Jewel

You’ll have to excuse me. Tonight I feel sentimental. I know, you’re probably reading this in between a lull at work and wondering what the hell? Is this writer drunk? Was he drinking when he wrote this? You don’t need to be drunk to lose all sense of time when you’re in the mood I’m in writing this. I was not drinking when I wrote this, just for the record.

I was working, very late as usual, when like in life, I stumbled upon her again. It was like meeting a ghost. It was like seeing standing on Constitutional Square about to dart across and seeing across the road, the girl you should never have dumped about to enter a taxi going to a place whose name you’ll never know or have the right to again.

It was like walking through a door, the door of the house you grew up in, the house your father built and becoming a child of 12 again waiting to be called for supper, reading a comic book by flickering candlelight. It was like for a blinding moment, remembering oh so clearly what it felt like to be in love for the first time. What it felt like the first time to have your heart broken, seeing Susan holding his hand behind the water tanker at school.

It was all these emotions and more crashing into me all at once and me listening with a bowed head, glad I was in the office alone this night. No one to see my glistening eyes. To discover Jewel again. Jewel Kilcher.

What happened to me? How did I get here? The wailing innocence in Jewel’s voice returning me to places I have not been in a long time. “Do you love me like I love you or am I standing still?” Was I? “Cutting through the darkest night are my two headlights.” Where were we going? “You aren’t in sight.”

“Trying to keep the clip but I'm losing it here to the twilight.” “Do you want me like I want you?” I was gone with you like I will never be gone with anyone else. “Do you need me like I need you?” I will never stand by deserted taxi stages after midnight hailing phantom special hire taxis to come and see you again.

I will never sleep in abandoned kiosks amid the sweets wrappings locked out of my parents’ house again. “Was that you passing me by?” “Between fight and flight is the blind mans sight. And a choice that's right.” To go back and face them, to go back and face them, in the morning, to deny finally what had denied me from the beginning, to try and not see their leers and grins, “I feel broken down.”

“Or am I standing still
With the scenery passing by
Or am I standing still

Out of the corner of my eye
Was that you
Passing me by?”

I Certainly had NEVER thought of Beethoven Like This

WARNING: You may not want to read on if you're female because the subject's potentially yucky and anyway I'm going to go on and on about a blogger who is a woman basher. Okay, strictly, he hates feminists. But he's sooooooo funny I just couldn't resist sharing some of him.

06 November
The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Nagging

It has been said by feminists that boys should be taught more "feminine" subjects at school, rather than useless and sexist male-orientated subjects (y'know, like physics, computer science, chemistry, etc, the ones that are vital to the progress of humanity.)

As if it wasn't insulting enough that a bunch of childless vulva-sucking rat-bags dare suggest how other people raise their children, these feminists have often cited music as a "traditionally female" subject boys should learn.

Huh? You mean, males aren't normally proficient at music? Are you saying, dear dikes, that females are the ones who have traditionally dominated the musical sphere of culture?
Well excuse me, rug-chompers, but if you weren't too busy trying to shape other people's sons into your own warped ideology and actually studied history (as opposed to "herstory") you'll find that us males aren't quite as tone-deaf as one may think.

After all, how many female classical composers can you think of?

None. Not one. None of them were metrosexual fudge-packers either. They were real men. Just look at the picture of Beethoven up above. Does that look like a man who uses moisturizers, eats vegan quiches and talks about his feelings? No. That's clearly a man who writes his symphonies whilst guzzling vast quantities of beer and occasionally scratching his balls for inspiration without giving a shit that his mother-in-law is in the same room. He looks like the kind of guy who would reach for his duelling pistol whilst growling homicidally should any fussy limp-wristed fag from Queer Eye For The Straight Guy dare to skip up to him and tell him his collar is too big.

As for contemporary music, that's male dominated too, and even feminists have a hard time trying to put that down to some sort of sexist conspiracy, given that the popularity of bands is based on the buying public.

The biggest bands/singers of the 20th Century? The Beatles, Elvis, Radiohead, Metallica, Johnny Cash, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, U2, REM...you get the idea. All men.

