"Habeeeeeeeebiiiiiiiiii!"

Everyday I become more and more impressed with the Islamic community as a whole. That said, I have to admit that two of the greatest travesties of this century and the last fall squarely at the feet of señor Muhammad and the religion he founded:

Modern Islamic extremist terrorism and traditional Islamic vocal warbling.

If you don't what I'm talking about when I say Islamic vocal warbling, just spend a single day anywhere in the Middle East and you will. Oh, you will.

For those of you who have, sing it with me:

"Allaa-aa-aaa-aaa-aaah akbaaa-aa-aaa-aaaaaaaaaar..."

To be honest, I'm not sure which of the two above Qu'ran-inspired evils is worst. Granted, Islamic terrorism leads to kidnapping and torturing of innocents, which is no doubt a horrible, horrible, horrible thing; it's just that the torture being inflicted on my ears by The Warble might be worse. Honestly, given the choice between curing cancer and ridding the world of the Arabic warble, I'd probably cure cancer- but it'd be close.

So with that in mind, I fully expected that 112% of Arabic music would be irredeemable poop.  What I didn't expect was that I would became an Arabic pop fiend.

I don't really know how it happened. At first I couldn't stand the stuff- it was like someone had taken Akon, taught him The Warble, and then forced him to sign a legal contract stating that if he were ever to go three words without wailing the word "Habee-eee-eee-bii-iiiii!" (my love), he would be killed on sight.

But happen it did, largely because I study in a cafe nearly every day where the employees have great taste in music and are happy to let me know the artists behind the captivating tunes being played (and by happy to let me know, I mean that they visibly roll their eyes everytime I approach them- oh well, the results are the same). In particular, I've found myself lovin' Egyptian-born crooner extraordinaire Tamar Hosni (طمر حسني)'s new CD, featuring a song or two where I'd go so far as to say he manages to out-Legend John Legend himself, making the latter look in comparison likeJustin Timberlake- that is to say, like a pre-pubescent girl pretending to be a popstar.

And then there's a few other songs, where Tamer Hosni sounds a lot more like the Juanes of the Mid East. But hey, I'll take it; afterall, finding endurable Warble-free music in Syria is like finding an oasis in, well, Syria.

If nothing else, the dude's better at looking cool on CD covers than, say, this guy:

 Perhaps unsurprisingly, this disk did not turn out to be the prize of my Middle Eastern collection.

The Warble isn't the only thing afflicting Arabic culture, however. Possibly even worse, if you can imagine such a thing, is the fact that this adorable lil' feller here...

...is the star of every single Egyptian comedy movie ever made. I'd tell you that his movies are terrible, but after posting the above picture I feel like that would probably be redundant. He's like the Shia-LaBeauf-meets-Nickelback-meets-Adam-Sandler of the Arabic world; only uglier.

Choice cuts off Hosni's new CD are forthcoming. It's okay to druel.