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.

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?

Make Una See Me See Trouble Oh!

Just when I was on me lonesome chilling, planning my next big review, checking my blogs and mails and doing the blog rounds jejely, I happened to see (with immense jollification I must add) the “1 New Comment Needs To Be Moderated” notification sitting smack dab on my Blogger Dashboard.
In all happiness, I clicked the link and what I saw was the long mail a.k.a. comment published below.
But first some background info. When I wrote about Kelly Hansome’s “Maga Don Pay” video, little did I know the amount of dust it would generate. Now it seems somebody wants to threaten me with L.B.A. (Lyrical Body Assault) and V.B.H. (Verbose Body Harm)! Imagine small ME!
Anyway, in case you don’t understand what the entire hullabaloo is all about, you can click here to see my original post on the Kelly Hansome case. In order as to give everybody a fair hearing and to further demonstrate my objectivity, I’ve decided to publish the Anonymous comment (totally UNABRIDGED and totally UNEDITED) here instead of just discarding it where the original post is.
Not only that, I’m also posting my friend (my proper Internet paddy) TRAE-z’s comments here too for your reading pleasure. After reading them, I’m sure you can see why TRAE’s still my friend and Anonymous isn’t.
So, first from Anonymous:

so you are wrong on so many ways about Kelly HANSOME (hansome I repeat Hansome). Hansome is not misspelled in any way shape or form. It is actually his family last night. His mothers last name is Hansome. His brothers last name is hansome. His fathers last name is hansome and so on and so on. The family last name was orginally orji but they changed it as so many Nigerian families do these days. Sometimes you may find a member of his family who goes by the name of Hans. And the video title wasn't misspelled either. The song is actually called MAGA DON PAY as he does say MAGA DON PAY THEN MUGU DON PAY. The video was shot in LA. As for censoring....if you don't want to listen to a certain song then don't but as for me I love the song. It has nothing to do with 419. As far as I understand he is praising God for the breakthrough in his musical career. If you interpret the song as having 419 undertones maybe it is because you yourself practice or havce practiced 419 and that is the direction your brain wants to wander. The song is hott and we are each entitled to out own opp ion and this is mine!

And TRAE-z’s:

at times we need not take things too seriously all the time. i think Kelly Handsome's "Maga don pay/too much money" is a terrific song. definitely in the class of Olu Maintain's "yahoozee" and Nkem Owoh's "i go chop your dollar".music expresses reality, good or bad. deal with it

Thanks TRAE, I’m about to deal with it.
Expect my reply to the Anonymous assault next post…