ANALYSIS

The Day The Story Died

When you see a bunch of journalists looking dejected don’t ever be stupid enough to think that maybe one of their own died – maybe a Rupert Murdock or Larry King. I doubt if they’ll ever cry if such happened. They never did when the Bang-Bang Club disintegrated.

In this world there are only two things that journalists dread – a deadline and the death of a story. A deadline is every media person’s internal opium that urges him to work harder or else he will miss it. It’s a bus to heaven, it's adrenalin.

To a journalist a deadline is like the last train out of a park station – you miss it you are stuck. They can bear missing everything (including coming during coitus) but not a deadline.

The second fear is when a story dies. How does a story die without ending you might want to know? A story dies when you allege that the minister (at national or in the Western Cape) used taxpayer’s money to buy a luxury Mercedes Benz and even corroborate your story by asking his PA who swears to god that she was with him when the transaction was sealed, his former driver who says “YEAH!”, that security guard at Rondebosch who says he saw it for the first time on June 30, the leader of the opposition who says she has dealership documents to support the sale, and the minister’s spokesperson who says he can’t comment on his boss’ personal ‘shenanigans’. Wow, you have a killer story of how the minister who earns R70 000 a month managed to buy a car costing a million at a time when the Credit Act limits how much of his money can be spent on luxuries and the global recession is on the rampage.

And then your shrewd editor rejects the draft and urges you to get bank records of the transaction plus check the Registrar of Member’s Interest and viola, the muthafucka actually used the credit facility afforded all executive council members to purchase the car and it has been declared. Apparently you discover that the credit facility allows him to get a car worth R1.1 million but he went for a measly million. And yeah, it was taxpayer money, and yeah he went with his PA and a driver.

Then a twist, apparently he was bonking the PA who he forced to do an abortion two months ago then dumped and she’s got a vendetta, the opposition leader requested the same allowance and was denied, the driver was reprimanded for using the minister’s car to transport marijuana since protocol dictates that it is not searched at roadblocks and the border and the poor security guard acted in good faith.

Now, why am I telling you all these? It’s because my friend saw a lot of hacks outside the Jackson family home, some sobbing and sitting their Versace bottoms on pavements and mistakened their fake crocodile tears for emotion and pain at the death of Michael Jackson, Peter Pan, The Gloved One, MoonWalker, Wacko Jacko, Lehlanya etc.

No ways, some of those fake mourners were dedicated entertainment journos whose beat (where you are deployed) was Michael Jackson – and with his death their biggest story died – and probably their beats will follow as well. So, don’t be fooled, journalists have no heart, when they see you they see a story and nothing else – once they have milked you dry they move to the next source.

PS. I’m a journo so be careful how you interact with me. I might quote you one day

TRU

King Peter Pan’s Unofficial Autopsy Results – The Michael Jackson Eulogy!

I don’t want to pour cold water (given that it’s Winter and it’s cold already) over the recent euphoria surrounding the death of pop musician Michael Jackson by making jokes about the deceased. Yeah, for real, Michael is dead and his bigger-than-life gimmicks are gone with him. Never again shall he need to put on funny masks and hats at a time when Swine Flu is not yet an epidemic; never again shall he need to throw a peace sign everytime a camera clicks as if he was a Golani Bridage corporal as his tank passes a UN monitored check-point in Southern Lebanon.

Michael is finally gone and with him went his undying quest to be everything he was not destined to be. Unfortunately even at death he can't be Peter Pan. First; the young boy has always suffered unrequited love and an adult aura that is just too unacceptable for kids. Since eleven-years old pleading with ‘baby’ to give him ‘one more chance’ only for baby to marry him for two years and unlike his wish to produce a genius who will fuse Elvis Presley and him – nothing came out. Michael became a divorcee.

