said a guy holding a ragged piece of paper reading I AM A DEAF MUTE.
He was signing something to me, so I made the American Sign Language signs for NO and MONEY. He then pointed to ".50" on the other side of his paper, and I signed NO MONEY again.
Then he started signing fast and furious. I wasn't even sure it was real ASL. He was pointing up, as if to God, and at that point I said the word "No." He kept honking at me and gesturing, the gist of which was, "You have to give me something." Finally I signed STOP and said, "Go away." I wish I knew the ASL for GOD DOESN'T EXIST.
(Having watched Evan Almighty recently, I am more sure than ever.)
A friend of mine used to manage a Starbucks and I recounted something that recently happened to me at a Starbucks near the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, where the Oscars are awarded.
We had the following e-mail conversation:
Dear Michelle,
I know this part of your life is behind you, but I am curious about the Starbucks policy on vagrants.
The other day I was at a Starbucks at the corner of Highland and Franklin, just north of Hollywood/Highland, and a homeless guy came in and started terrorizing the place.
I was in a suit and tie and had my computer bag and a camera, and he saw me before I saw him, so there was no time to put on my Fuck You face, which I certainly would have, because he was drunk.
I admit that my willingness to give people money goes way down when they're drunk, unless they're hookers.
So he comes to my table and the first I saw of him was him kneeling down next to me.
"Bro I beg you bro I just need a cup of coffee bro you're a handsome guy bro - ..."
And I just didn't like him, so I said, "I'm not giving you any money."
He said, "I didn't ask you for money Bro I said I wanted a cup of coffee."
I hadn't though of this tactic before. What I should have said, of course, was Get Away from Me, because that's what I meant. So instead I said, "You can have some of my coffee."
He goes and gets a cup from somewhere, comes back, and pours like a third of my coffee cup into his before I look up again and said, "I said you can have SOME of mine."
Then he heads off to bother other patrons, then he goes outside to harass people coming in, then he leaves. Meanwhile, I'm staring at his coffee mug, thinking, "Whose coffee is this now?"
Then he comes back and starts telling this girl to my right that I'm rich and I wouldn't give him any money.
So very nicely I turn and say, "Shut the fuck up, you fucking piece of shit, and drink the fucking coffee I gave you."
Then he gets up and says (and I don't know what this means), "You're all Shit Ass," and he leaves.
From beginning to end, this journey took about 40 minutes, during which time the employees knew the guy was there and, I got the impression, were familiar with him already.
I am very conflicted about whom I give money, and decide on a case by case basis, and as I said am prejudiced against people who appear under the influence, but I'm wondering what the Starbucks policy is about people who create disruptions, because that guy had the run of the place.
She wrote me back immediately:
ok - so Starbucks policy. simple answer? there isn't one. they don't have any official policy on how to handle vagrants because in Starbucks Corporate La La Land vagrants don't exist. they have this pristine image of creating a neighborhood environment wherever they plink down a store and that is really what they want you to build: a neighborhood feeling where all are welcome. you know, you walk into a store and your friendly barista Joe starts making your favorite beverage, asking you how the kids are and what you thought of the game last night - the whole transaction taking place in under 3 minutes, the alloted amount of time that you are given to service a customer from start to finish. ideally - it is a great vision. realistically - it is total bullshit.
in my experience working for starbucks - especially starbucks in a heavily populated area like LA - you deal with things that the every day corporate suit couldn't even imagine. and because of that, and the pressure they put on you to MAKE IT WORK, you start creating your own policies regarding vagrants, thieves, drunks and assholes. and MY policy in MY stores was ZERO TOLERANCE. period. i became a cunt. seriously. i was the "heavy" that - whenever someone came in and behaved like the situation you described - would immediately jump over the counter while yelling to my assistant to call the cops, and i would tell them to get out. get out NOW. and if they didn't i would very politely start pushing them out the door. one time, i had a vagrant who was such a nuissance and insisted on getting in my customers face that several of us pushed him out the door and locked it until the police arrived and he went away. i HATED the whole scene - and by the end of my Starbucks career, after bullying and pushing around countless vagrants and drunks; after being yelled at, pushed, shoved, threatened, had stuff thrown at me and even being SPIT on, i had had enough. getting no support to behave this way took its toll on me and i just became a miserable person. and essentially that was why i left. there was nothing 'happy' about my job at all and i just wanted OUT.
