July 6, 2001
Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada12:27pm.
I get a lot of junk mail-- which is annoying because it wastes my time. Normally, I can see what it is at first glance, but this one with the suject entitled, "CONFIDENTIAL", was the most unique yet and had me reading til the end.
DEAR SIR,
I WISH TO INTRODUCE MYSELF TO YOU. I AM COL. IBRAHIM MUSTAPHA (RTD), ELDER BROTHER TO MAJOR HAMZA AL MUSTAPHA WHO WAS THE FORMER CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER TO THE MILITARY DICTATOR OF NIGERIA, GENERAL SANI ABACHA. THE LATE GENERAL SANI ABACHA DIED UNEXPECTEDLY ON THE 8TH OF JUNE 1998. HIS COLLEAGUES IN THE ARMY POISONED HIM IN THE PRESIDENTIAL VILLA (ASO ROCK) BECAUSE HE RULED NIGERIA WITH AN IRON HAND.
WITH THE DEATH OF THE DICTATOR, ELECTIONS WERE HELD IN THE COUNTRY AND A CIVILIAN ADMINISTRATION WAS SWORN INTO POWER. WITH THE ADVENT OF THE NEW CIVILIAN ADMINISTRATION, A DECISION WAS TAKEN BY THE PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA TO PROBE AND PROSECUTE ALL MILITARY OFFICERS THAT SERVED IN THE LAST MILITARY REGIME OF THE LATE GENERAL SANI ABACHA. MY BROTHER, MAJOR HAMZA AL MUSTAPHA WAS SINGLED OUT BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE DAY AS AN ARMY OFFICER THAT MUST BE PUNISHED BECAUSE OF HIS CLOSENESS TO THE LATE DICTATOR AND GROSS HUMAN RIGHT ABUSES ON THE CITIZENS OF NIGERIA. MY BROTHER AND I WERE BEST OF FRIENDS AND HE SHARED ALL HIS SECRETS WITH ME.
THE FORMER CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER TO THE LATE HEAD OF STATE MAJOR HAMZA AL MUSTAPHA HAD PRIVATE ACCOUNTS THAT ARE WORTH HUNDREDS MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS AROUND THE WORLD. PRESENTLY HE HAS BEEN ARRESTED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE DAY AND IS PRESENTLY HELD IN PRISON ON TRUMPED UP CHARGES ON BEHALF OF THE STATE. I WAS DIRECTLY INFORMED BY MY CONTACTS AT THE PRESIDENTIAL VILLA, THAT HE WILL BE CONVICTED BECAUSE OF HIS POSITION AS THE FORMER CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER TO THE LATE DICTATOR.
SHORTLY BEFORE THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT ARRESTED MY BROTHER, HE ENTRUSTED TO ME THE SUM OF US$30.5M FOR SAFEKEEPING. THIS AMOUNT WAS TO BE SENT TO HIS MISTRESS IN LEBANON TO LAUNDER FOR HIM. I HAVE SINCE HAD THIS AMOUNT WITH ME STASHED AWAY A PRIVATE SECURITY COMPANY IN NIGERIA. I CANNOT SEND THIS MONEY TO MY BROTHER'S MISTRESS ANY MORE BECAUSE OF THE SITUATION OF THINGS OVER HERE. I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE IN MOVING AND SECURING THIS MONEY IN YOUR ACCOUNT ABROAD. I WILL ADEQUATELY COMPENSATE YOU WITH 20% OF THE TOTAL SUM FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE AND CO-OPERATION WITH ME TO MOVE THIS FUND OUT OF THE COUNTRY.
THE PRESENT ADMINISTRATION COLLECTIVELY RETIRED NINETY-TWO SERVING OFFICERS INCLUDING MYSELF A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO. THIS MONEY IS NOT SAFE WHERE IT IS KEPT ANY MORE BECAUSE THERE ARE INDICATIONS THAT ALL THE RETIRED OFFICERS MIGHT HAVE THEIR ESTATE CONFISCATED AS PART OF THE CURRENT SANITATION EXERCISE TO STOP CORRUPTION IN THE COUNTRY. ALREADY OUR VARIOUS PRIVATE BANK ACCOUNTS HAVE BEEN FROZEN PENDING THE OUTCOME OF THEIR INVESTIGATION AND WE ARE BEING CLOSELY MONITORED. I INTEND TO SAFEGUARD AND INVEST THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY ABROAD WITH A RELIABLE FOREIGN BUSINESS PARTNER SO THAT WE CAN INVEST THE FUNDS IN REAL ESTATE BUSINESS IN YOUR COUNTRY. THAT IS WHY I AM SOLICITING YOUR ASSISTANCE AND COOPERATION AS REGARDS THIS BUSINESS. ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN CONCLUDED WITH A SECURITY COMPANY THAT HAS FOREIGN OFFICE IN EUROPE TO RECEIVE THE MONEY IN CASH, DEPENDING ON WHERE IS CONVENIENT FOR YOU.
