Only in Zimbabwe...

Damn. Another year is gone. Today I pulled out my list of new year’s resolutions from last December, and was astounded to discover that I managed to accomplish a whopping one (1) item on that list. What a year. If I didn’t have such huge balls I would have drunk poison in February. As it is the amount of testosterone my testes are manufacturing hourly prohibits me from being a wuss and copping out by dying a self-inflicted death. Suicide is for sissies. Although I may not have accomplished many of my year’s resolution, after reflecting on this past year of my life I realized there were quite a few significant things I did accomplish.

Some of you might not understand because you have not been in Zimbabwe for so long that you have done that annoying thing us Zimbos love to do: the minute we land in a foreign country (particularly the US and the UK) we activate our copycat gene, which, amongst other things, allows us to speak fluent American or Pommie English immediately, resets our sense of style to match the local culture, and erases the detailed memories of what life in Zimbabwe is like. Never has there been a nation with youngsters more willing to ditch their culture like a break-time cigarette at the approach of a prefect.

As I look back upon all the days of 2009, all I can say is: good riddance to bad rubbish. I’m not one to constantly focus on the negative (on a Wednesday), but looking back on 2009 I realize there are certain things that we do and say that can be found only in Zimbabwe. For example:

Only in Zimbabwe…

…can one be arrested and tried for saying “our President has failed and must go”. According to The Standard newspaper, one Rashidu Omar of Mutare is in court for allegedly insulting the President after saying those words in front of a ZANU-PF official. True story, read it here: http://www.thestandard.co.zw/local/22613-in-the-dock-for-insulting-mugabe.html.

Now, can someone explain to me how saying someone “has failed” constitutes an insult? To say someone looks like a piece of baboon biltong with spectacles – THAT’S an insult. But this? This is just a waste of taxpayers’ money, and whoever took this guy to the cops should himself be thrown in jail.

Reading this article I realized that it is quite a feat that I have ended the year without being abducted by the CIO and held incommunicado for “distributing subversive material”, “spreading alarm and despondency” and/or treason. (Yes, those are all actual crimes in Zim.) Not that I insulted our president in any (provable) way – I quite like the old man. Perhaps not as president. I think if you look past the alleged murders, the beatings, the sanctioned rapes and lootings, the abductions and disappearances, the starving of his people, the adultery…you’ll find him to be a decent enough chap. In any case, these are all allegations, there’s no evidence he committed or sanctioned the committing of any of these deeds. Well, except for the adultery. We have solid proof of that one. And she goes to a university in Hong Kong.

Perhaps I was saved because, at the end of the day, what shines through my articles is that I am thoroughly apolitical. In fact, you could say I’m ‘apeople’, as I don’t support any form of people. I hate everyone equally. What’s to say the MDC will be better than ZANU-PF in the long run? Who knows whether deep down inside Tsvangirai is a worse dictator than Mugabe? So everyone is fair game in my posts. The only person I support is myself. All others go to hell. On to the next…

Only in Zimbabwe…

…do the local authorities find it perfectly reasonable to levy a single household a monthly charge of $800 for electricity, $1200 for water, and $950 for “rates”. This for a month in which the household enjoyed electricity daily from midnight to 4am, water for zero days of the month, and a weekly dose of amused cackling from a City Council employee each time we phoned to gently enquire about the possibility of having our refuse collected. Look, I understand that our country is trying to resuscitate itself from an economic coma. I didn’t expect it to all become rosy immediately. But if I’m going to pay $800 for electricity, Voltron had better be bringing it from Uranus in a box the size of a car. It had better be such an advanced form of electro-magnetic energy that it does my laundry, shops for my groceries, cooks my dinner, then engages in foreplay with my wife and has the good sense to let me step in at just the right moment to finish the job. (Because, of course, every man knows that foreplay is a necessary evil, a lengthy and ponderous means to an end.)

$1200 for water? For a household of 2 ¼ people? What do these waters do? Are they drawn from the legendary Fountain of Youth? No. As it turns out, the waters are drawn from the equally legendary Fountain of My Toilet. No need to investigate the veracity of this statement. The taste will testify.

