The vuvuzela soundtrack

Is it a piece of plastic or a piece of culture?

Did it matter? Now it does. Now it is a piece of culture.

Week Night English Football has the soundtrack of chanting British Louts singing their famous songs en masse & with impressive unison. Filled with sexism and swearing and repetition.

Port Elizabeth cricket has the soundtrack of that brass band. People the world round now know the St. George’s pitch simply by hearing some pop tune being enthusiastically percussion’ed out during sports hour.

Weekend Rugby has the soundtrack of some family member swearing at the television. COMEOOOOON REF!!! WTF ARE YOU ON ABOUT!!!!!! ARGHRGHGAGHHHHH WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO CATCH!!!

Saturday afternoon South African soccer/football has always had the soundtrack of that plastic one-note horn, which characterises a curling kudu horn, being blared at supporters & opponents alike...

South African soccer noise… fun emotional chaos epitomised. The vuvuzela being chaotically blown, to a crowd gone wild, and the commentators gone wilder, particularly with their regular LADUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMAs!

[Man, how I wish they’d get the World Cup commentators to get into the LADUUUUUUMA spirit as well! I am even doing my best to teach it to the oblivious “is it time for the footy yet?” Aussies].

This has been a weekly tv-room characteristic as family members watched with rapt attention as Kaizer Chiefs dominated everybody! (Ok, ok, I might be biased, they’re my team. I don’t follow many sports with regularity, but I always have a team to support!). I barely ever watched the soccer, but just from the noise in the background to my life, I knew what was going on, and I knew all was right and calm with my world.

It is silence that disturbs me. I did not grow up on that.

So it is amusing to step out of the noise & realise the unaccustomed folk might find it annoying. To me, it is just there. A Saturday afternoon soundtrack.

And THAT is what they mean by culture. If you want to experience soccer in South Africa, then you need to know, that is how it is experienced. With a BARP, colour, and chaos. And even a live chicken sometimes! HA HA.

Ex-colonisers & “superior” Developed Worlders, we realise that you think you are civilised, and that you would love us to be “civilised”, “controlled” and “emotionally dulled” too. We have listened, and even tried to understand and be like you. But now, in this very moment, over such an insignificant issue, is when you are given a perfect opportunity to understand what we’ve been saying. Why we keep asking for cultural understanding and why we keep saying you are not there yet.

It is more than appreciating our food styles, or giving our musicians an award at your ceremonies, or examining our cultural paraphernalia through a museum’ed lens. That to understand us and make us all equal, you have to give a little bit too. Be made uncomfortable. And to eventually decide you may as well learn how to appreciate something so different to what you know.

Allow yourself to be converted. And then you will start to realise why so many of us have heartstrings yanking us back to cultures of Africa. Passion colourfully valued, emotion blaringly displayed, and noise made chaotically fun and overthetop.

Cause we’re not listening this time. Our vuvuzelas are too loud for us to hear you! And we don’t need to listen to you (arguably that may be because our current coloniser, FIFA, says they like our unique noise).

We are equal by decree of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and just by our ability to blare into your tight-arsed noiseless emotionally-controlled rooms and heads!

Damn bluddy Africans. Always have to make a sing, dance and noise of everything!

... and don’t we love ourselves for it!!

So incredibly Proud to be SOUTH AFRICAN

Who can write at a time like this.

Who can READ at a time like this!

Ke nako. Insanity. Ke nako

- When we won the award 6 years ago, I had thought I’d be experiencing the tournament with at least one child of my own running about. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA! How very wrong.

- My heart is aching to be home.

- (White) Australia will never ever know this feeling that South Africa is experiencing right now. Because they will always be too comfortable to know how to nationally fight in the face of outside patronising adversity. (Which is why the bitter racist ex-S.Affers love it here… patronising in peace ((Sorry, I had to do that stab. I had to deal with some bitters in the past day. Blood boils)) ).

For 6 years we have listened (some South Africans have listened since the 19^th century) that we are useless, too disorganised, we cannot do it, we are not up to “civilised” standards.

And all these celebrations are a big FUCK YOU! We did not listen! Because we knew we could! We can! We have! And we are doing it OUR STYLE!

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARPP BARP BARP! ==========<()

- There is a fkc load of controversy going on quietly on the sides, and we don’t want to face it right now. And we know we will in our hangover. One interesting example I was made aware of yesterday: Why are coke vendors out of business for this tournament? Coca Cola doesn’t want to know who they are right now, but in 5 weeks time, Coke will be back to asking them to sell for the Multinational. Could some plan not have been made, Coca Cola??

- We have extreme poverty in South Africa. From here on out, money had better be wisely spent. But remember, even poor people are allowed to experience rich emotions. Emotions of hope & pride that this world cup is bringing.

