Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Feeling negative, feeling annoyed

Thinking about
lies and the lying liars who tell them.
Remembering this
if you can't join them, beat them :)
http://girltalkhq.com/fitch-please-how-a-blogger-took-on-abercrombie-fitch/
'True' lies and the flock mindset are exactly why I don't need to be around people so much.  Ugh, so illogical.  So unoriginal.  I'm out; I feel better already.

Advertisement: Read my books. ###Three Sisters, novel #1 here###

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Lyrics: The Search (Radio), by Jesse Jagz, with Jumar and DuGod

From the Royal Niger Company album, aka Jagz Nation Volume Two, 2014
Listen / Watch

(Chorus - ALL)
Late at night when my pen gon' bleed
I look around what a friend gon' need
A friend with weed is a friend in deed
We pick those sticks and we blend those seeds
I dial up, spend more G's,
inhale then we bend those knees.
Feel it in the air there's a gentle breeze.
Please won't you let a nigga blow these trees?

(1 - JESSE)
She ain't even need to speak
her desire spoke
She living out spinning round
like tyre spokes
And through the fire and smoke
she dry and broke
And you could see through her eyes
the entire scope.
Uh.
Happened the very minute she woke
She got the feeling she broke
and now she's looking for bro's.
Hoes.
She wants a nigga that grows
to make her wiggle her toes
and make her feel like a rose.

Now she's looking for the finer blokes
who wire notes
for her designer cloaks
and take notes, nigga, no Made in China coats -
She go coast to coast in steamliner boats.
Coast.
She said life's a joke:
we all live rich but she still die broke
from the poor to the low to the all-high Pope
and I quote the Highness and spoke:
let your mind elope
and light a pipe o' smoke
mix drinks with egg yolks
and get soaked.
And she said:
can you teach me to cope?
The pearls from the oldest oaks -
flows are dope.
And: nope,
I ain't got the antidote
and I quote
we're all just here to find hope
Dope.  Quote with the undernote:
The pearls from the oldest oak
flows are dope.
Uh. Yeah.

(Hook 1: JUMAR)
Uuhh, yeahh, was it this you're looking for?
Uhhh, yeahh, this is what this shit is for.
And when I fall into the sky
I know this old G's goin' ride to this
Life is a dream but the streets don't sleep
This is what the fuck it should be
This's what the fuck it should beee
This's what the fuck it should beee.

(2 - DUGOD)
Chei. Um. Ah.
Yeah.  Money on your mind
Get your cheddah right.
Crossing borderlines,
we're all searching for a better life.
Forced to battle heavyweights
even though we're featherlight
Black Gees
want to trap cheese
though they never bite.
Uh.
Li'l players ball hard for tall broads
even the score boards against all odds,
you know we've seen this before dawg,
we're small gods.
Like a wizard,
I'm from a place you niggas call Oz.
My life's a movie.
The star and I act alike
Imagination set alight like a satellite.
Executing dreams
still watching out for parasites.
Yet I set my sights on visions of paradise.
And the queen of the city -
my black-brown Nefertiti.
She let my pretty fingers
wrap round perfect titties
my Miss is pretty,
she flowing like the Mississippi,
she a Gee,
so we bang-bang,
no chitty-chitty.

(Hook 2: DUGOD)
Right where I'm supposed to be
Destiny stands close to me
Some live like kings
and so should we
rolling trees, socially.
We're rolling this Colombian gold.
Holy bliss for your body and soul.
On the road to where nobody gets cold.
Lock and load everybody let's gooo.

(Hook 1: JUMAR)
Uuhh, yeahh, was it this you're looking for?
(Dugod - Right where I'm supposed to be,
Destiny stands close to me)
Uhhh, yeahh, this is what this shit is for.
And when I fall into the sky
I know this old G's goin' ride to this
Life is a dream but the streets don't sleep
This is what the fuck it should be
This's what the fuck it should beee
This's what the fuck it should beee.

