Four Strings Tuned in Perfect Fifths 01.11.2012

The JPO.
I love the orchestra, i love the strings and the woods, i love the flautists and the double bass. I love each instrument. I love the idea that a pained callous is a resultant sound of beauty. I love real music. I love the physical effort involved. 

With the ease with which ultra mel custard gently glides across jiggly jelly, so the smooth sounds of a well tuned orchestra send light tremors through my being enhancing the vibrancy of my aura, a palette for a Henri Matisse.

jpo.co.za

The Linder Auditorium, acoustically magical, intimate and warm to the touch, rendering Northgate a used condom.
A Thursday night, it’s gallery night, but i pass go paying one fifty five and slip into night one of the JPO’s 4^th season.
We dress up, we stick on a collar and we iron our Shannon Brooks to have the crease running down the front.  I leave the tie behind though, it was my old school blue. I polish my one’s and two’s. I don’t care to dress up for a flight on an SAA Boeing, but still I’ll dress up for a cocktail of strings, winds, brass and percussion.

The chipmunk chirpy MC at front and centre delivers misery. the coffers have been plundered. There is no more money, the musicians were short a salary, a salticrax month endured  and that gutted me as a baby dolphin on the shores of Yokohama.

Seated in the nose-bleeds, moments before i blacked out from cerebral edema, the playful cacophonic sounds of the warm-up session fires up my pilot light and settles me in my plush chair. My knees blocking my nostrils, but I don’t care cos i’m about to be aurally tenderised.

And then silence mutes us. Only the sound of a cough splutters the tranquillity.
The dramatic stage has been set, the conductor with stove pipe slacks, his white socks a Michael Jackson length and his American drawl, baton in hand boards the platform. As a co-ordinated air craft controller his waving arms, his torso pivoting, he delivers a back hand, the match is struck, the orchestra begins burning. The orchestra is catapulted into fighter jet action.

The union of the violinists sawing at Tchaikovsky’s strings. The bows bobbing, spearing the swirling air above, an harmonius draw that tears me a Cameron Diaz smile. It’s the gorgeous girls sketched in black in the violin section mesmerising me, turning  my legs to soggy marie biscuits. my mouth’s drool sopping my collared plaid shirt.
The double bass , an instrument of beauty, they are deap but they anchor the shrill. There are few in number . With the bow, the page is turned.
The black tadpole figures of musical notes bound by horizontal lines hang ordered, they sit as players on the steps of West Side Story, delivering only the sublime. The brass, polished to a reflection. They air their opinion, a huff and a puff, they blow the house down to rapturous applause.
Ebonies and ivories. his hands the lines of longitude, stretching to deliver the key note.  Rachmaninov drawing tears from the wells of my eyes as a biblical Isaac. I now longed for that opportunity to return to the keyboard of my youth i so rapidly gave up for Nintendo game time.

I grew up with green thumbs potting plants, the State Theatre part of my lexicon, the ballet as shades of pink, and the classics as a gift my folks blessed me with. I wasn’t only dished up with the A and B’s of culture but of the greats in the arts.
The JPO must not die as the romans, or the greeks before. It’s a sign of our culturally anorexic society when our Philaharmonic begins to haemorrage. The orchestra must continue to fight the wave of Dashin Kards and the instrumentless Gaga’s we’re flooded with daily. Let us fete the du pre’s and the Barenboims, because they’re worth it.
Don’t let the M&M store be the glowing memory of a trip to New York. Let Carnegie assume the rightful space in our kids memoirs and the Royal Festival Hall and Barbican be etched in their cerebellums for their future enjoyment.

As I ran through Soweto, skimming past the beautiful glistening new Music Hall, I hope I don’t see wild game come to the city. Elephants are for the Kruger.
Let us not show our naivety to greatness, to the arts.
Don’t ‘spear’ our culture of the great stuff. 

International Calling Card 21.10.2012

F*ck a sunday night movie on Mnet. F*ck popcorn and watered-down coke at the cinema. F*ck thin base pizza served at red-checkered tables and Eros Ramzotti pulverising our ears.

I wana live in my city, i wana extract her for every bit of culture her body can offer. I wana experience her streets. I want something new, something exciting.

I wana see live music that’ll pluck at my heart strings. I want music that’ll send my hammer anvil and stirrups doing funckiness in the depths of my ears.

I want the Venue, I want Melrose Arch. I want beer. I want the riotous rock of Shadowclub live and unplugged.

This trio of hipster maniacs, once raw, now Gillette sensor razor-sharp played an acoustic set that left the women in the audience tearing at their seats as zombies, hungry and guys wishing they were rockers in skinnies. The trio of Isaac Klawansky on drums, Jacques Moolman, the vocalist and Louis Roux slapping that bass as though it was his sexually charged girlfriend played a gig worthy of a replay on DSTV.

image:www.justmusic.co.za

Jacques, his balmed hair and shaven cut. His voice rapturous, powerful to turn rock to liquid magma, to cause dormant volcanoes to burst into flambuoyant flame elevated the venue to an halcyon day of great rock. the breath from his lungs trembling his chords delivering craig bellamy-ic theatre.

