Hooligan Juice 12.06.10

i always believe, yes i do, and i suppose the wizard of Oz just made it reality, but if you do click your heels 3 times(or your adidas boris beckers in my case) and you wish real hard,dreams do come true. and so the colourful life i lead just turned HD- i'm talking high definition.

this weekend on friday eve, i get a ring on the ol nokia hand held blower. its the berndawg offering me a ticket to Engeland vee USA for one thousand rand. im like 'no dude, its just too large'. 2 minutes later, after bernie held the okes nuts in his hands gently crushing them like soft grapes,the seller agreed to a face value R560.00. and lo and behold the red sea parted and we, that's bern dawg, bernie middle brother from middle earth and me moonwalked over to Rustenburg.

Rustenburg a wee lil town like 200 kays north of civilization harbours the Royal Bafokeng Stadium as well as a housing complex called Little Italy. the only thing rustenburg has thats italian is possibly an old worn alfa giulietta tyre from the early 60's used as a kids swing. 

anyways the story goes like this. The Bafokeng tribe purchased land having sent its troops to work on mines to earn money to make such an investment. this land near Rustenburg happened to have one of the largest deposits of platinum in the world. you could just imagine how hysterical this tribe musta been.gsus. they probably sacrificed some poor kid.

although this humble little stadium sits in a rural settlement, quite a change from a stadium in say Berlin or in Barcelona, it still bubbled like a pre teen zit waiting to explode all over the the bathroom mirror.

as we arrived, i sessioned a car bar of green heneikens, cos i knew, yes i did that mister Shwet Splatter (sepp blatter), would rape and pillage my pocket like the meat eating vikings to some unsuspecting vegetarian tribe out in the andes.

as i drank my dutch brewed excuse for beer, bus loads of mcdonalds and coke drinking americanos began to roll in. the Americans, looking lost, trying to find lions to ride, just seemed outta place in this shebeen strewn drag leading up to the stadium. theyre like cartoon characters these yanks, can you even take them seriously? as a yank screamed 'Aaaammeeriiica' , a whole pancake stack replied 'F*ck Yea" in glorious unison, alluding to that great flik, Team America. 

the poms loud and berry red, shirtless in the icey cold, decked in liquor jackets ,the red cross of saint georges pasted across their chests had arrived to make haggis out of american body parts. i wouldnt run to these okes if i needed a band aid.

while the hoardes continued to drink inside the bowels of the stadium, i felt i needed to batter my liver in fermented barley and hops just a couple more times. at R30.00 a pop my heart missed a cupla egg beats, and i nearly swallowed my nokia phone. but when the wave of euphoria washes over you, you just jump in and start swimming.and so i forked out 60 rond.sorry starving ethiopians

as i looked around me , the hum, the buzz and the euphoria of a big stage football match sent the hair on my back standing up, piercing through my 3 layers of tshirts, i simply stunned myself into disbelief.

entering a big stadium is always dramatic. you rise up the stairs looking out towards the landscape, then make a turn into the tunnel beneath the seats, the tunnel is dark but for the light at the end of it, a window, or a snap shot of whats taking place opens up to reveal artificial bright light and a heaving crowd, music over the PA and raucous excitement.its simply wow and a feeling that never dies. i sat alone, well with out any one i knew, but i found myself in and amongst the beer swilling, flag waving ginger americans. they were an animated bunch, they sang great footy songs, waved a flag i couldnt believe id be seeing in our home country, ate sweaty boerierolls and said things like 'caar' and 'yaeh'. it was an absolute gas.

i watched some of the greatest players on that green checker board field. rooney just couldnt make magic, well england on the whole were just shate.and then one blunder by one wee lad and every britisher wants to pop his eyes out with a blunt toothpick. its riveting stuff. it wasn't the greatest footy match i've ever seen. but the reality of seeing the greatest down here in the South was pretty mind blowing.

that very next morning as i walked the golf course having slammed my drive deflouring the virgin fairway, i thought to my self, 'gsus dan, thats one helluva life youve lived'.

i went onto double bogey the hole 

from a city stewing with all the excitement of a teen groupie at a Take That concert

the russian bear hunter

Gandolf's Wisdoms 26.05.09

up Until May of 2009 a haircut was the worst possible experience I would endure. the year 2009 became a torcherous odyssey,the only space it had going on was the vacuum left at the rear end of my pie hole.two gaping black holes.

these days it aint easy just giving up on one , let alone two of your gnashers. as a kid there was always money involved, it was an investment. you stuck a thread around your tooth, tied the other end to a door and got your older sibling to ram that leaf so hard, there was a possibility the brain stem attached to your spine would be ripped from the vessel that is your body. the possibilities could have been fatal, but if all went well you got your tooth, a shiny nickel, and your bro got to make you cry. it was a win win situation.

25years on and whats in me-organs, teeth, bones,appendages stays in me. so i thought. 

as a wee lad, pimply, greasy and at the heat of the late 90's, my teeth found themselves incarcerated in the alcatraz of the day,braces. once them train tracks to stardom were peeled from the skin of my teeth, the dental fraternity have wanted my teeth, my wisdom teeth. I always denied these hunters a piece of me for they gave me no hassle and i gave them no grief. until i awoke one morn on this thin rubber of a matress in down town Tokyo to find a fillet of gum loosley flapping around my mouth,swollen like a jellied donut.my life with my calcified friends was about to change.

