And His Names Are ...

I must thank you all for your congrats and best wishes. And for the names too. In my family, there had always been this tradition of everybody giving a baby a name.

I can remember my Dad introducing to someone and saying something like
'She was the one who gave you the name XYZ? or 'Why do you think you are called ABC? He gave you the name!'. The child has a family name which is 'given' by the father (long story) and the Mother gives any number of names she wants. The grandparents, aunties, uncles and then friends of the family. Usually, friends give names in their own language.

One rule though: A son cannot bear the same first name as his father.

And 'Junior' is not a name.

In all, I think I had about 70 names of different origins/languages etc including Sebastian, which I dont like at all. My first son had 43 names including Abu Rafiq which was given to him by my Lebanese colleagues after the slain former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri.

And so, his names are:

Ademayowa
Adedeji
Olubukunola
Unwanaobong
Moyosooretoluwasefunmi (What? Don't look at me, thats from the Mother!)
Kwaku
Ndidiamaka
Effiong
Olaoluwakiitan (I think Jinta, 36 and Naapali share the honors here)
Onetoritsebawoete (Thats Black007)
Ademide
Olumide (I sincerely hope that my son gets to meet Auntie 36-inches someday. There would be an introduction that day!)
Ekemini
Abasiama
Ewezu
Kanu
Raheim
Rami
(*Space)
(*Space)
(*Space)
(*Space)


I cannot believe that I have been away from the Internet for a whole week. My Internet subscription at home lapsed on Thursday but I was just so occupied with the new baby that I did not renew it. Abi, na Internet the baby go chop?

I was there in the labor room and had some pictures and videos on my phone of the baby barely an hour after he was born but I just cant seem to connect the phone to the PC via cable! I have tried to use infrared, whosai? and the phone does not have blue tooth. I will put the pictures up as soon as I have them ready.

One thing though. You know in the past babies were born with their eyes closed and usually stays closed for up to a month before they open their eyes. Barely twenty minutes after he was born my son had opened his eyes! And the Doctors said it was normal. Children of nowadays.

I also think that constitutional provisions should be made for a fully paid 'paternity leave' for working fathers too. At least we were in the labor room together, we sleep in the same room with the baby abi?

Na Boy!: And His Name Shall Be Called .....

Da La Luz

For unto us a bouncing baby boy was born. Wednesday 19th March 2008 at 1100 Hours. Mother and baby are doing very well, Father has been detained by the Doctors for observation due to over excitement.

As is Yoruba custom, the isomoloruko (naming ceremony) will come up in eight days time and I usually allow all friends of the family to give names to the newborn.

So peeps, its time to start sending the names. I am collecting. Give the child a name.

Many thanx.

.... That We May Have The Good Life ....

This is further to the post on GNaija's blog and my comments thereon.

Most of our (grand)parents have/had lived through two great wars - WW2 and the Civil War - and were witnesses to the attendant deprivations. They did not want their children to go through same. They were witnesses to the struggle for independence and the eventual attainment of that goal.

After independence, the challenge of our (grand)parents was to pass on a high quality of life to their children. A qualify of life most of them never had but they knew was possible. If only they could raise their children to know what the white man knew. Building this new society called for more doctors, more lawyers, more engineers.

So they struggled to give their children an education to achieve their goals. So our parents became the doctors, the lawyers, the administrators and shortly after, they too became parents.

It is not in question if our parents had artistic talents. A generation that produced Soyinka, Achebe, Fela, Onabrakpeya and Ogunde could not but have had it. But for every Soyinka there must have been at least a thousand others good writers who became engineers or doctors. For every Achebe, would have been at least a thousand businessmen with fine painting skills. And Fela could have become just another manager in UAC.

There were a lot of talents but they had to survive first. And survival meant getting a degree in medicine, engineering or whatnot. Getting a 'good' job and then working hard at providing the good life for your family.

It is true that we do not have the same challenges as they had. Our generation can afford to pursue our artistic (and otherwise) dreams because they have provided for us. They had cleared the bush for us to plant.

As I had said, we will be ungrateful if we do not recognize their sacrifices for us. They sacrificed their dreams - and happiness - that we might have the good life. That we might have the luxury of dreams. That we might nurture our talents and become all that we can be.

You know, every time I hear Tuface sing, I remember Felix Lebarty of the 'Am Your Lover Boy, Lover Boy, Boy-y-y, Am Your Boyfriend' fame. He was one of the few Nigerian acts to sell a million records and go platinum. Last I heard, he was selling cars.

Asa reminds me of Martha Ulaeto. Martha who? you'd probably ask. She was an artiste in the 80s and sang ballads back then. She actually had a song - 'African Life' back then. God knows where she's at now. (New and correct information: The song was 'Africa Rise' and there's more info on Martha here. Also, listen to the song there too. Go there people, I recommend it. Many thanx to Comb&Razor!)

And there was Prince Nico Mbarga. Remember 'Sweet Mother, I no go forget you ...'. Probably still the highest selling Nigerian act ever. Last we heard, he died on an okada in Calabar.

Will There Ever Be A Black James Bond?

I can remember the following conversation (or something quite close) between my father, Perry A and the nine/ten year old Nimmo.

