Articles of interest to moi (2013)

Piece of the national pie
Just warms the heart
Jason Collins
Bassem Youssef
A worthy Nigerian
Nigerian Content (Imp)Act
John Simpson's Iraq
PIB ethnicity wahala
Best interview ever!!!!
Land of the free? Puhleese
Django Revisited
Downtime
If you've ever wondered what would be better, being a has-been or never-been? Well, now you have your answer now
Why don't some boys see it as rape?
I definitely have a man crush on Bill Simmons
You gotta love Tunde Bakare
Worth debating...
Tiger in Japan
Spring-less
Preaching to the converted
Out of the blogs of babes

Revenge of PHCN the sequel: Ar G.F.Y

Hola peeps.

Been a while, huh? Decided since my life’s been crazy busy filled with whoknowswhat I’ll make a conscious effort to update y’all – if there’s anyone left – on the goings-on in my not-too-exciting life in the Niger Delta at least once a quarter. So here I am on the final day of Q1 2013 spending my Easter with y’all….well I had to work so that’s why I am sending this from the office.

As I type this my neck’s throbbing from…well the boring answer’s lifting weights, but let’s pretend I hurt it trying out an Azonto-Gangnam Style combo choreography I have been working on. On second thoughts let’s stick to the honest boring response. ‘Cos I live a Spartan existence – more on that later – in PH I try to fill my time with all sorts of activities. Since the turn of the month I’ve dedicated myself to thrice weekly gym visits where I pump iron and once a week cardio sessions which consists of jogging for an hour. Today I felt extra pumped so I did an hour and a half and now my knees are paying for it. Don’t mind though ‘cos I get to work out my calves while jogging. Used to work on legs in the gym when I had a personal trainer but they hurt like crazy so after my trainer and I parted ways, okay I started avoiding him as he’s a masochist, I have avoided all leg exercises so much so my physique resembles those Roman soldiers in the Asterix and Obelix comic books, ripped upper body with puny legs. Oops, did I go old school on you? My bad.

So my neck started aching yesterday morning after I bench-pressed a higher weight than I had ever attained. Was so chuffed I hit the weight again and again. So much so that even driving became a chore. Felt like one of the extras from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. Sorry, I meant to say The Walking Dead. When I went to bad last night I couldn’t find a sleeping position that didn’t hurt so prayed to God that neck ache wouldn’t prevent me from jogging this morning and it didn’t. Now I am using my direct line to God to ask for the powers-that-be at PHCN to provide power to my, ahem, neck of the woods as it’s been 4 consecutive days without power and the din of generators at night is making me pull out my nose hairs.

It wasn’t always this bad. In between PHCN’s recent brain fart and the one before (where folk in the neighbourhood had to pitch in to fix something or the other with the faulty transformer) I had uninterrupted power supply. Man, it was sheer bliss for those two weeks; it was like living in the UK…only without the freezing weather, 50% tax bracket and random, unexplained deaths of previously wealthy Russian dissidents. But any seasoned victim of PHCN knows to be worried; the gazelle (aka me) knows it’s only a matter of time before the lioness (aka PHCN) strikes from under the cover of the savannah grass. In those calm moments one learns not to talk about PHCN, if one must refer to them one must do so in hushed tones like they are Keyser Soze or the Candyman. Lo siento for going old school again. It’s like I knew what was gonna happen, I kept mentioning whispering to everyone I met, almost as if my life was in danger, “Man, PHCN’s provided power for 2 weeks straight, I am scared what they gonna do when they realize their mistake. It ain’t gonna be pretty I am sure. What do I do? Do I bring it to their knowledge or just shut up and enjoy it while it lasts?” I chose to keep mum and now look’s what happened: 5 days and counting of noise, noise, noise.

I am so used to the noise I am developing a sixth sense about these things. Given a few more nights of this I am sure I can decipher which noise emanates from which generator brand. Given even more time I’ll be able to tell which of my neighbours owns which generator. Maybe I can finally convert my sense of generator noise identification into a money making venture ‘cos goodness knows my Prophet Joe® Baby Gender Prediction Service was a bummer from the get go. Stupid cheap ultrasound machines!

Oh speaking of babies I am proud to tell y’all I became the proud uncle of my fourth nice and thirteenth nephew earlier this year. Happened within the space of a month: Kinzo had his first girl and Kemi had her third boy. That’s 18 grandkids and counting for Chief. Nice one.

Wonder if either of my siblings subscribed to BabyCentre as I’ve found it to be a useful website. Problem now is I wanna unsubscribe but feel it’d be kinda rude you know. I also wanna see how long it’ll take them to stop emailing me. At first it started with weekly countdowns while baby’s in the womb, Your baby can now hear sounds in the womb so sing to the baby so it recognises your voice , then same interlude after baby’s born. Now I get emails monthly telling me what to expect: Your baby’s 14 months old now and is most likely following you everywhere. A part of me wants to know if they’ll continue this for life. Your baby’s 360 months old and has no plans to move out of your house. Here are some tips from other mothers on what to do…

So about my Spartan existence in PH…..all I got in my crib’s a bed, air conditioner, abandoned satellite TV dish, unhooked up TV, fridge, a spoon and, for the thrill junkie in me, various coloured plastic bowls for drinking ijebu garri on hot, sunny days like today. Who am I kidding, I don’t need the excuse of sweltering conditions to drink garri! Hi, my name is Tunde and I am an ijebu garri addict….

I don’t even have curtains! You see when I left Warri for PH I had been promised a move to Lagos within two years so gave out all my stuff. For the same reason I used to wear Arsenal jerseys during their footie games in the hope I could change their luck and I don’t shave on the R.I.G, the weirdo part of me felt if I made life difficult for myself – was an easy decision to make at the time since I was almost always on the R.I.G – in PH I would force the universe to move me to Lagos. Now that I think about it I sound like a cuckoo acolyte of Oprah, don’t I? Anyways it’s been 2 years now and I am tired of my neighbours peeking at me every time I step out of the bathroom so I’ve decided I am gonna play a Jedi mind-trick on the universe by sprucing up my PH crib. Let’s see what happens then.

What’s not gonna change however is my eating habits, or should I make that my eating-out habits. If I didn’t cook in Warri ain’t no way I am gonna cook in PH. No matter how many ‘runs’ I get I’m gonna keep trying different places until my stomach gets used to the food. It ain’t no joke being a human guinea pig though. Two weekends ago I used the white throne at least six times after consuming whoknowswhat. Head began throbbing soon after so booked an appointment with the doctor and dude said all he could find wrong was I had too much blood in my system. U what?! Said it’s normal for folk who are B+ and it’s best I become a blood donor to reduce the amount of blood in my system. Is there some underground vampire club in PH I don’t know about?

