Frostbite

Good week everybody! Honestly ehn, one of the worst things to do is to give birth to your own baby and labour and strive to see it grow. Your whole heart’s in it, you worry endlessly about its future and whether it will make it in life to be able to look after you and your spouse when you grow old and fragile. And just so you don’t put all your eggs in one basket you produce other babies just so if the first one, on whom all hopes lie, fails, the others, with some prayer, hard work and dedication, keep running and by God’s infinite grace carry on the baton to provide for you and your spouse when you still grow old and fragile. Yes my dear friends and readers, I am talking about enterprise or business as people are wont to call it. I am co producing a movie here in the States, one I also co wrote and I find myself worrying about things I never bothered myself with before; marketing, target audience, what title to give it, numerous and endless meetings about any and everything; whom to hire, whom to fire etc. I have the better end of the stick; the other producers are the ones who worry about the money and believe me those robes are3 thorny and heavy. I still have a lot of ideas that I will execute in the course of my partnership with Nkem so if this baby falls by the wayside, the others will keep running.

Okay, enough philosophizing about my secure future, now to the scarier present or should I say immediate past. I just finished my morning jog with not a little relief. I have also learnt to always check the weather conditions before venturing out of the comfort of your home.

I had routinely donned my light track suit bottoms and a slightly heavier sweat shirt with my head warmer tucked in my pocket and run out of the building for my early morning jog only to be run back in by the icy wind that lashed into my face and body through my sparse clothing. I wisely went into my room and put on a much heavier fleece jacket, put on my head warmer and went out again. I had two miles to cover and intended to make short work of them with the aid of the music I was listening to on my phone. I cruised comfortably for about a mile, the wind buffeting my unguarded face with a million icicles when I became aware of a numbness in my legs. Alarmed, I realized I had made another error; I had neglected to protect the lower half of my body by wearing summer track suit bottoms in the hope that the frequent pumping of my legs would generate enough heat to insulate them against the cold which in this case wasn’t seeming to happen. With an even colder dread spreading across my heart, I realized I had I had not protected the lower half of my body, where my crown jewels and best friend junior were housed! Quickly I grabbed at them, fearing the worst – I was not wearing even boxer shorts – and was relieved to find they were still intact, even though they were not quite the size I was used to. The sac in which my future generations were housed had shrunk to the size and hardness of a walnut while junior… Well let’s just say he would not have complimented my masculinity were I to be strip searched in front of prospective female officers. I was suddenly taken back to the days when I was eight, standing at the toilet bowl, struggling to get the pee out from my morning wooded peepee – there was little difference.

Everything is much calmer now. All my bits are intact and in working order, I’m sure, but I have learnt the most important lesson of the day; to always check the weather and dress appropriately before venturing from home. To everyone else, have a great Thanksgiving, To Frieda, happy birthday darling! Your birthday present’s still intact with just a little warming up to thaw out the last of the deeply embedded frostbite! Mwah!

Sampling Tour

Good week everybody! Yes I’m okay and yes , I am still in the good ole US of A. I’m back to Minnesota. Ha ha ha! I’ve been stalling for time regarding what to write. This is actually exactly two hours since I wrote the second sentence of this post. I was contemplating whether to write about my trip, alongside some friends, to a strip club last week. Yep, the girls were lovely and yes, I did get a lap dance but that is a story for another day. I know my beloved brother Obasi and my darling sis-in-law Nkiru will probably read this and roll their eyes at this black sheep of the family – and I really am! I have done things that the rest of my family would keel over if they heard but an iota of what I’ve done - but hey, I am what I am.;I love adventure. Best part of it was that Frieda was right there beside me watching my leering grin as I ogled the bare necessities of the chocolate siren writhing all over me smelling so nice even though she wore little or no perfume… but, that’s a story for another day. Come to think of it, she has never really told me what she thought of my being entertained by such vivacious ladies apart from the curious amused wonder I caught in her eyes when I momentarily flashed a glance in her direction just in case a missile came hurtling my way from that angle. I feel I may have clinched a deal for a boys’ night out, but I fear it may just be wishful thinking yet.

The Damage premiere tour is finally over here in the US and it’s been such a relief that it has gone very well. It has been a nerve wracking three weeks for me especially since it has been one of the few projects I have truly believed in. I want to thank everyone for their support during this tour, especially Nkem, of course, Nollywoodreinvented, CHI_SOM and every one of my readers. You have been fantastic all you! Now I’m embarking on another one here which I am having to write and act in as well. It is about another social issue; dealing with betrayal and HIV. That is the most I will talk about the project for now until I see it talking shape in the direction I want it to go – make I no go fall my hand. What I will talk about is my newfound freedom; the freedom to jog where I please!

