Beneath the Lies: Why You Lyin' to Us?

So after all the chatter I finally got around to watching the first few episodes of Beneath The Lies and they're not good. At all.

 My first and biggest problem is with the writing. The narrative drags (what little of it there is), the dialogue is banal beyond belief, the episodes lack any sort of cohesive structure (insipid scenes stacked on top of each other with jokes for cold opens and endings that aren't any better) and even after watching these characters for upwards of an hour I don't care about or even like any of them. 

Which leads me to my next issue --- the "actors". Most of whom are pseudo celebrities scrabbling after their next career move. I understand that show business world over thrives on the looks of beautiful people but one thing has to be remembered; most of them are actually extremely talented. Most of the people that appear in Beneath the Lies, however, are NOT.

Granted the performances have generally gone from laughably bad to somewhat bearable as the episodes have progressed but is that really something to aspire to: below average? I would hope not. 

A few people have actually managed to surprise me with the competence of their performances though; namely Gaetano Kagwa (I honestly thought he was going to fall flat on his face with this one), at times Flavia Tumusiime (who I've always just seen as marginally talented and averagely attractive --- except in extreme close up, she does not look good in ECU, why didn't the DP see this and do something about it?) as well Hellen Lukoma, who in one scene shows flair in hilariously playing the drunk and desperate mistress. Her performance up to that point though? Horrid. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration. I guess you can sort of tell what she's aiming for but unfortunately 90% of the time she falls terribly short. Something that can be said of almost everyone on screen, some of whom clearly look as if their lost and should be directed towards the nearest exit.

 Sadly, the same thing can be said for most of the post production team. The coloring is inconsistent from episode to episode, the sound mixing is ALSO inconsistent within a single episode (sometimes scene), music is used poorly and as for the actual cutting; it tends to give no context for time, movement or location which makes the telling of what story there is jumbled, confusing and ultimately boring. And oh yeah, the cold opens could have been done away with altogether. They don't service the story and I doubt they were written as such in the original scripts.

 Now, from personal experience I know how hard a job like directing is but I have to call 'em how I see 'em; the directing also left a lot to be desired. As much as the director, Joseph Kitsha, managed to coax well enough performances out of the actors, I felt that other aspects of his directing were lacking. Much of the scene blocking was awkward especially in context of not only the space but the purpose of the scene and the relationships of the players involved. I can say the same for the way the majority of the episodes were photographed (shot). Cameras are placed in awkward places serving no purpose but to record lines being recited and in fact often times inhibit comprehension of and engagement with the story. The cinematography is perfectly serviceable, sure, but nothing really beyond that. As a story telling tool I feel it was completely under utilized. Watching each scene felt like watching a series of squandered opportunities. A couple of interesting shots did catch my eye but again, they were just interesting, they served no real purpose and hence didn't elevate the show in any real way.

 I could go on (costume, make up et al) but I won't. And so to sum everything up (this thing is getting long and I have things to do) I think the show is a creative failure in almost every way. I wish I could find something nice to say about it but if put on the spot I would be forced to say something unconvincing like, "Well, they used good cameras." Or, "At least the cast looks good...for the most part...well except for (insert name) and (insert another) and (you get the point)..." and so I won't even try. Instead I'll just say this, "Guys, better luck next time."

NTV's Be My Date: An Ill Conceived, Poorly Produced Exercise In Sexism

So it's a rainy Sunday evening at my Mom's place (my wife and I rode into Gulu for a cousin's wedding a couple days earlier) and with not much else to watch on TV we somehow crash land on NTV's Be My Date. It's my first time to watch it and although I didn't expect much I didn't expect what I got.

 Within five minutes of the opening credits I find myself going from mild amusement to slight distaste to utter disgust. I could have just changed the channel of course but wanting to see just how bad it could get I task myself with watching it to the very end.

 Thirty minutes and countless groan inducing moments later and I can say without any compulsion that Be My Date is by far one of the most disturbingly sexist and superficial pieces of garbage I have watched in a very long time. If you've never sat down to watch this drivel it literally forces young women barely out of their teens to parade themselves one at a time (to a reggae dub of Adele's "Hello" no less) before a group of six hungry looking men of about the same age who are then forced to make a snap decision on whether they want to go out with the girl based solely on her physical appearance.

