Dementia... I do not welcome you

David was right. You should never stop because if you do, it gets taken away from you. You forget how to do it. You lose your touch. 

I understand now because it's happening to me. I haven't played (guitar) in two years. I haven't sang in public for two years. I've been writing less and less and I can feel my talent atrophying. It's a bit like suffocating. Sometimes I dream about myself becoming irrelevant. And I wake up all sweaty, breathless... choking actually, as if some murderous hulk had been trying to to fill his quota with me.

Been reading about depression and aging and come to the conclusion that, approaching thirty is driving me insane. I'm depressed... been depressed for all of 2012. I'm overweight - and it's not going anywhere (:D). That smile does not mean I am happy. Far from it.

When I was younger, I swore to myself that I'd be working towards being a millionaire. By the time I was 25, I hadn't even hit point two of a million. Am I a failure? Sure fills like it.

But then I look at all the other things I've accomplished that, had I been so focused on the mulla, I wouldn't have achieved. Still, it feels so small compared to what I thought I would be to the world by now. I feel, like I said earlier, irrelevant. Like a nobody. Like if I died today, no one would notice and if they did, it would be to brush me off their shoulders; like a speck of dust.

Lately, it feels like I'm struggling to do things. Talk, think, walk... did I say think. I guess everyone has a unique experience while aging but, it feels like I'm losing my mind. Dementia, Alzheimers, bloody fuckin' brain bleeds or a tumor that hasn't been discovered yet.

Whatever it is, it's consuming me and I wonder...

I wonder if I'll be around much longer. 

(David was a guitarist/vocalist for The Beathogs... wonder if he ever had that baby he wanted) 
   

Random Thoughts about TPF, Pirated Movies and other things

Had a very strange dream about my boots, my "challenge accepted" T-Shirt which Spyder so kindly thought to make for me, and Tusker Project Fame Season 5 (TPF5). So when I woke up, I made sure to wear that T-Shirt, yesterday's sweat and all, and those boots and to go to the TPF dome tonight. Not sure what will happen but, I'm excited to find out.

It must be something to do with the recent BBC reports I've been listening to. Don't know how, I just feel it's connected. I remember wondering - while listening to BBC features - why all our radio stations waste their airwaves playing just music.We could be doing pieces on Kenyan, African history even, but no! We're busy feeding ourselves and our children with American music, American slang, American bullshit. 

I'll admit, I'm envious of their ability to do the kind of stuff they do. The traveling, the hit music, the epic action movies, their version of Anime. It's annoying to say the least, that I'd rather watch Big Bang Theory than Mali. I really would. It's terrible that I spend hundreds and hundreds of 50bobs a year just buying pirated American and European movies.

The only thing I pride myself in as a black skinned African, is that when I find something useful in those foreign pictures that I watch, I share them with my peers in the hope that we shall be able to adopt and Africanize. Unfortunately, we only ever mimic... like monkeys. Not all of us, but most. I mean, have you heard some of the accents people have. 

Even those afflicted with the mother-tongue influence insist on emphasizing the twang. God help us!

chikitakooki's photostream

chikitakooki's photostream on Flickr.

The Paranoid Survive.

Met up with artist Nita Hungu this past weekend. Will be writing her story. New style, new feel, new everything. Talking to her, and her manager(Barak) and PR consultant(Wesonga), it was like my eyes had been opened this new awesomeness. forgive my lack of vocabulary, it's all the badness I've been absorbing by not blocking out guys that are out to get me. 

The paranoid survive.I feel as if no matter what we do, there's always someone looking us the wrong way, wishing we were unhappy. Guess what? The human race is unhappy from birth. So I don't understand why anyone would want to make it any worse for themselves or anyone else.

Wish some people would ease up a bit. Live a little, learn to smile with your eyes more than anything, be as nice as possible. There's no need to hate anyone for no reason. And when you do, question yourself until you figure out why you're being such a dick to people.

I will say it again: the paranoid survive but mostly, we're all just a bunch of lucky bastards.

Njerish

Perfection ends...

I was stuck in traffic this morning, not too long ago in fact. It was the kind of early traffic that you would normally loathe for keeping you away from the work you wanted to get done. And the driver of our matatu was a Rasta man. He had, hidden within a swollen mound of cap, a glorious mane of true African kink.

So, yes. As stuck as we were, no one was mad. The driver kept chiding his conductors for not 'fixing' a jam that he invariably caused to begin with by using the wrong lane; they promptly, but not very proactively fixed the jam and had us moving in what seemed like no time.

During the short struggle however, our bus had touched bellies with a smaller personal type car and once again the driver chided one of his men for not fixing the chuma. Chuma? Asked the conductor. Yes chuma the dreadlocked driver had responded. Chuma? Asked the conductor again. Eeeh chuma the driver had responded rather disgustedly. This had everyone in the bus giggling like silly little girls. I hadn’t spared.

Remind me of that time I’d gone into Tuskey’s and when that Boyz II Men - Mariah Carrey song had started, everyone had started singing along. Sometimes, the universe puts together a bunch of people who would live in perfect harmony with each other. We just never open our eyes to it.

