Brides Head Revisited 11.09.2014

This isn’t a journey slapping the streets of New York sniffing out sneakers, nor is it a journey trudging through Finnish snow to get a glimpse of the feted architect Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Sanatorium, nor is this a journey about flipping through comic books in downtown Tokyo. This, this is a journey of understanding. It’s about understanding who I am, where I am, and where I’ve been.

After months seeking solutions to career fatigue and my tether frayed, it was by blessing that I got to see Sassoon’s movie on the late Rabbi Goldfein. With the pearls I saw produced by the Yeshiva Gadolah, I decided on my life’s next strategic move. Yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Pulling the plug on a job that was good to me and leaving my azaleas, my Poppy and my dearest behind, I booked passage on the cheap-as-chips Ethiopian. Relaxing on 3 seats was a dream, and though the kosher grub went down like a lead Zeppelin, my good fortune saw me being bumped to business class on the home stretch.Dropping into Ben Gurion, I, a Litvak sweated a stream while my eyeballs fogged up at the humidity. My hands clammy, clutching the new shekel, I rode backseat  in a shirut as it heaved me from side to side as we criss-crossed the valleys and hills of rocky Jerusalem. Dropping off my fellow passengers, the taxi snaked across the lunar landscape sweeping past pockets of green and clusters of milkybar buildings set deep in the contours of this historical land. Staring outwards, the welding-light bright sunshine reflecting off of the Jerusalem stone forced my eyes to squint, hindering my ocular experience.

Rising out of the mall, the masons masterpiece, the pedestrian gates of the Old City, greet me. The Harp player caressing her strings creating memory through her song takes my mind off of the knobbly cobbles beneath my feet and the tourist trinket stores corrupting the treasured experience. Having breached the Old City, my time warp begins, my spirited journey is launched.

I stare with heavy penetrating eyes into the Wall, puncturing history. Working through the onion layers of my thoughts to find my emotion, tears turn me vulnerable. I need to think deeply with much introspection to understand my location in time, in space and in spirit. The ‘hair on the back of my neck’ moment doesn’t materialise, needing to be massaged over time.
For now I leave the Wall behind and rise up and out of this sanctuary heading towards the Yeshiva i’ll be attending for 3 months. Finding the Yeshiva with the help of a printed wall map, I knock, knock, knock on heaven’s door. I’m greeted by the madrich who leads me to the dorm rooms. And so I settle.
I wear no yarmy, no white shirt, and no black pants. But I know I’m in the right place. The seforim which clad the periphery of the Beis Midrash, await my imminent plunge. The structured form of the Gemorah, and the holy black text await the opportunity to become animated. This is G-d’s country, and I’m in it.

The learning frustrates me, it pains me, it’s traumatic, this isn’t fun, but I know this is where I ought to be. The sea is vast, but I’m slowly building a boat that’ll set me journeying through the liquid Torah. Through study I work on myself, building character, awareness. Through speaking to people I gain knowledge about me. Through this experience I hear my mind speak. It’s an extraordinary journey of movements of growth.
Three months might not be enough to resolve Dan, but slowly I’m skinning the apple, revealing, little by little, more of the core. I hope to garner tools with which i can fill my tool bag of life, to be able to negotiate the difficulties and the pleasantries of life’s marvellous musings. What a life. What a journey.  This is a story, about a lad named Dan.

I’d chosen to go to Yeshiva Bircas Hatorah in the Old City having met the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Tagger in the ‘burbs of Joburg, South Africa. With a hand shake and a smile by the salt-and-pepper bearded, charismatic Rosh, it was a done deal.

As I narrowed in on my destination, the aroma of coffee and Israeli chocolate-jammed pastries tugged at my nostrils delivering me to the entrance of Mamilla Mall, my approach to the Old City.  With its bougainvillea shading, sculpture-lined walkway and documented stones numbered and consecutively positioned, the city of old reflects the city of new.