(3 - JESSE)
Chei.
Now tell me what it is you're looking for -
is it something spiritual or something physical?
Something you can see yourself in immaterial?
What?  You're not rocking with the imperial?
Uh?
Baby stare into a mirror yeah
Is there something making you feel so inferior?
And let me change, rearrange, your interior.
Whah? You're not rocking with the superior?
And are you
looking for something in your previous life,
Baby, beneath the hype?
Uh.
Are you trying to make your features right?
Trying to reach the heights,
or, looking for love like a preacher's wife?
Uhn.
Come on, Baby, look inside you.
Come on, real nigga read a book beside you.
Stop being idle.
and calculate what I divide through.
It's multiplied by two what I'll supply you.
Come on, Baby, let the vibe through
and let this be your weapon; be your Bible.
and be your rifle if any try to ride you,
it will guide you.
Are you tired of being lied to?
Life: are you steady trying to fly through?
Are you tired of being so muthafuckin' tribal?
Are you looking for some take-you-to-the-sky blue?
Tired of the new, are you looking for the vinyl?

(Chorus: ALL)
Late at night when my pen gon' bleed
I look around what a friend gon' need
A friend with weed is a friend in deed
We pick those sticks and we blend those seeds
I dial up, spend more G's,
inhale then we bend those knees,
Feel it in the air there's a gentle breeze.
Please won't you let a nigga blow these trees?

(Hook 2: DUGOD)
Right where I'm supposed to be
Destiny stands close to me
Some live like kings
and so should we
rolling trees, socially.
We're rolling this Colombian gold.
holy bliss for your body and soul.
on the road to where nobody gets cold.
lock and load everybody let's gooo.

Advertisement: Read my books. ###Three Sisters, novel #1 here###

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The Kendrick Lamar album review

Did white people watch Roots?  8-Mile?  They need to watch this.  To Pimp A Butterfly is (the one-word review) Operatic. 

It's Netrebko and Domingo, the best orchestra, 10,000 hours times a thousand tearducts, dancers and costumes, coming at you all at once it seems...You don't even speak Roman so why are you crying...want to be born again. 
Kendrick is a vessel - humble like a spring - his water is not his.
Never minding that, in the moment, you would do anything he says, while you search the screen half-expecting the symphony to pimp up in colours of Compton, courtesy of some little studio co-production, roll credits.  Episode 11: How Much A Dollar Cost?  Episode 13: The blacker the berry...

Advertisement: Read my books.

Friday, March 06, 2015

I am rich!

New internet.  Yah baby - unlimited nights.  As my Naija people say, next levels.

It's been a fine four-year relationship with Visafone but Swift offered more for less.  I tried to call VF yesterday to ask for a better deal but no answer.  I know they'd probably have been puzzled, like 'take your business elsewhere if you like (or does this woman think she's in Yankee?)' but I still thought it'd be nice to talk before switching.

I feel bad for my 'phone credit' guy though, for a while now he could count on me buying 10 grand worth every 4weeks to feed my Coursera addiction.  I feel like I have to do 'Happy Weekend' for him now :)  I'm on my last GB with the current plan (shed a tear) , then omg omg I'm going to go wild.  OK not really.  I'll watch a few versions of Aida  (detail research for novel #2.)  I've blogged three days in a row now, so I'm clearly running away from writing, or something.  This new Firefox Hello thing, I might try it.  Revive Skype, which I've been off for years now.  Watch Papa's interviews.  Go hard on the online courses.  I used to think those people were crazy, showing off their ten online courses.  I've stopped counting mine - maybe ten, probably more. 

You know what else I found at the store?  A little plastic magnifying glass.  Was inspired by my science MOOC to get a microscope or something like it.  At some point maybe a telescope.  Maybe I'll go someplace where I can see the stars.  Maybe the North (Adamawa) when this Boko Haram rubbish ends.

They had acrylic and oil paints too at that shop, but I have enough toys already: piles of books to read, piles of movies to watch, crayons and wall, software and blogs, paper and postercolour, ... and now like double the internet!

Thursday, March 05, 2015

Me against the third-world problems

I'm proud of my solutions:
No car
No generating set
No television set
No mosquitoes

Details?     
Car? X
I travel little - not some sort of salesperson - so I take public transport and stuff.  It's social and entertaining.  Walking between nodes is all the exercise I get anyhow.  Just as importantly, I cut out car maintenance, driving, cleaning, fueling, all that.  I'll let the experts do it for me.  Nobody has time for a Nigeria-based car mennn.  I pity the cars - you would age quickly and be sickly too if you had to do these treacherous, flooded, bumpy, start-stop courses called roads.

