10 things I hate about you

Revised lines

Ever sing a song for years only to find out you never really knew the lyrics? We did: me and my younger bro, back when we stood together against the world at school grounds & before he started kicking my leg with the front of his “Qoda chama” for a greeting.

Cleaning “the house” was our duty, you see. We were expected to carry the furniture out. Beat the “awara” off the “sofa” (the same “sofa” we weren’t allowed to neither sit on nor lay our sleeping head against the first few weeks it was brought. Like all the colorful plates my mother got from her “Arab” friends as a present, like wives and kids: it was there to be “seen”). We were then expected to broom, mop and wax the floor.

Neither carrying the furniture out, nor beating the dust off the sofa were “happy endeavors”. Still, we gave them the best we got. Our mother, whose “Gosh yene lijoch” we secretly craved for, was the typical Ethiopian mother who wasn’t satisfied a job is well done until she saw blood.

The “cleaning and waxing” part, on the other hand, we out did ourselves in. Not just because an “alenga” hangeth on the wall, signaling what would become of us if our dad failed to see himself on the shiny surface of the wooden floor. But because we loved gliding on the [s’um] waxed floor on the wings of a “bernos”. We loved the sensation tripping and falling gave us. Like “wuha”, like death, it took us down with a giggle.

Giggling and falling. Falling and Tripping. Tripping, giggling and falling. For once, we were allowed to be kids.

Still, there was fatigue involved. And one of those songs that helped ease this fatigue mw and my brother sung whole-heartedly was Billy Ocean’s “When the going gets tough”. I thought it was “among the gangisters”. My brother agreed. We had a special place for it, too, as it featured part of an action-movie we didn’t get to watch back then. So when my dad isn’t there, and we climbed the fence of our communal “gibi” and tried to out-scream the kids in the next “gibi” also hanging from their communal fence, we sung: “Among the gangsters”. I was 23 years old when somebody stopped my carefree singing to ask “what is that you said?”.

They teased me about it for months.

The other was a line from Dereje Kebede’s “YeniGatu Kokeb Aberra”. “Maan Yagidew, maan yitaGeLew” the song went. I heard “Maan yaGidew, maan yitaGeDew”. My luckless brother followed suit. So we shamlessly sung “Maan yaGdew, maan yitaGedew” at the top of our voice. The neighoburing kids fall silent, humbled by the sudden revelation of our godliness — no doubt.

My third, and substitute lyric, for Bizunesh Bekele’s “yeNuro fichie sawq” I’ve mentioned on the post Daddy’s too big a shoe already.

So when i came across a “Song Sung Wrong, Everybody Knows One” section on Reader’s Digest’s May 2009 issue, it was with more than a little mirth i remembered the revised lines mentioned above. The lyrics mentioned by Digest, we probably don’t know. But the following Movie Misquotes from Yahoo! Movies are quite international. See which had you fooled:

Top Ten Lasting Movie (Mis)Quotes
By Access Hollywood
LOS ANGELES, Calif. ….. May 13, 2009

Space 2022: Invasion of the Cartoons

I watched Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa for the nth time last night. I don’t know if it’s the voices of those comedians I adore (Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, David Shwimmer; in that order), all the jokes, or the fact that I have truly madly and deeply fallen in love with, and can’t get enough of, co-producer Tom McGrath’s character (Skipper, the Penguin) in the movie that captivated the abesheet heart.

But I watch it so much (twice an evening sometimes) that it’s become a dinner-preparation routine: I start chopping when they start ‘movin’. Afterwards, I go to the video shop next door to get one more movie for “tonight-after school”. The owner is a cute 20 something with a shaggy dread locks full of ideals & God-knows-what. He goes to my good friend Biruk’s video shop, Otherwise known as ‘Biruk Video’, which distributs most of the latest movies in Addis, only on Wednesday and stays open until those who asked for certain movies showed up. “Bolt” (another cartoon film) seem to be what’s left.

Now, Cartoons used to be a strictly children affair, when only Walt Disney made them and they were based on fairy tales. Enter the area of 3D animations, with Pixar as the forerunner, and the story of cartoons movies changed. Cartoons become as good, or even better, as the real life movies. And why not, when:

• They appeal to both children and adults
• You can sneak your agenda (Sacha Baron Cohen character’s dancing “I’m a lady, I’m a lady everyone, I’m a lady. Not really.. it’s me, King Julian! Which of you is attracted to me?” wearing fake breasts) without offending anybody with indecency
• You need neither an in-built studio or an actual location to film it. And, most importantly,
• When you can have cartoon characters do things for you neither real life animals nor actors & actresses, and sometimes stunt men, can’t. Or won’t (like bare their breasts, for example. A cartoon porn featuring Angelina Jolie wouldn’t just sell in millions but is likely to fulfil many a young man’s fantacy)

Which, naturally, would make one wonder: Would a day come in which Cartoons would replace real life actors? Kind of like machines taking over human’s jobs?!

This is a question that’s been weiging on my mind ever since I saw how the characters actually resemble the real-life actors doing their voice on “The Polar Express” and “Beowulf”. What is there to stop Hollywood movie-makers to yet improvise the motions, make the faces look more expressive and make cartoon films look & feel like the real deal?. The dough they would be saving, not to mention the creative challenge, would no doubt be tempting.

Now I know that’s what everybody believed e-businesses would do until that prophesy proved a no-no. But you gotta wonder, with animtors like Pixel around and the ever growing number of “D”s out there (IMAX 3D, Real D, standard 2D), if actors won’t become history in the not-so-distant future. Ex, as in New York Knicks!

~ Rotten Tomatoe Critiques’ take of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
~ Somebody else’s Madagascar I’s favorite movies quotes.

Stupid Movies
Next ➡