Feeling Blue, Seeing Red.

I always believed true intelligence was the ability to see both sides of a complex issue, the ability to understand the strengths of the other side’s arguments but still be able to justify your own position based on the irrefutable logic that formed the basis of your decision. Recent events have opened my eyes to certain undeniable truths about Republicans. I believe in the values of the Democratic Party with a passion that belies my lack of active involvement in the party but I am beginning to have an appreciation and maybe even some admiration for the tenacious ferocity of the republican opposition. Remember this was a party (the Republicans) that was in disarray just 12 months ago, after being handed their asses in an electoral beat down of near epic proportions. Republicans were reeling from the incredibly awful Bush presidency; also they oversaw eight years of wanton greed and unprecedented public spending. To cap things off, the democratic candidate was a once in a lifetime transformative figure whose message of change from the corruption and ineptitude of the previous administrations resonated everywhere. He was going to bring a new way of doing business to Washington. My initial belief was that the conservative movement might have been finished as a viable American institution, but somehow from the ashes of this unmitigated disaster rose a dogged and fantastically stubborn opposition with gravity defying instincts.

The first salvo and in many ways the spine of this opposition, was formed by one man, a controversial, somewhat racial conservative radio shock jock with a history of outspoken (depending on interpretation, and in my opinion) bigoted views. Rush Limbaugh was the first conservative to voice what they were all thinking when he said “ I hope he fails” back in January. It was hardly a unique sentiment and in the grand scheme of things was an inconsequential statement from a man with a history of making politically insensitive comments at the most inopportune times, but it had the unforeseen effect of giving voice and strength to a fledging opposition reeling from a series of bad defeats. Not long after that the Sean Hannity’s of the world stumbled onto the fact that within the smoldering ruins of the republican movement that was a strong and dogmatic core that was willing to go to far lengths to show their displeasure at the recent turn of events. Within months the conservatives had rallied around the tea parties, opposition to the bailouts, originally started under Bush if I must mention but I digress, the opposition rebranded itself from Republicans to Conservatives. Republicans you see were part of the problem. They were part of the causes of the previous mess and spent as recklessly as the conservatives are currently accusing the Democrats’ of spending. Conservatives on the other hand were all for fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets, lowering federal deficit spending and reducing the debt burden. Conveniently forgotten were the incredible liberties afforded large corporations and wealthy individuals during the reign of the recent past Republican congress. Somehow despite the fact that the play was still being acted on the same stage with the same cast of actors, we were supposed to focus on the fact that the scenery is different and act like we do not know the plot to this particular bit of chicanery.

Since then Republican opposition to every democratic imitative has only grown more dogged and entrenched. Obama was for Chicago winning the bid to host the 2016 Olympics, Republicans were for any city, anywhere but Chicago, proving their hate for Obama was stronger than their love for America. A line quickly formed; there was no shortage of Republicans willing to give the presidency the finger, for the love of the country of course. Democrats and in particular Obama could do no right, if he won the Nobel prize, he was undeserving, if he went on Diplomatic missions he disgraced the country by bowing to foreign leaders, proposed healthcare reform legislature quickly degenerated into debates about “death panels” and accusations of socialized medicine, whatever that hell that means. Either in spite of or because of all this, Republicans seem to have their swagger back, they have voted almost unanimously no to every bit of legislature proposed or passed this year. They have somehow regained their mojo and I most say that while I would never subscribe to their belief systems, I find their resilience in the face of what looked like certain decimation back in January, admirable.

New Beginning

At some point in the wee hours of December 31st, the space of time known as 2009 will crease to be. This year, as long as it has been; with all that transpired in it was but a speck in the desert of time. Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago and there has been some form of life on earth for a billion years. So even in the context of human existence the space of time measure by January 1st, 2009 to December 31st was nothing. Yes, 2009 brought might have brought sorrow, laughter, joy, love, abundance, starvation, disaster and misery to many. It was filled with all kinds of achievements for some people and will for ever be remembered by others for the crushing disappointments that they suffered. The truth is that while it is helpful and very useful, to partition space into bite sized segments that allow us to manage our small footprint in the sands of time, the demarcation is entirely artificial. Lots of people will make resolutions to be a better this, that or the other. They plan to stop doing this or that; and will make sure that in 2010, they achieve this. I say bravo! But why wait until 2010? The spirit that drives you to want to change for the better, to want to be a better parent, worker and friend why does it need a jump-off date. Why not start today? Nobody has been guaranteed a specific length of time, there is nothing in the wind that will make you anymore resolute on January 1st. than you are today. The important thing is that like a good storekeeper, you have taken stock of your inventory and found yourself short of something, you most make immediate arrangements to replenish or if you never had, to start carrying. The world’s history is populated with unrealized dreams, it is littered with ambitious programs crammed in odd fitting boxes, that ill-fitting box is time. Believe me, it is not for the dawn of the new year that you wait but for the steel in your spine to solidify. The chance to make amends is not infinite, the continuum of your possibilities’ last only so long as that opportunity still presents itself, the certainty of change makes it necessary that we take advantage of the here and now, it will not always be possible to measure your progress by the results of your efforts, if that is the case then all that is left to you is the sincerity of your intentions, how sincere could you have been if you waited just one more day when you could have done it yesterday? So whatever the desired change is, whatever the accomplishment, why not start, now? I am of the belief that the change we desire is much stronger than the change that happens to us, one happens without our consent and the other is the direct result of our strength and inner fortitude, our refusal to succumb to the dictates of circumstances. You are a winner, you have to go to bed believing that and wake up saying it, you have to learn to let your inner beast out, the incredible hulk that lurks within you does not believe in January 1st, it wanted to be unleashed like yesterday. Funny; you have probably heard this so many times it has lost meaning but a journey of a thousand miles truly does start with a single small step. One of the most beautiful pieces of art in existence is Michelangelo’s “The David” carved out of a single block of marble it is an incredible mark of human achievement. Let me; let someone else tell the story, “on august 16, 1501, Michelangelo was given the official contract to undertake this challenging new task. He began carving the statue early in the morning on Monday, September 13, a month after he was awarded the contract. He would work on the massive biblical hero for 3 years.” September 13th, just another day, and he kept at it for three years, with only primitive chisels and hammers to work with. You already have your own block of marble, why not get to work? Your masterpiece is waiting inside, all you have to do is raise that hammer, aren’t you excited? Why would you want to put this off for another day?

