set the fire to the third bar

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November." That was something Guy Fawkes said, when he hatched a brilliant plan to blow up the British parliament building during the days when government was oppressive and there were no freedoms and there were sedition laws that could be used to arrest people just for saying the wrong thing or talking to a person whose ideas were deemed "not conducive to the continued well being of the powers that be." They made a movie based loosely on that story, V for Vendetta. In there, the guy saw a country where government had overrun their boundaries, where people's very souls were no longer their own, where you were not allowed to have an opinion on grounds it may cause chaos, where the police (interestingly called Fingermen) could do whatever they wanted and get away with it. And he was saddened that people had forgotten all about Guy Fawkes and the 5th of November. So he decided he'd go through with the blowing up of parliament on that day to remind them. You see all Fawkes wanted to do was to inspire people. To remind them that it's their right, that government should be afraid of the people and not the other way round, coz the power really emanates from the people.

It's a powerful emotion, fear, if one can take advantage of it. Because that is how dictators emerge. Fear, and hate. You get a group of conservative, middle-aged, middle-income people who have longing memories of a better time past, you point out to them the rampant insecurity, the rising inflation and unemployment, hunger, increasing instances of things I cannot mention that indicate a massively decadent state of morality in society, you tell them how much worse it's gonna get, get them to retreat into their corners, and then tell them it's so-and-so's fault. Tell them the other-colored people are to blame. Tell them people of this or that religion are scientifically inferior, and beneath their stations in life. Get them to be afraid, and to loathe. Because with just those two feelings alone, it's like when you corner a cat, you can get them to do whatever you lead them to believe will make it all better. Create chaos, show them a world with anarchy, "Remind them why they need us," said that current Chancellor of Britain in the movie when the people were showing certain promise of starting to wonder who was really in charge. You see, people naturally want to be led. William Penn said, "If we will not be governed by God, we shall be governed by tyrants," at the beginnings of the American experiment. There's a vaccuum up there, one that will be filled, whether by good men or by an evil empire.

John Githongo thinks that Africans are the most subservient people in the world when faced with intimidation, or force, or power. And he should know. "When all is said and done, Africa is a place where we grovel at the feet of our leaders" and beg them to please do right by us as though it's a favor they're doing us. And when they don't we say it's ok, maybe tomorrow will be better. I'm wondering how long it's gonna take us to realise, tomorrow does not get better just because of the mere passage of time, it gets better because people [=us] MAKE it better. Change comes because people demand for it. Justice Louis Brandeis said that in a democracy the most important office is the office of the citizen. In the Britain of those days it seemed the people had forgotten about it. And in the Kenya of these days, I'd say we've never even known it. I've been watching that series Hillary Ng'weno and the Nation Media Group made, Making of a Nation. About that time when multipartism was banned in Kenya, about how men like JM Kariuki, Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya and later Robert Ouko got shot just because they were getting too popular, and their ideas were considered too radical (=anti-government), about how the KPU luo leaders were all detained and then later locked out of the general election through a technicality, again because they didn't agree with the government. And, of course, everyone stood by and watched as these injustices got served.

The real Guy Fawkes didn't go through. His plan was foiled just in time. But V in the movie (being a movie), did succeed. In either case, though, the point was made. People can, if they come together, stand up for their rights and defeat tyranny. All it takes is that one person who's willing to die for the cause. In the last of those Nixon interviews conducted by David Frost after Watergate exploded and he had to resign, Frost asked him if what he was trying to say was that there were situations where the president can decide if it's in the best interests of the nation to do something illegal. Nixon answered, "I'm saying when the president does it, that means it's not illegal." Imagine that!

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taking back sunday

Back in the day when I was still in school, I remember Sunday used to really be a day of rest. I'd wake up early in the morning, be in church by 8, if I was on rotation for worship team that day I'd probably have to stay till 12, then go to school and hang out in my room or out in the sun and do nothing till it got dark or people started coming back. I was in one of those schools that's really tucked away in the forest (read built-in-the-countryside) so all those people who stayed in Nairobi used to vamoose all weekend or go hang out in town or wherever, basically anywhere other than there. Me, I made lemonade with the lemons I got - I took the time to reconnect with nature, which as it happened was aplenty all around us... [although the fact that home was too far for me to go for breaks shorter than 3 weeks coz I'd spend like a week on the road helped]. See that way when I started the week next Monday at 11am [wat! my course wasn't as involving as it should have been!] I was completely rejuvenated. Monday didn't even use to feel like Monday.

