I was an anxious child.
I ground my teeth while I slept. I had this recurring dream about Nazi vampires and this tall woman in a torn, black dress who would float around.
I had another dream that there was an icecream on my pillow and when I woke up was crushed by disappointment.
The Old Spice advert with the crashing waves and the Carmina Burana blasting gave me a terrible feeling of claustrophobia; and it pained me to watch the tv show Fawlty Towers, but I did anyway.
I used to think that my parents were actually scientists and I was an android prototype.
As an adult I don’t really have any abnormal neuroses aside from the fear that I’m going to die and think my life has been one big waste of time.
I know a lot of people who have public toilet anxiety. So much so that they leave work or a party to drive home and take a dump.
My only problem in this respect is I can’t go unless I’ve got something to read.
As an aside: Women find it strange that men read in the toilet. I think this is because most men sit down to read the paper or a novel and are bombarded with ‘conversation’ about random bullshit that they’re just not in the mood for at the moment; so they excuse themselves to the bathroom for 45 minutes for some peace and quiet.
One of the things that bugs me about public toilets is that the door always opens inward. Only about two percent of men wash their hands after any kind of bathroom activity so once I’ve cleaned the germans off my digits I’ve got to touch the infested door handle, making my hygiene redundant.
An interior design student told me this was the case because if a door opened out from a public toilet it would smack people walking past.
It made sense, but didn’t make me feel any better.
I wonder if women are any better in this respect?
I’m sure they’ll say they are but I’d caution anyone about believing it. We’ve all discovered since Sex and The City that women are as disgusting, if not more so, than men.
As an aside: I tried to get in touch with my feminine side by sitting down one night with Lucy, sharing on a face-pack, and watching Sex and the City until the early hours of the morning. What I discovered was that women know as little about men as men do about women. Hell, I think women know even less about themselves than we do about them!
People have other anxieties about the bog. This girl I know freaks out when she enters a smelly toilet because she imagines tiny poo-particles entering her nose and clinging onto her sinuses, another girl I know stresses if the roll on the holder isn’t facing “flap-side out” (as she puts it), and my gran has to run the taps when she’s getting down just in case someone hears her.
Another guy I know justifies not washing his hands because he knows where his nob's been all day - he washes before he goes as he's not as sure about his hands.
My dad used to say the best thing to do when you were nervous about meeting someone was to imagine them on the shitter (he didn’t put it as eloquently as that, but you get the picture).
And that’s just it, isn’t it? We all do it, so what’s the big embarrassment?
Always think it could be worse, you could be one of those un lucky sods with the open township toilets! I wonder where those guys get away to to read the paper?
Here Come the Sushi Sweats!
Sushi always reminds me of Jesus.
When I was a kid my dad would stick a tray of hot cross buns in the oven and toast them to perfection, whack a heart-palpitating amount of butter on top, and serve them crispy and warm on Easter morning.
I’d stuff my face and no matter how painfully bloated my stomach became I just couldn’t stop eating. I’d roll on the ground clutching my belly and moan, “Never again!”, the way I do now the morning after too much Jagermeister.
Sushi is much the same. I sit at the conveyer belt, grabbing two plates at a time, and not stopping until I hear the tear of my stomach lining.
It just tastes so good. The chopsticks used to slow me down, but I’ve mastered the art and these days I’m like Mr Miyagi – stick wings on the California roll and let it fly around the room, it won’t bother me.
The only problem I have is when it comes to paying the bill; I never know how much to tip the waiter.
Should you tip the waiter at a sushi bar? All he does is bring you a drink, and then the bill, and then he stands there with a sour face when you tip him ten percent of the Appletizer when you’ve spent R400 on sashimi.
To paraphrase Hank Moody, you’d think you’d just finger-banged his cat.
I asked the manager what he thought about tipping the sushi chef because I didn’t want to insult some ancient Asian cultural belief that I maybe knew nothing about, and all he said was that the chefs get a salary, while the waiter gets tips and a sjambokking if there’s a fingerprint on the glassware.