Edu Nnadi

Words and Phrases From 2009

1. Twit – A waste of 140 characters.

2. Stimulus Package – Used by married couples to entertain themselves after dinner.

3. Bail Out – You know the call. It’s me, Fred, I’m in jail……..

4. Socialized Medicine – Experienced by guests at “puff, puff, pass” parties.

5. Obamacare – Much better than Obama don’t care, I tell you that.

6. Unfriend – When you stop seeing your "friend's" status updates in Facebook, you have been....

7. Recession – Happens to most men’s hair line after 30.

8. Blue Dog – Security dog that prevents the owner from entering or leaving the house.

9. Health Insurance Reform – Much like the “Reformed Catholic Church” most of the difference between that and the old insurance law lies in the semantics.

10. Bing – Useful if you can’t spell Google.

11. Swine Flu – A good excuse for any occasion.

12. Deficit Spending – A good example would a any mortgage payment made on Nevada real estate.

13. Bonus – Shared by bankers in the dead of night at a candle light meeting.

14. Too Large To Fail – A non performing member while with a willing spouse.

15. Public Option – The only option after your vehicle has been repossessed.

16. Foreclosure – Much like foreplay, it is the beginning of more interesting things to come.

17. Tweeter – Not to be mistaken for a twitter, immediately informs you the idiot has no idea what they are talking about.

18. Cash For Clunkers – All monies spent on your ex.

19. Peace Prize – Bought on the way home from the bar.

20. Kim Jong il – Elder brother to Menta lly il (Hat tip to Letterman for that piece right there).

There, that’s all of it, did I miss any?

Things We Say

“A very large conflagration has overtaken your domicile”. This would be a Nigerian telling you that your house is on fire. The statement itself is technically correct but tactically useless, both in it’s execution and it’s purpose. There is something very Nigerian in a cultural sense in that statement. There are so many elements of our political psychic embedded in that one line. We are people who engineer complex solutions to simple problems, the resulting waste of effort, resources and time is hardly ever consequential, it is merely a necessary by product of the problem reaching it’s natural conclusion. While the situation may or may not have been rectified, what is most important is that it is seen that work has been put into it and that lot of effort was expanded in doing that work, even if at the end of the day, much of that work was an unnecessary waste. I was struck by just how much that statement; a standing joke from my college days, just about describes a typical Nigerian politician.

The statement (“a very large conflagration has overtaken your domicile”) is representative of us in many ways. The first of which is that it calls attention to the speaker rather than the fire. Making glorified statements and long winded speeches designed to impress is as Nigerian as ‘eba or ‘ewedu. The purported intelligence of the speaker, is almost always judged by their ability to mix in rarely referenced grammatical idioms and intellectual sounding Latin phases that the intended audience has little understanding of. The ability to apply “isms” (for example colloquialism) to the end of words has long been held as a sign of good education and advanced learning. I will cop to falling into this trap sometimes and using lengthy words were simpler once would have sufficed. The message, a relevant and urgent alarm is lost in the quiet nodding and embarrassed smiles of the listening audience as they quietly tell each other “there goes an educated man”. For example this was part of Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon's tribute to Chief Gani Fawehinmi upon his passing. “Chief Gani was simply inimitable, puritanically committed, inscrutably remonstrative, ideologically transcendental and quixotically cosmopolitan. His transition is not just the fall of an Iroko but indeed the grand initiation of an Iconic legal salamander!!! “Gani inured himself in the aqua of self abnegation and immolation just to give justice to the down trodden”. He went further to say that “the news brought him emotional laceration and threw him into a state of utter catalepsy.” I am not sure what all that means, but he really must miss Mr. Fawehinmi very much.

The second point is that it manages to magnify the importance of the situation without providing any real urge spurring the listener to action. This is a designed state of inertia, rather than an accidently one. A motivated populace demands action or will take action itself, but an impressed one, is stuck admiring the beauty of the spectacle. Politicians are adapt to make statements that in their totality sound convincing and strong but do nothing to galvanize the population towards any kind of problem solving. The aim here is to continue to milk the situation, while appearing to care but really just posturing for the fame, publicity and of course the money that comes with political office. The confused listener shrugs and continues about their business, to the neutral outsider observing from the side with a full understanding of the situation, this could be interpreted as a like of lack of civic pride or a complete disregard for the plight of another but really the case here is the passing of misinformation for the speaker to the listener. In a country with such a large illiteracy rate, people assume that the purpose of the speech was to impress, they accept it for what it is and move on. Invariably it is just another opportunity to advance the state of the country lost in a cloud of big words.

Which naturally would lead to the question, so was there really any intent to notify anyone of the fire? Like all things that we do, it is complicated. The fire while an unfortunate event was an opportunity, a chance to flaunt credentials, if at the end of the day the fire is somehow put out, all the better. We live in a society that values style over function, it is not an accident that is the “Babariga” is our official native office wear. Seriously with our weather how did a heavy blanket of a garment designed to look good rather than feel good, end up the dominant wear for official business? We as a nation play to the gallery all the time, understanding the sweeping nature of that statement, I will go on record with this summary. This writing is a is a generalization that paints with a broad brush, but nonetheless describes a commonality that defines our everyday values enough for it to be almost always true. I know, I know, I accept the position of kettle, in this black calling contest.

Edu Nnadi.

We All Bled Red.

Race, one word, with a deeper meaning than the Mariana Trench. It is impossible to have an honest discussion about race. Nobody ever says what they truly feel, clichés flow forth like cheap wine whenever anything racial is the topic.

Thefreedictionary.com has these two definitions for race;

1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.

The German race, funny that they would use that example. If the definitions above are accurate then race is either a commonality based on physical appearance or a cultural phenomena, the resultant effect of the geographical distribution of the human population. I think most people will agree, that it is some combination of these two definitions that produces the toxic mix which eventually leads to hate crimes.

