ORourke - Holidays in Heck: a Former War Correspondent Experiences Frightening Vacation Fun

HOLIDAYS

IN

HECK

ALSO BY P. J. OROURKE

Modern Manners

The Bachelor Home Companion

Republican Party Reptile

Holidays in Hell

Parliament of Whores

Give War a Chance

All the Trouble in the World

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut

Eat the Rich

The CEO of the Sofa

Peace Kills

On The Wealth of Nations

Driving Like Crazy

Dont VoteIt Just Encourages the Bastards

P. J.

OROURKE

HOLIDAYS

IN

HECK

Atlantic Monthly Press

New York

Copyright 2011 by P. J. OROURKE

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or .

Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION

ISBN-13: 9780802195111

Atlantic Monthly Press

An imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

841 Broadway

New York, NY 10003

Distributed by Publishers Group West

www.groveatlantic.com

11 12 13 1410 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Tina,

I owe you a holiday.

Andwhat the heckto Lizzie, Lulu, and Cliff

C ONTENTS

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

S heer amateurism is a reporters only excuse for traveling without an assignment to do so. Therefore, the pieces in this book were assigned. Many of these assignations came from Forbes Life , which isand I mean this in the best waythe monkey business supplement to Forbes , Americas preeminent business magazine. Forbes Life (originally called Forbes FYI ) was founded by my excellent friend Christopher Buckley who, in a flash of inspiration, realized that the people who make money reading Forbes might occasionally want to blow some. Blowing money is what I do.

My thanks to Christopher and a plug in recompense. He is the first person since Evelyn Waugh to master the agonizingly difficult art of the comic novel. Buy all his books. And, to stay home.

My wife, Tina, and I were invited to go on the Galpagos excursion by our extraordinary Texas friends Lee and Ramona Bass. But, between invitation and embarkation, Tina turned up pregnant with Buster (whose first appearance in print is recorded in ). Doctors forbade Tina from messing around in boats. So I took along my Godson Nick McDonell.

Nick, a New York City boy, was then a freshman at Harvard. This was his first exposure to Republicans en mass, particularly Texas Republicans, and, more particularly, the beautiful teenage daughters of Texas Republicans, who accompanied us on the cruise. Nick is a handsome and engaging young man, and the girls were fascinated by his exotic liberalism. One evening, on my way to the bar, I saw the entire contingent of adolescent Texan females gathered around a table with my Godson. I overheard a mellifluous voice with sugared southern accent say, Why, Nick , you-all just dont understand gun control!

My travels through mainland China and my sojourn with my family in Hong Kong would not have been possible without our peerless friends Dave and Celia Garcia. Ive been imposing on their hospitality in the Orient for twenty years. Weve shared trips with them to Italy, Spain, and Thailand. And Dave has been a boon companioncoming along for the fun of iton my reporting trips to Israel, the West Bank, and Egypt. Once, while we were walking back to the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem late at night, a couple of kids tried to heave a Molotov cocktail at us. It fell pathetically short. Dave shouted, You throw like girls. If you Palestinians want a country, youd better learn to play baseball.

Speaking of learning things, I owe myvery tenuousability to stay on a horse to the worthy Adrian Dangar. If it werent for him I wouldnt have survived the horseback ride across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Although, come to think of it, if it werent for him I wouldnt have been on the horseback ride across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. So thanks, Adrian, I guess. Anyway, Adrians Wild and Exotic Ltd. tour companywww.wildandexotic.co.ukis a splendid operation. Hell talk you into doing all sorts of things that are wild and exotic. But its all perfectly safe. The last time Adrian led a horse trek across the Serengeti only one of the riders was attacked by a lion and hardly any of his horse was eaten. Adrian also took the author photo for this book, capturing with speed and skill a rare instant when I wasnt falling out of the saddle.

Still speaking of learning things, my wife owes her knowledge of how to shoot me on the fly to our estimable friends at Brays Island Plantation in South Carolina, Perry and Sally Harvey, and to the admirable Hugh and Gay Eaton who first introduced us to Brays. Its the perfect place to retire, which Ill never get to do because my wife knows how to shoot me on the fly.

Another generous source of holidays has been The Weekly Standard . Ive been a proud contributor since its inception in 1995though how proud its masters of political deep-thinkingfounders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, deputy editor Richard Starr, and literary editor Phil Terzianare of that I cant say. TWS is not the first venue that comes to mind for leisure and travel writing. But now and then conservative virtue needs to take time off. Meanwhile the evils of leftism are notoriously far-flung.

I took some time off in Guadeloupe, with the excuse that the island was voting on the E.U. constitution just then. Being a Neo-Con, I needed no excuse to visit the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, go to Kabul, or mock the docents-fluent-in-Newspeak Field Museum in Chicago. I cant remember what excuse I used to get myself to Venice with a room at the Gritti Palace on the magazines nickel. But it must have been a doozy.

For my visit to the Big Stick I thank my distinguished old friend Frank Saul who introduced me to my distinguished new friend Jim Haynes at the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick dinner in Washington, where many bold plans are hatched. This one still seemed like a good idea in the morning. Jim, former general counsel of the Department of Defense during the George W. Bush administration (and how we miss it), arranged the carrier embark. Thank you, Jim, and may the wind be always at your back and may the road rise to meet you. (Whatever the Irish mean by thatsounds like an Irish description of tripping on your shoelaces).

Among the first and best friends I made in Washington was Jim Denton, who gave me the occasion to travel to Afghanistan. Jim runs Heldref Publications and edits World Affairs , Americas oldest foreign policy publication. He introduced me to Jeff Gedmin, who was then the head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Jeff, with the help of executive editor John OSullivan, had great success in transcending the genre of government broadcasting. He turned RFE/RL into a network of radio stations to which people listen avidly rather than dutifully. I went to Prague to do a story on RFE/RL for World Affairs . As part of that story I visited RFE/RLs Afghan station, Radio Azadi. My journey to Kabul turned out to be a pleasure trip. This, obviously, was due to the people rather than the place. Foremost among these people is M. Amin Mudaqiq, RFE/RL Afghan Bureau Chief. He provided the broadest access, the most wide-ranging introductions, and the warmest hospitality. This gave me material to write a second piece, about Afghanistan itself, for The Weekly Standard .