Flip it

Studio 83 dropped a Redirection issue and I took my time getting to it. Good thing I did, I feel I might have dropped every thing, fought with the wife, turned to a new chapter of my life after one last hug of our babies. Yeah man change is; a constant tinnitus buzz in your ear; that often times painful in some way necessity; the sun to the shadow of your frustrations; and it still just is. Oh and I haven’t even started reading the articles further then the pull quotes…

Weighing the life options for me is always a distressingly laborious task. Not for reasons you would assume, my life choices are abundant, my cup "raneth" over from the day I was born. Just picking one choice and liking it for is merits alone eludes me at every turn, there always seems to be one more nuance I can get out of the choices I make, and so I am never satisfied. I feel if I am to expand energy on a direction that I take it has got to give back and give back big. It has never been about money (well… until the first kid came) more about the sum total of what I intend to leave. That sum total is the stories I will tell my grand children… and maybe my own children if they have time for me. You see, my plan is to raise children that are independent. And you know… maybe I am taking it too far, by wishing for them to be so independent they could do a Mars mission and think nothing of the many years of isolation that it takes to get there and back. But also have no problem integrating when they do get back… so you know… take it as it is and make it work. My father went from the ox cart to the jet plane in one lifetime; there really isn’t a better story out there. But he never really gets to tell it… the choices he must have made. A world of lessons lives in those stories.

I look back on my life at any point in time and the one constant is the (excuse me) unchosen choices lying there for all the world like breadcrumbs. Maybe crumbs for our children to follow, bread crumbs for those I aspire to one day inspire, or just to remind me where not to return to. Its all the same, I shudder at what I feel must be the squandering my mom used to wag a finger about. I have been happy flipping it every now and again for no other reason but to see if taking a blind turn will lead me into a blind alley, it has yet to happen, there is always light at the end of my tunnel.

Yeah man, so flip (re)direction a la Studio 83… nice lynch pin, great time in my life as well. More choices have just come flooding in. And I again I am agonising. If its money, I am winning either way. Interesting stuff? Naturally. Interesting people? Obviously. Where to start, what to pick…


Pic Geraint Warlow

Jozi wet and mild

Here is one I prepared a little earlier... a late easter egg

Wet.

Easter 2010 in Jozi was overly moist in a way that only lazy dripping low flying clouds are capable of. It still wasn’t enough of a deterrent to visit the Golden Apple Maboneng. Rain really does give the city streets a warm clean smell (if the sun isn’t far behind the shower) or a melancholic grey tinge that sharpens the darkness lurking in each city’s concrete heart. Why does it even rain in cities, where seemingly the only thing that grows after the rain are the potholes? Digression…

What is African Art was the question de jour for no apparent reason. A two soul tag team went out to fraternise with the galleries strung along 6th and 7th like the most random set of hos in some arty/bourgeois red light district. Oddly many of these hos had taken the day off. I didn’t mind, but took it personally that Gallery Momo took the day off as well. It was a small comfort to read the novel “no parking” sign in the car park through the bars running along the front of the gallery’s property; “Parking only for Mercedes” or something to that effect. It was a nice touch of the playfulness I suspect can be found within the gallery, something I am sure to find out at some later date. The other message which I definitely got due to the upwardly mobile areas the Momo ho was situated in was that yes, actually if you can whip a merc come park here, and you damn well better be able to afford the wares. Why not, weed out the art freebasers like myself that just get high off the product (especially for free) and sometimes even forget to say thank you as we stagger out into the real world, high off of next level views.

So the galleries were mainly closed, David Krut’s book sellers were open, worth a brows, especially if the disposable cash is really handy, three doors down (or was it up) was some hubris on display, attached to two communists (Trotsky & Che, great name for an intellectual cafe dive thing, no?) a mirror, photography and some sort of smoky filter… best thing about the place was the sign at he door “Open” (Animals and small people allowed) I was the animal my co-soul a small person. Ha, ha, we should have turned back right there. Entirely forgettable. Then horror of horrors Goodman had also capitulated to religious/commercial holidays, no need to hate any further. JAG to the rescue, but Zoo Lake intervened in between.

