Ladies and gentlemen, I have a new
house. A new, squeaky clean house with a title deed and ef'thing. You should see the grin on my face right now... Now I love Google products the
way no sane person should love any interwebs thingis, and Blogger is by far the easiest way to blog ever invented for idiots like me, but dammit
if I've not tired of having a blog that looks like such a blog. I
tried to redesign this page, but it is what it is, a basic page. It's time to move on.
Seeing as how this is simply a quick hop across, I don't need to get all weepy, do I? I do not.
Thank you, each and every one of you
who's passed through over the past four years. An extra special
thank you to the deviants, and angels, who made the comments
section here the absofuckinglutely best part of the blog. For real, the comments section we created is hands down the most
hilarious, opinionated (yet for the most part never abusive), hands-down crassest comment section on any blog hereabouts. I bow down down to your greatness,
my lovelies. My one regret with this move is that I can't take the
comments with me, which is why this blog will stay up for as long as
possible. I can't bring myself to take it, us, down (I folded Dunia
into this one, because three sites seems a bit excessive, no? I mock
myself...).
I have to thank Serikali and/or Google for never
shutting my anti-establishment, borderline pornographic pages down (that's part of the
reason for owning the domain, for just in case someone catches on to what really goes on here). I must also thank the lovely people at DMCA for only flagging my
liberal, and apparently very illegal, use of lyrics that one time. Useless detour. You cannot use more than 5 words from a song, not
without permission (for a fee, usually) from the song's author. You
can, however, use the song title, because titles cannot be
copyrighted. I looked for every conceivable loophole, fair use nini
nini, nothing. Folks, don't use lyrics, especially if you publish
for money (and that includes advertising on your blog). Fortunately
for us, embedding videos and such is not illegal, so the show will go
on, only now I'll have to hum the lyrics to you. I know, it's
exciting, yes? Bloody internet.
A bit of housekeeping. Email people, I
could transfer your subscriptions to the new site, but that strikes
me as a little creepy, no? Sign up again na huko, tafadhali,
apologies for the disruption. Those of you not on the email list,
sign up, it's easier to keep track of me that way (bonus, I email
full posts, none of that teaser nonsense, and I will never ever email
you directly. because I'm not a stalker like that, promise).
I’d always planned on doing a post about this, figuring I’d wait for the dust to settle, victims laid to rest, fear subsiding and grief taking on a more reflective perspective. But as with all the tragedies that occur up in the north, in that region we consider not Kenya (not Nairobi), Garissa faded away into yet another statistic. 148(?) lives lost in most brutal fashion. And life went on. As it should, I guess, the world doesn’t stop turning for anyone. Back in...I couldn’t remember when exactly the attack happened, had to do a quick google (it says something about the sheer amount of bad news that floods our headlines every day if I can’t remember when exactly Garissa happened, either that or it speaks to my apathy, then and now, but more on that later)...back in April, I saved a photo of the massacre on my phone, the shot of the courtyard. I kept the photo as a reminder to write this, but also as a reminder that security, life, is not a given in this country, not in any country the way things are going.
Before I get into it, we need to talk about these pictures of dead people. I meant to use the photo in this post, but the constant stream of dead bodies on the internet has finally convinced me that these pictures add no value. If anything, they detract from what value there could possibly be in the lurid description of violence. Those gory images often reduce complex situations to simple images, stripping the nuance away and replacing it with our most basic emotions, fear, disgust, hate. Now there’s a difference between photojournalism, which is telling a story through pictures, and simply putting up shocking pictures. What we tend to do, us purveyors of internet outrage, is use gruesome images to grab your attention, attention we should actually be grabbing with our arguments. It’s a trick, see, sleight of hand, done to distract you from the fact that I, we, don’t have the words to convince you.