And in the words of others:

Some broadcasters actually requested that the humble vuvuzela be banned from the stadiums, but FIFA chief Sepp Blatter couldn’t hear them for the racket that was going on and ignored their pleas. This is an African World Cup, the first of its kind, and the locals are going to make this a unique tournament unlike any we have seen before. So let’s not approach it with these imperialist attitudes. Let us embrace the vuvuzela for all it symbolises. Vive la difference.

(Oz newspaper)

Whatever the critics might say, the authorities are adamant that the World Cup has delivered what it set out to do: improve the image of South Africa, show the world that an emerging African nation has the skills and smarts to put on an event of this proportion and, importantly, act as a rallying point to unite this fractured society. The World Cup here is a celebration of African pride and a stimulus for self-belief.

''We are ready,'' reads the slogan posted all over the nation. They are.

(Oz newspaper)

With a dollop of the right attitude, this country will change your life.

(Supersport advice for foreigners)

They'll call me Freedom! Just like a Waving Flag!

Ke Nako!

Go Bafana!!

Well done South Africa! You did it!

Quoting We're Learning

Just something that really made me smile - all the way from New York (Times):

Last Saturday, Christoffel Groenewald found it hard to believe he had waited so long before visiting Soweto.

“There’s a vibe here you just don’t get when it’s white people alone in Pretoria,” he said before the game.

By rugby standards, he was modestly dressed, with only wildly oversize blue sunglasses to enliven his wardrobe. He had boarded a bus that morning, crossed the racial divide and come to an epiphany: “Black people are better at accepting white people than white people are at accepting blacks.”

Mr. Groenewald, a 37-year-old engineer, was standing in a stranger’s crowded front yard. He continued his thought: “If black people came to our stadium, white people wouldn’t be as welcoming. White people wouldn’t be selling them beer, inviting them into their yards, grabbing them by the arm and asking them to come meet another white person.”

He paused to consider his conclusion and seemed compelled to add, “White people wouldn’t even do that for other white people.”

Behind him, blacks and whites sat together on benches. A newfound friend, Mandla Tshabalala, ambled over, beer in hand, and said, “Everyone is mingling with everyone here. South Africa is a changed country now.”

Up the block, Louwtjie Bekker, an off-duty policeman, called the scene “South Africa as it ought to be.” He said: “People are exchanging their cultures. We’re learning how the other lives.”

[About the Super 14 Semi-final & Final taking place in Soweto this year]

Headers

My head has been everywhere but straight this week.

But now the guy is done here and is good to go back to the stretch of camels, red sand, and the nothingness that is The Aussie Outback.

For 5 more weeks.

That was fast…. And furious, in a lovely way.

But before I start complaining about that, let me just say to this interweb, are you guys trying to drive me into some chronic homesickness state - with all the damn Ra Ra South Africa and its four years of Hard Work paying off & looking great…
Look at my Gautrain….
Look at my flags on the highway…
Howz about this window sock flags…
And adverts via social sites, emails and even the conspiring Aussie tv!
And… putting doccies about SA on an aussie channel every night!

Oh woe is me. Sob sob suip

What I would not do for some home fun time right now.

But I’ll suck it up, along with a coupla Aussie beers, blast my vuvuzela at the ranting 4am possum, and watch my footie team shalack my guy’s footie team into 5 weeks later!

Head everywhere. Heading home.

World Knowledge

From a man who will always say it better than me...

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

...

Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

No Title

Israel, you're breaking my heart

That is our culture

I am a cultural relativist to the core.

You definitely cannot watch a 10 minute piece on a Sunday Night “doccie” programme or read an article in a glossy mag to know the issues at the heart of a cultural concern. And then flamboyant your judgement loudly around.

But even a good doccie, a peer-reviewed journal article, or quick field trip “in” would struggle to bring complete understanding of someone else’s culture. Culture is too deep, complex, and entire-life-explaining for that.

So, while female circumcision [The ultimate litmus test of someone’s cultural relativism, it would seem] makes many women of many cultures scream in horror & bay for elders’ blood in the death to this practice - Before death of the women who undergo it - I have to ask, where is the space for those women of that culture to be heard. And which of those women do you choose to listen to.

Women are not homogenous the world round. Hell, women are not homogenous within a single culture or town. I would hate to be associated with some of the South African English-speaking white Jo’burg girls I have met [which I may have told one or two in a boozed state. Sorry]. It gets down to who you identify with, who understands you, how inclusive & how exclusive.

What I do then reckon about female circumcision is that, one woman in that community would advocate against it, showing up its negative sides, which the rest of us then flaunt about to our other cultures. But her neighbour or sister might be shocked to know that she might not undergo the practice. What does this mean for her identity, to her community, to her past generations, to her sense of culture & how to live life. She might choose social inclusion & cultural acceptance over physical issues.

What many of us women forget is, just because you’re a woman, doesn’t mean you understand me. And certainly does not mean you get to speak for me.