The Britpop era of the mid-1990s was likewise male dominated; Oasis, Blur, Radiohead, The Verve. There was some band named Sleeper, fronted by a woman with the amusing name Louise Weiner (well, actually Louise Wener, but it's pronounced Weiner) but they were crap and disbanded after releasing a few crappy songs from their crappy albums.

Women's attempts to enter the heavy metal scene was doomed to failure too because they just can't shout as loud as men. Some ladies tried to enter the Soft Rock scene, but sadly found that the main leaders of that genre, like Jon Bon Jovi and Def Leppard were more feminine than they were.

Sure, there are some female singers around, but they're a bit, well, shit really.

The Spice Girls? Manafactured crap. Manafactured by men incidentally, to sell the concept of Girl Power to stupid teen girls with more money than sense. It worked too.

Mariah Carey? Sure, she's sold a lot of albums, but that doesn't really count because the only people who buy Mariah Carey albums are drooling lunatics who think that listening to what sounds like a rabid cat being sodomized by an elephant is somehow pleasant.

Madonna? Well, to quote Kenny from South Park: Madonna is an old anorexic whore who wore out her welcome years ago, and that now she suddenly speaks with a British accent and she thinks she can play guitar she should go fuck herself.

Did someone say Celine Dione? No? Good.

Bjork? Well, I do quite like Bjork. Pretty good vocal talent, good punching-oriental-reporters skills, and she got her boobs out for some video a few years ago. Seriously though, I quite like a lot of her stuff.

But that's about it. Women have made very little impact in the world of music, yet they - and in particular their feminist harpy leaders and womyn teachers - labour under the belief that music skills are somehow "feminine" and "not traditionally male orientated."

If feminists want boys to be taught "traditionally female" subjects at school, then they should round the boys up and put them in lectures titled "Whining, Making Excuses For Failure And Pretending To Be A Victim For Beginners."
posted by Duncan Idaho

And you know what's so utterly bloody delightful? He's still regularly blogging!!!! When (I won't even entertain an if, you gotta go there!) you do visit his blog, and all his archive is worth your leisurely perusal, look for the 07 December 2005 post entitled 'Scary Story.'



For you Steve, it's mandatory to check out Scary Story. Degs, I think you'll have a word or two to riff about Scary Story and I so would love to hear JKB say something and dreamland Dennis, well, okay lemme ease up!

But

Seriously

There's a real underworld in the blogsphere I was only until now totally unaware of. There's some scary campaigning going on out there.

Reno Raines Returns

The smiling Smurf on the bike is Magoba Brian.

This is why I want to be a Photographer when I grow up

back due to….Oh well

What can I say.........?

I was going to title this: For All My Closest Roaddogz but that’s too 2pac-rish. So here’s to honoring all debts public and private, spoken and unspoken, for a limited period only, I’m back!

For all the dearly treasured comments....



Iwaya says thank you.

This Could Be My Last Post

"Everyday Struggle"

I don't wanna live no mo'
Sometimes I hear death nocking in my front do'
I'm living everyday like a hustle
Another drug in trouble, another day another struggle

I know how it feels to wake up fucked up
Pockets broke as hell, another rock to sell
People look at ya like use to used
Selling drugs to all the loosers mad buddha abuser
But they don't know about the stress-filled day
Baby on the way mad bills to pay
That's why you drink Tanqueray
So you can reminisce and wish
You wasn't living so devilish s-shit
I remember I was just like you
Smoking blunts with my crew
Flipping oldies 62's
'Cause G-E-D was it B-I-G, I got P-A-I-D
That's why my mom hates me
She was forced to kick me out, no doubt
Then I figured out things went for twenty down south
Packed up my tools saw my raw power move
Black nineteen forcasted flower moves
Four drunks trying to stop my flow
And what they don't know will show on the autopsy
Went to see papi, the cock me a brik
Asked for circumcise and he wasn't trying to hear it
Smoking mad Newports 'cause I'm doing court for an assult
That I caught in Bridge Port, New York
Catch me if you can like the ginger bread man
You better have your gat in hand
'Cause man