These days the in thing is to differentiate between a racial incident and a racist act, as if the clever play on semantics would somehow lessen the gravity of the discrimination, this would be somewhat along the lines of degrees of pregnancy. You can’t be a little bit pregnant. The problem with bigotry is that it comes in so many shades and hues. The more sophisticated the community, the harder it is to spot. It is at it’s crudes form when combined with poverty, illiteracy and a sense of social inferiority. I have had some friends make the most insensitive statements about a person of a different race, not because do not mind being labeled racist, it takes a certain level of disregard for civil society to openly admit to be being a bigot. They make these statements out of ignorance, and in the mistaken belief that this is just a conversation amongst “us”, nobody was hurt by it.

There lies the problem, ignorance or not, they are being more honest than they would have ever been had the person they were referring to been with us at the time. If a “White” or “Latino” joke is funny when you are with your “Black” friends, it should be funny when your “White” friends come around as well. If African Americans or black people as a whole tend to play the race card more than others, it is not because we ourselves have somehow transcended race. A thousand years of real and perceived oppression, coupled with generational marginalization has led us to build a racial safety net as a catch all for every insult and injury (real or imagined), that we have suffered at the hand of another race. “He would not treat me this way, if I was white” is almost a manta amongst colored folk. The person could just be a “jerk” to all people, of all races.

Going back to the definition of race for a minute; it is true that the human mind will always look for a way to differentiate itself. We find newer and more ingenuous ways to reclassify ourselves everyday. Hence the reason why in some places tribal differences inspire a hatred that burns with a fire that few racists can match. As long as we continue to see “white people”, “black people”, “Africans”, “Asians”, “Southerners”, “Northerners”, “Ibos’” and “Yorubas’” instead of fathers , mothers, uncles and aunts, the world will continue to be a complicated place to live in. 

The Child.

There is a loneliness to being an adult that childhood does not prepare anyone for. The sobering cold reality of adulthood comes usually in the quiet of the night, when the music has stopped playing, the friends are gone, the TV is off and the mind is on. That is when you realize that all you truly own in this world is beating in your chest and the only true achievement in life is the impact you have in the life of the people that stay on after you are gone.

The dream of independence that fuelled most childhood rebellions juxtapose badly when compared with the personal and total isolation that is grown-up decision making. If you had to do it again, I bet you would have nestled more and fought less. I remember chaffing at the power that older folk seems to have over me, not one day dreaming that I would myself become one of them, the lessons they tried to teach me washed off me like water down a duck’s back, it irritated rather than inspired and as a consequence, I conducted my affairs in a childhood cocoon, blissful to the cold realities of life without the support pillars built in. The truth is I acted a fool, if I did not get one hundred percent attention I assumed it was because they did not care. My mistakes were often erased behind my back so I never had to go back and redo them. My struggles came pre-chewed, softened, so I did not realize the true depth of effort that it took to achieve some of the things I took for granted.

As you look at your children do you see yourself in their innocence or the unshakeable obligation and responsibility that they represent? In their childish resentment for your authority I know they are not thinking about your sacrifices. In retrospect I acknowledge that there is nothing more self centered than the human child but nothing in this world will bring you greater joy than their success and happiness. I just wish I had known all this as a child, i would not have given so much grief, to so many, for so long.

Edu Nnadi

Deep Pools Of Black

I am going to tell you a story, a sad story.
A story of unimaginable misery and a very forlorn story.
This story will leave you in tears.
Iit will leave you angry.
It will leave you with despair in your heart and a gaping hole in your soul.
This is a story about confused youth and gang cultures.
The story of missing dadas' and preoccupied mammies.
It is a story driven by poverty and social marginalization.
A story about the institutionally disenfranchised.
A story about the boy who walked on the wrong side of street.
This is a story about anywhere USA.
A place where the child is raised by the streets.
A place where only one rule matters.
The rule that helps you survive the silence of the city night.
A place where your cry for help will be met by blank stares.
A place where deep and hollow eyes look straight through you.
A place scarred by the viciousness of lives counted in minutes.
Your heart will be broken, again and again.
You will hear of promises being thrown away.
Tales of futures damaged beyond repair.
Tales of men dealing with the repercussions of decisions made as a child.
You will resign yourself to the hopelessness of the times.
You will tell yourself it is the sad savage underbelly of “living in the City”.
The “City” a jungle of a place where boys grow up fast and girls even faster.
A place driven by the one true creed, “I gats to get wats mines”.
I was going to tell you this story.
But you have already heard it, so many times before.
Now the whole thing just washes over you.
Even though you are soaked in it.
You barely stop to reflect on the brutally and stupidity of it all anymore.
This is the sad story of black on black violence.

Edu Nnadi

One Suitcase, Three Days, Four Airports.

