To Kill Bieber

I’d like to begin by saying that it’s not that I hate Justin Bieber, it’s more that I wish his parents had been pro-abortion or that they themselves had died before puberty.

Now I can already hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the scores of tasteless Bieber-ians but prithee, hear me out.

I don’t hate Bieber as a person (I couldn’t because he’s not human). It’s what he stands for that makes me spend countless nights sharpening my Oukapi.

Music, people. Music is the miracle, the most enthralling teacher and the greatest wonder.

While I can appreciate the genius of his marketing and PR team it’s music for whom I weep. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a bubble-gum popping sing-along ditty every now and then but when it’s the only options we have on radio and TV are Britney, “Fiddy”, Scherzinger, Parlatones and Bieber then woe is us.

Think of the children. Think of the babies. We have robbed them of a true appreciation for music – the craft, the expression the art.

When we grew up and when our parents were growing up there was the mind-numbing pop, disco etc. but on the radio you’d also hear the sounds of Motown, Stimela, Hugh, Jimi, Nina, The Cranberries, and Kurt Cobain amongst the easily digestible fodder of Macy Phakela, Kylie Minogue and Malume Piki-Piki and that weirdo who sang Scapman.

Even the Bee Gees wrote some of the most awesome disco tracks with great melodies, catchy but crafted instrumentals topped with well written lyrics like:

I ain’t no vision I’m the boy who loves you

Inside and out.

Backwards and forwards with my heart hanging out.

I love no other way

What are we gonna do if we lose that fire?

Sure beats “I’m a G6, I’m a, I’m a G6” right?

Let’s think about the kids. They have to know that there’s more to this music thing. They have to know that you don’t have to make booties drop when dropping an album. It’s totally feasible to have a club vibe to lyrics that are informed and politically, socially or religiously charged.

Bieber? Bieber? Yrrrrr I wish I were Christian so I could murder him on Saturday and be absolved of my sins on Sunday morning.

Mr. Pothead

A pickled Mr. Pothead poked a pre-pubescent pupil past the praying pew to peek at the priest popping pills into the pure, prayed upon wine. Peering round at peers and properly praying people – preoccupied with pious practice – Pothead pondered its unholy purpose. The pretentious priest, who remained prim and proper ‘mongst the preached-to parent populace, had a putrid practice with prayer-choir pupils and their petrified penises (pun purely by haps). At mass he’d pray, piping psalms pro piety and preached from Peter and Paul. But the Pontius Pilot prick played putrid games the pure pope would admire or abhor.

Excuse My Penis

Even though I was once told not to blame my penis for my mistakes, it continuously betrays my youth. 

Whilst some may think insanity and the inability to control one’s thoughts is an undignified disposition I find the involuntary activities of my loins a much more troubling state of affairs.

Excusable as it may be for a teenaged boy to pitch a tent at the high school ball slow dance a grown man who harbours the growing expression of his most primitive reflexes is near unforgivable. Just imagine sharing a dance floor with every guy and his pride and glory.

But the shaft is not just a shaft. It has a head and with this head comes a mind of it’s own. 

Sometimes we don’t even know why there’s suddenly no space in our pants because we were busy typing a spreadsheet document. Maybe it’s reminding us to take a quick browse at Youporn. Priorities. 

It is important to note that, once our dear friend has his mind made up there’s no talking yourself out of it. One cannot compare the urges of Madame Pussycat, aka the vagina, with the aching of a man’s loins. When women are overcome by desire they’re still functioning, taxpaying members of society and women, on the most part, can maintain their standards.

(But) when the penis takes over the mind of it’s owner it has little to no regard for reputations, standards and office deadlines. 

Please understand, ladies, that this is not an excuse. It’s fact. There are hundreds of millions of men wandering in a seemingly aimless zombie state with sex in their eyes. We are but leaves in the winds of our lustful wants.

So I implore you to please forgive my penis for it knows not what it does. Hell, I don’t even think it’s mine most of the time.

Sexual Harassment: The Rules of Engagement.

In any interaction between human beings there are spoken and unspoken rules that dictate how one should appropriately act (whether the engagement itself is appropriate or not).

There are rules of engagement when it comes to war so it is natural to accept that when engaging in office sexual harassment there are lines to be drawn. Believe it.

Now, sexual harassment is such a strong word. I prefer office play.  But we’ll call a spade a spade.

It’s easy to merely say that it’s only sexual harassment if the person is unattractive but, hey, ugly people like work-play too. So we need to establish a common ground (a sort of playground where even the fat kid gets picked).

It is best not to be willy-nilly with whom you choose to work-play. Rather establish a repertoire by beginning with verbal wordplay. Light innuendos and puns that compare office stationary to hidden body parts are preferable. Don’t jump straight into sending links to YouPorn.