Art was strewn around the Zoo Lake lawn in semi organised lines. Well, the term art is rather loosely thrown in to this piece out of politeness... first impressions and all. One was that the white art (landscapes, Cape Dutch rustic homes, Winelands vistas) were all so well famed (not the wood restraining the image) but the actual painting its self. Is the white view of South Africa so compact, so neat, so nicely walled in? It was enough to bring on a rant, one not heard by the purveyors of the framed wall paper. But you know one man’s art is another man’s god knows what. So honestly, let’s call it art as well, accessible art, the sort of art that is content to perpetuate your stereo types, give your insecurities a clean comfortable pillow to rest on. In short, the Zoo Lake art is accessible. Actually I can live with that, as long as it’s in the homes of my least favourite people and 3 star hotels trying at respectability.

And so JAG, barren as hell JAG. So barren there was a scrawl on some of the bare white walls. Apparently it was a discussion on whether the scribbles were art. Yawn, move on. George Mahashe perked it up a touch. A touch. Photography is always beautiful however the setting maybe robbed the exhibition of impact. It wasn’t an experience if the Kwa Leboa ambiance was so contained; it was a goldfish bowl of Mahashe’s life. Frankly I so longed to be there in the moment, and not take a glimpse, maybe I just think that the thousand words spoken by Mahashe’s photography needed a context, and it wasn’t to be found on the barren white walls of JAG.

An ante room was filled with every day objects that Africans used… they had now donned the mantle of art. Eh? I guess if you are an archaeologist in the future looking back at say Twitter, you could find a reason to call it art. Why not? The headrests of a range of Southern African peoples qualified. The attire of a sangoma, walking sticks and even hair combs all were now boxed as art. JAG what are you saying about these anthropological, social, and actually functional implements, tools and objects? Given enough time for change to happen and the use of an object to become obsolete… we can now have art? It is human to beautify, and so a simple headrest can be made more pleasing to the eye, but the previous owners didn’t use the headrest on special occasions just because it was better carved then they aware a decade before. Now several decades down the line…. Art happened to the headrest. W-O-W.

Shabba Kgotlaetso gets a shout out for revealing himself fully. That shutter bug isn’t interested in manufactured beauty, life head on is more his forte. He made beautiful along with all the other contributors to the WORKSHOP NAME series of images. Over all the predominance of photography, rather drained the senses, and the range was too focused on documentary imagery. You know the fact of life presented as is. I tend to do galleries to get an idea of how life could be, I already know how life is. Nandipah Mntambo is a gorgeous woman always, sometimes a mind blowing artist as well, and those hands, get out! (NEWS FLASH! This is an utter gush, deal with it.) The one image of hers dancing with an imaginary bull in full matador regalia is a moment in time… it made me wish I was the bull. The lack of dust; the intense focus; the flare of her nostrils; and actually her powerful thighs in the tight matador attire…. all the wrong conclusions drawn together to frame a perfect moment in time. Made my damn day, wish I had seen it last not as I entered JAG.

Ghandi Square is the most. A real ordeal for the senses, ordeal in that it was all so beautiful and unexpected so right yet so wrong more so after a day of disappointments jostling with pleasant surprises. One street away a building demolished out of a long row of tall buildings looking like a missing tooth. Late afternoon sun, caressing the buildings sheltering the square one last time before it dipped, painted an urban romantic tapestry. The constant busses (albeit murmuring under Easter’s calm) and foot traffic, Ko Spotong blaring its existence to the entire square, simple, loud, unapologetic, nice. Yeah ne…

Mild.

Hey, Shout out to Flo for making it all possible.

Its a Celebration Bitchez!

The perfect war cry to the perfect debauchery. The somewhat callous line was allegedly said by Rick James as portrayed by Dave Chappelle in one of his comedy skits where he dramatizes Charlie Murphy's embellished recollections of living in the shadow of his brother Eddie "Mr-Fuck-you-man" Murphy. Rick James lived for a little bit longer and we enjoyed him all the more for it because of Dave Chappelle’s all the way across the line hilarious skits.

Now its Lolly Jackson's turn; although his success and triumphs may be considered a tad sleazy the man did drive a Lambo and had the speeding tickets to prove it. Unfortunately his high profile life came to a violent end, the reasons are as yet unclear… however a large cross section of society commemorated the passing of his life… ok, the more giggle worthy bits. The celebration, if you will, of Lolly Jackson was carried out in an increasingly common way, by lampooning the still steaming corpse online. With a name like Lolly, or a surname like Jackson and a profession like owning Teazers, it was a match made in comedy heaven.

