MAlfaRK to Omega

... Give ‘em Air ...

2011-08-26T16:19:00.000+01:00

The smokin’ boys
With the chokin’ fish
Give them air
FUCKHEADS
Give them air!

Foot-pump lyin’
Animals dyin’
Give them air
FUCKHEADS
Give them air!!

Wide-eyed torture
Pavement slaughter
Give them air
FUCKHEADS
Give them air!!!

Severing thud
Pavement blood
Give them air
FUCKHEADS
Give them air!!!!

...... But, there’s more than one way to kill a karp ......

Ancient tradition
From the bath to the kitchen
Give them air
FUCKHEADS
Give them air!!!!!

The season’s pet
To eat while wet
Give them air
FUCKHEADS
Give them air !!!!!!

Christmas’ habitual
Murder ritual
Give them air
FUCKHEADS
Give them air!!!!!!!

A Czech deviation
Horrified frustration
Fuck those
AIRHEADS
Fuck them!!!!!!!!

...... I just don’t get it ......

I love the Czech Republic, and Christmas in Prague is something everyone should experience. But it’s not all pretty spires, medieval alleys, snow and mulled wine on the Old Town Square. There’s a Festive Season tradition that’s unique to the region and that never failed to transfix me for the eight years that we lived there. And it has to do with fish!

Raising carp has a long history in the Czech lands. The first written accounts of fish pond construction date back to the 11th century, when monasteries maintained the ponds for raising carp, which was an important food for Lent. These days it’s big business at Christmas time, and the practice is as follow:

Families buy live carp from a street vendor a few days before Christmas. Then there are a couple of options…
Either the new pet is kept in the family bathtub till Christmas Eve, at which time it is slaughtered…
Or the street vendor provides the service for you. This is becoming increasingly popular and the gruesome process takes place on the sidewalk, in full public view. The gutters run red with thick, red carp blood.
The bottom line - Christmas Eve dinner of fried carp, potato salad and fish soup.

I desensitized over the years, and got used to the sight, sound and smell of this process, but it shocked me in December 1995 when I’d only been in the country for two and a half months. I remember watching punters selecting their fish before the hapless creatures were weighed, stunned with a wooden club or mallet and killed with a sharp blade to the spinal cord, before being gutted and handed over to the Christmas shopper in a recycled plastic bag. Sure, that was brutal but, as a carnivore I think outrage is somewhat hypocritical as it’s essentially the same process for all the meat we eat. In most countries we just don’t get to see it on street corners.

What did piss me off was watching the fish in their tubs on the sidewalk, starved of oxygen, frantically gasping and slowly drowning in the hypoxic water. Yes, the majority of vendors had foot-pumps to bubble some air through the water but, as things got busy and the blood and intestines were flying, pumping air to hypoxic fish was forgotten. Hence my appeal “Give ‘em air, fuckheads”!

I had just bought my first digital camera back in the autumn of 2000, and memory cards were small and expensive (8mb – 32mb). Consequently, the three video clips below are short, but will give you a sense of the annual carp slaughter.

Penned (during the deep freeze of the coldest winter in 75 years) between December 20, 1995 and January 5, 1996 at Janovského 36/919, 170 00 Praha 7 - Holešovice, Czech Republic.

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

LM in Pretoria

2011-06-04T23:39:00.002+01:00

Back in the 70's and 80's, Mr Costa Velonis owned the best Portuguese style seafood restaurant in Pretoria, South Africa.

It was called "Toureiro - LM in Pretoria", a reference to the former Portuguese colony of Mocambique and its capital, Lourenço Marques (now named Maputo).

It was world famous north of the Boerewors Curtain, and renowned for its amazing Piri-Piri Chicken Livers (with Portuguese bread) and its prawns.

In all the years I went there, I think that's all I ate, other than a Portuguese Salad and excessive amounts of alcohol (including litres of Graça, the best-selling white corked wine in South Africa, constantly selling more than 2 million litres per annum).

Toureiro was at 314 Church Street West in Pretoria West and, over the decades, that part of town deteriorated, succumbed to urban decay and was not the kind of place you'd really want to go drinking late at night! Nevertheless, as students at the University of Pretoria between 1982 and 1988, it served us well as one of the best value for money seafood meals you could find, and the drinks were comparatively cheap. So a group of us went there regularly and indulged in copious consumption. Drink drive enforcement in South Africa was a joke in those days!

This particular group of five mates and their partners dubbed themselves "HPLK", an acronym that will remain undefined, to protect innocent people involved ;-) It was May 2, 1987 and most of us were working and in the second year of our Masters of Commerce degrees. On this particular evening, one of our ranks had declared "LM in Pretoria" as being too dangerous and/or below his status, and decided not to join us. The other four couples had a great time, racking up a monstrous bill of ZAR213.64. At the exchange rates of the day, that was approximately £37.67 or $58.62 or €44.99 for eight people, wining and dining. But considering that my gross salary at the time was about ZAR450.00 (£79.31 or $123.48 or €94.76), my slice of the tab cost me 12% of my salary!

As cash was scarce, we each paid our share, and made the calculations on the back of a paper napkin, that we duly signed and dated. A nice little memento of our life in LaLa Land, living under the Apartheid regime's State of Emergency. I finished my Masters degree in 1988, graduated in 1989 and left the country later that year. But the good friends remain...as does the Toureiro. Costa Velonis's son, Anthony, has reincarnated it in the leafy surroundings of Pretoria East, spitting distance from we all used to (or in some cases, still) live. It's now called "LM in the East" and still does killer chicken livers and prawns. Although the portions are half what they used to be, and prices are up by almost a factor of ten, I still eat there at least once every trip I make to South Africa. It remains a tangible and sensual link to a time long, long ago when lifelong friendships were forged.

Also see my folder on Flickr.

I Ate At McDonald's

2010-09-19T23:48:00.006+01:00

Putrid bile, vile heartburn shit.
Oily, greasy tasteless crap.
Insipid, limp-wristed rain-forest destroying cow-pat.
Artery clogging, cholesterol saturated cud.
Cloying, soul destroying, denatured cardboard indigestion.
Silicon coated, Teflon tainted American plastic.
Have a nice day.
Vomit warmed up, spewing forth, choking unable to breathe.
Sandblasted, sanitised French Fries from hell.
Dizzy spells, packaged smell, feel unwell, puke.
Why the fuck did I go back to Mc Donald's?

I wrote this piece at the height of a bitterly cold winter in the Czech Republic. My company did not have company (or pool) cars back then, and I could not afford one, so I had caught a lift (in a Škoda 120) to Brno where I spent the day working at a campus recruiting event. I had only been in the Czech Republic for two months at that stage and the only way for me to get back to Prague was to brave the deep snow in a frozen bus from Brno to Prague. I was a 210km trip back home, it was the worst winter in 75 years, I was feeling pretty miserable and was hungry.

I believe the coach dropped me at the bus terminal at Praha hlavní nádraží (the main railway station) and from there I made my way down Václavské náměstí (Wenceslas Square) where I was going to catch a tram back to my apartment in Prague 7, Holešovice. At the time McDonald's did not have any restaurants in South Africa (where I had relocated from) and I had only tasted my first Big Mac about a month earlier...and it had been a far from pleasant experience. Nevertheless, it was dark, the snow was deep, I was frozen and there was probably very little to eat in my apartment, so I took the convenient way out, and returned to McDonald's for my second attempt at a Big Mac. On the tram home, I scrawled my less than complimentary assessment of the meal on the back of a graduate interview form.

Penned at breakneck speed on December 8, 1995 (in the freezing cold) on Tram 14 to Náměstí Republiky (Republic Square), Prague, Czech Republic.

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

Rolling for PW

2010-09-18T16:20:00.002+01:00

On Thursday, August 28, 1980 (while nursing a blend of conjunctivitis and flu) I had a major motor accident. At the time I was a conscript serving with the 7th SA Infantry Battalion, had returned from Ondangwa in the South West African "Operational Area" on June 28, and was posted to 7 SAI's base camp in Phalaborwa before returning to "The Border". A very pleasant chap by the name of Johann Grove had just returned to Namibia, and asked me whether I would drive his car home to Johannesburg for him. I agreed and was joined by Ingo Eggers and Jan Viljoen who shared the fuel costs with me. On that fateful Thursday we left Phalaborwa, heading for Pretoria, and my diary picks up the story on the R101:

Pass. On a detour road between Nylstroom and Warmbaths I got blinded by a truck's headlights, misjudged a right-hand corner, drifed, corrected, drifted across the road, hit an irrigation ditch and rolled the Mazda 323, 1300cc four times. Landed on the roof. Three of us OK. Car a total write-off. Lucky to be alive. Hiked home (accident at 06:10 pm).

Incredibly, we hitchhiked back to Pretoria in full military "step out" uniform, covered from head to toe in petrol, squashed banannas, mashed avocado pears, lager beer and red Transvaal dust. My neck has never been the same since, and I apologise to Ingo and Jan if they have had any long term side effects. Sadly for me, this was not to be my last accident for the weekend. Two days later, on the night of Saturday, August 30, 1980 I was a passenger in another rolling car on the corner of Crown Avenue and Lawley Street in Waterkloof, Pretoria. But that's another story...

I took these photographs on Monday, September 1, 1980 at the Warmbad Scrap Yard at 1 Industria Road in Warmbaths on my way back to base after an insane weekend. FYI, here's the route of the R101 between Nylstroom and Warmbaths.

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

The Back of the Moon

2010-09-18T16:05:00.002+01:00

The Back of the Moon was one of the best Motocross tracks in South Africa back in the late-70's and early-80's. It was situated in Baviaanspoort, to the north of Pretoria and to the south of the Roodeplaat Dam. Although racing was way beyond my budget, I spent many fine weekends out there with friends who had the wherewithal.

Apparently I misspent a little bit of my youth there on Saturday, October 13, 1979, just over three months into my two years of compulsory military conscription. My diary for the day reads as follows:

Kohler's in morning. Gary there. To his place. Loaded bikes - 2 x RM 250 and 1 x KTM 250. To "Back of the Moon" MX track. Races: Gary won 1st race and came 2nd in 2nd race. Peter wiped out. Anton 3rd overall. Twelve ales!! Lisa George there. To Peter's. Home. To Fischers ± 20 people there - all to Boogies. Substance abuse. Beer, brandy, Southern Comfort, tequila and rum!! To Monastery Disco at 10:00pm. Everyone there. Took Nikki Ashton home. Zeller, Barker, two others and I to Johannesburg at 11:30pm. To Carlton Centre and Hillbrow. Zeller, Barker and I passed out in cab. To Fischers. Took Zeller and Barker home. Bed at 03:30am.

Those were the days! Phew - I'm exhaused just reading that ;-)

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

15 Albums

2010-09-03T22:34:00.011+01:00

On September 3, 2010 my old connection from Pretoria, Helgard de Barros posted a challenge on his Facebook page:

15 ALBUMS

THE RULES: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. Copy and post to your profile. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what albums my friends choose*. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note).

Phew - tough one! The 15 albums that have defined me. Hmmm....

So I created a list in under ten minutes, off the top of my head. A few hours later, I created another. Tonight two more! For future reference, here they are:

1. Scraping Foetus off the Wheel - Hole
2. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll
3. David Bowie - Space Oddity
4. The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
5. Nirvana - Nevermind
6. Bob Marley & the Wailers - Exodus
7. The Asylum Kids - Fight it With Your Mind
8. Bernoldus Niemand - Wie Is Bernoldus Niemand
9. Echo & the Bunnymen - Crocodiles
10. Gary Numan & the Tubeway Army - Replicas
11. Nina Hagen - Nina Hagen Band
12. Dead Kennedys - Frankenchrist
13. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
14. The Clash - Sandinista
15. The Doors - The Doors

1. Rodriguez - Cold Fact
2. Golden Earring - Moontan
3. Uriah Heep - Magician's Birthday
4. The The - Infected
5. Stan Ridgway - The Big Heat
6. The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues
7. Frank Zappa - Live in New York
8. Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out
9. Pretenders - Pretenders
10. Blondie - Parallel Lines
11. Kate Bush - The Kick Inside
12. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
13. Patti Smith Group - Easter
14. Depeche Mode - A Broken Frame
15. System of a Down - Mezmerize

1. Peter Tosh - Equal Rights
2. Joe Jackson - Look Sharp
3. The Beat - I Just Can't Stop It
3. Elvis Costello - Armed Forces
4. Spliff - 85555
5. Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft - Alles Ist Gut
6. Stan Ridgway - The Big Heat
7. T-Rex - Electric Warrior
8. The Selecter - Too Much Pressure
9. Violent Femmes - 3
10. Public Image Ltd - The Flowers of Romance
11. Koos Kombuis - Ver van die Ou Kalahari
12. Gereformeerde Blues Band - Eet Kreef
13. David Bowie - Lodger
14. The Clash - Combat Rock
15. L7 - Bricks Are Heavy

1. Kraftwerk - Das Model
2. Joe Jackson - Jumpin' Jive
3. Frank Zappa - Sheik Yerbouti
4. David Bowie - Hunky Dory
5. Die Antwoord - $O$
6. Linton Kwesi Johnson - Forces of Victory
7. The Doors - An American Prayer
8. Tribe After Tribe - Power
9. Einstürzende Neubauten - Haus der Lüge
10. The Specials - Specials
11. The Jam - All Mod Cons
12. Echo & the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
13. Queen - Queen II
14. Alice Cooper - Love It to Death
15. Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

1. Metallica - The Black Album
2. Kiss - Alive
3. Ian Dury & the Blockheads - New Boots & Panties
4. Jethro Tull - Aqualung
5. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (no. 3, 1980)
6. David Bowie - Pin Ups
7. The Doors - LA Woman
8. Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel - Nail
9. Rammstein - Sehnsucht
10. Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper - Root Hog Or Die
11. AC/DC - Let There Be Rock
12. Soundtrack - The Rocky Horror Picture Show
13. Soundtrack - Jesus Christ Superstar (Original London Cast)
14. Soundtrack - That Summer!
15. Status Quo - Dog of Two Head

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

Karibou - Waka Waka (1992)

2010-06-25T16:44:00.002+01:00

In 1992, my girlfriend and I went to the Comores for a week of cocktails, food, fornication and scuba diving. The resident band at the La Galawa Beach Hotel was called Karibou, and they did a fantastically funky song called "Waka Waka". I still have the cassette tape, and this is a scan of the cover...