Throughout 2009, I steadfastly refused to pay any utility bill I deemed outrageous. An investigation needs to be conducted into who screwed the pooch on this. ZESA and the City Council are starting to review most bills downwards. I instructed my accountant that unless she wants to spend the rest of her days tilling the land hard-won single-handedly by Robert Mugabe, she had better make sure none of my utilities are cut off. It’s not my fault the gentlemen entrusted with working out the pricing models have the reasoning skills of an intoxicated amoeba. Thanks to my Herculean effort through my accountant, none of my utilities were cut off, so I count that as an extraordinary accomplishment for 2009. I refused to be raped. At least not continuously. At least not continuously by the same entity, anyway. Rape me once, shame on me. Rape me twice…I must like it.

Only in Zimbabwe…

…hs txtn bcm e prfrd way of commnctng absltly bldy fkn evrythn. For heaven’s sake, call me! Yes, I know Econet jams its 3G penis up your arse everytime you even THINK about pressing the call button on your cell phone, but really, I can’t take texting anymore. People in Zim are so broke it is a calamity to be avoided at all costs for the SMS they are sending you to exceed 1 message. So they shorten absolutely every word in the SMS until the entire message is just a jumble of consonants requiring the CIA’s best code-breakers to decipher. Don’t do this to me, people. The other day someone sent me one of these ridiculous broken-word SMSes in Shona. Now, Shona is hard enough for people to read on a good day, but how the hell am I supposed to understand this without getting a temple-thumping headache: “Ko mkma mkti mchndiphnra ska hw far cz ndkngmira 2 hr frm u. Plz cl cz zvn hzvna kmira mshe kmba plz plz ndaona mto.”?

If you can’t afford to SMS me using standard shortening of words, don’t bother texting me, I will not read your message. In 2009 I did not assault anyone who had sent me a stupid indecipherable text message, although most times I fantasized about driving to their location, snatching the phone out of their hand, knocking their two front teeth out with it, then shoving it down their throat. What I’m trying to say is: 2009 is gone. Don’t try this again in 2010. I WILL BEAT YOUR ASS.

More to come…

zakeozim@gmail.com

www.zim-madness.blogspot.com

The Death Penalty. For Sex.

I read an article in the Herald just the other day that I found rather bizarre. I could think of nothing else to do but share it with you. For once, just this one time, I am inviting opinions on a topic, primarily because my own opinion on it is not quite fully formed yet.

The article reported on a piece of legislation soon to be presented in the Ugandan Parliament that proposes a maximum sentence of DEATH for anyone convicted of engaging in gay sex. Yes, you read that right. They intend to hang all the gays in their country. As crazy as that sounds, it is still only a bill that is to be debated in their parliament. What I found unbelievable is that the law in Uganda ALREADY imposes a minimum sentence of life in prison for anyone convicted of gay sex. Yes, LIFE IN PRISON. As a MINIMUM. I don’t know about you, but I find that mildly preposterous.

At this juncture, I feel it necessary to make my own sexual orientations clear. Homosexuality is an extremely sensitive and controversial subject, but, as always, take my opinions for what they are as I do not and have never felt the need to be politically correct.

Firstly, I am a true, black-blooded African and Zimbabwean. You can already guess where this is going. I feel no need whatsoever to engage in any exercise that will stretch my sphincter muscle beyond its God-given limitations. Besides this, I find it strange that a man can look at another man and start to feel hot under the skin, yet feel nothing whatsoever watching Beyonce gyrating wildly, semi-nude, as she tends to do in almost every video nowadays.

