Not Safe For Work (or "Mommy, where do babies come from?")

I am not (intentionally) a perv.



Just wanted to go on the record with that cos what i have to say may be shocking and to some... even disturbing. Right.... the truth of the matter is, ladies in Kampala are over-doing it with the cleavage show.

There, i said it and i'm not taking it back. I know this has put me on alotta men's Kick His Ass In The Men's Room list and i know i can no longer walk out in public without watching my back but it had to be said. Now i am a man.... boy... man.... kid... boy.... man. I'm a man, dammit! And the heavens know i love me some cleavage, oh yeah. But do i really need to see all the way down to your BELLY BUTTON??? I mean, c'mon!!! No one bends that low unless they're the Hunchback of Notre Dame!!

A lady came in the other day, a kind of customer who'd been in once or twice before but had never signed up or borrowed anything. She just came to ask if i had the latest episode of her favorite show... Many people's favorite show... You know the one i'm talking about. The one that sucks like a 4 year old on an ice cream cone. Yup, THAT show. Anyways, we wound up talking for quite a while and because i was busy working on a small project (The Knee Punchers Movement, coming soon!!!) it was a good minute before i even looked up at her.


Really i should say looked "down at them". Now i know, i'm a pig right? "Ooooh, he's such a dog, staring at the nice ladies private businesses?" Thats what you're thinking, right ladies? Well then allow me to put this question to you, women around the world... Lets say you owned a salon... what? is that sexist cos i think women can only work in salons?.... Alright, lets say you owned a restaurant, cos women cook pretty darn good too... there, happy? So you own this beautiful little restaurant and its midafternoon, slow times, place is almost empty then a customer walks in. Some guy, a dude, he's been in before, walks over to your counter, makes his order, very polite, then as he turns to walk over to his designated seat, you notice that he is wearing low-rider jeans. Thats right, really tight ones at that and basically half his ass is hanging out of those tight jeans...

Are you seriously going to tell me you wouldnt look? Listen, its either one of 2 things: either he's so hot that you cant help ogling and wondering OR the sight is so nasty that you desperately want to look away but like a car wreck, you just cant avert your eyes!

Thats what cleaveage is like... Except with guys, we really dont have that 2nd option. I'll be honest, in all my years of cleavage-spotting, i cant recall ever feeling anything but peaceful tranquility. Now i know the first year psych students are gonna jump in with their Freudian Oedipus Complex stuff... But its not that. Its just that when you fall upon the perfect cleavage ("Perfect" means ANY), there's this warmth that washes over you, all through your body and the sun is a little bit brighter, the moon is a little bit closer, peace, love, unity, happiness and for whatever reason, the most prominent thought running through your mind is.... Milk.

It just occurred to me that i started out complaining about these Indecent Cleavage Exhibitionists but i now realise i have these I.C.E. queens to thank for getting me through the colder days simply by offering the bounty of their bosoms. See? There really is a silver lining on every cloud. (Smiley face HERE)

I wanna use this quick second to give a special virtual hug to my infrequent companion, Diana, who regales me constantly with the most astonishing tales you ever heard whenever she comes through. I took a picture of her somewhere but i cant find it so this will have to do. There's an uncanny likeness...

And once again, Cake Lady dropped off some.... well, CAKE. I mean she IS the cake lady and thats how she rolls. Only this time she hit me with 2 different kinds of cake. I am working up the nerve to propose....

The other night we had a kind of guys evening, just pigging out and watching martial arts flicks and i suddenly had this desire to open up a Gentleman's Club. But then i reflected on it a few days later and couldnt work out the difference between a Gentleman's Club and a male gay bar.

Yeah.... so that idea kind of died. I say we keep the milk flowing into mr.E's.... I mean, a little cleavage never really hurt anybody...

Of Porn Star Fans and The Upside-down Staircase

Remember that song "Feening" by... um... what were those guys called?... Guy?... Sway... Shy...no, Shai... remember "You got me feening... (feening)..." Yeah, that song was awesome. Is awesome. It just speaks of this urge to be with someone, this itch, this drive to woo them. You ever listen to it and wish you could sing it for someone but not sound as horrible as you normally do but as awesome as you sound in the shower and win her heart? What a true song...