My feeding options took a turn for the worse at the start of the year when I visited my local shawarma spot and discovered the lady that made the shawarma was no longer there. When I asked the dude there he said she had left and he now makes the shawarma.

Me: Erm, am I gonna like it? The girl knew how to make it just right and spicy.
Shawarma dude: Just give it a try.

Half an hour later, yup it took the dude half an hour to make a shawarma, he calls me over.

Shawarma dude: I assure you this is nice.

Dude then goes on to give an exposition on the intricacies of shawarma construction.

Shawarma dude: …..you see a number of people don’t know how to make shawarma…they think it’s just adding salad dressing…there’s vegetable shawarma for vegetarians, there’s even fish shawarma! Shawarma’s just anything with bread really.
Me: (*thinking to myself…whatever you say dude, next thing you know you’ll tell me there’s yam & stew sharwarma…*) Erm, okay. Thanks, I’ll be sure to tell you how good it tastes.

Got home and bit into the worst shawarma ever made. I would have had more value for money if I had shredded the thousand naira note and fed it to an ant colony than spend it on awful, awful food. I asked for chicken shawarma and all I got was a strip of chicken and a bunch of carrots – yes, carrots! – and mayonnaise. This dude adds a gherkin slice and a bunch of carrots and thinks I am gonna thank him for it? He’s lucky I didn’t taste the shawarma in his presence. Used to watch footie at the shawarma spot now I avoid that place like the plague. As fate would have it I bumped into the shawarma lady’s partner at a gas station two weeks ago and when dude asked me where I now got my shawarma from he could tell from my face he had touched a nerve. Then he told me he and the shawarma lady were setting up their own spot and would make home deliveries. Thank God.

In the meantime I have had to drive 30mins away from the crib to get my shawarma fix from some dude called Isaac. Isaac makes the best shawarma in PH, no contest. Problem is the queue outside Isaac’s stall is always crazy long. There’s usually a 45min wait for Isaac’s shawarma but it’s worth it. I sometimes feel for the dude selling suya beside Isaac. He always looks despondent, poor dude’s lost all his clients to Isaac.

On nights when I cannot be bothered to face the crazy PH traffic on route to Isaac’s I settle for the suya merchants around me. The dude ten minutes away is always on point. I’d always wondered why the smoke from his grill had to crazy massive and assumed he was just being stylish by wearing sunglasses while grilling his meat. It wasn’t until last week it finally hit me I was being served by the Houdini of suya men. His portions are always large when I buy them but after taking the ten minute stroll home I open up his packaging and voila, quantity has shrunk by at least 40%. That must be his game. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice….well, keep doing your smoke and sunglasses thang dude, your suya’s better than the guys around and goodness knows beggars can’t be choosers. Darn shawarma dude!

I won’t bore you with hoops I jump through daily to get lunch at work. All I’ll say is the lady acts like the ice cream man in that Eddie Murphy skit from Delirious. Oh the things I do for a hot meal, huh? The tipping point of my universe-to-Lagos u-turn occurred…wait for it… 5 nights ago on my way home from the gym. Woah, that’s same day I stopped getting power. Could it be what altered the arrangement the universe had with PHCN to keep me happy in PH? Whatevs man! Old universe-believing Tunde is gone forever…

Saw some dude selling fruit and stopped by as the lady that sells fruit in the office is in cahoots with the lunch lady, but that’s a story for another day. So after doing my best to haggle with the fruit vendor I settled on a pineapple.

Me: So oga, you go peel the pineapple?
Fruit vendor: Sure master, no problem.
Me: (*now embarrassed*) Erm, you fit help me pieces am?
Fruit vendor: (*thinking to himself…what the @*%I…I wonder what else he is gonna ask me to do…*) Sure master, no problem.
Me: (*now even more embarrassed*) Erm, when you finish put am in this bowl.
Fruit vendor: (*thinking to himself…you have to be kidding me, dude has a bowl at the ready in his car for moments like these? Who does that?!…*) Sure master, no problem.
Me: (*trying to appease the dude not to spit in my bowl of fruit*) Erm, you dey sell orange too abi?
Fruit vendor: (*now on auto-pilot*) Sure master, no problem.
Me : Gimme ten……erm, you go peel am abi?

How embarrassing is it that I don’t even have a knife at the crib with which to peel a frigging fruit? The sooner I move to Lagos the better.

I never did much like Warri, but at least the traffic wasn’t bad. In PH it’s horrendous and the weird thang about it is one cannot predict traffic patterns. In Lagos you are virtually assured of a smooth ride on weekdays if one leaves the Island for the Mainland before 4pm. In PH one can get stuck in traffic at 11pm for no reason. The trips have become manageable though since I discovered Talk Radio. One can get a pulse of the nation from listening to the folks that call in. Lately I’ve been getting my kicks from peeps that call in to bitch about the toll free number not working. At one point three consecutive callers complained about it. YOU PEOPLE ARE 419, WHY SAY YOU HAVE TOLLFREE LINE WHEN YOU DON’T PICK UP? O HO, NOW THAT I CALL THIS ONE WHERE THEY’LL CHARGE ME CREDIT NA IM UNA PICK UP ABI? ANYWAY I JUST WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT. MY NAME IS INCORRUPTIBLE DAN. Friggin’ hilarious.

Their sports show is only interesting ‘cos the female host sounds like a man and the male host sounds feminine, so one gets callers referring to the girl as “sir” and she has to keep correcting them. Priceless. I enjoy the show as it takes me back to a time in my childhood when we had a security guard with an undulating voice. The first time I heard the dude I swear I thought he was taking the piss. He’d go from baritone to soprano in the span of a sentence. YOUR MOTHER wants you to stop PLAYING and GO finish YOUR homework. Ha ha ha, good times, good times.

Oh man, you shoulda heard the vitriol on the radio after the president pardoned our good friend Alams. I reckon it’s time I dusted off the tee shirt design I had made after he first became infamous for skipping bail in the UK. The president’s major support base is the Niger Delta, but if what folks here say on the radio is a true measure of the animosity towards him the president stands no chance come the next election. The question one now has to ask is if the opposition is any better. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You know the passage in the bible where we are instructed to pray for our leaders so that we may live peaceably among all men? I remember that passage sometimes and feel guilty for not empathizing with the president as goodness knows his job ain’t easy, but then the punk makes a bone-headed move like the pardon and one just can’t help but flip the switch and join the rest of the callers in cussing him out. It’s like I got coprolalia or something.

Speaking of illnesses, about four years ago I unconsciously started to repeat short sentences. So someone would ask how I was doing and I would respond, “fine, fine”. It wasn’t until a colleague remarked, “woah, for you to say it twice then you really must be fine”, that I started monitoring myself. ‘Til date I still do it. Is this normal or the premature onset of Alzheimer’s? Ha. Hey, you’ve heard of premature balding! Could that be why I have been making old school references throughout this blog entry subconsciously? Hmmmm.

