A comment to this post:

I got a text message from my 14 year old son the other day- he was at the 55th anniversary party at the Dick’s restaurant on lower Queen Anne.

It said
” this beatles cover band is worthy of mudede. The fake british accents are agonizing”

Congratulations, Charles- your “taste” has made it into youth culture slang- although I am not sure its in quite the way you thought it should…

A shock! How does his son know I have a British accent? Can he tell this from the way I write? I actually have done everything in my power to eliminate anything in my English that’s not standard, bland, flat. The curse I want to break? What ever accent I speak in is fake. In Zimbabwe, I speak a fake American accent; in America, I speak a fake British accent.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

29 replies on “Fake!”

  2. I don’t know the difference between a South African (nationally, not geographically) accent and a Zimbabwe accent, or if the latter is synonymous with a British accent, but I do know that a South African accent and a British accent are different. What’d you do with whatever accent is tied to Zimbabwe?

    (I ask this without knowing where you grew up.)

  4. I didn’t take the teen’s message to mean that the guys in the cover band had accents as bad as Mudede’s.

    I took it to mean that the boy regarded this as one of those things that Mudede would write about in a Slog post.

  6. That was my son- and he was not referring to YOUR accent, but rather your taste in music.

    He read your recent comments on Tupac and Biggie, and just shook his head. He said, “I dont even know where to start….”

    So a “worthy of Mudede” in his slang, means clueless when it comes to music, it is not in any way a comment on your accent or lack of one.

    I will tell him of your concern, though.

  8. biggit and tubesoc would be as valid as p dippy were they still sucking the air to this day…

    or perhaps coolio

    i imagine charles has a voice like Dambudzo Marechera… that is: from hell … and to hell with all of you.

  11. Ironic, considering that you have no business talking about anything. Especially anything music-related. Oh, I forgot, you have your own LIBRARY? Well, you must be smart then. Go kill yourself, you fat fuck!

  14. People, people, people! Where are your manners and what on earth has gotten so under your skin that you feel the need to post your vitriol all over slog. None of the rest of us want to know what ugly and base people you are. Hush!

  20. Charles,
    As it happens, I have a similar sort of problem. The tendency of other people to react with a slightly indignant “Gotcha!” when they think they’ve detected some hint of artifice in my mode of speech is extremely irritating. You have my sympathies.

  21. Dick’s drive-in hamburgers and fries are so good I actually converted a vegan back to her senses for at least one meal a couple of years ago. BTW I am a sucker for British accents.

  23. Now that my brother lives in Germany full-time, whenever he visits he gets a lot of “Where are you from?”s about his apparent accent.

  24. It is absolutely fitting and hilarious that Charles, who believes he has such a monopoly over insight into ideas, does not understand the kid’s comparison and believes it is to his audial accent instead of his writing.

    Charles, you are truly the definition of ego & fool wrapped in one.

  26. @9, @24: It was a text message, and as such it is not entirely clear what was meant by ‘worthy.’ This post is completely normal for a Mudede post — an event in the world, and his (somewhat) whimsical response. I enjoy them, even if I don’t usually ascribe deep meaning to them. It’s a blog, what do you want?

    @14: exactly.

  27. Charles, HINT: This is where you say “Oooops, my bad! Sorry I didn’t ask for more info!” or some such thing so that in the future you don’t jump to some wierd ending……

    You don’t want people thinking you just talk on and on without thinking or researching things, do you?

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