Hullo Gary

Dear Gary, Firstly, damn you, damn you to Pofadder and back. How dare you emigrate without checking with me first! Here I thought you were an educated whitey with a slight (must be very slight) liberal bent, keen on helping build our democr...(hack, cough, splutter). Apologies. I'm back. I had milk coming out of my nose. Couldn't finish that sentence with a straight face. Laughter is not necessarily the best medicine. No, seriously. Screw you. One day you were mowing your lawn, hurling abuse at your domestic worker. Now you laying down tiles in Perth. Where did this sudden exodus-urge come from? Anyway, no worries. I'll forward all your post to Abu Dhabi and inform State Security of your departure. You left just in time, actually. Local government elections are here and you know what that means... A PUBLIC HOLIDAY! You're envious, I can feel it in my left testicle. You're regretting the big move, aren't you? You really wanted to stick it out for the municipal elections, come on, be honest. Nothing gets your juices flowing quite like those televised political debates on SABC over election times and brain dead politicians droning about the importance of voting. Voting schmoting. I'm braaing a snoek, getting pissed and walking around my place in my underpants on the 18th of May. How much of Julius are you guys hearing about down under? Do you even care? I can assure you he doesn't. I e-mailed his mate, Floyd, the other day informing him of your patriotic treachery. He actually responded (it must be election time when the ANCYL shows an interest in anything). Do you want to know what he said? I've transcribed part of his response. "Comrade, thank you for informing us of yet another turn coat. But if your comrade is white, it should come as no surprise. Good riddance to that imperialist friend of yours. His tendencies are best served to a white dominated, western (?) power such Australia. I trust you reporting this backward, unthinking (?) behaviour of our citizens, means we will be getting your vote...".Well, you get the idea. I'd started swallowing part of my tongue by that stage of the e-mail. Have you had a DA twit call you yet at 4am to ask if they can be sure of your vote? They should've called you. I've mailed 83 different people at the DA sending them your new contact details in Oz. They still hungry (read: desperate) for any lilly-white vote they can get, no matter how far. Didn't you vote for COPE in 2009? Don't be embarrassed to admit this. Lekota and Shilowa don't seem to be too embarrassed by themselves. Yup, they still at each others throats. You could always say one of the reasons you left was out of disgust with COPE's ongoing inner-rivalry. You couldn't COPE anymore. ROTFWL, LOL, OMG, or something like that. Moving on. Shell plans to unearth the whole of the Karoo! Have you heard? Shock, horror and some spittle to go with it. Every tree-hugger and dog is up in arms. I recall you once failed to wear shoes for a whole week. I thought perhaps maybe you'd gone green and thrown your lot in with the hippies and turned to Mother Earth for answers. Apparently Shell wants to do 'fracking' in the Karoo. With alarm in my eyes I looked fracking up. I suspect one web site (www.frackme.com) may be a bit off the mark with it';s understanding of fracking. I doubt it involves cucumbers and lubrication. Fracking. I just like saying it. Gary, do you still drive down under? Have they allowed you behind a car wheel? You mos know how they are, all weird and paranoid about driving what with their being things like road laws in that strange country with the outback, barrie reef and kangaroos here road laws have been diminished to mere guidelines. Who can afford to drive here , anyway. Another fuel price hike, another month. I threatened a petrol pump attendant (you may not have them where you are. Not enough people of colour that side to man petrol pumps, I suppose) the other day. He did nothing wrong. hH simply asked if he could fill it up. Fill it up! Are you mad?! Thta's like insulting my Mother. It costs the better part of my salary (the other half goes to my f@$*ing iPhone. That's a mail for another day) to fill up with fuel. I apologised to the petrol dude. He said something in an African language or French, I never know these days who's Congolese and who is a genuine South African. I think he was upset. Anyway, Gary, I'd sign off by saying I miss you... but I don't. LOL. Have fun in Oz. Don't chip a tooth trying to be too God fearing and law abiding. Remember, it's in your South African blood to drive drunk, disrespect women and not trust anyone who isn't of your own skin colour. Kindest regards R P.S. Thanks for never returning my hammer, you lent 6-years ago. What will I use now to scare away the beggars and Jehovah's Witnesses on Sunday mornings.