Few months ago I found myself making an overtly conscious effort to remember where I keep stuff. I would go into the kitchen for a glass of water then return to the living room wondering why I left the couch in the first place and missed 30 valuable seconds of PTI. I would spell-check words I already knew the spellings to but temporarily forgot. Peeps, I still believe this could all be one elaborate ploy by the producers of the reality show I don’t yet know I am a part of – shades of The Truman Show - to push up the ratings. I was doing okay until two weeks ago – woah, that was when PHCN supply became constant…coincidence? - when I left for work and gave the security guard a pair of shoes to get polished. Few days later when I tried to wear the shoes I noticed a pair of socks in them that didn’t belong to me. Could my security guard have worn my shoes while I was at work and forgot his socks in them? Could the cobbler be running a promo where his 100th client gets rewarded with a used pair of socks? Or is it more likely that the producers of The Tunde Show are trying to mess with the protagonist once again?

That’d explain why my bosses at the club reneged on a promise to send me to Lagos. They had insisted I’d be moved to Lagos to be closer family if I worked on the final draft of the pIB that would be forwarded to Nigeria’s National Assembly. To the uninitiated among you the pIB stands for the Performance Industry Bill, and should not be confused with the Petroleum Industry Bill PIB which has stagnated in the National Assembly for eons while valuable investment that should have been utilized here is propelling the growth in surrounding countries. The punks!

The pIB is to guard against the influx of “foreign” (read midgets) performers that have crashed the prices the male stripping profession charges clients. Ever since Magic Mike hit the big screen we have seen a bunch of wannabe mini-Tatums set up shop, and though we are confident this novelty will soon go the way of the MC Hammer pants the pIB is meant to restrict any further encroachment. So why are we confident the pIB will get smooth passage when the PIB has not made any headway? Pssttt, we’ve got photos of prominent legislators in somewhat compromising situations.

Need I say more? Well, I could but if I did I’d get run outta this business. Yup, these guys are worse than the KGB. A colleague once did the unforgivable by farting on a client while performing and last time I saw him he was “playing” with an abacus. Well I thought he was playing until I asked him if he had bought the gadget for his kids. “Nah man, you know my kids are all grown. ‘Cos of my li’l, ahem, mix up I got let go today after 25 years of meritorious service and while other organizations give peeps gold watches I was handed an abacus to count my meager severance package.” Yup, these guys ain’t no joke.

I just need a few more years in and then I can quit for good. Who wants to strip until they are aided by zimmer frames anyways? I just need that one killer idea! It was initially gonna be Nigeria’s version of The Daily Show but ever since that Egyptian dude got picked up my cojones have shrunk to the size of chickpeas. Successful peeps always advise one to do what one’s passionate about, what one would do for fun if one didn’t get paid for it. Well, taking the piss outta the vagaries of the ruling class is my passion. It’s just that I’ve worked too hard on my abs to be confined in an all male correctional facility. Even my boarding school was co-ed.

Since the TV show is outta window a less dangerous sideline could be my newest hobby: collecting church fliers and forwarding pics of the ridiculous ones to Nigerians in diaspora to show them what they are missing. The most recent one I came across was titled DISCOVERY!!! Jesus Christ is an Ibo Man VISITS God’s Kingdom Christian Centre Int’l Inc. Wanna tell me a collage of such accoutrements won’t make me the black Damien Hirst? If Tracy Emin can make a killing from listing her conquests then a mural of outlandish church fliers or another of Nollywood movie posters would ensure I am In Like Flint.

Tot ziens and God bless.

Articles of interest to moi (2012)

Needed to be said
Poverty in Nigeria
Achebe at 82
Just like the Ugandans our lawmakers have skewed priorities
Amen
Hear, hear
Aussie Girl Power
2013 budget
Iphone 5
Nigerian god
PIB reform
Trying to make sense of it all
Nothing surprises me anymore about Nigeria
A dictator's worst nightmare
LOVE THIS!
Worthy commendation
The Tyson Zone
This is how we roll...apparently
What's Jim Irsay thinking?
KPMG's NNPC report
Nigerian 2012 budget
Sell, sell, sell

So I Married An Axe Murderer

Hola peeps. Lo siento, he estado ocupado.

Julio here. That bozo Tunde’s been extra lazy of late so guess who’s gotta pick up the slack. I’d have a large ‘SOTA’ (Saviour of Tunde’s Arse) tattooed on my chest so everyone gets the message. And how will all get the message y’all ask? ‘Cos I have been working out extra loads peeps, and I plan to walk around shirtless EVERYWHERE I go. Have you seen Magic Mike? I can no longer take for granted that bored housewives would come over to my club just ‘cos I run Nigeria’s hottest underground strip club. That Magic Mike movie’s gonna make them want more. Punk Channing Tatum’s ruined my easy-as-Sunday morning lifestyle. Kinda reminds me of Ugandan mate from Bradford that threw a party to celebrate Craig David’s absence from the charts. “Man, white girls used to dig me…..remember the time we went to Newcastle and all those white chicks were after me? Soon as Craig David showed up on their TVs they realized good-looking black guys existed, and my mojo only worked on bottom of the barrel white chicks with acne problems and body odour. Damn Craig David!!!”

So what’s been happening with y’all? Tunde’s daughter Leia – yup the loser named her after the Star Wars character – is 8 months old but the punk still hasn’t invited me over to see her. He even made that crapfest Miguel her godfather. I have known this dude practically his whole life, don’t I count?! No worries, I have ways of getting him back…well I tried to get him on tape to admit his true feelings but dude deftly parried away all my attempts. Could it be an inchoate other-non-baby-gender-predicting clairvoyance of Prophet Joe…or maybe I am just high on alabukun again?

You see a few of us guys chose to go for drinks and out of the blue someone started complaining about his missus. It was then I turned on the tape recorder in my failed attempt to entrap Tunde…

