Posts tagged Brown Condor
Bezawork
0She will smile and let me look into her blen so she can take me back to Ethiopia and transport me to Bole—a place blessed with Bezowerk indeed::
by Teddy Fikre written: Friday, March 23rd, 2012
Oh my God, my life is a comedy beka:: So in an attempt to write this article, I wanted to first find out what Bezawork means. Having been away from Ethiopia for 30 years, forgive me when I tell you my Amharic is about as broken as a Habesha Mazer’s gebena. Thus I turned to Facebook for some Hebret. This is what I got in return:
Me: Yo, what does Bezawork mean?
Dessu Getachew: lol u tell me, dont get me wrong i like her but I have no idea!
Yehoalashet Kass: means plenati of gold, plenty, it means plenty of Gold.
Dj Eyozi DireDawa: kot of gold, I mean lots of gold.
Makeda Dedebe: A lot of Gold, Beza = a lot, Work = Gold
Sirak Getachew: bizu werk is “alot of gold” but as far as biza werk i am not sure.. been in the NY state of mind for too long.
I swear, beunet, I love my people! Between z typos, the egregious spelling, and the occasional person calling me dedeb, I find in our culture music to my ears—a music that takes me to Bole. BINGO! What a time for me to transition to the topic of this conversation aydel.
You see, this is an ODE, really a poem and a love letter—no not a love letter like I am making some type of an indecent proposal—a love letter thanking a very special lady for blessing me with her music when I was but 7 years old in Bole. This lady goes by the name of Bezawork Asfaw; for me she has been plenty of Gold given to me by God from the moment I was able to decipher A flat from B minor. I don’t know what I am, on any given day I love poets, then writers, then rappers, then singers—I am all over with it and I just don’t know in what corner to fit and stay in place. I am fidgety, I get turned on by talent and I make love to beautiful minds because for me their mind is my roofie and Spanish fly combined into a toxic potion of turn-ons. There is nothing that excites my mind more than the mind of talented people; I can stare in their collective blens for years and still never find the end of the road called talent they travel on.
This road for me started a long time ago back in 1974 when I was bought into this world by a loving mother and father. Maybe it is because my mother Sara used to sing to me as a child—she probably put me to sleep every night singing Tizita to me. Maybe it is because my father loved Ethiopian music and had more sheklas in our Bole house than all the DOPEST Djs in America combined—little did I know that my father Fikre could have been a DOPE Dj too. Whatever the origins of my love of music, I just know that I grew up tasting the juice of esteginet that is called Ethiopian musika. I was in love with music before I knew what love was. I had the innocence of my childhood protected and kept in the loving arms of singers like Kuku Sebsebe, Mahmoud Ahmed, Tilahun Gessese and Muluken Melesse to name a few. That is why to this day I still profess that my first love is Kuku Sebsebe and why I used to tell people back in Bole that my wife was Kuku at the age of six.
But along the way, my mind has been impacted and infected with the enchanted voice of countless many Ethiopians whose name I no longer remember but whose melodies still massages my cortex and snaps my synapses. So I often get shocked and jarred when I go to youtube.com (thank you youtube, you are my connection to Ethiopia in more ways than I can ever recount) and then type in Tizita and a random name comes up and I press play and automatically the universe pauses, the globe stops rotating and all else around me just ceases to exist and I instantly get transported to Addis Ababa. This is the power of music; it is an eternal creation that brings like to ephermeral memories. It is as though music is a CPR machine, it electrocutes the brain and injects into our crevices instant flashbacks and all the sudden we remember what we thought we forgot a long time ago—music is a time machine and we are Michael J. Fox before he was overcome by Parkinson’s disease.
So let me tell you what happened to me and what induced this article. As I was writing an article called “Kokeb”, I put on youtube instead of BC Radio to listen to some music I don’t currently have in the BC Radio rotation. I decided to type in “Tizita” and listened to Mahmoud, Kuku, and Muluken for about 45 minutes. Finally, as I was finishing the article, I decided to take a chance and clicked on a youtube video that has Tamagne on the saxophone (big fan of Tamagne, what a funny man with a serious purpose to boot). Anyway, all the sudden, this lady started singing and instantly my mind was broken and renewed, my body levitated and traveled all the way across the Atlantic lifted aided by the hands of 30,000,0000 Africans buried at the bottom of that ocean and I landed in Bole for the first time in 30 years as a foreigner in my own land.
This lady that did this to me, the lady that committed larceny of my leb and pierced my heart and made it bleed a lot of Gold was Bezawork Asfaw. I could not believe what I was hearing; I remember listening to that very same song 30 years ago in the driver’s seat of my father’s car as we were traveling to the airport. I looked at her eyes with awe and trepidation, there I was looking into her blen and she took me on a journey to Bole on a street named Talent and made me remember—if only for 20 minutes—what it was like to be a child again and she restored my innocence with her eloquent voice. Two hours later, I am still here in shock that I am being blessed with plenty of Gold from God and that I am listening to Bezawork for free on youtube.
