Coming from where I'm from

Subsidized intellectuals

2012-01-21T19:41:00.000-08:00

I am part Nigerian, so I'm not indifferent to the events that happen in my country. This is why I've been following the social unrest that has resulted from the petroleum subsidy removal with a keen eye.

Quick recap.
Nigeria, Africa's first oil producer and second largest economy has been providing oil to its citizens at a cheaper price than it should be selling on the market. This has been accepted by the citizenry as one of the advantages of being an oil producing country. Long story short, the government removed the subsidy as a 'new years gift'. Citizens got really mad, labor unions joined in and it has brought the country to a standstill. Negotiations are on their way and based on what I'm hearing the government will budge, but not too much.

A good explanation of government's rationale is provided by Lamido Sanusi, current central bank governor( on Reuters or bbc). And a good take on why people are protesting can be found on bbc, 'have your say' I think they archive their shows.

This is my problem. I've listened to a wide variety of opinions on this matter, a lot of the critics' arguments made sense and were very convincing. But there's always something missing from these great intelligent, smart, intellectual people's opinions.

What the hell would you do?

In more polished English: in matters of governance, I believe that it is useful to correctly identify the root problem and provide constructive criticism. But it is even better to provide an alternative that might address the problem at hand.

Today for the first time, after probably reading my 25th article on this issue, I came across a novelty. A person that followed up his criticism with an proposal for a better way forward.

Yeshir Ben Yahmed (editor in chief) of Jeune Afrique in his column "Ce que je crois" I've come to respect his analysis and opinions, even though I don't always agree with him. He did a good job breaking down the problem, and he actually provided his alternative.

Before getting there, I want to point out that in my opinion, the sudden way in which the government removed the subsidy without any warning was not 'stupid' or 'not well thought out' as some have said. It was probably a pre-meditated move.

It made me think of 'shock-doctrine' an idea really made popular by Jeffrey Sachs whereby when the government knows it is about to implement a really unpopular policy, it should go about it very quickly and even as a surprise so as to shock people. Sort of how people remove band aids brutally as opposed to doing it meticulously to just get the pain out of the way in one stroke. Jeffrey Sachs pioneered this idea with his work rehabilitating the Chilean, and Polish economy by advising their governments to do just that. In strictly statistical terms his work in those two countries was deemed as a success albeit a very painful one. (not so much in Russia)

So yeah, the Nigerian government is not 'stupid' to just spring that on Nigerians, I think it was on purpose. Especially when you consider that Goodluck Jonathan's economic has a Goldman Sachs alum and a World Bank alum. Smells like shock doctrine to me. I haven't looked at empirical evidence to see if shock therapy in governance actually works or not, but in this case in Nigeria, it did not. Resoundingly so.

Anyway, that was a digression. Our BBY of jeune Afrique says that he would have removed the subsidy gradually over a ten year period of time to give the people of Nigeria time to adjust.

Thank you BBY, at least you put yourself out there with a solution instead of safely hating from the sidelines.

I disagree with him though. The subsidy is estimated to cost Nigeria $8 billion a year. So basically you would still be wasting money until the subsidy was removed all for the sake of appeasing your citizenry. And the purpose of removing the subsidy is to cut waste.

I think the government of Nigeria should have instead run a sensibilization campaign on tv and on radio warning and educating its citizens about the subsidy removal and why it was necessary, it's citizens would have been better prepared to then face it. Some would counteract that with its high level of illiteracy, such a prescription would not work in a country like Nigeria. Especially given that we're dealing with economics here a subject too 'complicated' for the average Nigerian. I REJECT such thinking, low levels of literacy does not mean lack of logic and inability to think rationally.

Bottom line, African government need to spend more time communicating with its people, if they do, they will have an attentive and more patient ear.

I agree with Mark Penn when he says "Voters are not stupid".

Debt... And optimism

2011-11-12T20:33:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading "Boomerang" by Michael Lewis, felt it would give me some cultural insight into the Eurozone debt crisis. It did. The book ends with the following paragraph that I found very pertinent in many ways...

When people pile up debts they find it difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things at once. They are obviously saying that they want more than they can immediately afford. They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, it is worth some future difficulty. But in making that bargain they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they'll figure it out. They don't always do that. But you can never rule out the possibility that they will. As idiotic as optimism can sometimes seem, it has a weird habit of paying off.

“Africa needs strong institutions not strong men” Barack Obama

2011-03-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

The biggest, saddest, most dramatic thing is happening in the Ivory Coast. One country, two presidents, three first ladies. I was asked by my cuz to write something for some thing he's organizing. So I figured, if I'm out there, I might as well put myself out there here too. For the record, it took me 30 minutes to write this, it's not edited, I didn't bother citing nobody and it's off memory. I didn't cross check my facts. Ce qui est sur,
"Lisez mes écrits... je laisse des traces" I wonder who I just quoted...

The biggest lesson to be learnt from the Ivory Coast crisis is that Africa needs to strengthen its institutions. It was through a revision of the Electoral code that Bédié was able to prevent Ouattara for President from running in 1995. That was an abuse of executive power. It was through a presidential decree that Gbagbo then overruled the electoral code to allow Ouattara to run for elections, hoping that such a gesture would help bring about reconciliation. Even though one can understand the well-meaning intent of that gesture, one has to shudder when the president of a nation can change the law of the land through a presidential decree. It was again due to a weakness in the institutions that Gbagbo decided to ask for the United Nations help in conducting the elections. Finally it was due to weak institutions that the constitutional council decided to cancel the votes of more than 500, 000 Ivoirians claiming ‘irregularities’ in the electoral process in their departments. In each of these instances, the overwhelming power of the Executive vis a vis the Judiciary was abused in a way that would have negative consequences for Ivory Coast.
The Ivory Coast constitution as presently written stipulates that if the constitutional council notices irregularities in the elections, they can declare the elections null and void and they are responsible for organizing new elections within a limited time frame. The constitutional council is also the only body that is supposed to declare the winner of the elections in the Ivory Coast. This is the thrust of Gbagbo’s camp’s argument against the UN, that the UN has overstepped its boundaries by declaring Ouattara President instead of the country’s entity responsible for doing so. This is true. But the constitutional council also overstepped its boundaries by only partly cancelling the results of the elections and then declaring Gbagbo the winner. They should have followed the letter of the law and organized a new set of elections if they felt that these ones were marred by irregularities and fraudulent. That would have caused waves, but at least it would have been in line with the law of the land.

Violence is not an answer
The declared reason by the ‘Force Nouvelles’ for attacking the Ivory Coast 2002 and causing a conflict that split the country in two, was that they were doing this because they wanted Alassane Ouattara to be eligible to run for president. He had been unfairly sidelined by Konan Bédié and was ‘out of politics’ when the crisis started. The Force Nouvelles, who mostly hail from the North, felt Northerners were marginalized and their solution was to pick up arms and attack the country. That was a misguided decision. What was even more misguided was forcing Gbagbo to sit down and negotiate with them and include some members of the Forces Nouvelles in his government. The lesson was very clear, if you can’t get what you want via the political process in your country, pick up arms, attack the country, start a conflict and then through French imposed negotiations you’ll become a Minister in the government. The international community should have condemned the 2002 uprising and the leaders of the rebel movement should have been tried for war crimes. Instead, some of them became cabinet ministers. This may have seemed to be an expedient solution at the time, but it would have disastrous consequences in the future. You don’t compensate violence with ministerial jobs. Unfortunately, now everybody seems to have learnt the lesson and violence is now the modus operandi in Ivory Coast politics. As a Ghanaian, I do hope that we as a country are paying attention, especially these days when ‘all die be die’ is the mantra for the main opposition party… Violence only begets violence.

Don’t rush to elections
Another lesson to learn is not to rush to elections. Laurent Gbagbo had been accused by the whole world of delaying and dodging the elections. This is because he overran his mandate by 5 years saying repeatedly that his country was not ready for elections. It seems that achieving the completion of the HIPC program was motivation enough for him to go to elections, especially since it was estimated that achieving the completion point would mean a $500 million annual addition to Ivory Coast’s budget. Even though it was not openly stipulated, it was an unwritten agreement that Ivory Coast would have to go through free and fair elections before achieving that completion point.
I am all for elections. But how can an election be free and fair, when half of the country is still occupied by rebel forces who are unwilling to disarm? This situation was actually a ticking time bomb. The international community should have insisted on all parties putting down weapons and disbanding their militias before elections occurred, this would have reduced the chance of any side claiming ‘irregularities’. Such an important and expensive election should have at least been adequately prepared so that all that money didn’t go to waste and no party would have a chance to claim fraud. As it is, EVERY camp in these elections claimed that there was fraud against them. Some of these claims have been buttressed by independent electoral observers. What’s the point of rushing to an election that will be fraudulent and marred by irregularities?

The way forward
Since the beginning of this post electoral conflict, I have been amazed at the amount of ‘solutions’ provided by well meaning intellectuals in their Ivory Towers. They seem to forget one little problem: politics is conducted by real human beings in a real world. Not in a theoretical textbook. Any solution to the crisis needs to bear that in mind, it needs to be practical, feasible, and take into account the complicated nature of the Ivory Coast crisis.

Middle class security guards

2010-10-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

(Sorry for the typos and the general roughness, I wrote most of this post on my iphone, while stuck in traffic in Accra)
Roughly about 4 years ago I had a conversation that marked me and another one I had today brought it to mind. So I thought I'd share it with ya'll. My house in Ghana is 'protected' by a security guard. This is actually fairly standard practice in Africa. People who are doing ok have security guards who actually pretend to watch over the house and I guess it acts as a deterrent against people trying to come and rob the house.
Basically John our security guy was telling me that he was studying sociology at Legon university. Pretty mundane stuff... Or is it?

A security guard who has the great idea to go to university and study for his classes while he is pretending to work! As 'duh' as it seems, in all my years in Africa I had never come across this. Security guys doing a few businesses on the side, sure, but not actually going to one of Ghana's better universities and getting a bachelors in sociology of all topics.
This simple conversation speaks to Africa's progress in so many ways. Let me highlight the ones that stand out to me.
Affordable education: I don't know the details of johns salary but I have a rough idea of Legon's fees and they are not exorbitant (at least for Ghanaian nationals). And the government of Ghana has created an environment where John could afford to live and go to university off his security guard salary.

Aspiration: shout out to John to aspire to more and identify education as his way of moving up in the game

Africa has progressed: about 10 years ago I remember that a security guard friend of mine was begging me to sell him my Walkman for $40, which was incidentally his monthly salary... From a Walkman to a bachelors in sociology.

Middle class: and this is the most important point. To me, middle class is actually a state of mind. Provided u comfortably have food and shelter, u are middle class if u are comfortable that with hard work, you can improve your standing in life.

And no matter what your political affiliation. You have to admit that the middle class in Ghana has swelled dramatically over the last ten years...

I asked about John recently, and now he's not a security guard anymore. He works for the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghana police force at Tema, Accra's main port. I joked that if he's not careful, he'll be making some serious money fast. And what do you know, I was told he now 'has his own car and a very big stomach'. (unfortunately in Africa, customs is a great way to make money, Paul Collier does a wonderful job explaining why in his book: The bottom billion. But that's another story...)

So today I saw another security guy studying some very difficult looking statistics. So I asked him why he was looking at these difficult looking mathematical equations. His answer: "he has to do statistics as part of his b.a. in poli-sci" me:'this looks hard' him:"actually this is the easy part"....

I wonder what he will become four years from now...

Straight from Twitter

2010-07-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

I don't usually do this. But I felt this one had to reach as many people as possible, so I'm gonna copy and paste a few of my tweets about a book I read. For better understanding you gotta read from the bottom up

You can check out www.villagehealthworks.org if you wanna know more about the clinic

Hopefully doing that will allow people to learn from past mistakes. Especially looking at what is going on there these days...

Sidenote: it's one thing to kinda know the facts about the genocide in Rwanda/Burundi. But it's better to try look at the causes

The clinic was built by a Tutsi in a village mostly inhabited by Hutus

He wants to do this so bad that he drops out of med school to focus on building his clinic in his village in Burundi

By then, things have calmed down back home and he visits a couple times. Until he decides that he really wants to build a clinic

From there he gets into dartmouth medical school (from homeless to dartmouth med school... Do you receive it today!)

So after Columbia he manages to meet dr Paul Farmer (wikipedia him) and finds a job at partners in health

For the record, I'm not a big fan of the USA but one thing is for sure the 'American Dream' is a very REAL thing

The undergrad is Columbia. So from cowherding, to med school student, to refugee, to delivering groceries, to Columbia university

And eventually help him enroll in a Esol program. From the esol program he gets into undergrad

To be more precise, I think his home is central park. So anyway he eventually runs into a couple good samaritans who take care of him

He eventually lands a job delivering groceries. But this job pays him so little that he's homeless for a looooong time

Lands in the us with $200 in his pockets, not knowing how to speak English still dazed from the war.

He somehow manages to find himself on a flight to the US with a visa and everything.

So the war breaks out and he has to spend his time fleeing from left to right because he's a Tutsi

Before the war broke out he was a med school student in Burundi. His dad was a cow herder and farmer...

Now. Deo barely escapes from the genocide in Burundi. And when I say barely, I mean barely.

Before I continue, I want to say that for a portion of my life I want to do stuff like what Paul farmer and Deo are doing. So help me God

"Strength in what remains" by Tracy Kidder is a book about Deo a guy from Burundi

Premier Katta Decalle chinois...

2010-04-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

To me China's move into africa primarily means this. Yeah, i don't know how to embed a video in a blog, maybe I should ask dctobc.

Anyway, some people view China as this new savior that will change things for Africa because 'They don't tell us what to do'. Well, this is my answer to that:

China has made a significant return on the African scene. This return was sparked by the Western world’s reaction to Tiananmen Square and their condemnation of the event. China had to look for new partners with whom they could form an alliance that would counterbalance the west. Also due to their rapid economic growth in the last decade, China will face a higher demand for natural resources. All these factors were the catalyst of China’s increased involvement in Africa. For African countries, China offers the advantage of being a partner that will not impose conditionalities or interfere in their domestic affairs. It offers an alternative to the traditional western form of aid that typically requires you to make certain changes and reforms. This combined with the fact that the US has historically not put Africa on the top of its priorities list in foreign relations has allowed China to establish itself as a partner for African countries via numerous long-term investments and contracts. But will this new order significantly change the position of African states in the international system? I argue that so far it has not and I do not expect it to do so in the short-term.