Ok, rule number one: don’t ever send links to YouPorn. That’s what we call a digital paper-trail. That’s not smart sexual harassment.

A very important rule to keep in mind is tit for tat (no pun intended but it reinforces the point). If he winks feel free to reciprocate. If she slaps your bum then it is only polite to return the favour. The idea is to slowly build up to whichever point you feel you need to draw the line. Yes, everybody has a limit. Some people will only be sexually harassed to a point before it’s no longer fun and games.

The industry you’re in will also determine how far you can take things. If you’re in a law firm then even eye contact is prohibited. If you’re in advertising feel to test the limits (as long as you’re within 5meters of the bar). 

In short, sexual harassment like love is a two way street. If you find that you’re the only one contributing chances are you’re a stalker. Stop. Reassess your approach. Then start a conversation with the office slut. Every office has one. She doesn’t necessarily put out but she prefes conversations where the topic ends up being about her Tuesday cleavage.

But I do warn you, this game is best left to attractive people. Ugly people usually end up in court.

The Friend Zone

I don’t care who you are or the places you have already been to. If you’re a man there’s no scarier place than the friend zone. It’s that ominous black whole – a social Limbo or sorts - where you’re sexually disorientated.

It’s keeps men up at night; thinking, judging themselves, wondering what went wrong. Basically, you don’t know how you got here or how the hell to get out.

The answer to the first question, how the hell did I end up in the friend-zone, is a tough one. It could be the result of a number of bad moves on your part. In The Game, timing is everything and somewhere along the line you took too long. Unfortunately there is no standard open window period – much like a worm whole – in which to get in (no pun intended).

Hindsight is 20/20 so when if you’re in the friend zone you’ll probably see the moments where you should have pulled in or unbuttoned her top or just asked her on a date. But now you find yourself in that awful place where she loves having you around but there’s no chance of it going further than “this is my friend, Sbani-bani”.

The friend zone is a house of torture run by a cruel, unintentional sorceress who’s derives great pleasure from being oblivious to the aching in your heart or loins.  She’s constantly calls you over for “drinks” or “just to hang” thus leading you to believe she’s interested. This illusion is soon dashed by her incessant ramblings of another love interest or sexual conquest she’s having trouble emotionally dealing with. If only she knew the cure is in your pants, you think to yourself.

Basically you’ve become her gay-straight buddy. You’re like an accessory in front of which she can get dressed. Accidental boob-rubs are giggled away but don’t think it meant anything, pervert.

So how can you get out? That’s a tough one because it’s a matter of risking everything. The only way to get out is to devalue the friendship. Remember, the friendship is the problem. There is no building on it, evolving it manipulating it. You don’t even know where you are buddy.

Don’t be scared of coming out empty handed. The fear is what keeps you in the friend zone. Screw the fear. Screw the friendship. That’s the only way you’re going to screw her.

I Hate the Sea

I really do hate the sea
that separates you from me
even brids migrate from Autum trees

and wild beasts move south, you see
and the sun sets so timeously
to give the moon a moment or three
So I have to ask, quite honestly,
does the sea have no place else it could be?

This is Mass Madness You Maniacs

Six billion and counting

The acquiescent masses

The following crowds

Indiscernible faces of the hoi polloi

They are a mad multitude making the popular pick.

A peer-pressured populace.

So quick to forget the crimes of the majority –

Their flat Earth and revolving sun.

Laboured by the chore of choice the sheepish flock blinkered blind,

Bleating, bumbling beasts bored and bashful

Break their backs to be the better breed at the abattoir.

The life and times of the dumbed-down droves.

They are mad, I tell you.

A mad meandering mob of meagre minded morons. 

They are mad to accept.

They are mad to find meaning in this meaningless paradigm pandemic.

They are mad not to be raging mad these gullible, feeble, phantoms of their id.

That Seeingless Night

And in the heavy howling black of bat-blind night the house settles in. Doors creak eerily on their rusted bracket knuckles – left wide open they let the dark ink-thick nothingness seep into every nook and colourless cranny. Brutus howls at this faceless phantom as night tick-tocks and dreamtime knocks, counted flocks in fenced off lots and ghosts the grown-ups all forgot float in the emptiness of this place divorced by light and ignored by the sleeping townsfolk. Darkness grips tight onto the night seeping through fingers and hollow hallways. It holds steady to passing of the full evening’s blankness

Love, shmove

What’s with this falling in love business? What purpose does it serve for procreation that good old horny doesn’t?

I’ve seen people fall in love. It looks painful. I’m pretty sure that if you fall in love at least once a year you’re a sadomasochist in denial.

