andnowforlife

New beginnings

2011-06-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

Hi All

It has been a very long time and the silence has been as excruciating for me as it probably has for you. So much has gone on since we connected that any attempt at putting it all down here would be inadequate. Between my day job at GQ and my consulting work I have been a tad stretched and apologise profusely for leaving you hanging for so long.
I have for a while promised some updates and I am glad to say that from tonight I will be adding some 'new' stuff. The new is in inverted commas because many of you would have come across these pieces in various publications like my home base GQ, our sister publication Glamour, as well as True Love and Elle. Regular True Love readers will now know that I no longer write the 'His Turn' column, which forms a big part of the content on this blog. Fret not though, it is not the end of my my monthly musings about life, I will be contributing regularly to this blog as well as to some of the above publications and then some. For example, I write a weekly blog entry on gq.co.za called 'Pulse of the City' which is part of the Range Rover Evoque Pulse of the City campaign of which I am a part. I am basically an ambassador for the Land Rover's global campaign launching the Range Rover Evoque, an ambitious new eco-friendly, beautifully designed, sporty car on sale in November 2011 (check out www.helloevoque.com).
Onto other things.
The two of you who listen to the andnowforlife radio show on Radio Today will also know that the show is off air. I have taken a bit of a sabbatical from radio but will be back at some stage. I will let you know as soon as I know. I promise it will be bigger and so much better.
To keep up you can follow me on Twitter @siphiwempye or mail me on siphiwempye@gmail.com. I have reached 5000 friends on Facebook and are sitting with over a hundred friend requests. I have been asked to create a fan page but am still mulling that over.

Till next time

Siphiwe

Twist in my sobriety

2010-12-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

For several months over the past year, a friend who had had one too many close shaves on the road while intoxicated, decided it was time to give up his long-term relationship with the bottle. Another mate, who has been known to literally lose his car for a number of days because, he insisted at the time, of a particular brand of alcohol he will ‘never touch again’ and not as everyone else was convinced, the entire category, also hung up his beer mug.

The first guy is a thoughtful, enterprising and soft- spoken corporate attorney, the type whose inexplicably acute rowdiness when drunk deserves an in-depth case study. The other guy, an entertainer, is naturally talkative with an incomprehensible boisterousness when under the influence.

No sooner had they both changed their ways, than the problem with sobriety in a drunken world unfurled. The complaints from the boozer’s corner came flooding in. The entertainer was “not as funny” anymore. The retiring lawyer spewed out random Patron-drenched gems no longer. Society castigated them, they had let down the team, abdicated their duty as vibrant thirty-somethings in a city whose energy is fuelled week in week out by the fermented powers of ‘Phuza Thursday’. Their boozing friends seemed to suggest that the duo’s newfound teetotalism represented a wholesale moral judgment on all drinkers. Some in our circle even resorted to begging them to indulge, as if they had scorched their credit card paying for an Island getaway and their companion had just come to bed in jeans and a polo neck, intending to stay like that for the duration of the holiday.

Having tried to quit the habit a number of times, I really empathized and took to the task of being the sole source of encouragement for their admirable efforts.

Think of the money saved, I said, the endless health benefits and the guiltless meander towards a roadblock shouting “me, me me”, desperate for the cops to stop you so you can bask in your sobriety.

It didn’t work.

The pressure was overwhelming, the vilification was unbearable and if you are reading this at anytime past midday the brothers in arms probably have their drunken alter-ego volumes on full blast with a glass of something on the rocks in their hand. For such a beautiful thing to be obliterated by peer pressure is a sorry reality, given what we have to deal with.

Look, we are not Russia or a Native American reservation, but our keenness for the consumption of liquor is only matched by our overwhelming desire to get behind the wheel while in a paralytic state. With our country having one of the highest levels of per capita alcohol consumption in the world, it would seem we spend on liquor proportionately to what we do on those M3s we habitually wrap around innocent street poles.

I am sure there is a piece of research that will show that most of you think this only happens to obnoxious political party spin doctors and judges who are only as sober as their last Long Island Iced Tea but all the people I know whose indulgent evenings have ended up in the hospital, a jail cell, or both - with no @PigSpotter in sight to help them - had never had it happen to them before. It is akin to the law of bikers falling off their motorcyles, it is not a matter of if, but when.

So as you embark on a well-earned break and blow off all the negativity you might have encountered this year, may I suggest you take at least one sober day and volunteer to be the designated driver. Better yet, why dry up completely, during the festive season nogal, now that would be progressive don’t you think?

The most glaring downside to dumping the bottle is the scores of others you are forced to interact with who haven’t. Drunken people are unbearable in a slobbering, slurring, teary, untidy, repetitive kind of way, but if anything, being in their presence will give you a better understanding of what your friends are truly like.

An alcohol free you could also be a new start to your life, sans hangovers or ogre-like strangers in your bed and with a new set of friends who are not model citizens during office hours and raging buffoons come happy hour.

But if you truly have to quench your insatiable thirst, so be it, but please show some respect for those who would rather remember every moment of an evening well partied, we need a lot more like them.

Originally published in True Love magazine, 2010

In search of Erotic Capital

2010-11-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of Erotic Capital? It was not until I recently picked up a copy of the Financial Times that I realised that there was a scientific explanation for what men have always known: women do not play fair. Erotic Capital (let’s call it EC) is the combination of a myriad intangible things which, when clubbed together give women an unfair advantage. This is according to journalist Christopher Caldwell, who had just studied a paper by the London School of Economics sociologist Catherine Hakim.

EC is in my understanding, the currency of looks. It is the reason Angelina Jolie – who in a forgotten time I shudder to recall, kept a vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around her neck – has seduced the UN, can call the President of the United States all sorts of names without a whimper of outrage and the only reason we have forgotten that Lara Croft was but a character in a video game. “Any deployment of erotic capital in the public sphere,” says Caldwell, “shifts power to women.” It is what French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson meant when he said “sex appeal is the keynote of our civilization”.

Caldwell, citing Hakim’s research, says that either consciously or unconsciously, women work extremely hard at obtaining erotic capital and the effects thereof are that more telling because of men’s intensely sexual nature.

While some indulge in quarterly botox injections or keep a room full of collagen fillers; others see their trainers twice a day or stalk their surgeons on Blackberry Messenger. Starvation, mud baths, laser treatments, waxing, facials. “I always wash my hair upside down over the bath to stimulate the circulation on my face” says Nicola Formby of Tatler Magazine. Acquiring EC is damn hard work, but for men, who also possess EC, but to a far lesser degree, it is not that serious an undertaking.

My Saturday mornings are not complete without my weekly football game. After a week of lunatic working hours, rude electricity meter readers, insistent upstarts, worn brake pads, and garbage collectors with diarhorea (don’t ask), it is great to run hard against a motley crew of guys who take this weekly ritual quite seriously, when they do make it there.

In some weeks, especially in the winter months, this is my only form of exercise so it is not to be missed for any reason whatsoever. There are all shapes and sizes on the field, but the goals are the same, we all want to look and feel better than we do about ourselves. We want to be able to run around with our young children and not double over in pain after 30 seconds of wrestling; we would like to again fit into that expensive designer suit we wore only once at the Durban July five years ago and although we might have imbibed a train load of shooters the previous night, we feel better about ‘sweating it all out’ the next morning, no matter the headaches, convulsions and possibilities of succumbing to lifestyle diseases. Whether we know it or not, we would like to sprinkle our own EC into the air, but I doubt that beyond football and a bit of gym, we are willing to go to the extremes that women are.

In an article in the FT Magazine a week or so before the EC revelations, a Mark Ellwood had conducted a brave investigation into just how far some men will go in spreading that EC. Ellwood embarked on a trying journey into the murky world of the men’s shapewear industry. What is that you might ask?

Just as women have secret under garments that allow them to play on a slightly more equal playing field than others, so too now do men.

When once girdles were the stuff of intimidating women’s department stores, in the 1^st world, these lines are blurring. In his quest to test-drive as much men’s shapewear as possible, Ellwood donned ‘Mirdles’ (men’s girdles, Bodymax T-shirts and vests with ‘slenderising stomach panels’, designed to hide love handles and stubbornly wobbly lower abs. Ellwood also ventured into 2 (x)ist’s (which a company, not mathematical equation) Form Line, briefs with 15cm wide waistbands which apparently slice 10cm off your midriff, giving you an ‘instant abs’ effect, Men’s Health be damned! He even tried Frigo pants, briefs that are designed to cushion those with ‘the men’s equivalent of 38GGs’ and Andrew Christian briefs which promised to give you the David Beckham in the Armani underwear ads effect.

It was fun, it was educational, but Ellwood’s verdict is that not even Verimark would be able to sell these. They just wouldn’t fly because they do not do what they promise. After donning all these wonderful contraptions, his love handles didn’t disappear, his he didn’t suddenly feel like Dirk Diggler and his lower abs still looked wobbly. In the conscious or unconscious search for EC, methinks men’s shapewear is a girdle too far. Men as vain creatures exist only to a certain point, we are just not willing to work hard enough for it. At some point in the pursuit of EC, the baton is grabbed by the real pros: the previously, currently and forever will be endowed with EC and that is just not playing fair.

Originally published in True Love Magazine

Back soon

2010-10-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

Dear ANFL followers

Am writing this from a short holiday in Mauritius. Much to say about a country that the Mo Ibrahim Foundation recently named as the best run in Africa, look out for my travel piece in the Jan/Feb issue of GQ South Africa.

This is also just to say the radio show (Thursdays, 13:00-15:00, Radio Today, 1485 AM/MW; 169 on Dstv Audio and streaming on www.1485.org.za) is back next week Thursday 21.

Upon my return I will also post some new pieces.

Until then

Siphiwe

On the show today 16/09/2010

2010-09-15T23:05:00.000-07:00

Morning All

This post is the first of what will become weekly previews of the 'and now for life' radio show on Radio Today. The show is hosted by this blog's Editor Siphiwe Mpye and features reports from The New Age newspaper's Business Editor Thebe Mabanga (Current Affairs); Vata Ngobeni of the Pretoria News (Sport); Zingi Mkefa, a contributor to the Sunday Times among others (Arts & Culture) and Mathahle Stofile an Elle Magazine staffer and Fashion Consultant (Lifestyle). Here's today's menu:

In our current affairs slot Thebe Mabanga takes a look at the ruling ANC’s upcoming NGC meeting; Cosatu’s economic policy proposal; Duduzane Zuma’s "philanthropy", in bright flashing inverted commas and the sad passing of legendary writer Lewis Nkosi.

In sport Vata Ngobeni looks at the unveiling of the Super 15 and the notion that the competition will negatively affect the Currie Cup. In Currie Cup news we look at the current standings and make some predictions ahead of the weekend action. In tennis we look at the wonder that is Rafa Nadal; in football action we look at all the UEFA Champions League results from last night and preview the PSL’s Tshwane derby this weekend between Supersport United and Mamelodi Sundowns. As far as cricket goes, we look at the progress of the Highveld Lions and Chevrolet Warriors in the Airtel T20 Champions League and finally, in Formula 1 we ask if Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber have done enough to be the last men standing in the driver’s championships.

In our Arts segment, Zingi Mkefa will preview One Act, a cabaret show; the Ladysmith Black Mambazo 50-year celebrations; Survivor winner and gentleman’s club owner Gigi’s show Nipples and G-strings back at the Victory Theatre and in our new TV slot, we look at the show “Men of a certain Age”.

Mathahle Stofile is away this week so we will not have our lifestyle segment today, she will be back next week.
That's the show for this week, please join us between 1 and 3pm on Radio Today (1485 AM, Channel 169 on the Dstv Audio Bouquet or you can stream live on www.1485.org.za)

The Beautiful Woman

2010-09-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

Marriages, friendships, sporting careers and political trajectory have all come crashing down because of it. It has left once chaste men withered from multiple indiscretions.
Nations have, in adherence to its whims, come to the brink of apocalypse. It has divided the ancestors and rendered intelligent men blithering idiots. Behold, if you will, the allure of the beautiful woman.

Beauty, we are all suckers for it. We long for it constantly, for, as Frantz Kafka declared, anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. And beauty, true beauty itself never gets old, as someone else once said.

Through the ages, we men have become slaves to her adorable, deep concentration as the beautiful woman fumbles through her bag tossing aside 8-hour cream, tissues, lipstick and last year’s John Legend tickets to get to her phone before she misses the call. Witnessing a beautiful woman walk into a room, look around for the familiar gazes of admiration, lust and jealousy and lap it all up with a cunning smile while sashaying - with a brisk ebb and flow to the hip - to her seat is one of the true pleasures of being a heterosexual male. Being a beautiful woman, clearly, also has its pleasures.

As early as Primary School all the boys in class queued up to slow dance with her at the social. The teacher always picked her to help with the cool experiments and after a bit of group mischief in High School she is the only one that didn’t get detention.

Years later, research shows us that she earns more than her colleagues, not because she is a better project manager, but because her smile and flick of the weave creates a bit of magic at the performance appraisal, that magical twenty percent more than ordinary Cordelia, an increase the 12-hour day pushing plain Jane will never sniff. Magic I tell you.

A friend of mine abruptly cut all ties with one particular beautiful woman recently. Every time they were together – and they dated for only two weeks – and he looked into her eyes after a bout of what I imagine to be furious canoodling, he had an overwhelming urge to ask her to move in with him. When he felt this urge coming on he would run to the bathroom and slap himself silly while staring at the mirror, desperate to snap out that temporary affliction.

When she was not around and he had the ear of a rational buddy, he saw the folly in that impulsive thought, the craziness of inviting an unknown - albeit gorgeous - entity into his home. He didn’t know her bathroom habits, her real sleeping habits (women have a way of hiding things like snoring, farting and dirty sleep talking in the first few weeks) and whether or not she was rude to petrol attendants or worse still, a Manchester United fan. He didn’t know any of this, yet her beauty made embracing all these possible perils seem a small price to pay. After all when she eats hamburgers with both hands, doesn’t drink pink drinks and has a flawless face, we are rendered useless, staunch pragmatists no more. And yet, there is of course an inherent danger in all of this.

Once you are completely submerged in her charms, your most virtuous friend’s stature may diminish if she it deems it appropriate. She becomes an elaborate exercise in unrequited random acts of kindness. She is impossible to please, her father’s giant shadow hovering above her wherever she goes and try as you might, you will never spoil her like way he does. Her double standards could fill the Namib Desert, yet she is rarely admonished by the world. If you were smart, you would heed the song that warns: “If you want to be happy for the rest of don’t make a beautiful woman your wife.” But life is such that we lack intellectual insight at the most crucial times. And though as the saying goes, there might be some guy out there who couldn’t see the back of her quickly enough, who could no longer stand the unreasonable requests, the reluctance to lift a finger or the laissez faire responses to gallant attempts at romance, thankfully, most of the time, that guy is not us and we would happily skip through that field littered with dirty bombs just to call that beautiful woman ours.

