One sunny morning in Kampala

In the taxi the other morning I encountered two forms of women. One alert, the other in a state of slumber, head tipped back, mouth lolling open and quite fine, in spite of the indecorum of her posture.

It offended my sense of morality to see a hot chick snoring in a public transport vehicle, so I poked her in the shoulder and woke her up.

Crossly, I asked, “Why are you sleeping in the taxi? Did you spend the whole of last night having sex or what?”

Through half-mast eyelids she still managed a sluggish sneer as she asked back, “What’s it to you?”

I explained that I was a journalist, so she told me that yes, she had been having sex the night before.

I advised her to take better care when having sex prior to taxi journeys and she thanked me.

Oh, wait. You were expecting a point to all of this?

Heterosexuals have no balls

Jamaican ragamuffin-dancehall star Beenie Man is scheduled to perform in Kampala this weekend. The man who brought you such hits as Who Am I, King of The Dancehall and Feel It Boy is here at the behest of a local beverage company and is going to provide entertainment as they crown (excuse me) an ongoing promotions drive (excuse me again).

For the benefit of my friends, such as Kenyans and Rwandans, whose national residences locate them at a disadvantage when it comes to clicking my puns, one of the two major soda companies in Uganda, and probably the one that invited Beenie Man, is called Crown Beverages and the promotions project was about giving away free cars. Now that I have explained it, you too, can lol along.

No, seriously, lol. I didn’t type all that just so you can give me that blank look.

Well, kale. Be like that. I won’t even explain what “kale” means, then.

(By the way, I forgot to translate the term “quenzing” the other day. I am waiting for Miss Cheri to reply to my email. She is the one who teaches me kiyaye language. I will post her definition here as soon as I get it.)

Beenie Man is here to perform at the Chamuka Keys Contest finale—which we expect to be a success, unlike his recent New Zealand booking, that is. The Gals Dem Suga, as he calls himself frequently, was slated to perform at a bash in NZ but was unfortunately dropped from the bill after LGBT groups (That’s homosexual rights pressure groups, by the way) noticed that he was a Jamaican dancehall artiste. They have a tendency towards scathingly homophobic lyrics—often calling for the lynching of homosexual men. “Bun down chichiman” is one of the many ways they are known to phrase this sentiment.

Beenie is not the first Jamaican dancehall star to be picketed out of a gig for his history of avowed homophobia before, by the way. The Gay rights dudes have got … and … before.

• If you sing homophobically, you won’t sing in New Zealand, in short. Not if they can help it.
• LGBT Groups: No!
• But wait a minute. Are you saying you guys have to censor and approve every singer who performs in the country? Are you saying that only the people who support gay rights should be allowed to express themselves? Don’t you think that kind of contradicts the ideals of freedom and tolerance that you should be in full support of as civil rights advocates? Homophobes have as much of a right to express themselves as you guys do, after all.
• LGBT Groups: NO!
• Look, let’s be mature about this. He’s not Obama. He’s just Beenie Man. Really, so what if he doesn’t like…
• LGBT Groups: NO!
• Come on, do you think that just because Beenie Man isn’t going to perform at that gig that there will be no homophobia there? I can guarantee you that a lot of the dudes in the audience are going to be homophobic anyway. I mean homophobia is still pretty common…
• LGBT Groups: NO!
• And it’s a big festival with different musicians. Have you vetted the others to see what their stand on gay rights is? How do you know wakina Dizzy Rascal or Bjork don’t be like, “Fuck these faggot ass bitches!” in their trailers when their toast is burnt or their Mochas are lukewarm?
• LGBT Groups: NO! That guy dissed us and so we are not going to allow him to make money in New Zealand. NO!
• So Beenie has no choice but to cross NZ off his flight plan and come to dusty/muddy third world Kampala instead.

Meanwhile, R. Kelly urinates on heterosexuals and what do we do? We just give him more money and continue to dance and sing and enjoy his songs.

Who — who am I? Whe- where am I?

Something strange is going on here in blogistan. I am not accusing anyone of anything; I am not going to sit here and say that Pedro “Sleek N Wild” Sekidde is perpetrating a heinous act of internet identity theft of the sort we are warned about every time we watch Oprah; I am sure Sleek N Wild is a gentleman, a Christian and a student of honour and nobility.

Well, I say that now.

But over the past couple of weeks I have noticed that on a few other blogs up in this region comments have appeared ostensibly created by me, Mr Ernest Bazanye, and signed in such a way as to indicate that I, Mr Ernest Bazanye, indeed wrote them, when, in truth, this is not the case. I wrote no such thing! It is signed as Baz, one of my many Internet aliases, but is not actually by self! Perfidy! Treachery! Shit!