One of the reasons that Africa will not meaningfully change its position in the international system is that Africa will have to first go through significant economic growth and development to be a significant player on the international scene. Theoretically, Africa as a whole can be a significant player on the international scene, but in practice when dealing with foreign countries there is no such thing as Africa’s foreign policy. African countries are dealt with on an individual basis. Africa possesses only a few states that have economies so strong that they are actually significant in the international system. Furthermore, these countries like Nigeria or South Africa do not pursue foreign policies that are coordinated. The other smaller countries also act unilaterally and Africa rarely has a unified foreign policy stance. This is despite the existence of such institutions like the AU. This underscores Africa’s need for integration, which would unify the countries and spur them to act in unison. This will also strengthen their economies and give them more importance on the international economic scene. So regardless of who its partner is, Africa will have to increase its economic significance via stronger and more viable integration efforts.

Another reason why I believe Africa’s position will not change is because of lack of competent leadership at the head of African States. To negotiate the new geo-political world order, African states need to be headed by pragmatic leaders who approach foreign policy in a systematic fashion. So far in most cases, foreign policy in African states is personalized and catered to the idiosyncrasies of the specific leaders. In most cases, these leaders are not foreign policy experts and would benefit a great deal from counsel from experts on these matters. Most African countries possess seasoned diplomats with foreign policy expertise and knowledge but too often these individual’s opinions are not sought after. Instead they are replaced by a coterie of presidential ‘advisors’ and that’s even when the president is indulgent enough to actually listen to his advisors. For Africa to drastically change its stature on the international scene, African states will need to be lead by competent leaders who are either adept geo-politically or are willing to take advice from people with that kind of expertise.

African states for the most part still need to make strides in terms of democracy to increase their stature on the world stage. It is true that democracy is not a pre-condition for Chinese investment in Africa but for the rest of the world it still plays a significant role in terms of credibility. If you’re viewed as having imposed yourself on your own people, will foreign countries even take you seriously? I don’t think it is sustainable for African countries to simply rely on China as their partner while turning their backs on everybody else. If not for the simple fact that the world is becoming more globalized and nations are increasingly becoming interdependent on each other. To use a more practical example, Mugabe can turn to China all he wants but China cannot lift the sanctions that are currently imposed on Zimbabwe by the other countries. And China’s involvement cannot compensate for all the lost investment opportunities these sanctions are causing. If your country is perceived as not making any strides towards increased democracy and you’ve now become a pariah on the international stage, China can only do so much for you.

The most important reason I think that China’s emergence on the African scene will not drastically change Africa’s position is simply because African states for the most part have not been adept at managing their vital natural resources. African countries have always been a destination for other countries that needed their natural resources for development purposes. But too often the money that comes in from these natural resources benefits a select few elites in the country while the majority of the population still remains in poverty. So if China is paying you for your resources instead of the typical countries and the majority of your country still remains in poverty, what has changed? African states will have to follow the example of Botswana which has pragmatically managed its diamond resources before there can be any talk of a change of their position on the international scene.

Finally a word has to be said about the US reaction to China’s increased involvement in Africa. Some people foresee that the US will counter China by modifying its stance on Africa. The US has historically taken the back seat from African involvement especially after the end of the Cold War. They have left Africa to the former colonizers. Some point to Africa’s minimal economic impact on the world stage and to the fact that Africa has no serious lobby in Congress as reasons for the US lack of focus. They also look at the fact the current US president is of African ancestry and hope for an increased focus on Africa by the US. So far they have been disappointed. The Obama administration has not made any significant changes from the Bush administration’s policy on Africa. Furthermore the US has shown that Africa is not on the top of its foreign policy agenda. Maybe in due time this will change, but one has to see the new policy before one can even assess its impact on Africa.

A few variables for Africa

2010-01-06T08:38:00.000-08:00

Yeah I've been meaning to put this on the web so I don't lose it. This is a very basic answer to 'what do I think are the major variables that would help move Africa in the right direction'. I had to keep it short, and I was rushing through it but I still want to put this out there for a few reasons. I'm not too cool with one of the variables I put up, but haven't really had time to polish up my thinking on that particular one...

These are the essential variables that if properly put into place will bring about genuine and sustainable economic development in Africa.

Expansion of capitalism through state power
State power and capitalist expansion can co-exist. For instance in Western Europe, the modern state came to being at the same time as the industrial revolution. Most rulers tried as much as possible to fuel new sources and to expand their armies. This contributed to the broadening of property relations and market relations. All those reforms, which came as an effort to centralize power, had the consequence of fueling economic development.
More recently, China is an example of a country that has used state power to push through capitalist expansion. China is far from being a democracy but the government encourages entrepreneurial activity and encourages capitalism. Whereas in Africa, the state is too often seen as a source for ‘national cake’. African states will develop faster if they encourage people to start up their own businesses and if they increase the growth of the private sector as opposed to just distributing national resources to different constituencies to keep them happy.

Women Empowerment
The introduction of cash crops negatively affected gender parity in Africa. Men were forced into the wage economy, women had to pick up the slack and be in charge of everything else. Men were taught how to grow these cash crops and not women. Women continued to grow food crops for the family and for local consumption. Colonial rule also brought some aspects of educational preferences for males; schooling and teaching of new skills were primarily made available to men. Men were also favored in terms of property rights and ownership. European also contributed to women being disadvantaged with their views of men superiority over women. They disregarded old tradition, and imposed of a new western style where male dominance was the norm. All these factors and many more historical and cultural factors have contributed to women being marginalized and not fully participating in the formal economy of most African countries. So in effect most formal African economies are only performing at half their potential. African governments should implement serious policies that would empower women and allow them to catch up for lost time and become full contributors to the formal economy. They should look into implementing a program similar to the US Affirmative Action that would be geared to women. This is particularly needed in the educational sector where women have been disadvantaged due to the colonial preference for educating men.

Invest in Education and Infrastructure
African governments need to stop spending the little money they have on frivolous things and invest in education and infrastructure. One of the major problems African governments had post-independence was that there were simply not enough qualified Africans around. Not many teachers, doctors, lawyers engineers were available in Africa and this slowed the development plans of our new governments. This problem of lack of qualified labor still persists to this day. For Africa to fully reach its potential, its pool of skilled labor will have to increase. So that Africans won’t have to hire expatriates to do jobs that could easily be done by locals. In combination with this, African leaders should invest in infrastructure. Better infrastructure with more skilled labor will attract much needed foreign direct investment. Often times a big obstacle to companies coming to invest in Africa is not corruption as some would like to think but it’s the lack of infrastructure. Businesses won’t come to a place where there are no roads, no cable lines, no constant supply of water and no constant supply of electricity. For this, India is an example of a country that has invested in education and has the basic infrastructure requirements. This has allowed it to attract investment from western companies who have Indians perform the same services but for much cheaper prices. This strategic investment has lifted India from poverty and the country is now a major emerging market and is considered by many as a future power along with China.

Renegotiate with the multinationals that want our resources
Multinational firms are known to extract Africa’s natural resources at dirt-cheap prices without really helping the country in any way shape or form. If anything they are content with bribing a few select politicians so that they can move about freely and continue their exploitative extraction. In this case, African leaders need to think of the country’s interest and negotiate better terms with these companies and not jut settle with bribes. Botswana is a good example, once they realized that they had diamonds they didn’t let DeBeers, come around and dictate to them the terms. Instead, they negotiated with them and decided to work together on a partnership basis. Liberia has now done the same with Firestone that had been exploiting and polluting it for years.

True integration
This is needed because of the low domestic demand for products due to low population in some African countries but also due to the low purchasing power of the people in those countries. Furthermore, the fact that countries are landlocked makes it necessary for economic integration. In addition, economic integration would give African countries larger economies of scale and scope. Many African leaders understand this but the results have yet to match the rhetoric in this regard.
A final word needs to be said about Democracy. This will help Africa’s development in the following way. If the government is not doing a good job, it can be voted out of power. In Africa right now, too many leaders are allowed to persist in their constant mistakes due to the lack of a true democracy.

Trip to the moon

2009-08-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

"And we choose to go to the moon... We choose to do this and other things... Not because they are easy but because they are HARD."
JFK

So I just saw an old friend in Paris this summer. And seeing him reminded me of a story he told me that I thought was interesting and funny.

So there's this guy let's call him John, who was really in love with his girlfriend let's call her Louise. And their relationship was going on fine and they were happy and everything was good. But John really loved his girl and was really happy with her. He loved her soooo much that one day he came up to her and told her

"_Louise, I love you so much... tell me anything you want me to do, I'll do it for you

_John are you sure?
_You try me, anything.
_John are you seriously sure about this?
_Louise, I'm telling you just go ahead

_Ok... Well John if you insist, what I would really love is for you to bring me a piece of the moon."

So John, well, he got what he bargained for. He now had to go all the way to the moon to get this sample and bring it to Louise. But he was so determined, he started putting some money aside for this project. He eventually saved enough money and set out on this long trip. It took him several years but he made it all the way to the moon. When he managed to get a small rock from the moon he was ecsatic! He could only think about how happy she would be when she actually go this sample from the moon. Such a powerful token of his love.

So he got going on the long journey back home. All cheesing his thoughts pre-occupied with how happy she would be.

He finally made it back home, a couple years after he had embarked on this trip.

Unfortunately for him he came back to find Louise already married to someone else.

When he finally got a chance to sit down with her he asked her
"_But Louise, how could you do this to me? You ask me for a piece of the moon. I go get it and meanwhile you find nothing better to do than to get married with someone else.

_But John, you were gone for so long... And I didn't get any news from you... So I figured something had happened to you."

Random souvenir

2009-06-10T18:01:00.000-07:00

Today I was reminiscing and I just had a random thought that I figured I'd put out there...

So this is from way back...

I was standing at the side of the road with my friend R and we were just both waiting for a taxi. And then this kid that we both knew just went speeding by on his motorbike.

Vroooooom!

I informed my friend that
"Eh voici C ah ce ga la il dja foule hein!"

Basically "this is 'C' and right now this guy is the man." And actually in my twisted 'teenager in Abidjan' way of seeing things. This guy was actually 'the man'. Y? because he was probably around my age so 14-15 and through some shrewd tactics, This kid actually owned a motorcycle... or even maybe two.

Which was kind of a big deal back then. Also, he was pretty good at this motorcycle stuff and was prone to performing all kinds of dangerous stunts with it especially at parties were a lot of people would just line up and watch him do his thing.

He was also a pretty nice guy. And had I guess what some people would call 'charisma'. I didn't help for him that one of my best friends went to school with him and this friend of mine basically idolized him. Everyday it was C did this C did that today.

In addition I had been at a few parties where this guy was present. And I can confirm that he was also very popular with the ladies.

Hence in my eyes too 'il dja foule'. Or 'he's the man'

And my very laid back friend R in his typical understated way of speaking made a simple but very powerful statement as a reply:

"Ah c'est vrai il dja foule.... aujourd'hui. Mais moi pour les gens comme ca je me demande toujours, oui 'il dja foule aujourd'hui mais est ce qu'il va dja foule demain'?"

or "Yeah he's the man now, but I wonder if he'll be 'the man' tomorrow"

I can proudly say that my friend actually taught me a lesson that day with that simple question. A lesson that (Thank God) stays with me to this day...

But here's is my problem and the reason why I'm posting this. It's been more than ten years since then and I am sad to say that a majority of females that I have come accross since then don't quite get this simple concept.

For them 'si tu dja foule aujourd'hui, ca suffit deja'. 'If you're the man today that's good enough.' Of course some of us men too have definitely not gotten this lesson yet...

But I feel like a lot of times, at least as far as trying to woo our charming princesses I get the impression that some us men knowingly play into this trying to be 'hot now' just because they feel like that's what's gonna work.

So ladies can you please let us know when to stop this farce?

Before us men hurt ourselves trying to do stunts on a motorcycle instead going home and doing our homework...

Kumbaya E-mail

2009-05-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

This is an e-mail I may have written to someone who may have been teaching me not too long ago.

Hi

I've just finished writing the memo about KPMG and the tax shelters, it had me really thinking...

I've just read the article in the times about B-school's erroneous focus (finally).
Also, recently I've had to do cases on Disney, Tyco, I saw the documentary "Walmart the high cost of low price" and in case I want to escape all this, the news is dominated by AIG.

And when I take a look at our syllabus, I realize that we're getting ready to look at more stuff of that nature.

So I almost feel like I have to "learn between the lines". On one hand our textbooks tell us things like "oh have a noble mission and profits will follow". But on the other hand we're doing case after case that illustrate unethical behavior in the real corporate world.

"Students, there's such and such rosy theory but actually, this is what's really going on."

I am grateful to actually learn some things that are practical and that happen in the real world instead of abstract theories (I did economics in undergrad). But at the same time I am almost saddened by all this.

A part of me wants my professors to give me a bit of kumbaya. But another part of me recognizes that, that would be a bit idealistic.

I think my confusion is due to the fact that my whole business school education is giving me mixed signals about business ethics.
As in ethical behavior in business world is cool but it's also rare.

I guess I would like for us students at (...) to actually read and learn more about companies that are truly ethical and truly doing the right thing and are also making money.

If these companies actually exist...

And this is a response he may have given to my e-mail if I wrote it

Thank you so much for your e-mail - I really appreciate it. I feel
the same way much of the time. There are so few examples that we hear
about that can inspire us and encourage us to strive toward personal
and organizational excellence. I do have a book that I used in grad
school - that I would use in this course if it were a full semester
and not 7 weeks - that talks about a lot of the good new stories. In
fact, unethical behavior really is pretty rare and not the rule. If
you consider how many commercial transactions of all sorts occur on a
given day that are 100% honest and truthful and benefit both parties
you come to the conclusion that the stuff we hear about is only the
negative and only a small fraction. In the business press as in the
popular press - if it bleeds it leads. I had a professor of business
ethics once that had everyone in the class write and essay about the
most ethical act, person, or company they have directly come into
contact with. It set the tone for the whole course that there are
ethical people out there trying to make the themselves, the society,
and the world better through the way they do business. I'm thinking
about doing something similar in this class. I'll take your comments
under advisement and see if I can focus more on the positive (e.g.,
Ray Anderson at Interface carpets) - but given the very limited time
for this course it will be difficult.