I now have the luxury to jog where I please; nice pavements on which I can jog without being knocked down by veering danfos (commercial mini buses) and snarling okadas (commercial motorcycles). I don’t get stopped by passersby who demand to know why I am being so mean to ‘Angela’. Can’t I just go and die somewhere in peace? Or why I have to act the role of a debauched reverend father and besmirch the image of the Catholic Church, do I want to go to hell? Or well meaning citizens who, never mind that that I’m jogging to burn fat, ask me to kindly tell them what happened in the sequel of a movie of mine they’d just watched. Here I jogged with free abandon, almost too free. Yesterday I happened to discover a jogging trail not too far from my hotel and enthusiastically went down to try it out. It is already deep autumn here, you in America prefer to call it fall, but the bite of winter is already setting in as is clearly evident in the trees already being stripped of their leaves giving the area a very somber look. I had not gone far down the slope I was jogging before I realized I was well alone on a lonely trail with desolate woods and brackish marshy ponds on either side of me. Images of the Crime & Investigation television network I love watching in Nigeria came flooding back to me. Glancing wildly around me, I half expected a hooded figure streaking out of the woods at me armed with a hatchet or a hammer, or a kindly middle aged man asking if I could assist him with his broken leg, and a kindly prick in the back of my neck, or some nutter taking a pot shot at me from the sanctity of the woods. Prejudiced or not, I quickly unlocked my usually secure phone, ready to dial 911 the second I noticed any funny movement around me and dashed furiously through the grove until I saw with much relief some buildings two minutes later. Suffice it to say I did not go back that way.

Well that is my tale for this week. Fill you up with more later. Have a great week ahead mes amis!

Who's Laughing Now?

A good week to everybody! I am just starting to recover from the awful experiences of jet lag. The experience for me is horrendous! I have slept like an absolute fool! Every time I travel across a time zone as marked as six hours and above, I get knocked out for at least two days. It is very confusing to me! It was for this very reason that I refused to watch any movie on the on board entertainment for the entire duration of the flight from Lagos to New York. The seats were business class seats and reclined to full beds so I slept soundly. Why then is the jet lag demon still pursing me?! In spite of that, I’ve managed to do two Damage movie premieres in New York and in Minneapolis, I have made time to enjoy my beloved American meal; medium done steak and garlic flavoured mashed potatoes and broccoli, twice!

I did not come without a plan though. You see, tasty as American foods are, they come with a hefty price attached. Not the price tag, if it were I’d be much relieved; it is the cloying stodgy weight it piles on that is the terror of many, even highly strung children. My plan was to jog every morning for at least four miles and finish it with a punishing regime of a hundred sit ups. To my pleasure, the next morning, even as the first rays of the morning peeped through the curtains, a quick succession of knocks rapped at the door jarring the last vestiges of my dream away. I stumbled to the door to open up to a diminutive Tonto staring up at me in her jogging suit. In a panic I asked her if she’d already gone jogging but she said no, to my relief, she just came to know if I would like to go jogging with her. Thus began my partnership which soon swelled with the inclusion of Moses and three days later, after torrents of excuses of not having appropriate sporting clothing and not having the time to go to the stores to buy some, Uche. There is an adage to encourage people who lag behind in different endeavours; the one who walks will finally get to the same destination as the one who runs. I saw the literal meaning of the proverb when Uche came huffing and puffing up the hill thirty minutes after we’d reached our agreed end point, the first and only day she joined us. Her ready excuse, three minutes after she caught her breath, was that according to her fitness instructor, heavy hipped women were not supposed to run. A likely tale.

What I have revealed here is true. If Uche likes, she can come and refute it in her typically boisterous manner. I will also admit that this is my way of getting back at her for broadcasting to even deaf buildings what a terrible dancer I am. Could anything be more preposterous?!! The painful thing is that people have actually begun to believe it. Well, the buck stops right here! I have taken the pains to show a smidgen of my dancing prowess by adding an excerpt from a video chronicling our Damage movie premiere tour of the United States. This one was recorded at the Mall of America, Bloomington, Minnesota. Please feel free to give me your unbiased feedback and put my ‘haters’ to shame!

Have a great weekend everyone!

(To view the video, visit my facebook fanpage - http://www.facebook.com/kaluikeagwufanpage)

What to do, how to do!