 Each guy stands behind a podium with a green lit face and if they don't like what they see they can just push a button and the green light turns to red showing not only the girl but any one who's watching that basically the chick ain't worth shit.

 But it doesn't end there, far from it. The poor girl is then forced to stand there while each guy who just rejected her goes ahead to tell not only her but the whole of Uganda what it is about her that they don't like. Most likely tricking viewers into casting stones of their own.

 Oba she's too light-skinned. Or she's too short. Or she's not "portable" enough. Or maybe she's too skinny. Or too tall. Or too dark. It doesn't really matter what it is because it all boils to the saying the same thing; chick, you're not good enough.

 Like what the fuck? Why are we allowing this? What do we think this does to a girl's self esteem? Or influence how men look at and treat women as well as choose partners? Do we even take the time to think about these things? Do the people who make this trash?

 Granted, an attempt to counter act this disgusting and inexcusable form of objectification is made by letting the girl then choose who SHE wants to date from the remaining green lights (if any) but to me this is a case of trying to put a plaster on a gun shot wound. Not only that, it objectifies the young men as well. The entire process reduces the uniquely human desire and search for genuine connection to a nationally broadcasted booty call service.

 Listen, if I sound a little angry about all of this that's because I am. Livid in fact. And the truth is, I think you should be too. We all should. And to NTV; come on people, surely you can do better than this. You have a responsibility here, what's happening?

#UGBlogWeek By Ugandan Standards: An Expert Talk Gone Horribly Wrong

So I was fortunate enough, or unfortunate depending on how you look at it, to be asked to speak at a long running event called Expert Talks where people making waves in their fields are invited to share ideas.

At first I didn’t really want to do it but my wife and a friend who happened to be one of the organizers colluded and convinced me that it would be a good thing for me to do.  I saw the sense in that and so I agreed.

I wrote down a script I was going to follow, practiced reading from it, put it on my Kindle and without even a shadow of nerves went for the talk. I can honestly say that I was pretty confident that I would ace this shit. I’m not a stranger to the stage. I’ve been acting since forever (although not recently), I’ve given several talks before (although also not recently), I’ve read out my work at various conferences, festivals and fairs to not bad effect (although again, not so recently), I’ve MC’d events, graduation parties and service hosted at my former church numerous times- I had this. Only I didn’t. My Kindle went defunct at the last moment and although I managed to get my script onto a friend’s tablet it still wasn’t my tablet and so I wasn’t used to how it functioned.

The tablet started giving me trouble almost as soon as I stepped on stage. I tried to ditch it but found that as soon as I did, even though I knew exactly what I wanted to say and knew all the facts, figures and information like the back of my hand without my script in front of me everything went *poof!* and was gone. I limped through my talk which was jumbled, incoherent and laced with a series of heart felt apologies. An excruciating experience to the people in the audience I’m sure. I recovered a little during the Q&A but the fact is by that point I just wanted to get off the stage.

Everyone was really nice about it afterwards but on the level, I wasn’t as bothered by it as I thought I would be. That being said, I do feel like I misrepresented myself and what I wanted to talk about and so I’ve decided to publish my script and give guys a look at what I was trying and so epically failed to say and so here.


The Talk

I attended a writer-director friend’s movie premiere a few weeks ago.

It was twenty K for a regular ticket and fifty if you wanted to go home with the DVD, though I doubt very many people paid for one of those. As for myself, I set aside a twenty thou with the intention of showing my solidarity and support but somehow, on the day before the premiere, I scored two free tickets and so decided that my presence was solidarity enough and calling up a friend said, "We go."

The invite said 'Red Carpet' and so I dusted off my one black suit, polished my shoes and got ready to party. I liked the idea of dressing up and celebrating a friend's achievement. Because make no mistake, even if the movie wound up being the worst movie ever made, it was still an achievement.

I guess it shouldn't really have surprised me that I was one of only 10% who actually adhered to the dress code. Even the director just threw on a coat and was done with it.  As much as I was probably being paranoid, the whole night I had this insurmountable feeling that everyone was side eyeing me because I actually took the time to dress up.

In any case, people posed for pictures, walked the red carpet that was more brown than red and made their way into the auditorium.