Married man 1: Dudes, I don’t know why in heck I got married. I swear I almost hit my wife yesterday. She gets on my last nerve.
MM2: U just been married 6 months, right? Ha. Welcome to the club.
MM1: Screw the club man. I wanna end this marriage. Do you know what she called me during our argument? A friggin’ sperm donor! Yup, the woman I chose above others feels the best way to insult me is to call me a sperm donor and insist she can make do on her own with our unborn child.
Julio: (*thinking to himself…forget SOTA I’d get Sperm Donor inked on my chest…*) Woah, I didn’t know it was that bad. Tunde, ain’t u gonna contribute to this lively discussion?
Tunde: Er, no. Woah, is that the time? Gotta leave soon guys, my exeat’s almost up.
Julio: Ha ha ha. U wuss u! U remind me of my mate Alaye. Since he got married dude hardly leaves the house, his wife controls EVERYTHING.
MM1: I don’t blame the poor dude, maybe he does that just to keep the peace. I swear I can’t do anything right. I swear I married the devil!
Julio: Come on dude, that’s harsh…
MM2: Harsh? ‘Cos u ain’t married that’s why u say that. Women were created to get on our last nerve. A mate that dated his wife for 6 years before they got hitched still reckons his wife hid her true self from him until they got married. He confessed to me, “my wife LURED me into marriage pretending she was peace-loving and all that while we dated. Soon as we got married her true colours were revealed. I’da known something was off when this woman that shops at Primark asked for a wedding ring from Cartier.”
No one knows this but in the first 6 months of my marriage my wife moved out twice. The second time a part of me prayed she wouldn’t return.
Julio: Woah. And u guys keep convincing me to get married?!
Tunde: Hey, I have never encouraged u to get married!
Julio: Oh he now speaks?! So what do u have to say for urself then?
Tunde: My Prophet Joe sense is tingling so I know u are up to something. All I will say ON RECORD is what an older family friend told me ages ago, “Forget love dude, marry a woman whose worst won’t make you want to kill her.”
MM1: Hear, hear.
Julio: Hear, friggin’ hear? Is this a bar or the friggin’ British Parliament? Tunde, tell us more.
Tunde: I have said all I can say….well, that and for some reason since I have been married I have had this incredible urge to get a tattoo. I don’t know what of, just want one.


Julio: Hey Tunde, Harrison Ford called. He wants his midlife crisis back.
MM1: Ha. That’s a good one. U’d be on TV with ur talent, Strippers Got Talent would be make compelling TV.
MM2: U guys are newbies to the marriage game so u can’t hone ur instincts properly. Think of me as the Yoda to ur jedis in training. Tunde, you feel the way you feel because you already feel cocooned by marriage you want to break free and do something you wouldn’t normally do.
Julio: Whatevs man, Captain Feelings. I sincerely hope Tunde gets a tattoo. Hey dude, since u love doodle so much why don’t u get tattoo of doodle drops between bum and thighs so when u wear shorts peeps could think u pooped on urself? Ha.
Tunde: Screw u man. Here I am pouring my heart out and u cracking jokes? Now I know how it feels when I do that to peeps.
Julio: Hee hee hee. Look who’s on his period?
Tunde: U need spiritual help dude, not from the new ultra-hip churches but those old school white garment churches where they whup u with canes to drive demons away….or so I heard.
Julio: Yeah right. U know what would be even more fun? What if the tattooist inks you with a radioactive needle and u become Africa’s first superhero: Anti-Corruption Man! I can just picture you running around with Leia’s diapers over your trousers and smacking policemen at checkpoints and immigration officers at airports. Ha ha ha….man, I kill myself.
Tunde: Speaking of corrupt folk I met some Chinese dude on the R.I.G. and dude told me on his first trip to Nigeria the immigration officer he met gave him a Bible and then…wait for it……proceeded to solicit a bribe. Only in Nigeria.
Julio: Crazy, dude probably thought he was at church and wanted a donation. Brothers and sisters-uh…welcome to the International Church of Immigrants-uh…where we only accept offering in foreign currency-uh…whether u call it greenback-uh or green pastures-uh all I know-uh is I love to lay me down in some dollar notes-uh…
By the way nice attempt to change the topic of conversation. It ain’t gonna work dude.
Tunde: Don’t even go there, it was relevant. A nice segue-way if u please.
Julio: No, I am not Siamese if you please bruv. Just trying to liven up the dull ambience dude. U think I am comfortable with y’all sad married folk trading sob stories. Feel as out of place here as the time when as a kid I was startled awake in church and mistakenly blurted out Babalawo mo wa bebe loud enough for the Catholic priest to hear. My mom whupped me no end that day.


MM1: Are u guys done with ur bromance? I thought this was about my marital problems to start with?
MM2: Pay them no mind bro. I feel what u are going through, it’s tough man, real tough in the first few years. It’s only after my fifth year of marriage things begun to smoothen out.
MM1: 5 years?! I can’t wait that long man. U know that Chris Rock skit about sorta understanding why O.J. Simpson killed Nicole? Well since I have been married I don’t condone it but I understand why some men cheat on their wives or go out drinking all night just to avoid going home. I even understand why some men smack their wives. My mom will kill me if he gets wind of any of the things I just said, but it’s just a fact. What I don’t understand though is polygamy. Wanna tell me after all the stress one woman gives some dudes still choose to go get another wife?! Pure masochists man, that’s gotta be the only explanation.
Tunde: I feel you dude, even though I come from a polygamous home I get u. Guess they don’t make men like they used to.
MM2: U guys are just wusses. Wanna know what kept me going in those rough early years of my marriage?
Tunde: Jesus? Ur wedding vows? Ur kids?
MM2: I wish. My mistresses dude. I kid u not. They want nothing substantive from me and I feel the same about them. Whenever the missus starts her whining I leave the house, go for a drive to clear my head and end up at one of their cribs. I get fed, I watch a li’l TV, she LISTENS to my whining for a change and then sometimes …(adopts a dead-on Bill Clinton impersonation with facial mannerisms and all)… we have sexual relations. By the time I return home whatever the wife says goes in one ear and out the other.
Don’t get me wrong, extramarital ain’t all hunky dory. As it is with these things feelings sometimes get in the way. Time I knew I had to curb this was not when one of the girls told me she loved me, but when I became a pseudo-stalker on this particular cougar. I started acting all possessive and when I discovered she had another toyboy I went into depression for a while. ‘Til this day my wife thinks it’s her constant whining that stopped me from cheating; she wishes. It was her whining that drove me outside in the first place.


