LIVE LARGE

Moved house

2007-05-01T23:16:00.000-07:00

Was nice while it lasted, thank you maám.

going over to http://detoxcenter.wordpress.com/

Great people.

Racism boils beneath

2007-04-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

(I have been trying to post this since yestrday).

Yesterday, just as I started a new post, news started trickling in that there was trouble in town. The peaceful demo against the give away of Mabira Forest had gone awry.

I decided to wait and see how it’d unfold. It did. Badly.

Running battles, dead people who’d assured their wives at home that this time, it was safe coz the police chief had been quoted just the previous day saying that there wouldn’t be any trouble.

Now, three innocent people are dead.

This is not a post where I lay blame. Don’t have the strength to do that.

Just trying to imagine, though I can’t, what people of Asian extract are feeling right now. All the shops that belong to Indians’ in town, the one’s I know of anyway, are closed. I gues there’s going to be heavy traffic out of the country at the airport this weekend.

I shudder to think that most of the people on the streets are not feeling any remorse. How can we look at the Rwandans and say they are savage after 1994 when we are displaying the same traits?

I know, most of the people who threw the stones’ that ended the life of the unfortunate guy in the black shirt were part of the ‘led,’ not the instigators. But have we no shame? How do you pick a rock and cast it at the head of a HUMAN being, knowing well that it could end his life, will end his life?

Yesterday, we showed ourselves for who we really are; we are a racist lot and when we go to the USA and get Rodney King’d we should just shut it. The events also exposed the danger we are in. We live on the brink of madness, just as the Tutsis in Rwanda lived with killers next to them yet they exchanged gifts at Christmas and invited them into their houses for their children’s birthdays.

I saw a TV presenter yesterday who, in the middle of his show, said almost as an afterthought that we should observe a moment of silence for the “Bayindi who lost their lives,” this with a smirk on his face.

I heard two chicks laughingly saying they wished the mob had gone for their Indian bosses and beaten the crap outta them.

And the president must have not heard the full extent of the chaos when he made those arrogant remarks while at the VP’s home. He was making light of a situation that some people will inevitably pin on him.

The only one who might breath more easily in this maelstrom is the VP. At least the Red Pepper might give him a break after all.

Don’t you just hate it when Blogger just wont open when you click Blog This!?

The anointed of the Lord

2007-04-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

When the noise dies down, the big man will probably rise up and see about answering us. See we are all just proles. That is the biggest mistake we made when we had to choose between being big and being just normal, we played with our chances. We blinked and missed it. So now we have to live with that mistake.

The big men don't get there by being all good and pretty. They fight and get muddy all over. They sweat blood and make big sacrifices. That's why it sounds so strange when the proles try to make changes by just talking. You can't cause change by demonstrating. Not in a world gone crazy, where the only way to understand others is the color of blood.

So are we ready for the revolution? Do we need a revolution?

It is said we should not touch the annointed of the lord. God weighs us and gives us the leaders we deserve. So who are we to start fighting over things we are unhappy about? We got ourselves here, no?

There's alot of idle talk. Maybe that's why things never change in this land. The guys up there have gotten used to the fact that we talk and never act.

I don't know...these days i just rumble.

Britney’s brother

2007-03-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

He's so lucky, he's a star
But he cry, cry, cries with his lonely heart, thinkin
If theres nothing missing in my life
Then why do these tears come out at night?

He’s used to it. He’s gone through the pain of being misunderstood all his life. From as far back as he can remember, people have treated him like an ornament and he could write a book about it. He won’t. He couldn’t care less.

The world looked around, scratched it’s head and pondered. Then it spotted him and decided that he’d do. So it took him and forcefully pushed him onto the stage. He was placed in a position he was not ready for.

Even without strings to move his arms and feet, he felt like he was a puppet. He was required to play the game the way the world dictated. He had to smile and wow the audience at the appropriate times or woe unto him.

He went through it all. The world gave him a name and looked away, uncaring about his opinion. He had to own the name. He had to be the star. The costume was at his feet, ready to be worn. There was a mega production to perform.

No one noticed that he had a double personality. No one could have thought it was possible.

But he found out that he was happiest when he was himself; the other personality. He was happiest after the curtains had fallen, after the applause had died, after the grimace had faded. His was not a smile, he knew. He was in pain but who cared?

The world is still reeling from the shock. He was caught by the police in a very compromising situation with a MAN in a car just outside his home. Not even his pastors know what to tell the congregation regarding their youth pastor’s conduct.

Now I know my A B C…

2007-03-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

A – Ani akumanyi? Hit from Grace, Gatimo and Paragon. I know, its not really the latest beat doing the rounds but, hey, you gotta admit, that song was so Ugandan. I mean, how many peeps do you know who go around doing nothing but brag about what they’ve got. I mean, what their daddy has got?

B – Besigye. I do not know that man, Besigye, I did not have…any dealings with him.

C – Crosshairs. To get in the gun sights of the Americans, let me say this…I know where OSAMA is hiding. The WORLD TRADE CENTRE and 9/11 were inside jobs. The CIA is not all that. I know. Pointless stuff that is neither here nor there. But right now, one bored CIA analyst is reading this blog and will soon be reading all the Ugandan blogs. Man, those guys need to live a little. Life’s not that serious.

D – Disco. Do people still say that? ‘s far as I know, not even in the farthest corner of Ibulanku will you find people saying disco.

E – The Energy Ministry of Uganda. That’s the place to work these days. Its not MTN or Shell or Terp anymore. It is in energy. Y’know, oil…A very high person is out of the country reading oil related studies. And he did something completely different at campus. When he returns, I see him being appointed PS of the yet to be created Ministry of Oil.

F – Fat Boy. James Onen has lived up to his radio moniker. He is larger than life and all those who don’t listen to him in the morning have twisted days.

G – Google. The guys holding onto my millions. Until I get tired with living in dusty Uganda, then I’ll go and take what’s mine. Oh, and they own blogger too.

H – Hot and cold. Ndugu Rugunda and others like him can’t be trusted. One respects them for being principled and they suddenly turn around and kick us in the teeth. When that guy starts talking, you think he can even reason with the president about some things. I don’t even want to remember that stormy day in parliament when he stood there and justified stupidity. Dude! Even a military junta can pull off that stunt at the court (Black Snakes? Black Monkeys? Black Mambas?) with more style. And this is not a military junta.

I – Intelligence. What you get when you read the Ugandan blogosphere. This motley crew is so funny, so witty, so neurotic, you can't leave without being impacted. Every morning, I come here to read what others are thinking and I come away with an idea that I believe makes a difference. Man, they just too many...

J – Justice Ogoola. Guy who enjoys saying huge words the media loves to pick up. Pure hyperbole. But the Black Mambas are not that impressed.

K – Kenya. The home of kenyanchick, Acolyte, Modathi,m and Kibaki. The other country that Ugandans will run to when things get really hot in here. And when they return, they’ll say they’ve been in Iraq. Or Juba.

L – Life Guard. Could be the hunk at the beach or just a simple piece of latex used in Uganda. Play on words.

M – Marriage. A whole new ball game.

N – Njagala k’kumanya. Once upon a time, there was Wipolo. We danced around the pool at Prime Time with Okudi and felt like a billion Museveni dollars. Then came Beera Nange and even the first family started requesting for private performances from Babirye. Now we have Mukama Njagala k’kumanya by Wilson Bugembe and it’s still on TV, not yet at the taxi park but one can see the trend.

O – Letter O. Dumbest song I’ve heard in a long time. And we just love it.

P – Phoenix. As in “Cowboy, never dies/ if he dies never rots/ if he rots, never smells…The writers who always reinvent themselves and wow you all over again. Austin Ejiet, Lilliane Barenzi, David Tumusiime, Brian Magoba, Musaazi Namiti, Phoebe Mutetsi, Tony Owana, Angela Kintu, Nathan Magoola, Esther Namugoji, Emmanuel Senkware, Michael Akiyo, Gwyne Dyer, Angela Kintu, John Grisham…

Q – Quiz. What you go through when you want a new job. Easy questions you’d answer without even thinking in any other setting but when you face the panel, even one of people you know personally, the answers suddenly go AWOL!

R – Reno Raines. The renegade. As in, when you want to take matters into your hands and cause change. When the state comes down on you, you better be ready to go the whole nine yards. Gasiya Tu!

S – S-Club 7 of Uganda. Learnt that from Ernest as he ranted about a hip-hop PAMA (ouch!) won by a certain group back in the day yet they did not know the first thing about hip-hop.

T – Tear Gas. Also called Tiya Gaasi by Bukedde, Uganda’s leading daily. (I don’t think The New Vision sells as many copies. When you go to town in the morning do you find dudes eating katogo while they read their New Vision and wait for the cobbler to shine their shoes? I didn’t think so). Anyway, back to Tiya Gaasi; it’s the latest method through which state violence is metted out. Those who’ve experienced it all say it’s not exactly the best way to spend your weekend in town.

U – Undercover. Also called moonlighting. When you write for every publication in the country and even cross borders. The art of writing with different personalities and your readers can't make the connection.

V – Virus. The little critter has millions dying everyday and we acquire it through the purest, most tricky way. Talking about HIV, stupid.

W – Watoto. Those kids’ testimonies have always sounded corny to me since those ‘Holy Spirit’ filled days at campus. Every time one of them steps forward with a wide smile, I just can’t suppress the feeling that the poor thing has no choice because should he mess up his lines, he’s gonna have a sore butt for days after. But all that vanishes when they start singing. Those kids have voices to die for.

X – Xenson. Strange dude. He’s the guy who goes around spray painting walls in Kampala. Well, he’s the only one I’ve seen doing it. Probably the only one crazy enough to do it. He graduated top of his class but decided he wanted to live according to his own rules. He threw out foreign shirts, pants and shoes and made his own. Oh, and that’s not all, everything that comes into his head, he believes he can do. So he goes out and does it; film, photography, calligraphy, fashion design, Cultural Revolution…dude reminds me of 27th. I can imagine him at his home hollering, “emancipate yourself from mental slavery…”

Y – Yes! That’s Us. The company that employs Don Mugisha, Uganda’s own Steven Spielberg in the making. It made the movie DivizionZ, which was co produced by our very own Nate. They also make fantastic videos. Have you seen Kube, the hit by the East African Bashment Crew?

Z – Zawedde. Sarah Zawedde has come a long way but I bet the journey’s been worth it. There was a time when she was chasing journos to do write-ups on her and we didn’t see anything to write about. With, Kambeere Naawe, see who’s chasing now.

small talk about the weather

2007-02-23T06:55:00.000-08:00

Lately, it has been getting really hot in Kampala. Our little office in Kamwokya is becoming an oven. Sometimes I think this is foreshadowing for those who wont be lucky enough to hang with the others and me in heaven after this life.

We are still clinging to the colonial dictates of dressing up like whites; in Uganda, you are not smart unless you are wearing a tie. If you want to see some one pretty quick, the way to beat the front desk management is to wear a tie and look all-important. But that’s beside the point.

Uganda and the rest of the countries in this part of the world are not to blame for what is happening to the climate of this planet. We pollute but we don’t come even halfway what the west does. But that doesn’t mean we are going to keep our Eden intact while the rest of the world burns. Or drowns.We are "of the world" too. It rains on the righteous and the wicked alike, the wacky chick says.

Europe is running scared. The Beeb is doing a yearlong coverage on climate change and the other networks have taken it up. After years of running free, their sins are catching up with them.

And America, the biggest culprit is not wiping the egg off their face. After messing up our climate, producing toys they dont really need, and becoming too rich in the process, they are silent. The Govinator in Cali is calling for a 20% cut on industrial emissions but I think it’s too little too late.

It spells doom for the Arabs and Uganda. Just when we start our jubilations about the discovery of oil, institute a national prayer day where the first lady and her family eloquently thank God for giving us oil,after the big fishes have acquired the most expensive real estate in Uganda at the moment in Bunyoro, western Uganda, oil goes out of fashion.

The next big thing is not oil because oil is one of the biggest problems to the environment. Hybrid cars are already popular in the west and the European Parliament is already pushing for tem to be official policy.

As Ice T's character in the movie Ricochet said, the white people have us by the balls. If we rise to a point where we can make as much money as they do, money will become worthless. Cat shit will be the in-thing. Then they'll make the cats go extinct and only they will have just a few to rule world again. Paraphrasing.

The euwww! moment

2007-02-20T04:28:00.000-08:00

I meet this guy; old school mate. I wasn’t close to him back then and we now talk just because we went to the same school.

No one liked him that much actually. I put it down to jealousy ‘cause dude is a ‘bwat,’ as in, a nerd who never gets anything below 75% He was always getting straight As and making everyone else feel like they came to school to grow.

This morning, I am petrified because I realise peeps didn’t like him for other reasons. I found out the hard way.

He sees me in the distance and his face lights up. His pace increases and as he gets near, he sticks his finger in his nose.

No. U didn’t just do that.

Then he grabs for my hand.

Mun2: My shillings on this guy

2007-02-09T11:11:00.000-08:00

Just in case Warren B and Bebe Cool don’t want the hot seat…

It’s so hard out there being a prez

2007-02-05T05:37:00.000-08:00

Our president is on pressure as we speak. If he’s not, well, he should be. What with the many barbs coming from all directions!

The opposition is having a field day. Mama Miria Obote is riding on the wave; throwing in her several cents’ worth of ideas. Heck, this is the chick who was on the ropes just a few weeks ago, being taken to task about her role in her late husband’s reign(s).

The whole furore is about the land giveaways that are running way out of hand.

In Uganda, if you want to get free land, get the president’s private number and call him. Tell him you have a business proposition. Just that. The rest will just fall into place.

Before you know it, you’ll have hundreds of hectares of land. Free. Well, you can pay like $1 in some cases.

This has been going on for some time now. People have been getting free land from government for a long time. That’s not like a new thing. Problem is that The Other Media House (TOMH) started to focus on it seriously, even started a subsection for it called Land Bonanza. Suddenly, the shit has hit the fan.

So the president has given out land to investors to build hotels in time for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Big deal.

What are we gaining in the mean time? Methinks there’s a lot.

I am thinking of the many jobs that will definitely be created when there are more investors coming to my country. I am thinking that if people can feel secure putting down hundreds of dollars knowing that they will not be hindered when they want to up and go, they will come here in their hundreds.

Some really sensitive areas like forests have been given away. Forests like Mabira and Bugala have been signed over to the rich people who say they can turn them into money minting projects.

I cry for that side of events because that means in the scheme of things, the president and his government do not see any importance attached to things like wetlands (see Sudhir Ruparelia’s Rosebud) and forests. The environment does not feature anywhere on his list of priorities.

That’s side, however, I don’t think he’s way out of line. I want to live in a country where the people feel proud that they are citizens. I want to see a stop to the perennial story of Ugandans jumping on the plane and flying to the colder climes. Really.

I think Ugandans are looking for the good life outside. They can’t find it here so they go out there. If these investors can bring a semblance of what is out there attracting our doctors and neurosurgeons and engineers, then I am all for it, regardless of the pain and the price at which we attain it.

I believe right now, we cannot see anything good in these happenings. I believe the president is not the favourite person of even his staunchest supporters. All this is because he does his things like a dictator. Wait a minute; he is a dictator.

But history will judge him right. I know.

The days after tomorrow

2007-01-31T02:20:00.000-08:00

On the road to the Namugongo Shrine in Uganda, in a place called Kireka, one cant miss the hundreds of jerry-cans lined up to get water. The beauty of the colour mix is lost on you when you realise that this is the picture of a crisis.

This area has not had piped water in the homes for about two years. People are beginning to give up hope. Two years is a long time.

But that is not a small problem for a small forgotten area in the boondocks. It is a harbinger of bigger problems to come. Tomorrow, next week, next year, we are going to have wars.

The world’s population is growing faster than the water sources are producing water.

We learnt in our SST classes in primary school that the River Nile is the life blood of Egypt. That knowledge seems to have been good only for passing exams. Not for the Egyptians though.

With their technological power and advanced zeal, they are in the position to do with the waters of the Nile whatever they want. Already, they have told the other countries along the basin not to tamper with the water.

Essentially, that means that if you want to build hydro-electric plants and your country lies in this basin, you have to first get permission from down there (Egypt). Chances are that you won’t be getting that permission.

The problem is wider. The Jordan River is gone. It is dead and buried. Israel and the Palestinians have come to some sort of agreement about the sharing of the waters but that is something that’s becoming more and more difficult to handle.

When you move over to Asia, the countries below China in the Mekong Valley are increasingly becoming beholden to their giant neighbour to the north.

The water is becoming more precious. We are sleeping, not finding new ways to manage water and the result is that foreigners in distant offices out there are thinking for us. The world is too preoccupied with oil as the main resource and forgetting about the more important issue of water.

The image from Kevin Costner’s Waterworld comes back fiercely. The movie was made many years ago but it could be prophetic.

CENTER FOR EMOTIONAL STUDIES

2007-01-29T22:41:00.000-08:00

1. Abhor deodorants even when the whole world knows you can afford to buy one. For crying out loud, they still sell those Gift of Zanzibar things, don’t they? But that’s just the point. Be a badass.
2. Wait for the passengers to get into the car and drive off for like a hundred meters then say “Lukumi, Nakawa.” This at Kireka, a distance that would cost one like UgSh300 on a normal day. But this is no normal day, hombre.
3. When the smart chick in back says “mumaas’awo” just step on it and stop a hundred meters from the spot. She will have to get another taxi back, the spoilt, beautiful, unavailable hag. (All this is inside your head, otherwise, people will think you are just jealous, a big baby).
4. When the dude sitting next to you starts bumping to the beat on the funky Jay Z joint, change the station to CBS. Watch him grow dark blue with anger then tell him to buy his own car where he can listen to people talking and they want to make the world believe that they are singing. Twakowa.
5. Leave banana peels on the seats.
6. Leave the seats wet on Sunday when the people get to put their Sunday Bests to go to KPC. They should be going to pray, not to show off their lousy, expensive threads.
7. Give the car to your randy friend and don’t check it after. You never know, he might have left the evidence of his hanky-panky in the back seat and that will just tick off the matron who thinks she can change the world with her lectures.
8. Drive like a demon when you realise some chick is travelling with her grand-ma from Bugerere and the said granny has probably never been inside a matatu. Show her where Statham learnt his tricks.

Martin

2007-01-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

Back in secondary school, in Form One, most of us were too little, too skinny. We saw huge guys for the first time and we were in constant fear.

There were two huge guys in my class. One was showy and loud and such an idiot. The other was quiet and always joking. The showy one was actually bigger, though with hindsight, I think it could have been flab.

You guessed it; there was soon a showdown. Showy Guy is trying to bully some section of the class and suddenly, Quiet Nice Guy is standing up, challenging him. I had never seen him this angry.

So they start sizing each other up. Showy Guy has a rep to maintain and Quiet Nice Guy has nothing to lose. He is ice cold and he is daring his foe to come on over to get beat. No one who saw the fire in his eyes that day doubted that he would have torn his enemy to pieces. Limb from limb, like an over cooked piece of chicken.

The other guy backed down and started mumbling something. we didn't care anymore. The balance of power had shifted so suddenly, so dramatically. We had a new king. And those who were friendly to him were suddenly more confident. He sat next to me so...

The bullies from the higher classes did not cross the threshold of our classroom. We heard that there were cases of bullying in other classes but those were just stories. If you were in Mwiri during those years when the wars with the Jinja schools raged, you will remember his heroics, proudly leading a whole school against loonies with sticks and stones.

It was like he was two different people. He was cool, calm and collected but then, he could erupt and do unthinkable things. I guess that was foreshadowing.

Last month, I saw him on the street but he was so different. He was not the proud, smart eloquent dude I knew back in school. He was an outcast.

He moves around talking to himself. He has matted hair and he doesn’t know, or care what a clean shirt looks like, feels like.

He has no pants. He has no dignity. He has no shame.

When people see him on the other side of the street, they change their plans to cross over. It could be because of the smell that they predict will rise off him into their clean nostrils but then again, it could be because normal sane people don’t present themselves like that to society.

He doesn’t eat what you eat. He eats the left overs of the city. From a big bowl that overflows with the other refuse of many days and nights.

Martin Aliker is stark raving mad.

Splinters

2007-01-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

The people interviewed on UBC’s The Beat, one gets the feeling they are being forced to say the things they say. Maybe they are. They keep on stealing glances at someone just off the camera; like that person is holding a big stick and waving it threateningly. After all, they can’t be going like, “Wassup my peeps in Kawaala. And my rastas, I and I bless and we be hanging with NTV…”

After all these months, Tindatiine (the song and the chick) is still a hit. She still gets called to perform at Bivvulu. Riding on one hit. People like this, Peter Andre and Tindatiine. It’s not fair.

You know that feeling when you are about to meet the girl on the Sunday radio show. Remember those days when Christine Mawadri was unseen and she was just everyone’s dream girl? Look what happened when she decided to start being up in our faces.

I heard on the grapevine that Bobi Wine has been clamped down for two years for daring to write a song that’s overly critical of the establishment. Ati Ghetto got him in trouble for its stinging attack on the powers that be. Well, he can always come to my village. We’ve been looking for a bard for a long time. He’ll always be welcome.

How can Stanbic Bank lose close to 2bn shillings in less than 6 months? Is it like the punching bag, the whipping boy of Ugandan banks? I mean, they go and lose 500,000 (for those outside Uganda and who might think our money is too much, don’t be fooled by the figures) and then just yesterday, 1bn! And at 6pm when there is a serious jam in the town. Means the heist was planned well, factoring in the jam, considering they were not caught.

I think I know why kids these days are mixed up and don’t refer me to The Sunscreen. They are watching bad TV shows and playing crazy vid games. Where have Tintin, Captain Cradock, Asterix and Obelix gone? I imagine kids have to make decisions about red and blue pills. And they always swallow the red ones. The Matrix is real, my friend.

Some writer for the Wall Street Journal, with a serious case of constipation wrote that blogging is stupid and useless. Mbu all bloggers do is ride on the information of the MSM (read that in that article) or Main Stream Media. Well, whatever. Get a life.

Halliburton, that oil and construction company is recruiting East Africans to go work in its hot areas. It is being said that Iraq is the most prominent. American professionals are increasingly losing the urge to go. Even the money won’t convince them anymore. So what does that say about the Kenyans and Ugandans who are going regardless of all the scary stories? They have already said they don’t care, at least here in Ug. The poverty here might kill them but it will take too long and that means a lot of suffering. Going to Iraq to guard might mean death but at least it’ll be quick. Besides, they might survive it all and come back with a fortune.

Since Blogger can control our stuff, I keep on wondering when they’ll get tired of waiting for the rest of us to get on Beta. I have read many complaints of people saying the new form is the pits. How do you take on Blogger. I’m all ears.

Like, can you remember a time when there was no war in the Middle East? Seriously?

So Shane Warne has called it quits, big deal. I tried to spin like him back in school and failed. And I survived. My most entertaining spinners are very slow. And their balls twist even more beautifully before they hit the stumps. Get some rest Shane.

And yes, there are Ugandans who say “thouthand.” It’s so painful.

Bebe Cool could make a great president, don’t you think? With that Nameless guy as his Veep.

He said she said

2007-01-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

So the government has denied, vehemently, that they had any hand in the erasing of charismatic rebel lord, Dr. Andrew Kayiira 20 years ago.

Uganda’s government, for those who don’t know the inside story, did not come to power nicely. They had to fight it out. They had to go to the bush – 27 men-oba 26? (!!!!????, believe me, I am also still wondering how that lie has stood the test of time) and shoot the hell out of the elected government.

Andrew Kayiira was the leader of another group that had the same agenda as that of the National Resistance Army which had major issues with the Prez at the time, Dr. Apollo Milton Obote who was too chicken to stay around and answer to all the charges that have been levelled against him. Well he answered but from very far.