The one time I used a photo of dead people on the blog was the murder of the teachers in Mandera. My logic then was that people who were not actively on social media, people relying on mainstream media for their news, these people would never see the horror of that attack, or any of the other attacks that happen with frightening frequency in the frontier districts. I thought, misguidedly I now think, that everyone needed to see a skull split open, because that would get everyone suitably enraged, because outrage would somehow spark some sort of change. I didn’t elaborate on said change, mine was simply to trigger something, anything. The arrogance of the self righteous, no? I don’t need to see people who look like me lying dead in a pool of blood to feel sympathy, or fear, and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. More to the point, we shouldn’t need to see pictures of dead kids to believe the kids are dead, or should we? Are we that accustomed to death? I’m not, and I hope I never am. No more photos of dead people, tafadhali.
Living in the capital, it’s easy to forget that we’re in the middle of a dirty war and there are Kenyans out there on the frontlines, dying. Only they’re not soldiers, are they? After Westgate, I was eager to resume my normal routine, finding a sense of calm in the irrepressible spirit of a city that never truly sleeps. Nairobi may appear to shut down, but those of us who wander about after dark know it never does, not really. There was a certain pride I felt when the city kept going, despite the horror (terror?), but even then I was always cognisant of my good fortune, that I didn’t lose anyone, that I could pick up and move on virtually unscathed. Garissa was even more removed. These were random students far away in a distant town. Some of them were from Nairobi, for all I know one or two may have been from my shags up the highway. But the college was, is, unfamiliar to me. Garissa town is unfamiliar to me. Even the surrounding landscape is unfamiliar to my Kiambu born and bred ass. It might as well have been Bamako.
How shitty is it that I can say that without much shame? I’ll be completely honest with you, partly because of the (vitriolic) bickering between the pro and anti government types, partly because of the ‘watch me grieve more than the bereaved’ hand wringing from the activist set, partly because of the dodgy press coverage on TV, partly because of never ending stream of grim news from the frontier districts, and partly because of my own apathy, I was oddly removed from Garissa. Odd, considering I’m otherwise concerned about kids dying. I consider these students kids, too young to die at the hands of delusional idiots fighting a misguided war that can never be won. It’s not that older people deserve to die, but there’s something about burying nineteen, twenty year olds, or god forbid younger... It’s not right, no matter the cause.
Which is what made my government’s reaction to this massacre all the more surprising. To say Kamwana and co. dropped the ball would be an understatement. I’m not going to launch into a tirade about their inability to keep us safe, everything has already been said, and by people far better informed than me. My concern has more to do with what appeared to be the executive’s callous lack of concern. No memorial service, no days of mourning, no obligatory trip to Garissa by dear leader to condole with the shell shocked town. To the best of my recollection, I don’t think Kamwana even gave us one of his ‘Fellow Kenyans’ speeches. How now? We’ve since found out the attackers were Kenyan, which means it’s no longer about Somalia, or foreigners, or refugees, or whomever the government and it’s mafans like to blame for all bad things. We know one of the attackers was well educated, arguably a child of privilege, seeing as how he was the son of a chief or such like, which in turn means the old ‘poverty makes terrorists’ argument us left-leaning types like to make is no longer valid. That they killed mostly non Muslims speaks to the anti Christian propaganda Al Shabaab likes to throw about, but it also speaks to the inequalities of this country, being that they were ‘foreigners’ in a largely Muslim region. Nothing about Garissa was simple or straightforward. Perhaps that’s why serikali was so eager to wish it away.
148 dead Kenyans are hard to wish away.
This is the thing. Al Shabaab, contrary to claims in the press and slick PR videos from State House, is not finished. Diminished, in some parts, at best. We’re not safe yet, not here in the capital or out in the less Kenyan parts of Kenya. You’re not safe in France, for that matter, and you’re not safe in California. You’re sure as hell not safe in Syria, or Libya, or Mali, or Somalia, or Egypt, or CAR, or Nigeria. You’re not even safe in China these days, what with their knife wielding ‘terrorists’ (one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, especially in China).
Slight detour. Mass knife attacks? Am I the only one who’s picturing old Kung Fu movies? No? Just me then. Moving right along.
