My Court of Appeal

Good week everyone! Thank you for all your responses. Interestingly enough, Frieda and I had a little spar over that post as well, arguing about the veracity of the events I related. Don’t worry, it was good natured; in the mutual knowledge that I had stretched my facts a little in revenge for the upper hand she always has in our ‘debates’. It was a good laugh though, especially in the irony that most people were on her side even when I tried to turn it to suit me. Thanks!

This week I’m going to annoy her even further but I will need your feedback and support so she can see reason in what I’m trying to propose. We’ve had an argument on this issue before and she at the time refused to see the big picture that would be to the benefit of us both – the benefit of living life to the full! I want to buy a motorbike! No, it is not the suicidal speedos that go so fast that the wind gives you a grotesque grin by stretching your lips right back to your ears and make your cheeks flap like a flag on a happy day. A safety record on those fiends is to retain all your limbs and spine – not necessarily all your skin - after at least ten crashes, and that’s in a year. I’m talking about the big massive touring bikes that you actually have the time to slot in a CD or ipod, cruise along the highway and drink in the scenery around you. With these beauties, there’s no need for those hideous cocoon like helmets that make one look like an alien but has one shaped rather like a cap that’s strapped just under the chin. I first saw it on George Clooney and fell in love. Plus one can pose much as he wants to, as bikes give one the cool aura that cannot be replicated anywhere else.

I had gone to pick up my invitation card at the studio for the wrap up Tinsel party when Alex, one of the directors on set ran up to me to gleefully drag me to see his new toy. He had bought a Suzuki bike earlier on – it had an automatic transmission- and it was an absolute steal. It was so pretty and at the same time very frugal. I had salivated on the time I’d cut in half in Lagos traffic with it and proposed buying it to Frieda. Hm, na wa O! I don’t know why women always love to end a matter before understanding the beginning at least. She began by panicking and mourning my death which she could clearly see and attacked me for threatening to cut short the plans we have together. Did I know how many people died from motorbike accidents? I, being naturally cool headed and logical, told her that I would not get on any bike unless I was fully trained to do so, until I’d learnt to ride in a manner that wouldn’t harm me or people around me. Besides I wasn’t like all those okada riders (commercial motorcyclists) who leave their brains at home and have a chronic aversion to patience and stopping for anybody except to pick up passengers. I was a responsible young man who has a desire to build and fend for his family and so wants to live long and healthily. She won that round and the matter was rested.

Alex’s new bike was a roaring beauty – 750cc of gleaming chrome and studded plastic seats, complete with an orgasmic throb from under the seats. I could imagine carrying my lady on the pillion – if she go gree! The best part of it, he told me was that he belonged to a club of bikers that had two groups – the speeders and the tourers. He belongs in the tourers’ They always train members in the club and safety is their watchword. They even have a fifty six year old lady who has just joined and is taking lessons in riding! The best part? They periodically go en masse on tours around the country; from Lagos to Maiduguri in the northern part of the country or to Bayesla in the south or even take an eight day tour to circumvent the country. Could you imagine the possibilities that could come from such an experience? The brotherhood, the invaluable insights one could garner from experiencing new cultures and meeting diverse tribes never known before? Imagine the countless stories and experiences I’d share with you my good people about people, animals, sights, smells and sounds and foods? Speak for me my brethren. I have come to you first so you can convince Frieda to let me join this club. Let this slogan reverberate in your psyche – Safety is their Watchword – and consider that I have chosen wisely and am not a madman waving brands of fire about. I’m going to face madam with my second proposal but first I’ll pray, post this article, wait till evening or tomorrow morning before I tell her. Hopefully, I’ll be able to refer her to your favourable comments for leverage. So go on, Speak hands for me! Have a great week ahead everybody and a happy Sallah weekend to my Muslim brethren – actually me too because I’m going to start looking for whose house I’ll be eating ram at this weekend!

Armageddon

A good week to my good people on the net. I hope everyone had a great weekend. It’s night time here and I’m just licking my wounds from a weekend long battle with my girlfriend through absolutely no fault of mine. And no, I am not taking advantage of the fact that she’s not here to defend herself to try and drag you to my side of this tug of war game. I’m just trying to lay it out as objectively as I can and leave it to you good people to judge. Truth be told, this is one of my very rare chances of getting back at her – she always has to win in all the arguments and fights we have. When I am at fault, and believe me, I hear no end of it, I apologize. When she is at fault, and she finally sees the error of her ways, she apologizes, and then I apologize for hurting her feelings! I have since learnt never to attempt to win an argument in a verbal swordplay with the woman, especially when she’s your significant other. She’ll duck, dive, shout, weave, feign, stab, sneak, double cross, cry, ‘hurt’, shift the goal post, mess with your head – anything at all to be ahead of the game and make you feel you’re the worst bully or dolt in the world and make you see how vulnerable she is. Well my dear, this is my riposte – my pen triumphing over your swordy tongue, in a place where you can’t touch me! Hehehe! Don’t worry baby, you know I love you.