So i have a porn guy. Porn guys, plural. And i love these guys... I mean you'll have shitty days when all people want to do is take their bad days out on you. Seriously, sometimes i feel like i should be paid for providing my spirit as an emotional punching bag for the working class. It might go down like this:

JR: Hey, so and so... how's your day be-
So and so: What do you have for me thats nice?
JR: Um... it depends what kind of mood you're in-
S.S:Ah.. i just want something i'll enjoy. You know what kind of movies i like.
JR: Right.. um...we have the new white guy/funny black guy movie sequel, we've got the romantic comedy starring that girl from that popular teen show, there's a new horror from the guys who did the first 23 Saw movies...
S.S:Eh... you're saying too many things i dont like... its like you dont like your job...
JR:.....
S.S: Did they bring the other movie back?
JR: The "other" movie?
S.S:...................
JR: Um... let me check..... (not checking cos i dont know what the fuck she's talking about) ...... no, it seems like its still out.
S.S: As ALL your movie are ALWAYS out.... Its like you just put up covers of movies you dont have...
JR:..........(bitch!)
S.S: Eh?
JR: huh?
S.S: What?
JR: Okay... Do you watch One Tree-
S.S: Ah... i think let me just come back next time... maybe you'll have brought some nice movies... for once...
JR: Sure... Have a good-.... Oh, you're gone... Cooool.....

Porn guys never do this. Porn guys understand that i neither make the movies we have (or dont have) in stock nor am i the one who borrows them with barely any intention of returning them within the lunar month. They say the customer is always right. I say the customer is always right if that customer is a porn guy. Or Elewa... I know i'm not supposed to have a favourite customer but Elewa is too cool for school. Not just cos we have a very similar feel for movies but he brought me RICHARD PRYOR!!!! Whenever this dude comes by, we actually have interesting conversations about movies and he never seems shocked or angry that (huh!) movies have been rented in a movie RENTAL store! He's a cool brother. Almost as cool as the porn guys.

The thing about porn guys is that they're your regular everyday people... they're just not uptight about their desire to see people naked and doin it. ANd when i say guys, dont go off snickering ladies. "Porn Guys" includes women as well. Thats right, WOMEN WATCH PORN TOO. I dont get why its okay to watch peole cut up and torture each other a la Saw 1, 2 , 3, 4 ,5.... and thats okay but oh no, God forbid you should see 2 people doing what Adam and Eve did in the good book!! Hypocrites! One porn guy gave me an incredibly rational explanation as to why he enjoys these particular movies (ignore the word "enjoys" in that phrase): "I just dont like things that are too fictititious."

Oh Speaking of gravity defying cleavage, my workmate Doris is back in the building after a short sojourn away from mr.E's. Things just didnt work out with her replacment who even though he was a cool dude, at the end of the day his legs just werent as nice to ogle... Oooh,, that sounds very sexual harrassment-y. I'm out.

RIP Bernie Mac AND Isaac Hayes ( latter not pictured here).

Wake me up when September ends (seriously, not a second before cos spetember is full of SHIT movies)

So the (movie) summer is OFFICIALLY over... that sucks! Now in this singular-cinema city we live in, that might not mean much cos being the sole Cine Plaza -or Plex, if you will- it can afford to offer us the summer movies at Christmas and call them "the Hottest NEW releases" and get away with it cos most people, well, have lives that do not revolve around Hollywood's cinematical release schedule.

I am not most people.

For me, the end of th summer is kinda like the last day of the christmas vacation, a christmas where you got the best gift you could ever have wished for (the Dark Knight), kissed the girl of your dreams on New Year's eve (Wall-E) and made a life changing new year's resolution ( NEVER, EVER, EVER to watch ANOTHER Mummy movie again!!!). But i'm not gonna do a review of the summer movies cos i'm sure any even slightly movie-related site or blog has done just that. We all know what we loved (TDK) and what sucked blistered balls (Meet Dave)... no point repeating ourselves.