Almost any murder is just too much, even though in this case with the reported facts it was probably a logical conclusion to Lolly’s larger than… err life... well, life. Apparently 15 bullets fired into the victim, and a rather humble choice of getaway car from the victim’s extensive collection, followed by a call to confess to the murder (or claim the resultant notoriety, Gianni Versace anyone?) Who could blame the Twitteratti, it was news, it was fresh, it was hashtag worthy and actually it had to be dealt with somehow.

Yes the man was a father, husband and successful business man, allegedly with philanthropic intentions as well which went beyond finding a warm place for women to dance half naked for money. Now that the masses have masticated the topic enough for one night’s entertainment and strange dreams; cooler heads now have a few hours to compose the rest of the hard cold facts for a sober start to the day tomorrow.

It probably doesn’t look good for South Africa in a minor way (which will please the lazy swine who waited for the absolute last minute to get tickets for the World Cup 2010 due to a few more tickets which will probably become available due to this latest brouhaha) however Lolly wasn’t the only person to go down in a violent way today, lets not forget that.

It is a reminder of what lies out there just beyond our computer screens and the information superhighway, and an unfortunate but very relevant high profile reminder to people elected to prevent these sorts of situations that they still have a lot of work to do. So maybe Lolly’s last lapdance for 15 pieces of lead wasn’t in vain.

Music Is

During one pointless summer back in 2003 music stopped being about the moment and started being about the history it made. With the sick ass peeps dragged in from all corners of the globe by Redbull I was experiencing something new musically every single waking hour for better than 6 weeks. Obviously I couldn't cope even though I was pissing Redbull at one point in the wakeful madness. The whole period is one warm glow in my musical memories, nothing too specific... but...

Snippets:-


While in Marvel Street Bar I saw a hot hot Italian woman, turned out to be a one time producer for that now old skool fashion & style show on MTV, Stylissimo (remember that?) It was surreal watching this glamed out gal get down on ALL FOURS at Marvel during a killer moment in an already killer set. Out of nowhere an old bali tried to mount her right there on the floor... then the music switched and everyone regained sanity. I almost tripped over my bottom jaw as I turned to see who was doing this to the peeps on the floor. P Nice... he didn't even crack a smile.


Quote "...It's... it's... it's like he raped his mother or something..." Brandon trying to describe the patently unique way that Markus Wormstorm creates his music.

Upstairs at The Lounge there was a sliver of dance floor, back then anyway, I have no idea what it looks like now... but that doesn't matter. So I overhear some one, who obviously was responsible for the sound there, tell the DJ not to turn up the bass too much. So the DJ nods in response, first track on and the damn floor is vibrating to some murderous drum n bass. The DJ, J Da Flex, obviously doesn't take too kindly to being told what to do when he gets on them decks. Nothing blew that night but it was a scary nice feeling dancing on that floor and feeling it sag rhythmically. Or on numerous occasions feeling my skin vibrating with the bass bin.

Quote "This one if for my grand mother!" Torsten getting me and about three other people to do gangster poses for pictures in the toilets.

I walk in from my bedroom at 6AM to find about seven people gathered around our battered coffee table. These two European journalists suddenly threw down a gang of drugs and proceeded to babble on about how they were shocked at their own greed "because it was sooo cheap!" Cape Town DJ's and artists don't let that shit slide. By the time the Table Mountain cable car opened for its first run up the mountain, the contraband had see flames and peeps were lined up to take in the sights... minus the journalists who allegedly gave up after buying everyone a ticket up the mountain. I went back to my bed, ba peka makgoa.


Quote "..." (utter silence) when I suddenly switched to Swedish in the middle of an interview with Erlend Øye in a glorified spaza shop across the street from Sutra during a live broadcast on Spectrum 91.3 (the Redbull temporary radio station). Dude stepped out into the street and back into the club shaking his head in disbelief thus ending the interview. (Swedish & Norwegian have enough similarities for them to be understandable to both nations)




Quote "... ya know they just ain't gettin it bruv, ya naa meeen?" Tim Westwood whispering aside to me about the confused reacton he got when he played a clip of him in a huge SUV and some party scenes from some random club night in the UK somewhere.