No sooner had I dropped into joburg did I have Doc doom on the ol blower,

'dan youre a good guy, you play a good golf game-nice follow through, and you give the ball good shape, but i have no choice, its either an absess every month that'll rot your gum or the teeth,ones of yous has gotta go'.

and so i was pushed over to the Maxillo facila surgeon-sounds like a Mad Max movie starring the guy with the perm, one mel giblets gibson.

and so it came to pass, i left work at 12 and said 'ill see you at 2'. 

i tried to put on a brave face, the one Leonardo Di Caprio wore when he's about to meet his death in that final scene in the elevator of my favourite movie 'The Departed'...for the cute receptionist.but she'd seen the movie a thousand times before.

with my knees knocking a beat, i was Singapore-slung into the low lying tan leathered dentist chair, shown two zeppelin shaped gray penicillin capsules which i chugged back, rested my head unknowing of the carnage i was about to endure, had the doc then jolly jab me twices,my lower mouth a swollen jabba the hut. my lip a scoop, good for a two scoop.

 

the final scene of Braveheart had begun ,and i was in a lead role. Max begins to extend my pie hole wide open, pressing, probing, prodding with his rubberised hands. like a clay animation character he manipulates my face to begin his lumberjackin assault on teeth 17 and 32. my eyeballs shut, my heart leading the Americas' Cup, racing at knots, thumping its way down a white-horse-splattered sea. as i dared to take a peek, the blinding light shot my pupils to retract within themselves, to hide behind the white curtains of my cornea, shaking, shivering, squeezing out a tear.

the rubber hands continue pressing derobing the hugging pink gum against my tooth, the pressure of this force pulverising the gummy ness of my brain

it was a massacre with a chain saw, grinding away like a lumber jack to an old friend. the drilling couldnt have taken place off shore. my blood splattered face, a scene from Fight Club. this wasn't Hollywood, this reality tv.

The gaping jelly bowl, stiched closed,im raggedy andy. The gut tickling my tonsil, I wanted to hooch.

As I peered upon the stainless steel tray glistening in the morning light and nesteld on the obligatory blue tea cloth with all this weaponary, bloodied from this massacre,I could only imagine the pain William Walace endured. I shouted freedom, but I still longed for two faithful friends.

'Bag those chicklets,theyre coming home with me'.

My mouth dry ,lips cracked as a deserted alien planet. I sit here sucking soup though a straw, I aint no brawler. But today I went the full ten and im reeling.

I have the two in a jar, this tooth fairy is gonna pay, and I want bonds, bank bonds

I did not want to be a part of the evolutionary walk, now that my wisdoms are gone, I am.

a toothless Russian Bear Hunter will Hunt again

Irritable Bowel 06.01.2010

i had to buy myself a gift-a new pair of siick high top converse chuck taylors, theyre prison jumpsuit blue with double stitching crossing the length of these nasty kickers, theyll make you say wawaweewa when you see them. they have no flash, no gel, no waffle. theyre just ordinary.. i knew when december kicked off i'd be a cruise-ader (no relation to darth v-ader)

the yodel of a december holiday, is the creamed custard on my warm apple pie.

the mozzie bite on my psyche had been itching me the whole damn year, i scratched it till it bled, and if december hadnt come when it did, id have bled out.

we were a trio-a hairy me, an hairier bones, and saulie. we were headed for a journey, i dont wanna call it a rode trip, that just aint carbon neutral, but we slashed the eastern cape in a fire bomb german engineered tri star, notching up 3600 carbon fueled kays. we were guided by a GPS. that frikkkin gps story blows my melon all shades of red. the world can see us, it knows where we're going, it knows i needed to pee a mega litre, to dispatch it in some one-stop, it now knows that i know that it knows.

we alighted the vehicle in a weee dashing lil town called Cintsa, i sniffed the air and i knew antarctica was closer to becoming a wave pool.Cintsa is a spitoons throw from east london-a town which should have undergone the romans scorched earth policy.

there we drank hectic style, drank cheap grotty box wine cos it was free, played beach volley ball on the grass until our feet bled, well not me cos well i just watch ball sports. then we hit the bar,and id just sit and watch sh*t unfold.anyways we swam in the sea, dug our feet in the sawft sand, we cycled to a wee Xhosa village and watched lil kids jump in beaded skirts. totally african experience i tell you. they asked for pennies, but there was no jingle jangle in my shorts pocket. we met tanned germans and over grown hollanders. we beat the sh*t outta cape tonians at table tennis.

cintsa you havent heard that last of me. pow pow
it was time to dust the crust off our underpants and so made a 1 prong attack on a lil horror show of a town called Kei mouth. its the kinda town that'd make a great backdrop for a b-grade horror flik. couldnt wait to get outta there.

the hike began. kei mouth, double mouth, haga haga, morgans bay, ganubie. we placed our green lil houses on this monopoly board. we got sand in our underpants, sun on our arms, we smelled like a mine workers pits, we wore only 2 tshirts,we ate noodles, we baked beans,we decanned tuna and 2 minute oats, we dipped ouma-all she wanted to do was play kalookee, we swam again, every day in the sea and in the lagoons.we used a teeny toilet ,like those portaloos at rock fests.never go into one of those bogs with just your socks on.we cooked on a wee gas cooker,drank sugarless coffee outta stainless steel mugs,bear grylls wouldnt have approved. we looked at rocks and shells, birds and whales, we were forced to cross a river and lo and behold we fell and wet bacame us. i lost my camera and one sock, it was sad,the sock drifted into the sea,never to be seen again.i miss you sock.my camera drowned and any amount of blowing,left it limp, pictureless,flashless.rust over came it.you served me well fuji man.
at Ganubie we stopped walking when we got to our hotel, they threw in a free breakfast.i drank all the sacheted sugar.