Two minutes into the movie and my silent knit picking began and didn't let up until the credits rolled and the lights came up.

Turning to the friend I had come with I asked him, "So, what would you give it out of ten?" He gave it a moment's thought and then answered, "3 out of 10." The low score surprised me. Not because I thought it was undeserved but because I assumed that my friend, let's call him Charlie, would show the film a little leniency. A little good will. A comfortable 5/10 to be nice. And so I asked my de facto follow up question, prefacing it with, "As much as I hate using the term, what about by Ugandan Standards?" Charlie looked at me with a wry smile, "That is by Ugandan standards." What? Really? How? And so I followed up again, "And what about by real standards?" There was no pause before Charlie  answered, "Probably like 1.3."

OUCH.

The thing is, he was absolutely right. It was a horrible movie. I know some people who actually walked out of the auditorium half way through because they were so bored. Ask me why I roughed it out, with a hell of a migraine too and I'm not quite sure what I would tell you.

Two things caught my attention about that exchange with Charlie though.

The first was;  the automatic, almost unconscious lowering of my internal barometer as I sat there in that darkened auditorium. Or maybe it happened earlier, maybe it happened the moment I decided to go and show my solidarity. I mean, I knew this guy, he’d never made anything that I had ever liked but he was a friend and a colleague...I couldn't very well tell him that the movie sucked huge, hairy king-kong sized balls, could I? That would be mean. Plus, the guy had tried. This was a huge step for Ugandan film, is what I told myself...but was it really?

The second was; by my own admission I knew that this "Ugandan Standard" I was talking about was a sham. It was nothing more than an illusion to blind myself and everyone else who subscribed to it to the irrefutable fact that by real standards, by the world's standards, we were off in some corner of the play ground playing duel.

Now, I've come across this notion of "Ugandan Standards" quite a few times, across several different fields, for quite some time now. For me, it's almost become synonymous with settling for less. I try my best to combat this type of thinking but I don’t exactly live in a vacuum and so it gets hard sometimes.

I guess my question to you guys is; are we OK with this? Are we OK with the idea that outside of our very small borders we're not really better than anyone else at anything? Are we OK with the fact that if a Ugandan and a Kenyan apply for the same job, barring any nepotism, tribalism or any other kind of -ism, the Kenyan will almost certainly get the job? Are we really OK with expecting less and therefore receiving less and inversely giving less because less is expected of us; creating this vicious cycle of tepid expectations that solidifies into a culture of mediocrity that starts with our Head of State and ends with the rolex guy I sometimes go to just down the road from my place who rolls his chappatis with the nonchalance of a dog lifting its hind leg.

I know I'm not. It bothers me, a lot, and although I know I'm probably not going to bring everyone along with me on this, I want to look at this thing called the "Ugandan Standard" a little more. Maybe find out what it looks like, where it came from, even maybe what we can do about it and if my search comes out inconclusive I do apologize; if there's one thing I've realized, it's that I know nothing. I'm just trying to shine a little light on something that pierces like a splinter in my mind.

And so like me in that darkened auditorium please lower your expectations.


But What About Us?

I guess I’ll just say come right out and say it, I think many of us have this strange third world apathy-small town mentality kind of thing going on.

As we all know, Uganda's a small country. A poor one too. Our population is about 38 million and of those 38 only about 1.7 live in Kampala. According to The World Bank the average Ugandan earns about 170,000 a month. We're a third world country that has lived through one dictatorship after another, through bush wars and war lords, through power cuts, water cuts, bad roads, horrible health care and a whole long list of things. Politicians can still buy votes with sacks of sugar and bars of soap. Sitting here, it can be easy to forget just how bad most of our country has it. How little it takes to make the average Ugandan, if not happy, then at least relatively comfortable. I mention this because living in such an environment most Ugandans can not really afford the luxury of setting high expectations for themselves, for their lives or the people and institutions around them. Most people live and die fighting to rise just a little higher below the poverty line.

It's disheartening to think that our bar for success is set so low that convincing people to make the effort to raise it is a task that many would say is not worth undertaking. But what’s even more disheartening is that I wouldn't blame them.

