Make a date with Bussmann, or one of her jokes.

When you read a book and like it, you really hope the author is a nice person. You hope they’re the kind you wouldn’t mind buying a plate of food. Sometimes, you hope you make their dating bar and troll google images for pictures of their exes, that you save in your Die, bitches, Die folder.

If the writing is very good, you even end up sleeping with the book under your nightvest. Yea.

If Jane Bussmann had been rude and vague in the answering of her questions, this story would be more interesting. I’d be writing bad, rant-ey poems and you’d have reason to point and laugh at me. But she rocked, so it’s just regular Apenyo gushery. Sorry.

Her favorite food is an ‘ice cream’ that she came up with in Uganda. It involves sim sim odii, a banana, a blender and a freezer. I’m not going to try that shit, because it seems like a chap chap train to dios-land.

Her favorite author is Graham Greene.

One book character that she finds puzzling is the father in Things Fall Apart. She says, “That dude needs a shrink and maybe some marital counseling. Infact, haha, imagine a version with a shrink written in! Imagine those conversations!”

This is what she thinks about Kony 2012:

“Uganda’s is a most incredible story. The reception of this video shows how big the story is and how interested the world can be. We could have two years’ worth of Oprah from Uganda alone!”(laughs)

She says, “Instead of rowing about the video, I think people should write and present their own stories. There’s just so much story potential in Uganda and Ugandans should grab it.” I agree.

On writing:

You know this chick writes a lot, eh? If you walk around massaging your temples, complaining about your terribly big load, of three stories per week, check her IMDB profile out HERE

And she didn’t even bat A level.

One of my excuses for not being serious about my short stories is that I spend all my mojo writing for manya Plan B, Stiletto Point and others. This is the advice she has for writers who want to become writer writers:

“I did one thing that worked and one thing that didn’t work. But I figure you want to know the one that worked. I hadn’t planned to write this book, so when it hit me that I could write it, I was very excited. I bought three family sized bars of chocolate and five boxes of diet coke and then locked myself in a little room and just wrote.

The first part of Worst Date Ever was done in 3 weeks and the second in 5 weeks but because I hadn’t planned on writing the book, the silliest things kept dragging me back. I’d make just…so many calls to find out the name of a bar, or a street. It was so stupid! So it’s really important to take notes. You never know what might hit you as a splendid book idea, so just take as many as you can.  Also, carry whole lot of food to your hideout.”

Jane Bussmann is doing what I aspire to do, and doing it well. One day, when I get my shit together and start to write with a direction in mind, it’s her fabulousness that I’ll be looking up to.

::::BOOM::::

So people, come and we watch her show at Mish Mash on the 20th of April. That’s Friday.  Buy a ticket early- 40,000bob, or at the door: 50b0b, or VIP: 90 bob (includes dinner) and come enjoy an evening in the company of this awesome comedy writer (South Park, Brass Eye, Smack the Pony).

So, What exactly is beef?

What?

Beef is what you get when you travel to a place with cows, identify one, stalk and kill it. If you’re one of those city types who aren’t really involved in the production or attainment of their food; those ones who buy meat from the freezers of nakumatt, then you don’t get to call your meat beef.

Beef is hatred that you may feel for a friend (in this case, temporary), an enemy (permanent), a kaloli up in a tree. If say, this kaloli has shat on you, you’re justified in hating it. But if you just hate it for existing, then you’re an animal hating psychopath and you’re going to hell.

Beef is also what a certain boy named Roger used to call girl’s butts in my senior three. But he was weird and way taller than everybody else, so we might all have looked like cattle to him. Who knows?

When?

You can have beef for a workmate who swankulas as he chews his popcorn or for an acquaintance who bitches too much.

You can have beef for your parent when they hide the remote control and try to convince you, an old person, that all the channels on Star Times apart from NTV have stopped working.

You are also allowed to beef boutique owners who sell clothes expensively, because are we supposed to walk around naked? Unfashionable? Just because we can’t afford their cute things?  Shya.

