Throw Me A Frickin’ Teaspoon

About three petrol-price-hikes back I experienced a premature mid-life crisis. I flicked my hair the other way, became a Buddhist for 12 minutes, and deleted MXit because I love jackfruit. In the inconsequential rage session that followed I may have said something insensitive:

“Friend”: Nobody likes you!
Naven: No! Everybody doesn’t like you! They all wish you were a blonde model, locked in a bathroom, with your paranoid paralympian boyfriend waiting outside, holding a gun, on Valentine’s Day.

Yes yes, I know. That’s a very sore topic. Some of us want Oscar to be innocent, some want him to burn at the stake. Some want to be interrogated by Barry Roux in a damp cellar just because he’s so damn good at it. If you totally click on his name in the last sentence there, you can learn all about him in song.

It’s disheartening to see one of the most inspirational things to come out of this third world gem, be tarnished by homicide. So you’d have to be rather cynical to hope he’s convicted. On the other hand/claw, would you condone murder as justifiable to protect yourself from burglary? Yes? Chances are you play Grand Theft Auto and like the feeling of hot wax on your bare feet. Shame, prison’s no place for pretty white boys.

I know you’ve been waiting months for “pretty white boy” to be used in a sentence. You’re welcome. There used to be this warm feeling not dissimilar to heartburn every time you saw the Bladerunner embarrass able-bodied athletes with his peg legs. Most of us stopped running at all after that. Os ran for us all. For you, Fat Man. For you, Rhino Poacher. For you, Hipster. For Mazibuko, the Pipe Wrench Salesman. For Emile, the Bacon Evangelist. For Awari, the Nigerian Student Drug Dealer. For Mirriam, Tumi and Venesh from the Post Office. For everyone from the fresh produce aisle at Checkers. Show some support, will you?

Unfortunately not everyone is gifted with superior athletic prowess and great hair. I, for example, have embraced a more entrepreneurial outlook and turned to small business for security. Yes, if you’re a party animal looking for a good time, look no further than me to provide you with all the substances you need to abuse. Shout for the following:

Wristtweezers
Uppers
Downers
Sidewayers
Camelstooth
Nazibiters
Pretzelmongers
Eelsticks
Wheezekicks
Jellybabies
Marrowsparrows
Whistlecrystals

While stocks last, of course. Call me. We’ll meet under the stairs. I’ll be the nervous looking one.

As you can gather from the products available, the target market is mainly witty, creative, politically-progressive young people burdened with many emotions and feelings and struggling to be understood in the modern context. Please be a hipster with money, please be a hipster with money.

I have no idea what I’m saying. To be honest, I got distracted by a cobweb six minutes ago and that was a self-induced hallucination thing that the doctor said happens sometimes. Also, often recently I’ve been systematically stealing teaspoons from work. Unlike when I used to be into lighters, I’ve refrained from calling it petty theft or even kleptomania. I’d like to think that it’s my subconscious preparing for a global resource scramble. Teaspoons will have hundreds of uses in a post-apocalyptic world. They can be used to make telescopes, Windmill spanners, tank valves and diabetic shoes. A humble teaspoon can be fashioned into a Jaws of Life or another spoon with greater purpose even. Don’t even get me started on it’s military applications.

Okay. I’m sorry I bored you and drew your attention away from that scar running down your back. Coincidently, if you’re a girl and you fell asleep, don’t be surprised. I have put more girls to sleep than the Sugar Cane Killer.

As the French say, “Go away”

BORING, LONG, OVERLY-SELF-INDULGENT GARBAGE

I’m sure at least two people will read this (thanks). One will try to comment unsuccessfully. I only have a blog thing because of the fact that I wanted to comment unsarcastically on a friend’s blog. Then the computer-machine asked me to sign up.

Topics were initially hard to come by, and I didn’t want to have a blank blog. That would be wasting space on a fast shrinking internet. I’m not tripping or being ignant (look at these hip terms I know from listening to young Indian people living under the delusion that they are African-American). The Shrinking Internet conspiracy theory is still in it’s infancy.

Being a walking encyclopedia on how to avoid success, there’s a scarily limited number of topics I could approach to relate to you. Born with a natural inclination towards the absurd, I try to bring that across to dazzle you unsuccessfully. It is a sense of madness that, under the right amount of too much alcohol, you could mistake for insight. I asked my closest friends (notice the plural) why they don’t read my blog and they responded with, “Well…y’know…it’s just you…showing off all the big words you know. It makes me feel stupid.” I resent that answer, but firstly note that I do not really have friends, just people I owe money. There are no unnecessarily big words here so shut your face.