Bones ate poached eggs, but at addo elephant park we werent gonna poach animals,maybe bbq. we zooted there in 3 hours.we saw big bellowing muddy elephants,we saw roarring hungry man eating lions,we saw black backed jackals, wandering tortoises, a buffalo carcass and heaps of dung. we made fire,danced around the boerwors,sacrificed onions wrapped in tin foil. we read books and dried our underpants in the baking sun.

when we had chewed the fat of our last piece of biltong,we rolled into the boutique town of plettenberry bay (thats how swedes would pronounce it).
ah how i love this svelte lil outcrop.here we bbqed,and we beached the beach and saw great whites jumping, frollicking in the sea,we saw life gaurds shouting and people running,we saw drama,it was a steven spielberg dream. we drank and clubbed, not seals but bars,only one bar,and chillaxed to the max. we tossed the frisbee, i never tossed the cookie, i listen to my ipod,the sound track to 'into the wild' like a 1000 times,i read a book, 'around africa on my bicycle',now i wanna go be free, although you gotta wear the correct shorts otherwise youll chafe.believe me , i know. i walk like a cowboy after every run i do.ive always wanted to ride a horse, but not like this.
we fished, i caught a crab,rather it caught me,then it just dropped off the line and said cherry bye,we ate sweaty Steers chips and drank coke zero from an avatar can, what a shyte drink, rather run to lose weight i say.
i ran in hakerville, in the forest, ah it was bliss, i ran real fast, it ended in a bott of blue sweet powerade, gushing down my food gullet, cascading past my unnshaved chin, making blue my innards, like a sci fi movie.it was awesome.
it was new years it was debauchery,but full of shyte music,dance music for the masses,4am rolled by and Paddle Sticks wants to play golf.it was a corker way to start the year.
now holidays, summer days are dwindling. the days are shorter and the nighs alonger.

hope you all had a good one.

be cool stay cool and like apple pie, stay well baked

cahito (like a mohito, but tastes better)

Marie Antoinette 08.09.10

Melrose Arch how I love thee

Melrose arch is a living, not a way to live. It is not a lifestyle but a life we’ve lived for centuries. Melrose Arch unearths natural city living, the natural comfortable human existence.
It is nothing new, but on the brains of joburgers it’s etched as something brilliant something extra ordinary. Walking to buy a carton of milk is liberating, it’s freedom and it is the expression of Melrose arch.
MA is about all sorts, it’s about the bustling meet-your-mates-for-a-pint watering hole at the end of the curved street, next door the linger even longer lingerie store.
MA is the unexpected turn, the hidden happened-upon, the surface scratched, it is not fake, it is real to touch, to feel.
The old quarter exhibits architecture, texture, soft and hard, it is tangible, one looks up and one looks down round back and forth.it is a kaleidoscope. The eyeball is engaged in a gymnastically entwined rapturous explosion of intricacy. It’s the grainy bits, the nooks and even the grannies. The square is pedestrianised, navigable by foot, its enlarged paving-space to rest your hand upon an ice cold bev.
As I cruise northwards juggling my coins in my pocket, glancing at the gallery, the pizzeria and the europa, I feel kinda cool, kinda breezy but then..

I cross the road, I trip heavily on the chainlink barrier, tearing my stomach, ahernia never hurt this much. the edge of the jewellery store knicks me on the chin, I stumble on a Swedish Tiger, phoxyyy. the stroll is pleasant and then into the bowels of the underworld I go- well that’d be exciting. But I turn sideways to mount the moving narrow stairway, rolling rolling down. like a stale 3day old tuna sarmy I cringe, struggling to devour the experience.
The mall-its clinical white insipid colours scream to me the dentist chair. Chewing glass I’d rather do. The floor nicely smooth, Michael Jackson woulda moonwalked this journey.
Ive seen this all before, it aint the dvd I’ll rent again. Im stunned by the deep spaces, maybe 9 of them. The post boxes, are they going for an industrial look, kinda new yorky, niice ,reeeal niiice.
The glassed mall, gsus. Its ‘floating glass roof, a scene out of wills smith’s Independence Day flick, frightening
I need colour, my eyes need an explosion of things to see to explore, to trawl, to engage. my eyes need something I’ve seldom seen before. Images of bleached facials and pimply, zitty mugs, the beauty salon makes me lurch. The Hairdressers sleeper wall, great touch and now…
There are greater places to enjoy an ice cream sundae on a summery Sunday in October.
I just wanna cry at what could have been. just as I sweated through the spine riveting crack of my wisdom tooth being extracted, so I endure the pain of the journey through the ‘mall’

The little record joint, the second hand book store, the corner café, the Gucci shop and Luis Vuitton they’re all integral to a network, to a fabric of excitement. You can’t have one without the other. if you do it’s a half baked egg. Integration fosters societies, breeds networks , links people, binds relationships.

Urban art enlightens, attracts crowds and passersby. Pleasant environs, spectacles, innovation, good planning, little hubs, urban furniture, little joints attracts a lad like me, a design enthusiast and heaps of my like minded honey bees. Show me the honey. goddamit.
Woolworths you make a pretty package, you’re now the face of a precinct, funk yourself up. You’re a canvass for a dream art work, a kentridge, a preller, or dumile feni sketch, be bold be brazen, grab the cherries.
MA is an innovation in SA, it’s a hub for flash. MA is a launch pad, it’s a pandoras box for innovation, for showcasing, for educating-lets scratch the surface.

The cultured crowd frown because there is nothing enticing, nothing to grip them by the brain stem and drag them from the bedraggled cracked beer bottled melville. give them an open art exhibition, a fractal of grey matter and they will swarm like fat bastards to a shmorgasbord. Mary Antoinette has an art gallery,’ ‘is there anybody out there’, what was pink Floyd thinking. Expose the gallery, is it on my monthly gallery trawl, I don’t think so.

MA is a destination, not a one stop mosey on shop.
Its aimed at the high heeled,but they can only purchase so many Shermans.
Im the guy, the regular guy the architect, the trendy tshirt wearing sneaker pimp that needs a local, a pint in a hand and an opportunity to say hi to spidermans sweet mary jane.
I can buy an olive or a pickle from a jar, lets innovate. we aint a mall, we aint a suburban dive, we’re a living sprawling amoeba, integrated innovative, pedestrianised living working playing entity that wants to engage to be inclusive.
The trump card , the royal flush-the merlose arch address no longer wins bets, its real action that is needed.-dancing in the square, architecture pavilions, cutting edge innovative design, entice me and my whacky advertising architecturing mates to spend time, to tread foot.