MM1: Woah. U were going through this, and u never once mentioned anything?! Not even a hint? And even worse u kept bugging me to get married. Man, if I had known then what I know now I never woulda gotten married.
Julio: Guess misery loves company. Ha ha ha. U guys are killing me! Oh man, can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard. U guys just provided the answer to a question that’s stumped men for ages: How could songwriters such as Babyface, Brian McKnight, et al that capture the very essence of a man’s feeling for a woman in song end up divorced? Now I know. Thanks guys for clearing that up. I am never getting married, and I’ll dedicate the rest of my life to spreading the gospel of singledom.
Tunde: Actually forget what I said earlier about u needing spiritual help earlier. U need something more radical, like a burning bush experience.
MM2: Y’all are crazy. Look, that’s what worked for me, well, apart from the stalking part. I am not advocating y’all do the same. Just speaking truth here.
MM1: Thanks man, but I don’t think that’d work for me. First of all marriage has made me too lazy to think of juggling women. Secondly, I am a bad liar so my wife would instantly get wind of an affair and do a John Wayne Bobbitt to me while I am asleep. Don’t get me wrong I still think of other women, and now and then I wonder what life would be like if I married someone else - lately I have been fantasizing about this Hooters waitress I met in the States a few years ago – but then I quickly regain my senses and realize we’d still have issues. Might be different from what currently ails my wife and I, but there would be other reasons for arguments. Maybe I won’t be referred to as “sperm donor” but other hash words would be used.
Tunde: U know before I got married I used to think to myself how lucky my wife would be. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I am not one of those guys who have to go clubbing all the time, and most of all I am not a big foodie. Gimme some ijebu garri and groundnuts and I am good. What sorta woman wouldn’t like that, right? Right? Boy, did I have it sooooo wrong.
Met this older Maltese dude on the R.I.G. and asked him how long he had been married. “Twenty five years”, he said. Before I’d congratulate him on this impeccable feat he quickly blurted out, “…and in that time I have considered leaving her at least seven times!” Dude went on to relate how he once left home for four months as he couldn’t stand his wife’s whining and bitching anymore. “During that time whenever I’d call home she’d accuse me of having another woman and threatening to take all my money. Told her I didn’t care if she took everything, I just had to get out of the house. Funny thang is in all that time I never propositioned another woman, I just couldn’t stand the sight of my wife. Now I understood why hot women like Halle Berry and Jennifer Aniston have been ‘unlucky’ in love. Unlucky? Yeah right. The rest of the world can fantasize about them but the guys that live with them must see something we don’t. ”


MM1: Man, that Maltese dude must be married to my wife’s doppelganger. That’s exactly how I feel! What wouldn’t I give to be away from my wife for 4 months?
MM2: Me too. However, wanna know the interesting thing about all this? If our wives got together they would list twice as many faults against us as we have spoken about here. Marriage has taught me that two parties can get to a point where they both think know they are right. Surely, one person must be wrong, right? Nope, both husband and wife think they are in the right and the other’s wrong. Amazing how life is, huh? And some folk think God doesn’t have a sense of humour.
MM1: I suppose. What I don’t get though is how stuff I did when I was single, when I didn’t even know she existed, is now in play when we fall out. The other day the missus accused me of being a hypocrite when I cautioned her against gossiping. Oh Mr. Holier-than-thou, this is gist man, not gossip but gist. Where was your moral outrage when you slept with your friend’s mom back in uni?
Tunde: U did what?!
Julio: Okay even I am disgusted by that…and that’s saying a lot dude.
MM1: Look, that happened a long time ago. Besides, the lady was divorced. Plus, mate in question never found out. Not my fault his mom looked like Kris Jenner.
Tunde: U lucky sod. I personally think Kris is better looking than her daughters.
Julio: There you go again, drooling over older women…and trying to change the topic again!
Tunde: Lo siento Julio. Must say though, since I got married I can’t seem to do anything right. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
MM1: Feel you brother. Sometimes I think Tim McGraw’s Angry All The Time should be the soundtrack of my marriage.
Tunde: You know that song?! I love that song! Didn’t know u liked Country Western songs….oops, I’d better hush before Julio opens his mouth again.
Julio: U know me so well. On a serious tip why are y’all so maudlin? Ain’t gonna get married yo, gonna live the George Clooney lifestyle. Just heard he broke up with his latest girlfriend. Dude rocks.
Tunde: Yeah, you know what would be uber-fun? Get George to hook up with Taylor Swift. That chick’s a serial dater and a part of me thinks she does that so she’d have material for her next album. She’s the patron (or is it matron?) saint of all scorned women the world over.
Julio: U are a genius man. That’d be the most scrutinized relationship ever. There’d be a countdown on celeb websites monitoring how long it’d take before they call it quits.
Tunde: Knowing my man George Taylor would probably end up singing his praises at some award show instead of slagging him off. Notice how none of the women he’s been with has ever said a bad word about him? Either he’s super charming or he pays them off.

So the married wusses continued trading war stories for what seemed like forever while I zoned out and thought of possible designs for my Sperm Donor tattoo. Then some dude in a priest’s collar came by our table and asked if he’d join us.

 
Priest: Good evening gentlemen, I couldn’t help overhearing what you guys were talking about. Mind if I join you?
Julio: (*…thinking to himself…this would make a funny joke. So a priests walks into a bar….*)
Tunde: Sure sir. What do we call you, Father, Pastor..?
Priest: How about Bar Hopping Priest? I kid, I kid. I just came by to see the owner of the bar as he’s my cousin. Call me Jeff.
Julio: (*…thinking to himself… So a bar-hopping priests walks into a bar….*)
MM1: Okay Jeff, what did the Lord reveal to you about my marriage? If Chris Okotie, a man of the cloth like u, can get divorced a second time ain’t no way I am not leaving my wife. As soon as our child is born I am getting a divorce. Wanna know the funny thang? Her aunt keeps asking me to forgive my wife’s outbursts. “It’s just hormones acting up”, she says. Well, screw her and her hormones. I am gone!
Julio: (*…thinking to himself… So a bar-hopping priests walks into a bar and sees a man with a dowdy expression on his face. “Why the long face”, he asks. The man looks up at the bar-hopping priest and says, “Me Father? Nothing much, I am just thinking of quitting the family business.” “At a crossroads I see, so what exactly is the family business”, the priest asks. “Well Father, that’s just it, I come from a long, distinguished line of professional sperm donors!”…*)
Jeff the Bar Hopping Priest: Don’t be so rash. Would you like your unborn child to grow up in a broken home? I come from a broken home and trust me there are issues I am still resolving from my childhood. You know each man shall be held accountable for his own actions, right? So don’t dwell on what Chris Okotie does, dwell on what is best for you and your family. Do not forget your wedding vows were made in front of God.

At this point Tunde starts weeping like the wuss he is and I start taking pics of him like his Robert Pattinson after his heifer girlfriend cheated on him. That’s my blackmail pic for life! The dude that invented camera phones should have his own holiday. The preaching continued….

 
Jeff the Bar Hopping Priest Who Apparently Is Mad-dogging Chris Okotie: When I counsel married men in situations such as yours they always spout Ephesians 5:22, Wives, submit to ur husbands as to the Lord but forget God’s instruction to men is even weightier. Just a few verses later husbands are told to love their wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up to her….in this same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself….
Tunde aka Weeping Robert: Hear, hear.
MM1: Just shut your pie-hole Tunde and let Jeff talk!
Jeff the Bar Hopping Priest Who Is Such A Showoff He Quotes Bible Passages In Bars: I don’t want to take up more of your time. Just think things through before you make a decision. God loves you. Goodnight gentlemen.

