It’s a sad fact of life that as we get older things start to fall apart. Our vision deteriorates, our bones become brittle and prone to breakage, and we begin to get even more annoyed with the banal topics the youth choose to converse in.
Our brain takes a hit too.
At 73 years of age most of us, caught in the wrinkly grip of senility, would possibly start something like misplacing our false teeth, forgetting what happened on yesterday morning’s episode of Antiques Roadshow, or wearing our undies over our trousers.
Not the Man of Steel, though!
After three score and ten, Superman still has his x-ray and heat vision, bounces nuclear warheads off his chest, and keeps up with the hip lingo of teenagers.
And after seven decades of heroics, the Last Kryptonian is finally losing his oft-ridiculed red jocks and just wearing normal skin tight spandex like the rest of us. From now on he’ll fight crime in a bright blue one-sy, red Wellies and matching beachtowel.
As the longest-running comic book title – over 900 issues – it’s amazing he got away with it for so long. You’d think that a good friend like Batman or Wonder Woman would have given him a heads-up.
And the old costume must have been a bit tatty by now, and probably getting that musky smell of Oxfam shops and old age homes.
Or maybe age is taking its toll, and while many OAPs would get as far as their Calvin Kleins and forget the rest, Kal-El was thinking ahead in his youth to escape future embarrassing situations.
Who knows?
You can be sure, however, that Warner Bros execs have got dollar signs rolling where eyeballs should be – with the obligatory cash register noise ringing in their ears.
Maybe, just maybe, they can now make a movie starring the geriatric alien in which he doesn’t look like an invulnerable tool.
Because we really don’t care about his morals and righteousness, it’s his clothes that count. It’s true what they say: An ounce of appearance is worth a pound of substance.
Apocalypse Party Hits
For a split second I imagine a post-Armageddon, nuclear-fallout-influenced, cyberpunk world.
In front of the kitchen pass, behind an untidy cable-orgy, stands a crusty poster boy for decades-long abuse of fake tan, chain smoking, staring at his laptop screen and then at the flatscreen on the wall, waiting for the song to end.
To his far right a woman drunkenly sways, shrieking like a mutated, diseased Whitney Houston, “And ay-ee-ay-ee-ay will always luv yoo-oo-oo-oo…”
The fake-tan-man’s dead eyes move across to her, ash drooping impotently from the butt between his lips, to stare unimpressed at her efforts.
After a particularly bad night I’d thought watching people act like tits at the weekly Wednesday karaoke sessions down Long Street Café would make me feel better. At first I’d thought the available table right up front was a boon.
One song into it and I was reminded of God’s sick sense of humour.
As I sip my drink I wonder if maybe a radiation ravaged planet might be an improvement, or at the very least the booming explosion could soothe the ears a bit.
With no service to speak of I shuffle over to the bar, praying that in my absence the table will be snatched up and I’ll have an excuse to leave.
But no, it awaits my return, and like a rubbernecker at an accident scene I sit back down in twisted anticipation for the next corpse to be pulled from the mangled wreck.
My eyes follow theirs to the flatscreen. And as they belt it out I sing along in my head the badly translated words to Robbie Williams’ Feel – “Just can’t understand… this rope I’ve been given…”
The background images on the screen could be the boring bits of early Nineties soft porn, until someone stands up to sing something from Bob Marley and a bunch of girls on the screen in firemen’s outfits get their baps out.
This distracts the wailing punter and he fucks up the words.
The table behind me, a large group of fifteen or so, are choosing songs for each other. Soon enough the guys are up there, clammy hands fumbling the microphone, stuttering Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys into the giggling crowd.
An underage couple, possibly on a first date, sing the inevitable Grease Medley to each other. She’s clearly more into it than him, and she grins through shiny braces as he mumbles the Travolta bits.
All the while the crinkly, crispy controller smokes at least two packs of Texan Plain.
I don’t sing, but in the wake of all the care-free abandon and lack of self-consciousness surrounding me I think maybe I could.
Karaoke takes either balls or alcohol, and I imagine getting up there and making an arse out of oneself must be kind of liberating.
It seems most people only face their fears when it makes them look cool – bungi jumping or jumping in the ocean with sharks – but standing in front of a crowd knowing you sound like a couple of bulldogs porking and serenading no one in particular is about as extreme and scary as it comes.
Intentionally making a fool of yourself in public shows true courage.
Maybe when the world ends we’ll all just think, fuck it, and sing.
In front of the kitchen pass, behind an untidy cable-orgy, stands a crusty poster boy for decades-long abuse of fake tan, chain smoking, staring at his laptop screen and then at the flatscreen on the wall, waiting for the song to end.
To his far right a woman drunkenly sways, shrieking like a mutated, diseased Whitney Houston, “And ay-ee-ay-ee-ay will always luv yoo-oo-oo-oo…”
The fake-tan-man’s dead eyes move across to her, ash drooping impotently from the butt between his lips, to stare unimpressed at her efforts.
After a particularly bad night I’d thought watching people act like tits at the weekly Wednesday karaoke sessions down Long Street Café would make me feel better. At first I’d thought the available table right up front was a boon.