But not these days. First working is a world away from school, coz 8 working hours really means 8 hours plus nights and weekends, so you have no free time to recuperate over the week. Then now the Sundays are no longer my own. If it's not work, or a concert I have to attend in support, or a long lost friend I have to see, or get my hair cut, or travel, then there's gonna be no power and so I'll spend the whole day obsessing over that and checking if it's come back. I swear, the only difference between Sundays and other days is the way I dress. Even a simple lunch with the mother [she happened to be in town today so] takes up the entire day - so many grown up things to discuss: mortgages, bank loans, investments, digital cameras, the economy...ok, not really :) So now at the end of the day you're so tired you can't even lift a finger, then you realize you'd just gotten The Freedom Writers over the week and today is when you were supposed to watch it, and coz the power situation is unpredictable I gotta get ready (= iron clad) for the whole week ahead just in case. As if that's not enough, you're realising all this at 10.30 so there's the whole early to bed and early to rise thing that you've also gotta get around to.

{{sigh}} when did it all get so crammed up?? I never actually thought the schedule would ever be as free as uni again, but I didn't think it would get this bad either. I need to bring back me-time. And not those late nights, actual me-time. Sunday afternoon. Sipping margaritas (or apple juice). Listening to neo soul or acoustic rock (seeing as I have this home theater I never really get to enjoy). Watching those old daytime series I used to be crazy about (Ed, 7th Heaven, Jack and Jill, Dawson's Creek, Charmed, Everwood...) or Mariah Carey's and Trump's True Hollywood Stories, or the deep moving black family movies that rocked the 90's - Set It Off, Soul Food, Brown Sugar, The Best Man, Waiting to Exhale, Boyz in the Hood. Learning guitar. Not having a splitting headache. All the things I never get to do since I started working. And that I probably won't get to do this coming weekend coz one of us in my inner circle has a birthday then. It always turns out to be fun with those guys so I'm staying positive about that one, but after that...

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i will be grateful for this day

Ok, this time even I gotta admit - life is good. Today I met two people, one a friend from high school and the other a friend from uni. The friend from uni was one of those people we really started talking just before we cleared, like in the fourth year, and she was doing well, like in every respect. Got a nice job, house, living on her own, even underwent this crazy personality change, hair grew longer, basically she seemed to be making it. It was early in the morning, so we went and had breakfast and talked about a lot of things, and it was refreshing, to see how people find my traumatizing tale about that day I rolled with our car and almost killed my mother funny, or how sometimes it's not our imagination - the grass really is greener on the other side (she works at one of the other Big Four audit firms so she was telling me all about theirs and it did sound enticing; at the very least she had me at 25% salary increment...), or looking at the world through the eyes of a converted introvert. Twas nice. It's also interesting the way the really shy people, the ones who literally don't look up when being spoken to, can't really come up and say they're shy, and then here's Robbie Williams on Trace saying how "...see the great thing about me is that I'm a really shy guy. You can't see it, I can't even see it myself sometimes, but I am..." WTH!!! DUDE, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ON THE NEWS, YOU'RE A ROCKSTAR!!!!

Anyway then just after we'd split and I was walking away thinking about how much better life could have gotten for me, I run into the ex-high school friend. Well, not really friend, someone it just so happens we went to the same school with (it was really large, like a thousand students, so one couldn't be friends with everyone, plus really, I wasn't tripping over myself making them those days...). At any rate, we started to talk, and I could tell, even just from his look, that he led a troubled life. It turned out he was a street beggar, but because of his age, (he's my age), people aren't given to experiencing spasms of kindness and writing him large cheques when they see him walk towards them. Not nearly as much as they get the urge to scream "THIEF!!! THIEF!!!" So it's really hard for him. What I thought was merely just a rough day a guy was turning out to be everyday for him.

Actually I should tell his story the way it is - he's not a street beggar, he's a street con. He's mastered the art of telling theses heart-rending stories about how he was promised a settlement by his former sponsors (the people who paid his fees for him - Starch is that kind of school), and how it came as an international wire transfer which is still in the system at the bank and so for the two weeks it'll take to clear the guy he's been living with moved and went to live in Coast for a while so left him without anything to do and so all he needs is some transport to go home - a thousand bob! ati coz he lives someplace deep in Rift Valley. I think I trust in the inherent goodness of people too much, coz I'd bought that story hook line and sinker. So I was talking to some other guys we went to school with as well, and wadya know, they know about him! He's scammed them too! I didn't give him anything coz mercifully I didn't have anything at the time, but I was actually feeling guilty for being unable to help out. It's hard to imagine that at some point not too long ago, the world had opened up before us, both me and him, and the sky was really the limit, (Starehe is the kind of school that does that for you - it opens doors), and now the contrast between us couldn't be bigger. I wonder what happens to certain people's dreams. I've said before that I see no rhyme and reason to life, and that no one knows why some things work out and others don't. Well today I've gained another new perspective: all this time I keep thinking how it could be better for me, and being unsatisfied with what I have, well, I just got a taste of how much worse it could have gotten. If for no other reason, just for that visual, I will be grateful for this day.