I don't wanna live no mo'
Sometimes I hear death nocking in my front do'
I'm living everyday like a hustle
Another drug in trouble, another day another struggle

I had the master plan
I'm in the caravan on my way to Maryland
With my man Tutex to take over this projects
They call him Tutex, he tote two techs
And when he smoke the boss
He likes to ask who's next?
I got my honies on the Amtrack
With the crack in the crack of her ass
Two pounds of hash in the stash
I wait for hun to make some quick cash
I told her she could be lieutenant bitch got gassed
At last so I really really lounging Black
Seating back counting double digit thousands stacks
Had to read up see what's up with my peeps
Toyota dealer cars had it cheap on the jeeps
See who got smoked but rumors was spread
Last I heard I was dead with six to the head
Then I got the phone call
It couldn't hit me harder
We got infotrated
Like lino wa' the car
I heard Tec got murdered in a town I've never heard of
By some bitch named Alberta over nickel play the burnace
And my bitch swear to God she won't snitch
I told her where she hit the bricks I'll make the hooker rich
Conspiracy should be home in three
Until them I look south for the home family
A true G, got speed blowing like a bubble
In the everyday struggle

I don't wanna live no mo'
Sometimes I hear death nocking in my front do'
I'm living everyday like a hustle
Another drug in trouble, another day another struggle

I'm seeing body after body and our mayor Giuliani
Ain't trying to see no black man turn into John Gotti
My daughter use a potty so she's older now
Educated street knowledge I'ma mold 'er now
Trick 'er little dope bying young girls tringes
Dealing with the dope fiend binges
Seeing syringes in the veins
Hard to explain how I maintain
The crack smoke makes my brain feel so strange
Breaking days on the set no sweat from cold moet
Can't bag yet because's still wet
But when I dry back in five at a time
I can clock about nine on the check cashing line
I had to burst on the third
Rehearse that's my word
Thinking the game Ds knew my first name
Should I quit? Shit no!
Even though they had me scared
Yo they gotta eight I gotta teck with air holes
That's just how the shit goes in the struggle mother fucker
I don't wanna live no mo'
Sometimes I hear death nocking in my front do'
I'm living everyday like a hustle
Another drug in trouble, another day another struggle

The Notorious B.I.G aka Biggie Smalls

YOUNG UGANDANS TO WATCH: NO.2

This is about a young unknown but not for long. You heard it here first. Remember this name: Ashraf Habib. He’s going to blow your world away. In about three weeks when the project he’s been slaving alone, a Herculean task, finally comes to fruition after the 2006 World Cup madness.

I haven’t been this excited since I worked with Ashraf when we were both still Makerere university students that our successors (and this is not meant disrespectfully) are currently fumbling. Setting up Masscom Online was one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me and the team I met convinced me beyond doubt that if Uganda’s politicians keep just keep out of our way and keep the country together, Uganda’s future is more than bright. It’s bloody dazzling!

Each and everyone of the members of that original team is involved in a project, either individually or working with another team, that will not just change the face of Ugandan media, it’s going to change the way the world looks at Uganda. I did not realize it then but the gathering of talent around the first Masscom Online was a unique thing. I first met Ashraf there.

One afternoon (these significant meetings always seemed to happen in the afternoon!) Edward Ssekalo came into the lab raving that he had discovered an aficionado at a favorite obsession of his. For Ssekalo to rave, with facts, figures, statistics and all that ever at his finger tips, we were all eagerly waiting to meet this whiz. He did not disappoint. The guy was Ashraf Habib and three years later, three weeks from now, that passion is going to be translated into something tangible for you’ll to enjoy. I for one can hardly wait!

YOUNG UGANDANS TO WATCH NO. 1

To meet Countryboyi, I had to leave behind a roomful of fine women in Africa (a girls’ hall in Makerere University) because I had stupidly agreed to the first and last interview request I’ll ever grant on the same day as I was 'benching'. This was one day when I finally suspected that the hit two birds with one stone philosophy was not going to work for me!