Jeff the (fill in the blank with your own description) leaves our table and the married wusses remain silent. I tried to lighten the atmosphere…

Julio: Man, talk about a party pooper, huh? That was a scene straight out of a Tyler Perry movie, dontcha think? Speaking of which it just occurred to me y’all stories would make perfect material for an all male, all Nigerian version of Why Did I Get Married?. Huh, huh?
Notice I said ‘Nigerian’ and not ‘Nollywood’ as a Nollywood version would probably be called something moronic like Marriage Crisis or Married Men Club. Am I right or am I right?
Seriously though, where do those guys get their movie titles from? Last week I saw the poster for a movie called Azonto Ghost Part 3. Aaaarrggghh!!! Didn’t know whether to be pissed someone made a movie with that title or be pissed a movie with such a crap title, and worse premise I bet, spawned two sequels.

My attempt at a joke fell flat. One after the other the married wusses got up and headed to their cars…and left me with the bill. Cheapskates! I had a few more drinks and thanked the Lord the thought of settling down had never crossed this stripper’s mind. If talentless ex-stripper Channing Tatum can have an acting career so can I, darn it.

Now off to a tattoo parlour to get me a Sperm Donor tattoo.

Tot ziens and God bless.

Life's little gems

In all honesty the ‘lines’ below are my major reason for starting a blog. They consist of statements/philosophies/jokes/etc that have made me laff/think or bring back special memories. Who am I kidding? These are things I found mostly amusing.

PS
They are listed in no particular order.

"It's difficult to balance being an athlete and a Christian. In a way, that super-competitiveness goes against Christian beliefs. You want to win instead of that guy and if God is with everyone then why should that happen?..."(As spoken by Johnny Akinyemi, Olympic canoeist.)

"I’m where I need to be, or should be, or could be in my life....I think as well as I’ve worked with kids, there are things I don’t think I had the opportunity to do in this life. I think God had intentions for me to do more, but yet still I hear the breath of God telling me, ‘You did more than most people ever thought you would be able to do under the circumstances, so just keep on keepin’ on and we’ll see what comes.’ When I hear that voice, I tell God politely that he sounds too much like the devil for my taste.” (As written by John Carlos, the 1968 Olympics bronze medal winner whose iconic black glove protest still resonates today, in his memoirs.)

"And Gusau, who appears to be in the race more for his personal amusement than in any hopes of being selected, is having a good laugh at all three (Babangida, Abubakar and Saraki) – perhaps even including Jonathan – and saying to himself, if only Nigerians know what I know about these candidates...." (As stated by ThisDay reporter Azu when analyzing the debacle that is the race for the PDP presidential ticket.)

"Nothing in life is for sure, nothing that you see today will always be here tomorrow. All of these people come to Afghanistan of their own volition, they come knowing that they may pay with their lives, the black humour is rife, a good way to keep the apprehension low, to keep calm and carry on. Perhaps no one ever expects it to be them, perhaps not their immediate friends either, it always some poor unknown person, a local national, a third country national. We count those that matter to us. We say that we are prepared for the loss whatever that may be but is it ever possible to be so? To be so prepared is that at polar opposites to the decision to be there in the first place, that somehow, it will never be me or anyone close to me." (As written by Dr. Karen Woo, a humanitarian who was recently slain by the Taliban, in her blog after she learnt of the death of two colleagues in a plane crash in Afghanistan in June 2010.)

"The smartest adulterer ever? Brad Pitt. He upgraded from a workaholic actress who didn't want kids to the hottest/craziest/sexiest woman alive who doubles as a fetus machine … and with no real career repercussions! In fact, nothing Brad Pitt does ever seems to come back and haunt him....everything bounces off that dude." (As replied by ESPN's Sports Guy Bill Simmons to a reader who wanted to know why Bill had chosen Tiger Woods as one of the dumbest adulterers of all time.)

"The governor read your letter and laughed out loud. He wanted me to respond to you. I wish you success as you cut down on your caffeine consumption." (As replied by former Arkansas Governor Huckabee's chief aide on clemency when Robert Herzfeld, then the prosecuting attorney of Saline County, wrote a letter to Governor Huckabee in January 2004, questioning his policy on offering clemency to prisoners without announcing specific reasons for his decisions.)

"I Have A Small Penis." (As tattooed underneath MMA fighter Melivin Costa's belly button.)

"Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film." (As stated by the blackboard behind Woody Paige, panelist on ESPN's Around The Horn on 30th June 2009.)

"I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to be killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so that they know we were not just emotional under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children." (As stated by an Iranian woman to NY Times Columnist Roger Cohen during the June 2009 election protests.)

"I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little better toward them [AIG executives] is if they follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, 'I am sorry,' and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide....And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide." (As stated by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, obviously outraged at news that AIG had paid out bonuses to employees that crafted complicated deals that wound up shaking the world's economic foundations.)

"That's not a boy, that's an unemployed alcoholic!" (As stated by MSN.co.uk music reviewer when discussing Beyonce's If I Was A Boy lyrics "Roll out of bed in the morning / And throw on what I wanted / And go drink beer with the guys.".)

"Rudy Giuliani... I mean, think about it! Rudy Giuliani. There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There's nothing else! There's nothing else! And I mean this sincerely. He's genuinely not qualified to be president." (As said by Joe Biden in 2007. Guess now he's the Democratic veepee nominee his opinions are even stronger.)

"Ibo man wey be Muslim dey find something." (As said by an Ibo colleague championing an argument that the notoriously business-savvy Ibos of Eastern Nigerian would even change religion - they are mostly Xtians - to get a deal done.)

"Even Jesus would have a tough go as a Democrat in Indiana." (As said by a dairy farmer in Indiana, USA when asked if the notoriously Republican-backed state would go blue 'cos of interest generated by the Democratic presidential nominees.)

"He's only 25, albeit a Nigerian 25, and so if that is his age he's still got a good few years ahead of him." (As said by David Moyes when commenting on Yakubu Ayegbeni's hat-trick against SK Brann. Dude deserves a Salford kiss for that comment.)

"No, I have nothing else to do." (As said by Mike Huckabee when asked if he saw any cost of staying in the Republican presidential nominee race, especially with McCain's lead. U gotta love him, he really is a breath of fresh air.)

"The Senate does not have funds allocated for payment of ransom for the release of senator or resource person taken as hostage by the militants." (As said by Nigerian Senate President David Mark as an appeal to the militants during the Senate's planned visit to the Niger Delta creeks. So dude wants to tell me other Nigerians have set aside funds u know just in case they get kidnapped?)

"Enwerem, erstwhile Senate President, could die today but he can't die tomorrow. We shall see what will happen tomorrow." (As said by a member of the 'Integrity Group' on the excuse by the Speaker of Nigeria's House of Representatives to postpone a motion to probe her.)

"You're talking to Noah about the flood." (As said by George W. Bush, when asked by a reporter give him some good news amidst all the goings-on during this stage of his presidency.)

"The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. It closes upon the twilight, but it opens upon dawn." (As said by Victor Hugo, when discussing life after death.)

