Jou mas se Kaapstad

Dropping into Cape Town has always been emotional for me, even the first time I ever went there with a bus load of strangers. We were confronted by a drug sniffing police dog at a rest stop in one of the mountain passes about an hour out of Cape Town. Where we come from we have never used dogs against people (unless the person jumped over your fence when we were sleeping at night) so it was quite a rude awakening to have an animal be a potential accuser. Where we come from, an animal has never accused a human being... it’s always the other way around. Welcome to Cape Town.

Be that as it may that MILF, Cape Town, had taken my nesting virginity soon after I got there, this was the city where I had first decided to break my nomadic tendencies; got my first creative job; worked for the first time in a service industry; experienced institutionalised racism where people where so unaware you’d think they considered it their privilege; fought the system in a long sustained war...and lost; almost met my wife; fell in love again and again... and again.

The good the bad and the fuckin’ ugly all visited me in Cape Town in equal amounts. I lived to tell the tale, not totally unscathed even though I smiled through most of it. Boy did I pay, if trading in all the notebooks documenting your life and next generation ideas count as payment. A huge blue trunk with my sister’s name is lurking around that city somewhere, in it there used to be books from my grandfather’s study, books from different parts of the world that had made the journey with me to the Motherless City, film negatives spanning my life until I was 12 or 13 years old... I could go on, however I’d rather not since I am trying to feel like it wasn’t too big a price to pay.

But you know I got some change back from the Cape Town... so I really shouldn’t feel too badly about the difference. What was the change...? That’s about 60 rolls of undeveloped film documenting my life from when I was barely legal to when I was old enough to know better. Who knows what has survived the decade long storage, it will be interesting to find out. That was the coins, as for the notes... I got to keep friendships that have survived the distance, the different paths our lives have taken... and now, new friendships as well. One in particular stands out, something began in cyber space and finally “consummated” in Cape Town with a physical meeting after a year or so.

One more fantastic bit of priceless is just the old Cape ways, they don’t seem to have left after all despite the flashy new buildings. The community spirit which just wells up and sprouts selflessness, or botho in the Tswana way not the oft dissected but never quite defined ubuntu. I spent time with Maria Podesta just doing “manly things” like setting up her trestle table and randomly filling her vintage clothes on her rack for the You Me & Everyone We Know night market. It turned out to be a good thing too since she hooked me up with a Babatunde trilby, something I had always wanted since I saw it on Tiisetso’s blog yonks ago. There it was that thing that kept me in the Cape for all those years, something I wondered why a gang of people wanted to exploit in the most negative way possible. That feeling that you could actually work for fresh air because it felt good doing it and the fulfilment couldn’t quite be paid for in cash... though a Babatunde did the job quite nicely thank you.

One last one

Incident. Some health nut was knocked over by a car when I turned the corner into Kloofnek. It seems the cyclist was belting down the hill at an amazing pace, and the inevitable happened. Some one turned into the road and its all history now. He survived, the cyclist I mean. He was writhing feebly on the road as I walked past. The faces were amazing, such still-lifes. At accidents its pointless looking at the centre of attraction, that is boring and all too real. Look at the different perspectives surrounding the mess, there you see it all.

Shock, obviously.

Relief, I often wonder why, is it because they don't know the person, or the person has survived, or it wasn't as bad as they hoped it was...?

Sadness, again obviously.

Glee, kids are just plain sick.

Anger, so futile in most cases and an inappropriate emotion. Accidents will happen, circumstance or our own stupidity, why get angry I wonder.

Stoicism, this one is the best. The know-it-alls, as if they have foreseen this exact thing. I got stopped by a shop owner wearing this one very well. He told me all about it, where he was when it happened, what he was doing and the time exactly. He even kindly pointed out the angry looking American customer who ran out of his shop to go see what was going on. He gave me a history of speeders down that stretch of road, and ejaculated an indignant "Something must be done about this!" I made all the right noises bid him goodbye after a decent amount of time and shuffled off home.

That cyclist just might ride again, people are built a lot tougher then we suspect that and fact that the medical people took only seven minutes to get to him.

I do go on at times especially when I can't decided what it is I should be doing. Hope it made your day shorter, that way I will know I did something positive today.

Another Life and Times hit...

Pic from Zapapedia (click! you will like this)

A bit of this n that

I went back to my treasure trove of old emails. I keep saying I have lived as my standard comment when I see the sort of words I share with peeps. Maricon! I love my life... what I have lived of it anyway; I wonder where its gona take us next... me, myself and I and everyone that knows us.