Good week everybody! Right now, you guys are going to forge the road to escapism for me because I am so confused at the moment and I’m unwilling to face the reality before me. Right now as I sit here typing, I wish I was married so I would never have to go through this sort of stress again. Yes, I know that shouldn’t be the only reason one should get married, and believe me, I have a few other reasons to append my mark on the contract, but the helplessness and frustration I feel at the moment is enough for me to make a deal with – not the devil – whichever woman would readily pack my clothes and stuff I need to travel to the US with for a whole month! Yes, yours truly is coming alongside Uche Jombo, Moses Iwang(Sneeze) and Tonto Dikeh for the Damage promotional tour.

I hate packing! I never know what to pack for. I get stumped even when I’m packing for just a few days. How many undershirts and boxer shorts to throw in, T- shirts, polo shirts, shirts, whether to pack a jacket or not! Now most of you will be wondering what my problem is over such simple tasks and such obvious items to pack. The thing is I’m a typically jeans, T-shirt and sneakers kind of person, and my predominant theme when choosing clothing is comfort and freedom. I like to know I can sit anywhere I like, get my bottom dirty, stand up, brush most of the dirt off my arse and still have swag. Trouble is, when I like a particular item of clothing, I worry it to its grave, a trait that earned me the nickname The Sower among my room mates back in university.

I had just bought a pair of checkered sneakers that my size 12/13 feet felt very snug in, a rarity for me in those days, and I wore them almost every day. The tramping back and forth from lectures in the hot sun and my sweaty feet combined to form a resultant ripe odour from my sturdy companion. Tired and spent for the day, I’d hang my faithfuls at the window of the room and go looking for something to eat. Trouble was, the afternoon breeze would waft the wonderful aroma emanating from my shoes into the room and out the other window but not before making the occupants of the room well aware of its presence – and there were numerous wafts on a typical afternoon! I never heard the end of it. My wonderful roommates complained to no end about my prurient sneakers, asking me to take them outside, which I refused to do for fear of having them stolen by the ubiquitous marauders in that hungry hostel. We were a very jovial bunch, I couldn’t ask for better friends, and we periodically took turns at teasing one another. On one occasion, when it was my turn to be flayed, my beloved checkered sneakers became the butt of their jokes. One of the miscreants, a particularly funny guy, Chike, remarked that my sneakers were so fertile that any corn kernel that was sown in them would germinate overnight. The name, The Sower, stuck.

Where was I? Don’t mind me. I’m just trying to delay the inevitable; I have just today to pack for a whole month in the US. I’m supposed to be a celebrity and so I’m not allowed to ‘dull’ myself. I alone have to pick out my outfits for the numerous appearances I’ll have to make across at least eight sates, and no Frieda’s not here to help me out. Let me see, two shirts for each day so people shorter than me – most are, especially the ladies – don’t faint from the ripe pong from my sweaty armpits when I throw my arms round their shoulders. Groan! What happened to the good old days when I’d just throw a rucksack over my shoulder and saunter through customs in a T-shirt, shorts and a pair of sandals?

All this jabbering is getting me nowhere. That chaotic pile is going nowhere. The bloody lot are just sitting there staring at me stonily and relishing my anxiety that’s growing by the minute. Like they say, there’s no time like the present so abeg make una no vex, I have packing to do. Have a safe, sorry, have a great week everyone, and wish me a safe trip! A bientot!

To His Coy Mistress

A good week to everybody! I’m writing with two intertwining emotions as I speak. On the one hand is the emotion of despondency from the reaffirmation that my betters at writing painfully abound; and elation that I share a kindred spirit with one of my betters. The sage of whom I speak in this instance is none other than Andrew Marvell on his poem “To His Coy Mistress”.

I remember treating this very poem in my first year in university, although at the time we were too petrified of our lecturer, then Dr Inyama, and his promise that only half of us would make it through his course. Our fear of him seemed very well founded on account of his stern and austere demeanour. In fact throughout my four year course in the English Literature department, no one ever saw Dr Inyama break into a smile for even a moment. Ah, I err; I did see him sharing laughter over beer at the senior staff club with his colleagues. Oddly enough, he did seem quite at home with this phenomenon, mirth. Interestingly though, our wariness of Inyama began to thaw by the end of his second lecture on satire in poetry and short stories. The man’s wit and humour was as keen as a red hot blade. He introduced me to my favourite poet of all time, Alexander Pope, the writer of “The Rape of the Lock” – but that is a story for another day. “To His Coy Mistress” was treated on the first day of our lecture with him and my fear of his course at the time blinded me to its beauty. A young friend of mine was to reintroduce the poem to me only a few weeks ago, over a decade after my initial introduction to the poem.