These two e-mails probably cover most of what I've learnt scholastically last year....

Efficiency and innovation

2009-01-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

One of the things that I'm supposed to get from all this economics is that in theory, the free market is efficient and the government is not so efficient. That's why staunch free-marketers want a lot of deregulation because it's supposed to help things run better. They argue that when the big government steps in with it's bureaucracy it slows things down.

Or as Ronald Reagan put it "The problem with government, is that there's too much of it!"

I think I understand why people would feel that way and there is some truth to this line of thinking. That's why, for example, I've been encouraged to work in the private sector because "government and not for profit don't pay as much, and there's not much work to do there".

Ok cool, so how come governments are so efficient when it comes to defense and military stuff???

I mean, it's the military/government that sent men into space. It's the military that invented the internet, in the 60's! And I just found out it's the military that invented RFID, in the 50's!

And the list goes on. VW Beetle: military. Swiss army knife: military. The computer: military...

So let's see, government is big and inefficient. And if you wanna get things done efficiently, the private sector will do it for you. But the when it comes to military stuff, the government can be extremely efficient...

I mean the atomic bomb sounds like a very efficient weapon to me.

So how come this free market efficiency stuff doesn't apply here?

Hoop dreams? Nah, hoop realities

2007-11-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

"Because the streets is a short stop/ Either you're slingin crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot"

Notorious B.I.G.

Where I grew up (Ivory Coast, West Africa), basketball is a sport that is usually played by kids who are ‘middle class’ or ‘comfortable’. The reason is that, to play basketball you actually need a pair of sports shoes, a basketball, a t-shirt, shorts and socks that you can afford to let get dirty and a rim. The rim is actually the toughest one because rims tend to experience wear and tear due to weather conditions and too many people trying to imitate Michael Jordan.

Off topic -Don’t you hate that dude who doesn’t score a single basket in the game but as soon as the game is over or there is a little time out, he’s out there jumping trying to show off to everybody that he can dunk with two hands or something silly like that? Dude if you can’t even get a simple lay up in the game, you should be ashamed to be dunking when the game is over. Work on your game instead of on dunking! I don’t care what reverse dunk you can do when you’re the only person on the court. If you can’t dunk in the game, YOU CAN’T DUNK. Bunch of mascots! - had to get that rant off my chest, anyway back to the program

So to play basketball in Africa not only does one need the equipment, but one also needs to have a situation where the basketball rim is maintained. Whereas to play soccer for example, all you need is a ball (sometimes even just a can), and land. Anything can serve as goal posts and you can basically play barefoot. That’s why I’m not expecting an African Tiger Woods anytime soon or even an African Andre Agassi. In general, Africans are just too poor to play these kinds of sports. Ballin’ is a sport that is played by Ballerz. A sign for me that the Ivory Coast is now slowly getting back on track is that the friends I grew up with have started playing basketball recreationally again.

But in America or Canada, the ballerz actually play Lacrosse, Hockey or Golf. Basketball is a sport that is usually played by the ‘not so comfortable.’ Barack Obama touched on it in his book “Dreams from my father”. Basketball is The Great Equalizer, it doesn’t matter how much money you make, what family you come from, how nice your shoes and jerseys are on the court the only thing that matters is: can you put the ball in the net? And on the court, that’s the only thing that will give you status. The game of basketball only respects the amount of work you put into it. Athleticism and height sure help but the best player is usually the one that works on his game the most. (Larry Bird anyone?) Even Michael Jordan as athletic as he was, had a well rounded game, there was nothing on the basketball court that he couldn’t do. He worked hard on ALL aspects of his game. But he himself didn’t escape this ‘work on your game’ rule, so many people in the league were better shooters than Michael Jordan (Steve Kerr anyone?)

These days I’m lucky enough to play in a gym where there are pretty decent basketball players, former high school ‘stars’, former college ball players, and in general a whole bunch of gym rats. The ‘best’ player at this gym, is 6’1 athletic enough that he can dunk, but not that athletic or quick, he can consistently shoot the Nba three, the college three and the mid range shot. He shoots with his right hand, but he is left handed so he finishes well at the rim with his left. So basically he is ambidextrous, there is no point trying to force him left or right. He’s a beast in the post where his fade away jumper is almost automatic. He can pass the ball really well. And oh yeah, he can play pretty good defense.
Today, I found out what he does for a living:

Construction.

I love this game…

Perspective

2007-08-06T18:25:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the motherfucking booth/ Niggaz tellin' lies I'm the motherfuckin' truth..." Young Jeezy

Struggling to finish reading the Reagan diaries(700 pages) has further emphazised the point to me that there's no such thing as "I don't have enough time" it should be, "I don't make enough time".
That guy made enough time to run the most powerful country in the world, watch movies, and go to his ranch to do his horse riding almost on a weekly basis! And if that's not enough he would find time to randomly call people to say wassup to them, and of course those people would be like "yeah right, I'm talking to The President..."

And then you have a guy like me, who looks at his unironed shirts in his basement and the table there that has all types of junk on it that needs to be cleared. All I can think of is "if only I had time, I would sort out this stuff"... Yet last Saturday, I was bored out of my mind with too much time on my hands... Il y'a quelque chose qui ne tourne pas rond...

Last time I wrote on this, the dems had just won the congressional joint and homeboy Rumsfeld got bounced. Now the way things are looking right now, Hillary is ahead of everybody and ex-NY mayor might face her. Shoot, I'll take that. But I still urge everyone to vote for Obama in 08! While some of ya'll are busy talking United States of Africa, an African is trying to take over the United States.
Killah!

Speaking of which, I'm probably the last Cam'ron fan out there cuz that man is trippin' for real! Currtiiiis!!!!

Hard to focus here, I'm at work totally surrounded by women. Seems like all I hear is wedding this, kids that, my breasts this, marriage that, period there and gossip gossip gossip.

Ok since the whole purpose of this was to practice on my writing skills. I'm gonna write about an event seen through my eyes at that time... Because I was thinking the other day, it's funny how certain events seem not to affect you because they are so far and out of your little world, and yet they completely do...

The alarm wakes me up fom a long night, most of which was spent playing Madden and just chillin' till the early hours of the morning, you know college stuff... And all I can think about is "damn do I really have to go to this silly pre-requisite english class?"

I mean seriously, if I manage to do well on the Sat's and pass high school english then obviously I know how to speak English!!! So what's all this english classes in University for? I swear, if I didn't currently have a D in this class I wouldn't even bother to wake up and go and listen to that Hemingway Shakespeare bullshit...

Anyway let me go brush my teeth, wash my face and change clothes... No time for a shower (Sorry ya'll gotta keep it real)

...Wassup, with EPSN Sportcentre today, instead of showing me my bball highlights they busy showing some silly big building with dust all around it. Must be a commercial for one of these new action movies. I don't know what's up with people and movies really, for most of them you just sit down and watch some bs fantasy that's unrealistic... Moi je comprends pas. But I'm definitly watching Spiderman when it comes out though.

Walking on my way to class...
And it's worse when you're going to class and u know there's no cute girls in the class. It makes the class even more boring. Oh shit, just realized I had a written assignment due for class today, and didn't do it. And I already have a D! Damn, maybe I should have worked on it yesterday instead of playing video games...

Naaa!

Stepping into class..
Hm, this woman looks sad today, what's her problem?

"Ok Class the news has just come in that the US is under a terrorist attack, a plane has just crashed into the world trade center and it seems like a few more have been highjacked..."

What the f*&!!! ces terroristes la sont arrivés à un autre niveau. Anyway, that's cool with them, but what about the assignment that was due today?

So class is cancelled today. I think you guys should instead write something about how you feel today about this attack. And then when you're done, you can go back to your dorms to check the news.

Booyah! There's hope for my D!
Ok let me just stare at a blank page and wait till the first person leaves so I can bounce...

And that's it. I later on went to my room to see that the movie promotion was actually WTC burning up, and I actually saw the second plane crash into the building live...

But looking back, I find it interesting that the most important historical event in my lifetime happens and what does it mean to me on the spot? It means that my assignment is not due and that my D is not gonna go down.

It's all about perspective I guess...

Impossible is Nothing

2006-11-08T22:43:00.000-08:00

Oh man!!!

How can the democrats win it back and me keep quiet? No can do!
I'm happy!!!
Bush and em after all their blunders are finally on their way out. And the guy who wouldn't budge after all that pressure before, has now even stepped down. I got the newsfeed while I was working on my future today. I was so happy to hear this, that I had to stop and text message my friend in the US to congratulate her. And then I got carried away I sent a text saying: "Next step: the african guy for President". That's when my friend had to remind me not to get carried away "Not so sure about that... I don't want him to get killed, America is not that progressive..."

...Hmm... Yeah. Doesn't hurt to dream! I mean, when's the last time a Kenyan was on the cover of TIME magazine? You can't blame me for getting carried away.

Speaking of comeback's I just saw some highlights of Amare jumping all over Tim Duncan and the Spurs... All I can say is, I'm not sure Chris Paul could have been blocking those dunks. Good luck Amare! You show these dudes.

And yup speaking of comebacks again. Young Hov is back! Fresh of his world tour. His album is dropping Nov 21st. I initially thought this was a horrible idea, but judging by the spins on radio, judging by the countdowns, judging by the number of listens on hiphopgame, judging by the general buzz. It seems like hip-hop fans might actually want this to happen. It's definitly gonna be better than some of the stuff out there. (Doctor's advocate anyone?)

He even took the time to put Jim "Baalllliiiinnn!!!" Jones in his place.

Quote: How's the 9th man coming off the bench gonna yell at the superstar saying "you suck!!!, boo!!" Good question Jay.

And in case I thought he was rusty, this is an excerpt from a freestyle on hot 97. If you ask me, that's source quotable material right there:

Same sword they use to Knight you/
Is the sword they gon' Good Night you with/
That's only half if they like you/
That ain't even the half of what they might do/
Don't believe me ask Michael/
See Martin see Malcom...
See Biggie See Pac/ See success and it's outcome...
See Jesus, see Judas.. See Ceasar, See Brutus../
See Success is like Suicide/
Suicide it's a Suicide/
If you succeed, prepare to be crucified/
Media meddles...
Niggaz sue you you settle/
Every step you take they remind you you ghettooo.../
So it's tough being Bobby Brown/
To be Bobby then you gotta be Bobby now...

Now the question is?
Is to have had and lost...
Better than (not having had at all)........

That's it for me for now!

And if you were wonderin' where I been at... I was on my Grizzly dog.
The outcome: I'm bout to be BAAAALLLLINNGG!!!!

King James!!!!

sigh... I can't wait! ....

Source Quotable

2006-07-05T17:18:00.000-07:00

I just went through a difficult experience that just stretched my endurance to the limit.

My sister forced me to watch Canada's Next Top Model and I actually went along with it! But after ten minutes of serious brain damage, I realized I couldn't take it anymore.Yuk! At least if there were actually potential models on the show, it would make it acceptable. But nooo, I mean for real, I don't care what anybody says but Sisi is not a model...

Sorry just had to get that out of my system.

"This a survival storyyyyy/ A real ghetto storyyyy/ this is my storyyyy... I remember those days when Hell was my home/ When Me and Mama bed was a big piece a foam/ An mi never like bathe and my hair never comb/ When Mama gone a work me go street go roam

...Jamaica get screw, tru greed an glutton/ Politics manipulate and press yutes button/ But we rich now ,so dem caan tell man notin/ Cuz a we a mek Mama a nyaam Fish an Mutton..Ehhhh

....Wi get di ting dem
Dem outta luck now
Mi squeeze seven and the whole a dem a duck now
Wi have whole heap a extra clip cau we nuh bruk now
RRRAAAAH...RRRRAAAAHHH..RRRAAAHHH...RRRAAAAAHHHH

Had to get that out of my system too. As I have displayed above, living where I live is definitly starting to get to me. Who knows, very soon I might even start speaking Patois... Or even saying things like "ça te déranges tu" What the hell is the extra tu for?

Ok I think I should get to the point of my post or I think I'll keep on going on random tangents...

So yeah, these rappers look really dumb and all but underneath all that they actually are smart...

At least some of them....

This is the highlight of some interesting and entertaining quotes. Notice how the most ignorant quote is from a former Vice President...

T.I.!(What you konw about that? ...EEEwhadidiii braaaa*!!)

AllHipHop.com: I’m the jealous type. If I married a porno star, for example, I would be [heated…
T.I.: Then your wife would be f**ked! If my wife was a star and she was doing a movie with a dude, and they’re playing boyfriend and girlfriend, I mean, s**t man…if I’m Halle Berry’s husband, I would be just like this [Lies down with his feet on the couch] “How was work today, babes?” [laughs] “Pass the Grey Poupon. I got kind of tired of driving the Phantom, so I took the Ferrari around the corner today, you know, I hope you don’t mind.” I am more concerned about her absence from the household than I am about a fictitious visual; you know what I’m saying? Man, nobody be f**kin’ with [video girls]. Man, I don’t. I don’t have time. I be working, ya dig? You can’t focus your attention on that [stuff] if you try to handle your business, anyway.

Jigga! (Rocafella 4ever, hov 4life, debut a classic first album 4 mics, shoulda got a 5 but niggas lacked 4sight, I don't give a fuck I ain't do it 4 the hype, I did it for the hustler's for the ghetto four their plight)
Jay-Z: just to get back to the cam situation and get that out of the way
Jay-Z: in case you missed this it's obvious he is just doing this for attention
Jay-Z: i think he's killing himself so i don't feel a need to do anything at this time
Jay-Z: AT THIS TIME
Jay-Z: haaa

Killa! (Cuz with the A.K. doggie I'm O.K./ my A.K. was my A.K.A before my ABC's would have me A- O.K!)
You George Bush homie you got that Anthrax and you hiding it! (speaking about Jay-z)

Joe Buddens! (Don't end up being a dead man for the cheddar/ the only way to play Joey is Def Jam Vandetta!!!)
"I would assume that everybody has to take the blame. The record labels, the execs, the artists and the consumers. I can't place the blame solely on one individual. I think it's everybody's fault. The labels sign the bullshit, the execs push the bullshit, the fucking artists make the bullshit, and the consumers buy the bullshit. Laffy Taffy was the number-one song on the Billboard. I couldn't believe that... There's a lot of Blackface going on in hip-hop today" (on the state of hip-hop these days)

Rick Ross! (Don't tote no 22's, Magnum cost me 22, Sat it on them 22's, birds go for 22t Lil' mama super thick, she say she 22 She seen them 22's, we in room two 22...)
AllHipHop.com: You know there’s a lot of folks out here sending the message “Why go to school when you get money being a rapper or a hustler?”
Rick Ross: Nah, you go to college and be a hustler, pimp. The best hustlers are college graduates. The people who run the world are hustlers. You always want to hustle. I don’t care what you’re doing. You always gotta have a hustle about yourself. You need that extra little support some time, pimp.