Why given the platform, the canvass to be outrageous, courageous, ballsy do we go on and create a regular sponge cake.
Show us your balls caster, show uuuuusss

Rock, paper, scissors 18.01.09

Swimming in the goo that surrounds my brain, the boat of my thoughts harboured the idea of someday sitting on the saddle and churning the peddles of a bicycle. I had this plumbers blockade telling me it’d never happen. but then my bingo numbers came up while living on the Island. it was fire engine red, as quick as an insane Bolt and 70 squids. it livened me up to the joys of two wheels, of having the cold icey wind cut through my hair. it replaced my imaginary friend and together we rode into the sunset.
but then i flogged in for 80 quid, made me a quick buck and bought a tube of Mcvities biscuits.

After returning to jozi, my boss chewed my ear urging me to saddle up. it was time. i harvested my nuts, sent an electronic transfer and all of a sudden I had this beast in the back seat of my car. Wheels rugged for off road, the frame matt silver- indiscretely welded together to give it the AArrghh effect, the brakes holding anchor at the gentlest of clutches, the shocks turning this ride into a moon walk. these great components all came together to create a machine the great Jackie ickx wouldn’t recognise.
Yes the afrikaaners strolled in to the hinterland to start the great city of jozi, but this my friends is the true Great TREK

It was off to the spruit on a bright sunnyside up Sunday.my padded shorts clinging to me, the paddding reminding me of days on the beach when my trunks were full of sand.
We were going off road, a narrow beaten path tracked its lengthy way mimicking the snaking river path. the flora bushy from the nights rain, the fauna, the rat on a stick.
i was really shyte on a bike, but i figured how hard could it really be. I sat behind my posse peddling, mimicking their every movement , the long wet grass slapping me around, the air of crushed eucalyptus billowing in my flared nostrils, snot cascading from my snout dribbling to a fine pool at the top of my lip, my heart screaming to be emancpiated from its rib cage, my eyes honed, zeroed in on the front mans movements, but then like the smoked salmon at a shmorgasbord, they were gone amongst the trees, vapourised/scotty -beamed up.
i was alone,my thoughts, my friend. all of a sudden the theme music raced,i took no notice. there in the clearing, a rock the size of Gibralatar lurched up at me. there was no retreating now, i was 300 AARRGG. my rubbered tyres attemptin a bite at the rock, rock paper scissors it was a no brainer. the rock gripping and flinging my tire which is connected to the shocks which is connected to the frame which is connected to the handle bars which is connected to ,well, me. sent me and my components on a stairway to heaven, but the return home was a horoshima fallout. I was over my handle bars flyin through the air like a pre blazing zeppelin staring down into the cavernous precipice and waiting for the rock bed to knock me out. My landing was made for tv. my arms were my airbags. the slow motion button released. i was back in real time and hurting like a hammered thumb.
'nah im fine, ill ride through the treachourous pain.' I got back on my chariot,whipped my legs into action and charlton hestoned my way on.
this was no march into the sunset but rather a treacherous road to ammarillo.

My left elbow as able as a beached ship was sent to the clinic, the blood pressure reading extracted in LED from the velcro wrapped around my arm, my bp good enough to 'keep me moving'
I had xrays, my arm laid out on the chilled stainless steel gurney,im sure dead bodies had shared this same experience as my arm. miss Xray nukes my limp panelled elbow. tzdt dzzt and there before my very eyes I could see in inside myself, I could see the bones that stretch my skin, that give me shape and form. it was a truely outer bodyily experience. and there too was the hairline crack, an addict would be proud of.

apart from eating a 3 day over expired yoghurt, im proud to say im truelly extreme.

yours truelly on a fine autumnal eve,
the russian bear hunter, master swordsman and soon to be proud donator of his name to a new series of gut splitting leatherman tools

coolio iglesias 16.10.08

so last night i had a wet dream, i was doing lengths in the pool at the gym, but my arms weren't moving so lekker. i didnt drown, but i didnt take 8 gold medals either.

after very very lil sleep and rushin around africa like a seedless pomegranate i awoke to see the world through a china mans eyes -half closed and watery. i flew in to Japan after a mammoth flight from jozi to dubai(what a dump) and then swiftly onto Kensai Airport, Osaka. i rolled my knuckles over my eyeballs, the tears washed the past away and i set my red streaked adidas
onto the tarmac of the future. after a fashion shoot and having been inked i moseyed on through passport control into a new world, a cultural shock to my linux system.

Japan was me detaching me from the velcro of familiarity. as neil armstrong on a bicyle in a space suit in the tour de france would feel,with chafed legs and calloused hands, well that was me. phew japan was a foreign movie and there were no subtitles to decipher what the hell was going on. i never handled a knife or fork for 2 weeks, never slept more than 2 feet off the ground, never ate anything harder than a jelly baby and never spoke more than 2 words of grade two english. trying to harpoon my food with a wooden spear was a game i struggled with. trying sign language without giving the middle finger was hard, real hard.before japan, the most japanese characters id seen was on some over sized bird on the beach in cape town before the war. my vocabulary extended from konichiwa to bruce lee. short and concise like the oxford dictionary. Going to the bog left me with 2 choices, the squatter or the contraption that was straight outta Robotech with fully functioning seat warmer, fountain spray and blow dry. It was a no brainer

from osaka to tokyo and a whole stash between i blazed a trail.

like a cape town bergie without his two front teeth to box wine i chugged the city of Osaka. man i punished it hard, the residue spilling from my mouth down my chin, it was thirst quenching, moist to my dry mouth, washing away the desert that is joburg. i unloaded my back pack in a wee 5 storey, jammed between two buildings.i nearly didnt see it. the door to my room smaller than me but larger than a hobbits.a pair of blue granny styled slippers sat neatly perpendicular to the tiny sunken lobby of the room.my room as deep as the 1970's long jump world record and as wide as an israeli gherkin (the vegetable that is). my bed neat as an ironed sheet and the vhs
ready for action. i unpacked my spongey eyeballs, the ones that soak up stuff,tied my sneaker
laces and headed out into this foreign world.

