BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
YOU’RE probably wondering what kind of subject title this is, so, I’ll explain. It’s lifted wholesale from a Ricky Gervais acted and co-directed movie I watched on the plane as I left the country on Wednesday morning (By the time you’re reading this, I would have been back in Nigeria a few hours. I have a show to run)
So in the movie, Mr. Gervais lives in a country where nobody lies, they do not have the ability to. Waiters tell you they took a sip of your drink as they brought it down to you, your secretary tells you you’re a loser, women tell you they do not find you attractive the moment they meet you, or one woman tells another on sight, “I find you threatening”.
It’s a strange movie, one that stretches the mind that makes you think “What if?” What if we all were unable to lie? What if we were compelled to tell the truth to all we met, to all those who asked us to have relationships with them, to all those we were engaged or married to, what would we really say?
There are relationships based on pity, on fear, or on mutual convenience; there are people of indeterminate sexual preferences in relationships designed to please the judgmental eye of the world. But on a planet where we had to tell the truth, what would we really say if lying had not yet been discovered?
Man says to woman: “I really would like to have a relationship with you. I think you and I are a perfect match.”
The woman replies like Jennifer Garner did to Ricky Gervais in the movie, “I do not find you sexually attractive and do not think we are genetically compatible. You are fat and will give me chubby children with snub noses.”
In some ways, in all our minds, we all have these conditions, which we never really spell out. “We do not come from the same social background”, “Your father is a rustic farmer and would be a terrible in-law”, “your family would embarrass mine in public.”
Some of these excuses might appear shallow to a few people but we all have ours in varying degrees. One that The Whisperer was affected by in the past? If you shared genes with a strange person, that is you had a sibling who was garrulous, too loud, too offensive, too in-your-face, I would feel you were tainted in some way and would be unable to have a relationship with you.
Odd, but it affected many situations I was in then. In some way, I would feel you were tying me to someone I would rather not have wished to make personal acquaintance with.
IT has been three years since I began to write this column. Three years since I stood with Jumoke Verissimo and Ayo Arigbabu on a quiet Festac Town road at dusk and spoke with them of my desire to write a column on relationships with a different style, three years since the editor of The Guardian on Sunday, Jahman Anikulapo, joined that conversation being the man who had the final say and whose only fear then was that I would not be consistent in meeting deadlines because I was a busy man. I am glad for the opportunity I have had to reach many people, for the people who have written in to say the columns have been of help, have added perspective. I do not claim to be a Dr. Phil and have no desire to become one. The idea is to tell it like it is.
What would you tell your partner today (or a prospective partner) if you lacked the capacity to lie? Some of us should be called “ever-ready”. I have met people, both male and female, who could reel off lies the same way others switch channels on a television with a remote control. But what would you really say to your partner of two years if you lacked the capacity to tell a fib? Would you say “this has been the most beautiful experience of my life and I hope we have another fifty years of it” or would it be “Let me out of here this instant! I’m catching the midnight train to Georgia”
Ricky Gervais, in that movie, became the first man in the world who could tell a lie. I have told myself I am going to tell my truth as much as I can. Where it might cause unwarranted pain, I might hold my tongue but generally now, I won’t be restricting the “flaming sword”.
If I do not want your company, I shall tell you so (I lie in this matter. I have always told anyone whose company I did not want, of the exact nature of my thoughts. It appears cruel but it pays all the parties concerned in the long run)
The Whisperer has directed ‘The Ultimate Face-Off’ — The V Monologues versus The Tarzan Monologues” every Sunday for three weeks now and it has sold out show after show. Now I understand the true meaning of rave reviews. A columnist I hold in esteem wrote to say I had “arrived” as a director and a scriptwriter. That made me smile.
I ‘arrived’ a long while back; but he’s only just taking notice. Remember it’s my inability to lie since I saw the movie that makes me say this and not my legendary arrogance. I have learnt the truth of the lines in Rudyard Kipling’s poem, ‘If’. “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat both impostors just the same, then you will be a man, my son.”
In the monologues, which close at Terra Kulture this Sunday, at least for a while, I have triumphed mightily but I look at success now with the eye of a sceptic. The success of the Monologues is not what makes me who I am. I have always been this way; it just took some people a while to find out.
NEXT time you are having a heart to heart talk with your partner, remember to tell it like it is. Life is too short to be saddled with a situation you are in just for the convenience or because the world might look at you funny if you are alone for any length of time. It’s your life, live it like you know the true meaning of that phrase.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Whisperer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Whisperer. Show all posts
Monday, 10 May 2010
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Musical chairs
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN THE Whisperer has been busy all month directing rehearsals of ‘The Ultimate Face-Off’ – The V. Monologues versus The Tarzan Monologues.
Featuring Carol King, Bimbo Manuel, Katherine Edoho, Kenneth Uphopho, Ireti Doyle, Kate Henshaw, Sola Roberts Iwaotan, Ego Ogbaru, Ayo Orobiyi, and others, it has proven to be a very exhausting but extremely fulfilling task.
Today, and as we sat resting from a session of ‘Monologues’ recitals, Katherine almost in an off-hand manner, remembered she had met someone, who considered The Whisperer very arrogant. The person speaking had no idea Katherine knew me and had vented her spleen.
I cast my mind back wondering what category this angry person might fall into. She might have been one of those The Whisperer parted ways with in the long-gone days of musical chairs, where you moved from partner to partner like changing seats in that party game of the same name.
Either that or a relative of one of those whose love was spurned in those “days of rage”.
It could have been someone who had read a few of The Whisperer’s articles and had come to the conclusion that he was not a likeable person (yes, the world is made up of all sorts and there will be people who are contrary, taking delight in swimming upstream).
Don’t forget some people read the English language like they are reading Arabic.
They start the sentence at the right of the page and read it all the way to the left. It is why you wonder how people can arrive at the most amazing conclusions from a column you read earlier and found no trace of the wild speculations and dangerous theories they begin to expound.
Either that or they are reading the page upside down and do not care to admit reading has never been their forte.
I THEN thought this person with the caustic song might have been someone who had attended one of my shows and had decided I appeared too haughty for my own good. How is that you may well ask?
Well, as an eleven year old quietly strolling to my father’s home, I heard a man in his fifties exclaim in Yoruba — “You this Oguntokun boy, you are too full of yourself”.
If my memory serves me right, I had given no cause for this man to say this. So maybe something about me translates as haughtiness to the unlearned (those who know nothing of me but still speculate).
Still, I am not about to change my nature at this age because some troubled person has decided I should tone down what some might consider a lack of modesty.
I think the world is made up of many people who would rather you were diffident, self-effacing, timid and broke.
Yes, being “broke” qualifies you as a martyr in many minds, as someone who is humble and knows his or her place. I’m sorry, but if I run into money, I’m not going to walk the streets on dusty feet.
Send in the four-wheel drive they call the “Armada”. Yes, I’m buying that one when the good times roll. May that be soon.
Musical chairs. What game do people play that makes them unable to stay with one partner?
What is it that moves them from seat to seat looking for a partner who might never turn out to be the ideal one?
The game is simple, at least at parties. There are a number of seats that are one short of the number of people standing around them.
When the Deejay or whatever creature is handling the music hits the play button, you dance around the chairs until the music stops and then you rush for the chairs.
The person without a seat is out of the game, another chair is removed for the next round and the contestants are again one chair short. The winner is the one who gets the last chair.
WHEN I was younger and thought it great fun to keep scores, we would make mental notes of those we had “gone out with”, much like fighter pilots who wrote on their fuselage with each “kill” they made.
It is extraordinary but men keep scores (as do some women). Some notch bedposts, others keep journals and those who like to live life on the edge make videos of themselves.
As a teenager, I wanted to have a girl friend in every Federal Government Girl’s Secondary School in the country.
From the far reaches of Kazaure in the north to the not very far ones at Sagamu, The Whisperer sought to have “ambassadors”. It was a childish thing but some men never really grow out of it.
What is it that makes men (and women) play musical chairs? Why do they play a game they might lose, a game in which the end is never sure?
You might say you were good at the game musical chairs but you and I both know that those who were really good at this game were those who cheated a little and could bully you out of a seat you got to about the same time.
You might think life is a gamble and therefore love itself must be. I agree that there are few things in life without an element of risk (I cannot think of anything actually) but I am trying not to step into the zone known as absolute certainty.
The person who is in an “open relationship” had better be sure his or her partner is a nun or a priest. (These days, I hear even those professions are not guaranties) It is always better to define the parameters of your relationship.
You must be sure that you’re both on the same page as to exclusivity and other similar matters.
Do both partners agree that the relationship is only between two people and not a third party “who accidentally steps into the scene?”
What does your partner consider to be cheating? You might be having a relationship with a member of Bill Clinton’s school of philosophy, someone who does not consider a French kiss with another a no-go area. Remember always that it is better to ask dumb questions that make dumb mistakes.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Featuring Carol King, Bimbo Manuel, Katherine Edoho, Kenneth Uphopho, Ireti Doyle, Kate Henshaw, Sola Roberts Iwaotan, Ego Ogbaru, Ayo Orobiyi, and others, it has proven to be a very exhausting but extremely fulfilling task.
Today, and as we sat resting from a session of ‘Monologues’ recitals, Katherine almost in an off-hand manner, remembered she had met someone, who considered The Whisperer very arrogant. The person speaking had no idea Katherine knew me and had vented her spleen.
I cast my mind back wondering what category this angry person might fall into. She might have been one of those The Whisperer parted ways with in the long-gone days of musical chairs, where you moved from partner to partner like changing seats in that party game of the same name.
Either that or a relative of one of those whose love was spurned in those “days of rage”.
It could have been someone who had read a few of The Whisperer’s articles and had come to the conclusion that he was not a likeable person (yes, the world is made up of all sorts and there will be people who are contrary, taking delight in swimming upstream).
Don’t forget some people read the English language like they are reading Arabic.
They start the sentence at the right of the page and read it all the way to the left. It is why you wonder how people can arrive at the most amazing conclusions from a column you read earlier and found no trace of the wild speculations and dangerous theories they begin to expound.
Either that or they are reading the page upside down and do not care to admit reading has never been their forte.
I THEN thought this person with the caustic song might have been someone who had attended one of my shows and had decided I appeared too haughty for my own good. How is that you may well ask?
Well, as an eleven year old quietly strolling to my father’s home, I heard a man in his fifties exclaim in Yoruba — “You this Oguntokun boy, you are too full of yourself”.
If my memory serves me right, I had given no cause for this man to say this. So maybe something about me translates as haughtiness to the unlearned (those who know nothing of me but still speculate).
Still, I am not about to change my nature at this age because some troubled person has decided I should tone down what some might consider a lack of modesty.
I think the world is made up of many people who would rather you were diffident, self-effacing, timid and broke.
Yes, being “broke” qualifies you as a martyr in many minds, as someone who is humble and knows his or her place. I’m sorry, but if I run into money, I’m not going to walk the streets on dusty feet.
Send in the four-wheel drive they call the “Armada”. Yes, I’m buying that one when the good times roll. May that be soon.
Musical chairs. What game do people play that makes them unable to stay with one partner?
What is it that moves them from seat to seat looking for a partner who might never turn out to be the ideal one?
The game is simple, at least at parties. There are a number of seats that are one short of the number of people standing around them.
When the Deejay or whatever creature is handling the music hits the play button, you dance around the chairs until the music stops and then you rush for the chairs.
The person without a seat is out of the game, another chair is removed for the next round and the contestants are again one chair short. The winner is the one who gets the last chair.
WHEN I was younger and thought it great fun to keep scores, we would make mental notes of those we had “gone out with”, much like fighter pilots who wrote on their fuselage with each “kill” they made.
It is extraordinary but men keep scores (as do some women). Some notch bedposts, others keep journals and those who like to live life on the edge make videos of themselves.
As a teenager, I wanted to have a girl friend in every Federal Government Girl’s Secondary School in the country.
From the far reaches of Kazaure in the north to the not very far ones at Sagamu, The Whisperer sought to have “ambassadors”. It was a childish thing but some men never really grow out of it.
What is it that makes men (and women) play musical chairs? Why do they play a game they might lose, a game in which the end is never sure?
You might say you were good at the game musical chairs but you and I both know that those who were really good at this game were those who cheated a little and could bully you out of a seat you got to about the same time.
You might think life is a gamble and therefore love itself must be. I agree that there are few things in life without an element of risk (I cannot think of anything actually) but I am trying not to step into the zone known as absolute certainty.
The person who is in an “open relationship” had better be sure his or her partner is a nun or a priest. (These days, I hear even those professions are not guaranties) It is always better to define the parameters of your relationship.
You must be sure that you’re both on the same page as to exclusivity and other similar matters.
Do both partners agree that the relationship is only between two people and not a third party “who accidentally steps into the scene?”
What does your partner consider to be cheating? You might be having a relationship with a member of Bill Clinton’s school of philosophy, someone who does not consider a French kiss with another a no-go area. Remember always that it is better to ask dumb questions that make dumb mistakes.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Archie and Veronica
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
IF you have a hard time comprehending why there are two names as my column title, you missed out on an experience that was a major part of the childhood of many people all over the world.
It was the comic simply known as ‘Archie’ featuring a young man of the same name and his friends. They were all students of the same school, Riverdale High, lived in the same small town and wore bright, colourful, smart clothes, styles which I tried to copy several times when I was in my early teens but never quite succeeded in.
As an adult now, it strikes me that the clothes ‘designer’ for those comics was adult and the style pre-meditated, not anything easily accessible from the junk I possessed then.
There was a love triangle in the comic book series with Archie having a permanent crush on the dark-haired, rich beauty, Veronica Lodge and not realizing how much Betty, her friend, cared for him.
Betty was a blond-haired girl of about the same age, no less good looking than Veronica and my personal favourite. (For all those who take issue with her hair colour, feel free to substitute blond with Ghana-Weave).
At that time, all I wanted to do was meet a caring girl like Betty and live life happily ever after. As I write now, it strikes me that was probably the desire of the creator of the comic book series as well.
They had a company of friends too, Jughead who loved food, was rake-thin but could eat hamburgers like others eat very light biscuits. Moose, hulking in strength and who would do anything to protect his lovely girl, Midge, from the attention that other men might give.
There was Big Ethel, who had a crush on jug-head, she was probably the least good-looking in the Riverdale community (it was a community where everyone was stunning) and Dixon (?) I think, the egghead who was a whiz in the sciences. I almost forgot Reggie, Archie’s archrival (excuse the pun) for the affections of Veronica. I was never able to comprehend why Archie just never gave up on Veronica, leaving her to Reggie and starting a sunny life with Betty Cooper.
I suppose that is the way life really is. We never really appreciate affection when it comes too easily, preferring the one we have to cut swathes in jungles for or climb rocky, precarious hills to reach.
Veronica was not a simpleton, neither was Reggie malevolent in his smugness but I always thought they suited each other and that Archie was better off with Betty.
Many of us have over-looked the most amazing people because they gave themselves too readily to us. It’s an amazing thing about life and sad to say, speaks volumes of the level of development of a man, for instance, who thinks less of a girl because she was the first to express her affection.