He wouldn’t tell me how much the chefs earned, but he said it’s okay to give them money and I shouldn’t be worried about the absurdly large cleavers they wield.
I did this and explained my actions to the waiter’s downturned maw, but he just grunted something in Hausa and snatched the notes from my hand.
The sushi chef, when I handed him his share of the gratuity, kind of looked at my outstretched hand, then up at the soy sauce dripping from my chin, and slowly took the money with an expression on his face like he thought I was Leon Shuster.
So now I’m even more confused.
I tried to think, “What would Jesus do?”, but then thought Jesus was probably too busy healing lepers to sit around at a sushi bar anxiously watching salmon roses circulate, hoping that no one got to them before he did.
I bet he was more a McDonald’s Drive-Thru man.
When I was a kid my dad would stick a tray of hot cross buns in the oven and toast them to perfection, whack a heart-palpitating amount of butter on top, and serve them crispy and warm on Easter morning.
I’d stuff my face and no matter how painfully bloated my stomach became I just couldn’t stop eating. I’d roll on the ground clutching my belly and moan, “Never again!”, the way I do now the morning after too much Jagermeister.
Sushi is much the same. I sit at the conveyer belt, grabbing two plates at a time, and not stopping until I hear the tear of my stomach lining.
It just tastes so good. The chopsticks used to slow me down, but I’ve mastered the art and these days I’m like Mr Miyagi – stick wings on the California roll and let it fly around the room, it won’t bother me.
The only problem I have is when it comes to paying the bill; I never know how much to tip the waiter.
Should you tip the waiter at a sushi bar? All he does is bring you a drink, and then the bill, and then he stands there with a sour face when you tip him ten percent of the Appletizer when you’ve spent R400 on sashimi.
To paraphrase Hank Moody, you’d think you’d just finger-banged his cat.
I asked the manager what he thought about tipping the sushi chef because I didn’t want to insult some ancient Asian cultural belief that I maybe knew nothing about, and all he said was that the chefs get a salary, while the waiter gets tips and a sjambokking if there’s a fingerprint on the glassware.
He wouldn’t tell me how much the chefs earned, but he said it’s okay to give them money and I shouldn’t be worried about the absurdly large cleavers they wield.
I did this and explained my actions to the waiter’s downturned maw, but he just grunted something in Hausa and snatched the notes from my hand.
The sushi chef, when I handed him his share of the gratuity, kind of looked at my outstretched hand, then up at the soy sauce dripping from my chin, and slowly took the money with an expression on his face like he thought I was Leon Shuster.
So now I’m even more confused.
I tried to think, “What would Jesus do?”, but then thought Jesus was probably too busy healing lepers to sit around at a sushi bar anxiously watching salmon roses circulate, hoping that no one got to them before he did.
I bet he was more a McDonald’s Drive-Thru man.
Sex, Drugs and Bat 'n Ball
So Herschelle Gibbs has revealed it’s not really such a gentleman’s game after all.
Not the greatest of contradictions – it is a ghostwritten autobiography, I believe.
How does that work exactly? You want to big yourself up and prove you’re not just a dumb jock, but everyone knows someone else wrote the thing, so really you’re just showing some insecurity or need for recognition.
Or is it because the writer is just lazy and doesn’t want to do any research so he says, Hey!, I’ll just transcribe whatever you say and structure it into some chapter format? A kind of glorified secretary.
I haven’t read ‘The Herschelle Diaries’ or whatever they’re calling it because, well, I don’t really give a shit, but apparently it’s ‘Trainspotting’ meets ‘Shaving Ryan’s Privates ’ meets the ‘Hansie’ movie – sex, drugs and bat ‘n ball!
I have to admit I wasn’t that surprised. Professional cricketers are kind of schoolboy jocks who never had to grow up. I don’t think anyone will disagree with me that playing sport for a living isn’t really a real-real job.