Originally published in True Love Magazine September 2010

Cry Baby

2010-08-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

It has been about two months since the shrill cries of that omnipresent horn came to what for many was a welcome end. It is two months since that infectious fellow Phillip bade us adieu, leaving Zakumi feeling like a Minister after a cabinet reshuffle: no job and no friends, with the country wondering what the point behind your existence really was. It is also the same amount of time since South Africans tried to re-colonise Africa’s oldest independent country, forcing upon John Mensah and co. the shamefully opportunistic BaGhana BaGhana moniker. Crucially dear reader, it is two months since you reunited with much more important things, like Oprah, Generations and your man. This could not have come at a more opportune time as your dear football mad beau might have begun to sound a tad Marawa-esque: ‘Honey, do you want this particular bulb in that particular light socket?” Yes, you won him back from the brink, so the last thing you want to read about is football.

It might not seem like it as you read on, but have no fear, this column is not really about football. It is merely about an important lesson to be learned by all men from football.

Whenever I am in need of some sobering up, a dose of humility, a shot of “slow your roll, big boy” I scourer deep into my dusty old photo albums and whip out an old photograph of a large group of 12 year-old boys in red tracksuit tops stand in a huddle, shamelessly balling their eyes out.

I was a member of the Eastern Province U/13 soccer team, selected from hundreds of youngsters to play in a national youth tournament in Pretoria. We were the best in our province and prior to kicking off our first match we had already envisaged championship glory. A minor detail we failed to consider were our opponents, boys who were the best in their provinces, with equally grandiose ambitions. Naturally there was room for only one winner and after impressing in the early rounds with a scorching brand of football reminiscent of more mature players, we were knocked out in the quarterfinals by what was then Transvaal. The disbelief was palpable, the grief was unbearable and the inevitable waterworks followed as my dad looked on, chuckling under his breath.

At the time I was seething, failing to understand why a man who had imparted unto me such priceless wisdom could abandon me at such a crucial juncture. But what was a mystery then and for years to follow is now as clear as the evening sky over the Namib.

We had lost a match and had cried like little girls because that is what 12 year-old boys do. It is not, however, what professional players, grown men like the great Diego Maradona were supposed to do, yet a year after we were humiliated by the Vaalies, at the Italia 90 World Cup, that is exactly what he did when Argentina failed to repeat their 1986 heroics in Mexico. At Africa’s greatest show recently, the sorry relationship between loss and tears was robust, nurtured by everyone from the Italians and the Ghanaians to the Nigerians and the Argentineans. Shameful stuff.

My issue is not men expressing their emotions through crying. It is not even about men crying in public, this in fact can be a great thing, a sign at some positive evolution, that one is not a complete Neanderthal. Crying is a great release, especially for a species such as ours, notorious for harboring any kind of emotion, manning up and taking it – whatever it may be – on our variously sized chins. Crying is to be encouraged, but for men, it should be governed by a sense of occasion.

Losing your parents is a license to cry your eyes dry, wherever you are, whatever the setting. But if you lose a girlfriend – if she was really ‘the one’ - a long solitary drive, letting it all on the long road to nowhere should suffice. Do not at a braai teeming with scores of potential replacements channel your inner Bridget Jones humming “All by myself” while tears gush from your bloodshot, forlorn eyes.

The same goes for when called into a meeting you assume to be about a promotion and are instead fired. None of us would want to give that thankless, pea-brained mass of hot air that is our boss the satisfaction of seeing us breaking down, would we?

I concede that a loss for professional players could mean being sold to a Russian team based in the general vicinity of Siberia and a loss in bonuses, but all things considered, I maintain that the grief from losing a soccer game should never induce one to double over in the middle of the pitch as if you were six years old and the neighbour’s Rottweiler humped your puppy. Such pathetic displays should be saved for the privacy of the after-game shower, or later, in your WAG’s perma-tanned arms.

An active, honest relationship with your emotions should involve a periodic cry. It soothes the core of our being and should be advocated much more than it is, especially among men. But weepy public displays borne of a tattered ego are graceless, unmanly and should be fought with the vigour of an Iraqi insurgent.

Originally Published in True Love Magazine, August 2010

2010-08-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Clarkson lives a charmed life, does he not? He has already driven more exotic cars than most of us sad plebs will drive in a lifetime; he is a best-selling author; Top Gear, his often inordinately successful TV show has spawned various successful spinoffs and in spite of relentless jibes from some of England’s most biting columnists like AA Gill, Tony Parsons and Piers Morgan (who was famously punched by Clarkson once upon a time), he remains a steadfast fixture on the UK’s popular imagination.

Clarkson looks like a regular awkward, gangly, badly dressed, odd-looking, have a pint and a brawl around the corner, middle-aged British guy. His high-speed carbon emitting antics bear the full brunt of admonishment from the greenies and feminists have an impossible time stomaching some of his commentary. I don’t know about you, but he doesn’t strike me as very religious. Call me cynical but something about “Phoar, feel those Turbos kick in!!” doesn’t scream ex-altar boy, Jehovah’s Witness or Zen scholar seeking enlightenment. So it was with great surprise then that I came across evidence of Clarkson’s belief in reincarnation.

In a recent column in the London Sunday Times he admitted to being partial to coming back as a “lady who lunches”. You know that type right, I’ve written about her on these pages?

Ladies who lunch have, as Clarkson puts it, “lots of hair…nice skin…breasts to play with in the afternoon and time, lots of lovely, lingering, jasmine-scented time.” This time, notes Clarkson as he takes in the scene at his local restaurant, is not utilised particularly productively. “While the businessmen on another table have designed and sold a nuclear power station before the main course arrives, the ladies who lunch can still be talking about Jessica’s bikini wax after six cups of coffee”. As I said, the feminists and this chap do not see eye to eye, nonetheless, his wish is clear.

I have often considered this question of the afterlife myself, and the idea of going to some place where everyone is happy and sings with the Angels all day sounds pretty restful. The idea of reincarnation however, is too much of a gamble for one does not choose what they come back as.

If like Clarkson I were to choose, I am not quite sure what I would like to come back as, but it would be in the region of an international football star, a bassist for a soul band or the guy who will figure out the answer to world peace (seriously).

But alas, how we live this life dictates what we become in the next and there dear reader creeps in the unpredictability of the universe, you just never know exactly how good your best has been and how low your worst has stooped. And there are some undesirable permutations. Take coming back as a boxer, or an assassin, actually, how about being both.

Evidenced by the ones I have come across in the papers, they are not particularly good at boxing and are even worse at being assassins. How about being a national sports coach? Abuse, insubordination, hotel rooms for most of the year, plots to oust you from the day you are announced as the latest lamb to the slaughter and a population of sports lovers who think they know more about your job than you. No thanks.

Ok, how about being Oprah Winfrey, the richest and most influential woman in the world? After vicariously reading the unofficial Oprah: A Biography by catty author Kitty Kelley through running commentary from the lady friend that hangs out with me pretty much everyday, she is not someone to aspire to being in the next life. Unless of course you don’t mind a ‘complicated’ relationship with food, lifelong lesbian rumours, the derision of literary authors and inventing the Jerry Springer talk show genre.

Right, so how about being a big fish in a much smaller pond then, A South African couture designer? I don’t think so, unless of course you don’t mind being accused of stealing Dior designs circa 2000 or being gossiped about by the very same people who fawn all over you, swearing what a genius you are, doll.

And if you were truly bad in a past life – a murderer of children, a slave trader or music promoter – for all your sins you would come back as a politician.

For Clarkson, fate has something crueler in store for him. If he believes in reincarnation, he also believes in karma and it would not surprise me then if Clarkson did not come back as a lady who lunches, but as Piers Morgan.

A slightly different version originally published in True Love Magazine, 2010

A case for segregation

2010-07-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

I have never been to a baby shower. It is, I am told, a frightening occasion. It is a place where even rookie mothers, satiated with free bubbly bombard their expectant friend with a cacophony of advice, from the practical to the pernicious, the insipid to the downright outrageous. A baby shower, I am told, is an event where the mom to be endures wanton physical torture, psychological strain and emotional humiliation, forced to eat disgusting concoctions - with ingredients as insane as dark chocolate, raw meat, tomato puree and marmite -, dance around in a precarious state of undress and play juvenile guessing games, all whilst wearing a nappy. The people who invented the baby shower were clearly a sadistic cult of moms who, after horrid pregnancies, excruciating births and an addiction to Valium well past the terrible twos, decided it was payback time. Those who were joining their ranks were going to pay dearly for that right of passage. And so it is that every weekend scores of women in their third trimester are put through a ritual designed to leave long lasting striations on their psyche. It is a cruel exercise that, for my small mind at least, is totally senseless.

Despite all these cons, baby showers remain an important part of the urban woman’s journey into motherhood and crucially, are events men should never attend.

This, for many of us is a fait accompli, but as I have discovered, for some, it is not that simple. In Hollywood, these occasions have turned into unisex gatherings with lavish gifts and paparazzi hovering above in helicopters. Here at home, there seems to be an open invitation for gay guys to attend and an increasing number of straight guys are inviting themselves in order to “mingle with the single ladies in the room”, to quote one particularly spirited justification. Sacrilege I tell you! Women should not allow such a peculiarly female ritual to be tainted by our presence. In a modern world with opaque gender boundaries, there are some things that should remain sacred, like the noble ritual of the Bachelor Party.

This is once again one of those things I truly thought we all had figured out years ago and were all in agreement, kind of like the universal fact of men’s inability to multitask (yawn) nor ask for directions (double yawn) and that its not about ‘the motion of the ocean’, size matters, finish en klaar! I thought we long settled this but let me make it clear by quoting a friend putting down a female friend who wanted to attend a bachelor party (she was a friend of the groom): “Unless you are going to jump out of a cake in your birthday suit, you are not welcome.” As I closed that quote, I paused for effect, reliving the hush, which promptly descended upon the scene after that little chirp. She had no words, but the waterworks flowed immediately. It was a harsh comment, maybe even sexist, but absolutely true.

A bachelor party is no place for a woman. This ritual is for us an excuse to get together, talk rubbish, quaff loads of alcohol and be touched ‘on our studio’ by other women with no guilt issues.

These ‘other women’ are of course, strippers. The stripper is on that night, even if for a fleeting moment, the groom’s liberator, on a noble mission to manumit his soul from the clutches of eternal servitude. It is his last hoorah before a life underpinned by a six pack a day, bad jeans, armchair sports criticism and a vocabulary consisting of only two words: “Yes dear.” The last thing he needs on

this night is the presence of his bride or her friends.

Judging by the footage of various raunchy bachelorette parties I saw on the internet while doing some ‘research’ for this column, the only men brides need at their versions of this ritual are dressed up like cops and there to shake their bits.

So by all means lets embrace the equality of the sexes, unisex toilets and the use of androgynous words like waitron. But let us please keep adult nappy wearing and stripper body searches segregated.

Originally published in True Love Magazine, July 2010

Good Architecture: a basic human right

2010-07-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

GQ&A

Mokena Makeka

At Dion Chang’s recent Flux Trend Review, the stand out speaker was a thoughtful, eloquent University of Cape Town Architecture graduate with an ego-crushing list of accolades from his student days to the work he does through his company Makeka Design Lab (MDL). Mokena Makeka’s more high profile projects include the new-look Cape Town station and the mammoth feat that is the Green Point Stadium. We had to get a closer look at a man who while being first and foremost a hip-hop head, loves his Tchaikovsky and in his search for a South African aesthetic, looks to more dead Russians for inspiration.

GQ: You have been quoted saying that good architecture is a basic human right. Explain?

MM: Architecture has always been seen as the preserve of the elite, but excellence is not for the few, poor people are just as deserving. It doesn’t need to be the same costs but spatial considerations need to be made, especially for public spaces, there must be better thought behind it. South Africa has a history where we haven’t really cared for our environment, ourselves and good design is something we can’t live without, it is intrinsically linked to our dignity.

GQ: Why would lay people not see it like that?

MM: There were deliberate reasons why townships were under designed. People were dehumanized, with streets with no names; it was all part of a plan along with the taking of people’s dignity and not providing health, education and decent work opportunities. We have been cheated by history, by those who were in power and those who didn’t want to share. Understandably, coming from 300 years of mere survival, people are more worried about having something in their stomachs than they are with architecture

GQ: What are you most proud of about the Cape Town station project?

MM: One can spend a few million for a house for 4 people, but R100m on a structure that has sixty thousand people moving through it everyday is special. I am intrigued by how I can touch the most number of humans, hundreds of thousands of buildings.

GQ: Any learnings from the project?

MM: Design is an act of transformation by definition. Some people enjoy visual transformation but don’t understand the responsibility that comes with it. The challenge is trying to ensure that the client engages with the responsibility of a transformative agenda, maintenance strategies, cleaning and so on. All these come together. We have a strong culture of deferred leadership, people do not want to take decisions and defer, so things slow down. Society wants to consult ad nauseam, when it is more powerful to make a decision, even if you are wrong.

GQ: What kind of a leader do you think you are?

MM: I Hope I inspire them (his team), they see me as passionate and by being with me they become better people.

GQ: Where do you draw your inspiration?

Everything, movies, horror books, people. Architects are continually bombarded by architecture and the absence of it all the time. I can see how people behave and don’t even know it is because of the environment they are in.

GQ: Any people or books that have had an effect on you?

MM: The Russian constructivist movement really informed my thinking. I saw a lot of similarities in their search for what it meant to be Russian and finding a unique aesthetic. El Lissitzky and Ivan Leonidov were very influential in this movement.

GQ: What is the South African aesthetic if there is such a thing?

MM: I don’t think we have it at this point. There is the Africana thing like having horns on the wall and skins on the floor. Nothing wrong with that, you will find it at game lodges and that is the expectation. Then you have Cape Dutch thing and so on. There is not just one continuum and it would be dangerous to limit ourselves, it would prevent us from being creative about what we can achieve.

GQ: What would architecture to say about you when dead

He was believed in humanity, buildings hope, buildings reflected the best in us

GQ: What gives you hope?

People are beginning to reject mediocrity, they see that they deserve good architecture, that we do have the skills and in time we will become a real movement. People are beginning to get over self-loathing and believe that they deserve good architecture as much any other nation.

GQ: Is it tough being a black architect in Cape Town?

MM: Of course is challenging. You still get questions about a black practitioner being good enough, able to deliver. There are also softer issues of branding, people like to say certain practitioners designed their houses. The Western Cape is complicated culturally and I am still nowhere near where I want to be, but I really enjoy

GQ: Where do you buy shirts in CT?

Well, it depends. I like buying t-shirts with smart phrases, but beyond that, my wife buys the (dress) shirts.

GQ: What kind of music do you listen to?

Hip-hop and Tchaikovsky! These two are not as dissimilar as they might seem. I am not into jazz though, its ambling music with no end and no beginning.

GQ: You have been married for two years now, do you hate marriage as much a many married people do?

(laughs) No no, I love it!