I hate airports, sorry, I need to clarify that, I hate the needless expense that is spending time at airports. I recently had to do a four cities in three days trip. As you can imagine an unnecessarily large part of those three days was spent at one airport or the other. Interestingly there is a certain symmetry to most airports, the ones in the small cities are quiet almost serene, regardless of the amount of air traffic, while the airports in the bigger cities are rather rowdy and the passengers a little more obnoxious. As to my trip itself, it was relatively unremarkable but at some point I started to pay close attention to my surroundings, that is when things got rather interesting.
Airports – Local airports are like train stations, unremarkable, the seats are kind of the same, the restrooms dangerous, and the food expensive. But I did notice in Atlanta the sheer size of the place and the volume of people coming through was enormous. Milwaukee was almost eerily quiet, and yet the search guys there were the most enthusiastic, like people that would very much love to give you a thorough cavities search. Memphis has this fantastic smell of barbecued meat in the air (might have been that the gate I used was located right next to the restaurant) and has this beautiful rotunda with a blue glass ceiling.
The search at the airport – One word, embarrassing. If like me, your last name is almost Arabic sounding, you are getting the business. Make sure your undershirt is clean because that jacket is coming off, the stripping does get tiresome after a while and keeping your sense of humor is hard. Get angry and you might be asked to “please, step aside” and you do not want that to happen. They put everything I had through the X-ray machine, they almost put me in the machine. They searched my computer case, tested the computer. Please do not carry any cosmetics in your over night bag if you intend to leave the airport the same day, someone took a shower with my shower gel, even used my body lotion to make sure it was not a bomb. These guys were ruthlessly efficient but all the same, it was very time consuming. Forgo, hand luggage and getting in and out of the local airport is not so bad.
Flying – Is it my mind or do the smaller planes fly with less turbulence? On the flight to Memphis, I was stuck in the middle of two large guys. Miserable will not begin to describe the next three hours, the flight was packed, so there were no empty seats. The guy to my right had a belly like a drum, his gut spilled over the divide, shoving my elbow off the armrest. While the guy to my left snored like a man playing the trombone with plenty of power but no skill. If you are in a hurry, carrying all you luggage as a carry on, you will appreciate the time saved not waiting for your turn at the baggage claim. The only problem is finding space for your luggage in the overhead bin is a hassle especially if you are one the last to get on the plane. If it is too big and does not fit in the bin, you are going to have to find space for it, most likely under your leg between two large guys.
Things I noticed – That people that work at the airport all seem somewhat proud of the fact, the guy serving cheesy pretzels has an attitude, no biggie but worth noting. There is a certain amount of grim determination amongst the passengers, almost like the travel is a chore they have to conclude. Unlike international departure lounges where some passengers seem to be walking on air, the lack of joy around the local section of the airport is palpable. I have a problem with the practice of shining shoes while the owner of the shoes is still wearing them. I find it servile and somewhat degrading, there is nothing wrong with getting your shoes shined but why can’t you take it off first? Why must someone knee at your feet for a $5 service?
Nedu Nnadi

Tired Of The Excuses

Sometimes, I go back to read stuff I had written before, old blog posts, articles, responses to other peoples blogs, that type of thing. The idea being to get a sense of my state of mind at the time and to see if I my perception of whatever it was I was trying to say at the time has changed. Sometimes, I find that my view has moved on from my previous positions and that what once were strongly held beliefs, are now loosely embraced ideas. The general premise of the original post may still hold true but the underlying emotion I would find to have sometimes suffered significant drift. But by far the worse thing about my old stuff, were the God damned TYPOS! They were everywhere, embarrassing, cringe inducing, headshaking, “I wonder where this guy got his education” type, typos. The origin of the problem is of course, known to me; I am a “Hunter Pecker”, be it a fast hunter pecker but a pecker all the same. I stare down the keyboard when I type, I hunt down each individual letter and sometimes can jam out a whole paragraph while barely getting a look at the monitor. The worst part is that I do not have any particular type of mistake that I commit consistently, I generally seem to hit all the high notes (all the “don’ts”) in any given piece of writing. On any given post, I would do my best to appear as poorly equipt (I guess the word here should really should be Mis-educated :-) ) as possible. I commit errors of omission, leaving out entire words in a torrid stream of rushing sentences that barely connect and only serve to tell the reader that I need either better glasses or need to start writing strictly in Igbo. I commit errors of addition, I use the wrong tenses, incorrect verbs and adjectives litter just about every piece I have ever written. In my head I am thinking the word “there” on the screen I am typing “their” and the whole thing is compounded by Microsoft Words automated error correcting software. So while I plow on ahead trying to get to the end of my rapidly evaporating thoughts, the software is busy correcting my errors into even more grammatically inconsistent gibberish that ends up leaving the reader bewildered, thinking this guy really must stop drinking and writing.
So you would ask, after spotting these dramatically wild half sentences or phrases that seem to have been put together by Kokolet; sentences like “ .. starts to knock on the window, asking you to winding down the window” or even “ …which funnily enough was staged by a group of a delusional nationalist group of southern soldiers…” why don’t i make the necessary corrections and move on? Because it would be dishonest and the truth is that no matter what I change, I can’t make anyone that read the initial post, unread it. So after much thought I have decided to invest in a Spanish to English dictionary to brush up on my vocabulary, I will be re-enrolling in the free English for Indigenous Tribes classes at the local community college and lastly I am purchasing a typing for beginners and other slow learners software program that will teach me to type the proper way. Hopefully in a few months I will be able to complete a few lines without completely rendering the reader brain dead. In the meantime I apologize for any previous or current occurrence of random shelling you might have endured from my misguided attempt at blogging. Now that I have gotten that off my chest, i can now go back to misunder representing educated Nigerians on the internet, God help us all.

It's Hard Being A Standup Comic- Sometimes They Don't Laugh - Seinfeldian Questions Without Good Answers

If someone is holding the door open for you, are you obligated to hurry up? Are they not really putting unnecessary pressure on you, trying to force you to live up to their own lofty standards? Why can't you just continue the leisurely stroll you were having before?

If you are alone in your car and happen to have your finger up your nose at the exact time another car pulls up level so that you can see the disgust look on the face of the other driver, should you apologize? Would it not be more satisfying to pull out you finger and pretend to lick it, just as you drive away?

If you are bald and were trying out a wig when a woman happens to become attracted to your lush head of hair. If you make arrangements to go on a date with her, At what point will you tell her, the hair is not yours? Why do you have to tell her anything? Why not find a good piece of glue and stick that thing unto your scalp until one of your other insecurities kills the relationship naturally.

If you buy a couple a expensive wedding present, then they cancel the wedding. Should you tracked down the party in possession of your gift and ask for the gift to be returned? if you are still owing the credit card company for the charge using in purchasing the “three speed vacuum blender with automatic washer and dryer settings” can you insist they stay married?

If you say “I love you” to your date and they do not acknowledge or indicate that they heard you the first time, should you throw out a second possibly louder “I Love You”? They genuinely could have not heard you or It could be double the humiliation as the second “I love you” just sits there between the two of you, growing in a bigger pile of sh*t by the second.

If you visit the restroom in someone’s house and find one of those pile of magazines that is always stacked in there, if you finish you business but find yourself still engrossed in the “history of the reticulated Python” can you bring the magazine back out into the living area from it's former resting place? Or can you stay in the loo indefinately until you finish your reading?

