Yuppie city

I’m not worthy to stand before men. I’m not worthy to make judgment, or to crack wise at anyone’s idiosyncrasies. I have always been in pursuit of satire but the twist of this tale is that satire is what my pathetic existence has rapidly transformed into. In one of my earlier posts, one commenter, Tito I believe, bared his teeth and mentioned that all the reader accolades will soon get into my head and it will swell, and I will start being obnoxious, snobbish and autograph hungry. That soothsayer predicated that will be insufferable and vain and that I will morph into a pathetic and unpleasant man. His prophecy – although beaten by time- really came to the truth barely a week after he had catalogued it.

How do I say this…

I joined twitter.

Yes. I know. I’m a twat. I swore I would never join twitter because, well, because some yuppie jang who has never been past Siaya called it twirra and I remember feeling nauseous. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to be on a social forum where people contort their pronunciation to fit a profile. I was disgusted. Disgusted at this brazen pursuit of exclusivity. The need to be a part of a cool group. I honestly imagined that all these guys on twitter meet every Friday at some swanky address to sip cognac, listen to jazz and come up with language that others can’t understand. Language of twits, or tweeps. Like I said, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this lingo.

I don’t have any sound reason for joining Twitter other than the fact that I’m easily influenced. I succumb to peer pressure. And deep down, as someone would e forgiven for theorizing, that I’m a lonely man who wants to be a part of a group…any group. So I joined as bikozulu and some guys started following me. Then I started following them. In twitville following someone is not like stalking someone, nobody will block you or report you to the administrator. In fact, the main objective is to have many followers. Think Maina Njenga.

I have been in Twitzl for less than a fortnight and I can tell you that as much as it’s confusing, I will take it over Facebook any day. I hate Facebook because everybody in Facebook seems to be having a better life than Everybody in Facebook seems to be having more fun than me. Everyone on Facebook seems to have more friends. Facebook is on your face, which means there is always someone posting pictures of their trip to the beach and a whole bunch of people liking it and poking her and commenting on her bum and how she has lost weight and how adorable she looks. Or someone writing some outrageously needy comment on how they’ve had the worst day in the history of worst days, and then they sit back and wait for some guy to “like” that comment and a whole horde of people to comment on that post and tell them how they are god’s gift and how special they are how they should chin up. And that’s just someone having a bad day, u shudder to think of the kind of attention they would accord to someone looking for a kidney. Facebook is the land of the needy, a home of the silently depressive.

I haven’t read any whiny statement on Twittter. Yet. It all seems sober, but then again I might be following the right guys. Thankfully there are no photo albums on Twitter that will make me feel sorry about my life. Nobody pokes you on Twitter. There is no wall. Nobody tags you on the picture of their kid. The other day a friend of mine tagged me on the picture of her baby, and moments later the missus called me, ice in her voice, and asked, “Biko, is there anything I need to know?”

“I swear I have never been in your purse!” I said.

“No, I mean, do you have another baby out there somewhere?”

“Well, define baby first.”

Dialing tone.

But you see, she imagined that I was tagged on that photo because I was the father. See how Facebook can turn you into a father when you aren’t watching? See how Facebook can easily make you pay for child support?

But here is the thing, some pal on twitter told me to join Twitter because it’s not for mass consumption, he argued that Facebook is like Tusker while Twitter is like Heineken. Like I said, I’m so easily convinced. I joined the next day.

Which brings me to the heart of this post; yuppies. Nairobi is full of them. A yuppie, by my dictionary, is someone who is in a heady and shameless pursuit of affluence, of urban correctness. I don’t mind yuppies; as long as they don’t duck and leave you with their bill in the pub. I don’t mind yuppies as long as they don’t mouth about their dad’s 100 hectare wheat farm in Kitale so as to get a foot in with the birds. I don’t mind yuppies as long as they don’t say twirra. But Nairobi is crawling with barefaced hedonism, everybody is trying to fit, everybody is trying to drink the right drink, in the right pub. Everybody wants to be seen in the right party and with the right people. The dearth of modesty was never broadcasted.

But still this yuppie culture still defines the city and you can only ignore it if you go to Njugunas or one of those joints where money doesn’t sleep. There 0in those pubs – drink people who are real. They don’t mind swigging beer from the bottle. They have never heard of “Full condition” that viral and very hilarious Ugandan video that has had yuppies peeing in their pants with mirth. At a joint like Njugunas, Dolce and Gabana could pass for a type of combine harvester because to these folks the only scent that they wear comfortably is called Money. But then again, they are advanced in years and have long realized that hedonism only makes sense if you don’t believe it, if it doesn’t consume you, but most importantly if you can throw money at it.

But there are things in Nairobi, which although we love, are glaringly yuppie. Things that are highbrow and snobbish. Things that we love and even relish secretly. The most amazing thing about the pillars of yuppyhood is that it all boils down to the fact that we all want to be admired, the quest to fit, to be a part of a specific race and this race ends in the eternal cul-de-sac; sex.

Brew Bistro Lounge.

Kenyans don’t dress up to go to the pub. Ugandans do and in full condition (I really have to get over this). But people seem to dress up to go to Brew Bistro, in fact I’m surprised they don’t take your jacket at the entrance and hang it away for you because everything at Brew Bistro yelps Yuppie! The last time I was at Brew Bistro I sat at the balcony on one of them long seats that look down at the night traffic crawling along Ngong road. An arm’s length away, seated on them low chairs, sat a couple; an Asian chick and some miro guy who obviously was there to earn some brownies.