PLEASE INDICATE YOUR WILLINGNESS TO ASSIST ME BY SENDING TO ME THE FOLLOWING AS THE BENEFICIARY INFORMATION; BENEFICIARY'S NAME, ADDRESS AND YOUR PRIVATE PHONE AND FAX NUMBERS SO THAT I CAN CONTACT YOU AND COMMENCE THE TRANSACTION IN EARNEST.
I AM WAITING TO HEAR FROM YOU VERY SOON.
BEST REGARDS.
COL. IBRAHIM MUSTAPHA (RTD)
cm11@totalise.co.uk
Authors are powerful people. With only words, they shape their world.
Yesterday, was the first time I recall buying a newspaper. I was captivated by a large photo filling the entire top half of the National Post. The image shows an old man with a double chin were his neck should be, reading glasses perched on the tip of this nose, legs crossed sitting on a couch in his living room, with many books on shelves and one on his knee. The caption below said, "Mordecai Richler is shown on June 19 at his cottage by Lake Memphremagog in Quebec. The headline read: Richler was "one of the great last honest human beings". "Of all the people I knew he was the person who changed the least as a result of being successful," says one of his early editors.
An article reads, "Mr. Richler, a columnist for the National Post, was the author of Barney's Vision, which won the $25,000 Giller Prize in 1997, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, St. Urbain's Horseman and Solomon Gursky Was Here, among other novels." Richler, 70, died in the hospital of Cancer on Tuesday.
I had never heard of him before now. My younger brother, Toby, was assigned to read Duddy Kravitz last term in school, but I didn't know it was his book. When I asked him about it, he didn't have a lot to say. It is not about what interests him. I don't understand why teachers assign reading that students don't care to do. To fully appreciate anything, you really gotta want it.
Public school destroyed my desire to read and write. For example, I was told, "Read some books on Ancient Greece, then write a report." I had no experience on which to base my writing, so I couldn't expressing myself. I just plagiarized-- regurgitating facts. How boring?!! I didn't read a full book until the 11th grade, when I found something I wanted to read about-- a father and son's two year canoe trip. I started journal writing when I was twelve, but then in junior high and high school I didn't write at all, and I didn't start writing again until my kayak trip began.
I have just started reading George Orwell's classic novel 1984, which I found on the street in Seattle, in a box with sign that said, "free books-- take one." I carried it to San Francisco, then sent it home, because I was too busy living and writing my own story. I asked dad if he read it. He did, because he was assigned to do so in University, but didn't think much of the story, which he found depressing. Printed in 1950, many of the ideas George wrote about, like the "telescreen," that transmits and receives images like a television and camera in one, controlled by "Big Brother" for surveillance and brainwashing, was likely thought to be only fiction at the time, but is now reality. The back of the book says, "Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984 are great modern classics of "Negative Utopia"--not nightmares of what life might be... but nightmares of what it is becoming.
Yesterday, at the store, when I bought the paper, I was there with Christina, who had asked me to help her pick out a movie to write a report on for English class. Although Christina is an avid reader, and she writes everyday--sometimes to the wee morning hours, she failed English last term, and is now is taking a 17 day summer school course. Like me, she is self motivated, and says school is just "busy work". She isn't interested in grammar, Shakespeare or Poetry, so being in school is just a hassle. She said summer school fun. Her teacher is Mr. Ogden, who is rad, and that makes all the difference.
I am fascinated by how one person's life and art can influence others. I prefer stories that inspire greatness, so we rented Don Quixote, a film based on a novel by Miguel de Cervantes of Spain, "one of the world’s great works of literature"-- according to the World Book Encyclopedia in front of me, which also says:
Cervantes published the novel in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. Until the 1800's, Don Quixote was thought of as a humorous story of a madman's adventure. Then, it became a model for a new type of fiction with heroes who do not conform to their times.
The hero of Don Quixote is a Spanish landowner who enlivens his monotonous life be reading fictional tales about knights of old. Wishing to live like the knights, he takes the name Don Quixote of La Mancha, dresses in amor, and sets out to gain fame by performing heroic deeds. The hero attacks windmills he thinks are Giants and flocks of sheep he mistakes for armies. He chooses the peasant Santo to serve as his squire(Attendant). Small, round Santo riding his donkey contrasts with tall, thin Don Quixote on his scrawny horse Rocinante. Sancho stands for the real in life, Don Quixote for the ideal.