In fact, when one runs ones cursor (that’s the little arrow that floats over the screen when you  move the mouse ((that’s the little rodent that lives at the bottom of the cupboard)) ) when one runs ones cursor over the word “Baz” that sits impudently over these false comments, one will notice that the url attached to the name is not mine, bazanye.wordpress.com, but is actually that of Pietr “Sleek N Wild” Twinomugisha’s own website, www.sleekandwild.com.

You can imagine the state of utter and complete flummox I abruptly collapsed into. It seemed as if nothing could rouse me. Fortunately there was a Snickers bar nearby. Lord knows what would have happened if there wasn’t.

My first assumption of course was that Cephas “Sleek N Wild” Gulumaire was playing a clever trick, a practical joke, a jape to confuse you and amuse himself. He was posing as me for the kicks.

That would be your first assumption, too, wouldn’t it? I think it would.

So, I did exactly what you expect me to do in turn.

The  natural, obvious thing. I sped over to Sleekandwild.com and posted a pungent glop of odure in the comments section and signed it Sleek, while logging in my url, bazanye.wordpress.com in place.

“Hah. You thought what.” I said. It was not a question.

However, something curious is happening. My impersonation is not yielding the expected results. It seems that Peedi “Sleek N Wild” Crack has no idea what is going on and is confused by my actions.

Hmmm. I may have misread the situation, I think I misread the situation. It appears I underwent a lapse of literacy as regards the situation.

So, what should I do next? Should I continue posing as Sleek? Just for the hell of it? I mean, it’s fun.

I’m in love with Mary Jane. She’s my main thang.

I woke up this morning with a slight itch in the lower left quadrant of my otherwise immaculately-structured ear. (Yes, my ear has quardrants.) As the day wore on this itch was to grow into something more pernicious, eventually manifesting itself in its fullness as a craving to hear Mary J Blige.

Now, I, like most men of my social caliber, am not entirely averse to Mary J. We appreciate that she is a very good singer of very good songs, but we do not normally find ourselves abruptly overcome by desire to hear her sing.

Clearly my status needs recalibration because, right now, as we speak, I am positively fiending for Mary J tunes.

There is only one thing to do, one place to go.

Scene: The Internet. Exterior. Our Hero stands before doorman named Google.

• What can I do for you today, Mr Ernest Bazanye?
• First of all, I want to thank you for addressing me as Mister. You, Google, are the only one who ever calls me that. Everyone else is just like, Baz, or Ernest, or “Mere Ernest” or “Gwe kigayi tonquenzing kilabe”. I appreciate the respect. I just wanted you to know that.
• Your search – Gwe kigayi tonquenzing kilabe – did not match any documents.

I have found about five songs so far. Using a very complex, esoteric, intricate and ninjitsu process known as “downloading” that I would explain to you, but unless you have a PhD in Internets you won’t even grasp the basics, I collected Be Happy, Goin’ Down, and a few special live performances which I shall listen to and be sated. You, meanwhile, may continue to enjoy your Rejo and Weezo.

Woo wooo wooo yeah yeah!

Meanwhile, guess who I found blogging. Lydia Namubiru!

2 Pictures = 2,000 words.

We shall begin this desperate attempt to fill up space by thrunking (Thrunking: noun. To just put kigafla fwa) pictures on this internet by placing my current facebook profile picture up in here. Below the picture is a comment also from facebook.

 

Facebook is an internet site which features various profile pictures and comments, each attached to a different individual who may or may not only be on the site constantly seeking validation and approval for his or her otherwise meaningless existence.

The headphone jack is reminiscent of a solitary sperm's lateral approach towards two unfertilized eggs superimposed on an arrangement not unlike the double ova womb-space while the headphone cord is perhaps both a play on the double-helix structure of our DNA as well as the vagino-cervical structure. Yes... yes.. I would definitely say that this is a statement on the threat homosexuality poses to the survival of the human species. (Prof G. O. Radier, Missouri State University, Drunk)

 

 

 

Secondly I have a cute picture of a fuzzy pink teddy bear that I hope will fill you with inner personal joy of the kind that only the most wussy and prissy and pathetic and weakling thoughts can inspire.

or not.

What did I tell you? Muthafucka what. Did. I. Tell. You!

 

And now, let me go find some more.

 

 

 

Bongo-bound

To those who have had the recent misfortune of hearing my incessant crowing about a flight to “outside countries”, I must confess now that the only outside country I was journeying to was Tanzania. Not impressive, I know, for we all consider Tanzania a step down in terms of urban sophistication from Wakirundannimilo Subcounty, Kooki.

The trip itself was horrible, fraught with perils and trials and treacherous hazards including my having to eat a rolex in Port Bell while I waited for a large an chaotic flock of nuns to get their papers in order. Port Bell, the entire place, that is, stinks of rotting leaves. And there is a constant hint of decomposing human in the air.

I shall not go on about the airport food and how exhorbitantly it is priced. I already mentioned that on facebook and for that was labeled a whoremonger.