But parents are anxiously biting their toenails, puffing their cheeks out, terrified that their little Southern Suburbs boytjie is going to be negatively influenced by such a prominent ‘role model’.
It’s not like growing a mullet and dangling the new kid feet first off the boarding house balcony has anything to do with their parenting – it’s just teenage antics – and picking up prozzies while smoking a fatty is good fun for a grown up but something you just don’t talk about.
I don’t quite understand why professional sportsmen are considered such great role models in the first place. They spend the greater part of their existence playing a relatively insignificant game – a nice life, I guess, but not really a vocation that adds anything meaningful to society.
I can understand the benefits of exercising outdoors, being part of a team, and slapping your mate’s arse with a wet towel after you’ve showered together, but surely that’s better as a hobby than as a career.
I’d rather my kids idolised someone like Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama or even Julius Malema – at least he’s open about what he believes in and not afraid to speak his mind.
Or fictional characters like Atticus Finch who fought racism in the American South, Tyler Durden who turned a generation of disillusioned men against a materialistic society, or Green Lantern who incinerated a planet in order to collect enough power rings so he could unravel reality and recreate it as a much nicer place.
Do we want our children to grow up as brawny meatheads who hit a ball or run fast for a living? Seems ridiculous, but what do I know?
I can only imagine that Herschelle Gibbs – not the not the sharpest shiruken in the ninja utility belt, and ugly as a parking lot – had the pressing need to brag about his sexual exploits and tell everyone how much beer he drank the other night.
Just like every other jock needs to.
Not the greatest of contradictions – it is a ghostwritten autobiography, I believe.
How does that work exactly? You want to big yourself up and prove you’re not just a dumb jock, but everyone knows someone else wrote the thing, so really you’re just showing some insecurity or need for recognition.
Or is it because the writer is just lazy and doesn’t want to do any research so he says, Hey!, I’ll just transcribe whatever you say and structure it into some chapter format? A kind of glorified secretary.
I haven’t read ‘The Herschelle Diaries’ or whatever they’re calling it because, well, I don’t really give a shit, but apparently it’s ‘Trainspotting’ meets ‘Shaving Ryan’s Privates ’ meets the ‘Hansie’ movie – sex, drugs and bat ‘n ball!
I have to admit I wasn’t that surprised. Professional cricketers are kind of schoolboy jocks who never had to grow up. I don’t think anyone will disagree with me that playing sport for a living isn’t really a real-real job.
But parents are anxiously biting their toenails, puffing their cheeks out, terrified that their little Southern Suburbs boytjie is going to be negatively influenced by such a prominent ‘role model’.
It’s not like growing a mullet and dangling the new kid feet first off the boarding house balcony has anything to do with their parenting – it’s just teenage antics – and picking up prozzies while smoking a fatty is good fun for a grown up but something you just don’t talk about.
I don’t quite understand why professional sportsmen are considered such great role models in the first place. They spend the greater part of their existence playing a relatively insignificant game – a nice life, I guess, but not really a vocation that adds anything meaningful to society.
I can understand the benefits of exercising outdoors, being part of a team, and slapping your mate’s arse with a wet towel after you’ve showered together, but surely that’s better as a hobby than as a career.
I’d rather my kids idolised someone like Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama or even Julius Malema – at least he’s open about what he believes in and not afraid to speak his mind.
Or fictional characters like Atticus Finch who fought racism in the American South, Tyler Durden who turned a generation of disillusioned men against a materialistic society, or Green Lantern who incinerated a planet in order to collect enough power rings so he could unravel reality and recreate it as a much nicer place.
Do we want our children to grow up as brawny meatheads who hit a ball or run fast for a living? Seems ridiculous, but what do I know?
I can only imagine that Herschelle Gibbs – not the not the sharpest shiruken in the ninja utility belt, and ugly as a parking lot – had the pressing need to brag about his sexual exploits and tell everyone how much beer he drank the other night.
