Tuesday, November 25, 2008

C. O. T. C. Part 4: DISARMED!

Picture this: You are the President of America. Suddenly out of nowhere, one jaga-jaga country like that (name withheld) which doesn’t even share a common boundary with yours suddenly lays claim to your land, stations ships in your waterways and infiltrates your airspace with dilapidated Biafran-type aircraft.

Quickly, like George W. Bush, you jam the airwaves with electronic noise, threaten a nuclear strike, roll out the Abrams, F-22s to F-1,000,000s, and even the SCUD missiles left over from Desert Storm and with your Marines leading and the UN following, you land on the battlefield to reclaim what’s duly yours. Your enemies however turn out to be a straggly group comprising mostly of WW I veterans, survivors of the Titanic and inmates of Bedlam all dressed up in purple lycra blouses and orange tights and being led by a dreadlocked General who goes by the name of Basketmouth.

After ROTFALYAO (ROTF and laughing your ass off), you tell this Comic Coalition to surrender but instead they advance even more with some of them even daring to caress your soldiers’ AK-47s with their garlicky breath. After several attempts at a stand-down which they steadily rebuff, your soldiers imploringly turn their eyes to you all waiting for your command to open fire and quickly end this nonsense.

With the ideas of September 11 now firmly rooted in your mind, you then decide to eradicate this potential Al Queda once and for all and finger poised on the detonator switch you close your eyes and count backward slowly from 10. Just as you reach 1, you open your eyes to see all your enemies turn round at Basketmouth’s command, jerk down their trousers and let rip with a very loud fart before abandoning their clothing to run off naked, therefore bringing the war to an inglorious end.

What would you do? Send your soldiers after them to wipe them out for fouling the air, depleting the ozone layer and wasting your time? Or do you just laugh it off, pack your armory back from the battlefield by sending it halfway around the world in the wrong direction and pay an unscheduled courtesy call to Yardie to teach him how to handle the Niger-Delta boys while looking for contracts so that Nigeria’s crude oil gets refined in you country?

Ok, I’m not so good at all this imagery business but it seems I might very soon abandon the act of blogging just to reply comments in detail instead. After reading Serum’s recent rejoinder to my rejoinder to her comments, I can’t help but feel like the G. W. Bush of the above scenario (whether Serum can be likened to General Basketmouth is left to your discretion).

First of all, I just got to find out that Mr. Anonymous Commentator is actually Ms. Anonymous Commentator who actually happens to be Ms. Serum (if her claim is to be believed). Seriously speaking, I leaned closer to disbelief at first when I saw this. For all I know, she could just be a new blogger on the block seeking to use such controversy as a subtle launch pad for her blog. She could be banking on the side-effects of negative publicity equivalent to the same way humans will most likely urinate on a “Do Not Urinate” sign.

I even once suspected Serum of being the alter ego of my best friend and blog-critic but fake or real, Serum is no fool. She first seeks to boost my ego by praising my blog (deservedly, I might add. How come no-one has ever put me on their bloglists, nominated me for an award or tagged me? You people sef!) She then gives her own ego a quick shine too before going into yet another defense of KH’s music.

In all honesty (my favourite expression) I am very tired of flogging the KH issue. All this talk with him being in the centre seems to be giving him some sort of popularity as Rayo rightly pointed out, which I never give to any subject I discuss or diss on the blog. Moreover, I happened to hear yet another of his singles recently where he very openly encourages people to make sure they get the Control Numbers from their magas. If KH doesn’t seem to condone 419 as Serum puts it, that song alone fully convinced me that I was very right in my earlier speculations.

Like Serum says (and TRAE implied earlier), music is entertainment and thus shouldn’t always be taken seriously. I agree to an extent. What I disagree about is the “not taken seriously” part. Movies might portray wife-battering, incest, homosexuality, racism, sedition, jazzing (Nollywood-style) or any out of a million perceived vices but the difference lies in the fact that music travels faster, hits harder, influences more and has far-reaching consequences than any movie can ever have.