Michael, it is understood that as a kid who never really went to school like all of us always thought genetics worked along his narrow interpretation of biotic understanding– as if suppose I marry the daughter of Larry King me and her stand a big chance of producing a hotshot media personality. Nobody told Michael that genes don’t function according to our whim – you have more odds stacked against you to inherit cancer and diabetes from your mother than her guitar playing skills - another such punk was Lauryn Hill marrying a failed Marley hoping to produce Bob Hill. And poor Michael went ahead and married Lisa-Marie Presley only to bore her with his untold bedroom antics; somebody please leak Michael’s Sex Tape to Vivid!

Michael wanted to be a white person since he realised that he was not Diana Ross and that MTV preferred putting on heavy rotation videos from white artists to blacks at the time. He had seen a few Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole videos but scores of Rolling Stones and ABBA. His obsession to be bleached was a business move that went horribly wrong.

Sometimes I wonder where was Motown’s Barry Gordy through this entire morass? Okay, it’s Gordy we talking about who was where he was when Marvin Gaye bled through his nostrils.

Maybe Michael aspired to be white since he always saw his mentor Quincy Jones with white chicks. But whatever drove Michael along that route will never be known, lest the root of his life-long sadness. The nigger just couldn’t be Caucasian regardless of multiple plastic surgeries. Guitarist Carlos Santana said some time ago that success comes with its own hiccups. He said that after those screams, those autographs and euphoria, you are alone in your hotel suite and those walls just can’t hug you, your cars can’t love you, your millions can’t talk to you when you are lonely.

Even Lauryn Hill once spoke about some of the richest people she knew who wanted to commit suicide.

Yeah, the ‘King of Pop’ who aspired to dance on the moon since his Thriller days finally has an opportunity to be a King for real. Where he’s at there’s no work so his credentials alone guarantee that Michael finally became king, at death – on our side. Funny.

However we need to also be empathetic to the Gloved One. We are not him which means we can’t walk a mile in his size 11 shoes. At the same time we must remember that while he was Pied Piper R.Kelly role model, when Kelly was accused of sexual impropriety with a minor he let the courts decide and never settled out of court with the accuser. Some armchair analysts say such a move in Kelly’s part means that he had nothing to hide and wanted everything placed in the open while good old Michael settled out of court because he wanted his moment of wacky testosterone surge to be buried under a load of dollars.

Imagine if President Jacob Zuma decided to settle his own rape accusations with Khwezi out of court. I doubt that he would be occupying Mahlambandlopfu today.

So, we’ll never know if Michael did it but since dead people can not sue or be sued we can start to speculate why he would always love walking around with burly Marine-type men holding umbrellas for him and sitting on wheelchairs? For the life of me I am scared of wheelchairs even when it means they are just the means to being admitted to hospital. Something says to me if I acquaint myself with the machine I might be inviting some handicap. I know this sound cheap but not cheaper than Michael’s gimmicks which are snapped for free.

But for Michael to love wheelchairs to the point that when the paparazzi snapped him sitting on one and raised a flag about his health his publicists had to dig deep to convince them that he loves traveling incognito in wheelchairs leaves a lot of questions than answers.

Whatever emerges and what can be observed out of the life and times of Michael is that he was a very sad and broken man. He never really had friends apart from his legion of publicists, biographers, fans, Nelson Mandela, personal photographers, PAs, brothers, sisters, mother and father. He never trusted people enough to get close to them since he always thought they wanted something from him. He was never a 50-Deep type. Who the fuck did he think he was – some drug that everyone wanted to get high on?

He surrounded himself with naïve young boys. Of all people, including alleged long-time ago girlfriend Lisa Bonnet Michael married his nurse and ‘fathered’ two children with her. He then fathered a third surrogate child whose mother we will soon find out as lawyers sling it out in the LA High court. Very few people know if Michael drank alcohol or smoked purple. What people know is that he loved his prescription drugs as a cocktail and often drug cocktails clog the heart and bring about heart attacks – Marilyn Monroe opened our eyes. Was Billy Jean about her?