A young couple you know just had a baby, and on your visit to see the new addition to the family, the wife is like “come and carry baby Mandillas, for a bit”, apart from being very ugly, baby Mandillas has a crooked neck that makes his head lie at an odd angle and the whole thing scares the crap out of you. Can you refuse to carry the baby?

If you visit the restroom in your new date’s house and totally destroy the joint, then just as you are about to flush, you reach for toilet paper and come up empty. Do you call out for a new roll? Switch to water or dress up and run out the place claiming an emergency via a call you just received on the cell phone?

You happen been swimming and suffered significant shrinkage from the cold water, if while you are drying off, a lady you were interested in, stumbles upon you and her eyes are drawn to your severely handicapped member. Should you immediately start to explain to her unasked how you had gone skinny dipping in freezing water? Or would it be better to just move on and hope she does not tell anybody or at least nobody you might run into again?

You are alone in your car with the A/C on and you let go a big fat stinky one, just at that moment a friend that you have not seen in a long long time recognizes you and starts to knock on the window, asking you to winding down. Do you wind down and let them take a good whack in the face or pretend not to recognize them while gently putting your car in drive?

Thought currently renting space in my head….

I often find myself wondering about the nature of the true relationship between Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Though both men shared much in common including fact that they both attended Katsina Teacher's Training College, were both killed on the same day, for the same reason, by the same group, they could not be more different. Politically they appeared to the every much aligned, both were “pro northern” in everything but yet entered into an alliance with the Pan African Nnamdi Azikiwe and not the more tribal centric Obafemi Awolowo. At the very least, there should have been some resentment from the “commoner” Balewa, that despite the fact that he was the prime minister he still had to answer to the blue blooded regional head, who appeared to be more interested in becoming the Emir of Sokoto than in becoming the head of the young nation.

By the time of the ‘66 coup, which funnily enough was staged by a group of a delusional nationalist group of southern soldiers, the relationship between the NCNC and NPC was virtually non-existent. One would presume that the more intellectually minded Balewa would see the writing on the wall, have known that his continued position of influence depended on the continuation of the partnership with one of the other two major parties since the regional position of authority was not up for debate. I think of the dichotomy that such a complex power sharing model such as theirs would have presented. The friction that their relationship would have created is endlessly fascinating to me, two men of near equal education with similar backgrounds in politics but distinctly contrasting social economic backgrounds trying maintain an equilibrium. The chorography in that dance must have been knife’s edge. Either, from lack of foresight or disinterest, it is almost impossible to get a sense of these two individuals as human beings, writings and historical documentations, barely hint at personalities or any other individualist traits that would have served as a clue of who they were or how they managed their day to day interactions. Reading with a magnifying glass between the lines, there is an assumption that Sir Bello was the Alpha dog of the relationship but was this through natural selection or more akin to a political ascension based on a privileged birth?

All ebb, no flow......

The footsteps follow me everywhere, creep by creepy creep, all around the house. I am not afraid of them, I am resigned to the shadows hovering around me. Looking out through the window, I notice the grey light of an early dawn, there is a sadness about this morning but I refuse to address the source of this vague malaise I am experiencing. I walk sleepily into the kitchen and start a pot, for I must have my coffee. The feeling of performing everyday tasks, the routine itself is comforting, like a warm blanket in a cold room. Slowly my brain is stirring awake, coming on full blast like an express train pulling into the station, I know subconsciously what will arrive on that train, it’s the same footsteps that has been following me all around the house, all morning. There it was, I am wide awake, there is no escaping it now, everywhere I look, it stares back at me, in big black unflinching letters; MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD AT 50! How exactly am I going to spend the rest of my day?

Why Blog?

My pen drips liquid pleasure, my writing is like crack cocaine to my brain. I do not enjoy everything I put down but I always get a buzz from the reaction it elicits. It is true that most true artists are interested not in the millions that idolize their work but in the hundreds that claim not to be impressed. I do not feel like an artist, I feel more like a magician, conjuring up words of such exquisite fragility that the fabric from which this intricate tapestry is woven; is at once as shred able as cotton and at the same time as strong as silk. I feel like good writing should go down smooth like Irish cream but with the alcoholic effect of a shot of Irish whiskey. I write because I am bored, and need an escape, a place where my mind is occupied with complex realities and the everyday anomalies of human existence. I write to kill the fiery devil at the center of my heart that wants me to do so much more about the everyday injustices both real and perceived that plague not just me or mine but humanity and man. I write to express a point of view, to get out an opinion, to stretch my arguments over a wider area than the guy siding in the barstool next to me at the pub, to openly state my assumptions to see if others think along the same path. But mostly, I write, because I have an audience, even if it is an audience of one, it is more than my words deserve and for that I say thank you.

Nedu Nnadi

9jia Could Be Home

I live in exile in a strange country, surrounded by strange people speaking in strange tongues. I visit my home country the way Yankee tourists visit the Riviera, two weeks at a time, once a year. I only stay two weeks; because even my nostalgia is no match for the fear at the pit of my belle every time I am offered a glass of “pure water”, or the way my friends catapult from the back to the front of the car when I am forced to take evasive maneuvers to avoid giant holes in the middle of the highway. My time at home is always short, I am always in a hurry to return to this my new found land where I have chosen to hide myself. My shame runs deep, like the pools of mosquito infested stagnant water at the village, I cry at night from the pain that I know is somewhere being inflicted on the unlucky and the targeted by heavily armed thugs that own the darkness and the streets after 8.00PM. Somehow despite a GDP of $147 billon, the scream of the dying grows stronger by the day, you see my country is host to the silent curse of the big disease with the little name and unknown cure. Medicine cabinets are stocked full of fake drugs dispensed by unlicensed pharmacists and powerful priests claim to cure all kinds of illnesses by lays hands on people’s head. I internalize my sorrow a lot , when I am at home I can’t call my friends, I barely have any minutes and even when I do the South African company that owes my cell line is charging me 40 times what normal people would pay for the same service anywhere else in the world. There are plenty of others like me, we hang around the nice parts of this make belief place, wear fancy clothes and pretend to be something we are not, Americans. Everywhere I look I see doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, artists, artisans, bankers, accountants all like me, lost souls trying to find a new meaning in Diaspora. The brave have abandoned their culture and left their heritage and history to be described by the lives of the unfortunate, the greedy, the unscrupulous, and the lost. I want to find outrage in my heart but my soul is empty, I have drained all my tears and my eyes are like hollow dark pools of black coal. The possibility that I will one day return to my homeland permanently is remote, you see I have broken bread here, my children will be born here, they will call this land home and refer to that distant place with the rich dark brown soil and the canopy of a thousand year old giant Udala trees as Africa.