Cassidy! (The kid do it BIG like P.U.N, cuz I'm nice like P.A.C with the P.E.N.)
AllHipHop.com: Even if it’s a former friend, how does it feel having a role in that whole matter in hindsight?
Cassidy: Well, now that it’s all over with and you look back on the situation, I wish things could have went differently, but in the heat of the moment, things go the way they go. It was God…you can’t go against God’s will. It was meant to happen. I don’t feel no type of way about it. It is what it is – it already happened, it’s already done. You can’t go back in time and change it. But if I could, if that was possible, I probably would do certain things differently. Because, whether it was my friend or not or I didn’t know him from a can of paint, still somebody lost their life and a couple other people got shot. That’s never a good thing. I don’t wish that on nobody. But, at all times, I’m going to protect myself and make sure that I come out all right too. Would you rather it be you that died? If you change the situation, and do something differently and you [could] die or you got shot. I don’t know. I wish the best for his family and pray that God blesses his soul.

AllHipHop.com: Is there a lesson to be learned here?
Cassidy: Man. Like, the lesson is to see how the judicial system tries to target entertainers without the proper evidence, with out the proper investigation. Back in the day, there were [TV investigators like] Columbo and Matlock that go out there and and find out what’s really going on. Now, people can just make a statement with no hardcore evidence and take time out of your life, don’t give you a bail. And you still innocent until proven guilty, or they say you are, but you really guilty until proven innocent. No matter how much paper you got or what never you on, you not exempt. They can do the same thing to you if you get yourself in a situation – even if you around a situation.

AllHipHop.com: We never heard about anybody else being charged. Was anybody else charged with a crime?
Cassidy: I don’t know about that. I ain’t have no rappies [co-defendants] in my case. I was fighting my case by myself. Like I said in the previous question, they tried to target the big name, the person they feel they gonna get some light off…

Young JoC! (It's going doown, ooh I think they like me... better yet I knooow)

AllHipHop.com: There’s no protocol but you’ve obviously got an ear for what will hit in the streets, where does that come from?

Yung Joc: That comes from understanding your target market. It’s like if I walk in the club and there’s a wall full of women. If there’s some sididdy chicks in one corner and some freaks in another corner, I can’t come at the sididdy broads with that “cut something” s**t. I’m going to have to be talking some real classy s**t like, “Yo, you look like the type of chick a cat could rendezvous with from time to time, how can we make this happen?” You know, you’ve got to put your sexy on. Now if I go over there to them freaks, I already know what it is, I’m coming at them like, “What y’all drinking?”

Ok now a bit of bball comedy
"They're all the same. They all have their flop fraternity. A flopternity is what I call them. Flop flop flop. I just have to mix it up and stay out of foul trouble, and I will. I'm going to enjoy mixing it up." -- Shaq, on the opposing centers he's faced in the NBA

"They were all banging me a little bit. Bang me all you want, I'm going to make the shot when it counts." Carmelo Anthony on the hackers ( I feel you on that Carmelo!)

And Finnally:

"If you've been in the kitchen, my dear, peeling onions, you wash your hands afterwards," Jacob Zuma rationalizing the infamous "shower".

* It is what it is brother

Finnally an African team wins a game!

2006-06-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

A picture is worth a thousand words. USA is next!

Sisters and...

2006-06-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

GUESS WHO'S BIZZACK!!!

Yup! Hiatus is over! (I'm not even sure if that's the correct spelling). All I can say is:

Even when I was close to defeat... I rose to my feet

Dr Dre

Actually that really was by Jay but whatever...

Speaking of Jay-Z. Apparently, Kanye West was quoted at a concert saying something about he was producing beats for a potential Jay album...

Jay, please don't do it! I'll just quote Killa Cam on this: "...and the guns are imported and exquisite/ he outta retirement jordan on the wizards..."

But anyway, that's not even the point of this post.

I was just listening to The Blueprint 2 the other day and I got the chance to really listen to another classic 16 from that album... I mean, people said the album was whack but, I'll just quote Jay on this: "... I tried to be modest on blueprint 2, but ya'll don't respect modest, ya'll respect my dollars"

But anyway this song is basically about the difference between sister's and... hm, well, let's just say female dogs.
Tell em' Jay!:

Sisters get respect, bitches get what they deserve
Sisters work hard, bitches work your nerves
Sisters hold you down, bitches hold you up
Sisters help you progress,
bitches will slow you up
Sisters cook up a meal, play their role with the kids
Bitches in street with their nose in your biz
Sisters tell the truth, bitches tell lies
Sisters drive cars, bitches wanna ride
Sisters give-up the ass, bitches give-up the ass
Sisters do it slow, bitches do it fast
Sisters do their dirt outside of where they live
Bitches have niggers all up in your crib
Sisters tell you quick "you better check your homie"
Bitches don't give a fuck, they wanna check for your homie
Sisters love Jay cuz they know how 'Hov is

I love my sisters, I don't love no bitch

Yup, keeps it real, and then turns around and dates Beyoncé

Jigga!

That's it for now

I'm out like the Miami Heat in the Finals...

Ooh, I have an even better one, I'm out like African teams in the World Cup...

Gone fishin'

2006-05-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

In honour of the Cavs losing game 7, I'm going to mourn for at least a week.

Hold your head up Lebron!

You can get crunk in the club...

2006-05-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

Hey

The weather is nice, it's not so cold anymore and it's spring! Perfect time to...

sit in front of a computer and blog

:(

I was thinking about postponing my blogging till the fall, but I guess I'm not there yet.

I went to the only black club that's worth it in my city this weekend and I'm gonna share the experience with the blogging world.

Well, it starts in the car, can't club on an empty stomach. So due to my futile attempt at multi-tasking I'm sitting in the car right next to the club talking on the phone and eating a Big Mac. Before I start chomping on the sandwich I realize that the Big Mac is not smelling too good. But I eat it anyway, well so much for staying healthy... Supersize me homie!
I notice a "Naija Boy" walking by, I try to signal to him to say wassup but he doesn't notice, I guess he's too busy getting his "I'm too cool" game face on for the club. Finally finish my sandwich and I'm ready for the club.

Walking towards the club worrying that I may not even be let in because I couldn't be bothered to adhere to the dress code. I'm wearing sneakers, that could pass as dress shoes.... Ok no they couldn't pass as dress shoes. But damn! What's up with dress codes anyway? I mean I get the whole principle and I feel them on it but why do they have to be so anal about the dress shoes part? I mean I had a choice between wearing my dressy sneakers or wearing my proper dress shoes but with only one sock.
The shoes already stink. What is the one shoe gonna smell like when I take it sockless to a club? Hun? Selfish club manager! Have you even considered the plants that will die in my neighbourhood when I take my shoe off. Have you considered my carbon monoxide detector going off and having a short circuit! Hun? Hun?

Selfish
Plus, I mean, have these selfish club managers ever tried to dance in dress shoes before? Have they tried the A-town stomp in dress shoes? Have they tried the C-walk in dress shoes? The running man!!!! Well managers I would like you to know that it's painful.

Not that I would know of course...

So yeah I finally get in front of the club and yeah, this bouncer is cool. He explains to me that the shoes are a stretch but since the rest of what I'm what I'm wearing is OK. He'll let me in. Hey wahatever dog, it's not like you guys are gonna make money off me anyway.

On my way up the stairs I realize that I'm gonna step into the club looking like a typical Nige...hm "baller". My bluetooth is still in my ear and I'm about to step in the club!!! Oh no, can't do that. "Sorry, need to get off the phone shortie".

I mean seriously, what is the deal with all these people wearing that thing in their ears and walking around the club/party with it. I'm curious, would they even be able to actually hear if someone called them, with all that music blasting and all? Or is it just that they're flossing? And if they're flossing, do they realize that they're flossing with a 'bling' that costs $100. Dog, a hundred dollars! Is that what you call flossing?

Hm vraiment... c'est pas facile hein!

So yeah, I get in the club and I realize that the club has been hit by the "theory of club's in this city". Which was passed on to me by my friend. But I shall refrain from sharing it with ya'll. All I can say is that when it first opened the club was more "crunk" and now it's more "commercial". I just realize that the person who told me he would be there is not even there. Rats! Now I'm gonna be in the club by myself. I hate being in clubs by myself! That's when it hits me: WHAT THE &%$$ AM I EVEN DOING HERE!!!!

Ok let's make the best of it. Time to my club victory lap. No need to explain what a club victory lap is, I'm sure you get it. I mean how will you know who's in the club if you don't do the lap?

See two nice girls that I know, proceed to go say hi and all that good stuff. We try to conversate but I realize the music is too loud. "You girls have fun and make sure you dance"

wow, I say stupid things sometimes. Really, if they're at a club, of course they're gonna dance!

See another nice girl I know, but can't really stay close to her too long, she has a tendency to smoke weed. What's up with pretty girls smoking weed?

Finally see my "boy", he's surrounded by girls. That's the way to do it dog, I see you! Will wait till he's less 'busy' to go say wassup.

I'm standing next to a guy who's wearing his sunglasses... in the club. There's a few instances where I'm fine with people wearing sunglasses at night, but this is definitly not one of those instances. No comment.

Notice a couple of faces that look familiar... hmm where do I know this person from? Oh, that's right, she/he's always in the club no matter what. That's why the face is familiar. Sigh

Also notice that this club is dominated tonight by people that go to a certain school. Man you guys should get a special ____ University discount.

Go say hi to my boy. Proceed to stand around with my hands in my pocket...on the dance floor. Hm Just had a brilliant idea, I'm gonna come up with the "hands in pockets dance" and next thing you know it'll be all over BET.

...But until then "It's going down" Young JOC, time to do the motorcycle dance, made famous by Vince Carter and more recently Tom Cruise on 106 and park (if you missed it, it's a classic).

...Hm I don't know what's more troubling, the white girl next to me getting crunk and throwing bows, or the African girl next to me, that can barely speak english, getting crunk and throwing bows...

...Hey, I'll give them props, at least they both have a nice ass.

...Finally see a kid that's from where I'm from, this kid is hilarious.

"Djo on dit dindinmane n'as pas luck, faut presser les petites!"

...Run into a couple more people, at least now I can chit chat and not stand with my back to the wall like a statue.

...No more highlights pretty uneventful night. I'm proud to announce however that for the first time in a long time, I actually didn't dance with a girl!

On second thought, not so sure if I should be proud of that accomplishment

Oh yeah this is classic
Me to my friend on our way to coat check:
"Hm vraiment ya de jolies gos dans la boite, mais ya vraiment d'autres qui sont moches hein!"
My firend:
"Regarde celle là elle ressemble a un monstre"
God thing the girl's man, who is standing next to me, doesn't speak french...

Another night in the streets.... scratch that! Another night in the Burbs...

Hm, I had actually decided to post about how I was "exorcised" in Church this weekend. Instead I blogged about the club... I need to get my priorities straight.

Jason, are you Kidding me!!!

2006-04-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

First things first. I have all this built up frustration and I have to let it all out before I explode...

And I blame one person for this:

Jason Kidd

This is arguably one of the best point guards in the league. Second overall pick in 94'... Rookie of the year... Most heralded point guard to come to the league since Magic Johnson... All-Star this... Triple-Double that... But what hurts me the most: All defensive first team in the nba in 03, 01, 00, 99 and 98 (and he made second team in the 2004-2005 season).

Let me get this straight. If you make the all defensive team, that means you're a pretty good defender. And since it's done by position, Jason Kidd being on the first team all these years and on the second team last season, would mean he should be one of the best defensive point guards in the league. Theoretically him being on the first and second team would mean he's the best or second best...

Can somebody explain to me why somebody with so many accolades for his great defense
is getting schooled by, get this:

ANTHONY JOHNSON!!!

Yo Mike Jones, I think this guy needs one of your shirts cuz honestly:

WHO IS ANTHONY JOHNSON!!!

Jason Kidd hellooooo! This guy used to be your back up, i.e. he was sitting on the bench because you were better than him. You probably practiced with him everyday and outplayed him in practice which led to you starting and him sitting on the bench! You know all his moves, he was your understudy for Christ's sake!

So how on earth did he manage to get 25 points and eight assists on you yesterday? And don't give me that "oh I was helping", or "we were in a zone" stuff. Doggie, I saw the game. You were guarding him. He schooled you.

He also gave you a 1960's, hum ok correction that should be 1940's, crossover move in game one that broke your Nike endorsed ankles and led to him drawing a (questionable) foul that led to their W. And don't think I missed it, he also had a respectable 17 and 4 to your 6 and 13 in game two.

And now this!

And it doesn't help that one of the first things I read this morning was this. He's so gassed up now that he's calling Vince Carter out!

Let's break this down. Thanks to YOU Jason Kidd, Anthony Johnson is calling Vince Carter out. Anthony Johnson is calling Vince Carter out!

Aaarghhh!!!

Anthony Johnson is calling Vince Carter out!!!! (I'm nauseous now)

In game one the "experts" said it was because Vince was shooting too much and not going to the rim. And now in game 3 the "experts" said he missed his last ten shots so it's his fault.

Ok "experts", if you guys put Jason Kidd in the all Defensive Team again I'm suing the NBA.

And oh yeah, Kobe, I know they say they're gonna give him the MVP instead of you but you didn't have to do this:

Now lets see if you can win the series...

_Ok in less serious and less important news. I actually met someone who is from Iran yesterday, and it's funny now how everybody cares so much about Iran. Cuz a few months ago I didn't know jack. Now I was commending her on how Ahmadinejad was a handsome president. Yeah, I said it, he's handsome . I mean seriously, look at that picture. Is this the man who wants to wipe Israel from the face of the earth? Is this the guy that has nuclear weapons and actually threatening to attack the US? He looks so innocent...

Plus the name sounds so gangstas Ahmadinejad... If ya'll dudes don't start acting right I'm bout to give ya'll an Ahmadinejad in your grill dog! Ok I'm out.