Perry A: .... Look, the British people take this their James Bond very seriously so they cannot allow anybody who is not one to act James Bond.
Nimmo: But I can do anything anybody else can do. I can shoot and I can say 'My name is Bond, James Bond' in any accent they want and even you say I do it better than anyone else...
Perry A: I know you do but ...
Nimmo: ... but George Lazenby is not British now and he did James Bond.
Perry A: Understand that Lazenby is an Australian, so technically he's still British.
Nimmo: So what does he have that I dont have?
Perry A: For one, he's white and you're not!

Ouch! I cried that day ehn! You would think someone killed me.

The Spy Who Loved Me
Ever since I could watch and understand movies, I have wanted to be James Bond. Later, I read all the James Bond books by Ian Fleming in my father's library and more. I wanted to be James Bond so much that I could repeat everything James Bond said in two movies 'Goldfinger' and 'Live and Let Die' which were the first two I watched and watched so often that the VHS tapes practically faded on me.

Live And Let Die
I hounded neighbors into exchanging films with me by loading my offers. I can remember offering one guy all the cassettes we had just to have their copy of 'Thunderball'. Even if he had wanted the TV, I would have offered. And there was the girl who gave me 'The Spy Who Loved Me' -it had just come out then- and asked me to return it in two hours! I ran like a mad man that day.

The World Is Not Enough
For those who know and even for those who don't, James Bond is the bomb! Almost fifty years after the first movie, he's still selling like hot cakes and the 22nd James Bond film - Quantum of Solace- is coming out this November starring Daniel Craig. The movies are reported to have grossed about eleven billion dollars in box office takings since 1962! It was the highest selling movie series of all time - until Harry Potter.

The Man With The Golden Gun
What exactly was there to love about James Bond? Everything, I would say. He is the quintessential action hero. Someone described it thus: In an action movie, ... the hero may be shaken, but never stirred. In an action film the hero should always remain calm, collected, he does not show fear ...

And then there were the Bond Girls. Damn! Their names alone was enough to give a teenager wet dreams. I still think such names could only have come from a highly sexed, masculine mind. Haba! With names like these ...

Imagine the ones like:
Mary Goodnight, Moneypenny, Solitaire, May Day, or Giacinta 'Jinx' Johnson

To the ones like:
Kissy Suzuki, Plenty O'Toole, Holly Goodhead, Penny Smallbone(r?), Molly Warmflesh (sp?), Honey Rider, Octopussy (!), and Pussy Galore (Damn!)

All Bond girls are, almost by definition, beautiful and follow a fairly well-developed pattern of beauty. They have splendid figures and make their appearances in evening wear, in bra and panties and sometimes, naked.

The delectable Halle Berry was already on my list of all time greats as far as female actors were concerned, but when she pulled off that performance as Jinx in Die Another Day, she booked her place among the legends in my estimation. Permanently.

So far only two Bond girls have been black - Berry above and Grace Jones as May Day in A view To A Kill -, but never a black James Bond. The thing dey pain me o.
(Correction: I missed out Gloria Hendry who was actually the very first Bond Girl who was black as Rosie Carver in 'Live And Let Die'. Thanks Allied and Solomonsydelle for the info.)

Safari for Spies
As with everything, the Americans have tried to come out with their own version of James Bond for a long time without much success.

Derek Flint (Our Man Flint; In Like Flint) had tried but James Corburn just didn't have the appeal or rather the movies story lines were just too phoney, too contrived to really gel with audiences. Unlike Bond who makes some stupid mistakes sometimes, Flint was just too 'perfect' for someone like me.

Nicholas J. Huntington Carter III, KillMaster, AXE Agent N3 would probably have been a hit if someone had been bold enough to put it in film. (The name Nick Carter was a pseudonym the writer Valerie Moolman got from a 19th century detective comic strip (itself modeled after Sherlock Holmes). A Nick Carter movie would probably have been rated XXX. And the guy lie lie too much.

But really, will there ever be a black James Bond?

As I grew older I lost my fascination for wanting to be James Bond and settled to being other things particularly when I discovered the Pacesetters series which had action heroes I could actually hope to 'become' like Commander Jack Ebony in 'The Mark of the Cobra' by Valentine Alily (Henri Valentino) or Agent Debomi Davies in 'Symphony of Destruction'. There was also Agent Benni Kamba 009 in 'The Equatorial Assignment' though can't remember who wrote that now.

When I saw a link on Unnaked's post about ablackjamesbond, I was curious. I clicked the link and went to read. The first think that caught my attention was the picture header. Cool dude in agbada sandwiched between two ladies, one carrying a sakabula (dane gun)and the other a pashan (whip) (?).

My own interpretation of the picture, whats yours?

Really, Does This Prove Anything?

Dan found out he was going to inherit a fortune when his sickly father died, he decided he needed a woman to enjoy it with.

So, one evening he went to a singles bar where he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her natural beauty took his breath away.

"I may look like just an ordinary man," he said as he walked up to her, "but in just a week or two, my father will die, and I'll inherit 20 million dollars."

Impressed, the woman went home with him that evening and three days later, she became his stepmother.

Women are so much smarter than men. Really.

Saw this and just had to share.