What happened? Absolutely nothing that I can call my fault except for her extremely intelligent over analytic mind that on the one hand has helped me surmount huge obstacles with relative ease and on the other, sees conspiracies where there is none especially where it comes to the womenfolk. Okay, so I made a call to a friend in the middle of the night at about 3:30am and some stupid demon decided to choose that very time for her to call me and get a busy tone – no, I’m not saying you were influenced by the Devil to call me o! Before I go and add that one to my many sorrows. I was bored, couldn’t sleep, didn’t feel like reading or watching TV or surfing the net so I called my female buddy that I have known for four years now. We usually hang out and while one or two things may have happened between us in the past, we still got back on track and have been fast friends ever since and I told her so! Did she want to hear that? Oh noooo! “Kalu, I know you mean well and everything and your mind is open and all and I know -if you know what’s good for you - you wouldn’t do anything funny behind my back but what if there’s a teeny weeny longing for her buried deep in your subconscious? Do you realize cheating is not just sexual? There’s also emotional cheating as well.” At this point I just blinked and stared at her. There are some things my simple man mind just can’t comprehend. “I mean you guys have been close all this while so there must be some bond between you two (which I mean to break! – interpretation)”. Then here’s her next line of attack. “Besides I’m a woman and I know what we women can be like. You don’t know if she has designs on you and has been wanting to have you for keeps. Women can be very patient you know; they are capable of any kind of machinations and can blend into anything you want them to be just to get their hooks into you.” Now can you imagine what would happen if we were to have an argument about who has the right of way on a particular matter and I were to quote this very statement she made? Bloody hell! Burnt food for the rest of the day plus I wouldn’t be served; I’d have to go to the kitchen and get it myself. That’s not all o! Oh, I’m loving this!

I spent the best part of the day AND night trying to pacify her and eventually went to the sitting room to watch my favourite TV series, CSI Vegas. I was in the middle of the show when she came out to begin making hints at having make up sex. Perfect timing! I gave her mine too! I told her I wanted to finish what I was watching first. The result? Cold war III, series II! We didn’t speak to each other for the best part of the next day until the evening when we finally talked, apologized to one another and then uh hum, uh hum! The rest of what happened you do not need to know, thank you!

I find the battle of the sexes to be one the true spices of romance in a spousal relationship, rather like sibling rivalry where each party loves to hate, hates to love, hates to hate and loves to love one another – I love it! I celebrate the romance( even though I’d die before I’ll call myself romantic), fights, make ups, talks, the highs and lows and challenges in a relationship especially when each party is committed to seeing it work, love and have a mutual respect for one another. The tremendous benefit this adds to both people’s personality and character is unquantifiable and there is no limit to what they can achieve as a team if they set their minds to it. Families that sprout from such unions will invariably be very stable, cohesive and unified. This one’s for you baby; I love you; you’re the best. Have a great week everybody!

Les Arbres

Good week everyone. The reception of last week’s post was very refreshing in its mini controversy. The Igbo musician, Osita Osadebe’s famous song, may his soul rest in peace, Osondi Owendi (some like it, some hate it) is so apt in this case. Many thanks to my many readers: Ebbe (Aba die? Been ages!), Kemi, Formerly Stealth Reader – can’t beat that name for humour, Rosa Winkler, JustDoyin, Nollywood Forever to mention just a very few, and of course the very dear ones who choose to remain anonymous and just want to enjoy a (hopefully) good read on my blog. Muchos gracias to you all. I had one very offended reader who felt my attempt at logic in the way I would create humans to adapt to their environment with a view to caring for their young, however numerous, and our conception of beauty relating to the result, as being typically (being a man) obsessed with breasts. Like I said before, osondi owendi. Thank you all the same.

I had a revelation over the weekend, one of those small steps that take you further and further down that road towards enlightenment about who you are and what you want in life. I went to see a friend of mine I had become acquainted with not too long ago at her residence by the ocean on the island of Lagos. It was a lovely place, not the flat; which was quite sumptuous, you can get that anywhere, but the view was breathtaking. The green glassy sea with the fishermen in their canoes looking like a picture occasionally betrayed by a gentle waft of that thickly humid breeze native only to Lagos. She then told me of her love for water which had been with her since childhood thus making this newly acquired abode of hers like a dream come true and her therapeutic haven. I looked at her and saw the way her eyes lit up as she looked out the sea, drinking in the view that was all hers and turn to me for affirmation. I hesitated, looking at the sea and wondering what was missing and whether I truly and wholly shared her sentiment, fearing to hurt her feelings and yet determined to say what was on my mind when it came. Trees! There were no trees. I think that’s where I realized where my pet therapeutic love lay.