Beyond Generations

2010-05-01T00:04:00.000-07:00

GQ&A

Mfundi Vundla

He is best known as the successful producer behind long-running soapie Generations, but Mfundi Vundla (64) has also been part of film projects like In my country with Julliete Benoche and Samuel L. Jackson, and is an associate producer on Binnelanders.

Although he still gives a great soundbite, the former Chairman of the Independent Producers Organisation has mellowed over the years – replacing a penchant for boardroom scraps with quiet philanthropy in areas as diverse as Golf and literature.

And although he quite publicly ‘defected’ to the Lekota/Sholowa show, he still scores invites to some ANC dos and has nothing but praise for the President, at least as far as his commitment to artists goes. We cannot say the same about his opinions of the SABC or Mnet though.

GQ: After 15 years, how involved are you in the day-to-day business of Generations?

MV: My involvement nowadays is limited to big story meetings four times a year, where we conceptualise and see where the story is going for the next few months, the characters, the arcs in the different stories.

GQ: You have lived very long life in exile and now very successfully back in South Africa. As you well know many exiles will tell you that there were lots of hard times, what do you remember most abut being in the US with no money?

MV: I was in California and was married with a young son. We did not have money for January rent. My wife concocted a plan and took my son’s present from his grandmother back to the store and we got a refund in order to pay rent. There were other things as well like sleeping in a New York apartment in the dead of winter with no heat. We were forced to sleep together with my wife and sister in law for body heat. There were lots of those incidents like when I was invited to the Malawian embassy and got there wearing shoes with no socks. I was clean, but just couldn’t afford socks!

GQ: Now legend has it that it was actually your wife Karen who proposed to you…

MV: Well, yes, there is some truth to that. I had my problem of being virtually stateless. So she suggested we get married. We loved each other, so we did!

GQ: Were you afraid of marriage?

MV: No, I was more afraid of being a father. When I discovered in New York City that I was going to be a father, it shook me up. I realised just how my life was going to change. I had to go and get psychological counseling and got shingles (from the stress of fatherhood). I went to see a doctor. Now when I got the shingles, it was the time that Aids was breaking out as a disease in New York and I remember when I went for the treatment the doctor was consulting with another one and the other asked him if I was a homosexual and the doctor looked at me and said, “I don’t think so” (laughs)!

GQ: So many years after your public fallout with etv over the ownership of Backstage when you look back, are there any regrets or hard feelings?

MV: Well there were hard feelings. When someone takes away something of value, something you have created, it does create a lot of anger so for a long time I was a walking wounded person. To the extent that it affected my life in the industry. For instance, I was invited by the (then) Speaker (of Parliament) Frene Ginwala to parliament a couple of years ago and when I discovered I was at the same table as Marcel Golding I stood up and left. On my way out I bumped into a friend who asked where I was going and when I told him he laughed and said ‘don’t be silly come and sit with us’. And then the penny dropped, that being in the industry I was in, I was going to bump into Marcel Golding a lot and thought maybe it was time to smoke the peace pipe so I called Anant Singh and asked him to arrange something with Marcel so we could smoke a peace pipe. So he did and we met at the Table Bay in Cape Town.

GQ: Did the meeting turn out the way you expected?

MV: Yeah it did, but…I mean, he was still trying to defend what he did to me but we talked. We talk to each other – we are not friends – but we are cordial and we have even come close to doing some business together. Jozi H was nearly on etv and I am trying to meet him for a number of movie things sometime.

GQ: So ownership on a business and creative level is important to you?

MV: Yes it is. In South Africa we are still fighting a major battle with regards to copyright issues. In the states some of the networks have a system where they pay for four screenings and after that the rights revert to the creators and that is how they (creators) make money and can have vast libraries of the work they have created.

GQ: How close are we to that?

MV: We hear the right noises being made by government. So it might happen under the Zuma administration. You know, President Zuma is the first head of state to meet artists openly. And he didn’t just come by himself, he brought the cabinet, Trevor Manuel, Siphiwe Nyanda..that is completely unheard of . It never happened under Mbeki who was the ‘Renaissance President’. Its encouraging because some of the problem we have is that we are not incentivised to go out there and sell our products. I am the best salesperson for Generations, we created this thing, we know how to sell it. The SABC is sitting on a television library with a wealth of content - because they own it,- but they don’t know what the fuck to do with it! So the SABC is a stumbling block to foreign markets for South African content.

GQ: Are you close to your siblings?

MV: Because I spent a lot of my time away, I am closer to friends than a lot of my family, but I am closest to (businessman) Peter. We have always been close, most of the times he acts like my older brother!

GQ: Who is more stylish between the two of you?

MV: I kill him in that department! I mean, we like similar things, like the Brioni label, but he is more formal and my take is sportier. I mean, he would never be able to pull these off (shows me his shoes, a cream pair of J. Lindeberg leather high tops)!

GQ: After all these years you are still the sole proprietor at Morula Pictures, is that by design, I am sure you have had offers?

MV: Oh yes, one time about five years ago, Morula was part of the Primedia group. They were at the time developing Primedia Pictures and I was brought in to develop their television division. Once in there I discovered that the corporate structure didn’t work for me. Sitting there, talking to people who knew nothing about television. So I spent one fruitless year inside Primedia not doing a thing and discovered while I was inside there that they were developing a soap without my knowledge! So that was the last straw, I gave them their money back – fortunately I had not spent a cent – and I was out of there.

I am capable of (churning) out a lot of shows. But the guys at Mnet for example won’t allow me to have a show. For example I won a competition some years ago. I shot a 20-minute pilot on film about the Cape Winelands. It was well put together and I entered it into the competition against other producers and mine was the best, in terms of everything production value, narrative. Grey Hofmeyer had shot something on video and in terms of picture quality it was chalk and cheese But Grey Hofmeyer had (an ally) inside and we were announced as co-winners. But you know what, Mnet never developed the pilot. I won the competition and they killed it (the pilot).

GQ: You had a great relationship with Grey Hofmeyer, what did that do to it

MV: No, no, we were fine, it wasn’t his fault. But that guy (the one who killed the pilot
) has since made the chicken run to Australia. You often hear that corruption is a black thing in this country, but there are white people who block people’s entry into (the industry). Even now at Mnet, the reason I will never get a production there is because a top executive there who will block me because he can’t stand me and he couldn’t stand me when he was at the SABC. Mnet doesn’t employ black people and has no intention of employing black people. That’s why its so tragic that Telkom Media never took off because there was space there for an alternative pay TV platform targeted mainly at LSM 5-10 amongst black people, because Mnet clearly has no clue how to target that market and they only have the black market - thanks to SABC incompetence – through the soccer. There are no executives or creatives inside Mnet who know how to target this market, they have no clue and don’t give a shit!

GQ: Your COO Adeelah Carrim is a very attractive woman, how do you concentrate at work?

MV: (laughs) Well, yes, she is a beautiful woman who is very good at her job. According to her, apparently she only has a job here because she has a relationship with me.

GQ: Is that the rumour out there?

MV: Yes, apparently so. It’s quite funny. She is a wonderful person to work with but there is nothing going on there. (drifts off) I sometimes laugh at these young girls, thinking they can get me because they are young and pretty, they don’t know what I’ve been through with my wife.

GQ: There are obviously a lot of people who you rub up the wrong way, do you have any friends left?

MV: I am friends with (producers) Desiree Markgraff, Friedrich Stark. There are people I admire, like (businessmen) Phuthuma Nhleko, Jabu Mabuza and so on. Zola Maseko the director, people like Rashid Lombard the jazz impresario. But you also find that there is a certain loneliness that comes with experience. For instance I collect a lot of art and people I play golf with are not interested in that shit. I like literature, I buy two books a week and at any one time I am reading three books.

GQ: You even have a scholarship in your name for literature among others…

MV: Yeah, you know Siphiwe, I have educated between 16 and 20 people who are not my relatives.

GQ: And you sponsored (Golfer) James Kamte..

MV: Oh yes, and I am sponsoring another one coming up Tebogo Sefadza and he comes out of the Ernie Els foundation, a talented young golfer. I have signed a contract with him that I will sponsor him five thousand rands each for all eighteen tournaments he will play on the sunshine tour.

GQ: How is your relationship with James?

MV: Oh very good! I was so taken up by his talent. I remember I flew down with him to meet his parents in a township in Humansdorp, south of Port Elizabeth. When people talk about the poorest of the poor, that’s where James comes from. Here is someone from that social strata playing a bourgeois game and being very good at it. I am very proud of what I did for James, together with a consortium of friends, about for or five guys.

I also sponsored another golfer Leticia Moses and she now has a teaching academy (in Johannesburg).

GQ: How good is your golf game?

MV: Its ok, I think its getting better. I am a 12, but sometimes I ply like a nine or an eight. I play twice a week but with this weather it’s a bit crap right now. I also go to gym four days a week. I have to go to gym because I have high blood pressure.

GQ: So what is your vice?

MV: My vice - well, it is no longer a vice because I have turned over a new leaf – was, two days a week I would stop over at Seattle Coffee shop and grab myself a double latte with chocolate, while I am browsing through the classics! I used to drink, I don’t anymore. I substituted that with some (pauses) ‘herbal remedies’. I gave that up too, but I miss it (laughs). I miss having a single malt every now and then but I am fine.

GQ: Your friend Samuel L. Jackson also had to give up…

MV: Well, yes, I mean he was an addict, it was drugs with him...

GQ: He’s also obsessed with Golf, do you think it was a case of replacing one addiction with another?

MF: I think so, yes!

Originally published in GQ South Africa, May 2010

Beware, writer in the family!

2010-04-23T07:14:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

“Every time a writer is born into a family, that family has reason to fear.” Author Zadie Smith’s charming truism in a recent interview with the The Sunday Independent‘s Boyd Tomkin had me nodding in giddy agreement. Look, I am generally partial to anything Smith has to say – like the millions of her male fans, the allure is as much about her delicate narrative as it is about those big brown eyes, regal cheekbones and edible lips – but this observation oozed incomparable insight and illuminated in not so many words just what menaces writers can be to their families.

Now there are many truths about writers, one being that if you approach your craft with honesty, in time you inadvertently reveal the myriad layers which necessarily make up you, the writer. No matter how much you try to hide behind idiom and innuendo, your likes, vices and prejudices inevitably creep to the surface and before you realise it, your book is as open as Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy.

A further truth lies in the assertion that like all artists we are not immune to stereotypes and for the writer there are many. I will limit it to two.

One of the favourites is that we are all in the mould of David Dukovny’s novelist character in Californication: a boozing, philandering hedonist with absolutely no scruples. Another is the tortured soul stereotype: the insomniac recluse battling untold demons launching waves of relentless assaults on the mind, paying scant attention to setting or time of day. These are true of some if not most of us, but are the last thing families should fear.

No, families have a lot to fear because every so often they are bound to be the subject of the writer’s work. Since the invention of the printing press mothers in law have inspired innumerable evil characters in comedies and dramas alike. Drunken uncles have inspired the most endearing cameos in screenplays and siblings have given birth to imaginary folk worthy of a major part in a twisted John Irving masterpiece.

In my years of tinkering away at the keyboard, the subject of my own family has not escaped and will indeed form a key part of future ramblings. In the tradition of parents across the universe, I talk and write about my son far too much – boring the hell out of the happily childless. He is a victim of my pen more than others in my family because the frequency and poignancy of his pearls beg to be written about – remember that chirp about Angels and Robert Mugabe? It was during a particularly perplexing day where he took his quips to a completely new level.

He had not slept well all night and the following morning had complained of chest pains. By the time he got to the emergency room, he was having difficulty breathing and his mother, by now a psychotic fire-breathing dragon, in a completely psychotic state, was threatening the lives of the entire staff at Sunninghill Hospital, until a doctor finally attended to him and confirmed that he had in fact suffered an asthma attack.

In his weak state, slowly recovering under a nebulizer he turned to his mother and whispered, “I thought my life was coming to an end” Naturally, she burst into tears that very second.

Of course I was concerned, of course I drove like a madman to get to them as quickly as I could. So what, you may ask, amused me so much about all of this? I wondered what might have happened at that moment when the reality of his own mortality dawned on him, what might have gone on in that little mind of his? Convinced he was at death’s door, did he, in a lucid dream, see his full six-year life flash before his eyes? Did he see himself bouncing from one jumping castle to another towards a brilliant white light? Or was he riding on Spiderman’s back with Ben 10 calling him towards the light? Did he see whizzing down the slippery slide at Khaya’s birthday party, riding in his remote controlled Jeep or floating away in the helicopter he got for Christmas? Or was he simply swimming with the two goldfish who have survived his concerted attempts at killing them through overfeeding?

He is really going to hate me when on his 21^st birthday, he will hear all his quotable quotes and be presented with an album full of embarrassing pictures like the one of him naked by the pool the day he insisted swimming trunks were for babies and there “are no more babies living here!”

I have never been sued for any statements on these pages or any others for that matter, but I get the sneaking suspicion that my son’s first act as an adult will be to slap me with a lawsuit for years of bringing his name into disrepute.

I have a reason to fear.

Originally published in True Love Magazine

Thinking beyond the box

2010-03-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

Bear Grylls is a giant among men. He climbed Mount Everest at the age of 23, has a black belt in Karate and when once he jumped out of a plane and his parachute failed to deploy, he survived the freefall to tell the story. In his television show Ultimate Survival the former member of the British Special Forces is often seen abseiling down treacherous rock faces and landing on frozen lakes. At times he wrestles and kills his four-legged lunch with his bare hands and is prone to snacking on snakes when the pickings are slim. He sometimes wades through crocodile-infested waters and has been known to sleep under a blanket of snow in sub zero temperatures. To steal from Jasmine Sullivan, I’m not scared of lions and tigers but boy, am I scared of Bear!

While the majority of us will never be stranded in the middle of the Amazon – touch wood -, the show gives invaluable insight into what exactly you would need to do to survive the most hostile environs. Grylls is escapist appointment viewing at its extreme best. It was with this show in mind when I was recently dismayed by an acquaintance who confessed to not owning a television set.

I was beside myself with befuddlement, how ever did he survive? The only thing he watched on television was sport and the Keg down the road served him just fine in that department. He loved going to the cinema and did not understand why one had to wait months for the DVD, about 18 months before MNet got a hold of it and about 20 years before catching it on SABC 1. Being a news junkie, he listened to bulletins on the radio, read a vast selection of newspapers and websites and therefore had no need to “subject myself to Jeremy Maggs’ Oscar-winning performances every night”, end quote. As a result of all the free time he had in the evenings and weekends, he whizzed through novels in days and was doing two concurrent short courses by correspondence with ease! It was the proverbial light bulb moment, the bright, environmentally harmful kind!

I am a rather busy person - wearing perhaps one too many hats- and often complain about not having enough hours in the day to get through all my work. After chatting to Mr No TV, it dawned on me that there were plenty of hours in the week I willingly threw away in front of the box.