The Old City is mangled spaghetti. Weaving my way through the tight network of hooking streets, the passages, an arms-length in width, tinted in sandy Jerusalem stone, tower above me huddling me in the city’s grasp. The narrow streets, coursing like veins, pulsing with people, instances and nuances pulls me like a gushing pipeline, streaming down past yeshivas, and squares, past the Hurva, burgerias and pizzerias, plummeting towards the heart centre of the Jewish people, the Holy Kottel. Pooled at the Western Wall, Jews of all types collide. Typical, non-typical. Black hat, black yarmie, white yarmie, an army yarmy.  A streimel, and a ‘nah nach nachman’ wooly one, a baseball cap, a crochet and a bowler.  All one nation, unified, spilling their spirit of emotion, turning to jelly at the Walls sight.

The beauty the city holds in my mind is pummelled as I make the prerequisite erev shabbis journey to Machane Yehudah, the street market. Here i’m jolted back into reality. Naive as a pimply teen I head into the bowels of this food lovers emporium and like a pinball i’m ricocheted from one person to the next bouncing off aggressive bobbas and over tanned servicemen. My shins splintered, bruised by pram wielding mommas. Trying to seek a deal on hummus I find myself forking out more than Israel’s military budget. I’m traumatised, moving upstream against the clashing crowds, I burst into sunshine, into freedom, vowing never to repeat the journey again.

Smoking Cigarettes 20.06.2014

There are sweet wonders in this world of machinery. There are reliable machines. There are machines, simple, efficient, and steady. There are those that are built to last, those built rugged. There are those aggressive in stance. And there are those that are blistering in pace. There are those you’d want as a trusty friend, and those that you’d name. There are even machines fuelled by bottom- less tanks giving the cockpitted pilot unhindered journeys, unhindered experiences. There are those enigmas of machinery that make the cover of magazines. There is this machine perched in my garage. It’s the Toyota Tazz 1300, bleached white and stainless. I’ve pushed it to its limits and I know it has further to go. My white Toyota Tazz, huge underhood, Italian under foot.

Me, my Sugar and my Tazz rocked the east of Africa. Mozambique. The darkness. The journey was one in search of a product to return back to SA to make my Scrooge fortunes.

With a fuel tank larger than a Ukrainian powerlifter, the sipper sipped. Nelspruit, Komatipoort. Lebombo and after 5 hours we breached the border posts without interruption/corruption. The open road into Maputo is a drag. Our vehicle hovered above the darkened, heated tar racing past the tracer-bullet like divider lines.  All is a blur, nothing scenic, nothing for the eye. Every kilometre is destructive as the bugs splat face first against my windshield turning Tazz white into Jackson Pollak.

We sweep past Maputo, but the white shirts are out. The Tazz pulls purrs to the side and we blah blah blah to the officer, he gives us a check, an arrogant nod and some attitude, and we’re off with a grunt. After some 14 hours of road work we heave a sigh of relief. We’re in Xai Xai, a little one road town African in energy, European in structure. The street’s bursting like paw paw seeds. Dust hoverin

g at nostril level clogging my vision. We’re still ten kays short of a good time. The sun is double dipping and my legs are turning to sweaty liquorice.
We reach the beach, a sandy road and an arrow to our location. I’m thinking this ain’t all that bad and then I feel the car losing traction, the back wheels violently sidestepping like Joost on an All Back defence.
I’m not sure. I take my foot off the gas and well, now we’re done for. Stuck stiff like beaten mousse.
My hands crashing against the steering wheel in dismay.  I want to bawl my eyes out. The Tazz’s super fluorescent lights tearing through the liquid black of the African darkness , dust criss-crossing the beam playing chicken. A planetary interlude. Dead silence. 1 kilometer from anywhere. Upon hands and knees we shovel sand, the dust fine dune enveloping the tires still.
This wasn’t The Bear Hunter hunting alone, here he had his sugar by his side, and this scenario racked my nerves.
As we locked the car up, by the light of my head torch we walked leaving behind the disgruntled, stymied beast. She of chipper smile, and calm remedies tried desperately to sooth my angered nerves.
We reached lifesaver safety. Two mozambican locals smiled, walked us back to the car and with iron arms dug us out. Once they’d given me the all clear made like Tom Cruised and did a Days of Thunder. My eyes steely, my arms stiff, and my foot flat we ramped ditches, dongs, hillocks and humps. I nearly soiled my self but me, my car and my self were free.