Funnily enough, even male circumcision is so culturally-based. Here I thought it was the most normal act in the world. That most South African cultures, mine very much included, believe in circumcision at some stage in a boy’s life. For health, religion, culture or all of thee above. I have always known that any boys that I pop out will be chopped, for health reasons.

Apparently, in Aus, this is not the case. And you’d be hard pressed to find a run-of-the-mill doc who would circumcise your baby boy on this island. Men in America even have groups shouting about how you are torturing baby boys by doing The Chop. WTF, I think. “How backward”, I think. How backward, they think of me.

In all of this pondering, I have been looking for some cultural comparison to use against all those talking simplistic folk of western cultures who love to say Our culture is Better. Culture is Linear. You “Progress”. And every other culture wants to progress to Ours.

But I don’t want comparisons of “tools for controlling your daily world”, of food & dance & dress, or how capable someone is to survive in a desert setting, and definitely not of the overdone comparison of sexual cultural practices. I have been searching & contemplating.

So, to those who still really think Our Culture is better!

The culture I come from does not consider repercussions beyond our generation. Beyond our borders. Beyond our day-to-day living. We forget to (choose not to) (were never taught by our elders to) follow the lines forward and backwards and sideways over time and space to see what we do now has past & future & linear implications.

A trader on Wall Street bets against a fluctuating currency of some random small country. He does this by clicking on a mouse while looking at numbers and considering that he needs to feed a family tonight. His bet screws up a foreign country, and hits employment & trade abilities of that country. Someone, far away, is affected by no longer having a job. How is this new man now going to feed his family that night? How is that family going to survive now? But, the trader never knew this guy’s face, had never even heard of the name of this guy’s town, so what does it matter. And unless someone has shoved the information into his face, he is taking no responsibility for it, feeling no guilt, and not going to consider it. Because that is just the way the system works, mate.

People drinking champagne for lunch in New York today impact on a family’s food security in a mining town near Welkom tomorrow. It is now known as The GFC. The difference is, the bankers got bailed out, the miners did not.

People the world round today are shouting at BP for the horror that is the oil spill. Yet, none of us look at our demand for oil in almost every aspect of our lives. BP is not just some giant devil, randomly pumping up killer sludge. How was this computer that I type on built, how did I get to this office where this computer is, what is powering everything around me.

We sell off our best healthiest most nutrient-packed produce (and land!) to richer countries, while we scream at our politicians for not doing enough about the health of the nation. And then a volcano erupts and grounds flights. The sellers of this produce suffer massive knocks, to the extent that people lose their businesses & are made unemployed, so that they join their fellow citizens in starving… while the produce rots because it cannot reach European markets, which contracts stipulate it belongs to.

We choose to not think about these things. Maybe we read it, but then we let it go. Watch a movie & be “shocked”, and let it go. We choose to say, Well, I know that Trader, and he means no harm. I need to drive to work don’t I. The issue existed for as long as my webpage was open for. Why can a farmer not sell his fruit to whomever he chooses. I don’t know how this garment got to me so ‘so what’. And so we blinker up, bubble-wrap around, explain away, and forget.

We shop for what we want. And demand Now Now Now. We live for Now and we forget the generations before, after and to the sides of us.

We see life in linear, so no wonder we cannot understand the cultures that don’t.

We buy cheap crap in the name of this season’s fashion. And we toss it out next season when it has a hole in it, or scuffed heels, or lack-lustre gleam. We CHOOSE not to think about any of the implications in who made it, how well it was made, what it was made from, how that material was obtained, how it was shipped, how it was sold, who was employed to sell it under what terms & conditions.

And why did you buy it? All because a glossy mag or an ad on a tv channel told us to buy it. The same glossy mag or tv channel that told you Female Circumcision was Wrong Wrong Wrong.

That is our culture.

Seven Random Champers’ Facts

So MammaMeeA recently gave me some blog love. A Versatile Blogger Award!
Why thank you lovely lady!

And then she demanded me to expose to however many people pass here seven devilishly delightful things about myself.

So… everything you never needed to know, and a whole lot more!

:

1. I have a job interview in a few weeks. I received the phone call on Tuesday afternoon when I was more than slightly boozed touring the wine country of Melbourne’s outer regions. Thankgawd I did not actually answer that phone call! I am quite amped about this job, although a mate has warned me it has the potential to be a whole lot of problems & lacking in love.

2. I am scared of monkey people. As in people dressed up to look like half monkey/half human. This obviously stems from watching the original PLANET OF THE APES very late at night as a very little kid. Loved ones treat this with the empathy you can expect from my loved ones… and thoroughly enjoy playing on this phobia! By letting me settle into some tv watching & suddenly pressing play to a carefully-paused part of the PLANET OF THE APES dvd. To which I scream in fear. And they laugh their heads off.
Or by giving me gifts of monkey dolls that squawk. That I still own, for some sordid reason.
A whole lotta Circle of Love!