If you fall in love more than three times in your entire life then you probably deserve all the inexplicable suffering that comes with it.

It seems all rational thought one might have possessed before the tragic fall from grace into love is replaced by an illogical and primitive state where one’s judgment is always overridden by the conclusion that their “other half” has it in for them.

All of a sudden the only logical explanation for a missed phone call at two in the morning is infidelity.

It’s heroin, people. All you’re really fighting for is to feel the same way you did when you started.

I say, just find someone with whom you enjoy having intimate sex. Then surround yourself with friends you enjoy talking to. Find satisfaction in these.

Trying to find someone who embodies all of this is a bit of a big ask but those who are unfortunate enough to find this rare gem of a specimen well I say only you may fall in love. The rest of us can only dream of being so miserable.

The Meaning of Life

Life is just long enough for us to figure out that we’ll never figure it out. Maybe the real question, if there’s a question at all, should be what is the meaningless-ness of life?

They Come And Go

And they come and go; the smiling faces, the automatic pleasantries, the cold distances of everyday human exchange. These mimicries. These learned handshakes. These benign tooth-flashing displays, white curtains hiding the disinterested or malign backstage players, to be cued into the third act – True Colours. How appropriate. Trite appropriateness, that subjective cordiality for the dancer with no rhythm of their own but the bowing, bobbing and bashful bending to the choreography of the appropriate day in, day out metronome. They come and go these forgetful acquaintances. These come and go, depthless, devious norms they are for the forgetful, infantine mind

100 WORDS A DAY: To the Internet.

Subscribe. It’s your stamp, nod and seal of approval. It’s your “Can I have some more please, sir.” It’ll keep the provider providing and you provided for. Follow. It tells us we’re going in the right direction or at least it’s the direction where we’re not the only person on the path. It’s not just an ego boost but for the true sharer it’s like a reaction from the crowd as the punch line drops. Retweet. It’s affirming. And imitation is the highest flattery. Suggest to a friend. Because the Internet is truly the last, genuine democracy we have left. (04Aug11)

100 WORDS A DAY: This Life Business

It’s all a bit much, really, this life business. Its certain uncertainties; death and when it will surprise us, the untimeliness of failure, visits from the in-laws. To add to the confusion there’s a smorgasbord of isms to be for or to be against or to be Switzerland; capitalism, Marxism, passivism, feminism. It’s a cataclysm of isms of who is or who isn’t an -ist. And for a real laugh it all crescendos with the anticlimax of and "then he died", at which point your entire existence is a murmured summary of misquotes and badly told anecdotes in passing conversation. (22June11)

100 WORDS A DAY: Between Earth & That Heaven Place

She sang haunted chants against the winds that carelessly carried her croon. Nomdiba, ntombi ye ntaba uchaza nenyoni zithi cwaka. She is the gateway between earth and that heaven place and with her song our ears taste the pleasures of Gods and sleeping ancestors. How sad the Gods must be that she sings songs that bring tears to the most hardened herding sage. How wonderfully sad they must be. Nomdiba lies in her sister’s arms, the eternal wailer, goddess of the water, uNomvula. Euphonic wailing keeps her sobbing sweet rain and swirling seas. A sisterhood birthed of Mother’s natures benevolent womb. (12April11)

100 WORDS A DAY: A WOOD SONG

The wooden stairs announce their creaking song, notes long and croaked and toneless ‘neath the old man’s heavy, tired and laboured step – they play the last cry of a dead tree conducted by an old bladder’s need for continuous relief. Loud and obtrusive the song of a filed-down forest under foot-found, under carpet, under piano, under sleeping cat and snoring bed, under polished and over-trodden by heavy-heeled tiptoe midnight march. The candlelit chorus that pierces the soft silence of the night. The mournful melancholy moaning moping ‘mongst the counted sheep and rock-a-by baby sleep. A tuneless symphony of pre-dawn wake. (24May11)

A POINTLESS RAMBLE ABOUT THE TWO KINDS

Everyone will tell you about the kinds of people in the world. On most assertions there are two kinds; the optimist or the pessimist; the haves and the have not; the believers and heathens; the left and right wing; those who let fear shackle them to the monotony of their circumstance and those who in the most hideous face of fear would dare change their destiny.

Based on these arguments we can assume that no matter the variables of character there is a preferable side for all of humanity to be in. We should rather be optimists and not pessimists, intelligent and not ignorant and so on – a sort of ying and yang, if you may.

But these statements do not suggest a balance that requires the existence of both extremes. One side is preferable and can exist alone. A world of loving people can exist without the paradox of hate and contempt. Mathematically, on a probability calculation, this state can exist.