Wooah, what an experience?. With my heart throbbing inside my throat over whelming my apple this was an outer body experience. My Tazz, a beast of burden, punching above its weight was an overwhelming champion. And with my sugar on my side as a coolant we endured.

Matthew Broderick Mind Games 01.06.2014

Comrades 2014

For six months you give everything you got. You give your heart, your iron structure, your soul and your will. You compromise on the late nights, you limit the liquids, and you set aside the carbs. You turn your focus inward. You see illness as danger and injury as trauma. You see rest as weakness. You count the days backwards. You alter what you did last year, working harder this year. You see warm summer mornings invaded by icier winds and an over throw of winters hues. You see the sun’s  arc peak and drop. You see the green over-fed trees turn gnarly, nobbly at winter’s appearance. You beat the tread of 1200km together with your running partner. You scrawl each run down, each hour of sleep and each minute of mileage. Your guilt is your strength. You’re in it and, you’re committed.  Your sugar is on the sidelines watching and your brother is there as a spire. Big Al is there with his famous P and J zarms. It’s a giant of a day. This is the year. This is the year.

Me and Marty linked on the Saturday eve. We slept in single beds in Pietermaritzburg. We ate chicken breasts the night before.  We stood side by side in our pen. I sat behind my glasses. He behind new emotion, new experience and a new start.
And that was the last time we were together.
They say the race is 90 percent mental. And as my mind’s wanderings travelled beyond where I was, beyond the distance of Pietermaritzburg and Durban, it wasn’t the fitness of my body, but the malleability of my mind that was my unravelling.
My 2014 edition of the Comrades Marathon was my thoughts crusade.

My energy had bottomed out turning the day tough. I remained introverted, stuck behind my shades. My eyes and globular brain holding my misery, my pain, and my many wonderings of the years thoughts. The pains of my career traumatising my mind space, the years of tumult scarring my jellied tissue. Where am I going and what am I running towards?. Mumbling very little. Marty drove the pace, pushing us half way in 4hours 50.it was brilliant. But still I felt discomfort. Physically, I was steadfast.

At 55km I forced Marty to leave me to run our own races.
62, and with 28 to go, I sat down. Finished to the world. A half litre of water gushing down my gullet. Brushing aside the concerned comments, I stepped back onto the heated road, still my legs uneasy.  My body was deflated, my mind warped. My body double bent, a crowd member offering a hand. And then Carmy K gave me the 3^rd.
At the top of Fields and with a half marathon to go, I crushed a coke down my throat. As the power aid careened past my parched lips, coating my furry teeth, hastening down my gullet, gaining super electric energy, rushing past my stopped heart, the defibrillator-like effect on my spirit was galactic. From 0 on the speedometer to a hyperventilating 160, id been brought back from oblivion.
My lips turned from bull nose to a smile, a vessel pooled with excitement, spunk and power.
Fields Hill blessed me with rolling speed, and trundling energy. My pulsing pistons purging my sluggishness. My chatting chirping and yodelling driving the unwaivering crowd.

With 13 to go I bumped into Marty. Pinetown. Rooted to the ground he had nowhere to go. Marty’s muscles had left him stranded, splintered. I had to say goodbye, again.
With 5km to go, Elton, with the claws of a backactor scooped me up, and together we hurtled our punished bodies into Durban and onto the softened turf of Kingsmead Cricket Stadium getting us in under 10:30.
You never know this race, a chiselled body demands a chiselled mind.

