Where are all the good men? @bikozulu Version

 There are no good men out there. That is according to ladies. Because the current crop of men are not living out to their standards. Or perhaps the ladies have themselves to blame for not finding the Mr Right.

Jackson Biko, alias @bikozulu, thinks otherwise. Have a read:


Take a lady. A professional lady. Age: 32, well schooled and with a decent enough job, probably works as a logistics manager at one of those NGOs that dig boreholes in Turkana and helps goat farmers in Mwingi market their milk better. She swears she loves her job.

She drives a VW Polo – silver – a car that also doubles as a shoe rack given the number of shoes on the floor at the back. She lives in a clichéd neighbourhood with the rest of the middle-class types and goes to church diligently because she was raised in a staunch catholic home.

Her value system is solid. Oh, and she’s a single mother of one. A boy. Or girl. Doesn’t matter. But it would be nice, for the sake of this story if she had a girl because visually you’d see her matching her little girl’s attire with her own shoes. And purse.

You might have guessed by now that this girl is single. She doesn’t talk about the “baby daddy” as they are now called. But when she does, he’s referred to using colourful adjectives like “useless”, “pathetic” and other words that my editor won’t allow to be printed here. But she isn’t bitter, oh God forbid no, as she says of him: “He isn’t worth my emotion and time.”

You shouldn’t be surprised that the sum total of her experiences has made her exceedingly cynical of men. But to her credit, this stand isn’t too unrealistic because apparently the dating game is marred by men who are virtually undatable. I wouldn’t know, men aren’t my type.

This woman will tell you a story about her driving to work one morning, and how at a junction, while waiting to join a road, she saw this gentleman in a swanky BMW X5.

“He was young, hot, neat and looked very well put together,” she’ll gush. And you will picture that guy too, I mean we see them in traffic; those pretty boys who have the windows of their juggernauts all rolled up in traffic because the smell of their success might come out of the car and suffocate the underserving masses.

So yes we know what she is talking about. Then she will finish this story by posing a bemoaned question, “ where do you find a decent man like that in this town? Unbeknownst to her, with this question she joins a chorus of women, wondering what happened to good single men to date.

Her routine is depressing: she goes to work until 6, goes home early to “bond” with the child, dinner (only salad remember she’s searching and she got to keep her waistline from forming a restless coalition with her bum), then curl in bed with a chapter of a book like Shades of Grey (which doesn’t help her sense of reality much) then black out. Repeat this the next day. And the next.

Once in a while, she will attend a random cocktail. Saturdays she works half day, then heads home to check on baby, then perhaps later she attends a chama with her girls. Or a random play at the theatre. Sunday is church then lunch and afternoon with her baby. Repeat this every week. Every month. Every year.

So in essence the only time she sees a man she almost likes, is in traffic which limits her pool to men in traffic (with their windows rolled up) and traffic cops. Tough life.

But it’s not that she isn’t hit on. She is hit on all the damned time: by married men. And losers. The married crowd you can understand, but losers? That she has to define. “ Oh,” she explains, “There are men who have no future; jokers who just want to drink and have a random shag. Boys!”

Her narrative goes back to her question: where are the good men like the hot chap in the BMW.

What she doesn’t know is that there is a good likelihood that the “hot” chap in the BMW is married. Women know how to clean up a man. So yes, Mr Hot-shot BMW could be spoken for. Or he could be gay.

Let’s be honest, the gay guys scrub up well. The guy could even be a mess – serial womaniser, control freak, childhood issues, druggie, commitment-phobic - and he masks his weaknesses with the car and the clothes. All that glitters…

What this woman might not know is that to meet a man she might like she has to change her routine, open herself up for interactions. So take a different route home; join a gym or drink in a different bar (and for goodness’ sake, drink less!) and most importantly be open minded to interact with men who isn’t “her type”.

Self-help books are also to blame. They have made women rigid in their tunnel-visioned quest to “go for what you want, what you deserve.”

In the process they miss out on good things because they have ridiculous pre-conceived notion of what they deserve. The result? They continue staring at men in traffic.

Caroline MUTOKO: A Rant's Worst Nightmare

There has been a spirited frenzy in our social pages all against the Radio Queen; and an equally defensive streak of spew.

Caroline Mutoko apparently stepped on wrong toes - too many times - and toes wouldn't take it in further.

So they erupted in furore, and formed pages, and criticized, and wrote bad things about her.

They put fotos, then raved and ranted unprintable adjectives purporting to describe her attitude.