3. When I started this blog, many many buzzlightyears ago, I held onto a whole lot of unresolved issues. I wonder if these issues would still be with me if I didn’t have this blog to publicise & discuss out this crap with the unknown world. I really wonder why it took talking to strangers to get me to deal with that shite. What once enslaved me & my mind barely passes through my concerns anymore. And I love that realisation. AND! It was all financially free.

4. I have no intention of settling in Australia for the rest of my life. But I don’t really know what I want to happen when 3 ½ years here is up. Melbourne, to me, is like Jo’burg Northern Suburbs, with a whole lot more multi-culturalism, trains and footy. And less water shortages, family, and people talking loudly in the streets when I am waking up (and I miss that so much! It is just too quiet here!). This place has grown on me, but it is far from who & what I love at the root of me.

5. I fkcing hate cold weather. I have a mental block against the phenomenon. I sit there, with my legs wrapped around an oil heater, saying “I can feel it in my bones…. the cold is in my bones!!” as I pull a K-mart sleeping bag more tightly around me. I really do move less, think less, want to do less when the day is cold. And I really think I should get over it.

6. I like to drink milo & instant coffee, in one cup, together, in the afternoons.

7. I have always prided myself on being such an independent woman. I can take on the world intellectually, socially & emotionally. But I can’t cook. And I have always had a financial safety net. And I think I have been kidding myself on this independence because of those two factors. Independence means having more rather than less control over the factors that could change your life in the next hour or day.
Now, while I realise that the independence was fairly fake & superficial, I take it as a challenge, to get that Independence that I always used to believe that I had. (While staying in a loving relationship with a man that just wants to provide for us, in all ways)

Voila! Some nonsense about me!

Now I must tag some folk, for any unaware blog readers to be able to increase their happy blog exposure:

1. HairToday
2. Po of SouthAfricanSeaMonkey
3. Cam of Parklife
4. SonnyvsDan
5. Spacebook
6. Dancefloor Tragedy
7. Noodle
8. Patchwork
9. The Spear
10. Boldly Benny... cause maybe it'll entice her back

Clean & Lace

The guy is back in town!

….Brilliant!

This required a few days of pre-cleaning.

Hellloo sparkling bathtub!

I am not entirely comfortable with the great beaming pride I have been feeling for this accomplishment. Between me and a trusty sponge, historic cleaning times of past tenants have finally been damn-tiringly now erased. But surely I should have been more excited with, say, getting distinctions for university subjects or being asked to present my knowledge in workplaces. Instead though, I can now stand & stare at the white that is a bath and think, ‘Yes, I brought that colour back!”

But I don’t, ok. Not all day, anyway. Standing, staring, at a bathtub that I cleaned, back to health, with my own two hands, and a sponge. Moving on….

And then there were a few days of shopping, for food, beer, wine, and good underwear. Ensuring that there were a few decent “outfits” in order and ready for action to remind the boy what he’d been missing.

I’m not entirely sure why though… considering he has been living with only 4 other blokkie beer-swilling (if they were allowed to in those parts) meat-ripping unshowered men for the past 5 weeks. Any underwear that I put on would’ve been likely to send him crazier than a monk clicking onto ETV after weekends’ 11pm (SBS for Aussies)

Well. And then he was here. And none of you prying eyeing lot need to read about that part!

He’ll be cruising about, him and his swag of red sand & beard of Outback pride, for another week and a half. And then he is gone again. Into the abyss that is the ‘Stralian Desert.

Strange who we become in our excitement of someone’s return. This time round made me into a 1950s Suburbia Woman.

I can’t wait to see who I’ll turn into when he arrives back after his next stint!


MamaMeeA, I hear you, and I’ll be 7-Uping tomorrow! Thanks for the gorgeous compliment!

Logic. Now at a Uni near you

Aaaaah, logic.
One of the greatest Holy Grails of humankind.

It escapes all of us, most of the time.

Especially such logic as:

"It costs the country millions of rands to fight crime ... maybe bring back the death penalty. Why is Zimbabwe safer, why is Botswana a safer country? It's because they have the death penalty," Lourens Hamman said angrily.

Ah, but, Botswana also has a diamond-based economy. Perhaps it’s that.
Zimbabwe is a pinball failing state. Perchance there is a connection there.
Both countries are so much closer to homogeny than South Africa. What does that do for one’s ability to think before you murder.
Both countries are landlocked. Who knows! Maybe it’s the ports that create the murderers!

There is a monumental leap of assumptions, so wide, in Mr Hamman’s statement that even Evil Knievel might not dared have chance it.

Incredibly, comparative politics is considered to be a science. Even if a social version. Y’know, studied by us folk who struggle more than a pizza to feed a family of four once we graduate.

And because it is a science, this means, if you don’t know the formulae, have the tools, and wear thick gloves & goggles, you’re either going to lose an eye, just create sludge, or in cases like this… get it so wrong that hysteria is what comes foaming out of the deductive test tubical logic.