Instead, i'd like to talk about LOVE... "Wow, that's not on every other blog!" Shut up! Two movies this summer have really moved me with their approach to the theme of love: Wall-E and (hold your breath)... Hellboy 2: the Golden Army. Not exactly a romantic comedy, that last one, but give me a second to make my point.

I've been in less than a handful of relationships and of those, the honest truth is I've been in love with only one of those girls. I have and have had great affection for anyone i've been involved with at any one point, but my heart only broke to lose one of them. Anyways, having just exited from a "situation" that wasnt quite working out, i found myself pondering how we respond to each other and why we make the choices and mistakes we later deeply regret when in love and as always, i turned to the movies for guidance.

Enter Wall-E. Here is a beautiful story that never cheats or lies to you. Watching it is like eating a delicious fizzy-pop sweet that never gets finished yet never sours your tongue. How ironic that one of the most beautifully heart-felt love stories i've ever seen takes place between 2 basically in-animate objects made of tin and... well i dont know what material Eve is made out of. Oh yeah, and they cant really speak. Seriously. But there's that scene where Eve has temporarily shut down and Wall-E makes her that beautiful gift and... her reaction to his gift when she wakes up and his reaction to her reaction... who hasnt been there, during the courtship?

Watch this movie. Yes, its an animated movie (NOT a cartoon) but dont take my word for it. Go read Roger Ebert's review for it and you'll see what i'm talking about.

And then there's Hellboy 2. I had this movie for a week before i watched it just cos i thought it was going to be too much Pan's Labyrinth and less Hellboy. I was wrong. Sure there's all those Pan's creatures... he was nominated for a fucking Oscar... what did you expect? But its got great action, a mean baddie and Red is as funny as ever! What surprised me though was the deep undercurrent of love that flowed seamlessly through out the film. There's the treachorous romance between Hellboy and Liz which has an enigmatic resolution at the end of the 2nd act (trying not to spoil this for those who havent seen it) but more interestingly, there's the relationship between Abe and the Princess. What intrigued me about this couple is Abe's reason for being in love with her: "She's like me... from another world... alone in this world..."

Sometimes it feels like i'm from another world, a scientific experiment being remotely observed by great thinkers on my home planet. I watch my new workmate effortlessly make small talk with customers and i know he is SO much better at this job than i am. I just find it incredibly difficult to find any common ground for baseless conversation. My idea of good customer care is exactly what Ronald manages to do whereas when i try it, its like this stream of thinly veiled insults spewing forth from my mouth as if of their own volition. And its so much more embarrassing when its a girl i like which, thank God, is VERY rare. There's this one girl who comes here whom i think is so insanely hot, she should come with a warning label: TOO HOT TO HANDLE WITHOUT PROPER PROTECTION!! Its terrible cos she's the sister of a friend of mine so when she comes in i just shut the hell up cos i know if i open my mouth, i'm gonna say the dumbest shit you've heard since George Bush jr's last presidential address. I once attempted to start a conversation with her and for some reason my brain told my mouth it was okay to go: "So... do you have a business card?... No?.... Me neither... I'm thinking of getting those laminated ones... They're cool..."

That really happened.

But you know what i really loved about Wall-E? It was the point where Eve realises what Wall-E's been trying to do with his hands all along and she thinks of him and realises how she feels and all these images of Wall-E keeping her company while she was shut down just flood her memory and she almost purrs in her robotic voice... It was such a beautiful moment that i felt something stir in me that i was sure was dead, was sure i had killed. Something that i treasured more than life itself for at the end of it all, it IS life itself: I believed in love again... I know thats corny as an acorn on the cover of a cornflakes box sitting next to some buttered corn but at least i didnt say erection.... hmmm another E word.

P.S. Cake Lady brought me cookies the other day then Sheilah promised me cake a couple of ays later THEN Cake Lady brought me a tub of ice cream. I say tub because i didnt know they sold that much ice cream to consumers and not fuckin wholesale. It was alotta ice cream. I was happy.