it would be my recommmendation to you to let corporate headquarters know of the experience you had in that location. i do know the store you are talking about - and it is plagued with homeless in that area - but someone should have done SOMETHING. my guess is that the partners in that store were either pussies or just didn't care. and either choice is unacceptable, imho. if you call or write Starbucks and let them know, at the very least you will get a free beverage or two out of it. at the most someone will get a talking to - and they really should get a talking to for not having done ANYTHING.
i am so damn glad to be out of that world. it just was a horrible experience to have to deal with that wild card factor on a daily basis. and no matter how many people i told in the upper eschalon, there really was nothing to be done. we actually had a meeting with the SM police dept once to discuss how to handle vagrants and it was determined that we were not allowed to do anything like ask them to leave or call the cops because "they had rights too" and we were infringing upon them by treating them any differently than any other customer. that even though they might be shitting all over our restroom floors or screaming at another customer that they are all 'shit ass' it was wrong to treat them in a manner that could be deemed PREJUDICE. when i heard that, i thought Fuck you all - i'm gonna do what i want and sue the company for hiring me if you don't like it. i mean, honestly: until we actually handle the homeless situation at large, it will continue to interupt the lives of those of us who are working for a living. but my personal credo? NEVER give money. never ever ever. it's like feeding a stray cat - they will keep returning because they know that there are suckers like you who will take care of them, enabling them to live another day on the streets and drink themselves to oblivion.
Finally, a little while ago I was approached by a vagrant near my office on Wilshire Blvd.
"Mumble mumble mumble," he said.
"I'm sorry?" I said, leaning my head down.
"Spare some change," he declared.
"I don't have any change on me," I said. I rarely have actual cash on me unless it's a bunch of quarters for the bus I'm waiting for.
"Oh, so you're sorry?" he said, turning away from me.
"I said 'I'm sorry' because I didn't hear you," I said.
"Oh well," he said, "I'm sorry."
There is no through line here other than, I think, that the police have no reservations about the prejudices we share.
I was recently in Tempe, AZ for a conference and also to visit my in-laws. I have never liked the Phoenix area, despite my fondness for Alice and Death Wish, and each time I visit it is a struggle to enjoy myself, beloved in-laws notwithstanding.
Too hot outside, too air-conditioned inside, too many chain stores, and a sense of overwhelming complacence. I will make this sound better when I run for President, but until then, I sure don't like Arizona.
I explained this to my friend Troy while typing online in a coffee shop in the shadow of Arizona State University Mountain.
"Are you on Mill Ave?" he asked.
"I am," I said. "But how did you know that?"
"Because I used to go to ASU," he confided. "While Tempe is best seen through a rearview mirror, there is one place you can walk to..."
He directed me to a neighborhood a few blocks away, where I found Casey Moore's, an Irish bar and oyster house built by the parents of early Arizona governor Benjamin Mouer. Apparently it's haunted.
I haunted it myself for the course of three drinks. It was the first time I actually enjoyed being here; the neighborhood reminded me of Austin.
After my Lenten teetotallitarianism I have not rebounded with a vengeance, but a few drinks at a bar in the middle of the afternoon on a work day was great. "I need to do this more," I said, and I don't care if it was out loud.
"Yes, you do," the ghost said.
On the way home (gas cost $168 this trip, or about $12 for each hour in the car), we stopped in the bucolic former mining town of Desert Center, CA.
"I could live here," I told my wife, as my daughter ran around an abandoned Kaiser Steel boxcar. "This is the kind of place where a man can breathe."
I wonder if my credit union would give me a loan for some jet skis and a meth lab?
There are two things I look forward to seeing on the way home from Arizona. One is the Colorado River, which forms part of the California/Arizona border. It has always been a relief to cross the Colorado; the first time I did it was when I moved here. At that time I was on the 40, not the 10, and had passed through Flagstaff instead of Phoenix. I was driving a 40-foot Ryder truck with a car towed in back and was just happy to have made it to the final state in my trip.