I said “20k for buffet? This food had better taste like some sex.” Of course I was just suggesting my PG way that for that price, the food should give me an extraordinary amount of pleasure. Unfortunately my facebook buddies never miss a chance to run my self esteem into the ground so they spent the next twenty comments asking me what 20k worth of sex is supposed to taste like and suggesting that I was an experienced customer and therefore should know.

Tut tut.

I shall not belabour the part about how I was stranded at the airport because the organisation that invited me to Tz didn’t pick me up, and how I spent all my money on theiveing taxi drivers and a nice but not nice enough hotel.
I eventually made it to Coral Beach, and decided that, well, Tz is not that bad.

For those of you who have Flash Players (which should be most of you, though I can’t speak for all staff of The Monitor, and that jibe is aimed squarely at Phoenixlulu) fire up your computers and behold the splendour that is Coral Beach Hotel.

Yeah. I was in there somewhere, in one of the luxurious rooms, surfing wireless all night for free and thinking, “I should be mad about not being picked up and all, but this is nayiss.”

Excuse my Ugandan accent, but it gets stronger when I am around other African accents. The lower half of Africa, I noticed from my interactions with my fellow workshop participants, pronounce nearly every vowel as “eh”. It is very distracting. Even the Tanzanian dudes do it.

Tanzanians are a mystery in many ways. How they manage to change presidents without guns is a matter of constant bewilderment to most of the rest of Africa, but this, too, will stymie you.

 

Yes, but what the hell does it do? Is Foma engine grease or toothpaste?

That I hear sevenfifty. Sevenfifty what. That is not a question.

You think I am talking about mobile phones again, don’t you? That’s why you are screwing your face up like that. I mean, it’s sexy in a way, granted, but how do you do that? I mean, it’s like your lower lip has gone inside out. I mean, it’s kind of sexy in a way, but I worry when you do that. You’ll hurt yourself.

That’s why I must insist that you understand that this is not about mobile phone. This is about life. Life, okay? I’m philosophising here.

In previous discussions on this topic, I let on that I had a small infatuation with a new model of cellphone which I leeringly called Zuena. However, because that particular model was so expensive I transferred my lust towards a cheaper model, the Baby Zu, which I also gushed obscenely about.

Well, today, on my way from the barber shop (Why thank you. I do look excellent and fly, now that you mention it.) I passed by a shop that had Nokias on display. And there discovered that Baby Zu was available in Uganda at last.

At how much?  Let’s back up first.

Zuena is retailing at 800,000 hard-earned Uganda shillings. Baby Zu, according to my friend, The Internet, should cost half that, being essentially a stripped down poor man’s edition of the original. But at this shop the woman told me she was going to sell the Baby Zu at me for 750k.

Just 50k less for a phone that is less than half as awesome as the 800k one.

I spat and directed her to kiss all of my ass and stomped out of there in a violent huff, slamming the fucking door and kicking a nearby kitten in the teeth. What an outrage. But the price isn’t the worst thing.

You see a phone on the internet isn’t the same thing as the phone in real life. The Baby Zu has hot pictures on the web, but that is like those Sara no. I can’t go there.

In real life it is not that impressive. In real life it is a measly, pathetic, scrawny, half-hearted attempt at a phone. It is a sad excuse. It’s ridiculous. It’s like Zuena’s runty cousin.

No, it’s like a late-term abortion of a Zuena, that’s how pathetic it looks in real life.

Mbu 750k. Ntsss.

So, the moral of the story (this is supposed to be a parable about life, not a rant about phones, after all) is… well, really what sort of philosophy teacher gives you the answers?

Meanwhile, it gives me all sorts of pleasure to introduce Caramel. It’s beautiful.

Kiss My Arts

I am no expert academic or scholar of fine art, but I think that only makes me even more qualified to tell you about this hideous piece of crap that hangs in the boardroom of the noble corporation for which I work.

It is large and colourful and it occupies a prominent position on the wall behind the conference table where you would think a pleasant decorative item would be more appropriately located. Instead, however, we have this, a thoroughly repugnant painting, as repulsive as it is bewildering.

Now, abstract art does not fool anyone except art scholars and the artists themselves. The rest of us know that it is bullshit. The rest of us recognize that there is a very scanty difference between the painting described as “a vivid exposition of bold strokes and vital figures posed in provocative postures which allude to violent memories while simultaneously evoking spirits of blah blah” and a skidmark in your drawers.

So we really don’t expect a lot of sense from these things and can ignore them. They only really offend us when we hear of how much they cost, then they get really sickening. To think that millions were paid for this spastic, jerking about completely randomly all over canvas throwing colours up and down with no sense or reason? That chafes at the sensitive man’s sense of rightness.