"Difficult takes a day. Impossible takes a week." (As said by Jay-Z on Kanye's Diamonds Are Forever Remix. Better words have never left those huge lips.)

"There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another. I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner?" (As said by Frank Zappa, and used by a commentator to poo poo the fallacious idea that listening to rap music causes folk to commit violent acts.)

"The wheat producers have failed to meet the conditions we gave to them. We have waited for one year and you have not done anything and insha allah, you will not go beyond the 1st of July. If you do not do anything, your mill will be closed." (As said by President Obasanjo, while berating millers to include 10 per cent of cassava flour in wheat flour or have their mills closed.)

"No, but I understand Einstein." (As said by Mrs. Einstein, when asked if she understood the theory of relativity.)

"Lagos has for 20 years opposed every Governor and has formented strife and bloodshed in the hinterland....I have spent the best part of my life in Africa, my aim has been the betterment of the natives for whom I have been ready to give my life. But after some 29 years, and after nearly 12 years as Governor here, I am free to say that the people of Lagos and indeed the Westerners are the lowest, the most seditious and disloyal, the most purely prompted by self seeking money motives of any people I have met." (As said by Lord Lugard in 1916. U think he wasn't too pleased with his assignment?)

"There is something that can happen to every athlete and every human being; the instinct to slack off, to give in to pain, to give less than your best; the instinct to hope you can win through luck or through your opponent not doing his best, instead of going to the limit and past your limit where victory is found. Defeating those negative instincts that are out to defeat us, is the difference between winning and losing - and we all face that battle every day." (As said by the 1936 Olympics four gold medal winner Jesse Owens)

"I told him, cheat on me all you want. If you get caught, I'm going to s***w everybody on your entire team. Coaches, trainers, players. I would do everybody on his whole team." (As said on Howard Stern's radio show by Anna Benson, wife of baseball player Kris Benson. Guess Kris's NY Mets teammates are going around with camera phones hoping they catch him being unfaithful.)

".....the jarring result is that Farrell's Alexander looks like a Babylonian hooker after a busy Saturday night." (As said by CNN.com's film critic Paul Clinton, when discussing Colin Farrell's bad hair-dye job in the movie Alexander.)

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." (As stated by former US politician Pat Robertson in 1992. Well, I sure am glad I'm not a feminist)

"I just don't want the day to come where I pick up that paper and it says [Zach] shot someone, or that he was shot. Every day that goes by that I don't see that, I feel good" (As said by NBA player Zach Randolph's high school coach and seen on ESPN.com)

"We have too many of our own problems, these explosions, this lack of stability, to be bothered about it (the US election)" (A statement by Iraqi grocer Georges Butros as seen in METRO newspaper, Thursday November 4th 2004)

"If they put up a vacuum cleaner against Bush we'd vote for it and just ask them to change the bag every now and then,". (As seen in an article in The Guardian about Bush and Kerry supporters.)

Better to have loved and lost than to live with the psycho the rest of your life . (As seen on a poster in an ‘alternative’ card shop.)

Not all men are fools. Some are bachelors. (This was inscribed on a sticker displayed on the large wall in my oldest brother’s room. OBTW he's now married with a kid. Go figure.)

If he dies, he dies. (Scene from Rocky IV, one of my all-time favourite movies, where Ivan Drago’s being interviewed after pummelling the life, literally, outta Apollo Creed. Sylvester’s Stallone reaction here is worth the price of purchase/rental alone. Utterly hilarious.)

If Tupac and that dude from the Google Chrome commercial can do it so can I

My daughter,

Welcome to this weird, wonderful world of ours. You know ur your (always spell properly) mom always bugged me about speaking to you while you were in the womb, but to be honest I felt it was one of those old wives’ tales like placing a strand of cotton on baby’s head to cure her of hiccups. To humour her I would talk to you doing various impersonations, my favorite being Barry White - Google him if you like – but problem was my faux baritone only kicked in first thang thing in the morning and after a few days your mom got fed up with my morning breath and begged me to stop.

For your birth I had planned to go the whole nine with a camcorder, Darth Vader costume – I practiced “(deep breath) I (deep breath) am (deep breath) your (deep breath) father (deep breath)” over and over again until I could have played James Earl Jones’s understudy. Also planned a music player at the ready to kick in Circle Of Life from The Lion King soundtrack soon as your head popped out. Want to know what put paid to my plans? P-A-I-N!!! I know you are just coming into the world and this might be too early for your tender ears but pregnancy contractions are indescribably painful. Why am I telling you this? I am not sure, maybe because I am still in therapy trying to overcome seeing your mom in so much pain. And you know your mom, she read all the maternity books she could lay her hands on so she was well prepared, especially some book called Spiritual Childbirth, and still the pain was excruciating. Moi? I made do with The Bloke’s Guide To Babies. Didn’t help much but it made your mom happy I made an effort.

Here’s a tip from father to daughter: humour your mom at times even if her request doesn’t make sense to you, it helps to reduce her nagging. Why do you think your pic is currently displayed on my Blackberry profile? I am incredibly private but your mom made such a fuss about it, as if my not putting your pic up for the world to gawk at – and let’s not forget the “ooh she’s soo cute” and “oooh can’t believe you are a dad” trite statements peeps spew out – was a sure sign I would become an emotionally distant father. How was she to know I had secretly become the type of parent I swore I would never be, that all someone had to do was inquire about you and I would start showing them slideshows of you on my phone?

Saying all that one must admit your mom really is a real trooper. Eighteen hours in labour she endured; your dad and maternal grandmother tried their utmost to cheer her on while being subjected to a barrage of verbal, erm, responses from your unusually intimidating mother. To calm her down, instead of Elton John warbling on about the circle of life we had to make do with an oldies station on the radio and at two minutes past midnight you came forth to the Lionel Richie’s Endless Love. This is where women reading this collectively go awwwww but even your cynical old dad must agree the song was apt.
Trust me even if the Ku Klux Klan’s theme song blared out your dad would find a way to segue the “aptness” of that to your birth. Don’t blame him, it is what adults do in an attempt to justify how once-in-a-million-Halley’s comet-unique the bond between they and their kids is. Your uncle Jide took this to the extreme when your cousin Mimi was few months old by boldly affirming, “she has my arms”. Yes, I know what you are cooing about and I wholly agree that is as tenuous a link as there ever will be.

With all the pain your mom went through and all my frightfulness at not being able to help alleviate the pain it all made sense to me when I cut the umbilical cord. To your mom it clicked earlier: at the peak of our back-and-forths while you were doing your utmost to squeeze out from between her thighs your mama and I agreed you would be our only child; I couldn’t see myself going through something like this again and your mom couldn’t either. Well what would you know, less than ten seconds after the nurse wiped you down and handed you to her your mom turns to me and says, “I am so happy……we’d try for another one.” U what?! Mi bambino, extirpate this from your mind after reading this, but I have to confess: THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES IS MORE DEADLY LOONEY THAN THE MALE.