Flash forward 18 years. Tonight I was watching the concert hosted in the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, South Africa on the night before the opening of the 2010 World Cup of Football. Colombian artist Shakira was one of the performers. To my surprise, she did the "Waka Waka" and , by all accounts "Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)" is the official anthem and dance of the World Cup!

This got me thinking about the origins of the song, and I found an article called Waka Waka For Africa in the Kenyan newspaper The Standard:

The vuvuzela and makarapa mad nation is all jiggy to Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) World Cup — a chorus borrowed from the Cameroonian 1986 hit military song Zangaléwa (Zamina mina), which means "who asked you to come", performed by the group Golden Sounds.

It is interesting that the _original song was such a hit for Golden Sounds that they eventually changed their name to Zangaléwa. They released four albums — the one that included Zangaléwa was awarded Record of the Year in Cameroon. The group was formed in 1984 by a group of presidential guards who wrote the song for the troops. They even sung part of the song in Beti and Fang, dialects from Cameroon.

Soldiers used the tune as a motivational anthem. Critics have it that the song mocked African soldiers back then and does not glorify Africa.

The original lyrics, which are in Fang goes like this:

Za mina mina eh eh
Waka waka eh eh
Za mina mina zangalewa
Ana wam ah ah
Zambo eh eh
Zambo eh eh
Za mina mina zangalewa
Wana wa ah ah

But only hours after two new versions of the up-tempo track, Waka Waka which means "Do It", was released on YouTube over 400,000 viewers had already been hooked to the video by Tuesday — and local Kenyan stations were cashing on the hit.

Shakira shakes

The song is infectiously groovy and has an African touch from traditional African beats fused with modern instrumentation as Shakira’s lead vocals does wonders. And that’s not all as the Africanness of the song is brought out by Freshly Ground back-up vocals. The South African group creates the South African melodic feel recognisable in African music scene.

One of the videos, which come with spectacular sights and sounds of savannah with wild animals celebrating the soccer spirit, brings the feeling even closer home. A cameo appearance of South African popular group Ladysmith Black Mambazo is inspiring".

Fantastic!! I'm proud to have been grooving to this song almost two decades ago :-)

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

My Wife (For Debs)

2010-05-16T00:25:00.003+01:00

"It's good to get away..."
Into this sea of seething sex,
Red hot Czechs...
But I really miss my wife.

"I'm going to have a jôl..."
Trying to fuck these fantasy femmes,
Dobre dens...
But I really miss my wife.

"Prague women are so cool..."
Erotic mincing in micro minis,
Fur bikinis...
But I really miss my wife.

"It's so easy to get laid..."
Worshipping tits and tweaking twats,
Body shots...
But I really miss my wife.

"I'll be coming round the mountain..."
Suck and caress a creamy clit,
Give a shit?...
But I really miss my wife.

But let's face it.
This is all bullshit, a dream, it does not exist.
It is non-reality, forgoing all pretension toward significance,
inspiration, complexity and profundity.
There is only one reality.

I honestly and truly love and miss my wife.

At the end of September 1995 - six months after getting married in South Africa - I relocated to the Czech Republic, pursuing my dream job but unfortunately leaving my new wife behind in Pretoria. I found a wonderful apartment in Holešovice, Prague that had the most magnificent pale green carpets.

As anyone who's lived there will tell you, Prague is a hotbed of temptation for a single man, but I'm proud to say that I didn't succumb during my 12 months of married bachelorhood. But I can't say it was easy...as this amateurish effort reveals. I wrote this piece on a frozen bus, in the deep snow on the road from Brno to Prague. My company did not have company cars back then, and I could not afford one, so I had caught a lift (in a Škoda 120) to Brno where I spent the day working at a campus recruiting event. The old run-down bus was the only way I had to travel the 210km back home, it was the worst winter in 75 years, I was feeling pretty miserable and was really missing Debs.

Penned very quickly on December 8, 1995 (on a frigid bus from Brno to Prague, Czech Republic).

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

Twenty Year Touchpoints

2009-11-15T22:51:00.005Z

In 1989 I left apartheid South Africa and spent much of the next year travelling Europe. The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989 at which time I was somewhere between Turkey and Italy. I was heading for Berlin and on December 4 I hitch-hiked from Stuttgart to Mannheim, heading for Bonn where I was going to be staying with Dr. Marcella Rietschel (a Research Fellow at the Institute of Human Genetics, University of Bonn) who I had met in Istanbul in October. This is a recent picture of her:

It was freezing cold and snowing out on the road, and by the time I reached Mannheim, I had had enough and headed to the Hauptbahnhof. After a cup of steaming coffee, I bought a ticket to Bonn, boarded the milk-train and continued the journey north.

It was now evening and I was deeply engrossed in my book when the train stopped at a local siding south of Frankfurt I looked up lazily, and saw the name of the place - Zeppelinheim. Zeppelinheim? ZEPPELINHEIM! I knew someone who lived there! Who, I could not remember, but I definitely knew someone there. Snap decision - frantically I packed my stuff, grabbed by bags and jumped off the train. Just in time. So there I was, in the snow in the middle of "nowhere", with no place to go! There was basically nothing at this railway siding, other than a prefab bar, and so that's where I headed. Over a beer, I flipped through my address book in an attempt to figure out who I knew in Zeppelinheim! Oh shit! Sure, I had an address in Zeppelinheim, but it was for the parents of Ulrike Cowan, the girlfriend of my best friend in South Africa, Hartmut von der Ohe. I had never met them, and they had no idea who I was! But I was committed - I was cold and the train was long-gone.

I fed the public phone in the humid, prefab bar, got Johan Cowan on the line and explained the situation. Amazingly, Johan was incredibly welcoming, drove down to the railway siding to pick me up, and insisted I stay for a couple of nights! Mr. and Mrs. Cowan were incredibly gracious - they set up a bed for me in the basement, wined and dined me, and took me shopping in Neu-Isenburg. I also had the opportunity to go into Frankfurt where I got to see Debbie Harry (and Chris Stein) in concert from the front row of a venue called Batschkapp. A wonderful (and eventful) concert, but that's another story!

But probably the highlight of my couple of days in Zeppelinheim was meeting Ulrike's sister, Kati. It's 20 years later and we're still in touch, so I guess that says something. The picture below was take in the basement at Vogelring on the night of December 6, 1989 as I packed up to leave for Bonn the next morning. The following week she was admitted to hospital to have her appendix removed...and there she contracted measles! How do I remember this stuff?? Anyway, it was a restful two days after a crazy couple of months on the road. But East Germany, Berlin and the crumbling Wall lay ahead, and what an experience that was!

FOOTNOTE ONE - while reading the Wikipedia entry for Zeppelinheim, I noticed that it is twinned with the Borough of Dacorum in Hertfordshire. I now live in Hertfordshire, and Dacorum is a mere 15km from my front door. Serendipity.

FOOTNOTE TWO - Kati Cowan has excelled over the past 20 years and is now doing noble work with Ban Ki-moon at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

FOOTNOTE THREE - Dr. Marcella Dominica Rietschel is now Professor of Genetic Epidemiology in Psychiatry, University of Heidelberg, Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany. A fantastic achievement - and a long way from October 26, 1989, the Ümit Restaurant in Istanbul, a backpack of blood samples, a little food and way too many drinks!

Holy Darwin - I've travelled an interesting road, crossing paths with some amazing individuals in the process :-)

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

Pautz Sprouts Afrikaans

2009-10-10T01:52:00.012+01:00

As I have repeated ad nauseum, my late father, Beaudry Glen Pautz, was a naturally gifted writer who made a living from his command of the English language. However, although he lived his entire life in multi-cultural, multi-lingual South Africa, he never confidently mastered a second language. Sure, he could understand and communicate in Afrikaans - the language of authority and government of the day – but I had never found anything written by him in Afrikaans. Until recently.

Well, I hope it was written by him – it’s in his handwriting, but could have been transcribed from somewhere else. However, knowing his sense of humour, and his talent for penning bawdy limericks in the “seaside postcard” style, I’d like to think that these are his! I found these two humorous pieces of unpolished prose jotted on a piece of cardboard among some of Beau’s stuff at my mother’s house in Pretoria in 2008. Difficult to say when they date from, but as they are written in ballpoint pen, and as my father moved into a more Afrikaans speaking work environment in 1965, I would guess that these pieces come from the late-60’s. If you speak Afrikaans (or Flemish), please enjoy...

__________________________________________________________

Daar was gebore ‘n man – Jan Magiel,
Die enigste man met ‘n kurktrekker piel.
Hy het gesoek in die noord, suid, wes en oos,
Vir ‘n vrou met dieselfde tiepe van doos.
En toe hy haar vind, slaan hy dood neer op die daad,
Want die vrou het gehad ‘n linksom draad.
__________________________________________________________

Daar was ‘n man van Australieë,
Hy’t sy gat geverf soos ‘n daliah.
Die kleur was mooi, die patron was pragtig,
Maar die geur, O my God allemagtig.
__________________________________________________________

Ja swaer...good to see he had a sense of humour in a couple of languages :-)

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

Postscript: On Kruger Day (October 10, 2009) my mate, Schalk Vorster, sent me a link to the strange vintage corkscrew image above (French c.1900), as well as an English poem that could have served as the inspiration for the Afrikaans effort:

Here lies the bones of screwy Rick
Cursed at death with a corkscrew dick
Spent his life in a futile hunt
To find a girl with a corkscrew cunt
He found that girl, but now he is dead
The no account bitch had a left-hand thread.

In a bar long since closed in Greensburg, PA

Cuffs Of Gold

2009-09-18T23:51:00.007+01:00

"Kill me" I said to my partner,
"Take my freedom away from thee".
Home of my own - financial bond,
May destroy my soul that's so free.

"So where to" I ask myself,
"Do I want to go down there".
Near to the fear - societies weight,
That compels me this cross to bare.

"Don't worry" they all try to tell me,
"With children you'll never be sorry"!
Strife of my life - ball and chain,
As much fun as a garbage lorry.

"Paint walls" my mother instructs me,
"You're worse than a cockroach that crawls".
Thrill of my drill - domestic bliss,
The end of my bachelor jôls.

"No guts" my devil mocks me,
"You're the joke of a thousand buts".
Weak and too meek - a spineless shit,
Without any real nuts.

"Do it" my angel soothes me,
"Drag yourself out of the pit".
Sign of the time - growing up,
Oxycute emotional zits.

"It's done" we sigh with relief,
"We actually had some fun"!
Smile down the aisle - keep the pose,
We sprinted that final run.

"Good luck" they all wish us,
"She'll keep you out of the muck".
Love of my life - Débra Pautz,
Forever stay my "Buck" ;-)

Psyching myself up to propose, convincing myself up to get married, and then revelling in the event!

Having lived through my parents volatile union, I was totally anti-marriage by the time I met my future wife in early 1983. I started writing this 12 years into our relationship when the "So, what's next?" thoughts began invading my consciousness, and I started experiencing family and peer pressure to conform. A few boozy counselling sessions with Hartmut von der Ohe gave me focus, and Débra and I married in our 13th year together. Soon thereafter, I relocated to the Czech Republic and we spent our first year together on opposite sides of the planet!

I finished this piece on a frozen bus, in the deep snow on the road from Brno to Prague. My company did not have company cars back then, and I could not afford one, so I had caught a lift (in a Škoda 120) to Brno where I spent the day working at a campus recruiting event. The old run-down bus was the only way I had to travel the 210km back home, it was the worst winter in 75 years, I was feeling pretty miserable and was really missing Debs.

Penned on May 5, 1994 & December 9, 1994 (in Pretoria, South Africa) and on December 8, 1995 (on a cold bus from Brno to Prague, Czech Republic).

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

1975 CBC Pretoria Std. 7 Timetable

2009-09-18T22:55:00.002+01:00

This it my Standard 7 (9th Grade) school timetable from 1975. I was at Mount Edmund, Christian Brothers' College (CBC), Pretoria, South Africa where zealots of the cult of Jesus worked hard at trying to wash my brain! If I remember correctly, school started at 08h00 and wrapped up at 14h00. Classes were 40 minutes long and the breaks were 20 minutes each.

The fifth period every day was CD - Christian Doctrine (read Christian Indoctrination). There I was exposed to the belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepaphically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. Yes - it all made perfect sense to me ;-)

From the age of 13 through 18 (1973 - 1978) I worked Saturdays at Jix Hobbies - South Africa's oldest hobby shop. When I started I made two Rand a morning - that's a whopping £0.16 / US$0.27 / €0.18 at today's rates! That job screwed up my teenage social life, but as my folks were not flush with cash, it was something I had to do. Back in those days the shop was on Van Der Walt Street, one shop up from the corner of Pretorius Street. I was a counter hand, shelf packer and duster. And, believe me, it was an endless battle against 50 years of accumulated filth! Looking back now, I do wish I'd bought up all the old 40's, 50's and 60's Dinky Toys and Corgi toy cars that no one wanted in the 1970's! They would have been excellent investments.

Flying. After work at Jix I would regulary trek out to Pretoria Radio Flyers airfield at Zwavelpoort, east of the city, where I would revel in the customers writing off their expensive toys :-) Due to urban creep, the club was forced to relocate in 2001 and is now in Rietvallei.

