Scooterer Stories – Part Eight – Be’er Sheva

Scooterer Stories
By Louis the Scooterer

The travels of Louis the Scooterer, a retired former South African who has found an unusual way of getting to know Israel.

Part Eight – Beer Sheva

We leave Arad on 31, and pass Arad Park and Tel Arad, and after travelling past several Bedouin areas and also seeing many camels on side of the road, we take a short detour into MEITAR, but my friends were not at home, so, I rode around a beautiful big park, and saw nice villas and homes with gardens, and after a while I rode out through tree line boulevard to the main road.

A quick ride through Omer neighbourhood that has many sculptures, new sports fields and much general development, and a unique industrial site with many sculptures. Then a visit to Tel Be’er Sheva archeological sites that has much uphill climbing and good views.

I did not visit the village of TEL SHEVA, but later I learned that many important festivities and celebrations happen there. (See google for interesting events).

I have been to Beer Sheva several times, and every time I find much of interest. My main HIGHLIGHT is the Airforce Museum just on north end, and that needs at least 1/2 day, with much to see, including videos inside a giant plane turned into a “cinema”, and many guided tours with explanations about the different aircraft. Also many good brochures are available.

In the center of Be’er Sheva I saw through the corner of my eye, a most unusual shape building, being (NACE) College of Engineering, where I was taken on a personal guided tour by the vice principal who gave many interesting explanations. Also needs time to look carefully at many pictures that represent optical illusions. I sat a while in quiet surroundings, inside the building and also in the gardens.

There is a large industrial area with large supermakets and stores of all types, and also many coffee shops and excellent eating places.

A few very interesting monuments are around the city and should plan to visit them all for a few minutes to take pictures. There are many small parks with benches in the shade, but dont spend too much time just sitting around.

I have also been a couple of times by train to Be’er Sheva, to spend many hours in the “Old City” and when I choose to stay over, I always spend nights at IYHA, ( Israel Youth Hostel Assoc.) An excellent information department is at Abrahams Well ( a must visit),where interesting videos are shown about the areas, and take brochures. I say its a good idea is to leave the car in the car park and walk to the Bedouin open market, OR walk to the “Old City”, or to the market (souk).

Thursday is BEDOUIN OPEN MARKET day, a “must see”, so anyone planning to visit should try to do on Thursday. I repeat there is much to see in Be’er Sheva, and also take a drive through the new developments, and see spectacular high rise apartments surrounded by beautiful parks and childrens playgrounds, right next to old historical buildings and old mosques and old railway station buildings.
Not to forget a visit to the new developments on east side of Be’er Sheva. There are also many small “memorial parks” and dont be shy to ask the locals some questions about anything unusual you may see.

Of course you will visit the municipal offices in the center of the city to obtain a map, then take a coffee at one of the many coffee shops in the new open air walking mall, where many official offices and departments are situated…dont forget good walking shoes and your camera.

Louis the Scooterer is 69 years old and it sounds like he’s just getting started.

Becoming Un-Gorilla – Finding the best razor for body shaving

A hairy man’s transformation into a smooth modern man.
By Jeffrey the Barak

I was born in 1957, which means I was in my teens to thirties in an era when hairy men were considered normal and even sexy. But these are smooth times, and the social norm for attractiveness no longer includes a built in fur coat.

The first time I did something about it, I made my chest hair shorter with clippers, and the resulting short sharp curly hair made my life a misery. I repeated the same mistake three times.

On the third time, whilst pulling my tee-shirt out in agony, I ran for a waxing salon for some relief, and promptly experienced intensely painful chest waxing, then got infected. Folliculitis. More agony, which only cleared up with anti-biotics.

Then I suffered through the regrowth and stayed hairy again, until one day I realized I was gray and hairy, and I felt too young to be the Old Silverback Gorilla.

So began my commitment to staying shaved.

First I tried electric hair clippers, but my short stubble is as thick as cable and I felt like a porcupine. So I tried a rotary (Philips-Norelco) shaver. It worked, for a day or two at a time, but it took a very long time to get the whole body to be hair-free, and the soft skin areas of the body were very sensitive to all that electric hacking.

So then it was a (Braun) foil shaver. Those are quite good for facial beards, but next to useless on the body, as they pass right over softer longer hairs without cutting them at all.

So into the shower I ventured and there I remain. Wet shaving a body is much faster and easier than using anything electric.

My first razor for this almost daily job was the Schick (Wilkinson Sword) Quattro, and I have to say it did a good job. The best thing about a Quattro is it is almost completely impossible to nick the skin with it, no matter where you shave.