There’s not much science involved in analysing heart attacks; if your heart is overloaded with all the carbon dioxide it beats very fast, which means more blood or rather oxygen released into the system, which means you sweat, which means you become dehydrated and the blood becomes thicker and has more difficulty traveling through your arteries, which means if at that time you are incapacitated by another drug your heart gets clogged and you suffer cardiac failure and die.

I heard people in Harlem and all over the world saying when the King (of Pop) died a part of them died as well. The same people cried when the King (of Rock and Roll Elvis Presley) died as well and claimed a part of them died with him. Some of those career-mourners cried twelve-years ago when the King (of New York Notorious BIG) died too and claimed a part of them was silenced under those bullets in LA.

I saw people on television crying as if they have just lost their balls. They cried the same way when Jimi Hendrix died. I saw them crying when Janis Joplin passed on. I swear I heard them crying fifteen years ago when Kurt Cobain spilled his own brains.

I read a piece written by another King (of Kwaito music) Arthur Mafokate saying he was shattered by Michael’s demise. My advice would be ‘go ahead and be shattered, he is not coming back folks. I loved Michael too as a human being and musical genius, but not deep enough to cry, let alone stop rolling my blunt because I miss him’. I ask people who trusted Michael with all their heart to tell me, ‘if you could unscrew your dick and leave it with someone for five days while you went somewhere, would you trust yours in the hands of Michael, do you think your pussy or dick will still be in a state you left it in with Michael if you did so? The question is largely that do you think the dude could be trusted? '

I don’t know. But truly on June 25 – indeed the music died.

TRU

I Lost A Poet - Mzwandile Matiwana's Eulogy and Obituary

“I will never be happy/ till I find the poem/ that I lost - / the poem of how I loved you/ how I loved the way/ we kissed/ on our first day” – Mzwandile Matiwana (I Lost A Poem – Deep South Books)

This week I got an sms from Vonani Bila that one of the most prolific poets that I looked forward to working with in any capacity, Mzwandile Matiwana (42) has passed away on the 11th of June and was buried on the 12th, probably in line with his Muslim beliefs. He wrote the poem I quoted above as a title of his first poetry collection

I felt sad because for me Mzwandile has always been a troubled soul that deserved all the peace that should come with aging. “At fifteen I left school and started to write poetry and plays, but later went to pursue a career in crime, of which I was later convicted to a twelve year term for the armed-robbery and possession of a firearm”, he wrote in his autobiography. He tried to justify it years later with a poem Robber’s Confession when he wrote, “it was the empty cupboard at home/ that made me do it - /I would not allow my sister/ to peddle her greasy hole/ to put food on the table/ to humiliate my manhood (my family’s pride)/ the blood I bled”

The first time I met him was through his writings in the Timbila anthology. He wrote beautiful poetry about being incarcerated and yearning for freedom. He fantasized about women and was nostalgic about his never-existed relationship with his estranged daughter. “My writing as an art is sort of self-discovery, almost like a discovery and revelation of the mystery and wonder of life”, he continued.

Matiwana yearned for that day that he could hold his daughter in his arms and hear her call him ‘papa’. It was a yearning he had developed and harboured while he was serving one of his many prison terms. “I try to record every detail of my life as a lover, convict or a free person”, he went on. He converted most of his unrequited love to love poetry that, like him stood very little chance of being accepted. His poetry is spruced by lyrics to Legal Aid Board representatives and prison officials he coined names for. For example he referred to one of them as “Dear Brown Sugar live/ sweet gift from up above - / there is no one like you I can find/ who can fill your space in my mind” – a letter to Elita.

By his own admission Mzwandile has been a jailbird since the age of 15. His excellent English and comprehension of English prose he credited to Buyelwa Sonjica, former Minister of Minerals. To him writing was all there was, he said I his bio, “I suggest we first as writers work on solving the problem of opposition between art and life and that will be achieved should we live for writing not write for a living”.