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

CBC Pretoria Bus Passes 1974-1975

2009-09-15T21:33:00.006+01:00

I was schooled at the Loreto Convent, Pretoria (age 6-8) and Mount Edmund, Christian Brothers' College (CBC), Pretoria (age 9-17). In Standard 6 and Standard 7 my folks gave up on the school commute, and I had to ride the old college school bus from Lynnwood Manor to Silverton. It was an antiquated green and white Bedford, and not my favourite mode of transport! As we were probably the final stop on the route, all seats were usually taken, by the time I boarded, and I generally stood up front, next to the driver - a middle-age, balding and mostly sweaty Afrikaner. I was there on that fateful day when the bus got a front wheel puncture going down the hill close to the CSIR entrance. We went off the road and into the bush, and miraculously the bus didn't roll. I have the full story written up in an essay somewhere, but need to dig up that old textbook in my archive! Anyway, here are the bus passes from 1974 and 1975.

Here are the backs of the bus passes from 1974 and 1975. They are signed by the school Secretary, Mrs. Tudhope. She, her son John and daugter Avril stayed at the Cambray flats, close to my parent's place in Lynnwood Manor. I had a secret, long distance crush on Avril back in those days. I think she went to school in Lyttleton and wonder what ever happened to her?

In 1976 I blew my savings on a 50cc motorcycle, and my world changed forever! The wall in the background to the left of the attached photo is more or less where we used to catch the college bus in the morning.

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

New York - September 11, 2001

2009-09-11T21:43:00.005+01:00

New York - September 11, 2001

Many will know John Chatterton from his excellent History Channel series Deep Sea Detectives. He is also one of the guys I rode through West Bengal and Bhutan with back in October 1999. A small group of us on that trip got on so well, that we rode together again, doing Northern Thailand (including the "Golden Triangle") over Christmas 2001.

Debra and I were privileged to attend John and Carla's wedding in Nan, Thailand in 2002 and to have visited with them when they still stayed in New Jersey. On that occasion (in 2000, if I'm not mistaken), he lent me his Harley and we spent a fine weekend riding, eating, drinking and socialising. You can read more about the man on his website - including his dives on the Titanic and his discovery of the German submarine U-869.

On September 11, 2001, after the attacks on the World Trade Centre, I reached out to John (who I knew was working in New York) to find out if he was okay. This is his harrowing first-hand account of the catastrophy sent to me and Terry Clark, Managing Director of The Classic MotorCycle Magazine in the UK, who also rode Bhutan and Thailand with us. I posted it to my old website (with his permission) when I received it on September 14, 2001. Today is the eighth anniversary of 9/11 and so I though it would be appropriate to repost it to my blog.

Terry & Chris and Mark & Deb,

As of Tuesday, I was the diving supervisor for a commercial company doing bulkhead remediation work underneath the World Financial Center in New York City for the Battery Park City Authority. Parts of Battery Park City are built over the waters of the Hudson River, specifically over the train tunnels. The current phase of the job required that we dive from (two) access openings (5' x 10') adjacent to West St. and then out to a distance of about 900 ft to the west and under the WFC. The two access openings were directly across the street from WTC Tower #1, one across from the south face of the building and one from the north face. Behind us was World Financial Center. On Tuesday, inside the access and under the WFC itself, I had 4 tenders in two boats, about 500 feet in, and then 4 divers in at varying distances up to 400 feet beyond the remote tender's station. I had 3 men on the surface at the access opening.

I was going to put my wet suit on to make an inspection dive and take some measurements, but stopped to make a phone call in the office trailer. As I was talking, I heard a whoosh then an explosion, then a larger explosion. I opened the door of the trailer and stepped out to see the fireball coming out of the south side of Tower #1. To avoid the falling debris, I ran back into the trailer. As the debris stopped falling, I ran along West St. to the north access where my men were working. Along the way I passed innocent injured and dead caught unaware by the falling debris. Under the WFC, the divers were unaware of any problem, other than "a gust of wind". One of my topside men actually saw the plane hit the Tower. We hurriedly got all of the men out of the access and on the surface as quickly as possible, and completed the head count just as the second plane struck the south side of Tower #2. We evacuated the area towards the water (we ran like hell), and from a reasonably safe distance I saw both towers collapse, first Tower 2 then Tower 1. Just as the ensuing dust and debris clouds from Tower #1 were closing in, I was evacuated from the bulkhead by boat to New Jersey. The evacuation was very civilized, women, children, and the elderly being loaded first.

Yesterday, I returned to my former worksite. The damage is far more than you can ever comprehend from watching it on the small screen. I am certain that more buildings will collapse, or have to be torn down. Paper, small debris and dust are everywhere. The large debris is like a mountain range, and the rescuers like little ants. Hundreds of rescuers have already died in the original collapse, and the very dangerous rescue work continues without much conversation. Just the occasional nod of acknowledgement or necessary communication. No one says "good morning". Many of the rescuers are volunteers from New York's construction trades and they are working without pay. Some are police and firemen from neighboring areas.

As for my job, the car I left behind has just plain disappeared, like our crane, and a bunch of other equipment. Some pumps and compressors are still there, crushed and burned. Of the 4 trailers on site, I can only find the remains of two. My engineer's trailer was used as a command post by the Fire Department. When Tower 2 collapsed, the trailer and everyone in it was crushed. New York's top 4 firefighters were killed there. When the planes hit the buildings, they cut off possible escape for the people on the floors above. No one on the upper floors could possibly have survived. Some of the remains of these poor people have been recovered from where my job site was. The death toll will be thousands of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, friends, firefighters, and policemen. We are a long, long way from resolution.

Right now in New York, we are sad and tired. Later, I assume we will be very angry.

Thanks for the kind thoughts.

John Chatterton

PS - Carla is stuck in Buenos Aires. Hopefully she will fly home tomorrow.

John posted me some of his photographs on October 1, 2001 (all photos © John Chatterton):

"My Job Site Pre Construction"

"After My Jobsite 9-13"

"My Job Site Fenced In"

"Looking at Tower 1 from Jobsite"

See more of John's 9/11 photos on his Facebook page.

Thanks again for sharing John. Thinking of you guys and hope to see you both soon.

Regards, MAlfaRK ©

Two Rivers

2009-09-03T23:31:00.015+01:00

SA WINS GOLD MEDAL AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Yes, it’s true! But the headline dates back to 1975!

My late father, Beaudry Glen Pautz (known to all as Beau) was a passionate aviator, and a writer and raconteur by profession. He started his career in journalism at the King William’s Town Mercury in the late 1940’s and 50’s and moved on the East London Daily Dispatch in the 1950’s and 60’s. His contemporaries there included Donald Woods, Allister Sparks, John Dewar, et al. From the mid-60’s through the end of the 80’s he was Press Officer and ultimately Head of Public Relations for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, South Africa. As a key member of the Information and Research Services (IRS) he became a respected science writer…and not a “sign writer” as quoted in an obituary (in a South African newspaper that shall remain nameless) following his untimely death in 1990.

In the 1970’s and 80’s my father became deeply involved in film and video production for the CSIR, establishing a small audio-visual studio on the campus in Pretoria East. Beau was a gifted wordsmith who became immersed in all aspects of film-making – script writing, filming, directing, editing, producing, soundtracks and commentary.

On some of his most notable documentaries he collaborated with Hugh Whysall and Duane Rogers of Killarney Film Studios (the team responsible for those great Gunston “surfing” commercials) and in 1975 the three of them produced a documentary for the CSIR called "Two Rivers". It concentrated on two South African rivers – one polluted and one clean - and predicted the environmental problems that South Africa and the world would face in the final quarter of the century, and beyond. Incredibly, it foreshadowed Al Gore’s Nobel Prize winning film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, by 31 years!

"Two Rivers" was entered in a film festival in Venice in 1975 and went on to win the Gold Medal for documentaries! I still have the medal (at least, I thought so - for the life of me, I can't find it)...

I only remember seeing the documentary twice – once at the Christian Brothers College in Pretoria where I went to school and a second time before the main feature film at a cinema called The Oscar in Sunnyside, Pretoria in 1976 or 1977. The version we had for the school screening was on 16mm film, and I remember the overwhelming sense of pride in my father’s creation…and how my partially brain-dead teenage friends really didn’t give a damn! In recent years I searched the internet in an effort to find out more about the documentary (and to possibly get a copy of it on DVD), but found absolutely nothing about the film.

However, as I also worked at the CSIR between 1985 and the early 1990’s, I knew how the place worked and was certain that there would be a copy of the movie in the library or in the archive. So, I contacted my father’s successor in Public Relations who put me in touch with Ms. Annette Joubert, an Archivist with CSIR Information Services. Annette did some great detective work and eventually managed to trace the film as well as the Diploma di Medaglia d'Oro in the CSIR archives!

This was a great breakthrough, and Annette went out of her way to facilitate the migration of the film to DVD (using the same facility in Pretoria used by the National Audiovisual Archives), and arranging for colour copies of the diploma. I put up cash, but Annette must take credit for doing all the work and for delivering the final product to my mom’s place in Lynnwood Manor.

It’s interesting to note that the Diploma from Venice is attributed to Hugh Whysall who, in the film, is credited as Writer & Director. And rightfully so. My father, Beau Pautz, was the Associate Producer, and he retained the gold medal that I inherited following his death.

It pains me that this award winning movie is never mentioned in the annals of SA film history, has probably never been shown on television in South Africa, and that (in this era of environmental awareness) it has not been given the credit that it is clearly due as an early attempt to alert people to global warming more than 30 years before “An Inconvenient Truth”. As far as I am concerned, in the South African context the achievement of “Two Rivers” should rank up there with Charlize Theron’s Oscar and Gavin Hood’s blockbuster movies! It has been all but forgotten and that’s one of the reasons I’m writing this blog. Perhaps I’ll send the link to Al Gore at climatecrisis.net and to the environmental programmes 50/50 and Veldfocus on South African television to see if they want to give it some exposure.

Here’s a photo of Beau working in his studio at the CSIR in late August 1979:

I miss my father – he was a complex and fascinating man, and a great role model. But his written, audio and visual works live on. I have been researching my family history for almost three decades now, and the rediscovery of this film is certainly one of the crown jewels in my family history collection! I am proud to have resurected “Two Rivers” and am pleased to finally be able to give credit where credit is due. So here it is for your viewing pleasure. The old film has acquired tones of sepia with age, and the style and commentary is typical of the seventies, but the message remains a good one...

My late father's 15 minutes of fame - decades ahead of its time!

MARK LYNDON PAUTZ ©

Waiting for the Revolution (1960)

2009-08-24T22:51:00.002+01:00

My father, Beaudry Glen Pautz (know to all as Beau), was a journalist, raconteur and writer all his life. In the 1950's and 60's he worked as a reporter on the Daily Dispatch, an important regional newspaper based in the harbour city of East London in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. His colleagues and friends were and interesting bunch and, if you have the time, please read David Denison's look back to the days when he joined the newspaper in the 1950's. My father is mentioned in the article.

In 1959, Beau and my mother followed one of his colleagues to London where they both worked on Fleet Street and got to travel Europe. my To cut a long story short, Donald Woods, my father and my mom (then heavily pregnant with me) returned from the UK soon after the Sharpeville massacre to report on the country's descent into revolution. My father was sure that the writing was finally on the wall for the Apartheid regime, and that the people were about to rise up in a wave of liberation. Sadly for him, that took another 35 years to reach fruition, and he died before South Africa's first democratic election in 1994. Luckily he did live long enough to witness Nelson Mandela's release.

I was visiting my mother in South Africa in August 2009 and came across this wonderful photograph. Taken towards the end of 1960 (or early the following year), it shows my father interviewing an amaXhosa gentleman enshawled in a blanket and wearing traditional headgear. I have no idea of the context, or what story my father was pursuing, but I think it's a really cool shot.

See more photographs from the old days in the old country in this set on Flickr.

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Casio Survivor

2008-11-28T16:54:00.002Z

I was conscripted into the South African Defense Force (SADF) in July 1979 and was sent into operational service on the Namibia-Angola border at the beginning of April 1980. On March 11, 1980 I was back home on my final "weekend pass" before heading north when I bought this Casio 83F-80 from "New World Pharmacy" on Pretorius Street, Pretoria.

According to my diary It cost me a whopping ZAR 45.00 - US$4.50 / £3.00 at today's exchange rate, but a month's salary for me back then. I bought it for a number of reasons:

It was lightweight plastic. As a reluctant infantryman I already had too much crap to carry!

It was black and largely matt black. Fewer reflective surfaces to draw attention on patrol.

It was digital and accurate, and required no winding.

It had a light - essential when handing over guard duty in the pitch black Namibian night.

It had an hourly signal to keep track of time & an alarm to help wake up at ungodly hours.

Apparently it was vaguely water resistant.

The battery seemed to last forever!

This wristwatch went into combat, and to hell and back with me. It saw four tours of duty (including one "camp" after my national service) and was on "The Border" (operational area) for probably 15 months or so. It survived Ondangwa (Ovamboland and Operation Smokeshell), Ruacana, Mpacha, Bagani, Mohembo Hek and the Caprivi Strip It, and even spent some time in the cell at Katima Mulilo...but that's another story! It also survived two major car accidents - I rolled a car on August 28, 1980 and was a passenger in a second rolled car two days later (August 30, 1980). Crazy times...

I had not seen the watch for over 20 years when I found it in a box at my mother's place in 2007. The original strap had perished and crumbled, but I though it worthwhile to shoot pictures of it in that condition. I cleaned the watch, fitted a new battery and she fired up just fine. I couldn't find the right strap anywhere, and so settled for a rubber replacement with round apertures, which served me well until I recently acquired a Casio strap very similar to the original.