I was flirting amiably with a younger colleague, an actress, about twenty one years of age, on a movie set some weeks ago. She was very pretty and well endowed in the right places, and I did not hesitate to tell her so. She smiled back at me coquettishly and with an impish smile on her face told me she was a good girl and would never have any dealings with men. I liked her, mostly because she was quite intelligent and accurately interpreted my flirtatious advances as being just that, which gave us free hand to pit our wits against one another to see who would win in the end – Frieda look at both my clean palms in the air o, nothing happened! We fenced and parried one another’s thrusts until Nikky, at length, told me that if I must possess her, I would have to court her the way Andrew Marvell courted his coy mistress. The name suddenly rang a bell in my head and I asked her about it. She told me the poem was her favourite and recommended that I go and read it up. Immediately we were done for the day I went back home and searched for it on Google and was amply rewarded – I had found another of my mentors. I settled down to a good read.

The poem is basically about a virgin maiden fending off the amorous advances of an older man. She insists on keeping a vow of chastity and the preservation of her virginity. The man replies with the most gentle and piercing wit, peeling away the young lady’s reserve and defences with the skill and ease with which Hector peeled off Achilles beloved friend Patrocles’ stout armour in Homer’s poem The Iliad, until the latter stood before him, naked and ashamed. He answers her with the lightest sarcasm, telling her that if both of them were granted time, he would begin wooing her ten years before Noah’s flood began, then he would dedicate a hundred years towards wooing and admiring each breast on her chest (chei! See rhyme!) before applying another two hundred years to the rest of her body save for one problem – time would not wait for them. So, in order to forestall Death’s handmaidens – the veritable worms – from deflowering her in the grave where there would be no romance, where all her rosy beauty would succumb to the dust, they would best make use of the youthful fire still coursing through their veins entwine themselves in one fiery ball and tear through the impeding iron gates of chastity!

Isn’t that just heavenly? If there was any such thing as reincarnation, I probably am Mr Marvell come again but, since I don’t believe in it, I’ll be content with the knowledge that many more of my kind roamed the earth centuries before my father carried my mother across the threshold and successfully baked the bun – me. I enjoin you my dear folks to read the poem and let me know what you think. Have the greatest weekend everyone, and my love for you has not diminished even after such a long spell in the wilderness but, that is a story for another day. A tout a l’heure!

Meet n Greet!

Good week everybody! Forgive me if I sound incoherent at times this morning. I’m still a bit groggy from the euphoric reception, the hard work and eventual hard partying I, alongside the rest of the crew, Nonso, Uche Chibueze, Bola, Juliet and Sneeze, wounded myself with during our day’s stay in Port Harcourt for the Meet and Greet promotion for the movie Damage. My left hip still hurts. I don’t know if it was as a result of exertion from displaying my skills on the dance floor at Wine bar. I think I’m getting better and better at this dancing thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still the butt of jokes regarding my dancing prowess among my colleagues but the guffaws are quieting down ever so subtly.

On touching down in Port Harcourt, we were driven straight to the Wazobia FM radio station to talk live about the Meet and Greet expedition. Here’s the interesting twist. Wazobia’s language is usually spoken in Pidgin English instead of normal English. This meant that we had to show our Pidgin speaking skills on air. As we settled down on our stools in the studio I began to notice worried yet amused looks on some of the people’s faces and they were all directed at me. I asked if anything was the matter and of course the ever boisterous Uche (yes JOMBO), spokesperson for even those who did not invite her to speak for them and Defender of the universe jumped up with that loud voice of hers. “They are worried because you, like your dancing, cannot speak Pidgin to save your life”. Chei chei chei! It was as if an ant had stung my ear! Eh! Me! Kalu the son of Egbui Ikeagwu, not speak Pidgin. Uche Jombo even had the temerity to ask me to try and keep up with her! Ten minutes later, that same Uche began floundering all over the place like a fish that has lost all its fins. Even the DJ had to remind her three times to stick to Pidgin when she kept running off her trolley. When it got to my turn to speak, hmm! Believe now! I went into it with the dexterity of a Waffi guy! If I was a girl I would fallen for me there and then! I was so good with my flow and nuances that I could from the corner of my eye spy Bola Aduwo nodding her head enthusiastically at me. In fact I had to scale back a little so as not to detract from the reason we were there; speaking out against domestic violence, a result of the humility in me I suppose.