Kayiira was shot in 1987, a couple of years after the coup that brought Kagu to power. Since there can only be one cock-of-the-walk, the death of the doctor was immediately pegged on officialdom, however much they tried to show that their hand was clean.

Now, the people either are too thick or they have nugu. Last week, the Democratic Party, one of the opposition organisations decided to shake off the image of cowardice. You see, they have always taken their grievances to court unlike some people who think that when they have issues, the exact words to use are: “You want some of this, okay, lets take this outside…I mean to the bush.” And other such unsavoury things.

Anyway, DP took this Kayiira thing and masqueraded as very hurt citizens crying out for Kayiira’s justice. They said they have the report from Scotland Yard which implicated government. Apparently, that’s why the report hasn’t been released to the public for 20 years. The president said DP just wanted to force the Tear Gassers to act. Oh, by the way, if you didn’t know, Uganda is fast becoming the place where tear gas manufacturers will be camping soon because the market is just too tempting. The weekends bring the premiership soccer and tear gas at political riots.

Every one is running around screaming that they have the real report. It is good money. On top of getting yourself on TV, you can get the development partners to give you a visa because the evidence will be in their face; state inspired violence warranting asylum in their country.

2007-01-03T05:26:00.001-08:00

2007 here we are

2007-01-03T05:26:00.000-08:00

The year has started but going by the mood, its not going to be the year we all get our dreams fulfilled. Sometimes I stop and wonder if we all haven’t missed the rupture; that all the really deserving haven’t left and are up there sipping on juice. Just before 2005 started, there was the Tsunami. Parallel: Just before 2007 started, Saddam Hussein was killed.

Now, I am tempted to say he didn’t really die. I mean, a figure that big, a guy who fought it out with the Americans in 1990 and won can’t just be there dying like that, really? People with hero status don’t die. Elvis is alive. Tupac is alive. Saddam is definitely alive. I don’t know what those guys have been showing on TV and I don’t know when the truth will come out but I know there is a stink somewhere.

I also got myself a UHF aerial and was introduced to the joys of NTV. Of course, the Kenyans could say we are all going gaga for nothing, that the station is not all that cosidering, but when you have been given WBS as the best entertainment for so long, when Denis Mawanda wins best TV presenter (he did sometime back) when NTV shows up, you just can’t resist the urge to punch the air. I bet the programs manager there is experiencing a bad case of diarrhea. When Straka finally leads another walkout, then the situation will really become apparent. Don’t you just love the way they give you the real implications of a news story instead of just reporting?

I started at my new job. I was plucked out of the freedom of walking the streets and I guess I am going to have to realize my dreams from here. Plus I get to read all your blogs at no cost.

A very good friend of mine told me he is starting on a journey that will end at the end of next year; he’s getting married if everything goes according to plan. May the Force be with you, my friend.

I read in the New Vision, Uganda’s main government daily that at the end of the year 2006, church leaders condemned members of parliament for their demands for 60m shilling worth cars. The next day (today) in a continuation of this story, the MPs hit back that clerics are given cars worth 100m shillings by government for doing nothing developmental. What really got me was Rev Zack Niringiye’s charge that instead of stealing in secret, the MPs are now doing it openly. Of course am paraphrasing, I don’t have the paper with me here. I would have wanted to be there to see the expressions on the politicians’ faces when they read that.

The guy who recorded the murder of Saddam on his cell phone has been arrested. I wonder what he’ll be charged with, telling the truth?

Time mag said those who have used the computer to relay info this past year are the Person of the Year 2006. Now that’s something. In your own way, as small as you think it is, you are changing the world somehow. It reminds me of that old rant from the school of hard knocks; you have the power to kill in your hands. The fourth estate is not for joking, joking, alo.

Liverpool pulled off the revenge of the season. They say when you have nugu, wait till it has chilled well then vent it. Bolton hit us sometime ago and it really hurt, dude. It did. When we got them, (the old crone will always wait for when you come around trying to eat her nicely cooked food) we hit the bejesus out of them. A fitting result, by the way. 3 – 0.

A time to cut

2006-12-21T04:22:00.000-08:00

This could be good news for you if you live in East Africa and you are male. Maybe not. If its not good news to you, probably its because you’ve been under the knife.

Recently, it’s been in the news that circumcision can cut the rate of HIV infection in heterosexual men by as much as 50%. In South Africa, in fact, the decline was found to be 60%.

I can imagine what’s going to be happening in the next few years. I can imagine what is going to be happening to the thingies of a lot of males in the region.

It is said that when circumcised, men are less likely to bleed and thus less likely to get infected. That the HIV sensitive cells under the foreskin are removed at circumcision and so letting off the guys.

Good news really. Just imagine what that says for the fight against AIDS. The crippling effect of the disease on Africa’s economy and the way it decimates whole communities in East Africa will be greatly curtailed.

Usually, when such reports are released there is a cynical response from different quarters because it is a report just like a million others. In this case, the cynical retort is from me. I know that the west will fund studies into why this is the case and probably try to disprove it. It sometimes feels like these people don’t believe anything can be good about Africa.

Big Pharma, as I call the medicines industry, the guys who are making a killing supplying the dying world with meds are not about to be happy when the people they are selling drugs to are not falling sick anymore.

I expect a lot of opposition just like they forced Dr. Ssali (RIP), the guy Savage referred to recently, to close shop and to die almost penniless. Strangely, Mariandina, his food supplement drug has been given the green light in the UK by the system. They did it quietly, shamefacedly.

That’s why I am happy for the fact (according to the report) that circumcision reduces the chances of men catching AIDS. I am happy that the gospel of Jeffery Sachs and Bob Geldorf, that HIV/AIDS is one of the greatest obstacles to African development, is going to be thought about more seriously by our governments. What I am skeptical about is really the actions that are going to be taken by the guys who hold the world’s purse strings.

Christmas party

2006-12-18T02:51:00.000-08:00

“All I want for Christmas is my two front teefffffff.”
Alvin and the Chipmunks

The mommies didn’t really have to respond to the invites because they were too unclear. When they got back home, they were surprised by the white envelopes that lay at their door steps. The writing was fine. The papers were fine. It was the fact that there was no sign at the bottom. Plus the fact that the invitees were the mommies’ little boys and girls.

That’s what was puzzling about the whole business. Because in the end they left their darlings go to the party and they left them at the strange looking house, to be picked at the end of the day.

The party was in full swing when Iwaya got there. He was clutching his doll fiercely and staring down everyone. He was spoiling for a fight of course because he knew someone would joke about him and the dolls he played with. All the other little boys play with cars. So what was wrong with this little boy?

In the corner, down-weighed by his daddy’s jeans and his mom’s shades, Sav sat at the small table holding court. Around him, the little boys who all wanted their friends to know that they had the bestest little toy cars jutted little jaws out. Sav was holding court because everyone had accepted that they had to be second to him. He had brought the real thing, or so he said. He’d told his little friends that he had driven his dad’s car to the party. And that daddy dearest had let him.

In the middle of the room, the girls were singing. Or talking. Or crying. It was difficult to know what was going on with them because any of these activities was possible with them at any moment. Someone was crying because someone had tagged on their hair. Another was giggling because Degstar had said something in her ear. It was probably something naughty.

The girls there included this one and this one and this one and this one. This one and this one and this one had not turned up yet.

At the bar (of course being small boys and girls, there was nothing strong at the bar. We were all just playin, you see), was Baz. The pirate’s rag on his head and the stupid looking nose ring didn’t do much to disguise him. He was looking like one of those little men in those Nigerian flicks.

Also hanging and trying to look cool was this guy and this guy and this guy. It was said others were on their way. Probably their moms were still trying to find the place.

That’s when the big guy in a red suit and a silly beard appeared. He kept on saying things like “ho, ho, ho.” The kids looked at him and just got mad. The more he spoke, the more the anger rose. These were definitely not his kind of kids, it turned out.

The bottles and cakes started flying. Not at the silly red guy but at anything that could be perceived as a target. Cakes, sweets, shoes, pillows and tables. Four year olds carrying mahogany tables over their heads just before they tossed them at each other.

The silly red guy in a silly suit escaped. Outside, he met the press and the police. It was a jungle. He was all over the evening news. He said all he ever wanted was to call the kids to a Christmas party. He wanted to wish the children of the neighbourhood a nice festive season. But then, how can you do that when the kids spend their time on the net doing something as crazy as blogging? This when normal kids are out playing with their friends.

‘Tis the season to be merry, I think.

The cycle

2006-12-08T06:25:00.000-08:00

It’s hard to say this but it’s the truth. Kampala is under the attack of cholera. Again. So far, over 300 cases have been reported. A number have died. There is an emergency station in the parking lot at Mulago Hospital, Uganda’s premier referral hospital.

It’s a shame because the circumstances through which one gets this disease are embarrassing; it’s got through ingestion of human waste.

Now it’s not like Ugandans have developed a taste for the stuff, no. It’s the floods that we’ve had since the beginning of November.

Many of the latrines in some parts of the city, especially the north of Kampala are rudimentary. Peeps be doing their bizness just out in the open or in shacks disguised as toilets.

When the rains came, they washed all the shit that’s been lying around into drinking water sources. The good habit of eating fresh fruits has also become dangerous because in many cases, people have been brought in because they ate some mango which they washed with water infested with the bacteria.

The rains usually come with the grasshopper season and the places where the insects have been devoured most have also recorded big numbers of cholera cases. Peeps be eating these things while they are still raw, it seems.

It was just a matter of time.

So why are people still dying of cholera? Why do people still die of preventable diseases in this continent of ours? Cholera, malaria and all these things. Instead of getting ourselves and our kin out of poverty, we are fighting diseases that we shouldn’t be.

In Kampala, those who have airtime to call the radio stations and ask what topic is being discussed have been saying that the cause of the flooding is the Northern by-Pass that’s being constructed in Kampala.

People seem to have very short memories. Every year, the areas of Bwaise have been flooding every time it rains. In fact, back in school, it was a running joke that to live in Bwaise, one needs to invest in a boat.

But that’s beside the point. What I want to know is why these people stay in that area year in year out knowing what’s coming at them at the end of the year. I sure wouldn’t want to have only bleak memories of Christmas. Coz surely, by Christmas time, they have lost a lot.

Three Ages

2006-12-05T05:43:00.000-08:00

Robert Kiyosaki has been called a populist and a free loader. His books have been criticised for their fluffy feel-good nature and that they dont show readers the truth. Think what you want but i know alot of what i do in the next few years will have the backing of this man's philosophy. I am reading Jefferey Sachs' The End of Poverty and i want to see if it's all that. The economists of the world could be making noise just because he's their tight drinking buddy, y'know.

Exerpts from one book...

In the Agrarian Age, the rich were those who owned a castle that overlooked large tracts of fertile land. These people were known as the monarchs and nobles. If you were not born into this group, you were an outsider with very little chance of becoming an insider. The 90/10 rule controlled life. Therefore, the 10% who were in power were there because of marriage, birth or conquest; the other 90% were serfs or peasants who worked the land but owned nothing.

Then came the Industrial Age and wealth shifted from agricultural land to real estate. Improvements such as buildings, factories, warehouses, mines and residential homes for the workers were placed on top of the land…improvements. Suddenly, rich fertile agricultural land dropped in value because the wealth shifted to the owners of the buildings upon the land. In fact, an interesting thing happened. Suddenly rich fertile land became less valuable than rocky land, where farming was difficult. Rocky land became more valuable because it was cheaper than fertile land. It could also hold taller buildings such as sky scrapers or factories and it often contained resources such as oil, iron and copper that fueled the Industrial Age.

When the Berlin Wall came down and the World Wide Web went up, many of the rules changed. One of the most important rules that changed was the 90/10 rule. Although it’s likely that only 10% of the population will always control 90% of the money, the access to the 10% has changed. Today it does not take being born into a royal family as did in the Agrarian Age. It does not require massive sums of money, land and people to join the 10%. The price of admission today is an idea, and ideas are free.

Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter.
Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing

E=mc…okobye ki?

2006-12-01T05:12:00.000-08:00

Future scientists without a language

Uganda’s Education ministry is facing a storm. It hasn’t entered the public debate yet since the bimeeza are still obsessing about Betty Kamya and Salim Saleh and the pros and cons of a government minister doing his job (Giving out money to people who need it, regardless what party their area MP shouts for).

But when the shit hits the fan, there’s going to be lots of smelly faced people around because they didn’t see what was coming at them. It is being called the new Thematic Curriculum.

Starting next year, kids from Primary One to Primary Four will be learning in their mother tongues. After that, English can be introduced. The powers that be have decided that since the children learn their first language at home and it comes in the way of real comprehension when they go to school, it is better to continue the basic education in this mode.

The campaign has started and soon, the radios and TVs will be chocked, I guess. To follow will be the bill boards on the roadside so the parents can see what’s coming as they drive their kids to Kitante Primary and Greenhill Academy.

I still haven’t understood the whole “thematic curriculum” spin yet. I guess its one of those things I will have to wait patiently for.

I know if this had happened to me as a kid, I’d probably have flunked badly. But then again, it is said the kid’s mind is like a super computer. Kids can adjust quickly to all sorts of change.

Or can they?

I think in English. Have thought in English since I was a kid. I know lots of kids today who learned English before their first tongue. And in this age of Babarita and all her Latino cousins masquerading as actresses on TV, I know there’s going to be a few more kids that think in English. Because their mothers don’t live here. Where they live, cool kids speak English.

Maybe it’s okay for our generation, since we are already wasted. But what about the generation of the Solanges, Shaniquas, Tyrons and Laquandas that are causing lots of aural pain to priests as they try to christen them every week? What is going to happen to the TV generation of a few years from now?

True, government has survived bigger storms. They have introduced strange policies without sensitizing the public and they’ve gotten away with it. Somehow. They’ve pushed VAT on us and a decade later, we still don’t understand what its all about. They’ve given us UPE, USE, Multiparty politics (when all along they said this is the devil’s business)…

Maybe English is becoming obsolete. Recently, His Lordship, the Mayor of Kampala said he admired the Chinese so much because they “can’t speak English yet they are very successful.” And it’s true. Those guys, like many others around the world don’t need to know English to do business.

My generation is full of people who believe that what they’ve had growing up is the best and they want to give the same to their kids. This of course goes against the progressive thinking that you should always be ready to question your old beliefs. But they will probably be teaching the chilluns English on the sly.

Enter home schooling. And you thought it would never come to Ug! Short of teaching your child from home, how are you going to keep them from being confused? If you speak English at home, Junior is going to speak English wherever he goes and when he gets to school, depending on where you live, he’ll come back speaking a language you have never heard before.

Maybe it’s worth it. Just think; a whole new crop of scientists who don’t speak the same language. That Swahili project seems to have stalled somewhere and without a national language, with English being kicked out, we’ll probably have a Tower of Babel right here along the Equator.

Show me the money

2006-11-28T03:25:00.000-08:00

When you get a chance to be out on the street for long, you get to see how the rest of humanity goes about making a living. You also realize that it is not all ‘normal’ as in the way your mama told you it was supposed to be done back in the day when you told all and sundry that you wanted to be a taxi conductor when you grew up.

Kampala keeps on attracting people from all over the country. Not only that, they are coming in from all over the world. Seems there is something we are not seeing that foreign people see. We have stopped asking how the Asians make so much money. They make the money wherever they are thrown by fate (Iddi Amin, et al) whether in Uganda or in Canada.

In Kampala, you will probably not find the big money in traditional trades. The doctors are all running away from their offices to make a dime on the side. some of them are happy about the doctors' strike at Mulago because they get to spend more time at their clinics and charge obscene money.

There’s this dude who went to the country after school to slave for UGX 400,000 while doctors else where were fighting to work in K’la where they would get the extra cash brought in through the efforts of desperate patients who have been bred to pay the doctors more than they are officially entitled to.

On the surface it seemed like the dude in question was one shinning example of a selfless medic but he a long term plan. He worked for 5 years and stood for MP in the area. He lost. Apparently, the people in his area did not feel like losing him just yet because he was the cheapest dude around. Everyone knew that he would never ask for money on the side.

He slaved for another 5 years and stood. This time, he won. The rest is history, as they say in my village. He went to parliament and some sharp eyed sycophant of Kagu dropped a good word for him in the President’s ear. Now the good doctor is one of the youngest state ministers and he is suddenly looking very different. He is the state minister fro primary health, Mr. Otaala.

It is about what you believe can happen. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to come to fruition. The good doctor can pass off as a guy who didn’t really go looking for the big time. He was elected by grateful people for all the good things he had done for them for ten years. They elected him not because they thought he should earn an MP’s salary. They elected him because they felt he could go to parliament and represent them more ably than the clown who sat in the seat before him. Because he had spent enough time with them to know their problems.

2006-11-22T08:16:00.000-08:00

An act of faith

2006-11-21T03:20:00.000-08:00

Today I sit here, in my new home’s modest living room and type about the happenings of the last few weeks. Today, as the rain beats on the roof outside, it might seem to the uninitiated that all’s always been serene.

Not.

It’s a week and some days since I crossed the great divide. I am no longer on the side where I felt confident and safe. I am now in Unknown Country. My mission is to learn the ropes as soon as possible. It’s all still too new to me, to us. Even when we knew that we should keep our expectations on the low, this is really like Alice at the moment her house landed on the Wicked Witch.

Disoriented.

I had my moment of indecision. I think I handled it well, considering. The people had all eaten and they were reclining in the chairs to catch up on their gossip at the kasiki. My friends, Busta and Emma where in Julius’ room, trying to grill me over why I was really making this decision. I guess they felt like Timon and Pumbaa when Simba found Nalaa.

I walked out for a mite and there was Jo.

It’s really strange when the woman you chased at some point in your life comes for your Kasiki. She came with a chaperon. She came late. She said she almost never came. I have this niggling feeling that one of my buds had staged this.

So we sat and said all the silly things that we could say without being crass. Then at midnight, we hit Al Zwizzle. Peter, our chauffer had had his power nap while the rest of us made silly. He was in a straight frame of mind, ready to drive us anywhere.

Place was everything I had imagined it would be. Like a million people were on the verandah, guys rubbing skimpily dressed Nubians with the obligatory glass of poison in their hands. There was a fat line to the counter yet there were people dancing at the counter as if to keep an eye on it lest the Martians came and abducted the alcohol.

Jo and her sister sat at the corner table while I pretended to move around. I met this artiste who was drowning his sorrows in a glass and complaining that a certain David Tumusiime had destroyed him after the PAM awards. Mbu this writer had made him and had now destroyed him. Honestly I didn’t give a fig. I am not even that writer’s employer.

Getting back to the table, Emma and Busta and Peter were there trying to make the ladies feel good. So the Tusker and Club started flowing. That’s when I also made my decision. This was really my last night and I had better loosen up. So I started on a Club. Now I don’t even know when I last imbibed but this was starting to feel good.
Then Peter was before me with something in a tiny glass and coaxing me to drink up. He lit it up and said the flame is only an illusion. Even before I drank up, I knew this was going to knock the socks off me if nothing else did. And boy, did it!

Many hours later, after mixing things I had only heard people talk about and after meeting like half my old school mates from the Old School, many of them with potbellies and receding hairlines, it was time to go. All this time I was staring at Jo and asking myself if I was making the right decision.

After that, it was like time just flew by. We had a rehearsal at church and I could see my best man was still hanging. He and Busta (who’s American and was here for the wedding) had been all over the town and into every bar. He nevertheless made it in time and walked the line and responded aptly when Pastor Godson told us to go this way or that way.

At the salon, Saturday morning, we met an angel. Old guy who gave way for us as we were bagole just started giving us blessings and advise. He even prayed for us at the end. When I asked him his name, he stammered like he was searching for an appropriate one. Angels don’t have earthly names, right?

That’s when things started falling into place; the budget was still short, the tents at the reception venue were late, the guests were more than half what we expected but I didn’t know all this until later because the people on the committee just went into overdrive that day.

Friends from as far as Mine-SNOW-tah came in like at the most critical time and they’ll never know how much that changed things. I met people at those meetings who I had deleted from my hard drive and I was close to tears when they made a showing. Someone told me, in one of those down moments, that a wedding like the one I was planning could not flop.

At the end, all was done.

Day sped by. The rain didn’t come down. The cake was heavenly. The speeches were short and interesting. Everyone marveled at the colour scheme. I saw my uncle jumping around with his arms raised in the air like a little kid who sees a huge helicopter and starts shouting, “Bye Uncle Museveni”.

My bestman was running around doing all the behind the scenes work when he was supposed to be home chilling, seeing as he was also a mugole. Then he told me his mom had called to ask what she could buy for us of the fixtures at home. And I had not even thought about that!

It was crazy.

Now we are back. Life is normal again. The honeymoon was in a beautiful place and mukyala didn’t want to leave but we just had to come back to reality. Reality that life still has low points and that it sucks big time but it depends on the way we handle it.

Suddenly I feel like I have acquired a new set of wings. I feel like I can do a lot more than I could before eleven eleven oh six. I guess that’s what happens when one is still in this euphoric state. I hear the feeling goes on for like six months. Now I can also start saying things like, “My wife and I…”

This could be the worst fuck up in history. It could also be the wisest thing I have ever done. It is a project I have planned for a whole year. At the beginning, when I told people that I was going to do it, even I had problems believing. But I have faith.

If you are not Christian, the concept of faith might seem out there for you. Because, this whole thing means giving one’s life over to another person. If one of us messes this thing up, we both pay. Did I know this before? Hell, yes. It was the loudest naysayer in my mind. But do I believe there might be another side to it? Hell, yes. And I am an optimist.

(PS: I tried to upload pix. Honestly i did. But the system jammed.So i guess i'll have to post them later.)

The Indian and the Coins

2006-10-27T23:17:00.000-07:00

There's this dude who is my best friend but he doesn't know it. We are so different yet so alike. Peeps all around don't understand him and why he does the things he does. I do.

My friend and i have very different view points on life sometimes. He sees things that i dont see. Maybe it comes down to where we went for nursery school.

He likes women with flesh on them. And he appreciates the beauty of a woman first before he goes to things like what does she think about the USE and the few companies that are listed so far. He stops in the middle of a sentence and stares (yes, STARES) at a fleshy Nubian Queen.

He always explans it away as the Question of the Indian and the Coins.

Mbu there was this indian who lefft the jungle and came to the city. He was able to hear the birds sing in the middle of the metropolis while his host thought that was utter hogwash. To illustrate the point that we are different and see or hear what we want, he pulled out these coins and threw them into the air. As they landed, time came to a stop. Everyone stopped and looked around. Indian dude had made his point.

When i look at females, i'm not looking at the booty, not to say they are not attractive from that angle but because i am conditioned to look deeper. I think. My friend, he flirts alot and he is the soul of the party. But we are like one and the same.

Maybe one day, i will grow up and see that it all comes down to the mating game; y'know, "Me Tarzan, you Jane let's make a little monkey."

I don't usually do this but Snider is just too ill...

2006-10-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

You have prolly seen this before but everytime i read it, i can't stop myself from breaking a funny bone.

Clash of the Titanic

by Eric D. Snider

Many of you have seen the film "Titanic," which is about a great big
boat that sank like a thousand years ago that for some reason everyone
is just now getting worked up about. Some of you -- I am speaking to
the women here -- have seen this movie several times. And I would like
to know why. Have the principles of film-making not been adequately
explained to you, so you think there's a chance the movie will end
differently if you see it again? Do you think this is a "Choose Your
Own Adventure" movie? Because it's not. No matter how many times you
see it, the boat is going to sink, and the same people are going to
die, including the guy who falls and whacks his noggin on the railing
on the way down. I think this movie is entirely too long. The actual
sinking of the Titanic took only four hours; the movie is easily three
times that long. (Note to reader : From the following choices, select
the "this-movie-is-too- long" line you like best and go with it.) A.
Savings bonds have matured in less time than it takes to watch this
movie. B. Many marriages do not last as long as this movie. C. I had
to shave twice during this movie. D. Three Eastern European nations
(Izikikstan, Checher, and Kudropabian) were formed while I was
watching this movie.