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songs for you, truths for me

Last weekend I went to go see my little brother's band playing. It was beautiful. I swear, 23 years and I'd never seen him like that. It was like when you've been carrying a goldfish around in a paper bag and then you suddenly let it back out into the ocean. The boy came alive. He was shaking his head all over and he was wearing those hideous-ish glasses he insists on wearing and it was like poetry (actually I think it was poetry :) Sorta made me see him in a different light, if only for one day. He's the idealistic kind, the kind who'll gladly play a concert for nothing just because they enjoy doing it, so I hope he never has to see the ugly side of the music world - he might not be able to deal. You know the way there's always one thing someone can do that they can do really well... like, better than anyone else? Well, for him that thing's music. He picks up a guitar and he starts playing and just goes with the flow and before you know it you're in sync. Then he puts it down and picks up that saxophone.

Makes me wonder, if it's possible for a person to be so brilliant at something that other people find as cryptic as Swedish, how doesn't this brilliance translate into every other aspect of their life, you know? Musicians are supposed to write from deep within, right? To transfer their personal experiences and those of people close to them to the rest of the world through their songs. They're supposed to be able to make you identify with them, feel as though you were right there with them, be them. Like the way in the 90's before Cosmo with all its psychobabble became such a big hit with the sisters all you had to do to get a girl was sing her line out of 98 Degrees, or the Backstreet Boys. Just with the stroke of a pen, never having met you, singers can make you get up in the morning, pick up a weapon and stand a post, or turn over and tell yourself just how cruel the world is and how it doesn't deserve someone as great as you and waste the rest of your day wallowing in self pity.

And this isn't just one of those 20-minute hypotheticals either. It's something I've felt even in my own life. The songs I listen to, when I think about it, are more often than not songs that speak to me. Songs that tell me something, or echo a feeling I have. [ok, sometimes it's just that it's Linkin Park or Coldplay and I'm only human so how can I not listen :)]. When I listen to Eminem's Sing for the Moment I hear someone who knows they can influence others through their music "...I guess words are a mother*****/they can be great/or they can teach hate...they say music can alter moods and talk to you...music is reflection of self...just let our spirits live on through our lyrics that you hear in our songs..."; or T.I.: "...Either die or go to jail/That's a hell of a decision/But I'm wrong and I know it/My excuse is unimportant/I'm just trynna let you know/That I aint think I had a choice...You waiting on me to die/You're gon' be waitin for a minute/Boy I'm ready for whatever/Somebody better tell 'em/I'll be here when the storm's clear/And everything's settled..." [Ready for Whatever] - here's a guy stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility for their actions when they screw up, but remain determined to make it; or Nada Surf: "To make a mountain of/Your life is just a choice...Always love/Hate will get you every time/Always love/Don't wait till the finish line..." [Always Love] - don't sweat the small stuff, don't let little issues ruin friendships, don't hold grudges; or Angels & Airwaves: "...We all make mistakes/Here's your lifeline..." [Lifeline] - second chances; or Avril Lavigne: "...Keep holding on (coz you know we'll make it through)/Just stay strong (coz you know I'm here for you..." [Keep Holding On] - persistence, never give up, you're not alone; and those are just the happy songs. I have a whole booklet for the sad ones. In fact I think I have something to say about every song I like. That is a. lot. of. songs.

Anyway, my brother and his band; I hope it all goes well for them. And I hope they use the power they have as musicians to effect positive change in those around them. Or even just in himself... And I hope he watches The Dark Knight one of these days, coz, among other things, the Joker said something very profound: "If you're really good at something, don't ever do it for free."

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heart of a jealous man

Jealous (adj): covetous, showing extreme cupidity; painfully desirous of another's advantages;

I think as far as bad feelings go this one's pretty much up there. Asides from just being a painful thing to experience in and of itself, it's worse than others because it exposes someone's insecurities. If you think you want something someone else has got then that just makes clear to you that you don't have it. It causes your heart to ache. It makes you lose confidence in yourself. You wonder what that other person's got that you haven't, and even if it was clearly just a question pure luck, the human psyche is an interesting thing - it's always somehow gonna be able to find a way to attribute those advantages to shortfalls on your part. You get jealous and you start to think maybe you should have done something differently: maybe you should have gotten up earlier; perhaps you should have put on the blue shirt; maybe you should have studied harder; maybe you should have been taller, or practised more, or cut your hair when you had the chance. It's always things like this - things you think you should have done otherwise that would have led to you ending up in the stead of whomever you're jealous of.

These feelings creep up on you and they consume you; they take over your whole existence, to the point you cannot think of anything other than the person you're jealous of and the reason why. You start to feel smaller and smaller and less capable and weaker and all those things that mean you're inadequate as a person. You lose all your self esteem. And then you pick up a knife and you slash your wrists [ok, not really, only if you're one of those already-disturbed emo kids]. It's one of those things you don't think you'll ever get over, like when you get a tattoo in a dark alley down Kirinyaga Road where the hygiene isn't on the top five most important policies in the procedures manual and then you carry around that scar forever.

Anyway, I suppose even it ends, with time. It's like that weird writer says:

He stops at the window.

He stands.

Greyness. Silence.

A room.

He stands at the window.

And a voice says: Everything passes. The good and the bad. The joy and the sorrow. Everything passes.

END