Soon, cars'll drive themselves.  Much safer anyhow.  I've always seen driving as a big responsibility.  You're using all this mental energy to make sure you don't kill; make sure you're not killed.  It's overwhelming sometimes.

And soon, we'll have trains.  Safe, social, civilized - what's not to love about great metropolitan and inter-city transport networks?  You can't properly have city life until it's incredibly easy to see your friends, hang out in the evenings, get drunk if you want, end up safely home.  Which is why LA was a terrible city, in my opinion, and why I had to get a car there, even if I only did like 5-10 miles a month on it.  I couldn't manage grocery shopping, so I broke down (literally crying one day, from the stress of homework and everything, then shopping bags on top of that) and bought one.  My baaaby!  However, I hear they now have improved public transport, or are working on it.
Clearly, there are trains and there are Trains.
Gen? X
I use an inverter.  Having a tiny cavewoman apartment with no high-power appliances helps.  Every Nigerian needs an inverter.
Cut out NEPA-dependence - let them switch on-off on a five-minute cycle if they please.
Cut out generator-hell.  Never had a gen, the smoke kills literally but the noise kills slowly too no?  I mean, and vibration too?
(Poetry Interlude) :
I find I can't smile with a big or small generator on nearby.  I dream of massive sculptures made from the carcasses of generators.  A giant see-saw at the local park.  It says 'never again'.  Never again will we be so stupid, sub-optimal, left-behind...
What is a park, right?  lol.

What is a walkway?  
What is sanity?

TV? X
I don't want a TV because I spend so much time with other entertainment already.  With a TV, I might never DO anything.  Plus I watched enough in the noughties to last a lifetime.  Time to create more than I consume, no?   Also because I'm the kind of cheap black woman that won't pay for cable, lol.

Mosquitoes? X
I need to get help with these greedy ants, they really love baked goods I found the other day, they can sniff banana bread from an ant-mile away, but with the ant-famine on, they're scrounging, foraging, everywhere, even in my bed.  Or I'm imagining?  What could be attracting them?  Been putting off the suggested minor fumigation, but now that they're keeping me up at night, I have to call my friendly neighbourhood facilities manager man.

But the beautiful thing is I've had ~no mosquitoes for years because of my amazing housing-agent-builder-decorator dude who hooked me up, with the window/door nets, and I sure never keep them open.
Love him forever - he oversaw the inverter wiring or whatever too.  I was like, I want a place with a bathroom, electricity, and water, he was like, c'mon you'll need curtains, at least one cooking surface, a bed, ... and I had the sense, and the income (now gone), to let him do whatever.

One change I did require - lose the kitchen, add that to the over-tiny 'bathroom' space.  I believe in the California kitchen; to me, it's a political issue, no wife-slaves cooking in a smoky chamber, make food right where you live.  That or no kitchen at all, lol.  It's a lifestyle issue.

He snuck in a fridge and fans, and a lighter for the cooking thing and some beautiful energy-saving light 'globes' with really cool control circuitry that I don't understand, and - thank you!
I also think no mosquitoes because active geckos on my gecko-coloured wall - what do you think?  
I find carpet is essential.  Otherwise a space feels...industrial, cold, not cosy.  So yes he did carpet.  

I love my little cave so much, I've kept it from the last elections to ... we have elections this month, right?  I love my cave.
Sometimes I sleep in other places and am reminded...mosquitoes suck!

Cool reputation
:(
I mildly understand how unacceptable this behaviour is an image-obsessed town, so I pretend sometimes lol, wouldn't want to cause a scandal by taking the bus in full view of the Marie Antoi-nots and their nouveau-riche noses - thank God they haven't yet discovered rhinoplasty to get the proper up-turn, for now we're still as flat in the nose as our nude-butt primate brethren. 
http://mirrorme.me/lagos-streets-keke-napep/
Still, let me rave for a minute: I love the freakin' Keke NAPEPs.
I think they're glorious tuk-tuks and I'm a tourist in Thailand.  The boss at my food spot, aka my oga at the top, reminds me that they're glorified tricycles.  Scooters.  Mopeds.  Whatever.  I like how they get through traffic sometimes.  Sanity. 