As a public service, then, I am offering my much-shortened
screenplay which some ambitious film-maker can feel free to use as the
script for a shorter version of "Titanic." All I want in return is a
lot of money.

(Scene 1)

KATE WINSLET: Why, this is a fancy boat, isn't it?

KATE'S WEASELLY FIANCE: Yes it certainly is. Here is the art you asked
for. It is by an artist named "Picasso." I am certain he will
amount to nothing.

KATE: Ha ha ha. That is very funny to our '90s audience, because of
course Picasso later amounted to quite a bit, after this boat
sank.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO: Hello, I'm Leonardo DiCaprio. Perhaps you have seen
the many Internet sites dedicated to the worship of me. You are
very pretty.

KATE: Thank you. So are you.

LEONARDO: I know. Prettier than you, in fact. I am going to put on my
"brooding" face now, to ensure that women will keep coming back
again and again to see this movie. Later, my white shirt will be
soaking wet.

KATE: While you're doing that, I will concentrate on standing here and
looking pretty, to keep the men in the audience interested until
the boat sinks and people start dying.

WEASELLY FIANCE: Excuse me. I do not like you, Leonardo, even though you
saved my fiancee's life. I am going to sneer at you and treat you
like dirt because you're poor, and then I'll probably be
physically abusive to my fiancee, and then, just to make sure the
audience really hates me, and to make sure my character is
entirely one-dimensional, perhaps I'll throw an elderly person
into the water.

AUDIENCE: Boo! We hate you! Even though all real people have at least a
few admirable qualities, we have not been shown any of yours, and
plus, you're trying to come between Leonardo and Kate, and so
therefore we hate you! Boo! (Even though technically it is
Leonardo who is coming between you and Kate. But Leonardo is
handsomer than you, even though he is only 13, so we are on his
side. Boo!)

(Scene 2)

LEONARDO: I'm glad we snuck away like this so that you could cheat on
your fiance.

KATE: So am I. Even though I am engaged to him and have made a
commitment to marry him, that is no reason why you and I cannot
climb into the backseat of a car and steam up the windows together.
The fact that I am the heroine of the movie will no doubt help
the cattle-like audience forgive me of this, though they would
probably be VERY angry indeed if my fiance were to do the same
thing to me.

AUDIENCE: Darn straight we would! Moo! We mean, Boo!

LEONARDO: I agree. First I would like to draw you, though, so of course
you will have to take off all your clothes.

KATE: But can a movie with five minutes of continuous nudity be at all
successful in, say, Provo, Utah, where the audiences might not
stand for that sort of thing?

LEONARDO: I would be willing to bet that for the first three weeks the
film is in release, every single showing at Wynnsong Theater in
Provo will sell out.

NARRATOR: According to Wynnsong manager Matt Palmer, that is exactly
what happened.

KATE: All right, then. (sound of clothes hitting the floor)

(Scene 3)

FIRST MATE: Captain, we're about to hit an iceberg.

CAPTAIN: Great, I could use some ice for my drink. (sound of drinking)

ICEBERG: (hits boat)

FIRST MATE: That can't be good.

CAPTAIN: Bottoms up!

AUDIENCE: (silence)

FIRST MATE: That was irony, you fools.

AUDIENCE: Baa! Moo! Where's Leonardo?

(Scene 4)

LEONARDO: I have been informed that this boat is sinking.

KATE: That is terrible.

LEONARDO: Would you like to engage in some more immoral-but-justified
behavior?

KATE: Certainly.

WEASELLY FIANCE: Excuse me, I --

AUDIENCE: Boo! Boo!

WEASELLY FIANCE: (aside) I'm getting the raw end of the deal here. (to
Leonardo) Listen, Leonardo, to cement my
morally-dubious-yet-somehow-less-annoying-than-you personality,
I am going to handcuff you to this pipe, here in a room that will
soon be filling with water, due to the fact that we are sinking,
which I believe has been mentioned previously.

LEONARDO: Why don't you just shoot me?

WEASELLY FIANCE: Because then you wouldn't be able to escape and save
Kate from me. Of course, you're going to die anyway--

AUDIENCE: Don't spoil it for us! Boo!

LEONARDO: He's right, though. I am doomed.

AUDIENCE: Aww, look how cute he is when he's doomed.

WEASELLY FIANCE: I hate you people.

(Scene 5)

150-YEAR-OLD KATE: And that's when Leonardo rescued me from my evil
fiance and helped me float on a board in the water. Of course, if
it hadn't been for having to rescue HIM, I could have gotten on
an actual lifeboat, and not frozen my legs nearly off. Anyway,
he's pretty much dead now, and I'm well over a thousand years
old, and who's making my supper? I need a bath. Turn down that
Enya music, it's making my ears hurt. You kids today, with your
loud music. Why, when I was -- hey! Don't you walk away from
me, Mr. Snooty- Patootie! I'd turn you over my knee, if I had
one. I'll beat you in the head with this huge diamond! Come back
here!

(Fade to black; roll credits; play annoying Celine Dion song.)

New direction

2006-10-18T02:17:00.000-07:00

Things are looking up, it seems. For the last two weeks, i've been chasing like a million things and i know the dangers in that. Being a master of nothing is the least.

But two weeks ago, some dude called me up on my cell and told me to meet him. Someone in the industry had told him about me and what i can do.This person had also told him that i am freelancing and i could be a good choice.

Well, i am thinking it is a good thing i agreed to the terms. As of now, i am not unemployed anymore. I can now do everything my professor R.T Kiyosaki always stressed- Keep your day job, stupid! You can run around doing everything else on the side but keep something regular.

I know it's more exciting to put all eggs in one basket. The fun is in watching that basket. But at the moment, I am taking on a lot of other things that call for stability.

I think the new dimension couldn't have come at a better time. Privately, i have been trying to look at doing things on my own so i will be my own boss. That way, i can set my own time and hours.And i can blog more.

Will tell y'all more.

Aisha Nabukeera

2006-10-05T04:40:00.000-07:00

The latest child to be abused, the one the media is loving documenting is Aisha Nabukeera. If you have not seen her yet, then you should be watching more TV. In fact, you should watch more Drake Sekkeba.

The 13 year old was burnt in the most horrific way. Story is that the dress she had on some time back at the beginning of the year was set ablaze. Since it was one of those hijab things, it was not very easy to get off her and by the time helpers managed to do this, she had already been burnt badly.

It is said the girl accused her step mom. She had gone to visit her dad, who lives with said step. It was almost the end of the holidays. Aisha told the police that she was forced to wear the dress which had been dipped in fuel and then the woman set it ablaze.

Watching Vvumbula, I got the impression that there are many people who have been following this case. I also understood that emotions are still raw and Drake is not making matters any better with his insinuations that nothing is being done by the police.

He had the Police Commissioner on his show and he tried as much as possible to grill him. The Commish was there to take all the flack for the evil that’s cops all around the country and the world do. The police are very corrupt; they only think of kickbacks, they always side with the criminals…

My aunt and the two helps at home were also throwing in their opinions, even if the Commish couldn’t hear. They tried to do their Nancy Drew stunts in the living room and after thinking about the matter (not the facts) for the whole of maybe two seconds, they decided that the step mom and the police were really evil and they deserved the chair or something to that effect.

That kid is a sorry sight. Anyone who can do such a thing to a child should be thrown in the hottest district in Beirut with a tag on their shirt that says they are Jews from Israel. That would be punishment well deserved. But we also have to realize that this here is not a two year old.

If a two year old said something like that, it would be easy to believe them but for a 13 year old, I think investigations should go on. We live in an age where kids are enlightened. They have been told that step mothers are supposed to be evil and they are always thinking up ways to harm them. But the kids are also thinking of ways to harm the steps back. A kid of 13 can lie, even with ghastly burns. That’s all I’m saying.

I tried to put it to the people at home that there was a possibility that the accused step is innocent after all, that is why the police is taking its time. It wouldn’t be right to arrest the woman and lock her up because the kid says she burnt her up. There are witnesses who’ve disputed the girl’s story and that gives step mom a chance.

She might be the evil witch that she’s been accused of being. But the flip side is also possible. She could be an innocent caught in the headlights. I tried to make my people understand that the police work according to procedure. They are not supposed to act the way people acted recently in Mukono when they killed an innocent woman because they thought she was an evil spirit.

But again, this country is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s beauty is in even these things that boggle the mind.

On our own

2006-09-28T05:22:00.000-07:00

Everyone who's not been to Ernest Bazanye's blog, run there now. There's stuff you shouldn't be missing.

Lately i have met a number of peeps who have decided to go it alone. They just quit their jobs and run. Latest is the chick who was administrator at Joyce Meyer Ministries, Kampala. Methinks alota peeps been reading Robert Kiyosaki.And there's no problem with that, as long as in the end, we shall all become Ultimate Investors.

Point to ponder: Before you are the one sending out the wedding txts you are one of the many who look at they phone and screw up they face because "these annoying people also!" When you are the one who's about to bite the dust and you are running around sending out the txts, you dont even want to think you dissed these messages. Strange world.

Reading all your thoughts, you clever people. And yes, i think Michael Moorer is a monster that came out of the closet. He is the equivalent of Red Pepper or radiokatwe.com.

Five Fingers

2006-09-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

After the madness of 9/11 there was a change in everything American. For one, the politicos in that nation stopped throwing stones at glass windows. Or rather, these days when they do, they throw papers but tell the world that they are still throwing stones.

The world of film also changed and this gave rise to monsters like Michael Moorer, who rode on the discontentment of the people and fed them his brand of craziness. Of course there were also successes for the Bush Clan because there was no way sane Americans were going to support Al Gore in the face of such aggression. This has been said and re-said in film for all these years.

Crash, the winner at the last Oscars was a sad tale because the issues raised are not going to go away soon but more painful is the knowledge that because of all these racial tensions in the world, the fear of everything Arabic and Moslem, America will continue to be threatened. Crash says it all very clearly.

As does Five Fingers. I had seen the DVD at PG Videos before but I just kept on leaving it every time I went over. This one time I decided to take it home and see for myself what the hype is all about and boy, was I impressed.

Ryan Phillipe is not really the shinning star in this movie. It is not anyone else. It is as though the film was written for just one character: Laurence Fishburn’s.

The way he comes through as a notorious terrorist, a merciless butcher who does not have any qualms about decapitating a person is very convincing. The use of the stereotypical Islamisms that the west has come to tag to terror is bold, as this is really deep-water territory. Just before he shoots a guy, he says “bismillah,” almost soothingly and blasts away.

Ryan Phillipe’s role is almost robotic. If not for the violent twist at the end of the story, one would have justifiably yawned and turned over to sleep. He is an example of the many Europeans who think it is romantic to join the terrorists and bring down the USA but that’s an old story. He is not really bringing anything new.

Apparently, the Americans have thought about this bulungi and they have started luring such Europeans with terrorist tendencies into safe houses where they extract info from them while the poor fools are under the impression that they are in some Islamic country. They feel they can at least trust these people since they believe in the same cause.

The realism of cutting off the fingers of the collaborator is chilling. Just when you think they can’t go through with it, they steel themselves (Fishburn and Gina Tores plus a very quiet said Taghmaoui) and cut off yet another finger. Phillipe comes off as some really brave sod when even after he loses the first finger, he with holds the info they want.

The film is also a study in what the US is ready to do to get out of the cross hairs. They believe they are under attack and they don’t know where the snipers are at. The easiest way to go about it is also the dirtiest perhaps but they are not chickening out of doing what’s right.

Its not the greatest movie in the world but Fishburne is being lined up for a best Actor Oscar i know. he trully deserves it. Go, Tuskegee Airman.

Its not going to get any Oscars, I can bet, because of the heavy political message. You see it is not like Syrianna at all. But I loved it. I last got this rush when I watched that adaptation of the Japanese movie, The Grudge. Never been scared by a movie like the way I was.

Ghetto fabulous

2006-09-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or is there a sudden rise of interest in the word Ghetto in the beloved country? I saw a number of posters and fliers around town proclaiming the greatness of some “nigga” or other. The Bada boy struck again, this time with a track called Ghetto.

I must confess I have not listened to the lyrics well. Those who have have assured me that the track is smocking. If Omwana wa’bandi didn’t serve to cement Bobi Wine’s rep as the new cock of the walk, I hear Ghetto is so going to.

Isn’t that the way Americans of black skin condemned themselves to a life of hell in the first place, going around preaching to the young and impressionable that it was cool to live a dog’s life? Bobi Wine’s song seems to be an anthem in the making for the downtrodden. Mbu it fights against politicians who only remember the ghetto when they have to collect votes.

Bobi Wine is from the Kamwokya Ghetto. Not the Kivulu one or the Nakivubo one. Kamwokya and Nakivubo are way different but that’s neither here nor there, I think. So the Ladies' Wine can go around in a huge fuel guzzler singing about the TROUBLES of living in the Ghetto.

Of course someone will say its alright because the guys down there will be encouraged to do some serious work if they se that their contemporary has managed to pull himself out of the gutter and can now drive a monster of an automobile. What the heck! I also think it’s alright for him to sing those songs. Look what happened to Ice T and Ice Cube and all those guys who are the embodiment of ghetto culture. Nigaz With Attitude…

Note, though that I am not talking of that white man, William Smith.

Big Fish

2006-08-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

If my gut is not wrong, there’s an Adolf Eichmann situation brewing in my neighborhood. The kind that’s written about in lame fiction, praising the cleverness of CMI or something like that. My concern is not the glory of kidnapping a big war criminal here. I am thinking of the money that such things always have stuck in the cracks of its walls.

When a well fed dude surfaces in your area, complete with a beautiful wife and beautiful kids to boot, what are you expected to think? That’ not all, by the way; this guy, with his well fed stomach and well fed wife and kids are living in a house that is def not to their standard. They are living in a one room house. Shack, I mean.

Now I could say that he is one of the unlucky businessmen who make stupid decisions every now and then and that he has fallen on hard times. But I have also seen the gold watch he spots and the gold chain around his neck. Maybe he has a gold tooth, like Fiddy, only that he rarely smiles. Dude is straight off the lawn at Kampala Club. If he had to walk into a VIP club anywhere in town, he’d not be asked for identification. If he was riding in your car and a traffic cop flagged you down, chances are that he’d let you go when he spots this dude in your passenger seat. He’s like that. Government written all over him.

Kati you know how that German guy was kidnapped in Argentina in 1960. The Israelis just did not let up until they had got their big fish. Even when the rest of the world tried to forget about Auschwitz, these people did not.

When I look around, I can only see one place where atrocities happened in the not so far off past. Yeah, Rwanda.

What if this guy is some evil genius who masterminded the radio programmes? Maybe he’s the guy who wrote the scripts and coined the term Inyenze. Maybe…

maybe i am just riding on the wave of bad movies made by guys like Michael Moore.

Video news

2006-08-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

Where are the naked Obsessions cupping their boobs? Did they bow to public pressure? Even after those girls from Hot 100 pulled off that stunt, The Obsessions feared? I mean, that Hot 100 stunt was something you can’t pull off that easily in Rio.

Shakira can actually sing a love song. Without shaking that thing of hers. Saw this video and I did a double take. It was so different from the Whenever, Whatever image I had come to associate with her. It was in some language I couldn’t understand so I won’t lie. But I can imagine what she was singing…

Is there a crazier singer than John Reuben? I mean apart from the Sex Pistols and their three fans who thought smashing their guitars was so cool (that is retro, kale). Seriously, someone should give that guy a head check. He’s so drunk on Jesus…I want some of that. I want to be like John Reuben.

Did Bebe Cool stick out his tongue in the Gunz and Bombs vid? Like really, really stick out his tongue?

The chick in the Let me Hold You video, yeah that one, isn’t she a spitting image of Jada, that model from Yeyo soap? Maybe I was high on something anyway.

One of the chicks in Priscilla Kalibbala’s video for Dancing wiggles her behind so hard, her bum line shows throughout the song. Somehow I don’t think that’s what she really intended. Probably the director, maybe Don saw this and decided to keep it coz it would entice all those Kenyans who absolutely adore Ugandan chicks. It has been said that Kenyan women move around with blinders when they are with their men. When there is a Ugandan chick in the area, sirens go off and out come the blinders and onto the eyes of their men. Of course all this is unconfirmed. Dancing is full of hot Ugandan babes and its showing on East Africa TV.

After the success of Seanice’s swimsuit and Juliana’s voice in All I Wanna Know, the next video Klear Kut makes should be shot at the poolside at Kampala Club. Its safe now, the politicians don’t come out to play anymore because they realized that they had been infiltrated. They realized that they were soon going to make the fashion police page and that’s not a good thing if you are waiting for Sevo to throw you a hefty post in government.

In other news, the computer spell checker insists that the name Shakira should be Shaker. Ti byange.

Checking in...

2006-08-17T05:56:00.000-07:00

Hullo my peeps. Everyone having a good time? You better be becoz this here thingy we call life is so unreliable. There's so little time to have any hangups.

Kale, i dont know why i am even writing this. Must be something in the caviar.

Last day in Eden

2006-08-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

(Overheard by one of the Seraphim that guard The Garden)

Eve: …so as I was sayin, dude, like that ka strange creature you named, the…
Adam: Serpent?
Eve: Yeah, yeah, that one…
Adam: I always knew you hated him. You’re always forgetting his name.
Eve: Dude, this is my story. Just shut up and listen.
Adam: Kale, go in face.
Eve: Yeah, as I was sayin, that creature, he was up there the whole time while I was under the tree. I didn’t even know he was up there. He’s one sneaky mother, ight?
Adam: What have you done to my wife? These days you speak a language I just don’t understand.
Eve: You are so local. If it’s too hard understanding me, get yourself a dictionary.
Adam: Will do. There are some cool ones they’ve brought at Aristoc. That gives me a chance to go there and see the new extension they’ve built without being counted as one of the mall rats, y’know wha’m sayin?
Eve: Yeah, yeah, whatever, Pancho. That serpawhatshisface has this real cool idea. That’s why I’m here anyway. I told you this morning, I didn’t want to see you till nightfall. Till you work on your staying power issues anyway.
Adam: He’s one of the wise ones. What does he think?
Eve: He’s one of the wise ones… Can’t you be a man for once? What happened to guys like Bruce Willis? Man, Bruce would never say stuff like that. You are a disgrace to men everywhere.
Adam: But I take it you did not come here to tell me about Die Hard.
Eve: Dude, pass the spliff already.
Adam: (long drag and he shakes his dreds like Bob Marley before he passes the spliff). So my darling wife, what did the serpent say?
Eve: He says The Big G’s just playing us, man. That he’s just being selfish. I an’ I don want us to touch de Tree.
Adam: Dats wicked. Dats massive. You said Bomboclat to him, ight?
Eve: Actually, I didn’t. At that moment, I was taking a crap and I haven’t learnt to laugh and shit at the same time. Besides, what’s so funny? Has Celtel bought out those MTN braggarts yet? And for the record, I don’t like Chameleone or his weasly brother.
Adam: Well?
Eve: Mbu the moment we eat of the Tree, we shall know all sorts of cool things; like how to make the TV switch itself on whenever we feel like we want to watch some Digi, like to know who fouled the air at the dinner table, like to know the thoughts running through the minds of guys when they look down the blouses of women bending to pick something or trying to go to the back seat in the matatu.
Adam: That’s easy, I know what I think.
Eve: Shut up, you… thing.
Adam: Seriously, that sounds like a plot. So we’d know how to get out of this garden with its constant smiling faces and rotting undergrowth. What is KCC doing, anyway? Why do we even vote for these guys? The place is stinking and they only come to get their dime.
Eve: Yup!
Adam: So let’s go and get some, woman.
Eve: Use that word one more time and imma get all the Women’s movements in the world on your behind, you will wish this is a dream. Have you ever seen Silvia Tamale angry? Not those things nga she’s playing for the press?
Adam: Okay, can we go get some apple?
Eve: We don’t have to; I have some right here with me.
Adam: How, where? We are naked. We don’t wear Levis and ties and jackets like Baz. Where are you keeping the apple?
Eve: In my #$^*%^$(** (scrambled script: Children reading).
Adam: Eugh!!!
Eve: Last night you didn’t say eugh!
Adam: Kale, me first. I’m the head of the house.
Eve: Yeah, whatever.
Adam, Eve: Crunch, Chomp, Crunch, Crunch

(That evening…)
Adam: Hmmm! Eve, what a fine bod you’ve got there.
Eve: So you are actually excited about me. Was wondering why you are so happy. Men! Only one thing on their mind.

(Much later that evening)
The Big G: Adam, Adam…
Adam: We are so busted.
Eve: Are we there yet? (Sorry, that’s Donkey’s line. Not included in this crazy tale. And don’t tell him).

Hold on to your baby

2006-08-03T07:35:00.000-07:00

This is really a bad time to be a parent in Uganda. Kids have been disappearing increasingly of late and the problem seems to be one of those unsolvable ones where the police is “still investigating” for ever.

At first the stories went along the lines mbu ‘the road,’ meaning the northern by-pass which is being constructed now, wanted 1000 kids. This sorry belief still persists even when we have moved this far. People still want to believe that some unseen powers within a road, a building, a car hold the key to their success and unless they appease them with the life of some innocent kid, they are bound for failure.

This dad was captured on radio crying his guts out because his son had been found dead in some bush. The murderers had not even cut off the obligatory parts that we have come to expect when these kidnappings happen. They probably changed their minds about sacrificing this little man but they did not think it was important to return him home to his heartbroken parents.

Then again, it has been said that the kids are actually being smuggled to Arabia to be slaves.

Whatever the truth is, I don’t envy parents at this moment.

Stuck in the closet: The Uganda chapter

2006-07-31T08:17:00.000-07:00

Ronnie Sempangi is the enemy of the state. Our state. In fact, all radio stations that are thinking of doing what he is doing should abandon the idea forthwith or they will be sorry, gasia tu!

You guys should have heard what went down the other day on his show, The Late Date. This chick called in and asked him to call a friend of hers, mbu to trick her into revealing who her boyfie is. As you have guessed, chick numero uno was trying to catch chick numero deuce with her pants down (I know that sounds crass. No apologies, hombre).

The second girl had stolen her friend’s man. The dude told the first girl that he was doing the night shift at some factory. In fact, he was doing the night shift at the other girl’s place.

So the usual drama was played out; Ronnie called the cheating girl and asked her who her man was, she admitted that it was who we thought she would say it is, second girl got really pissed off, she got Ronnie to call the guy and he got busted, trying to lie to the world that he was at the factory. He was actually at the factory but that is not exactly what you tell the woman scorned.

I could not help remembering R.Kelly’s 5-part twisted story about people finding out later that what they have tried so hard to uncover about their partners would have been better left covered up. Sometimes you bite off more than you can chew and Sebaggala’s city can’t just be dirtied like that, mbu you are spitting, spitting.

Drama like this is played out every morning on Sanyu FM (This station rules the nation). Fatboy and Allan Kasujja and the ka girl get guys to admit to stuff they should not be admitting with the whole world listening in. And the rest of us have laughed and had a good time at the expense of the dudes with egg on their face. Bad thing, that.

Because, partner, it could be you any time. These soft looking people at our sides, the all feminine, wispy waifs are vicious inside and their minds work over time to get us to do things that will tie us down like forever. Admitting to the world that you love only her in the whole world is supposed to make you don metal underwear and stop chasing the cats.

P.S: The Late Date is a show on Capital FM that comes on laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate in the night. It is very popular with females. That’s why its called The Late Date. Did I say it comes on laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate? I did? Well, it comes on laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate.