I read a lot of personal, theme-less blogs for inspiration. Some were insightful, others narcissistic. From highly entertaining and brilliant to “Oh God, please make it stop!”.

Most of these people have something to offer though. They do research. They have strong beliefs. They have regard for grammar. On the other hand, I aim to distract you from how inadequate I am at all the above.

So, apologies are in order. I’m sorry for not engaging you enough. I’m sorry for not introducing you to some highly intellectual debate about the illusion of freewill. I’m sorry for my poor speling. I’m sorry for not being the “illest”. Nothing here is provocative, I know. I’m sorry I can’t compete with cleavage photos taken in a bathroom. I’m sorry I can’t relate to you with quotes by Drake about love and pictures of cats vomiting rainbows. I’m sorry I can’t compete with relationship advice from 15 year-olds. Please forgive me for not being able to capture your attention in a world where no one can be expected to pay attention for more than 140 characters or a picture of “justgirlthings”. Don’t make my mistake and realize too late that every time you put your opinion out there, the world is going to respond with, “Hey, u hav no swag. Kill urself lol”

Mind you, I’d rather not be @SweetLoverXXX who tweets, “Luv a gal no mater wat size she is” and who’s shamelessly shirtless in his profile picture, showing off his “V” and wearing a snapback.

(By the way, aren’t girls supposed to have the “V”?)

Thug Lovin’ is the default setting and definition of love in the 21st century. Inspired by Rihanna music videos, it is based on saying “Only God can judge me” and “All a girl needs is swag”, and complete ignorance of responsibility and good judgement.

No matter how much you tell people not to judge you, if you have 16 piercings and a tattoo that borrows from the Chinese alphabet, people will question your upbringing.

Okay okay, I got lost somewhere. Point is that in order to get attention (the most basic human need) you have to adapt. Even though you may find it ironic, it is also the reason that idiots are the ones cultivating deep, meaningful posts on Facebook. It’s different, it’s new, it’s unexpected and it’s what people want to hear to make them believe that they are, at the same time, misunderstood enough to be cool and understood enough to be popular.

So, this new year (why another one?), I’m going to try and make this place more up to date, more hip, more relate-able, no matter how stupid it is. Starting with a bold new theme soon.

Or maybe I won’t do none of that – surprise! I lied.

It’s fair to say that a blog serves the needs of the writer more than any reader. It’s a mechanism to vent your frustration. And nothing’s better at bringing people closer together than complaining. Some Intermad (Internet Nomad – clever, right?) stumbles upon your issues expressed with such fervor online, and they share your frustration with strong enough conviction that they join you in complaining and, before you know it, it’s a complain-a-palooza and somebody’s pregnant.

Either that or they immediately hate you and your ancestry because they only disagree with everything you said. They let you know by not so politely asking you to engage in certain acts involving a donkey’s privates, and address you with questionable titles like “faggot” and “spunkbucket lol”.

BORING, LONG, OVERLY-SELF-INDULGENT, GARBAGE. Blog. You get it now, right? Very nice.

Look, a thing

Remember the horse meat saga? It blew over quite quick. I would eat a horse. Why not? If tiny men can ride a horse with other tiny men riding horses, surrounded by over-dressed adulteresses, in a stadium that smells like dead pigeons, then why can’t we eat a horse? There’s worse ways horses go. If one lost the aforementioned race, even though it was odds on (whatever that means), then everybody knows the jockey throws a fit, mocks the horse’s ancestry and then shoots it so it’s hooves can be used to make glue for the homeless to become addicted to. Fast fact: I was asked to go for jockey training once but then I got fat.

So it plagued Europe primarily that people where unknowingly eating the car-before-the-car-was-invented. But there’s worse things that have swept over Europe – like BBM, STDs and Catholicism. Just because you can ride a horse doesn’t mean you can’t eat it. You could ride a sheep if you wanted to. It’s on my bucket list.