We’re living in the age of terror. That sounds melodramatic, no? I can’t think of another word to describe what these idiots are doing to us. We try to get on with our lives, acting like everything is normal, then we go through numerous security checks to get into a mall, or to board an airplane. We hold our vigils and mourn the dead and we move on, thinking that we’re fine, and then a student jumps out of a fourth floor window during a security drill. We thank our gods that we’re safe in our homes, but we still jump when fireworks go off unexpectedly, thinking for a moment that we are under attack again. We’re traumatised. We’re tired. We are, for lack of a better word, terrified.
I’m convinced we all have a mild case of PTSD.
And as well we should.
This is what happens when we refuse to deal with our violence. Our eagerness to accept and move on has us pretending everything is fine, when deep down we know it isn’t. We know this, we can feel it in our bones. That we’re only one shitty election, one large scale attack away from disintergration. I’m not saying we’re about to fall apart from the country, I’m saying we’re about to fall apart as individuals. I hate to admit it, but we need therapy, all of us. We need people in charge of the numerous security failures we endure to be held to account. We need answers to why, and how, these atrocities happened, everything from clashes in the Rift Valley, through to PEV and Mpeketoni. We need a collective, public reckoning of biblical proportions, destruction of Babylon type of reckoning. We need to sing kumbaya (and mean it) when said reckoning is done, so that we can truly move on. We need... We need a fucking Kagame is what we need. I may have gone too far there, but you get my point, we need a leadership that not only shares our hopes and dreams, but our darkness and fears as well. We need leaders that understand that we don’t all have 24 hour personal police guards at our disposal, and that we sometimes get scared as we’re out perambulating aimlessly trying to pay our taxes.
That’s my biggest issue with my president and his government of thieving imbeciles, and the bloody useless opposition. These idiots don’t know or don’t remember what it feels like to feel unprotected. I see the cops on patrol as I walk around the city, but given that they’re usually harassing innocent people, they inspire little confidence in me. I walk into a supermarket that looks eerily like the supermarket where a man was shot while hiding under an elephant, and I do not feel safe. I watch the news and hear these idiot politicians talk smack, and I have flashbacks of machete wielding thugs, thugs who kinda look like me (well, my cousins). I’m thinking, neither Kamwana nor Raila understands this, not if their bullshit proclamations are anything to go by.
Listen, I’ve made my peace with the possibility that some idiot may kill me while trying to steal my car, this while I drive home from the karaoke bar at 2 am on a loose Thursday night. It’s not right, but it is what it is. I’m not entirely paranoid, I don’t worry about someone stealing my wallet when I get into the bus to town, for the most part I choose not to obsess about these things, because crime is a part of life no matter where you are. But an idiot spraying his AK47 in the supermarket or a college hostel? That’s not regular crime, that’s ‘point at the government’ crime, they’re fighting against the government, not us. That’s why we call it terrorism. Worst part about it, there’s not much we can do but grin and bear it, such is our lot in life, us little people with no say in geopolitics and such like fancy nonsense.
I apologise. This was supposed to be a post remembering the victims of Garissa. For those who lost their lives, we grieve. You are not forgotten, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Even in a year when I wrote not more than 10 posts, only 2 of which were about sex, someone rocked up in the comments section and accused me of, “still bitching about sex.” Now I ask you, is that what I do? I’ve been labouring under the misguided impression that I was sharing knowledge, having valuable conversations, dispelling (and maybe accidentally creating) myths. Useful shit. But noooooo... I’m just bitching about sex. I wept into my cups that day. And then the following day I resigned myself to my unfortunate reputation. I figure, there as worse things on this internet than being known as the mama railing against bad sex, no? I don't even have to issue a disclaimer any more, not if you deviant buggers read sex whenever I write, even when I write about the most nonsexual things. It's brilliant. Troubling, but brilliant. To wit...
