How Eisner lost his shine

As someone "blessed" with continuous residence in Dubai for the past few months, I couldn't help but notice the strange effect the place is creating on me.

Suddenly, I feel so consumed in the vibrant spirit of Dubai up to the point where missing a big event here or there is inexplicably... OK!

A feeling I wouldn't dare of entertaining in Los Angeles, where I lived most of my adult life.

You see, in car-cultured, paparazzi-infested LA, average folks like you and me have extremely structured lives.

Make that "painfully structured lives" in the case of married couples.

Los Angelinos have their dentist appointments planned six months in advance, with a hefty penalty for not showing up or failing to cancel 24 hours ahead.

Concert and basketball tickets are treated similarly with religious reverence. LA is the land of big shots and celebrities, yet they remain inaccessible and hard-to-reach to you and me - ordinary mortals, that is. If you live in LA, you may get a glimpse of such celebrities on their way in or out of trendy, costly places, which you cannot afford anyway and have no business being there in the first place.

What I am trying to say here is that life in Dubai, compared to that in LA, seems to me more free-wheeling, less structured, less punishing, never dull and generally more forgiving.

Dubai gives you a sense of empowerment that no other city can provide.

Case in point; I was here back in January when Michael Eisner participated in a leadership conference along with Colin Powell. Having worked in Disney for few years, where Eisner was the absolute emperor whose tiniest whims were stone-clad commands, I expected that his presence here would create a similar buzz in line with his high US status.

I mean, after all, Eisner turned Disney around from a $2 billion sleeping giant in 1984 to a $45 billion conglomerate in 2006. He was one of the most watched and celebrated CEOs in America.

Imagine my surprise when I "felt", and I could be dead wrong, of course, that here in Dubai, Michael Eisner is basically just another guy! Another name on World Trade Centre's huge guest list! Dare I hint to this in the US, I would be looked at as a leper!

I was deviously entertained when I heard, through the grapevine, that Eisner lost his temper with the bright girl who interviewed him for a television channel. Perhaps his arrogance was rubbed in ways he wouldn't think were possible, let alone in a foreign country that he never visited before. I admit I felt slightly relieved and vindicated.

Only as partial payback for the stereotyping that he carelessly allowed to appear in the infamous cartoon feature, Aladdin which amounted to drinking from the well and committing number one inside it, if you get my drift!

For all his US power and influence, poor Eisner passed through Dubai without breaking the sound barrier, and without being given the emperor status splashed on him in US media.

I wonder what items he bought from the airport! Did he negotiate a better output deal? Did he keep the receipt for a planned expense report?

Perhaps some of you did not know Eisner was here in Dubai till now. Sounds rude or little nasty? I admit. But hey, I am only going by the old famous Arabic proverb:" No one is big except the camel".

Ahmad Zahzah is a journalist based in the UAE.