The Space Inside my Head

Free form writing also known as stream-of-consciousness writing - can be used in order to clear the mind of half thoughts, actions, inactions, truths and half-truths. You go where your mind takes you and follow that thread as far along as it will take you, but branching off on the smallest of impulse. I started out by writing about resolutions and the New Year, wondering why people bother making “New Year Resolutions” when they know it will not be kept? Life altering changes are made not based on dates but events, in fact, it would be better to make New Year Restitutions (Resolution; defined: a firm decision to do something or hold firm to a belief, Restitutions defined: the return of something to the condition it was in before it was changed). Rather than a resolution to make new friends, how about making a restitution, by making up with a friend were the relationship has gone sour? Or rather than a resolution to give more to charity but instead make a restitution by returning anything you gained by wrongful means last year? It has a handle and an actual target and moreover it is bigger than just you.

Speaking of the New Year, this year all I am eating is fish, not that I particularly like fish but I have been convinced that fish contains Omega 3 oil (whatever that is) and that this oil unlike palm oil is good for me. Intellectually you can file this under the same heading as “vitamins improve your health”. For years they were supposed to be good for you, only recently the “know it alls” have changed their minds and decided that vitamin supplements do nothing for your health and are really just a waste of money since most people get all the Vitamins they need from their food anyway.

So with all the time in the world to make adjustments to your life, why would you choose the New Year? If you are in a plane flying across time zones it is possible to celebrate the incoming year 12 times in one day. Does the whole time zone thing make sense to you? Even cities on the same longitude are sometimes not even in the same time zone, the further west you go the less sense it makes. I know that LA should be at least 6 time zones away from NYC and not the current four, so how did they come by the four that we currently use and what happened to the other two? The thing I love most about LA are the freeways, I mean if not for the astronomical cost of living in that city, there is no better place to live on earth. The weather, the people, the topography and the malls are all to die for (except of course you live in Mahe, then in that case Na You Win). When I was in LA I experienced my first earthquake, believe me, if you have never been in one, there really is no way to describe the feeling that runs through you when the ground you are standing on begins to move, you immediately begin to understand how insignificant you are in context to everything else around you.

But I am are work now, second day back since the New Year, and I am not sure what to make of anything, I mean, are we in a recession or not? Everything feels the same, I am not really making anymore or less this year, than I did last year but for some reason I am extra tight with cash. Maybe it is all the doom and gloom being peddled on the TV or it is the fear that you don’t control your own faith as long as you are someone’s employee. I mean I would like to start my own show but I find myself a slave to the system, I truly am trapped in the matrix, Even if they pay me $500K a year, it is only because I am making $5M or more, a year for them. Ultimately it means that I have the skills to make $5M a year but I settle for the small cheese because I would rather be feed than bear the initial hunger it would take to free myself while searching for my own cheese.

I find that I am easily distracted, not ADD distracted but quickly convinced by extenuating factors to follow the next thought in the conga line of things running through my mind….. hmm, I wonder what will happen if I baked my Loafers?

Found In The Papers II

• The Auditor-General of the Federation, Mr. Robert Edjanavi, has expressed deep concern over the safety of Federal Government’s N363.9bn investments in some companies. Some of the investments, he said, might have been lost as a result of their privatisation or complete closure of the companies. The Auditor-General, therefore, advised the Accountant-General of the Federation to put a mechanism in place for the recovery of some of the funds. --------Dem don come again, wetin Lehman Bros get to do with 9jia money? Naija politicians are the true experts at never wasting a crisis. Any chance to die our pay is always welcome

• The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday said that the total credits (loans) of the 24 banks operating in Nigeria has increased from N1.19 trillion in 2003 to N7.8 trillion as at January, 2009 while the total capital base is well over N2.1 trillion ----- E be like sey undercapitalized and overleveraged na words wey Nigerians go begin familiarize themselves with." I see dead people"

• 
  “How I met Jesus in prison” Jennifer Madike ------ Hmm… wonder if he was just visiting

• Sea pirates along the Bonny Channel, Rivers State, are said to have raped five ladies after they attacked three passenger boats in the area. A source on Tuesday told our correspondent that the three boats were intercepted by the armed gangs along the channel, which has become notorious for piracy and armed robbery in recent times. He said the gang laid ambush for the boats along the winding creeks and struck as soon as they came within their range. The source added that the gangsters carefully selected some women and a man from the three boats after the attack and forcibly took them deeper into the creeks. He said that the other passengers were allowed to go with the boats while the fate of the seized women and the man was unknown. …… We do not know what happened to the people that were kidnapped but the five women were certainly raped. And that one guy that was selected…..for what? Maybe, Rape?
  
  
  

• Pope Benedict XVI, who is making his first papal visit to Africa, has said that handing out condoms is not the answer in the fight against HIV/Aids. HIV/Aids was, he argued, "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem". The solution lay, he said, in a "spiritual and human awakening" and "friendship for those who suffer". ----- I wish I understood what he was trying to say. That condoms do not prevent or at least reduce the risk of infection?
  
  
  

• The Federal Executive Council Today said it is targeting the creation of a million jobs for youths in 2009 - ------ Me, I am always up for a decent miracle. What exactly is “job for youths”?
  