If what I keep reading on the interwebs is to be believed, there are way too many people out there having bad, nay, tragic sex. Sex that involves pleasuring only one party. Sex that involves more exertion than may actually be necessary, all in an attempt to be freaky. Sex that involves pretending to be the person the other party desires, rather than who you really are. Sex that does not involve any connection save for the mandatory touching of genitals. Sex without intimacy. Sex that does not involve nearly enough conscious decisions. Sex that involves coercion, which may then no longer be sex, but rape. If what I keep reading is to be believed, there are people out here, many people it seems, who think sex is a way to get one over someone else, a way for them to get what they want by any means necessary.
How the hell did we get here?
Because it's the second day of my official Christmas break (woohoo!) and this post is intefering with my Dr Who marathon, I’m going to skip all the scientific research mumbo jumbo and skip right ahead to the list, a list, I might add, I suspect I’ve already written before in all its many variations. This is the year end summary of all things sex. Ready?
1. Pleasure must be mutual.
For fuck’s sake, stop being so bloody selfish in bed. You man, if you think pounding the woman for five minutes till you come is sex, you need to buy a plastic vagina and leave the real women alone, yes? Just nod. If you do not:
a. kiss her (all over, for the record, not just on her lips),
b. play with her boobs, where play involves hands and mouth, and maybe stubbly chin if she goes for the whole sandpaper effect on her skin,
c. stroke her back and/or belly and/or thighs and/or toes,
d. eat or finger her damn pussy, and/or ass if she goes for that too (please ask first),until she comes,
then you have no business inserting your business end into hers. Comprende?
And you woman...yes, you...the same applies to you, only swop out d. for suck/lick his dick and/or balls, and/or ass if he goes for that too. And throw in a quick lick or suck of that spot at the top of his hips, where there’s a dent in his body. I don’t know if it works for all men, but some men apparently has a loose nerve lurking therabouts that seems to do the trick for them. What? I read that in a Cosmo once. It's never worked for me and mine, but who knows? I told you this won’t be scientific, figure it out for your own damn self.
Bottom line, pleasure is mutual, which means both (or more, no?) parties have to be satisfied.
2. Freaky sex isn’t necessarily the best sex.
Cunnilingus or fellatio, or analingus, is not for everyone. Neither is doggy style, or reverse cowgirl. And you know what? That’s perfectly fine. Not every woman has a yearning for sex outdoors, or a 50 shades fantasy. Not every man wants to be tied up and flogged. Not everyone wants to have a threesome. The way they tell it, online at least, if you’re not having sex 3 times a day in all manner of positions or with all manner of implements, then your sex must be crap. Nope. Not even remotely. Sex is as personal as the individual having it, so do what makes you happy. Yes, I know that making someone else happy makes us happy, but you can only accommodate so far, no? Once it becomes a case of you pretending to be someone you’re not, especially when freakiness is the issue, then maybe it's not worth it.
This sounds odd coming from me, I’m the one always pushing you to try new things, but after seeing (reading, mostly on twitter) what people are doing in the name of sexual liberation, I’ve come to embrace the more conservative amongst us. That’s not to say I’ve become more conservative, hell will freeze over first, but even I have limits, and I’m no longer ashamed to admit it. Be as freaky as you want. Or don’t. Anyone who has a problem with you needs to walk on by, yes? Yes.
3. Seriously though, sex is supposed to feel good.
With the exception of the kinkier end of the spectrum where discomfort is part of the sexual experience and feeling good is somewhat more complicated (remind me to write that post one day, when I'm properly toasted ideally), sex is supposed to feel good. Really, really good. That’s kinda the whole point. So if you’re out there having sex with a man who doesn’t take the time to get you aroused enough before he shoves it in (ouch!), or if you’re shagging someone who’s a bit rough on your parts and you don’t like it (men and women alike have just crossed their legs after recalling a particularly unpleasant memory), or if you’re fucking someone who makes you feel like crap (before, during or after), then don’t fuck with them, again. It’s supposed to feel good. On this one aspect, you cannot compromise.