Naysayers and idlers have never had a field event than the elevated platform, and this brought more bile, and caused other bad things.

And Carol responded, and called em haters, and other said losers.

This is one of the brilliant criticizer i have read, from Kenyalist.com, who didn't employ expletives to put a point across.

Dear Caroline Mutoko: My Beef With Kenchic Ceo
I just want to use my own listing (not your wall) to vent out on Kenchic CEO about some things

1) In the 80s Kenchic chillie sauce used to be genuine Peptang, undiluted. Siku hizi they just mix chillie powder and maji in a bottle of mineral water. They just pierce a musumari on the top and as guys are supposed to buy that? CarolineMutoko dear honey, I want to let you know that I think a lot about you when I have to shake that chupa of settled chillie sauce just to 'get it done'. However if you can holla at that Kenchic boss to give out an order to all the

2) Kenchic has a FB page but I will not use it. They are the ones I have beef with, how will they take criticism seriously. I dont take criticism lightly. You dont. Remember the plagiarism thing the other day? You literally told us you dont give a foyk??? I got an instant boner that time.

3) The chickens have been becoming smaller through the years. When outing on sunday I used to stand outside Kenchic windows to see Kukuz zungukaring. Uuuuuuuuuuuuup Doooooooown. Its a wonderful site. I go from Kenchic to Kenchic comparing on the window. (somewhat like what eastlandoz do with phone shops). Now caroline you say you dont like to see small things being posted on your wall? I also dont!!!! When I was a Kid one row of Kuku on the Window used to have 4 big chicken.....now there is 7 small chicken. Smaaaaaaaaall small things.

4) Who came up with the idea that forks can be replaced with toothpicks? I miss the days you could take a fork and just finyilia kitu 7 pieces of chipo and swallow yote. Chew for 5 minutes as you weigh the asses that walk into Kenchic. Kenchic never used to have skinny chics. Skinny chics used to go to Maggies and some cake shop near the Dolce Club in the 80s.

Id go crazy if you sort me out with this Kenchic CEO problem of mine but anyway if you beech around I will still get a boner. I like it when ladies play hard to niiiiiiniiiiiii. 

The Kenyan President's New Role

Our own president, the El-presidentte aka Prezzo managed to hook up himself with position 2 in BBA. Then he bags this price-less role of being One ambassador against malnutrition and the likes in Africa. Big role, serious stuffs there and major recognition for the Makini Herbs honcho.

Thing is, someone got issues with this. Waga Odongo, a weekly columnist 'The Wag' questions the sagacity behind giving the self-acclaimed president the international platform. Have a read about it...

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KENYA HAS a new ambassador. His diplomatic qualifications may be scanty, but he more than makes up for it in his love for all things foreign.

Prezzo, part-time rapper and full-time braggadocio — coming off the heels of being an also-ran in reality TV show Big Brother, the 21st Century’s metric for celebrity worth — is now an ambassador.

The exhibitionist extraordinaire has been made ONE International’s emissary to Africa against poverty.

We have now fallen into that “pit of no return” of celebrity advocacy of social causes. We have no situation too complex to be served up by a celebrity in easy-to-understand bites.

We are too thick, perhaps, to know about poverty unless it is fronted by a rapper who constantly sings about his material wealth.

Prezzo shot to the limelight on the back of his affluent background. His family money partly did what his talent could not and opened up doors for him.

He walks around with enough jewellery to send a Moi Avenue mugger into comfortable retirement.

He claims to have spent half-a-million shillings shooting a video clip which was stuffed with blondes and emphasised opulence.

So, is someone who promotes the nihilistic virtues of rank showiness, feral acquisitive greed, and a magpie’s eye for all things shiny and expensive the best person to be crusading against poverty?

All his songs and videos have the same background of wealth-without-work and offer a peek into his high-definition, opulent lifestyle.

They feature a carefully constructed and expensive artifice that promotes a lifestyle that does not take into account his fans’ social realities.

His rap group Cash Money Brothers proclaims their mouth-watering admiration and glorification of Mammon in their name.

They are interested in showing off wealth and never bother to tell us how it is accumulated.

Olympics in Kenya: Where we went Wrong

By the time track races commenced in Olympics, we cared not about our position worldwide; medal-less. The sleeping giant would once again reclaim its glory as the global champion on tracks.

Unfortunately, our confidence and sense of pride has been rubbed off the wrong way. Japs, Merikanos and Britons are taking long races, while the neighbourly Ethiopians continue piling dust in our athletes' eyes.

