WHY THE NAME GRAFFIKS?

I think I owe some people an explanation. If you are logging in for the first time then it’s a warm welcome. I have been spamming the SMS domain with this web address with the hope that through this blog I will one day be famous. So you are part of a chain that will inevitably circle the globe…and I will be stinking rich by then. But then I digress. Why Graffiks On the Net? Why the name Graffiks in the first place? The profile on the right (mug shot included) does little justice in explaining this mystery.

Well, the nickname ‘Graffiks’ was self-coined. In other words by normal standards of nicknames it breaks convention. By definition a nickname is a short, clever, cute, derogatory, or otherwise substitute name for a person or thing's real name. As a concept, it is distinct from both pseudonym and stage name, although there may be overlap in these concepts. That’s the academic definition by the way. In simpler terms it is the first name by which one is commonly called, differing from the formal name one was given at birth, usually belittling the person.

But as we all know, a nickname is not always flattering and that the owners usually resist them. The more they resist it, the more it tends to stick. I did have a host of uncomplimentary nicknames once. I was called Lolo, which sounded like lollipop. Then there was Leox Beef, then 'Lenyosi' then…the list was endless. The worst nickname I had was being called ‘mistake.’ The chap who ‘chested’ that one on me regrets doing so to this very day. Which explains why it never really clung.

Anyway, I had the rare privilege of choosing a nice nickname for myself. The story goes thus…Once upon a time when stones were still soft (in 1985), I was admitted into the University of Zimbabwe as an undergraduate student. University was a blast with plenty women and alcohol flowing in its treelined avenues and hotel like residences. I was nevertheless determined to succeed as we all were…with a few exceptions of course. There were those who came to have a peek, like the late Mike Munyati (Lord bless his soul) who nearly took a lifetime to complete his first degree only to give up. And those who wanted to make a loud statement like Arthur Mutambara (later referred to as ‘tukitsi’ by uKhulu Bob) who was forced to literally 'fly' out of his second floor room window because of his reckless utturances. At UZ we leant that there was freedom of speech but Mutambara found out to his peril that there was no freedom after speech.

In the heat of the moment some students got together to start ‘Focus” a students' Magazine. By the way I forgot to tell you that I am (was) a gifted artist. This might shock some of you but when I was in Grade One and Two, teachers used to fight over me to draw illustrations for the Radio Lesson with Miss Charles (with Tendayi, Jane and Moses.) Sad to say I totally missed out on those intriguing episodes where Miss Charles would say: “Alright children, say this after me, ‘The bucket is full’” And a bell would ring (ngqing!) so that we would, in chorus fashion, follow what she had just said.

Needless to say, my command of the Queen’s language was already light years away courtesy of my enterprising father who plied me with cartoon magazines and books bought from the auction and television of course. That did not preclude those South African comic books with weirdly characters like ‘Chunky Charlie’, 'Devil Bat' and 'She.' Chunky Charlie was known for his uncanny ability of solving crime and also retrieving an assortment of items from inside his huge coat that included (and not in that order) a loaf of bread (his favourite meal), a bicycle and at one time a car!

Devil Bat was a vampire, that's enough said, And ‘She’ was this female superhero wearing an Afro wig (a fashion statement of that time) who had a knife (an Okapi) that could fly. (Those of you in the know should be aware that an Okapi knife in the unofficial traditional weapon of the Ndebele.) I should add here that the dialogue in those comics was a bit on the daft side. But for a Grade one or two pupil, it was very sufficient. One expression coined in those comics of old that made its way into everyday language was, “What the?” I was later to discover that it was short for that very vulgar African American expression, “What the f*#k!”

But yet again I digress. The story is about the nickname Graffiks. The guys at college (that is what we called UZ then) who formed Focus magazine included Tawana Kupe (now a famous don at Wits University) Lawrence Tshuma (now late) Titus Moetsabi (later known ominously as Moetsabi Moetsabi, a poet of note), Lovemore Banda (later Lovemore Blunder of ZTV fame), Thomas Deve (he of the Daily News and MISA) and others who I forget ... and mina of course.

The story goes… that we decided on some division of labour. Someone had to do the artwork which included cover design, illustrations and of course the cartoons. I volunteered and the rest they say is history? Not quite! I was not comfortable in revealing my identity yet. Some of the cartoons were quite acerbic. People on campus had the tendency of taking the law into their hands. And blows were traded liberally like mopane worms in the DRC.

I imagined an Arts company and what it would be called. I though of how my name Lenox could be disguised. Being brought up on a diet of Student’s Companion, it did not take me long. Lenox is from Leo, which is Lion. A lion denotes bravery and many other things. I then though of appending the word ‘graphics’ but it somehow looked too plain. You see I had this Rasta-reggae background whose stock in trade was turning the Queen’s language upside-down.