We hear of nations going to war with battle-songs on their lips. I am yet to hear of the military teaching their combatants scenes from movies or of any nation for that matter going to war because of a movie. Even The Passion of Christ, The Da Vinci Code, Borat and 300 combined couldn’t achieve that feat. When we hear songs, we believe they mirror the true feelings of the songwriter at that particular moment. When we watch movies, even war and horror movies, there’s always a sense of disbelief that shrouds us. We know the actor never really died anyway.

Rowan Atkinson once spoofed the Queen of England when he head-butted her in one of his Mr. Bean sketches. Even the Queen must have laughed when she saw that. I doubt if she would have had much cause for mirth if any popular UK band had sang “F**k The Queen”.

Frankly, I am tired. I don’t know how better to explain the movie-music disparity in contrast to the opinions voiced by Serum and any other person in her league but I do know this:

Michael Jackson will always be popular even if he never speaks a word till he dies. My niece knows who Michael Jackson is.

She doesn’t know who Marlon Brando is.

I am yet to watch the Titanic for starting to end in one sitting.

I have listened to Yahoozee! from starting to end more than a million times.

Serum is not stupid. Maybe she’s just a little bit misled.

I finally rest my case.

PS: Even if this whole debate is useless, at least I achieved the following: 1) I posted regularly for a while. (2) I made Serum use better English. (3) I’ve found my match (in a friendly way, of course) and (4) I sincerely do like her sense of humour towards the end of her Rejoinder.

So, um… Serum, em…em... can we be friends?

PPS: No ass kissing still intended but I actually like the name Serum. It would be the kind of cool name I’d give to a character if I were writing the next part of the movie “Blade” or “The Matrix”. And Serum seems to complement my own code name: Nemesis.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Bits And Pieces 7: Music Videos vs. music videos, Football And Christmas…

So I decided to do another B & P so soon after the last one? Sue me!

Stepping to Sexy Music
You can hardly switch on the TV nowadays without catching Jordin Sparks’ “One Step At A Time” video. That’s one hell of a great song and the video sets it off beautifully. It just goes to show that you don’t need a country’s budget, countless locations or a massive crowd of extras to shoot a good video. Nigerian video directors need to dump the helicopter and Moet and start looking on incorporating street scenes in their works (not the dirty Lagos street scenes please. Or the ones where they show girls dancing on top of danfo buses…)

Also of note is Ne-Yo’s “Independent Woman” video which features Gabrielle Union as his boss (now, which man wouldn’t want to work under Gabrielle U?) and goes to prove what we’ve always known anyway: Ne-Yo is a great musician and songwriter, looks nice in suits and is a bit lacking in the height department. Gabrielle also still has her sexy witch looks which keep heads turning.

And speaking of sexy women, Nick Cannon must be the luckiest man (or boy) alive now. I mean how many of us get to marry the girl (sorry, woman) of our dreams? Caught Mrs. Cannon flaunting her heart-stopping curves on a recent music video that features T.I. and I was so intent making plans on how to assassinate Nick that I missed the title of the track.

Finally, spotted Madonna in a video from her “Confessions On The Dance Floor” album exercise-dancing seductively alongside some other male dancers in the background young enough (or is it old enough) to be her sons. At certain points in the video, now it’s rather hard to find the words to describe this but she figuratively has sex with music! Let your imagination fill in the rest…

Boy, does it feel good to be as old as she is and still make little boys lick their lips…

Music Videos vs. music videos
Still on the issue of music videos, I watched a lot of them on EATV, Channel 5 lately thanks to a recent trip to Bida, Niger State and a rogue cable subscription in the house I stayed in there.

Most of the EATV gist is in a language I don’t understand but they do show some cool foreign videos though the percentage is very low compared to those of East African origin. Of course, the mix wouldn’t be complete without showing Nigerian music videos and Sasha / Storm Records, the Mo’ Hits crew and P Square mostly rep Naija on the EA musical landscape. And boy! the Naija videos have got WAAAAY more class than the East African videos which still look like they are been shot with handy cams.

Out of several things I’ve noticed though, the East Africans have far less reservations when it comes to showing skin on TV unlike their West African counterparts and they do look cool like that. But without wanting to sound unduly patriotic when it comes to eye candy we all know the Naija babes still rule the competition though they seem to be taking a second spot compared to the South African chicks of mixed parentage.