But what about us? I mean, I'm pretty sure most of us here are pretty well educated, are in a substantially higher income bracket than a ghastly 170,000 a month; as well as rather exposed too; that’s to say that you've watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones (or maybe you're like me and waiting for all ten), you Snapchat more than you instagram, you use  VPN's whenever the government decides to go loco and you're probably live tweeting this right now on a phone that costs more than some Ugandans' annual income...what's your excuse?

Why aren't you demanding more from the status quo? Why aren't you demanding more from yourself as well as from the establishment? Why aren't you demanding for more on behalf of the people that can't because they've been so brutally beaten into apathy...?

But the more pertinent question is one I have to ask is of myself and that is; why aren't I...?

Because even though I have a little more money, a few more opportunities, a sliver of influence for some reason I keep getting dragged back under by this horrible sense of lethargy that tells me that even though I posses more than most of my compatriots, it's not enough. I'm not American, I'm not British, I'm not even Nigerian- I'm Ugandan. I'm the son of Kony, the son of Obote, the son of Amin and the only thing I can do is to use what I have to either get out or get mine- period.


"This isn't Hollywood, this is Uganda."

A few years ago, long before I knew even the little I know about my field now, I found myself amongst a group of people intent on shooting a pilot for a TV series. They had the will and they had the way and they asked me for my help and so I thought, "why not?" I was brought on as a consultant but quickly found myself in the thick of things, taking on the role of Alpha without even trying or being asked. I over saw the development of the pilot through the locking down of a script (which I co-wrote), casting of the principle characters, scouting for locations, recruiting of the crew and even brought a lawyer friend on board to serve as a consultant (it was supposed to be a legal drama).
Doing as much research as I could on the process of  pre-production I knew that professionally, a certain process was to be followed and demanded for such, my fellow team mates, however, thought differently. After pleading my case I was issued a curt "Relax, this isn't Hollywood." The guy who said it gave me an almost apologetic smile. It was like he felt sorry for me for setting my standards so high. Only I wasn't. I was asking if we could push shooting by one week so that instead of the actor's getting the script on a Friday evening and having to shoot the following day, they would have at least a week with it. Maybe we could even fit in a rehearsal or two but no such luck, I was asking for too much, "This isn't Hollywood."

I walked away from the project without looking back and left them to their own devices.

I feel like that phrase, "This isn't Hollywood.", could be translated into another one I hear quite a lot: "This is UG."

But I have to ask, what exactly does that mean: "This is UG."? Does it mean, "That's just how things are so get used to it."? Or maybe, "Those things are for those people those ends so you leave it to them."? Or maybe even, "You just make your few shillings and be happy, OK?"

I think it’s probably all three, and others as well.

But here's the thing, I believe that we're not supposed to get used to it. That we shouldn't leave it to them and that we should want more than just Shillings;  we should want Dollars, we should want Pounds and we should want Yen- you name it.

And even though not everyone would succeed in their pursuit for something better I still believe that a collective pursuit for something more than just, "OK" would be the beginning of something to behold.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I say all of this, of course, with the full knowledge that not everyone in this country is completely zombified by the apathy thrust upon them by a poverty stricken existence. That there are people out there who do want more than the hand life has dealt them. What of these people? How do they start? Where do they begin?

Well, by studying the people who already have the "more" that they want like they would a formula to an equation or a blueprint to a building. And then what will they do? They will mimic, of course; they will copy and they will paste. They will borrow, they will steal and they will assimilate.

That kind of sounds like a bad thing, doesn't it? I know it does to me. Well...is it? Yes...and no. Let me explain.

I watched a trailer for a Ugandan made horror film the other day. According to its synopsis it's about a group of university students who go on a "camp fire trip" with their lecturer. Their vehicle breaks down and the group has to trek through a forest where they encounter a group of cannibals. Sound familiar? Maybe like half the horror movies made and released in the past fifty years? Now, the production value didn't look half bad but the story looked so half cooked and half-assed that I couldn't wrap my head around a single reason to watch it besides the need to know what people are making out there.

I witness this kind of whole sale rip off almost everywhere I turn. A logo and graphics for a local award that look way too similar to the graphics that BET uses for their own awards to just be a coincidence. Or maybe it's a music video of a popular local artist, shot by one of the premiere music and video production studios in the country that is nothing but a cheap imitation of an Alicia Keys and Maxwell video; without the context, without the sexy and without the cool.