Just like every other jock needs to.
Did Emos Hijack the Eighties?
While chatting to a pasty guy in skinny jeans and an attention-seeking hat I realised that my childhood memories had been perverted for the misery of a generation.
Some of my favourite bands like The Smiths and The Cure now meant more to ironically fashionable misfits than they ever did to me. This made me wonder if I wasn’t maybe a closet emo!
I mulled over this for a while, but then decided I wasn’t up for the job.
I’m not nearly committed enough to skateboard in a jean pant tight enough to make your arse turn blue.
And as much as I enjoyed ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ I don’t think I’ve got the space in my flat for a Jack Skellington shrine, complete with plastic skulls and Tim Burton wig shelves.
At my age I don’t have the strength to maintain a constantly downturned mouth; and the receding hairline won’t allow the standard-requirement, face-obscuring fringe.
I must say I envy the ability to pour trendy scorn on our consumer-obsessed society while spending all your trust fund pocket money on overpriced, made-to-look-vintage t-shirts.
They’ve made my original copies of Eighties pop music cool, now I just need a tape-to-iPod converter.
And it’s good to know that no matter how sulky I am before my morning banana and coffee shake, I can grumpily be happy in the knowledge that apathy can still get you laid.
Just make sure you take off that shrunken jean pant before you get excited or you might hurt yourself.
Some of my favourite bands like The Smiths and The Cure now meant more to ironically fashionable misfits than they ever did to me. This made me wonder if I wasn’t maybe a closet emo!
I mulled over this for a while, but then decided I wasn’t up for the job.
I’m not nearly committed enough to skateboard in a jean pant tight enough to make your arse turn blue.
And as much as I enjoyed ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ I don’t think I’ve got the space in my flat for a Jack Skellington shrine, complete with plastic skulls and Tim Burton wig shelves.
At my age I don’t have the strength to maintain a constantly downturned mouth; and the receding hairline won’t allow the standard-requirement, face-obscuring fringe.
I must say I envy the ability to pour trendy scorn on our consumer-obsessed society while spending all your trust fund pocket money on overpriced, made-to-look-vintage t-shirts.
They’ve made my original copies of Eighties pop music cool, now I just need a tape-to-iPod converter.
And it’s good to know that no matter how sulky I am before my morning banana and coffee shake, I can grumpily be happy in the knowledge that apathy can still get you laid.
Just make sure you take off that shrunken jean pant before you get excited or you might hurt yourself.
How I Became A Parlotones Fan
I’d like the record to show that Nathan Casey is man enough to admit when he’s wrong.
I’d foolishly thought my skill on the tambourine and triangle in junior school was enough to secure a successful musical career. The rejection of my first homemade single, ‘Ring-sting coz I swallowed my bling-bling’, set this “failed musician” on a terrible path of bitterness and jealousy.
My eyes were opened to my folly by DJ Raine whose “25 years’ experience in the music business” proves you’re never too old to throw your granny panties on the stage, and by Jackie B, a man with little patience for punctuation or paragraphs, who breathlessly pushed me to the floor [that one’s for the fans].
The opportunity to promote barely edible, mutated chicken offcuts was a “reward” for all the Parlo’s hard work, Raine told me, and then proceeded to place her idols in the same class as waka-waka soccer promoter, Shakira – gently reassuring me it was alright for fans to be cruel sometimes, so I shouldn’t worry about it.
Not one to answer a rhetorical question such as, “what’s the point in being an artist if no one recognises your work?”, I could only sympathise with the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci and ponder on the meaninglessness he must have believed his life life’s work amounted to – I’m sure he was just in it for the recognition.
If that wasn’t thought-provoking enough, Jackie B forced me to reflect on my “anger issues” and soon I was curled under my desk, thumb-sucking, crying in a foetal position. I can only thank him for my awakening.