Where:

This emotion of hatefulness is very flexible. You can play with it in church (although the pastor’s sermon might water it down). You can let it fondle your mind when you’re in the boardroom, because, come on. How important is the HR’s rant on the proper use of toilet paper? You can direct beef at the HR chick as well, like: What’s wrong with making butterfly wings out of toilet paper? The toilet needed redecoration anyway.

Who?

N/A. Beef cannot be a person unless you’re Roger, and then beef is every girl with a vast behind.

How?

Hmm. When God created animals, cattle were among them. The first breed of cattle were monstrously large, up to double their current size. They were big and ugly and all had udders, even the boy ones. A la Otis from Banyard.

laba

So Adam said, “Really? Really God?  You expect me to milk that thing?” And God said, “Beera mu class. Don’t you remember what I said about you being the caretaker, overlord and king of all these creatures? Just visit the design studio next Tuesday at 3.30pm and redesign the cowethe!”

So Adam levitated to heaven but had a hard time finding the studio because all the signposts were written in whimsical fonts. When he finally got to the creation table and switched on the computer and found the folder named cowethe, and opened InDesign; he was exhausted.

You people, don’t insist on doing work when you’re tired because I’m pretty sure he’s the one who created mean chicks, commonly referred to as heifers.

On self racism and fantastic comedians.

Recently, I was invited to the office of a company that required my writing skills. Over the phone, the manager sounded amiable and the work he wanted me to do, while boring, wasn’t difficult.  More accurately, this job was a piece of sponge cake and I had no reason to feel intimidated.

But when I walked into his office and noted he was Indian, my heart jumped into my mouth. This was annoying because my mouth only has space for teeth and not an entire heart. My flare of nervousness didn’t blow the job, but it left me puzzled.

5 weeks ago, an article titled Intellectual African scum went viral. Its gist was that we educated Africans are useless drunkards who spend all day chasing tail while people suffer in the villages and the west continues to leech our resources.  It inspired a series of reactions in me; from a mournful acceptance of my uselessness, to quiet indignation to, finally, a raging disgust at the writer’s condescending and un-researched sentiments. I’m still sad about the way so many people unthinkingly accepted the article’s lashing and even became abusive towards those who so much as questioned it crowing, “The white guy (article’s persona) is telling the truth! Don’t try to convince us otherwise!”

That madness is what birthed the term self-racism.

Complex: My generation was weaned on Cerelac and television, so it’s possible that a TV stereotype has been carried on to real life where they assume white= glamorous bringer of wisdom and light and black = porter/gangster/helpless/needy.

This may be the reason why so many Ugandans are openly deferential towards white people. Sure, we all react differently towards newness, but for the love of Nakibuule! It’s possible to celebrate differences without worshipping them.

Conditioning: Last week, I had to sternly stop my 7 year old sister from singing a slave song to soothe Daniella, our resident baby and overlord.  Making hoeing motions, she sang: slave slaveslave, in America! Working day, day and night, planting sugar, sugar and tea, when I goooo to America!

When I asked where she’d learnt it, she said, “Yiii they taught us that song P.1!” I was horrified. An inferiority complex is drummed into us from when we’re P.1 babies. Note that this song isn’t taught to children within the context of say, a history class.

Courtship standards: The average middle class Ugandan man wants a girl with an education, a ‘reasonable’ accent that he can show off to his friends and some financial prospects. Most foreigners will take one look at a girl, be charmed by her dark skin and call her exotic because of her mbogo filled English. By the time African boys stop judging prospective mates using standards gleaned from M-NET, they might find all the girls’ hearts boarding planes.

If you’re one of those who read Stiletto Point in the Discovery Magazine and then come here to like or comment or whatever, you ROCK. Also, you’ll notice that a rant on Mish Mash and it’s rude management has been omitted. This is not because I am all of a sudden OK with the way they treated Lindsey, a colleague of mine. It’s because Jane Bussmann is in town and she’s, for some reason decided to hold her show there. At Mish Mash.

For those of you who haven’t read her book Worst Date Ever (or How It Took a Comedy Writer to Expose Africa’s Secret War), find it. Find it now because she’s fucking hilarious. She’s going to be being awesome at Mish Mash on the 20th of April.

See? See? Even her pictures ooze funny-ness.