Bring me my machine gun

If you think the heckling of Patricia De Lille at a Human Rights Day rally in Cape Town is preposterous, outrageous and uncalled for, think again. It's par for the course as we enter election time once again. This means we're all expected to lose our minds (those of us who hadn't already lost them)."This kind of behaviour doesn't promote tolerance of any other persons idea," half-heartedly droned an ANC MP in the national assembly in reaction to the incident. We know, buddy, politics is all about hugging trees, making nice with everyone and clapping hands cheerfully as if we were all at a scripture union camp. What the brain says, the hand doesn't necessarily do. So, if Luthuli House, that great national think tank of the ruling party, says make love not war, then of course it would be safe to say, this could be interpreted as, beat the crap out of anyone not wearing yellow, green and black. And that's what the ANC seems to relish in doing when confronted with elections. Except, it's beating itself up, instead. The rise of independent candidates from within it's own ranks is all the evidence you need that the party's arrogance is it's own worst enemy. Forget opposition parties. This time round, COSATU boss, Zwelinzima Vavi, even remarked "They are showing the ANC the middle finger". Careful. That kind of behaviour towards the ANC is could land you up in the back seat of a luxury, black SUV, commandeered by black suited goons, with silly little wires connected to their ears. A political ouma like Patty De Lille, knows the drill when confronted by heckling - just ignore it, because it gets worse. It's one of the few times where adults (supposed adults, at that,because going into politics is about as childish as eating snot) will abandon their adulthood. being able to tie your own shoelaces and count to 10 means nothing in the world of politics. Wait for it. When the rallies, community meetings, door-to-door campaign go into warp speed those political loafers and morons who drain our coffers, waffle all day but rarely make sense, those characters who are meant to run our country, will exchange their Gucci suits and Jimmy Choos for party t-shirts as they try to convince us we should waste... I mean, cast our votes for them. They'll dance and sing as they promise and deride each other. They'll fling mud in all directions except of course at themselves. They'll scorn, deplore, praise and tease each other. hey, it's every parties unspoken election manifesto - skulduggery, pettiness and stupidity. All eyes on Julius over this period, that King of bluster has already demonstrated his wily ability at being an idiot. Helen Zille was a cockroach last time round. Now she's a monkey. Shame, she'd din't get the memo - whitey's should never, ever dance. I have no idea how COPE will try to campaign. Lekota on a donkey cart with a loudhailer, might be above the party's budget. If donkey carts and megaphones are being dished out to his comrade, Shilowa may have to settle for a bicycle, one placard and a whistle simply to draw what little attention there is for COPE to him. Good luck pal. Come what may for COPE, one things for sure, they won't need to canvass against opposition parties. They seem quite happy at contesting their own make-believe elections among themselves.

The Battle of the Colours

There's a war in my pocket and it's bursting to get out. I can hear the agonising screams of the casualties (those who couldn't keep their mouths shut), the staccato of machine gunfire (their asinine comments), the rumbling of artillery fire (counter-comments and even more stupidity).The front line is drawing ever closer. Our 'Battle of the Bulge', with the enemy before us, behind us, everywhere! Derision and insults whizz by. Duck! Take cover! That was yet another close call!
No, friends, I'm not writing this from Libya or the Ivory Coast. I'm not hunkered down in a hotel room in Iraq, nor am I 'embedded' with allied forces in Afghanistan. The banal 'bunker' setting of my desk is where I'm waiting for the the 'enemy'. The problem is, much like the ironic paranoia sketched by J.M. Coetzee in 'Waiting for the Barbarians', I'm not too sure who the enemy actually is. I still haven't decided if it's even the traditional kind of foe.
Kuli Roberts marched out onto the battlefield, possibly still drunk from a previous victory (or party, more like it). She opened her mouth, stupid things were discharged like cannon shells and they exploded in glorious fashion. Roberts, ever the headline-junkie, inadvertently declared war on on an entire race, Coloured people, following on from a separate conflict sparked by the new lieutenant in charge of government miscommunication, Jimmy Manyi. His 'Oversupply of Coloureds in the Western Cape' was a quasi-diplomatic gaffe of note, one which would ensure peace talks between Black people and Coloured people remain strained in the Cape. Behind the Manyi debacle is a lilly-white, centre-right trade union, Solidarity. The organisation could easily be labelled an agitator for war, along with Manyi and Roberts. But my cynicism tells me it was simply a cheap publicity ploy. It was Solidarity which alerted all and sundry to Manyi's infamous comments. So, in my extended war metaphor, the union could be seen as Italy during WW2 - a nowhere little nation, keen to get in on a major conflict so as to raise it's profile. We all know how that worked out for Italy in the end. Everyone from Trevor Manuel, the ANCYL, DA and the ice cream seller on Clifton beach is now firing off their weapon-cum-mouths, more to make a noise and a nuisance of themselves than to actually hurt anyone. And this low-level, theoretical 'Race War' is playing itself out minus the likes of the maddened influence of a crazy Whitey like Eugene Terre'Blanche! Bizarre. Who needs the right, when the left, is becoming right? All the while us ordinary mlungus stand on the outskirts of the battlefield, perplexed, worried and confused. You mean we aren't to blame for this furore? You mean know one has tried to pin theisbitterly ugly racial spat on us? Even more bizarre. From our trenches, us Whitey's nervously peer over the edge, scouring this dirty landscape of non-sequiturs, racial innuendoes and hilariously unfunny stereotypes.
Is it a coincidence this watered-down war is taking place amid an election year? Is it a coincidence the stage for this mindless conflict is the Cape, where the DA is still struggling to win the hearts and minds of black voters, and where the so-called 'Coloured vote' is as sought after as as a cushy government job (uhum, paging Mr. Manyi)? All I know is that this White boy ain't coming up from his bunker just yet.