The crazy ibd thing is that I was at Bati restaurant last Friday and Bezawork was performing all night. There I stood two feet from her—Bole 24 inches from me—but I did not know who she was at the time so really was 24,000 miles from me. I just know when she started singing I stopped my tweeting and Facebooking trying to promote the Brown Condor Open mic night and all things ceased as I was lost in her iris. Little did I know that this magical lady was the same Nigist that I used to listen to in Ethiopia. Little did I know that her songs were the same songs that my mother used to sing to me. This world is cosmic and crazy, I can’t make sense of it. It is as though everything that has happened to me up to this moment—the good and the bad—were a preparation for me to travel that same road called Talent and arrive at my own destination as I fly my Brown Condor around the world connecting Ethiopian culture to a wider audience.
So I shall not question anything, I will just leave my life from one moment to the next because in the end we have no control of where life takes us. I am not the pilot of Brown Condor, I am the co-pilot, the pilot is a DOPE entity up above by the name of Esgyaber. I will just leave it up to HIM, each time I tried to take the wheel and pretend that I was the pilot, my plane has crashed over and over again. So I shall leave it to HIM, and when I do he blesses me with Plenty of Gold. Today he blessed me with Bezawork Asfaw, I am thankful that she sang to me. Forget all other plans that I had for tonight (sorry Ques, sorry Portico, sorry Talk of DC) tonight I am heading straight to Bati and I shall give Bezawork this article straight to her hand. Hopefully, she will like what she reads, hopefully she will smile and let me look into her blen so she can take me back to Ethiopia and transport me to Bole—a place blessed with Bezawork indeed:: Peace!
“A third force, developing itself more slowly, becomes even more potent than the rest: the power of gold.” ~John Lothrop Motley
[click to see how this Plenty of Gold took me back to Bole today]
[click to see a live concert that Bezawork did, its DOPE!]
[click fan to "Like" Bezawork's page on Facebook]
FEATURE EVENT
[click to RSVP as we honor Kuku Sebsebe at Bati Restaurant & Lounge on Thursday, March 29th at 9PM sharp]
This week, the theme is Kuku Sebsebe as we praise and celebrate her at Bati Lounge and Restaurant, located at 3815 S George Mason Dr, Falls Church, VA 22041. Starting at 9:00 PM EST on Wednesday March 21st, we will dedicate the whole 2 and a half hours to honoring the life and accomplishments of Kuku Sebsebe.
[Bezawork performs every Friday and Saturday at Bati Lounge & Restaurant in Falls Church, VA, click pic to find out about Bati]FEATURE BUSINESS
[click to see, hear, and soon tasted Bati]
Author
[click to view profile and follow him on twitter @browncondor]
[click pic to follow us on twitter or follow us @browncondor]
We would love to hear your comments/feedback. Also, share this on Facebook, tweet it on twitter, or print it and give it to your grandmother. If you would like to follow us on Twitter, you can do so @browncondor
To get in touch with us, send email to info@browncondor.com
Habesha Mailbag 8.0
1Habesha Mailbag 8.0 Motto of the day:: Meaning of Hebret -> “dir beyaber ambessa yaser!” 1,000 spiders can tie up a lion, I just need 999 more, will you be my second?
by Teddy Fikre written: Saturday, March 17th, 2012
Yikirta yikirta everyone for being one day late with Habesha Mailbag. You see, there was a particular #VisionlessPoet who burned up my core Thursday morning and for the last 48 hours I have been distracted from being positive and instead been swimming in toxic ooze of anger. But, progress had been made, I will tell you about it shortly. So I am back to smiling and keeping it meto gena positive. Now before I go on to the Mailbag, let me tell you a quick story.
So yesterday I was talking to my fraternity brother outside of work. We were talking about life, the state of the fraternity, the state of black America (like worthless men who claim they are all about their community yet don’t take care of their own kids). It was a beautiful conversation on a beautiful day and I was venting my frustrations with him and in the process feeling release from the anger that I hold inside of me. It seemed like I had found Dr. Phil and he was all the while consoling me to let go of the anger and don’t pay attention to the bullshit people throw my way.
We did this as I was smoking a cig and my throat was feeling the effects of copious drags from Marlboro lights. So at one point I turn my head and spit conspicuously so that no one would see. All the sudden, out of now where emerges a lady from dark lit shadows. She starts off with a compliment “you two guys are handsome”…
Oh wow, a compliment, maybe Dr. Phil aka my coworker was right, maybe if I think positive I would attract positive people…then she finished her compliment with mitmita laced arsenic aimed at my forehead wrapped in heavy accent…
“…but you my brother, what you just did was disgusting and vile, you spitting like that shows you have no culture!”
Then she walked off with the nastiest look of scorn on her face. There….it happened, in one instant I was about to revert back to my King Kong ways. Why the f*ck did you just come at me b*tch from out the blue and interrupt my conversation with my fraternity brother that is trying to uphold me. But…to my amazement, I laughed it off and let it go as I saw this foreigner walk away into the post office. We went back to the conversation and he says to me
“damn Que, what the f*ck was that…I understand now why you go ape shit on people, that was totally uncalled for and unnecessary”
But I laughed it off and went away smoking and talking and kept on spitting in spite of her. But I bid my time, for this lady with her mitmita laced arsenic accent would soon enough have to come back from the US Post office.