You people, come and we go. Buy a ticket early- 35,000 and come enjoy an evening in the company of this awesome comedy writer (South Park, Brass Eye, Smack the Pony)

On obsessions *(not the dead band)

Obsession. Definition: The unhealthy immersion of one’s mind, soul and (where applicable) body into something or somebody. Or even somewhere. It is possible for a creature to be madly obsessed with a patch of grass outside their house, but this creature is more likely to be a ruminant, than, you know, a person.

Was it Louis de Benieres who said a man is only as good as his last obsession? I have several, which hopefully means that I’ve got a vast personality and not something that can be diagnosed.

People/ things I’m crazy for:

Enygma: This perpetually masked MC who sounds like a serial killer that’s a male stripper on the side has got me good. He says ayayaya, I swoon. He talks about ten reasons to date MCees, I buy yet another def.i.ni.tion shirt with his name on it. If you haven’t, for minutes, stared at his mouth through his balaclava and tried to place it/ attach it to one of the Ugandan males you have met, you can’t possibly be as obsessed as I am.

Matooke: My mother is a matooke fiend. She’s the only other person I know who can comfortably eat pressed matooke and fried matooke together as a meal. Boiled, pressed, stewed, flash fried; it is my favorite ever. I haven’t gone a week in my life without stuffing my face with this exciting nyamsockable, so it qualifies as an obsession.

Damp Squid: There’s a blog on the interwebs called Damp Squid and it is the world’s true source of happiness. It is where all smiley faces are manufactured, where laughter is tested for authenticity. Dampsquid is fabulously funny and everybody deserves to visit it. Feel free to read all the posts twice (thrice, four times. Who’s counting?).

Kimbra: There’s a space in every girl’s life for Kate Nash and Lily Allen type music; cute, feely, sweet and slightly bleedy. I thought I’d stuffed that space to capacity until I met Kimbra. Her music is fabulous, her videos are adorable and she grooves like drunken cat. I’m in love.

Mac lipstick: Finding a brand of lipstick that works for you is the hardest thing. You’ll suffer rashes, cracks, actual rips, lip pimples, itchiness, etc. So when you chance upon a wonderful tube that produces sweet smelling, nicely colored grease with which you can accentuate your fabulous lips, bright red joy fills your heart and makes you do weird things like buying a whole box of the stuff.

Ecclesiastes: With the possible exception of Revelations, this is the only book in the Bible that was written with the attention span of the average youth in mind. Content- spot on. Delivery- fantastic. Length- short.  It tackles angst, despair and dispenses advice in an open, honest way. King Solomon is basically saying, “Cut the bullshit. Life is hard and pointless, but you need to enjoy it, especially when you’re young. Take care and spare a thought for God.” I don’t read it as often as I used to, but this list wouldn’t be complete without it.

And just so that I can stop judging myself, I’m going to mention my library. Those are my obsessions. Tell me about yours in the comment section.

Let’s dissect Easter.

What?

Easter is a time of joy, a time to press palm to chest and massage the slight ache that’s been caused by sudden explosions of good cheer. It is a time to celebrate life by eating and laughing as much as possible over the four day weekend.

Easter is the way some people misspell the name Esther. I have been informed by the internet that the intelligence of a person cannot be gauged by their ability or lack thereof to spell. But I really hate misspellings.

Easter is also a time to openly obsess over animals like rabbits and animal products like eggs. From when I started watching TV i.e. from when I was 32months old, Easter bunnies and Easter eggs have filled the screen at this time of the year. I don’t get it. Do the rabbits get eaten? Are the eggs raw but coated with chocolate? Or just egg shaped chocolate? And what the dickens is nutmeg? sharrap. I am aware of the existence of Google.

Most importantly, Easter celebrates the beating, killing, entombing and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. If you have no idea who he is, beera mu class.

We Christians believe that while everybody is entitled to eternal life, you only get to enjoy yours if you believe in Jesus. To avoid being Zanzi roast pork after you die, you’d berra look your life over head to your nearest Christian worship center.

When?

Easter happens every April. Or every beginning of spring. Or two weeks after the last time you visited your kids in boarding school (first term). Or every time Bwaise’s residents have to buy floaters for their children and rafts to be able to leave the house.