What do we learn from Straka’s show

2006-07-28T04:50:00.000-07:00

Master Parrot’s Ekokompola is like the cry of a Ugandan man frustrated with what he sees everyday but he can’t do anything about it. It is universally accepted the world over that Ugandan chicks are the hottest in the world and they know it, thus their cruelty in the way they dress. And that is not a line stolen from Pride and Prejudice.

Ngoni is still rocking. Now they have a new video for Sunita coming out soon. Sunita is the next big thing. These guys have totally taken over from Steve, he’ll have to learn how to talk without stammering. It’s now the big league and little people just should go and eat rocks.

Straka’s show is where every Ugandan musician wants to be. If “Straka beibee” does not endorse you, you are just doing a lot of nothing. Hercules would laugh at you with his sky on the shoulders because he would realize that his load is light. Straka is the Oprah of Ugandan music. She says something and the industry figures experience a tremor. The stock market takes a dive. (The theoretical stock market, that is).

Willy Mukaabya will make you laugh, whether you like it or not. It doesn’t matter what language you speak or understand. The guy knows the real meaning of self deprecating humour.

Sitting to watch the show is actually an interesting experience. You can sit watching it past midnight, past 1 am, without feeling guilty that you are wasting time you would have used to sleep since you have to get up early. It’s even better than eating a cold piece of mbooli in the morning. I guess it’s the pride of seeing all these artistes with stars in their eyes, ready to take on the world.

There are artistes not yet recognized on this show who deserve to be here. Have you heard Sylvester ne Abrams’ Lemerako? Have you heard Krayzie Native’s Wansi Waggulu? No? I rest my case. It’s because they have not been on The Late Show.

Bebe Cool is the biggest star in the world.

Ugandan artistes are producing better videos because everyday someone makes a new one. The competition makes them go out and try to outdo the competition. Oh, and by the way, Buchaman looks absolutely great in videos. In Ngoni’s Nakupenda, the crutch is mysteriously missing. In Peace with Angela Katatumba, it’s also missing.

Now we know who the engine of The Dynamic Duo was really. When Gen. Mega Dee split from Menton Kronno, everyone forgot who Kronno is. No one even remembers that there was a singer called Kr…what was that?

When Sweet Kid starts singing, you get the feeling that this here passionate musician is what real music was about back in the day. Yeah, back when we were young and kids respected their elders and politicians were straight and taxes were really low. Sirikuusa…

Hate this chick or love her, she is not going anywhere any time soon unless you can pull off the greatest heist in history – kidnapping her and dumping her on the north pole with only a slimming book. That is impossible, I should tell you coz it’s easier to get an elephant in the fridge. But she has been sacked and reinstated more times than I can remember. Every time she is ‘suspended’, the viewers demand that she be brought back and Gordon Wavamunno quakes so much that he has to do it. That’s the star power of Straka.

P.S: I know, i know...i tried to do this the right way; italicise where i'm supposed to and all but the system just wont be bothered. So...i wouldn't be bothered either.

Fighting 2 Face

2006-07-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

2 Face is still a big star in Uganda. Even when his song, African Queen is like a million years old, Ugandan chicks will drop everything to listen to it. Now when he steps in the room, the situation is worse. And to make it even worse, the bastard looks like some sort of Adonis. How does he do it?

The way to beat this competition from the Nigerian is to hide your woman. When you get the invite and get the information that he will be there, the best thing to do is not to mention it. Come up with some ruse; there were not enough and only the guys in Marketing got invites, your company was scrapped off the list because they are not interested in working with Bell anymore…anything.

2 Face might not know. He has been busy making movies, playing troubled youths in those kiNigeria things. But he still rules here. Oh, and I didn’t mean all that stuff I said about hiding your woman from him. I mean, who would not want to be near him? And if he took your woman, just smile and pat yourself on the back. It’s the closest you’ll get to royalty. Like those days in Buganda when you had to go out and tell your fellow stool pigeons how the Kabaka has taken over your wife and therefore, you are one in a million.

At least it was not like in the days of that Israeli guy, King David. When he took interest in someone’s wife, the husband was in clear and present danger and he would be advised to get a visa or go AWOL from the army.

Sometimes we have to hang our heads

2006-07-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

The subject of the war in the north will not leave us for a long time. Even if there comes some positive out of the attempt at peace in Juba, the effects are far too ingrained in the minds of the populace up there for it to just be wished away. That is why we must all do what we can, even if we feel it is too little to see the end of this madness.

A friend of mine once revealed a side of herself I had never seen and it only served to show how people from the northern districts have been messed up by this war. When some MPs were arrested and accused of murder, she was more interested in proving that the government was behind it; that they were being framed because they are far too young and too intelligent to be caught out like that. And also because they are opposition politicians from the north which to her meant they were being witch hunted the way her people have been witch hunted for two decades. I kept on asking her what she would do if it turned out that they had actually murdered the LC1 guy.

It turned out later that the two were innocent, well, innocent until they are proven guilty and this strange happening in the Ugandan arena was possible because of their high profile (many friends in the diplomatic corps…). They were released and then government just dropped it. Which means they were probably being framed, as J argued.

Twenty years from now, long after Kony and his guys have been forced to beat their swords into ploughshares; people who come out of that region will always carry the burden with them. It will be in their look, in their speech, in whatever creative work they do. Movies coming out of northern Uganda will be about war and suffering. Just like a movie out of Rwanda wont sell now if its not about the genocide (Sometimes in April, Hotel Rwanda). Long gone are the days when Okot p’Bitek wrote limericks about beautiful black girls with strange red colours on their mouths. There is too much pain up north for frivolities like that now. Have you watched Amani, the opera? Oh, by the way, if you haven’t watched the stated Rwanda flicks, do Sometimes in April. It is far better than the other one. And not only because it has Ugandan actors kicking ass.

I watched this doccy on TV from the Prime Minister’s office about the kids. I know the subject of the children has been beaten out of shape and the effect might be negative for them after all because probably, those who would help might become jaded. But I could not help feeling that impotent rage that these little people who have no idea what the grown ups are fighting for, who have no clue as to why their mummy was cut down the way she was, are in the middle of all this.

I don’t know how many old shirts and blankets have made their way to the north in the last fifteen years. I don’t know how much food has been given out to the families because they cannot till the land. I only feel ashamed that I am one of the many Ugandans who have only been content with writing articles about their plight. I have been faithful with my prayers for the situation. But I have not been keen on discussing the possibility of traveling there and being with them. There are little people there who can tell the difference between an Uzi, a sowed off Sub and a plain old Kalashnikov. I can’t.

Even when it was made clear to us that the trip to Gulu takes only three hours if you are using good means.

What are we going to do with this situation? How do you talk about the war without feeling like a jerk trying to turn the spotlight on yourself? Soon, our children are going to be the schoolmates of the children of people from there. How do we explain to our children the differences they will eventually notice in their school buds?

On a lighter note though…

Think I’m getting hooked on series and that is def not a good thing. The last time this happened to me, I was so hooked on Riviera and when it was suddenly stopped, it felt like someone took forceps and stuck them in my eye. Back then, I would wait for the thing at a teacher’s place and go back to the dorm past midnight. Now I’m getting sucked in again and I just can’t help myself.

Its Prison Break. That Wentworth Miller guy is trying so hard to be like some character out of a Stephen King story. He is all quiet and intelligent and a weakling on the surface. And then as the story progresses, its like pealing back layer after layer of interesting stuff after some other interesting stuff.

Its Shawshank Redemption all over again but without the voice over of Morgan Freeman telling us stuff. Tim Robbins must be proud of himself watching this attempt to copy him. WYSIWYG. But I hated the ending and that is probably why I won’t be sucked in when season two is released. And I know it will be out soon.

After this, Mr Miller is going to be stuck in roles that call for the quiet intellectual. Don’t know if that’s a good thing. Like Denzel being limited to doing goody roles because he is a positive man. Like Will Smith swearing he’ll never do another flick in the line of Six Degrees of Separation because he doesn’t want to be called a (politically correct statement) person who swings to the other side of the sea.

Trust is…

2006-07-09T00:16:00.000-07:00

Voting for Ssebaggala even when, given his manifesto, Peter Ssematimba is the best candidate of them all.

Believing that when the president says he’s sacked Jim Muhwezi, it is for real this time. It is forgetting that Mr. Katugugu is the Real Comeback Kid.

Being Jude Law in Enemy at the Gates and telling Joseph Fiennes to cover you while you go in and shoot the living hell out of the krauts even when he just found out that you stole his girl. Or being Tom hanks in Finding Private Ryan and telling that sniper guy to cover your ass.

Looking at the Durex on the table once, twice then thrice and leaving it unopened before you get jiggy. This in an age where your country is known for, among other things, war, death, AIDS, death, Idi Amin and more death. According to CNN.

Throwing caution to the wind and saying you will live with someone for the rest of her life (or yours) without thinking of the stupidity of making such expansive statements which could be used against you in a court of law someday.

Reading the witty stuff on the blogosphere and thinking that the people who write it are all good inside and that they are all advocating for a better Makerere Kivulu and World Peace.

Listening to Joseph Kony.

Being Gabriel Byrne in Stigmata and you have to exercise your faith in a God who’s stronger than the devil when Lucifer himself turns up for a duel because you have been cramping his style.

Goings on around the place

2006-07-05T06:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I do this…I go to a couple of blogs and I take down a number of posts to read later at home. I usually do this when I know I have some time on my hands. When I’m on the net, I usually get distracted to read everything and even when I have three hours (by which time I would be on the verge of collapsing), I can’t read everything. But I just finished reading Minega’s stuff and boy, can this dude write!

Props to Minega. I recommend that every time you get on the net, you check out his blog first. I was impressed mainly by the simple way his ramblings turn out to be full of insight. He reminds me of those days back in school when I would grab the Sunday paper and go straight for Bad Idea and my peeps would shake their heads and be like, “You need a head check, pal.”

But you see the opinion of the world does not really matter when you know you are onto something good. I didn’t gush when I met the writer of Bad Idea and I probably wouldn’t if I met Minega. I guess I was healed of that when I met another writer called Brian Magoba. I realized that good writing is in the head, and not in appearances.

Girls are being sold in the market in Katakwi, according to The New Vision. This is not a joke or some error done in the newsroom warranting that the heads of a couple of subs should roll. No, this is what’s happening in this our Uganda in the year of our Lord two thousand and six. When the government separate the warriors of Karamoja from their guns, the warriors did a runner and in so doing, they left their women with nothing to live on. The problem was solved by putting little girls on sale in the market place. Tut, tut.

“Joseph Orisa reports that Moroto district officials said Karimojong girls aged between 12 and 18 are sold in an open market in Katakwi as housegirls but are later turned into sex slaves.

Moroto resident district commissioner Capt. Robert Nambafu said the booming trade takes place every Friday at Ocorimongin cattle market in Katakwi.

In an interview with The New Vision yesterday, Nambafu said some unscrupulous women collect girls in Matany sub-county in Moroto district and transport them to Katakwi by bus.

“These girls are lined up in the market and their buyers, mainly men, come and pick up the most beautiful girls and the rest are left out. Each girl goes for between sh100,000 and sh300,000.

“The men who pick these children are mostly bachelors and widowers. The girls are at the risk of being abused sexually. When they come back, they will spread the (HIV) virus to our youth,” Nambafu warned.”
Of course there must be reasons in the heads of these people that make this trade in humans justifiable, even with the arguments that we throw at them but…sh100,000!

Have you heard what’s happening in China? Not the economic boom. The boom has made China untouchable because now that they have the biggest market in the world, US interests will want a piece of that pie at any cost. Jack Welch has told you to go East. Get into China if you have any serious plans to progress in business.

So when the rights of people are stifled, the international policeman will look away like a traffic cop at Wandegeya who’s been given a mutwalo by the driver of a dangerously over loaded cattle track. Now china wants to clamp down on its bloggers and from the look of things, when the clampdown happens, the rest of the world might not be able to stand up to the challenge.
Here goes: "As more and more illegal and unhealthy information spreads through the blog and search engine, we will take effective measures to put the BBS, blog and search engine under control," said Cai Wu, director of the Information Office of China's Cabinet, quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency.

I don’t know what they’ll do because according to this news piece, China has 37 millions blogs at the moment. It might be safe to say that many of these are critical of the establishment and therefore have drawn the ire of government. At the end of 2006, China shall have 60 million blogs. And all the Ugandans who are still playing pinkie-pinkie ponkie about starting a blog said…

Savage wants to get with The Girl On The Modern Tea Advert. Reminds me of that old Boyz II Men song, Girl in the Life Magazine…Well here’s to serenading the happy couple, in the words of Gladys, the cleaning lady in Mind Your Language; Savage and Karitas, sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G…

Chivalry just won’t stay dead. We know it’s supposed to have died some centuries ago but it seems due to the continued harping on the subject by some sections of the human race, the dreary subject is back. Do we all have the same genes? Are we all supposed to make an effort to make romance a strong suit in our lives? Bill Hybels, author of Fit To Be Tied starts out like he thinks it’s alright to be yourself but then later sells out by going over to the dark side like Darth Vader. If we are to let this stuff get to the heads of these people, we shall have a reversal of the situation that appeared recently on 2bnileavenue.blogspot.com, only this time, the feminists won’t be up in arms. They’ll be saying all’s fair.

Lilliane Barenzi is always lamenting how chivalry is dead and how women have to live with the situation because the glory days are long gone. We know that’s not really the truth but as I said earlier, we don’t want to get into a Barbara Cartland situation all over again.

Petrol stations in Uganda never stop minting money. Economics tells us that after sometime, when the market opens up and competitors come into the fray, the old principle of demand and supply will even out the profits until the only people able to stay are those that are inventive enough to find an edge over the competition. With all the stations coming up along Bombo Road and other areas of the city, it seems that point of satiety is still a long way away. Even that old threat that too many stations in the city would soon mean a great many fires did not stand for long. Someone just wrote a clever opinion piece in the papers asking how often Ugandans have seen such a thing happening in Ugandan history. No answer.

The implication was that the fuel we have here is not that dangerous. Even if you spoke on your phone, smoked at the station, nothing would happen. So as we speak, the City Council has to live with the decisions they have made in the past. His Lordship, the new mayor of Kampala has done a good job looking all committed and hardworking but I want to see if he won’t turn out to be just as lousy as his predecessors; giving land to other fuel entrepreneurs.

We hit gold! Black gold. After Hardman Resources made the front pages with their oil find they became the most popular group of people here. It has been reported that we have more oil than was expected before. We can produce 10,000 barrels a day and that is from first prospects. It means we could actually have more than that.

But with oil, one just wishes that Uganda will be different from all the other oil related stories (Nigeria, Russia…) where the people who feel they need to be paid more for being the guardians of the treasure are instead victimize. Former MP, Frank Nabwiso says we should celebrate but with caution because when the powers that be decide that they want the proceeds for themselves, they will do anything to get them. We don’t want a repeat to the Ken Saro Wiwa story.

Things to ponder

2006-07-01T05:40:00.000-07:00

There are things in the great scheme of things that when one tries to make sense of later on after they have happened, they risk blowing their transformer. They happen allover the world but when they are close to home, on Ug soil, they take on a special flavour. You can go out there and brag that albeit, these are strange happenings but they are Ugandan happenings all the same.

The phone booth operators
In keeping with the advice of the president, that all Ugandans have to find a way of making their lives more confertable a.k.a. okulembeka, there are some enterprising people who have found a way to beat the system at its game. Have you tried to use the coin section of the phone booth lately? There is always a lady (or a guy) sitting close and they have on some yellow garment for effect. There is no way you can say that you did not see them. When you try to slot in your coin, it will disappear and the thing won’t work. Of course all along, the phone person has been telling you that the coin won’t help you, in other words, you must use my card. I think its all a plot because when you use their card, you pay at least Ug.Sh100 more. Now if they can make free moey this way, why would they let you use you coin which will cost you half of what they would charge you? Try using the phone at night and you will be surprised at how the coin is perfect.

President Charles Logan
The biggest let down in Season 5 is this guy shames all the great villains of the silver screen. All my peeps watching this thing in Uganda should be feeling the same, I tell you. If he was meant to be a crafty prez who was so daring as to let CTU come that close to him, he did not convince me. The guy does not know whether to grin, smile or wince. His face is a constant contradiction of emotions and the shadowy guys that recruited him must have been out of their minds to trust that he could carry out that deal. What deal, did you say? Watch the damn thing. My job description is not SPOILER.

Kim Bauer’s new catch
Like, WTF is Kim doing with that jajja?

Rasta Rob
Once upon a time, there was a guy who was the biggest star on the Ugandan scene. He was so big; he could lead a walk out from Sanyu FM and get employment at any other station of his choice. We have to be sorry for him today because his dad just died. Apparently he lives in the UK and he Mcees at Pier One. My puzzlement is on his friendship with President Jose Kabila from the other side. Man, this guy is in charge of a lot of golo and the Rasta guy is still those ways taking shit from all sorts of people? Why does he not tell his friend to like get him like only 5 Kgs of the stuff like it happens in Africa all the time? Only 5…

Yona Kanyomozi
The smartest guy in the Uganda People’s Congress undoubtedly. He’s been in the news lately because he has left his party. The first reports indicated that he had crossed to the NRM-O. Then there were reports that he said he is “for FDC.” I have always respected this guy, probably even more than Ndugu Ruhakana Rugunda but now I’m on shaky ground. I know this might be some sort of media plot to discredit him. It could have its origins in the offices of the very intelligent Noble Mayombo but I still am on shaky ground.

Masaka Hospital and current
There is a presidential lodge in Masaka and when the big man is in the area, he chills those ways. In the same district, there is a big referral (?) hospital and people come from the deepest villages of Buganda for treatment. The strange thing is that unlike Mulago hospital, which never gets load shed, Masaka Hospital is not spared. People still die because current went off while they were still under. And the presidential lodge? The guys who stay there don’t know what darkness means.

The Northern by-pass
This is one of the biggest achievements of the reigning regime. It is going to make the land through which it goes go up in price. As it is known, people from Buganda are the real capitalists. When they want money, they are not hindered by tradition or Eb’ennono about sale of land. So landlords around the northern by-pass are rubbing their hands in glee. One just wishes that by the time this government leaves power like 50 years from now, there will be more to talk about than this road. President Milton Obote was here for a far shorter time but his achievements are not contested.

Perpetual indebtedness
Uganda has once again been let off the hook. Momentarily. A big chunk of our debt - 3.8bn shillings – has been forgiven us. Theoretically, that would mean that we have learnt from our mistakes and we shall never find ourselves in that kind of trouble again. Unfortunately, we live in the real world. This time next year, we shall probably be in worse shit with the World Bank as regards debt. Same ol’ same ol’.

The war in the Middle East
The good Book said it many years ago that there would never be peace in Palestine until the Prince of Peace shows up. The world can try to do things in its own power all it wants but facts are facts. Those guys are not going to stop slaughtering innocent babies and alleged terrorists. I blame both sides in this thing.
Bebe Cool
Peeps be still confused about the fact that Bebe Cool is the King. He so kicks the asses of all those other singers but then, as they say, when you are good, your bitterest critics will be in your home country. Ask Kabelo who he thinks rules in Ug.

Stubborn Kibaki
The Kenyan Prez is pretending mbu he doesn’t hear the cries. There are like a million voices out there telling him that he is such a loser and that he should step away since he’s failed. Instead, his government has started targeting these voices of reason. Have you been to M’s blog lately?

TLC still rules
As in the greatest selling female group EVER. Even with the likes of DC and all those other wannabes, this girl group which sold almost 30million. After Lisa Lopes passed away in Honduras in 2002, the group would never be the same again. 3D, which included posthumous raps, was really a goodbye. But these girls rule. Just can't forget Waterfalls.

Craig David
And where is this dude?

Trying my hand at being all official

2006-06-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

Lemme take this opportunity to inform all the bloggers whose sites i visit that i shall probably be linking you. I have already linked some people but i shall be linking more. I hope no one will feel bad about this. Cant go to all the blogs to ask for your permission.

But if you feel like u dont want to be linked, please leave a comment.

So embarassed

2006-06-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

i feel like a dork...well. was trying to change template, the machine kept on jamming, lifted someone else's source and tried to work with it, it still jammed and i walked away from my blog for days. imagine my embarrassment when i opened it today to see the links done and redone, to very bad effect.

now my crusade is to learn all the secrets that come with writing code.

Hell ride

2006-06-09T04:13:00.000-07:00

Someone said that if you can drive in Uganda then you can drive anywhere in the world. Our roads are the ultimate road test. With their constantly materializing potholes, a driver must have more than just bare driving school knowledge. They must have a sixth or even seventh sense to know that even if there was no pothole yesterday in this place, there is now so deal with it….

On the hierarchy of hell rides, just below the loaf-like death traps we call our taxis are the bikes. We have taxi motor bikes and we call them bodabodas. Now if you want to die without feeling guilty that the Big G is going to skin you once you get to the Pearly Gates for pulling the plug too soon, get a job as a bodaboda rider. That way, when the end comes (and it will come soon. But by the time it comes you’ll be dead anyway) you wont be responsible for what happens.

For some obscure reason, I let someone talk me into sitting on one of these things. It was evening and we had to be someplace early. A friend was getting married and his men friends were getting together to send him off in style. We had to give him advice, tell him what to expect and (since none of us is married) try to get him to tell us what it feels like to be on the verge of Going Down. I also wanted to see if there would be a stripper like for real as I have heard that it is becoming common in Ug for guys to hire strippers for such parties. But that is a whole new area which we can put off for another time. Really obscure, no?

We got bikes at Wandegeya. It was rush hour and that made it easier for Enos to convince me to get on because if we had sat in one of the taxis, we would have gotten to Kawempe after two hours. The jams in Kampala are another wonder of the city, something a tourist can come down to see, y’know. The guys said they’d take us for Sh.1000 and we said that’s fine. But it was not fine for me because already, I was thinking of all the guys I know of who have had bad experiences with bodabodas.

So I was there holding onto the metals on my seat and sending up prayers as my driver weaved in and out of traffic, dodging oncoming taxis whose drivers didn’t know the first thing about the Highway Code (do we even have one?).

My friend is an old hand at this thing, he told me. At rush hour in Kampala it is better for you to stay at office and blog, read other people’s blogs or just comment. You can also go benching in Box, only that that game is now so old, you might find yourself colliding with your son in a chick’s room.

Enos told me that he usually gets a bike and goes home in half the time, at twice the cost. But he doesn’t mind. That explains why he was talking to his driver about whatever as they flew towards Bwaise. I was astonished. The guy was sitting there like he was in a sofa back home. I bet he got to know the boda guy’s name and address.

I have never been one to warm up immediately to strangers. I have a problem even with ‘Spesho’ drivers because once we agree on how much he will extract from me, I fall silent with my thoughts. It’s not like I don’t think they are capable of intelligent conversation but work with me here.

Anyway, when I opened my eyes, I was miraculously there. I had not died. But even as I thought about that, another image entered my head. I thought of all the guys who are lying in the casualty ward at Mulago Hospital who met their fate on bodabodas. I think I shall continue dodging these hell rides for long. And since there was no stripper, next time I won’t even bother to answer when a guy calls and says, “Come for the bachelor’s party.”

Some party.

The Stand

2006-06-05T06:56:00.000-07:00

Been reading The Stand. It is one hell of a long story – 1421 pages. At first, I thought I would throw it on the heap, like I do to most imposing tomes by Stephen King. I have not found a really tight read from Stephen King since The Dark Half, Pet Sematary and Christine. Furthermore, when I discovered Shaun Hutson, Mr. King lost some of his pull on me.