Check out:
Seeking Serenity Sensuality in Lagos, and other poems of Nigeria, here.
https://www.google.com/search?q=tuk+tuk+thailand&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=-iD4VPe2CYHVasfEgaAO&ved=0CB0QsAQ&biw=1094&bih=484
PS Was talking to this fine boy the other day.  He's a doctor now, he used to just be one of the little kids of my fine-girl physics teacher who many really thought was my mum cos we had the same face and later the same hips lol, now he's this clearly very smart and reflective person.  He interpreted my way as 'backpacking through life.'  I hope, wish to live up to that.  Because it's not that serious.  We're here today, so soon gone.

PPS My music speaker died last week of an apparent suicide.  I'd taken to placing the cube flat on the table because I liked the boom boom effect, it sounded more raspy that way than when you let it stand against a wall for instance.  Once, it fell off the ledge so I took care not to leave it so precariously near the edge again.  But this other time I was dancing and heard a crash, and when it failed to work afterwards, I noticed that the electronic port had been damaged - made in China? - and that was the end of the tiny digicube with the fragile sinew and mighty voice.  
I could get larger equipment, but 'backpacking.'

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Lyrics: REMEMBER ME, by SDC ft. Funbi

SDC, Show Dem Camp, has Ghost and Tec.
Listen (Parental Advisory)

(Intro: TEC recites)
Time-travelling through space and time,
Lovers - she had many -
but in her quiet moments, the
only recurrent face is mine. 
I altered not just her state of mind but
her outlook on life. 
More than just the pipes,
I'm fixing her reservoirs,
the
taps, once dry,
are now flowing in torrents.
Vanilla skies,
vanilla kush,
flows in a room of clouds,
Thanks Agbalumo, I love the way you put it down.

(Chorus/Hook: FUNBI)
O Baby, you gon' remember me,
tattoo my name in your mind deep inside it.
the way that I'm gonna get you excited,
discovering places never been.

(Chorus, again)

O Baby

(GHOST)
Object of my fantasy,
Yall there's no cover
from this loaded magazine
Sex is my weapon-of-choice
Murder is the case, you're the casualty
when I hit
every atom of your anatomy. 
We can take it slow
- drink, smoke, whatever..
I can be a good boy
but you know when I'm bad I'm better. 
Oh, you like my voice?
Does it turn you on? 
Are your panties moist? 
Well,
we can get it on.
Nm, nm, don't trip.
Love the way you play your hard to get
And I see the freak all in your eyes
and that just makes me hard as shit.
Girl your skin is a pool of chocolate
and I'm just dying for a swim
Wanna indulge myself in your sweetness
and have you dripping from my chin
Then
I'ma get my beast on
Shalala kush, ching chong,
Now ride that dee like a seesaw
Giddy up, giddy up, hee haw!
Now it's my turn
Switch positions
Sweat dripping
Bed dripping
from the back shots
now you're moaning
that's your shih
hypnosis.

Go!
(Chorus x2)

(TEC)
Roll a little, toke a little
get the room loud
Calm before a storm -
that's a kush cloud.
Your inhibitions' gone
it's something new now. 
No need to rush it,
Omo cool down.
No time to waste
but we need to take our time
Need endurance for the kind a heights I'm
gonna help you climb
'n' I know you heard that song
that goes 'borrow-borrow make me shine'
though it belongs to someone else
tonight you say it's mine.
And if it's just one night,
then Baby we're on borrowed time,
so all your thoughts of making love
I'm gonna redefine. 
And it fits like a glove -
that's the way it's been designed.
And I know you like to take control
so I will let you shine
I will let you get on top
I will let you start the climb
Your waist,
your waist,
I will let you start to wind,
I'ma let you speed it up,
then tell you Omo take your time,
and if you like to talk
then let me know what's on your mind.

(Chorus x4)

(Outro)
Getting you on that extra mind blow.

Advertisement: Read my books. ###Three Sisters, novel #1 here###