It does “take talent to become famous” I suddenly agreed – I watch enough reality tv to realise that.
Who am I to judge those who turn a blind eye to the plight of four-legged, beakless box-chickens if it “reminds them of the people who have given them joy and filled their lives with the beauty of music”?
And now I can see that those kids in South American sweatshops probably wouldn’t have jobs if it wasn’t for shoe manufacturers.
I was a convert!
With a mascara job that would’ve made Stanley Kubrick proud I rushed to the nearest church, clutching my new favourite band’s cd to my heart, and forced it into the pastor’s hands.
When he told me they were just a wannabe Killers tribute band I punched him in the face and quoted my mentor, Jackie B: “Even Jesus was unwelcome in his own country!”
I can only hope for your forgiveness and offer a big hug when I see you at the next Parlotones concert.
I’d foolishly thought my skill on the tambourine and triangle in junior school was enough to secure a successful musical career. The rejection of my first homemade single, ‘Ring-sting coz I swallowed my bling-bling’, set this “failed musician” on a terrible path of bitterness and jealousy.
My eyes were opened to my folly by DJ Raine whose “25 years’ experience in the music business” proves you’re never too old to throw your granny panties on the stage, and by Jackie B, a man with little patience for punctuation or paragraphs, who breathlessly pushed me to the floor [that one’s for the fans].
The opportunity to promote barely edible, mutated chicken offcuts was a “reward” for all the Parlo’s hard work, Raine told me, and then proceeded to place her idols in the same class as waka-waka soccer promoter, Shakira – gently reassuring me it was alright for fans to be cruel sometimes, so I shouldn’t worry about it.
Not one to answer a rhetorical question such as, “what’s the point in being an artist if no one recognises your work?”, I could only sympathise with the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci and ponder on the meaninglessness he must have believed his life life’s work amounted to – I’m sure he was just in it for the recognition.
If that wasn’t thought-provoking enough, Jackie B forced me to reflect on my “anger issues” and soon I was curled under my desk, thumb-sucking, crying in a foetal position. I can only thank him for my awakening.
It does “take talent to become famous” I suddenly agreed – I watch enough reality tv to realise that.
Who am I to judge those who turn a blind eye to the plight of four-legged, beakless box-chickens if it “reminds them of the people who have given them joy and filled their lives with the beauty of music”?
And now I can see that those kids in South American sweatshops probably wouldn’t have jobs if it wasn’t for shoe manufacturers.
I was a convert!
With a mascara job that would’ve made Stanley Kubrick proud I rushed to the nearest church, clutching my new favourite band’s cd to my heart, and forced it into the pastor’s hands.
When he told me they were just a wannabe Killers tribute band I punched him in the face and quoted my mentor, Jackie B: “Even Jesus was unwelcome in his own country!”
I can only hope for your forgiveness and offer a big hug when I see you at the next Parlotones concert.
Straight Men Are Gay
A controversial Ugandan newspaper, Rolling Stone, has been ordered by its country’s High Court to stop publishing the names and photos of men it suspects are gay. The reports have allegedly incited attacks.
Homosexuality is illegal in 36 African countries, with South Africa being the only one on the continent that has legalised same-sex marriage.
Earlier this year the Ugandan government proposed a bill sentencing gay men and women to life imprisonment or death.
Of all the things to get upset about, men who like a bit of cock shouldn't be one of them.
It has been said in one form or another by many African leaders that homosexuality is “un-African” – in a world that is striving for racial equality not only in policy but in beliefs and values, we are told it’s a “white thing”.
It has been argued that in fact it was Western principles of Christianity that first made homosexuality taboo. So actually it’s this fear of gays that is “un-African”. It’s the fear that’s the “white thing”.
I must say that personally I have a lot of respect for homosexual men and women who are open about their preferences. Especially those from backgrounds and environments in which gayness is considered despicable.