Osaka is a city careering in 3 dimensions-it swoops below ground, glides along the ground, hovers above ground, beams you 173 meters up and drops you back to earth at a rate of a blitz. the city streets are a book stack with spines jammed, and fudged into place-it'd be a right royal task to squeeze your finger between two buildings. as my eyes caressed the stores, the shops, and the bars,the labels emblazoned upon the spines emerged as pure design pure excitement, pure eclecticism.

rolling my eyeballs like a township kid with a tire and two sticks, i stubbed my toe on Americamura Americamura, its a shaken bottle of coca cola waiting to be uncapped. it's osakas camden town, wet streets, throbbing stores, outrageous clothing, girls in teeny red tartan, white buttoned shirts and sculpted, caressed moulded hair. guys in stove pipes, elvin path beaters and Thriller jackets, hair architecturally cut, grafted and set. a wave of design, an insight into the future.if you wanna see the edge cut, bleed americamura.

From city to city i rode shot gun on the shinkansen. The shinkansen, the bullet train is flaming sambuca fast. as the train rolls into the station its nose a grave yard for bloodied splattered insects that weren't quick off the mark. Every take off and every landing is a sight one ought to capture albeit, a blurred moment.

a day out of osaka, and it had to be Kobe, the port, Japans largest. the earthquake shattered city, resurrected to once again walk the seas. when Kobe was ruptured, japans economy faltered, the next so many years were end of the month salticrax. but she emerged, she grew back, the lizards tail always does. i hugged the coast as i strolled the waterfront, i made my way uphill to find a treasure of swooping roads, new and old japanese, white buildings, cobbled streets and bouganvillea.I was lured to the cable cars, pondering my fear of heights, my vertigo, I dropped my 1000 yen and boarded ship. It was a sweaty escapade I knew id hate. I let my camera lensbe my eyeballs as I looked down upon my sneakers.back on earth, my pits a sweaty coalmine and my back drenched like in hollywood movies. my knees trembling, i found a bench, i cried into my
sushi or was it just the wasabi.

In a square box, sat my 12 upright uniformed soldiers,straight as a set square, each enwrapped in a rice jacket, hugging a burst of pink salmon, itching, crying for a salty gush of soy and a nose tingling whip of algae green wasabi. I sat upon the bench, as ungenteel as mr miyagi and handling the sticks like a claw handed invalid, I stabbed, drowned and crushed the sushi between my teeth. It was nice, real nice
kobe was a shoppers dream, with her tiny meandering back alley streets harbouring clothing gems and itsy trinkets, gaming cafes and bordellos. her high street fashion attracted the finest, it was beautiful. i left kobe, had me a shower, dropped a cupla yens for a can oh green tea and tucked me into bed.

Kyoto-imagine a place where the apples are the size of footballs and the grapes the size of swollen testicles. i saw it with my very own eye balls. a temple, a cathedral, precision carved out of timbers , there's one for every day of the year-burnt incences, a buddha or two, red lanterns and timber flops. theyre the meat between the high risers. Kyoto is a bellowing city, it’s an outdoor museum tracing japan's history centuries back. Here I could caress the long gone past of a mighty nation.my hands were calloused. i set my eyeballs on a gold clad temple perched in the middle of a lake, it was indeed a treat, but the experience was a henry ford production line. i got my photo, you bet ya. I needed silence, contemplation time. I needed to wrest my wary feet from the call of the lengthy tarmac. i made a meal of a day and went to visit tadao ando's Asahi art gallery, there was no beer but Monets lillies. the concrete gallery sits upon a hilltop within a range of mountains, barry peppered by maple trees squeezing hard, turning red in the autumnal breeze, bamboo forests, vertical, the shoots thick and tall-a chinese torturers dream, khoi ponds and bonsai trees.this day was a welcome retreat and a piece of architecture i kinda said, 'oh well' to.

kyoto had excruciating moments. finding things i wanted to see became torturous.mapping here is so advanced, me with my hand sketch directions smacked of using a telephone book in the age of mobile phones.i was directionless, an untravelled rat in a maze. going 15 riotous rounds with the festering nightmare of heaves of tourists flashing lights and constant movement, i was beaten into submission. i needed quiet time, time off the beaten tarmac. i rapidly made tracks for
Yokohama

Yokohama, we know it as a tire. i knew it as a city harbouring an architectural master piece-the Yokohama Port Terminal it was a quieter retreat from the tourist mad frenzy that kyoto is. my
hostel was in an area set aside for ex war vets and looneys. it was zombied freaks in hospital gowns with mobile drips cruising the streets picking up litter that gave me the heebeegeeebees. daily i found myself just running as fast as i could to my hostel door,my hands shakin as i tried to force the key into the hole.i was in a horror movie and i wasnt loving it. apart from that, yokohama was rather tasty. i made a blazing trail for the Terminal. a port designed by Foreign office Architects. a piece of urban landscaping fullly functional for sea traffic. a place of leisure and contemplation- lovers licking ice creams, couples getting married, picnics on the grassy knoll and strollers strolling.ah the sea breeze and blue skies. It was a total retreat from the last three cities i'd licked.