White's on Rice 14.03.2014

Africanx

This was no bullsh*t facebook photo of you and your mates slotting a tequila at a party stiffer than a cadaver telling the world how rad your life is. This was no cheap selfie of your ‘amazing’ journey to Cambodia where really you had the runs, and were sharing a shower with 300 other inmates. This was no hugging your girlfriend while the sun set in the back ground, you clinking glasses and the waiter is trying for the fifth time to shoot the right shot. This was what we did every day for 3 days. 90 kays, 1000m rise in altitude, the hills the valleys, the mountains of the cape, of grabouw, of apple picking country. This was the African X, this was real, the pain, was real, the heat, was real. The dirt in your nostrils caking like a bat cave, the fyn bos licking your calves to bleed. The sun, it's angle of radiation hell bent on toasting you. That was all real.

The Sherminator and i teamed up for an adventure we’d read about in a Jules Verne novel.
With 6 months of training staring dauntingly at me, the screws needed to be turned, I needed to deviate from the luminous throngs of freshly inspired runners. I needed something new, where the masses weren’t. I needed to mix the bag of nuts up. I needed new adventure.
And as I flipped through the Discovery magazine looking at the pictures. The only article catching my eye read, ‘do something different’. AfricanX.
And so I threw a hook by way of the Sherminator and well he bit. Houwhoek, the Elgin valley, this is apple pie province.  Here the cider house rules. John Deere’s, harvesters, no Tobey McGuire but Batman and Robin.

We geared up, the Sherminator and I. Trail shoes, our ones n twos, hydration packs, gums and gu’s. Rain jackets and reflector packets. But we were Born to Run weren’t we?  So we took two heaped teaspoons of ‘kicka*s’, dumped the lumo crowd, joined the ‘Trail mix’, stirred it up and ran AfricanX.

Leaving Cape Town airport we turned our backs on pouty-lipped sea point, and dropped the stilleto’ed shmodels  hanging around coffee bars and fast cars and guys in toupees  and headed for the Cape van Riebeek could understand. The scented fyn bos, the yellows and the reds of blooming bush, the red dirt and rough rocks. The crystalline lakes, vineyards and apple ‘chards, the guttural Grabouw, it seems to have given itself a name. If it ain’t apple pie its Cape Epic territory, it’s AfricanX territory.

Day one and we sucked up the air we could, for up there there’s more to breathe. Our Transvaal lungs nourished by a high dose of oxygen. We had fast kick backs and switch backs, our toothy grins left dust dirty. The tree covered paths cool to the touch. Over bridges and past trails named Skaapsteke. ‘Have we run to Australia?, I enquired. The crunchy gravel crunching under the treads of our NB’s. No terrain like this exists on the Highveld.  33kays. And the day was done. A plunge pool our respite. as i peeled my nipple tap off squealing an echo off the mountains facade, a chocolate mik calmed me, rebuilt my muscles, for day 2 was up next.

Day 2 and we felt the landscape reach out and touch the sky. The mountainous profile puncturing the blue. The start from the bottom of Sir Lowry’s at Ongegund, a 5 star resort in a 3^rd world settlement. The run gun triggered and we were off mounting ascents, the competitors snaking the hills slowly. Luminous shirts, a safety feature not a fashion trend surely, splattered the terrain as exploded paintballs. The race took us up steep tractor paths and deep into vineyard country. The glutes pulsed and the quads felt it. This day was devastating. 35 kays of arduous trailing. The suns beam blistering.  Snaking  train tracks across the landscape like braces on a pimply teen. The chopper up above, cutting the thick oxygenated air, banking and hovering, capturing real moments, of real time action. Our feet dug in, this aint the beach, but the sand’s the same, engaging diff lock, we gain traction. The dew off the apples reflecting our hard work. Hands on thighs we climbed. Squirting gu’s at the tops of ascents, our lips stuck, no words. This day was gruelling, demanding. Without leg strength you’re running on legs like liquorice rope.  
 