By the way, ‘Girl’ for The Whisperer covers any female from ages thirteen to ninety. There are many women, who are... well, advanced in age but are still involved in, or seek loving relationships. This is legitimate. Your life does not come to a screeching halt because you have children or they go on to have their own children. There are 36-year-old grandmothers for those who care to know.
SO on to the Betty Coopers that abound in so many lives and whom we do not care to give a second look because they expressed the way they felt about us before we spoke.
I do not think less of any female who expresses the way she feels about a man before he indicates his intentions.
Some men border on being obtuse and like wheel-barrows need to be pushed to a point where they will come to the realization that the lovely person whose company they had always found so enjoyable might have a thing for them. This has happened to The Whisperer many times before.
Now, no one is compelled to start a relationship with another merely because the other party expressed an interest in a relationship or in keeping the relationship ‘exclusive’.
You might not like the person “that way” but if you do, it should not be to the girl’s advantage that she raised the matter first.
The Whisperer’s submission is that you do not lose respect for the person who dared tell you she “liked” you.
It is a fact of life, people caring for each other, and the man who feels uneasy about being told this should submit himself to therapy. People like people.
And sometimes we have an uncontrollable urge to tell them so before we lose the moment. Carpe Diem.
I think I spent my entire life looking for Betty Cooper and I must have found her several times in different people when I was in my teens.
People are so beautiful at that age, untainted by life’s vagaries and bitter experiences.
For many reasons, Veronica Lodge is never short of the attention of men. She comes from a wealthy background, is self-assured and used to having her wishes met at every turn.
She is also not as openly affectionate as one might desire. Unrequited love does it for many people. Not so for The Whisperer.
You had better love me at the same time. Life is short and I no longer have time for people who give love as if it is a currency that you cannot spend.
THE self-effacing Betty Cooper will always run into trouble. Sometimes you should stand up for what you want, for what you believe in.
Ask for the moon and get it, is what I have heard. When we do not speak up, things tend to pass us by.
The Whisperer loves women; it is the only reason this column has gone on for three years. It is not an untoward interest in the opposite gender (well, not always) but a wholesome love for the form of the opposite gender.
For the way their minds work, for their beauty, their intelligence and their capabilities.
The world would be a more beautiful place if all communities were like Riverdale, but that is an impossible task.
I will try my best to make my immediate surroundings a place of calmness, a place of beauty, and hope that others try to do the same with their spaces too.
It really is a wonderful world, when we allow it to be.
laspapi@yahoo.com
IF you have a hard time comprehending why there are two names as my column title, you missed out on an experience that was a major part of the childhood of many people all over the world.
It was the comic simply known as ‘Archie’ featuring a young man of the same name and his friends. They were all students of the same school, Riverdale High, lived in the same small town and wore bright, colourful, smart clothes, styles which I tried to copy several times when I was in my early teens but never quite succeeded in.
As an adult now, it strikes me that the clothes ‘designer’ for those comics was adult and the style pre-meditated, not anything easily accessible from the junk I possessed then.
There was a love triangle in the comic book series with Archie having a permanent crush on the dark-haired, rich beauty, Veronica Lodge and not realizing how much Betty, her friend, cared for him.
Betty was a blond-haired girl of about the same age, no less good looking than Veronica and my personal favourite. (For all those who take issue with her hair colour, feel free to substitute blond with Ghana-Weave).
At that time, all I wanted to do was meet a caring girl like Betty and live life happily ever after. As I write now, it strikes me that was probably the desire of the creator of the comic book series as well.
They had a company of friends too, Jughead who loved food, was rake-thin but could eat hamburgers like others eat very light biscuits. Moose, hulking in strength and who would do anything to protect his lovely girl, Midge, from the attention that other men might give.
There was Big Ethel, who had a crush on jug-head, she was probably the least good-looking in the Riverdale community (it was a community where everyone was stunning) and Dixon (?) I think, the egghead who was a whiz in the sciences. I almost forgot Reggie, Archie’s archrival (excuse the pun) for the affections of Veronica. I was never able to comprehend why Archie just never gave up on Veronica, leaving her to Reggie and starting a sunny life with Betty Cooper.
I suppose that is the way life really is. We never really appreciate affection when it comes too easily, preferring the one we have to cut swathes in jungles for or climb rocky, precarious hills to reach.
Veronica was not a simpleton, neither was Reggie malevolent in his smugness but I always thought they suited each other and that Archie was better off with Betty.
Many of us have over-looked the most amazing people because they gave themselves too readily to us. It’s an amazing thing about life and sad to say, speaks volumes of the level of development of a man, for instance, who thinks less of a girl because she was the first to express her affection.
By the way, ‘Girl’ for The Whisperer covers any female from ages thirteen to ninety. There are many women, who are... well, advanced in age but are still involved in, or seek loving relationships. This is legitimate. Your life does not come to a screeching halt because you have children or they go on to have their own children. There are 36-year-old grandmothers for those who care to know.
SO on to the Betty Coopers that abound in so many lives and whom we do not care to give a second look because they expressed the way they felt about us before we spoke.
I do not think less of any female who expresses the way she feels about a man before he indicates his intentions.
Some men border on being obtuse and like wheel-barrows need to be pushed to a point where they will come to the realization that the lovely person whose company they had always found so enjoyable might have a thing for them. This has happened to The Whisperer many times before.
Now, no one is compelled to start a relationship with another merely because the other party expressed an interest in a relationship or in keeping the relationship ‘exclusive’.
You might not like the person “that way” but if you do, it should not be to the girl’s advantage that she raised the matter first.
The Whisperer’s submission is that you do not lose respect for the person who dared tell you she “liked” you.
It is a fact of life, people caring for each other, and the man who feels uneasy about being told this should submit himself to therapy. People like people.
And sometimes we have an uncontrollable urge to tell them so before we lose the moment. Carpe Diem.
I think I spent my entire life looking for Betty Cooper and I must have found her several times in different people when I was in my teens.
People are so beautiful at that age, untainted by life’s vagaries and bitter experiences.
For many reasons, Veronica Lodge is never short of the attention of men. She comes from a wealthy background, is self-assured and used to having her wishes met at every turn.
She is also not as openly affectionate as one might desire. Unrequited love does it for many people. Not so for The Whisperer.
You had better love me at the same time. Life is short and I no longer have time for people who give love as if it is a currency that you cannot spend.
THE self-effacing Betty Cooper will always run into trouble. Sometimes you should stand up for what you want, for what you believe in.
Ask for the moon and get it, is what I have heard. When we do not speak up, things tend to pass us by.
The Whisperer loves women; it is the only reason this column has gone on for three years. It is not an untoward interest in the opposite gender (well, not always) but a wholesome love for the form of the opposite gender.
For the way their minds work, for their beauty, their intelligence and their capabilities.
The world would be a more beautiful place if all communities were like Riverdale, but that is an impossible task.
I will try my best to make my immediate surroundings a place of calmness, a place of beauty, and hope that others try to do the same with their spaces too.
It really is a wonderful world, when we allow it to be.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Saturday, 6 March 2010
Men behaving badly
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
I’VE been feeling grumpy lately and I feel half of it has to do with the heat wave that has embroiled the country.
From the Northern regions of the nation to the extremes of the South, we are covered with a blanket of the most extra-ordinary heat.
For those who have jobs that do not require much creativity and are able to operate on auto-pilot, they might manage to go from day to day hoping the air conditioners (and the generators which have become such an essential part of our lives) do not fail.
For those who make any pretentious claims of literary creativity, it can be the most trying weather to work in. The air is still. And dry. And hot.
To top this fantastic equation, that behemoth that governs the provision of electricity to the citizens of this country has finally excelled itself in its own lack of productivity.
At night, the land is covered in a sheet that is as black as pitch. The Minister of Mines and Power in Nigeria should officially be called ‘The Prince of Darkness’ at all public functions.
“We are pleased to announce the presence of his Royal Highness, the Prince of Darkness”. If you ever heard of a more befitting title, let me know.
The Whisperer, when he is not cursing at extreme weather has been directing the rehearsals, almost daily, of a league of extraordinary ladies and men.
The point of the rehearsals? A show planned for every Sunday this month and tagged ‘the Ultimate Face-Off, the Tarzan Monologues versus The V. Monologues’.
Featuring Kate Henshaw-Nuttall, Bimbo Manuel, Carol King, Ego Ogbaro and Iretiola Doyle among some of the most talented people on the face of this planet (no, the talented do not all live in Hollywood), issues you would normally think were clear and self-explanatory are now placed under close scrutiny.
WHAT is it about men that make us appear almost beastly at times?
Associating with such a motley crew makes one weigh actions, both past and present.
A female The Whisperer met a while back, who could not figure the seeming lack of sensitivity on his part, to her needs, walked out of his life but re-appeared a few months after.
However, her expectations of a return to a level that existed before were not met. The reason for this was simple.
In any relationship, you can only make demands from a position of power. The “power” or the leverage being the fact that your partner cares enough for you not to want to cause you pain or hurt.
If the scale swings in a lop-sided manner, that is, the person you claim to care about cannot be bothered about what makes you happy or sad, you have lost out in this equation and it would be better to chart another path in another person’s life. By the way, no one came to this earth whose mission was solely to keep you happy.
It is your responsibility to engineer your own joys.
If you are under the illusion that it is another’s life-work to keep you emotionally buoyant, you are mistaken and you will always end up accusing others of behaving badly.
So out there, there are many people who think we behaved badly but it is all about a simple truth, “it’s not who you love. It’s who loves you.”
The Whisperer’s wanderings brought him before two radio personalities today, Titi Adelagun and Gbemileke ‘Oscar’ Oyinsan and their presentations gave him food for thought.
Their show was a well-oiled machine with none of the drivel you sometimes hear on radio and television shows when your interviewer has no idea what you’re there for and lacks the intelligence to make you cover up his or her own ignorance.
I enjoyed myself immensely with Titi and Oscar but even while fielding questions and listening to them give well-thought out opinions, my mind still drifted to the times I had been accused of behaving badly by others.
There is a host of humans who specialise in blaming others for all their ills. Everything that goes wrong with them must be firmly attached to the wrong-doings of others.
The Girl Whisperer admonishing recklessness by some females must mean he hates women (I’ve heard that before), a partner walking away from a relationship is entirely to blame for the mess.
How did the conversation with Oscar and Titi take me on this road? Who knows the way of the human mind? Sometimes it drifts and road leads unto road.
SO sometimes men will behave badly and you might be entirely innocent in the way things turn out, partly to blame or you might carry the entire blame for the situation.
A female I had a passing acquaintance with, took a shine to my brother and decided he was the one she wanted to spend her entire life with.
Unfortunately for this particular female, The Whisperer’s opinion mattered to the man in issue.
Now even though I come from a family in which we rarely interfere in each other’s affairs, I gave my not very favourable opinion when it was sought.
Despite my seeming nonchalance at times, I can be very particular about what dilutes the family strain.
She knew I blocked that pass but I didn’t care much about that.
In the short run, it might appear like men behaving badly but it was all about the long term for me.
To the young lady who wrote me to say she and her boyfriend had broken up many times but had come together again only to continue the cycle, I must write here that a habit is different from a relationship.
We do not have relationships to stop those we care about from finding happiness with others. We start relationships because we want to be everything to these people.
If the main point is to prevent his having feelings for another girl, you are behaving badly and you will break up again.
If you love something, set it free. In this case, if it doesn’t come back, don’t hunt it down and kill it.
laspapi@yahoo.com
I’VE been feeling grumpy lately and I feel half of it has to do with the heat wave that has embroiled the country.
From the Northern regions of the nation to the extremes of the South, we are covered with a blanket of the most extra-ordinary heat.
For those who have jobs that do not require much creativity and are able to operate on auto-pilot, they might manage to go from day to day hoping the air conditioners (and the generators which have become such an essential part of our lives) do not fail.
For those who make any pretentious claims of literary creativity, it can be the most trying weather to work in. The air is still. And dry. And hot.
To top this fantastic equation, that behemoth that governs the provision of electricity to the citizens of this country has finally excelled itself in its own lack of productivity.
At night, the land is covered in a sheet that is as black as pitch. The Minister of Mines and Power in Nigeria should officially be called ‘The Prince of Darkness’ at all public functions.
“We are pleased to announce the presence of his Royal Highness, the Prince of Darkness”. If you ever heard of a more befitting title, let me know.
The Whisperer, when he is not cursing at extreme weather has been directing the rehearsals, almost daily, of a league of extraordinary ladies and men.
The point of the rehearsals? A show planned for every Sunday this month and tagged ‘the Ultimate Face-Off, the Tarzan Monologues versus The V. Monologues’.
Featuring Kate Henshaw-Nuttall, Bimbo Manuel, Carol King, Ego Ogbaro and Iretiola Doyle among some of the most talented people on the face of this planet (no, the talented do not all live in Hollywood), issues you would normally think were clear and self-explanatory are now placed under close scrutiny.
WHAT is it about men that make us appear almost beastly at times?
Associating with such a motley crew makes one weigh actions, both past and present.
A female The Whisperer met a while back, who could not figure the seeming lack of sensitivity on his part, to her needs, walked out of his life but re-appeared a few months after.
However, her expectations of a return to a level that existed before were not met. The reason for this was simple.
In any relationship, you can only make demands from a position of power. The “power” or the leverage being the fact that your partner cares enough for you not to want to cause you pain or hurt.
If the scale swings in a lop-sided manner, that is, the person you claim to care about cannot be bothered about what makes you happy or sad, you have lost out in this equation and it would be better to chart another path in another person’s life. By the way, no one came to this earth whose mission was solely to keep you happy.
It is your responsibility to engineer your own joys.
If you are under the illusion that it is another’s life-work to keep you emotionally buoyant, you are mistaken and you will always end up accusing others of behaving badly.
So out there, there are many people who think we behaved badly but it is all about a simple truth, “it’s not who you love. It’s who loves you.”
The Whisperer’s wanderings brought him before two radio personalities today, Titi Adelagun and Gbemileke ‘Oscar’ Oyinsan and their presentations gave him food for thought.
Their show was a well-oiled machine with none of the drivel you sometimes hear on radio and television shows when your interviewer has no idea what you’re there for and lacks the intelligence to make you cover up his or her own ignorance.
I enjoyed myself immensely with Titi and Oscar but even while fielding questions and listening to them give well-thought out opinions, my mind still drifted to the times I had been accused of behaving badly by others.
There is a host of humans who specialise in blaming others for all their ills. Everything that goes wrong with them must be firmly attached to the wrong-doings of others.
The Girl Whisperer admonishing recklessness by some females must mean he hates women (I’ve heard that before), a partner walking away from a relationship is entirely to blame for the mess.
How did the conversation with Oscar and Titi take me on this road? Who knows the way of the human mind? Sometimes it drifts and road leads unto road.
SO sometimes men will behave badly and you might be entirely innocent in the way things turn out, partly to blame or you might carry the entire blame for the situation.