Isaac commands. Isaac delivers. Isaac leads. His phenomenal drum rolls and tommy gun-esque staccato. He is a black cloaked gangster peppering American-made Lincolns delivering ‘Lucy’ to our ear-steps. hopping  and skipping down that yellow bricked road, tripping nillies down a country road, it’s ratatata, and then he sends us running running in free flight. It's the 70’s, the pinnacle of Rock. Isaac, he is off of his skins, it’s “Left and Round Again’.

Louis, as bassists go, said more. He has intensity. He is physical. Caressing that guitar, holding it with a sexual hankering, it in turn delivers. The bass is an extension of his form and he loves it.

With “Guns and Money”, it’s hilly billy beats and “Never Hide' with her Radiohead heavy crescendos, i crumbled as a soggy marie biscuit. ‘Kill the President’, a rhythmic chainsaw, tearing at the ether.

These lads set the ambience at Sexually Charged when they announced “Garden of Snow’. 
Play on sires, keep evolving, keep experimenting.

The trio, looking good for a Levis ad pasted on a brown stone building towering over Times Square, form Shadowclub, a hard thumping, percussion heavy rock hipster band. Their debut show as owners of their own Bill, play a unique sound of rock to this country. They’re exciting, innovative and just at the birth of their anthology.

the theme tune to carte blanche can suck my balls.

I Called You on the Telephone 02.10.2012

the pin stripes of the yankees, the verticles, and then the high risers, the Empire State and her glittering bejewelled lover the Chrysler. oh she dropped one, the diamond stud, the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. the autumn, turns the Apple crisp, but before she cools,we take a bow in Queens.delivered on the F-train, it's bouncing yellow spheres, blue courts and sweaty balls, its grunts and moans, pleated skirts, racquets, sweat bands and a Scottishman. the heat rises from the concrete floor slapping you every which way, but who cares, cos you're in Noo Yark city. 

the streets of Chelsea, the Gagosian Art Gallery, Richard Phillips, artist and film maker, his larger than life realistic images of the strawberry Lindsay Lohan and Sasha Grey. My eye's they couldn't stop staring, drinking in Lindsay, finding it difficult to quench their thirst. my blue cirulean orbs turning to rainbow coloured lollypops. after Shades of Grey this was this most accessible porn not found under the bed of a pimply teen. a trail of drool down west 23rd street and a Dr Pepper as coolant.

the midday sun grills and you find yourself at anchor on the Intrepid. the star, the ship, its the Enterprise. its a Shuttle and an ode to the Americans endeavour. the day is dawning cos you've queued for hours to go submarining. so you pull out your point and shoot, it's unlocked and you're firing wildly, its staccato, ratatat tat F-16 F15, Blackbird, Hueys and in the distance Chinook. the day is at its end and you've en-gulfed 3 times one dollar slices of cheese.

the 7-train shuttles you to Lawng Eyeland City. Who explores Long Island City? Dora? there sits the Isamu Noguchi gallery. Isamu sculptor and influencer of architects agreat. 5 Points, an unrivalled graffitti explosion. the battered buildings caressed in a rainbow's ejaculation. you leave the City and chug back litres of amber, pale and dark, the world is spinning, she asks you to dance, but you don't tango.

the cloak of night falls over gotham city. but as you keep sucking on the black nixxer ball, the colourful City reveals itself. Neon lights and flashing bulbs. 

oh my gosh, you're running, you tell Jess where you're at, where you're going. she tells you, 'if i were you i'd...".you throw anchors, your feet halting to a grinding stop, turning up pavement, you swivel, and with blistering speed, the buildings a blur, you kick the curb and flying at Concordian knots you land up with a paper cut from a free ticket to see live in concert in Central Park the Foo Fooo Fighters and one-note Neil Young, the oldest dodgiest geyser you've ever seen strum a geet.

with the riffs of rock reverberating off of the hammer, the anvil and Clint's stirrups, you swipe your Metro card and board a shiny shimmering rail car to Brooklyn. moseying down Fulton Street, dodging baseball caps and low hung jeans, you picture yourself shooting hoops with jayzee and alee-shia-ah. then high fiving all your new homee's, you come a Knock knock knocking on DopeJams record store. scouring the vinyl, out pops Miriam Makeba, and she's ready for a twirl.

you then fill up on tacos and hummus and craft beer and settle back into the Rockwood Music Hall for some ridiculously sublime live music that penetrates your heart, that lets you in on New York's secret. she is the centre of the arts, that girls playing violin are exceptional and that a falafel can make you dirty.

you wake up, the sweat stained streets, and lingering arabiatic aroma leave skid marks across your nostrils, you throw on your runners, and you ring Jess's doorbell. the grided streets push you to its out skirts. you're barely limber and you're off. 8th 9th 10th Ave. West Street Highway. You run the Hudson. Jersey flashes past you, WTC, your beacon. bobbing pony tails and lycra tights. the smile, you can barely tear it off of your mug. you grip a joe joffee, and angle your way up the Highline, you're gaping, you put your jewellery on the line and say, 'this is probably the greatest space in Manhatten'

your journey is but a purchase of a new pair of Nike sneakers from being done.it's over. the turbulent wake of New York leaves you behind. it didn't even see you, you've left very little for it to remember you by, 1000's will fill your void.