Although beaten and scorned, Don Quixote still believes in his heroic destiny. When part two of the novel begins, Quixote is enjoying his imagined fame. Then, he loses his faith in his destiny, but he becomes a prisoner of his imagined reputation and is forced to behave as if he really believed in himself as a hero. He finally gains his senses before he dies.
At one part in the story of Don Quixote, he is at a banquet table feasting with many wealthy and noble folk, sharing his grand visions. When a priestly clergyman across the table from him casts doubt on his heroic deeds, Don stood up and said something alone the lines of—"What do you live for?!! Just to eat and sleep?!! Where is your adventurous spirit?!!"
I was like… "Yeah… right on, brother! I hear ya!"My story is totally Don Quixote. I imagine myself as MAX and play out that role. I don’t pretend; it is called "Fake it ‘til you make it." I believe there is an action hero in me, then make the dream reality. Many of the projects I am working on involve a lot of people, so enabling them all to clearly see my vision is the biggest challenge. Why not build castles on clouds? Dreaming is free.
I am a performing artist. I do it for love. Doing something good makes me happy. This evening, my show is the featured entertainment at a party. When asked what I should be paid, I said, "whatever you feel is right." Putting a dollar value on what I do is difficult. All the money I make goes back into projects, gas or gear. I don’t spend much on anything else. Nearly all of my clothing is either given to me or purchased second hand. I rarely eat out or buy alcohol. I live at home, making most meals from scratch or left-overs. My folks loan me the mini van to get to shows, go climbing or whatever business I need to look after. To be fair, I often deliver parcels, wash dishes and service customers when mom is away. Next weekend, LL Bean is paying me $100US, plus food and lodging in exchange for two shows at the kayak symposium they are hosting in Castine Maine. Gas will almost eat the $100. More important is networking—spinning the web—casting the net. Show biz and education take patients and determination—but I don’t want to do anything else.
I’m on the edge of something big—like being too close to the screen at a drive-in movie—it’s like I’m part of the show; it’s happening all around me. Over the past year, I’ve been in some fun scenes, getting to know action heroes and rock stars. My intent is to direct and document movers and shakers. I’m still looking for characters to play key roles. Not until I understand the details, can I step back to see the full picture.
Just now, I got a call from my buddy Ron, currently cycling through Ontario on his way across Canada with a group promoting awareness for climate change. He’s an action hero ...and lovin’ it! He said, "Sometimes it just kicks in… and I got a big grin on my face… and I’m like… yeah!!!" Ron is also planning on going to Mexico with The FAR OUT School in October. Check out the Climate Change Caravan web site: http://www.mta.ca/climatechangecaravan/english.htm
Last summer, at a festival called Art On The Edge, I presented an exhibit—which was virtually setting up my bedroom outside, displaying all the stuff I’ve picked up along the way, then compiling it into a mobile. It was a great way to fly my freak flag to find new friends. That’s when I met Christina. She was working volunteer security. Also an action hero, she wears a costume with a huge head, that is hot, heavy and awkward, to entertain crowds during at Festival By The Sea. That day, Wes Jagoe also introduced himself to me, and gave me his CD. Wes is a genius musician, sculptor, and chess master. He’s a one man show—always entertaining, inspiring, and thoughtful.
A couple days ago, Wes invited me to his castle for a tuna and cheddar casserole, then he sat me down to listen to a song called Trust Yourself, on an obscure Dylan album from the 80’s, telling me, "You gotta read the words as he sings so you completely understand what he is saying; and I’m just going to sit here and watch you… cause I know you’ll freak out."
Trust yourself,
Trust yourself to do the things that only you know
best.
Trust yourself,
Trust yourself to do what's right and not be
second-guessed.
Don't trust me to show you beauty
When beauty may only turn to rust.
If you need somebody you can trust, trust yourself.
Trust yourself,
Trust yourself to know the way that will prove true
in the end.
Trust yourself,
Trust yourself to find the path where there is no if
and when.
Don't trust me to show you the truth
When the truth may only be ashes and dust.
If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself.
Well, you're on your own, you always were,
In a land of wolves and thieves.
Don't put your hope in ungodly man
Or be a slave to what somebody else believes.
Trust yourself
And you won't be disappointed when vain people let
you down.
Trust yourself
And look not for answers where no answers can be
found.
Don't trust me to show you love
When my love may be only lust.
If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself.