But The Stand is believable. The way this guy keeps the fire burning even after all those pages is what kept me reading I guess. I am about to finish. The books that can keep me from everything else, forgetting about food and TV are what I call good books. Reminds me of those days in school when I would stay in bed for the whole weekend reading.

Someone said King was thrown out of hell and he is moving around here trying to find a hole in the wall so he can slip back to where he belongs. Meanwhile, while he looks, he writes those cold-blooded tales. But anyone who read The Green Mile will agree with me that this dude is a student of psychology (or sociology or whatever ology) who is probably wrongly accused of being always morbid. For me, John Coffey is everything Jesus Christ is (was). He probably just went to Isaiah and used the idea that the saviour would be rejected because of his looks and his strange habits, that he would be sacrificed for our transgressions…

King says The Stand is “a dark tale of Christianity,” The story, first published in 1978, is a simple tale of Good vs. Evil. So it is not a new tale. But he goes beyond that and creates all these characters that will stay with me for a long time. It is like Hansell and Gretell, he says. The story is simple; there is this woodcutter who has two kids whose mum dies so he marries another woman who turns out to be a bitch. He’s a little soft in the head so she convinces him to kill the kids coz there will be more food to go around. He says yes but he can’t do it so he leaves them in the forest to die.

Hansell and Gretell find a house made of cake but it is the home of some old crock. She wants to eat them but in the end, they get the better of her and they break free. The story is pure and simple but there are many small parts that make it a classic. The breadcrumb trail…the house of cake…the hearts of two rabbits…

The Stand has all these little aspects that make you look at the issues from a thousand new angles. After reading, imma get myself the movie (seen it at the lib). And I am enjoying it immensely. I got Virgin King, the autobiography of Richard Branson but for the moment, I am letting it sit on the table as I complete this.

What's happenig at State House?

2006-05-31T06:53:00.000-07:00

I live in country called Ug. When people come over from other countries, they smile alot and they write in the local newspapers how Ug is a wonderful country. they would like to come back some time. I think its true that Ugandans love alot.

It is also the country where enemies are never permanent. The president's childhood chum...(best friend?) has gone and made a turn around that the talking heads are going to be taking apart for years, probably. Unless they are not called on Andrew Mwenda Live.

The guy was one of the architects of the opposition's most feared party, FDC and he was there in the thick of things when they sweated and bled. Now he's gone and thrown a stone in the kavuyo, thereby just increasing the speed of events and the fodder for the talking heads.

culled from www.thp.org/uganda/ 2001/aidsday/

Hon. Eriya Kategaya has denounced the FDC and he now says he has never belonged there. Reminds me of a guy who when trapped in the headlights a life time ago went like, "I do not know that woman, Lewinsky." Kategaya in effect is saying he does not know that man, Besi.

So we are left to wonder, what was that all about anyway? Why did he cross over to the other side? Did he ever cross? Did the Red Pepper lie again? Maybe i should go over to radiokatwe.com (i had forgotten that there is (was?) such a website. Maybe they have the inside story.

In an unrelated story, the Mayor of Kampala has brought the long awaited buses which are meant to eventually replace the kamunyes. Some people will say, however that that was not his plan, that he is riding on someone else's back. Whatever. It is time for those of you who have been experiencing that sinking feeling after London decided to retire its red buses, to clap. All you have to do is convince the Mayor to paint the 350? buses red.

The measure of a man

2006-05-29T11:35:00.000-07:00

To be a man. Its not rocket science but it seems the jury is still out on the issue. Because the people charged with adjudicating on whether we are doing the job right seem to trip over their judgments. What does one do before they can be judged to be a real man?

There is a lot you can do but if it doesn’t sound right in a female’s ears, you are wasting your time bro. Sometimes, sacrifice is not sacrifice in the eyes of other people. You can split open your rear end trying to impress the world but what matters is that you impress the right people.

Stephen Covey gives a vivid picture about paradigm change in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Here’s this father on a bus and his kids are raising up a racket and their dad seems oblivious to what they are getting up to. He’s staring out of the window while the rest of the passengers suffer at the hands of his brood. When one of them can’t stand it any more, he asks the father if he can’t do anything about his pesky kids. The guy is very sorry and almost profusely explains that his kids don’t behave this way normally but today, they are especially strange because they just lost their mom. Immediately, the reader sees the difference in the attitude of the other passengers. Suddenly, every one wants to let the kids tear off the roof of the bus if they want to Paradigm change.

Maybe the world will stop judging males by the standards set by old people. Maybe women will get with the program and accept that because of the rapid changes that are happening even now, they should stop expecting that everything will come to them as easily as it does in a Barbara Cartland book. Tall dark and handsome men are credible. They are myriad in the north of Uganda (anyone for tall dark and handsome? They are not made in the Maasai Maraa only). But the equation is spoilt when the tall dark and handsome man is expected to have blue eyes. That’s where the line should be drawn.

The female a man hooks up with could expose new warts everyday. She could be a new book every time he turns his head and it is very easy to take his eyes off the important thing and look at the tempestuous waters.

But it is the measure of a man the way he accepts this challenge and goes about living with it or changing it. It is more than just a case of she-squeezes-the-toothpaste-in-the-middle. It could be about bigger things like “who was that on the phone?” The man who chooses the lonely road must go into it with a fresh mind.

It is about realising that he is not He-Man and that no matter how strong he thinks he is, he still needs help. Because there are things he just can’t figure out on his own. It’s about accepting the faults of the other person and realizing that he is as human as the other person is and that he probably has worse warts. The other person is just doing a better job tolerating him. He must have a new paradigm or he will listen to the unsure jibes of all his peeps and his step will falter.

Say, what's going on?

2006-05-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

okay, i admit iam all confused here. i dont know why the comments wont show on my blog. this is hard so ya'll please dont rub it in...what can i do to get them back? ive been to my dashboard like...many many times and i thought i had fixed the probelm but...lemme see if this post will show the comments...

Genius wears blue jeans

2006-05-22T04:26:00.000-07:00

Ray Charles believed that genius loves company. That, though, was just one aspect. There are many facets to the whole equation and probably that’s why everyone should want to be a genius. Apart from having to carry the weight of the world, thinking for the rest of humanity, they get to start revolutions in fashion and no one can attack them because…we do not understand them anyway.

From the time of Albert Einstein, the people who have driven the world of science, the inventors that brought us the most important machines in our lives have led unusual existences.

Einstein had that weird hair style which one would probably have been shot for before the German born physicist crossed over to the USA and whispered in the ear of the US president that he knew how to bring the war to an end. This guy’s hair had a mind of its own. It just wanted to stay standing and that was the end of the discussion. It stood on his head as though trying to look into the future and report back to his brain.

That he had a strange hair style did not matter because he was the biggest scientist in the world. He proved something that today’s bosses seem to forget the moment they leave secondary school and the life of hanging-at-the-hip pants; it doesn’t matter what the apparel looks like. It is of no consequence if one doesn’t have the style of Peter Sematimba as long as they deliver when they are told to deliver.

There is a growing number of young and up coming entrepreneurs who are the forerunners of a brave new world. In Uganda, they are the rebels from your old school that you secretly believed would never make it because they were always against the status quo. They were always going out to dance and they were always cutting class. What really used to get to you is that they always seemed to wake up at just the right moment to score maximum in their exams.

The rebels have a problem getting with the programs of other people and so they do not really keep their jobs for long. They might not cotton onto the idea early but what they really need is to start up their own business. They are the restless types who are always skipping from one high paying job to the next low paying one to the next high paying one. Just thinking of this picture makes me think of a guy called J.Magara.

Eventually, they lose the little patience they had in the first place and break loose. That’s when they come into their element. They buy a lap top and start dreaming up all sorts of things. They create the coolest websites you ever saw and they draw up building designs that would make the mayor slap his head and ask, “Doh, what was I thinking before?”.

This species is not rare. They are not prominent only because they don’t take themselves seriously. They are the lowlifes you look at when they walk into your office and dismiss because of their attire. Sometimes, they will saunter in with bits of food on their shirt. Other times they’ll come with the longest dreads you ever saw and you will be thinking, “If this dude hasn’t been smoking something illegal, he should have been.”

They are free agents. They wear what goes. They are too busy thinking for the world to care what you think is trendy. So they’ll wear the most comfortable sneaks and the snuggest jeans in the closet and throw on their base ball cap. The next time you come across a character in blue jeans and sneakers with a laptop carrier on their shoulder looking contemplatively at the ground like it holds the answer the HIV puzzle, don’t ask. Just know you’ve met one of Kampala’s geniuses.

Evolution

2006-05-18T05:07:00.000-07:00

In a sonorous voice full of intelligence, the commentator on TV tells us that 6 billion years ago, humans evolved from apes. Mbu we have to believe all those stories about the big bang and primordial soup. We are told to go back to that Sinai and go round it again for the umpteenth time, trying to find the Missing Link.

So there is supposed to have been a giant leap from apehood to humanhood. The scientists insist that what Aunt Cynthia taught in Sunday School was all dogs’ bollocks. That there is no way the creation story could have happened because they don’t understand how that could have happened. Ha! So we all should throw out our math teachers because they are writing formulae we don’t click on the board!

The evolutionists seem to have got new money to go out there and do some more research. Suddenly it is open season on everything traditional. And what’s more, Dan Brown, Dr. Barbara Thiering (the computer dictionary called her Thieving) and all those very clever people are shouting again. I’ve read some of their works and I’ve been impressed, I must say.

There is something gripping about the voice of the guy who always voices over nature flicks, no? There can not be a chance that this guy is telling us lies. They always have the facts or rather, millions of gobbledygook trivia thrown together in a mosaic and eventually, we are eating out of their hand. The songs about the Discovery Channel are not many for nothing.

When the inquisitive mind, awakened by such fascinating info asks why humans were living at the same time as the dinosaurs (footprints of man together with those of some T-Rex, probably the relationship was hunter and hunted, T-Rex and dinner…), there are raised voices and accusations of being high on the Opium of the Masses.

Meanwhile, the brainies go into the Congo and poke around, fool around and mess with the Cradle of Life. They are trying to disprove things that have been said long before by a power that’s bigger than them. But maybe that’s what humans are supposed to do; hit their heads upon the wall until they are blue and black. Okay, for black people, blue and black sounds a little bit out there but…

Mama’s Song

2006-05-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

Mothers are special. From the beginning of time, humans have sung of their virtues. If we were lucid all the time, probably we would let mothers rule because it seems only they know what the meaning of order is anyway.

Most times, especially when we leave the coop, we just forget what mothers are for. We go out there and mess ourselves up yet all we have to do is go back and draw on those reserves of strength that they have stored up. Mothers are for reminding us that we are not dumb or stupid. They are the people who will worship us even when the world is crying that we are the worst scum of all.

Mothers are for sacrifice. It is every young mother who abandons her dreams of making it big in some big city like Dick Whittington and returns home to take care of baby. She shuts her mind to the bells tolling that she will be mayor of London if she stays and slugs it out.

They give up the good life to see that this new life growing in them will grow good. They could have a glowing modeling career; appearing on glossy mags and getting all sorts of deals. They have to ignore their girlfriends who tell them the pregnancy will distort their features for ever and that they’ll never work in this town again. They weigh the options and choose to have the baby. And they fight to get back in the spotlight and when you see them on the cover of the most popular women’s mag, the smile dancing in their eyes is not the smile of some floozy out to be seen. It’s the smile of triumph and wisdom.

It is the brave ones who belong to an upright Christian ministry and they have been in leadership so the decision to terminate is the easiest. Instead, they give up the glory and the fake spirituality and go through the nine months of crucifixion. They are tormented by their family (dad taunting her about being a two timing liar) and friends (Stella got pregnant. Hmmm! Kyoka that ka girl! Nga she’s on the leadership team?). They go through all this and have their beautiful, beautiful girl.

The desperate mother who is down on everything but will not accept to see her baby die of hunger. The woman who sweats it out in Owino aka St. Balikuddembe and even when her luck runs out because she just doesn’t have the skill, she seeks other ways to feed her tot. They are the reason we must not be quick to judge the women who are paraded on WBS TV news, nabbed on Speak Road at 2pm on a cold night trying to negotiate with drunken passersby.

Mothers’ Day is here for all such as these and more. For all the women out there who let their maternal instinct take over and let life thrive. It is the day that y’all who have mothers should take them out and show them that you understand and you appreciate. Before it is too late for you tell them how you feel.

Happy Mothers’ Day

Three Musketeers

2006-05-11T05:22:00.000-07:00

Three guys. Not exactly in the mould of D’Artagnan and his chums. You won’t catch us dead lugging big ol’ muskets around or anything. You won’t catch us in funny tights, talking with nasal twangs in French accents (maybe except for some guy who has been told that he has “an accent”)

We met in school. Like one of those friendships, no one can explain what brings us together, what brought us together. At first it was just two guys. The third guy was somewhere being a smart ass in Weevil Land. He must have displayed the qualities that a person in our triumvirate must posses, even when he was in that…place.

Anyway, away from mind bending schools. We eventually hooked up and we quickly “found” each other. My peeps would come over to my house, as our dormitories were called over at my school, and they would sit with me and we would talk for hours on end. One of them always came in with, “Gwe, ‘cook’ us some tea.” And I think he really meant it. Y’know, Cook. Tea.

We were together through it all; the boring afternoon lessons with Kaziba and the funny ones with Kube, trying to sell us some bull theory in Econ, the trips to Sunsas and ‘Nga and Taibah, looking around for girls who were game for a dance with our candidate’s class, the strike (chasing BF out of that place…) We was always together.

I admit I didn’t have that much faith in the longevity of this thing. I guess I grew jaded after seeing too many friendships exposed for what they truly are, you know the drill; people leave school and promise to write, to keep in touch. They actually hang together for those first months of ‘vac’ and even go to campus still tight. Then they change and they just don’t bother with each other anymore.

One of us was going farther than that. He was going Stateside. Naturally I thought our band of brothers was done, the words of Timon and Pumbaa. Even when this dude continued writing months after he had flown. Even when I knew he was not a great one with writing. I kept on telling myself that when the loneliness wore off, he’d like forget he was even a Ugandan from Paris-Dakar (Pallisa Budaka).

Dude just blew my beliefs to high heaven. 6 years on, he still calls. Those middle of the night calls that many Ugandans have complained about that seem to come from desperate inconsiderate Ugandans abroad are anything but with Busta. Dude can call at 2.pm any day and I am cool with it. Dude is a true friend after all these years. Somehow, when he asks about what’s going on in our lives, I know he is not faking it. And this year, he’s making the journey to Ug, the first since he left, just to be with his friends again.

And the other guy? He is not disinclined to sending me a txt just saying “hi, I’m thinking about you.” I was in a boy’s school for 6 years and in that school, such displays of affection were unheard of. You said stuff like that only if you didn’t mind being called a fag or being the source of all sorts of dirty jokes. It was taboo. Like holding hands. Yuck! How could you even think of that? But this my pal, if he does it now, I can never jump on him. I know he means it in a good Christian way.

So I can confidently say that years from now, we shall probably sit on someone’s porch and sip on healthy tea and play chess and just bask in the sun of friendship. Three old gits throwing glances at the cats running by and exchanging knowing looks. Three friends just lucky to have chanced on each other. Three Musketeers.

Lessons from Ugandan pop

2006-05-06T02:47:00.000-07:00

No matter what the powers up there say, history is and will always be important. It is because of history that great people are remembered. In many cases, they are great because they studied history and learnt from the exploits of icons long gone. History is what will get us as much love and money as great icons like Chameleon and Titi.

Of course they are great icons. They are known all over the world and yet you…who knows you? These are international stars. Mark the word international. They get invited to perform at concerts in the UK and Rwanda. That is big. When they tell you they are driving Shs. 400m cars, can you dispute that?

That is why we have to listen with rapt attention when our stars get on stage or on our TV and start giving us our lesson on the Late Show. What with all the wisdom freely dispensed in the lyrics we hear! One day, you are being told to get off your lazy behind and build your own house by the distinguished academic, Ragga Dee and the next, you are being told to go one further in your chemistry by one lady screaming to prove to the world that a human being can actually fit in a bottle. I think it is physics, though.

Money is and will always be a darling. One singer is not about to break the Omerta by telling us where he gets his money but he will gladly laugh at our attempts to guess. He will castigate his detractors as bataasoma and tell it on the mountain. But at least there is a lesson after all. After he has spent his frustrations on the haters, he will croon again about the merits of hard work. Of course he sings it in Luganda but to paraphrase, “I am making a lot of money. If you want to talk about it, come out here in the open where I can see you. I’ma break your head and after that, I’ma put it in the fridge and it’ll get so frozen, the dog wont want to eat it.” Paraphrasing.

Then of course there are always those teachers whose purpose will forever be lost on you. You remember them, the guys who would come at the weirdest times in the day and give a test. They never really try to explain themselves and they don’t care if you take their advice or not. These are the guys who come to class and say unintelligible things like bam badam badam beee…burn dem down. You just bit your tongue? I feel your pain. Trust me, there are educators who say stuff like that.

I guess they also don’t know what they mean but since they are the teachers, they have the right to take us to Rome and back. They usually crown their performances at the front of the class with fisticuffs and wild swear words all perfectly choreographed to look like a fight. They might even come away screaming that they’ve been stabbed but on closer inspection, you might find that it is a faint scratch that even the camera cannot see.

Usually, after a hectic day of physics or chemistry in the hot sun, we are given a break of sorts. The teachers who come in at this time are happy go lucky and we love them for their antics. They usually tell us to recite nursery rhymes like sipolingi and ekimbeewo. They are serious professionals, by the way so don’t let the clown outfits and little girl hair dos fool you.

When I grow up, I am going to be Eddie Mpagi. I want to ride on a bike with a fly chick. That way, I can get all the guys whose music I produce and tell them to shake their bodies like they are dancing. Plus of course, I want to sing about bikes without the public coming up with its own double entendres. If that fails, I want to be Kid Fox; singing about love is a good feeling.

Guns all around

2006-05-04T09:45:00.000-07:00

Last week, the Ugandan Inspector General of Police, a soldier called Kale Kayihura complained that there were way too many guns in private hands. The number of people moving around totting guns is rising and there is no telling when the shit will hit the fan, to use a soga phrase.

The newspapers have been commenting on the number of private security firms blossoming in Kampala. Apparenly, from the 13,000 strong police force that we have, the demand for more security is encouraging more business oriented people to go into the whole bodyguard thing. It pays to have a security firm in Uganda today.

And the citizens will pay for the services. No one wants to be in the situation that Mrs. Kiingi found herself. Y'all remember the prominent lawyer who was shot and killed just outside her home.

The problem is that there are journeymen who will do just anything to get the chizzy. This happens everywhere in the world so i wont say it is a Ugandan problem. The problem presented itself and the enterprising peeps stepped in. Now we have 18,000 private security people on the loose in Kampala, working for about 75 firms, according to Daily Monitor.

There are as many people who will hold a big ol' rifle and stand guard outside a bank as there are people registering to go and work in Iraq. When the rich opinion leaders shout themselves hoarse that "our sons are going to be butchered in Iraq," the applicants fire back that these crybabies are not going to feed their families so they should just like shut the hell up.

So we have desperate people ready to do anything. And when the security firms put out ads for vacancies, there are thousands who want in. We end up with dangerous recruits who sleep on the muzzles of their guns at midday and cry like little girls when creative robbers hit the place.

Are Ugandans dying at the hands of senseless gunslingers? Is it the Wild West all over again? No. We have very bright security chiefs (Noble, Kale and Tinyefunza). But the fact that the guns are put in the hands of the wrong personell is our own undoing. But i know that if it gets to a point where some strategic aspect of the regime's program is in jeopardy, we'll have another Wembley up in here and Kampala will be peaceful once again.

Oh, by the way, we are gearing up for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting next year.

The children are singing and dancing…

2006-04-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

Smile for real
Its school holiday in Ug and there are kids everywhere. Ha! Not so clever, huh? Of course there are children everywhere if its holiday time. So the whole place is so full of noise and the grown ups are trying to endure the pain until the pesky things are herded off to school once again.

There are things you just enjoy only when you are young. If you did not have a blast back then, well, sorry. You will never have the privilege. Unless you are going to be like MJ (apparently he was framed). Dude missed phases of his childhood and so he has to go through it all again at an age when he’s supposed to be a grandpa. There was a time when I wanted to grow up to be Michael Jackson. Well, I was a kid and I was innocent.

Only a child will understand what it feels like to slide down the hill on the seat of your pants. The fact that you are ripping them to shreds is of no consequence. In other words, you don’t give a fig.

Kids wake up earlier than the adults and they start making noise. The doors are still locked but the kids want to be out there in the Great Outdoors.

The happy laughter is in tune with the happy chirps of the birds. This is what creation was created to do in the first place- worship a power that’s greater than them. And the adults question the quirks of their kids. Baffled.

But there are some things kids will have to wait for. For one, they always have to go to bed when its 10:30 on Wednesday night. Reason is that they cannot watch Soul Food on WBS TV. They can only see it if they are sharp enough to peek from the crack of the door.

So they will have to wait until they are old enough to watch Bird pouting ever so beautifully, Maxine trying to look sexy and Terry being such a bitch. Yeah, Terry being her usual stuck up, funny eyed self.

China in your face

2006-04-26T06:46:00.000-07:00

The Chinese have arrived. They are taking over the world and making the Americans really scared. The USA is trying to make trumped up charges against China stick but it’s like trying to pull a chicken by its skin.

Africa is under a Chinese invasion. There have been many instances of foreign intrusion in African affairs in the past, right from the days of Belgium’s sojourn in the Congo and the Italians in Libya. But the Africans of those days were not the Africans of today.

Right now, almost every African country has Chinese investors, giving us a front row seat at the Clash of the Titans. China is going to be a superpower; there is no question about that. The question is when.

The Americans, who’ve been in charge of the world for so long now, know that the writing’s on the wall but they just don’t want to go quietly. They want to be dragged from the party screaming and kicking. When they see the investments that are going up in Africa by the Chinese, they suddenly want the world to look at this new force as the agent of The Dark Side.

Nevertheless, whatever Uncle Sam says, the Chinese seem to have the appropriate technology for Africa. America neglected the needs of Africa for so long and concentrated on only what they could get out of here. They made things suited only for their markets; huge guzzlers that couldn’t be used in my village in Ibulanku and all these drugs that cost as much as it does to send a hundred kids to P1 in Ug. They wanted to get the coffee and sell us expensive instant, get the cocoa and sell us expensive pimped up chocolate…

If you have been to down town Kampala, you have seen the brisk business that the Chinese are doing. The shoes are plastic and they go for as little as Sh.5000 but those dudes seem to know what to do. They are not complaining. They are getting their money and the locals are getting their desires fulfilled. This is the party America is not too happy about.

China is being accused of encouraging dictatorships to rise up in Africa. Apparently, because they have a close relationship with Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, they are the cause of all the suffering of the white people down there. But China is only going through the lines of the script. America has done these same lines before.

Mugabe might be as evil as hell but it depends on whose cousins and girlfriends are not getting unfair contracts in Zimbabwe, it seems. Everyone knows how the west sends crazy ass rejects to Africa and calls them expatriates. So they give us their money but we have to spend all of it on their people. When Mugabe stands against this robbery, he’s labeled a pariah. And he might well be but that’s not the point here.

The road net works and hotels going up all over Africa, with extra cash to see that those projects do not fail are really rubbing the USA the wrong way. It must be really bad for them to be constantly reminded that their five minutes in the spotlight are coming to a close.

Black Easter in Masaka

2006-04-21T03:01:00.000-07:00

Tragedy fell on Masaka Hospital this week. A baby whose mother had complications during birth lost its life because the doctors decided to sever its head and save the life of the mother.

Looking at the picture on TV, the kind of picture CNN could never show to its precious viewers, (and one Al Jazeera would kill for) one feels really sorry. I mean, you can’t help but think of all the things this human being could have become. Maybe this is the person who would have brought that much needed change that people are always dreaming about in Ug.

