Sometimes I praise myself

Self Editor’s Note: In “Things Fall Apart” Chinua Achebe — one of the greatest  African writers who inspired Our Man in America — told the allegory of the lizard that fell off the high iroko tree and landed on his feet. He — the lizard, not Achebe, genius — looked around but saw none of the animals in the savanna applauding.

The lizard said “he would praise himself if no-one else did.” Our Man thinks Achebe, not the lizard, wrote that, but, hey, who is he to fight the man who taught him how to hold a spear? <== That’s another important African proverb, America. We Africans can’t invent anything meaningful, but we sure do have a way with words. (When Our Man was a young buck, growing up in the housefly-infested Gusii highlands of southwestern Kenya, he invented a disinfectant that killed 99.99% of germs, but no one wanted to give him venture capital because it was effective only .001% of the time).

Anyways, back to Our Man’s story. Elephants, lions and cheetahs — aren’t cheetah cubs “so, so cute,” America? — might have looked and saw that the “high” tree the lizard fell off was in fact a two-foot shrub. <== (Our Man is speculating here, for he hasn’t discussed this with either Achebe or the lizard. Like Barack Obama, their success made them too important to talk to their Kenyan cousin. “Things Fall Apart” got translated to some ridiculous number of foreign languages — as if English wasn’t foreign. Achebe got a teaching job at the University of Massachusetts, just down the street from Our Man’s tiny apartment in Oakland, Calif. The lizard became even more famous when he mastered the colonial master’s accent and got a multimillion-dollar endorsement contract to be the mouthpiece of a major U.S. insurance firm).

But an elephant’s shrub is a lizard’s skyscraper. <== That’s not another African proverb, America. Our Man made it up. Ancient Africans — the ones who wrote, sorry, made up (they couldn’t write) the proverbs you love to quote — knew of no skyscrapers. And contemporary Africans — who you are amazed can write — have no ability to create wisdom.

Anyways, <== (When you’ve mastered the Queen’s lingo better than the old lady of Buckingham Palace you can break the rules). Anyways, Our Man has a feeling this editor’s note is going to be longer than the story he has in mind. Just like the shrub was a skyscraper to a lizard, the story Our Man is about to tell you is a praise of himself. He has actually written it already and he’s just waiting to get to the end of this stupid editor’s note so he can paste it. He was amazed by the brilliance of a reply he sent to an editor asking for his photo and biography. <== (Yes, there are people in America who value Our Man’s opinion and knowledge).What amazed Our Man was how stupid things just start flowing through his mind at the slightest request of a photo and bio.

Like this editor’s note, the response was longer than the bio. It was inspired by a contentious meeting recently with the New York Times editor in charge of African correspondents. The editor that requested my bio was at that meeting and doesn’t work of the Gray Lady.

Enjoy and learn to praise yourself when you surprise yourself with brilliance. Take risks and don’t be afraid to fail, for no knowledge comes without failure. But if you succeed, be humble, smile and laugh a lot.

Dear (Name withheld)

I know very little about myself, but here are two sentences that I think describe me. (I wrote them, so — according to the New York Times — they might not be as objective). I have also included two shots. One of them is my mug from the Minneapolis Police Department arrest I was talking about. I think it’s better than any photo of me anywhere. There is a color copy if you like something scarier. I think it portrays the real me — a really angry African guy, but smart enough to beat the American [in]justice system. (If some New York Times champion of women’s rights asks what the mugshot has to do with African women, food and agriculture, tell him the food my African mother toiled to produce made me so black and strong. Flex, flex. So strong that I beat my mother up and took away the under-a-dollar- a-day she had hidden under a rock).

THE MUCH-ANTICIPATED BIO

Edwin Okong’o is a Kenyan-born writer, journalist, humorist and satirist. He is an editor at New America Media, and a reporter for FRONTLINE/World. He is a 2007 alumni of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley.

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