Here in the Independent (almost, but not quite) Homeland Of Zillestan we love our weather. In fact, we are obessessed with it. We analyse it from couches, exmaninign every nuance of forecasts on the Weather Channel. But Capetonian's only want to know one thing: How strong will the wind be the next day? Note, I posed this question with the assumption the wind will by default be strong or any derirvative of this. You only get two types of wind down south -wannabe-almost-but not quite-yet-still leaves-you-unbalanced strong and beatdown-brutal-don't stop until you cry strong. Bugger the news at 7, fast forward to 7:25 when the weather people, complete with carefully constructed hair, jarring American accents and shady smiles, take control. They euphemise 36 degrees in Spingbok For 5 minutes we citizens of this bold new state are their slaves, entranced by their hand movements which sweep over the country. The rest of the nation is not important to us Zille-ites at all. We only care if the sun will rise on the empire again the next day. Much like yanks many Capetonians couldn't tell you where Boshoff or Los Angeles is.
Entire weeks can be spoiled by this meterological phnomoment of satanic proportions. The Cape Doctor they call it. The only medcial practitioner I can liken the effects of ths devli wind to is Josef Mengele. Evil, cruel and gusty.

Goddamned wind! 400kms winds are the only downside of living in the capital of Zillestan, cape Town. Our obsession with the climate does partly stem from Al Gore's brilliant job of scaring the crap out of us. Climate change se moer. We have hurricanes of winds this side of the nation. winds a powerful as parliament (where intellignce goes to die and power thrives amid madness, corruption and greed). I cry a bit every time I emerge form the outdoors on a windy day in Slaapstad. I feel violated and need to be hugged. No problem there. Everyone loves to hug in this place. ray Bans, cut off jeans, styled hair and a good does of doos-ness accompanies this need to hug and be simunye with all in this gran city of wind, excess and pinkness. The Pink cash helps fuel Zillestand, don't you know? They offer incentives for gay people to settle this side. eever since Politiburo of Zumaville subconsiously started plotting the "Pink Solution" homosexuals have been seeking refuge under the mountain. And boy are we glad they chose Zillestan. Greenpoint has never been the same.

On the 4 days a year cape twon is being sodmised by the wind, we flock to the many beaches of this great capital of ours. We rush int he direction of sea salt on Vespas, in 4 x4s, Mini Coopers and skateboards hey clog up the already impossibly narrow roads tyo Clifton, Camps Bay, Llandudno, and so on. Buses of the less fortnate converge on Mnwabisi beach. This remnant of Apartheid beach segregation sees enough actiojn in a december weekend than a Seapoin brothel. Sharks, drownings, swimming in underpants, poo pullution, and dangerious deragned seagulls make it tough going for poor beachgoers. But at least the water isn't -22 degrees. Can a beach be a proper beach if you can't swim? capetonians don't care. It's really all about showing off abs and boobs. Who cares about the sea?

In Zillestan we speak differently. Not beign a lingust I can't adequately explaim in words how a capetonian accent sounds. I'll try though. Round your vowels and make generous use of words like Wow, serious and bru. Gestilculating helps as well. It's more about what capetonians choose to speak about. fashions, gym, how much money they don't have or do have. Down the drag on the N2 the sun is as bright, the wind as powerful, but the money, very rare.

