I Just Can’t Get You Out of My Head

Pop music this decade has been, well crap. 

Of course that is apart from Outcast, Lhasa, Radiohead, The Darkness, Jay-Z, Branford Marsalis, White Stripe, M.I.A, The Flaming Lips, Amy Winehouse, Lykke Li, Rachid Taha, Acoustic Ladyland, Barack Schmool, Jamie Cullum, Diana Krall, Elbow …

What am I saying? The Noughties were great!

2009, not so much.  Just empty forgettable bubblegum music.

My favorite YouTube mashup artist, DJ Earworm (that’s his name, I swear), has released his annual mixdown of the Billboard Top 25 Albums of 2009.  It’s fun, it’s frazzled, its Boom Boom Pow!

Click here for other DJ Earworm mashups.

A Nobel Cause

*Visit Make Road Safe to download a petition.  I have 15 signatures on mine. Aiming for 100 by January 15th.

A Great Man and a Coward

If you haven’t read the letter by the ‘exiled’ LC5 chairman of Masindi, Steven Birija, you should.  The letter published in today’s edition of The Observer proves that there are voices of sanity in the world of confusion, intrigue and corruption in Bunyoro.

Steven Birija; Photo credit: The Observer

Of course Mr. Birija is not without fault.  The constant bickering between him and the former Masindi Chief Administrative Officer, Milton Kato, almost brought the district council to its knees.  Birija appeared to be on the offensive throughout his four-year tenure, making enemies of his closest political allies and alienating his friends with his accusations of corruption and abuse of office.

Still …

This year, my friends Bro and Taata, together with a partner radio station in Masindi, were dragged to court for reporting on a district council session in which the District Engineer was implicated in the theft of property from the district garage in Nyangahya.  To prepare for their defense, Bro and Taata wanted a copy of the council’s minutes from November 2008 to prove that the matter had indeed been mentioned publicly not once, but twice.

Caption This II

Defining My Mood

Not the world’s best picture, I know. There’s little I can do with a crappy camera.

Anyway.

I had an early flight out of Entebbe today and stopped at Anderita Hotel beach to watch the sunrise. It was bliss.

My day is going great! Yours?

Age of Innocence

*A silly story inspired by the lovely Sally Malova

Dear Jack …

She crosses out her writing in frustration.  He’s not dear.

Hello Jack …

No. ‘Hello’ is much too familiar.  She crosses it out again, then, in frustration angrily tears out the paper in the flimsy exercise book paper on her lap.

Her hands are sweating, her legs are tired and her mind is mush.

She opens the door to the wardrobe in which she has been huddled for the better part of the afternoon to let in more light and air.  She picks up the note given to her by Dorothy earlier in the day to read again the words she has read a million times before.

Diana,

I like the colored beads in your hair. They are pretty.

Thank you for telling teacher that I was not the one who spilled ink on her desk today.

I think you are my best friend in this class or in the whole wide world.

I like you very much.

Will you be my girlfriend?

Jack

Teardrops

Nyumbani Lweza … after the rain

0745 hours, December 16, 2009

Still Searching

Peace

A yawn, a smile,

The sunlight in my eyes.

Peace

His dimples,

My death.

Peace

Elusive …

Still.

An African Sunrise

Kampala awakens

0625 hours, December 15, 2009

Exposure

I used to love her. Shame, was her name. She loved me too a long, long time ago.

S’nuff. Gerrup. Wash now. You stink.

Woof, woof. I should respond, like the good doggie I am. Here master, yell one more time. The humiliation you have put me through isn’t enough. Do it again. Just one more time.

Come. Sit. Pull. Stop. Again! Stop. Again!

Fifty thousand shillings for a five minute fuck and the bastard didn’t even go the distance. He was in and out in record time, squealing like a pig in a slaughterhouse, screaming in my ear to move! move! movayyyyi!!!  He smells like feet and has the breath of a corpse, but I stink.

Shame. I should feel her. I don’t. I don’t care.

He says his name is Viktor. Viktor who? I can’t be bothered to learn or remember his second name.