A female I had a passing acquaintance with, took a shine to my brother and decided he was the one she wanted to spend her entire life with.
Unfortunately for this particular female, The Whisperer’s opinion mattered to the man in issue.
Now even though I come from a family in which we rarely interfere in each other’s affairs, I gave my not very favourable opinion when it was sought.
Despite my seeming nonchalance at times, I can be very particular about what dilutes the family strain.
She knew I blocked that pass but I didn’t care much about that.
In the short run, it might appear like men behaving badly but it was all about the long term for me.
To the young lady who wrote me to say she and her boyfriend had broken up many times but had come together again only to continue the cycle, I must write here that a habit is different from a relationship.
We do not have relationships to stop those we care about from finding happiness with others. We start relationships because we want to be everything to these people.
If the main point is to prevent his having feelings for another girl, you are behaving badly and you will break up again.
If you love something, set it free. In this case, if it doesn’t come back, don’t hunt it down and kill it.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Sunday, 28 February 2010
The Law of Karma
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
ONCE, a while back, The Whisperer ran into a lot of trouble. A girl that would have been better suited on the set of The Jerry Springer Show walked into his life and disrupted proceedings for a while. Wait, that isn’t absolutely correct.
The Whisperer allowed her into his life, eyes wide open and got a little more than he bargained for.
When he attempted a rapid retreat, she went ballistic and showed a nature better suited for creatures that walk on four legs. She hounded him, attempted to blackmail his friends, would sometimes go bi-polar and then make the effort to become friends again, appear ‘normal’ for a while and soon after, swing the other way.
Reads too wild to be true? It is. All of it. A lackey she got on her side through the subtle threat that she would reveal secrets told her about that person (yes, this one fought dirty) would literarily come on the web-page where The Whisperer blogged and howl, “Karma!!!”
The insinuation was that the law of Karma would return to bite The Whisperer in the behind for waking up to the fact that he was seeing the wrong person.
WHAT is this law of Karma and what does it portend for those who are reckless with other people’s hearts?
Off the top of my head (and this is a very loose definition), it means you will be paid back (and on this earth before you pass away) for all the good and the evil you have done.
Like a sword of Damocles, your sins are ever before you, they have long shadows and there will be payback time, somewhere, somehow.
I interrupted the writing of this article to confer with my assistant, Busayo Makinwa, about retribution, payback and Karma. Busayo, who is usually one of the most cool-headed people you might have the opportunity of meeting, is a firm adherent of the idea that you always reap what you sow.
So I asked her, “where is the place of forgiveness in all this?” If I wrong you, does that mean I must live my life in fear, believing that in some way, like a lightning bolt out of the blue, or a boomerang with a firm purpose, Karma will spring from a clear, cloudless sky and dash me to the ground? I know that on this planet, someone is putting another at a disadvantage every second that passes so karma must be kept very busy.
Will this law of Karma come into effect if you promise to marry someone, both your families meet, everyone is happy for a while, but a few days to the tying of the knot, you get cold feet and say you’d rather stay single all the days of your life than spend another moment in that person’s company?
This decision may be the closest you will ever get to murder, because the pain of it will take the spurned partner to the gates of hell and back.
However, isn’t the pain you may cause this person in the short term a greater blessing than a marriage that has no heart in it? Will the law of karma have an adverse effect on a person who tells the truth?
THE Whisperer submits that it is not about how much pain one goes through in a relationship but about whether you are being true to yourself. In relationships, it is about both partners and their collective and individual happinesses.
Like they say, “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours; if it doesn’t, it never was”. It looks like those who advocate karma would prefer the last sentence to be “if it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it”.
Your need to have a particular person in your life should be made totally separate from the well-being of that person. It is not always all about you.
So Busayo and I debated Rahab the harlot’s motives in betraying the people of Jericho and whether she got her just deserts. According to Miss Makinwa, there are situations of greater good when the law of retribution will not come into effect. Exactly.
You owe yourself the mind-set that your joy does not stem from the validation of another. Your sense of completeness should not be directly proportional to the attention or lack of it that another gives you.
There are loads of people who have forgotten that “the best revenge is living well”. Instead, they pre-occupy themselves with gory pictures of the grisly end their ex-partners will someday come to.
This I find very interesting, because for some reason, the disciples of the law of karma never remember that someday and in many ways, they have done their own share of “wrong-ing”.
They allow a “ victim’s mentality” put them in a position where they are always offended and they find permanent positions before the altar of Karma praying for lightning to strike the people who have offended them.
WE must remember that an eye for an eye would only leave us all blind. If a person walks away from you in a relationship, it means the partnership wasn’t really as beautiful as you imagined.
You cannot compel another to love you all the days of your life. The very attempt to force love is the making of something grotesque, the creation of an entity that does not qualify to be called a relationship.
A relationship should not be based on pity, fear, or on total dependence. It should be between two people who complement each other, and not between a radiator on the one hand, and a drain on the other.
If someone decides to walk away from you, from a relationship in which you gave of yourself, your time and your passion, you must find the strength to shake the sand off yourself, rise to your feet and start again.
It’s a hard thing I ask? Yes it is, but would you rather be known as a survivor or as Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” who skulked after “his precious”, a ring bestowed with magical powers, through the centuries?
THE Whisperer’s advice? If you’ve been spurned, shake it off, stomp on it, and rise a little higher. Start again with what you have and surprise the world. I have never seen an attractive, grovelling person. You must always remember that there’s no greater thing than your dignity.
laspapi@yahoo.com
ONCE, a while back, The Whisperer ran into a lot of trouble. A girl that would have been better suited on the set of The Jerry Springer Show walked into his life and disrupted proceedings for a while. Wait, that isn’t absolutely correct.
The Whisperer allowed her into his life, eyes wide open and got a little more than he bargained for.
When he attempted a rapid retreat, she went ballistic and showed a nature better suited for creatures that walk on four legs. She hounded him, attempted to blackmail his friends, would sometimes go bi-polar and then make the effort to become friends again, appear ‘normal’ for a while and soon after, swing the other way.
Reads too wild to be true? It is. All of it. A lackey she got on her side through the subtle threat that she would reveal secrets told her about that person (yes, this one fought dirty) would literarily come on the web-page where The Whisperer blogged and howl, “Karma!!!”
The insinuation was that the law of Karma would return to bite The Whisperer in the behind for waking up to the fact that he was seeing the wrong person.
WHAT is this law of Karma and what does it portend for those who are reckless with other people’s hearts?
Off the top of my head (and this is a very loose definition), it means you will be paid back (and on this earth before you pass away) for all the good and the evil you have done.
Like a sword of Damocles, your sins are ever before you, they have long shadows and there will be payback time, somewhere, somehow.
I interrupted the writing of this article to confer with my assistant, Busayo Makinwa, about retribution, payback and Karma. Busayo, who is usually one of the most cool-headed people you might have the opportunity of meeting, is a firm adherent of the idea that you always reap what you sow.
So I asked her, “where is the place of forgiveness in all this?” If I wrong you, does that mean I must live my life in fear, believing that in some way, like a lightning bolt out of the blue, or a boomerang with a firm purpose, Karma will spring from a clear, cloudless sky and dash me to the ground? I know that on this planet, someone is putting another at a disadvantage every second that passes so karma must be kept very busy.
Will this law of Karma come into effect if you promise to marry someone, both your families meet, everyone is happy for a while, but a few days to the tying of the knot, you get cold feet and say you’d rather stay single all the days of your life than spend another moment in that person’s company?
This decision may be the closest you will ever get to murder, because the pain of it will take the spurned partner to the gates of hell and back.
However, isn’t the pain you may cause this person in the short term a greater blessing than a marriage that has no heart in it? Will the law of karma have an adverse effect on a person who tells the truth?
THE Whisperer submits that it is not about how much pain one goes through in a relationship but about whether you are being true to yourself. In relationships, it is about both partners and their collective and individual happinesses.
Like they say, “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours; if it doesn’t, it never was”. It looks like those who advocate karma would prefer the last sentence to be “if it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it”.
Your need to have a particular person in your life should be made totally separate from the well-being of that person. It is not always all about you.
So Busayo and I debated Rahab the harlot’s motives in betraying the people of Jericho and whether she got her just deserts. According to Miss Makinwa, there are situations of greater good when the law of retribution will not come into effect. Exactly.
You owe yourself the mind-set that your joy does not stem from the validation of another. Your sense of completeness should not be directly proportional to the attention or lack of it that another gives you.
There are loads of people who have forgotten that “the best revenge is living well”. Instead, they pre-occupy themselves with gory pictures of the grisly end their ex-partners will someday come to.
This I find very interesting, because for some reason, the disciples of the law of karma never remember that someday and in many ways, they have done their own share of “wrong-ing”.
They allow a “ victim’s mentality” put them in a position where they are always offended and they find permanent positions before the altar of Karma praying for lightning to strike the people who have offended them.
WE must remember that an eye for an eye would only leave us all blind. If a person walks away from you in a relationship, it means the partnership wasn’t really as beautiful as you imagined.
You cannot compel another to love you all the days of your life. The very attempt to force love is the making of something grotesque, the creation of an entity that does not qualify to be called a relationship.
A relationship should not be based on pity, fear, or on total dependence. It should be between two people who complement each other, and not between a radiator on the one hand, and a drain on the other.
If someone decides to walk away from you, from a relationship in which you gave of yourself, your time and your passion, you must find the strength to shake the sand off yourself, rise to your feet and start again.
It’s a hard thing I ask? Yes it is, but would you rather be known as a survivor or as Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” who skulked after “his precious”, a ring bestowed with magical powers, through the centuries?
THE Whisperer’s advice? If you’ve been spurned, shake it off, stomp on it, and rise a little higher. Start again with what you have and surprise the world. I have never seen an attractive, grovelling person. You must always remember that there’s no greater thing than your dignity.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Saturday, 20 February 2010
The politics of love
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
A FEW people have asked me recently, “Do you still whisper?” I have answered, bemused, “Of course I do. I will never stop whispering.” The reason for this question is simple. For a while now, I have not pasted these articles on the Internet after publication. That omission has been as a result of the volume of work I have had to do, but it has the added advantage of making you seek this newspaper if you really want to read the things I think of.
Once again, I am in another airport lounge, and I think to myself it is a habit one can get used to. Just moving from one point to another but ensuring there is direction and not just motion. My phone rings but it is not a number I know. I quickly recognise the voice as that of Jahman Anikulapo, the man who discovered The Girl Whisperer. Better known as the Editor of The Guardian on Sunday, he is travelling to Abuja as well but with another airline. Jahman is seated across the lounge looking dapper and I go to sit by him before my flight is called.
We chat for a while and I jokingly tell him how I was asked for identification at the flight desk before an air-ticket was sold to me. I had none and ended up using my bank ATM card to prove I was me. I am not totally certain how that qualifies as identification but it did the trick.
After a while, boarding for my flight is announced and I leave Jahman to get on my plane. When I am seated, I take a leisurely look at the cabin executives (yes, those ones who used to be known as air hostesses). I do not know if it is my imagination but these ones do not appear to be as good-looking as they used to be.
Maybe I am getting older and I have become like my parents who liked to say music died out with certain artistes.
I am still of the opinion that air-stewards should be... well... good looking. I think it helps your flight experience when the person smiling down at you asking if you would like a drink is not a gargoyle.
SO, enough of the cabin-executive bashing. The Whisperer is directing the Tarzan Monologues on stage this month (The male experience concerning everything ranging from erectile dysfunction to sex, politics and religion).
Basically it is the world through the eyes of men. Next month is the Tarzan Monologues versus the V Monologues. These recent activities have brought many A-list actors into my orbit. Bimbo Manuel, Kate Henshaw, Iretiola Doyle, Carol King and several others have sat, rehearsed and talked about relationships in its rawest form.
These discussions, often sometimes heated, have given me food for thought. Is there such a thing as politics in love? Is love just what it is, some emotion beyond description or is it influenced by other factors?
A girl told me many years ago she had to see the bank statement of a prospective partner before she would agree to a relationship.
That might have been because she had a great job then. She worked for one of the stronger oil companies at the time and was probably afraid of bounty hunters, who might have made her finances the target of their endeavours.
At about the same time, another, a news broadcaster and as good looking as they come, half-jokingly told me a potential suitor had to give her a jeep.
Different strokes.
I think, however, that for all of us, our relationships are coloured by our expectations. There are very few people now (maybe only besotted teenage kids) who allow ‘love alone’ to be the over-riding factor.
For many people, pedigree is important and the wealth or clout of the family of those we want to “love” is important.
If it is not important to the person who wants to start the relationship, it is important to her mother and the rest of the family. “Where is he/she from? What do his/her parents do?”
In university, the father of a girl I was in head-long pursuit of, asked me one day he caught up with me in his home, “what does your father do?”
Love has politics and plenty of it. It covers religious differences as well. There are many relationships that have been smashed to smithereens because people looked at each other across religious divides. And this split is not necessarily across the two major faiths most of us recognise. There are interdenominational differences in these matters too.
For those who think the days of arranged marriages are long gone, all they have to do is look at the list of influential families that inter-marry. If those aren’t arranged marriages, I’ll eat my hat.
NOW it’s not as if The Whisperer is standing on a platform saying you should never let anything influence your choices. It would be mad to say so.
If you have ever insisted you must marry a graduate, which is a legitimate desire, you have gone political (not that I think some graduates are worthy of that title these days, with the deficit of intelligence they display).
The point of this is to accept that not only have these political influences existed from the beginning of time, but there is a need that “political” loving is done in moderation.
If we refuse to give love some leeway, we will end up stream-lined and unable to fly in our relationships.
SO now, I ask, what are the things you would declare essential if your opinion was important in the choice of a partner another had to make?
What if you stood in the position of a mother or a father? What if you were a sibling who was looked up to, a clergyman or relative that was of influence in the life of the person about to make a choice?
Would your own advice be tainted by your experiences, your own failures and disappointments? Would you let the pain of your past poison the future of another?
We must be careful the rationale behind the things we do. Bigotry sneaks upon us all if we allow it. We like to call it experience but often it is the height of prejudice that makes us what we are.
laspapi@yahoo.com
A FEW people have asked me recently, “Do you still whisper?” I have answered, bemused, “Of course I do. I will never stop whispering.” The reason for this question is simple. For a while now, I have not pasted these articles on the Internet after publication. That omission has been as a result of the volume of work I have had to do, but it has the added advantage of making you seek this newspaper if you really want to read the things I think of.
Once again, I am in another airport lounge, and I think to myself it is a habit one can get used to. Just moving from one point to another but ensuring there is direction and not just motion. My phone rings but it is not a number I know. I quickly recognise the voice as that of Jahman Anikulapo, the man who discovered The Girl Whisperer. Better known as the Editor of The Guardian on Sunday, he is travelling to Abuja as well but with another airline. Jahman is seated across the lounge looking dapper and I go to sit by him before my flight is called.
We chat for a while and I jokingly tell him how I was asked for identification at the flight desk before an air-ticket was sold to me. I had none and ended up using my bank ATM card to prove I was me. I am not totally certain how that qualifies as identification but it did the trick.
