Join the light side

The Wordprexodus continues apace. We have your Ivan, your Cheri, your Lovely Amphibian and your mataachi too. We know that Joshi is there somewhere, but I can't find him. Once I do, I will let you know. We are working on Minty and Ish for now. Then we will come for the rest of you.

 

We are the Borg. Resistance is futile

 

One last link: Grey's Anatomy is not just for women. Apparently even men can watch it, or so says this story on MSNBC.com…  Are you convinced? That show needs Jack to come on and shoot somebody.

 

 And now before we wrap up, I am http://bazanye.wordpress.com

 

 

 

Nerd's Eye View

 

The Worm had mixed feelings about Isaac's offer. The first feeling in the concoction was outrage: he was not in senior four anymore and therefore did not see why he should be expected to wear borrowed clothes. He expressed this feeling with sardonic curtness. "Are we going to Namagunga for social?"

      The second feeling was hurt pride, because Isaac's fashion sense and the Worm's principles found themselves at odds in some places. "I don't wear no fucking Sean John!"

      The third feeling was more to our liking, though less to our understanding. The Worm had to be in the studio to present the weekend radio show for the Sunday DJ who, once again, wasn't feeling well. They had called him with this assignment while I was in town, and he was less perturbed by the call to work on a weekend than he was by the prospect of showing up in pyjamas. Isaac's offer seemed to show a way out. We gave him that special glance people give to radio presenters who worry about how they are going to look on air, and he deftly ignored it. Instead he agreed to go off to Isaac's and get some clothes.

      After we were fully clad (or at least some of us. I was still in my shorts) and were heading for the setting of Isaac's programme, he began to unfold its details.

      "You two guys are Congolese," he announced.

      I had an objection to having my Ugandan citizenship so abruptly abrogated, and requested an explanation as to why.

      "And you don't know very much English, so don't use words like abrogate," Isaac replied.

      I insisted on the questioning tack. "Why am I Congolese?"

      "I need two Congolese guys," Isaac said.

      "Then perhaps you should have gone to the Congo to fetch them instead of calling us. That would maybe have been the better plan, possibly," was the Worm's suggestion.

      Isaac looked exasperated. "I don't mean like real Congolese guys, like Kabila and Wamba Dia Wamba. I just need two guys to pretend to be from the Congo. So if you guys can just act like you are from the Congo that will really help things along."

      "I don't know if I can do that. I haven't spent a lot of time in the Congo," I was wary.

      "Do they have deep voices like this: (Worm lowered his voice to a frog-like bass) 'je suis le Congolese.' Or do they have high voices like (and he switched to a high pitch) 'Alors! Vive la revolucione' "

      "Exactly the question. I mean, take Kofi Olumide for instance. His voice, though gay, is quite deep. On the other hand, Arulus Mabele has a grotesquely squeaky voice. Which is it supposed to be?" I pushed the question.

      Worm jumped on that point with deep concern. "I think it's more like Mabele's. First of all, most Lingala songs are sung in that squeaky register, and secondly, I don't trust Kofi Olumide. Kofi Olumide sounds like a West African name."

      "They make Lingala in West Africa?"

      "He may be just pretending to be Congolese, too."

      Isaac crashed in on our discussion. "Look, you don't have to talk, deep or squeaky. All you have to do is stand there, not speak English, and most importantly, not dispute the fact when I say you are two associates of mine from the Congo."

      "Okay," I found it reassuring that the brief wasn't going to be as demanding as I had previously supposed. "So we just stand there and nod. Any particular posture?"

      "Where is Kofi Olumide from then, and why is he trying to deceive us that he is from the Congo when he's not?" Worm was quite indignant.

      "He is from Mali. Now let us focus," Isaac, getting more and more impatient, said. "Now, Beatrice says I have been avoiding her..."

 

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Maybe if we called him L-Mac?

She called me a pansy, because I told her I own a volume of Louis MacNeice. And I laughed.

Because that is ludicrous: How can I be a pansy? I am Ernest Fucking Bazanye, for crizzy! But I do reside round her little finger, so I am not going to belabour the point.