Oh while we are on that tip, do you know you should have been a boy. Yes, we had two scans and were assured you were a boy. Yup, two scans. After you were born the midwife told us scans are only right 99 percent of the time. So keep this away from the Occupy Wall Street folk – you can Google them as well - babes, we are part of the 1%! Yes, we are…..yes, we are. You have a trust fund and everything. Seriously, you do….okay you will have one by the time you are old enough to read this. Your mom will probably use this to blackmail me for your affection so it’s best I confess here that I actually wanted a boy. In addition to your dad’s vast skills as a DIY guru he also used to moonlight as a clairvoyant under the nom de guerre Prophet Joe. Okay maybe blue-moonlight is a better term as I couldn’t get a vision for everyone, my powers were random at best. But when I was in my zone bambino I was gooood. My specialty was in predicting genders of unborn babies and I had a 100% success rate….until your birth that is.

So my powers supported by the scans confirmed you would be a boy and I already had plans to enroll you for training at Arsenal Football Club, UK. You were going to be the first footballing Academy Award Winner with a Nobel Peace Prize before your 30th birthday. I know you may feel I was trying to live vicariously through your male self, but you have to admit those goals were way loftier than that lady in Texas who dyed her 2 year old daughter’s hair blond all in the hope she would one day become a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys. Now aren’t you glad God sent you to me instead?

Why did I want a boy? Er, well, your dad is a wuss about emotional stuff. You see, er, with a boy one can leave them to their own devices….sorta. They choose to get married at 50? No problem. They date the wrong woman/women? No worries, they’ll get it right later. Girls on the other hand? One, well a father, has to worry like crazy because he knows what goes on in guys’ heads. He prays to God to forgive his past indiscretions and though he could be a worshipper of any religion for just that brief moment when it dawns on him he has a FEMALE child the innate Bhuddist in him prays karma doesn’t take a big chunk out of his derriere. Chris Rock said it best when he said his job as a father was to ensure his daughter doesn’t have too many daddy issues she ends up as a stripper. A male stripper? As long as he ain’t gay most fathers would shrug it off.

Bambino, was the last paragraph a tad misogynistic? I apologize, and as someone who’s been exposed to Western media his entire life I ought to know better, but as someone who’s been exposed to Western media his entire life I have to shirk responsibility any way I know how so I am blaming this on watching too many Oliver Stone movies.

Hmmm, not convinced? Maybe the following will put a better perspective on my recent bout of Neanderthalism (it’s a word daddy made up just for you bambino):

1. A female friend who once had her sights set on me: “You had a girl? God don catch you! All the women you went after, now you will know what their fathers went through.”
2. Mate from boarding school: “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Going to send my son round…wink wink. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.”
3. Mate from Nigerian university: “So so so chuffed you had a girl. Have two girls and when you told me your wife was preggers I prayed and prayed you would have a girl too so I wouldn’t be the only one with insecurities.”
4. Older work colleague: “You had a girl? Lucky you man, now you know your future’s secure as female kids take good care of their folks, especially the fathers.”
5. Mate of older work colleague (who approached me soon as colleague walked out of the room): “Psst. Don’t listen to him, he’s spouting that because he has five daughters and is scared shitless. You know how everyone never tells a parent to his face he has an ugly baby? Same way guys will female kids are automatically programmed to commiserate with guys of their ilk. I know because I have two daughters of my own. Two words for you sir: guns and guard-dogs!”

Gulp! Now you understand daddy’s fears a bit more? What I left out of ALL those, ahem, testimonials was the prefix “Man, I cannot picture you as someone’s dad.” It’s true bambino, I can’t believe I am a dad myself. It seems like only yesterday your mom and I exchanged vows and now you are here, a living, breathing part of me. Woah. Actually what those folks were referring to is your dad’s sometimes most times infantile behavior. This is a dude that frantically searched Youtube for Jodeci’s Forever My Lady video, donned on leather pants with high-top boots and did his K-Ci Hailey impression – not to worry he was the only one at home – after your mom informed him over the phone that she was pregnant. Why did he do this? Because he was overjoyed……and he didn’t know the lyrics to Guns N’ Roses’s Sweet Child O Mine. Ha. See what I mean? Even your ten year old cousin Tishe furtively asked your mom how I was coping with being a dad as she can tell “it’s going to be daunting for uncle Tunde”. Initially I doubted my abilities as any sane man would, but want to know why I know I am ready to be a dad? Few months before you were born I started to observe my dance moves were slowly fading away, now all I am left with is the same ol’ two-step your paternal grandfather does.

On a serious tip bambino, I know there’ll come a time when this diamond stud-rocking, funny shirt-wearing, fake ponytail-clipping man will embarrass the heck out of you when he thinks he’s being cool. Please cut me some slack and remember I love you very much, shall always be proud of you no matter what, and will do my utmost to protect you. You should have seen what a mess I was when you start bawling after your first jabs. No amount of absent pictures of you on Blackberry will change how I will forever feel about you, okay? Love you loads and looking forward to our exciting life together.

Your dad,
Tunde

PS
I know I stated I will always be proud of you but you are not considering auditioning for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad, are you? Just checking….

PPS
Justin Bieber is evil….and has a combover. Feel free to hate him.

Articles of interest to moi (2011)

We never learn, do we?
Screwed up priorities
Taking the good with the bad
The icon that is Eddie
Even better
Well said
Jungle fever
SPDC's messy asset sale
Skip the entire article and go to the last paragraph. The Theron man, the Theron!
A decade after September 11th
PIB ineffectiveness
Same ol' Delta
Space 1999
Incredible
What came first: the egg, the chicken, or the CBN?
$900 prayer
Here we go again...
Playing politics with Nigeria electricity
This would be funny if Charlie Sheen didn't require help....who am I kidding, it's uber funny!!!
No wonder the Nigerian leadership don't wanna sign the FOI bill
Need to read Uncle Tom's Cabin so I can finally get an idea of the term
This guy sucks so much he'd be a vacuum cleaner
Tiger blood baby!!!
Bill tells it like it is. NFL owners must be related to Nigerian politicians
And u plan to curb vote rigging?!
Historical Jesus?
Science explains all
All sorts of people, huh? Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to Nigerian leadership
No bling for our new hero
Yup, it's definitely spreading
Smackdown beeeaaatttch!!
Told ya Nigerians are everywhere!
Uh oh
But I love the game....boo hoo
It's spreading....
Certainly no relation of Peter Parker
Teach urself
Ghana, the choice is urs
I am questioning the same as well..
National cake
Privitisation in Nigeria
No place like Warri
US gun laws