jumble up the letters of Kyoto and you'll find me in Tokyo shawowee, this sprawling megalopolis was more fortune cookie than i could ever get my gnashers around. my eye balls had an outer body experience, dragging themselves around corners along clean streets. Tokyo is a colour
explosion in your brain . the streets jingle as an 80's pop music video, with the vending machines
whistling, and the traffic lights tinkling, the pachinko halls chingling, and the neon signposts flashing. tokyo is a sensual shmorgasboard, overwhelmingly carazy, violently illuminating. as an architect itll make you tremble at your knees, lay down in the foetal position with your large thumb in your mouth. it could either inspire or crush your wee lil soul. Ginza is everything youve never seen, its a faberge egged bedecked in the jewels of architectural mastery.my glazed eyes reflected the tree inspired Tod's, Mikimoto's paper cut out building, de beers sexily mangled extrusion,a crystalline Dior, an irridiscent ghost at night, simply mesmerizing and ofcourse prada's bubble wrapped magnifico.this building stripped me of any notion that anything is unachievable. with its bubble wrap skin and liquid innards it was gob smackingly orgasmic.in my worn jeans and scuffed boots i was a most welcome visitor to the Prada store. 'Diesel store in Sandton, suck my d*ck, you dont even know what exclusivity is.' By day the city appeared gray by night the werewolf begins to mutate, it becomes aggressively vibrant, its skinny back ruptures to sprout new features, its teeth reveal edgy crevices. as i walked the nights streets the pachinko halls enveloped my senses. 'Since i was a young boy i played the silver ball, from Soho down to Brighton i musta played them all, but i aint seen nothing like it...these japs, they sure play a mean silver ball.'
ching ching, theyre going nuts for it


i headed out to mount fuji, together with a bunch of all sorts germans and a frog. We all thought it was up the famed volcano we were to head to singe our nostril hairs, but alas one of the lasses had other ideas. We spent the day at the hotwater springs at the base of the mountain. Ah it was all I needed to rejuvenate my noodle hammered body. I turned into a raisin in the lavender scented hot bath, untied my knots in the jet streams of the Jacuzzi, sweated a river in the sweet smelling sauna, and had my toes nibbled upon by ravenous doctor fish.i got back to Tokyo and slaughtered a couple of premium Asahi beer. ah i was relaxed as as sloppy joe .

rappongi, you gotta see it. rappongi is beluga caviar. this district is lacquered in the finest sheen, well thats after i drooled all over it.
it's beautifully designed. its street furniture, garden paths, galleries, wide pavements, grassy contemplation spaces, babbling brooks and shopping malls expressed to me a city respecting its citizens.
i laid tread upon the paths of ueno and her galleries, museums, street shopping and pachinko halls, i idled over the masses of pedestrians at shinjuku, i was inebriated over hentai porn, i got to shlurp my rhaman noodles and drink straight from the bowl. i traveled sky high on the monorail swooping the city way above ground. i gasped at vertical parking lots, and manga comics. i got to be a spaceman in an alien world

Japan, wham bang apricot jam. it was overwhelming and absolutely foreign.it was infuriating and excruciating, it was beyond my senses. it was another world, it was alien. it was the epitome of human advancement, the pinnacle of evolution. but like my last rolo, id never have given it up.

Its been a while my furry friends, hope your eyeballs enjoyed.
this email was not sent from my blackberry, cos i ate it with my granola this morn. it was sent from my pee cee.
take it easy
the russian bear hunter

Virgin Knee Geria 01.10.08

so virgin knee-geria, yeah that name will stick in my head like its been carved into my head with a blunt swiss army knife by some ex reckie who fought in the forgotten war.

so i make check in, this only after i had to deal with miss customs who is lying flat back slumped in her chair doin her nails,looking like jabba the hut. i aint sh*ttin you.

anyhoo i make a bee line for the departure lounge, well if you can call it that.so im reading this book, boo hoo.its about boo.com, an online start up that made billions but went crashing after its directors drank and partied it all away in 6 months. thats rock n roll i tell you.

the flights delayed for 45 minutes for refuelling, thats always gotta be a good sign, i mean afterall a full tank is a happy tank. im strapped in my seat, and ive memorisd safety procedures

so then this lame oke, literaly lame is slumped in his chair, after deliberating for 2 hours and after the sun had set, it was decide to wheel the lad off. bada bing. start your engines mr 767.okay now at the best of times im a frightened flyer, ive got loads of miles under my belt, but at 30 000 feet and dropping that don't count for much.

its a 50 minute flight and it rocked, as in like an ice cube in a glass of ice cold coca cola, this thing bobbed and weaved like muhammed ali.

anyhoo i was biting the seat..hard

it was ten minutes to land, but i just didnt notice the plane dropping slowly, then bang the floor of the plane drops.sweet gsus is it now that im gonna die while munching a muffin. an aside, the airhost says, 'cake or beef roll' , i went cake, these things are so dense the palestininans could use them as rocks, but boy these things taste a lot better than a rock.

so now im wanting to squeeze a tear outta my eye ball, then the pilot, the irish batsard with only a learners licence, starts pushing the thruster away from him(now i have no knowledge of flying but from what ive seen on tv, when the plane starts diving it means the pilot is pushing the controls away), i start slipping out of my seat, my knees up my nostrils cos im in economy(no leg room), sh*t in stowage starts shifting forward and im praying to kingdom come, okay so i stole the bottle of coke from the guest house when no one was looking, but hey.

anyhoo we're now racing hard i can imagine to get from 30 000 to 2000, in like 3 minutes.there's cloud cover and the light is flashing like in a horror movie but without the snakes. the landing gear cluncks out, the winds blowing at nauticle knots, im convinced im gonna die and i just see the front end of the plane rushin towrads me in a flame big enough for a marshmellow on a stick.

we then start leveling out but the wings are wobbling and im not sure the pilot was perfectly parallel to the run way, sweet mary jane.i was rattled. the planes wings, im praying, dont scrape the ground. sha wing the plane hits that runway hard like me after mike tyson b*tch slaps me. we skiddoo, onto that run way, and the pilot gooi's anchors, turns left and parks that amercian liner.

im alive, they say its gonaa rain but ill survive.

dan ger, a russian bear hunter and master swordsman who is happier with two feet rooted to the earth (but the pilot action figurine of the russian can still be bought, plane sold separately)

Sean Ghonnerea (Sean Connery) 15.10.08

Like a 1970's low budget, B-grade made-for-tv nigerian soapie so was my first journey into Lagos, Nigeria.