On campus, I was a member (and later secretary general) of an organization known as the Society for Afrikan Studies. We were decidedly African in outlook but labeled mbanje (marijuana) smokers buy others. Well, Zimbabwe is a free country and everyone is allowed to have his own opinion. In the event I then decided to ‘Afrikanise’ the word and Graffiks with two f's came up. So below every illustration, cartoon and design (I also did T-shirts and logos) I produced was appended the tag ‘Lion Graffiks.’

Be that as it may, my identity was not secret for long. When the magazine was banned long before the Daily News (it had to be because it caused the authorities sleepless nights) I continued drawing cartoons and sticking them outside my room door. I enjoyed listening to the guffaws and comments as a steady flow of students oggled at the latest caricatures. Comments like, “Ende mufana uyu anopenga chayizvo chayizvo - uyahlanya sbili!” (He is very very crazy) were quite common.

It so happens that I was also an above average soccer player, packing a wicked defense for Burning Spear Football club in the University Soccer League. We scooped the league and Chancellor’s Cup on countless occasions. My teammates shortened my tag to ‘Graffiks’, which in a strange sort of way described the way I ploughed into the opposition’s strike force and won many an aerial tussle with my trademark explosive clearences. The multitude of fans (among which the female sex were a notable component) would shout ‘Graffiks!’ each time I performed a heroic (read suicidal) sliding tackle. I have enough evidence to show from those heady days of short lived fame. At least I came out of it with a wife!

So there you are, to this day my close pals at Amavevane Social Football club and elsewhere still call me by that name and I can bet you most are amazed as you are of its origin. Now that explains Graffiks On the Net which literally means Lenox on the Internet. Now that you know, lets get on with life. Oh, you might ask, what ever happened to my artistic talent? I usually explain it this way: At UZ I was sufficiently and persistently inspired to graffikally express myself...but when I went out into the real world that was and still is so depressing, silly and so forth and so forth, I then resorted to writing silly columns in newspapers. Which also explains the existance of this silly blog. Silly me.

What is a Blog, by the way?
Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is an online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site. Which is my case should be called a silly log. With apologies to the Ministry of the Environment and the Creator.

WILL I WRITE FOR THEM AGAIN...EVER?

I just had to write about what is going on in Zimbabwe. Aside: The newly appointed editor of the Chronicle, Makuwerere Bwititi phoned me two weeks ago, just barely a few seconds after he had taken the hot seat. He wondered whether I would revive my "On The Lighter Side Column" for his paper on Saturdays. My instinct was ask to see the colour of his money first. But then I thought: Let me ask him what had really changed at the Chronicle apart from a brief episode of musical chairs so typical when new Ministers of Information took over after a reshuffle.

Heads are know to roll and this time is no exception. Jokonya has replaced Jonathan (Moyo) and he is being touted as a liberal in as far as excessive media control is concerned. Him being a former diplomat and all that jazz. Personally I am yet to see a noticeable mellowing of sorts in the State Media apart from perhaps a dilution of the 100% local music content demanded during the Hondo Yeminda days.

The Chronicle is as rabid as ever. Writing for them would be endorsing the status quo and that would be against the best of my conscience. It is for similar reasons that I have constantly turned down overtures from SFM to revive Afro Jazz on Thursday show on radio. I would rue my show emerging after that steady stream of propaganda masquarading as news.

The Chronicle continues to issue blinkered opinion pieces and cliche infested political commentary passing off as journalism. Take for example Zimbabwe's long running fuel crisis. Nowhere do you see an article putting the powers that be to task about solutions to the problem. Instead, you read about 300 million litres of fuel "currently on the high seas" on its way to quench a patched and paralysed transport sector. Never mind the fact that Zimbabwe needs at least 2 million litres a day just to break even.

One cannot help but imagine a situation where that consignment is highjacked and diverted to Sri lanka as happened some years ago with a some shady amarments that were destined for the Indian Peninsula. They ended up in the gleeful hands of the Tigers of Tamil guerrilas who than proceeded to use them to good effect against the intended receipients! It would not be beyond the state media to cook up a story about the British fleet diverting those supplies to Papau new Guinea for all we know.

I also remember quite vividly MDC Secretary General Welshman KaNcube wondering why I was still broadcasting. adn't I heard of a thing called blacklisting? Not wanting to spent the rest of my life wondering in the confines of my garden unable to move anywhere, I promptly resigned. Never mind the fact that it would have been a matter of time before Jonathan Moyo and his cohorts forced the Hondo Yeminda diet of songs down my Jazz programme's line up.

My brief stint with the managerially-challenged but now banned "Weekly Times" at the beginning of the year should have firmly placed my name at the top of Mahoso's most wanted list. But no. Here are guys from the state media falling over themselves to get me back. I will post my diatribes from that brief era of protest journalism for you to make your own judgement.

I would rather be poor and insignificant, than be well known but revilled. Just ask Jonathan Moyo how he feels now. So the next time you ask me why I no longer write or broadcast...now you know.