  
  
  

• ABUJA—For the first time since the return of democratic rule in 1999 the Senate yesterday commenced moves to appoint a national ombudsman with the responsibility of investigating complaints against federal, state and Local Governments. …… All well and good but what if I have a complaint against the Ombudsman?
  
  
  
  
  

• AT a recent gathering of Touts and Bus Stop Academics parliamentarians at the Iyana Ejigbo Bus-stop, a dispute had arisen over whether Governor Babatunde Fashola actually monitors how the different projects of his government were being executed. The dispute was a fallout of the surprise expressed by one of the parliamentarians, Francis Akpeyi, that the traffic control light at Iyana Ejigbo which malfunctioned for some days, causing a lot of traffic confusion, had been rectified within a short time. ----- Meaning there would have been no dispute if the light was still malfunctioning. That my friend is the essence of comedy, nothing else needs to be added, that soup don ready.
  
  
  
  

• If you are one of those thinking that singer Soul E is mourning his fate or remorse about his predicament in the last few months, sorry to disappoint you because he is not. The singer re branded his stage name and identity after getting ‘married’ to Queen Ure Okezie in Umuahia last year, and went on to parade themselves about town as showbiz couple, man and wife, appearing on different television shows and several events as King and Queen. ------more like area father and mother.
  
  
  

• CAN someone tell the EFCC to stop fooling the public? When a new Chairman of the EFCC in the person of Mrs. Farida Waziri was appointed about a year ago, expectations were high. No one believed that it could be a smokescreen. ------ Nope, most of us thought it was a “Chinese room divider” not a screen of any kind.
  
  
  
  

• AN in-depth analysis of the official pronouncements and statements of top government functionaries in Nigeria on the current global financial crisis reveals one of two things: Either a clear lack of understanding of the depth and ramifications of the issue at hand or an outright trivialization of how to go about it, which, essentially, is a function of the former. – Sometimes you can be too smart, such as now.
  
  
  
  

• Customs officials at the Beijing airport in China announced that they detained a Nigerian man who had a suitcase filled with about 87 kg of marijuana. Chinese police say it is the biggest drug arrest this year. ------- How is that even possible? How big was the suitcase? 190 pounds, com’on now! I bet he even tried bring it on to the plane as hand carry.

• A circuit court in Goaso has sentenced a 37 year-old self-styled juju man, Alhaji Abonyere, to 15 years imprisonment in hard labour for sexually assaulting a housewife. The convict pleaded guilty. He said in January the victim, who was suffering from menstrual disorder, was accompanied by her husband to the convict for herbal treatment. The prosecutor said the convict demanded GHC 2.00 and a cock as consultation fee for the treatment and placed the housewife on treatment. On February 3 when she reported to the convict for treatment Abonyere invited her into his room and asked her to obey all his instructions or she would go mad. Abonyere then stripped the woman half naked and smeared the stomach with black powder. Abonyere again removed the underwear of the housewife and put a talisman around her waist after which he asked her to bend down and continue to stir a calabash containing the blood of a fowl with a finger till he asked her to stop. ------- I wonder what she thought was going to happen after her underwear came down? I mean except if the man had an underwear fetish, this song only had one chorus. Please, what is GHC 2.00, na gun? or New brand of Condom?
  
  

Sometimes There Are NO Solutions

So Bill Clinton says that the world’s economies have lost about thirty trillion dollars in value since the crisis started last summer, this amount represents almost twice the annual GDP of the United States. Therefore, I ask myself, self, where in the world did the money go? I mean if investing is a zero sum game, as in, for every buyer a seller, that would imply that somewhere somehow someone should be 30 trillion dollars richer, right? Wrong! Apparently, that is not the case; everybody is hurting at the same time. The same contraction and recession fever running around as if a bull in a china shop through the US economy is also battering Asian, European and South American economies.

The price of oil has gone from $145.00+ a barrel, to under $40.00 a barrel, yet it is not like the number of cars on the streets decreased by more than two thirds, has it? If in general, any good is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it, then does it mean if no one is willing to pay anything for a particular good that it is worthless? Although it would explain the reason why I have not been able to sell my 18 years old slightly used Honda, but that is beside the point, it is completely unfortunate that society has chosen to keep score of personal worth by the size of tiny little zeros on bank account statements. Why else would people who were happy to pay $750K for a house two years ago suddenly hate their houses now because someone told them they can only sell it for $450K? It is the same house, with the same marble counter top, the sun drenched gazebo and grand foyer that you claimed was a bargain when you were showing it off two years ago.

Normally, in previous downturns you retrained, relocated or reengaged to get over the hump. In this current climate, the hump is a small mountain. In this current tsunami, if you do not have a life jacket (savings at the bank) and the water comes your way, you will drown without question. This time around, we will not be able to borrow any kind of floatation devise (short and long-term loan) from anyone; even captains of large boats (banks) are taking water and are in need of a bail out themselves. The concept of perpetual entitlement that grow out of an MVP culture has been the ultimate corrupting influence, it made it so that was no longer enough to be comfortable, no, you had to be comfortable while doing as little work as possible or suffering any real visible struggle. Conmen disguised as Investment bankers paid themselves out of peoples hard earned saving while dishing out fictitious quarterly and yearly statements. So it turned out that even the trust fund babies, had trusted too much of their funds to these scoundrels and were treated like babies.

Now that Citibank and Bank Of America are all tethering on the edge, threatening to fall over and break into a thousand little banks, what am I to do with the now $5.00 shares that I bought for $60.00 seven months ago? Consider the sheer absurdity of the fact that BofA has over paid for two broken banks (countrywide and Merrill) in the space of less than one year, yet this is a bank purportedly being run by intelligent educated men. What happened to buy low, sell high? Or is Ken Lewis of the “buy high, watch it sink lower” school of financial crisis mismanagement? Sometimes when your broker or financial analyst or whiz kid or hotshot or whatever the hell else they call themselves starts going on about a sure thing ask yourself this question, if it is such a sure thing why doesn’t he sell his belongs and put everything on this “sure thing” and make a killing?

So If you ever find yourself laying quietly in the dark with a bottle of brandy in your left hand, and .45 in your right hand, contemplating the irrational option of ending it all, please do yourself a favor and don't. Take the time to think about the fact that two years from now, the good times will be here again.