I then met Matiwana on a working visit to Port Elizabeth many years ago. At the time he had just walked out of prison and was supposed to be the star attraction of the workshop I was attending. I and another comrade, Victor shared accommodation with him and he was nice even though we harboured all these thoughts of fresh-out-of-jail people being horny beings. He read us his poetry including the seminal Culture Checker, “I am the CultureCheckingChapter/ and I speak no lies/ like the FREEDOM CHARTER/ and if I die I will always rise?...now you maggots in convulsion/ fire the bullets and silence me/ or hire the assassin for your solution/ and let the truth win and set me free”. He spoke at length about jail and the opportunities it denies you when you are in there. He protested that anyone can actually be creative without marijuana induced hallucinations when incarcerated saying people need inspiration to write and that jail offers none.

I was to meet him again one night while walking the streets of Cape Town in a trance. That was many years later and out of the blue he abruptly pulled my hand. I was shit scared since this was around 23:43 until I discovered it’s him. He was a vagrant at this time, living on the streets of the Mother City with other ‘streetkids’. He was high and deranged, demanding money for cigarettes, lacking patience and really out of this world.

Me and Vonani took him to our hotel at Victoria Street where he messed up our television set by insisting on changing channels as if there we favourite TV programmes on the empty streets. He couldn’t accept any rebuke and had a hidden tenacity for violence though he was good at containing himself around us. He exposed to us an ugly scar across his under-nourished torso which he claimed was inflicted one night when someone tried to kill him by slicing through his belly. “They took me to hospital and I refused anesthetic since as a Muslim I shall not be found using drugs”, he proudly told us. And now we asked him that what reasoning was that given that he was using marijuana to fight the cold and fear on the same streets.

What we didn’t understand was that Mzwandile needed hallucinations to stay intact. He often carried the cross of ordinary people who had better luxuries than him and would share in their pain through his poetry. Like in a poem titled Last Swing which was dedicated to all the families and friends who lost their loved ones during the times of Capital punishment, “they weighed him/ and measured his neck/ took his pulse - /…they took off the blindfold/ the mouth was open/ and the face pale/ his eyes flared wide open/ in a death stare - / he took his last swing”

We spent some good time with him in Cape Town, very adventurous while he kept insisting that I should do a documentary on his life as a troubled man and streetkid and award-winning (NICRO Arts & Crafts Awards) poet. He wanted me to follow him every step, even when he went into the belly of the beast. I said, ‘no, but thanks’. Mzwandile believed that writing was not a part of his life “but my life”.

The story of the never-happened documentary is one Mzwandile carried all along and kept telling people that I am going to do a doccie about him. It’s a story he proudly shared with some dudes in Newtown when I met him again two years ago. However this time he was not fine, he was on multiple TB medication, had lost weight and still as deranged as ever, demanding to be borrowed my cellphone to make a call to ‘this white man who wants to take me to England to exhibit my works’. Not that I had issues with Mzwandile but I had serious ones with borrowing my cellphone to a ‘streetkid’. I said I didn’t have enough airtime and he insisted on sending a PLEASE CALL using my phone. I said the ‘white man’ will not call because he does not know my number and he insisted that he will. I refused.

He was heartbroken when a fellow poet couldn’t recognise him at Kaldis. He kept saying “it’s me, don’t you recognise me, Mzwandile?” They however chatted for some time and laughed briefly.

That was the last time I saw Mzwandile in the physical form. I read his latest poetry in Timbila 6. Mzi Mahola provided a heartwarming, piercing but honest ‘eulogy’ of the man he had known for a long time. Mahola wrote like the father of a son he couldn’t reach regardless of his various attempts. He said it like a god who has given up on humanity’s chance to do good. It wasn’t a final nail on a coffin but it was the truth as it should have been told to Mzwandile many years ago.