Where?

All over the world. Even before Christianity, people were celebrating harvest festivals and cavorting with rabbits and chicken fetuses. Right? Tom Robbins, that heretic has upset all my good beliefs.

Why?

Why has Tom Robbins, that heretic, upset all my good Christian beliefs? Because he’s convincing and funny and attractive and his writing rocks. He’s a feminist and a lover of religion. Or is he? He seems to harbor all these Christianity busting notions. But this has nothing to do with Easter. This is me shamelessly rambling so that I can beat my word count.

Who?

N/A. Unless there are people actually called Easter. It’s a holiday. In plan B we are not desperate enough to start anthropomorphizing holidays.

How?

The way you celebrate Easter depends on what you think it is. If you’re a Christian, the right thing to do is go to church, be filled with happiness that your savior king died and rose again, then go home and eat a lot.

If you’re a bunny-egg person, go on doing whatever it is you do. Do trees get decorated? Man, I don’t know. Ask an American near you.

If you’re atheist, start the marination early. Tenderize your flesh with intoxicants so that when roasting time comes, you’ll be all soft and delicious.

A day in the life of a writer

Writing is easy peasy until you start to call yourself a writer, then it’s the most soul crushing, life sapping, mind bamboozling activity in the universe. Sure, there are warm, spurty feelings to be enjoyed after you finish a story, but mostly, it’s crap. Today, we take you into the comically sad but smug life of your average writer.

3.00am: I’m ejected from dreamland by Rihanna howling about love and hopeless places. I hate that song. I hit snooze.

3.10am: Ugggh. I don’t think I’m very talented at waking up. I hit snooze five more times

4.00am: I throw my phone under the bed so I can go back to sleep unmolested by that woman’s whining.

8.30am: I get up. Sure I’m late, but I’m not going to panic. I’m a ‘creative’, which my employers take to mean unstable, eccentric, lazy and brilliant. To get fired, I’d have to do some really scandalous stuff. Getting to work one hour late is nothing.

9.40am: I saunter into office and head straight for the kitchen. Coffee must be had. Peter’s fruits must be sampled. That guy eats too healthy anyway. Any healthier and he might start sweating fruit juice and shitting fruit salad. So really I’m doing the guy a favor

9.45am: My ears alert me of heavy breathing and snorting right outside the kitchen door. I hear somebody gurgling phlegm. It’s the boss and I think he’s smelt me in the building. Quickly, I arrange my face to resemble that of a sick bunny, slump my shoulders and splash tap water around my nose

9.46am: “Why you disgusting puddle of nothing. You unproductive sow! You heifer of unproductivity. You…you…why are you late?!”

9.47am: I say nothing. We’re both aware of the dynamic here. If he fires me, I’ll be broke for a while, sure, but he’ll have lost me. Where will he ever find such cheap cleverness again? So I saunter over to my desk and open multiple youtube videos.

9.49am: I creep back to the kitchen, fill my basin of a mug with coffee and proceed to wake up.

10.00am: Angst

11:00am: Disorder

12.00pm: Pain, suffering. A brief but violent episode of sobbing under the desk. I consider throwing myself down the three stairs that lead to the parking lot. I disregard this dumb thought. Why is writing so hahaharrrd? Waillll.

Fuck

12.30pm: I walk out. You’d say for lunch. I say in protest.

2.30pm: I return yelling “I can do this! I can do this!” and then recite a couple of positive affirmations

3.00pm: I read dampsquid.wordpress.com for inspiration and inform everybody on facebook and twitter how happy dampsquid is making me.

3.10pm: “Why have I not received any work from you yet? Do you think you’re here to play? This is not your father’s farm!”, yells the boss.

3.12pm: I write some brilliant stuff

3.14pm: I send this brilliant stuff.

3.15pm: I leave office. I’m done with my work, aren’t I?

4.00pm: I play video games/ read books/ drink stuff.

5.00pm: I sleep.

And then I do it again.

A pox on all DVOYS

I like to play with words. Smash them into each other. Subtract certain letters to create interesting sounds. Language is far too rich and life far too short for me to restrict my rich imagination to the couple of million words that England has deposited in my country. Take as my gift to you; Voncersation which defines a conversation between lovers in which one is punched in the voicebox as they tell the other that they’d like to sleep with other people.