Gay men, in fact, have much bigger balls than straights. Imagine being so open about a disposition that could get you at the very least ostracised or beaten up, and at the worst killed! A lot more courageous than, say, drunkenly punching someone because they support a different soccer team than you.
The same man that blatantly gawks at a woman’s cleavage will become offended and possibly violent if another man was checking out his backside.
The sad fact is women have become so used to be treated as objects that they barely notice anymore. Men, on the other hand, aren’t that familiar with an assessment little better than a hungry dog checking out a juicy pork chop, and therefore are uncomfortable with it.
Imagine a construction site of gay builders on their lunch break, whistling and making lewd comments at macho pedestrians.
This idea perpetrated on us by conservatives and Christians that there is something immoral about homosexuality needs to be disregarded with the contempt that we have shown such equally backward ideas as the apartheid Immorality Act.
This is not a gay issue, it is a freedom issue.
Homosexuality is illegal in 36 African countries, with South Africa being the only one on the continent that has legalised same-sex marriage.
Earlier this year the Ugandan government proposed a bill sentencing gay men and women to life imprisonment or death.
Of all the things to get upset about, men who like a bit of cock shouldn't be one of them.
It has been said in one form or another by many African leaders that homosexuality is “un-African” – in a world that is striving for racial equality not only in policy but in beliefs and values, we are told it’s a “white thing”.
It has been argued that in fact it was Western principles of Christianity that first made homosexuality taboo. So actually it’s this fear of gays that is “un-African”. It’s the fear that’s the “white thing”.
I must say that personally I have a lot of respect for homosexual men and women who are open about their preferences. Especially those from backgrounds and environments in which gayness is considered despicable.
Gay men, in fact, have much bigger balls than straights. Imagine being so open about a disposition that could get you at the very least ostracised or beaten up, and at the worst killed! A lot more courageous than, say, drunkenly punching someone because they support a different soccer team than you.
The same man that blatantly gawks at a woman’s cleavage will become offended and possibly violent if another man was checking out his backside.
The sad fact is women have become so used to be treated as objects that they barely notice anymore. Men, on the other hand, aren’t that familiar with an assessment little better than a hungry dog checking out a juicy pork chop, and therefore are uncomfortable with it.
Imagine a construction site of gay builders on their lunch break, whistling and making lewd comments at macho pedestrians.
This idea perpetrated on us by conservatives and Christians that there is something immoral about homosexuality needs to be disregarded with the contempt that we have shown such equally backward ideas as the apartheid Immorality Act.
This is not a gay issue, it is a freedom issue.
The Scooter-Cycle Diaries
Che Guevara said, “There is nothing worth living for, if you are not willing to die for it!” He was probably talking about freedom and rights and stuff, not crossing the road to get a croissant and a pint of milk.
Sitting at my desk this morning, staring out the window, I noticed a guy almost get run down on his way over to the supermarket. He didn’t look to see if there was traffic, and an obnoxious face behind the windscreen of a 4x4 scowled and honked at him.
We all ignore the fact that pedestrians, in most cases, have the right of way. Maybe it’s all the American tv we are subjected to – you know, when a kiddie is playing in the road and the hero sees a truck about a hundred metres away heading for it, and instead of applying the brakes, the truck driver just toots his hooter and the hero has to whisk the nipper away in the nick of time.
Maybe the world is getting dumber because American stupidity is contagious.
There are, I suppose, rights we should all be willing to die for, but if your right of way is one of them then your life must not mean a lot to you.
People on scooters are much the same.
The other day a guy on a Vespa, with a little potty helmet on his head and no doubt a pretentious ‘boo-hoo-I’m-an-emo’ hat in his backpack tried to bully me off the road. Now anyone who’s seen my car will know I’m not afraid of the odd ding, and I let him through only because I didn’t want to kill him.
It reminds me of long ago when I had a bit of a roadside rant at some biker driving like a tit. The guy and his boyfriend on the back threatened to “slice you, ne” and then proceeded to tailgate me after I pulled away from the traffic lights.