The other is the miles-long windmill farm near Indio and Palm Springs. We drove into the sunset this time, so it looked a little like Mordor.
But, on the whole, if you think Mordor is bad, try Arizona.
As long as I have lived in California - now seven years - I have not physically encountered snow in this state. I have had to travel to other states to see it. Neither has my car ever dealt with snow.
But yesterday, while beginning the arduous process of recording the "All that Jaws" album in the mountain community of Wrightwood (redubbed Great Wrightwood, you know, because of the shark), I enjoyed the dryer lint-sized snowflakes and bone-chilling cold that most closely resembles my soul.
I used to carry two ice scrapers in my car. Now I found myself easing down the street on loafers that do fine on casino carpeting but otherwise were unfit for shoveling out my parking space. I thought, "I deserve to fall and crack my head open in these shoes."
Then I thought, "Who came up with 'Crack your head open'? No one cracks anything shut."
Certain things came back, like waiting for the car to warm up. "Hey, I'll have to wait for the car to warm up."
I also remembered not to pick up any shivering women in Victorian pyjamas on the side of the road, because after I dropped them off, I would stop by an Inn and be told that that's Poor Mary, dead for a hundred years, who lost her baby in the snow. Then I would ask why she was fucking hitchhiking. No wonder she lost her baby.
I return next week. I'll have to find my gloves and boots, but they probably have a family of flamingos living in them.
The true test of my USB broadband connection was when I triumphantly returned to my stomping grounds at Zzyzx Road on the way to this week's Consumer Electronics Show, took a picture, and uploaded it live two minutes thereafter.
The only reason the transfer from camera to Internet was not instantaneous was because I had to fight and disembowel an attacking bear. Then I had to look up the correct spelling of tauntaun so I could make up a joke about using its steaming entrails for heat in the high desert cold and not get it confused with the city on the road to Cape Cod. Then I decided not to use the joke.
This technological breakthrough will seem like nothing when, in three to six months, I will be able to hook a GPS and a T3 connection into my spinal column, but it sure was exciting in these pioneer days.
The iPhone is one of the coolest gadgets I have ever seen, and yet the only thing I can imagine it would be good for is displaying baby pictures.
Just today somebody showed me his iPhone picture of a file cabinet he wanted to put in his office, and last week my friend Jenny showed me pictures of what she cooked for Thanksgiving.
(To be fair, the iPhone also has a built-in ringtone that simulates an analog phone. That's pretty cool.)
The iPhone comes with a high resolution screen that is a logical successor to a wallet full of snapshots. Its built-in camera would be great for taking a picture of your car's position in the mall garage in case you forget. Otherwise, for 400 bucks, what does it do better than anything else?
Since long before June 29 I knew I would be wise to resist a first-generation Apple anything, and when launch day of the Jesus Phone arrived I asked all my friends about it. Most had taken their lumps with Verizon's $175 early termination fee to be the first in line at their respective Apple Stores to buy an iPhone.
Then it slowly dawned on them that they were now AT&T customers and would be talking less to their friends and families from now on.
My friend John bought a 4 GB iPhone late on June 29 because he had to have an iPhone, even though he really wanted the 8 GB version. A week later he went back for the 8 gig model because he had to have that. I used to talk with him more often when he had another cellular service provider, but it's different now.
I called him as he was ascending Laurel Canyon from Sunset Blvd.
"I'm going over the Hill," he said.
"I guess I'll talk to you later," I said, just as his phone cut out.
He came by my office.
"How's the iPhone?" I asked (people with iPhones tend to make excuses to brandish them, and he is a friend, so I saved him the trouble).
"I took some pictures of my new TV" he said.
And you know when you're about to be connected to someone on an iPhone because, just as the phone is ringing, you can hear static on the other end.
Sure you can surf the web and synchronize your calendar and contacts with a Mac, but you could do that just as easily with a less expensive device that has a better type pad. And you are also surfing the web with a tiny window that is only an improvement over those of other handheld, web-enabled devices because the iPhone's is slightly bigger.