Please please please can laymen stop comparing Zimbabwe and South Africa, politically.

"Ho hum. Yes. Look. One man of one race went manic & wouldn’t let go of power & so took farms away in a violent & unjust way from inhabitants of that land that had another skin colour.
There is a man, next door, of that same colour (and because “I” only judge on colour, I am not going to look further into their similarities AND EVEN their differences). He is also the leader of people. AND! Even! At times the word “land” is uttered through his lips. Or rather through the lips of ministers in his government.
OBVIOUSLY! This will mean the same thing will happen!"
Obviously.
No.

or

"I read in my daily tabloid newspaper that someone was murdered within my country.
I have not read in my daily tabloid newspaper of any murders in that other country.
This must mean there are no murders in that other country!
Voila!"

Who needs thorough research & years of peer reviewing when I have selective sensational journalism & lazy thinking on which to base my hysterical public statements. RAH!

Rah indeed.

Logic. It is taught at a university near you. You should perhaps sign up.

Meanwhile. I support the protest against crime. I do not support the logic reported on here (granted, it does look like a fairly sensational reporting style, so I won’t base a thesis on my thoughts to this protest). And I do not support the reinstatement of the death penalty.

Let alone flawed logic. Great leaps of assumptions that people who murder consider the punishment before they do so. And lack of research that shows the death penalty holds any of the benefits that supporters of it believe there to be.

Because, I think you have to be full of a whole lot of hate to wish another human to be killed. Or you do not view that person as human. And that reflects you, and issues you should deal with in yourself, not that other human and the issue they should deal with in them… not that they could, cause they would be dead, on your superior wishes.

Pricing

Cashier: There’s no price sticker on this item. Do you remember how much it was?

Customer Champs: Uhhhhhhhhhh. Nope.

Cashier: Can I just make it as much as this next item? It’s $1.

Customer Champs: Uhhhhhhhhhh. Sure. ….. …… …… Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh………..do you mind if I just remove a few stickers from say, those bottles of wine & this slab of Swiss chocolate and I’m sure I don’t know what that price was for these deli meats and olives and other expensive eat things. And I’ll be back, I just need to pick up those crayfish tails I forgot off my list. Those ones that also mysteriously seem to be missing their price... .... .............


Don’t you love when you meet someone who apparently takes their job as seriously as you take yours.

Moment of Crazy

Have you ever wanted to be the crazy person on the train?

Shout whatever out-of-the-blue statement suddenly leaps into your head as you watch the crowd trying to blend into one another during peak-hour transporting.

How would they react?

“I JUST WANNA DANCE!”

There’s a freedom in craziness.

And the more people consider you to be crazy and off the norm, the freer you are to act and do what you would like.

To really reach your aspirations, like pack a small bag and heading off to Afghanistan, when offered work there.

Although, I don’t know if I completely agree with the idea of crazy people’s freedom. Because many of the folk on the train who are being crazy have a distressed look in their eye. I should know, I am quite happy to be the person sitting next to the crazy person.

Sitting next to. Not sitting as.

But one morning, one lovely crazy morning, I am going to just shout out that sudden thought, slogan, dry joke or lyric in my head. And watch as nothing happens. Cause no one wants the freedom that the crazy person is offering.

-------------------------------------------

In other news, Aussie police are supposedly calling for Australians to get themselves off Facebook because a girl was murdered, and her murderer had stalked her through Facebook.

And here I thought stalking and murder and fcked-up people had long since existed before the global devouring of Facebook.

Next thing, cops will be telling us not to go to bars after dark! Madness!

Although, when you consider this, means that they are condoning drinking in the day.

And I am all for drinking in the day.

Allows you to realise your crazy side on public transport on the way home…

Let’s Move It Along People

There is this delectable moment when you realise that you have moved on.

Whether it’s from a group of friends, from a way of living, from a job, or simply from one stage of life to another.

This moment is happening for me now.

What I clung to, which had let go of me many months ago, is no longer that relevant, that enticing, that needed by me anymore.

10 months down the line, and I do not hanker back. The “me” now would not slot back neat & tight.

Friends that were just acquaintances have faded into the wings. Issues that were only daily now escape my passion. Routines have been upheaved and dumped on their heads (and strangely, some of what I wished for then has been realised now).

What is left after the sifting is gaining infinite value. While people and events are now seen in a long-term lens.

And suddenly I have connection to this “Here” and my daily life “Now”. There are inside jokes, there’s dark alley knowledge, and a calmness of saying, I can live here now without guilt of not living there now.

It is the moment when you get to reclaim your “now” from your fear and nostalgia and realise you get to love tumbled-up moments again and own whatever happens from here.

Bizarrities

Well freeze my nipples into a north-pointing direction but, maaaan, if this town has not got itself damn chilly.

If any person is still stuck on the image of Australia being all desert, sunburn and showering in a bucket from water restrictions, just visit ye ol’ Melbs in winter.