After a while, boarding for my flight is announced and I leave Jahman to get on my plane. When I am seated, I take a leisurely look at the cabin executives (yes, those ones who used to be known as air hostesses). I do not know if it is my imagination but these ones do not appear to be as good-looking as they used to be.
Maybe I am getting older and I have become like my parents who liked to say music died out with certain artistes.
I am still of the opinion that air-stewards should be... well... good looking. I think it helps your flight experience when the person smiling down at you asking if you would like a drink is not a gargoyle.
SO, enough of the cabin-executive bashing. The Whisperer is directing the Tarzan Monologues on stage this month (The male experience concerning everything ranging from erectile dysfunction to sex, politics and religion).
Basically it is the world through the eyes of men. Next month is the Tarzan Monologues versus the V Monologues. These recent activities have brought many A-list actors into my orbit. Bimbo Manuel, Kate Henshaw, Iretiola Doyle, Carol King and several others have sat, rehearsed and talked about relationships in its rawest form.
These discussions, often sometimes heated, have given me food for thought. Is there such a thing as politics in love? Is love just what it is, some emotion beyond description or is it influenced by other factors?
A girl told me many years ago she had to see the bank statement of a prospective partner before she would agree to a relationship.
That might have been because she had a great job then. She worked for one of the stronger oil companies at the time and was probably afraid of bounty hunters, who might have made her finances the target of their endeavours.
At about the same time, another, a news broadcaster and as good looking as they come, half-jokingly told me a potential suitor had to give her a jeep.
Different strokes.
I think, however, that for all of us, our relationships are coloured by our expectations. There are very few people now (maybe only besotted teenage kids) who allow ‘love alone’ to be the over-riding factor.
For many people, pedigree is important and the wealth or clout of the family of those we want to “love” is important.
If it is not important to the person who wants to start the relationship, it is important to her mother and the rest of the family. “Where is he/she from? What do his/her parents do?”
In university, the father of a girl I was in head-long pursuit of, asked me one day he caught up with me in his home, “what does your father do?”
Love has politics and plenty of it. It covers religious differences as well. There are many relationships that have been smashed to smithereens because people looked at each other across religious divides. And this split is not necessarily across the two major faiths most of us recognise. There are interdenominational differences in these matters too.
For those who think the days of arranged marriages are long gone, all they have to do is look at the list of influential families that inter-marry. If those aren’t arranged marriages, I’ll eat my hat.
NOW it’s not as if The Whisperer is standing on a platform saying you should never let anything influence your choices. It would be mad to say so.
If you have ever insisted you must marry a graduate, which is a legitimate desire, you have gone political (not that I think some graduates are worthy of that title these days, with the deficit of intelligence they display).
The point of this is to accept that not only have these political influences existed from the beginning of time, but there is a need that “political” loving is done in moderation.
If we refuse to give love some leeway, we will end up stream-lined and unable to fly in our relationships.
SO now, I ask, what are the things you would declare essential if your opinion was important in the choice of a partner another had to make?
What if you stood in the position of a mother or a father? What if you were a sibling who was looked up to, a clergyman or relative that was of influence in the life of the person about to make a choice?
Would your own advice be tainted by your experiences, your own failures and disappointments? Would you let the pain of your past poison the future of another?
We must be careful the rationale behind the things we do. Bigotry sneaks upon us all if we allow it. We like to call it experience but often it is the height of prejudice that makes us what we are.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Saturday, 13 February 2010
The Peter Pan Factor
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
IN many ways, I believe I bear a resemblance to the Walt Disney character, Peter Pan, based on the play, The boy who wouldn’t grow up written by J.M. Barrie.
Peter Pan lived in Never Land with his friend, Tinker Bell, could fly where he wanted, time did not exist for him and he battled pirates all day long.
Many men lived this life of adventure as children. Their tragedy is that adulthood comes and they no longer are able to find “Never Land”.
I heard Kevin Costner on television say once, ‘when a man loses the child in him, he loses everything’.
An old secondary school mate came into my offices one day and saw a play-station console, but couldn’t believe it was for me. I did not disabuse his mind.
I suppose there are some of us who believe that because adulthood brings added responsibilities, we should live our lives like people who never found pleasure in looking at the clean sand at the ocean’s edge.
For me, the world must always remain a place of beauty, a place where joys are strong and as simple as you can make them.
I have not forgotten how to laugh even though I pay bills now and sometimes stare with hostility in confrontations with the tax men of this state government.
I told my friend, Adeola the Pharmacist, a few months ago, how I felt about being Peter Pan. It is a unique place to be. The Whisperer still reads comic books, loves to play Wii and Play Station and plays actual football every Friday night in Ikoyi.
By the way, if as a woman, you have ever said the reason you love a man is because he makes you laugh, you have a bit of Tinker Bell in you.
I do no talk of childish men in this article but of men who have not lost the child in them. I stare in wonder at little children when I see them; the incoherent babble they make that has so much meaning to their own ears, the spontaneous laughter that comes at seeing a bubble rise in the air, sheer happiness at life itself.
You see two eight year-old boys walking along a road in deep conversation, one’s arm around the other’s shoulder. What is the conversation about? The stock exchange? A missing politician? No, they talk about life itself and its greatest pleasures — things such as loyalty, truth, honesty, genuine friendship.
Children do not stab each other in the back; if they are your friends, they do not make snide remarks when you leave the room. They genuinely and totally believe in you, believe in love and in the world’s goodness.
There are no attempts to second-guess you, no bid to intercept a move or some act of perfidy they might suspect. A child tells it like it is. “Adults” should too, and not hide treachery behind “diplomacy”.
There are women who say the trouble with some men is that they refuse to grow up. If growing up means I forget how to laugh and become full of guile, I’ll leave “adulthood” to you.
WHERE did the inspiration for a Peter Pan article come from? The Whisperer is a playwright as well and produces plays weekly on Victoria Island.
That itself is an indication of a Peter Pan state of mind. However, I write today because of a female (when have I not?). I lost contact with this one a long time ago but had written about her many times in the past.
I liked to describe her as still waters, a female with such a calming effect on me, it appeared almost unnatural. However, she seemed to disappear off the face of the earth, vanishing completely without the faintest trace.
I looked for her with ancient tools (word of mouth) and space-age tools (the internet) but not even google could show me where she was.
One day out of the blue, she sent mail to me. You must remember that nations had been built and destroyed in the time we had not seen each other, but that day, I put on my laptop and there she was asking how I’d been.
We got talking (she was married and appeared quite happy in her situation) and we agreed that we’d meet for a coffee the next time I stopped by the country she now lived in.
A couple of weeks ago, I went in pursuit of theatre lighting equipment to the United Kingdom and gave her a call to say I was around. We then fixed a day we would both be free to meet.
That day, though Manchester United and Arsenal were playing a football match, I knew nothing could stop me walking by ‘the still waters’ and at least taking a glass of orange juice in some pub to catch up on old times.
WHAT struck this Peter Pan when I met her was that she was no longer the 22-year old woman I remembered. She was a grown woman and mother and even as we sat over drinks, I could not quite fathom it.
In retrospect and with “adult eyes”, you might ask, “What did you expect?” Would she have stayed the same forever? She had stayed the same actually, only she looked, well, older than a 22-year old. I suppose somewhere deep in all our minds is the deep-rooted belief that we have not changed since we were twenty-one or twenty-two and therein lies the danger of being a Peter Pan.
Though one must not lose the essence of youth, which is the greatest elixir, you may ever find, we must always remember to synchronise the passage of time with our situation.
We must remember that our true natures might stay the same but our physicality changes. My friend that I met with again was still a very-good looking woman but she wasn’t Tinker Bell who never grew up, age-wise.
The people we love, sooner or later, will have grey hair, add a few pounds to their body weight, and be less active than you once remembered them to be.
This is the truth about life but you can have the last laugh when as Peter Pan or Tinker Bell, you hold dear the memories you once shared, and you continue to love as time goes by.
laspapi@yahoo.com
IN many ways, I believe I bear a resemblance to the Walt Disney character, Peter Pan, based on the play, The boy who wouldn’t grow up written by J.M. Barrie.
Peter Pan lived in Never Land with his friend, Tinker Bell, could fly where he wanted, time did not exist for him and he battled pirates all day long.
Many men lived this life of adventure as children. Their tragedy is that adulthood comes and they no longer are able to find “Never Land”.
I heard Kevin Costner on television say once, ‘when a man loses the child in him, he loses everything’.
An old secondary school mate came into my offices one day and saw a play-station console, but couldn’t believe it was for me. I did not disabuse his mind.
I suppose there are some of us who believe that because adulthood brings added responsibilities, we should live our lives like people who never found pleasure in looking at the clean sand at the ocean’s edge.
For me, the world must always remain a place of beauty, a place where joys are strong and as simple as you can make them.
I have not forgotten how to laugh even though I pay bills now and sometimes stare with hostility in confrontations with the tax men of this state government.
I told my friend, Adeola the Pharmacist, a few months ago, how I felt about being Peter Pan. It is a unique place to be. The Whisperer still reads comic books, loves to play Wii and Play Station and plays actual football every Friday night in Ikoyi.
By the way, if as a woman, you have ever said the reason you love a man is because he makes you laugh, you have a bit of Tinker Bell in you.
I do no talk of childish men in this article but of men who have not lost the child in them. I stare in wonder at little children when I see them; the incoherent babble they make that has so much meaning to their own ears, the spontaneous laughter that comes at seeing a bubble rise in the air, sheer happiness at life itself.
You see two eight year-old boys walking along a road in deep conversation, one’s arm around the other’s shoulder. What is the conversation about? The stock exchange? A missing politician? No, they talk about life itself and its greatest pleasures — things such as loyalty, truth, honesty, genuine friendship.
Children do not stab each other in the back; if they are your friends, they do not make snide remarks when you leave the room. They genuinely and totally believe in you, believe in love and in the world’s goodness.
There are no attempts to second-guess you, no bid to intercept a move or some act of perfidy they might suspect. A child tells it like it is. “Adults” should too, and not hide treachery behind “diplomacy”.
There are women who say the trouble with some men is that they refuse to grow up. If growing up means I forget how to laugh and become full of guile, I’ll leave “adulthood” to you.
WHERE did the inspiration for a Peter Pan article come from? The Whisperer is a playwright as well and produces plays weekly on Victoria Island.
That itself is an indication of a Peter Pan state of mind. However, I write today because of a female (when have I not?). I lost contact with this one a long time ago but had written about her many times in the past.
I liked to describe her as still waters, a female with such a calming effect on me, it appeared almost unnatural. However, she seemed to disappear off the face of the earth, vanishing completely without the faintest trace.
I looked for her with ancient tools (word of mouth) and space-age tools (the internet) but not even google could show me where she was.
One day out of the blue, she sent mail to me. You must remember that nations had been built and destroyed in the time we had not seen each other, but that day, I put on my laptop and there she was asking how I’d been.
We got talking (she was married and appeared quite happy in her situation) and we agreed that we’d meet for a coffee the next time I stopped by the country she now lived in.
A couple of weeks ago, I went in pursuit of theatre lighting equipment to the United Kingdom and gave her a call to say I was around. We then fixed a day we would both be free to meet.
That day, though Manchester United and Arsenal were playing a football match, I knew nothing could stop me walking by ‘the still waters’ and at least taking a glass of orange juice in some pub to catch up on old times.
WHAT struck this Peter Pan when I met her was that she was no longer the 22-year old woman I remembered. She was a grown woman and mother and even as we sat over drinks, I could not quite fathom it.
In retrospect and with “adult eyes”, you might ask, “What did you expect?” Would she have stayed the same forever? She had stayed the same actually, only she looked, well, older than a 22-year old. I suppose somewhere deep in all our minds is the deep-rooted belief that we have not changed since we were twenty-one or twenty-two and therein lies the danger of being a Peter Pan.
Though one must not lose the essence of youth, which is the greatest elixir, you may ever find, we must always remember to synchronise the passage of time with our situation.
We must remember that our true natures might stay the same but our physicality changes. My friend that I met with again was still a very-good looking woman but she wasn’t Tinker Bell who never grew up, age-wise.
The people we love, sooner or later, will have grey hair, add a few pounds to their body weight, and be less active than you once remembered them to be.
This is the truth about life but you can have the last laugh when as Peter Pan or Tinker Bell, you hold dear the memories you once shared, and you continue to love as time goes by.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Four Minutes
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
I SIT in an airport lounge on my way out of the country for a few days, taking in the people passing by and their idiosyncrasies.
Walking past is the fair-skinned film actor, Shan George, boisterous, full of life and strength, enjoying her day as she goes. I have never had the opportunity to have a conversation with her but I can tell this is a female who does her best to be happy.
I see a man sitting quietly across me, legs crossed across the large hallway and it looks like Kojo Williams, the one who talks so confidently on football matters.
I muse on the fact that I recognise Mr. Williams from newspaper articles and television appearances seeing that we had never met and it makes me appreciate again how powerful these media are.
Further down the hallway, some young man (probably approaching forty) who should take better care of the paunch he appears to be developing; it is incongruous when compared to his diminutive frame.
I contemplate him for a while as he yells down the phone in his hand. I look at the women going past me (I am The Whisperer and I always have), appreciating them the same way an artist would look at paintings and meditate on beauty and then my phone rings.
It is someone I would rather not engage in conversation with. I have come to the conclusion that time is precious marking the seasons of our lives and I will no longer waste it on inanities and meaningless conversations.
The only reason I have such numbers on my phone is so I can ignore them when they come in. A minute has gone by.
We are instructed to move to the last point before boarding the plane. A flint-eyed security operative looks at my passport and checks to see it is me under the hat.
I look back at him indifferently and he lets me go. His colleague pats me down searching for underwear made out of explosive material and I silently curse the young man who added to this country’s woes by deciding to attack strangers on Christmas day.
Finally I am let through and I sit in the “point of no return”, that place where we watch the flight crew flounce past, the pretty female “cabin executives” looking as determined as any astronaut I have ever heard of. Halfway into any six-hour journey, they are usually too tired to appear as if they are there to save the world.
I see Joe, the male cabin crew-member who was a part of the Big Brother Nigeria house and I smile to myself at the coincidence, remembering he had come along with a friend of his to see my stage show only two days before.
WE are let on the plane, and I take a comfortable sit by the window. There are advantages to checking-in early.
My phone rings again and this time it is a number I do not know and a voice I have not heard from in a long while. For those who have been reading my column, they might remember the story of my female friend and I at a petrol station and how a complete stranger, female as well, came along and propositioned her even though I stood next to her. That’s right.
I was not the one propositioned by the female stranger in heat. It was my friend she addressed even though I was dressed in the full protective gear of a person who rides a Suzuki 750 cc bike and I looked like something out of The Terminator or Robo-Cop.
Anyway, it is my friend calling, we had been estranged for a while and I am glad to hear her voice. I tell her I will be away for the next few days and we agree we shall talk upon my return.
It is a call that makes me a happier person and I am glad the erratic network providers on my mobile phone allowed that call come in. Two minutes.
