Mattopia Jones

Mattopia Jones and the City of the Living

Introduction

This one’s for Mom and Dr. Henry Jones, Jr., and in memory of my dad, who often wondered what the heck I was doing "out there" during my travels, and Anthony Minghella, who I met back in 2006 and I know could've turned this simple journal into a cinematic work of art.

I'd also like to thank my mom and dad for providing me with a bladder designed for travel. That's a topic that will be discussed in much greater detail later.

As a wee primer, back during the Young Mattopia Jones Chronicles I went to Marrakech as a side trip during my epic, post-college 10-month exploration of Great Britain and Europa. Why? Because that was the only place Belloq could sell the fertility idol he stole from Dr. Jones at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It wasn't that I really expected to find that idol sitting in some shop, still up for sale some 72 years later. Realistically, I probably couldn't afford to buy it, anyway. It was that I wanted to check out Morocco, make that exciting, beautiful journey from Europe across the Mediterranean to Africa. Yeah. What a journey. Having made a friend in Gibraltar, we decided neither of us was prepared to go solo so we went together.

Many stories abound (and as noted elsewhere on this site, the YMJC are still going through the painful process of translation from the original, handwritten Mattskrit journals into something a little more presentable for the Web). In short, though, those were the worst four days I’ve ever spent on the road. There was the night train from Hell (well, actually, from Tangier to Marrakech), the tour guide who looked like Steven Segal, the ludicrous leather tanning factory hostage situation, the death threat, the robes... and the shoes to match.

That's when I was called "Berberman" and "Fish and Chips" while running through the market in my Berber robe and Ray-Ban Wayfarers. That's when Algeria declared open hunting season on tourists. That's when I spent time on the rooftop of the Hotel Ali, listening to snake charmers in the marketplace below me and wondering how I could facilitate a city-wide enema.

So why go to Egypt for a vacation?

Well, I had a choice. Either go on a "blockbuster" vacation to Egypt or get new countertops. And man, let me tell ya, I really want new countertops! I chose Egypt and I chose wisely.

Egypt's a place I've wanted to go since I was a kid. I was never big on social studies as an academic pursuit. Even so, while I didn't like doing all the reading and taking the tests, I always thought traveling to all those places (Amsterdam, for example, where cheese, not pot, was the primary focus of third grade studies) would be cool. Reading about them, not so much so.

Egypt has all that cool history. The pyramids. The mummies. The pharoahs. The Nile.

And, of course, when Sallah took Indy and Marion to his house in Cairo (yep, another Raiders reference - get used to it - and reread this journal's title if you're at all confused about what I'm doing), he proudly, boastfully introduced it as "Cairo, the City of the Living, a paradise on Earth."

My mom went to Egypt and Israel on a couple different occasions, traveling with a really, really out there holy roller church group. Unfortunately, in the ensuing years I was never comfortable with the political climate to make that journey personally. And I wouldn't fit in with a bunch of holy rollers.

So here we are in 2008 and what changed? Not much. But, while pondering my semi-traditional birthday vacation, I was concerned that New York in early April wouldn't have the same amount of excitement this year that it has in the past. Sure, I had my ticket for the Yankees' home opener, but not much else was happening.

Not much of personal interest was happening throughout the world that week. It was as if everybody was taking the week off in honor of my birthday. (Yes, sometimes I really do think like that.)

At the beginning of the year the "cautious fellow" in me had already written off Israel and Egypt as "no fly zones" once again.

I had a yearning to do something different. I was, after all, being egged on by a very rare alignment of the stars. In 2008, all three of the Mattopian Trinity will be active. What the heck does that mean?

Mattopian Heroic Trinity

Heh.

Uno: U2 released U2 3D earlier in the year and rumors were (and are) picking up about a new album coming later this year.

Dos: Indiana Jones was finally making his way back to the big screen in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. To put things in even greater perspective regarding this guy, his are considered "slice of life" movies in Mattopia. People do, after all, tend to like those they can relate to the most.

Tres: Bruce Wayne will be back in The Dark Knight. If I was a multi-billionaire like Bruce, my nightlife would change dramatically. I'd start the "rehabilitation process" with garden-variety terrorists like my sister (Darth Sister, the Dark Lord of the Sis) and certain former co-workers then work up the food chain to Osama bin Laden. There's one shit list. Getting on it takes a talent for e-vil. Getting off it is virtually impossible.

Even Billy Joel, the "fourth member" of the Mattopian Holy Trinity, was back on the road – and, most notably, he even came back to Denver to cure his 7-year itch in February.

This isn't the time or place to explain it all to the uninitiated, but those folks are the biggest reasons why I am the way I am, outside of the whole parental unit thing.

With all of my primary heroes doing something big this year, I had to do something big, too.

Then, fatefully, Michael Slackman wrote a piece in the Travel section of the New York Times about "36 Hours in Cairo." He made it sound like all was well.

Tempted, and with all sorts of possibilities now reopened to my reeling mind, I wrote Mike and explained my situation. He wrote back (thanks again, Mike). With that bit of due diligence satisfied, I started a more complete "feasibility study."

That's also when the teaser trailer for The Crystal Skull made its debut. I was as giddy as a schoolboy about that.

Oh yeah.

The pump was fully primed and the plans were coming together. For starters: the Yankees and one last home opener at the House that Ruth Built on Monday, March 31, and the Pyramids of Giza on my birthday, Friday, April 4. It was simply a matter of figuring out how to make it all happen.

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