Sure enough, she saunters back out and I told her
“excuse me, I am sorry I offended you, I have a cold that is why I spit like I did, but you are right, spitting is not cultured, I will try to be more discreet next time and maybe potentially stop smoking cigs so that I do not torture my throat to have a revolt and spit out some spit”
She says “No problem, have a great day”…
Ummm…no problem…with that accent…ende…no problem = Chiger Yelem…oh shit…ende…this lady is Ethiopian!!! So I say:
“Yikirta are you Ethiopian” and she replies “yes I am, are you?”
I said I was, she said selam but never took back the mitmita spit that she spit at my chinkila. But I learned a DOPE lesson; people will always attack you for no reason whether it is because you spit akata, DOPE articles, poetry at Brown Condor open mic night, or controversial topics on www.browncondor.com. Like Obama and Jay-Z said, the key is to shake that dirt of your shoulders and keep on moving meto gena and in your own way smile at them knowing that the smile is really a middle finger telling them to FUCK OFF!
So I will apply this lesson from now on, when trolls ass fucks come at me and spit their bullshit words, I will just smile at them and say “Esger Yestelen” and bless them and ask God to forgive me for really instead of blessing them, I really just gave them a middle finger and told them to FUCK OFF!
OK now on to Habesha Mailbag aydel. But first before I proceed, let me give homage to Bill Simmons, the DOPE journalist who I Somali hijacked this idea from. Speaking of Somali hijacking, let me Somali hijack my own shit and copy and paste something real fast… TQE <<- TQE = BRB = Tinish Qoyiche Emetalew
Bill Simmons is the reason I started Habesha Mailbag, to be honest, I am taking the whole format from Bill, I guess you can say that I Somali Pirate hijacked his style, but hey, if you think that Bill did not Somali Hijack someone else’s style, just keep in mind that his webpage is called www.grantland.com and Grant was the name of a famous Sports reporter from Boston, so you see, all things come full circle and piracy after all is not such a bad thing—as long as you acknowledge who you pirated from and in return pave the way for a future Sports Guy or Brown Condor. Damn I just Somali hijacked my own words—pretty impressive Teddisho, you can now claim Teddy Fikre as your Somali victim #134::
OK, metaw—ere balegoch, I don’t mean metaw like that—I mean metaw as in I am back. Hold on though, if a particular lady reading this wants to help me to say the other metaw, please email me at info@browncondor.com (I can say this because the Brown Condor editor is out sick today because he ate bad yogurt last night…no really, her name was Strawberry Yogurt, I told him not to eat anything from strip clubs, now he sees why I say that.
Anyway, let me first delve into sports in honor of Bill Simmons aka @sportsguy33 on twitter. Here goes…
The Redskins just got the rights to Robert Griffith the III. That means we just became off season champions for the 8th time in a row. Man oh man this fucker named Danny Snyder, he wins when it counts least more times than Nitro Ethiopians, beka Redskins are basically off season ejaculators, we have not nutted when it counts most since1991, I mean that is the longest drought ever second only to the drought that Nitro Ethiopians (who now goes by Ethiopianwiwi on Facebook) has been on since he last got ems, put it this way, Nitro is 47 years old, the last time he had pussy was when pussy had him. Ere, Teddy this is about sports nigga, can you stay on topic (editor just texted me from the shintibet while he was throwing up for the 10th time today).
OK fine, anyway, Redskins, I fucking hate them, sigh…but I love them. Shit…hold on..this is what marriage is like…there you have it, Redskins are my wife, they give me headaches, they never give me some, they get me excited and then give me blue balls, and if I want to go see them, they take all my fortunes. What the Lebdeh, all this time I said I was never married, come to find out my burnt face is married to a Redskin. #YASAZENAL
Well, enough of sports, that shit just got me depressed and wanting to go back to King Kong tactics, I will just say “Esger Yibarkachew Redskins” and move forward to the question from my reader. Buckle your seatbelts ladies and germs and hold on to your QITS because you are about to laugh it off meto gena endegena eko!!
Q: Ante Woyane! Fuck you ante qemalam, I hit the lottery on Wednesday, the same day your Brown Condor Open mic poetry flopped, I won 50 pounds and now I bought 10 bottles of Neiva lotion, I am good for the weekend while your ass is eating Raman noodles and begging for coffee from DC Habeshoch! HA! I get the last laugh and the last arat netab this time ante agame! – Nitro Ethiopians aka Ethiopianwiwi, London (really Dubia) England
BC: Sigh! You broke back habesha fuck, you just don’t give up aydel. I thought for a minute about saying “Esgyer Yebarke” but I am making an exception, on Habesha Mailbag I will be meto gena King Kong Ape shit on folks that come at me with shitty comments and be nice as a lamb to those who wants to give me a gursha of beg tibs out of kindness. So with that said you bitch ass fucker, let me explain it to you this way. Again, you are 47 years old, you live with your mom in the basement, and not only that, you don’t have a job and all you do is “expose” Ethiopians world wide as being Woyane without proof. Fucker, you are Woyane yourself, this is what Woyanes do, and they call other people Woyane and divide the people in the process. I don’t doubt your ass is Meles Zenawi. Holly shit…it just hit me…YOU ARE MELES ZENAWI! It makes sense, he too is a broke back habesha who is importing products from the west (Neiva) to masturbate while dividing Ethiopia into a thousand pieces and starting wars with Eritrea and Ethiopia for no reason other than to give praise and glory to himself. FUCK YOU Nitro Ethiopians aka Meles Zenawi, soon enough you will run out of Neiva lotion and your as will be raped by the very same tactics you have been raping Ethiopia for the past 20 year. I am done with you, but keep emailing me Meles Zenawi, you are exposing yourself for the son of a bitch you are. Peace! Actually no peace to you, burn in hell. On to the next.