Ahmadinejad suckaz!!!

Disclaimer: I'm not gay, also I have nothing against gay people, just don't hit on me or I might straight up give you an Ahmadinejad bitch slap...
Whatever that is.

Lord of War

2006-04-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!

Before I even start, I would like to give a shout out to Stetson Kennedy. This is a white dude who infiltrated the KKK learnt all their secret codes and stuff and submitted them to the Publishers of the Superman cartoon. They went ahead and incorporated it into their cartoon so as to embarrass the KKKer’s. Must have worked cuz you don’t hear about the KKK that much these days.
How do I know this? Cuz I finally stopped reading the Da Vinci Code and moved on to something better. That book was a good treasure hunt story and all, but ultimately it ended up being a complete waste of my time. Yeah, decode this Dan Brown Zpvs cppl Tvdlt!!!! Hey actually, I give him props for being so creative and coming up with an original story… oh yeah that’s right, it’s not even an original story.
So much for following the masses… I don't even know what's worse, the fact that I actually read all 500 pages of it or that I'm actually going to see the movie...

Sad

Speaking of movies, after watching my first true movie in 2006 I felt compelled to temporarily step out of my blogging hiatus. And spread the word

This is a movie that so depressed me and angered me that I had to release my frustration here. It is titled Lord of War and stars Nicholas Cage and Ethan Hawke (don’t even know who dude was in the movie). And it’s basically about this guy who emigrated from Ukraine to the US and whose life is heading nowhere until he decides to do something with himself, become somebody.
He decides to be an arms dealer. So the movie basically takes us on a journey with him through his whole life from his first sale to the pre cold-war days, to the post cold-war boom. To the conflicts in West Africa. All this while he's trying to keep his wife and kid at home happy and in the dark. While also trying to help his brother rehab from his cocaine addiction.

There is a also an interesting caricature of Charles Taylor named Jean Baptiste. And the worse thing about it is that Charles Taylor was probably worse in real life than his caricature was in the movie.

Oops lol sorry, lol I just get a kick out of posting this picture again. anyway...

I liked the movie because even though it was a bit hollywood, it was a good depiction of how being a arms dealer is. If you come from any war torn country, it is a must see...

It was another illustration for me of how the system can only be changed from within...

If I was your best friend... I want you round all the time

2006-04-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

Fresh off three hours of sleep. No nap and I'm still going on strong. Yeah! And it's Friday. TGIF for real.
_Is it just me or do my fellow west Africans here in Ottawa never throw a party. Come on Nigerians, come on Ghanaians, Come on Babilonien, where ya'll at?!!?

Or maybe I'm just outta the loop

_Before I get started, for all ya'll KOBE lovers out there. One word CARMELO!!! Baltimore stand up! After Kobe did his fourth quarter heroics, 4 point plays and all that Kobe stuff, tryina be a hero and all that. Sending the game to overtime and all that. Carmelo just got the ball in overtime and hit the game winning shot. HA! And they might play each other in the first round. Get ready to go fishin' early all you Laker fans...

_Everybody who is in this little blogging circle thing knows that I'm a fan of 50 cent (see comments). I mean his rhymes are whack but come on man who can say:
"First we get the talkin, then we get the touchin/
If we get pass the phone games we'll be fuckin/
I kiss like the french then put my tongue in your ear/
Do it like the dogs do it girl and pull on your hair/
For me a different scenery just mean a different position/
In the tub or on the sink I improvise now listen"

In a bubble gum song (ie. song destined to be playing on radio) and get away with it? This song is definitly stuck in my head and I'm ready to bet that this song will be a hit in no time...
Or maybe it'll just flop and I don't have a good ear for music... we'll see

And Olivia has a weird nose but she came through in the Video. (her voice, she sang well, lol)

"I love you like a fat kid love cake"

_And speaking of rappers I like: "rub a dub dub, rub a dubba dub dub, rubba dubba dubba dub"... I'd like to give a special shout out to the AC Crew (cuz they're cool like that), and urge everybody to get their dub on.

These hot underground rappers are on the verge of supplanting Reggie Rockstone as the hottest rappers out of Ghana period. I mean seriously Pharrell, Timbo and Scott Storch woulda been proud of the beat on "Get your dub on".Shout out to Shabantay for that crazy beat, these producers ain't got nothing on you! I'd like to give a special shout out to C.A.P.O (get your own rap name dog) for dropping the illest line I've heard in a while "Your straight pussy, and I'm a Big Boss/ My dick on her lips, like it was lip gloss" (All you girls reading this and squeezing your faces and going "eeeouhh", all I can say is come on now :-/... don't front...)

And another special shout out to BLACK for dropping the Source quotable of the month, I don't care what Dave Mays says:

"One for the produca one for the rappa...I de rep the hoood Labone to Apapa... you no de fit touch me, MC hamma... CAPO the boss... my flow de mix like Rice then sauce..."

Come on now, my flow de mix like rice then sauce, ya'll rappers don't wanna see these dudes. FOR REAL!

Keep on putting them hot tracks AC crew you're bout to be hot on the Canadian streets too. Now we need to holla at Funk Master Flex so he can put you on hot97.

_My friend just sent me this pic

These are the lawyers that have been appointed to defend Charles Taylor. I mean I know the guy is guilty of war crimes and all that stuff. But come on Judges!!! Ya'll could have appointed better lawyers. I mean damn man! I know Ghana, patriotism and all that stuff but come on dog! Look at the first dude, I mean I know I've heard of baggy jeans, baggy shirts, baggy clothes and allat good stuff. But dog! A BAGGY SUIT! I'm not even gonna say anything more. All I know is if these dudes are his lawyers, lol Charles Taylor is definitly going to Jail.

(Man I know how people be catchin' feelings sometimes so I'm just joking)

_Ok now back to why I even wanted to post in the first place (man I'm getting sidetracked like crazy. People behind me are in TGIF mode for real, too much walking behind me seeing that I'm fooling around)Anyways, what's up with girls and this honesty stuff. I mean I like when girls tell me to be honest to them and all' cuz that's who I be. You knaw mean, I keeps it real! But I hate when chicks start off with "I want honesty". And then next thing you know you're hearing: I know I want honesty but "you need to be more diplomatic" or "you're too blunt" or "Tu parles mal". So I mean, do you want honesty or what? Make up your mind!

In any case I'ma keep doing me, Being too REAAAAL, cuz I'm too ILLLLL.

Holla Back.

Through the fire

2006-04-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

So it finally came in the mail and I jumped on it. It was the most anticipated mail I’ve received this year. What was it?

Through the fire, the story of Sebastien Telfair’s last year as a high schooler. Sebastien Telfair for all you non bball people out there is the most hyped point guard out of NYC since Kenny Anderson. And since New York considers itself to be the capital city of basketball that’s a lot of hype.

If you don’t care for basketball feel free to skip this part

I first heard about him 5 years ago. When I saw the documentary ESPN the Life (Man! What happened to that show?). They were doing a show on the infamous Adidas ABCD basketball camp. Again for all you non bball people out there, the ABCD camp is one of the most prestigious basketball camps that a high schooler could go to. It’s invitation only and it’s a chance for the best high schoolers in the US to play against each other and create a buzz for themselves. And get their name out there a little bit. In fact it can be a real opportunity, that’s where Tracy McGrady had a breakout performance and he went from an unknown sleepy eyed kid from some high school in Florida to being drafted by the Toronto Raptors, you know the rest…
So yeah 5 years ago, the star of that camp was hands down Lebron James a 6’6 very muscular and big athletic looking 10th grader, rocking a nappy fro(Bring back the fro Lebron!). Dude was coming down the court full speed with his off hand and threw a Magic Johnsonesque no-look pass, I didn’t need to see no more I knew the kid was special (It’s the little things). But what intrigued me more was the highlights of a scrawny little 9th grader kid who just blew by his older, more experienced opponents and put down the sickest spin move accompanied with a reverse lay up that I’ve ever seen. I was thinking to myself, how can a ninth grader be invited to the ABCD camp? And he’s so small and he’s dominating! This kid must be good. So since then I kept my eye out for him.

And then I was reminded of the hype when a few summers ago, on a trip to New York I decided to go to Rucker Park to watch what happens there. Unfortunately, that day, nothing much was happening there except some high school bball tournament. But the people on the bench were entertaining enough. And all they seemed to talk about was this Sebastien Telfair kid. I clearly remember one of the people who played against him or coached against him saying “He’s the fastest kid I’ve ever seen but with controlled speed…” whatever that means. But they talked enough about him for me to be intrigued. And then next thing you know he was the first high-schooler ever (Along with Lebron James) to grace the cover of Slam Magazine as an 11th grader! And I trust Slam because they were the first to talk about Lebron waaay before the hype bandwagon came along.

Ok you can read now
Fast forward,
since then Sebastien Telfair has been drafted and is there wasting away on Portland’s bench victim to Nate McMillan’s poor coaching/mentoring and Lebron James… well if you haven’t heard about Lebron by now, you really must not follow basketball. But until that dvd came from heaven to my P.O. box, I hadn’t gotten the chance to watch Bassy play. And watching him play would be a treat because basically to me he’s an And 1 player who is actually fundamentally sound. The best of both worlds.

So I was eagerly awaiting my chance to feast on some great basketball highlights, little did I know…

I knew about the hype, the fact that he holds the scoring record for the state of NY high school bball. I knew about the Shoe deal, the fact that he’s Starbury’s cousin, the fact that Jay z actually went to his high school games. The fact that his showdown against Dwight Howard was the second ever high school bball game to be televised on ESPN. I’d heard about the blinding quickness, the flair, the style, the hype…

But I didn’t know about the HOOD!!!!

I didn’t know that Coney Island (NY) was in the projects(ok I did but it would mess up my writing flow).
I didn’t know that Sebastien had an elder brother, Jamel Thomas who went to Providence led the Big East in scoring but went undrafted on draft day despite high expectations.
I didn’t know that Sebastien at times, had to share his one bedroom apartment with 13 other kids.
I didn’t know that sometimes he was so poor that he had to borrow his elder sister’s shoes to go play basketball.
I didn’t know that said Jamel Thomas was the first one in his family to get a University degree.
I didn’t know that his eldest brother, who was basically, Sebastien’s mentor didn’t even boast a high school diploma but made sure every one after him got one.
I didn’t know that Sebastien and Jamel had to borrow their friends’ cars just to go and work out. I didn’t know that someone got shot right in front of his door in his hall in his apartment building during his senior year.
I didn’t know that Jamel’s salary as a basketball player in Greece was supporting the whole family.
I didn’t know that Sebastien was being looked at by EVERYBODY in Coney Island as the Kid who would make it out of “the ghetto”
I didn’t know that not only did he have to face all the intense media scrutiny, but as an 18 year old he had to face the pressure of being a provider for his family….

I know now that he got drafted #13 by Portland, as the first player ever under 6feet tall to get drafted straight out of high school and he has now signed a multimillion dollar deal with Adidas.

To all the “overrated” whispers, I would like to remind you that Sebastien Telfair is a skinny 5”11 kid who can’t even dunk a basketball. Through determination and hard work he managed to pull his whole family out of a life of poverty. Even if he never makes an all star team, never makes the hall of fame, never starts for Portland, or never even scores another basket in the NBA. He’s underrated in my mind...

"Politician na Animal" Fela Kuti

2006-03-30T05:49:00.000-08:00

"I know it feels like I been gone for a minuteBut I'm back chinchilla Ice on with a fitted" Ok.. lol Maybe not

And I just feel like writing... about everything and nothing in particular.

First of all how can one of the most powerful/richest/most dangerous men in west Africa disappear just like that? Coincidentally just before he was gonna face the music... And even funnier how he "reappered", just before Obasanjo was gonna meet his daddy... And wow, they freed the hostages too, (by the way, I'm boycotting Shell!) Sometimes, these African politicians think we're stupid. As my friend said, "The world cup should come quickly, I'm tired of hearing about all these stupid African countries and their fighting". (Before anybody gets offended, I'm African)

_ How did Arsenal embarass Juve like that? First Real, then Juve? I mean, aren't they supposed to be young and inexperienced? Isn't Juve totally dominating Serie A like crazy? Soccer doesn't make sense sometimes. Anyway, Emmanuel Eboué, Kolo Touré... Vive les Elephants! See you in the world cup. That's you Canada! lol

_Why do so many people care that Steven Harper has a big stomach? I know for sure that I'll never be a reporter. Is that what they're gonna try to "get" him on? I mean I don't think he's that good for people to now turn to his stomach as an object of criticism. Then again, I don't know a thing about Canadian politics. As Killa Cam said "Fuck Kerry and Bush, you should vote me/ For real nigga, on the real, the last hope is me"

Killa!

_Speaking of Killa, I thought his album was supposed to come out? And anybody noticed how the last hot interview on hot 97 was Cam'ron. And then they haven't had a hot one since...I'm just saying...

_The Da Vinci Code is a really exciting book and all, but really when it comes down to it, it seems to me to be just a really good treasure hunt story. Gotta finish it before the movie comes out. I can't wait to go back to my non-fiction world though. It's too real out there to be readin' all these lalala stories. Another Killa quote "I don't care where you been or what jail!/ go tell Disney all your Fucking Duck Tales"

_You! I'm only cursing when I'm quoting people. That can slide.

_Slamonline.com is the best basketball site out there period! Stop going to nba.com, shit(oops, lol curse word right there) is too commercial.

_In the light of Lebron's 46 point "carry my team to the playoffs" performance against the Mavs yesterday. And because of some insightful comments that revealed how much of a Kobe hater I was. I can proudly announce that Lebron is better than Kobe.What you gon' say now!!!!

_Ok just found inspiration for my next post. Gotta show love to the kid Bassy!

St Patrick's day

2006-03-17T12:02:00.000-08:00

Ok so this is a few days late. But as one of my cousin's t-shirts says: I'm not late, I'm Nigerian

Happy St Patrick's day everybody! (sorry, the damn picture won't upload)

Apparently St patrick's day is some Irish parade thing to commemorate the life of this Patrick guy who apparently is a widely known Saint that helped spread Christianity in Ireland. As you know, America has a lot of people of Irish decent. They have the Irish Protestants who were fleeing because of the whole Protestant Catholic beef thing. But also, they have the Irish who came to America to flee the Great Potato Famine.

...I'm not even going to go on a tangent about how America was basically founded by people who fled Europe because they were being prosecuted for their beliefs and other things.
And now America... oh yeah, that's right, I'm not even going to go on this tangent...