The announcement that the aeroplane is about to take off can be heard and I switch the phone off.
All around me, I hear the muted conversations of travellers, strangers getting acquainted or talking to their friends. I watch a movie and then a second; blocking me from watching television was the most painful punishment my father could mete out when I was growing.
The plane lands and I am in that cold climate again. Weather as cold as the African continent is hot. I brace myself, waiting outside the terminal for my brother to come pick me.
The phone rings again and this time it is a person I did not get a chance to spend time with on my last visit. We agree to meet up and my brother’s car arrives.
WE do meet up and the get-together is not as impressive as I thought it would be. Sometimes we lend too much to the persona of those we are with, and then are disappointed at the outcome.
This might be a two-way thing of course, with the person we are with, disappointed in us as well.
Before the meeting is over, I am calculating the fastest way to return to my brother’s and how long it will take me to crawl under the duvet when I get there. Three minutes.
My phone rings and it is someone I have searched for, for well over a decade. I have described her on these pages before.
I call her “still waters” and only recently we managed to regain contact. For each other, we have become “the road not taken”, but still, a thing of beauty is a joy forever.
If there are any friendships I want to keep for the rest of my life, this is one of them. Around the time you are reading this, I will be sitting quietly in some park, talking, by the “still waters”. Four Minutes.
laspapi@yahoo.com
I SIT in an airport lounge on my way out of the country for a few days, taking in the people passing by and their idiosyncrasies.
Walking past is the fair-skinned film actor, Shan George, boisterous, full of life and strength, enjoying her day as she goes. I have never had the opportunity to have a conversation with her but I can tell this is a female who does her best to be happy.
I see a man sitting quietly across me, legs crossed across the large hallway and it looks like Kojo Williams, the one who talks so confidently on football matters.
I muse on the fact that I recognise Mr. Williams from newspaper articles and television appearances seeing that we had never met and it makes me appreciate again how powerful these media are.
Further down the hallway, some young man (probably approaching forty) who should take better care of the paunch he appears to be developing; it is incongruous when compared to his diminutive frame.
I contemplate him for a while as he yells down the phone in his hand. I look at the women going past me (I am The Whisperer and I always have), appreciating them the same way an artist would look at paintings and meditate on beauty and then my phone rings.
It is someone I would rather not engage in conversation with. I have come to the conclusion that time is precious marking the seasons of our lives and I will no longer waste it on inanities and meaningless conversations.
The only reason I have such numbers on my phone is so I can ignore them when they come in. A minute has gone by.
We are instructed to move to the last point before boarding the plane. A flint-eyed security operative looks at my passport and checks to see it is me under the hat.
I look back at him indifferently and he lets me go. His colleague pats me down searching for underwear made out of explosive material and I silently curse the young man who added to this country’s woes by deciding to attack strangers on Christmas day.
Finally I am let through and I sit in the “point of no return”, that place where we watch the flight crew flounce past, the pretty female “cabin executives” looking as determined as any astronaut I have ever heard of. Halfway into any six-hour journey, they are usually too tired to appear as if they are there to save the world.
I see Joe, the male cabin crew-member who was a part of the Big Brother Nigeria house and I smile to myself at the coincidence, remembering he had come along with a friend of his to see my stage show only two days before.
WE are let on the plane, and I take a comfortable sit by the window. There are advantages to checking-in early.
My phone rings again and this time it is a number I do not know and a voice I have not heard from in a long while. For those who have been reading my column, they might remember the story of my female friend and I at a petrol station and how a complete stranger, female as well, came along and propositioned her even though I stood next to her. That’s right.
I was not the one propositioned by the female stranger in heat. It was my friend she addressed even though I was dressed in the full protective gear of a person who rides a Suzuki 750 cc bike and I looked like something out of The Terminator or Robo-Cop.
Anyway, it is my friend calling, we had been estranged for a while and I am glad to hear her voice. I tell her I will be away for the next few days and we agree we shall talk upon my return.
It is a call that makes me a happier person and I am glad the erratic network providers on my mobile phone allowed that call come in. Two minutes.
The announcement that the aeroplane is about to take off can be heard and I switch the phone off.
All around me, I hear the muted conversations of travellers, strangers getting acquainted or talking to their friends. I watch a movie and then a second; blocking me from watching television was the most painful punishment my father could mete out when I was growing.
The plane lands and I am in that cold climate again. Weather as cold as the African continent is hot. I brace myself, waiting outside the terminal for my brother to come pick me.
The phone rings again and this time it is a person I did not get a chance to spend time with on my last visit. We agree to meet up and my brother’s car arrives.
WE do meet up and the get-together is not as impressive as I thought it would be. Sometimes we lend too much to the persona of those we are with, and then are disappointed at the outcome.
This might be a two-way thing of course, with the person we are with, disappointed in us as well.
Before the meeting is over, I am calculating the fastest way to return to my brother’s and how long it will take me to crawl under the duvet when I get there. Three minutes.
My phone rings and it is someone I have searched for, for well over a decade. I have described her on these pages before.
I call her “still waters” and only recently we managed to regain contact. For each other, we have become “the road not taken”, but still, a thing of beauty is a joy forever.
If there are any friendships I want to keep for the rest of my life, this is one of them. Around the time you are reading this, I will be sitting quietly in some park, talking, by the “still waters”. Four Minutes.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Saturday, 30 January 2010
The league of extraordinary gentlemen
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
I FIRST saw the movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, several years ago starring Sean Connery and many others. In it, Connery played Alan Quartermain, who leads a company of unlikely superheroes, the like of which the world has never come across.
Along with Quartermain, there were Rodney Skinner, the invisible man (no one could see him); Captain Nemo who owned and captained a submarine called ‘The Nautilus’, a vessel that was a thousand years ahead of its time; Dr. Jekyll (also known as Mr Hyde); a female vampire known as Mina Harker; Sawyer, the American Secret Service agent and Dorian Grey.
For those who do not know, Oscar Wilde wrote a work of fiction titled “The Picture of Dorian Grey” (at least I hope it was fiction) where a good looking and wealthy young man (Grey) sold his soul to the devil.
The deal was he would preserve his good looks and youth forever while a picture painted of him would continue to age as the years rolled by. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But nothing ever is.
Along the way, he committed a murder or two, as such people are wont to do. The long and short of it is that you go look for the book. A man who does not read has little advantage over he that cannot read.
Dr Jekyll was a doctor who experimented with some portion and created a gruesome hulking alter ego that caused havoc every time he mutated into that creature (Hyde). Quartermain who led the group was a swash-buckling, gun-toting adventurer.
All characters in the comic book that became the movie known as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were characters developed by other writers in their own works and it would do you good to read these books if you can.
WHAT struck The Whisperer a few days ago is how people that walk through our lives can be likened to the broad categories offered by this comic book and film.
How many of us have dated people we thought were the calmest, most easy-going people on the face of the earth and then found out in private moments or when they were irreversibly entrenched in our lives that our partners had separate and hidden sides to their characters that put the fear of God in us?
For some, it is the gentle, courteous man that becomes a vicious punch-thrower, with anger levels that border on foaming at the mouth and being rabid.
For others, it is the beautiful girl in whose mouth butter couldn’t melt who suddenly shows sloth could easily have been her middle name. In these cases, your amiable Dr. Jekyll has suddenly become a malformed Mr. Hyde and it is too late to run.
I know of a mentally ill person who married a girl that had no idea he was certified by doctors as very ill.
Now, anyone may marry anyone, the idea is to weigh the consequences and be sure you can handle whatever situation you find in. Major issues like mental illness should be shared with those we are serious with, however.
The girl in question only found out when he suffered a severe relapse, was rushed to a mental hospital and she was informed he had a long history of illness. When she confronted her mother-in-law, she was told to get a grip; she was married to him after all. Jekyll and Hyde.
SOME become involved with the avaricious invisible man-type. A man who seeks to take advantage of every one he comes in contact with.
For you to get this context right, a man who is invisible cannot be held by any borders or walls.
He comes and goes as he pleases and there are no laws that bind him. A true test of who you really are might be what you would get up to, if you had the chance to be truly invisible.
Think about it, the ability to escape punishment for any crime, any “sin”. I tell people that you can’t really tell what kind of person you are until you have enough money to afford all the vices. All of them.
It is when you can afford them and you choose not to that you may call yourself Mr. Fantastic.
How do you say you are not a drinker if you cannot afford to buy a beer? How do you say you do not chase skirts until you can afford to chase any “skirt” you set your heart on? Yes, for some “skirts”, even if they do not need your money, your bank balance is important. It shows you as a person they can relate with.
SOME of us have met Dorian Grey, good-looking on the outside but with secrets so dark no human heart should be forced to share their lives with this sort. When you sell your soul for immediate advantage, you are Dorian Grey.
The vampire-type is the one that sucks your essence, leaving you drained and without strength. It is strictly a one-way relationship, with your life force taken away from you and nothing given in return.
Alan Quartermain rates his or her work higher than you do. True, these are lofty ideals and worthy of emulation if done in moderation but often it is the relationship you have with this sort, which suffers.
The Secret Service agent follows closely on the heels of Quartermain, idealistic and believing that nothing should come before the work.
Sometimes, you may get it right with this one, if you are fortunate and both of you are certain of what you want from each other.
Why haven’t I tried to explain the Captain Nemo-type? I thought I shouldn’t take all the fun away. You work out the kind of man who climbs into a submarine a millennium ahead of its time and moves back and forth across the world in search of treasure and such things.
For some, they have met people who have had more than one of these characters rolled into their personalities. All I can advise is you study your partner before committing. An African proverb says only a fool tests the depths of water with both feet. I believe that.
laspapi@yahoo.com
I FIRST saw the movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, several years ago starring Sean Connery and many others. In it, Connery played Alan Quartermain, who leads a company of unlikely superheroes, the like of which the world has never come across.
Along with Quartermain, there were Rodney Skinner, the invisible man (no one could see him); Captain Nemo who owned and captained a submarine called ‘The Nautilus’, a vessel that was a thousand years ahead of its time; Dr. Jekyll (also known as Mr Hyde); a female vampire known as Mina Harker; Sawyer, the American Secret Service agent and Dorian Grey.
For those who do not know, Oscar Wilde wrote a work of fiction titled “The Picture of Dorian Grey” (at least I hope it was fiction) where a good looking and wealthy young man (Grey) sold his soul to the devil.
The deal was he would preserve his good looks and youth forever while a picture painted of him would continue to age as the years rolled by. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But nothing ever is.
Along the way, he committed a murder or two, as such people are wont to do. The long and short of it is that you go look for the book. A man who does not read has little advantage over he that cannot read.
Dr Jekyll was a doctor who experimented with some portion and created a gruesome hulking alter ego that caused havoc every time he mutated into that creature (Hyde). Quartermain who led the group was a swash-buckling, gun-toting adventurer.
All characters in the comic book that became the movie known as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were characters developed by other writers in their own works and it would do you good to read these books if you can.
WHAT struck The Whisperer a few days ago is how people that walk through our lives can be likened to the broad categories offered by this comic book and film.
How many of us have dated people we thought were the calmest, most easy-going people on the face of the earth and then found out in private moments or when they were irreversibly entrenched in our lives that our partners had separate and hidden sides to their characters that put the fear of God in us?
For some, it is the gentle, courteous man that becomes a vicious punch-thrower, with anger levels that border on foaming at the mouth and being rabid.
For others, it is the beautiful girl in whose mouth butter couldn’t melt who suddenly shows sloth could easily have been her middle name. In these cases, your amiable Dr. Jekyll has suddenly become a malformed Mr. Hyde and it is too late to run.
I know of a mentally ill person who married a girl that had no idea he was certified by doctors as very ill.
Now, anyone may marry anyone, the idea is to weigh the consequences and be sure you can handle whatever situation you find in. Major issues like mental illness should be shared with those we are serious with, however.
The girl in question only found out when he suffered a severe relapse, was rushed to a mental hospital and she was informed he had a long history of illness. When she confronted her mother-in-law, she was told to get a grip; she was married to him after all. Jekyll and Hyde.
SOME become involved with the avaricious invisible man-type. A man who seeks to take advantage of every one he comes in contact with.
For you to get this context right, a man who is invisible cannot be held by any borders or walls.
He comes and goes as he pleases and there are no laws that bind him. A true test of who you really are might be what you would get up to, if you had the chance to be truly invisible.
Think about it, the ability to escape punishment for any crime, any “sin”. I tell people that you can’t really tell what kind of person you are until you have enough money to afford all the vices. All of them.
It is when you can afford them and you choose not to that you may call yourself Mr. Fantastic.
How do you say you are not a drinker if you cannot afford to buy a beer? How do you say you do not chase skirts until you can afford to chase any “skirt” you set your heart on? Yes, for some “skirts”, even if they do not need your money, your bank balance is important. It shows you as a person they can relate with.
SOME of us have met Dorian Grey, good-looking on the outside but with secrets so dark no human heart should be forced to share their lives with this sort. When you sell your soul for immediate advantage, you are Dorian Grey.
The vampire-type is the one that sucks your essence, leaving you drained and without strength. It is strictly a one-way relationship, with your life force taken away from you and nothing given in return.
Alan Quartermain rates his or her work higher than you do. True, these are lofty ideals and worthy of emulation if done in moderation but often it is the relationship you have with this sort, which suffers.
The Secret Service agent follows closely on the heels of Quartermain, idealistic and believing that nothing should come before the work.
Sometimes, you may get it right with this one, if you are fortunate and both of you are certain of what you want from each other.
Why haven’t I tried to explain the Captain Nemo-type? I thought I shouldn’t take all the fun away. You work out the kind of man who climbs into a submarine a millennium ahead of its time and moves back and forth across the world in search of treasure and such things.
For some, they have met people who have had more than one of these characters rolled into their personalities. All I can advise is you study your partner before committing. An African proverb says only a fool tests the depths of water with both feet. I believe that.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Sunday, 24 January 2010
The art of seduction
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
THE Whisperer has a crush on a certain female. It is one that has lasted for years and across two continents, from the time the lady lived abroad till when she returned to these shores.
The subject of the crush, a blogger and arts lover, is called Mona and her blog is called aramide.
You may go google her name if you’re one of those obsessed with The Whisperer’s caprices.
Others wishing to enjoy this piece should just flow with my story. Why do I have a crush on her?
There is a certain type of female that appeals to The Whisperer, and it is the “Thoroughbred”.
I am of the firm belief that women are broadly fitted into four main categories; the first of which is the Thoroughbred, of which procession Mona is not only a part of, but she carries a banner.
The other categories are The Girl Next Door, The Free Spirit and the Jerry Springer.
The Girl Next Door is about the same as the Thoroughbred and sometimes there are girls who blur the line that divides these two categories.
The Free Spirit is more mercurial and harder to keep tabs on, and the Jerry Springer is the one you pray you never have the misfortune of being intimate with.
So back to Mona. Each time I see her, I am reminded of what true beauty should be like, an essence emanating from the inside on to the outside.