Temperatures range from ‘sun with icicle-packing wind’, to ‘damn chilly’ to ‘fkc-me-a-kangaroo-just-ice-skated-past’ cold. With everything drenched in a light coat of damp.

And the locals just point and laugh and say things like “Just wait till winter has really set in! Then you’ll see cold! Mate” while they sit back and suck on cheese-fried chicken parmas and pots of VB.

But we’re not here to talk about the weather.

Why the hell is shoulder-humping Justin Bieber baby-baby-baby’ing every time I hit the television’s “mindnumb ON” switch?

And why did my age group not get to scream, faint, swoon, clutch at close-up posters, & go basic nuts over some half-arsed singer?

A little too young for Jason Donovan (who never visited anyway).

A little too old for the Hanson Three. Who are now married with several kids & a mortgage.

To be fair, that Justin kid is quite cute. The thing is, the age difference means I could’ve bred him myself.

Damned if this cold doesn’t freeze your brain into “Bizarre”. At least I know which way north is.

Power of Lady-like Surprise

It wasn’t like I was looking to get involved in some international diplomatic conflict.

Or even to throw punches in a beer-drenched brawl.

But it was the Drunk Train. Anything goes.

Well, to be completely accurate, it was the semi-drunk train. Leaves about 20 minutes before the Drunk Train of Saturday Nights. But the really shellacked folk are not notorious for their time-keeping skills and so have been known to stumble on one too early.

Dutch-courage maybe. Love of harmony more likely.

But it started with some open gawking at the drunk bogans in my train carriage. Chuckling to myself as they jumped about at the sight of coppas, bitterly complained that they’d caught the wrong train, interrogated who’d snogged who after downing a bottle of what…

… and one of the boys taught one of the girls how to take a piss off the moving train while doing a booze-balance between two carriages.

Qualiteeee Entertainment.

At the realisation that they were not yet done boozing it up, but their transport was heading further into suburbia without a drop of something tasty, one of them started shouting for some general public assistance on where to find an open bottle store at 1am (minus 20 minutes). To which the as-yet-unseen guy behind me started “assisting” with some oddly seeming routes & locations.

This all incited everyone into an apparent pandemonium. Words started to be shouted. Slurs got thrown up and hurled. People did fist charges. And the man-glares were coming out.

The tension was ripening. Abuse & punches suddenly were seconds away.

And I was slowly clicking onto the realisation that I was the only person between these two “camps”, with nothing to protect me but a very conveniently discarded 1-litre empty vodka bottle.

When did this all happen? Where has all the fun & silliness gone? And damned if I am going to be hysterically prancing away from any midnight flight club scenes at this tired hour.

I turned to look at the outsider guy who had started stirring the drunken pot. Only to realise that this really was not a wise situation for any of us now. He was an Indian guy. And if you now anything about controversy in this town, it is the media vulture-ing up on stories of Indian guys who have been beaten up severely on trains & at train stations very late at night by drunk Aussies.

Oooooo fok. Thought the other immigrant in the carriage, and reached a little closer for the empty bottle.

“What the fkc is your problem mate”
“You’re my problem mate”
“What the fkc mate”
“Why don’t you try that bottle store. I promise you it exists” [It doesn’t, and if they got off the train, they’d be screwed, lost in a remote suburbia till dawn]
“Fkc you mate groooowwwwwllll”
“No fkc you!”
Glare
Glare
Tension
Building.

Which is when I personally had, well, had enough. I just was not in the mood for media coverage & blood. And so I did what any sensible puny little girl on her ace would do when seated between some drunken violence.

And I stepped in.

“Ok! Enough! No no no! I will not have fighting right now! Tula! Go back to your own mates & get back to laughing like idiots. I was enjoying that. No, you, you, stop glaring”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

I then made the executive decision that words would not be enough. I stood up, moved one seat on, and placed myself directly in the eye line of the two main glarers,

“Oh please. Stop now. You’re being such boys”. And then I broke out the widest toothy grin.

And so there was silence. Hushed Confusion. WTF Are You On Chick became the general expression in the carriage, as I sat back & enjoyed my Power Of Surprise.

So it was that every time the drunken Aussies guys turned around to do a pitbull glare at the guy behind me, one of them would be greeted with a goofy grinning happy lady… who never took her reach out of an empty vodka bottle.

Just call me Champagne Of Arc. At your Aussie service.

Fostering entrepreneurship

During the daily website paddle, I read an article that had the journo calling for increased grassroots entrepreneurship in South Africa. He said that our government obviously is not about to tend to the poorer individual’s plight so best that the individual getting tending to it him/herself. He gave Hanoi as an example, where informal food stalls & shops abound all over busy thriving trading streets. Why is this not happening in SA? Why are the people in need of a lift up not finding ways to lift themselves up?