There can be only one Russian Bear Hunter. 

'Dont let "them" tell you who you are or where you should be. Life, Live it'

'if you don't eat your meat, you cannot have any pudding'

Nothing's Without Corn Syrup, Nothing 24.09.2012

hopping and skipping through the streets of DUMBO, Brooklyn, hair flailing in the wind, camera in hand, whistling as a Von Trappian in the hills of Austria, i was as happy as a daisy in a meadow.

with the sun's rays reflecting off of the cascading sweat of my saltied brow, i needed a coolant, a refreshant. i needed an ice cream.

it was a tough choice to make, my hands left moist marks on the counter top, i felt clammy, a sense of unease, it was pure drama in my head. i was stressed out. what do i choose, would it be the cows lick of chocolate flavoured ice cream, or a vanilla scented 2 scoop?. 'argh, somebody help me.' i couldnt take the pain, so i left. and with the whir of an NYPD chopper above i made a line for the piers edge over looking the great Manhatten skyline and the turbulent Hudson.

in the Hudson bobbed NYPD boats and rubberised men, all drifting beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, waiting, anticipating in the tumult of the rivers current. i followed the gazes of gazers and there atop the bridge sat a lonley soul. a jumper.

The jumper had attracted a crowd. gathered, we watched. 'Don't jump, weell, maybe... jump'. a family arrived with a 16 inch pizza pie. the spectacle was worth breaking bread for it seemed. and as i watched people photograph the event, i held fire on the trigger of my camera. and then i figured i best show proof, so i took zoom off and shot an image. Brooklyn Bridge, that bridge is a beautiful bridge. and then bizarre arrived. a cute asian girl, unknowing of the drama unfolding, asked so delightfully for a photo, but the clincher was she wanted the bridge as background. I giggled, my question, 'do you know what's going on?' was lost in translation. so i chuckled and i shot the image, and only she could beam such a smile.

The FDNY, with ladder extended and negotiator on the pulse of this guy, managed to save a life. the Jumper's stresses and short flight were alleviated. 

next time i'll order a two scoop, one bouncy ball of chocolate and one a scoop of vanilla.

 From the mysterious musings of a Russian Bear Hunter

Badda Badda Sawing Badda Hush Badda Sawing Badda 20.09.2012

so what was supposed to be a sombre adventure turned out to be book ended by biig sightings.

while cruising through the west village en route to see the 911 memorial, there as hulking as a hanging skinned beef carcass, with a hanky covering his head defining his colorado-landscaped mug, his mouth hung as a horse shoe off of door, and his bulbous door knob nose moving towards me was stevie van zandt.. ',yo, uhm hmm, you're... i lov...', and then he was gone. 

with a smile larger than i can normally smile incised into my face, i, the bowling ball, continued to roll downtown eventually coming to a halt as i hit a queue to enter the 9/11 Memorial.

since 2001, the City of New York has been a dismembered body, it's skyline having looked depleted, toothless as a 4 year old. She has appeared unrecognisable and from the streets of the city, down the cavernous corridors of Manhatten, peering down south there was no hook to bait the eyeballs of New Yawkers. Now, slowly, the towers are rising, re-forming, mutating the city of New York. She is morphing, returning to the state that once had its skyline inbedded in our memories, instilled on postcards, sketched on napkins. the stump of the WTC 1 rising, rising brushing the belly of the sky. the Empire State now has a winking partner.

the 9/11 Memorial is the footprint of each of the twin towers surrounded by metro stops and the ever growing WTC 1 tower. 

the two sunken waterfalls, the extent of the footprints of each the devastated original twin towers. black tiling and gushing water. rimmed by laser cut steel embedded with the names of each of those killed on that day. a red carnation. a red rose. circling each of the pits, touching many of the names. im engaged. my viewfinder can't get a great shot. this was great devastation. we aren't staring up at a monolith, but rather peering down into a pit. my senses tell me this is me standing at the edge of a grave hole. that is humbling.this isn't the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington ,it doesn't engage the viewer as actively but it does extract emotion and disbelief. 

i exited the Memorial still stumped at what happened that September day in history.

ghost limbs of the city are now active operating on the emotion of visitors.

as i walked with the tower and her memorial at my back, shedding the carapace, the skin of sadness, my back regaining it's height, my eye's drying, and my face looking to the sun, Jonah Hill nearly walked into me. 

that rolly lad in a plaid shirt, desert tinted chinos and a baseball cap carrying a paper bag sent a mary jane inspired giggle to my face and a smile to my belly.

get me to a greek, i need some hummus.