This watch is neither expensive nor sophisticated, but it is an important one in my life and a proud representative of its era.

See more photographs in this set on Flickr.

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Truths Beyond Speaking

2008-11-22T00:50:00.008Z

Bleeding and feeding on death and destruction,
The machine kicks into gear.
Moaning and groaning not under conscience,
But weight of arms and fear,
That oozes from our every pore,
And permeates our country dear.

Slinking and sliming the blackest of hearts,
Torment our cities and graves.
Unknown and unshow'n invisible assassins,
Devour our psyche's with waves,
Of angst and walls and razor wire,
Turning our homes into caves.

Wailing and flailing like a drowning animal,
Like terror to the slaughter beast.
Seeping and creeping congealed terror,
Served as the freedom feast,
For the AK-wielding whores and pimps,
With tentacles in the east.

Masturbating and debating are one and the same,
Stroking the ego and gun.
Spurting and squirting mass destruction,
Blood and semen for fun,
In the drive-past blood-bath taxis,
That rise with the waning sun.

Suicide and genocide sanitised on SATV,
Screens filter the endless pain.
Of savaged and ravaged mangled corpses on,
Our collective neurotic brain,
That douses our country's enthusiasm,
Like the errant African rain.

Elect and reflect on what has passed,
At last it's come and gone.
Toyi-toyi and "langarm" into the night,
To the liberation song,
That rattles in the place of guns,
And helps us to all belong.

Penned in Pretoria, South Africa between August 23, 1993 and May 4, 1994 - the months leading up to, and through, the country's first democratic election on April 27, 1994. We were all hoping for the best, but there was also a huge undercurrent of uncertainly. It was clearly the end of the Apartheid era, but was the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB - the ultra-right wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement) going to plunge the country into civil war? Would the ANC, PAC and Inkatha rip each other's hearts out? Would the new government ethnically cleanse the country of pink people? Would foreign investment vapourise and the country implode? Would there be food in the stores? There was blood on the streets, and was there going to be a future?

Tension were high, the country was on a knife edge and our daily existence was permeated by hate-speak, violence and savagery. It was a brutal, crime-ridden and stressful time, but we all tried to to keep optimistic...and drank ourselves into oblivion!

This was a late night piece, fuelled by most things alcoholic. It reflects on our lives and times and how we were overwhelmed by murder, death and a rising mound of corpses. However, the last verse is more optimistic and wraps it up by wallowing in the relief of post-election euphoria.

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©

One Point Five Centuries

2008-08-28T21:31:00.004+01:00

Today - August 28, 2008 - marks the 150th anniversary of the arrival of my family in British Kaffraria, after surviving an epic three month voyage from Pomerania. I have been researching the Pautz family history on and off for a quarter of a century, and so today is a special one for me. I have a lot to say (and a lot of emotions to share) and so will work on this piece in the coming weeks in an effort to do justice to the hardy pioneers that were my progenitors.

Watch this space...

MAlfaRK ©

Pagans for Jesus

2008-08-28T00:12:00.004+01:00

jesus_pagans.jpg
Originally uploaded by jeffincognito

Came across this on Flickr tonight :-D

Kudos to the creator, "jeffincognito".

Cheers MAlfaRK

Sucking at the Internet

2008-08-19T23:18:00.003+01:00

I received this wonderful advice from my buddy Donald earlier today...

Yes, oh-master, a grovel at your feet!

Cheers MAlfaRK

What Ever Happened to Liewe Heksie?

2008-08-18T14:06:00.003+01:00

My friend Hartmut forwarded this link to me today - iafrica.com | news | the lighter side The Lighter Side - and it raised a smile!

Memories of the launch of television in South Africa in 1975 - 1976.

Cheers MAlfaRK

The Grand Wazoo

2008-08-04T18:31:00.006+01:00

If you lived in Pretoria, South Africa between 1977 and 1980 and were aged between 16 and 21, then you are likely to have destroyed a significant number of brain cells at the premier night club of the era, namely The Grand Wazoo. If you were in the city at the time but never went to the club, then I can only assume that you were suffering from severe case of social leprosy (or you were one of the "breekers" smashing people’s heads in down at the "Bell Hotel")!

The Wazoo was located in the basement of the Kingsley Centre, between Church Street and Pretorius Street, opposite the Ster City movie complex. I guess the club was named after the Frank Zappa album of the same name released in November 1972. Back in 1977 it was still a year until I discovered the great man's music, but it was there and then that the club left an indelible impression on my psyche.

How did I end up there in the first place? Well, in the Ides of March 1977 I had a major motorcycle accident and missed a few months of my second last year at high school.

I dedicated my time off to honing my pinball skills at my local corner café, and it was there that I made an entirely new circle of friends - wilder and less anally retentive than my high school acquaintances. This was fortuitous, as a large proportion of my high school “friends” had decided to disown me anyway. My new scarred and remodelled face did not fit in with their image of perfection.

My new friends were happy-go-lucky, lived like there was no tomorrow, and were the best thing that could have happened to me right then! They were bikers, womanisers, drinkers and/or substance abusers.

It was an intriguing and alluring world for me - I was fascinated by the culture and took a crash course in "street". At the age of 16 I had never been to a real night club, but my new mates soon fixed that.

It would have been tough for the Wazoo to fail as it was in the heart of Pretoria's teenage fun-strip. Just 500 metres up the road in Sunnyside was the city's premier shopping mall - Sunny Park - where bored colonial kids used to hang out. Trendy boutiques, record stores, hi-fi dealers, coffee shops, arcade games and fast foods. However, during the Grand Wazoo days the primary attraction for us was the Solly Kramer's liquor store on the second level. Even I, as a baby-faced 16 year old, had no problem buying anything there - from beer to wine and hard liquor, it was all available to anyone. Our tipple of choice back then was a really cheap petillant white wine called Paarl Perle that used to sell for 99 cents a litre!

Just across the road from the Kingsley Centre was the city's largest cinema complex, Ster City (known as "Sterland" in Afrikaans). Wow - there were at least half a dozen cinemas in this multiplex, the largest of which was Ster 1000, which seated that many people. This cinema was on the upper level of the complex and was flanked by the Barcadi 72 Restaurant (owned by Werner Weinbeck) and the restaurant's satellite bar that was the hang-out for motorcycle gangs such as "Satan's Slaves" and "Scorpio". One of the guys behind the bar - a vertically challenged gentleman by the name of "Shorty" - had no problem with dishing out drinks to minors! It was here that I learned an important life-skill...eating glass!!

Underneath the Ster City complex was another of Pretoria's pre-television attractions - the ice rink. South Africa only got broadcast television in 1975 and, in the days before that, complexes like Ster City were where kids used to congregate, play pinball, ice skate and take in a movie. Television seriously eroded the client base, and Ster City changed. The ice rink became the domain of the dope pushers, and the bars dropped their dress code to increase patronage, thus admitting tattooed, denim and leather clad bikers for the first time. This was fine with us, and it was an exciting time!

Opposite The Grand Wazoo in the Kingsley Centre was another teen attraction - Pretoria's first 10-pin bowling alley. We whiled away many (drunken) hours there and today, almost a quarter of a century later, I still play a respectable game of American skittles! The Kingsley Centre also had a discount store called "Rave" where 33 RPM's were sold at teenage prices.

The final reason why the Wazoo could not fail is that it was on Pretoria's main transport route...it was easy to get there by bus, car, bicycle or motorbike. An added bonus for us was the secure underground parking where the access boom was short enough for 50cc motorbikes to slip by without paying.

The Grand Wazoo was perfect for it's time, and it could not fail. The fact that it hosted a "Saturday Session" (or matinee) was another big selling point!

My Saturday’s were full. From the age of twelve I worked on Saturday mornings to earn my pocket money. From 1973 through 1977 I was a cleaner, packer and counter hand at the "Jix Hobby Shop" on the corner of van der Walt and Pretorius Streets. In 1978 I moved around the corner to "AutoAlign" on Pretorius Street where I fitted and balanced car tyres. After I finished high school at the end of 1978 I worked full-time at "Waterkloof Pharmacy" on Brooklyn Circle. Working on Saturday mornings always frustrated me, and the end of business (around lunch time) could never come fast enough as I had a regular appointment to keep!

I would race my Suzuki TS50 down to Sunny Park where I would meet up with Peter Kohler, Mark Barker (deceased), John Troy (deceased), Anton Marais (deceased), and others (including Erik Vuyk, Tony Leonard, Harry Watson (deceased), Lex Maas, Damon Fourie, Stuart Schoeman, Michael Zeller and Evan Honey). We would park our bikes on the second floor of the shopping mall’s parking garage…in the dark corner near the stairwell. We would then saunter, cocksure, into the Solly Kramer’s and, without batting an adolescent eyelid, each buy two litres of Paarl Perle (or sometimes Autumn Harvest "Crackling" for a bit of variation). We would then strut back to our bikes where we would each down a litre of wine in the stairwell!

The next item on our weekend agenda would be to stir a little shit in the shopping mall! This frequently involved going up to the fourth floor of the atrium in the complex, eggs, and the assembled diners at the "Wimpy Bar" below. Fun, fun, fun…and some nerve wracking escapes from shopping centre security guards!

High on adrenaline, testosterone and alcohol, we would then kick our bikes to life and scream down the road to the Kingsley Centre. We would park in the basement and make our way upstairs to the 10-pin bowling alley. There we would meet up with some of the regular babes and other Wazoo acquaintances…and bounce a bottle or two of Paarl Perle in the men’s toilet! Then came the difficult part of the day – getting ourselves (and the remaining Paarl Perle) into the Grand Wazoo across the corridor.

This usually involved trying to act very sober, and sticking a bottle down the front of your pants. We would walk in as a phalanx of rowdy 50cc bikers, with leather jackets and helmets conveniently concealing the bulges in our nether regions. Those without bottles would also cover those that did. The entrance fee was 50 cents, and the ticket seller at the desk to the right of the entrance got to know us all very well. The entrance area was painted matt black and, moving from there, the next challenge was getting past the bouncer who manned the access door to the club. Sometimes we were bust with our bottles and on other occasions we weren’t, but we generally managed to get our own booze into the place. If we were bust, we would just go back to Kingsley Bowl or to the parking garage to force down our plonk as quickly as possible…before the matinee began!

The interior of the Wazoo was windowless and dark. Our favourite spot was to the right of the entrance where a number tables in cubicles lined the eastern wall of the club and extended up to the foot of the DJ’s podium. This section of the Wazoo also had great access to the compact stage and dance floor. The all-important bar was towards the southern quadrant of the matt black den of inequity, with the toilets and kitchen to the north.

We liked the eastern side of the Wazoo because the tables were in alcoves that made them darker. This in turn made it easier for us to hide and drink our smuggled bottles of Paarl Perle! The fact that these tables enabled us to do things undetected also encouraged other behaviour. It afforded us the opportunity to engage in fumbling sins of the flesh, that the tables out in the open just would not have allowed! I have happy memories of starry-eyed friends sliding further and further under the tablecloth as their female-fellator of the day went to work under the table! Amazing times.

Now the Saturday Session at the Wazoo was more than just a disco. Sure, they had their resident DJ, "King Louis", but they also had live music! Wow! That was just the best, and resident acts included "Lincoln", "Letch" (formerly "Pedigree"), "Fresh Evidence", "Ragdolls", "Wax", "Sheriff", "Geneva", "The Radio Rats" and my personal favourite "Circus". Wooah!! In 1977 they released a great album entitled "In the Arena" that contained a magnificent cover version of the classic Procol Harum track "Conquistador". This seminal SA album was released on CD in 2001 and is worthwhile re-visiting. Circus’ live performances were something to behold – the opulence of glam rock meets the conservatism of Pretoria! We were blown away!

A fun aspect of the Sessions at the Wazoo was the fun events held between the band’s sets. Hosted by resident DJ "King Louis", they invariably involved a lot of beer and sometimes the removal of clothing. The events invariably involved two teams of 4 or 5 competing against each other in a relay format, and some of the scenarios were:

Eating a slice of pizza and downing a half litre of beer.
Drinking a litre of water chased by half a litre of beer.
Team members of the opposite sex down a half litre of beer, then run to the ladies toilet where they exchange clothes (including underwear).

In all instances, the first team finished won a bottle of sparkling wine and complementary Wazoo tickets for the following weekend. That was all good and well, but it was often difficult to enjoy the sparkling wine over the stench of the puke that had been spewed over the dance floor during the competitions! Fun, fun, fun!!

Our group of friends was always represented in these decadent contests and, with guys like Mark Barker around, we often came away with the spoils of victory. Mark was able to destroy a half litre mug of beer in three seconds without spilling a drop!

By the afternoon we were all shit-faced and, with the sounds of JJ Cale, Santana, Eric Clapton and Boston cover versions ringing in our ears, we gathered up our jackets and helmets and staggered downstairs to our bikes. The final phase of our Saturday’s entertainment was about to begin.

As it was just across the road from the Kingsley Centre, our bikes wouldn’t even be warm by the time we reached the Ster City cinema complex. We would park our bikes on the Pretorius Street side, amble past the observation windows that looked down onto the ice rink, enter the complex and take the escalator up to the "Barcadi 72" bar on the first floor. A final round of drinks would follow, often punctuated with a tequila or a peppermint liquor (generally served as a "depth charge" in a pint of beer).

From a strategic vantage point in Barcadi we were able to keep an eye on the entrances to each of the cinemas in the complex. Back in those days the programme would start with a series of adverts projected from large format slide. Once the audience had settled, the filmed adverts would start, and these would lead directly into the movie previews (also called "trailers" in South Africa). Once they had all been screened, there would be a 20 minute intermission during which cinema-goers recharged their "Slush-Puppies", refilled their popcorn cartons or took a leak before the main feature started.