Day 3, 21kays, a blanket of fog tucked us in, at 8am we peeled it away, the sun dried it up. The start gun dissipating. Tracing our fingers along the profile saw us run run, no walking. Ten kays of running. And then more climbing, clambering, then she passed us, nimble as a mountain goat. Hurtling. The rock loose, the decent fast. I sounded, ‘sweet gsus’. The vistas were a beauty, she was too. I chooned the lad. ‘No walking booi’. We took her on the straight.  We could hear the PA system, but the thread, we’d pulled it, stringing stringing we still had mileage to get through. Dropping down into Houwhook was fast like gushing water, crossing the final bridge, your smiles edges flicking the lobes of your ears. This day was like finding a tenner in your pair of jeans. It cemented the AfricanX in orbit. Ground control, we have touch-down. We’ll return.

The journey was dusted. Trail running, it’s a liberation. It’s running cos we can, it’s running to feel the landscape, to get a better understanding of it, it’s running for the sake of our pliable iron muscles, its running for the views and for the travels, its about shedding the threads of competition. It’s running cos We were Born to Run.                                             

Sex, Parks and Recreation 03.06.2013

Run Like a Deer
Be Strong like a Lion.

Having missed the flight because COSATU felt it necessary to turn the country further into a jelly state, and having been forced  into ‘standby mode’...twice, because no flights to Durban were empty and with Friday turning from day to dusk, I had no choice but to drop a testicle on a tacky business class seat on an SAA flight.  Seated, consoling myself, I ordered two cokes to stabilise me and two bottled waters to get my money’s worth. And while I thought things couldn’t get worse, while sat waiting to taxi onto the runway my running partner, my anchor, my Linus blanket and great friend Marty calls to say ‘Danny, I’m not gona make the race, the funeral’s on Sunday’.

There is no Dr Phil book or Oprah episode or Fortune cookie that prepares you for the emotion you’re about to trawl with you on the 45 minute flight to Durbs.
As I bobbed my eyeballs in a pool of salted tears, rubbing my dribble on my sleeve caking it to stiffness, I couldn’t but feel that business class is a waste of money.
The trauma I suffered that day was inexplicable, even receiving a call from the bereaved to consol me.
The SAA staff anything but sensitive to a situation, their arrogance unnerving and my voyager mile status leaving me as wines dregs, I hope never again to fly ‘Africa’s best voted airline’

Not even Spielberg could write this kinda intro to my eve of the 2013 Comrades Marathon. I shivered in expectation, brr brr.

As I woke at 3:30am on Sunday the 3^rd of June with a smile on my face, you slept after a debauched eve of greasy pizza pie and thunderous amounts of alcohol.
While Michael Stipe sang the chorus line to your peaceful sleep, we rubbed our eyeballs to light, applied Vaseline down our nether regions, taped our nipples, sun creamed our necks and pinned our numbers, lassoo-ed our one’s n two’s, ate peanutbutter toasties and hurtled down to Durban Town Hall.
While you dreamed of being the fat kid swimming in a river of syrupy chocolate in Charlie’s Factory, we were vibrating in nervous throngs in our pens, our nostril hairs vaporised by the throbs of Deep Heat, our teary eyes pulsing as a woofer to the echoes of Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire.
While you sipped on water to tenderise those parched lips, and slipped back into peaceful slumber, we strode at the crack of the cannon, over the line for the start of the 2013 Comrades Marathon.

While you breakfasted at Tiffany’s, we shivered for the giants, but we ran. While you flicked on last eve’s episode of Game of Thrones, we ached at the thought of 70kays to go, we were on Cowies and our energy levels didn’t even know it. We ran.
While we felt the dripping sweat make sticky our backs as we chugged up Fields, my memory bank telling me to hold back, you percolated your coffee. And we ran.
While you hit the gym hard, ‘booi’, for an hour clenching your butt at a sweat 1000 class saying ‘gsus that was a tough work out’, Lance, David and I basted the heated tar eclipsing Botha’s. And we continued to run.
When we hit the halfway mark at Drummond and with still 43 km’s to go, you hit the showers and knocked back a fruit shake. We were still running.
While I hugged my brother at the rise of Inchanga, tore at a nougat warming my Gu-filled gut and wondered how the hell I was gona scale this lofty hill with still 5 hours of running to go, you jumped in your car, stuck on the radio and took a drive down the highway. And We still ran.