From the Russian Bear Hunter, living out of a backpack and scrubbing the streets of Noo Yawk for a story, RRrraah, ggrggrrr, Raaahhh

a quote by the giant Big Wave surfer, Laird Hamilton, 'Let's just expose our weaknesses and focus on sh*t we can't do.'

Chai Tea in Chai Town 06.09.2012

chicago illinois.

After a 20 hour train ride having crossed america, seated next to a styleless college kid from Boston, i landed ragged as a soppy rat in Chicago Illinois.

chicago is a pebble bed reactor of cooking architecture, harbouring the greatest tide turning edifices of modernity, defining an age, defining our thinking. two of the most renowned architects did work and established themselves in the Windy City- Frank Lloyd Wright the american womaniser and designer of the Guggenheim and Mies van der Rohe the german designer of barcelona pavilion and developer of steel structured glass boxes.

Chicago is the threshold to middle america, its the precipice, and from this point it's the drop-off to farming country and sunburned necks.

Here trains zoom above head, grazing past the upper floors of buildings, snaking, dodging towering edifices. the system was mecannoed years ago, it was the future then, and it's the future right now.

My exploration begins, it's downtown.

i'm in a queue,im on the way in. there's a bazillion (c) people in the elevator, and it's lift off. i'm going from zero, 73 floors up. just before cerebral aedema kicks in, i'm atop the Sears tower, light headed and weak. with a miserly budget, i barely ate.

the views of the city from Sears, constructed using the 'bundled tube' system, pinpoint my location. the blackened tower looking as cigarettes haphazardly protruding from john waynes box o smokes scrapes the sky as a former tallest building in the world. the tower becomes my beacon locating my position, orientating me. im in a queue,im on the way out.

im in a queue waiting for the boat. the river boat tour on the Chicago River which penetrates the city giving it a serene sense and an other heart beat. the river tickles the sides of buildings, creating an active shore front with glazed towering buildings and green emerald relax space. the shore depicts architecture of the ages, a development of building thinking, the old interacting sterlingly with the reflective new.i leave the boat. im in a queue.

im in a queue,' whole wheat footlong, cheese and veggies, please.' i wanna pay. im in a queue.

im on the platform, im drinking a Dr Pepper. im waiting. at the end of the Green line sits Oak Park. Oak Park with its genteel clap board houses nestled on peppermint green lawns, mottled in leafy darks and bottle blue skies is Frank Lloyd Wright territory. Oak Park became Wright's petri dish, his test tube for experimental thoughts, ideas and influences. Oak Park allowed him to create and redefine the architecture and building of the time. The four or so blocks on which he has birthed about 6 houses sets out his metamorphosis as a young architctect moonlighting to his steps towards redefining the world of residential architecture. Wright changed mindsets, defining a period of time. my travels have revealed to me once again: the greatest creatives-archi's, muso's, scientists, writers, and painters, are great because they reconfigured the human race's thinking.

my uncontrollable black pen and my controlling mind, struggled to sketch Wrights complex edifices, i was in the space of genius. 

i didn't queue to see Wright's work, because i did a self guided tour.

Millenium Park, breathing space in a busy city is a respite from the rolling cogs of urbanity. it's soft to the touch and mirrored in Frank Gehry's bandstand.

there in the landscape sat on a plaza, is a Bean, a Cloud-a massive jelly bean of mirrored material reflecting the earth and the city that surrounds. i aint no jelly bean fan, but i licked this one. looking really hard at the city mirrored,the Art Institute addition by Renzo Piano defined the Flying Carpet by locals is a serated edge to the city, a building of vertical and floating roofs. crispy white and glinting bright. 

the queueing had ended and i found a place of solace. There at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Mies van der Rohe penned a building of nucleiaic proportions. The Crown Hall houses the school of architecture.its a rectangular box ribbed in blackened steel, sliced proportionally by the verticals that support it. 4 large I-Beams hold its roof, alleviating the interior of any supporting columns. the gushing natural light floods the interior allowing a volume of serenity and peacefulness. it's an expression of its materiality, an expression of structure. it is a refinement of a life times work.

the day was going to end so pleasantly but then i chowed a bag of super salty french fries and i turned into a raisin

Chicago was not only defined by building, city, a Bears cap and deap pan pizza, but by Jeremy, a steely lad, a Leadville 100miler, a sensitive, switched on personality with Elvisian lambchops and his wife Melanie, a sculptor sublime, a thinker, with a radiating heart, a creative soul, and dynamic DNA. both sublimely intuitive and inquisitive, together with their two wee offspring, warmed my Chicagoan senses for me. we'll be sure to reconnect Comrades 2013.

from the roar of the Russian Bear Hunter, a journey personified.