And I had been on a roll! (Uhm…is that I was desperately angling for a roll in the hay? Nah, I just wanted to be friends, REALLY.) Still I was sore (why am I so into double entenderes today?) to have to leave a roomful of eagerly listening, pretty girls for the company of a guy who had sent me an email that spelled my real name right requesting an interview. Moreover at Makerere University of all places! Have I told you how many issues I have with THAT University? Decades of therapy ahead.

But I had wanted to be here. Dennis’s email (that’s the Countryboyi’s real name) had piqued my curiosity. Me worthy of an interview? On a radio? All I was was a newspaper writer (I can actually write so don’t even suggest I’m a journalist!) and sometimes when the planetary alignments were right, conjurer of some fiction that made a number of people countable on my right hand believe I might some day write the great Ugandan novel. But that’s all I was: another potential. Countryboyi was trying to single me out of the field and I wanted to see for myself and confirm he was crazy.

That was not the only thing. I wanted to ascertain for sure if his name was really Muhumuza or a ruse. Anybody called Muhumuza is instantly a friend solely because Muhumuza is the name of my favorite brother (is one allowed to have one of those?) Anyway life had conspired in this Dennis’s favor. I had a delightful walking companion from City Square on Kampala road and for that company,

I mean a guy who tells you that he’s come from a place as remote as Kabale in a village called Karukara in western Uganda and has a colorful family background of being raised by a midwife step mother who used his services in the business (young Dennis got to see women give birth many times over and lugged pails of blood-socked plancentas) is someone worth meeting!

I expected Dennis to be like way too many hosts of literary shows, on radio as on TV: BOOOORING! The mere 30 minutes on Campus had re-ignited the belligerent bastard in me, the stir up a controversy out of nothing Puck. I was going to blow and take this five by four studio cell writer’s show with me! I thought. I never had to. The atheist met the believer. Dennis wins you over with his eagerness, an eagerness until I met Dennis I was sure three years of Makerere University, if you’re bright and aspiring with loads of ideas and the unfortunate passion to drive toward achieving them, was sure to snuff out. Dennis was not like that. This guy actually believed in this stuff, writing! Was this guy on something???

Then I realized something. This is how I used to be.

Dennis believed being a writer is the greatest job in the world. He was so eager to be in contact with people who write he was doing this show for free long after the necessary period his internship demanded to get that journalism degree was over. As long as you wrote, you were a writer and Dennis had no snobbish hang-ups, my horror at discovering that a Smut editor had been the person last interviewed before me was, I believe, well masked. Dennis actually found me interesting enough to go back and read stuff I had written so long ago I had even forgotten I wrote and could quote some of it from memory! The shock of that. The blushing pride. He actually believed it was an honour for me to grace his show. The tricky bastard had me purring me on his show!

I was the one who did not wish that show to end. Graciously, Dennis insisted I was the most interesting guest he had ever had on the show and, standing outside Lincoln flats the sky darkening over us after, said he was going to keep the recording of the talk. I have heard myself speak on record and I heartily don’t recommend that!

But I would get my ‘revenge.’ Putting Dennis on the other side of the microphone, well, email interview anyway. And now I can’t put up the Countryboyi interview because it’s copywrited. Oh shit!

does this drive you crazy?

I love Kate’s blog, I do. I think it’s entertaining as well as informative reading coming from a country (Congo) so much written about from a distance and little understood. Kate’s blog is on the list of my must daily visit blogs and over the month of reading, I have to come feel like I know Kate (which I don’t) and to like her.

Maybe that’s why I feel so strongly about her Thursday, June 22, 2006 Congo 101, Lesson 1: Geography post that basically set out to describe how one can tell from which of the country a Congolese you meet comes. Kind of the thing we have in Uganda where you can say he’s a Muganda because he has a huge nose, she’s a Munyakole because of her wide hips. That kind of stereotyping you never really notice and is even considered fun sometimes. Except this one time.

Is it because I know Kate is a white woman that my radar is wailing? Do I think she is being smugly patronizing and racist because she's white? I know I’m not the only one who was disquieted by that post because the number of comments on her blog suddenly dropped. I think I maybe being unfair but this seems to be an issue where I can’t get my heart to agree with my head. Read the post and decide for yourself.

Brazil: 0 France: 1

Do not go gentle into that good night
by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.