The baby’s dad looked dry eyed and kind of in shock. Delayed shock. The guy was talking with a strange little smile playing at the corner of his mouth. And this made the sorrow even deeper for the viewers. The mother was too devastated to say anything.

But when one hears what the plans are that this couple has, one is forced to question a few things.

Who is to blame? The doctors, nurses or the parents? Must there always be a human being to be the fall guy? Does nature have a say in the tragedies that stalk us or have we given up on blaming forces of nature because we know we cannot win?

Apparently, the hospital had only 2 nurses on duty. There was no doctor present and the patients were at the mercy of God. It was Easter and everyone had gone off to celebrate the resurrection of the Son of God.

When the mother felt her pangs, she was rushed to the hospital but there was a complication that would have been solved by a doctor, according to the WBS reporter. The hospital blames the couple for waiting until too late. Mbu dilation had gone beyond normal and there was no way she could have had a normal delivery.

The mother had had four previous births at the same hospital but all of them had been Caesarian. When she was taken to the theatre, the nurses were blowing hot air down her back, telling her to “push.” So she tried. And maybe, she could not explain to them that the road they were forcing her down was dangerous.

In the end, she could not push and the baby was going to die. But the mother was also in critical danger. So the decision was made; cut the head and save the mother. And we in Uganda have to say, “what else is new?”

Then all hell broke loose. TV guys were in the area and now, it is the stuff of legend in Masaka.

Sob stories

2006-04-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

Amy Bruce. The name sounds familiar to you, doesn’t it? Let me help you, she’s the poor 7-year old little girl who needs your help. “She needs surgery for her sick lungs and if you don’t forward this message to ten of your friends, it will mean you are the worst of moral criminals. You deserve the hottest place in hell,” to paraphrase.

So the e-mail does its rounds all over the world. Every day, someone opens their e-mail and comes upon a forwarded e-mail and on opening it, what do you know, it’s from someone who is so moved, they had to send it to you. To a point where you start thinking of this little girl as some sort of icon. She is in the line of Mother Teresa and all the saints poured in one.

But that’s what you think about after the first few times you receive the poem she allegedly wrote, grown up phraseology and all. When you keep on receiving the letter two years on, even if you are the thickest of all God’s children, you sit up and smell the Arabica, right? Unfortunately that’s not really the case.

How many people have forwarded this e-mail since you first received it. And forwarded it? Remember that all you have to do to help Amy is to send it forward. You are not required to donate money to any numbered account or anything that would raise your hackles. So since 1999, the thing has been going round the globe.

The Amy Bruce affair seems just as innocent as the one that comes in your mail telling you that Bill and Melinda Gates are helping raise money for sick children in Africa and all you have to do is send the e-mail to as many people as you can. And you might even get money for your troubles. Now that’s the clincher. Such bogus e-mails keep on flooding your box and you just can’t stop them.

Some well meaning friend reads it and they think about you and how kind and sensitive you are and voila! They know who best qualifies to be sent this corny stuff. The problem is that they actually believe it. Within companies, one person gets the e-mail and they send it to everyone in their outlook address book. Probably, they do it with tears in their eyes, really moved about the kid who won’t survive if we don’t act.

But people get tired of being bleeding hearts. Or at, least, they eventually start asking themselves what this thing is really about. Why is this American kid still asking for money six years later?

Even at the ANPPCAN offices in Mulago, one can see how far deep the lie has sunk. They have the picture of Amy proudly up on their notice board and these are supposed to be old hands at children’s issues. I bet many other children’s organisations have swallowed it too.

Don’t be surprised to find out the whole thing started as a joke that some bored computer geek put out just to see how far a lie would go. Mr. Geek probably got tired of it all and wanted to forget it all but he couldn’t. Probably he is one of those who are peeved every time their PC goes “You’ve Got Mail,” only to find Amy Bruce. And Amy? She must be a billionaire now.

The Nerd Squad

2006-04-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

After watching hours of gruesome murders and the cool people trying to solve them, I think I might have been cured of the insatiable hunger for series. Been watching too much CSI, I think I can easily chew on a sweet roll and watch as some stiff is being gutted without retching.

Before this, my experience was really limited to the escapades of Mr. Bauer and his sidekick Tony. Before I walked into PG Videos and gave in to the urge to spend, I was content with what I have seen of Soul Food and all the other series. Of course after watching 24 I realised that that kind of high should only be taken in small doses. People still get glazed eyes and TV minds in this year of our Lord twenty zero six.

But I actually liked CSI enough to ignore the warning bells in my head. I could watch it and learn some truths about film as seen from the point of view of America. There is more to David Caruso and his team. There is something about a day show with all the fly babes going by as the police try to solve another homicide. I guess.

It was Mike who said that Horatio Kane takes himself way too seriously. I think that’s true. When he stares down and lifts his head then pushes those bad shades up on his bridge, he is probably thinking, “Eat your heart out Keanu.”

But have you seen that guy’s face as compared to every one else on the show? He looks like a white Justice George Kanyeihamba; you know, dead look, rigor mortis and all. To make matters worse, he has to fight for attention in the looks department with Adam Rodriguez and Emily Proctor.

Its different from 24 in that it calls for more brainpower. There are scenes where the bad guy is frothing at the mouth and trying to justify their sickness and Caruso is staring at them with the contempt that should be accorded to Straka when she gets up on your TV and starts doing that dance of hers, or is it a jig copied from Santa (Ho, ho, ho every one…). But at the back of your head you are thinking that if this were Jack Bauer, this suspect would be like dead on the floor before they can leer.

Do humans always leave that much evidence when they mess up? What are all those hairs doing all over the crime scene? Every time the “Nerd Squad” arrives, they find hairs from the victims and their tormentors. These bad guys are always trying to show off or something? Man, don’t try that if you want to be really bad..

CSI is not meant to be a long series. I think after some time, everyone gets really bored. There is something within me that wants to see someone saved. I want to not know if the vic will die or not. This show is all about what happens when people die. So there is really nothing for me to look forward to. If all the victims die, why do we have superheroes in the first place? This show is bound to be a short one for me.

But you can’t beat those humvees, dude. Those shinny babies are sunny every day. Long live Miami and hot beaches. Even with the morbid ideas that come with the show (they justify it thus: “hey look, kids get murdered every day and all we are doing is putting it on screen”), I can watch that thing if every now and then, they show me one of those beauties. And they know never to walk out on a winning streak, those guys.

But there could be salvation for my interest after all. If there came a time when Kampala got its own version, maybe I could get involved. Right now, CSI could hold water for Savage and Inktus who live in the States. For me in Kampala, it holds as much meaning as Titanic. I remember when all these girls watched Leonardo trying to save Ms. Winslet and all the tears they let down.

CSI Kampala would do that for me, I think because I would identify with the victims down in Kisenyi. I would watch the gruesome murder of a little baby dumped in some bin and I would say to myself, “that could be my niece.”

Fighting for the aesthetic supremacy

2006-04-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

The leadership of the church I belong to is stressed. Kampala Pentecostal Church has embarked on a frenzied drive to construct a new ultra modern showpiece. What they are going to do is basically extend the area of the existing church.

There will probably be diversions of the roads around the former cinema and we might have to find alternative routes to the flats, me thinks. The church will have an underground parking lot and it will rise many floors into the air.

All this is on program to come to fruition by the end of two years. This year, we are collecting money. Our theme for the year is “It Is Time To Build.” The faithful are pledging all sorts of amounts in all currencies and the leadership of the church has pressed it on us that this is the time to do this. It might be kinda sudden for us but apparently, Ps. Skinner and his friends have been praying about this for some time and they have got the go-ahead.

Lifting up holy hands

Things might sound clear or obvious until one looks across the city to Old Kampala. There is a new sight rising that side and if it is not the central reason we are going to have a new multi billion shilling church in the midst of the city, it definitely has some bearing. It is called National Mosque Kampala.

The Leaning Tower of Old Kampala, which had for long been an example of bad architecture (people said it was Iddi Amin’s legacy to his religion: a failure in matters spiritual and so a failure in matters architectural). Those who grew up in the Indian houses of Bakuli or Old Kampala had their childhood memories wound around the tower.

No longer about to fall

It was an attempt to build a mosque but it stalled and remained derelict for decades. Until Col. Muammar Gaddafi came around with his money sacks and said “let there be a new kick-ass mosque” and sure enough, there is a new mosque taking shape. And the tower? It has been transformed into a beautiful new thing. The whole project, which covers the whole hill, is still a work-in-progress but it is eye-catching already.

Looking at National Mosque from town, one can have a fair idea what it will be like when completed. It is going to be one of the wonders of dusty old Kampala. Anyone who is involved in competition with the A-rabs will look at it and immediately see the religio-political issues underneath. And if you are affiliated to one of the fastest growing churches in the land, you want to fight this to the death.

KPC is not going to build just on the central site. They are going to build up the Kisaasi site as well and the work will be simultaneous. Something tells me that even if the church members don’t contribute the chizzy, the project must go on by any means possible. Already, the guys who constructed the American embassy have been commissioned to do the work. This is serious business.

Whatever happens, one thing is for certain: Kampala is sure going to look a lot different in five years. Maybe the Krishna guys will also take up the challenge and the Greek Orthodox guys’ll follow them.

Some ground shaking moments in the life of…

2006-04-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

Raid on Kampala
More than twenty years ago, a ragtag army marched into Kampala. The skinny soldiers, led by an even skinnier rebel leader,

tried to stay on their feet. Their feet must have hurt like hell because many of their shoes were just shadows of what they should have been. The soldiers marched into the city and they were as shy as the onlookers. They had to fight to cover themselves with the rags on their backs. What a joke it would be to compare those dudes with the fat people we see now!
Chasing the Bronco
I was watching TV at some cousin’s place for the whole day because there were no kids to play with in Lugazi’s doctors’ quarters. The other reason was that there were no nosey adults to stop me watching TV to my fill. So I watched the story of this black guy who had supposedly murdered his white wife. OJ was a hero before his arraignment. He became a bigger one when he killed Nicole.

One of the highlights of that case was the chase of the Ford Bronco. And the Bruno Magli kicks. Say, what was that about planted evidence?
6 Minutes of madness
During the finals of the European Championship last year, the first half had shown everyone that Liverpool was down and out. There were bitter tears because the Mersey siders had really come from far. They had come in as the under dogs and all those who had that rebellious trait to root for David were feeling let down.

Whatever Rafa Benitez told those lads in the dressing room, we’ll never know. At three goals down after the first half, Liverpool came back to score three goals in six minutes and to change the course of the game till the end. That match reminded me why I love this team to bits.
Gaetano – the return
The dude had not won the prize money. He’d not done a lot for the country as far as economists were concerned. Timothy Kalyegira had predicted weeks before that he would be evicted early and that because of his shenanigans in the house, he would not win a dime.

That was a non issue for the Ugandans fans, though. When he returned, he was met by a mammoth crowd at the airport and he had to behave like a politician. Heck, he’s a Seya incarnate.
Nicole Treasure
This little lady is not called treasure anymore. She is two years old now. Something I will never understand. Because to me, she is a treasure. She is one of the few humans I have seen on the day, they were born. And she was oh, so fragile. That moment had me wishing I had a little girl of my own. Surely, she is made of sugar and spice and everything nice.
Inzikuru 2005
Dorcas Inzikuru has won gold at the recent Commonwealth competitions in Australia. We applauded but it was not like we were taken completely by surprise. She was better than her competitors. The real sweet victory was the one last year at the Olympics.

She pulled off a feat no one expected her to. After Ugandan athletes had perfected the art of the “almost,” we expected the best performance to be probably silver. That girl swooshed past her rivals with a big smile, even if there was no one to give a flag. The same thing happened again but Dorcas is not to be daunted by government red tape. She will go one winning while our leaders wring their hands and pray that she loses so they won’t have to make good their promises.
9/11
No matter how much one can say they hate the US of A, few people actually celebrated when those planes hit the twin towers. My peeps and I were on a bus going for ministry in Nairobi the day it happed.

I did not understand why the police people at the border post were crowding around their small radios. The fact that America was defiled means that no one is safe. There is no where to hide. But the fire balls were terrific. In the hostel lobby in Nairobi, I sat watching the TV waiting for a repeat of the item where they showed the planes hitting the buildings. It was like a video game, a movie, perhaps. Moral of the experience: Don’t crash air vehicles loaded with aviation fuel into the World Trade Centre.
Cigars and denials
The American president was up there in the dock fighting for his political life. The world watched as Bill Clinton was exposed for the slime ball he really is.

He squirmed and groveled and made lots of people sick to the stomach. But it was also a good thing because it was one more reason for Ugandan politicians to stop comparing us to America every time they are on the ropes. Every time they go like “Even in America…” we shall always be asking if the example is appropriate, given that it is the home of a president who just cannot keep it in.
Mercy acquittal

Yeah, like mercy killing…you get?
The Goonies

I watched The Goonies again. I was thrown back to a time when life was good. Politicians were straight, prices were lower and children respected their elders. (And that was not the Sun Screen). I was there misty eyed and thinking; the guy who produced this movie is the same who gave us E.T, A.I and Polar Express. He is also the guy who gave us head messers like Schindler’s List and Munich. Well, can’t understand everything.

Oh, by the way, Top TV is a Ugandan station that normally is seen as a Christian establishment. Now they are showing 24. Seems we are stuck with Jack Bauer for some time. They are starting with season one but knowing how addictive series can be, we’ll soon be picketing their offices and demanding that they show the whole thing up to season five. Then we shall demand for CSI and the OC. Wait…isn’t 24’s appeal the violence? What is a Christian station doing showing it?

See No Evil, Hear None, Just be a dork

2006-04-04T04:51:00.000-07:00

Ugandans have been experienceing a mix of some strange emotions in the past few weeks. There has been alot going on in the courts of law and maybe we should have gotten used to all that by now, given Warren B's incessant rants that he must get justice. It all sounds like he's trying to make a stone urinate by screaming at it.

But the actors wanted more. The Hon. Jim Muhwezi (honourable is debatable here) in a fit of rage said he had a right to act the way he wanted because the rest of us didnt dodge bullets in the war. Mike Mukula is caught in the middle and suddenly he is being victimised for being a flashy rich guy.

Then we have another scandal; Rwanda is back on our front pages because the security guys didnt think of a better method to kick out some spy.

Meanwhile, the officials are trying so hard to make us think that the fact that more Ugandans are dying in the north than in Iraq is not all that. We just have to look away.

The rest of us? We go on blogging and making plans for the future.

Jajja’s wisdom

2006-04-02T04:07:00.000-07:00

I went round to check on Jajja. Had taken ages without seeing her. I knew I would probably only find her and the help since every one else would have run away from the gloom brought on by the load shedding.

She is not bothered much by load shedding though. She is contented just being with her great grandson and you will find her making those baby noises and talking to him like she’s talking to her contemporary. He’s high yella so she calls him “Brown.”

This time, I found her in the kitchen washing up after Brown. So we got talking, Jajja standing a head and a half shorter than I and me, leaning on the sink and listening with rapt attention.

I learned long ago that it does not do any good to interrupt her with questions because a) She hates it and she will snap at you and b) She will probably go off on a tangent and you will lose the plot. So I just tried my best to listen and patch up the many topics she brought up.

But it was one big mosaic. It would look like she was rumbling but it took me a moment to realise she was on about the case in court. She has some really strong views on who’s right and who’s wrong in the drama that’s being played out in front of their honours, the judges of the high court of Uganda.

Now Jajja lost a number of people in the madness that enveloped this country two decades ago. She is not going to simply fold her self on the floor and let history repeat itself. She heard that “that guy with funny eyes” has dealings with Kony and the fact that “the white people are giving him all that money” means the rest of us are doomed. Because he will definitely win that court case regardless whether he’s wrong and woe unto us “people who do not come from up north.”

Jajja says back in the country, the people will do whatever their chief says. All one has to do to manipulate the electorate is line the chairman’s pockets and all will work out well. In this case, the omwami said he didn’t like “that man with funny eyes” and the whole village voted against him. Now they are scared of retribution should “the man with funny eyes” trounce his foe in court.

I didn’t argue with that logic, as I have already said. I didn’t want to argue with Jajja’s wisdom. I was still listening, trying to get to the core of her disgruntlement when she actually went off on a different line of thought. Of course it must have been tied in with the original idea but I guess I was feeling thick then.

She started on her health and then on the baby’s flu and on the price of making a phone call at the nearby pay phone. Should she call Aunt Ruth from there or should she wait for a time when she will have the money to go over there? Man, I was staring, trying to decipher the code.

I went away thinking not of the pay phone or the baby’s flu but of the genius of politicians. When they come to town, they act dumb. They pass off as stupid and we have a field day pointing out the 101 reasons they are stupid. But they know where the power lies and they smile at our attempts to be self righteous.

On a different note, i'm reading James Michener's The Novel and i'm enjoying it far more than i thought i would. The guy wrote that thing for writers strictly.

The way he explains the pain of rejection of manuscripts and the politics at play in the publishing industry comes off as vivid. The author who slaves for years before he hits paydirt, the editor who must push a book that the critics have labelled a botboiler and all the small characters that are not so small when their contribution is considered in perspective...

Its a story of guts. The writer who is down in their spirit will feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel afterall.

The TV weepy

2006-03-19T07:46:00.000-08:00

Iwaya sked for this. This is the piece dude. few changes but...

In Africa, the death of someone special is a very hard thing to handle. Unlike other people who can callously throw the dead away without a second thought, here we make it a very big ceremony when someone eventually goes to meet the creator.

I try to be an African through and through when I can. When the TV decided it had shown its last movie, I wanted to scream at it, pull its wires and generally cause it to reconsider. But then, such behaviour is not African. It would cast the whole of Africa in a bad light. So I decided to just swallow the expletives I had lined up for it.

At the moment, I was thinking that I could not handle not having TV. How was I going to sit through the day on weekends just staring at nothing? How was I going to start up conversations with Crazy Clyde from the neighbours? It was all so depressing. All the options I could think of were thwarted as soon as they were conceived.

My fears were born of not knowing what lay in the future. I had never not had TV in my life. I grew up watching TV. For crying out loud, as soon as I had my first suckle after birth, I asked my mama where the TV was at. Other kids remember skipping rope and playing cops and robbers; I remember racing home after school to watch Daktari and his pet Judi. Of course most of you will not remember these two most adorable characters but they made my evenings back when.

I will admit maybe I was a little bit of a loner. But what could I have done when everyone else around was more interested in raising dust and throwing stones? I have always been more civilized than your average small town kid.

When the TV died I thought that the rupture was upon us. We were just warming up for another feel-good movie when it just went blank. I can imagine what was going on its wiry head. Probably, it saw us all expectant and not caring what it thought about being worked day in and day out. Had anyone thought of taking it for a checkup lately? No.

Being African, I decided to turn my attention to other things. Maybe, just maybe I would learn to live without the box. I discovered that the dog had grown old. Wasn’t it just yesterday that this thing had come in as a pup?

I noticed that my dad did not come home early anymore. In my childhood, he used to come back after work and give me a piggy back. That was before I really got into watching the box, before I forgot about everything else.

I got a rude awakening. My Utopia was really a desolate wasteland. TV was not all that. In a few short years, I had managed to turn myself into bleary eyed psycho who lived, ate and slept for TV.

This week, we are going to give TV a special send off. We shall call all relatives and in-laws. All friends and people with a stake in the whole matter, namely those who want to sell us a new TV, girlfriends, who’ve been locked out of our lives because of we were too busy watching fiction to give a fig about what building a stable relationship, parents who had given up on having mature conversations with us because we had turned into Homer Simpson and all other such people.

We will talk about all the good things that TV has done, and the bad ones. Come to think about it, there’s actually little we have got out our association with TV. So we’ll be there to say, “so long old pal, it was good knowing you but if there’s any such thing as reincarnation, please relocate to Siberia, stupid box.”

That’s a thought

2006-03-16T07:09:00.000-08:00

Just thinking…y’all seen the Kenyan Bloggers Webring? I bet you have. It seems like a thousand years ago when Jay wrote that post asking where Ugandan bloggers are at. But the truth is that compared to the guys in Kei, we are still playing. Of course, you can’t force guys to go online when they don’t have the means. Most of the guys who post their thoughts have easy access.

The times I have discovered a smashing Ugandan blog and let out a whoop are gems in my existence. That makes me believe that there are bloggers out there hiding and writing for a different audience. Maybe, we can actually have a little heaven down here if they all came into one fold.

Blogging is still young in Ug. Someone told me last week about an experience he had with a boda boda guy; when he asked to be shown to an Internet café, the bike guy went like, “What is a café? What is an Internet?” This happening in the year of our Lord, 2006!

This could mean that even if we got all the available Ugandan bloggers, we would not have the quorum to start something on the lines of what’s going on Kenya side. But it could also mean that we just haven't proven our worth for these blue bloods to come out and play with us. I still think we can start with what we got and build from there.

The months I have been part of the blogosphere have taught me a lot. It’s about the twisted wisdom, the witty remarks, the downright dirty eloquence that will always be found on this space. The fact that this is still relatively new (at least in this part of the world), we have what can be related to a blank canvas, waiting for the first brush strokes. The possibilities are infinite.

Okay. That’s the end of my moment of brilliance. Lets get on with life.

And then some...

2006-03-13T10:23:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know. Someone said my list of fav characters is way too short. Well, maybe I just can’t recall all of them. I’m always reading a book. Sometimes I read just because I know that in the end, the knowledge I’m putting inside my head is going to influence me in some way later on. Sometimes, its just because I can’t sit still in a place without reading a book.

I have discovered that the stories I read are far more important to me than the characters that carry them. Probably, this is born out of the knowledge that they are a creation of the author’s mind and he couldn’t care less if the character is called Marlene or Angel. So I think that’s why I don’t store up lotsa names from the fiction I’ve read.

But I love characters. I love the baddies too. Sometimes, I love the bad guys more than I do the saints coz they get to say all the cool lines and all. I sometimes think Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry was given all the lines that the bad guys should have been saying but again, that film was done in 1971. Backs then, the bad guys were written as dumb. The hero would come around and work hard at looking cool, as though looking cool was the most important thing. Clint Eastwood’s “Come on, make my day” was supposed to be some evil genius’ line. Well. The horse has already bolted…

Some of my best bad guys ever are Denzel Washington’s Detective Alonzo Harris in Training Day, Spacey’s Roger “Verbal” Kint in The Usual Suspects, Robert Patrick’s T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (God, I went around school with my books marked T-1000) and Linda Blair as Satan in The Exorcist. This was the first movie to really scare the living out of me. I had seen Thriller as a kid and thought it was scary. When I was in P6, I sneaked in and watched part of The Exorcist; it put me off horrors forever. But I could not forget the way that chick did her thing.

I liked Nuclear Man in Superman IV: Quest for Peace for his strength and for making it clear to me that the man of steel could get his backside whipped. Incidentally, it was Gene Hackman who did his voice. That voice full of disdain for everything that was not as perfect like him. Jim Carrey in The Mask is really a freak. That dude needs help. Yesterday. No wonder he is always smiling like a fool. No one smiles like that and claims he’s fine up there.

Scream

2006-03-11T03:52:00.000-08:00

Its one of those days. Bad, bleak, dark, whatever...Sorry thing is that its going to be like this for some time. Trying to find some target to vent my frus on but they all just jumped ship.

So i'll just go and wait for Johnny Bravo.

2006-03-11T03:51:00.000-08:00

People I would like to meet

2006-03-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

Over the years, after touring the world of literature, you realise that its easy to just close your eyes and see a completely different world. That’s the beauty of reading; the little boy with no brothers, the pretty little girl who’s daddy is always absent, the intern doctor who is dog-tired but cant find sleep…These all can turn the pages of some nondescript book and find their home. The different worlds in books have their own heroes, guys we’d all want to be like when we grow up.