I get the feeling that people want this device to be wonderful so much that they forget that it isn't. They bend over backwards to overlook its shortcomings.
Why is love unconditional when it comes to technology but not to human beings?
"You're not one of us," said my friend Wayne.
No removable memory, 8 GB of storage space for music and movies (as opposed to ten or more times that on other iPods), and suffering from lousy phone reception, the iPhone is more "i" than "Phone". And the i isn't even a capital.
Every January I go to the CES and AEE conventions in Las Vegas and I write about them for sundry web and print publications. Each year I resolve to get a device that will allow me to leave my computer in my hotel room and do my web-based work from the show floor. That never works. I've tried smartphones like the Treo but the workarounds take as long as getting a shuttle back to the hotel room.
Then I settle for finding accessible areas where WiFi can be had. Usually press rooms are a long walk from the convention area, but CES in particular had excellent amenities for press last year.
Still, what if I wanted to stay on the floor? To stand right in front of the Toshiba display and file my reports from there?
Once I decided - with real reluctance - that the iPhone was useless (the iPhone Touch, on the other hand, is almost a worthwhile toy. It's like a more expensive Palm Pilot without a camera), I looked for Verizon products (they are my cell carrier and I already pay them enough without dumping an additional $175 for the privilege of leaving them - I feel I understand how people can justify being the victims of spousal abuse now) that sweaty, sullen, goateed Verizon store employees were trained to say would be iPhone Killers.
The LG Voyager looked so good in the catalog that I took time off on my birthday to look at it. It has a keyboard with raised keys, it has not one but two tiny screens but, as opposed to the iPhone's nice OSX browser, had a proprietary and restrictive web browsing system. That the Voyager is posed to look like an iPhone in catalog pictures is pretty misleading.
And neither have word processing programs.
I realized that, like Jeff Lebowski's, my thinking had become uptight. What I was trying to do, Reader, was to make a phone work like a computer, and to cut the phone as much slack as possible, which would be made easier by the phone's other qualities.
But the fact is I want the interface and superior functionality of my computer and I want it to be online all the time. I don't want to pay for Internet at Starbucks or in a hotel room or in an airport, and don't want to be stuck without it anywhere else. And I don't want to try to convince myself that my phone is my computer.
Some day phones will be our computers, with innovative input systems, mass storage, multiple-input recording capability, wireless access to remote servers, high-res media players and projectors, point-to-point purchasing devices, navigation systems, portable smoke detectors, bar code scanners, laser pointers, flashlights, and - why not? - guidance systems for vehicles. they will be personalized and encrypted. People will say that the time of the Apocalypse has arrived, but it will be pretty cool.
So finally I upgraded my simple phone to a slightly sleaker model that will take a better picture of where in the garage my car is, and with removable memory that will allow me to change ringtones without having to pay for songs I already own.
I also bought a broadband USB modem with a data plan. It allows me to get online at a little faster than dialup speeds (no matter what Verizon tells you) and I've only had to reconnect twice in the three hours I've been using it. But that is a workaround I can live with.
Today marks the seventh anniversary of my departing Boston for Los Angeles. I left that city a broken man, my arm having been clipped by a UPS truck while I was riding my bike to work in my last months there.
Less than a year after crossing the Colorado River into California (we drove), my relationship with the person I'd traveled here with ended. I don't know many relationships that have survived westward expansion. I am told that Lewis returned from their travels feeling that Clark was a "douchebag".
We took west four cats, two mine and two hers. I know that one (Roswell, staring from the background) is dead and I think at least two more might be (at least the one in the foreground, if there is any justice). Frampton (seen there in the middle) is still going strong, and just wrote her first novel.
I came out here to be a writer for television and film, and to perform comedy on stage. I have done all those things, but I think I should have been more specific in my plans, such as "I want to write for television shows that aren't cancelled almost immediately". But I guess saying that prior to leaving would have seemed too obvious to me then.
I am going to spend my remaining time in Los Angeles (I have an exit strategy) being more obvious.