There had always been rumours about Mzwandile’s medical condition. It’s an ace he held close to his chest to the very end. He might have tried to drop hints though even though very few people critiqued his work. In a poem titled I Wanted to Die Last Night he wrote, “I wanted to die last night/ after the morning call/ after you cried - / I took a sheet tore it into strips/ made a noose/ like the ‘Laksman’ did/ wenzani?/ that voice broke the silence of my demise”, then he wrote in another poem titled Suicide Blues in Prison (The HIV memories inside), “I lost all the shape/ and found the rope - /but I could not do it/ I wanted it to be a secret/ for the warder kept on watching me/ I wanted to write/ my last chapter/ and finish it smiling/ but the watcher kept looking on/ and the bomb in my blood ticked slowly”.

I got the news that he passed away, and I felt relief because Mzwandile didn’t look too well the last time I saw him. He had finally been blessed.

REVIEW

“Success Took a Shot” – American Gangster Review

American have all these funny and intriguing stories about things that never happened. Like the plethora of films about the Vietnam War (Full Metal Jacket) and Desert Storm (Three Kings). One still has to see one war movie that shows America losing instead of always being the victors, often against history’s lessons. Americans are good at distorting history to their benefit.

So I had the same cynicism going into watching the DVD of American Gangster starring my favourite actors of all times, Denzel Washington, Common, Idris Elba, Cuba Gooding Jr and Russel Crowe. Denzel outdid himself. I was cynical like the FBI agent in the film who asked if a black person has ever been good at pulling an operation of organised crime proportions like the Sicilian Mafia.

Simply put American Gangster is the story of the first black organised criminal at the time that darkies still referred to whites as Massas, who managed to flood America with his brand of heroin labeled Blue Magic which he was getting from the killing fields of South East Asia. It turned blue due to a chemical reaction when it was cut for the market.

The film starts with Lucas’ boss dying barely minutes into the flick and a power void opens with him and another protégé played by Elba wanting to be the next big thing on the streets of New York. Elba has his philosophy of always giving 25% to his dealers while Lucas’ strategy of dominance is to get the best cut heroin in the market and sell at a below market value street bargain. Thus, it results in low margins = high profits.

Lucas uses his first big payday to relocate his family to New York and New Jersey where he buys his mom a huge house and puts every single cousin and nephew into his empire. The mother seems not to know how the cash is made, but it’s more like ‘ask me no questions and I tell you no lies'. Cash is flush and Lucas marries Miss Puerto Rico and starts living the high life eating out and enjoying his money – though discreetly.

At the same time – concurrently there is a police investigation into the flooding of narcotics into the streets and suspects keep popping up on the board at the precinct. At this point Elba is gone – shot execution-style by Lucas while the whole hood witnessed. The police are lining up their potential suspects.

However the police are also fighting another battle – corrupt cops within their ranks who are colluding with both Lucas and the Mafia and taking bribes to lose dockets. Almost everyone is on the take but for one officer played by Crowe.

Lucas falls into a trap when his wife buys him a mink coat which he wears to a boxing fight –front-row seat. Those are seats reserved for friends of boxers and promoters, not a Jim Crow in the sixties. At realizing that he has been marked he destroys it but it’s already too late. The cops are on him. What makes matters worse for him is that he is using US Air Force transport planes to ferry his cargo from South East Asia to the US. His drugs enter America concealed within the corpses of dead GIs. That’s his mode of transport. He runs laboratories all over New York and retails under masquerade of legal business.

When the Vietnam War ends it means his supply route is about to be closed. He makes one last desperate dash which results in his massive consignment confiscated by the cops.

I don’t want to give away the plot of this multi-layered story with enough twists and turns to last you the whole movie. It has so many sub-plots that at times you can hardly predict what is going to happen next. Well-written, excellent acting, brilliantly directed by Ridley Scott and the cinematography deserves a bigger award. They say it’s based on a true story.