It's just more horse to love — It’s just more horse to love

I think people generally have an incessant desire to make a fuss. Maybe you’re entitled to. If there was nothing to complain about we’d be very bored. You would hear some guy say, “Sunshine?! Oh no! We had that yesterday! Where’s the variety?” Then a tsunami hits Southeast Asia and his new issue becomes the inconsistency of Premier League refereeing. That maybe is the essence of it. It serves as a distraction from more relevant issues.

Take the Vatican for example. Generally nobody cares who the Pope is. Catholics account for about 1.2 billion people on Earth and we all know most of them favor binge drinking instead of fawning over the Pope. Yet there was much drama and anxiety over his successor. As if there is significant change as result of his appointment. Note: If the new guy does go mad with power, we’ll have to take the punk down. I have read all Dan Brown’s books and spent a whole mid-morning making a foolproof contingency plan (Operation: A New Pope).

The (really) old guy decided to retire being an icon of religious benefit, and pass the 9 billion carat gold ring on to some other guy who, from what I’ve seen, and for lack of a better word, seems very “protestant” (and you thought they all died out in that classified meteor strike incident two winters ago). Really, all this doesn’t affect you there on the atomic level. Nonetheless you fret as if you ran out of washing powder mid-month.

This job offered better benefits, and subordinates were more loyal — This job offered better benefits, and the staff were more loyal

So while our eyes sparkle at all the hollywood-esque glamor happening at the induction gala for the new Pope, we get to forget about all the death threats and marriage proposals we haven’t had time to deal with. The athlete’s foot outbreak, corrugated-iron fetishes and vivid, vulgar sexual innuendos in music all take a back seat. The next day at work you’ll spend the entire morning relating the ceremony details to your colleague instead of working. All the conspiracy theories, detailed review of Rihanna and Bon Jovi’s tribute to the man, what was Taylor Swift seen doing in the Pope’s car, who designed his robe to color-block so well, and everything else you know. And you’ll take the entire afternoon off to forward the pictures of the event to everyone in your email address book.

I wonder if the beggar at the traffic light knows our President let his friends, the Guptas, land their private jets at a military base. Does he care? I will ask him the next time. I didn’t have time this morning because the lights changed quick. He only had time to ask, “Two rand for bread?”, and I just gave him 4 rand and told him to get me a loaf too. I don’t know where he finds such bargains.

If I was President and my homies had a jet then sure, they can land wherever they want

Justin Bieber came to South Africa to perform whatever the hell he performs – live calligraphy or something. I hear punks stole ticket money from the Cape Town stadium office. About 3.5 million was reportedly taken. How will JB manage without his weekly allowance? He’ll know better than to be handsome in South Africa again. However, he did approve of the high quality of our street marijuana. Good on the lad.

Can you blame them? He's got swag — Can you blame them? He’s got swag

Ah, but the theory looms that his presence in the country was only to distract the masses from the passing of the National Secrecy Bill, which entitles Government to respond with a swift “Your mother” whenever anyone inquires about national affairs. My strategically placed underpaid sources confirm that Zuma is a big fan of Justin and his ability to induce epilepsy in teenage girls. Fortunately, I couldn’t afford tickets to see JB so I noticed the Bill and can inform you now when it’s too late. Not like you or me knowing can have any impact on anything.

There’s an argument in here somewhere. A lot of what concerns us is not our concern. A large bulk of it is distraction. Distraction from your issues; Where is your daughter? Why is she pouting on a motorcycle in her profile picture? Why does my son smell like butter milk? Is it a symptom of a medical condition that his jeans hang around his knees? Why is my husband getting fatter? Why do I have a husband -I’m straight?

You should never be bored. You have plenty to complain to your pastor about already. If you leave it to go and see what’s going on everywhere else, it’s only going to accumulate and someday when you come home from spending the entire day researching whether or not Nicki Minaj is a man on the internet, it’s going to manifest in some Gob Monster that greets you at the front door and says, “Hello! I’m Problems and you’re my dad!”

Okay bye.

You Have Failed This Suburban Area!

Approaching from the North Coast, Umzinto is not that difficult to reach. Just hop in your car and drive towards Port Shepstone, and when you are tired, you’ll be in Umzinto. Being almost exactly between Durban and Port Shepstone, it was established by people too lazy to travel between the two places. You’ll know when you’re there. It’s hard to miss the broken-down sugar cane trucks on the roadside, and some guy will try to sell you glue to feed his addiction to ARVs. It’s relatively safe. Though, you could fall into a pothole. Local Government has a mildly effective solution to potholes; they put signs, next to the part of the road that has the potholes, that say “Potholes”. You’re welcome. Potholes in Umzinto are so big that if you fall in, there’s a guy in uniform at the bottom asking to see your passport.