To tell the truth, most of the East African entertainment programmes do look pretty wack (I can’t hear what they’re saying anyway) plus Zain Networks and another unknown telecom company called Tigo seem to sponsor everything in East Africa from talk shows to street shows to even the news. I’ll give it to the East Africans though; they do seem so proud of their languages and incorporate it as much as possible into their music.

If there’s one thing both types of videos have in common, it’s this: The massive copycatting of the foreign rap stars’ bling-bling Hip-Hop culture.

And the absence of men wearing briefs and dancing seductively…

Female Football & A Flight Of Fancy
Yardie can be a fine boy sometimes. Of course the 20 sacked Ministers, the staff of Channels TV and Jonathan Elendu are not going to agree with me but I almost kissed his forehead when he rescinded the earlier decision that would have stopped the country from hosting the Under-17 World Cup in 2009. That means I may finally be able to boast of watching a World Cup match on home soil having missed the opportunity in times gone past. Yardie’s change of heart aside, you can be sure almost nothing will be done until the last moments when we’ll gladly roll out our bright red (green) fire brigade trucks.

On the female angle, one of the benefits of watching cable TV is that you’re bound to find the odd channel broadcasting the odd tournament. I previously had absolutely no idea that the female Under-17 World Cup was holding in New Zealand last month until I caught the live broadcasts on Capital TV. The Nigerian female team really won my heart in one of their past matches by hanging on to a 2 - 2 draw even after going one man down (sorry, one woman down) against the Brazilian team when the ref harshly sent off goal-scorer Ebere Orji. The Samba girls though almost made them pay dearly for the lack of a finisher with their well-played free kicks.

Things did get very tense and a head-to-head collision had Nigeria playing with just 9 girls against Brazil’s 11 at one point but one relatively amusing aspect in the match was a Nigerian player who goes by the name “MacFancy”.

The Super Falcons on the other hand were hoping to steam-roll over all their other African competition in the ongoing African Women’s Championship, qualify for the female World Cup as usual and then fail woefully as has always been their due. How sad…

No More Miss Goody-Two-Shoes
Michelle Williams, usually the cool-headed, most reserved member of the defunct Destiny’s Child has finally decided that she’s not going to let only Beyonce and Ms. Kelly steal the spotlight when it comes to bringing sexy back!

Spotted the former Miss Goody-Goody proudly parading her stuff in a thigh-length killer dress and the occasional black cat suit in a musical video “We Break The Dawn” featuring rapper Flo-Rida. Girlfriend used to be so good before, it almost looked like a “sin” watching such a blood-pumping video and as you rightly guessed, “We Break The Dawn” ain’t Gospel music.

Bad sales in the religious genre of music most probably must have made Ms. W throw away the choir gown for a cat suit and raunchy dance steps and it will be interesting to see if she continues “back-sliding” or does the split personality thing and releases albums in both religious and secular genres. Or maybe she’s finally just discovered she’s “all-woman”.

After all, it’s actually quite annoying seeing Beyonce blatantly flaunting her curves on TV especially when you know you’re just as appropriately “blessed”. And Gospel music alone can’t pay for that daily gym workout or the cat suit for that matter…

MTN Also Delivers
First of all, this is not a paid advert. Secondly, I dislike endorsing companies especially the telecoms but I just have to hand it to MTN on this one. After my recent inability to carry out a credit transfer I was surprised to get the following text from + 234 803:

“We apologize for your recent difficulties with loading airtime. We will credit your account tonight with N60 airtime as a token for the inconvenience.”

Now, compared to all the inconveniences I’ve going through lately, 60 bucks ain’t squat but the fact they were true to their word and did send the token at night impressed me with their sincerity. (Moreover 60 bucks equals to 12 extra SMSes and can make all the difference between free or no night calls)

Glo, on the other hand, would never send such a text in the first instance. They aren’t so careless as to have airtime/ recharge issues and I’m beginning to suspect Glo recharge cards will sometimes load even when there’s no network signal!

