Istanbul … a land of cats & men, coffee & cigarettes

For half a year back in 2003, I lived in a double-wide trailer in Northwest Montana. I met a boy named Kevin and approximately three weeks after meeting, we said “I love you,” meant it and promptly moved together. Kevin would come home from painting houses all day or from one of the kitchens where he cooked part time, kiss me like we were posing for a WWII poster and then put on the stereo. We would slow dance in the tiny kitchenette while dinner cooked. We’d drink IPAs or red wine and laugh so hard and so loud, it would usually send his German Shepard into a frantic fit of barking. The whole four-month relationship seemed like a movie. Maybe it was the soundtrack of Tom Waits. Maybe it was the fact that I knew I’d probably never live in a trailer quite as happily ever again.

I’ve had an abiding affinity for Tom Waits ever since. I’m particularly partial to this little short called Coffee & Cigarettes by Jim Jarmusch, in which Tom Waits and Iggy Pop play themselves and sit around awkwardly shooting the shit and talking about … well … coffee and cigarettes. Ok, in the beginning, Tom Waits makes a hilarious joke about delivering a baby on the freeway too.

Stay with me here readers. I do have a point.

I spend a lot of time wandering with my camera in strange cities, often when work forces me to travel alone. And thus, I invented a little game called “Who’s What Metropolis.” In the game, you wander around taking photos, thinking of a town as a person. This line of thought usually helps me put a finger on why I ultimately love a place or hate it … or even why sometimes I’m just lukewarm.

Bangkok. Bangkok is Robert Downey Jr.

Paris is Anna Wintour.

Which, now, thanks to Who’s What Metropolis has cleared up the issue of why I’ve returned to Bangkok seven times and Paris makes me want to scream when someone merely says the name. Hilton and/or City. No thanks.

So … there I was week before last … fresh off a tear gas sandwich … boppin’ around in Istanbul with my Nikon. The first day out, I knew I loved Istanbul. I knew for sure I was coming back a second time. But it wasn’t until I did some photo editing that I realized that Istanbul is Tom Waits.

It’s a romantic, slightly beaten up, crammed-like-two-lovers-in-a-trailer type of a place. It’s easy to adore … even if isn’t quite “pretty” by standard definition. (Hey Paris … you freakin’ stunning and I still despise your entire existence.)

Istanbul’s a man’s town. It’s swarthy and rusty in the corners. It’s got a lot of cats and a lot of cracked pavement. Women, tucked into colorful headscarves and shadows, peek out behind doorways. The men are gravely and wrinkled with smile lines. Ever quick to make more creases, they have booming sexual altos that call out the world’s best one-liners to foreign women.

“You broke my plastic heart!,” one yelled at Deb and me … in what I believe was an attempt to get us to purchase pizza? “Plastic it is no easy thing to break lay-deee! Yes, you come in here. Here! Come in here please and mend my plastic broken heart!”

Oh Istanbul … your men are like your cats – relaxing idly in slices of sunlight, catching everything with a sideways glance and waiting for something interesting to walk past. Smoking their Turkish cigarettes, drinking their Turkish coffee and somewhat accidentally auditioning for Jim Jarmusch’s sequel … they reminded me of a boy … and a trailer … and a long, long time ago. I’ll be back, Istanbul.