4. Unless you are a prize arsehole, you will make some sort of connection. Deal with it.
Proponents of casual sex are staring at me with one eye. Feelings types are getting ready to hoist me on my own petard. I’m about to disappoint you both. This is not a warning against no strings sex, go right ahead, I said some sort of a connection, not love or happily ever after, a connection. It’s built into good sex, great sex even more so.
The way I see it, sex is simply about getting yourself off, it’s wanking with audience participation. Good sex is about getting each other off, it’s more interactive, there’s give and take, I do you then you do me and then we do...us. Great sex, however, is about pleasure, not just getting off, the act is as important as the end result. Viva la Revolución! Or not.
Yes, I quoted myself, but only because I think that was one of the most profound things I’ve ever said. Clearly, I’m biased.
Tell me, how on earth do you propose to get someone else off without making even the most basic connection with them? So how then do you turn around and claim intimacy-less sex could possibly be good? Do you see my point? You don’t, but I put it the list so I can refer you back here if and when you do something foolish.
5. Sex is a conscious decision.
We all like to have a slightly (or very) drunk roll in the hay from time to time, at least those of us fond of the tipple do. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, makes it...I’m not sure easier is the right word, but it fits...alcohol makes it easier for us to let our guard down, doesn’t it? Thing is, and this is where the complications arise, sex is something we choose to do, consciously. I need to repeat that. We choose to have sex. We don’t stumble into bed randomly, or accidentally land on a penis, we choose. Alcohol, or drugs, impairs our ability to make decisions.
See, it’s one thing when this drunk sex is being had between two people who already have a sexual relationship, the decision to have sex may already have been made, but what of people who are not already shagging? And what about random acts thrown in under the influence, acts you may not have agreed to prior, but now that you’re not thinking too clearly, well, shit goes to fuck? Even worse, what about the idiots out here who deliberately use alcohol to get laid? The moment alcohol is used to reduce or remove someone’s ability to make that decision, it’s no longer consensual sex, for the simple reason that they can’t consent, not with a clear mind.
For those of you still clinging to the idea of sex via intoxication, I read this analogy a few weeks back, if someone is too drunk to drive, you probably shouldn’t have sex with them. Operating heavy machinery and such like. Ahem.
Folks, I don’t know what else I can say at this point to convince you (them?) that sex is neither pointless sport nor competition. That’s not to say sex can’t be playful (it should be), or that trying to win at sex is a bad thing (we all love prizes, no?), but our obsession with winning at all costs is detrimental to the quality of our sex lives. Put differently, quality over quantity. And quality for both parties involved, not just you and your own genitals. How hard is it to understand that your lover’s pleasure should matter just as much as your own? That your lover’s desires, or lack thereof, are as central to the sexual experience as your own? That (great) sex is about getting naked, truly naked, sans bullshit and trickery, your own included?
I'm done bitching. Be safe, be careful, be gentle with each other.
Yup, my lack of mojo was so great I let my birthday pass with no fanfare. I also let the four year anniversary of the blog slide on by, but given that I wasn’t blogging that seemed only right, no? We shall all nod sagely and get back to the birthday storo. I didn’t do much of anything for my birthday this year, no elaborate meal with the clan, nothing but another day at work with a surprise chocolates from a friend far away and the lack of a not surprise dinner from a friend much closer. That’s what I best remember from the day, the disappointment at a request I made being blithely ignored by someone I thought knew better than to ignore me. See, in my old age, I know better than to be vague or coy. I told this pal o’ mine that I wanted to go out for a meal and maybe some dancing. I stated it clearly, with reminders leading up to the day. Then the day came and not so much as an sms. And when I reminded said pal two weeks later, when he stopped by my house unannounced for a loose meal, I was brushed off like a pesky child asking for sweets I shouldn’t have, reminding me that some people will never get it, get me. Said pal has since been relegated to the ranks of people I will never rely on, not even for simple shit like a phone call.