While you lunched with family and friends over a bbq, toasted a marshy and chugged a beer, we hit Camper Down, and still, we ran.
While morning spun into afternoon, we felt temperatures rise and shine, we saw runners around us capitulated in the searing heat, lying flat throbbing for assistance, you took your doggy to a doggy party at the park. And. We still ran.

As the day saw the sun dissolving, it’s effervescence fading, we mounted Polly’s. You might have gone to a late show. And we still ran.

And as the km boards settled down to single digits, with smile and comfort  we rolled on forward, the banner nearing the fresh grass smelling. While you put on that teevee at 4pm after an exhausting 10 hour day to watch 50/50 we raised our arms beneath the banner that heralded 10:33. And Finally, We stopped running.

We don’t choose our days or our conditions. We can only ask why or what. Sometimes the dice rolls for us, and sometimes it doesn’t. Somehow we get back on that saddle and somehow we ride.

The Flaming Aubergines 28.04.2013

I don’t use words like ‘lol’, or ‘lolo’ or’ fomo’. I  don’t ‘LFMAO’ nor do I ‘Yolo’. I do though Moma and I can play yoyo like no other. I ain’t no trend surfer, or trend getter. I don’t listen to Justin Beaver nor Highveld Stereo. I listen to my ipod or i spin my vinyl in mono. I wear blue velvet, but I don’t eat Red. I share my rolo, and I eat bolo. I never was into Marcels, but I loved to lick Carvel.
I don’t call myself  an ‘entrepeneur’ on Linked In. I don’t surf no social wave, but I would crowd surf.
It was on this day in April that I tramped the trend travellator, hopped into my Toyo’, and headed out for some ‘Fro Yo’.

A ‘fro-yo’ asteroid has rocked Jozi and as we left our red velvets sprawled on the windshield as a splattered flying insect on our journey to our next trending destination, we headed to victory park for food far greater, far smoother.

The Filo store is wedged on the bend of a strip mall with a Spur spaghetti-twisted playground it’s back drop and the glowing Woolies and their futuristic food in the foreground.
There I stood on the wooded floors, grabbed a Filo bucket and with a firm grip of the knob protruding from the stainless steel dispenser called “Spaceman” I pulled hard on the throttle engaging the flow of dense starry eyed frozen yoghurt. And being whipped into hyper space I didn’t want to let go of the swirling excitement.
Feeling like a fighter pilot engaging the full propulsion of the thrusters the experience engaged.
I rocked the base with the mint green of pistachio and topped it off with the chocolate hazelnut cos I don’t do fruits. I’m no tree hugger but it so happened the colours were leafy and complimentary. My cup brimming, I by-passed the smarties avoiding a coronary and sat my bucket upon the weight watcher scale, leaving it looking sheepishly left. right. and left again.
The tarty choc sweetened by the dribbly lick of the ‘stachio. This was no movember but I made a yoghurt moustache. Look ma, i’m a hipster.
Having arrived feeling as though i’d swallowed a turbo boosted chain saw, swallowing lactate would be against all doctors orders but it was the sticky sweetness of  the yoghurt dessert that soothed my firey tonsils.
Sundays in the roaring ol’ eighties were often dedicated to a road excursion to a Carvel ice cream and this little journey ripped that memory from my brains bank and heaved it to the forefront.

For one small moment I felt like the fighter pilot I’d always wanted to be. For one small moment  I felt like I’d been given a nickname like ‘Maverick’ or ’the Sherminator’. For one small moment  I felt like I’d experienced the gravity of 300 G’s.
But for that one small moment I tstill didn’t feel like I’d just made sweet love to Kelly Mcgillis.