It was this break in proceedings that we waited for!

On leaving the theatre for intermission, ushers gave every moviegoer a "Pass Out" which entitled them to return to the cinema after the break. You can imagine the queue of people at Ster 1000 pushing to get out and how frantic the ushers became trying to ensure that everyone leaving the theatre got a "Pass Out". This was the situation that we prayed upon! Once the ushers were engrossed in what they were doing or were focussing on the crowd leaving the theatre, we would do either one of two things behind their backs:

Climb over the rope that cordoned off the cinema exit, blend into the crowd and be issued a Pass Out.
When the usher moved away from his position, we would slink over to his podium and help ourselves to a wad of Pass Outs that would be quickly distributed among us all.

Pay to see a movie? You’ve got to be joking!!

So, we’d slink into the cinema and find unoccupied seats where we could eat popcorn and drink lime “slush” in a futile attempt to annul our inebriation! If the movie was crap, it was also a good place to get some sleep to try and clear your head before the end of the show when we had to get back onto our bikes and head back to the eastern suburbs. On some Saturdays we were lucky…a babe or two may have joined us at Barcadi and in the movie!! Copious groping and hand jobs were not uncommon! Aaaah…those were the days! ;-)

Sometimes we’d go to the ice rink after the show, but we generally headed back home to eat and prepare ourselves for that night’s party. The ride back to Lynnwood was never tame…it was more of a high-speed attempt to do ourselves serious damage! West down Pretorius Street, circle to the left around the Caledonian Grounds, shoot eastwards down Park Street, chicane south past Loftus Versveld, east down Lynnwood Road, under the bridge and past Tukkies, cross Duncan Street, past the UP residences, up the hill past Menlo Park High School, down the hill and over the highway to Daventry Street and the Glenfair Shopping Centre. A game of pinball to end the afternoon!

Sometimes the ride didn’t go that smoothly, and I still bear the scars of a major wipe-out at the Loftus chicane. He-he! I look at that blemish now with fondness. It takes me back to a different time and place. To a forgotten era. To the age of 16-17. To the unforgettable Grand Wazoo. To thrills, spills and a carefree life. To a time when there were no rules and no responsibility. To a time when nothing was impossible.

Luckily not everything has changed.

LINKS:

Collection of Tickets from The Grand Wazoo (1978 - 1978). At the time I had the foresight to write the date on the back of each ticket as well as a comment or two about the band I saw, the people I was with or the events of the day.
Menu folder from The Grand Wazoo, circa 1978-1979.
Snack Bar Menu from The Grand Wazoo, circa 1978-1979. Check out those prices!

Cheers MAlfaRK ©
Written Thursday, May 17, 2001
Updated Monday, August 4, 2008

Demoncracy '93

2008-07-27T00:50:00.001+01:00

Should I stay or should I go?
We ask ourselves today.
Where and how and what about home,
Or should we stay in Africa and pray,
For peace and love and dollar's loan,
And go headlong into the fray?

Is war and peace bound in leather?
Or is it our skins at stake?
From day to grey and burning tyres,
No stressless orgasm to fake,
Like banknotes and political liars,
Who pull on democracy's brake.

Will liberators become demons?
Once they usurp the throne.
Economy ruined through inflation,
And no-one willing to loan,
Van Riebeek's head for immigration,
Before we're suicide prone.

Should we buy coiled razor wire?
And join the national neurosis.
Three-fifty-seven sawn off pit bull,
To calmly address the prognosis,
Of fascist khaki's who threaten to pull,
Me to the depths of morosis.

How to escape the mindfield?
And re-rail the runaway brain.
The need to live and love and lust,
Is the way I focus my train,
Of thought on our stained red dust,
And S.A. writhing in pain.

This was written in Pretoria, South Africa between July 1 and August 23, 1993 - a year before the country's first democratic election. We were all hopeful about the future, but there was also an undercurrent of uncertainly. It was clearly the end of the Apartheid era, but was the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB - the ultra-right wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement) going to plunge the country into civil war? Would the ANC, PAC and Inkatha rip each other's hearts out? Would the new government ethnically cleanse the country of pink people? Would foreign investment vapourise and the country implode? Would there be food in the stores? Would there be blood on the streets? Would there be a future?

Man - it was a violent, crime-ridden and stressful time, but we all tried to to keep optimistic and to live our lives like there was no tomorrow. A lot of us were also asking ourselves whether we should leave the country or not. For me this was a tough call. I had moved to the UK to escape the Apartheid regime in the late 1980's and returned on the unexpected death of my father in 1990. I loved my country, but I had also tasted the world, and I liked it!

This was a late night piece, fuelled by whisky. Obviously bitter about the past, battling with the present and questioning the future.

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

The Song of the Germans in South Africa

2008-07-24T23:59:00.000+01:00

At the beginning of July I was invited to the Eastern Cape to be a presenter at a seminar in King William's Town celebrating the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the German Settlers. It was a wonderful long weekend, and a great privilege to be a part of the event arranged by Stephanie Victor, the Curator of History at the Amathole Museum.

On July 4, the day before the seminar, I was catching up with Stephanie in her office at the museum and she showed me an interesting hand-written document. It was a song lyric for "Das Lied der Deutschen in Südafrika" - ostensibly "The Song of the Germans in South Africa". As time was tight (and my German rusty) I snapped a photo of the page for future reference.

Back in the United Kingdom I pulled up the photo and shot if off to my friend in Germany, Ingo Eggers, who transcribed the German and very kindly translated it into English. I also e-mailed Stephanie and asked her to provide me with some idea of the song's provenance. This is what she wrote back to me:

"The song was penned by Mrs W. Grunewald (nee Zehmke). She was interviewed by Desmond Kopke on 16.10.2000 when she was 87 years old. She grew up in Stutterheim and her husband worked for Nicholas and Mullin, a forestry company, at Fort Cunnynghame near Stutterheim. The song dates to the 1930s when a man by the name of Stracher, his wife and a young women only known as Gustie took the children on church camps for two weeks at a time. Mrs Grunewald was one of the children who participated and she remembers singing 'Das Lied der Deutschen' at the camps. Two-week camps were held at 'Fort Cunnynghame once and twice at Julius Muller’s that was just outside of Stutterheim and once at Berlin, that was a big empty house just when you pass Berlin.' It is possible that the camps were connected to the Lutheran Church.

According to Mrs Grunewald: 'We used to sing songs and hymns. It was nice you know all the young people together at camp. As I say, we were quite innocent then, but later when the war was on then we heard that he must have been a German spy, but I don’t know. He didn’t put us up against the English or anything.'

According to Mrs Grunewald the camps included: '... sports and exercises and cooking and setting the table and so on. And [the children were] from East London, King William's Town and Frankfort, Keiskamma Hoek and Stutterheim.' Two or three children were sent from each place. Hopefully the above provides you with some idea of the song's provenance but who originally wrote it still remains a mystery".

So, here it is, on the internet for the first time and also translated for your reading pleasure...

Das Lied der Deutschen in Südafrika

Wir sind viel tausend Deutschen
im heissen Afrika
getrennt durch Land und Meere
der Heimat dennoch nah
denn wir behalten behalten…

getreu die Jungen und die Alten
der Muttersprache gut
und wir behalten behalten
getreu die Jungen und die Alten
die Lieder frohgemut,
das deutsche Herz und Blut.

Wir tragen manche Sorgen
doch sind wir unverzagt
weil jetzt ein neuer Morgen
der alten Heimat tagt
und wir behalten behalten…

Wir schaffen und wir bauen
an einem fremden Strand,
mit festem Gottvertrauen
ein neues Heimatland
und wir behalten behalten…

The Song of the Germans in South Africa

We are many thousand Germans
in hot Africa
divided Separated by land and seas
the homeland however still near
because we treasure, treasure…

loyally [for] the Young and the Old
the mother-tongue dear
and we treasure, treasure…
loyally [for] the Young and the Old
the cheerful songs, [NOTE: also "songs of cheerful spirit"]
the German heart and blood.

We bear many worries
but we are undaunted
because now a new morning
is dawning for the old homeland
and we treasure, treasure…

We work and we build
on a strange shore
with steadfast faith in God
a new homeland
and we treasure, treasure…

With many thanks to Desmond Kopke, Mrs W. Grunewald, Stephanie Victor and Ingo Eggers. And, of course, to the German Settlers of 1858!

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Two Before Madiba - For Marco Gerhard

2008-07-18T23:55:00.001+01:00

The moment of birth - LIFE!
Non-biblical.
Miracle.
Kicking and screaming,
Not you.

The power to create - LIFE!
Feeling
Meaning.
The thrill of gravity,
You’re here.

The beauty and pain - LIFE!
Uplifting
Fulfilling
The brilliance of sight,
Welcome.

The quest for meaning - LIFE!
Infinity
Emotionality.
The purity of July 16,
Preserve it.

The baton twice passed - LIFE!
Fertility
Eternity.
The question is "why",
Ask it.

My brother’s passion - LIFE!
Marco
Mark.
Rubicon of 96,
My namesake.

We will connect……

I penned this at 20h15 on Thursday, July 11, 1996. My friends Gerhard and Liana Schröder were about to give birth to their second son in Pretoria, South Africa, and I was sitting in the Klementinum Mirror Hall in Prague, Czech Republic listening to a recital by the Stellenbosch University Choir...and thinking of them. Gerhard had asked me whether he could style his son's name after mine (using the form Marco), and I had proudly consented. Five days later the little man was born, and I had a poem to send them straight away!

Originally I called this piece "Soweto Plus a Month - For Marco Gerhard" as the birth took place exactly a month after the anniversary of the Soweto uprising of June 16, 1976 that created the momentum that ultimately led to the fall of Apartheid in South Africa. However, today is Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday, and Marco's celebrated his just two days earlier. I love and respect Madiba, and Marco is my beloved godson and so I think it's fitting (on the week that they both celebrate their existence) to change the title to something more uplifting, namely "Two Before Madiba - For Marco Gerhard". I hope that's OK with both of them...and long may they prosper!

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Pioneering Spirits

2008-06-01T01:27:00.001+01:00

I am writing this from the front row of the Koos Kombuis concert at the Aardvark Pub in London. The show is expected to begin in about an hour, I'm eating a bag of piri-piri biltong, enjoying a pint of San Miguel and letting my mind wander. It's 20h09 on May 30, 2008 and tomorrow is the 150th anniversary of my progenitor, the 43 year old Karl August Ferdinand Gotthilf Pautz (and his pregnant wife Sophia and seven children) boarding the barque La Rochelle in Hamburg.

The were leaving their family and friends in Landskreis Regenwalde in Hinterpommern and making the perilous journey to a new life in British Kaffraria on the south eastern coast of Africa. Fittingly the song "Hometalk" by South African group Mango Groove is playing in the background. There's certainly a lot to think about tonight.

Just over 20 years ago I was part of a drunken crowd of a few hundred people who witnessed one of Koos Kombuis' first significant public performances at a run down basement dive called The Pool Club in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. The was the ground-breaking "Eerste Alternatiewe Afrikaanse Rock Concert" featuring Koos Kombuis (then known as Andre le Toit), die Gereformeerde Blues Band, Bernoldus Niemand, Mr Mac and the Genuines and a punk band called Koos. The South African music scene changed fundamentally that night, and the ripples created ultimately merged into the tsnumi that washed away the grime and rot of Apartheid. And this insignificant child of Pomerania and his future wife, were a part of that fledgling movement.

Seventeen children and six adults died aboard the La Rochelle on its three month journey south, and in the midst of all this, Sophia gave birth to Auguste Mathilde Wilhelmine who now lies in Kaffraria's bosom in Macleantown. Times were incredibly hard for the settlers to what is now the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Tribal tensions with the Gaika were high, there was limited infrastructure and my family were among the group of pioneers that founded the settlement of Braunschweig north of King William's Town. These peasant farmers carved an existence from the bush, rock and poor soil that characterises the "Border" area. It was life, but not as they'd known it on the Ostsee where the earth was bountiful, but where they lived in servitude. Actually, it wasn't life at all, but survival...and I'm sure that, on reflection, Karl must have quietly wished that he'd taken the ship west to America instead of south the Africa.

20h36 and we're still waiting for Koos. Between 1988 and 1989 we did that a lot. He was never really punctual for his concert appearances, and this was exacerbated by his penchant for Tassies and boom! And we loved him for that. He could only play three or four chords, and we related to that. He was uncomfortable in public and on stage, and we warmed to that. And, my god, he said things that cut to the very core of us. Koos raised issues and expressed himself in ways that many of us living under a state of emergency in Apartheid South Africa would never have dared. This eloquent but troubled young Afrikaner bohemian (who peppered his speech with ripe obscenities) became the standard bearer for an oppressed and voiceless generation of white kids. And we travelled the country to bask in his light. Together we trail blazed a vision of the future.

Braunschweig was the frontier of Kaffraria, and became the centre of the Pautz universe in Africa. Here they built their homes, church and school, this is where they raised their families and this is where they died an are buried. These immigrants from the other side of the world assimilated, over time, and became one with Africa. Their names changed from German to English at the turn of the century and within less than 60 years or their arrival, they were dying for the Crown close to Ypres in the slaughterhouse of First World War Flanders. Not too far away, north-east of Arras at Vimy Ridge, a young man with the same surname gave up his life for the Kaiser. Family against family. What a fucked up world it was.