Apparently, the Irish in America started the whole St. Patrick's parade thing and what initially was a parade became political. And now It's become a pretty big tradition.

Where am I going with this? Chill, I'm getting to it.

So yeah, one of my ex-roommate hails from Savannah Georgia where they have a whole St Patty's day tradition thing over there too. It's supposed to be some Irish traditional thing but to me the parade (at night) is more like a smaller version of Mardi Gras. If you've had a lot of beads in your possession at one of these events, you'll know that it can be an entertaining parade that is pleasing to the eyes....

...Even though I don't know how they are going to celebrate Mardi Gras after all that Katrina stuff... I'm not gonna go on a tangent on that either but all I can say is "Hillary please! The whole world is counting on you!". Don't let that confused, flip-flopping ass dude and that falling over himself, can't even go claim his own votes properly-ass dude think they... But yeah, I'm not gonna go on that tangent either...

So yeah, having beads at St Patty's can be fun, chilling with my roommate and his buddies is always fun and the whole St patrick's day ambiance is pretty cool. So I found myself chilling in Savannah Georgia for the St patrick's day weekend and we were getting ready to go to the parade that night. The only thing is that my roommate had to work the whole day so he organized for his friend to "show me around town" a little bit while he was working. I had met his friend the first time I went to chill with my roommate and we got along well, so I was happy that we would be hanging out together. The only thing is that my roommate warned me that his friend had "become gangsta" since the last time I was there. Which to me was even better because like I like to claim: I'm gangsta!

So M finnally came through with his big truck, that he didn't have last time I was there, to pick me up and hang out. He proceeded to tell me that he had quit his part-time job as a chef and also had quit University and that now he was "running the streets".

"But don't worry, you're safe with me cuz I'm always strapped when I'm riding"

He then proceeded to reach for his dashboard. The part underneath the car radio that is usually just there and serves no purpose. After a very small amount of fidling with it, it opened up like a little door and what did I see.

A GUN!!

That's real.

When I saw that gun I knew that I was in for a long afternoon....

Our first stop was to go see his "connect".

"Man it all went crazy after I got in touch with this Japanese guy from out of town who sells it cheaper than anybody else in this town"

Me of course the ever curious one:

"So how did you manage to hook up with this guy"

"Well Kofour I can't tell you that, cuz if I did it would mess up my shit, if anybody knew about this guy it would mess up my shit"

So we went to some neighbourhood where he had me sit in the car while he went to some house. When he came back to the car, he came bag with some bags of white powdery stuff...

The next stop was at one of the places M stayed at, cuz apparently he now lived in several places at once.

"I'm bout to go see this girl... This girl shit has gotten crazy ever since I blew up man... It's not even funny. I got so many hoes"

So we chilled with I'm supposing was "one of his hoes" for a bit. Just some regular conversatin' and stuff. And then it was off to the next stop. We were going to see one of his boys, who was kinda like his partner. This "boy" of his, was roughly 20-21 but lived in a nice little house pretty much by himself. M also lived there too.

While I decided to entertain myself with the Ps2 that was laying there (what can I say, different strokes for different folks), those two partners began to bring the white powder (ok cocaine for all you innocent ones out there) out of the bags and kinda compress it into little balls (ok rocks for all you innocent ones out there). And then they weighed them carefully sorting them out so that by the end, they had a lot of rocks and no more powder.

Then it was time for our next stop, where he would drop these bags off with some guy. The guy was standing outside a restaurant and M, got his gun and went out to meet the guy. After they had a quick exchange M came back to the car.

"I just made a thousand dollars"

Next stop was the mall.

"I have to look fly for the parade tonight"

So M proceeded to spend $700 at the mall primarily on white tees and sneakers. That was the first time I saw someone spend so much of his own money on shopping.

After our shopping spree my ex-roommate finnally showed up. And I could finally be out of that car. That was one of the longest afernoons in my life, all I could think about was damn, how am I gonna explan this to my parents if the police stops us.

I was so relieved to see my ex-roomie and do normal things with normal people.
That same night we had to go and get M from jail because he was being held there for carrying acohool on him without concealing it.

Did somebody say Al Capone?

Another night in the streets... Don't stall!

2006-03-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

I grind for mine/ Dime for dime/
ya’ll dudes hatin’ but you know my lines rhyme for rhyme/
They tryin’a pepetrate….
How you gon’ hate and you a fan?/ My shit poppin’ like bacon in the pan…
Just had to get that off my chest. Now let’s get back to another night in the streets. In this case, it was actually an afternoon…

My memory about my age is pretty foggy with this one but I remember I was around 13. Quite young. Yet that afternoon, as I was walking around in my neighborhood.

Or to Americanize a bit, as I was chillin’ on the block with my homies. You know it goes, doing my regular hood shit with my boys. One of my dogs came up with this gangsta plan.

You knaw’mean, cuz we was some thugged out youngn’z back then, na’mean and that’s what thugged out kids do, gangsta shit.

Ok, that’s enough. As I was saying, one of my peers came up with the brilliant plan to… rent a taxi, and get the taxi driver to teach us how to drive. The amazing thing is that he actually claimed that he already knew how to drive! Because he had driven before with les vieux pères du quartier. Of course, I had no idea how to drive; I couldn’t even tell the difference between clutch, brakes, or accelerator. And I wasn’t even trying to learn. We were all too young! If you were to put us in the drivers seat some of us would barely even be able to see the road properly. Yet, these friends of mine were going to give it a try. I remember that my cousin was with me, another guy and my friend Makaveli, who as we all know, knows how to run when it’s time to(a previous post).
Despite the fact that these guys “had connections” enough to get us a taxi, it took some serious negotiating skills to actually get the driver to accept our proposal. Makaveli had to do the negotiating. A skill of his that would come in handy in the future… After a lot of back and forth, the taxi driver accepted to rent us his car for an hour for 3000 francs cfa. That’s $6!!! $6! When I think of that all I can say is damn this inflation!
So off we were. I figured that even if I’m not going to try to drive today, I might as well join in just for the fun of it. So I joined them. The first guy who stepped to the plate was the noisiest and most confident about his driving ability. Of course, he had to sit on a couple of pillows just to see the road properly before he could even start the car. Unfortunately for him, his attempt at moving the car was a lot like a certain activity that doesn’t go as planned. You get in full of confidence, things start moving forward and you anticipate having a lot of fun and next thing you know, inexplicably something happens and everything just switches off… And you have to start all over again...

Il a callé moteur! He stalled the engine (get your minds out of the gutter!). Something that was pretty embarrassing because it showed that you couldn’t control the car (no seriously, get your minds of the gutter now). Fortunately for him all he had to do was switch the engine back on and try again. But he stalled, and stalled and… stalled, until the driver lost his patience. (lol) So he got bounced (wow I’m just realizing that this post is full of symbolism). He had to go to the back seat and let another one of us try.
When asked if I wanted to try, I smartly declined because I was well aware of my limitations. I was content with just being in the car. So next up was my friend Makaveli, who actually managed to start the car smoothly!
Off we were! We were driving! Makaveli not only was able to start the car smoothly, but he also changed gears and was able to make a left at the corner! We were all excited. Little did we know…

This left took us to a road that actually had cars on it. And we were too high off our friend’s success to realize the challenge that was ahead of us. We were only driving for about 30 seconds but it felt like an eternity, especially since it took us like 15 minutes to get the car moving in the first place.
The thing about this road was that on the left side of it was a maquis, which is kind of like an outdoor restaurant where people hang out and drink. None of us was smart enough to realize that there was a chance that these people in the maquis would actually see us... Meanwhile, my friend was handling himself well with all the other cars on the road. He managed to stay on his side of road, he was driving straight and he even managed to stop, without stalling, when the car in front of him stopped. Wow, what a good driver!
But now he had to accelerate when the car ahead of him moved forward and the road we were on was a bit of a slope. Anybody who has driven a manual knows that starting the car uphill is not easy, even for a seasoned driver. And to spice things up we were literally in front of the maquis.

Pressure… or as one of my boys would say prejaw (lol Nigeria stand up!)

Unfortunately for Makaveli, the pressure was too much and he stalled. And he stalled again and again. But being that he was pretty savvy, he had the brilliant idea to tell the driver to get back in his seat and drive the car out of the trouble zone. So after some maneuvering in the car, he found himself sitting next to me in the back seat and the driver slid from the passenger seat to the front seat. I luckily was sitting on the passenger side, and remember, the maquis was on our left.
Despite all the savvy and the smarts, by the time the driver got to the wheel, a lot of people in the maquis had noticed us and some of them were actually walking towards the car. I guess they had seen the whole thing unfold (so much for trying to be slick). Before you knew it, an angry mob was walking towards our cab.

Trouble

Very soon one of them was at the window.

_Tu n’as pas honte? Des jeunes comme ca tu les laisse conduire? Regarde comment ils sont petits!

And another one added :

_Tout ça à cause de l’argent, salaud!

By then Makaveli, next to me was very adamant that I should open the door so we could make a run for.

_Toi tu es bete ou bien, ouvre la porte on va fuir!

Idealistic me :

Ah toi aussi, on peut pas le laisser seul. C’est à cause de nous qu’il est dans problemes.

_Ouvre la porte keshia meme!

Yup since I was on the right side and the mob was on the left side of the cab. I had all the power to open the door and free us from this imminent danger. But I felt really bad for the taxi driver especially since we were partly reason why he was in this mess.

Then something crazy happened. One of the members of the angry mob reached in the Taxi… And just PUNCHED THE DRIVER!!!!

To hell with idealism! That was my cue to open the door and start running. Soon all my friends were besides me running for our dear lives. I just remember this must have been one of the funniest scenes ever. Because one of my friends was in such a state of panic that he ran into the wall of a house under construction. It looked like a scene straight out of looney toons! I guess he was trying to climb over the wall.
Not to be outdone, when we got to a bushy area, another one of my friends (my cousin actually) tripped over himself and fell. And to make it transition nicely, he decided to stay there and hide under the bushes like he was on some type of battlefield.

So in the end it was just me and Makaveli left running together and we decided to stop and come up with a strategy when we were safely away from danger. We didn’t want anybody to see us or even talk to us. It was not a good time to be in Perles that day.
The situation was very tense, every time a taxi would come by we would scamper to the nearest house under construction and hide behind the walls until the taxi passed by.

Finnally we ran into someone in the neighbourhood who was around our age.

_Vous la, vous avez chaud! Ils sont en train de botter le taxi metre. On vous cherche là bas.

This was too much. We had to leave the neighborhood and lay low somewhere where we wouldn’t be seen. And of course we couldn’t use a taxi. So we just decided to walk to the nearest neighborhood, Aghien. Aghien was not too far, except we decided to use a very exotic path so that nobody would run into us. It felt like I was at a summer camp in the forest or something.

So we chilled there for several hours and only went back home when it was getting too late to be out. I went directly to my house without talking to anybody, and was very relieved to see that my mom was chill, she obviously wasn’t aware of the adventure that I went through that day. THAT’S ALL I CARED ABOUT. I think for me, getting my mom upset at me was a lot more dangerous than facing an angry mob.

Later on that night someone came to my house and briefed me about the events in the neighborhood. Apparently someone finally had mercy on the guy and they let him go… with a few bumps and bruises. Apparently this guy paid the taxi driver what we were supposed to pay him for renting the car and now was asking me for the money back. Yeah right! But I paid him anyway and shooed him away before my mom would come and investigate at the door. That night, I went to bed for some much needed sleep.

That incident taught me a valuable lesson: stalling the engine can lead to uncomfortable situations…

Ai vs Kobe

2006-03-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

I just had to rip this straight from the Slam website, the AI vs Kobe saga continues. I had promised myself not to talk about bball on this blog but (sniff, sniff) , I CAN'T HELP IT!

by Ryan Jones
We're on to SLAM 97 now, so I suppose I should let this go, but I feel compelled to holla back at all the readers who've taken offense at our '96 Draft Remix in SLAM 96, where we had Allen Iverson going first and Kobe Bryant going second. Obviously, we put that thing together knowing it would spark conversation and at least a little bit of hate, and of course that's part of the fun. If people hadn't been talking/complaining about it, we'd have been disappointed...
All that said, some of y'all have gone a little too far, particularly with your 1 vs. 2 beef. You think Kobe should've been No. 1? No problem, you can definitely make the argument, just like we did when we broke this whole thing down -- before settling on Allen Iverson. My beef is with those of you who've taken it next level, basically saying there's no way Kobe can be slated anywhere other than the top spot. To which I respond: Don't be stupid. The idea that this is such a no-brainer in Kobe's favor is silly. Why? Check the reasons...
Has Kobe ever won an MVP award? No.
Has Kobe ever been the clear-cut No. 1 player on a team that made the NBA Finals? No.
Has Kobe ever won a scoring title? No, at least not for another couple of months.
For AI, of course, the answer is yes, yes and yes -- 4 of 'em. But beyond all that, let's focus on just this season, since everybody is on Kobe's d*ck right now (pretty deservedly as far as his on-court work) and everyone seems to have completely forgotten about AI.
Compare their numbers through this past weekend and here's what you get:KB: 34.9 ppg, 45% fg, 4.5 apg, 1.8 spg, 3.1 t/opgAI: 33.1 ppg, 45% fg, 7.4 apg, 2.0 spg, 3.2 t/opg
Point being, you could argue that regardless of all the MVP talk that has Kobe as a leading candidate and totally ignores Iverson, AI is having just as good a season as KB -- or, if you really wanted to get into details and count the assists and steals in his favor, Allen is actually having a slightly BETTER season, at least statistically. Obviously if the Sixers don't make the playoffs, a very real possibility, those numbers will have been wasted. But that won't be AI's fault. And KB's Lakers haven't exactly locked down a playoff spot themselves.
While we're checking the numbers, though, let's go ahead and compare the career stats. There's AI, averaging 28 ppg, 6 apg and 2.4 spg to KB's 23 ppg, 4.5 apg and 1.5 spg. You say Kobe came straight out of high school and needed a couple years to develop? We say, exactly. That's all part of it. Then add in the MVP and the scoring titles and the fact that he straight dragged a mediocre team to the Finals, and tell me again why this is so hard for people to get?
My point? If Kobe scores 51 against the Raptors instead of 81 and has otherwise the exact same season he's having, I bet most of the KB worship on this topic would be greatly muted. Don't get caught up in one game and the hype it inspires when judging 10 years of accomplishment.
We didn't.