I have had occasion on this page to write of those I have had crushes on. They are an exclusive range, from the Hollywood actress, Nicole Kidman to the Nigerian architect and writer, Peju Alatishe.
What is the common thread running through these women? I do not know if essence can be defined and put into a bottle but they each have a quality that cannot be tagged but which remains tangible all the same.
The singer, Beyonce, smites some men, but she does nothing for The Whisperer. I suppose it is true to a large extent then, that it is different strokes for different folks.
Now, admitting to a crush does not mean one is actively searching ways out to “capture” the object of one’s desire.
There is such a thing as a harmless crush and it is as healthy as wishing you will find ten million dollars sitting in a satchel by your front gate as you return home some night.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that satchel will never be found but it makes you feel good as you continue to work towards earning the amount you dream will fall out of a moving vehicle and right onto your feet someday.
Now, of the crushes I have had, and of those I have met personally, it is obvious there has been no intention on their parts to deliberately weave a spell on those who observe them, there is something about these women that lights up a room for me when they are in it.
Still, this piece is not about crushes but about the art of seduction, so enough of talking about women that fascinate me and on to those who have perfected the art of seduction or have been deluded into thinking they are masters of the art.
MANY years ago, I spoke to a girl I thought was very attractive and asked how she would let a person she was interested in know he had caught her attention.
She said she would keep her eyes on him across a crowded room and lightly lick her lips.
Now, that lip-licking gesture isn’t as lascivious as you might like to think. She didn’t do it like some lustful sailor would upon seeing a girl on shore after spending three months at sea.
It was a hardly noticeable act but it stuck in my mind. I have not been able to look at a lip-licking girl the same since then. Did it work for her? It probably did.
The art of seduction is in the little things, the subtle acts, the faintest grazing of the palms as you shake hands, the look that lasts for just that extra millionth of a second.
It is there if you know where to look and some take naturally to it, able to detect the faintest signals where they exist.
Once in a foreign land and as I stood at a bus stop, a girl walked past me, seemingly unaware I existed.
She was attractive and I watched her walk down the road a long distance. Just as I turned to look away, she must have been like 50 metres away from me; she turned on that empty road to look back at me.
She did not think my eyes would still be on her after such a long time and when she saw my eyes, she burst out laughing at the fact that she had been caught. Remember that when she passed me, she had pretended she was oblivious to my very existence.
In the art of seduction, things are not always what they seem, and you must learn to look for non-verbal cues.
Don’t they say that more than 70 per cent of communication is of the non-verbal kind?
It is not difficult to identify two people who have been intimate. There is that intrusion in each other’s private spaces, it cannot be helped, and it just flows naturally.
THE Whisperer has met up with all sorts, from the not so subtle ones who told him outright they had no boyfriends to the ones who gave the faintest of nudges.
The problem with the men who never get it right is that they are like people who wear muddy boots into a place where forensic evidence is being gathered and smear the walls and objects with chocolate-covered fingers.
They make a mess of the clues that should be treated with delicacy and that is that.
Once a girl told me that looking deep into the eyes of a member of her gender was seductive. If that is true, there are many girls who should be smitten by my charms.
Maybe I should write my own book on the laws of seduction just to say there is no one way of going about it.
I guess it’s true then that love is where you find it and if you find difficulty in getting the girl of your dreams with hints, come out in the open. “Faint heart never won fair lady”.
laspapi@yahoo.com
THE Whisperer has a crush on a certain female. It is one that has lasted for years and across two continents, from the time the lady lived abroad till when she returned to these shores.
The subject of the crush, a blogger and arts lover, is called Mona and her blog is called aramide.
You may go google her name if you’re one of those obsessed with The Whisperer’s caprices.
Others wishing to enjoy this piece should just flow with my story. Why do I have a crush on her?
There is a certain type of female that appeals to The Whisperer, and it is the “Thoroughbred”.
I am of the firm belief that women are broadly fitted into four main categories; the first of which is the Thoroughbred, of which procession Mona is not only a part of, but she carries a banner.
The other categories are The Girl Next Door, The Free Spirit and the Jerry Springer.
The Girl Next Door is about the same as the Thoroughbred and sometimes there are girls who blur the line that divides these two categories.
The Free Spirit is more mercurial and harder to keep tabs on, and the Jerry Springer is the one you pray you never have the misfortune of being intimate with.
So back to Mona. Each time I see her, I am reminded of what true beauty should be like, an essence emanating from the inside on to the outside.
I have had occasion on this page to write of those I have had crushes on. They are an exclusive range, from the Hollywood actress, Nicole Kidman to the Nigerian architect and writer, Peju Alatishe.
What is the common thread running through these women? I do not know if essence can be defined and put into a bottle but they each have a quality that cannot be tagged but which remains tangible all the same.
The singer, Beyonce, smites some men, but she does nothing for The Whisperer. I suppose it is true to a large extent then, that it is different strokes for different folks.
Now, admitting to a crush does not mean one is actively searching ways out to “capture” the object of one’s desire.
There is such a thing as a harmless crush and it is as healthy as wishing you will find ten million dollars sitting in a satchel by your front gate as you return home some night.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that satchel will never be found but it makes you feel good as you continue to work towards earning the amount you dream will fall out of a moving vehicle and right onto your feet someday.
Now, of the crushes I have had, and of those I have met personally, it is obvious there has been no intention on their parts to deliberately weave a spell on those who observe them, there is something about these women that lights up a room for me when they are in it.
Still, this piece is not about crushes but about the art of seduction, so enough of talking about women that fascinate me and on to those who have perfected the art of seduction or have been deluded into thinking they are masters of the art.
MANY years ago, I spoke to a girl I thought was very attractive and asked how she would let a person she was interested in know he had caught her attention.
She said she would keep her eyes on him across a crowded room and lightly lick her lips.
Now, that lip-licking gesture isn’t as lascivious as you might like to think. She didn’t do it like some lustful sailor would upon seeing a girl on shore after spending three months at sea.
It was a hardly noticeable act but it stuck in my mind. I have not been able to look at a lip-licking girl the same since then. Did it work for her? It probably did.
The art of seduction is in the little things, the subtle acts, the faintest grazing of the palms as you shake hands, the look that lasts for just that extra millionth of a second.
It is there if you know where to look and some take naturally to it, able to detect the faintest signals where they exist.
Once in a foreign land and as I stood at a bus stop, a girl walked past me, seemingly unaware I existed.
She was attractive and I watched her walk down the road a long distance. Just as I turned to look away, she must have been like 50 metres away from me; she turned on that empty road to look back at me.
She did not think my eyes would still be on her after such a long time and when she saw my eyes, she burst out laughing at the fact that she had been caught. Remember that when she passed me, she had pretended she was oblivious to my very existence.
In the art of seduction, things are not always what they seem, and you must learn to look for non-verbal cues.
Don’t they say that more than 70 per cent of communication is of the non-verbal kind?
It is not difficult to identify two people who have been intimate. There is that intrusion in each other’s private spaces, it cannot be helped, and it just flows naturally.
THE Whisperer has met up with all sorts, from the not so subtle ones who told him outright they had no boyfriends to the ones who gave the faintest of nudges.
The problem with the men who never get it right is that they are like people who wear muddy boots into a place where forensic evidence is being gathered and smear the walls and objects with chocolate-covered fingers.
They make a mess of the clues that should be treated with delicacy and that is that.
Once a girl told me that looking deep into the eyes of a member of her gender was seductive. If that is true, there are many girls who should be smitten by my charms.
Maybe I should write my own book on the laws of seduction just to say there is no one way of going about it.
I guess it’s true then that love is where you find it and if you find difficulty in getting the girl of your dreams with hints, come out in the open. “Faint heart never won fair lady”.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Saturday, 16 January 2010
The Patience Facto
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
I HAVE come to the conclusion that patience is not a strength very many people possess.
As a matter of fact, my studied opinion from observations is that there are very few people who can lay claim to knowing what the word, “patience”, really means.
In The Whisperer’s attributes, and I would like to think there are many, being the most patient person in the world is not a major one.
We all have our glib definitions of patience, always swift to say, “I can be patient for a long time, but...” I dare say true patience of the kind that cannot be overcome is not human.
Like steam in a kettle, frustrations and impatience will find outlets for annoyance and unleash a figurative jet of scalding steam on the nearest object sooner or later.
The trick is to manage temperaments as best as you can, so you never force your partner and yourself into positions in which both of you can never come back.
WHAT has made patience the issue for me? There are several reasons and I will give examples.
One of the examples below happened to me but I’ll leave you to guess which one it might be. What’s the use of totally robbing myself of the mystique that should cloak every writer on issues concerning relationships?
A friend I would normally regard as very patient (how little I know of some things), told me of a young female he met a while ago; someone he regarded as very pleasant in disposition as well as being fair of face, which was a great plus in his own books.
They found common ground together, got on like a house on fire, became fast friends and a relationship soon developed.
However you never really know the limits of your own patience till someone helps you test it.
For some reason, when we are with a partner who really cares about us and does not hide it; we, being human, tend to take things for granted.
We forgot ourselves, drum our feet on the floor throwing mini-tantrums when we should show appreciation for what we have and try to nurture it.
So my friend would “patiently” accept all the idiosyncrasies of his partner and her many mood swings.
One night as he came out of a movie theatre, she called him with a telephone number she seldom used and which he had never bothered to save.
According to him, he went “hello, who is this?” but her annoyance erupted that night because he had failed at immediate voice recognition.
She cut the call off and kept on terminating the connection when he repeatedly called back realizing his mistake. It had taken a while that night for him to deduce who it was on the phone but that was the night his patience with her ran out. As far as he was concerned, his offence had not been a capital one.
Her tantrum was badly-timed, it rubbed him the wrong way and he sent her a terse text the same night saying he wanted nothing more to do with her. That is the way it has stood to this day.
When she realised her cup had run over, she tried to make peace but love or whatever it was they had, had flown the coop. It’s amazing how something innocuous will be the final straw that breaks the camel’s back.
NOW, the times I have written to say things that might be construed as not favourable to the female specie, a few women have accused me of woman-bashing.
The only way you can write a column like this is if you love women. I do. And that is the long and short of it.
The more base-minded might begin to read meanings into me “loving women” but I’ll let them do whatever adds meaning to their lives on grey, rainy days.
MY point on patience? It is not an infinite emotion, larger than the sea and wider than the oceans.
It is a very human emotion and it can run out. As a matter of fact, the guaranty is that if you over-use your credit on anything, you’ll slot in your card one day and be informed by the machine that you have run out of credit.
There was a young man studying for a postgraduate degree who came across an under-graduate in her final year.
A relationship blossomed which they regarded as love. However, because he would fawn over her day and night, she soon got tired of his attention.
She was short-tempered, easily irritated and did not even attempt to hide she was keeping her options open just in case a better deal came by.
One day, he walked out without notice, she attempted repeated, and desperate comebacks but he was too far-gone.
NOW there are some people, male and female, who are suckers for love. They will do anything to keep a relationship they regard as sacrosanct (yeah, check a dictionary).
However, on the other side, there are many of us also who have a default setting that is programmed to abuse those who hold us dear. We become like children who have been given brightly coloured, brand-new toys.
We are fascinated at first by the new gift, turn it round and around in our hands then proceed to bash it against a wall to test for its durability.
After a while, we discard the toy. I bet some of you reading have an uncomfortable feeling here.
The oddity of the situation is that we suddenly come to our senses when the “gift” decides after a long period of abuse, whether emotional or mental, that it has had enough.
The gift decides it will walk through our door and then we begin to grovel and beg.
WHY are we this way? Even I cannot tell. I can only ask you to appreciate what you have, when you have it, before your partner decides the love and attention shown to you is a complete waste of time.
We have all met inconsiderate partners; people who did not respect our time, our values, our emotions, the respect we give them and our love.
If you are one of the many who have taken a blessing for granted, this is the time to show appreciation before the blessing is retracted by a partner who will suddenly come to his or her senses.
Listen to Janet Jackson, “You do not know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”
laspapi@yahoo.com
I HAVE come to the conclusion that patience is not a strength very many people possess.
As a matter of fact, my studied opinion from observations is that there are very few people who can lay claim to knowing what the word, “patience”, really means.
In The Whisperer’s attributes, and I would like to think there are many, being the most patient person in the world is not a major one.
We all have our glib definitions of patience, always swift to say, “I can be patient for a long time, but...” I dare say true patience of the kind that cannot be overcome is not human.
Like steam in a kettle, frustrations and impatience will find outlets for annoyance and unleash a figurative jet of scalding steam on the nearest object sooner or later.
The trick is to manage temperaments as best as you can, so you never force your partner and yourself into positions in which both of you can never come back.
WHAT has made patience the issue for me? There are several reasons and I will give examples.
One of the examples below happened to me but I’ll leave you to guess which one it might be. What’s the use of totally robbing myself of the mystique that should cloak every writer on issues concerning relationships?
A friend I would normally regard as very patient (how little I know of some things), told me of a young female he met a while ago; someone he regarded as very pleasant in disposition as well as being fair of face, which was a great plus in his own books.
They found common ground together, got on like a house on fire, became fast friends and a relationship soon developed.
However you never really know the limits of your own patience till someone helps you test it.
For some reason, when we are with a partner who really cares about us and does not hide it; we, being human, tend to take things for granted.
We forgot ourselves, drum our feet on the floor throwing mini-tantrums when we should show appreciation for what we have and try to nurture it.
So my friend would “patiently” accept all the idiosyncrasies of his partner and her many mood swings.
One night as he came out of a movie theatre, she called him with a telephone number she seldom used and which he had never bothered to save.
According to him, he went “hello, who is this?” but her annoyance erupted that night because he had failed at immediate voice recognition.
She cut the call off and kept on terminating the connection when he repeatedly called back realizing his mistake. It had taken a while that night for him to deduce who it was on the phone but that was the night his patience with her ran out. As far as he was concerned, his offence had not been a capital one.
Her tantrum was badly-timed, it rubbed him the wrong way and he sent her a terse text the same night saying he wanted nothing more to do with her. That is the way it has stood to this day.
When she realised her cup had run over, she tried to make peace but love or whatever it was they had, had flown the coop. It’s amazing how something innocuous will be the final straw that breaks the camel’s back.
NOW, the times I have written to say things that might be construed as not favourable to the female specie, a few women have accused me of woman-bashing.
The only way you can write a column like this is if you love women. I do. And that is the long and short of it.
The more base-minded might begin to read meanings into me “loving women” but I’ll let them do whatever adds meaning to their lives on grey, rainy days.
MY point on patience? It is not an infinite emotion, larger than the sea and wider than the oceans.
It is a very human emotion and it can run out. As a matter of fact, the guaranty is that if you over-use your credit on anything, you’ll slot in your card one day and be informed by the machine that you have run out of credit.
There was a young man studying for a postgraduate degree who came across an under-graduate in her final year.
A relationship blossomed which they regarded as love. However, because he would fawn over her day and night, she soon got tired of his attention.
She was short-tempered, easily irritated and did not even attempt to hide she was keeping her options open just in case a better deal came by.