Koos and I also grew up in screwed up place back in the 60's, 70's and 80's. After over 120 years in the family, Pautz property in Braunschweig was expropriated by PW Botha's regime and incorporated into the so-called "homeland" of the Ciskei. The German community in the Eastern Cape was essentially erased from history. Around the same time, Andre le Toit was a struggling poet who was about to reinvent himself. James Philips (a.k.a. Bernoldus Niemand) broke the cultural ice by releasing the first Afrikaans rock anti-establishment album (called "Hou My Vas Korporaal") and this resonated with Andre, who produced a demo cassette that became the album "Ver Van Die Ou Kalahari". Because it was critical of the regime, this vital music received no airplay or exposure, and was only available, to those in the know, by mail order. I was one of the secretive recipients of the little brown package from Shifty Records. I still have my original Andre le Toit cassette, and treat it like the sacred relic it truly is. And it was this music that brought us together at the Pool Club in Hillbrow back in 1988.

21h30 - the audience is small, but Koos Kombuis takes the stage. This was the set list for the night:

1. Onder in my Whiskeyglas

2. Johnny is nie Dood Nie

3. Kytie
4. Liza se Klavier
5. Die Fokol Song

6. Hoe Lank Moet Ons Nog Sorry Sê?
7. Huisie by die See
8. Robert McBride
9. Cry to Me (Afrikaans Version)

10. Die Trein na Tshwane
11. Lente in die Boland
12. Fat Cat Piete (ANC Tiete)

13. Paranoia In Parrow-noord
14. Bicycle Sonder 'n Slot
15. Sestien Jaar Met 'n Vals Kitaar
16. Sommige ou Tannies Blues

17. Anderkant die Longdrop
18. Liefde uit die Oude Doos

23h00 and the end of a fairly subdued performance by the Big Man. I spoke with Koos before the show and had planned to see him after the performance. But it was going to be a two hour commute back home, and so I packed it in and left for north London. The journey back was slow and frustrating.

May 31, 2008. The next day and 150 years since Captain Johannes Meyer piloted the three-masted La Rochelle out of Hamburg harbour. On board were 91 families, bringing the total number of passengers on board to 463. Brave people indeed - I am in awe of their bravery and fortitude. So why did I make the long journey to the Aardvark and back last night to see Koos Kombuis? It's all about saluting pioneers - looking back and acknowledging our roots while looking forward and working on my new history and fresh memories.

The pioneer Karl August Ferdinand Gottlieb Pautz died in Braunschweig in 1898 but he lives on in my three year old son who bears his name. His descendants have survived and prospered in South Africa and over the past decade or so a few of them have been infused with his spirit and made major international moves abroad. I was one of the first, relocating to Bohemia in the Czech Republic back in 1995, which afforded me the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time in the family villages in Landskreis Regenwalde. It was wonderful to close that family loop.

The modern pioneer, Koos Kombuis, is thankfully alive and kicking and, over the past two decades we've got to know each other from a distance. From being the "least likely to succeed" among the so-called "Alternatiewe Afrikaners" of the 1980's the man had forged for himself a niche in South African art, culture and history. He continues to be a social conscience, tongue lashing the incompetence of the government of the day in South Africa, while continuing to make a lot of middle aged balding men like myself happy. We understand the context, history and significance of what he has achieved, and the role that he played in the transformation process in South Africa.

The kids who were at the Aardvark last night were mostly clueless...they had absolutely no sensitivity for the satire and sneering. All they were there for was the profanity, sexual innuendo and beer. And that was the sad enlightenment of the evening - South Africans have incredibly short memories, very little sense of history and nave no appreciation for the pioneers who put themselves out on a limb in the distant past, and who carved out the present.

But I remember. I thank Karl Pautz and Koos Kombuis for their balls, guts, passion, tenacity and survival instinct...and for injecting a good measure of that pioneering spirit into me and my family!

Holy shit – I’ve just realized something else. May 31, 1990 was the last time I ever spoke to my late father. He called me in London that evening (creepily at about the same time I started writing this piece) and died unexpectedly of a heart attack on the morning of June 1. That precipitated my relocation back to South Africa where I spent the next five years before heeding the call of my ancestors and moving to Central Europe and back to the lands that Karl August Ferdinand Gotthilf Pautz left behind him a century and a half ago.

May 30 and 31 are certainly significant dates in the story of my life.

MAlfaRK ©

Family Mules

2008-04-21T23:35:00.000+01:00

Monday, April 21, 2008. The day started pretty well, but ended in depression and disappointment, but I won't dwell on that here. This Gary Larson strip from the London Lite newspaper I was reading on the train home was definitely the high point of the day.

It's really the small things that count...

Cheers MAlfaRK

The Zarnabis Eater

2008-04-20T14:30:00.000+01:00

Peter, Peter you zarnabis eater
Why did you turn that way?
You’ve wrecked your life
Sucking zolls and pipe
An’ you ain’t coming back - no way
Your school work did depreciate
But the world didn’t appreciate
The fix that you were in
Peter, now you’re in a school
Where there’s basically just one rule –
Pipe or leave!
Which philosophy do you believe?
You always justify your fun
Saying: “I can quit any time
Just let me have this last one”

I wrote this in Pretoria, South Africa on March 9, 1979. I had just turned 18, had graduated from high school three months earlier, and was waiting in limbo before I fulfilled my compulsory two year military obligation, starting in July. These are my youthful reflections on a close friend's marijuana problem. In South Africa cannabis is referred to as "dagga" but the street slang of the time included the terms "dope", "zol", "boom" (the Afrikaans word for tree), "spliff", "ganja", "doobie", "madjat", "zarnies" or "zarnabis". Preparing a joint was referred to as "making a pipe", a "jay" or a "skyf". I can't say this piece really excites me but, hey, this is the Blogosphere - publish and be damned! By the way, my friend never managed to kick the habit.

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

A Message To Sally

2008-04-13T04:11:00.000+01:00

It was 1980 and I was a reluctant conscript in the Apartheid military machine. I had been in the infantry for 9 months when, at 18h50 on Saturday, April 5, I boarded a Safair Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules (ZS-JUV) and took off from Hoedspruit for the Namibian "Operational Area". We flew at 24,000 feet and landed at Grootfontein at 22h22. I was officially in the combat zone. Almost two weeks later, I wrote the following entry in my diary: "After a week in the bush we are now 8km from Angola. To an RV - set up a T/B. Sec 3 went out on patrol - we parked off. Got signal from Coy HQ that we have to go back! Started walking. Walked 5km, then set up a T/B. A bit late (18h30)! Didn't even bother to dig in".

On that same day, April 18, 1980, this picture of the model Sally Nicholson was published in the South African "Scope" magazine, and we must have received it at our base at 53 Battalion, Ondangwa, Ovamboland, soon thereafter. As you can see from the creases on the paper, this centre-spread folded up to top pocket size, and I carried it with me for much of the remaining 15 months in the military. Strange you may say to yourself. But try to think yourself into that time and place. The brutality of Apartheid and Afrikaner imperialism had press-ganged me into the military juggernaut, fighting a war I didn't believe in. Being a left-wing "Soutie" (English speaker) I was earmarked for special attention, and (along with a handful of others) was branded a "Fucking Communist" for two years. I was disposable cannon fodder in an unjust and immoral conflict, and there was no escape. Except in my head. As the great Asylum Kids once sang, "Fight It With Your Mind", and some of us did exactly that.

This picture was part of that survival strategy, and it functioned at many levels. Sure, Sally Nicholson is a pretty girl - that helped! But it was really the escapism that the picture represented that made it important to me. The image has vibrant colour, which contrasted with the drab nutria combat fatigues, the camouflaged gear, the arid semi-desert of Ovamboland and the rasping brown brutality of the vegetation there. It was a land without colour but, in my pocket, I had a rainbow of beauty. And look at that smile, those eyes, the innocence. It was a wonderful antidote for the brutality and evil that we wallowed in. Sally also represented my dreams - she represented the lover I had left behind 9 months earlier (and recently lost to a "Dear Johnny..." letter). Sally was the aspiration - the soft, delicate angel that we all fantasised about encountering when we eventually got home. We were in a hard, unforgiving place, and this young lady was a portable beacon of hope. Pocketable escapism. She went through a lot with me, survived some ghastly experiences (including a month in incarceration) and the fact that I still have this poster over a quarter of a century later speaks volumes about its importance to me. But I must say, that cute little cameltoe also helped ;-)

So, Sally Nicholson, I know nothing about you or where you are today, but thank you for helping me survive the darkest period of my life. You didn't know it, but you made a difference and will, in my mind, be forever young. Thanks for being there with me...

Also see Flickr.

MAlfaRK ©

Number of the Beast

2008-03-15T01:39:00.000Z

Earlier this week I watched a re-run of an interesting edition * of "QI" - a panel game show hosted by the brilliant Stephen Fry. During the course of the show Mr. Fry cited research that shows that "the number of the Beast" was actually 616 and not 666 as we've been led to believe. By all accounts it could have been an administrative, transcription error, but it was most likely someone in the marketing department of the early Christian church who decided to make the change as 666 had a better ring to it.

Fascinating. The programme went on the cite a number of cities that had renamed roads and bus routes from 666 to 616 to ward of the wrath of Satan :-D Hahahaha...suckers of the cult of Jesus!! Love it.

I went looking for more sources online and found the following:

The Oxford University research

Blog by someone who saw the same programme. Also see the piece on Thomas Midgley, Jr. that was also sited on Stephen Fry's show. Another amazing story.

666 vs. 616 - America Is Babylon the Great.

A Christian crank knee-jerks to 616!

A few interesting tangents to this story:

The numbers on a roulette wheel add upto 666.

The fear of the number 666 is Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

The fear of the number 616 is Hexakosioidekahexaphobia.

Cheers MAlfaRK

* : Series D (started 29 September 2006), Episode 10 "Divination"

Ferrari Envy

2008-01-25T00:03:00.000Z

Here's a memory of England that I dredged up tonight...

In late 2004 there was a break in the weather and I though it would be a good time to start the long and painstaking "wash and Zymöl" process on my Ferrari 328 GTS. I washed the car down at my local "jet wash" bay and then drove back to the driveway leading into our complex where I spent a couple of hours polishing the back-right-hand quarter of the car. My wife came out to bring me a cold drink and to check on progress.

While she was there, two guys in an old 5-series BMW drove into the driveway, heading to the apartment complex next door to ours. The two developments share a common driveway, and where the road leaves "our" section and goes into "their" section, it ramps up at a fairly sharp angle. To give you an idea of how steep it is, I would not be able to drive up there with the Ferrari as the car is too low to the ground.

So there I was, leaning over the back of the car polishing the right rear fender, when the 5-series pulls up next to my car. I look up and take in some of the details of the car - full "aero kit", spoilers, big mags, low-profile tyres, drain-pipes for exhausts, "bubbles" on the windows, sound system taking up the entire rear of the car, sub-woofers strong enough to start a tsunami, aero skirts around the sides of the car, tinted glass windows, metallic flake paint job, lowered suspension....the works! You get the picture....a real pair of British Gentlemen in a really "classy" car!

They looked at the Ferrari and looked at me. I looked at them. The driver glared back, the Beemer's RPM started rising dangerously, and the next thing I knew he had dropped the clutch in a cloud of spinning tyres. This kid was determined to show me who had the meanest car in town. The hip-hop blaring from the car's tortured speakers was drowned our by the injured scream of the mutant engine that had apparently escaped quality control at the factory in Bavaria!

The car leaped violently towards the ramp and I watched an incredible scene unfold in front of me, almost in slow motion. The front spoiler and air splitter contacted first, crumpling into the asphalt. It buckled under the car, the glass-fibre ripped under the pressure and the whole nasty contraption broke off and disappeared under the vehicle. The left tyre kicked it up and, as it came out from under the car, it tore off one of the cars side aprons!

The charming occupants didn't stop, didn't look back and sheepishly parked their car. The driver obviously did not want to show his face, and sent his friend back to pick up the ravaged pieces of the once noble BMW! I have seen neither them nor the 5-series again.

Sad but true...

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Li(fe)bido

2008-01-21T01:30:00.001Z

Driving my car down a suburban road
I didn't know where I was going.
Looking so far down this well driven track
I thought there's no way of knowing
How my life has got me this far
With luck and with pain and with anguish.
Now with wife, a kid and three cats
My libido I no longer brandish.

Life's only fun was sex and drink
Throughout my wild adolescence.
Wife's only son now pains my butt
I no longer can sow my essence.
"She's a bitch too" I say to myself
How the hell did I get here?
A rich paramour is all that I need
But damn this retrovirus I fear.

Today I suffer through pre-middle age
Battling pyrosis and weight.
I pray and offer psalms to non-Gods
That I will still be able to mate
With the beautiful bimbos sent to torment
The Pavlovian dog that I harbour.
Mythical erection soon dispelled
Oh Harry why can't I get harder?

All said and done at the end of the day
My lifebido is ebbing and waning.
Fall onto manus in wild fantasy
Judah's second stops me insaning
My whole existence and image of self
And pushing it into hiatus.
Fly off resistance I still feel young
In my mind a virtual Priapus.

This was written in Pretoria, South Africa on January 30, March 31, April 19 and July 1, 1993 (a full year before the country's first democratic election) and polished a bit tonight. The writing was on the wall for the Apartheid regime, but the vision for the future was still cloudy. Stressful times. I was not married with children, but was clearly starting to think along those lines...and about what it must be like! So there I was, holding down a relatively new job, projecting myself 15 years into the future (if there was going to be one) and writing pretty crap verse. Best you ignore this one!

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Monday Mourning Meeting

2008-01-04T23:17:00.000Z

Looking at you I must declare,
You set my loins a-tremble.
A rounded beauty of rare delight,
The Lord truly did assemble.

Looking at you I must confess,
Your innocent charm moves me.
Your translucent skin and flowing blonde hair,
Laughing and smiling so carefree.

Looking at you I feel myself,
Getting quite weak in the knees.
Your glasses, black hair, and compact form,
Are certainly built to please.