Ok, so I'm lazy. But point is, AI is the don... for now

Another night in the streets, "Ce soir c'est le show. Aux deux Plateux"

2006-02-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

Un Samedi soir vers 20 heures moi et trois de mes amis faisions ce que nous avions l’habitude de faire chaque Samedi a environs 20 heures. Chercher show. En ce temps là, c’était à la mode. Partir à une fête Samedi consistait à interroger toutes les personnes de notre âge qu’on voyait passer chaque Samedi après midi ou Samedi soir dans le quartier. (Un de nos amis était très populaire, parce qu’il était au courant de toutes les fêtes, donc chaque samedi on le cherchait ‘avec torche’)

« On dit quoi Jean ca fait longtemps hein!
_Djo je suis callé, rien de neuf je me cherche comme d’habitude. Et toi ?
_Je suis la… Mais c’est comment ? Aujourd’hui c’est Samedi la, ya pas un show quelque part ?
_En tout cas c’est vrai, le Satoudou est la. Bô il parait qu’il y a un show à Angré quelque part là-bas. Mais moi-même je sais pas qui fait le show. C’est une go qui m’a dit… »

Et le show était lancé. Maintenant il fallait essayer de savoir si on connaissait quelqu’un qui connaissait quelqu’un qui connaissait quelqu’un qui serait à la fête. Même si on connaissait personne, et on n’y était pas invité, ce n’était pas grave ça nous empêchait pas d’aller a l’aventure.

Donc se Samedi la moi et mes trois amis étions a l’aventure. On avait eu du mal à quitter le quartier ce jour la car personne n’avait ‘transport’, l’argent pour payer le taxi. Très frustrant pour moi parce que la fête n’était pas loin de notre quartier. Donc le transport aller nous couter 1500 francs CFA, ou $3. Quatre personnes qui veulent aller a une fête mais qui a eux quatre ne peuvent pas réunir 1500 pour payer transport ! 375 francs chacun ! Deux cocas ! Vraiment mes amis me traitaient souvent d’avare mais y’en avaient qui était plus avares que moi… Bref j’ai payé l’aller, et en toute vraisemblance j’allais payer le retour aussi. Je n’étais pas content ce jour la.

–petite anecdote, un de mes amis nous a montré son préservatif qu’il avait dans sa poche, parce qu’on ne sait jamais, je l’ai trouvé très amusant, je me demandais même s’il avait embrassé une fille-

En allant vers la fête, il fallait avoir l’ouïe fine car l’objectif du jeu consistait à diriger le taxi vers ou on nous avait dit que la fête aurait lieu et a tendre l’oreille. Si on entendait de la musique quelque part, on dirige le taxi vers la musique et voila ! On était à la fête.

Le seul problème c’est que ce jour la, on n’a pas entendu de musique. Donc nous nous sommes retrouves à pied dans un quartier résidentiel assez mal illuminé. Nous étions en plein milieu de la nuit dans un endroit qui ne nous était pas familier. Pour nous ce n’était pas une situation risquée, nous étions trop concentre sur la quête du show pour penser a tout ca.

Et bientôt, au lieu de trouver le show, on a trouve un « vieux père » qui apparemment devait être un bon samaritain par qu’il voulait nous aider dans notre quête. Sur la route ce vieux père rencontra un de ses amis et son ami décida de se joindre à nous. Quatre adolescents déterminés à trouver une fête et deux adultes bénévoles qui les accompagnaient. Un peu suspect non ?

Mon ami, ‘Makaveli’ celui qui était le plus ruse de nous quatre et qui avait le flair de se retrouver dans des situations bizarres me glissa a l’oreille.
_Djo Kouffor (for those who don’t know why I’m spelling my name this way, see previous post), ces gars la on l’air très suspect cette situation ne m’arrange pas
_Mon ami, moi mon cœur n’est pas mort, moi je sais que si ca chauffe est ce qu’ils pourront courir avec moi….

Si je savais…
Après maintes questions des ‘vieux pères’ et beaucoup de marche, nous entendîmes finalement de la musique et nous nous sommes dirigées vers le lieu d’origine de la musique. Nous nous retrouvâmes bientôt devant une maison et un portail d’où provenait la musique, mais contrairement à la coutume des fêtes normales, il n’y avait personne devant la maison et le portail était ferme à clé. Cette fête m’avait l’air très exclusive, et notre groupe commençait à se rendre peu a peu à l’évidence qu’il n’y aurait pas de show ce soir.

Quand un des vieux pères se porta volontiers pour aller frapper à la porte et voir à l’intérieur de la maison s’il y avait vraiment une fête. Seul hic, il avait besoin qu’on lui prête une paire de chaussures, pour qu’il soit bien habille pour la fête. Et comme par hasard quelle chaussure voulait-il? Question stupide!

_Mon petit faut me prêter ta bago je vais montrer aux petits la, comment on doit chauffer
_Et moi je vais porter quoi?
_Mon petit c’est juste le temps de rentrer et de sortir rapidement et je te rends ta chaussure

Pause… Il faut que je parle un peu de la Bago. Sebago Docksides, une chaussure qui était très populaire a Abidjan (pour des raisons que j’ai du mal à comprendre), et qui était assez chère ($100). Je venais tout juste de payer ma chaussure l’après-midi même au plateau. Tous les allocos que je n’ai pas mangés, tous les taxis que je n’ai pas voulus payé, toutes mes économies. Et maintenant cet imposteur de bénévole, voulait que je les lui ‘prête’.
Vraiment mon vieux père, ca ment sur toi!

Play…

_Mais mon petit keshia même, tu pense que si je voulais vous faire quelque chose depuis la je ne l’aurais pas fait? Faut me passer la chaussure.

Mais amis assistaient a ce spectacle, ou plutôt, cette négociation sans vraiment broncher. Sincèrement, je ne les reproche rien, que pouvaient il faire?
_ Mon vieux père c’est pas ca, est ce que tu es sur que la chaussure te rentre même, parce que moi je chausse 45!
_Mon petit ca va me rentrer Haye mon pied peu djo dans toutes les pecasses
_Ah mais mon vieux père actuellement la chaussure est trop confortable sur moi
_Bon mon petit, depuis je suis en train de te parler doucement tu veux pas comprendre

Je suppose que j’avais abuse de sa patience parce qu’il s’adressa maintenant a son camarade

_He faut faire sortir le… de ton sac ce petit la il veut pas comprendre

Je me rappelle pas exactement du mot qu’il a utilise pour ‘le... de ton sac’, mais c’était surement un nouchi d’ajamtalla (Adjamé : un quartier très dur) et donc trop avance pour moi. Mais je n’avais pas besoin de comprendre le mot exact, je savais exactement de quoi il parlait… Le Couteau.

Mon ami m’avait pourtant prévenu… et maintenant mes mots allaient être testes. C’est clair que quand il avait fini de s’adresser à son ami qui se rapprochait avec son sac, mon attitude avait fait une volte-face admirable.

_Bon mon vieux père, tu as gagne attends je vais enlever la chaussure. Je cherche pas palabre. Attends je vais détacher les lacets

Le vieux père devait surement sentir sa victoire imminente arriver. Mais il aurait du remarquer qu’au lieu de détacher les lacets de ma chaussures, je m’étais mis a genou pour attacher les lacets… et me mettre en meilleure position…

Ma meilleure manière de décrire ce qui suivit c’est de vous conseiller de regarder les prochains jeux olympiques ou si vous ne pouvez pas, le dessin animée « Bip Bip et Coyote » (Road Runner)

Parce que… piouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!
Mon démarrage fut magnifique! L’ami qui avait le sac dans lequel se trouvait le fameux …. Essaya de m’attraper et de me retenir, mais dommage pour lui, parce que le coup de poing que j’ai donne a son bras qui essayait de retenir mon t-shirt était assez fort pour le renverser. Dommage pour lui, il aller devoir montrer son… a quelqu’un d’autre.

Je n’ai jamais couru aussi vite dans ma vie… et aussi longtemps.

Quand j’étais enfin arrive à une distance assez éloigné, j’ai eu le temps de penser à un de mes amis. Malheureusement pour moi je lui avais prêté une de mes paires de chaussures

Pause…
Une Vans (une autre chaussure a la mode pour des raisons inexplicables), mais pas n’importe quelle Vans. Une Vans trois tons. Cette chaussure est assez rare je n’ai même pas pu trouver une photo sur le web

Play…
Donc ma joie d’avoir pu échapper sans dégâts au danger, était considérablement réduite par la réalisation que ma chaussure risquait de céder dans la bataille. Vraiment cet ami en particulier était pratiquement mon meilleur ami, on avait vécu des aventures ensemble (again, see previous post). Mais à ce moment précis, je ne sais pas si j’étais plus inquiet pour mon ami ou pour ma chaussure.

Au moment ou ces pensées flottaient dans ma tête je jugeai que le champ était assez libre pour me retourner et voir ce qui se passait derrière moi. Bien sur, j’étais déjà à plus d’un kilomètre de mon lieu de départ. Et qui vis-je en train de courir à pleine vitesses derrière moi?

_Machiavelli!!!!!
_Koffoi foi!!! (another spelling, see previous post)

Je n’avais jamais été aussi content de voir mon ami. Mon ami qui auparavant n’avais pas l’argent de transport me dis d’arrêter un taxi qu’il allait payer… Et nous sommes rentres au quartier sain et sauf. Quelle aventure. Donc mon ami avait eu raison… mais moi aussi!

A peu près trente minutes plus tard nos deux autres amis (qui n’avaient pas ‘transport’ aussi) nous ont rejoints au quartier. Ils nous ont dit que la police les avait aperçus et interpelles les deux ‘bons samaritains’. C’était assez plausible parce qu’eux aussi ils étaient en bon état.

Tout est bien qui finit bien.
Le samedi qui a suivit on était reparti a l’aventure a la recherche d’une autre fête…

Me against the world

2006-02-15T01:49:00.000-08:00

Hey, you guys have been on a hiatus/ dog you don't even know how eight is/ 8 is Jigga, 8 is BIG/ 8 is pac/ten is me

A lot of of situations in my life make think about rhymes. For some reason this rhyme came to my mind with regards to my blog... By the way, if you want to hear the SICKEST FREESTYLE EVER you should listen to eminem and D 12's freestyle over "Got it twisted". Eminem actually freestyled in a language he invented! He also dissed George Bush, that alone should make it worth listening to. I would link to it here but I don't even have it on my computer anymore, and more importantly I'm not computer savvy enough.

But I digress.
The other day I was listening to a rap song and I did something that even I, the self proclaimed "hard core hip-hop fan", fail to do sometimes. I actually listened to the rhymes! And all I can say is that, I always say I prefer Biggie over Tupac ( and by extension Jay-z over Nas) because guess what? If I wanted to be educated and know what's happening in the world I would read books, the economist, or surf the web for news; not listen to Tupac or Nas. I want to be entertained... Dipset bitch!

But I have to give it to Tupac, that dude was deep.No wonder why, in certain universities they actually have classes strictly devoted to studying the man and his rhymes.
See for yourself:

With all this extra stressin.The question I wonder is after death, after my last breath/
When will I finaly get to rest?/
Through this supressionthey punish the people that's askin questions/
And those that possess, steal from the ones without possesions/
The message I stress: to make it stop, study your lessons/
Don't settle for less - even the genius asks-es questions/
Be grateful for blessings/
Don't ever change, keep your essence/
The power is in the people and politics we address/
Always do your best, don't let the pressure make you panic/
And when you get stranded/
And things don't go the way you planned it/
Dreamin of riches, in a position of makin a difference/
Politicians and hypocrites, they don't wanna listen/
If I'm insane, it's the fame made a brother change/
It wasn't nuttin like the game/
It's just me against the world

Ok I know that was a postito (my spanish for little post). But rest assured I'm working on something.
Another night in the streets... Anglophones beware

Another night in the streets... 5-0!!!

2006-01-29T17:15:00.000-08:00

Po-po and the cops again,/
no homo but they cocking them/
Four-fos and glocks and them/
They the paparrazi, they the livest posse/
Kamakazi, nazi, nazi,...
copy papi?

So I'm sitting in front of my house at around midnight just chillin' and talking with my boy. So yeah it's midnight, we're supposed to be safely inside our homes but this is a pretty safe neighbourhood plus I'm in front of my house. Nothing could happen to me right?
... Wrong!!!

Down the road from our house we could see a group of people led by what seems to be soldiers... no police... no gendarmes... who cares, one of those people in uniforms. Me and and my friends continued our conversations knowing that we both had nothing to fear from these uniformed people since we're innocent, law-abiding teenagers, chilling on the block. And we're both in front of our houses.

As the group got closer we noticed that the uniformed people were preceeded by what seemed to be civilians in some form of a line. Me and my boy barely even paid any attention to this group, we were too busy catching up on the latest news in high school and in the neighbourhood.

Finnally this group was at our level. Now that they were closer I could see that they were the police. Whose job, by the way, is to protect us innocent law-abiding civilians.

"Donc vous la, depuiiis que vous nous voyez venir vous etes assis la comme ci ya rien?" "Pas de problèmes, montrez moi vos pieces"

Of course me and my friend didn't have our ID's, I mean we didn't need our pièces to be sitting in front our houses. And anyway, what's this whole deal with pièces? Only in France and french colonies have I heard of such a stupid concept. You have to have your I.D. on you at all times or else you can get in trouble with the police. How stupid is that?

"On n'a pas nos pieces mais comme on est devant chez nous, on peut aller les chercher.
_ Aaaah Très bien! Ok rentrez dans le rang vous allez dormir au commissariat ce soir"

Wow, this fucking cop is asking for my I.D. (for no reason) and now he won't even wait till I go get it, and i'm in front of my house. What type of bullshit is this? And of course there was nothing I could do but join the "rang".
Well, not quite I joined the "rang" alright, after I had rang my bell like a madman. This of course did not please the oppressors(that's what police should be called) so I had to be pulled away from in front of my own door and join the line by force. My friend who was just calm and said to me in english "don't worry once someone comes out of your house they'll sort it out".

Big mistake for him. Because that was enough justification for the oppressor to hit him.
"Vous anango la avec votre anglais la vous etes impolis hein! Taisez vous la bas! Faut plus je vais vous entendre parler tu as compris non"

Anango is slang for Nigerian by the way.
So let me get this straight: it's a crime to not have I.D. while sitting in front of your house. And it's also a crime to speak english. Hm, did somebody say XENOPHOBIA?