A 2 prop plane-a magimix with wheels and wings, to Lagos from Accra, the take off as brief as drawing a short straw. it was the smoothest ride I'd ever taken. the mountain of an airhostess as gentle as a daisy offered me a box of nibblies. I was as happy as a frog in a sock until…..

Lagos, it sounds like Lego, but there's nothing fun and primary coloured about this cesspit. And you certainly wouldn't wanna receive Lagos wrapped under your Christmas tree.

As I awoke with cold sweats to the humdrum of a diesel powered generator, I couldn't pinch myself out of the nightmare, cos I was living it. When we dream nightmares, they're probably set in lagos- lights, camera, serious action.

The streets of Lagos are a pimply teen's mug after an over dose of Kay eF Cee. The san andreas fault pales in comparison to the crevices that tear this city's streets apart. Buildings are the canvas for the plumes of diesel bellowed from the chugging generators. the buildings are delapidated and havent been updated since the colonialists in their adventure hats picked up their gin tonics and set sail for mud island.

Traffic congestion is a flu inflicted kid with nose donuts(snot encrusted nostrils).alleviation comes in the guise of an okada, sounds like avocado but has absolutely nothing fleshy, fruity or green about it, and it certainly doesn't taste good with a pinch of salt. Okada's are modern day cowboys bedecked in kanye west goggles and helmetless heads. They're pilots, they're out riders. They're the pixallated enemy in space invaders. They're a necessary dr eevil. It's a taxi on a motor bike. They swarm in bunches, they take the high street and the low, they ride in formation, they're the Luftwaffe on wheels and they're scary as sh*t.

The city is a mosaic of black faces with white eyeballs densely packed together. each rummaging for a place in the overcast gray sweatiness that is Lagos. here everyone is trying to make a dirty sweaty naairah. the market, is truelly an African market, bludgeoned beasts, flies, hairy yams-it's the contents of Dammer's fridge, it exists on the streets of Lagos.

Highways are markets too- from toilet roll to meat roll, you can get it all. Highways are running tracks, highways are the pipelines of heaps of traffic.2 lanes are 6 lanes. Keep left pass on the pavement, pass over the car infront of you, then pass right over the pedestrian through the BRT lane, then cut off the ambulance, then mount the right pavement, then stop in the middle and buy a meat roll. It's the African jungle and it's survival of the ballsiest.

Lagos consists of 2 islands-Victoria Island, Lagos island and the mainland, all connected by shabir shaky bridges. The bridges swoop over murky bodies, dead bodies, of water that look abused and unfiltered. Local fisherman in home made boats with plastic bags knitted together to form masts, sail the seas plundering crustaceans.

i needed to pee the trauma of lagos down the drain, and it was a trip to Abuja, that relieved the tank.

Abuja is the capital city, custom designed for that purpose. it is rather beautiful- rolling green hills, litter free and at an 800m olympic pace. i was in and out of there in 3 hours, but id probably give it another scratch and sniff given the opprotunity.

Lagos opened my eyes wider on the state of Africa, i have no sympathy, i have no remorse, does the west really need to place a band aid over africa to heal her. i now know not. im glad to be back in africa, the south of.

Excerpts from an unfinished scratching:

Ice cold sweaty coca cola:

Lagos, ill take an ice cold coca cola, it arrives dirty as hell, the neck and mouth resembling a new deli public toilet. The bottle skinny, sexy, 350ml of pure joy , shafts of ice poking the top screaming for air. The coke emblem emblazoned on the side of the sultry elongated bottle, its dirty and worn as chafed leather. The perspiration of the bottle careering down the undulations of the chiselled bottle. The waiter cracks it open, rubs it down with a serviette

I'll take a straw thank you

Yellow brick road

i got to Lagos the other day, but there was no one to frikkin pick me up and every one always says make sure you have like a police escort and sh*t, anyhoo it turned out alright cos i got a ride with a taxi and i said to him, 'victor, im puttin my trust in you.", so thank goodness i wasn't kidnapped.

i got a huge room here with 2 double beds, what a lag, so i dossed in the one bed but it had a huge dent in it, then in the middle of the night i moved to the other bed, it was better, and then in the bath room i saw an empty packet for these long lasting s*x pills, eeuw

A rat in a hat

so the other morning i came into the boardroom where i work and there was this hectic smell, so i chooned 'there is a hectic smell' and i left the building, then the cleaners went in with a broom mopping about, the smell still lingered like a fat man to a steak roll. then with a bit of elbow grease the cleaner removed one of the ceiling boards and found a 16 kilogram rotten rat the size of a baby labrador in the ceiling void. oops i hope that chicken next door was real chicken.

Nothing here inspires, nothing is beautiful, nothing is sacred.

There's nothing soft, chewy or gentle about Lagos. If I never see her again it will be too soon. Lagos is the date you leave at the dinner table, you excuse your self to go to the bathroom and you just run, boy, ruuuuun.

so Oprah, next time you 'come home', stay in Lagos, then say 'im home'.

My humblest apologies for an uber late scratching, but it was rather difficult to scratch about a dump.

danel(the armaments leg of dan), a Russian bear hunter and master swordsman.

I have an ipod nano…who needs friends when you got an ipod

well what do you know, I found a pubic hair embedded in a Super C sucking sweet.