Also, when I first moved here, I spent a lot of time riding my bike on the beach. I don't do that anymore. I've been to the beach once in the last year. This disgusts me. It's like living in Bogue Chitto and not eating at the truck stop every day.
It is quaint to upload these pictures three whole days after I took them. While I could have done this instantaneously with my iPhone, I preferred to let the content, a dusty Mojave Desert offramp that was 112 degrees at 6 p.m., influence the medium. Also, I don't own an iPhone.
Here is Zzyzx. Nothing much was happening. There were no bleached cattleskulls, tumbleweeds, or rattlesnakes. I did not take peyote with an Indian, neither casino nor call center. I did not go mad.
I was roughing it, however. I didn't turn my air conditioning on the entire trip. I am purifying myself and taking myself off the grid. I was not even able to shuffle the songs on my iPod, because it is three years old. I had to listen to them alphabetically. That's hard core.
I was supposed to be driving with someone but he flaked. That is the Hollywood Way. But I was in Zzyzx, where the Old Ways are best.
In the end I returned to my car and drove toward Primm, which begins exactly at the Nevada border, where everything starts again. The same guy who flaked on the drive would flake on the hotel on the Strip, which reinforced my belief that Las Vegas is the Pheasant Lane Mall to Los Angeles' Lowell.
The best part of my drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas is, if I plan it right, approaching the Nevada state line.
Prior to that, I will cross the San Bernardino Mountains and drive through Dario Argento's Hesperia.
As you can see from the map, after Barstow, California pretty much throws in the towel for the 100-mile trek through the Mojave Desert. During that time I will pass through Zzyzx, CA, which will be a comparatively cool 109 degrees.
Approaching the state line at twilight is great fun because drivers can see the line as defined by the lights of Primm, the first city over the Nevada border. Las Vegas is about 50 miles beyond that.
I went back to Lowell, where I was born and lived the first 17 years of my life (I'm 19 now) for about :30 this past weekend.
I haven't spent any time visiting the city's historic areas since I was a National Park Ranger there, so on my way to my Uncle Frank's birthday party I took a self-guided tour, not hitting nearly as many places as I would have liked (or visiting with anyone not related to me).
These are the Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River. It's nice to see a river with water in it now and then.
This weekend the family and I drove to San Francisco, where I had some bidness (I am in the Slapping Fools business).
Driving to San Francisco from L.A. is preferable to us over flying, because it allows us to stop at various pea and meat resturants along Interstate 5, and pack for three days what other people might pack for world cruises. We spent $160 on gas.
Above is the Poetry Room of City Lights Books, which I've wanted to visit for over twenty years, ever since I first read a Jack Kerouac biography. That makes me 23.
Here is City Lights' Beat Literature section. I bought a book of Jack Kerouac's haikus. The cashier treated me with disdain. "Tourist," he thought. How dare someone be so on the nose as to go to City Lights and buy a Jack Kerouac book? I didn't even buy "A Coney Island of the Mind". That I then bought a postcard and a poster only increased the cashier's contempt, and I must say I don't blame him.
Still, I was forced to punch him in the teeth. "That's how we do things in Lowell," I said.
I once had a pair of leather pants stolen from me in unusual circumstances. As San Francisco stands between the rich cattle land of Central California and the Sea, cows will often stop here in their long march to oblivion. Cows are exactly like the Elves in that way; their Sea-longing is pervasive.
While being fitted for a new pair of pants, I was heartened to see the brand still on the hide.
The woman who is making them said, "I know that hurt."
She also told me that Levis and other brands lie to their customers, using measurements that reduce waist size and increase leg size, fooling people into believing that they are slimmer and taller. Once thinking I was perfectly symmetrical, I was horrified to find that my waist size exceeds my inseam by three inches.
Greetings from the island of Mothra's Vineyard. The last two weeks have been a crazy joyride of Singapore performances, visiting friends and family, eating and drinking, traveling to places with great sentimental value, and not seeing any snow.
I drove to Mexico this weekend for a wedding. If our nation organized its wars the way this wedding was organized, there would be friendly governments from Iraq to Iran (if one started from Baghdad and went west around the world to Tehran).