But this painting? This painting is so horrible that if I were to find out what it costs it would not just hurt my spirit, it would stab hard into my soul and drain out all my faith and from that day on I will be dead inside, just a walking shell as incapable of love as of hate. Just an empty shell.

Here is the painting.

I am no expert academic or scholar of fine art, but I think that only makes me even more qualified to tell you about this hideous piece of crap that hangs in the boardroom of the noble corporation for which I work.

It is large and colourful and it occupies a prominent position on the wall behind the conference table where you would think a pleasant decorative item would be more appropriately located. Instead, however, we have this, a thoroughly repugnant painting, as repulsive as it is bewildering.

Now, abstract art does not fool anyone except art scholars and the artists themselves. The rest of us know that it is bullshit. The rest of us recognize that there is a very scanty difference between the painting described as “a vivid exposition of bold strokes and vital figures posed in provocative postures which allude to violent memories while simultaneously evoking spirits of blah blah” and a skidmark in your drawers.

So we really don’t expect a lot of sense from these things and can ignore them. They only really offend us when we hear of how much they cost, then they get really sickening. To think that millions were paid for this spastic, jerking about completely randomly all over canvas throwing colours up and down with no sense or reason? That chafes at the sensitive man’s sense of rightness.

But this painting? This painting is so horrible that if I were to find out what it costs it would not just hurt my spirit, it would stab hard into my soul and drain out all my faith and from that day on I will be dead inside, just a walking shell as incapable of love as of hate. Just an empty shell.

Here is the painting.

I mean, what the fuck, right?

It makes no sense. Okay, when I grab at the corners of my head and squeeze hard and try try try to find some way of figuring out what is going on, the most I can come up with is that somebody dropped a bitano coin and everyone is trying to find it but they can’t because the floor is covered in spaghetti.

But that is not the only reason they can’t. Apparently before the coin was dropped, somebody else, probably Dr Doom, came along with a transmogrifier ray that changes human flesh into plasticene and now the people, because they have no muscles, can no longer effect real human postures. They just flail and flap around unnaturally, stretching and bending and curving like bits of hollow tubing. The guy on the left in yellow looks like he was poised to spank the ass of the woman in blue before she changed and now the only reason we can’t see the expression of shock and disappointment that has taken over his face is that the face itself has been transmogrified into a raisin.

I don’t need to go into further detail. You get the point. I think this painting is stupid.

I’m not one of those people who dismiss everything they don’t understand as stupid. Usually, I can appreaciate that just because I don’t get the joke, that doesn’t mean the joke is not funny. Just because I don’t get the point that doesn’t mean no point exists. But usually, I need to at least see that some effort went into creating the thing I don’t understand. Mozart and Beethoven have as much impact on me as windy rain, but I can appreciate that you have to be pretty clever to be able to make this music that bores me so much.

However, look at this shit. The guy can’t even draw. The legs on that guy look like ears. What about.

Hiatus post

Mbu nti now you go on facebook.

You find someone called Jesus, like Jesus Gonzalez or Jesus Cruz.

You send him a message like, “Lord, please accept me as your friend.”

And “Lord, I have a test this weekend and I really need to pass. I promise next time I will study harder.”

Or “Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned. Me and Harry were using our mobile phones to take dirty pictures of IDP chicks while pretending we were going to get them sponsorships.”

Etc.

I don’t think he will find the joke funny. But if his names is Jesus, he should learn to forgive.

Now, ensonga: Back in the old days we used to have a pretend celebrity endorsement. But after Darlkom, Petesmama AND Princess have all, in reality, used the b-word to describe Lloyd’s writing, why wheel out an imaginary Charlize Theron?A dose of words to the head is here.  B-word is “beautiful” not bitch, by the way.

I have nothing to say, but I have something that you should hear

It’s fairly obvious that I don’t have things to blog about these days. I would say that I am thinking of going on hiatus except that, well, that’s kind of like Nemo saying he’s thinking of taking a dip.

I’m having a crisis of confidence, banange. And it’s serious. Don’t laugh at me. Ashy, stop laughing at me. You are hurting my furleengs etc.

But I still have something for you to read.

Kakati, my motto in life has always been very direct: Either you are kawa or you’re an asshole. Do not be an asshole.

In spite of all the subtleties and nuances and greyshadings and blurry edges that go with discussions about good and evil, right and wrong, moral and sinful, what we should do and what we shouldn’t do, this simple fist of words still manages to hold onto the general idea pretty tightly. Do not be an asshole.

This doesn’t mean be apathetic. I believe that the default setting for human character is actually benevolent. We are wired to help one another.

I say that to introduce this:

The idea of paying it forward is something that we can do in our daily lives. It is simply doing the things that may mean little to us but mean the world to others, like helping a stranger change a flat tyre or holding the door open for the mailman. The idea is simply to be truly kinder.

Hit the site on blogger or on wordpress and leave a comment, contribute to the discussion.