Q: Hi Teddy, I am submitting this to you for Habesha Mailbag. I want you to keep my name anonymous though because I know all the people I am about to talk about and they know me as well so I don’t want any drama in my life. If you want, you can call me Mimi from DC. Anyway I have noticed what you have been doing for the past couple of years; at first I thought you were a joke to be honest. Then after Ethiopian Appreciation Day, I stopped taking you as a joke and paid attention to you. Just when I did, you disappeared for almost two year, I am very happy you are back, I missed you a lot and I was worried about you. Here is my question though, I notice you go on and on about Hebret and you apply it fully. I have noticed you promoting and marketing every aspect of Ethiopian culture in DC and beyond. I can’t talk about what other Ethiopians are doing outside of DC, but it seems to me that the street called Hebret you walk on is a one way street. You promoted every promoter in DC and their parties including Yodit Gebreyes and Nate Enzo from Talk of Dc, Malik, Desta, Nate and Dawit and the crew from DC Habesha, Yohannes and Paul from Babylon, Neb, Meron, and DJGabe from Liv, Bsheba and AP, and on and on and on. I tried an interesting thing the other day and Googled each one of them, and low and behold, most of the time when I Googled them the first thing that comes up are your articles. You would think they would be grateful and promote you the same way but I have yet to see them say one kind thing about you or attend any of your events even as you stay promoting their events and showing up too. I see you going to Portico, at Park, at Teatro, at Shadow Room, at Mood Lounge, yet when you had your event at Bati not one of them attended and what’s worse, none of them tweeted or Facebooked about it. What really pissed me off was when you promoted the event that Beshou promoted on Tuesday and showed up to support. I noticed that she liked the comment you posted on your wall, something she never does when you post something and tag her on it, and was all hugging you when you showed up. But why did she not return the favor by at least doing the same thing about your event and telling her crew to come out. When I Googled “Shit that Habesha Girls Say” the first article that comes up is the one that you wrote about it and hyping her and Bernos up. But she has yet to help you out once. I swear what you are going through makes me angry and cry because I know what you are battling. Is it hatred, jealousy, or greed? What is it that has them this indifferent to you while you go out on a daily basis promoting them and helping them out? Brother please leave them alone they are not worth your energy or time, they are small minded individuals all of them, I read your post on Facebook where you said you will say “God bless you” to anyone that comes at you. Please please I beg you for once say “fuck you” to all of them and do your thing, you are wasting your talent on greedy assholes, and your talents are needed for a bigger cause. Stop eating Raman noodles, save your money, make more money and only work with people that want to work with you. Trust me, there are a lot of people in our community who love what you do and support you unfortunately, it is the vocal minority of assholes who get the attention and spotlight in our community. Please stop kissing the asses of people who don’t care about you. Stop promoting them, stop going to their events, stop writing about them, one day they will see your true value and be pissed off that they refused to get on your train while you were still offering seats on the train station. Berta wendem Teddy, God bless you, and I mean that in the nicest way! –Mimi, Silver Spring, MD
BC: Damn, this was too heavy. Let me take a cig break to think on what you said, TQE <- TQE = BRB = Tinish Qoyiche Emetalew
OK, metaw. Look, I hear what you are saying “Mimi”. To be honest, I am not about to sit up here and say I don’t feel like you, or at least I used to feel like you. I have been doing this since really 2008 and it feels like I keep hitting myself against the same brick wall of indifference. Shit, this is one of the reasons that I succumbed to depression twice in four years, each time pissed off that I keep doing things for people—my own community—and in return getting nothing but indifference or worse yet straight up hatred in return. But I have learned over time that when you give expect nothing time in return. That way, when you do get something—no matter how small the return is—you are happy instead of expecting the same level of HEBRET you give and end up being pissed when someone gives you less than you gave them.
And to be honest, it‘s not like I don’t get anything back when I write about all the people you mentioned above and then some. You see, each time I write about Yodit, Nate, Malik, Bsheba, or anyone else, their network notices. When they Google their names, if my article is the first thing that pops up, it is my website they go visit first and notice all the other things that I do. So, even if I am not given HEBRET willingly, they give it to me by default. Beshou’s video about “Shit Habesha Girls Say” is DOPE more than I can describe, but guess what, I have gotten over 12,000 hits to www.browncondor.com since I first posted it. So it works both way, I help her get thousands upon thousands of hits on that youtube clip, and in return, when random people search “Shit Habesha Girls Say” on Google, it is my article they are directed to first. Thus, HEBRET is a two way street because I have gotten this viral marketing down to a TEE like a scientist, one way or the other—actively or passively—my community is helping me even if some talk shit about me.