A soon as I left that bus I felt like i had lost a family. It wa like leaving an island you knew you could never get back to because global warming was going to cause it to be submerged forever. It’s just the way things are sometimes. They’re beautifully perfect for a while. And then they’re perfectly over forever.

All I missed out on

Every time I think about the things my folks DID NOT do for me, that they should have, I am reminded how big of a miracle it is that I am alive. I remember being sick most of the time as a child and being asked:

"How long have you been feeling like this," by one of my parents. In spite of an answer to affirm how gravely ill I was, the response was always something like:
"Oh okay. Let me know if you get any worse..."
Worse? Worse? I'll show you worse! How about a dead stinking corpse of drug-drenched me? How's that for worse!

It's a little angering, especially when I see kids being mistreated by their parents nowadays. They're more enlightened about disease and how it's prevention can prevent a world of grief - both for them and their children - and yet, they still behave like they're in that prehistoric period before the stone age. You know, that one where insects were considered a little more intelligent than the so called Homo Sapiens.

I tell you, there's nothing as heart wrenching as a careless parent. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's that I'm growing older that I find myself caring a little more. A little too much if you ask me. The thought of having my own children is so unappealing, that I'd rather adopt about 50 kids form the streets and home-school them. Yep. Last time I checked, I still had a good bulk of matter in my thick skull - and as long as I write everything down, I won't forget the important stuff, you know?

There are so many people, the world over having babies for the simple selfish reason of proving their own virility (is that the word?) after which they promptly abdicate their responsibilities or delegate them to a maid or nanny or whatever you want to to call them.

The people for whom child making or child baring is so easy seem the least interested in their offspring, it seems. In some ways, this makes me wonder what it would be like if the Chinese one child per couple rule were enforced universally.

I do not know that they did the best they could. I believe however that our parents got tired along the way and decided on a one-size-fits-all outfit in all facets our lives. We all went to the same schools, even though we are completely different from each other. I especially hated the comparisons that people made between me and my older sister. I hated it like you wouldn't believe. And every time I remember how much I hate, I know that I would never do the same things to my kids or anyone else's unless I was completely fucking brain dead.

Disclaimer: this article is fictional and shall not be taken as truth...but I really know how to feign anger, don't I, did you feel it?

Murfy's fLaw lead guitarist turns 100 this past weekend.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOCO

I know it’s a little easier said than done but, no one should ever have to thank you for doing your job. The salary you get is already thanks enough, and not only that, but the satisfaction of completing something successfully that you love should be more than payment enough. And the recognition you get, if any, is just that extra cheese you like but don’t need on your pizza. Needless to say, we all need to survive, thus the need to be a bit of a street-smarty when it comes to getting jobs and getting them done well. 

Think of it this way; you may not always get to do what you love for a living. Things happen, people grow old, get arthritis if they’re athletes, go blind if they’re readers, writers or editors, you know … that kind of thing. But it’s your duty to make hay while the sun shines, so that when it don’t shine, you have lots of stash underground to live on.

So one of Murfy’s fLaw just turned a lot older this past weekend; I’m impressed with the load of them this far. They are the hardest working band I know. And they know it too. They have three albums out and with 4 out of 6 of them running households of their own, you’d think they’d get a standing ovation.

People, guys are willing to spend their cash to make music to entertain and educate you, give DJs something worthwhile to do, keep your kids glued to the television and tuned into stations where too often, radio presenters grossly misuse their power. When we don’t appreciate our own they wither and die and if they don’t, they go where they know they will be appreciated. This, I’m afraid is where one of greatest talents, Murfy’s are headed.

 I had the great fortune of being at one of their birthday Shin-digs. Their lead guitarist was celebrating another year on earth. He goes by many names; Foco (pronounced foko), Foco Jembe, Fauz Noir, 9ine and most recently the mad-man (he will gladly confirm this himself). He can put a talk show host to shame this one. He makes fun of everyone and every situation, you can’t beat him in a diss contest, but you could try, just so you could hear what he had to say, and maybe attempt to understand how witty he is.

Talkative and sometimes coming off as abrasive, Foco is one of those guys you want to hear talk. A little bit like Russell Brand. He’ll insult you and you’ll just laugh. Just the kind of person he is. Sometimes you listen, sometimes you don’t. Not because what he’s saying is not important but because sometimes, it’s just easier to listen to other things, you know; you get distracted by the sound of waiters dropping glasses and cursing at the mess.

Don’t know about other musicians but, he and his band some of the few that I know that don’t care what other people think. While we can think of about 1000 musicians that could mentor the next generation of musicians, those musicians are busy being ignored by the very people that should take the baton from them by playing their music. Not mentioning any names but how do you expect things to go anywhere when you’re giving foreigners priority over your very own? Take Camp Mulla for instance, they produced such good quality music and corresponding video that everyone was convinced they weren’t Kenyan. But they are. And so are all these other bands trying to get airplay but getting kicked in the teeth instead.

Radio and Television producers, do your jobs; talent and quality stares you right in the face.