One song into it and I was reminded of God’s sick sense of humour.
As I sip my drink I wonder if maybe a radiation ravaged planet might be an improvement, or at the very least the booming explosion could soothe the ears a bit.
With no service to speak of I shuffle over to the bar, praying that in my absence the table will be snatched up and I’ll have an excuse to leave.
But no, it awaits my return, and like a rubbernecker at an accident scene I sit back down in twisted anticipation for the next corpse to be pulled from the mangled wreck.
My eyes follow theirs to the flatscreen. And as they belt it out I sing along in my head the badly translated words to Robbie Williams’ Feel – “Just can’t understand… this rope I’ve been given…”
The background images on the screen could be the boring bits of early Nineties soft porn, until someone stands up to sing something from Bob Marley and a bunch of girls on the screen in firemen’s outfits get their baps out.
This distracts the wailing punter and he fucks up the words.
The table behind me, a large group of fifteen or so, are choosing songs for each other. Soon enough the guys are up there, clammy hands fumbling the microphone, stuttering Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys into the giggling crowd.
An underage couple, possibly on a first date, sing the inevitable Grease Medley to each other. She’s clearly more into it than him, and she grins through shiny braces as he mumbles the Travolta bits.
All the while the crinkly, crispy controller smokes at least two packs of Texan Plain.
I don’t sing, but in the wake of all the care-free abandon and lack of self-consciousness surrounding me I think maybe I could.
Karaoke takes either balls or alcohol, and I imagine getting up there and making an arse out of oneself must be kind of liberating.
It seems most people only face their fears when it makes them look cool – bungi jumping or jumping in the ocean with sharks – but standing in front of a crowd knowing you sound like a couple of bulldogs porking and serenading no one in particular is about as extreme and scary as it comes.
Intentionally making a fool of yourself in public shows true courage.
Maybe when the world ends we’ll all just think, fuck it, and sing.
SA Police Not Afraid To Show Musical Taste
Upon reading that the Locnville boys had been pepper-sprayed and beaten up by the police, my thoughts immediately ran to spaghetti bolognaise.
If my mum had a signature dish, it would without a doubt be ‘spagbol’. She’d make it for us at least once a week, and in such large quantity there were two days’ worth of lunchtime leftovers.
By the time I left home I must have eaten easily more than a thousand plates of tomato-ey mincemeat on top of Fatti’s & Moni’s pasta.
When I first started getting irritated by seeing the Locnville girly-boys every week in the esteemed Heat magazine (SA’s only weekly glossy!), I reminded myself that just because they were young, popular and airbrushed didn’t mean their music was plastic trash headed for the dustbin faster than a soiled Durex.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, I thought, and YouTube a couple of their hits.
The first one I came across I’d heard before on a Supersport commercial. It was fairly catchy, and had on occasion unconsciously flared up in my head like a mild case of Athlete’s Testicle.
The next few songs I uploaded were much the same as mum’s consistent cuisine – the same old recipe, but warmed up in the microwave and slopped on a plate.
But unlike Locnville, mum’s bolognaise wasn’t a mere flash-in-the-pan – enjoyed today and stinking up the bathroom tomorrow – but a regular performer in the gastronomic playlist of our youth.
Unfortunately no one filmed the Loc/SAPS mash-up, so those particular hits won’t wind up on YouTube, but with the twins’ popularity possibly waning and their following of fans (groin-achingly named ‘villens’) growing up and moving along to real music, one has to imagine that it all might be a publicity stunt.
It’s marketing brilliance, really.
Locnville’s fanbase must have aged and now be old enough to stay up past eight and watch the evening news, therefore being exposed to current issues like xenophobia and police brutality. And what better way for the boys to get in on their fans’ newfound social awareness by getting punched in the face by cops.
The fact that it got on the front page of the respected Cape Argus shows just how far the paper has sunk in terms of sensationalism and spectacle, and I’m afraid that upon receiving my next subscription form I will have to go for the lifetime renewal.
If my mum had a signature dish, it would without a doubt be ‘spagbol’. She’d make it for us at least once a week, and in such large quantity there were two days’ worth of lunchtime leftovers.
By the time I left home I must have eaten easily more than a thousand plates of tomato-ey mincemeat on top of Fatti’s & Moni’s pasta.
When I first started getting irritated by seeing the Locnville girly-boys every week in the esteemed Heat magazine (SA’s only weekly glossy!), I reminded myself that just because they were young, popular and airbrushed didn’t mean their music was plastic trash headed for the dustbin faster than a soiled Durex.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, I thought, and YouTube a couple of their hits.
The first one I came across I’d heard before on a Supersport commercial. It was fairly catchy, and had on occasion unconsciously flared up in my head like a mild case of Athlete’s Testicle.
The next few songs I uploaded were much the same as mum’s consistent cuisine – the same old recipe, but warmed up in the microwave and slopped on a plate.
But unlike Locnville, mum’s bolognaise wasn’t a mere flash-in-the-pan – enjoyed today and stinking up the bathroom tomorrow – but a regular performer in the gastronomic playlist of our youth.