We were now leaving and going towards the main road, (of course all walking in line like some type of army drill or something). When another peaceful, law-abiding gentleman who was just heading home was accosted by the oppressors.

"Bonsoir monsieur, vos pièces s'il vous plait.
_Mais je suis un resident du quartier, je rentre a la maison
_On s'en fout, vos pièces s'il vous plait
_Tenez"

After carefully inspecting this man's id, the oppressors let him go home. After a few more steps I look behind and see my mom coming out of the house. Man forget being gangsta!

"MAMAN A L'AAAAIIIDE, VIENS ME SAUVER!!!"

Well, by now I should have known that asking for help from my mom would be considered a crime too. So of course I get hit too, by a man who is like one foot shorter than me. Hm, I was definetly thinking about hitting him back. But one little detail, when I looked at the machine gun that one of these oppressors was carrying, I forgot about all that. I ain't tryina find out if it's loaded or not.

But at least I could see my mom talking to one of them and finding out what the problem was. Of course turning around to look at my mom was also a crime.

"Toi la, tu es bandit hein! Si tu continues je vais t'arreter pour insolence!"

Wow, I would have laughed at that but I wasn't exactly in the funniest environment.

On our way to the main road we also passed by my friend's house and one of his peeps saw him and went to alert his old man. So reinforcements were on the way. Meanwhile we've finnally made it to the main road and these oppressors are actually stopping taxis and telling us to get inside.

"On s'enva au commissariat"
Once again, those guns were looking very persusasive, but somehow I actually still found it in me to argue from inside the taxi. And my mom and my friend's dad were finnally getting here with the ID's. One of the people who was in the line (and now in the taxi) with me actually asked me, to be quiet and to just let it be, because "that's the way it is". I was trying to have the patience to explain to him that actually this is not the way it is and this is not supposed to happen. But he was adamant, and by then I had lost by my patience:

"Pardon mon ga faut pas me fatiguer, toi et puis moi on n'a pas les problèmes"

And on that note I exited the taxi to join my mother in her arguing

"KOFFOUR, JUST SHUT UP AND BE QUIET, BEFORE YOU GET INTO MORE TROUBLE"

Hm, I see. Ok let me at least do something productive here. I approached the oppressor who hit me:
"C'est toi qui m'a tapé non?
_Oui petit impoli la
_Tu as la chance que vous etes, parce que en temps normal..."

By then our parents had managed to convince the oppressors to let us go and we could go home now. Hey! at least they didn't have to pay anything!( trying to be positive here).

We could go home safe now, another night in the streets...

At the party the next day one of my friend was making of me.
"man these cops are crazy the same thing happened to me in Gambia"

Isn't that great, oppressors are an international organization. They oppress everywhere!

P.S. Yesterday I got pulled over here in Canada for D.W.B. not D.U.I, D.W.B. driving while black a serious offence in these parts

P.P.S. For all those interest in Ivorian politics, c'est Alassane Ouattara lui meme qui a envoyé "carte de sejour" en Cote d'Ivoire quand il etait Premier ministre pour taxer ces propres frères qui sont en train de le suivre maintenant...

MLK day

2006-01-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Martin Luther King day...
But unfortunately I don't think a lot people understand!

So here is an excerpt from "Letter from a birmingham jail" This is when he was jailed for leading a protest in Birmigham against segregated lunch counters at local restaurants. Local preachers actually criticized him for being an "extremist".

"We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience."

You can read the whole thing at: http://www.historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=40

And here is an interesting take on the state of hip-hop and black leaders:
http://www.allhiphop.com/editorial/?ID=294

I'm almost done writing my next post, will be up soon

Another night in the streets...

2005-12-04T20:47:00.000-08:00

"Si elle s'enva couagulation va me tuer oh"

Ahh
mais le ga la meme qu'est ce qu'il raconte a ces quatres filles et puis elles sont la rire depuis? Ils les connait meme pas, il se sont rencontrés aujourd'hui seulement et deja ils rient ensemble comme de vieux amis. I wonder how he does it. Ce qui est sur chacun connait sa place, vaut mieux rester calme et observer, comme d'habitude...

Tchié la metisse parmi elle est jolie hein! En tout cas mon ga n'a qu'a bien faire parce que une go jolie en forme comme ça, c'est pas tous les jours on gagne.

We meet up with two of our friends so it's now four guys and four girls going to a party. Same old party same scene, chegue mapouka comme d'habitude les memes chansons les memes danses...

So it's now time to drop these new aquaintances off home. As each one heads off to her respective house, she goes home killing the ambitions of one of these young gentlemen. But for some reason "la metisse" doesn't want to go home...

And the ambitions are being resurrected... D'autres meme font deja les calculs, d'autres cherchent preservatifs, d'autres imaginent... D'autres rient...

Mais la fille la elle veut pas rentrer a la maison ou bien? Meme si elle aime l'affaire de mon ga, demain est la! Et en plus de ça on est quatre, je pense pas que les gas vont aller dormir comme ça. Surtout compte tenu des projets qu'ils ont...

We finnally get to a, maison inachevée and apparently this is the ideal place for these gentlemen to strike.

"Bon les gas, voila comment ca va se passer. Je vais en premier, je la manage, et puis bon si ça marche vous pouvez me suivre. On dirait qu'elle aime mon affaire, donc ya fohi, ça va marcher."

...10 minutes later...

Djo on dirait mon ga la, son management la ne marche pas hein! Depuis la elle est la le caler! Après tout, non c'est c'est quand meme non...
He! Mais, qu'est ce celui la fout avec un preservatif dans sa main! Haye! Ils sont en train de caler ton camarade toi tu mets preservatif. Vraiment au quartier ici ya les gas font rire hein!

"Djo mon ga ton management ne marche pas faut quitter la moi je vais essayer."

"Vas y..."

Vraiment lui là il est bete hein! Elle aime l'affaire de l'autre mais pourtant elle le cale! C'est pas toi qu'elle ne connait pas qui va réussir. Et en plus de ça il porte préservatif, la go ne s'est pas encore bien désabhillée(lui non plus) et pourtant lui il cherche a porter preservatif. Bon ça commence a rentrer dans une autre science maintenant vaut mieux chercher à aller dormir.

... eventually all these attempts lead to this...

"Boo les gas ya drap! La go la ne veut plus parler! On dirait qu'elle est fachée. Toi tu dis elle aime ton affaire non, faut lui parler djo, elle n'a qu'a arreter ça"

"Toi tu n'as pas dit tu peux, bon attends je vais essayer de lui parler"

...10 minutes later... After a lot of talking and no replying...

"Elle est fachée hein! Qu'est ce qu'on va faire maintenant?"

... One of the members of the crew suddenly remembers how sleepy he is...

"Bon les gas! Moi je m'envais dormir hein. Bonne chance avec votre camarade muette"

... 30 minutes later, he's not so sleepy after all and a bit curious about how his buddies are faring with this girl who has found an interesting starategy to deal with his friends' "ambitions". He leaves his house, still in pyjamas, wondering if she's gone home safe, or if they've been spotted or if they got lucky...

But when he gets there he sees three guys and one girl all laughing together. They're making fun of one of the guys, the one who wasted a condom... And recalling the events:

"Toi aussi tu es forte hein! Quand je déboutonnes ton jean tu reboutonnes ta chemises, quand je déboutonnes ta chemise tu reboutonnes ton jean. Tu voulais meme pas ke je vois ton slip meme"

The girl has found her voice (thank god!). She replies by laughing, and giving him a malicious smile, as if to say "you didn't try hard enough"

All is well that ends well... I guess...

Kicksology

2005-11-26T12:09:00.000-08:00

So one of these days in the neighborhood me and a couple of my friends were all chilling at my friends' house, talking, having fun. All of a sudden, his dad just joined us and started talking to us.

This was so weird because his dad is a very intimidating and respectable person who usually would only say hi and bye to us and that was it. But that day, his pops was inspired and decided to lecture us about everything and nothing in particular. Telling us about the old days and how it used to be back then. I won't go too much into that lecture but one of the things I remember is the clear contrast in the way you got respect from you peers.

Djo, mine de rien, notre génération est sacrifiée dè!!! Au temps des tontons, eux quand ils partaient a l'école ils pensaient à avoir la meilleure note de la classe, là, ils seront premiers et puis voila. C'est leur prodada comme ça. In their time the way to gain respect amongst their peers was primarily through academic achievment. In our time? Academic achievment, respect from your peers, those two phrases just didn't go together. "Mon frère, si tu es premier de ta classe nous on s'en fout hein! Est ce que c'est tableau d'honneur nous on mange?"

Depending on where you're from, it varied from sports, to clothes, to fighting ability, to success with the opposite sex, to who had the most creative disses to whatever other shallow thing you can think of... But, the one thing that made you stand out where I grew up was: kicks/les pécasses.

"ah mon ga, tu as dekrou la dernière hein!"

I think this whole shoe mania was partly due to the fact that every kid(except at icsa, bloody americans!) going to school in Abidjan had to wear khaki pants and a short sleeved khaki shirt(white shirt/blue skirt for girls). And this uniform was very strictly enforced. The whole idea was that, if everyone has to wear the same uniform, cut from the same material the same way, it would be very hard for the kids to really showcase the difference in their financial status. A rich kid was forced to dress the same as a poor kid, and everybody would be happy...

Well, in theory this is a good idea, but in practice it did just the opposite. Kids can't really floss with the clothes so they gotta do it through the shoes... So the uniform created a monster: le dékroussage.

"lui la tu peux pas avec lui hein, c'est le plus grand dékrousseur de son école c'est lui qui a été le premier a avoir la dernière..."

YO THE SHOE GAME WAS CRAZY!!! The most anticipated day of the year was the first day of the year to see "qui a fait quoi". And of course, if you actually had a new shoe, no point keeping it at home because credit was given not only for having a hot shoe but being one of the first guys to have it. You may not even have been a dékrousseur, but you could catch up in the rankings by being one of the first guys to get la dernière shoe that just came out. All the major shoeheads knew each other, and every school had it's vieux père.

Kids did every and anything for the shoes, from borrowing shoes from a friend who's not in your school to fool your classmates, to forming a partnership with a friend to buy shoes and then the shoe would be owned by both of you, to selling anything you could find in the house for shoes, or even stealing your parents money, or even worse manipulating another kid so he could steal his parents money and then would buy shoes for you. For others, stealing the shoes directly from another kid and then being slick enough to avoid the trouble that would ensue.

Competitioin in schools was always hot, and the top guys would have reputations that went very far. You could litterally not know a thing about a guy, but you would know what shoes he had, what colour, when he wore them for the first time what school he goes to and who is the top shoe guy at his school. Sometimes the race was on when a major shoe came out(think jordan's), and being the first guy to get that latest shoe was like winning an award.

ah lui c'est un grand frappeur hein!

Le championnat n'était pas seulement élevé a l'école, au quartier meme c'était pire! My neighbourhood was intriguing because it wasn't really upscale like that, and most parents there made a modest/decent/comfortable living. But somehow, the neighborhood had a lot of rich kids... And the battle was fierce. I had a respectable spot in the rankings because I had managed to get an agreement with my mom to buy me two shoes every year. I argued that two was a good number because one shoe would get spoilt before the end of the year due to my intense and regular basketball playing(lol it's actually true). So I was cool cuz I was slightly above the average guy but at the same time I was way under the top guys, where all the fierce competition, pressure, and scrutiny was. Cuz once you're one of those guys people start looking at your feet every morning(litterally) to make sure your shoes are clean and that you're not wearing the same shoe too often.

But of course, with being a top guy came the prestige but also other rewards... It's amazing, the guys got the shoes not even caring the least bit about girls. It was a competition between them and their fellow guys, and girls really didn't even know much about basketball shoes. But in Ivorian schools especially, the top shoe guy got the most female attention. And that was a correlation with a significance of 1 (there's some econ/stat for you, great! my degree does serve a purpose!). I literally know a guy that still gets female attention to this day from the fact that he used have shoes 5/6 years ago. That's crazy! And it was crazier back in the day, when most of his friends were still virgins, he was enjoying, just because c'etait le vieux père du c.s.p.

Pardonnez oh! j'ai pas dit nom de quelqu'un...

On that note, yo! when are the new Jordans coming out! The lebron's are ugly, and the Carmelo's are a bit plain, plus I can't trust Converse with the Wade's!

...Stay tuned, next my first of "another night in the streets series", or what happened to the girl who was chilling alone in the streets at 4 am with 4 guys... lol, not what you think...

Who am I?

2005-11-15T14:58:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!
My name is Kof(f)our Daniel Nwaejenike Osei and this is my blog. You're probably wondering why I would even have a blog, cuz those who know me would know that "I no de do all these oyigbo stuffs".
But recently after reading all these books and biographies left and right, I've been having this urge to share my stories, and whatever else is going through my mind... And these days, I have a lot of time on my hands, so I'm thinking I better make the best of this time before it goes. You know, before the time comes when I won't have time to do fun and exciting things like writing a blog... Also, as you can already tell, I need to work on my writing(esp my french writing) so this is the perfect opportunity.
Anyway enough with the bla bla bla, time to get down to business. Moi je suis pas dans discours oh, je suis dans les directs.

So, my first post is going to be just a little introduction to KO4. A bit about me, you already know my name. I'm not going to say my age because I believe that age is just a number, especially when I look around me at my "peers". But I'll just say that I've just graduated from university so that should give you something to work with. I have a Ghanaian father and a mother from Nigeria and Sierra Leone but I was born in London and I've spent roughly 19 years of my life in the Ivory Coast (and I've also lived in the US for four years). I'm now living in Canada. So people always get different answers when they ask me where I'm from. Where I'm from depends on my mood and my environment. And right now, I feel like I'm from...
Ode, you de craze! You no fit tell I de from Yankee. See, internet site, see picho, see correctt gramma we I use, see betta english. Hein! For your village they de get computta?! They de get iternet? See a whole K-dog like me we de get personal web site, u no se na Bill Gates himself we de help me create this one oh! So I beg ooh! No de wonder again, I be correct Akatta boy from yankee.

That's it for now, can't have too much in one post, the next one will be about why I wrote my name with one letter in parentheses.
Kof(f)our, is it one f or two f's?