Individualistic Traits & Leadership

Back in the 90’s when the super eagles had a dominant team, they were the pride of Nigeria and also the reason too many people contemplated jumping from the balcony. They were super talented but frustrating as hell, always getting knocked out in tournaments they were favored to do well in. Nobody represented this era of Nigerian football better than Austin Jay Jay (So nice, they named him twice) Okocha, super talented midfielder with exquisite skills, he had a magical touch with the ball. There was no move he could not make, no space too tight for him not to attempt an overhead flick, the more defenders you put in front of him the better he liked his chances.

At the same time if any player was going to dribble in infinite circles away from the goal line, it was him. He could boot a devastating shot into the stands, even when he has wide open teammates he could have passed to, sometimes you felt like his teammates were playing at half speed because they were tired of watching him monopolize the ball. Contrasted with Oliseh, his less talented but more efficient midfield partner, most people preferred Oliseh’s game. Oliseh was economical with his approach, he seemed to like one touch football and all that; but at the end of the day, we all came to watch Okocha play, if anybody could create magic on the pitch he was the one. It was common place to blame Okocha whenever Nigeria lost. He dribbled too much, he does not pass, he is too offensive minded and does not do enough on defense.


Which now brings me to the point of this conversation, is it his duty to tone down his game to make his teammates comfortable or should they be the ones to raise their game in order to play at his level? Last night on TNT, Chris Webber in discussing the upcoming NBA All-star Game noted that he played for good teams and bad teams. On both teams, his workout routine was the same and his effort was the same. Unfortunately, outcomes were different because on the bad teams the other people (team managers, teammates ETC) were not as good, so he did not win as much. Since C-Webb did not get to pick his teammates, he didn't think he should be penalized for this outcome? I guess what he was basically getting at was, whether he is still a winner if he does the same things a winner does but does not get the same results? You will find that this occurs more often in life than you would care to admit.


Imagine this, you are working hard, doing everything right but your company is failing, one day they layoff everybody and you hit the unemployment line through no fault of your own. While you can take solace in the fact that it is not your fault, but the fact is you are in the same position as the bum that shows up for work late and rarely achieved any of his job goals. In this example while your individual performance was stellar, your team sucked. How can you be considered a success, when your team is not doing well? In basketball more than any other sport this is a common phenomena. Back in 2005/2006 Kobe Bryant of the Lakers, was surrounded by four stiffs, he played like a maniac, even once scoring 81 points in a game. He was willing to taking on a disproportionate proportion of his team’s offensive possessions just to make sure his team had a chance, despite all this, his team did not do very well and he was called a loser, not a good leader, whatever. Now his team is winning at a ridiculous clip, he is still putting out the same effort but all of a sudden, he has matured and is now a team player but the truth is, the only real difference between then and now, is that his teammates are better.

Consider this, you work in a call center, the layabouts that are your colleagues find any excuse not to show up for work or answer the phone. They are constantly rude to customers, they don’t follow procedure and generally create a hostile work environment. Is it your place to show them how do a better job? knowing that if they fail, you all fail. Or is it enough, for you to do your very best and hope that when the end comes you can hold your head high knowing that you did all that you could? Even if in the end you all fail collectively as a group.

Half Full Or Half Empty?

To most people, the half-full or half-empty question relates to whether a person tends to be pessimistic or optimistic in their views of events. I always tended to believe that the question was a lot more fluid than the answers it tended to generate. In the course of an ordinary day, anyone can swing from one to the other. Generally and curiously, I find that people tend to be more glass half full (optimistic), after a tragedy or an event where the loss or the outcome could have been worse. For example if armed bandits rob you, you are thankful that they did not shoot you. On the other hand, when you enjoy some good fortune but you feel like the outcome could have been better, your outlook is generally half-empty.

The game show “Deal or No Deal” uses this quirk in people to ensure that 80 percent of their constants walk out of there losers. You see, winning a VW when there was the possibility you could have won a Benz, leaves most people with a sense of loss regardless of the fact that neither vehicle was a guaranteed get when they started out. The other curious thing about the way we view events, is that our views of our own fortune is colored by the relative good or bad fortune of other people. Watching the Joneses get richer would give most people a perpetual glass half full view of life even if you are not doing too badly yourself. Basically; we allow someone else’s circumstances to distort our view of our own self worth and most times this is without knowing the mitigating reasons for the other person’s success.

This displeasure could usually carry over into the all other areas of ones personal life, even into areas were your lot really is good, like marriage or your job or your friendships. To get clarity and to be able to balance out how we view things we will need to undergo a true paradigm shift (a change of position so profound, relative to our original position as to completely change our interpretation of events).

Experiences like finding God or surviving a truly harrowing experience tends to leave a lasting change in people where they are always thinking they are blessed. NBA basketball great Tracy Mcgrady returned from a trip to Somalia, with a completely new understanding to the words misery and hopelessness. For him, someone, who always thought that the worse that could happen was growing up poor and black in America, he experienced a paradigm shift that things could have been be a lot worse.

Here are some answers to the question Half Full or Half Empty? From Wiki answers

• 
  Answer: Neither, It is always full. It may be filled with 50% of water and 50% of air, or any variation of competing percentages, but it is always full of something even if it looks empty, as it could be FULL of air.
• Answer: That is relative. Depends whether you are drinking or pouring.
  Answer: Logical point of view, the cup is half-full. A glass cannot be half-empty because half of nothing is still nothing.
• Answer: I think that the cup being half-full or half empty can and should both be looked at as positive viewpoints. For even if the cup is half-empty you have taken in half and you yourself are half-full. So in one sense (half full) you have more to consume, and in the other (half empty) you have consumed already a part of what there is.
• Answer: In Yorkshire they'd say the glass was too blummin' big
• Answer: I do not know how in the first place this could even be asked since your glass was empty to begin with, then it is logically half-full. HOWEVER, if you have filled your glass and drank half of it then it is half-empty so, you can not answer this question without knowing if the glass was completely full before you have stumbled upon it