Now at some point during the night I saw the chick stick a cigarette between her red lips and reach for a lighter in a her handbag. She didn’t go far with that because this guy, in Don Draper/Jon Hamm style, somehow pulled a lighter from the air, leaned over in one smooth motion and lit her cigarette. As the flame from the lighter burnt the end of her cigarette it lit up the girl’s face and there it illuminated something more telling than her total of enthrallment of this guy. It illuminated something more embarrassing for her; lust. I saw lust leap in her eyes like a ping pong ball. She would have gladly eaten up that guy right there and then and washed him down with her Daiquiri. But it was obvious that the guy had a foot in; in fact he didn’t have to be funny or witty or any of those acts men pull when they want to gain ground. From where I was seated, brother was in. The only thing that was going to stop that chick from dragging that guy back to hers was if at the end of the evening he leaned close to her ear and whispered, “I love you.”

I was immensely impressed, impressed not by the lust in her eyes but with what had catalyzed it. And the setting befitted that mood because chivalry and bourgeois cohabit at Brew Bistro, and the folk who go there go to pay homage to these two city ogres.

Rhino Charge

Every year, like wildebeests on migration they troop down to some remote locale, a place with rocks, valleys and gauntlets. Every year, they carry to these locales rivers of alcohol, forests of cigarettes and joints, food enough to feed an army, boxes of condoms then they jump in their big-ass juggernauts and drive down with girls in skirts short of fabric and even shorter on their sexual response. To think Rhino Charge has always been about conservation is to tell a joke with a heavy punch line. Very few of those guys go down because they give a toss about Rhinos. But the Rhino – and his horns – ironically is a representative of what really the do is about.

Let’s not mess pussy foot around, Rhino charge is about girls in short skirts and men with long lusts. Rhino charge is about booze. It’s where the city dwellers go down to meet nature, but even then nature being overpoweringly raw and beautiful as they are not accustomed with overwhelms them in their sobriety, so they drink. They drink to enjoy nature, but they also drink to enjoy the tits.

Wines and Blanket

I’m not going to knock this event for two reasons; one, it’s ingenious and highly successful and two, I respect Muthoni, the brains behind it. The few times I have met Muthoni or talked to her over the phone she has always been anything but gracious and modest. She has always, very softly, said something generous and kind about my writing, very accommodating a lady. Plus really the drummer queen has worked her ass off to get this shindig where it is.

But the success of Wines and Blanket is demonstrative of not only her business acumen but her understanding of her niche; the yuppies. I’m willing to bet that 70% of the guys who mark Wines and Blankets on their calendars are the middleclass. The twirra crowd.

And Wines and Blankets is about music and nature and relaxing, but it also about showbiz. Yuppie showbiz. Ladies hold court in sun dresses, shades with lenses the size of a grapefruit, and they sit on the pathetically green meadow with basketful of grab at their feet. Then they crack open bottles of wine and bond while they update their twirra or Facebook from their iphones that gleam in the sun. Before them, up on the stage, some afro-fusionist play to this gallery. Even the sun is usually out in a dress, adding to this totally picturesque milieu.

Then there are wolves who prey on this crowd because admit it there are very few events of this nature that promises so many hot chicks per square meter. I have two friends who love Wines and Blanket only for this potential. One of them works for an embassy, while the other runs his own IT firm…you should hear him tell the females that he runs his own IT company; you would imagine he has Bill Gates on speed dial.

So these two ruffians shave then slip into their best threads and hats and shades and then get ready to hit the scene. But first they do something ethically questionable (questionable to you and Iwith a conscience, not to them) they borrow a child. Yes, one of them has an adorable 4yr old niece who they offer to take out. Then at the do, they continue to use her as bait, this adorable girl, because they know these females are a sucker for cute babies. Conversation is normally struck and before long rapport made and then trust quickly established because really only a sweet guy offers to bring his little niece for an outdoorsy outing.

Their success rate with these birds is usually at a staggering 80%.

Bastards.

Dogs…er, poodles.

Drive around Ngong road on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon and you will notice one thing; dogs. Dogs in cars. Dogs with their heads sticking out of car windows, tongues licking the wind. Designer dogs that won’t eat any food if it isn’t from the dog section of Nakumatt. Dogs that have personal doctors.

I have a friend who has a dog called Bijou. Yes, I suspect Bijou is French for spoilt. Bijou doesn’t even look like a dog; it looks like a purse because indeed Bijou is an accessory, something that will go with her car and shoes. You

should hear her talk about Bijou, you would think it goes to Breaburn and plays the accordion. You should hear her whine how Bijou is not “himself.” How Bijou is moody.

“What do you mean he’s not himself, is he having cash flow problems?” I asked her.

No, seriously, I think he is depressed Biko.

“Oh yeah? Look, if he can’t get a loan it’s nothing personal, he needs a pay slip like everyone else, rules are rules!”

I’m serious Biko

“Okay, I’m sorry, maybe he needs a holiday at the coast or do you want to have him see someone about his depression, like a psychiatrist?”

Actually yes, I need to call my vet, he might suggest something.

“Since dogs are man’s best friend are they charged the same hourly rates?”

It’s not funny

“Look, it’s a dog! It’s depressed because you treat it like a human being. Dogs just wonna be dogs!”

Dialing tone.

Apparently it’s cool to have a dog at the back of your car on a weekend. It’s cool to call a chick and she says, “I’m sorry I can’t make it today evening, I have to walk my dog.” (Oh yeah, with a baby walker perhaps?) Dogs for these women are the new fascination, dogs are in. Dogs are the new black. Its yuppie and it’s posh and it gives them as they say- and wait for this- a radar into themselves. My word!

This is to all the yuppies out there.