While I can justify being hooked on Grylls, my near lung failure from laughing at the antics on Top Gear and fueling my love-hate relationship with Cristiane Amanpour on CNN, I cannot justify the amount of rubbish television I watch. Why pray tell, do I every so often put myself through something called For the love of Ray Jay? If you are not familiar with the show in question, thank your lucky stars, but for the sake of all of us being on the same page, this is Brandy’s little brother’s reality show, ostensibly designed to find the less talented Norwood kid a girlfriend among girls with names such as Danger, Chardonnay and Cocktail. ‘Nuff said.

And why do I allow myself to sit motionless for 30 minutes, mouth involuntarily agape, watching Kim Kardashian and her crazy family being their inexplicable selves?

I have watched American Idol for years, waiting for the day that Ryan Seacrest would come out of the closet in front of global television’s biggest audience. But alas, nary a confession from the diminutive workaholic, only a gleaming smug smile from the shameless Simon Cowell, who along with London’s High Street retail king Sir Phillip Green is about to take over the world and make Cowell, whose net worth is already in the hundred million pounds, “richer than Oprah”. It’s completely disgusting, I say, envious to the core! I have been over the navel gazing, ostentatious weddings and retarded uniform presenting style on Top Billing for years but I still watch. And like columnist Katy Chance – or was it Sarah Britten? (it was Mary Corrigall) -, during ad breaks I switch to All Access and cannot tell the difference. So it is time, dear reader, to rid myself of all this frustration and take a sabbatical from television. I refuse to continue seeing the depths to which interior decorator Debbie Travis will go to totally ruin a perfectly good house under the guise of improving it, there are far better things to do. I have piles of unread books, 1000-page plus doorstops that have never been ventured into. I choose to see my collection as, to quote author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, an “Antilibrary”. It is not just a heap of dusty neglected books, but a treasure trove of possibility, endless potential for infinite knowledge and exponentially more gratifying than watching anything on the idiot box. But let’s keep this between us ok, I’d hate to have to answer to Bear.

Originally published in True love Magazine, April 2010

Gastronomic Politics

2010-01-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

As I write this, the theme of service delivery is high on the political agenda. President Jacob Zuma has just reshuffled his cabinet setting aflutter the hearts of political animals on the receiving end of this spot of spring-cleaning and putting smiles on those who have been elevated to their respective new hot seats. The political motives for this game of musical chairs and the baffling, endemic shifting to other departments of those who have made a hash of their previous portfolios notwithstanding, many of those removed were indeed not performing and deserved the chop.

This has me contemplating service delivery in another area, one that has over the ages been lamented from Perth to Tangiers - the emotive matter of service delivery in the hospitality industry. The cronic dearth in the crucial “hospitality” portion in this term is well documented and far it be from me to want to add to the visceral chorus of disapproval just for the sake of whining – and I have in the past gallantly resisted the temptation - but I need to get some things off my chest, lest I choke on my toast this morning.

I could almost excuse it at a chain steak house, after all, supposedly medium rare steaks are consistently served well done and the waiters make a hell of a spectacle of themselves every time it is someone’s birthday – sparklers and inane clap along birthday tunes anyone? – but in recent times even respectable establishments have taken to serving green salads drenched in greasy creamy stuff, when all it takes to win my lifelong devotion is some olive oil and vinaigrette on the side.

Save for the odd latte, I like my coffee the way the gods intended it, black and strong, so I am totally overcome with confusion then, when I specifically order black coffee and the waiter asks: “Will that be with warm or cold milk?” My disdain for waiters who utter such foibles is right up there with my loathing for those that insist on bringing you the bill before you have actually asked for it or take away your plate before you have had your last piece of seared tuna. The only thing that riles me more than this is when at a fast food joint you ask for a chicken burger and a still water and are asked: “Would you like a meal or just the burger?”

And when did waiters become so familiar as to call you ngamla, mpinchi or boss? I am dropping at least five hundred rands at your establishment - which means at least a 50-buck tip for you – the least you can do is call me sir. I want to be fussed over and do not for a moment want to feel like an inconvenience, something to be avoided like the traffic around the Champs-Elysees on any given morning. To totally milk the road metaphor, I do not leave my house to be treated me like that inconvenient pothole you have to drive over before cruising on the ‘ching ching’ highway that is the table of twelve boisterous investment bankers wielding titanium credit cards.

I really appreciate good service and at times am even tolerant of the ‘just adequate’ kind because I know how bad things could be. Some years back I ventured for a spot of brunch with some friends on an ill-advised trip to a chain apparently known for its ‘vaarb’. Our waiter, a burly blonde jock who insisted on communicating in Afrikaans even after we had told him his choices were isiXhosa, isiZulu, seTswana or the common denominator English, was as interested in serving us as Afriforum is in the issues of the black majority. The only ‘vaarb’ we got from him is that of a bigoted twit who, when the bill came, got what he deserved, a 5cent tip. With a raging, scarlett face he had the gall to enquire ever so snarkily as to the cause of his measly kick back. Mystified and suitably appalled we searched each other’s faces in disbelief and while entranced by our mutual confusion he promptly chucked the 5-cent piece on the table, declaring: “Karma is a bitch, you people will get what’s coming to you.” While I held back my considerably smaller friend from launching a barrage of fists his way, I chuckled at the meat headed lack of irony in his statement.

My friend, having calmed down and wiped his foaming mouth, called for the manager who claimed our shocking waiter would be fired. I have a feeling he was just redeployed.

Originally published in True Love Magazine, 2010

Whispers to my unborn

2009-11-23T09:44:00.000-08:00

The following was Siphiwe Mpye's contribution to a collective effort by various writers giving advice to their imaginary unborn children in the Sunday Times Lifestyle section.

1. 1. After your first visit to a strip club, you will think you have found true love. You will be wrong.

2. 2. Never, ever allow yourself to be mistaken for a Manchester United fan.

3. 3. Because of women, you will make numerous stupid decisions from which you will never learn. Just make sure the said ladies are beautiful every time, it makes the blows less painful and the lessons infinitely more memorable.

4. 4. Contrary to popular belief, ‘conscious’ girls are more high maintenance than the weave and cocktails brigade.

5. 5. As painful as your first experience of unrequited love will be, it will be miles better than supporting The Elephants.

6. 6. If you really have to splash out on a car, think vintage, never BMW X5. You will be judged.

7. 7. Listen to talk radio in doses if you will, but please do listen. A man who lives by Tbo Touch alone is forever lost.

8. 8. You are a champion. Remember this especially when you lose.

9. 9. If she thinks Will Smith is an ass, do as she says at all times.

1010. Be wary of posing for photographs whilst sitting in, on or standing next to, a car.

1111. When you reach 30, you might feel younger than you ever have, but to 21 year-old girls, you are a dirty old man.

1212. Never say: “In my opinion...it’s just my opinion…I am entitled to my opinion” and the like. A man never apologises for his opinion.

1313. Never underestimate peer pressure; it can compel men who have seen the best of their 40s to get Chinese symbol tattoos and wear shiny Ed Hardy T-shirts.

1414. When you first get drunk, you will feel an overwhelming urge to call your mother. Do not do it.

1515. Never trust a woman who ‘forgets’ her earrings on your bedside table.

1616. Marry the woman who references the book and curses the day they cast Stephen Dorff for the movie.

1717. You will think you have considered all the possibilities and nothing can go wrong, but trust me, taking the car without permission always ends badly.

1818. Commit to memory the words ‘thank you’ and ‘please’. To be used everywhere from the boardroom to the massive roadblock around the corner from your house at 4am on a Saturday morning.

1919. Never befriend a man who refers to himself in the third person.

2 20. Never allow anyone to speak ill of your old man, he’s a great guy.

Originally published in the Sunday Times, 2009

What's in a name?

2009-11-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

For what seemed like an eon after Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to the US Supreme Court – the first Hispanic woman to ever rise to that summit - right wing politicians and conservative media in that country lashed at her, calling her racist, among other terms of endearment. The barrage of vitriol stemmed from a comment attributed to the judge in 2001: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life…whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.” Fair enough, I’d think, and the Guardian’s Chris McGreal affirms this: “To some Americans, Sotomayor’s comments appear self-evident. They point to the personal experience Thurgood Marshall brought as a black man elevated to the Supreme Court during the civil rights era.” A certain empathy and a sense racial and gender sensitivity to the bench is what every nation needs, but – surprise, surprise - George W. Bush’s cronies Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove called her statement racist, proof that she would be biased against whites and men, they claimed.

Sotomayor’s appointment was also met with cries - from similar quarters – of it being an Affirmative Action decision rather than one that is best for the USA. Yet Sotomayor’s record shows that she is a talented, intelligent, qualified, experienced legal mind as Ivy League-educated as any of the male candidates the GOP would sooner see in the post. Dr Xolela Mangcu made the point recently in The Weekender: “Indeed, America has hundreds of black and white male judges who could have fitted the bill. But (Barack) Obama made a different choice (by nominating Sotomayor), and that is what leadership is about – making choices.”

But the most bizarre attack yet on poor Sotomayor however, has been the suggestion that she should “anglicise” her name, like how actress Eva (pronounced phonetically) Mendez somehow along the way became “Eeevah”.

That horrific idea first articulated in the National Review. Writing in that conservative magazine, while broadcasters indignantly savaged Sotomayor’s name - others calling her something akin to “Sat-on-my-whore” - Mark Krikorian put it to the reader that English speakers should not be put through the rigours of pronouncing ‘foreign names’ properly. A chorus echoing Krikorian’s call rung through verkrampte America.

As I watched these developments unfold, I realised just how fortunate I was to live in South Africa where we respect each other’s 11 official languages. I trust I am not being naïve in suggesting that we no longer live in a time when Hlengiwe, the new black kid in class, introduced herself she would be asked one of three questions: “Do you have an English name?” “What’s that for short, can I call you Ngeewee?” or my favourite, “I am not even going to attempt that!” I truly hope we that time is behind us.

By the same token I would like to believe we are equally tolerant of each other’s shortcomings in the genuine pursuit of that said respect. How else can you explain how Dr Irvin Khoza got first language English speakers to mispronounce his name and call him “Ivan”, no matter what that doyen of improbable accents, Bra Dumile Mateza said. Xolani Gwala must now be accustomed to telling his listeners that he is not ‘Zolani’ and I recall Darren Scott at Supersport calling Xola Ntshinga ‘Zola’ only once. I believe that even the rate of hate mail for black presenters from the ‘pronunciation police’ listening to former lily-white radio stations has dropped drastically.

With tolerance abound, I should perhaps be embarrassed of my agitation at a most curious phenomenon that took root over the past few years. I do not know how it happened, but I woke up one day and every third person was calling me Simphiwe. Quite where the ‘M’ came from, I haven’t the foggiest. Perhaps it was a colleague who misspelt my name in an article and took his or her readers down the slippery slope of the extra ‘M’. I have nothing against the name Simphiwe, I have a close friend with that name – although his version doesn’t have the ‘H’ – and that’s part of the point, it is his name, not mine, but do you think that matters to some?

This ‘M’ business runs deep, with some even insisting that I have my own name wrong: “Are you sure you are spelling it correctly sir, I know who you are and I am sure your name has an M,” said a call centre agent the other day.

I am thankful that my life is not as tortured as Judge Sotomayor, but she will be fine. In fact, by the time you read this, her nomination should have been confirmed and her surname will remain the same, pronounced like her Puerto Rican parents intended. And to whom it may concern, I too am not budging, I appreciate the gift of the ‘M’, but I respectfully decline.

Originally published in True Love Magazine, 2009

The death of romance

2009-11-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

It had been a long time since I had had any contact with her. We had been colleagues before she moved to Cape Town and after several years, the cursed Facebook had reunited us and we were chatting away, distilling several years into short paragraphs. So much had changed in her life, not least of which was the terminal monogamist’s perplexing newly single state. Things had not worked out and she was trying her hand at dating again. It was not pretty.

I didn’t get it, she was intelligent, attractive and a self-starter, what was there not to like? As it turned out, it had nothing to do with her.

“It’s so odd being single after so many years. You find that the rules have changed, it’s downright unsettling,” she lamented. It was clear that a decade out of the dating game was the equivalent of three lifetimes and she was totally out of touch.

“An article in a UK magazine lists the new dating rules, things like: ‘people don’t have long telephone conversations these days, they SMS.’ Before, you’d wait by the phone and feel flushed and fuzzy after the long conversation and your ear would be burning, literally. I mean should you really ask someone out on a date over email or SMS? Isn’t asking someone out about seeing their expression when they say yes? That itself makes you feel great, seeing them blush and pleased sends you skipping off with your heart thumping. You want to hear their tone of voice, the quiver in their voice. Maybe I’m just an old romantic. Alternatively I’ve been thinking about this for way longer than I should be.” Perhaps, but my dear friend does have a point. Technology has killed romance.

The advancement of technology has made our lives so much easier, the noughties are a veritable playground of interactive this, 3G that and miracle cables under the sea bringing lightening fast internet. Yet, the faster our technology evolves, the less contact we have as humans. As trend analyst Dion Chang says, there are not enough people practicing the idea of ‘slow thought’ in a breathtakingly fast world. Whether at the dinner table, bank quee, or a PTA meeting, we retreat into the sweet, destructive solitude of Nokia or iPhone. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin - the ‘Hockey Mom’ in ‘f**k me’ heels we are all relieved is not going anywhere near the White House – herself spoke about ‘switching between breast pump and Blackberrys’ -and while that sight is not altogether comforting, it makes the point: technology has detached us from numerous things that make us human. Romance, I am afraid, was one of its first casualties. No one holds hands anymore, they are too busy scrolling through their iPods with one hand and smsing crimeline with the other.

As a younger man, I thought myself quite a romantic and while I was known to buy the occasional rose and box of chocolates, it was on the more thoughtful side of romance in which I excelled. Before we go on, I must hasten to add that I am comfortable with this bit of shameless self-praise because I have been told this on a number of occasions.

So it wasn’t buying the red and pink A3 size Valentine’s Day cards with some syrupy poem by a failed novelist or the tired rose petals, candles and Barry White routine, but more the rubbing of the feet after a long day, cooking when she least expected it and foregoing Bad Boys to watch with her – and really, genuinely enjoy – Sleepless in Seattle variety. Sadly, I must concede, I have become lazy in my old age.

Cooking is all but non-existent; on most evenings I have Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, so the sore feet ache through the night, while I muster just enough power to press the remote control and extended telephone conversations have been replaced by the convenience of predictive text. It is all too pitiful.

Last I checked, my friend had not found her knight with an aversion to the QWERTY keyboard, but she searches on valiantly. I on the other hand, declare that from today, the lag in my romantic deeds is officially over, being single in February sucks.

Originally published in True Love Magazine, 2009

See you in ‘Vegas’

2009-11-23T09:31:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

A few months ago, I came back into town from a business trip with the news that I had received several calls from New York City. This was a tad odd as I didn’t often get calls from the Big Apple and the messages were from a company I had never heard of –not, as I would have preferred, from The New Yorker with a brief. I googled the company name only to be let down by 3G coverage and abandoned the mission for a well-earned jetlag-busting 12 hours in the sack. From the following day, as I am prone to do, I forgot all about the calls.