But let me give you the other side of the equation; most of the people you mentioned up top, they are in—one way or another—my friends even if they don’t proclaim me to be as such in public. Like for example, Malik, Nate, and Solo, when I go to Portico, have given me more advice and kindness than you can imagine. You know each time I go and apologize for my King Kong ways, it is because the DC Habesha crew took the time to counsel me and told me to tone it down. They also feed me when I have no ends and give me free drinks when my pockets are full of lent. When I need legal counsel, it is Nate Enzo that I turn to and he provides it for free—you see Nate has a plan, he is in law school and has a lot on his plate, I am not about to begrudge him for not attending my events when he is overwhelmed with law school. When I need some hookup in DC or advice about how to market a particular idea, I turn to Yodit and she provides her services for free.
And don’t get me started about Neb and the LIV crew, Neb is my brother for real. This guy is so knowledgeable that talking to him is a blessing. He is I think 13 years younger than me, but 40 years wiser than me. He never drinks but has a blast wherever he goes—to be honest, I am secretly jealous of him; I wish that I did not have to drink to have a good time too. Whenever I go to his events, he lets me in for free; he has invited me to his table and given me shots before I ask. And more than that, he talks to me without judging me, he provides critiques of my techniques without being critical, he has nothing but well wishes for me. When I had the National Eskista Day, Neb was there when I got there and the whole time—instead of being with his girl—he was giving me advice about how I should go about making National Eskista Day more successful. The only reason he has not formally signed on to one of my events and collaborated with me to this point is because I am all over the place and do things on the fly. Neb is not like that, he is a planner first and a doer after. So if I want to work with him, the onus is on me to be more effective and to be more thoughtful on planning my events instead of the onus being on him—you feel me Mimi? Trust me, I am not an idiot or a martyr, I do what I do because it benefits me to.
Besides, there is a part of this equation that I need to acknowledge where I blame myself for their indifference. If I go around rocking boats with my King Kong ways, and in the process piss off hundreds of people, I cannot sit up here and make it seem like I am an innocent victim that no one wants to work with aydel? Look, they are all entrepreneurs—DOPE ones at that—they are not interested in the same things I am. I am not a promoter to make money, I am in this game to shake Habeshas to the core and get us to think and act differently and to help each other more. They have parties where folks come out to have a good time and forget about their troubles? Even at my “celebrations” I don’t let people leave without a message of what I am trying to accomplish. Maybe they are leary of associating their brands with my brand because their brand is about making people have a good time for a couple of hours whereas my brand is to make people think and support their own community before they spend $200 a night supporting Yohannes Aramaji. So Mimi, let them do their thing and let me do mine, there is a space and a place for both to exist aydel?
So I guess what I am trying to say is that if you are finding articles upon articles that I write on the first page of Google, I did not do it by myself, I did it with willing or unwilling collaborators who either believe in Hebret or provide it without knowing it. Don’t judge them from the outside because you don’t know the whole story, it’s not really fair because I get judged by hundreds if not thousands of Habeshas without them knowing me either. But in due time, these folks will come to my event, these folks will tweet and FB about my celebrations, and in due time, we will all be millionaires and celebrate together. If not, I can’t focus on what other people are not doing for me because that has and will continue to derail me and have me end up in depression again. I will focus on expecting nothing and when I get something…trust me…I will be the first one to tweet and Facebook promote them for believing in Hebret. Until then, let me leave you on this note:
Shit that this Habesha Guy says: “dir beyaber ambessa yaser!”