Some supposedly smart white guy once said,
"You need to make a decision - are you an imitator or an innovator?"

And for a very long time my own thoughts mirrored that sentiment. And then, in trying to improve my own craft, I realized something, that imitation is actually one of the very first steps towards innovation.

As Pramoedya Ananta Toer said,
"At the beginning of all growth, everyone imitates. All of us, when we were children, also imitated. But children grow up and begin their own development."

Or as Jane Yolen so poetically put it,
"I have pulled threads from magical tapestries already woven and used them to weave my own cloth."

And so there's nothing inherently wrong with imitation. I do think, however, that there's a right way and a wrong way to imitate.

"Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself." were the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti, the late great thinker and public speaker.

I believe that the form of imitation he's warning against is something that many of us fall victim to. Copying without understanding. Like getting the answer of a particularly hard question on a math test from the kid sitting next to you but not being able to show the work and so still getting the answer wrong.

Or the copy and pasting of a staple horror movie narrative without having a clue about the history of horror in cinema. Or its relation to horror in literature and even before that in folklore.

In other words, if something is imitated without an understanding of the 'why' of that thing, or even the desire to find out, chances are the outcome will be brittle and empty. A mindlessly performed ritual, a god prayed to but not believed in, a serpent intent on wiggling its way into the shed skin of another.

Circling back to what Pramoedya Ananta Toer said, as children we all imitate. "...But children grow up and begin their own development."

I think that even for the few of us who are reaching for more, we've played at being children long enough and that it's time to grow up.

Lets weave our own tapestries, and let's make them magical.


Conclusion

I honestly wish I had some more time to talk about this because I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. There’s still so much to unpack but whether you agree with what I've said or not, I do hope that I've left you with something to think about; that you’ll keep on digging. If I've managed to at least do that then my job is done. Thank you.

***

I did have something to say though, right?

WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH: Welcome to 1984

So I started re-reading Nineteen Eighty Four last night. I don’t think it will take that many guesses to figure out why.

I was around thirteen the first time I read it. I was into everything science fiction back then. I remember The Matrix had just put a dent in the universe with its techno-punk kung-fu coolness, Star Wars had just returned to the shores of American pop culture with a not so big, over CGI’ed bang (though to a thirteen year old the pod race scene and its corresponding Nintendo 64 video game were pretty cool) and I had just finished all 720 pages of book three of Tad Williams’ virtual reality opus Otherland.

I was a voracious reader back then, still am for the most part and this is mostly in part to my mother who ever I since I was kid made it a point to take me to a local public library once a week and once we moved backed to Uganda regular trips to Aristoc book shop.

It was on such a visit to a library that the kind librarian;  a rotund Caucasian man with feathery hair graying on the sides and half moon glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose who had keenly sniffed out my love for sci-fi held out a blue covered first edition of George Orwell’s masterpiece. As he proffered it he told me it was the very copy he read when he was my age. I took it from him and turned it over in my hands. I opened the back cover and peeked at George Orwell’s black and white jacket picture. I looked up at the librarian.

“What’s it about?” I asked him in typical youngster fashion.

He smiled.  “Well if I told you, you wouldn’t have to read it now, would you?”

He had a point. I flipped it over in my hands once again. It didn’t look very interesting though.

“Are you sure I’ll like it?” I asked him, still a little skeptical.

“You’ll love it.” He assured me. And so I took it.

And he was right. More than right, I read it three times in one week. It changed my life. The world that Orwell so vividly created; one that was permeated by fear, hate and violence shook me so hard, even at that age, that it had me combing the TV programs, magazines and newspapers I came across for any signs of newspeak for weeks. I constantly racked my own cranium for any signs of double thought for months.

I began spontaneously spouting quotes from the book and started pointing out congruencies between the world around me and the world found in the book. I’m pretty sure I had my mother worried there for a little bit. But of course, as the effects of all such thought provoking works of art must, the effects eventually wore off.

I’ve read the book as well as others like it several more times in the intervening years and every time I’ve read it it’s shaken me out of my apathy, even if for just a little bit. I don’t know what I would do if I had to live in a constant state of righteous anger. I honestly don’t know how people who do possibly do it. In any case, I think the current political atmosphere warrants a little righteous anger. But instead of taking to the streets and walking to electoral commission I will do what I do best, tap away at my keyboard. Who knows, I just might have a Nineteen Eighty Four or a Brave New World in me after all.