People will let you down. People close to you will let you down. That’s just the way life goes, everyone’s so busy looking out for themselves that they forget, or are simply unable, to look out for you. We all do it, and then we feel bad about it and vow to change our ways, until we do it again. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in my 38 (and a half) years of life, it’s to stop making promises I can’t keep, and to keep promises I do make. You don’t want to be the idiot no one relies on, trust me when I tell you that’s a lonely way to live.
As odd as this will sound, coming after that grand declaration, I’ve also learnt to look out for myself, selfishly. I learnt this years ago, but it’s always a good lesson to learn again, as and when necessary. Jisort. Always. If you’re lucky, you’ll always have a few people around you who are there for you no matter what foolishness you get up to, but sometimes you have to be your own survival mechanism, self preservation and such like. Sometimes, we have to get our heads out our own asses and figure shit out for ourselves. The hidden bonus in that Deepak Chopra-esque self help nonsense, in figuring out our own shit, we’re better equipped to handle other people’s. Being self sufficient makes you a better friend, or lover. Go figure.
Which then makes this next bit even odder. You can’t be too self sufficient. I know, it makes no sense, but that’s why I’m not selling this dodgy wisdom (yet). If you’re not self sufficient enough, you become a drag on the people around you. Too self sufficient, you become their mule, carrying all their loads, because you do it so well. You’re looking for the goldilocks sweet spot; good, but not too good. I know, it’s a bit of a crap shoot, but isn’t that what life is all about, shooting crap and trying to make sure none of it ends up on your shoes?
I am no philosopher, clearly.
This year is the first time in a long time I’ve felt my age. It’s partly because of the younglings I keep reading on Twitter (still the work of the devil that one), partly because of the people I’ve buried this year, partly because of the aches and pains my body has been subjecting me to lately as it contemplates the second half of it’s stint on this planet. Whatever the reason, this year, a few months ago more than now, I felt 38 years old. And it scared me. This year, I’ve felt more mortal, fragile, than ever before. It also made me more impatient. We forget how truly short life is, convinced that we’ll be young forever, 18 till we die and whatnot. 'Ha!' she scoffs. If only. Thing is, along with my newfound fear of death came the urge not to waste any more time, which is a fancy way of saying I have no time for foolishness any more. Lately I find myself speaking more frankly, with less time for niceties, and given how blunt I sometimes get that’s saying something, no? You do know I see you nodding? You buggers are so disloyal. Nkt! My lovelies, I’m disinclined to entertain foolishness, not even mine, having learnt to speak less and listen more, sometimes even listening better. I’m finally learning not to waste time listening to every opinion, under the misguided hope that it may prove magically helpful even when I'm pretty sure it won't. I now know enough to dismiss the bullshit immediately, sometimes with eloquently expressed malice and forethought to ensure it never comes back (you’d be surprised how well that works).
This is the thing about getting older, you start to understand the irritation with which older people used to treat us when we were younglings. There’s no point trying to explain this, if you’re older than me you already know this. If you’re younger you won’t get it until you do, and when you do you’ll say the exact same thing to those behind you. This is one of those ‘you have to go through it yourself’ things, time has a way of showing you that there’s really nothing new under the sun.
I sound like one of those characters in Grumpy Old Men or Golden Girls, don’t I? I do. I’m not a cranky old crone, yet, but cross me on the wrong day with some bullshit and I can be. For the record, any day is the wrong day. For further record, some bullshit is basically anything that seems to be poorly thought out and/or otherwise foolish, or anything that maligns the good name of (insert my current favourite singer of tacky pop songs). Best you can hope for is that I have enough sugar/caffeine/nicotine/alcohol in my system, mellowing me out long enough for you to make a quick getaway before I slap you. On the upside, 38 (and a half) year old me is pretty easy to ignore so...fuck it, yes?
Live long and prosper sounds like an appropriate way to sign off, but then Spock went and died this year, bless his pointy eared soul. Granted, he died after living long and prospering, but still...maybe not. I say this all the time, but this year may be the year it makes most sense, my lovelies, life is too short.
Live, love, lust, linger, lick (ideally someone else). The 5 L’s to live by, no?