Don Coleone
Of course, here I mean Michael and his dad. There is no one as cool as Michael Coleone as the avenging angel. Pacino is superb in those Godfather flicks and for that reason, I want to be like the Coleones. Reading the book gives you the edge over the actors you see on screen. What they are portrayed as able to do you can do a thousand times better.

Ihuoma
Now that is a chick to die for (no pun intended). Imagine the fire she set off in that Nigerian village when the dudes discovered that for all her fairness, no one could get her! Back in school, while studying lit, everyone’s eyes glazed over when the teacher tried to put into a Ugandan context that woman’s beauty. Now that I have Jesus, I know that her crazy husband-god would not have the balls to try that shit on me. I’m not Ekueme.

Shakes Fimbo
Just Shakes. The guy is a scoring machine. Why can’t the strikers in the Uganda Cranes emulate him. Even if they can’t be as cool as he is, at least they can try to copy some of those shots he’s always taking at the end of the book. The rest of his team mates are just followers. Maybe if I had to take second best, I would go with the Dancing Rasta.

Jack Python
That he was dreamt up by Jackie Collins is not a problem. After all, I actually thought she was a good writer at some point in my life. Of course, there is a time in life when reading a book that resembles a porn movie script is considered very essential. But Mr. Python is a character written with thought. I wanted to be that dude so I could get myself an Angel Hudson too. That’s actually the only reason I liked him; against all odds, he got the bestest chick of them all.

Sonchai in Bangkok 8
Sonchai. Thai monk that’s also the coolest detective in town. Plus he’s not on the take. He is the kind of cop I would dream of being. It’s a dog’s life being a cop in Ug, apart from the life of a traffic cop, of course. But this cop is the best. Bangkok 8 was written by a guy who must have had a vision of Kampala before he sat down to write. This detective was to be seen zooming in and out of the busy traffic on a boda boda. The city has dirty cops, dirty politicians and dirty entertainment. Is that Kampala or is that Kampala!

Gaius Julius Caesar
The first book in the Emperor series is seriously not all that. It is too academic for me. It tries too strongly to tell a story that has no credible sources around anymore and the end result is that it sounds hollow. But Gaius is a real star. From early childhood, a time when his side kick Marcus Brutus tries to steal his thunder, Caesar rides the wave expertly and comes up as victor.

Jack Ryan
Okay, I want to be this guy just because of the way he kicks bottoms. Jack Ryan is what James Bond should have been. The world laughed at this attempt by America to reply to the British super spy but I’m not laughing with those guys. I think Ryan is cool…just that.

All those under rated heroes in books I have read and forgotten. All regular Joe heroes who live on the pages of books such as Man and Boy and The Dark Half… you all rock!

Can't understand

2006-03-09T08:52:00.000-08:00

Eventually, even with the most celebrated romances, there is bound to be turbulence. When that happens, people are forced to stop and search themselves and ask that all important question, WTF am I doing here, acting the clown with this here chick?

The dude in the mix realizes that Kansas has gone bye bye when chick over there starts acting strange. She wants ALL his time and all his space. She wants him to drop everything when she steps in the area. Now, what’s with that!?

Females will have to help me understand them better. Coz I’ve tried and honestly, I think I’ve not made much headway. I don’t think I’m going to understand how a person who attracted you because of his long dreads can suddenly start looking unsexy because of his dreads. For crying out loud, only his mama is allowed to make comments about his hair. If you don’t want to hang with a dude who does his hair, what were you thinking in the first place?

And they try all the tricks. They use the tear jerker thing and they use the gift thing. They put on faces when competition shows up and wear their hems higher every time, if it’ll get your attention. Then you turn your head and all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, they own you. It’s the same thing as happens when a chick starts that carrying-her-wardrobe-into yours. When you play the fool, they strike.

Kampala is the city where you get this drama in the fullest doses. The girls are on the prowl. They’ve read their Danielle Steel and listened to all the Mariah Carey they could find. They are in the ‘right’ state of mind. And they are going to get you, no matter what you say. If it happened for that chick in the TV soap, it’s going to happen for them.

That’s how Kampala will be won.

Suprise, suprise

2006-03-06T09:59:00.000-08:00

What do you know, in the end, that over rated Cowboy flick did not win best picture. In fact, in the end, only the Best Director award went to Ang Lee. The rest of the top six awards went to, Phillip Seymour for best actor, Reese Witherspoon for best actress and yada yada yada.

So why did the biggest movie of them all lose? Everyone told us that it had to win, after all those other awards it had swept in Hollywood. Can we put it down to fear? Did the grizzly old fellows who sit on the board get cold feet and malice this story?

Everyone remembers how the Christian Right in the US got the Ssalongo prez re elected. They flexed their muscles and America did what they wanted it to do. Did the likes of Pat Robertson tamper with Oscar? If they did, they did it so quietly. Those guys must have learned what it means to give a movie any kind of publicity. They learnt that when they open their mouths to condemn a picture, the Lord’s children would only be drawn the more. Best thing to do is shut it.

The flick that won best picture had not been considered as big deal. Until yesterday. Now, everyone in Kampala is going to be looking for it in the libraries. The guys in the libs are going to have to learn about it on a crash course because in the next few months, a great number of people are going to flock in looking Crash. Crash? What is that? Sounds like a drink. Does it come from LVBC?

But for all its notoriety, maybe, it had a good story. Maybe, it was actually the best movie of the year, seeing as Ang Lee made it. Remember, he gave us Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Fact is, Ugandan cinema operators must be mightily relieved. They wont have to answer questions about “that gay cowboy movie that has made such waves Stateside.”

Instead, Ugandan moviegoers will probably be asking for Crash. Nice diversion, eh? Marion Busingye said last week that Cineplex would probably not show Brokeback Mountain because of the expected backlash. I think it was insightful. Look at the backlash the movie has got t the Oscars.

Life as usual

2006-03-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

For a moment, I had a big scare. I tried to open my blog and I failed. I could only get the very first post that put up last year when I started blogging. I could not stop the thoughts rushing around my head; had the bad guys got to me? Had the blogosphere been compromised?

Of course, I was relived when I tried for the tenth time and it opened. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I had just been reading the forbidden website and I had been chuckling about the government’s efforts to stifle free thought. Of course, I choose to disregard some of the stuff those guys put up but I am not government so I am not the one who is looking bad in the eyes of Ugandans.

So what is the way forward? Could a time come when even blogging is considered a dying game? Can there be a complete detachment from the political goings on in the country that the guys who write these online diaries stick to writing about their funny shenanigans, to save their lives?

I don’t think so. When you live in Africa, in a country like ours, where politicians get all the publicity that they do, you can’t avoid getting political in your blog.

Sorry to all those who wanted Pr. Peter Ssema. Apparently, the voters looked at him, sitting there on the fence telling everyone that he did not have a political affiliation and they found him wanting. They decided to give their mandate to the guy they could understand. I still think it could have had something to do with the twisted American accent, though.

The aftermath

2006-02-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

Huh? What was that? You finished with that madness? thanks y'all for voting wisely. This country will forever be greatful for what you have done. You saved us from having to change the official presidential photo on the wall in the office. Now can you please move from my face so i can watch Digi on Channel 5? Please?

Its crunch time, peeps

2006-02-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, if everything goes as we pray it shall, we shall start a whole new chapter in this big book called Ugandan Life. We shall start over, probably with a new president at the helm and with new possibilities.

We have come a long way. From the moment the current regime decided to go against the way things are supposed to be and extended their legitimacy, we have been unsure of anything. No one could get a straight answer when they asked about events that were to occur in the future.

If you have a foreigner for a boss, chances are that business has been slow for the last month because the boss man jumped ship. Many others, even indigenous Ugandans, have jumped on the jet planes and made the airport at Entebbe very busy.

The rest of us have been left to make snide remarks, hoping against hope that no one will see the worry written all over our jokes.

Tomorrow we shall wake up early, those of us who feel the urgency of the situation, and go over to the polling stations. Those who don’t feel that patriotic in the circumstances will probably stay home and watch TV. And then they’ll say silent prayers asking whatever power they’ll have tuned into that those voting will vote wisely.

The phrase “vote wisely” has taken on a sinister shade to it. It always seems to come from the same camp. It reminds one of those posters that were captured at the airport. Like a religious zealot forcing their beliefs down your throat.

If all goes well, we shall go to our desks again on the 24th and blog. We shall have tales to tell, certainly. We shall probably be back to our usual selves, telling witty jokes. We shall all be rearing to go, full of life and thankful that our fears had been unfounded after all.

Otherwise, we shall be hiding under desks and beds, just like we did during the last war. The memories will never fade. Back then, with barely formed brains, we saw the adults shitting their pants and we knew that things were rally bad. We shat our PJs even faster.

Most of the people I know have ignored the warnings on radio that we should all store up stuff; dry food, cereals and water. We have decided to have faith in the goodness of humans. We have decided that this country has seen enough turmoil and that whatever comes out of the elections; all the parties involved know what is most important for this country.

Arthur Koestler’s Rubashov told of the swing of history which will always reach a high point every now and then. Whenever it gets to one extreme, there are many who shall invariably fall off. The screams don’t really help because that it the way the cookie crumbles. And according to Koestler, this is good for humanity because it helps in balancing the masses.

But something tells me the swing has not got to the extreme. We still have some time. However, if we are at that scary time, I believe we have learnt some good lessons. That there will always be people predisposed to cause havoc. That there is always going to be wars and rumors of war.

Because of this knowledge gained in the time we have spent running from one explosion to another, we have learnt to hang on. The swing can go to whatever heights it wants but this people here is going to still be on it when it comes down.

Go and vote wisely.

To Uganda with Love

2006-02-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

The president was on LTV taking around Mathew Crouch and his wife, Laurie, showing them the sorrowful survivors of the northern war. For some reason, LTV decided to air this doccie, which was made in December last year, at this time.

Is the programme a hit? Probably. It makes this president come off as a saint, though. He is portrayed as a Moses type come out of the wilderness to save the children of Israel from the big bad Pharaoh. It goes without saying that at this time of transition, not a few observers will see this as a thinly veiled effort to aid the candidacy of Museveni.

There is no way a fence sitting Christian will vote “unwisely” after watching this thingy. It is a real weepy. The Americans doing the narrations are really moved. Its in their voices. They actually seem to be atken in by the whole Kagu-is-a-devout-Christian psycho babble. You cannot remain unmoved, God knows, when you see those mass graves. Jeez! I didn’t even know that those things were still being used. I thought they went out with J. Nagenda’s campaign.

But you have to give it to that camp; they know how to play, clean or dirty. If the competition will be won the dirty way, they have all the fire power in their arsenal. They have J. Nagenda, R. Kabushenga and all the other guys who will not find it beneath themselves to pull another skull campaign. And if they want to play it clean, they have all the saints they can use. Rugunda, Nsibambi and the like. Plus they have R. Kayanja shouting the president’s praises and crying into the camera.

The victim in all the politicking is the church. A great number of people have been told that the church, especially the Pentecostals, are all for one candidate. But this is frustratingly inane. Unfortunately, the truth is still trying to lace its shoes while the lie has made two trips around the world.

One wishes, though, that the campaigns and the post election period will not bring chaos. Humans have the power to cause peace and calm if they want to. They also have the ability to cause mayhem. If they want to.

To die for the country

2006-02-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

Three bodies lie on the ground, broken and lifeless.
Three Ugandans are never going to sing their party slogans again.
They are now the winds that dry our clothes. The stuff of historical stories.

These three braves did not know that the buck was stopping at them today. They probably left home with things to do still. Unfinished cups of tea, uncompleted laundry, half done essays; their lives…

These three stiffs we shall never really know. They could actually have names. And families. And plans for the future. Not necessarily a future without a certain bald headed person lording it over them but a future anyway. Heck, they did not really care who came on to rule the country. They’d still live the same dreary lives no matter what the political talking heads said on their campaign trail.

And the country collectively shook their heads and went, “tut, tut. This is a sad case. How could this have happened?” then they went back to their fisticuffs, forgetting the three stiffs on the ground.

Three bodies lie on the ground, broken and lifeless.
Why did they die? Why do we never move from one station to the next without having to double over and start back at one?

While I was away…

2006-02-12T05:46:00.000-08:00

Been taking time off and just reading other people’s blogs. And I can tell you, it’s been a riveting experience. Lots of stuff I didn’t know. It’s amazing what people can reveal when they start writing down their thoughts. Greatest thing is many of our blogs are anonymous and that’s the way to go.

And it’s been a period of drama on the political scene. The other night I was watching the news and there was Winnie, breathing fire and giving Kagu an ultimatum; if he does not retract whatever stuff he’s been saying about a one Warren B, she will let loose her cannons. She wants to tell us all the dirt she has on the prez!

I say go ahead, Winnie. Everyone loves a lovers’ quarrel. When they start fighting, they forget that some things are best left in the confines of the bedroom. So what can she tell us? She was saying something about revealing the number of children the big man has, the number of times he’s been unfaithful to his family and all that.

We as the onlookers can afford to watch with rapt attention. After all, whatever info will be spilt is about other people. Of course it would be cool if Kagu also lost it and told us the stuff he has on Winnie. Then we would have a real classic on our hands. It’s getting really boring on the drama stages of the country and on our TV screens. We could do with a little genuine drama.

And I also discovered that the greatest movie critic we have in Ug is called Mataachi. The way he breaks down a flick and takes you into the mechanics of the making, one would think that he was there when the concept was being dreamt up. He is a true asset and he knows it. Does that make him sprout wings? No, he’s too old for that. (Not as old as some other person whose age The Red Pepper seems to be obsessed with, though).

These days I could just stay home and chill the whole day. I discovered the magic of Brittanica. This time, it is not just about flipping through the pages of one book I find at a friend’s home, no. I got the frigging 2005 Delux on my PC and nothing can tear me away from it when I sit down. I hear there is software being sold out in the markets of Bangladesh (or even India) for the equivalent of Ug. Sh.3000.

And something else about Bangladesh (and India or whatever Asian country you want to go to); those stories you have heard about the life in those countries are oh, so true. They are so poor and this is compounded by the great population. They have no way out of it because they are still increasing in number.

A rickshaw driver will take you from Bweyogerere to Spear House for the equivalent of Ug.Sh 600. And that’s when he has succeeded in cheating you because every foreigner is perceived to be rich with lots of cash on them. The real price would therefore be equal to Ug. Sh. 300! But at least you can pick up lots of valuable stuff in their open markets.

It’s good to be back.

The Death of Ricky

2006-02-12T05:45:00.000-08:00

From the very first time he came home, we knew that he would never amount to anything. He could be a darling, make us laugh and when one wanted to take a stroll, they’d always feel like taking him along. But that was as far as it went. In the end, his survival depended on much more than just good looks.

He was a handsome mutt, really. His fur was the whitest white you ever saw on a dog and he seemed to have more games up his dog sleeve than your average dog. He found two other dogs but he took charge of the compound, like he had been there for years. Yet, Ricky was a puppy. He was two years younger than Bright, the long, black one or Rabbi, the proud, fat, hairy one.

Ricky was full of life. So much so, that my aunt had him grounded to his dog house because she feared that he would bite some one some day and we did not want a legal battle with the villagers. Because he was a feisty one, that Ricky. He would bark and growl and show his teeth at whatever shadow passed. Half the time, we did not know whether he was just happy to see humans or he was just being a savage beast.

His incarceration started one day when he gave chase to some little kid who was taunting him. It was a Sunday and everyone was home. It was supposed to be a peaceful day and I guess our collective guard was down. The dogs were chilling in the tree shade, basking in the glory of God on a lazy Sunday.

Not for Ricky, it was not a lazy day. He wanted to play and he was a dog possessed. He must have tried to get his two friends interested but they snarled at him whenever he jumped around them.

Then the kid came along. Personally, I believe Ricky was just being friendly. It could have been her swaying yellow dress that swung hither and thither as she skipped gaily along. It could also have been the racket she made. I guess we were never meant to know. For in a second, Ricky was up on his feet, chasing the tot. He was maddened by the rising crescendo of the noise around him, I guess and suddenly it was not a game anymore.

Anyway, by the time the first human adult got to the scene, Little Girl was down and Big Dog was over her growling. It was not as bad as it looked but the damage was already done. Retribution was to come swiftly for the big white dog. Neighbours with long concealed vendettas got their chance to voice them at that moment. There were queries about rabies and generally, Sunday was so gone.

Two years down the road, Ricky had become a jailbird. Well, maybe, a jail dog. He lost the light in his eyes and whenever we brought him out to give him his daily meal, he slouched over like he’d lost the faith he’d had. I guess Ricky was not dreaming anymore. He would go over to the dish and first sniff the food then take a few lazy steps around his house then go back inside. Sometimes, he actually refused to eat. He was so broken, he didn’t even bark anymore.
Then he developed a strange illness. No one knew what it was. No one really wanted to be bothered because we all had gotten busy in the past two years. No one had time for a boring dog. Someday, when there was time, we would maybe, take him to the vet. But not today, big dog.

Unbeknownst to us, Ricky was dying. We could have seen it, if we really cared. His dog house was smack in the middle of the back yard. As one passed on their way to the latrine, they could have seen the pain in those huge eyes, silently pleading, asking what was happening to him.

One evening, he just didn’t come out to eat. The jail dog did not want to smell the fresh air of freedom. We thought it was a dog idiosyncrasy, maybe and that he would straighten out. But he did not. He just stared at us as we tried to revive his interest in the food. And the breathing. He was breathing like a beached whale! Something was happening to the most handsome dog in the world.

This morning, Ricky did not wake up. He did not turn his head when I called him. He will never turn his head again. Ricky is dead. He died without enjoying his short dog life. He died because he tried to be a different dog. He pushed the limits and terrified the humans who were supposed to understand him. We did not.

He lies in an unmarked grave. It is not really a grave, actually. I just bundled him into a kutiya and looked for the farthest dumping hole I could find, where the stench would not come wafting back to us. Right now, we are having our supper and one of the topics under discussion is where to get a good dog. What a loving family we are!

Uganda Decides

2006-02-12T05:44:00.000-08:00

After 20 years in power, does it make sense for a grown man to promise things like electricity, schools and hospitals? These are things that should have been done in the course of that time. By now, the promises should have changed to something better, like, “If you vote for me, I will make Uganda overtake Malaysia economically..” or, “I shall start another wine factory in Masaka (assuming that there would be at least one already, given the matooke in this part of the country).”

But do we get to be so lucky? No! Instead, we have a president who has refused to see that his dreams have failed to materialise. He is fighting the tide and that can’t be good for the country.

Instead of all the good things we could be getting out of our country, we have to always be on tension. The big guy stubbornly refuses to shift his frame and so there will be those who want to make him see sense. Eventually, it’s the whole African cycle again. Some people want Warren B and his junta to come in, for the sake of change, if not for anything else. Some others who are more concerned with sleeping (“kasita twebaka ku tulo”) are scared shitless and they wont hear of change.

Well, while we let some strong willed politicians control everything; the resources are concentrated in the hands of a few people. Even people who could have helped bring the blessings home are frustrated.

Instead of supporting a brother with an idea to refine coffee and sell it to the world at great prices, government is selling corporations at $1 and diverting the Nile so there is work done but more problems with load shedding.

Sad thing is that these few millionaires with country’s balls in their hands don’t seem to have a clue about what to do with their vast resources. They’ve not read about Bill Gates, I presume.

Seventh Heaven

2006-02-12T05:21:00.000-08:00

Chilling at home has its benefits sometimes. The rat race makes us drones that have no recollection whatsoever of what it means to live expansively. Like watching TV and just being silly without worrying about the future, you know.

I was flipping through the channels and came across Seventh Heaven. Yeah, remember that weepy from way back? Okay, back then, it was a weepy for some people. I didn’t know why I liked it so much but I think it must have had something to do with Jessica Biel.

Of course when you see her in Blade: Trinity, she is a lot hotter than she was in the sit com. Heck, that show must have been done in the early nineties or so. But the make up directors then knew how to make a female look fly, I say.

And of course the corny story lines designed to reduce a grown man to sentimental reflection, it was all there. But I must say it was good to see it once again. I must enjoy it while it lasts coz, knowing Top TV, it will not be on forever. They’ll pull it as soon as the English gets too complicated for whoever is at the controls.

Please, bring back The Obsessions

2006-02-12T05:09:00.000-08:00

It is said that when you start looking down on the music of the current generation and calling it names, then you have really grown. In our case, if you have thrown out the radio station of your youth because “they only play rap,” then maybe you should buy loads of hair dye and just be ready. Because very soon, you are going to be needing to darken your hair. Listening to Banji in the company of all those old young-wannabes is not really going to redeem you.

Our entertainment scene is very volatile, it seems. Contrary to what all these reformists want you to believe, our stars are really permitted five minutes in the spotlight, excepting those who don’t know how to play by the rule book. Of course there are those that will drop one scorcher after another for years and all we have to do is just let them be. Because they are just too hot to handle. They might even be as hot as Bebe Cool but that is another matter unrelated to this.

Because there are very many artistes making it big in a very short time, someone might say that we don’t need permanent heroes. We don’t need idols because we can always latch onto new ones anytime. But the person who says that probably did not see or hear The Obsessions.

I know it is a lifetime ago…but those dudes and chicks rocked. Who can forget their dances; those moves that every new dance group in town wanted to ape? Who can forget the chiseled bodies of the guys when they got on stage and flashed those thousand watt smiles and made even the masters of the game (S Club 7) pale in comparison?

The Obsessions were known for their pretty girls. It is said that to get into the group, you had to be as fly as Halle. Just that. Not that it is a mean feat. The dance choreographer would handle the rest i.e. teach you how to wiggle and make the guys in the audience drool.

After some time, the group upped its ante when they started acting and singing. They brought a whole new meaning to Ugandan music videos. They had the whole of Kampala nodding their heads like this…and hunting for their jajja’s afro wig. Everything they touched was instantly en vogue. They even managed to convince Kampala that dressing up like Elvis was cool. So we had the strange disease that’s eating the Americans attacking Ugandans too.

It was good while it lasted. But admitting that it ended means we have lived in the golden era and we are on the slow wane. Accepting the demise of The Obsessions means we have had our fun and that it is time for us to move over and let the fans of the newer generation of stars take center stage.

The Obsessions must never be thrown on the heap of history. They represent the young and vibrant us. Can you imagine telling your kids about this magnificent dancing group that could sing and act and getting a blank stare? That is exactly what your parents get when they tell you about Franco or Lord Kitchener or some guy called Harry Belafonte. You stare at them and they are miffed that you can’t appreciate real talent.

That is what we shall be feeling if we let The Obsessions slide into oblivion. They might not have a lot of stuff to offer us right now, seeing as all the cool guys have left to form their own spawns of the group and they have abdicated their role as the singers to the girls, whose role was originally to look pretty and dance. But the important thing is to leave them where they are sure to be seen. Letting them go means letting ourselves go.

Museveni, Yoweri Kaguta

2006-02-12T05:02:00.001-08:00

born 1944, Mbarara district, Uganda

Politician who became president of Uganda in 1986.

Museveni was born to cattle farmers and attended missionary schools. While studying political science and economics at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (B.A., 1970), he became chairman of a leftist student group allied with African liberation movements. When Idi Amin came to power in Uganda in 1971, Museveni returned to Tanzania in exile. There he founded the Front for National Salvation, which helped overthrow Amin in 1979. Museveni held posts in transitional governments and in 1980 ran for president of Uganda. When the elections, widely believed to have been rigged, were won by Milton Obote, Museveni formed the National Resistance Movement. The resistance eventually prevailed, and on January 26, 1986, Museveni declared himself president of Uganda. He was elected to the post on May 9, 1996, and his backers won control of the National Assembly in legislative elections held the following month.