It is embarrassing when a night is sacrificed to watch the races and experience bales of disappointing results. Elias Makori, a sports editor attending the games has inside story in what is actually happening in TeamKenya.

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 Kenya came into the London Olympics with high hopes, everyone confident that we would surpass the performance of Beijing four years ago where Team Kenya scooped six gold, four silver and four bronze medals.

But the pre-Games tension between the National Olympic Committee of Kenya and Athletics Kenya has thrown Kenya’s campaign to the dogs. It is sad watching our sports officials, with their bloated egos, fighting turf wars at the expense of the country’s respected name and image.

Many will wonder just how Vivian Cheruiyot, the double world champion (5,000 and 10,000 metres) faded away badly in the opening day’s 10,000m final and indeed why London Marathon champion Mary Keitany failed to get a medal in the marathon last Sunday.
 
Questions arise from the women’s steeplechase debacle and the fact that we have just Hellen Obiri in Wednesday’s 1,500m semi-finals or how we failed to break the 44-year jinx in the men’s 10,000m.

Well the answer to these questions is simple: Our officials have let us down terribly and they must do the honourable thing and take the long walk away from managing sport in the country. Period.  

We raised the flag when a dozen officials from Kenya’s Olympics management team literally abandoned athletes to rush to a pre-season camp in Bristol that meant little in terms of quality preparations, especially for distance runners.

We saw Ezekiel Kemboi travel to Bristol, and then flee back home due to the atrocious conditions there, where the recalcitrant NOCK officials set up camp merely to rake in their $300-a-day allowances, totally ignoring the fact that serious competition awaited the team at the Olympic Stadium.

The tab was picked by the toiling taxpayer. There was drama as Vivian’s husband and personal coach, along with one of the team’s coaches and doctor were locked out of the Olympic Village by the NOCK team led by executive officer Stephen arap Soi and general team manager James Chacha, leaving Vivian, our red-hot medal hope, in tears.

Vivian was shattered and it was hardly surprising that she failed to pick herself up and take the battle to Tirunesh Dibaba.   This didn’t bother Soi and his team who have misused the trust bestowed upon them by NOCK chairman, our legend Kipchoge Keino, who, as a respected member of the International Olympic Committee, is playing multiple roles here, delegating the management of Team Kenya to Soi, Chacha and company.


Vivian’s loss on Day One should have fired a wake-up call, but rather than address the issue, Soi and company continued with their personal wars with Athletics Kenya, declaring the AK chairman, Isaiah Kiplagat, persona non grata at the Olympic Village.

 As the selfish turf wars continued, we lost the men’s 10,000m, where Wilson Kiprop, winner of the controversial trials in Oregon, pulled out with an injury that the Team Kenya officials knew about at the Kasarani camp but failed to address.

What a shame! AK’s decision to hold the trials in Oregon will seriously be questioned, as will Soi’s decision to lock out one of the team’s medics while knowing that some of the athletes, like steeplechaser Lydia Rotich, who is asthmatic, needed round the clock, personal medical attention.

Journalists critical of Soi and the NOCK management team have been declared unwanted guests at the Olympic Village, Soi’s team eager to sweep the management rot under the carpet as medals continue to, painfully, slip away from our grasp.

The issue of joyriders in Team Kenya hasn’t been addressed, while the rather unprofessional manner in which distribution of training and competition kit has been managed here continues to irk the athletes, with some of them, like swimmers Jason and David Dunford, taking no chances and purchasing their own strip.

As things stand here, Kenyans should be prepared for the worst, unless Prime Minister Raila Odinga, here for the final days of the Games, works out wonders to lift the dying Kenyan spirit. Unless this happens, I can only predict just three more gold medals from Pamela Jelimo (800m), David Rudisha (800m) and Wilson Kipsang (marathon).

Forget about the women’s 5,000m, men’s 5,000m or even women’s 1,500m where the gold medals belong to Tirunesh Dibaba, Dejen Gebremeskel and Fantou Magiso, all of Ethiopia, respectively.

Unless the Prime Minister cracks the whip, and unless we see the backs of the NOCK officials who have seriously let the athletes and the country down, we should not expect sporting glory to come any time soon. The issue of pre-Games training, lack of focus by AK’s top management and the absence of personalised training for our athletes are issues we will tackle another day.

Meanwhile, we await the report of the Parliamentary team investigating similar mismanagement of the Kenyan team at the last All Africa Games in Maputo where the same officials are implicated. Will we ever learn?