Return Of The Queen
Before she was telling us to “Jebele, Jebele”. Now she wants us back and says “Jowo, Biko”. Women always seem to have a hard time making up their minds.

What am I talking about? Qween’s latest single “Jowo, Biko” (meaning “Please, Please” or “Abeg, Abeg” in the Yoruba and Igbo / Pidgin English tongues) is out and spinning on a radio close to you. I must admit, I never gave the Qween her due respect before now (maybe her dentition was partly to blame) but after dropping these two hot singles, I can’t wait to hear what the whole album will sound like.

Heard Qween in a phone interview with Ice on Grace 95.5 FM, Bida say she’s got not just one, but two albums ready but she’s having difficulties with the marketers. She also spilled the beans on her upcoming marriage when she returns to Nigeria (no mention of who Mr. Right is though) and the fact that she’s expecting a second baby too!

Qween absolutely kills you softly on this Cobhams-produced soulful track and she’s definitely going to go places with those silky seductive tones of hers. I’ve got just one piece of advice for the Afro wig-wearing musical sovereign though: Qween, jowo, biko, settle your issues quickly with the Alaba Market boys before the pirates lift your singles off the radio and launch your “albums” before you do. Ask 9ice what he suffered at their hands before the release of his “Gongo Aso” album.

Xmas Jingles
The yuletide’s around the nearest corner and once again the marketing gates are firmly open drowning us in the advertising avalanche which compels us to buy this and buy that at “half” (= same) price. As we rush into the shopping malls, the sounds of cash registers have now replaced the sound of Christmas bells and the reason for the season has been long forgotten.

Anyway, enough of the preaching. In a quirky sort of personal tradition, I always take mental note of when and where I hear my first Xmas jingle for the year and this year it was on Livingspring 104.5 FM, Osogbo on November 1st. Maybe the fact that I’ve been on the road since then is to blame but I’m yet to hear or see another one after that which is rather unprecedented in all my Xmas years.

Sales of bangers and the Harmattan weather have been rather slow too (especially in certain parts of the Southwest) and I hear the global economic crisis is partly to blame for that one! Anyway, wear appropriate clothing when it’s cold, have a hanky ready for the dust and stock up on cardigans, jackets, tea and essential balms before their prices increase. Or even better, just get a brand new, 24-hour, hug-inclined boyfriend.

Merry Xmas in advance people!

Peace…

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Commenting on the Comments 3: Serum’s Re-rejoinder

Like the former Comment, I decided to dedicate a full post to this instead of neglecting it to the background.

Pardon me. In all honesty, I really don’t have anything better to do at the moment:

From Serum:

Xavier,

I have always been an avid fan of your blog. Your eloquent execution of the English language is the first thing that caught my attention. Your realistic but comical spin on situations occurring in Nigeria should qualify you for some type of an award. I never usually comment but today, something caught my attention. I was reading an unusually long post that was dedicated to a comment you received regarding Kelly Hansome. As I read I thought to myself, wow I wonder what in the world the poster could have said to result in such a respond from the postee (namely you). I read and read and I found myself feeling familiar with the subject matter. I couldn't believe it. It is almost incredible, but I found myself to be Ms. Anonymous. I have to say thanks for making my day by devoting a whole posting to me and 3 whole postings to me and my favorite singer, Kelly Hansome. I also have to say thank you to (of course) you. Your ranting & raving over my status as Anonymous has resulted in turning an avid reader into a blogger. I have found a new passion. You, dear friend, have met your match. In a friendly way of course. Now I can understand that this is YOUR blog. You are allowed to write whatever you want. I understand you HATE 419. I also understand that you appear to have above average intellectual ability. I am just confused to why you think that Kelly either participates in 419 or is glorifying it. Let us not forget that music is entertainment. Just like movies. Brad Pitt played a vampire in "Interview with a Vampire". Does that make him a vampire? Does that mean that he is screaming for Americans to go out and suck the blood out of unsuspecting humans? Does this mean that he is glorifying a satanic lifestyle. I shall let you PONDER these questions, while I continue to roam the internet before the credit I purchased to use the net run out!


PS: Rayo, I told you he / she would be back, didn’t I?