All pics www.redbullmusciacademy.com

Its bigger than... a crush

Minding my own damn business like I do (well... as much as Twitter will allow me to) I came up on (and I love that niggerish phraseology) THIS, I got to say it was with much appreciation that I went through it. A reason to look into the culture of other countries again... OK, Western countries to be more specific. To me the Afripop mag blog update was "The World According to 30 Zimbabweans" Nice, tight, and it made some damn sense. For once it wasn't some peeps bitching about a personified political reality, nor was it some other country gleefully reasserting the "third worldness" of Zimbabwe. Nah man these were world class players doing their damn thing on stages of all kinds in all kinds a places. Aite so Afripop is more about the arts then, say, straight politics, so there wasnt a politician amongst the artists. All the better! At least with really great artists (and I suspect the 30 up on that list fit the bill) you can trust that they don't lie to themselves.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a high school crush up on there, Chipo Chung, daughter of the then Minister of Education of Zimbabwe (Fay Chung) when I was doing hard time at a private boys school over there. My father felt that I needed "toughening up"... I am still wondering what that meant.. err so yeah, anyway... obviously this girl with the Asian persuasion so to speak was different from all the other girls we would get a glimpse of for whatever reason, be it a debate meet at school dance or some rugby meet somewhere. All the boys schools had sister schools that would cheer for them and visa versa; more importantly to stock the school dances with more desirable flesh. Honestly I can't recall ever saying anything intelligent to Chipo, but I do recall a group (can't we call a band of prepubescent boys a "grope" cause that's all that is on their minds 24-7) of us always trying to get a glimpse of this one girl, there were others but hey, you can beat her whole thang.

If only we could have recognised so many things back then... Like the fact that Chipo's mother, Fay, was a no nonsense woman from what I recall, so obviously the daughter was the confident sort, never mind the fact that boys are quite literally pussies at that age. I never saw any negative evidence of it on Chipo, but I know from my boarding school experience being different could be a back handed curse if not an open handed blessing... something that varied from year to year. Girlfriend was just 'aite from where we were crouching. So ya you know if we had recognised a gang of things in the hormone haze of those days... I would be typing a different sort of reminiscence about a girl I didn't ultimately know, and had actually forgot about until today when I discover that she is making a difference much like her other did (and still does) in her day.

Big up Afripop from dredging up a rather pleasant memory in its innocence, big up Chipo not so much for being one of my many frivolous crushes, more for inadvertently making that list "personal" for me and big up life you twisty mofo. I love living this thing.

The Hof (pronounced oaf)

“All culture is dynamic and all human cultures are creative. If all cultures are creative then they are all equivalent - there is no objective, empirical way to measure creativity. How can one culture be superior or better if they are all invention; they're just different that's all.” - The Smiling Lion

This little excerpt from a rather deep (and much longer) lesson about race and colour and all things related is about all I can put out. Long story. Anyway this is all the response I need for some random letter that this false priest of Afrikaners anywhere, Steve Hofmeyr, penned a few weeks ago.

I failed to understand how this guy would sink lower past Malema’s level in direct response to Malema’s entertaining (and yes at times disturbing)points of view. Then Chris Baron from Sunday Times gave this Hofensive Afrikaner an opportunity to make an even greater mockery of himself and boy did The Hof (pronounced ‘oaf’; silent H dontchaknow) go for it.

There is a nice bit of Afrikaans poetry for The Hof; Voetsek jou moer!

Since that is officially off my chest I can move on... faster.

Procrastinistian

Procrastination is a true religion, one with minimal effort on the believer's part... probably why it is so popular.

Believe that! We are still not learning our lessons and yet we are still underachieving to a spectacular level, it fascinates us. And no put away the self help note book, no lessons are gona be taught in this missive. We just wanna show off today...

So Lique is the sweet part of Mirangelique, and Mirangelique is taking shape... All legal, registered with the Tax Man, Company Registration, now working on registering with a market. Not to worry, Mirangelique will do a striptease sometime soon just so you know what its all about.

We got some preliminary logo designs the other day (yes drool, we did) and we have to say Miss Lepang Ferguson is MURDERIN it. It just wouldn't be fair not to show you what we're talking about... we'll let your eyes bleed a little over this.

OK, we're done with showing off, next destination Gettin' Mine. Whoop! Whoop!