#UGBlogWeek Day 3: In Honor of Track No. 3 on Forest Hills Drive

I didn’t start having sex until pretty late. While kids were doing bad manners in class rooms during sports time and after evening prep I was buried neck deep in a copy of Lord of the Rings. Or The Godfather. Or Dune. Or The Stand. It wasn’t that I didn’t like girls (I did); it’s just that I liked books more. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy their company though, because I did. I was quite comfortable around them too. It’s just that I never really learned how to successfully cross the border from the federation of friends to the country of heavy petting and beyond. In other words, I friend zoned myself.

It wasn’t until the wasteland that stretched between senior six and my first failed attempt at university that it finally happened. Those were hot days mostly filled with old R-rated movies that I couldn’t watch as a kid at a nearby video library and hanging out with some of the other guys from the neighborhood who would come around. Most of these guys were either university students on holiday or unemployed graduates still living at home hoping that something would turn up soon. I was the youngest amongst this brood of aimless young men by at least a couple of years.

We would talk trash, drink beer and on the weekends sometimes go out. These were the days of Mateo’s, Alzawadi and Steak Out; Sean Kingston, Brick & Lace and Flo Rida.

On one particular Saturday three of us pooled the little money that we had (I won’t name check anyone but I’m pretty sure at least one of you will read this and remember the night I’m talking about) and decided to check out Steak Out. We got there, found it dull and crossed over to Cheese Bar, some new joint next door.

The place was packed the way only a Kampala hang out can be and playing music that was way too loud. Not that it mattered, back then I thought the disregard for personal space, a set of ringing ears and having to shout at the top of your lungs to make simple conversation was a worthy price to pay for fun.

We bought a round drinks and after not too long found a group of girls to dance with us. The idea was to dance with them and then when it was time to leave, to leave without them. Or in case they left first, to let them. And they did leave first. Only thing was, when they did, one of them decided to stay. Yep, the one who was dancing with me. At first this didn’t pose itself as a problem, she lived in nearby in Wandegeya and so when it was time to leave she would just go home and so would we. And so my two friends watched as me and this girl who had gone rogue danced some more, drank some more and made out in some dark corner of the bar. And then, when it was finally time to leave, she left with us.

She didn’t stop in Wandegaya. Instead she boarded a taxi with us to Ntinda.

While one of my friends was saying I should totally go for it, the other was trying to convince me it was not a good idea. I didn’t know this chick. What if she had something? Use your head man; do you think the first time she is doing this? It’s not worth it man. And he was totally right, I knew he was, I told him he was but the devil on my other shoulder just wouldn’t quit. He told me his brother was out of town and he was crashing at his place, I could crash there too. He knew for a fact that his brother had a box of condoms under his bed, so I wouldn’t have to worry about that. He was 100% OK with sleeping on the couch. Come on, the chick had come this far hadn’t she? What was wrong with crossing the finish line with her? In fact, it would be wrong of me not to cross the finish line with her. I found myself nodding along to everything this friend of mine was saying. He made a very convincing argument.

When our taxi reached the end of the line we got out and stood at Ntinda trading center. My friend against the whole idea was going towards Kiwatule while other friend was heading towards Minister’s Village.

One guess which direction I went.

#UGBlogWeek Day 2: The Presidents Nightmares Are Made Of

I went to sleep at a quarter to twelve and woke up almost four hours later, screaming. My heart was ricocheting around my rib cage and my throat felt like someone tried to drown me in a pool full of sand. I was slick with sweat and my wife was up and peering down at me, asking me what was wrong. Was I OK? She seemed like she wanted to touch me but didn’t know if that was a good idea. “You were screaming and fighting in your sleep.” She told me. “Was it a bad dream?” I nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?” I didn’t but I didn’t tell her that. Instead I gently pushed her aside and sat up. “I need some water.” I stood up, teetered a bit and stretched my arm out, planting my palm flat against the wall to steady myself. After a moment I found my equilibrium, found my slippers and shuffled out of the room.