American Gangster is already on DVD and it’s as good as it was when it first hit the silver screen more than a year ago. It’s Denzel at his best. Go rent or buy it.

White Wedding – A Review

The other day I watched one of South Afrika’s funniest romantic comedies of modern times, Rapulana Seiphemo and Kenneth Nkosi’s White Wedding. This is a beautiful film if you have seen one. It draws its strength from the excellent script, brilliant directing, exceptional cinematography and impeccable acting. The main and supporting actors did their best as well and deserve a 9/10 for their brilliance. Actually this film lives on its supporting actors than the main characters.

White Wedding is a simple story of Elvis who has to go to Cape Town, Gugulethu really, to marry his wow sweetheart Ayanda whom he met and dated in Johannesburg. She’s already in Gugs with her mother and sister and a whole neighbourhood (a wedding planner to boot) anticipating a wedding of the century.

Elvis has to go to Cape Town via Durban where his player friend Tumi lives and has an expensive German model that will once and for all raise the bar for Elvis and make him a worthy sbhali (son-in-law). However trouble starts brewing from the moment he has to leave Johannesburg by bus. He misses his bus.

Trouble follows a troubled man as his next trouble is in Durban where the customary German sedan that was supposed to score him points ends up being vandalized by Tumi’s scornful girlfriend who catches him in a ménage trios plus one. Tumi is far from apologetic.

The Mercedes Benz ML class that they borrow takes them through difficult terrain. They pick an English hitchhiker along the way who travels with them for the whole distance even when they have to scoop Ayanda’s aunt. The English lass ends up causing them all the trouble when she insisted that a ram given to them by Ayanda’s aunt travel with them in the passenger seat. The ML class ends up on the side of the road – broken down.

This takes them into the heart of Afrikanerland or a Vaderland where all the racial stereotypes which play themselves out in bars and other drinking holes are explored in an entertaining way, that ends up mocking the controversial De La Rey song and shows how similar people are as long as they don’t focus on the differences which unfortunately are highlighted.

Throughout the film you get to see Ayanda’s ex-boyfriend Tony trying hard to get his woman back before she marries Elvis who is at times caught up in a part of town called Indwe. Tony goes the extra mile to score with Ayanda. There’s no cellphone network in the bundu they travers, and there are communication hiccups to last him a lifetime.

Overall this is a beautiful film which’s storyline I should not give to you in eternity. I have already done so, this is up to you to go and experience the genius that is Rapulana and Kenneth. Also a taste of those old songs that used to make us all dance non-stop.

It’s also a story of friendship, a story about being single, a story of truth and a contrast of characters between rich and pompous Tony and simple Elvis. It’s the story of the Afrikaner and the English and their Anglo-Boer War that never really ended. And a Gugs community that is just happy to groove to anything.

I give this comedy, which I can compare to Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts’ The Mexican or Sex and the City a maximum 10/10. There’s never been any other local film which is this funny without romanticizing stereotypes or portraying darkies as a backward species.

Go and watch it, the last time I checked it was still on circuit. Or wait for the DVD, it will be worth keeping.

TRU

In Loving Memory

My 58-years old mother, Movies Maforule Mashego passed away at approximately 17h30 on May 20th. It was the climax to a painful and short battle against chronic leukemia (blood cancer). She succumbed to the disease at Charlotte Mxcenge (formerly Johannesburg General) Hospital following weeks of chemotherapy treatment. She complained about pain and tiredness.

My mother, who was born in the Vaalhoek district of Pilgrim’s Rest on 12 November 1950 was a woman used to action, a woman who went to Johannesburg in 1976 and worked for Susan Myerson for all these years. Myerson was at pains as she was the one who had the unenviable task of making the telephone call. “Goodenough I’m very sorry. Your mother has just passed away”. Then she went on a guilt-trip, “I should have done more but I didn’t”. I kept reassuring her that she did all she could and the situation was beyond her control. She was sobbing uncontrollably, “I loved your mother so much”. I was now the one comforting.