The one (At that stage, Only one! How lovely!) commentator said, that’s all well & great but so often bureaucracy do not allow these informal traders to operate, or to operate where they will reach the real demand, that our policies and practices severely discourage entrepreneurship at the resource-and-power-poor level.

It reminded me of my time put in at The Soulless Office Park.

We had 4 options for food purchasing:

1. Expensive dull-tasting offerings at the franchised coffee shop

2. Expensive greasy “sandwich” shop food where the owners spent their time screaming at the staff more than focusing on your order

3. Get in car & drive 10 minutes to nearest shopping rat-in-a-cage-tuned mall, pay for parking, pay for stress of lunch-time traffic, find fast food… and by then your lunchtime has ticked over

4. The Sandwich Lady – she arrived every day around 10am with a coolbox of fresh well-priced well-stuffed sandwiches, drinks, chips & chocolates. You could take food on credit. She knew your name & all about your life. She was another member of staff in your mind.

[Are you picking a bias for my choice of meal…]

One day the two office-park eateries complained about this little entrepreneurial spirit. And they demanded The Sandwich Lady not be allowed to operate in the office park.

We all protested & signed petitions & shouted complaints of unfairness.

A compromise was found… The Sandwich Lady would get to the gate of the office park, the security guard would phone all the companies & let us know she was there, and then we could all leave our desks, leave our buildings, and walk up to the gate & buy food outside if we would be so inclined to.

I don’t have stats, but I can’t imagine this “Big Business Bullying” did her business any good.

She was still operating when I left. She even snuck onto the grounds & up to our offices on my last day to hug me goodbye.

Funny how much kak the little man has to put up with.

Time To Smile Better People

I am becoming addicted to Xavier Rudd.

This first video is one of my favourites:

Better People

A fellow South African mate described him as Australia’s “Johnny Clegg”. I’d liken him more to Ben Harper. But all in all, he isn’t either. He’s pretty unique. And lovely. And infectious.

You just want to dance, and hug, and love everyone. To fight for rights – in an "it's all good" embracing way. To understand all people. And to smile!

I got to watch him in concert on Friday night. Which was made even more special by his clever collaboration with two South African guys – Izintaba.

Me, my SA mate, and her bunch of dodgy Aussies & Kiwis danced up a storm of chaos… which I of course ululated all over. A stage set with the South African flag & the Aboriginal flag.

I am re-inspired to try get myself into the Outback & experience. Especially after chatting to The Guy last night as he told me he has been having the most incredible conversations with Aboriginal Elders & he really wants to try sneak me along next time…

“Is that a Sheila in your swag or are you just packing some extra weight for those chilly desert nights?”

And so… to spread the infection, and to cheer anyone up on a chilly season-changing Monday morning, watch this video:

Time To Smile

Really. Choosing between To Love or To Hate, why would you choose the latter.

5 Awesome Things

In the spirit of 1000 Awesome things, and to get the mood Up Up Up (ohgod, I think I now have an 80s Lounge toon in my head…)…

Here are my 5 Awesome Things of the moment:

1. Catching water in your mouth in the shower

I don’t know why this one thrills me. But it does. That’s the point of awesome little things I guess. Small pleasures.

Maybe it’s because my boyfriend got some tropical disease from a similar act. And then the dangers of it were immortalised a scene in Mexico in the SEX & THE CITY movie.

Because you just can’t suip on and spurt about clean fresh water everywhere in the world, so when you can, and when you do…. It’s gooood.

And it’s the closest I get to regular waterfalling.


2. Slippers

I hate winter. I love good slippers.
Good ones, thick, balls of fluff on your feet, couldn’t wear them on a summer evening. Reaaaaal slippers.
I have been that person who has worn them to a university exam.
I am wearing them right now.
There’s not much else you need to say about them. You just gotta wear them.


3. “Just One Drink” Mistake Big Nights

Should we stop here for a quick beer?
Sure thing! Just one though.

And as you reach the last tasty sips of your one glass, the great convos you’ve delved into mean you can’t just stop it all right there…and so you order just one more “Sure, another!, but just one more, ok”…. And 5 hours later you two have knocked back your bank account in tasty beverages, you now know most of the people in the pub, you’ve sung your heart out to the best tunes, maybe done a dance stint on the bar counter, you guys have solved the world’s problems in the interim of waiting for a 5th jug of beer or next cocktail on the menu, maybe you’ve ended up in the Camps Bay Life Guard house drinking port with strangers, maybe you’ve kept it tame enough to not have moved on from establishments, but all you know is the convos have been excellent and the laughs only doubling by the half hour. You don’t have any photos of it, cause you didn’t think the night was going to turn out like this.

And at some stage - but nowhere near yet - you and your mate might have to face reality & tomorrow.


4. Good Camembert on Good Baguette. Only.

Not just any old could-have-found-this-in-any-corner-of-the-world baguette, but the kind that would make a grown Frenchman cry. Bringing tears to his eyes as he is reminded of the home of his childhood. One that is crisp, fresh, you would devour it in a split minute if you weren’t sharing & had a whole wheel of delicious gooey ripe smelly cheese to plaster all over it.