A few days later I picked up a wailing phone to: “Is that Say-pay-way?” I didn’t catch my caller’s name, but he was from the same company that had hounded my business partners the previous week. From line one he sang my praises, speaking knowledgeably about my ‘great work’ that had filtered through to the US and was calling to vet my potential inclusion in a directory of the ‘most influential people in the world’. I had been short-listed from millions around the world to be part of this ‘prestigious’ directory distributed exclusively to the world’s most influential people, slotting one into a club where access to the world’s best was but a phone call away, he said. From that point, my lungs were not short of air for blowing my own horn.

I was on the phone with him for close on half an hour, eloquently – and might I add shamelessly - selling my company’s credentials and my own “‘considerable weight as a ‘mediarist’”. It went to the lowest depths of self-praise, it was pathetic.

“We would be honoured to have you as part of our book,” he said after my cringe-worthy spiel, “Thank you very much,” I responded “What did you say your name was again?” I enquired. “Steven Vegas…as in, Las Vegas,” he said with a dry chuckle. Alas, I wasn’t laughing, it had hit me right in between the eyes as I imagined leggy blondes and feathers; poker tables and dead bodies in the desert, I had been had, I was falling for a scam.

Now that I had been selected, did I have to pay anything? Check (bronze, silver, gold or platinum membership, your choice). Did I have absolutely no way to secure my payment? Check. I couldn’t call Steven back and get through to him directly? Check. They couldn’t send me any valid proof that their company existed? Check. They couldn’t even send me a previous directory to prove that it actually exists? Check. But still, I had to make absolutely sure, this was my ego we were talking about. I hit the search engines and this time my connection was quick and precise, leading straight to the page with paragraphs and paragraphs of rants from people around the world who had been duped by what was now confirmed as a gigantic scam. These victims were respectable people: professors, businessmen, artists, sportsmen, doctors, lawyers, writers and editors, basically all the professions with the biggest egos. All found randomly, undoubtedly from websites which carry CVs, called up and told what wonderful and clever people they were and what an exclusive club they belonged to, following which they are fleeced of a few thousand dollars, leaving them sans directory, sans refund sans ever hearing from Steven Vegas again!

I had nearly been caught out in what must be the world’s most effective type of scam, that of the ego. You see, scams work because they exploit one or other human emotion or personality flaw. You have the most common and most effective, the scam based on greed. For great examples of this scam, see Ponzi, Madoff and Tennenbaum. Then you have the sympathy-based scam. At a recent residents meeting I learned of a man who was operating in the area and knocking my neighbours off hundreds of rands each by pretending to be a ‘neighbour from a few houses away’ who has a wife in premature labour and needs cash for a cab to the hospital.

We come across vanity-based scams in late night television when you are just a call away from Devise X, which ‘is guaranteed to shave off 5 kilograms a week without exercise or dieting.

Generally, people with healthy egos are somewhat immune from falling for scams in these other categories. They might well be greedy but are generally sober enough to see a too-good-to-be-true deal for what it is; they pay surgeons hundreds of thousands of rands to make sure those kilos stay off and they are far too engrossed in their own affairs to part with cash for the sake of a stranger. And therein lies the beauty of the ego scam, it is totally centred on the narcissist. It reinforces the idea – which you totally believe – that you are wonderful and all conquering, that of millions of people in the world, you are the real deal. But I was lucky. I was able to see through it all before I put my credit card through excruciating, unnecessary pain. Maybe my ego just isn’t big enough after all.

Originally published in True Love Magazine, 2009

All I want for my birthday..

2009-11-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

Birthdays resonate variously. For some it is a time to celebrate the simple pleasure of having survived another year in a world where in a mili-second you could be no more. Others use the opportunity to lament their fading youth, staring at the bottom of the umpteenth neat single malt, wondering aloud where the years have gone. Others simply couldn’t be bothered, as long as they get as many presents as possible. I fall mostly in the first category, am not old enough for the second and will never be the last.

For reasons which still escape me, from the time I left High School, birthday, Christmas and other presents ceased to bear any real significance in my life and nowadays, a call or sms on or round about the appropriate day will suffice.

I celebrated my birthday in March and while I received many congratulatory messages, for my sins, there were one or two condolences for edging one year closer to 40. I wasn’t really expecting any presents given our precarious economic state of the nation, but the presents I did get, from a sensible bunch close to me, went down extremely well: two magazine subscriptions, some books, a long lost CD and a gown. “A gown?!”, I hear you sneering, raising a solitary eyebrow. Well, it is beautiful, warm, practical, comforting and I use it everyday, which is a lot more than some men can say about their spouses, let alone any presents.

Over the years, there have been those presents that have not been as appreciated as my precious gown, arming me with an unequivocal knowledge of exactly what I do not want. We will begin with things for the home.

Do not buy me anything for my house. This exercise is far too perilous to even attempt, given how fussy I am about décor. Unlike middle-aged fathers the world over, I do not mind getting underwear, as long as they are Calvins and the right size (you guessed right, extra large, wink wink). I do not want socks unless there are Paul Smith and no ties unless they are slim and vintage. Beyond those three basic items, do not do clothing as presents, you will get it wrong and the next time you see that multi-coloured Dashiki, it will be at the charity second hand shop down the road. As far as gadgets go, I already have a Mac, an iPod and Blackberry and I think video games are a waste of good trash TV time so I don’t do Wiis, Playstations or Xboxes. The enduring image of the 21^st century guy stuck all day in front of his television pretending to be Ronaldinho or a murderous carjacker is as tired as those “all white” theme parties. Yawn.

There are however certain presents straight from the very bottom of the impossible barrel that I would kill to unwrap.

What I wouldn’t give for a security alarm that when triggered, sends me an sms informing me exactly what or who has entered my house. So if I got an sms saying: “Four hooded men with pangas” I would know that it was possibly a good idea to drive home with a Police escort. Or if it said something like: “Moth flew in window and fluttering about in your living room” I would know not to bother with the cavalry. With my smart alarm in place I would never have to drive all the way from Pretoria to Jo’burg, leaving a ‘life and death’ presentation halfway only to find that the alarm went off because the neighbour’s cat engaged with the electric fencing and now looks like he had a head on collision with a tub of hair gel.

Or how about a GPS system that not only speaks in foreign tongues or celebrity voices celebrity voices. For me it gets really practical when they say they choose least hazardous routes for you depending on the time of day. I want one with random stats like “On the next corner, you are likely to get smashed and grabbed, be careful” or “take a right in twenty meters, otherwise you will have to deal with at least three ‘blind’ people, two Homeless Talk salesmen and a guy who needs money to bail out his dog from doggie prison at the intersection.

I need an intuitive handyman that can infiltrate and circumvent the underground network at my house conspiring to render me poorer than the average journalist – I wondering, that’s dirt poor! If it isn’t the garage door requiring an overhaul or the oregon floors needing a fresh coat of varnish, the geyser needs a new filter, the oven door requires a part sourced from some obscure factory in Sweden.

I desperately need a PA – who is so good she could find a fresh loaf of low GI seed loaf in Harare - to remind me to call back the people I always forget to and remind me to fill in my son’s school forms.

My birthday might be far away now, but Father’s Day is upon us. Do the right thing.

Originally published in True Love Magazine, RSA, 2009

Free Advise

2009-11-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

“Hey Dr Phil, how are you doing?” read the mail from a lady friend. I was stunned. Dr Phil?! Yes, I am almost bald – my choice, not nature’s cruel ways; I have been known to speak in front of many people and am even a good listener, but when I look in the mirror, I certainly do not see a big white man in a bad suit who judges people for a living. “Well, with your column, you have replaced Dr Phil as monthly therapy for me and my friends – and the jilted masses out there I might add,” she explained. This was totally bizarre and as I stared at my computer screen, I tried desperately to pen a piece that had nothing to do with gender matters or relationships, but there was only so much I could say about the impending elections without getting bored by it all. I tried some philosophical musings about life and got stuck after my attempt at analyzing the root cause of the phenomenon called ‘Guys scratching their testicles’ came up with a two-word answer: an itch.

So I took the unwelcome Dr Phil monkey on my back and turned it on its head, resulting in a painstaking survey among my male peers – on behalf of women - entitled ‘How to exponentially up your attractiveness’. What I hoped to achieve were the beginnings of a ‘how to’ manual, equipping my ‘patients’ with valuable insight into the male psyche. The results are not all pretty, but in the interests of your well-being and the ‘jilted masses’, here goes nothing.

Be nice: Whether it is at work, on the bus from the plane to the terminal building or at the water station at the gym, always strive to emulate Google’s mantra: “Don’t be evil”!! This means greeting back, saying 'please' and 'thank you' and not treating every man like they are about to hit on you when they are just trying to be friendly. To this we can add, retain your sanity. This is dedicated to all those nice, normal girls who turn into psychos at the slightest hint of a speed bump in a relationship. The result? Shredded clothing, broken CD collections, defamatory graffiti, and slashed tyres. Need I go on?

Be honest: You can relate to this one huh? There is nothing more cunning than a lying woman because, as a ‘respondent’ so aptly put it, “They (women) take it to a frightening level”. For the life of me, I can never figure out how, with a straight face, some women, being the usually transparent and emotional beings, can tell the most heinous lies with the straightest of faces, while the usually pragmatic, rational, cool-headed males are such woeful liars.

Love yourself/Be confident: This means from what you wear (more about this below) and what you say to how you say it and your levels of confidence, you have to exude self-love. This quality permeates, demeanor, stride, tone of voice and posture. We can see it a mile away if you are insecure and an insecure woman is about as attractive a proposition as author Stephen Fry’s fabled drugless root canals. “If she is insecure, it means she is going to call every five minutes checking where I am or even worse, follow me around everywhere like a lost Chihuahua,” said one respondent. Ouch!

Never assume: “Just because we slept together once, doesn’t mean I am have to call you he next day, let alone see you again,” read the tamest explanation from one of my peers. This one might be had to swallow – and you can wipe those sordid thoughts from your head right now, we are dealing with serious issues here! – but I am afraid this sentiment was highly popular, albeit articulated much harsher by most.

Be independent: I have a friend who will not go out with you if you do not have a car, your own place and a job. This is not a silent nod to materialism, but a function of practicality. He doesn’t care if your car is a Merc or a Beetle circa 1962, you must be able to make your way to wherever your presence might be required, especially after a dodgy booty call from said respondent at 2am.

Do not be a slave to fashion: The simple explanation here is that men generally like women without their clothes on, but if you must be dressed, please stay away from the fashion worshiping ways of the world. With the gluttony of magazines and television shows - and channels to boot – dedicated to fashion, it is tempting to live by the chameleon-like style rules prescribed by the slaves overseas. It is easy to fall for the traps of the “Green/Purple/Orange is the new black” brigade, but don’t believe the hype, classic and understated is always the way to go.

Patience is a virtue: everything comes in stages, so do not assume you are in a steady relationship until you are well into the relationship. So a month means absolutely nothing and six months means you are on to something. As a rule, men do not like being reminded that they have ‘lost’ their freedom, so it is advisable to take it easy with the anniversary talk.

Men are human: which means we will make mistakes, we will let you down, we gossip almost as much as women and we will judge you by what you do and not what you say. So if you say you don’t cheat on man, we don’t want to see you sneaking out of a strange townhouse complex at 7am in last night’s cocktail dress, looking around frantically.

Never nag: ‘Nuff said.

So there it is ladies, some free advice from ‘Dr Phil’ to you, with earnest look, pointed index finger and all. Use it, don’t use it…

Originally published in True Love Magazine, RSA, 2009

Not what its Cracked up to be

2009-11-23T09:17:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

For a daily ritual that has become an absolute chore, - and one which I am seriously considering giving up - Social Networking sites have been highly effective in delivering the things I had always hoped they would. I have found old friends, made great contacts and my business is all the better for it. But they have also meant other, much more complex, uncomfortable and bizarre things. I have been bitten by Vampires and Zombies; received suggestive ‘gifts’ from the most surprising sources; been poked to death; unwittingly forwarded an embarrassing chain message to all my friends and someone has even thrown Britney Spears at me! Cruelly, it does get worse than this, but I will spare you, besides, its far more fun to talk about other people.

Social Networking sites – I do Facebook and MySpace. There were feeble attempts at Linkedin and Plaxo, but have so far resisted Flickr or Twitter - like money, expose who you really are. Beneath that professional, efficient veneer, lurks a cross-dressing ‘Crackbook’ slut just itching to post a note about Gabriel Union’s scandalous ways.

Below that socially conscious, practically Rasta cloak lurks the beer-swilling administrator of the ‘Preservation of Swedish Underwear Models Fan Club’. Past that trouser suit, excel spreadsheet and designer glasses dwells a narcissist with 387 albums of just herself ‘randomly, here there and everywhere’ with the obligatory “don’t mess with me, I’m fabulous” pout.

Collect enough friends and inevitably, someone will disappoint you (see: political brain farts from people who have no business venturing in that direction). Another will confuse you (the newly-Jewish black guy you used to see around campus back in the day). There is always one that is going to shock you (your macho friend’s mystifying and utterly uncharacteristic sudden obsession with Barbara Streisand). There is one that will just crack you up (an old boss’s profile picture of him jumping naked off a sand dune). Social Networking sites are also the last refuge of the lonely guy who lives vicariously through his ‘more popular’ cyber existence.

I trust I am not an anomaly, but I have never thought my near two thousand odd friends were a reflection of my popularity, pressing ‘add friend’ is not really that taxing. As a recent Details magazine article stated ever so succinctly, cyber-popularity is not real and is actually pretty lame. There is something very sad about a grown man who gets a kick out stating on his status: “Have max no. of FB friends, who’s the man?!” Social ineptitude has never seen a more fitting ambassador.

It has been fun and I have met characters that will make my memoirs a hoot, but lest I get bored to death by another “Sarah* is brushing her teeth before going to bed…tired” status update; yet another juvenile COPE vs ANC slinging match; a pointless likeness quiz and another invitation to join the Clay Aitken fan club, sooner or later, to borrow from a notorious muckraker, I will be serving divorce papers on existing and any future Social Networking sites.

*Not her real name, naturally.

Originally published in True Love Magazine

Dear Mr President…

2009-11-23T09:15:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

As an 18 year-old in 1994, I felt an incomparable glee as I stepped into the booth and happily etched my X next to Nelson Mandela’s perma-grin. As a nation we had succeeded in wading through an extraordinary turn of events underpinned by evil, hatred and finally, forgiveness.

The winds of change blew in pervasive racial harmony, Madam embracing Eve. The entire world wanted to be South African, as much as that post-Bush Kenyan swagger has brought sexy back to the land of the free. A short fifteen years down the line and boy, how we’ve lost our innocence!