Here is a goodie... "I really do miss you, the slight of logic you used to pull on me in our conversations. OK maybe it was me missing the point intetionaly so I could listen to you talk some more... I could have been in love with the sight of your voice moving your lips over those words..."
Taken from 'World Famous Fitch' (Feb-20-03)

How about this one... "Don't you miss the hand writing of someone you know? I think of it as another side to someone I know... there is something exciting about words tumbling along a page, sometimes flowing, sometimes sprawling, but always moving. I was a great letter writer once, then people found out and demand became overwhelming... or I became lazy... I forget which."
Taken from 'This is Turkey' (Feb-20-03)

Ooooh... "Attention. There is one thing in life I am never too cheap to pay, and that is attention. I am generous with the quality. I lavish it for no reason on the most mundane or captivating of things and people. Oh I sometimes use it as a form of restraint on babies and like minded people. It works like a charm and costs me nothing."
Taken from the 'Space and Time" folder (Jul-15-04)

Filthy moment, only the best kind... "A bedside lamp between your legs, a frantic search for an elusive thread... stuff of legends. There must be more amusing anecdotes like this. Extraordinary things happening to ordinary people... if we bend it a little... extraordinary people happening to ordinary things. I like that better."
Taken from the 'Space and Time" folder (Jul-15-04)

Thankfully there is tons where that came from. Another time...

Pic by C

What I know

Right... one of those rare updates, and this one is worth it even if it is just to roast a few old friends and some new friends. The idea was to throw it up in the mag I used to edit, however... long story with no moral or good intentions so lets let that sleeping dog stay coma. It may even go a step further actually, hope y'all don't mind and I am posting faces and names... but the point of the exercise is to highlight how brand Botswana is doing amongst my contemporaries. Unfortunately I missed going to eKasi and I am sure it would have been an eye opener on many levels. And so with less ado I give you... The 1 thing I know about Botswana by some young creatives in Jozi.















VUYO - independent publishing professional
I don’t know much about Botswana I am very curious about it, but I have to admit to being semi-ignorant of it and its history. I know a fair amount about Botswana. One of the first things I learnt about Botswana is that the Pula is worth more than the Rand.


LERATO - writer
Its god damn hot! There is a lot of sand, and there is no suburbs or hoods its all one thing... like a residential area.












VANESSA - advertising account executive
AIDS! My mother warned me,” Yoh ko Botswana o be careful ngwanaka, o be careful. O useh Choice! E seng ye perpole o dirise ya ko cliniking.” Other than that I have been reading books about it, its a huge expansive landscape.




GLADWYN - designer
Nothing! I know there are animals there and the desert. I know there is Gaborone. What I know about it is that there is no hoods and everything is like in the middle you know...?









SEBATHA – student bcom law
Botswana has the death penalty, interesting enough I also know that... I am not sure if its a rumour, but they throw you off a cliff. Tswanas don’t mess around hey, they don’t waste time or resources like that, they do it the effective way, they chuck you off a cliff. And I know the currency is pretty good... that’s what I know about Botswana.

ONTHATILE - photographer
I know that Botswana is safe, you don’t need burglar proofs and what not. So I heard you can leave your doors totally unlocked.


KABOMO - poet
I have done three festivals in Botswana, and not to dis my country, when you say poet poems to Botswana people you feel like they care about the work. In Joburg, sometimes you feel like they care about the hype around the coolness of poetry like, “O Kabomo is on stage, look how he is dressed, look how he is raising his hand.” So afterward people talk about everything else except the content. And every time I have come to Botswana the conversations I have with Botswana people after I perform its always questions about the content. "So you said this what inspired it; What were you thinking...?" And for me as a writer that’s the most beautiful thing ever so I love reading my poems to Botswana people. I guess that’s the one thing I love about it.

Yeah we love it too... don't we. Keep a sharp ear out for a special Podtape featuring sound bites from this snapterview. *hides

Bite me

True Love. This is an odd little story written by Anastina Goransdotter Lindal (now Zack). It is so natural to me I fell for it the minute I started reading it. I finally adapted it years later and have shot it, but never finished editing it. I showed a rough cut and that was it.

Sliding into second gear... the story is about a man and woman who seem to know each other and should by all means have a thing for each other but don't seem to know how to progress... and well they do end up falling for each other, but that first kiss is something so different my jaw dropped and my heart was in my throat. He bit her arm and took out a chunk of flesh and she completely understood it to be an unmistakable sign of his true feelings for her.

That my friend is the shit right there.. what is a motherfucking kiss anyway? It looks good in French films and bad in porn films, it is the first of our many mis-communications between or among the sexes that lead to the battle of... It is a form of greeting in many cultures, it is the approved signature for love and infidelity alike, it is the gateway for a million and ten different bad sexual encounters, it is the modern day Tower of Babel. What the fuck is in a kiss to signal the start of a relationship? Fuck all.

Imagine the day, the day you have to kiss the bank teller in order to get money out, and they say, "Uh-uh, you are not Lerato, who are you?" It will never happen, so what is in a kiss I ask you? I would take a bite over a kiss any day, deep, painful and bloody. Then I would fully understand the commitment I was making, and if I ever perchance "forgot", the beautiful and unique scar will always be there to remind me, even after death do us part. And so it goes...

Email excerpt - July 30 2004

Pic - Body art by dSetia

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.