Blades of Grass 27.09.08

Being holed up in a sweaty, self-catered, brown carpeted, slipslops in the shower, cream coloured, s*x-stained sheets square box on a Sunday afternoon aint what I call a pleasant dream.

No action stories were ever written in a vacuum packed bubble, well, that's unless it said 'bordello' in red neon lights on the outside. And I needed action.

It was time for me to hit the streets of Accra,Ghana and get me dirty.

I wanted to blow some cash on the local economy and so it was to the local art centre that I honed my scope.

Getting there I caught a taxi. I had like 5 okes screaming to get my business, the one oke with bottle of beer in hand is offering me a ride. 'Gees boet, the least you coulda done was put the bottle down before bidding for my business'.

I hop into a bee coloured cab and soon I pull up infront of the market and being a white man in a dark country I was there to be f*ckin raped. It's like I was the f*ckin game winning bingo card in the retirement village Tuesday eve games evening. In the eyes of these craft sellers I was the golden Charlie and the chocolate factory ticket, the answer to all their dreams. If only they knew I left my wallet at home, (a dr evil snigger ensues)

Like f*ckin festerin maggots to carrion, I was overwhelmed by marketers even before id stepped out of the taxi.

They swarm around me like vultures to a fresh kill, hovering, taunting niggling at my limbs

Mike valentine introduces himself, a Ghanaian named mike valentine? Whatever. Anyhoo im kinda enamoured by the guy and he draws me to his store, his minions, all 15 of them in tow. one would have thought this was some coke deal but all I wanted was a frikkin wooden aeroplane, was that too much to ask.

These guys musta thought I was packin a 20litre snakeskin bag of unmarked US dollar bills, meanwhile I got some scrappy ghanain cedis that had seen more action than a cheap whore in pearl harbour.

Having burnt my cash on wooden carvings which this guy's father (he showed me a pic of him) had apparently chiselled with his bare hands, I needed to get outta the den, yes it was dan in the lions den-sounds biblical huh?. the bastards had left me with enough cash to get home, a few shrapnels of silver. Finally after wading my way through the heaps of crafty crud I made it out to the clearing. I sighed relief, when a friendly lad, Rus obi (his name sounds kinda Star Warsy) led me to the taxi rank. there I picked up a trotro, an oversized mini bus taxi a shoe box on wheels squared off edges,and like lil chocolates in a box we sat, except there were no lil pleated chocolate brown cups to separate us-big mommas ass cheeks enveloped me.

After extricating myself outta the cab and eventually getting to where I didn't want to go, it was time to take to foot in the opposite direction. The sun so hot began sucking the life giving brine outta me. I found myself in a position in which I coulda died. Soon id be seeing things-coloured elephants and moving mountains, then delirium would set in ,then my heart would be palpitating fast enough to turn potatoes into mash, then id wither away. Alas I endured.

After walking minutes, I asked if I could walk home and people said 'nooo, its too far, and I asked again, how far is too far, and they said no its too far. In my head im calculating 2 and 2 and its not equalling too far. So I begin marching down the main drag in a direction I generally know will lead me 'home'. So I ask another dude in a black and blue striped golf shirt and he says, 'noo, its too far, catch a taxi', but I tell him I gotta walk cos I got no coupons. So mr golf shirt, after chatting to this other guy in checkered table cloth red shirt then offers that his brother gives me a ride back home enroute to getting his Aircon fixed. It was legendary, it was crazy man, it was a true Hollywood, or Bollywood or Nollywood ending.

This day was the worst experience I've ever had to endure while shopping, I became a stereotype, and I hated it. It's the exploitation of the tourist, it's a world wide phenomenon. But in the end happiness was the winner.

keep scratching my furry friends, from a relieved russian bear hunter

Barak Banana 23.08.09

My dream came true, to work and travel.

but when the fairy god mother said 'be careful what you wish for, it just might come true', I shoulda listened-Africa was not on my radar.

After 6 hours and 2 viewings of Horace Hears a Hoo i dropped in to dark africa (it was night time).

me and about 20 two-toned button-shirted Saffers emerged outta that Boeing 737. on disembarking the vacuum-sealed aircraft, my jeans and t-shirt immediately sucked on me like a fat leach to a gangrenous limb. This place is humid as hell, sweaty as the underside of a west African equatorial fried egg.

Kotoka airport a low slung edifice emblazoned with 1970's way-cool white neon cut out letters, the 'O' and the 'A' short of a fuse, opens its standard hollow core doors to greet me. Entering the terminal, this musty grand ma smell klaps me in the face. Fans blowing the sweat off my brow leave a salt mine behind. I'm in a Hollywood movie of the 70's, but this isn't true after I ram myself into a wall

Remnants of the African Cup of Nations tourney , when the hell that was i don't even know, hang from the blistered ceiling.

I stand in a queue, this big black guy in army kit, looking like he's gonna start a revolution stamps my ink stained passport.

I stroll across the linoleum pasted baggage area, snatch my sack and head out into new territory. Outside the terminal I emerge into the reception area, into the bowl of arrivees surrounded by the festering taxi drivers eager to bundle me into their cab and hold me for ransom.

but there I see my name on glowing billboard-fat khoki marker scratchings like fly sh*t reminiscent of my name on A4 fullscap with lines and margin, punch holes included. Its ben and he's my salvation. He takes my bags-it's all I've ever wanted

My white hairy body is perspiring heavily, 'don't worry, you'll adapt my brother'...yeah whatever. what was the white man thinking when he colonised this place.

As we make way for my lodgings im overwhelmed.

Sweat stained pits, buttoned shirts, raga music, a black and yellow taxi, the wind blowing your eyeballs dry, where every day is a beach day, flapping palm trees, soiled roads , dense green bush, long green grass that you can get lost in, and heaps of that African crafty sh*t.

-this is west Africa, this is Ghana.

scratchings from a questionably african lad

a russian bear hunter