Our country has never been short of charismatic leaders, men and women who, with one emotive word after another, could rouse a crowd, delicately handling their emotions with a hypnotist’s skill. Powerful orators who were lost too soon have been known to inspire students to rise up against their oppressors and comfort poor communities in times of hardship and despair. But others, our latter-day revolutionaries, have been known to be just as convincing in telling the masses that in a free South Africa, there exists an internal enemy fit for elimination. Yes he later kind of apologised, but looking at his ‘greatest hits’, can you really take his apology seriously? Can you really continue to blame his youthfulness? I know many men in their late twenties and the last time they behaved like they were sixteen, was when they were sixteen. It is unfathomable, but your lieutenant’s predilection to bad press exceeds even your own. But don’t get me wrong sir, you truly fascinate me.

In fact, in a private email to a group of friends a few years ago, while you were in the thick of things, with corruption and rape charges over your head, ostracised by your erstwhile brother-in-arms and all but a handful of brave souls dared speak out in your defense, I said something to the effect of: “If this man gets out of all this, I will vote for him.” Well, it only seems a matter of time huh?

For varied reasons many people have a problem with you, many with merit and some just plain baffling. My issue is not whether you sing or dance on stage, but that social grants are paid on time and to the correct people. And your lieutenant’s Matric results really are of no consequence, as long as young people have access to jobs or loans for those entrepreneurial endeavours you encourage them to pursue.

I really care not – as a man old enough to be my grandfather - about what you do in the bedroom, as long as the people of Khayelitsha are not going to die because they are brainwashed into trusting in vitamins instead of ARVs.

Your historical inclusiveness might be admirable especially in light of what we had in the midst of the renaissance, but you cannot tell everyone what they want to hear all of the time, because one day they will all be in the same room and you will have to nail your real colours to the mast. You cannot speak out against corruption, yet uphold comradeship above all else. Something has to give. And that chauvinist, misogynist tag you have branded on your chest? Only you can fix that now. Pity about your comrade with the chronic money problems, given time, he was the only one with a chance at not only cleaning up your image – and removing Zapiro’s shower from above your head - but conveying your messages clearly and with authority. The others, bless their hearts, are either ‘umming’ or ‘ahhhing’, are flustered and ambiguous or make you cringe at the mere mention of their name.

You will know only too well, that there are others out there spending sleepless nights, trying their best to steer the electorate away from you. I must admit that much as leadership has been sorely lacking in your party, I haven’t seen much leadership on the part of your departed, equally ambitious cousins either.

Leadership is not your ability to host pool parties and serve me oysters, nor is it the number of celebrities you can recruit and elevate to strategic positions. I am not interested in how skillfully you can spin or how many bloggers spend every waking moment littering cyber space with ill-informed rants. Leadership is not slamming BEE in defiance of the party you serve, while your retirement has been secured by BEE shares.

Mr President, I could really go on about the other side, but this is about you, about your accountability.

Accountability is ensuring that the thousands of Grade 1s who stumble into ‘big school’ each year stay the course and Matriculate. Accountability is not being caught ‘off guard’ every year when the summer rains come and informal settlements are washed down toxic rivers. Accountability is respecting the people’s mandate first and not settling political debts.

Yes, I am but one voice, but my wishes are amplified by the hopes and cries of millions of citizens ready to be seen as a priority. We are all ready to once again be the envy of the world. We are all ready to once again be proud of a leader of African descent on our own shores. We are ready to once again, be the picture of reconciliation and tolerance. Now I ask you to work with us.

All the best

Siphiwe

Originally published in True Love Magazine, April 2009

Where were you?

2009-11-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

“Where were you?!” That question, often asked in a melodic and sometimes melodramatic manner, never fails to set in motion a meander into a distant, carefree past, sans bond payments, traffic fines and performance appraisals, and teeming with student nights at the Union, month-long holidays and extended DPs. When I hear this phrase, with Skeem’s Waar was jy? clearly audible in the background, I recall hilarious mindless conversations and incredible moments like the time a friend who had drunk away his faculties walked into the wrong house after a graduation party in the early hours of the morning and was summarily walloped by a neighbour and his two provincial rugby-playing sons. “Where were you?” is a question that never fails in bringing a smile to a face consumed by nostalgia, but when these words were last spoken in my presence, the last thing I felt was warm and fuzzy.

“Where were you and what did you do when South Africa began to degenerate?” the Institute for Security Studies’ Prince Mashele posed that ominous question to a room full of what he termed “our brightest young leaders”, at a recent luncheon honouring the Mail & Guardian’s “300 young people you have to take to lunch”, a list which incidentally featured both yours truly and the radiant lady on the opposite page.

Amid muted nods, audible gasps and grunts, Mashele argued for a mitigating social responsibility in young people’s success – if not for the good of mankind, then in pursuit of a peaceful coexistence between the poor, the middle and upper classes, lest we slip into a state of anarchy where mediocrity rules. “Your success will mean nothing if it is not connected with the general advancement of society,” he stressed and, striking particularly close to home, he added “If you are a prolific young journalist and say nothing about corrupt politicians who embezzle public funds, posterity will ask: where were you and what did you do when South Africa began to degenerate?”

While the short-sighted will dismiss Mashele as an alarmist, the best among our young people long heeded his call. I think of one particular young person on the list of 300 who will in twenty years time be proud to list her achievements for our country’s good, 23 year-old University of Cape Town student Abigail Knox. After losing her father and having a mother confined to a wheelchair, she wallowed not in her sadness, but dedicated her life to others and used her inheritance to assist five Zimbabwean families with food, building materials and machinery. She has spent 7 months as a volunteer at a rural Kwazulu-Natal children’s home and is deeply involved in environmental sustainability initiatives at UCT. There are many more like her who did not make it onto the list and we need so many more. We need more people who will sacrifice, more people who will be brave, more people to be pioneers and more people to be champions of the poor and downtrodden.

We need more people who will walk amongst the needy and not be content with the safety and detachment of cyber activism, an area not lacking in creative energy, but fraught with an acute dearth in sustainability. New media pundits have the famed Barack Obama Presidential campaign precedent as a ready rebuttal for those who would question the efficacy of any sort of socio-political cyber-campaign and they are right. Technology and in particular the internet were instrumental in Obama’s ascendency, but after the reverberations of “Yes we can” had long faded and the Youtube clips became less of a novelty, Obama had to get down and dirty and boy did he just! Obama effectively nationalised many of his country’s most significant and most troubled corporations; he delivered an unprecedented address to the Muslim world in Cairo; he has valiantly tried to shorten Israel’s leash and has been seen to make good on that Guantanamo promise, albeit more of a show of purpose than meticulous planning. He did all this in the touchy, feely, smelly real world, where things are not as simple as sending an sms.

As I have noted previously, the convenience and immediacy of the digital world – where any kid with a 3G modem can find his inner Zola 7 at touch of a button – presents its own set of problems, a massive threat to meaningful and sustainable social investment being one of them. As the Nigerian intellectual Chinweizu observes: “These e-technologies and tele-technologies are actually a handicap to mobilizing our people. They seductively confine our activism within the virtual reality domain, making us virtual activists asphyxiating in virtual reality. They, and especially the internet, are good for political education and information distribution, which is a first and vital step. But until the educational activity in virtual space gets connected to real time street activity, nothing will actually happen.”

What Chinweizu’s typically incisive words warn us against is what we will call the Bluetooth approach to doing good. Sometimes it is much more efficient and gratifying to have an analogue approach in an irreversibly digital world. The metaphor implies getting back to the basics of physical contact, listening and engaging, as opposed to just blogging and supporting online causes.

It is through sitting down with people, listening to their stories and seeing their plight first hand where we can really make a difference and maybe, just maybe, when all those who today choose to take up Mashele’s challenge are asked many years from now where they were when their country needed them, their answer will not be “online”.

Originally published in True Love Magazine

Discovering the 'New Man'

2009-11-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

The Discovery Channel’s recent worldwide survey on men, perhaps the biggest of its kind ever undertaken, confirmed many things about us but it also intrigued me for what it didn’t reflect.

The survey showed that the quality and complexity of our interpersonal relationships, romantic and otherwise, exceed our past’s perfunctory sameness. We are working harder, with multiple balls in the air, expecting quicker and more rewarding results. We are not loyal to our jobs and our employees reciprocate most willingly. Competition is more intense than ever for both scarce resources and the means by which they are acquired. We are better traveled, more exposed and better adjusted to our unique global context.

It starts getting interesting when the survey suggests that women’s contemporary status as equals means we negotiate more, we are more amiable to compromise, suggesting an unfettered respect. Really? We will come back to this.

So who exactly are we then?

Well for one, today’s man is clearly not one-dimensional. But by the same token is not, as GQ’s Dylan Muhlenberg so aptly notes, “…a retro/metro/techno or anything ending in ‘sexual’”. Labels often serve no useful function and this is especially true in this case. His complexity is beyond labels.

The world has moved at such a rapid pace, we simply have no time to completely dissect, define and name what kind of man we are seeing on our urban streets. So the question is not so much who he is, but what his contribution to society is.

The evolution of men in an evolving society is a great thing. But even a cursory look at society leads one to wonder if we really are evolving and if the answer affirms this, if this is happening for the good of all society.

Whilst we continue to see a flux in men’s identity and the varied choices we make to manifest what it is we feel about ourselves, there remains a majority for whom such existential considerations are superfluous.

For the majority of rural men for example, reality is a far cry from our urban SUV and mall truth. There remain some among us for whom the promise of a new way of life – one in which they could eventually take for granted running water, electricity and visible policing - seems a lifetime away, if at all attainable. There also remain men who terrorise entire communities unabated while ‘comrades’, whose occupation during the struggle, next to destroying ‘the system’, was to drive such lecherous goons from our grandmothers’ homes, are instead involved in a fiercely contested tummy growing competition, while chasing tenders and jostling for political clout.

Meanwhile, I still hear the same stories from women across the spectrum. When they leave their homes, they have to run a disrespectful, horny, misogynist gauntlet of construction workers, bouncers, bank tellers, taxi drivers, security guards, cops, colleagues and bosses. Everywhere a black woman turns she is being violated. I am not suggesting that white women do not and have not faced forms of discrimination, but I have never heard of a white woman sexually assaulted by multiple strangers for wearing a mini skirt while an entire community – which would not hesitate to gang up on a pick pocket - watches. Only in movies do white women experience wolf whistling from hard hated men standing on scaffolding. Down south, that is mostly the domain of black women and in this movie, the whistling is accompanied by the vilest, most intrusive suggestive remarks.

So who is this disgusting, embarrassing guy who, like late comedian Bernie Mac used to say, “…don’t give a fu$^”?

Well, it is the guy behind you in the queue and it is also the guy at the notorious Noord taxi rank. But this guy is also our friend, our brother, and our colleague. The same one with which we laugh nervously when he cracks a sexist joke. It is the same guy who proclaims proudly that he doesn’t hit women while he exercises a disturbing verbal, mental or financial terrorism over his wife.

While another treats his mother like a Queen, while he virtually imprisons his girlfriend. There is also the type who ponders: “Who am I to interfere in a another man’s domain?” when he sees a high-powered sister who should know better, languishing in hospital for the umpteenth time after a barrage of fists and boots.

Sadly, one way or the other, he is all of us.

Is our tattered, self-serving interpretation of ‘culture’ conveniently tying our hands or are we haunted by our own violent behavior behind the veneer of suburban bliss? Are we the pot that dares not call the kettle black? Have years of institutionalized hatred made us believe in our own worthlessness so much that we have torn down the pedestal our women stood firmly on once upon a time?

So I ask the dynamic, evolved, well-adjusted man of the Discovery Channel survey where the hell he is. Where is he hiding and from what? Or is he just an enlightened, cerebral, go-getting coward?

Originally published in True Love Magazine, 2009

The ideal woman, 1/5

2009-02-10T08:16:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

Even as recently as a decade ago, my ideal woman would have had a dollop of New York confidence, Naomi Campbell legs, a dash of Swati subservience, Michelle Obama’s intellect, Beyonce’s teeth, Kim Kardashian’s behind, Nigela Lawson’s culinary instincts and Meagan Good’s face. That is of course if I lived in Neverland and not in this world where you do not always get what you desire, but inevitably, what you deserve.
Well, judging by what I do have, I must have done something right in my previous incarnation, because my partner is the most beautiful, elegant and sunny being on two legs, right down to the flower in her hair.
I love the fact that while I am the writer in the relationship, she was the first one to write me a good, old fashioned, handwritten love letter, which I discovered planted in my luggage while I unpacked in a lonely, foreign land. I have never heard her raise her voice, except in excitement. I have never heard her gossip, unless it was about someone who has had it coming. I adore the fact that even her cravings are precise, “I feel like warm custard over malva pudding” she can be heard saying in the wee hours of the morning.
She is truly magnificent, but inevitably, because she is also from the real world, she does have her flaws. Take her obsession with, and I quote: “The hotness that is Becks” for example. David Beckham might be a wealthy, good looking, internationally known sportsman who is loved by many, but he is not welcome in my house, his elocution-proof accent, impossible six-pack and padded briefs included. In spite of such blight in character, I am happy to call her my ideal woman. Besides, Mrs. Obama looks like a bully, Meagan Good has been with Jamie Foxx, my Swati lady might just ‘fall for the King’, eating Nigella’s rich food is a short cut to a massive coronary, New York girls can without warning ‘go Brooklyn’ on you and last time I checked, Naomi Campbell was as efficient with her cell phone as a Ninja is with his deadly throwing stars. I think I’m doing just fine.
Oh, and Kardashian? Well, Kim can kiss my behind, and I am sure she’d have it filmed too.