One relevant to today’s story is dvoy (dee-vhoy), a combination of diva and boy to describe a male who through every failing in his personality is a very annoying, poncey and pissy human being. Dvoys sometimes shed their drama and grow into men, but this doesn’t happen often. Most times, these narcissistic zeros go about their lives spreading irritation and confusion among girls (mainly).Their very existences depend on whether or not they’re successful in luring unsuspecting people into their worlds which are teeming with existential crises.

Overwhelmingly irritating things that dvoys do.

Hey baibe: They incessantly, without any style whatsoever, proposition girls on whatsaap. Yea yea. I know. This is the era of the social network, people are getting laid more than ever on merit of cleverly worded messages and wordplay is the new foreplay; mbu, but that doesn’t make it acceptable, especially if the receiver of these messages is more irritated than stimulated.

Fits: In an admirable show of unpredictability, they throw fits at moments when you could’ve sworn by your grandmother that everything was hunky dory. They’ll blame the people around them (in self-righteous falsettos) for the missing of a call, for the weather, for the crying of a random baby in a taxi. For anything really. As long as they’re whining and making everybody uncomfortable, they’re happy.

ngwaa this ngwaa that, ugh

I’m hot: They constantly remind you, in ways both subtle and unsubtle that their eyes are wandering and though you’re enjoying their attentions for the moment, they can switch to some other girl, exactly as if you’re a TV channel. Their tastes in music haven’t evolved beyond that wiggle wiggle song. They know how much you want them, yo, and won’t ever stop talking about it.

I’m special: These soiled pampers believe they are very different and very extraordinary and very unique and very everything. The word very features a lot in their vocabulary. They expect you to be grateful for their attentions, so the moment you let lose an opinion or disagree with one of their dumb ideas, they lose their minds. Their tantrums are powerful enough to frighten little animals into comas.

One of the most annoying phrases they use a lot is, “I know how wild and crazy you are for me”. Barf. This is so annoying that you may find yourself making money from the whole ugly business by writing about it.

By virtue of free will, everybody can behave in whichever way they want to, but please, dvoys, cease and desist from exploding your bad personality all over this girl’s space.

Yes

TOO FAR. A short story.

Once upon a time?

Time time time?

There was a Princess And a Prince.   There was also a Queen. They lived in a palace.

It was bigger

One day, the Queen told the Princess, “You should get married in the holidays.”

The Princess said, “No. We shall not get married in the holidays. That is too far! We shall get married on Sunday.”

The queen said, “That’s a good idea. It’s night time. Let’s go to bed.”

They all went to bed.

In the morning, the Princess and Prince went to church and got married.

 

 

 

 

 

(Now married)

That’s the end.

 

Written by Gabriella Faith Laker.

Apenyo’s note: Yesterday night, I was writing a stubborn story. It was fighting me, throwing sand into my metaphors and spitting at my grammar. So when Gabby, my seven year old sister tapped my shoulder, I exploded. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Do you want me to stop being a writer? Who will buy you nice dresses then? mmh?”

She pulled a face and said, ”You milo milo you’re fake. You’re always chasing me out of the room mbu you want to write. Now, I’m a writer too!”

My ovaries spontaneously exploded from the cuteness of the rough draft when I first read it, and I hope yours have too. If you don’t have any, grow a pair.

Yea. Screw teeth.

There are teeth that are strong of nature and dazzling white of color. They are well spaced of look and good mannered of personality. They are tiny of size and wholesome of being. They rock and are category A.

There are also teeth that are shaky of nature and beige of color. They are scattered of look and sinister of personality. They are erratic of size and seem to be in a perpetual state of contrition for existing in the first place. They suck and are category B.

The category you’ll carry in your mouth for your entire duration of life is determined by two factors. Number one is your momma. If your momma’s genes are good and she passes them on to you, you can achieve category A teeth. If her genes are good but susceptible to intimidation, if they’re wimps, then they’ll defer to your father’s horrible ones and you will be stuck with category B.