THERE WAS A RAT IN OUR KITCHEN... ONCE

I don’t know what you think but having a pet, a vicious one at that is a necessity nowadays. That would obviously translate into the canine variety…in other words, a dog, very big dog for that matter. The more sadistic ones would rather keep Lions. With thieves ruling the roost in the suburbs, it has become more than a necessity. After a spate of break-ins we purchased the latest addition to the family. It came in the form of ‘Fluffy,’ a ball of black and khaki fur that could barely scare a fly. The reasoning, nevertheless a bit warped, was that Fluffy would grow into the job.

Our family has a chequered history of owning pets, some, I must add, quite involuntarily. We once had a rat in our kitchen. It must have been a rat because our then six-year-old Anele had announced that he had seen a mouse that hadn’t had a bath. The rat in question placed the family in a dilemma. We were faced with two choices. Either to bait him with rat poison and send him straight to rat hell or just to pretend he was part of the family. And adjust food budget accordingly of course.

The first option was easier but then there was the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Rats to contend with in the form of our three sons. You see this rat was so big that he just could be classified as a pet. It was so big that the kids concluded unanimously that it was a rabbit. And you should have heard the wails of protest as I chased it around the house with malicious intent. My argument was that being the breadwinner; I could never get to make drastic cuts to my monthly beer allocation.

The other option was to upgrade the pest to pet status. That meant coming up with some gentleman’s agreement with the rat in question. Firstly, he had to agree to being a gentle-rat and stop causing havoc in the kitchen. Secondly, the rat would have to adjust its diet somewhat to decent food and not my magazine collection and container of opaque sorghum beer (masese) in the pantry. Unfortunately the so-called rat-rabbit (as evidently opposed to calling him a rock-rabbit) had developed expensive tastes, which explained his weight problem.

The other dilemma was the many a sleepless nights that the rat-rabbit’s nocturnal activities caused. Because of its size, it could no longer sneak out through the tiny hole it came in. So in the dead of the night, one could hear it burrowing away. It was a if it had lost direction burrowing through any wooden surface he comes across. At one point I thought it had discovered my centuries old vinyl record collection. Remember those flat, black, round objects that made music when you set an electrified needle on them?

In the end, quite sadly, some very painful choices had to be made. Would we commit murder most foul and break our kid’s little hearts, or swallow our stingy pride and elevate the rat-rabbit to pet status? I personally preferred a hunting dog having come from a long line of poachers… sorry… hunters. At the time it was a luxury we could ill afford. That’s besides the fact that someone would have to clean up the dog poo. In any case, of what use would be a pet rat that did nothing but eat and poo all day long? I am yet to see a guard rat, granted the mere sight of this chap would surely keep those pesky uninvited relatives at bay.

Relative One: “ Did you catch sight of how big that rat, rabbit, thing or whatever was?”
Relative Two: “I thought I heard it bark!”
Relative Three: “I think I heard ‘them’ calling it by name!”
Relative Four: “We might be strange but these people take the cup. I don’t know about you but I’m out of here!”

Which brings us to our cute Fluffy, the cross Alsatian puppy. Its first act of heroism was to accompany the latest gang of burglars to the back door where they patted him lovingly on the head and made off with our stereo. Just let them come back in three years time, and Fluffy Wuffy will be sure to bite a chunk off their depraved backsides before they grab our Multichoice decoder! Woof grrrrr woof!

THE RAT AND THE MOUSE TRAP

A friend told me this story just yesterday. It is said a farmer discovered that there was a rat in the house and proceeded to set a mouse trap. Alarmed, the rat ran to the chicken to announce this disturbing development.

"But what has that got to do with me? I am not a rat..." the chicken said dismissing the rat and going about her pecking chores.

The rat then went to the pig to tell him him the grave news and got a similar reception. The pig was not bothered, proceeding to roll in the mud as usual. The rodent then approached the cow.

"What? A trap? What's that got to do with me?" and the cow went on grazing as she usually did, minding her own business.

It so happened that at night the trap went off and the farmer's wife went over to investigate. It was dark in the room but she still reached over and lo and behold she was bitten by a snake whose tail was caught in the trap! The farmer immediately rushed her off to hospital where her condition was diagnosed as critical.

Neighbours heard about the misfortune and went over to the farmer's house to comfort him. Having received visitors, he had to prepare them a meal and he went for the chicken.

As time went on the wife's condition worsened and relatives from far and wide came to the farmer's house. To feed them he had no choice but to slaughter the the pig.

Sadly, the farmer's wife eventually passed away and a huge funeral took place. All the farmer's neighbours, relatives and friends came to pay their last respects. The cow had to go to feed the multitude. The rat survived.

The moral of the story is that what doesn't seem to matter at face value will eventually affect you in a big way later on. Take note of the little things in life because when added up they contribute to a much bigger picture. This blog might seem much, but it is my small contribution to you. May it add value to your life in a big way by bringing some form of relief from all the pressures associated with this wretched existence of ours. Welcome to Graffiks On the Net!