 

Onward in time: some circumstance led three Whitney Houston  MP3s into my home. Is It Just the Lonely Talking Again, You're Still My Man and I Know Him So Well.

 

I could start listing all the Wu Tang, Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Royce 5 9, Hendrix, Chemical Brothers, Jigga, and mad guitar I usually listen to during the week, but the thing is, I was there listening to someone power-ballading "Is it just the lonely talking again" and enjoying it.

I could list all the hard music but it would just sound like a case of the pansy doth protest too much.

 

And now, a break:

 

Tumtumtum TWISH!  http://bazanye.wordpress.com  GabbaBANG!

 

And back.

 

 

NERD'S EYE VIEW CONT'D

 

So I was on Kampala Road in my shorts, looking misguided. It is at times like this that the most irrational fears rear heads. I used to be a secondary school teacher. A few years ago. The kids I taught should be in university now. What if one or more of them are frolicking about town right now and they see me? You know how university students are: they are very fashion-conscious. Their whole life is a catwalk. And you know how former students are: they are very vengeful. If my former students saw me looking stupid on the streets, they would, in all probability, stop the car, run out, point at me and laugh out loud.

 

I quelled those fears though, with simple logic. Come on. Like any of those dimwits would make it to university.

 

That's when a voice right behind me said, "Eschoose me, sir."

I responded as anyone would under such circumstances. By saying "Oh shit".

 

I turned round, fully expecting to see one of the ex-students draped head to toe in something classy like Dolce or Gabana. Maybe even both. I was trying out approaches for dealing with this. Part of my mind was weighing "Listen, I can explain" against "What are you doing gallivanting around town? Don't you have anything constructive to do?"

 

Fortunately, I did not need to employ either manoeuvre. It was not a former student. It was a tiny boy in oversized sunglasses jerking his thumb in the direction of a Celica parked a few feet away. "Eschoose me sir. Dat man he want to talk to you."

In the car was the fellow I had come to town to meet. Isaac.

 

He gave the little boy a thousand bob note for delivering the message and me, and the boy scurried off to wherever he came from.

 

"Street kids are dressing stylishly these days," I said to Isaac, as the boy and his sunglasses disappeared.

He reached over and opened the passenger door, saying, when he saw my shorts, "You should borrow a leaf from them."

 

I got in the car and he asked where the Worm was.

"The full story is, he is stuck at home because all his clothes, except the pyjamas he spent the night in, are on the wire, having been washed this morning by the cleaning lady."

"Why would she wash all his clothes and leave him nothing to wear?" Isaac asked.

"That is a question we plan to raise with her on our next meeting."

"This is no good." Isaac shook his head in disappointment. "This completely throws plans out of equilibrium. The Worm's presence is vital for this programme to succeed. We must fetch him."

"Will your programme succeed if the Worm is present in his pyjamas?"

"I will lend him some clothes of mine. Let's go get him." And off we drove. Isaac thinking deeply about his plan, me thinking deeper: what plan was this that would have one party in shorts, the other in borrowed clothes and only one of us looking decent?

 

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Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check out new cars at Yahoo! Autos.

Something transcendent

A phenomenon. This man was larger than his height and weight. This man was history.

P.S. I don't think I am coming back to blogger. From the looks of things. I like Wordpress. It is bright and roomy and comfy. Like the better parts of Bweyogerere.

Come and see..

http://bazanye.wordpress.com

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Celebrity Endorsement Time

Yo, Ram John Holder, better known as Porkpie from the eighties sitcom Desmond, what have you got there in your Celebrity Blog Endorsement Bag?

 

RJH: I have a lotta links, kid. Check this out:

 

Samali, Sam, Chocofudge, Aseu, Willieboy, S.A.G.E., QueenB, Feather, Leo's Darling, Dukesy…

 

Baz: Ram John Holder, is that the Second Generation of X-Men, or the elements of a burgeoning bloglosphere?

 

RJH: Click the links and find out, boy!

 

 

Okay. I shall. By the way, would you mind giving us one more Celebrity Endorsement?

 

What's that?

 

My more convenient blog location. 