Secondly, I am a Christian. As such, I condemn homosexuality because it is condemned in the Bible. I totally understand that not all individuals are Christians or bound by the Bible’s laws, which is fine by me. It is not for me to judge, for judgement belongs to God etc. The Bible clearly speaks of “men who lie with men” as being part of a group of people who will not inherit the Kingdom of God. If you don’t believe in the Bible then you obviously will feel no guilt or fear in engaging in homosexuality if you are inclined to do so. However, my issue comes when gays want to get married. I completely disagree with the idea of gay marriages, for the simple reason that marriage is an institution of God. A civil union is one thing, but if God condemns homosexuality, how can a Christian priest preside over a ceremony that joins two men in Holy matrimony? How can a church even CONSIDER having gay clergy – that is a most ridiculous notion! Why not take it a step further and allow into the clergy drunkards, polygamists, thieves, adulterers, and murderers?

That said, let me say that, unlike most Africans, and Zimbabweans in particular, I feel no need to mete out personal justice on gays. I am not homophobic by any stretch of imagination. Why? For the simple reason that the same Bible verse that condemns homosexuality also condemns adulterers, fornicators, thieves, and, of particular concern to me, drunkards. I more than occasionally enjoy a glass or six of my favourite whisky, putting me squarely in this same group of those who will not inherit God’s Kingdom. Therefore, all things considered, nothing gives me the right to sit on my high horse and pass judgment on those who choose to join the Butt Brigade.

This does not mean I don’t have a problem with gays. I don’t know if any readers of my blog are gay – if any are, perhaps they can explain something to me. While gays expect us to respect their right to choose their sexual orientation, they completely forget that the rest of us have rights too. A while ago, I went on a cruise ship trip to Mozambique. Unbeknownst to me, the cursed cruise company had booked a group from the Miss (or was it Mr.?) Gay South Africa pageant on the same ship. This may not have been a problem, except for the absolutely appalling behaviour of the group. Firstly, they were annoyingly arrogant. There were 100 or so of them on a cruise ship with 1500 people, but one would have thought it was a gay cruise the way they strutted around. Secondly, and the thing which irked me most about the whole incident, they walked around the ship damn near naked THE ENTIRE TIME.

The cruise was a family cruise, with many young children onboard, yet these guys acted as if they had a special instruction from the Chief Gay Leader to wear only their underwear regardless of the time of day, the location or the weather. When I say underwear, I don’t mean boxers. I mean briefs and Speedos that accentuated every nuance and curve of the male genitalia. So ok, fine, gays have rights. But do their rights supersede mine? The way they danced and pranced at the pool, Jesus. It was like watching a late night movie on E-TV on Friday night. Except gay. They slapped each other’s asses at the pool. They kissed at the ice cream bar. One of them even tied a cucumber around his waist and walked around with it dangling between his legs. Why would a grown man feel the need to do that? Many a child departed that cruise confused – it was 5 days of gay soft porn.

Thankfully, my son was not on this particular holiday. It was absolutely disgusting, not to mention disrespectful, for anyone, straight or gay, to have walked around like that where there were young kids around. I don’t think the behaviour of this particular group did anything whatsoever to advance the cause of gays in Africa. Several people I spoke to, both black and white, left with an extremely sour taste in their mouths. As is often said, freedom comes with responsibility. Surely, if gays want to be respected, they should also give respect. Which brings me to the central question of my post:

Just how much freedom should the world allow us? If gays contend that what happens between two consenting adults in private is no one else’s business, what happens if, for example, when next I visit my grandmother in the rural areas I am strangely taken by one of her more gracious-looking female goats? What if the goat, noticing that my lavish attention exceeds that of one who is regarding her solely for culinary purposes, proceeds to wiggle her goat-ass seductively in hopes of saving her own rump? What if, as I stand back admiring her shiny coat of fur as it glistens in the early evening sun, a certain soldier friend of mine begins to slowly salute her? Does full freedom not give me the right to take my she-goat off into the words, caress her horns, and with the wanton abandon that would necessarily have to permeate my psyche to engage in such an endeavor, proceed to have my way with her? Should I not be free to marry my she-goat and kiss her and slap her ass in front of you, your kids and your parents? After all, it’s my choice, right?

Am I wrong in equating homosexuality to bestiality? Perhaps. Your opinion is your own to form. To me they are the same – unnatural acts that will become more acceptable the more we accept them.