One day, he walked out without notice, she attempted repeated, and desperate comebacks but he was too far-gone.
NOW there are some people, male and female, who are suckers for love. They will do anything to keep a relationship they regard as sacrosanct (yeah, check a dictionary).
However, on the other side, there are many of us also who have a default setting that is programmed to abuse those who hold us dear. We become like children who have been given brightly coloured, brand-new toys.
We are fascinated at first by the new gift, turn it round and around in our hands then proceed to bash it against a wall to test for its durability.
After a while, we discard the toy. I bet some of you reading have an uncomfortable feeling here.
The oddity of the situation is that we suddenly come to our senses when the “gift” decides after a long period of abuse, whether emotional or mental, that it has had enough.
The gift decides it will walk through our door and then we begin to grovel and beg.
WHY are we this way? Even I cannot tell. I can only ask you to appreciate what you have, when you have it, before your partner decides the love and attention shown to you is a complete waste of time.
We have all met inconsiderate partners; people who did not respect our time, our values, our emotions, the respect we give them and our love.
If you are one of the many who have taken a blessing for granted, this is the time to show appreciation before the blessing is retracted by a partner who will suddenly come to his or her senses.
Listen to Janet Jackson, “You do not know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”
laspapi@yahoo.com
Monday, 4 January 2010
Murphy’s law
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
THIS is the last piece for 2009 and The Whisperer wishes everyone reading a beautiful end to the year and hopes only your good dreams will come to pass.
Earlier this month, The Whisperer wrote on this page, of his love and admiration for the female actor and singer, Brittany Murphy.
It was her essence that seemed to shine through and if some could not get what the fascination was about, it did not matter to him.
She appeared in the movies, Clueless; Girl, Interrupted (where Angelina Jolie-Pitt won herself an Oscar); the critically acclaimed Sin City and Edward Burns’ The Sidewalks of New York, among many others.
Seeing Brittany in a movie was enough to make me watch it. For those who follow The Whisperer’s articles, her name was a recurring theme; and it had to do with that happy face of hers, a child-like spirit even the magic of celluloid could not hide and the fact that she was always a delight to watch.
And then she died. Just like that. We were told she collapsed in the bathroom of the home she shared with her husband and died of a cardiac arrest at the age of 32.
I was numb with shock though I had never met with Ms. Murphy and was just a couple of weeks earlier, threatening to run the obstacle course that is the American Embassy if only to meet her.
Brittany was born to a mother of Irish and Eastern Europe descent and a father who is Italian-American, a product of the American dream but she was gone just like that, without notice or any kind of advance warning.
For me, it was like the death of Michael Jackson to many others. They had never met him either but felt that he had touched their lives in many ways.
How does someone whom you have never met affect you? All those of you who talk of Mandela or the grown men who have pictures of Christiano Ronaldo on their walls can explain that to the people asking.
It is not a thing that can actually be grasped; it is the idea of the person, the very essence (that word again) that connects with you when you come across the work, art or life of the person in issue, and Brittany was one of those who did it for me.
Nicole Kidman too, for those who may be wondering if there is a pattern, and a long list of people of African descent for those who may think I am stuck only on people of European/American descent.
And we come to the point of my writing today. What if I was attracted only to a certain kind of woman? Japanese? Korean? Aboriginal?
How does my love interest in only a certain kind of woman affect the life of anybody else?
Why do people make it a point to study the lives of others as if their lives depended on it while they leave their own cooking fires unattended? (Cue Tiger Woods to walk past at this moment)
MURPHY died and across the world and in many places, the rumbling started. How does a 32-year-old die of a cardiac arrest? The allusion? She might have been messing around in her bathroom with some substances.
The point is I do not care whatever she might have been doing. A beautiful woman died, and therein lies the tragedy.
She had no business dying. She should have lived to find more glory and fame, walk down the red carpet to pick an Oscar, give The Whisperer a hug on her way past his seat and a quick whisper in the ear saying, “I made it, Wole.”
We do not ask how children under the age of five years get cancer but they do. Will the truly wretched stand up and say it was on account of something the child’s parents did in a previous life?
Brittany Murphy died and that is the long and short of it. If she was not murdered, we must let the matter be and not whisper in dark and dank places of how she might have lost her life.
They say only people with good businesses mind their own, it would be a good thing if we could get more people to focus on theirs.
By the way, for those who do not know me, I have never smoked, drank or touched any substance that is labelled ‘a hard drug’. Am I human? Yes, I am.
I was talking to my friend yesterday, and she spoke of a rumour that went past her just after we left university, of me living in the home of a certain female ‘friend’ at one time in that area called Adeniyi Jones Avenue, Ikeja, where the truly well-heeled stay.
I remember the accommodation because I stayed there for a few years. It was a mighty house in which I counted seven bedrooms and back-quarters bigger than the houses most people stay in.
The thing, however, was the house was owned by my maternal uncle, my mother’s older brother and I stayed there alone except you wanted to count the times my first cousin, Bomi, my uncle’s daughter, would wander in from the university in Ibadan and spend time over.
It was her father’s house after all. The originators of the rumours were people I considered my friends, people I had fellowship with and prayed alongside.
It was mindless gossip, malicious, without basis, and therein lies Murphy ’s Law – the world is full of undeveloped minds and they will come after you, alive or dead.
STILL, what do we care that some people seem only obsessed at churning out grist for the rumour mills?
An elderly producer I used to think knew the limits of wisdom went on the pages of a newspaper a few days ago, to say Funke Akindele’s movie, Jenifa, only came to life because she was dating the marketer.
I felt demeaned, violated by reading such drivel and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Akindele herself must feel like.
So, I ask that as we hurtle through the last days of this year and brace ourselves for the New Year, we make this world a better place in the little ways we can by not succumbing to this version of Murphy’s Law where people will speak evil of others just because they can.
Remind yourself that the best days of your life are not behind you, they are ahead of you. May 2010 be the best year you have lived through yet. Amen.
laspapi@yahoo.com
THIS is the last piece for 2009 and The Whisperer wishes everyone reading a beautiful end to the year and hopes only your good dreams will come to pass.
Earlier this month, The Whisperer wrote on this page, of his love and admiration for the female actor and singer, Brittany Murphy.
It was her essence that seemed to shine through and if some could not get what the fascination was about, it did not matter to him.
She appeared in the movies, Clueless; Girl, Interrupted (where Angelina Jolie-Pitt won herself an Oscar); the critically acclaimed Sin City and Edward Burns’ The Sidewalks of New York, among many others.
Seeing Brittany in a movie was enough to make me watch it. For those who follow The Whisperer’s articles, her name was a recurring theme; and it had to do with that happy face of hers, a child-like spirit even the magic of celluloid could not hide and the fact that she was always a delight to watch.
And then she died. Just like that. We were told she collapsed in the bathroom of the home she shared with her husband and died of a cardiac arrest at the age of 32.
I was numb with shock though I had never met with Ms. Murphy and was just a couple of weeks earlier, threatening to run the obstacle course that is the American Embassy if only to meet her.
Brittany was born to a mother of Irish and Eastern Europe descent and a father who is Italian-American, a product of the American dream but she was gone just like that, without notice or any kind of advance warning.
For me, it was like the death of Michael Jackson to many others. They had never met him either but felt that he had touched their lives in many ways.
How does someone whom you have never met affect you? All those of you who talk of Mandela or the grown men who have pictures of Christiano Ronaldo on their walls can explain that to the people asking.
It is not a thing that can actually be grasped; it is the idea of the person, the very essence (that word again) that connects with you when you come across the work, art or life of the person in issue, and Brittany was one of those who did it for me.
Nicole Kidman too, for those who may be wondering if there is a pattern, and a long list of people of African descent for those who may think I am stuck only on people of European/American descent.
And we come to the point of my writing today. What if I was attracted only to a certain kind of woman? Japanese? Korean? Aboriginal?
How does my love interest in only a certain kind of woman affect the life of anybody else?
Why do people make it a point to study the lives of others as if their lives depended on it while they leave their own cooking fires unattended? (Cue Tiger Woods to walk past at this moment)
MURPHY died and across the world and in many places, the rumbling started. How does a 32-year-old die of a cardiac arrest? The allusion? She might have been messing around in her bathroom with some substances.
The point is I do not care whatever she might have been doing. A beautiful woman died, and therein lies the tragedy.
She had no business dying. She should have lived to find more glory and fame, walk down the red carpet to pick an Oscar, give The Whisperer a hug on her way past his seat and a quick whisper in the ear saying, “I made it, Wole.”
We do not ask how children under the age of five years get cancer but they do. Will the truly wretched stand up and say it was on account of something the child’s parents did in a previous life?
Brittany Murphy died and that is the long and short of it. If she was not murdered, we must let the matter be and not whisper in dark and dank places of how she might have lost her life.
They say only people with good businesses mind their own, it would be a good thing if we could get more people to focus on theirs.
By the way, for those who do not know me, I have never smoked, drank or touched any substance that is labelled ‘a hard drug’. Am I human? Yes, I am.
I was talking to my friend yesterday, and she spoke of a rumour that went past her just after we left university, of me living in the home of a certain female ‘friend’ at one time in that area called Adeniyi Jones Avenue, Ikeja, where the truly well-heeled stay.
I remember the accommodation because I stayed there for a few years. It was a mighty house in which I counted seven bedrooms and back-quarters bigger than the houses most people stay in.
The thing, however, was the house was owned by my maternal uncle, my mother’s older brother and I stayed there alone except you wanted to count the times my first cousin, Bomi, my uncle’s daughter, would wander in from the university in Ibadan and spend time over.
It was her father’s house after all. The originators of the rumours were people I considered my friends, people I had fellowship with and prayed alongside.
It was mindless gossip, malicious, without basis, and therein lies Murphy ’s Law – the world is full of undeveloped minds and they will come after you, alive or dead.
STILL, what do we care that some people seem only obsessed at churning out grist for the rumour mills?
An elderly producer I used to think knew the limits of wisdom went on the pages of a newspaper a few days ago, to say Funke Akindele’s movie, Jenifa, only came to life because she was dating the marketer.
I felt demeaned, violated by reading such drivel and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Akindele herself must feel like.
So, I ask that as we hurtle through the last days of this year and brace ourselves for the New Year, we make this world a better place in the little ways we can by not succumbing to this version of Murphy’s Law where people will speak evil of others just because they can.
Remind yourself that the best days of your life are not behind you, they are ahead of you. May 2010 be the best year you have lived through yet. Amen.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Back to the future
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
IT’s a New Year, the beginning of a new decade and it’s almost impossible not to be optimistic that the years to come will be brilliant ones. Anyway, it is the way I wish to see the future.
On Wednesday night, The Whisperer was at a reception organised by the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) in honour of several people of which he was one, people who had kept faith with the arts through the years.
There was Ayo Arigbabu, the architect-turned book publisher, whose range of activities continues to expand, Deji Toye who is able to make sense out of the most abstract things, Jumoke Verissimo the poet who started writing for major newspapers while she was still in university, Adunni the lead singer and the head of the musical group, Nefertiti, Chris Ihidero, who turned from university lecturer to magazine publisher to television series director amongst other things, Segun Adefila, head of the Crown Troupe, who has made the thing called dance exactly what he wants it to be, and then there was The Whisperer. Well, you all know who I am. We were hosted at the home of the man we all call the ‘Publisher’, Toyin Akinosho, Secretary General of CORA.
As people sang and danced and rejoiced for a year that was almost over and a New Year they hoped would make their good dreams come true, my eyes ranged over all those present.
The veteran and leading authority on all things music, Benson Idonije sat casually, enjoying the excitement of the more frenetic (Crown Troupe had its dancers present) and Ihidero sat almost in an identical position, probably also musing on the future (or the past).
It is difficult not to reflect on things that have taken place in the past as a year draws to an end.
Almost three years to the date, Verissimo, Arigbabu and I stood outside the same venue, after a similar occasion and for the first time; I gave voice to my desire to write a column that would deal with matters touching on gender relations and affairs of the heart.
That day, those two were enthusiastic about the things I said I could make of it and when the editor of The Guardian on Sunday, Jahman Anikulapo, joined us where we stood, our enthusiasm rubbed off on him.
I have whispered every week for almost three years since then and consider it a great honour to have the privilege of telling people around the country, my thoughts on relationships between the sexes.
So today, I go back to the future with some of those stories I have told, of people that have walked through my life.
I remember Rosemary, whom I met as a 13-year old and had a crush the size of a house on.
When she finally invited me to a party and I arrived dressed in my bell-bottomed denim trousers and matching waist-coat, she showed great joy at having me there but then told me someone my own size would soon walk through the door (I wasn’t a very tall thirteen year old).
That would have crushed the morale of a lesser man and I was saddened for a while but soon got over it.
If I were to see Rosemary today, I would not recognise her and would walk on by. When some people enter your life, their impact is not one that should hurt you permanently, and when your time is done with them, find the strength to move on.
KN my third form and when I was only 12 or 13, I told friends in the neighbourhood, Ayo and Segun Idowu, (they were brothers too) that I wanted to improve my social life.
Since they always seemed to be going to parties and seemed to have an incredible social life, I felt it was a thing worthy of emulation.
They promised they would take me to some of these outings and thus started a situation that makes me smile whenever I remember.
It was the way I got to Rosemary’s party and a few others. Parents should keep an eye out on their children too for crazy aspirations like that one I had.
As an adult now, I think, “did I really want to associate with the people I met at a lot of those places?”
However when you are at an age your friends are telling you the only way to be über cool is to be on the streets all the time, you tend to get carried away. I do not wish to be 13 and gawky ever again.
But still, I cannot forget the beautiful people I met when I was about that age. Many of them stayed in the staff quarters of the University of Lagos, children of the professors and doctors who were lecturers at the University of Lagos then. There were many girls I was “in love with” — Yemi Iyanda, Yinka Ogunye, Ifeanyi Okoisor, Ifechukwu Mordi, Mope Olawoye... Life is a large tapestry and each person you meet is a patch on that network sometimes sewn on with the greatest delicacy and at other times, crudely stitched on.
The offspring of the lecturers of the University of Lagos in those days were beautiful people and the places they hold in the tapestry that is my life will always be one of the most sacred places to me.
IN at least two other columns, I have spoken of the beautiful Banibe, who was studying for her A-levels at Igbobi College, while I was doing the same at the Lagos Baptist Academy.
“Barney” as we all called her would walk through “Baptacads” on her way home from school much to the admiration of the pimply-faced young men (of which I was one).
Today, I write “Back to the Future” and I say it would be a beautiful world to have the Banibes of my youth back in my life as my friends now.
For all of you who dream of happiness coming into your lives, I hope you are able to return to the places you once found happiness and bring these joys into your present.
May our joys be strong in this New Year.
laspapi@yahoo.com
IT’s a New Year, the beginning of a new decade and it’s almost impossible not to be optimistic that the years to come will be brilliant ones. Anyway, it is the way I wish to see the future.
On Wednesday night, The Whisperer was at a reception organised by the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) in honour of several people of which he was one, people who had kept faith with the arts through the years.