Originally published in The Sunday Times, February 2009

Dangerous Distractions

2008-12-17T06:18:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

A delicate balance between persuasion, eloquence, conviction and rhythm is paramount in the delivery of the perfect opinion. When presenting a point of view, one needs to have a point of departure and build ones case from there, stretching it, testing it against potential rebuttals, justifying its existence with every word and exploding in a spectacular conclusion. With this in mind, I have tried valiantly to knock down many opinions lately and frankly, I have been distracted. And this is not just any distraction it’s the most debilitating kind. I am loath to admit it, but I have come to the sad realization that women are my biggest distraction. The reasons thereof are as diverse as every one of them is and there are few as diverse as the ladies of the eNews Channel.
The infant channel has over the past few months become my visual go-to for sharp local news and analysis. But lately I have tuned in simply for the chance to catch one of reporter Vanessa “I want to be on Top Billing” Govender’s entertaining, if theatrical reports and then after the break, the unfolding saga of the courageous Redi Direko’s hair and make-up.
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille - who spends a great deal of time and money on hair and make-up -, might have been voted the best mayor in the world, but that does not give her the right to stalk me. She has absolutely no business shoving herself in my face every morning, yet that is what she has done to me everyday, without fail since July lat year. When I drive out of my garage in the morning, there she stands, looking as matronly as ever, looming above my head on an election street pole ad shouting proudly: “Win the war on drugs, support DA”! Take a ride down my street and it is littered with more posters proclaiming the same message and Zille’s austerity and dark pinstripe suit look more annoying with each one passed. I turn to a side street and there she is again “Klop Misdaad, steun DA!” screams the poster. I nearly crash. The police say they have dealt with many stalkers, but in this case I unfortunately cannot take out a restraining order. “You can just vote for the other side, sir,” says the helpful officer at Norwood police station. The other side? Hard to tell which one is that is nowadays huh?
On another day, still haunted by Zille and caught in Johannesburg’s usual bumper to bumper grind, things get much brighter as it hits me head-on: a smiling, gorgeous Terry Pheto staring at me from a billboard. With eyes that can do no wrong and flawless skin, the momentous event that is her beauty is topped only by the sight of Halle Berry rising out of an Island beach in a James Bond film. Or is it Salma Hayek enveloped by an albino python in a Rodriguez flick? Ah well, it’s right up there.
This little, let’s call it a fixation - because that’s what it is - with the Tsotsi star, I must admit, did not begin at the height of the Oscar madness, it is very recent. Maybe I am shallow and prefer her slimmer and airbrushed, but that is my right, I am worth it!
When I get home I confess to my better half, pouring out my heart, philosophizing about every contour of her face; her Nigela-esque fertile glow and how even her incoherence in the L’Oreal ads was adorable, perhaps in the hope that I will be told, like I was in the case of a similar confession about Nigerian singer Sade Adu: “It’s okay babe, I’d understand if you strayed with Sade, I mean look at her!” In hindsight, what she was really saying was that the chances of me hooking up with one of the most beautiful women to ever walk the earth, living in seclusion in Europe were non-existent. I was however to further find out that gorgeous, local actresses that you could bump into at a ‘function’, did not fall into the same category. “Write about it, I am sure it will help you get over your crush, babe,” she said ever so nonchalantly, gliding away. And so I did, because what she really meant was: “Don’t you dare, I will slit your throat, babe.”
When it comes down to it, this is the only opinion which matters.
*Originally published in True Love Magazine, RSA, January 2009

Where Angels Tread

2008-11-20T03:33:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

My five-year-old son developed a bit of a “church problem” a few months ago. He just couldn’t understand why every Sunday, he had to get up early to worship. Now there are things he is enthusiastic about, like school – albeit sometimes for the wrong reasons, like being seen arriving in his mom’s new convertible. The idea of church, however, was much more complex and was often met with ready buts and ifs.
Under normal circumstances I would have been alarmed by this, convinced that we had a little Damien (the devil’s spawn from the film The Omen) on our hands. But I empathised with the little man, because I remembered how I had felt about church, until well into my teens.
Coming from a Catholic home and going to Catholic schools most of my life meant I not only practically lived in the church, but went through every rite of passage prescribed by the Vatican, twice. I had two “First” Confessions; two “First” Holy Communions; was trained as an altar boy twice and was even Confirmed twice! Reflecting on this recently, I realised that in those days I was a veritable “super Catholic”. Much as I enjoyed and revered many aspects of the faith, this “double life” would eventually take its toll and as the years ticked by, my enthusiasm waned.
By the time I was a pre-teen, on most Sunday mornings, I would lay awake in bed from the crack of dawn, praying that my parents would oversleep – the irony of this escaping me at the time. I dared not move an inch – not even to relieve my bursting bladder – lest I woke the folks. I kept a keen eye on the clock: if it hit 7.30am, we had definitely missed the boat for the 8am service. “One down, one to go,” I would mutter under my breath. If I didn’t hear a door opening down the corridor by 9:15am, I knew I was in the clear for the 10am service as well, and I could safely get out of bed! On most occasions though, I was not that lucky.
Sooner or later, I would hear the dreaded footsteps coming up the corridor and before I knew it, I was being hustled into a bath and after which my hair would be violently yanked in all sorts of excruciating directions with a plastic implement – an act euphemistically known as combing. It was all downhill from there; my only solace being the Sunday lunch which came well after all the praying, singing and genuflecting. So yes, whether it was nature or nurture, I knew that my boy’s anti-church leanings had a discernible origin.
To remedy this problem, his mother bought him a kiddie Bible and over the past few months has been trying to get him to buy into the story of the world according to the two testaments. It was the subject of one of these lessons that recently prompted a most curious exchange – one which had me convinced that my little Damien was finally coming around to the righteous side.
I had just finished telling him a bedtime story – a clumsy tale about a misunderstood giant and Spiderman, which he now prefers to the “boring” fables in his storybook, when he suddenly asked: “Tata, where do you find angels?” I answered: “In Heaven and all around us; they watch over us.” There was a brief moment of silence – during which I dreaded having to explain why he couldn’t see angels hovering above his bed, yet they were all around us.
That question never came, but another did: “So do angels watch over good people?” I said: “Yes.” He asked: “And bad people are scared of angels?” “Yes,” I answered and with that kissed him good night and switched off his lamp. As I walked towards his bedroom door, he peeked from under the covers and asked: “So Tata, is [Robert] Mugabe scared of angels?”
All I could offer in response was a proud chuckle, but I knew very well what the people of Matabeleland could have told us as far back as the early ’80s, that our “super Catholic” from across the way had long gone the way of Damien and was not afraid of anything, angels included. I guess we were too busy dreading Sunday mornings to notice.
And, maybe I too, should be afraid of angels.

Originally published in True Love Magazine, RSA, December 2008

Plane Sailing

2008-10-17T06:09:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

The seatbelt sign has just gone off, after the worst turbulence in the history of aviation. This is the kind of turbulence which takes hold of your stomach, throws it up in the air, and twirls it around a few times only to drop it unceremoniously as the Boeing zooms through a blanket of angry, threatening clouds.
There is temporary respite as the plane settles at a steady altitude, but the relief is short-lived because, warns our pilot, there is more bad weather ahead. There and then I grab my copy of Esquire and bury myself in its unattainable glossiness, staving off ceaseless visions of crashing to a fiery death. This scene plays itself over and over again every time I am in an aeroplane and I absolutely hate it.
As you might have imagined, I do not fly very well. I have pockets of travel-intensive periods during the year and much as I love seeing new places or visiting nooks I haven’t been to in a while, the idea of flying to these destinations is about as exciting as a Dr Phil omnibus. I am not frightened of flying per se, like 50s rock star Ritchie Valens – who eventually died in a plane crash, an example of what proponents of The Secret would call a classic case of visualisation gone really bad – but lets just say that if it were up to me, I would teleport everywhere. I have no idea what precipitated this dislike and I recently took the clinical route of tapping into my childhood in search of some repressed memory which could shed some light on this.
My first recollection of a plane ride is as an unaccompanied minor, flying from Port Elizabeth to see my grandfather in Durban. There were about three of us solitary brats, all bright eyed, noisy and annoying the hell out of our designated chaperone. With those telltale bibs in place, walking hand in hand onto the plane, there was nothing but glee on our faces. Our excitement was uncontainable when during the flight we were ushered into the cockpit and dazzled by all the knobs and screens - these were the days before 9/11, aviation was very different.
For a while there I saw myself in that cockpit in years to come, dashing in my standard issue Ray Bans and raspy Camel man voice.
My maiden flight was so memorable that when I got to Durban I completely forgot to pick up my suitcase and went straight to the car. We were halfway into Kwa-Mashu when it dawned on my grandfather that I was rather empty-handed. We raced back to the then Louis Botha airport and there my bag lay, cutting a lonely figure on the baggage turnstile, safe and sound – these were of course the days before baggage pilferage. There are various other stories I remember, but all are pleasant and bring me no closer to solving my ‘fear’ of flying. After pondering this some more, one thing that did become clear was that turbulence and weird noises from the fuselage were not my only bugbear in the air. There was of course the omnipresent human factor, guaranteed to be more unpredictable and perplexing than any flash storm or falling engine.
Consider this, why is it that some people automatically eschew basic table manners when they get onto a plane? Does it mean that because you are eating rubbery chicken and stale crackers, you have the licence to speak with your mouth open, launching missiles in the direction of the poor soul next to you?
And what about when the plane’s main lights are off and you are trying to get a little shut eye - before the next bout of turbulence - and the woman next to you who just can’t put down the new Rayda Jacobs memoir, switches on your reading light and directs it at your face?
As if that’s not bad enough, is it only me who always gets stuck with people who are not comfortable with silence and go on about everything from Julius Malema’s buffoonery to anecdotes about ‘the war’? Generally, these types of travelers are – to be kind – older folk who feel obliged to pass on their wisdom when all you I want to do is fire up some Janis Joplin on your iPod before the old geezer tires and passes out on your shoulder, dribbling and snoring all the way to OR Tambo.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our descent…” Music to my ears!

Originally published in True Love Magazine, RSA, November 2008

Hold out for the right one

2008-09-11T00:23:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

Actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been described by women of all persuasions as ‘devilshly handsome’ or ‘super sexy’, and others choose to simply declare him ‘beautiful’. Much as I would never describe him as such, I am man enough to agree that he is a good looking guy. What is also clear is Rhys Meyers’ fiery Irish temperament.
From what I have read about him, he is in fact hell bent on stealing Colin Farrell’s thunder as the rudest Irishman on our screens. Take an interview he sat down for with a multinational women’s magazine. During this interview, he told the writer about a woman he had come across in a Dublin bar, who was complaining bitterly about not being able to find love, ‘with a man like Brad Pitt’. Rhys-Meyers sat there - I assume nursing a Guinness – listening to the sozzled woman moan about her non-existent love life and her desire for only the most sought-after man on earth.
“Why, why, why can’t I find someone like Brad Pitt to love, it’s not fair,” the drunk lass blurted out some such. After the umpteenth such outburst, a gatvol Rhys Meyers turned around and chirped: “That’s because you don’t look like Angelina fu#ki** Jolie! So take your ass off that chair and go to the gym and maybe you might have a chance!”
Ouch! This might be the rudest riposte you have heard in a while, but doesn’t it raise interesting questions about our dating expectations in relation to our reality? As men and women, is our sense of – to be frank - who is in our league warped?
I have declared on these pages that I am a man with no particular like or dislike as far as women go. I do not have a type, but this is not what I am talking about. I am talking about that sickening feeling you get as woman, when a guy – the slobbering, staring, creepy kind you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole - dares hit on you when you are clearly not from the same planet. I have seen it happen many times and most guys’ propensity to dare punch above their weight increases proportionally with their alcohol intake. The same applies on the other side of the coin.
There have been far too many Savanna-drenched sisters lacking in two or three departments, who have dared declare their love for the life of the party. It is most embarrassing for the hunter when it dawns upon them that what they were chasing so intently was not prey, but in fact, a pipedream.
On the other hand, as bad as this omnipresent quandary might be, it cannot be as bad as the phenomenon of ‘settling’ or more to the point, selling yourself short or undervaluing yourself for whatever reason. If you will allow me my 5 cents worth of preaching, you should want to be with someone for companionship; love; because attraction and the rewards of physical chemistry, not simply because he is the first one who asked. I might be accused of purporting to know what it feels like to be a woman looking for love but no, I don’t know what its like to be a woman, let alone one aching for a man an do not pretend to.
Yes, there is an abundance of women, so few of our kind and even fewer of us that fit into the eligible sub-group but ladies, that is no excuse for compromising yourself. I am appalled when I see - as a comedian friend of mine often says - “Iihagu itya i-pudding”, which literally means pigs eating pudding and metaphorically, is a phrase decrying the fact that there are many inadequate men out there with spectacular women.
Patience is truly a virtue ladies and yes, as Miles Davis ordained it, someday your prince will come. In the meantime, hang tough and stay away from beer-swigging, rude Irishmen.

Originally published in True Love Magazine, RSA, October 2008

Not quite the guest list

2008-08-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

We do love lists don’t we? The richest this, the sexiest this, the best that. The E! Channel takes it to another level: the best bikini bodies; celebrity life and death moments; the best celebrity sex tapes and even the definitive list of Marilyn Monroe’s conquests! It can drive you up the wall really. So it is not without trepidation that I am about to chance upon something of a list of my own. I beg your forgiveness I have an enquiring mind. Our point of departure: technology.
Why is it that the dazzling geniuses that develop our technology have become so lazy that when you are dying for a movie marathon and can’t find the remote control, you cannot actually operate your DVD player? Clearly the designers have said: “Oh hell, they use a remote anyway, so we don’t really need to put a subtitle button on this DVD machine.” Well, I have news for you: remote controls get lost ALL the time and Tom Hanks monologues dubbed in Polish are not fun.
There are innumerable sartorial mysteries, like what is it with guys and half tucks? A half tuck is this silly business of tucking in your shirt at the front and leaving the rest un-tucked. Dude, we know you desperately want us to see your D&G buckle, but you need to decide: are you tucking in or not? You can’t have both, irrespective of what you’ve seen in an Usher video.
I am sure you have come across this next one. In fact, I nearly fell into this category myself, but was graciously saved before it was too late. Why is it still acceptable for voice message greetings telling you not to leave a message and to send an sms? We know you are very busy; you do not need to imply that in your voicemail message, you can deactivate your voicemail you know? On some phones you can do it in a few easy steps on more challenged models, you can call your service provider. You are almost as embarrassing as this next bunch.
You have not been in the sun this year, you are overweight and have a suspicious rash on your bum: why the hell do you want to take off your clothes and run across the field when Herschelle Gibbs is batting, God knows he needs all the concentration he can muster nowadays?! Bravo to Aussie cricketer Andrew Symonds for putting straight one of these streaker morons with a stiff shoulder not too long ago, we need more like him. In fact, there should be a rule for cricket and rugby matches – I would say soccer as well, but I have never seen a streaker at FNB. The rule should be that if as a spectator, you get onto the field, for whatever reason - let alone displaying your manly inadequacies - you are fair game. Any player, including the two meter-tall, 130 kg ex-policeman scrumming down at number 4, can go after you with everything they have and they would be exempt from any kind of legal action. Let’s see how many of you are still just itching to take off your kit when The Sharks’ Tendai “The Beast” Mtawarira is legally permitted to sit on you.
The last lot might fancy the idea of ‘The Beast’ sitting on them, but I am still baffled by how rude some effeminate gay guys are and how wonderfully well-adjusted most masculine gay men are. The disparity is beyond stark but the answer is much harder to come by. Mmhh, I just thought of another list.

Originally published in True Love magazine, RSA, September 2008.

The older I get...