My month earlier situation was that when I made a call to my hospitalized mother and she told me that the diagnosis was blood cancer and that the doctors told her that she had been harboring active cancer cells for the past 30-years I started expecting the worst while hoping for the best. How she was responding to treatment was not encouraging either. My brother Katise, who has an understanding of prognosis went to visit her and SMSed me ‘she’s trying but it’s hard’.

From that time I had been preparing myself for ‘that’ call. It finally came last Wednesday from a sobbing Susan.

The following day I took the 600-plus kilometres journey to Johannesburg. I met Susan and we had our first hour-long chat. We discussed her adult children, she told me soothing stories about my mother, I told her we need wisdom in doses to understand why we have to stomach loss and move on without grudges. She was deploying a napkin to wipe her tears. I assured her that she didn’t have to cry for her ‘friend’ but to appreciate the fact that they spent three decades together, raising her three children in the process. “She was my sister, my mother, my grandmother, everything to me. I always thought we would grow old together”, she stammered. The old woman was in mourning.

The following day I went with my aunt Leftah to the hospital mortuary for a positive identity and to collect my mother’s things. It was my first time in a mortuary but I walked out relieved. My mother finally looked at peace – the suffering was over for her.

She has lived her life, though not to the fullest but has raised generations of children, both black and white. She has taught her daughters everything from cooking to baking. She had learnt and taught others how to knit and design clothes.

My mother was loved by so many people I was humbled just sitting outside her room and scores of people I have never met before walked in to pay their last respects. Elders from her local Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation came through. The mood was only painful because we were brought together by loss, but overall there was a unanimous feeling that she has lived her life productively and touched so many people. She has set the basis of how she will be remembered.

As I made the long journey back to Mpumalanga I felt that I shall not cry for a woman I loved so much when she has been freed from the shackles of pain. I felt that it would serve her memory well if everybody remembered her love, humility, passion for life, readiness to help and charitable spirit instead of her untimely death. People should remember how she lived and celebrate that instead of mourning her departure. Her faith in Jehovah prepared her to accept death as a temporary measure, and it’s such unwavering faith that people should carry in their hearts.

She is survived by her 83-years old mother, two sisters and scores of children, grandchildren, friends, relatives and a congregation of Witnesses that embraced her. She was be buried on May 30, 2009 at Shatale Township.

TRU

The best South African book ever written

Recently I have been absent from the arts critiquing world given what was happening in the country which was enough to pass off as fiction. Politics got the better of me and I couldn’t keep readers updated about the four publications (by Fiona Zerbst, Helen Moffett, Joan Metelerkamp and Sindiwe Magona)Modjadji books has just released, the detailed return of Green Dragon (however I’m waiting for review copies of the rejuvenated reptile), the opportunities to be published by Dye Hard Press, in short stories which will be edited by reviewer extra-ordinaire Arja Salafranca and lots of stuff. I mean poet David wa Maahlamela has been in a muse lately and he is quite becoming an authority in poetry circles, which is good, given that I have been trying to make him South Afrika’s poet laureate when Prof Keorapetse Kgositsile finally retires.

But I swear to you today that I’m back like the Terminator (governor Arnold Schwarzenegger) told that stupid cop in Terminator I. Like it has become custom I’m going to start sticking to what I know best, read books and write about them and get you buying and increasing the volume of book readers. I am going to start with the surplus I have in my library which I have read but never reviewed as I chased the two Zs – Zuma and Zille.

I intend to get all four Modjadji books and read them from cover to cover in record time then blog about them. I am waiting for Bra Gary to hook me up with my complimentary copy of the reptile and I will critique it for you – free of charge. Yeah, I will objectively critique it even though it has my poetry between its lovely pages.