03.08.2012 Meaty Beaty big and Bouncy (the Who)

so i think of myself as a rockin’ roll star that shnarfs heaps of blow, has loads of unprotected sex and can play air guitar like a raging mick jagger, but stick me in leather chaps, a cowboy hat, and holster me with a Smith and Wesson to face off with Clint Eastwood and ill run for the bosom of Heidi.

the dawn of Comrades had barely faded, my disappointment still sat in the in-tray of my years performance, and me and the Nerwiches were tripping billies back to King Shaka in our Chevrolay for the early eve jet-plane ride back to Jozi.

As the clouds cotton-balled over head, dauntingly grey, i pondered as i stared through the dusty window what it would be like to fly in blustery weather. But then the good Lord decided to rather put the fear of the roman legionaries into me by having a giant black Jeep unlicenced terrorising us en route to the airport.

Craig’s eyes growing large, rebounded off the rear view mirror, slapping me in the face as a busty blond in a red speedo. his calmness sturdy, his reaction slight. Radio silence.
 My head swivelled, staring back at the looming spirit behind us, at the charcoal asteroid hurtling towards our vehicle.

Darth Vader’s Death Star lurked, snarling to tear at us with its vicious stance, its grill gaping to swallow us. It’s tinted windows and blackened eyeliner, its drool a tracer line on the heated tar...
as i stared in astonishment at the aggression of the agressor, and as my physical wrestled my thoughts to the ground,  i pulled my loaded hand from my pockets, the back of my hand facing the deluge.. and gently raised my middle digit, extending it like a teen in a strip joint.

that was me triggering the red 'don’t push button'.

As the red overwhelmed the white of the eyes of our nemesis, Craig was forced to lassoo our jam jar and steer us clear of the bucking black stallion. As the enemy continued throwing the weight of his ride towards us, trying to rat us off the road, the throbbing veins bursting out of his forehead as an under pressure testicle, he left us in a dust trail. There is relief and Dani had calmed down to a panic.

OH Em Gee, it wasn’t over, the ripple of the earthquake had now sent a tsunami in its wake.
having thought we were safe, this pacman wanted my biscuit and no ghost was gonna stop him. Cutting through the traffic, splicing its DNA, the Blackness moved in cartisian motions, seeking us as a tracer bullet, eventually coming to a standstill, anchoring his behemoth behind us hissing for blood. my blood.

Stapled to our seats, looking forward. We were uncharged androids.

The roller coaster had just reached its pinnacle.

His door opens as a vacuum-packed meatloaf, steam swirling and out emerges this muscle man looking like a condom full of walnuts. He motions for our window. With his super reflective mirror shades, a disco ball of the ‘80’s, forearms like rolling pins and fists the size of fully grown pineapples he blurts in a foreign accent (probably from the Freestate). "you gave me ve sign, i hav witness'. I squeek back, 'i dont know what you're talking about, bru'. the bile now sharing space with my apple. 'if you pull signs like that you'll die soon.' And there i was, moments from a fast food knuckle sandwich, a side order of fright and soiled undies.

the two fighters separated, and so did Dani and Craig from me. I was in international fly space and no one was gona find me. My heart settled as a i sipped on a Fanta Grape, my happy place.

all this trauma because i judged a girl i was to be set up with by her Facebook profile pic.

I'm Not A Vegetable 03.06.2012

you run it cos it’s embedded in your memory like ones personality

you run it cos it’s history

you run it, cos it’s your everest,

you run it cos a nation's conscious says you can do it

you run it cos it’s instilled in you from the day you were born

you run it cos it tears at your emotion

you run it, cos you aren't a south african runner, if you dont.

the Comrades Marathon 

i’ve been here before, but nothing is the same but for the red eye reduction i’m experiencing. PMB town hall lurks, bathed in yellow light, it's ticking clock salvador dali-melting towards the gun and the start of the 2012 Comrades Marathon.

The National Anthem and Chariots of Fire resonate against the tepid architecture, my buried patriotism leopard crawling its way from the innards of my emotion, revealing itself in my blubbering eyeballs, and the clanging of my vertebrae as my spinal column strums a shivering chord.

the cannon ruptures the silence of the dark blanketing a humming Pietermaritzburg.

The run hurtles into the sticky night. The landscape the ugly sister no-one wants to take to the ball.

The running is controlled, no sudden moves and we don’t blister the tar with our pace. the blustery wind tears at our fleshy skin, ripping caps off bottle tops. The ‘down-hill’ rolls upwards, and the sugar cane is sweet.

The run is at ease, i wasn’t settled. I knew what was coming.

i ran with a beaming mug, the glint off of my pearly whites attracting thousands of screaming fans. I acknowledge the crowds, and find nothing sweeter than orange segments, it’s juice bursting as a fun fare in my mouth.

I saw the school kids functioning in their own way, happy as a yellow smiley face rolling on the floor not worrying about carpet burns.