Driving and revving right on my arse I concluded that there was only one thing to do – I slammed on the brakes.
Clearly scooter riders on a big boy motorbike.
It’s a bit worrying that scooter riders are not really bikers. Bikers have a healthy, if grudging, respect for automobiles. They know that an accident will not merely result in a dented fender, but quite possibly their death.
When I was a youth, we thought of scooters as a means of transport for old people and schoolgirls. No self-respecting manly man would totter around on one. We rode real motorbikes, albeit 50cc 2-stroke toys, but you rode them like Clint Eastwood rode a horse, not like your auntie sat having a wee.
Obviously teenage macho bullshit; insecure, immature nonsense.
We all rode like cowboys; tempting Fate and facing Death at every opportunity. That’s what cowboys do.
Like our big boy bikes back then, scooters are even more of a fashion accessory, ridden by trendy metrosexuals and emos, and occasionally by people living in the city who know it’s just simply an easier way to get around.
So before you climb into your made-to-look-vintage Che t-shirt and climb onto your can’t-be-comfy-in-skinny-emo-jeans scoot-scoot realise that we all look back on fashion and remember it as being embarrassingly ridiculous.
I suppose that’s also our right.
Sitting at my desk this morning, staring out the window, I noticed a guy almost get run down on his way over to the supermarket. He didn’t look to see if there was traffic, and an obnoxious face behind the windscreen of a 4x4 scowled and honked at him.
We all ignore the fact that pedestrians, in most cases, have the right of way. Maybe it’s all the American tv we are subjected to – you know, when a kiddie is playing in the road and the hero sees a truck about a hundred metres away heading for it, and instead of applying the brakes, the truck driver just toots his hooter and the hero has to whisk the nipper away in the nick of time.
Maybe the world is getting dumber because American stupidity is contagious.
There are, I suppose, rights we should all be willing to die for, but if your right of way is one of them then your life must not mean a lot to you.
People on scooters are much the same.
The other day a guy on a Vespa, with a little potty helmet on his head and no doubt a pretentious ‘boo-hoo-I’m-an-emo’ hat in his backpack tried to bully me off the road. Now anyone who’s seen my car will know I’m not afraid of the odd ding, and I let him through only because I didn’t want to kill him.
It reminds me of long ago when I had a bit of a roadside rant at some biker driving like a tit. The guy and his boyfriend on the back threatened to “slice you, ne” and then proceeded to tailgate me after I pulled away from the traffic lights.
Driving and revving right on my arse I concluded that there was only one thing to do – I slammed on the brakes.
Clearly scooter riders on a big boy motorbike.
It’s a bit worrying that scooter riders are not really bikers. Bikers have a healthy, if grudging, respect for automobiles. They know that an accident will not merely result in a dented fender, but quite possibly their death.
When I was a youth, we thought of scooters as a means of transport for old people and schoolgirls. No self-respecting manly man would totter around on one. We rode real motorbikes, albeit 50cc 2-stroke toys, but you rode them like Clint Eastwood rode a horse, not like your auntie sat having a wee.
Obviously teenage macho bullshit; insecure, immature nonsense.
We all rode like cowboys; tempting Fate and facing Death at every opportunity. That’s what cowboys do.
Like our big boy bikes back then, scooters are even more of a fashion accessory, ridden by trendy metrosexuals and emos, and occasionally by people living in the city who know it’s just simply an easier way to get around.
So before you climb into your made-to-look-vintage Che t-shirt and climb onto your can’t-be-comfy-in-skinny-emo-jeans scoot-scoot realise that we all look back on fashion and remember it as being embarrassingly ridiculous.
I suppose that’s also our right.
God Hates a Piss-Head
The dawn cracks like a free-range egg on the hard edge of the city bowl. Its bright, orange yolk spills across the streets and buildings and in through my bedroom window. God is a chef and this is Her fry-up.