Now I just need 999 dirs like me, Mimi are you my second dir yene dear? I think you are…eshi beka no more heavy shit eko, this is supposed to be funny eko::
Q: You are such an asshole! You don’t think people know what you are doing you fake ass Ethiopian? This bullshit Hebret you keep talking about is nothing more than a way for you to use people for your own purposes by squeezing them dry of their juice. And you wonder why no one supports you! We are on to you you son of a bitch! –Selam, Washington, DC
BC: Ummmm….Esgyaber Yibarkish ehete::
Q: Teddiye, sema, this is kind of sensitive area. So yene boyfriend, he wants to have Qit sex, what should I do? Isn’t that considered sodomy? Should I do it to make him happy? I am afraid if I say no he will break up with me and I don’t want to lose him, I love him a lot and I don’t want to be by myself. What do you think I should do? –Anonymous, New York, NY
BC: Be’sma’am! O_o. Ok let me delve gently into your sensitive area (by the way, that is the only way to delve into that particular area, delve gently). Anyway, mejemerya, I hope to God that your boyfriend wants to be the quarterback and not the receiver eko: Huletenya, never do anything that makes you “uncomfortable” for the sake of a man. The minute that you start compromising yourself for the sake of appeasing a man, you are fucked in the ass (literally and figuratively). So my advice to your Qit is to tell him straight up that you are not down with that and if he is not happy with your ems becha, tell him to get the ems out and holler at me eshi. Trust me, you will not be by yourself just because you refused to have Qit sex, I see your pics on Facebook and you are METO GENA beautiful and your QIT is sexy I don’t blame your boyfriend for wanting to make love to your Qit eko: Anyway, like I said, only do that if you want to not because he demands it eshi? And if you do, ummm, I don’t know, maybe melt some kibe in z microwave and use that to give him gursha…gebash
Eshi anche Qitam, good luck eshi, if I see you walking funny next time I see you, well I will know what you were up to aydel::
Q: No one told you to involve/invite yourself in a subject that doesn’t pertain to you! Moreover…when you clicked on this status update to comment on it…to whom’s page is it attached??? MINE! Therefore, don’t feel so free to render your opinions and such when I am CLEARLY not talking to or about YOU!!! Pardon my blunt expression but it is what it is! #NowSaySomethingElse! – Genese Luciana, Atlanta, GA
BC: Ohhh.. I get it boo boo, you are from ATL right? I mean you were born frustrated and bitchy because the ratio of men to women down there is like 1:10, but the ratio of straight men to women is like 1:100,000, which means there are only 18 straight guys in the whole of ATL! Sigh! You are frustrated, pissed off, angry, hurt, and most of all horny right? I got you I got you, this was not an attack on me, it was combination of PMS and being a damn near virgin. YASAZENAL! I am sorry boo boo, if you were nicer to me, I could have flown you to DC with my Brown Condor jet boo boo and gave you a sample of King Kong Fikre’s banana…instead you just defriended me eko:: I bet you this gets back to you in about 30 minutes, when it does, you can email me at info@browncondor.com eshi? Peace::
PS check out Genese, she is cute, has a big forehead just like Habesha setoch, gen unlike Habesha setoch, Genese’s tutos are betam tiny, I mean they are not Titis you got there sis, they are more like wiwis, you arch your back and yet in still all i see are small bumps the size of kolo eko:: MTS
[click to send Genese a FB Friend request or email her at geneseluciana@gmail.
When you contact her, let her know that Brown Condoriye, aka Teddy, aka Teddisho said hi boo boo:: Ummmm I said I will give up King Kong tactics except when I am doing Habesha Mailbag eko, seriously read above if you don’t believe me eshi
back to the emails…
Q: Teddy I will make a deal with you, the only way you will meet me is if you sign a notarized contract that says you will never ever go King Kong on me with the penalty being that you sign over Brown Condor to me if you ever do. Do we have a deal? –Habesha Chic, Silver Spring, MD
BC: Wey gud! So let me get this straight, you want me to sign a prenup that will have me give you all I own if I don’t do as you say, you give me a headache all the time, you tried to get all my friends to defriend me on Facebook, and on top of it all, you never have sex with me. What the Lebdeh! You are my mist, you are my wife?? Holly shit, now it makes sense why once a month you flip out completely on me and went as far as to get Brian Moran to defriend me (I have a funny feeling that he will regret that decision when he decides to run for statewide office in 2014 and he has to meet the wrath of me). Gen back to you yene mist, wow wow, now you know why I say that marriage is bullshit most of the time, you and I are married and you have yet to give me your ems anche leba tibs. Damn, I wish I was married to anonymous from NY, at least then she would give me some ems tibs (wow really nigga ems tibs smh) even if she won’t give me some Qit Qita (really Qit Qita smh twice). You yene mist, you won’t give me ems tibs nor Qit Qita, and you wonder why I am over here eating some Raman noodles, sigh, I feel like Mimi from Silver Spring : (
Q: You dropped ze gursha before it go in my mouz! –Habesha Mazer aka @habeshamazer from twitter, somewhere in zese United States
BC: Ere gud! Are you talking about z gursha I am talking about? “before it go in my mouth” wow…ende, so did you have to blast me on twitter…errrr I know I came a little early eko:: But come on sister, ende menew endeze blast taderginyalesh eko? And and gize eko gursha setbeye ende su now, ahun for example, wonder dabo sebela, kibe yemetal before wonder dabo sebele, endesu sehon, I just wipe it up with injera and feed myself. Ere berche ena stop tweeting about me eshi::
Q: Teddisho, what do you think Teatro is going to be like for Kady’s birthday party? –Neb Foto, Washington, DC
BC: Nebicho, really son you are asking me this question. Why not ask me next how I think Hallie Barry looks like, how the megeb at Bati Restaurant is, or whether or not I think that Mahmoud Amhed is METO GENA DOPE! Seriously the answer is self-explanatory eko:: Teatro tonight will be bananas, forget my King Kong or MOSSAD tactics, tonight I will be on Teatro tactic and I will be the biggest player on the Teatro stage—errrr scratch that—Kady will be the biggest player on Teatro stage and I just hope to get next to her for one brief moment so that God could bless me with her aura and her beauty and bless my soul with her infectious smile and make me put down my King Kong tactics for good as a result of the sunshine that is Kady.