Heading over Drummond, i missed Dudley Moore...totally. did he come back with some cheap Brand to strike me. I was now on the Dark side of the moon and this was really supposed to be me, a Rolling Stone to the finish. Alas.

Physically i was rock steady- It was my mind that had purchased a ticket to some free-love rock fest in the raging 70's, but it was my body that wasn’t invited.

Hillcrest, with her jaws-of-life, her school goers, extracted giggles out of me, and i loved the tree lined plushness and then i hit it.

Berlin had one, the Palestinians should’ve just painted theirs, squash is against it and Robert Frost Mended one.

Faster than a grand prix car stops, so did my legs.

as i watched the minutes tick over as a train station clock. 9:59 was erased. 10:59 morphed into 11:00, the bronze train, id missed it. i was staring into the abyss, staring at copper.

my heart hung limp from its caged cavity, my eyes overflowing as a kings goblet, my head  limp un-tethered by the puppeteer of success.

i have legs, unlike pistorius, i’m uninjured, unlike christopher reeves, i’ve all my organs, unlike Jeff Darmer(he had more). I’d completed this epic journey. Two sides of the coin, i had it in the bag. You scratch my Back, and i yours. I have a trio of medals and i’ve only run two.

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need 

The Russian Bear Hunter 

Many Oysters, No Pearls 16.02.2012

Like a thunderous swarm of bees, the rescue chopper, its rotor blades severing the silence of the tranquil valley, blistering the misty morning air it needs.  the river's skin broken by the vibrating down draft and the slick edge of the synchronised paddlers blades. the piercing canoe, leaving a trail in its wake. Spectators littering the hillside and the breaching bridges, supporting, seconding, assisting. Camera men sit precariously on slippery rocks hunting the drammatic shot. A murky mist rises from the saddle to reveal a frothy chocolate-milk whipping river that cuts a wound through the body of the Pietermaritzburg landscape leaving a cavernous valley of emerald greens and dusty soiled reds. the terraced land a formal geometry in an organic setting. the cliffs dotted in pastel painted houses, roofed in corrugated sheeting.

This is the drammatic setting.This is the Dusi Canoe Marathon

the Pope-ellis’ farm. here we bunkered in. the farm house bursting with seconders, supporters, former champions, current champions, olympians and runners.

from here we would sling shot our way to the race and back. this was our respite.

 

The 3 day gruelling challenge is set into motion as the cannon blasts 'Maritzburg to notice.

Suddenly the quiet landscape, trade and local football is interrupted by the hum of paddlers. the freedom of the ‘city’ is theirs. 

Guts clad in iron, our canoeists, Shaun Ruby, with a heart the size of a coconut pumping oxygenated blood like a texan oil rig, his upper body, powerful, built strong as a turbine,commands. He knows this river, he understands it's undulations, it's ripple, it's rocks. He's the driver, powering, captaining the canoe, guiding it through it's easiest path. the river is ebbing, it's flowing, it's dynamic, Ruby knows it.

Steve F,an elongated skeletal structure, braced in tensile iron muscles, taut, to take him from 0-100 in 3 seconds. zero percent body fat but for the Gu he digests. he co-pilots, the terrestrial wingman, he is grounded and will catapult the pairing along the portages.

the seconding team, punching way above their weight category were my family for the weekend. 

oom Terry Ruby, a ball of magic putty hatched from a plastic egg bouncing off the walls, thinking, strategising

Mama Ruby, a supportive rock, outside she looks calm, inside she's chopped liver, thoughts and dinner ideas. she's the guide ropes, anchoring the buoyant Ruby's

Ced ruby. so passioned, a grenadilla squirms.he knows and he wears Shaun on his sleeve. and Rudy, he's paddled this river, he's the cutman you want in your ring.

the Kwazulu Natal heat exhausts the land. evaporating, desiccating
Pre-race day prep. we arm our paddlers with water bottles, ice cubes and drip bags. coca cola dilute,energy mix and gobby goo their fuel. the whole nine yards, we're packing their heat, their bullets of energy.

Careering down to the dam, our red Ford double cab, a projectile. puncturing interception points along the race route. It's a race for positions to refuel the athletes. 

Post race day and we check the boat for scars, for gashes from the days brutal onslaught. our gladiators are ready for another days sun rise, another days ebb and flow.

Ernie Pearce Weir, i'm tweeting and the lads are unseen, Mussons for a good view and, Cabbage Tree Portage with only but seconds to cool and hydrate Team Ruby

Marianni Foley, and they dip under the bridge. they hold 6th, cementing it. The Blue Lagoon and they're on the payroll.

the Dusi is 3 days of gruelling punishment, of muscle rupturing pain and endurance.
it's rapidly gushing volatile water, this you cannot bottle.

i rung out my sweaty socks, and a portion of the river gushed on the floor, my sneakers soggy as a marie, i left them out to dry on the patio. the dry stain lingered.

my day to steer will come

Night of the Jackal 28.12.2011

staying in jozi in december is akin to gouging your eyes out with a used soup ladle .whatever any body ever told you about the 'chilled vibe' loves watching tv series every day and ratting themselves in malls.

with napolitana sauce dribbling down my chin and a stray strand of spaghetti betwixt my teeth, Shimshon Heifer offered me a front seat on a vacation you can't get at flight centre(cos they never return emails and their deals are never good and they never beat the price)

taking a leaf outta burt reynold's book, i Cannonballed it to hoedspruit, i saw acacia trees, velskoene, khaki shorts and 1,5 litres of coke in glass bottles.