The thing with blogging, it’s all about habit. You get used to rambling incoherently, all day any day, often with no greater purpose than to get that ka-kick of satisfaction when you see your words on a page, and maybe a ka -like or nice comment below it. It’s part addiction, part compulsive behaviour. And then you stop. For no particular reason. And the mojo disappears almost as quickly as it appeared. Before you know it, you haven’t written so much as a ‘will revert’ email (how is that even a reply?) in months. For shame!
I’m trying to figure out how to apologise to you without actually apologising, because I shouldn’t have to apologise, because you buggers (whom I love deeply) don’t pay me to do this shit, but if I don’t apologise you’ll sit there and sulk in silence, because that’s what we do around here, sulk in silence. Yes, I’ve been sulking, and no, I don’t expect you to care, but yes, I’mma tell you all about it anyway. So why, pray tell, have I been sulking? She sighs dramatically, too dramatically (all sighs are unnecessarily dramatic, no?), I have no fucking clue. She chuckles, and has a swig of cheap ‘made for swift and debilitating intoxication’ wine.
This wine though... It’s a hand me down from posh relatives who are above these things, seeing as how they drink wine with snooty French names these days. Mind you, this cheap swill, and it really is cheap swill, has a French name, but the bottle looks like it was manufactured pale Light Industries ya Kariobangi. Which is not to demean all Kariobangi products, only the dodgy glass bottles they use for the other generation booze they produce in lethal quantities. All I’m saying is the crooked neck and dodgy cork of this bottle has me convinced that this wine is neither French nor fancy, which is how it ended up in my possession, and how I came to be typing this when I’m approximately two sheets to the wind, which is to say I’m a bit drunk. Lakini I have missed writing sentences longer than 140 bloody characters. All hail Blogger (soon to be Wordpress)! If you’ve seen me on Twitter you know I don’t tweet much, but not because I have nothing to say, it’s because I completely lack the knack of brevity. And I’m convinced the format doesn’t allow for nuance. Now you know I’m all about nuance, no? No? She takes a swig of the aforementioned cheap swill...
So, otherwise? How y’all doin’? Is your Christmas merry? Did you have a good year? Has your government been behaving itself? Have you been having great sex? Have you finally found the man/woman of your dreams? Was your bread fluffy this morning? I’m particularly interested in the answer to the bread question...
My year has been...odd. Not bad or good, just odd. Feels like it was one long out of body experience. In between serikali acting like fools and the idiot langas pretending to be press, Donald Trump and Van Gaal, a peculiar afro (on my head) and peculiar clients from hell (including the one who has me working over what should be a lovely Christmas break), a tuktuk of a car so temperamental I swear it was conceived in a Stephen King book (that bitch is trying to kill me), a depreciating shilling that’s playing havoc on Chilean wine prices at the off-licence, Avengers 2: the age of maybe they shoulda skipped right on to the third, Sauti Sol’s album cover, Sauti Sol’s album... Odd. Very odd. On the upside, however, I have now confirmed that it’s not me that’s delusional (read, possibly insane), it’s the whole damn planet that’s fucked up, all the way to Timbuktu. Timbuktu is particularly fucked up, but that’s a story for another day. The reason our collective fucked-up-ness is a good thing? I figure it’s a pretty valid reason for running a blog that continually asks, ‘What the actual fuck?’ because it occurs to me not enough people bother to ask that one most important question.
My lovelies, what the actual fuck?
When did it become acceptable for people to run around stealing, cheating and just generally screwing each other over just so they can have more money/power/sex? Worse still, when did it become acceptable to be wilfully, gleefully, arrogantly ignorant, especially in this age of damn near unlimited information a click away?