Three cold glasses of water and I still wanted more. I had to stave myself though, I was no longer drinking because I was thirsty or even hot but because I was trying to wash away the details of my dream, with little success. And so I opened up my lap top and began to type:

He was lying on a steel autopsy table a few yards in front of me. From what I could see he was naked except for a white sheet that covered him from ankle to sternum.  He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t even breathing but my hand still instinctively moved to the holster on my right hip. I didn’t draw but knowing my weapon was there was still reassuring.

I slowly closed the distance between me and the table. It was him alright; I would recognize that face anywhere; Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the President of Uganda. For someone who had been in power for close to sixty years he looked awfully young. His skin was not only unlined but had a synthetic, rubbery look to it. Taking a deep breath I took a finger and ventured a stab at a cheek. It felt like skin but there was something off about it. I leaned in, examined the face that I knew couldn’t possibly be real. I poked at his nose and when there was no reaction I pulled at it- still nothing. And then, on a hunch I’ll never be able to explain, I grabbed his left ear and tugged at it like I was turning a page. At first there was a little resistance but then suddenly his ear came off, the rest of his face along with it.

It took a moment to process but I was staring down at a skull of gleaming metal, a ghoulish grin of human teeth aimed up at the ceiling. Another moment and I remembered that I was holding this things face by its ear and letting out a small scream I chucked it clear across the room. I turned so I could put some ground between myself and whatever this thing was when a cold hand grabbed me by the wrist and pulled. Turning back I reached for my holster and drew my weapon. I---

“Hey, what are you doing?” I looked up from the screen of my lap top; my wife was standing in the doorway in one of my boxers and a vest. She looked concerned. “Nothing.” I told her. “Then come to bed.” I didn’t move. “Now.” Without thinking about it a second more I closed the lap top and went to bed.

DAY 1: Trying and Mostly Failing to Beat my Brain into Submission

NB: This is a work of fiction. I think. What does that mean? Huh?

Valentine’s Day is for cows. I’ve always thought that and I still do. One might think that since I’m married now that would change but I just pulled out one of my wife’s earphones and asked her if she’s sure she doesn’t want to do anything and she looked at me and was like, “If you wanted a woman who cared about that kind of shit you should have married someone else.” Needless to say, I married the right woman.

She’s listening to Majid Jordan right now. I got their album a couple of days ago and she’s been going crazy over them; humming a melody here, singing a loose couplet there. She even took to her Time Line to knock out a couple of 140’s- hashtagKingCity, hashtagTorontoSwag. I can’t even front though, it’s a good album. The 90’s R&B lushness of “Love Is Always There” is what I’ve got on repeat; she’s more into the Weeknd-esque falsetto and deep house synths of “King City”. We both love the heavy 808’s and bounce of “Warm” though.

So I’ve been thinking about it and maybe I should do something special anyway, you know? Join the herd. Even if just this once. But If I’m going to do that then I need to snap on a pair of horns and get a MOOOOOOOOVE on. She deserves it, right? It would earn me some husband points at the very least.

I scratch at my beard. Why I have a beard in this heat is beyond me. It’s just easier not to shave I guess. I’ve been growing my hobo-hiding-in-a-hovel-beard. I haven’t shaved since the wedding and I’m totally OK with that. I’ve barely left the house since then either. Writing for a living makes that pretty easy. I take a walk in the evenings sometimes but that’s not very often. I saw something the other day that made me laugh, “Beards are the new six-pack.” I really hope that’s true because I really need to go to the gym.

Believe it or not but there was a time when people would ask me whether I played rugby. That was a long time ago though. Another time, another me. I don’t really play a sport, unless FIFA on PS3 counts. But then I don’t really play video games anymore either. I really liked fighting games when I did though (“FINISH HIM!!!!”), stealth games like Metal Gear Solid too sometimes but the mayhem and carnage of Grand Theft Auto was my absolute favorite. Screw the missions. What’s the ALL WEAPONS cheat so I can get that kitana, lop people’s heads off and steal all of their money?

Wait a sec, I’m supposed to be writing about Love and Elections aren’t I? I’ve tried, I really have but my brain, it’s messing with me. It’s just decided to pull down its pants and take a hot, smelly deuce right here on my keyboard. How about I try again tomorrow? Deal?

And oh, Happy Valentine’s Day. Cows.