Licence to make me Ill

Many of you will have probably been harassed by the SABC over the past few weeks. It's time to pay our TV licences. Our troubled Public Broadcaster is never shy to come asking for more cash Yet the quality of public TV these days, complete with mind numbing news, bottom-of-the-barrel variety shows, ancient series and movies so bad they were more than likely donated to the SABC out of sympathy. So with a hypothetical virtual swagger and beaming arrogance via threatening smses, e-mail spam and brainless advertising campaigns redolent of Gestapo PR ploys ('You have nussing to vorry about. Ve are only vatching you') the broadcaster has come to collect 'what is rightfully ours' they argue. They'll do almost anything to force you to pay that R250. I've already been threatened with credit blacklisting. Through clenched teeth I paid over what is rightfully mine and carried on channelling hopping through DSTV. I'm very lucky to have that option of avoiding SABC programing. But many people out there have no choice.
We're led to believe our adherence to the law of the Corporation is closely policed with surreptitious vans, tinted windows, fitted with aerials, TV dishes and flickering lights lurk our streets, desperate to bust one of us... watching TV without a licence! Alarms will howl in the streets. We will be rounded up, curfews will be imposed and we'll be made to march in lines towards camps, where the latest CEO will set the thought police on our brains. Torture could follow. But there's no need for that. It's already torturous watching SABC TV. Sounds really weird when you say it. You need a licence to enjoy the stagnant pedestrianism and sub-standard television foisetd on us. They should be paying us to watch the drivel we see on telly. Anyway. So, the 800th text has bleeped to life on your mobile. You've had to open a whole new folder on your desktop to store the foreboding e-mails ('You will be blacklisted and then no one will like you you, and you'll died alone, with only the company of Rian Cruywagen' these mails should read).The SABC is calling on us to do the right thing. Pay up your R250. Is it really the right thing to do? Yes, maybe to pay for the right to our money being used properly: to inform in the absence of enforced bias; to entertain with good quality movies; to educate with the wealth of resources available to it, which it seems is the only thing the the SABC is managing to do, in all fairness. That's all the average viewer really wants - just a bit of quality in the programming and an end to ongoing drama at the corporation so that our money is not squandered yet againI doubt it's the right thing for Solly Mokoetle to have just been allowed to scurry off in the wake of the gravy train into the horizon of the fat, all because of a sweaty golden (more like bloody) handshake aimed at palming him off. Our Public Broadcaster has dished out, seemingly with little question as to it's real agenda, more than R17 million rand in settling the messy affairs of two Group CEOs in less than 3-years. Apart from burning taxpayers money, the SABC must generate a helluva cell phone bill haranguing us for our R250 each to keep the SABC afloat. That's a lot of R250s which will be deposited into the company's dirty bank account. I bet anybody R250, this time next year, our TV licence moola will be in its moer, stuffed into a cushy off shore account by yet another useless CEO. If I'm wrong, I give the 'TV Licence Enforcement Squad' permission to come and confiscate my television.

Queue here please

Queues are a modern day creation of the devil and the western imperialist forces of the counter-revolutionary capitalist pigs. They are inevitable, yes, but that doesn't make them any less irritating, annoying, laborious or testing. They are also the perfect example of narrow mindedness. How many times have you turned up at, lets say a Computicket outlet, where, let's say Kurt Darren is performing in Brackenfell. You should already know before leaving home that if it's a Computciket in Bellville, Boksburg or any Afrikaner (or Kurt Darren fan) stronghold, the queue is going to snake on for miles, comprising hordes of mullet-sporting, Subaru-driving, Klipdrift-swilling, Mr Price clothes-wearing fans. So, in short the queue's going to be a balls up. Nothing new here, that's the norm.But you arrive at the tail end of these evil, spirit killing lines not quite certain if this is the correct line. Yet you still join it, hopeful it's the right one, like a sheep joining a line to get slaughtered all because, well, it's a sheep and that's what they do - follow other sheep. You queue for potentially hours, only to learn it's not the queue for Computicket, but the one for the Annual Grand National Potjiekos Competition. You kick yourself, swear at the heavens and the devil in equal amounts and proceed to fantasize about bloodshed. The other scenario involves technology conspiring with queues to ruin your mood. Computers crashing in times of seemingly never-ending queues are grounds for a declaration of war. The unbearably long queues of desperate Zimbabweans outside many Home Affairs offices last December led to me almost finding religion again, as I collapsed to my knees in a display of gratefulness that I wasn't one of them. I didn't laugh or tease at these poor souls for the fear of karma biting me in the rear. I knew full well I had an appointment with a bank and we all know about bank queues. They are usually riddled with 3 types of people: very, very old people, those who can't seem to speak any of our national languages and those who relish picking fights with bank tellers. The geriatrics are usually hard of hearing. Couple this with them trying to communicate with a teller from the other side of those bulletproof, missile repellent windows and you have nothing short of a screaming match. The debacles which result from foreigners (or those who just can't speak properly) in a line at a bank could equate a so-called international situation. Bank managers become the UN and intense negotiations sometimes ensue as they deal with annoyed foreigners who thought they were waiting in line for the toilet.
Then you have the fight-pickers. They love arguments, they can't get enough of them. From hapless supermarket cashiers to petrol pump attendants, they can't resist starting a fight, often for no reason at all. So in the context of a bank, there you stand waiting for the only tell on duty to calm down such a belligerent fool before serving you. Waiting in ques as busy restaurants make no sense at all. Unless you're in a line outside a UN feeding station in Sudan and haven't eaten in days, waiting to be fed in a queue at apopular eatery is just plain stupid.