 

Oh, that? http://bazanye.wordpress.com.

 

Faya.  You may go back to Brixton now.

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Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check out new cars at Yahoo! Autos.

Nerds Eye View (and I got another crib)

I am not chucking blogger, it is just that it takes too long to get logged. Even from the Café. And as I always say, "I have things to do and people to see. This money ain't gonna make itself." I am a busy man. I can't be there there.

 

I also hate that I cannot comment as much as I want to.

 

And I have a lot to get off my fingers. I need to type and I need to blog. I am arrghing, so to speak.

 

So I followed my heroes jmataachi and Petes mama to another site.

 

Ah. http://bazanye.wordpress.com That's more like it.

 

Now, as I was saying, Nerd's Eye View continues….

 

 

 

 

 

He had wanted to fire Crooked Paul for a long time. Mostly because he was a very lousy worker. Paul (we didn't know he was crooked then) told us he was in senior three, though we were convinced he was at the very least twenty years old. He did not discuss his age, but didn't dispute the charge, when leveled against him, that he was a little bit old for O'level class. He explained, in a tiny, plaintive voice, that he had only himself in this world and that is why he went around the neighbourhood on weekends cleaning houses. It was so that he could pay his way through school and get an education.

 

I was convinced. He needed to make money housekeeping, we had housekeeping that needed doing, I didn't see any problem, only a solution. The Worm was not too keen at first. "Shouldn't a cleaning lady be, I don't know, a lady?"

 

"It's the new millenium, Worm. Gender equality. Anything a woman can do, so can a man."

 

Paul was finally contracted. The Worm's consent was secured when he discovered that rather than call Paul a maid, he could call him a valet, and life improved considerably when you could speak of having you own valet.

 

We soon found out why Paul was such a bargain. He was always late and sometimes didn't show up at all. His mopping and sweeping sometimes left the impression that if you had just blown at the dust then spat on the floor you would have achieved better results. He favoured the dip-once-squeeze-twice-rinse-now-that's-it technique when it came to laundry and often returned our clothes with the stains still intact. And his ironing was pathetic. He could actually make the clothes look more crinkled than before he began. The Worm grumbled bitterly when he would find himself ironing his clothes again after Paul was through and gone. I remember the argument.

 

"The guy needs the money! You can't just fire him because you're too pompy to iron your own clothes!"

"He is ripping us off!"

"He needs to pay his school fees! Look, do it as a kindness; send out some good karma. Let it be said of The Worm that he was a sarcastic, self-centered and vain bastard but his life wasn't entirely useless, for he once did a good deed. He ironed his own pants so that Paul could have an education."

"Mordecai, have you ever seen Paul's handwriting? He left a note the other day and I tell you it was not inspiring. The man is barely literate. Senior three? I was forced to conclude that whatever education they are giving him, its quality can only be adequately described by a person who has had his head immersed in a sewage pit. I mean to say, of course, that it is shit. So we are paying for shit service, so Paul can pay for shit education!"

 

Eventually we agreed to put Paul on probation. And he did show improvement, knowing that he was in danger. We shouldn't have. Are you familiar with the phrase "term egenda"?

Knowing that they will be out of the teachers' and prefects' jurisdiction in a few short days, naughty schoolboys go on rampage at the close of the term, vandalising, stealing, bullying etc. Sure that they are going to lose upcoming elections, bad governments loot and pilfer as much as they can before they get booted out of office. And Paul, knowing how his probation would end, also began to do his own term egenda.

 

There is a hardcover Wole Soyinka book that The Worm likes to bring out and place on the bookshelf to impress select visitors. One day it fell out of Paul's shirt as he was leaving. Suddenly we came to understand why so many books and CDs and magazines had been turning up missing over the past couple of weeks.

 

Paul said he was only borrowing it, and we said, of course you were, goodbye and have a good life. We didn't pursue the matter beyond firing him. Me, because of my sympathetic soul, Worm, because he was just stymied by the twisted nature of the crime. "The guy who decides to steal a book by the man who won the Nobel Prize for Literature can barely read! Words, fittingly, fail me."

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Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check out new cars at Yahoo! Autos.