Also on the pipeline is Timbila 7. Fresh poetry from the Timbila Poetry Project oven of Vonani Bila to keep you salivated even when you are already full. I will review it for you even though it’s got my stuff as well. You’ll also meet new poets in those pages – I won’t entice you but keep you in suspense.

Jacana Books has been sending me notices of book launches to attend and mingle with the who’s who of authors they publish. I haven’t attended any of them in protest at the fact that publishers give review copies to newspapers and magazines which end up not reviewing their material but stacking them up in warehouses while they refuse to give copies to a blog with 28000 testaments. And we dare buy and review – imagine me reviewing a book I have bought at Exclusive? That would be the coldest day in hell.

I mean when I used to review bars and pubs I usually ended up sloshed because the barman kept them coming – I was forever hit. I would start scribbling the review as I go for my eleventh pint of Jack Daniels, and to think that you read the gibberish as fact makes me feel guilty as sin. I have never written any bad review about a pub because I wrote them sloshed – then sober, thanks to Bloody Mary.

Finally, I am really back to keep all of you informed. I have added a few other things as well as you will see in the coming months. More music reviews, more film reviews and more – wait for these, fashion designer reviews and couture critiquing. My friend Za is a rising star and Mpumalanga finally has a Fashion Week which makes for interesting content.

In the coming few weeks I will bring you a review of American Gangster – the movie. I know you have seen it but I will tell you what I think about it so that when you go purchase the DVD you look at it around my points. I will also do so Don Cheadle’s Traitor and many more. If you want to learn about Al Qaeda – through the eyes of an American scriptwriter, then this is the movie for you.

Hey, comrades, forgive me for the long political rants of yesterdays. Water under the bridge.

NEWS

A Reason to be Optimistic?

I like to think of myself as an optimist, or rather what they call an eternal optimist. I believe that light comes after darkness, that rain brings sunshine, that pain gives birth to joy and that everything happens for a 'good' reason. I am a man who believes that if you can't find love, love will find you.So, when I was asked if I'm optimistic about South Afrika I did not have to scratch my head but to simply say 'YES and NO'.

This was a day after it was reported that new Transport Minister Sbu Mndebele has been given a R1 million plus Mercedes Benz S500, two cows, crockery and cutlery and other freebies as a thank you by businesspeople who have benefitted from a grand government road construction and maintenance scheme meant to benefit black contractors.This robbed me of my optimism because I asked myself if the honourable minister really had to wait for the Democratic Alliance to tell him that such a gift is wrong and can not be accepted.

I asked myself if the minister, in his wisdom didn't see that he can not accept such a gift. I mean the whole exercise has got corruption and conflict of interest written all over it. Then his party went silent and suddenly such was not corruption but what Gwede Mantashe called 'facilitating'. So, I discussed it with one of my friends and I swore to him that 'corruption' will have to be redefined to suit the situation.

But to him I really raised an issue suddenly the whole thing might be sweeped under the carpet because the whistleblower is the DA and you might have people shouting 'Zille must leave Sbu alone and focus on disabling his cabinet'. However the gentleman he is Sbu called a press conference and announced that he was handing back the car.I felt pessimistic when it was revealed that the Presidency (of JZ) adviced him to keep the car if he wanted it since there was nothing wrong with the gift. I mean from 16000 kilometres away my brother could see something wrong but the Presidency which is occupied by a man who is fresh from a botched corruption case says, 'ride on brother'.

It worries me.Then as if to add insult to injury Sbu goes on to announce that he might buy a car of the same make from the vehicle finance scheme available to him and other government executives. Now talk about bad timing; what will stop the same bunch of businesspeople from converting the car to cash and depositing it into his account? Also, why didn't Sbu just take the car, hand it over to an orphanage to sell and use the money since the businesspeople obviously didn't have anything to do with the gifts?

Makes me think. I'm optimistic that JZ and his people in the Presidency will learn the real definition of corruption and fraud. Makes me see the glass as being half empty and not full.