As president, Museveni helped revitalize the country, providing political stability, a growing economy, and an improved infrastructure. He instituted a number of capitalist reforms, and, though he rejected multiparty democracy, arguing that it would degenerate into tribal politics in a poor African country, Museveni supported a free press. He also implemented measures to combat AIDS. Uganda, in fact, is one of the few African countries to have had success battling the illness.

In his foreign policy, Museveni often generated controversy by supporting rebels in other African countries. He backed Laurent Kabila, who deposed Mobutu Sese Seko in neighbouring Zaire in 1997, the Tutsi exiles who were fighting against the government of Rwanda, and a group, headed by one of his former schoolmates, battling the Islamic fundamentalist rulers of The Sudan. Museveni justified his support of rebels by stating that his goal was to achieve regional integration in both politics and economics and that the downfall of corrupt regimes was necessary to bring about such a union.

Lonely Hearts

2006-02-12T05:02:00.000-08:00

He realised with a start that he was out of time. He threw the Stephen King tome he was reading on the sofa as he raced to the bathroom. He was through with his shower in five. It was already 8 pm and he had only a few minutes to get to Sabrina’s for his date. The voice on the phone had sounded mysterious and he did not want to miss her, if only to see the person who spoke with such intensity, whose voice raised his neck hairs, albeit on phone.

Dashing through the gate, he noticed that there was something odd about Matayo, the gateman. He didn’t have the time to stay and find out what it was because of the time but it kept on pushing against his brain. This feeling was to remain with him for a long time during the evening but was later to be over ridden by other emotions.

The taxi man drove like he was possessed. There were no passengers in the bus-like matatu but it didn’t matter. Even the conductor didn’t bother to hang-ten, asking if potentials wanted to ride with us. That was strange but Mpaata had seen stranger things in this town. That these usually rowdy guys who were ever delaying things wanted to help him beat his appointment time was okay with him.

Getting out of the vehicle at the KPC stage, he almost stepped on a black cat. It snarled its black cat snarl and beat it. But as he crossed over to the other side, he almost stepped on another black cat! Mpaata shook his head to clear it of any cobwebs that might be up in there. This happened only in The Matrix, not here in dusty old Ug. He laughed at himself. Why couldn’t two black cats be in the same vicinity at the same time?

“You want to sell your soul? That’s okay, that fine with me,” a voice said, overly close. Mpaata turned to see who it was but for a moment was puzzled because he could see no one. Then the voice came again, sounding even more eerie, “And as you walk through the valley of death, don’t be thinking it’s for anyone else that the bells are tolling, bozo, its your ass that’s going down.”

It was a beggar, sitting on the curb. Mpaata was puzzled, probably more because of the intensity of the words, than the fact that as far as he could recall, there were no beggars outside Sabrina’s Pub. And was the old guy talking to him?

He dropped a coin in the outstretched hand and the beggar’s head turned unseeingly toward him. His evidently blind eyes smiled at him and his joy was conveyed through a toothless grin. Then he spoke, but this time the voice and strength of speech were different; “makama akuwe omukisa,” he mumbled. And that made Mpaata pose. Who had spoken earlier, then?

He was jolted into a run when he remembered that he had to meet this mysterious woman at the club. He entered the dark place and from the top of the flight of stairs, could see that the place was almost full. On stage, K’Angie Mtume was belting out some soulful jazzy tune tempering the thirst of a hundred patrons, who were swallowing Clubs like it was the newest stunt in town.

She had said she would be sitting at the last table on the left facing the stage. That would be her in a red coat, then, Mpaata told himself. He moved over and put on his best strangers-meeting-for-the-first-time smile.

“Hi. Dolly?”
“Yes. You must be Mpaata,” she replied giving him her hand. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he was smirking; who in this day and age started out a friendship like this? Maybe this is how blind dates worked. After all, he was doing this for the first time. He had responded to a lonely hearts ad in the paper and to his surprise, he had gotten in touch with this person.

She had described herself as happy go lucky and in search of a guy who had no inhibitions. She was in the country for a short time and she just wanted to have a good time. Now, before him sat a beautiful woman who looked odd.

It did not come to him immediately but as he sat and started to chat her up, he started to notice more and more that this was indeed a strange woman. First of all, when he’d come up to the table, her hands had been inside her coat, which was woolen. When she gave him her hand, it was as cold as ice. Now he looked at the table top and noticed that she was taking tea or coffee or something hot. Why were her fingers freezing. Unconsciously, he rubbed his hand on his pants leg. It felt clammy.

The light on the overhead screen shifted and fell on her face, giving him a better view of what she looked like and he started. This black girl was either wearing the weirdest contacts ever or she had no pupils. Her eyes were a sick grey colour and they had no emotion…or life.

Mpaata was not listening to what she was saying. His brain had started working but it was not finding whatever it was searching for. This was not going according to plan. And he was sure it had nothing to do with the Guinness he’d been taking. What was this? She was pulling something from her bag now, showing him something.

For some reason, Mpaata could not hear what she was saying. Yet all this time, she was talking. At this point, she seemed to be speaking with some amount of urgency. She gestured for him to look inside the bag and he did.

Inside the bag, there was what appeared to be movements. It was too dark for him to see what was inside clearly at first. Gradually, though, he started to make out the figures. Inside the bag, in a clear bottle, there were two men!

The first thing that popped up in his head was a line from that annoying song by Harriet Kusasira. These things actually happened? The men appeared to be shouting but Mpaata could hear nothing. They wore green uniform-like clothes that reminded him, in that moment, of the schizophrenics in Butabika. They were earnestly pleading and nothing could compare to the looks of terror on their faces.

Then their faces became clearer. Mpaata realized that he actually knew these unfortunates. Neighbours. They were brothers and he recalled that he had not seen them for sometime. They lived in the apartment next to his. He had noticed their absence because there was no more music blasting from their place. Everyone around knew them for their inconsiderate loud music from early in the morning.

There had been rumours that these two were drug dealers and that they were the go-to guys if someone wanted to hit the high time. Their specialty was designer drugs and they were doing well. They did not seem to have regular jobs so the legend seemed to fit.

Right now, their money did not seem to be helping them because they were trapped in a bottle in crazy green uniforms. And what was Mpaata doing here? He asked himself? That is when the music from the stage returned. He came back to life then. Dolly was staring at him with those unseeing eyes, yet he knew they saw more than he cared for.

He stumbled backward and hit the blue, plastic chair. The bottle of Fruity that he had started sipping on flew to the hard concrete floor. He looked around in a daze and he was baffled. No one seemed to be taking note of the commotion. K’Angie was taking a bow and receiving whistles and calls for encore.

And the woman was now smiling. Her teeth were green. Somehow, the smile did not come off right and now he realised why she looked odd. She had no eyebrows. He had somehow managed to respond to the lonely hearts ad from hell.

But she kept her seat. She was too confident. He moved backward till he was at the top of the steps, until he could not see her anymore. Then he turned and fled outside.

The guy at the entrance to Sabrina’s did not stop him as sped outside. He never stops anyone going out. But in that split second, with his mind in turmoil, he noticed that this same guy was the guy at the gate at his home. Now he knew what had struck him as odd about the askari. This guy had the face of Dolly. He had a beard and he had a cap on but this did not hide the deathly face. Nothing would make him forget that face.

Many days later, after he had gotten the opinions of three different head doctors that there was nothing wrong with his head, he was flipping through the papers again and saw an obituary. Now Mpaata was not in the habit of skipping everything in the paper and jumping to the obituaries. It was something that just happed. He saw the picture. A regular size snap and a few regular words sent in by a family that was fast forgetting what it felt like to know the person in question: In Loving Memory; Dolly Nabatanzi, Born January 2 1912, Died July 4, 1980. Dearly missed by sons, daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

And this was the year 2006!

Desperately seeking a seat

2006-02-12T05:01:00.000-08:00

The guy who wants somewhere to sit must be going through hell. I imagine every evening when he goes back home, he scrubs his tongue thoroughly with the strongest detergent he can find. I mean, after all that lying…Saddam’s spin doctor has a worthy competitor when it comes to this our Ugandan spin doctor.

Every week, he must go out there and sit in front of journalists who are already hungry to make a name and lie through his teeth. That cannot be a good job.

Why does this General talk about political stuff and nothing happens to him yet that other officer spoke out on political matters and he got a hot slap? “Ah, but you must see that the two situations are very different,” he says. And he can’t hide the sweat sliding down his neck.

But then, maybe it’s just the weather. Maybe, lying is why he got the job in the first place. Some people need more than just laying on of hands. They need seven baptisms before the dirt can get off, you know.

After all, when this same dude told the world that Kagu was devastated when that Colonel from down in the Sudan died in that freak accident, he still managed to come back and conduct business as usual, even when the Prez said he did not know what his minister was talking about. Same goes for the TV tax. Well, maybe his other brief is to be the whipping boy. Carry the entire president’s blame.

2006-01-03T23:50:00.000-08:00

2006-01-03T23:46:00.000-08:00

2006-01-03T23:41:00.000-08:00

Morgan Freeman, hero

2006-01-03T23:31:00.000-08:00

Watching Morgan Freeman in the many flicks that he’s been in in the recent decade, I wonder what it was like to watch the younger version of him. Somehow, I can’t imagine him with a full head of black hair! Some of the greatest flicks I have seen have had this talented genius in them. I’m speaking of The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, Chain Reaction, Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider, Bruce Almighty...This dude rocks.

But this guy’s talent seems to have come to the fore after he hit the grey hair years. Or maybe, he was in some great flicks before and then he feel off the face of the earth. Either way, I think he deserved that Oscar last year. He is one of the few people who really deserve to be on that famed Hollywood A List.

Morgan Freeman has a unique intelligence that is his and his alone. He makes you want to believe that after all the fear that is all around us, threatening our existence, there is a light at the end and that we shall survive somehow. Like a well traveled uncle who’s come back after years traveling the world. When he talks, everyone wants to listen because this here is a lesson in how to live life.

The unassuming tone that he never changes might be criticised as boring. But only people like Joyce Meyer can be tagged as boring because of their monotone. For Freeman, this is an asset. If he tried to speak in a higher tone or even changed his accent; lose that Southern drawl, then he wouldn’t be Morgan Freeman. Probably, such a flick would bomb and the world wouldn’t know why.

He can even be classified as one of the arrogant greats. Think Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry with that big gun and cool snarl. Think Ford with that innocent, inquisitive lift of the eyebrow as he runs from an angry Tommy Lee Jones. All these guys are arrogant bastards but that’s why we love them.

Freeman is the only guy who could bring out the wise ex-con in Shawshank and he is the only one who could truly bring out the cut-man in Million Dollar Baby. The way his voice dictates the mood as he narrates is spectacular. His is the voice of reason; you can’t go on screaming or scratching your ears or swinging your foot or chewing gum when he starts talking. It is the calm after the storm and you know you need wisdom when there’s been a storm.

Some ague that last year’s Oscar was just one of those consolation thingies they give out to guys they think are about to die. I say, that’s bull. That doesnt fly because he has been nominated and he's won some stuff in his career. This old man takes a bad movie and makes it a blockbuster. That’s the power of experience.

Only that I have not seen his earlier works when he was younger. Probably, back then, he was rash and loud and he was just another wannabe black man trying to make it big in Hollywood.

2006-01-03T03:16:00.000-08:00

Move your ratty ass, blind Mickey

2006-01-03T00:57:00.000-08:00

I found a huge rat in my place. I didn’t know there were such huge beasts around. Of course when I saw the tiny little thingys, I fooled myself that they were the big ones. I didn’t want to admit that there was a possibility that they were the babies and their padre had probably gone out to the bar to drink mandule.

The sucker I found must have been the father. And he was staggering all over the place with alcohol on his breath. I didn’t have to smell his breath to know that he was drunk. Heck, I saw him in the morning and he was staring at me defiantly. I locked up and went to hunt for my family. When I came back he was still there, flexing his muscles.

A visit to Utopia

2006-01-03T00:56:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it’s better for one to go out and see for themselves what they have heard, instead of taking it for granted. Many times, being true to our natures and refusing to believe, no matter what we are told, jut because the tellers are, for some reason our foes, works against us.

When you read about the beauty of the Budhagali Falls from all these fawning chroniclers, you could get the impression that you won’t like it, just because it was liked by these blue blistering barnacles, to use Captain Haddock’s phrase.

After a long time, I decided to actually go over and see for myself what the big deal was about the falls. After all, if the government decides to go through with its plans of destroying this piece of divine art, I shall have only myself to blame.

The road to the falls is pure torture. If you are going to the place, place don’t forget to take your car (ha ha) and if you are in your car, don’t forget the wheels. The dust is unforgiving, as you come nearer to the falls. Before long, you realize that the funny looking creatures on bodabodas are actually people with red dust all over their faces and clothes. The eye lashes and eye brows will probably make you want to laugh but you wont be able to because a glance in the mirror of whatever vehicle you are traveling in will confirm to you that you are not any different from the riders.

But once you get to the site, all is suddenly forgiven. At that point, just as you descend into the bowl that holds the most beautiful sight you ever saw, you start thinking of nice colours and happy things and how it doesn’t matter that Cynthia doesn’t want to play with you. Its pure bliss just looking at the great rapids as they hurl themselves onto the rocks and then rise up as if with steam.

The sound is heard from some distance away but you will probably be thinking of other things. The sound is not something you will attach to the beauty of the falls. It roars and sings and tells its own tale. That for centuries, this has been its home and it is not yet tired of being here. That as the sun’s rays hit down on the surface of the water, as the birds fly low and look for any stupid fishes that could be swimming in these mighty waters, this place will stand defiant against the future. It is a sound that cannot be described as a dirge. This is praise and worship.

As I looked at the rushing waves, I sat in the sun and didn’t care that it was too hot. I sat there and let my mind wander. I thought happy thoughts; of my friends, my family, who are my enemy at the moment, for reasons even I can’t explain to myself, the future of this country and yes, the future of Budhagali.

It’s amazing what we shall do for money. Even when it has been said that there are alternatives to what the government is trying to get out of the falls, there are those who are obstinate. They want to see the beauty of this place destroyed. It’s a sad day for those who think on this issue. Because seeing the joy of the people who have come from far just to see the famous attraction, it is almost obscene to think that someone could actually want to take this away.

The hours shall always fly when you are enjoying yourself. Sitting in the comfortable lounge chairs and just listening to nature as it sings to the dancers who have been dancing the whole day, to entertain us the tourists, it is almost cruel when the date says, “Its time to go.” Yet it’s true, we have to go. Tomorrow is another day. It’s a new year, a new beginning.

Maybe there is going to be sorrow. Maybe there will be tears in this year. Whatever happens, we should always remember that there are places in this our country that are going to bring out the best in us. Places that we must enjoy while we still can, because once the powers that be get wind of them, they will probably want to build a hotel there.

See this

2006-01-02T04:42:00.000-08:00

say, what's with all this noise? there are things that would want to be known as those that go bump in the night but they are over rated. who's afraid of Virginia Wolf, anyway?

For the love of the state

2006-01-02T01:18:00.000-08:00

Right now, if you are an African, it is wise not to be one from Uganda. While there is too much drama going on on the political front, maybe its safer if you watch from the distance. Like from Rwanda or …but wait, didn’t someone say Rwanda is just a province of Ug? That means when the shit hits the fan, there’s going to be as many faces smelling in Ug as there are in Rwanda. Maybe, one should watch from The Cape of Good Hope.

The president has been implicated in yet another scam. Buying off judges, trying to influence their judgment and relegating his biggest rival to the abyss of forgetfulness. Well, when a guy who sees himself as a revolutionary who should be followed wherever he goes turns into the guy whose morals you want to question, things are not exactly rosy.Of course we don’t know if these stories hold any water. For fairness’ sake, lets assume the dude is innocent and just the victim of a calculated attack from his enemies.

When Napoleon wanted to get France to do what he wanted, he strangled all the guys who thought they were smart. That translates into all those who think that freedom is free. The intelligentsia of the day disappeared and the little conqueror had a ball trampling all over Europe.

That eventually, it is these same smart guys who brought him down is beside the point. Napoleon’s time was up anyway and there was little he could acquire by the time he was banished to St. Helena.

So you want to stick your tongue out at Kagu? Think again. If you want to go down that road, you have to be ready to give up everything. Because it will come at a high price believe me. That dude, wont bend over just like that, gafula.

Moving, moving…

2005-12-29T03:06:00.000-08:00

This morning, I admitted to myself what I have been denying for weeks, I hate my job. It stinks to high heaven and God knows, its stunk up my whole existence. My personality withered and I pretended I didn’t know why. It all came from my albatross.

From way back, I have been one for taking challenges, just for the sake of it. If someone said something was unattainable, well, I just went and did it, not to prove to the unlucky sucker who said it cant be done, but to satisfy my ego. Knowing that I could do something easily that everyone else was fighting to attain gave me a sort of rush.

So when I got bored, I went and got a job at this place. My work consists of sitting around all day pretending to be smart. Imagine doing that for a living!

Anyway, I realised that I’m not really cut out for this kinda thing. I could make up a zillion excuses why I should go away but I don’t care anymore. I think I wont try to explain myself on this one. This feeling of suffocation cant be good for my lungs.

Good riddance, 2005

2005-12-28T06:19:00.000-08:00

The season’s long, eh? But for the rest of us, there’s no resting. While the rest of the world reclines at their desks, glancing at their wrist watches to see how much time there’s left before they can go back on the town and make merry in the fast disappearing hours of the old year, I am relaxing at my desk, looking into my crystal ball…what’s the new year going to be like? What is in store?

At least I didn’t die. Thank God for small mercies. Small!? That’s not small, dude! Surviving 2005 has not been easy. The landmines are still littered everywhere and it could be the end even now. But having come this far, I must say I’m impressed. With y’all. Knowing the crazy things writers get themselves into, y’all should be toasting.

The traps were many. People changed jobs, people got dumped, people got promoted, Paul died, people fell in love…What a year. But there is nothing strange, if you look closely. It is that time of the year again. Come to think of it, that phrase is a template for every December. Timothy started his year ender article with “The silly season is upon us again…” this year but he wrote the exact first paragraph last year. So you see, there’s really nothing new. One thing we have to be happy about though is that this year, we didn’t have a Tsunami.

The effects of that monstrous flood are going to be felt for decades. Heck, some peeps will never recover. How do you forget such a tragedy and go on eating meat when you saw all that carnage?

Back home, this has been a political year. Of course, politics is everywhere but in Uganda, it seems it is a staple. We have to find a way to numb the pain that comes with the politics, y’know. Because there’s going to be pain, trust me. It might not necessarily be because people are going to take up arms but the whole shebang is going to cause grief. Some of us are lucky; we are not supposed to vote.

But the campaigns have brought up some interesting things. Like the boyish guy on Museveni’s posters. Apparently, we are supposed to believe that its Kagu. Then Ssebaana’s silky voice! What was he waiting for all these years? What did he do to it anyway? The guy is not the Lord of Croaks anymore. He can probably sing a duet with Mariah now.

Then of course we are supposed to be taking our seats and waiting for the hundreds of songs that are going to be commissioned for the different campaigns. This is what multi party politics is about, right? That’s what we are told used to happen back in the day. That’s when all those Twagala Obote songs and Nyamurunga were dropped. So now we should be listening to pimped up versions of these beats. Those old guys had fun, strumming guitars and then hacking each other…

It’s a brave new world we are going into. Everywhere you look, there’s a serious expression on someone’s face. Brace yourselves, peeps. Kansas is going bye, bye.

Brokeback Mountain

2005-12-28T06:18:00.000-08:00

Brokeback Mountain

Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are heroes in the US this time of year. Probably, when the Oscars come around next year, they will be big news again. Their claim to all this buzz? They went and did a movie about illicit love; gay love.

I don’t know about you but however I have tried to rationalize and look at this picture, I still cant come to terms with it. Not the movie, the whole gay sex scene, I mean. So we are supposed to be open minded and accept these peeps coz they are just like that…

But I don’t know how I can actually pay to watch that movie. I admit, there are flicks I have watched because the American press shouted themselves hoarse, saying that they are just to die for (The English Patient, Glengarry Glenross). Many times I have come out of the cinema with a lump in my throat, which the date usually mistakes for deep thinking about the picture.

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, a movie that has received A reviews on most of the critics boards is sure not going to be one of those flicks for me. And I will be very surprised if some one actually tells it on the mountain that they have it at home. If you have forgotten, this is the country where we don’t allow people different from us to enjoy their rights.

Jeremy Irons

2005-12-28T06:17:00.000-08:00

Speaking about movies, what’s with Jeremy Irons doing those funny flicks? Okay, I know the dude has been in about 65 or 70 flicks and they all don’t taste like Damage or Lolita but heck, that guy must be twisted. That or he is the only one who wont retch when they are told to sleep with a minor on screen. He makes the whole sick episode in Lolita sicker. He is the personification of dementia, more than Bacon’s character in The Woodsman.

Beatle time

2005-12-08T03:17:00.000-08:00

I sat down and listened to the twenty-seven songs on the Beatles’ album, One. I must say, I don’t know what possessed me. Because honestly, I was looking for that high that’s talked about everywhere about these guys from Liverpool and I failed to even feel a twinkling.

For me, it was twenty-seven songs that are best suited for some sort of sad party. The first one, Love Me Do, was a put down but I was hoping that the others would be better. Bad move. They are so old style. The fast ones are just about drums and wailing voices. The best song on the album for me is Hey Jude but it stretches to seven minutes. All the other songs are about 2 minutes or 3.

The one song that has been played in the 90s and recently is perhaps, Let It Be. It’s laid back and all that but at least it can hold its own with the songs that are considered hot today. Someone will say it sounds like a gospel track but hey, maybe it is.

Somehow, I can only relate to the fab four as the group that had the John who had a Japanese girlfriend. The group that gave the world Sir Paul McCartney and all those songs he’s done in the years since they were not big anymore. Where did Ringo Starr and the other guy go, by the way? Gotta check out the net.

1. Love Me Do (Hit #1 on: May 30, 1964)

2. From Me To You (Hit #1 on: May 2, 1963)

3. She Loves You (Hit #1 on March 21, 1964)

4. I Want To Hold Your Hand (Hit #1 on: February 1, 1964)

5. Can't Buy Me Love (Hit #1 on: April 4, 1964)

6. A Hard Day's Night (Hit #1 on August 1, 1964)

7. I Feel Fine (Hit #1 on: December 26, 1964)

8. Eight Days A Week (Hit #1 on: March 13, 1965)

9. Ticket To Ride (Hit #1 on: May 22, 1965)

10. Help! (Hit #1 on: September 4, 1965)

11. Yesterday (Hit #1 on: October 9, 1965)

12. Day Tripper (Hit #1 on: December 16, 1965)

13. We Can Work It Out (Hit #1 on: January 8, 1966)

14. Paperback Writer (Hit #1 on: June 25, 1966)

15. Yellow Submarine (Hit #1 on: August 18, 1966)

16. Eleanor Rigby (Hit #1 on: August 18, 1966)

17. Penny Lane (Hit #1 on: March 18, 1967)

18. All You Need Is Love (Hit #1 on: August 19, 1967)

19. Hello, Goodbye (Hit #1 on: December 30, 1967)

20. Lady Madonna (Hit #1 on: March 27, 1968)

21. Hey Jude (Hit #1 on: September 28, 1968)

22. Get Back (Hit #1 on: May 24, 1969)

23. Ballad Of John And Yoko (Hit #1 on: June 11, 1969)

24. Something (Hit #1 on: November 29, 1969)

25. Come Together (Hit #1 on: November 29, 1969)

26. Let It Be (Hit #1 on: April 11, 1970)

27. The Long And Winding Road (Hit #1 on: June 13, 1970)