If it’s not el presidente making his umpteenth speech on his oh so grand fight against corruption even as his extremely corrupt deputy stands next to him undisturbed, it’s a recklesss government borrowing money like loans don’t need to be repaid and interest is optional. If it’s not self appointed, do gooder, saviour of the downtrodden for a fee, activist types pushing some idiotic, ill-informed campaign, it’s some self appointed knowers of all things enlightened trying to convince us that their enlightenment is the only enlightenment that’s valid, and all so they can both make a career selling, not giving, water to the thirsty. If it’s not the dodgy tenderpreneur trying to convince you he made his astronomical, obscene billions through hard work and perseverance, it’s the greasy, grabbing preacher man, or woman, or couple, trying to convince you that your money will help him, them, lead you to heaven. If it’s not the girl in the Saturday paper telling you to buy a girl shisha so you can rape her passed-out ass in your car, it’s the wanna-be (possibly not particularly well-read) sex advice twits declaring ‘Mollis’ type sex (which, for the record, sounded unnnervingly like non-consensual sex, which is rape last I checked) the ultimate in sexual misadventures. If it’s not idiots with little to no knowledge proclaiming Sepp Blatter the saviour of African football, it’s idiots with little to no knowledge proclaiming Sam Nyamweya the saviour of Kenyan football. I could go on and on and on, but for what? We know what’s going on around us, hell, some of us are actively involved in the fuckery, and by some of us I mean some of them (points over yonder), not us, us we’re perfect. Ahem. Have a swig...
Greed. Hubris. Ignorance. This explains everything from (no longer?) Sweetie of NYS fame to ‘Reverend’ Kyuna et al, through to Trump and the cock on that most idiotic album cover. (Slight detour. That I get to use the word cock in a non-sewer post is the highlight of my year. For real. Detour over.) Almost every instance of foolishness I can point to this past year has it’s roots in some variation of mendacity, borne of what appears to be a frightening aversion to knowledge. That’s what scares me most. An aversion to knowledge.
I don’t know how this happened, but these days people are strutting around not knowing shit, and proud of the fact that they don’t know shit. Rather than do a quick google to find out, an idiot would rather call you an idiot for knowing something they don’t, either that or they’ll discount your knowledge as not true knowledge, because they cannot or will not understand. In some peculiar plot twist in this reality show we call life, stupid has become cool. It’s almost as if we’re all extras in a mash-up of ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ and ‘News at 9’, taking selfies and clapping along to foolish antics like trained seals, all for a fish or two to keep us going. That Billy the Wailer can stand in front of us and lecture us on corruption, and he gets a 15 minute slot on the prime time news. That a girl whose claim to fame is her ass can be branded a celebrity on the front page of a seemingly serious newspaper, her and a conman preacherman. That a minister responsible for billions of shillings claims not to be responsible for how said billions were spent, including the dodgy purchase of, and this has to be a first even for our special country, a piano. And people out here are not just tolerating the idiocy, they’re revelling in it, clap clap clapping along...
This is some bullshit, man. Surreal, epic bullshit.
Does that sound depressing? It’s not meant to be, I'm far too happy (read, drunk-ish) right now to be depressed. I think accepting this pathetic state of affairs in the first step in our recovery. I think we need to embrace the stupidity, smother it in knowledge until it chokes on it’s own saliva and dies a slow gruesome death. (Sorry, I’ve been watching serial killer TV, as is my December custom.) No more idiots who think patriotism is agreeing with everything dear leader says. No more giving the media that doesn’t seem to give a shit about accountability our hard to spare attention. No more reading silly little fuckers, and I use this term most loosely, 'writing' idiotic opinion pieces in the papers designed to offend us. No more modern day quacks/shamans claiming to cure us from all manner of ailments, spiritual or emotional, or sexual for that matter. No more saviours looking to make money off our misery. No more enlightenment that comes bundled with scorn for the unenlightened. No more twats who think sex is a hasty transaction, or a drunk one, or a hasty drunk one. In fact, no more twats who don’t think about their sex, and by association yours. No more stupid, my lovelies.
With that in mind (of course there’s a reason for this rant, oh ye of little faith...), I propose to end the year as it began (even as I prepare to move to a new house), with 7 posts in 7 days. Or 5 posts in 7 days. Or maybe 3 posts in 7 days. We’ll see how it goes.