The ubiquity of the gays on our cruise ship led my friends and me into an interesting discussion. As much as we all condemned homosexuality, I asked a question, which I now pose to you: what would you do if your son approached you and told you he was gay? Would you disown him? How would you respond?

Most of my friends said they would disown him until he “stopped being gay”. But my follow-up question was: how can you disown your son for the sin of being gay if you yourself are an adulterer, an idolater, a drunkard, or a thief? Should you perhaps not take the plank out of your own eye before pointing out the straw in your child’s? How would God judge you for your decision to disown your child?

Does passing legislation instituting the death penalty for gay sex make sense? Will it solve the problem, if you think there is one? Without actually catching a man deep inside another man’s poop-chute, how on earth do you prove the existence of gay sex in a court of law? Is a limp wrist sufficient evidence that the individual must be engaging or must have engaged in gay sex at some point? What if it’s a tennis injury – will Ugandans continue to play tennis if they risk being hauled to jail and possibly hanged for having a poor backhand?

What of the issue of a gay gene? Is there actually such a thing? Why do you think someone would intentionally choose to lead such a traumatic lifestyle if they have a choice to be straight?

Another question that I raised, which I now pose to my male readers (female readers can wonder this about their boyfriends and husbands, or better yet ask them then post their response): how much would it take for, say, Will Smith (or any other male you think is lookable) to take a drive in your dirty tunnel if he were so inclined? What if he offered you USD$10 million. Cash. For just one round. Would you let him, knowing you would be made for life? What about $1m? Would you do it then? What if he promised you it would last only 5 minutes and he wouldn’t tell anyone? What if the offer was $100,000. Or $10,000? You can post your responses anonymously, so be honest, fellas. I think we all have a price, if we are to be honest. The lowest that came out of my group of friends was $10,000, negotiable. What’s your price?

I’m really curious to know your opinion. As you try your best to ignore the pigs soaring at a dangerously low altitude outside your home, share with me: What do you think of the gay conundrum?

P.S. Please note that my discussion of gays only includes gay men and 100% lesbian women. It does not cover bi-sexual chicks, who I think are hotter than a Kalahari Desert nymph in heat. Not only should being bi if you are a chick be legal, it should be encouraged. Bi chicks should get a higher tax-free threshold, subsidies on certain important household purchases (vibrators run quickly to mind), free education up to the undergraduate level, and an automatic end-of-year bonus if a straight male certifies that the bi chick has been especially supportive of any one of his many fantasies involving multiple women. I mean it hey.

zakeozim@gmail.com

www.zim-madness.blogspot.com

Funny as Hell! Even tho' Hell probably isn't all that funny. But this is. Just shut up and read!

As you all know, I am a connoisseur of all things fine. One of the finest things I discovered a while ago and only now thought about sharing, is one my favorite websites: www.despair.com. The owner of this site is my hero, because he has proven that you can make a faeces-load of money from nothing. In this case, his "nothing" is a collection of posters called "Demotivators" which, much like this blog, tell the absolute truth about life. In an irreverent, witty way that will leave you in a pondersome (I believe I've just invented a word) mood. The posters are brilliant in my opinion, because this guy and I have one great thing in common - we hate optimists. If I were gay or he were a woman, he would be my soulmate. But I am not and he is not, so let's leave it at that. 

If you've never heard of this site because you are specially skilled at depriving yourself of all things awesome, navigate there now. If you are a Facebook friend of My Royal Highness, navigate to my photo album and check out a few of my favorite posters. No optimists allowed.

If you buy anything from this site please note that I charge a 2.5% commission on all purchases, to be paid by the buyer because the seller lives in America and I don't know him and even if I did he would laugh until the paramedics are called if I brought up such a brilliant suggestion to him.

Please don't buy something and then not pay me. Ask yourself: What would Jesus do? Or Muhammed? Or whoever it is you worship. (Unless it's Satan, in which case it becomes a moot point.) Do the right thing.

zakeozim@gmail.com