The moment is only made better when there is a lack of cutlery, and you have to slather it on with either a trusty credit card or your fingers.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.


5. The sun hitting a comfortable lying space.

This could be your bed. A couch. Even a carpeted piece of floor. All it requires is getting horizontal. Not much comes close to being able to lie in the sun, especially when it is Antarctic-Stole-My-Nipples cold outside. But in that block of sun, it is oh so toasty.

And…wow… look at that… did I have nothing to do for the next half an hour… oh, and look, is that my good book so close at hand… Noooooothing better.

Until your dog comes along, finds you lying in his patch of sun, gives you a groot slobbering lick & stands on you!


5 Awesome Little Things that make my days better

Happy Freedom Day, South Africa

What crazy things would the Apartheid government have done to the freedom of the internet had it existed back then?

Who gives a damn!

Ha! Today they aren’t around, and the power & freedom of the internet is.

Today you tweet, blog, email, facebook and youtube your political thoughts without fear from deceptive prosecution.

Today you are friends with who you are friends with because of who the friend is, not because of what criteria the government dictates.

Today a politician goes bos in tyrannical ways and your fellow citizens make a catchy house remix from his rant.

This weekend two people showed their love & commitment to each other by getting married… and they were homosexual, of mixed cultures, or of any other once-forbidden criteria.

You turned on the tv and were not presented with the same advert in various races.

Children learnt that their language of Pedi is as valued as any of the other ten official languages in a free country.

You got onto your feet and walked where you wanted to.

You spoke to who you wanted to.

You applied for any job you wanted.

And you fought for that job with all other South Africans who also dreamed of that job.

You bought booze/ boerewors/ postage stamps from the same counter as every other South African.

Your rights as a homeless person were as respected as the rich folk with a mansion in Sandhurst. And you voted like any other citizen.

You shagged a person you were attracted to. Who once was forbidden to your group.

You danced with a person you found fun & crazy. Who once was forbidden to your group.

More than 20 of you congregated in a room.

No one slipped on some soap in a prison cell.

Today you read a South African novel that wasn’t an analogy for political racist overpowering.

Today corruption was exposed. And addressed.

A politician of the leading party apologised to his people for being arrested because it was found he still had too much alcohol in his bloodstream.

Today sports teams recalled their international game played over the weekend.

A journalist wrote a scathing attack on something the government did. And someone in the audience wrote something more scathing in response. The secret police were not called out.

Today a community took to the streets in protest that their services were not arriving. They shouted their voice. They claimed their space. And freely demanded their rights.

Today I listened to a song in Afrikaans, a song in Sotho, a song in English from another continent. I wore clothes designed by a South African-educated person. And wore jewellery given to me by a Zimbabwean also seeking his welfare in the “America of Africa”.

You bought a car that you worked for and your job paid you well enough for.

A school textbook was written and none of the lines were blacked out.

And people complained. Complained like they had forgotten what a gift ‘Freedom’ is. Complained like they have been free for so long that their comfort might make them forget. Lucky them.

Lucky us.

Happy Freedom Day, South Africa.

Melancholy

I miss my best friend.

Can’t he come home for a bit. A smooch. A shag. A jabber. Crap coffee & something he has cooked up.

He is supposed to be calling on the Sat Phone for 2 minutes just now. What if he doesn’t?

He called on Friday night when I was well into a bottle of cheap pink wine & French tooons. Boy, did the tears flow at the sound of his voice. He updated me that life right now is “too hot, too dry, too remote”. And was gone.

I blame this melancholy on the shorter days, the chillier maximums, the long weekend of not too much purpose but too many tequilas with acquaintances part-way through. On the weekly real-job rejections that keep phoning in.

And perhaps that I just went and snuggled my way into “too dependent”? But if you don’t, what’s the point?

What is the point. I’m caught on an endless loop of “What’s The Purpose?”

Diagnosed with Fatalist Depression. There is no cure. Just ignore the questions.

But at least I got to watch my footy team SMASH the ANZAC opposition yesterday at the Cathedral of Sports Stadiums, the MCG.

A mate said if he hadn’t been with me since the start of the game, he’d have thought I was boozed. Several hours of full-on giggle attacks. How can you not be highly amused at the passion and pain of grown spectating men throwing their voices & souls at other grown playing men in minuscule shorts bouncing a ball right towards a victorious loss!

Cause YOU KICK LIKE A GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRLLLLLLLL!

I miss my best friend. I miss him not being around to laugh at my giggle. Or to tell me when not to drink that “one more” tequila. To tell me that the job rejection doesn’t matter, I’m still worth so much more. And how proud he is that I cycled 20 kms and didn’t collapse in an unfit heap for the rest of the day. To stop the self-reflection sometimes and let me get on with the giggle.