The local high school is on your left. Umzinto Secondary is where all the cool kids go to bring shame to their families. The ultra-hip guys crush marijuana just outside the gate. They wear their school ties while doing it. Call them drug addicts, but they still have pride in their school. The school girls monitor the road alongside, intent on finding a suitable, out-of-school mate to disrespect them. They wave you down to say, “Hey! Take advantage of me! I’m practically eighteen!”. You will probably see them start salivating when they see some unemployed guy with loud music, cigarettes and facial jewelry drive past.

Religiously, Umzinto is ahead of the game. In a 50 km radius there are 23 churches with 2.5 qualified pastors. 94% of the population are Christian and 93% celebrate Diwali with a smidgen of guilt. 99% of all residents unanimously agree that terrorism is “totally lame” because they like cheese burgers and casual intercourse. Pay attention to your driving. During the CBD upgrade, the engineer’s plans got mixed up and now the road signs and markings actually direct you towards an accident.

This guy was charged for looking fat in a Bafana shirt

If you’re hungry, you could get some expired cereal from the shops. They sell the cereal and the prize you’re supposed to get inside the box, separately. What economic genius. Beware of falling into open manholes. It’s not as fun as it sounds. In that event you could sue the municipality and win, if your cousin works for them. Never question the freshness of the local produce. Fruit and vegetables are delivered to vendors bright and early by the local alcoholic. Don’t come during summer though. There’ll be the annual flood we weren’t expecting. Which is, as you’d expect, judgement on the town for it’s overpriced mutton. Hey, but if Rhino gets flooded you can get a two-litre of Coke for ten rand from the police officer in charge of the investigation. Crime will only affect you if you let it. There’s even a Wall of Fame outside the holding cells for guys who break out within the impressive 20 minute mark. We have a very sophisticated, ground-breaking approach to tackling crime. In Umzinto, Law Enforcement leaves the crime fighting to you. Few things can match the bitter-sweet irony of getting mugged in front of the police station.

We were totally unprepared for the flood which also happened last year and the year before and..

The hallmark and testament to Umzinto’s modernization is the KFC right in the centre of the CBD. With it’s questionable blend of eleven secret herbs and spices, it has enslaved the population to enjoy nothing better than vomiting in their parking lot. Carry extra ten cent coins when you go there though. The Glue Boys (named so because they sniff glue), who inhabit the street outside, will not hesitate to mock your upbringing should you not give them as many ten cent coins as you have. It’s not uncommon, when you’re strolling through town, to see teenagers haggling liquor store owners or to overhear something like, “That tree will die if I keep pissing on it”. Sons of local teachers and store owners congregate in open, makeshift parking areas with their Golfs to smoke a cigarette, exchange loose girl’s phone numbers and talk about valves. Speaking of Golfs, that’s an Indian girl’s Kryptonite. Tell an Indian girl you have a Golf and she will hand you her bag to hold so she can start undressing.

St Anne’s is the primary school on the hilltop. It occupies an enviably dramatic location next to the Catholic Church and Cemetery. It’s convenient in that you can pray for forgiveness in the church whose convent garden you stole mangoes from. There’s also nothing quite so motivating than looking at a statue of a crucified Jesus, first thing in the morning on your way to school. It’s all very entertaining. I hear rumors that even the nuns occupy themselves by engaging in the local favorite game of Guess Who’s Daughter’s Pregnant Now?

Inspiration on the way to school every morning

Make certain to visit Riverside Park. It has a library next to the river. It’s very picturesque to see all the overdue books floating on the surface of the water. Most of the people living there are employed in the full-time job of standing by the power box. Don’t be surprised to find the tenants dressed better than you. Food, rent, electricity and other unimportant things aren’t so much of a priority in RSP. You must understand, you have to look good enough to sit on a manhole and change your BlackBerry Display Picture all day. If you’re bored, you can join the local guys in some light cable theft. Children are left to play freely in the moderately safe environment. They are not expected to be back indoors until they get ringworms. If ringworms were good enough for their parents, it’s good enough for them. Family and Tradition, there’s a strong sense of that in Umzinto. There’s nothing quite like seeing a daughter-in-law, with her third child on her hip, fighting with her mother-in-law on the third floor window, at 10 am on a Tuesday morning. “Go sell yourself your black thing!,” she says.

