PLANET OF THE ACHES

Ape 1: “What will he find there?”
Ape 2: “His destiny…!”
(Planet of The Apes; 1968)


Ati Nairobi Marathon… Ish, surely! How does someone just start running in the morning unless they are running from a Nairobi West bar towards a Westlands one? Okay, but even that is for yuppies and spoilt rich kids. You jua me; if you see me running then you know that the police are chasing me.

Yeah, so wacha Martin Lel types do their thing and get the fame. As for me, I have discovered my own claim to fame. Dude, I am gon’ be famous. Even have my own reality TV show and a Foundation that will adopt African children faster than The Madonna-Brangelina Corporation.

Yes, I have found my own claim to fame: four aching teeth. So somebody tell me the number to dial for the Guinness Book of World Records. My bad teeth, yeah, like I can try get them on the Guinness Book of Records. I mean they are more of an oddity than fucking Sarakasi on the drums.

Mhh... I will get famous enough to cry on Oprah. Even get a call for one of those Jenny Jones dental makeovers. And also, my own Private Charity: Potashian Teeth for Africa. (Trouble is, my smile will scare the donors!) Oh and lest I forget, I will even have my own cookery show: Let’s Cook for the Toothless. (Gee, it does sound like some NGO, that one, innit?)

But I still will not date Susan Kamau!

***

Now I am writhing on the sisal filled gunny sack that passes for my mattress. I lapse into a kind of delirium and my mind jarred by the pain and seeking escape transports me to the trendy Nu Metro Theatres. It is the launch of Kenya’s biggest movie: The Planet of the Aches.

Damn, here comes an ignoramus from Sunday Trash: “Potash, do you think Riverwood has finally come of age?”
“What the fuck is Riverwood?” I glare at him knowing that if I responded; No Comment, he will take it as a compliment.

“Why do you always have to borrow an Americanism?” Queries The Potash. “… Kenyan Hip Hop… sijui Riverwood… aih!”
“So what do you call your act?” asks the copy paster who masquerades as a newspaper editor.
“I don’t know, man… I don’t. What about Cinai… Cinenai… Naicine? … Dude, Me I love Nairobi, Period!”
The idiot then walks of to fill her Vybe/ The Source template with bull crap about some woman or other she fancies to be my girlfriend!

***

Planet of the Aches. A Potash Cinema Presentation. Written and Produced by Potash. Soundtrack available on Potash Records. (The lead single is obviously titled: Tingisha hiyo … Meno!) Edited by Cousin Potash. Casting by Brother Potash... you know the Kenyan deal, eh! Hey, even my granny- actually her dentures- has a cameo appearance.

And the whole of Nairobi is here for the launch. You know, all those guys you see at carni, then when you are at Bob’s- Coasto- they are there; Crayfish, Naivasha, every where. Party Idlers! Dude, even some high ranking bureaucrat from the Ministry of Youth Affairs is here. (The guy they recalled from retirement. I forget his name but he has enormous experience in youth and related affairs. The guy was part of the team that put together the Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba Concert at the dawn of Kenya’s Independence. That concert if your grandfather will recall, saw the launch of a Global Hit: Malaikay, Naku-penday Mulaikay!)

I can tell the crowd loves my movie. “What did the Potashian Molar say to the Premolar when Potash ordered a breakfast Napshizzle?”
“Ache up… Ache up!”
Hahaha!
Okay the guys from the BBC and Shit News Africa, New York do not look impressed. I reckon they are waiting for the animal scenes. Damn I forgot that small detail. That calls for a sequel now.

In the sequel I will be a masai warrior hunting lions for their teeth then going to a witchdoctor- In the Hut of Darkness- for the dental transplant.

Well in that case, instead of Potash providing voice talent for the leading moral, we will have Eddie Murphy. Instead of Potash playing Potash, we will have Samuel L. Jackson and the soundtrack: Shady/ Aftermath. Oh, yeah, when I am hunting the lion, where a guttural “laleiyo.. lale…” would suffice, all you will hear is: “G-G-G-G-Unit…!” But to get the Movie deal in the first place, the script has to be by a middle aged white guy whose sole dream for Kenya is the building of a great fence across the Mara that will keep the monkeys out and lovely elephants in.

***

Damn, I just dreamed myself out of a job. Okay, what if I change the Potashian in Potashian Teeth for Africa to Rhino Teeth for Africa or even better; Pachydernus Dentata Africanus! Maybe but I will still need to do a Michael Jackson and get an exotic name like Karen Blixen, Joy Adamson, Elspheth Huxley, David Anderson, Caroline Elkins et al, to tell a Kenyan story.

Ish… dude…!

Now I am wide awake nursing my private aches. The leading moral sets the pace. It is as though that ossified glob of pain has my brain’s pain centres on speed dial. Yeah, for all that pain, it is probably a broad band connection. Then a premolar ups the ante with such foul drainage it is as though my brain has liquefied into my root canal…

The pain is my heritage while my destiny like Prometheus stays bound to these stones, in the ‘hood that we keep sitting on- Waiting! So I write some more; maybe with this writing thing I am gonna be the James Joyce to my destiny. Destiny Unbound!