Stag Night

After a table dance in front of twenty people, having thrown the G-string I was wearing into the crowd, I climb down and think, “I could do this every weekend!”

Maybe an hour ago I was in the back of a minibus taxi, struggling fishnets up my legs, wondering just how confident I was with my sexuality.

It’s a common sight in Cape Town on a Saturday evening – men on the verge of marriage, dressed in women’s clothing, a beer mug handcuffed to their arm.

Strippers and strip clubs seem so 20th Century. Honestly, it’d feel like cheating to have some big-breasted Russian poking her nipples into my eyes – so it’s me dressed for success, deliberating over which bog-door to go through.

Some guys think it’s funny to grab my arse and ask for a blowjob. They get a bit freaked when I cup their nuts in my hand and tell them it’ll cost a tenner. There’s a flicker of doubt and they think maybe this is my ‘coming out’ night and not a bachelor’s party.

But after the fourth pint and a few Jagermeisters, appropriately having a Bavarian sausage platter for dinner, I forget about the pink wig and sexy nightie. Out the corner of my eye I see a table of German tourists staring at me and think, “What the fuck are they looking at?”

It’s kind of like being a moderately famous soap opera actor. Strangers ask to have their picture taken with me. Groups of girls buy me shots at the bar. It’s easy to see why some people get addicted to being the centre of attention.

At Quay Four in the Waterfront, a woman gets aggro with me for cutting in on her and some guy on the dancefloor. I think she’s just a bad sport until my mate informs me that the ‘woman’ is actually another guy in drag – the only difference being he’s not on his stag night.

Welcome to Cape Town.

Later in the night a bouncer won’t let us jump the queue at a club. I kick up a stink, and what normally would get me a black eye and maybe a broken rib gets us in.

We meet up with my fiancée, Lucy, on her hen night. She’s wearing angel wings and ‘cock-boppers’. We drunkenly relay tales from the last few hours.

I’m fat with a beard and just make a really ugly chick, but Lucy says the next morning she found me in the stockings and pink wig a strange turn-on.

Maybe I should do this every weekend.

Lace Up, Order In, Sell Out

As if a KFC snackbox wasn’t nauseating enough, the other day I came across a bottle of Parlotones wine. It was rose’, a wine much like their music – produced to appeal to the largest slice of an undiscerning demographic.

The week before at the cinema I was subjected to a 3D music video by none other than the Parlotones – an Olympian leap onto an already groaning bandwagon.

(Honestly, what’s next, 3D Antiques Roadshow?)

And the week before that, in the esteemed publication Heat (SA’s only weekly glossy), I couldn’t help feeling my bowels quake at the sight of a sidebar laughing at a new shoe on the market complete with a little Parlotones logo stitched into the side. The header was something droll – “Step into the Parlotones’ shoes”.

Now I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan. Even though I bought a Parlotones cd the other month for R80 I haven’t got past the first thirty seconds of the opening track because it’s just so annoying – the kind of wimpy commercial rock that could only appeal to upper-middle class white girls from Herschel. And I have to admit I fucking hate the Clockwork Orange eyeliner. So this is clearly not an objective opinion, but I don’t think anyone could reasonably disagree with the statement that the Parlotones are massive sell-outs.

(Upon writing, it has been brought to my attention a limited edition {only 5 million produced} Parlotones laptop is available… for fuck’s sake!)

Then I got to thinking about the fine line between art and commercially-produced stool-samples, its success based purely on the scope of appeal. Are television ads for McDonald’s or Mr Price modelling shoots considered art?

And then I got to thinking that maybe the Parlotones don’t consider themselves artists at all but merely entertainers or more specifically a brand. If they are only, unashamedly, in it for the money then is there anything wrong with branding their logo on anything from Pick ‘n Pay milkshakes to kwaai hubcaps?

Not at all, I suppose, as long as they don’t expect us to regard them as anything more than whores willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder.

And still then I got to thinking that if it was me being offered large sums of money to promote KFC or some shoe company would I turn it down or would I sell my creativity to the Devil (because make no mistake, Colonel Sanders is the Antichrist) (and make no further mistake, your creativity is your soul)?

I would love to say of course I wouldn’t be such a hack, but how could I know unless I’ve been in that situation?

I suppose that even rock stars need you eat – man cannot live on barely-legal groupie-sex alone – so maybe getting a fast food company to sponsor species-36 burgers for life or a clothing manufacturer making sure you don’t run around like a rural farm kid for a year or so isn’t that bad. Who am I to judge?

It might lose them respect, but I’m sure it gets them paid and laid.

However, I can’t help thinking that in the long run it’s a bad idea, because when the tennis-tekkies are worn out and the fingers licked clean what will they have left?

So cheers to the Parlotones’ no doubt forthcoming Christmas album – who needs credibility when you’ve got money?