On a beautiful morning like this I should be walking in the dog park or circling the block on a swift, brisk morning run. At the very least I should be out in the garden with a cup of Kenyan or apricot jam with some toast stuck underneath.
But I’m not. I’m lying on my back in bed, my shirt almost unbuttoned and one sock halfway off my foot, my tongue’s probably hanging out and I’m definitely snoring… until God flips that yolk through the window and it slaps across my fragile frontal lobe.
I sit up with an audible grunt. At first not sure where I am or how many eyes I’m supposed to have – I could swear only two – and for a sliver of a second I’m sure I feel fine. In that same fraction of a clock tick images from the previous night’s misbehavings hurtle past.
I was drunk. Very drunk. And I have somehow escaped a hangover.
Then that post-bingeing anomaly of something happening slowly but at the same time very quickly swirls between my stomach and head. In this long/rapid moment I realise that the alcohol is toying with me; lulling me into a false sense of security before whisking my brain into a frothy eggnog.
I swing off the bed and hastily zig-zag my way to the bathroom, smacking my shoulder on the wall and my hip on the hall table.
The ingredients placed inside my stomach last night have scrambled and, if I may stretch a metaphor to breaking point, a vomit-omelette is ready to be served.
The toilet laughs at me through his porcelain lips. He gargles the regurgitation down, knowing there’s more where that came from. I glare at his pasty judgement and crawl back into my dungeon of despair.
The scary thought that I’m dying enters my mind.
An hour later the more horrific thought that I won’t die torments me.
It is arguable that the most elusive medical breakthrough is not the cure for the common cold, but the perfect remedy for a bad babalaas.
Some swear by the “little, red ambulance” – Coca-Cola. Others will tell you water and exercise.
I knew a lawyer who would mix tomato juice and Black Label in a big glass and neck it – he called it a “Bloody Label”. From the banal to the bizarre.
I slowly rise from my pillow and place a pair of dark glasses over what used to be my eyes but are now no more than pain receptors. My furry tongue feels like a bloated blowfish, dead and decomposing. Funnily enough, the chorus from Lionel Ritchie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” is looping in my head.
There must be some wisdom out there, I think, somewhere in the world there must be a decisive cure for the hangover. I conclude that I must ask the all-knowing consciousness that floats in the very air around us; that enigmatic, online oracle known in this dimension as Google.
At first she tells me what to do before I started drinking. However, in order to build a time machine I would need “a wormhole, a large Hadron Collider or a rocket that goes really, really fast”, according to Stephen Hawking.
I have none of these things.
Then she says I should eat toast. But what if anything I send down there demands a return ticket? And not via the scenic route, I might add.
There is a thick rubber band at the bottom of my throat. It shoots everything right back at me.
As I search I discover that in Puerto Rico a hangover is cured by rubbing lemons under your armpits, Africans generally believe peanut butter does the trick and the Native Americans consume six almonds before the drinking begins.
If you have an Irish mate you could get him to bury you up to your neck in mud – and they wonder where the reputation comes from.
A recommendation of breathing in the smoke from a coal fire makes me regret quitting the Chesterfields.
And in Romania I come across something called tripe soup: veggies and the lining from a cow’s stomach, boiled and steaming. Yummy!
You’d think that at my age, with all the binge drinking experience I’ve compiled, I’d be able to navigate the morning-after with ease. But my whiskey-soaked brain can’t turn the library door handle, let alone remember where the reference section is.
So my only option is to ride it out, groaning and sweating like a bad porno actress.
I try to bargain with God, telling Her I’ll never do this again… or at least not for a very long time. But She can see through my bullshit and lies. And I can feel her taloned fingers digging into my brain.
God hates a piss-head, so I implore the scientists of the world to cease the search for pimple pastes and constipation cures and focus on that which inflicts us all at some point.
I could really use your help right now.
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