We only trust white people to search for drugs

All in all, Umzinto is a great exhibition of the spirit of middle class alcoholics. Which is why it was rated the number one immigration destination by Nigerian, Pakistani and Chinese drug/human traffickers. Jealous much, Park Rynie?

Find out more, Punk:

Drugs and More Drugs

Lola’s blog post about an incident at Umzinto Secondary

Downhill From Here

The worst thing is to be run over by a car driven by someone you went to high school with, outside the bus stop where you start your perilous journey to work every single day. Now you have 20 inch thread marks across your leg to match the scars that serve as a constant reminder of your inexperience with a trampoline and/or tequila. Worst part is she doesn’t even recognize you. No, that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that she stopped, and she looks like what
Madonna would’ve looked like had she been the love child of Beyonce and that lady from the Valentino adverts. Her tone is condescending. She assumes she’s older than you. Like a priest sweet talking an altar boy, she feigns sympathy. She smells like a thousand Parisian bakeries on fire. Then she touches your knee. You’re not prepared for this, and then suddenly you wake up.

That’s your dreams now. The 22 minutes of sleep you are rationed to per night are spent. Time to lie awake for six and half hours and worry. It starts after a hard day of being irrelevant and unsightly. Somehow you stagger home to noise, fish fingers and a second helping of disappointment. You may be thinking things will get better. You can grow, you can learn, there’ll be sunshine. I’m here to reassure you that it probably won’t. In fact, it may get worse.

Rationally, you’ll say, we’ll evolve. Evolution is garbage. Ignore the resemblance between your grandfather and the lead actor in Planet of the Apes. On close inspection you’ll find we’ve progressed just an inch away from The Primordial Ooze, if there was ever such a thing. Terrorists want to blow you up. Rappers want to swear at your Mum. Teenage girls want to shackle you to fatherhood. What’s their urgency anyways? Does menopause come early now? It’s probably the fifty growth hormones they inject into chicken. Speaking of chickens, I hate them. The whole point of eating meat is to kill something worth killing. There’s no honor in killing a tiny, flightless bird. You could step on it. Unlike, say a sheep, which you have to chase through a field carrying a knife.

My net tolerance for vegetarians is very low, probably negative even. They are a waste of sharp teeth. You are supposed to eat the animals. I’m sure even Jesus had a penchant for roast goat (yum). There’s limited uses for a cow otherwise, and if you don’t reign their population in by eating them, they’ll be in your yard challenging your cat for territory, which is an entirely awkward affair you should strive to avoid. I maybe will understand if you’re a vegetarian by religion, but not by being some counter-cultural, pan-sexual hippie. There’s a lot of that nowadays – young people who inhale latte’s and despise food for being too meh (more on the plague of young people in another post). The skinny, chic ultra-socialites who compound you with guilt every time you reach for a sandwich. “I hate when people die for food!”, they say. Without food you will die. I know. I saw some pictures. Ironically, they are the ones who shared it on Facebook The pictures of the unfabulously skinny African children who you can feed with one Like. What power. Make no mistake though, Obesity is a thing. A big thing.

I saw a guy so fat, men stare at his chest. At some point he must have looked down and asked, “Where the hell are my toes?”. Eat as much you like. Just burn the calories. I found I get quite a workout from hating things. You may be wondering if gaining weight could emphasize your personality. Let me throw a shovel at your head right now. There’s a tremendous euphoria that comes from being in shape. Let me also dispel the theory that woman have of big-sized guys. The one of them being fluffy, fun, nice and misunderstood. I can honestly say, from years of experience monitoring obese people as an unofficial Government unsanctioned intelligence agent, that most of them are bitter and generally horrible. And why not, they are obese in a shallow, image-obsessed society. It’s like being a white guy in a taxi rank. The problem stems from bad parenting (as do most issues). Daddy shuts noisy-annoying-fidgety offspring up by shoving cake in his face. Years later and he still numbs the neglect with more cake.

Well whatever. Whatever you are or want to be, it’s all the same. Life is a surreal existence that parades in front of you all the the things you want, all the things that will kill you. It’s your choice how you want to di – I mean live. The issue is that you have a tendency towards poor choices. Look at your haircut.

–>*

*Get out