There was Ayo Arigbabu, the architect-turned book publisher, whose range of activities continues to expand, Deji Toye who is able to make sense out of the most abstract things, Jumoke Verissimo the poet who started writing for major newspapers while she was still in university, Adunni the lead singer and the head of the musical group, Nefertiti, Chris Ihidero, who turned from university lecturer to magazine publisher to television series director amongst other things, Segun Adefila, head of the Crown Troupe, who has made the thing called dance exactly what he wants it to be, and then there was The Whisperer. Well, you all know who I am. We were hosted at the home of the man we all call the ‘Publisher’, Toyin Akinosho, Secretary General of CORA.
As people sang and danced and rejoiced for a year that was almost over and a New Year they hoped would make their good dreams come true, my eyes ranged over all those present.
The veteran and leading authority on all things music, Benson Idonije sat casually, enjoying the excitement of the more frenetic (Crown Troupe had its dancers present) and Ihidero sat almost in an identical position, probably also musing on the future (or the past).
It is difficult not to reflect on things that have taken place in the past as a year draws to an end.
Almost three years to the date, Verissimo, Arigbabu and I stood outside the same venue, after a similar occasion and for the first time; I gave voice to my desire to write a column that would deal with matters touching on gender relations and affairs of the heart.
That day, those two were enthusiastic about the things I said I could make of it and when the editor of The Guardian on Sunday, Jahman Anikulapo, joined us where we stood, our enthusiasm rubbed off on him.
I have whispered every week for almost three years since then and consider it a great honour to have the privilege of telling people around the country, my thoughts on relationships between the sexes.
So today, I go back to the future with some of those stories I have told, of people that have walked through my life.
I remember Rosemary, whom I met as a 13-year old and had a crush the size of a house on.
When she finally invited me to a party and I arrived dressed in my bell-bottomed denim trousers and matching waist-coat, she showed great joy at having me there but then told me someone my own size would soon walk through the door (I wasn’t a very tall thirteen year old).
That would have crushed the morale of a lesser man and I was saddened for a while but soon got over it.
If I were to see Rosemary today, I would not recognise her and would walk on by. When some people enter your life, their impact is not one that should hurt you permanently, and when your time is done with them, find the strength to move on.
KN my third form and when I was only 12 or 13, I told friends in the neighbourhood, Ayo and Segun Idowu, (they were brothers too) that I wanted to improve my social life.
Since they always seemed to be going to parties and seemed to have an incredible social life, I felt it was a thing worthy of emulation.
They promised they would take me to some of these outings and thus started a situation that makes me smile whenever I remember.
It was the way I got to Rosemary’s party and a few others. Parents should keep an eye out on their children too for crazy aspirations like that one I had.
As an adult now, I think, “did I really want to associate with the people I met at a lot of those places?”
However when you are at an age your friends are telling you the only way to be über cool is to be on the streets all the time, you tend to get carried away. I do not wish to be 13 and gawky ever again.
But still, I cannot forget the beautiful people I met when I was about that age. Many of them stayed in the staff quarters of the University of Lagos, children of the professors and doctors who were lecturers at the University of Lagos then. There were many girls I was “in love with” — Yemi Iyanda, Yinka Ogunye, Ifeanyi Okoisor, Ifechukwu Mordi, Mope Olawoye... Life is a large tapestry and each person you meet is a patch on that network sometimes sewn on with the greatest delicacy and at other times, crudely stitched on.
The offspring of the lecturers of the University of Lagos in those days were beautiful people and the places they hold in the tapestry that is my life will always be one of the most sacred places to me.
IN at least two other columns, I have spoken of the beautiful Banibe, who was studying for her A-levels at Igbobi College, while I was doing the same at the Lagos Baptist Academy.
“Barney” as we all called her would walk through “Baptacads” on her way home from school much to the admiration of the pimply-faced young men (of which I was one).
Today, I write “Back to the Future” and I say it would be a beautiful world to have the Banibes of my youth back in my life as my friends now.
For all of you who dream of happiness coming into your lives, I hope you are able to return to the places you once found happiness and bring these joys into your present.
May our joys be strong in this New Year.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Tyger, Tyger burning bright
BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
TYGER, Tyger, burning bright in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The first few lines of William Blake’s masterful poem that could have been written for Tiger Woods.
The smoke has cleared now and another great man has hit the dust. This time it is the inimitable Tiger Woods, Lord of all he surveyed in golf and on the advertising circuits.
Like many others before him, he forgot the world always looks for a way to bring success down, whether it be in America or the back streets of Ajegunle.
It is a fundamental truth that people might adore you for your talent but will always look for a chink in your amour.
Ask Mr. Mike Tyson and O.J. Simpson what happened to them. In their cases, long jail terms, and O.J. might not be getting out in a hurry.
So, what happened to Tiger Woods? When he was only two, his father playfully placed a golf club in his hands and helped him do a swing. He has not looked back since.
He went on up until a few days ago to become the world’s highest-earning sports personality even though he was a black man playing a white man’s game. Yes, his earnings were even higher than David Beckham’s and all the other sports people that flaunt so much wealth.
What do I mean a ‘white man’s game’? Apparently, there are sports that some races are pre-disposed too, and no one should accuse me of bigotry.
It appears that Formula-one and the Grand Prix are for Caucasians as well as gymnastics and the like. If you point to Lewis Hamilton, I shall have to ask you to point to a second example, the same way Tiger Woods stood alone in his field.
Tiger was Mr. Perfect, with a flawless image and he used it to advance himself. He rarely spoke out of turn, managed his private life perfectly and had corporate endorsements the way adolescents have acne, flourishing richly everywhere.
Photographs of his new baby were splashed across newspapers around the world and then his entire world fell apart.
ONE day, we woke to the news that Tiger had been involved in a car accident at 2am. He drove out of his home, rammed into a water hydrant, up-ended his car, ended up with lacerations to his lips and other minor injuries and when the fire services and the police arrived, his wife was standing by the vehicle with a golf club.
The story was she had used the club to smash the rear windscreen of the car so she could free her husband from the wreckage.
But there is a thing about stories; once they start, you cannot stop them. The police arrived and gave a report that they had ruled out intoxication on Tiger’s part at the time of the accident.
And then Tiger misjudged his corporate endorsers, and admitted certain indiscretions of the marital kind.
All around the world, and over the years, men have been caught with their pants down if you’ll excuse the pun.
If you’re like Henry who was King of England, you would cut yourself away from a church trying to stop you annulling a marriage to your wife so you could take another woman as bride and set up your own church.
If you’re like “Wild” Bill Clinton, you would use your charisma as well as the fact that the nation understood you were a man with imperfections and sail through shark-infested political waters.
And you would make it to the other side of the shore. It would also be helpful as in his case, if you have a strong wife who could grit her teeth, brace herself and stand beside you, the philandering scoundrel so as not to jeopardise her own career.
Kobe Bryant the basketballer was accused of infidelity and made up with his wife by buying her a diamond ring that was the size of a small rock.
Hugh Grant, the affable English actor was caught with a prostitute called Devine Brown (How can I still remember her name?) but survived intact with his career still in tow, David Beckham whose endorsements are massive too, had an affair that came to the world’s attention while he was based in Spain, an affair that caught the attention of the world’s media but which he survived as well.
Woody Allen ran off with his wife’s adopted daughter; Jude Law had his moment of indiscretion... Even the immortal Martin Luther King Junior and the Reverend Jesse Jackson had their “days in the sun” and they survived the aftermath. The list is endless.
How do some people survive this kind of situation and some do not? Would it have to do with a perfect image being super-imposed on an imperfect man?
If you heard P-Diddy was caught in infidelity, you probably wouldn’t blink twice. But the Tiger? And a list of mistresses?
My friend, Wale Akinmusire, one of the city’s leading architects but who is a muse of sorts for me on whispering matters, had a telephone messaging-conversation with me on this situation.
He had sent a story that could only have been the creation of some smart aleck having fun at Tiger’s expense.
In it, the Reverend Al Sharpton blasts Tiger Woods for a lack of diversity in his choice of mistresses.
Apparently, Sharpton was miffed at the fact that in the long list of people who claimed to “have been with the Tiger”, not one was a black woman.
THE fictitious report quoted Sharpton as saying, “Why is it that a man who calls himself black can’t bring himself to cheat on his wife with a black woman?” According to him, the lack of African-American women amongst Woods’ harem would have a negative effect on the community, specifically young black girls”.
So that is what Tiger has become, a subject for comedians and wits. But Wale’s angst was with the corporate organizations that distanced themselves from Tiger.
He termed it corporate dishonesty, a condition he considered worse than serial adultery which the Tiger had been accused of.
According to him, 80 per cent of the men on the boards of these companies that pulled out of endorsing Tiger as a result of his actions would have cheated on their wives at some point or the other.
If you are curious as to which companies these are, please google Tiger Woods. I am not certain how accurate Wale’s statistics are, but Tiger’s actions are not the first of this kind we have heard and in most parts of the world, his actions do not constitute a criminal offence.
Yes, there is a lot of hypocrisy in this matter. The Whisperer does not stand to promote infidelity, but many people have fallen at this point and have been allowed to rise again, not kicked to death where they lay.
There are many men and women who have done these things and the difference between them and the Tiger is that he was better known.
There should be second chances, I reckon, and a chance to rectify mistakes. Kate Moss was allowed to return to being a face for major brands despite being photographed with cocaine up her nostrils.
I would also advice that those who live in glass houses, should not juggle stones either in their own living rooms or outside. If a certain skill has helped advance you, protect it with all you have. You never know who is watching and hoping to see you fall.
laspapi@yahoo.com
TYGER, Tyger, burning bright in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The first few lines of William Blake’s masterful poem that could have been written for Tiger Woods.
The smoke has cleared now and another great man has hit the dust. This time it is the inimitable Tiger Woods, Lord of all he surveyed in golf and on the advertising circuits.
Like many others before him, he forgot the world always looks for a way to bring success down, whether it be in America or the back streets of Ajegunle.
It is a fundamental truth that people might adore you for your talent but will always look for a chink in your amour.
Ask Mr. Mike Tyson and O.J. Simpson what happened to them. In their cases, long jail terms, and O.J. might not be getting out in a hurry.
So, what happened to Tiger Woods? When he was only two, his father playfully placed a golf club in his hands and helped him do a swing. He has not looked back since.
He went on up until a few days ago to become the world’s highest-earning sports personality even though he was a black man playing a white man’s game. Yes, his earnings were even higher than David Beckham’s and all the other sports people that flaunt so much wealth.
What do I mean a ‘white man’s game’? Apparently, there are sports that some races are pre-disposed too, and no one should accuse me of bigotry.
It appears that Formula-one and the Grand Prix are for Caucasians as well as gymnastics and the like. If you point to Lewis Hamilton, I shall have to ask you to point to a second example, the same way Tiger Woods stood alone in his field.
Tiger was Mr. Perfect, with a flawless image and he used it to advance himself. He rarely spoke out of turn, managed his private life perfectly and had corporate endorsements the way adolescents have acne, flourishing richly everywhere.
Photographs of his new baby were splashed across newspapers around the world and then his entire world fell apart.
ONE day, we woke to the news that Tiger had been involved in a car accident at 2am. He drove out of his home, rammed into a water hydrant, up-ended his car, ended up with lacerations to his lips and other minor injuries and when the fire services and the police arrived, his wife was standing by the vehicle with a golf club.
The story was she had used the club to smash the rear windscreen of the car so she could free her husband from the wreckage.
But there is a thing about stories; once they start, you cannot stop them. The police arrived and gave a report that they had ruled out intoxication on Tiger’s part at the time of the accident.
And then Tiger misjudged his corporate endorsers, and admitted certain indiscretions of the marital kind.
All around the world, and over the years, men have been caught with their pants down if you’ll excuse the pun.
If you’re like Henry who was King of England, you would cut yourself away from a church trying to stop you annulling a marriage to your wife so you could take another woman as bride and set up your own church.
If you’re like “Wild” Bill Clinton, you would use your charisma as well as the fact that the nation understood you were a man with imperfections and sail through shark-infested political waters.
And you would make it to the other side of the shore. It would also be helpful as in his case, if you have a strong wife who could grit her teeth, brace herself and stand beside you, the philandering scoundrel so as not to jeopardise her own career.
Kobe Bryant the basketballer was accused of infidelity and made up with his wife by buying her a diamond ring that was the size of a small rock.
Hugh Grant, the affable English actor was caught with a prostitute called Devine Brown (How can I still remember her name?) but survived intact with his career still in tow, David Beckham whose endorsements are massive too, had an affair that came to the world’s attention while he was based in Spain, an affair that caught the attention of the world’s media but which he survived as well.
Woody Allen ran off with his wife’s adopted daughter; Jude Law had his moment of indiscretion... Even the immortal Martin Luther King Junior and the Reverend Jesse Jackson had their “days in the sun” and they survived the aftermath. The list is endless.
How do some people survive this kind of situation and some do not? Would it have to do with a perfect image being super-imposed on an imperfect man?
If you heard P-Diddy was caught in infidelity, you probably wouldn’t blink twice. But the Tiger? And a list of mistresses?
My friend, Wale Akinmusire, one of the city’s leading architects but who is a muse of sorts for me on whispering matters, had a telephone messaging-conversation with me on this situation.
He had sent a story that could only have been the creation of some smart aleck having fun at Tiger’s expense.
In it, the Reverend Al Sharpton blasts Tiger Woods for a lack of diversity in his choice of mistresses.
Apparently, Sharpton was miffed at the fact that in the long list of people who claimed to “have been with the Tiger”, not one was a black woman.
THE fictitious report quoted Sharpton as saying, “Why is it that a man who calls himself black can’t bring himself to cheat on his wife with a black woman?” According to him, the lack of African-American women amongst Woods’ harem would have a negative effect on the community, specifically young black girls”.
So that is what Tiger has become, a subject for comedians and wits. But Wale’s angst was with the corporate organizations that distanced themselves from Tiger.
He termed it corporate dishonesty, a condition he considered worse than serial adultery which the Tiger had been accused of.
According to him, 80 per cent of the men on the boards of these companies that pulled out of endorsing Tiger as a result of his actions would have cheated on their wives at some point or the other.
If you are curious as to which companies these are, please google Tiger Woods. I am not certain how accurate Wale’s statistics are, but Tiger’s actions are not the first of this kind we have heard and in most parts of the world, his actions do not constitute a criminal offence.
Yes, there is a lot of hypocrisy in this matter. The Whisperer does not stand to promote infidelity, but many people have fallen at this point and have been allowed to rise again, not kicked to death where they lay.
There are many men and women who have done these things and the difference between them and the Tiger is that he was better known.
There should be second chances, I reckon, and a chance to rectify mistakes. Kate Moss was allowed to return to being a face for major brands despite being photographed with cocaine up her nostrils.
I would also advice that those who live in glass houses, should not juggle stones either in their own living rooms or outside. If a certain skill has helped advance you, protect it with all you have. You never know who is watching and hoping to see you fall.
laspapi@yahoo.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)