So the statement “there are two types of people” is not an absolute truth – unless you split the world into these two types of people; leaders and followers. None is more important than the other. None can exist without the other. As with light and darkness they are inseparable concepts. The one defines the other.

With this we have to look at the world and consider who is following and who is leading. The fact of the matter is the character or group, town, country, party, is on the most part defined and directed by the character of the leader and not necessarily the character of the sum of the parts.

Basically, the world is filled with acquiescent followers who, due to no fault of their own, are quite clueless as what direction they should take. These people are desperate for a leader. Their utility is defined by the ideals they can follow. This is not necessarily a weakness. It is the nature of social creatures.

But the true genius of nature is that a leader doesn’t need to lead everyone. A leader needs only lead the person who’s directly behind him in the rankings. He will be leader to number three, who’ll lead number four, et cetera.

So you can be both, or one or the other. You cannot be neither. Reluctant leaders and clueless followers abound the earth. Question is, which are you, really?

And it’s ok to be a follower as long as whatever you’re following is true to you. It’s not wrong to be either of the two.

ARE YOU SCARED OF YOU?

You are a scary thing, indeed. Just terrifying. I’d be scared of the real you too if I were you, what with your hopes and dreams, fallen-star wishes and dumbed desires.

You dream too big. You aspire too high. You want to be too amazing.

Oh to be anyone else but me, you say. Silly creature you are. Anyone else but you?  Me oh my, I wouldn’t be anyone else but I.

It’s you, it’s you, It’s you who makes your world go round. It’s you who falls in love. It’s you who aches to be amazing. It’s you who chooses, so why not choose you?

And how dare you not be you. Don’t be me; I do not wish to be a passing phase. Don’t be him; he was him first so you’ll never win at that.

Don’t fear being you. You should fear being him or her who never truly was he or she. 

Better the world misunderstand your authenticity than completely reject you as an unnoticeable rehash of someone else.

Be you. The real deal. The genuine article. The one and only. The real McCoy. The first rate version of the original. That way you’ll never be scared of being you because nobody can beat you at that.

100 WORDS A DAY: Beyond The Blue

I try to write 100 words everyday. Try. No more than 100 words and no less. This was my first piece.

A path wound drunken and sure toward the unreachable horizon where it met the sky between a stubborn cactus and a humble stone cottage. There, a round, old and hooded betty stirring porridge for her grandchildren, three, face as stern as the un-malleable mortar that bound the stone-paved footpath stood guarding the door to the blue. I gave her a hundred pieces of gold and a wry smile. With that the aged lass hunched by age and toil grunted for the shepherd’s boy to let open the door and let me through beyond the now cloudy blue. The atmosphere parted. (20Feb11)

The Middle Finger

Man:   My, that is an impressive middle finger you have there.

Man2: Why, thank you.

Man:   Oh don’t thank me. I’m just happy to bear witness to such a dashing digit.

Man2: I cannot argue with that observation. I, myself, have looked upon it many a time and thought well how lucky are those who find themselves on the nail-side.

Man:   Pardon my forwardness but is it, by some chance, for me?

Man2: For you?

Man:   Of course, I have been presumptuous.

Man2: No, no, no. Not at all. I guess, I’d have to ask you if you are an asshole?

Man:   An asshole?

Man2: Well only those worthy of being dubbed assholes may receive my middle finger.

Man:   All right. Well, then, I would assume only a humble man would ever stop to consider whether they were an asshole or not. A true asshole, a natural asshole, would be oblivious to his effortless assholiness.

Man2: Indeed.

 
Man:   Marvelous! I am an asshole.

LIKE THE UNIVERSE

We are like the universe; scattered pieces of the whole separated by an immense nothingness.

FODDER FOR THE REASONLESS MIND

This is my first entry and it was inspired by Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuPO2Kvqlms . I've found a lot of my writing is influenced by his style these days.

                                                                                                                                                     

Can you hear the loud, indisputable fallacies of politicians, priests, parents, preachers, public servicemen, pseudo saviors and the charismatic conmen of the cloak? They tell tall tales devoid of logic - fodder for the reasonless mind.

Quiet, now. Can you hear? They are speaking, now. The rambunctious rulers are speaking. The boisterous Bible-men bellow blasphemy to Sunday sinners and their fiction fills the unquestioning gospel pews. The unionist weaves woeful webs – a revolting ruse – strewn across the blank faces and sponging, pitifully, permeable ears of the mournful headlight-doe-eyed masses.

Quiet. The mind-crippled crowds are quiet, now. The nodding noggins numb and knowing-less. A willing audience They are stirring, moved by what they do not understand.