The worst thing about the Quattro is that the big fat heavy handle won’t stay inside a Razorba, which is a long bent plastic handle designed to help you shave your back without help.

So one day, a year into the era of the Gillette Fusion, I picked up a Gillette Mach 3. This is the most acclaimed razor ever, and still the market leader, despite Gillette’s attempts to evolve further, driven by their expired patent and the threat of generic blades taking over their market.

Like the Quattro, the Mach 3 makes it very hard for one to draw blood. The cartridge itself keeps the lethal steel from digging in. Back in the Gillette G2/Sensor/Atra twin-blade days, the cartridge did not offer such protection and I remember those old Sensor Excels cut me just as easily as a twin edged safety razor (which I happily use from time to time on my face if I feel like a slow, careful, traditional shave that contributes no plastic to a landfill and requires no store clerk to unlock a security case to release the shoplifter’s favorite pricy booty).

But the truth is obvious. The single, traditional, economical, environmentally friendly, razor blade does not and can not shave as closely or as safely as a complicated, expensive, plastic and steel, modern cartridge head from Gillette or Schick.

The Mach 3 shaved my face slightly better then the Quattro, but it shaved my body many times better. I think the blades in the Quattro are too close together for effective body shaving, and the Mach 3 took away absolutely all the hair in one pass, whereas the Quattro always left something behind and got jammed up with stiff curly body hair that stayed between the blades even when rinsed under a large bath faucet.

For this reason, I won’t even be trying the new Gillette Fusion, because that has five little blades that are so close together, it makes the Mach 3 look like Venetian blinds.

And I also won’t be buying any vibrating razors, as a steady hand is the goal, and since Gillette is the same company as Duracell, and Schick is the same company as Energizer, it’s obviously just a way to sell batteries and more new razor handles. Gillette already got into legal trouble for false advertising claims regarding what a vibrating razor can actually do.

Gillette says their Fusion razor was tested on 9,000 men, who compared it to the Mach 3 and the Schick Quattro. They apparently preferred Fusion by a 2-to-1 margin, but that was for beard and moustache hair, not chest and genital hair.

But wait a minute. I have been overlooking the obvious. The Mach 3 is a facial razor, and I’m shaving my gorilla body. The ladies version is the Gillette Venus. The same three blades, but with more rubber fins to stretch the skin and set into a nice oval chassis, designed to protect those beautiful female legs.

So time to hit the shower and pop one of my wife’s Gillette Venus cartridges onto my Mach 3 handle. (All Mach 3, Mach 3 Turbo, M3 Power, Venus and Vibrance cartridges etc. fit each other’s handles)

So now it’s between Mach 3 and Venus. The ultimate anti-Gorilla test. Not a hair shall remain from sideburns to toes. (Yes it does include all those places, I said not a hair).

My left side, including half a chest, a shoulder, half a back, an arm, a hand, half a tummy, a testicle, half a penis, a hip, one side of an anus, a leg and a foot will be the Venus test bed, and the right side gets the Mach 3 treatment.

Now anyone who is awake should realize that all of the weak foams and toxic chemical gels that we are supposed to buy in aerosol cans are clearly terrible for shaving. And similarly, the so-called lubricating strips glued to all of these modern cartridge razors are an obvious scam as well.

So I lather up (a section at a time) with a good shaving brush and some amber glycerin shave soap, and out come the razors.

As with any shave, to avoid irritation, I do not repeatedly go over any area that I’ve already scraped the lather from. And I do not press the cartridge into the skin. Just a quick light shave once over everywhere in one direction.

And the winner is: Mach 3

Why? Well the Venus did seem better than the Mach 3 in concave areas such as armpits, belly button etc. but otherwise, the larger head was unwieldy, the rubber fins did not improve the shave and overall, the Venus side of the chest exhibited more post-shave redness than the Mach 3 side of the chest.

So guys, if you are a Gorilla like me, and you want to pretend to be human like those male models, you know what to do. Here is a shopping list:

• One Gillette Mach 3 or Venus razor and as many Mach 3 cartridges as you can find on eBay for a fraction of retail.
• A high quality cake of shaving soap.
• The best shaving brush you can afford, (It will last as long as you live).
• A shaving mug.
• And a Razorba handle for your unreachable back areas.

Then enjoy a smooth life and marvel at how quickly you can get dry after a shower, with only one towel!

Disclosure: I’m not affiliated with Gillette or Razorba. I’m just a hairy bastard, er, I mean gorilla.

Jeffrey the Barak is the publisher of the-vu