Kady sweetheart, happy birthday and melkam lidet, once you told me that Bee Taye is your cousin I realized at that moment why you are the way you are. The whole family from Bee Taye, Sharon, you and your sister is a blessing, y’all might as well change your last name to Tsebel because I swear you are cleanse away the ugliness of the world with your collective smiles. Oh also, when you get there, look out for Neb Foto, he is the one outside with the headphones on, a real kind soul, I swear he is the nicest promoter in DC—I mean nice as in a kind soul and nice as in that nigga is nice with it, the DOPEST promoter since Jesus promoted being nice to your neighbor. Trust me; Neb and Kady are neighbors you want. Time for a shameless plug, I am the second nicest promoter in DC—by that I mean nice as in nice with it, however I am working on being “nice” as in cleansing my soul from anger at folks who are not nice with me….work in progress!
So sewoch, beteseboch, family and friends—everyone—come out tonight to Teatro 1909 K St NW on the corner of 19th and K St and get ready to be blessed with Kady’s aura, Neb’s spirit, and Brown Condor’s humor
By the way, ask for Neb or tweet him on twitter @nebfoto and I am sure he will take care of you like a nice neighbor he is. If you so feel inclined, tweet me @browncondor and I will try to take care of you too, maybe give you a gursha of my DOPE Raman noodle laced with mitmita and awaze:: Dena deru and see you at Teatro eshi! Peace
Q: I have an idea! I am thinking of an invention, what do you think of this? I am thinking of inventing a work out machine that focuses on the calf muscles, basically you step on it and Guraginya musika comes on and you are forced to jump up and down 2,000 times while a Guragaye guy stands behind you with a big dula! I am going to call it Guragaye Step Machine. What do you think Brown Condoriye? –Kady, Washington DC
BC: Oh oh, we are getting close
Q: Hey Teddy, I want my $100 son, I am a DOPE poet and more than that, I have 1,500 followers on twitter and thousands more on Facebook. I am the Art commissioner in Alexandria. I can get you black balled from any (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) ugggg sorry I have narcolepsy I keep falling asleep while typing. But like I was saying, I can get you black balled from any event in DC as I want. Just give me my (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) what was I saying? Oh right, I want my money you dirty promoter aka #Jankypromoters, just give me my (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) what, where am I, what was I saying, who are you, what is my name… (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) –Shelly Bell aka @iamshellybell on twitter, Alexandria, VA
BC: Getting even closer
Q: Ante fucking Woyane, I just ran out of my 10th bottle of Nivea, ebakeh wendem, eski Paypal me $20 so I can get 10 more, you talk about Hebret all the time, eski Hebret lene seten so I can go back to…ummmmm…massaging my arthritic penis. I promise if you give me $20, I will never call you Woyane, I can be bought easily eko, I am after all Woyane, and we are made to be bought. So what do you say, let’s bury the hatchet so that I can bury my dick in some Neiva and let me have a good time berase eshi wendem? –Nitro Ethiopians aka Ethiopianwiwi on FB, London (but really Dubia) Enland
BC: Yuppers! These sewoch are my readers eko::
If you liked this article, please post it on your wall and encourage others to send in questions. The Habesha Mailbag’s most vital component is the questions provided by the readers. As you see, my responses are better the longer and detailed the questions. I mean, don’t go writing a book, just make sure it is approximately a paragraph and it gives a good insight into the situation, and if you want, make sure you apply some humor to it eshi::
If you want to submit questions going forward, please send them to info@browncondor.com with subject header “Habesha Mailbag”. Do me a favor, tweet about this on twitter right now, tweet the link to this article and use #HabeshaMailbag and encourage others to read this joint. Who knows, maybe one day #HabeshaMailbag could be a trending topic—yeah I know I have an audacious mind. Also, make sure you post this on your Facebook wall—all about the Hebret. OK, time for a break, hope you enjoyed. Have a great weekend, catch you next week on Habesha Mailbag 9.0. Degmo tweet @habeshamazer and ask her how her arthritic uterus is going and tell her that @browncondor say alo and to unblock me if she wants me to stop joking on her
. Anyway, Esger Estelene sewoch!
FEATURE EVENTS
[click to RSVP to the second edition of Brown Condor Open Mic Poetry night...this time with a VERY Special VIP guest in attendance]
[click to party with beautiful Kady and League of Infinite Vision (LIV) Crew at Teatro, be a player on the Teatro stage tonight too eshi]
submit your name at the website above and party for FREE, nesa, minamin, nah what i mean man?
[Cake Cake Cake and its even your birthday Kady, now where is that candle at again?]
[now lets do this old school Addis Ababa Bole way Kady, Happy Birthday to ya! haaapy biiiirthday!]
AUTHOR
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This is my story of how I met my Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gay and Etta James all wrapped in one entity. This person I am referring to is the King of Ethiopian musika, a person who is so iconic that he has stood the test of time while others have come and gone. This man is a legend in his own time, a giant who dwarfs every aspect of Ethiopian culture even while displaying such humility that it is hard to decipher who is the fan and who is the star whenever you see this man talking to his fan base. This man I am referring to is of course none other than Mahmoud Ahmed himself. There is no man so worthy of accolades and awards—a man befitting of a King—who nonetheless acts like a common person. Whenever I am at my most bitter moments, whenever I inveigh at the indifference of our people, it is Mahmoud Ahmed I turn to and realize that life is too short to be worried about nettlesome things and instead learn to embrace the common light of hope that resides in all of us.