Leatherman Super Tool Patent Pending 02.12.2012

The year 2012 brought me to the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, it brought me the chance to see the last rock band i’d ever wanted to see still performing, it brought me a rapid Tough One and an unsettled mind. It brought thoughts of where i’m going and where i’ve been but it brought me too to a hike i’ve only experienced through the epic imagery and words of the Klotz and langeman Patley. Now it was my turn. the pinnacle of hikes, the much feared, but necessary, Great Otter trail.  My life is complete.

With the blood draining from my head, desiccating my brain on scouring and finding my wallet ID-less at the Kulula check-in counter at the airport, I thought it was over. Rapidly I, with my fingers shaking trying to dial as in a horror movie, managed to get my mom on the dog n bone and had her wade through my condom filled bed side table to photograph my old school ID document and with such relief, our plane engaged, banked, and thrust its jet engines. We had made passage to George.

The Otter Trail hugs the serrated coast line of the Eastern Cape, just nearly knicking the West. The launching pad, the Tsitsikama Forest. The end, Nature’s Valley. The trail’s elevation dips and rises as a healthy heart beat. The boil and wart plagued forest floor, knobbed in protruding tree roots and stumps best negotiated by a hobbit, a brown wizard, carpets our path. The forest canopy thick dense like grandmas hair-net, protecting us from the orange-juice sun beam. The heavy branches casting snake-like shadows on tangible surfaces, our guide ropes. The pebble beaches twisting ankles, looking a greyed charcoal bbq, pixellate our views.
The trail throws us into Tolkein’s dense mystical forest, looping us out on to the continents edge.
A landscape for an adventure, for a big budget flik.

The terrain inflicts drama. Our thighs trying to bust out of our skin, our muscles inflating at every step. Blood zipping to body parts most needy of nutrient. With the strength required to kick start a Boeing we negotiated the course whilst sucking on the teet’s of our Camelbaks.  The salted sweat dissolving the pigment of our shirts. The crusted salt caking our faces. As we stand staring down the line of the trail, the smooth palette of greens and wooded browns don’t reveal the grainy grinding structure we’re to endure.

The trail demands its hikers are self sufficient. Loaded with hammers and gu’s, chunky fruit packs kilos of meat, chunked tuna and Nandos convenient packs concealed we are sustained...just. Backpacks grafted to our skeletons, as a horticulturalist only knows. Our socks, shirts and backpacks an extension of our form, an exoskeleton of necessity. The weight is gravitous.
 

Each day the softness of the forest is torn to reveal the rugged cragginess of the coastal rock. The sea coursing it’s way through the rocky, craggy crust, panelling it into shape.
The Otter’s trail is cut by veinous streams of cola tonic infused tint. The rivers colliding at the seas mouth each tearing at one another as lovers grappling to merge. Light-pulsing blue and cool cola, a pantoned cocktail. The power of the two forces tearing and tugging us, treading, flailing. Fighting nature’s current we emerge, dripping excited by adventure. The crossing of the Bloukrans, a daunting challenge.
Plunging waterfalls. Deep ponds. The water lilies, the pads, nature’s geometry.

Our legs shredded by the fynbos, revealing a sweet scent, as tickley as a banky of Mary Jane, it’s blessed with pigment only an HDtv could reveal. Purples and yellows, reds and blues, the colours of our yogic breathing splashed upon the landscape.

After gruelling, unrelenting days our wooded cabins gave respite. Cold showers pricked our energies, refreshed our spirits. Rest couldn’t come sooner. We giggled and we exposed ourselves. We were lads being lads. The memory stick of city bullshit had been downloaded and disposed of seawards . The gluttony of suburbia dissipated in the smoke of the heated fire warming our blistered souls.  We hike ‘cos it returns us to our senses, to what’s important, to the basics and to an appreciation of a sculpted world.

The trail caught me off guard, it was more aching than anticipated. It didn’t give us slack. It crushed my cartilage, exposed my weakness. It left my spirit wounded, it challenged me. I felt I achieved.

...and Dan, Stermer, Big Al and Darwin walk off the stage to huge applause having picked up a coveted Oscar for best performance in a lead role in a Drama....

My Life is Complete

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.