Looking at you I can't decide,
Exactly what you are.
I know you know you're a stunning girl,
But too conceited by far.

Looking at you I clearly see,
You're short and tight and ugly.
But your impish wit and sense of fun,
Definitely do amuse me.

Looking at you I again confirm,
Your toothy buck smile is repulsive.
Your inane laugh and podgy nose,
Make me a depressive compulsive.

Looking at you all I now realise,
We all have distinguishing features.
But at the end of the day, all I can say,
Is that you're just upwardly mobile bitches.

I was in a technical tax meeting back on January 25, 1993...and it was as boring as hell. I just looked around the meeting room (in a hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa) and jotted down these superficial observations. Politically incorrect by 21st century standards, but really just an exercise in rhyming and a footnote on the ruthlessness of corporate survival. Damn - I think I'm a closet gangsta rapper! ;-)

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

WW1 Experiences of an English Soldier

2008-01-04T23:07:00.000Z

I discovered a great blog today, after seeing a piece on it on Sky News.

It's the war correspondence of William Henry Bonser Lamin. The blog is made up of transcripts of Harry's letters from the first World War, and they are being posted exactly 90 years after they were written.

Note to self: Consider doing something similar with the collections of Austro-Hungarian prisoner of war postcards you have. They have already been transcribed into Czech and translated into English...and just need to be posted!

Cheers, MAlfaRK

Indoctrination Days

2008-01-01T23:15:00.000Z

7 South African Infantry Battalion - Bourke's Luck (and later Phalaborwa), South Africa.

I searched the internet to find the lyric of the 7 SAI "Unit Song", but it's not out there. I think it needs to be recorded somewhere, so here goes. Scary stuff (but you have to read the language of the racist oppressor to understand!)...

7 SAI MARS

Waar waters van Treur en Blyde kolk
Ontstaan 'n vesting van onse volk
Hard en stewig net soos beton
Die tuiste van ons eie Bataljon

Donker strome waroor kranse toon
Bruis deur klowe waar die Rooikat woon
Soos hy vreesloos waaksaam listig slu
Ons manne van die Sewe SAI

Draers van die Burgerskruis van goud
Bewakers van onse lands behoud
In berg en veld is ons opgelei waar
Ons vir onse volk se toekoms stry

Mortier en granaat sal andwoord gee
Teen bedreigers van ons land se vree
Veg met kruit en vuur en strategie
Stry ons saam as die SA Infanterie

Tenacuter die roep ons luid
Volhardned teen heel die wereld uit
In ons volk en land en God te glo
Ons land Suid-Afrika se credo

To call this dross would be too kind. It reminds me of the kind of nationalistic dogma that flourished behind the Iron Curtain during the Soviet era (and that is still the staple diet in China and North Korea). We conscripts were compelled to sing the Unit Song, the apartheid era National Anthem and other "patriotic" clap-trap.

I apologise...

MAlfaRK

The Commandant's Ghost

2008-01-01T21:23:00.003Z

The image below is the insignia of the 7th South African Infantry Battalion (7 SAI) where I was conscripted between 1979 and 1981. It depicts a lynx ("rooikat" in Afrikaans) head super-imposed on the gold "Burgers Cross" on a black background.

According to the propaganda we received when we joined the unit, the Burgers Cross refers to the geographical and historical background of the area where our unit was situated, namely Bourke's Luck in the Eastern Transvaal of South Africa. President T.F. Burgers (June 1872 - April 1877) commissioned two crosses to be made in Germany from gold mined in the area. The crosses were awarded to Mrs. Emma McLachlan (nee Shires) and Mrs. Maria Austin (nee Espach). The former for nursing mine workers in the Pilgrim's Rest district in the fight against malaria and black-water fever, and the latter for nursing members of the Boer Kommandos injured in the Sekukuni War. When presenting the crosses, the following words of honour were expressed by President Burgers: "May God reward you for your noble self-denial".

The lynx head relates to the immediate environment, for it is in the Bourke's Luck area that this member of the cat family thrives in its natural habitat. According to our military overlords, "the lynx is well known for its aggressiveness, fearlessness, cunning, watchfulness and preparedness. These characteristics make the lynx a dauntless fighter. These too are the characteristics of a good Infantry man which are developed and promoted in members of 7 SA Infantry Battalion". The indoctrination ended with the words: "Thus the motto of the unit: TENACUTER (Tenacity)".

In the final quarter of 1980 I was casevaced from 53 Bn (Sector 10) in Nam to 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria. During my recuperation (and before returning to the Operational Area) I was applied in an administrative role in the Light Workshop Troop (LWT) in Phalaborwa.

One fine afternoon, Commandant H.J. Schultz's jeep came in for a "preventative maintenance" service. On the front of the "garry" (note: why did they use this stupid name?) was the customary military car plate bearing the unit insignia. I could resist neither the near spotless image mounted on a steel plate nor the opportunity to desecrate the commanding officer's vehicle! I removed the insignia plate from the car and it has been in my possession ever since. I recently found it while digging through some old boxes and took the opportunity to scan it.

I have done a little Photoshopping to clean it up a bit, but this is the real thing in near mint condition - THE original insignia from the front of Commandant Schultz's jeep! Ahhh...that name flashes me back a quarter of a century and reminds me that Commandant still rhymes with "Common C..."!

MAlfaRK

Executive Decision

2007-12-29T23:06:00.000Z

Meddlethwaite had tasted success. It mantled him with warmth and awe. The dammed thing worked!

Hurriedly he cast around for something to try in it. The ashtray! He pushed it into the transmitter and hit the go button. The computer tapes started hunting and the power indicators swung over as the ashtray disappeared in a burst of pale blue light to re-assemble instantaneously in the receiver receptacle at the other and of the room.

He was still staring at the ashtray when the woman came in. Small, dark-haired, she was not beautiful but possessed an indefinable presence that made her the envy of others.

"Evelyn", he said. "It works. Look, I've just transported the ashtray and that tea cup across the room." Meddlethwaite was excited. His face was flushed. "I wired in the fujitron chamber you brought this morning - and I couldn't resist it. I gave it a go - and look." He pointed dramatically to the receiver. "We'll be famous" he cried.

Evelyn smiled slowly, warmly. "I'm glad", she said.

"Is that all you can say", cried Meddlethwaite. "It's stupendous."

With a quick movement she brushed aside a strand of hair hanging over an eye. "Look" she said. "I have no time to waste. I want you to disconnect the transmitter portal from the transmitter itself and hook it up to that cable lying on the floor. Do it quickly", she said peremptorily, "and then come next door." The door swung closed behind her. Meddlethwaite was confused - and silent. The woman had been totally unaffected by success. She had worked like the devil and had finally come up with the answer to the problem. The machine worked - and she hadn't turned a hair.

Savagely he attacked the wiring and an hour later he had the new cable attached.

"Come here", she said as he entered the room next door. Meddlethwaite stopped in his tracks. She was adjusting a stainless steel cabinet and in an intuitive flash he recognised it for what it was - a transmitter - much bigger than the experimental model he had used next door.

Silently he approached the cabinet. "Get in", she commanded. "What the..." cried Meddlethwaite, far too late, as she pushed him suddenly into the cabinet - and the door clicked shut behind him.

Meddlethwaite was still screaming when the blue light enveloped him.

But he stopped when he felt his body slammed together and he looked out through the porthole at the grassy plain and the distant forest. He felt fine, except that he was frightened - more frightened than he had ever been. He fought to control his panic. The door would not open. And then he saw her.

It was Evelyn. She darted into his restricted field of vision. He blinked because she was clothed in a silver metallic overall. Her dark hair swung as she suddenly stopped, turned in her tracks and fired the thing she carried in her hand. The two horrible creatures chasing her, half man half ape, fell to the ground. Meddlethwaite heard nothing until she opened the door of the cabinet.

He stared at her wordless. "Come on out of there" she said carelessly. Meddlethwaite was overcome by a great sense of calmness. "Why should I?" he asked.

She stared back at him and started tugging at a zip on her coverall, "Because you've got work to do," she said, her eyes suddenly dancing. "The Galactic Executive have decided for a reason I really cannot discern that you, friend Adam, are the first of the Homo Saps."

PENNED BY BGP (Late 1950's or early 1960's)

One of my father's short stories, found among his papers after his untimely death in 1990. Click on the images below to see scans of the original typed pages:

Regards, MAlfaRK

SADF Insights : 1979 to 1981

2007-12-29T22:43:00.007Z

In June 1981 I completed my two years of compulsory "National Service" in the South African Defense Force (SADF). I had been conscripted into the 7 SA Infantry Battalion and spent nine months in training (at Bourkes Luck and at Phalaborwa) and over a year in the South West African (Namibian) "operational area" commonly known as "The Border". For most of that time I was a "Grunt" - Rifleman 2, Section 2, Platoon 2, Alpha Company.

In April 2000 I found a piece of paper in the back of a drawer in my room at my mother's house in Pretoria. Nineteen years earlier, on a scrap of military stationery, I had scribbled down the insights I gained during my 24 months as an unwilling conscript in Apartheid's war machine. Interesting reading. What a waste:

I have learned the meaning of love and respect, and how to hate.
I have learned endurance and now know what I can take.
I have learned the value of life and experienced the loss of death.
I have been elated by true happiness and crushed by unyielding despair.
I have learned to handle people and situations.
I have seen the other side of life.
I have learned to despise war and treasure peace.
I have acquired some self discipline, but not army discipline.
I now know that I must have freedom and am revolted by tyrannical oppression.
I enjoy the tranquility of solitude and the excitement of a chosen group of friends.
I have learned to never follow blindly and to reason carefully.
I now know that nothing is impossible.
I have discovered that true friendship is a scarce and valuable commodity.
I despise the Racist Afrikaner for his contorted beliefs, his lack of culture, upbringing, etiquette and manners, his warped and twisted view of life and people, the way he resorts to violence when he knows he has not got a foot to stand on, for what he has done to me, my family and my freedom and finally for the way he is destroying this beautiful country. The Afrikaner's Apartheid-based nationalist political standpoint is deplorable.

With hindsight the fact that I was able to find any positive learning points at all is amazing to me. I suffered during those two years, but it appears that the glass was half full as opposed to being half empty. Yes. With my sweat, blood and tears.

MAlfaRK ©

Frank Black

2007-12-29T17:58:00.000Z

I had always known Frank Black as the song writer and front man of the Pixies, the immediate forebearer of the alternative rock boom of the early 1990s. They folded in acrimonious circumstances in 1993.

Early in the new millennium I bought a Ferrari and drove from Prague to Germany to take ownership and to move it into short-term storage there. On my MP3 player I had a number of tracks that I had downloaded but not listened to. On the road, three tracks made an impression - Tenacious-D's "Tribute", Murder Dolls "Dead In Hollywood" and "Los Angeles" by Frank Black and the Catholics.

I drove back from Munich to Prague with Gerhard & Liana Schröder...and "Los Angeles" was playing as we went through a speed trap at high speed just inside the Czech border at Rosvadov. But that's another story! Since then I've delved deeper into Black's cryptic lyrics and unconventional subjects (eg. incest, collapsing dams, surrealism, Biblical violence, science fiction and surf culture) but have not had the opportunity to see him live. I was up to my ears in work when he toured passed through London on July 15, 2007, but here's his concert at the Paradiso in Amsterdam two weeks earlier on July 4.

"Los Angeles" is the third track from the end. Also take a listen to the brilliant "Robert Onion" right after that. I hope you enjoy.

Cheers, MAlfaRK

Outercourse

2007-12-29T15:18:00.000Z

Come with me to places of pleasure,
Value for money, measure for measure.

Treasured virginity the first frontier,
Having a great time, wish you were here.

Fear disappears as emotion increases,
Smiles all around, the friction that pleases.

Jesus saves all the souls that he can,
Out of the frying fire, into the pan.

Fan the fire of wild emotion,
Lust and passion, undying devotion.

Motion rhythmic the passion heightens,
Saccharin sensations so sweet that it frightens.

Lightens the dawn the shape so sensual,
The taste and the feel, you know it so well.

Swell the emotions physically erect,
Remnant juices, a sign of respect.

Reflect on performance we all seem to tend,
Slipping through afterglow, oblivious the end.

Musing on freedom in the context of the permissive society, the religion of free love and the joy of one-night-stand orgasms. I clearly remember writing this piece on the fly (and late at night) on July 8, 1992...fueled by red wine. I was visiting with Ulrike Cowan and her sister Kati in the commune in which Ulrike was living at the time. The house in Hatfield, Pretoria, South Africa has subsequently been demolished and replaced by a shopping mall. Such is progress. I polished the piece a little on October 12, 1992 and have not touched it since then.

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Bipolar Affirmation

2007-10-20T23:43:00.000+01:00

Red water - yellow blood,
Reflections of warped mind - mud,
Shadows in my mind's eye,
Who and what and where am I?

Tripping over - falling slowly,
In this world I feel so lonely,
In this void that I call home,
Idiots usurp the throne.

Where'm I going - where've I been,
All the things I've done and seen,
Have left me feeling old and empty,
Still trying to find that land of plenty.

Marooned in a rudderless boat,
Blind madmen keep us afloat,
I know what's right but I'm not in control,
I'll surely die in this wet black hole.

Moving down this bottomless pit,
I think I'm alive but I feel shit,
My eyes are open but don't want to see,
The so-called friends that claim to love me.

Distant now, the end is near,
My friends are gone although they're here,
Through their eyes at last I see,
The colour of their gross insincerity.

Embryos for blackmail, access to gwat,
One by one into the trap,
I've gotta hold out, I must be strong,
Those pale reflections will see they're wrong.

Leave me, leave me, I'm going down.
At last I'll wear my thorn of crowns,
I am different - I am me,
Without a doubt the superior species.

Fuck you all!