My recent working trip to Kaduna brought me close to a world that I love so much. Because the movie I was working on there was set in the seventies, I had to grow a pair of sideburns that my manager Nkem thought hideous – I’ll try and see if I can upload the pictures on this page, we had to choose locations that would depict the sane genteel urban setting of the time. A time when houses where built to specifications which followed orientations of cross ventilation and sun settings during the day – thanks Nse! (he’s my architect friend, had to call him up to coin it for me so I don’t look stupid), and compounds had trees surrounding them completely eliminating the need for air-conditioning. It breaks my heart when I see fine and sometimes unnecessarily monstrous buildings on a sizeable plot of land, only to have the rest of the available space obliterated by slabs of ugly concrete; no greenery of any kind allowed! The adage, Money miss road rings so true in these apologies for places of abode. One of the locations we sought out was a fairly large compound with a colonial style bungalow in the middle. It wasn’t very large- probably about four bedrooms big – and had a low slung roof and was wonderfully surrounded by lots and lots of mango and Dongoyaro trees which gave it such a serene atmosphere. The harshness of the sun was cut down to a minimum, the breeze rustled through the branches, lizards darted in and out of the gnarled roots that crisscrossed all over the yard and a little bird even pooped on the top of my head from high up in the branches. Beautiful! I looked out at that sea musingly and I know I had that same illuminated look in my eyes when I turned to my friend and told her that trees were my therapeutic haven.

Like I said earlier, the journey to self discovery is a never ending one even to the point of the grave. This life, I see, is full of challenges and it behoves one to strive to make his her environment as comfortable as possible for him or herself. I believe in life after death but I also believe it is possible for every one to create his or her own heaven on earth. Being rich is not a prerequisite to creating an area of comfort. Pictures, paintings of and visits to the desired haven would suffice until one gets to ones goal. Have you made out the time to find yours? Have a great week everybody

If I were God

Good week everybody. I thank everyone for the wonderful reception of my Sarah mini saga. It’s nice to know people know a good thing when they see one, and while I did not have anything further to do with her nor did I harbour any special feelings for her, I wonder what would happen if I were to be married and how my wife would react were she to read my celebration of Sarah’s beauty. Well hopefully she would understand me enough not to take me too seriously on matters like this. But that is beside the point. My focus on this post is to explore our conception of beauty and what the parametres for beauty are.

I’ve often wondered how I’d define and create beauty if I were to be God. I have observed how groups of animals are created. Generally, preys have eyes on the sides of their heads giving them a peripheral view of goings on around them. They are usually able to spy predators coming up behind them aided by their usually long and upright necks. They usually have one or two young who are able to take flight just a few hours after birth. The mothers typically have two teats (adapted to breasts in humans) with which to suckle their young. Predators on the other hand have both eyes on the front of their heads to focus on their prey in front of them added to the fact that they have little need to fear any predator that may be lurking behind them. Their necks are usually short and craned forward for focus and speed. They, unlike the animals they prey upon, have upwards of four to eight young who cannot walk or fend for themselves for about six weeks or more after birth. To nurture their numerous young they are created to have four to six rows of teats giving them eight to twelve breasts in total. The obvious reasons being the sense of security surrounding them. This is where we humans come in and what I would probably do if I were God.

Now the question I ask is, in what class do we qualify, prey or predator? I think the answer is obvious; we are the most successful predators on earth and so typically, we have our eyes on the front of our heads; we have little to fear except our fellow man. Our young, when we reproduce, are utterly dependent on us and cannot walk let alone run for ten months to a year from birth giving us the ultimate invincibility status. We also reproduce them in ones, very rarely in twos and even rarer in threes, fours and fives. Would it not be logical then to conserve valuable resources of skin, muscle(in miniscule amounts if you ask me), and lactate by creating just one breast for most women, two for those who are prone to bearing twins, three for the triplet bearers and four for the quadruplets? For those with a breast, I would place them in the middle of their chest so they wouldn’t feel they are missing out on something by looking lopsided. The twin bearers, well, naturally I’d leave them as they are presently and for triplets, it’s quite simple. I’d place the third breast just above the navel so that the three babies do not necessarily have to jostle for position to feed. The quadruplets are best left to the imagination regarding how theirs are to be arranged.

Now imagine us men ogling gorgeous women on the beach or the poolside in their halter neck mono cup bikini tops. The one baby bearers looking so attractive with their protuberances of varying sizes swinging or jutting from the middle of their chests. The triplet bearers would look equally resplendent in their tri cupped tops; some in their one piece tops and others wearing two piece bras designed rather like reading glasses and a false nose fastened securely in place by two straps round the back in their bid to show off their midriffs, their third breasts looking more like outrageously distended navels or ‘outies’, beauty lying entirely at the mercy of we the beholders. Oops! Forgot I was supposed to be playing God and therefore having no business checking ladies out. The quadruplet prone mothers who insist on being skimpily dressed would probably wear their tops like suspender belts; twin cups vertically positioned, one on top of the other, on each side and showing off their sexy midriffs in one stroke. Oh, what a wonderful and logic world I’d create if I were God but, better Him than me. I’m just content with running wild with my imagination.

I apologise if this piece might come across as being sexist but I assure you that that is not the intention. The truth is men find women very attractive and women, well, make themselves very attractive making it very hard for men to shift their attention from them. This piece is mostly written to provoke us to explore our horizons on the vastness of the beauty available to us and to see things from the fun side as well. May we continually seek beauty in the strivings of our lives. Other thoughts on beauty are very welcome and I would to hear your perspective on the subject. Have a great week everyone