Factor number two is your pocket. If you have money, you can afford to savor this experience that is the ownership of teeth by routinely studding, coloring, removing, tattooing, replacing, resizing and whitening them.

But if you’re so unfortunate as to have bad genes and a bad wallet, a sweet tooth and a wild space in your past in which you shunned toothbrushes, your teeth are going to rot in various ways, one by one, in no particular order. They are going to hurt in every damn way under the sun. Dull thud, sharp thud, tingle, burn, dull tingle, sharp kick! It is well within possibility that you’ll find yourself milking the whole dark business for a story at 1 am in the morning.

The decision to visit a dentist is not easily arrived at. In fact, most people do everything to end the pain for the moment and then go about life like they have category A teeth. Other even dumber people medicate themselves, not with pain killers and local home remedies but with the internet.

Shaking with pain, they’ll limp to their father’s room and beg for the modem, fix it into their fabulous new laptop and proceed to worsen their situation by trying out all the remedies that the internet suggests, even the really dumb ones like: ‘bang on the offending tooth with a spoon’ and ‘use a wooden fork to uproot it’. Some like ‘put a clove of garlic in a saline solution and stick it next to the hurting tooth’ and ‘apply ground cloves to the hurting area’ actually work but the best I’ve seen so far is ‘go see a dentist’.

When the devils of rot in your mouth stop deferring to home remedies and living starts to seem more like a horrible chore instead of the wonderful! Wonderful! experience it’s supposed to be, the time to make a decision has arrived.

The first thing you feel is excitement. “No work tomorrow!!” a voice in your head squeals.   You start to practice your sick voice for when you’ll have to call your boss in the morning because while, like other mortals, you can fall sick, your voice is not one of those that can elicit coos of sympathy. You always sound robust with health.

So you practice your sick voice and try not to be too excited about a day off, because dammit it, you’re only going to see the dentist and he’s not even cute.

DON’T PANIC around me.

Panicking is the act of collecting all the fear, paranoia and silliness that your body contains and expressing it at the people, animals and objects around you. It is the same thing as publicly shitting your pants or standing on a table in a crowded room to vomit.

It is not good form to panic because when you put your madness on display, you make everybody much more uncomfortable than you are. This is especially bad for the people that don’t care about you and your problems. While it stands to reason that you shouldn’t care about other peoples’ feelings pertaining to your wild and scary behavior because they don’t care about you, remember that humans are violent and can tranquilize you or hit you on the back of your head with shoes, or punch you in the chest, anything really to make you quit panicking in their space.

To protect you from your own lack of decorum and quietness in times of trouble, here is a list of situations in which you must cease and desist from all forms of panic:

House robbery: If, in the night, you are roused by sinister sounds approaching your bedroom, don’t panic. Screaming omubi! Omubi! will firstly, annoy the thief, because not even thieves like to be called thieves. Your shouts, far from bringing help, will scare the neighbors into firmly bolting their doors. If ever in this situation, send all your neighbors a series of text messages, with many exclamation marks to impress on them the gravity of things. If these texts are grammatically sound and coherent, your neighbors will burst in just before you get shot in the face and save the day.

Soulja boy and Kony: Many ugly things are born into the world every day. Most times, we remain happily ignorant and therefore unaffected. But occasionally, these twisted gargoyles will look for you and ram themselves down your ears; for example, that disgusting, full of pupu track that Soulja boy has just released called Stop Kony. In this song, he bleats the words stop Kony about 5000 times to a beat that sounds like dubstep dying of constipation. Before this track, I was indifferent towards this idiot musician but now, I have to include a rant about him in everything I write for the next five years.

Farting in public: This has happened to everybody. You’re walking towards a sexy person in the street, you fart. You’re walking in front of your uncle, you fart. You’re dozing in a lecture room, you fart. The only thing for it is to quickly convince yourself that you’re not the culprit. Somebody, anybody else, around you is the one that did it. No. No this doesn’t work. Farting in public is horrible. Panic about it.

One situation, in which you should panic, is if you’re being mugged outside a bar or your house or anywhere where help will come quickly. Don’t fight fiercely and quietly like I did once upon a time. The bloody thief will try to eat your fingers. Shout like your voice box just split itself into boom boxes.