A defiant piece flicking the bird at the world...and quite rightly too! ;-) The first verse I had in my head since "naaing beat" (i.e. standing guard) in the freezing winter of 1979 during my two years of conscription. The rest came to me in an amazing post-coital flash of elucidation at 03h00 on Sunday, June 14, 1992, exactly 24 months after my father's funeral. I wrote this in the half-light still lying in bed and with my girlfriend curled up behind me. One of my unforgettable memories of Pretoria, South Africa, reflecting the politics of the day, my disillusion with the world and my friends (who were all getting married) and my own paranoia and insecurity.

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Echo & The Bunnymen - A Concert To Remember

2007-10-20T00:30:00.000+01:00

On November 5, 2005 my wife and I were privileged to be in the audience at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London and to be a part of one of the most memorable performances of my concert going career. Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant and the latest incantation of Echo & The Bunnymen gave a stellar performance that is now available on both CD (Me, I'm All Smiles) and DVD (Dancing Horses). We viewed the whole performance from the raised area towards the back of the theatre (standing between the mixing desk to our left and the video camera shooting a panorama of the stage to our right) and had no one obstructing our view. It was a fabulous evening with a group that I have supported since buying Crocodiles on vinyl soon after it was released in 1980.

I was an unhappy conscript at the time, and just had enough time to record the album before being shipped into combat at Ruacana in the heart of the Namibian "Operational Area". It was one of the albums that got me through that morally heinous and soul destroying part of my life. Four years later I was a final year student and found myself travelling from Pretoria to Margate in KwaZulu-Natal. It was midnight, I was hitch-hiking and I was alone on the dark highway in the bush south of Durban. All I had was a backpack, a bottle of whisky, a Panasonic "Walkman" and a pocketful of Echo & The Bunnymen cassette tapes. It was an eventful trip, and Ocean Rain will always take me back to that dark stretch of road, the stars and the smell of the sub-tropical bush!

Three days after the London concert, the Bunnymen performed at the Paradiso Club in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It was the same set as the one they delivered in London and the bonus was that it was streamed live to the world. Unfortunately my bandwidth let me down all through that performance, but I was pleased to see that the whole performance is now available online. Block off an hour and 40 minutes, crank up the volume and enjoy this gem from November 8, 2005...

I was thinking about writing a full review of the November 5, 2005 concert, but found that Jamil Ahmad had beaten me to it! Please take a look at his site, but here's a complete transcript of his great gig report at musicOMH.com...

One of the intriguing advantages of the Empire's pristine acoustics is that it makes weak bands sound average, and average bands sound quite good. Take tonight's support bands. Johnny 4, who draw inspiration from the crummy '80s flick Short Circuit, are your typical student band: young, fresh faced and looking decidedly nervy.

By this point the Empire audience isn't even into three figures, and the band look like that decision to leave the pub circuit came a tad too soon. Mistakes are made, heads remain firmly fixed on instruments and size nines. It doesn't help that their sound is a mushy yodel of distilled Pearl Jam and Radiohead. To his credit singer Luke Albery tries to engage himself with a bit more verve in his string work and delivery, but this band and their sound just seem to have wrong written all over it, which tonight's over forties aren't buying either. Since most of them are old enough to be Johnny 4's parents, they receive the Chichester quartet politely.

L20 (you may have guessed) are loud, Scouse and proud of it. Barely older than Johnny 4 they hop on stage with a spring in their step. Singer Danny Marshall's ginormous lungs mean he can pretty much go toe to toe with The Music's Rob Harvey, only less shrieky.

Stylistically their sound is embedded with deep in folk and melody which tonight's headliners in no small part helped shape, along with Messrs Lennon and McCartney. Marshall has a tendency to exaggerate his vowels and ape the monkey boy routine (wonder how long he spent in front the mirror smoking cigarettes and downing bottled water.) L20 materialise into a monotonous cobble of northern bands. Surely, please god, the magic Merseyside cow has been milked of its last droplet?

Or has it? Strictly speaking there is some magic in old daisy, as Echo & The Bunnymen recently proved on their welcome return to form with Siberia. Tonight they slide onstage to the slow burning Disease, its haunting two minute serenade sounding remarkably epic and updated some 25 years on.

If many were here tonight in the hope that Ian McCulloch and co would play much old material, they picked the right night - thanks to the filming of the DVD. The likes of Pride and With A Hip were casually slipped in with much aplomb.

Noticeably, much of Siberia's airing fell effortlessly into place alongside the new material, and that's a testament to the band as a live force.

Ian McCulloch was on particularly fine form, goose stepping from almighty croons to waspy wails. Hidden under shades and a parka, chain smoking his way through the ninety minutes it took before he eventually broke a smile and spoke to the crowd, cracking a few jokes - which is where the subtitles button on your DVD remote will have to come into play.

And with Lips Like Sugar, The Killing Moon and Nothing Lasts Forever making up no less than three encores, it topped off a rare night of brilliance from one of Liverpool's true originals.

My profile at Last-FM bears testament to how well Echo & The Bunnymen has stood the test of time for me!

Cheers, MAlfaRK

Countries I Have Visited

2007-10-04T00:37:00.001+01:00

Found a nifty website that generates the map below...

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

So that adds up to 64 counties. But the total comes to 75 if I add in the place I have visited that no longer exist, namely: Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Rhodesia, South West Africa, Tibet, Transkei, Venda, West Germany and the People's Republic of Hout Bay :-)

Cheers, MAlfaRK

The Vicar of Rome Meets The Big Satan

2007-06-16T02:14:00.000+01:00

Last week Pope Benedict XVI met with George W. Bush at the Vatican. Dogmatic spiritual leader meets ignoramus war monger...what an interesting conversation they must have had! But the meeting got me thinking back to the death of Pope John Paul II and the nomination of his successor. On April 19, 2005 I was in New York attending a meeting in our offices on the 36th floor (overlooking Times Square) when white smoke streamed from a chimney over the Sistine Chapel and the announcement was mad that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger would be the 265th Pope. In our meeting room we put CNN on the video projector and watched this all unfolding over lunch.

Here are a couple of photos I took that afternoon...

As a pupil at Christian Brothers College, Mount Edmund in South Africa, one of my primary influences was my history teacher, Janice Farquharson. Over the past 30 years she has become a great friend and mentor, and during the course of Ratzinger's accession, she wrote this wonderful piece to commemorate the event:

So here goes, typed out again, my tribute to the Papcy.

VATICAN VERSE
- Inspired by the Election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Benedict XVI 19/4/05 -

Sing a song of incense
Voting for a Pope.
Will they OK Condoms?
What an effing hope!

Sing a song of Cardinals
All in red they grapple,
Busy picking a new Pope
In the Sistine Chapel.

Sing a song of Conclaves
Men of great moral fibre,
Finding yet another Pope
On the banks of Tiber.

Sing a song of Prelates
Catholic to a man;
Busy being celibate
In the Vatican.

ENVOI
Let us now praise famous Popes
Lords of all creation,
Stern opponents of safe sex
And of fornication.

So we'll sing a Papal Mass,
Start with a Te Deum,
Don't omit the Sanctus, lads:
Hoc est corpus meum.

© Janice Farquharson, SLC (Staunch Lapsed Catholic)
18/4 - 30/6/05.

The Cutty Sark

2007-05-31T01:45:00.000+01:00

Some ignorant bastard has devastated the heart of Greenwich. On May 21 an arsonist torched the Cutty Sark, a fine three-masted square-rigged vessel built for long distance racing. This magnificent clipper was built in 1869 and at the time was one of the fastest ships in the world. She was dry-docked in 1954 and for more than half a century this ship has defined London's south east edges. But this relic from the golden age of sailing ships, when Britain had the world's greatest navy, is no more.

The loss is personal for me. I remember visiting the ship with my mother and late father in the summer of 1974. What a great adventure that was. My first trip abroad had taken us from Africa to Munich, Bodensee, Copenhagen, Roskilde, Manchester, London and Horley and my father (who had worked as a Fleet Street journalist in the late-50's) took pride in showing me the sights. One of them was the Cutty Sark. She was not just a reminder of the great age of sail, but also of Britain's history as an island nation whose success depended on maritime prowess. As a gifted raconteur, my father conveyed this to me in the most exciting and memorable way, spinning yarns about the last of the tea clippers and the lucrative race across the globe to bring the first tea of the year from China to London. My father is no longer with us, but the Cutty Sark was still there...until last week. And I feel the loss.

My young son unfortunately never had the privilege of meeting his grandfather, but last summer we did connect a few of the dots. I took him to Greenwich and showed him the Cutty Sark. OK, he was only a year old at the time (and I did not take his pram into the ship), but I wheeled him around this beautiful memorial to those killed in the two world wars and flashed back 32 years to that fine afternoon with my father...my tutor...my friend. I'm glad that I got pictures of my boy with the old clipper before she was cruelly defiled, but I have no doubt that she will rise like the phoenix from the ashes. Luckily more than 50% of the ship's timbers were undergoing off site restoration and if the iron hull of the vessel is not buckled, they should be able to rebuild her. But if they do, she will no longer be original fabric, and we will have lost some of the history itself. And some of my history too.

At the end of our month abroad in 1974 I also remember flying from Heathrow airport. At duty free my father bought two bottles of whisky with bright yellow labels. And the brand name? Cutty Sark! At the time I thought the label was cheap and tacky, but he seemed to enjoy the tipple when we got home!

In any event, I hope they catch the yellow bastard that wiped this genuine icon of London from the face of the tourist map, and I look forward to its rebirth.

Cheers, MAlfaRK

White Army Blues

2007-05-17T19:32:00.000+01:00

Goodbye Gillian,
The army's come to take me,
So I'm leaving on a train.

We'll meet again,
Two years from now,
I won't be a long-haired lout,
I will be a man no doubt...
No doubt?

There goes the good life,
Farewell to the drinks and curls,
Farewell motorbikes and girls.
Bye-bye, so long...
How long?

MAlfaRK ©
Wednesday, July 4, 1979

I started writing this piece on the military troop-train from Pretoria, South Africa to the 7th SA Infantry Battalion at Bourke's Luck. Two years of conscription and carnage lay ahead. I remember finishing it while "naaing beat" (standing guard duty) in the early hours of the morning of that hellishly cold winter. The cloying aroma of military greatcoat still makes me sick. Gillian refers to Gillian Michael, my girlfriend at the time.

PW Botha & His Henchmen Excluded

2007-05-15T15:28:00.000+01:00

"I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone"

These were the last words of Edith Cavell who was executed by firing squad for helping allied soldiers to escape from Brussels to neutral territory in Holland during World War I. I spotted them on a poster in the window of a bank on Fleet Street in London when I was out for lunch the other day. And they got me thinking...

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"

I guess this is where the whole patriotism thing started for me - John F. Kennedy uttered these words on the day I was born. Noble sentiments to be sure (if a little treacly), but for a young lad like myself, but it was all downhill from there I'm afraid. I was born in Apartheid South Africa and grew up without a patriotic bone in my body. How could one possibly respect THAT flag, feel anything but revulsion for THAT national anthem and identify with any of THOSE national symbols?

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it"

Or so said George Bernard Shaw. I think his theory operationalises, and I seem to support the alternative hypothesis. In my formative years I was deeply embarrassed by my country. In the sanctions era "my" flag was an embarrassment, "Die Stem van Suid Afrika" (a.k.a. "The Call of South Africa") belonged to supporters of the fascist regime, and national symbols like the springbok for me personified the racist totalitarian state in which I lived. Suffice it to say, it was an uncomfortable and sometimes scary place.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross"

This quote is credited to Sinclair Lewis. I travel to the USA fairly regularly on business and during George Bush’s term of office, I think fascism has arrived. I am terrified by the flag-waving Christian Taliban, their theory of "intelligent design" (i.e. their attempt to get people to accept the Genesis creation myth as fact) and their apparent quest to eschew science and technology, and drag us all into a new Dark Age. But I’ve seen it all before – this is how it was in the Old South Africa. When good science clashed with Biblical fundamentalist beliefs, science lost every time. I know graduates of the National Christian Education brainwashing machine who still scoff at fossils saying "How do you know they’re not just normal stones created by chance?" These patriots were the same people who supported a government that censored (and frequently banned) music, films, books, magazines, the press, people and groups who saw the world differently to them. Scary times indeed…

"Patriotism ruins history"

Goethe hit the nail on the head! And I’m tired and it’s time for bed.

Later, MAlfaRK

First Post

2007-05-14T23:44:00.000+01:00

Damn - now that title has set off a strange thought process. It's taken me back to the late-70's and a dark and desolate place where "The Last Post" * played through claxon horn loudspeakers as the command came down the line to switch off lights and turn in for the night. Taxis without wheels shuffled us across mirror-polished floors to steel-framed beds and cheap foam matresses covered in what we cacophemistically referred to as piss-skins. Cold. Frozen red fire buckets on cheaply welded frames. The secret sounds of Onan. Communal hell. Instant sleep and the expectation of a rabid and brutal awakening in a few short hours time. Once were soldiers.

But enough of that. Back then I scribbled things on pieces of scrap paper and notebooks and sent state-censored letters back home. I also kept diaries. Through my university years I started expressing myself in bad verse and when I backpacked the world I became a regular correspondent to friends and family. When I moved abroad I wrote tomes about my experiences and spent a fortune on postage. eMail changed all that. And then came my personal website and the chance to share my world with a larger audience. Pressure of work, business travel and a family of my own ultimately extinguished that fire, and I resorted to postcards to keep in touch with my significant others. Now I think the time is right for me to give blogging a go.

I have no agenda here other than to share observations and experiences and to go with the flow. "A collection of thoughts under construction" - that's probably what it's all about. So please bear with me as I figure this all out.

Later, MAlfaRK

* : MIDI Bugle by Neville Young