Unwishful thinking

The haze of the silly season should've lifted by now, or at least momentarily retreated to a nearby corner in your mind, ready to make an emergency appearance in the first days of 2011 should the stress of it all get too much. Oh how I crave that haze. We'll all soon miss the bliss it brings once the first New Years resolutions are broken, the despondency will soon set in as the grind takes its toll
Yes, indeed, the start of a new year is a stressful period. Going back to work is about as pleasant as a prostate exam minus the lubrication. Around this time as well, the cliche, the more things change, the more they stay the same may occur to a few, amid the the usual host of laboured new years mantras. Banal greetings are interspersed with the obligatory and usual insincere 'Compliments of the season'. This serves as a reminder of how new years rarely change or mark a difference to previous years for many. If we don't make empty resolutions, we draw up wish lists of sorts as to what we like to achieve or see change with the advent of another 12 months.

It's an election year. Yippee. More empty promises, baby-kissing, door-to-door campaigns, horse-trading, backstabbing and plotting await as the electioneering machine for the municipal polls creak back into action. Whatever you do, don't hold your breath for any amazing to come from the usual back alley antics of our political parties.

Wouldn't it be nice to see the end of bully politics in 2011? What are the chances Julius Malema will just shut up or at least try to make some sense? Wishful thinking, I guess.

If one more person asks me 'Are you on Facebook?' I fear the response will be a sift punch to the nose. I know I'm part of dying and some will say misguided breed who hate Facebook and Twitter, but I'm putting myself out there on this wish for 2011 - a return to the lost art of face-to-face conversation. Ridicule me all you want, but a Facebook-free communication style or at the very least an attempt to utilise you tongue (for speaking purposes) is 2011 is a dream, I know. But is it too much to ask that people just pick up a phone to ask me how I'm doing rather than poke me via the Internet.if one more person asks me 'Are you on Facebook?' I fear the response
I have to pinch myself to check if I'm dreaming while watching developments in the Ivory Coast. I know tantrums and petulance are an integral part of being a politician, but Laurent Gbagbo's taken it to a new level... of stupidity. How is it in the 21st Century we still have such tyrants running entire countries. These re people who believe by holding their breath and sulking when things don't go their way? Zimbabwe's own little dictator, Robert Mugabe, is also unlikely to go anywhere this year.

As is Justin Bieber. A glaze of happiness floats over my face when I think of radio stations free of this boy and the legions of bubblegum pop stars whose careers will be launched on Bieber's coat tails. I shudder to think of the consequences. His angel face and oh-so-squeaky-clean image, not to mention that pathetic hair style, don't fool me. He has horns growing under that mop. He's another talentless product of mindless music marketing, which only further signals how dire and vapid the entertainment industry will remain this year.

The Soccer World Cup was amazing. It's one of the highlights (if not THE highlight)of 2010 for South Africa. It's now a thing of the past, though. So please will everyone just stop trying to rekindle the mood it ignited. Enough with the corny references to the World Cup in endless marketing campaigns. Enough with this arrogance many display following what was overall a truly successful event.It's a new year, we've had more than 6-months to dwell on the successes and failures of the World Cup. Let's move on already.