Unfortunately no one filmed the Loc/SAPS mash-up, so those particular hits won’t wind up on YouTube, but with the twins’ popularity possibly waning and their following of fans (groin-achingly named ‘villens’) growing up and moving along to real music, one has to imagine that it all might be a publicity stunt.
It’s marketing brilliance, really.
Locnville’s fanbase must have aged and now be old enough to stay up past eight and watch the evening news, therefore being exposed to current issues like xenophobia and police brutality. And what better way for the boys to get in on their fans’ newfound social awareness by getting punched in the face by cops.
The fact that it got on the front page of the respected Cape Argus shows just how far the paper has sunk in terms of sensationalism and spectacle, and I’m afraid that upon receiving my next subscription form I will have to go for the lifetime renewal.
Little White Lies Are Okay If They're Little and You're White!
It’s about time we heard more about how racist and sexist Cape Town is.
We need to stop hiding the fact that Western Cape wives spend their days with a toothbrush scrubbing the kitchen floor while their husbands beat their black slaves in the back garden.
“Apartheid social engineering is far more expressed in [the Western Cape] with heightened fears within the white community, the insecurity among coloured compatriots and the frustrated aspirations of the African community,” said ANC WC secretary Songezo Mjongile.
Damn straight! The whites are terrified the MK Veterans and ANC Youth League are going to make good on their threat to make the Western Cape ungovernable, the coloureds are worried they’ll be redistributed due to their “overconcentration”, and the Africans nervous that if we go back to ANC rule the service delivery roll out will dry up forever.
Fears like these are ridiculous. And it’s about time those of us at the continent’s tip just accepted the facts.
Comrades Julius Malema and Jimmy Manyi have made it clear that social engineering is just another Apartheid tactic the ANC is keen to adopt – much like the Protection of Information bill; better known as the Secrecy Bill; and soon to be known as the How-We-Became-Zimbabwe Bill.
“Under the guise of good governance and a better service delivery record,” Mjongile continues, “a coded vocabulary of racism and sexism is rearing its ugly head…”
There is nothing more despicable than hiding your contempt for the Other behind competence and honesty.
Much better to wear your bigotry on your sleeve, as Juju, Manyi and our Ugandan ambassador Jon Qwelane are infamous for. Rather live in squalor knowing how those you put in power really feel.
But having strength in your convictions doesn’t just mean a cushy government job after a short spell in prison for corruption. Even our esteemed president Jacob Zuma, with his sordid sexual antics and comments about punching out gays in his youth, shows how committed our leaders are to backpedalling our freedoms.
What nerve the DA’s Theuns Botha has to tell our leaders to “stop stealing, stop corruption, stop infighting… Stop the bad practices the ANC is renowned for.”
Doesn’t he know that this is how dictatorships are built.
Seriously, Botha should just grow up and admit that the whites have had enough of this democracy lark and want to revert back to the way it was. Then we could all be on the same page and let the people decide what colour they want their oppressor to be.
We need to stop hiding the fact that Western Cape wives spend their days with a toothbrush scrubbing the kitchen floor while their husbands beat their black slaves in the back garden.
“Apartheid social engineering is far more expressed in [the Western Cape] with heightened fears within the white community, the insecurity among coloured compatriots and the frustrated aspirations of the African community,” said ANC WC secretary Songezo Mjongile.
Damn straight! The whites are terrified the MK Veterans and ANC Youth League are going to make good on their threat to make the Western Cape ungovernable, the coloureds are worried they’ll be redistributed due to their “overconcentration”, and the Africans nervous that if we go back to ANC rule the service delivery roll out will dry up forever.
Fears like these are ridiculous. And it’s about time those of us at the continent’s tip just accepted the facts.
Comrades Julius Malema and Jimmy Manyi have made it clear that social engineering is just another Apartheid tactic the ANC is keen to adopt – much like the Protection of Information bill; better known as the Secrecy Bill; and soon to be known as the How-We-Became-Zimbabwe Bill.
“Under the guise of good governance and a better service delivery record,” Mjongile continues, “a coded vocabulary of racism and sexism is rearing its ugly head…”
There is nothing more despicable than hiding your contempt for the Other behind competence and honesty.
Much better to wear your bigotry on your sleeve, as Juju, Manyi and our Ugandan ambassador Jon Qwelane are infamous for. Rather live in squalor knowing how those you put in power really feel.
But having strength in your convictions doesn’t just mean a cushy government job after a short spell in prison for corruption. Even our esteemed president Jacob Zuma, with his sordid sexual antics and comments about punching out gays in his youth, shows how committed our leaders are to backpedalling our freedoms.
What nerve the DA’s Theuns Botha has to tell our leaders to “stop stealing, stop corruption, stop infighting… Stop the bad practices the ANC is renowned for.”
Doesn’t he know that this is how dictatorships are built.
Seriously, Botha should just grow up and admit that the whites have had enough of this democracy lark and want to revert back to the way it was. Then we could all be on the same page and let the people decide what colour they want their oppressor to be.
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