OK, now that I have gotten the disclaimer out of the way, let me refocus my attention on Mahmoud Ahmed—the man who to this day takes me back to Bole. I won’t bore you with the details of how much I love listening to him, let’s just say that not a week passes that I don’t listen to Mahmoud and Kuku at least 20 times as I have literally burned out various CDs from playing it over and over again. There is something about Ethiopian musika—especially that of Mahmoud, Kuku, Tilahun, Muluken, and Teddy Afro—that is timeless and endless. I am shocked when I find an R&B or Hip Hop record where I could let it ride without skipping and instantly label it—with much fanfare and hype—as an instant classic. In Ethiopia though, this is hard to hype our musika, most of our songs and records are instant and endless classics.
Damn that was swift, I just got dissed and dismissed by Mahmoud, I think he just said something very dismissive. My heart shot out with an AK47 and bled dry by indifference, I was ready to walk out as if I just got attacked by a drone from a Mossad agent. But wait, hold on Teddisho, I had to tell myself. I put on my thinking cap to translate Mahmoud’s Amharic to my English. Let’s see, “Yene Geta” means “my lord” and “quch bel kanaga” means “sit down with us”.
It was at that time I reverted back from an Obama soldier to a Mahmoud fan and I asked him to sign a picture and a book for me. He said “yene geta, yetefelgew neger esetehalew”. This must be a dream, I mean could you imagine Whitney or Michael Jackson saying this to a regular fan off the street? At that permission, I raced to my car and raced even harder to my house to print out a color photo of Mahmoud from Google image and raced back over thinking he had left. But to my surprise, Mahmoud—a man of his words—sat there waiting for me to return. He autographed my printed out photo and even more, kissed my hand and said I was a good man. A King kissing the hand of a layman, hey man, not even the DOPEST fiction writer in the world could conjure up a plot twist like this. This plot twist had me twisted meto gena over and over again, I could not wrap my head around that Mahmoud—our King—displayed such affinity and affection for his biggest fan and left me thinking for the moment that it was I that was the star and he the fan. I was on some twilight zone tip and yet there he was sitting and talking to me to let me know that his kindness was not some fantasy or chimera—his authenticity was real and my shock and awe was even realer.
Thus I decided to send an email to the Nationals so I could get this crazy idea out of my head. That was that, I would have no more thoughts of this crazy plan, I sent the Nationals a detailed 10 page business proposal and thought for sure that it would find it’s way into the spam box. But, magically, in just two days, the Nationals marketing and community outreach presidents responded and wanted to meet me as soon as possible. The story from there gets crazier and crazier, but let’s just say what started off as a crazy idea became a concrete plan—maybe we should stop calling people “ibd” all the time and being judgmental because those “ibd” people could be the key to our collective fortune. The wheel is set in motion, all I have to do now is deliver.
As fate would have it, I run into Mahmoud once again—it’s like God, whenever I need a voice of tranquility, delivers Mahmoud to me over and endegena again. I did not want to ask Mahmoud to do something so momentous without giving him the courtesy of at least a dinner and a formal business setting, so I asked him if I could take him out to dinner to pitch him the idea. Sure enough he says yes and we venture over to Maeza Restaurant to talk business. Accompanied by a diamond named Almaz, Mahmoud meets me and my friend for dinner. I can’t explain to you how it felt to be breaking bread with a legend and sharing wine with a King and Queen. I am sure this is what the 12 disciples felt like during the last dinner—calm down, I am not comparing Mahmoud to Jesus nor am I comparing myself to the prophets. But, in all honesty, that is how I felt at that exact moment.
I was flipping through the various songs when all the sudden track 9 came on and he told me to stop. He said “the music they are using is my music” and instead of getting angry, he just turned it up and started to sing. I said that right, Mahmoud was singing in my car, I was having my own personal concert. Do you see the nexus, in Ethiopia I used to listen to Mahmoud with my dad as the driver. 27 years later, I replaced my father as the driver and there in the passenger seat—where I used to sit as a little boy—sat a King singing songs to me that my father used to sing along to.
Ethiopian Appreciation Day had many flaws, it broke my back financially and in the process I bled my two sisters and took their babies’ milk money in the process. But for me and my sisters—irrespective of the financial burden—it was a beautiful sight. Mahmoud ended up agreeing to sing for free; even though he had a wedding to sing at in Seattle that same weekend. He booked a later flight and opened up the show that he was headlining only to rush to National Airport (as God is my witness I will never call National Airport Reagan) and flew all night across the continent. But for a fleeting moment I saw Mahmoud where he belongs, singing at the multi-billion dollar Nationals Baseball Park instead of restaurants and conventional convention halls. Three hundred people came out to see a concert headlined by Mahmoud and took part in an event that was proclaimed as a holiday by Mayor Fenty and the DC Council. This event recognized Ethiopian-Americans and highlight Ethiopian culture to the greater community and in the process gave 300 people great music by the best of Ethiopian and American Artists, the best of Ethiopian food and even had moon bounce for our youngest audience.