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Bits And Pieces 6: Yardie, SSS, The New President-Elect and S.S.

Foreword: A week ago, History was made. Still TV-less, a week later, I blog about it...

It Ain’t Safe No More
Apart from being the title of one of Busta Rhymes’ albums, this should also be the alert status of every single Blogger out there. It seems you could be even arrested nowadays for putting up a post on how to make proper "semo"! OK I kid…

Every government/regime in Nigeria seems to have their individually selective phobias. For Idiagbon, it was the fear of refuse dumps and indiscipline. For IBB it was the fear of telling the truth and Democracy. Abacha had a huge terror for international travel and a certain magazine called Tell. Ditto for OBJ who hated corporate attire and a young musician by the name of Eedris Abdulkareem for singing "Nigeria Jaga-jaga".

Yardie’s administration, it seems has the fear of intellectual expression. The detention and subsequent release of the Lansing-based Nigerian blogger, Jonathan Elendu by the SSS/EFCC should teach us not to think otherwise.

Inspired by my prophetic genes when I taunted the NBC in my last B & P by suggesting they take up seizing bloggers’ licenses as a new source of revenue, I had no idea their bigger Big Brother, the SSS would take it so seriously. First it was Channels TV, now it is blogging. The effort hasn’t really been wasted, at least now I know the definition of the word "sedition".

True to their nature of being a caring family, all of blogville came out in stout defense of one of their own writing various posts on the matter and a group was even formed on FB to protest J.E.’ s detention (I wonder what the group will do now he’s been released?) It does give one a warm feeling inside knowing you won’t be alone if you’re ever arrested! (And Aloofar, does Woomie make it to your list of potential detainees after this recent post of hers? By the way, I’m still trying to figure out how we can protest by going naked virtually).

A comedian once joked that unless you’ve been detained (and released) by the EFCC, you can’t call yourself a big man. The long and short of this gist is that despite the consequences of the trauma he endured in solitary confinement, Jonathan Elendu’s ordeal has not only brought Yardie’s true intentions into stark, painful light but actually made his blog more popular. In all honesty, I had never visited ElenduReports.com until after his arrest.

That visit has become an eye-opener.

I’m even safely contemplating a form of mild arrest by the EFCC (no SSS for me, thank you!)

Obama-drama
So it’s finally over?

Much to my relief, the 24-month long political soap opera known as Obama-drama a.k.a. Obama-mania is finally drawing to an end. Now the husky-voiced, 2 ton-chested Madam of the Stock Exchange can deftly dodge the EFCC, loosen her custom-made bras and take a breather while we can now go back our daily tedium of insulting our leaders instead of picking one for the U.S. like the global busybodies we are.

Inasmuch as I refused to be caught in the plot of the drama or be drawn into the Lagos "carnival" that heralded his victory, it was fun catching peeks of the Election coverage on CNN especially a programme called "The Campaign Trail". I actually enjoyed the 01/11 edition which subtly poked fun on the "flawed" American voting system (Maurice Iwu ridiculously claims ours is better!)

I’m hoping that come 2011 the Nigerian media can copy from CNN’s balanced, detailed and mildly humourous reportage and we the people can focus on choosing better leaders (as opposed to tyrannical rulers) for ourselves instead of looking for unadvertised vacancies as international Campaign Managers.

It’s high time we realized that Obama shall not, will not, does not acknowledge our interference one bit. He is an American first and a Blackman second.

And when it comes to politics, as they say, no paddy for jungle!

Very TV-less…
I’m discarding the last shredded piece of my raggedy pride to do this: Blogville, I need a TV soonest! This TV-holics Anonymous withdrawal phase is slowly but surely driving me CRAZY!

I mean it’s one thing if I had absolutely no means to get one or maybe if all the PHCN poles had fallen in my area but to have two TVs within close reach and not being able to conscript any of them into active service has started depleting my brain cells.

The rats in my mom’s house have the one there all to themselves but the most annoying one is the big fully functional set which we leave abandoned in the office specifically for tutorials when the Boss wants to give us a lecture on CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) principles in relation with X-ray radiation and stuff like that or when we want to learn how to unsolder a component from a PCB (Engineering-speak). Very frustrating!