Ingwelala, a tongue twister if you're swedish hugs kruger so tightly you can see it. the Heifer home is a round rondawel,it has no corners, nor does it have any fences, its off the grid. gas heats, gas cooks, and gas'll singe your brows if a hyena walks by.

as we sat drinking beer and munching chutneyed chips, beams of light pierced the darkness as bullets penetrating a still pond. the growl and crunch of hurried landrovers, toyotas and rangers busted the peace. hand held lights criss crossed our fire protected space as frenetic as a light saber battle between siths. the radio crackles to life .'unit 16 we have lions'. we pivot and there they were. 6  pawed their way only a pole vaults length from our centre of gravity, we hurtled towards our truck, ignited the ignition.and holy canoli we were on their tail. not in my life as bear gryllsian as its been have i witnessed such.

The journey continued to explode and game was in abundance. 

with tal beef jerky twersky throwing out his iron anchor, it's hooks tearing at the tar, bringing our hulking vehicle to a screeching halt, there in the thicket the prickled radar ears, dirty darkened face,  black inked mottled body, lurked a wild dog. 

With Heifer at the helm of the rugged, tested, 4 by 4, its rubbered tyres crushing the entrails of the earth. the terrain was easily negotiated. 

a spotted beast, looking sexy as lindsay lohan in leopard print. she dangled from a skinny emaciated bare tree unsure that it could support even itself.

she aloft in a blue sky, her viscious gape, her serated mouth, sharper than a shogun. she pawed her way downwards and then she was gone.

Binoculars were radars scanning the skies for feathered projectiles, winged raptors and technicoloured fishers. another existence scours our skies. i now know it.

My unknowing eyes as magnifying glasses, had branded the spongy matter of my brain, leaving a scorched blackened image of unseen animals, never to be forgotten.

The Kruger journey had laid itself down, its carrion lying awaste nibbled at by our vulture-ous thoughts.

My tazz on full throttle was a hollow-point bullet turning swaziland into a fading blur. after a 12 hour jorney, and having sung my whole entire reportoire to myself i landed gently in the ramshakle, simple sudwana bay.

the bear that is Big Al Crouse greeted us, his cherry cheeks and saskwatchian sized mits hugging us like grape fruits.

this was a dive trip, i don't dive, but i came for the boat ride. "its a small world after all' was not the theme song.

half zipped rubber suits, the two buxom girls bursting as seeds from fresh fruit. we dreamed of Ursula Andress. they were our dive partners. this was no Disney excursion. 

our rubber ducky commandeered by a bleached rubbery aussie, tossing the divers over board like ribs off of a barby leaving me holding tight before i was set bobbing alone in the deap blue.

as a lettered wine-bottle i heaved in the undulating seas.my viewport,all but an opening through my gob sprawlled goggles. the vertigo left me gasping, clambering for a railing. 

there in the abyss the coralled sea bed, life swimming pastorally and the carbonated bubbles from the divers below. my pulsing body settled, my breathing found structure. i could breath through the straw.

This was a journey unimagined, a journey of new sights and experiences. 

Never stop seeing, never stop doing. 

The roar of the Bear Hunter, grr raaah raah

24.12.2011 Skirts and Roller Skates

so there's me, the biggest dog lover in the world. i have a picture of me and my dog on my phone, i have a pic of me and my dog as my facebook profile, i even have a pic of me and my dog in my wallet.my twitter pic, is of me and, well, my canine... i love my dog and ill show you pics oh him, and ill call him my best friend, i love him.

with a windhoek in hand and a carcinogenic boerie on my plate i agreed to look after the house that Dave built. it was an awesome house. face brick cool, pressed ceilings and a plunge pool, timber creaking floors, steel frame windows and a super sun deck.
i saw the arcade games and the pinball machine, i saw the bigscreen tv, i saw the books, i sensed the uncapped internet and i saw the beers in the fridge and my eyes turned to candy floss. 

i was living the dream. this would be my december holiday....and then there were 4-two dags and two cats, and this holywood romcom turned into a nightmare on elm street.