After stamping my authority in the place and leaving with a noticeably humbled Uche, we all headed for the hotel where we had just about 10 minutes to freshen up before going to the Meet and Greet event at Icinemas. I was to sell popcorn to the paying customers and Uche was to sell tickets to them. We had bickered about that at the radio studios – she wanted to use her clout to snatch my task from me by announcing to a live audience that she was going to sell popcorn before I corrected her on the same air. It was a very hot affair, dipping my trowel in the hot popcorn and shovelling tens of bags full with the hot fluffy kernels while taking care not to burn my hand on the overhead mini halogen bulb at the top of the case. But it was all worth it because the fans were a delight; very friendly and politely asked if they could take photographs with us. By the time we finished, Uche, as rambunctious as ever bustled over to my cubicle to brag about how much money she had made from sales – never mind that her tickets sold for N2000 apiece while my popcorn was a humble N500. Then again, that’s short people for you – always have to have the last word. Let’s see how you’ll beat me in this one. Nonsense! I still love you sis.

We sat down together to watch the movie Damage and were pleasantly surprised by a rousing applause from the audience when it ended. It felt good to be part of a team that worked so hard to achieve something. We did the normal red carpet photographs and took off to the Wine bar – a nightclub to party. I did not fail to deliver. In fact I grooved so well even Uche had to take back her vile earlier words the server. It was a very good weekend indeed. The only drawback was that I didn’t get to eat my favourite Port Harcourt roadside dish, roasted ripe plantain and hot pepper palm oil stew with smoked fish. Darn it, my mouth’s watering already! This weekend we go to my home state Abia to check it out. Will keep you updated with the goings on this weekend. I’m trying to think of what delicacies to look out for: Egusi cakes, ugba and okporoko etc. Please let me know if I’m missing anything out. Have a great week everyone!

The Event

Good week to everyone! How has everyone’s week been? Mine’s been so busy doing nothing but networking and promotions; my initiation into the vile impersonal business world. I have recently found out, and this is just a hypothesis, that the most boring and humourless people in school are mostly the richest people today. They are usually the bankers, businessmen and accountants of today. I refuse to believe that it was because they had no sense of humour but that they maybe saw art, fun and humour as major distractions to be avoided at all costs even if they have to scrooge themselves doing it. I suppose the end justifies the means. At least, like Scrooge, they might get the chance to be unscrooged later in life. For those of us who began our lives with art, idealism and daydreams and having to learn scrooge language later in life. I wonder what our stories will be as night falls. It was a strange feeling for me at the Damage movie premiere two weeks ago.

The three days leading up to the date of the event were very physically depressing for me; I almost threw up in the bathroom an hour before I picked up my car keys. I usually hate watching myself in movies I’ve done because I keep seeing mistakes I make, and things I could have done better. It’s sometimes so bad I hide behind my couch to watch; it’s like watching a horror movie, the difference being that I must have company to be able to watch the latter. You can imagine how it felt having to watch myself alongside hundreds of fellow professionals, prodders, directors, investors and most nail biting of all, critics. Couple that with the fact that I was playing the role of an angry, violent wife beater who shouts himself hoarse for the most part of the movie, which, God forbid, might end up not being so convincing, and you have the perfect bowl of bowel pureed nerves.

The red carpet part went without a hitch although I did leave it with an aching jaw from yapping incessantly to legions of journalists and flashing bulbs, repeating myself over and over again while trying to look like I was uttering the heartfelt words for the first time. The last journalist to interview me took the largest slice of the cake. He looked in every possible direction there was but mine as he interviewed me as I talked; it didn’t last long and it was the last. I left there and headed for the cinema, was ushered to my seat and I sat. Not long after, the movie began.

It didn’t take long for me to realise why oyibo , sorry, our counterparts across the pond are always so skinny; I was humongous! I thought I was looking at a funny mirror! Every step I took was like King Kong was entering the building. I desperately prayed for some vestige of acting prowess to at least cover up the offensive smell I was looking at. All through the movie I kept ticking off the boxes in my head with my invisible pen, my buzzing ears not even registering the audience’s reaction, with my sweaty finger poised over the stopwatch of my watch. It wasn’t as bad as I anticipated it would be. In fact the audience loved it. If you know how unforgiving a Nigerian audience is, you’ll appreciate the sense of relief I felt every fifteen minutes – yes, I had divided the movie into sections of fifteen minutes to measure the overall ratio of the parts that were bad versus the good – yes, in that order. I even noticed some quips and quirks I unconsciously chipped in here and there of which I was pleased and took notes of. It ended well.

What’s that saying again? Nothing ventured, nothing vanquished? I’m not sure if I got it right but that night was a definite victory for me. I learnt to believe in myself more, to trust my instincts more and the value of working with a visionary producer and director. Three cheers to you Uche Jombo and Moses Iwang( Sneeze)! Great job on the movie Damage! Have a great weekend guys and please please please do go watch the movie Damage. It’s showing in cinemas nationwide at the moment. Ciao!