Well, I ain’t too proud to beg… If any of you out there has a spare TV to dash me, be it Black & White, a portable, CRT or even the latest LCD just holler at me and I’ll send my address sharpish. I’ll even buy Viju Milk for the delivery driver if need be.

And while I’m at it, can I beg for a DVD player too?

But Still Watching TV…
It’s amazing the distances I’ve traveled recently just to peek at the boob tube (that’s TV to the uninitiated, not a fashion accessory). Bida, Niger State was far enough as it got recently but the bravest feat so far was going to the common room of a girls’ secondary school hostel to watch "Super Story"! I can tell you one thing for sure: it was traumatic for me having to sit through the hour as 60 pairs of pubescent female eyes virtually tore me apart. I can’t imagine what must have been going through those teenage mind filled with crushes and ideas on the brain.

I bet it was also traumatic for the student I almost ran into bathing outside (why do females always bathe outside? It must be in their genes to never use the toilet / bathroom) so I’m not pulling that stunt again.

Worse, that particular episode of "Super Story" wasn’t even worth it.

Who the heck is Tolu Olukunga?
That’s the question that comes to my mind whenever I watch the current edition of Super Story titled "Nnenna: A Gift of Love". Fair-skinned Tolu plays the title role of Nnenna in the script, a ghost who seeks to save her kidnapped mom from the clutches of her evil uncle and avenge the deaths of her and her father at the hands of said uncle by exposing him.

In all sincerity, I’ve never seen Tolu act before but her characterization leaves a lot to be desired especially when she’s acting emotional (ghosts apparently aren’t supposed to be emotional - according to the script). Tolu as a ghost sucks and the scriptwriter occasionally seems to forget just what exactly her powers are. Nnenna for example, can easily spot the hiding place where her uncle stashes mom away but is totally oblivious when he removes her from there and later zooms past her with the poor woman tied up in his car trunk. And after wasting our time showing us the other ghosts in the "ghost village" teach her how to channel her emotions into interaction with the physical world, we never get to see her use such power anyway.

Another ridiculousity (pardon me) is the make-up artiste’s Michael Jackson-esque idea of smothering Gabriel Afolayan in very brown make-up making him appear more brown-skinned than usual. His different skin-colour tones are clearly visible at his upper arms and neckline whenever he wears a T-shirt. Just giving him a clean-shave was enough to bring out the boy in him. His over-acting makes up for the rest.

The entire script is sadly predictable if you’ve watched the movie "Ghost" in the past and the lack of special effects (relying heavily on the cut-and-edit camera techniques instead of the simplest superimposition) leaves the whole series feeling… well… un-ghostlike.

The increasing number of sponsors and lengthier periods of time-wasting in the script may have Mr. Adenuga smiling to the bank but will leave many of his ardent fans even more disappointed in his Super Story legacy. It is difficult throwing verbal javelins at a production company I very much look up to but I know WAP can do better than this. I mostly criticize them because I care.
I can’t wait to see Tolu play a better role in maybe another edition of S.S. and with more conviction too. Her limited wardrobe in "Nnenna" (ghosts also apparently wear just one set of clothes) also seems to have done her in and my sister - in a bout of typical female envy - accuses her of holding in her tummy.

But we all know there’s nothing that displeases a fine intelligent woman more than the presence of another fine intelligent woman!

Chari, do you happen to have her number? Help a bro, abeg!

PS: On A More Regular Schedule
Starting from just now, you can expect my B & P posts on a more regular monthly schedule. That way you can expect at least one MN post each month even if I’ve got nothing more sensible to talk about.

Remain posted…

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Henllo?

OK, so I’ve been officially dissed on another blog…

Last week I decided despite my personal financial market crisis (and against common sense, I might add) to call up certain bloggers so we could chew the rag, so to speak. Now I’m mildly regretting the decision.

First up on my list was Esquire. OK, honestly I didn’t actually call him - I flashed! And like the real homeboy he is, dude called me back so we could relate. Meennnn! The convo was so silky smooth you’d be forgiven if you thought we had been hommies for life. I mean like seriously, I’m looking forward to the next time we get to yarn if we ever do.