Sophie and dexter, beagles of buoyant disposition. bouncing off walls like rubber balls, no surface too high, no object too tough. they're rolling, they're fighting, theyre loving me like i was a rubber bone. 

i wade through the air, thickened by the flotsam of their hair, my lungs furry as a bear. they're on the bed, they're on the couch,they're missiles seeking a patting hand. 

their gobby tongues lapping me like i was a lolly pop. a bowel expulsion so dastardly, my cerebellum scarred, my short term memory erased.
They're at the gate. their pink red tongues stalignites. their eyeballs toffee apples, bulging to see, ears radars focused to hear, their legs slinky's waiting to pounce. they're all over me and not since that award for full attendance in primary school have i been this feted.

this is a story about a boy and his dog

i love you sparky  

the russian bear hunter, masterswordsman and savoury toothed tiger

Huckleberry Fin 24.10.2011

Al Gersch spoke to someone that knew someone that did the Hoerikwaggo Hike and they said: "no f**king walk in the park!"

and then i bought hiking boots.

The car alarm, it's red flashing light, the flicking red light on my laptop battery, my george forman's red light, the blazing red light on the remote control, and the buzzing red light beneath my mouse. my heart's telling me ive received a BB message, but my brain's telling me my burgers are ready.

it was the blinding red light which the Bear Hunter, growl, Marty, man machine with a heart the size of Secretariats and a taste for bbq'd meat, Big Al and his clima cools and dar-win with his hi tecs that didnt last, needed to escape.

to have sea salt caking around your nostrils, to have the scent of fyn bos swirling through your nasel passage,tickling your brain, to have the weight of canned tuna upon your shoulders and a water bladder bouncing against your back, to have the charcoaled, oranged lichened rocky outcrops, canary yellow and ice white starry eyed proteas paving your path is to experience the outdoors. our experience would take us from the southern tip of the Cape towards thee mountain. 75 kays, lets light that match.
This is the Hoerikwaggo Trail.

Day One and like an Angry Bird we were catapulted to Cape Point. our facial hair liberated and sprouting towards the sunshine, the load on our shoulders untwirling. here we took photo ops and pee'd over the edge, we laboured,then we walked. the going was tough, but we soldiered on.

we hugged the coast, one foot in the Indian, one foot in the atlantic. we got sunburnt and blistered. the hike was long the day was short. we thought we were halfway when we saw ay canon, alas the wrong one. we ran outa time.
Our tents were pitched at Slangkop, beneath the beam of the light house. we chugged beer and Crosby Stills and Noshed biltong. it was surreal.

Day Two. Noordhoek beach, 7kays of it. the ocean, the chrystaline blue sky , the white blinding sand. the brightened light creasing our eyes.
as we strolled, sticks in sand, we popped blue bottles, eyeballed mauled stranded seals, did a fashion shoot at the ship wreck. took a wrong turn. and then we hit the wall, the rock face that is chapmans. we had no where to go, but up. we were sniffing around for clues,looking lost we ate naartjies. we began the ascent up the steep chapmans peak, leaping upwards over rocks, our ankles as wobbly as warmed up twizzlers but for our sturdy boots. 

we heave ho'd-  there were no dwarfs amongst us nor a princess at the top just a weathered german in sandles with half a bott of energade. the wind whistled and blew and huffed and puffed,it became a little nervy, testing our vertigo. we never left anyone behind, just my stick.

up atop, as the clouds moved in rapidly, swirling as a cigar blower plays with the smoke, it looked ominous but we sat and we ate. tuna, peas, cheese, please. the day was not over.

we dropped down into the saddle, we rode it hard and then before we knew it we're on the ascent up noordhoek peak, we sweated as swedes in a sauna but for Al and his clima cool. silvermine was our resting spot. dry toilets and a hot shower.

Day 3, the fog hankered around us, it was icey and without google maps we were lost. from ours and the mountains vantage point, we had hout bay as a reflection in our irises. the custard yellow proteas and a pallete of greens enveloped us. we walked straight into a tv tower that had landed from nowhere. we thought we were goners. we were so off the path we were beating a new track. not even the parks board knew where we were. as the sun broke through, we bumped our heads on olives, we saw the light glistening off of the grapes in constantia. finally as our knees were about to crumble like soggy marie biscuits, orange kloof tented camp docked into the harbour. we made it with daylight minutes to spare.

Day 4 and as we started out of the blocks we were heading in the wrong direction. our compass, a bergie with all his teeth, made sure we were throwing our darts at the right board. Doryn, always in the landscape view of my camera lens held the rear, chaito in the vangaurd seeking snakes. "gsus, snaaake". we shouted "OMG" and jumped over it. it was small but in our heads and in the story we tell, it grows every day.

and then we were lost again.
the hills were gruelling and the gorges devilish. the damn huge mountain dam, chain ladders and lost english folk. we ascended the table. we heard lots of "norf", "free" and "yeahs".thought we hiked to North London.
the final descent, platteklip gorge. we gorged ourselves on dry fruit and old english mustard chicken sarms. and then like a skittled pin rolled down to the base. 

and as we dropped back into jozi, the vibration jolted my heart back to pace, and the red flashes erupted. call me