Next up on the list was Laide the Exschoolnerd. I must admit this one was kinda Herculean… I mean what exactly does one say to one of blogville’s flyest divas? After muttering a few lines I guess I wound up feeling star-struck and a wee bit intimidated, just like a Primary school pupil trying to chat up his class teacher. Or worse, just like trying to talk to the Pope about sex: where does one really start?

After a couple of attempts in which I once almost stupidly asked if the sun was still shining over there in Lagos, I had to give up. Suffice it to say I think we relate better digitally than over the phone so I’ll be switching back fulltime to the e-mail routine just like before.

The only highlight of our gist was when she said in her opinion, I don’t I dalk fuddy. And Laide sounds just Woomie; I could have sworn I was talking to the same person. Do all Lag girls sound alike or do you gals go for voice lesson to get rid of the H-factor?

Last but not least was Charizard. The banter went something like this:

MN: Hen-llo? Onluwa-Charizard! How you dey?

C: (in a Queen Elizabeth butler accent) I’m very fine thank you. Who’s speaking please?

MN: Na me now! Naughty Eyes…

C: OK and how are you doing this fine morning?

MN: (puzzled) Ah, ah? No be Charizard be this?

C: Yes, you do have the distinguished pleasure of speaking with Charizard.

MN: Which one you come dey blow Grammar like oyibo so?

C: I’m in a meeting at the moment and I’ll get back to you later.

MN: OK now, we go yarn later.

C: No wey-rey (still in that aristocratic butler accent)

Meeting ke? I was stunned as in: who put wey-rey like that for meeting? Little wonder there is a global financial crisis oh! And all the oyibo flows? Na wa! You bloggers continue surprising me. Before you know it, it will turn out that Rayo actually has a Hillary Clinton accent while Aloofar sounds just like Obama.

Next thing, as if the gist with Char-gizzard wasn’t enough, I visit the Fiery and Sweet blogspace only to see Char-boy ranting, missing several (female) bloggers and having a fun time hanging out with Wellsbaba. I look under the Misc section and what do I see? This!

I was in a meeting when Xavier called me during the week...chai...I won't lie mehn...even tho he had warned me on his blog in his "about me" post I still almost got lost when we yarned...Nna mehnn...that accent was silky as well matured red wine...I swear, I tot he was calling to tell me that my conteehnah has arrived atti the Portu...heheheeh...Xavi! no vex o

Like the Nigerian Police, let me list out the charges:

First offence: Putting me under the heading Miscellaneous and calling me Xavier.

Second offence: Praising my accent as being “silky as well matured red wine”.

Third offence: Just when my head was swelling that all the blog-chicks would be dying to call me up to hear my Barry White tones, he dashes all my hopes by referring to “conteehnah”

Fourth and final offence: Someone (can’t recall who now) then drops a comment: “LMAO @ Xavier”

So the verdict is in:

Woomie says I speak through my nose.
Laide says I don’t.
Esquire was too busy yarning to notice.
And Charizard dissed me.

Funny thing is, I’m supposed to be “angry” about this (according to truthmasta?) but I’m not maybe because honestly I realize that even when Char-Char disses you, the number and/or variety of your comments go up.

So, Chari, pop out the champagne! I’m not going to tear you a new a-hole.

But I won’t be spending my shinkili credit calling up any of you Bloggers out there to gist in the near future, no thank you!

“conteehnah has arrived atti the Portu” INDEED! (BIG thunderous, ear-splitting HISSSSSSSSS)

PS: Minor Updates in Progress
The comments concerning the mini-debate I put up on my last post have been interesting even though voting was poor. So as not to look as if I was just bad-mouthing Tustep and DJ Tee, I’ve decided to later update the original post in question with screenshots from the music video (so you can have the hard evidence so to speak).

The debate meanwhile still continues via the poll.

PPS: For those who have been wondering, I sent my Contributors on an all-expense paid sabbatical to any location of their choice, the only criteria being that the location must fall within Southwest Nigeria (no Obudu Cattle Ranch on the bill, sorry). Seems they enjoyed the break so much they’re yet to resume work!