2008-07-14T03:04:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

A troubling report of national proportions appeared in one of the tabloids last year. While scanning for juicy tit bits in the gossip pages - as many of you do but will never admit – I came across a piece about how I was “growing old gracefully”. I had to take a moment to recover from the shock, I was totally gob smacked. Firstly, what the hell was my picture – a very bad one at that - doing on the pages reserved for starlets and their predictable shenanigans? Secondly, at 31 years old, why was I being described as “growing old gracefully”?! This was rather curious, infuriating even. As far as I knew, that phrase was reserved for George Clooney, Winnie Madikizela Mandela, Monica Belluci, Mara Louw and the like. My mother also fits into that category and she is a great indicator of how gracefully I will, eventually grow old. In her fifties, she doesn’t look a day older than 45 - and is awfully proud of it. I look at her and know that to the contrary, I might be getting older, but I am certainly not growing old and above all, I do believe I am getting better.
I remember turning 30, in all its ‘late night at the club’ glory, capped with the ‘big fight with the girlfriend’ downer. It was glorious, it was complete, and it was a new day. I had so much clarity and truly believed the trend spotters, 30 really was the new 20. Two gloriously turbulent years after my rebirth, I continue to grow and learn.
Since turning 30, there have been so many things that have changed in my life, so many realizations that I have made and so many cringing sessions when recalling the man I was in my twenties. There are things I look back on and with hindsight in perfect focus, I see some shameful moments leading to this point in my life. But I am quick to remind myself that mistakes, not regrets, are part of the path towards wisdom. I have an infinite number of years before me, with many more lessons to learn, but the road to now has not been entirely blotted with black marks and has taught me many positive lessons.
I have learned that Education is invaluable and continuing education is non-negotiable.
I have learned that contrary to popular belief, you do not choose your friends. Like family, they are thrust upon you from an early age and before you realise that there are other, more interesting people out there, you are stuck with them. If this weren’t true, then at least three of my friends would be better-dressed!
I have learned that much as many will facetiously suggest that women are the better version of humans, they are in fact, correct. If you are a man reading this and shaking your head, it is just a matter of time, you will grow older and concede this fact.
I have learned that there is no universal idea of manhood and that this transcends culture and religion. I have also learned that as a result of this, we are much more complex than even we are willing to admit.
I have learned that hangovers are to be respected and given due prior attention. “Water please”, I hear you say?
I have learned that Social Networking sites are great for meeting business contacts, but lousy at maintaining those relationships. Email remains the answer!
I have learned that I don’t give myself enough credit. Being your own worst critic is not always the key to success.
I have also learned, as a dear friend pointed out to me recently, one of the saddest ironies of our regulated world is that we have license or certificate requirements for everything from driving to diving, but none for the most important job in the world, parenthood. No tests; no assignments; no stringent screening and no probation: anyone who is physically able can make a living, breathing being, created in the image of God. Sociopaths, rapists, pedophiles, murderers, they all qualify.
I have learned that because politicians are human and are therefore fallible, all of them will err at some point or another. Where we progress as society is when the scales are tipped overwhelmingly in favour of the good they do. Getting this trick correct rests solely with the individuals’ willingness to do good and unfortunately, there are too many of them devoid of this willingness.
I have learned that you never really have any idea how much your family is willing to do for you until you really need them. No matter how inattentive, busy or aloof you are, family will always be there for you. The least you can do is work towards being a deserving recipient of that unconditional love.
Growing old gracefully? No, getting better by the minute.

I do? Not just yet thank you

2008-06-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

In a society where gay marriage is legal, millionaire geriatrics have three buxom 20-something blondes as girlfriends and Bishops live openly homosexual, sexually active lives, society still takes for granted the inevitability of marriage after the first two years of a romantic relationship. Bring the same woman to successive dinner parties and your friends are already calling their tailors. “Gee, you guys have been together forever, so when’s the big day?” is a common inanity blurted out at couples, one which is usually met with polite smiles and rolling of the eyes once the enquirer has turned their back.
But maybe this assumption stands to reason. Usually after that period of time, even if you maintain two homes, you “practically live together”. You have met each other’s folks; your lover has a separate relationship with your friends and siblings and your relatives always remind you how much they like so and so – which is a less than subtle means of saying they give you their blessings, marry her already! So why not just do it?
Well, there are all sorts of important things for a man to consider nowadays: quitting the corporate world for organic farming; which company is going to put six blades in their razor cartridge and that sneaking suspicion that Morgan Tsangirai is not quite the answer we have all been praying for. With so many more important things to consider, should marriage really be such a priority?
Why is it so rare to hear those stories of that aunt who has been with her boyfriend, beg your pardon, partner, for years, never getting married and staying together in the wake of an avalanche of divorce among their closest friends? Of course this aunt looks the youngest out of all your older relatives, you could swop clothes with her and she has amazing stories which begin with: “When we were confronted by a rare tribe on kayaks in the South Pacific…” Could you honestly say that all this ‘fabulosity’ is not in some way related to her unmarried status?
Think about it, wouldn’t it be more gratifying to blow your bonus on a log cabin in the Pilanesberg instead of extending the house to accommodate your husband’s niece whom he unilaterally decided was staying with you “until she can find a place in res”? At your next braai, do you want to talk about your fascination with the Nigerian control of the Tokyo party scene or bore your friends for the umpteenth time with the story of your husband falling off the ladder while trying to fix the gutter?
I like to think I am extremely well-adjusted and generally not a cynic about most things. I was also brought up Catholic so I understand the moral issues at play here. But really, take our country’s knack for racism, xenophobia, tribalism, child molestation and rape, add to that the evil shenanigans that went on under the various evil past governments and top it off with the spectacular faux pas of our nouveau-corrupted current flock, are we really in a position to pontificate about morality?
An entire Basketball team’s worth of my friends got hitched over the past two years. As far as I know, they are all happily married and are getting better at it everyday. They, in truth, are what give me hope in this sacred institution. I have seen far too many others take the leap because it is the thing to do, the next logical step. Yes, for some people it might just be that, and successfully so, but that theory is not universal. My understanding is that from the day little girls find out about marriage, oops, weddings, the fantasies begin and go on well into pre-marital adulthood. This is a dangerous reality and leads to many beautiful journeys down the isle and tearful journeys to the lawyer’s office.
Why should you get married because your friends want to dress up and drink bubbly? Why should you do it if all your mother wants is to show the whole world what a spectacular celebration she can host, and not speak to you for a week because you refuse to wear a tiara on your wedding day? Why should you get married when your friends are going to spend half the reception reviewing the décor and flowers instead of sharing in your joy? Why should you get married if all anyone wants is the wedding and not the marriage? Why should you get married when God might take your loved one after hardly a year of marriage?

I might sound like the cynic I profess not to be, but I am really not and could very well feel differently tomorrow and feel compelled to go on one knee. Until then, I think I will take a leaf out of singer/songwriter John Mayer; please, please, please stop this train!

Originally published in True Love, RSA, July 2008

The love laundromat

2008-03-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

It has happened to many men. In fact, for some it fits snugly into their worst nightmare folder, right next to “Baby, we need to talk.” Boy is at a function and is introduced to girl. Boy likes girl and girl likes boy. They really hit it off, one thing leads to another and they are having breakfast at his place the next morning.
Things are hunky dory for a few weeks, with boy calling regularly; sending sweet nothings on sms and always picking up the bill and girl regularly cooking up a storm; pretending to like soccer and even doing laundry. Boy thinks girl is great to be with, funny and “not hectic” because she agreed that they were just “having fun” and not “looking for anything serious right now”. Meanwhile, girl gets palpitations when she hears his voice, her hands go all teenage clammy when he walks through the door and he does cartwheels through her mind while she’s working on that presentation. I think we have a problem here, but boy does not see it coming.
On a Sunday afternoon, after a hearty lunch, boy and girl are cuddling on the couch. Boy has his guard down. She shoots: “There’s something I want to tell you,” she says, squeezing his hand. Boy is uneasy, this cannot be good news. He shifts his weight uncomfortably on the couch, while his mind scrambles for possibilities. “Is she late? Surely not, we’ve been very careful,” he thinks to himself. “Yes, what is it?” he asks her, clearing his throat nervously. “Before I say this, please do not feel any pressure to say anything, this is just about me needing to express how I feel.” Boy is now sweating, he knows what is coming. “I love you,” she says, gazing into his terrified eyes.
The clock in the living room seems to be ticking a lot louder in the dead silence. “What am I expected to say now?” he thinks frantically. “I can’t say ‘thank you’, I have seen in the movies what happens when you say ‘thank you’ and kiss her on the forehead, that is not an option. I can’t say that I love her back because I would be lying and I can’t keep mum because that would be way too awkward. What to do, what to say?”
Boy does not understand how this gross breach of contract could have occurred, love was never in the plan, they were “having fun” right? Dead wrong!
In truth, he should have seen it coming when that first batch of laundry was done. There is no woman alive who will wash your dirty, sweaty, smelly gym socks unless she is head over hills goners over you. A woman who does your laundry – and is not your mother or paid to do so - is a woman in love. I know this principle very well.
A character I knew at University had no laundry problems. While we slaved away in the laundry at our Residence, he received a fresh batch of clean, ironed clothes for the week every Sunday. In those years I saw many women pass through his door and the smell of Sta Soft on Sundays is as vivid as their faces. Their faces spoke of floating through the meadows, fairies buzzing all around and the sweet sounds of a thousand flutes. They were sooo in looove!
The face of the recipient of all this love, a Sowetan we will call Edgar, is also vivid. Edgar was a handsome guy who never said much, but smiled a lot. His smile was a smug one, the cat that got the fattest sardine and got a belly rub from his master smug. He was never, at any stage, in love.
So I ask you then, why are men and women so out of tune when it comes to the “I love you” question? Men will argue that women jump the gun or are more in love with the idea of love so it makes it just that much easier to fall in love with the first guy who remembers to wash his hands after his allotted time at the urinal or does not send “please call me” messages. Women will argue that men are either not in touch with their feelings as they are or are afraid of commitment and need to be coerced in the right direction.
I do not have the solution to this stalemate, but one thing I do know is that men do not ike to be coerced into anything, so if you love him, patience is the key and while you are not sure about how he feels, stay away from his laundry! You could ruin a perfectly good manicure washing all those dirty socks in vain.
Who knows, maybe he’ll surprise you in the not too distant future with those fateful three words.

Back on the couch, boy takes a deep breath and prepares to speak…

Originally published in True Love Magazine, RSA, March, 2008

Face it, ur no Spelle Macpherson

2008-02-20T05:50:00.000-08:00

She was tall and lithe, with the face of a grown up Zahara Jolie-Pitt, and laughed at all my jokes in that endearing, startlingly loud, straight from the gut manner. She was damn near perfect, except, I could not get around her appalling spelling. It began slowly on email and sms, a dropped vowel here, an ill-placed apostrophe there. I shrugged this off, convinced these were aberrations. After all, she could hold a reasonable conversation and had a respectable vocabulary. Surely this couldn’t last. As time went on though, the incessant bad spelling became overwhelming. There were only so many times I could handle “loose” instead of “lose”. This was serious; it was time for an investigation: was my sweet nubile dyslexic? A few calls confirmed my worst nightmare, there was absolutely nothing wrong with her. I could have accepted that she was neurologically impaired, a consequence of genetics rather than a deficiency in intellect. But it wasn’t to be.
I had a huge dilemma on my hands, I really liked this woman, but words were my life and I couldn’t stand to see them decimated like that. What was I to do?
I consulted some friends and although they were amused at my quirk, they had their own issues, which made for interesting listening and frankly, made me feel much better about myself. “Look, you might be a bit neurotic about this spelling thing, but I get your frustration, everyone has their ‘thing,’” said a film maker. “One of my things is similar to yours, I can’t be with a woman who reads inane books.”
My dear friend is one of those people who have read all the books that most people in intimidating company only pretend to have read. He can quote Kafka, Fanon and Baldwin as easily as he can recite fantastical verses from Okri, Adichie or Marquez. He abhors anything remotely Mills & Boon-ish, thinks ‘chic’ and ‘guy’ lit are abominations, wants to strangle Dan Brown and loathes Karin Slaughter. No matter how hot you are, if you are not in synch with my friend’s reading list, you have no chance. I consulted other friends and the quirks became stranger. Had men become this fussy or was it just my circle of weirdos?
“She had better not be a Celine Dion fan,” warned a DJ friend, feigning slitting his wrists. “Add to that Akon and, what’s that fat boy that sounds like Akon?” he asked. “Sean Kingston,” I said. “Exactly!” he screamed. I was on the floor.
An attorney friend thought long and hard about his “thing” and after a mental process of elimination he had it. “Ex-boyfriends man, I judge women by their ex boyfriends,” he said. According to my learned friend all men, whether they admit it or not, will judge you by your exes and if you have even one of those dodgy 3am Absinthe decisions in your closet, you are no-go territory. Tainted forever.
The jet-setter in my crew once had a simple rule: avoid a woman who drinks too much, smokes too much or talks too much. Over the years, given our urban reality, he has learned to adapt. He is now willing to accept a woman who exhibits only one of these traits. So, you can sit at the bar and suck on cigarettes until the smoke comes out of your ears, as long as you don’t say much and stick to juice. If Apple Martinis are too good to resist, then ditch the cancer stick and make like a meditating monk. And so it goes. So, you see, I was in good company and my oddity needn’t have made me feel like a pariah. So when one night I was rudely awoken by my phone beeping and read on the screen: “U are so quite, why r u avoyding my calls?” it was that much easier to swiftly erase the nubile’s number from my phone.

*Originally published in the Sunday Times, RSA, February 17, 2008.

A resolution of hope

2008-01-10T01:30:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

With the new year ahead of us, I am reminded of a quaint observation about the futility of New Year’s resolutions made by an ex-boss some years ago. A resolution, he said, was a declaration, a bold statement of intent, a promise, come hell or tsunami. Humans, my learned boss went on, were creatures of habit and one undeniable human habit was failing to do what we have promised. When you erred as a child, you tearily declared never to set the cat on fire again and a week later, Spoti the dog was your next victim. The newspapers show us daily how our leaders promise one thing and deliver – if that – something completely different. The reality of, for example, the campaign slogan “A better life for all” is that it came with the hidden disclaimer: “Unless you live in Khutsong, Slovoville, Mandela Park etc.” If you need further convincing that we all a bunch of liars, take a look at our high divorce rate – the highest in the world I am made to believe. Till death do us part is the promise of marriage, but the delivery involves lawyers and - as Marvin Gaye said in that beautifully bitter album Here my dear, - “…a million dollars to part.”
If resolutions were taken as contracts with a death clause in the event of a breach, earth would be one big, round graveyard. So no, I am not going to offer any resolutions. I will instead give you a snapshot of the important things I hope and pray other people do - or do not do depending on the scenario – this year. Take politics for instance.
It is likely that the African National Congress (ANC) has already met in Polokwane and elected what is sure to be our next head of state. If political commentators are to be believed, this is either Jacob Zuma, Tokyo Sexwale, Cyril Ramaphosa, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma or Kgalema Motlante. I will not be drawn into whom I prefer and which policies best serve the majority. I have only one wish for the incumbent, that they put an end to political speak. Political speak – that famous cousin of Marketing speak – is littered with jargon, rhetoric, gross euphemisms, non-words and non-sentences. Think of words like ‘challenges’ and ‘concerned’ or phrases like ‘enemies of the people/state/revolution” and the ever present, yawn inducing “grassroots level”. I even have a problem with seemingly innocuous words like ‘but’. In isolation, the word is harmless. Throw it into a sentence a politician might use and you open yet another web of frustration and buck passing: “We are very CONCERNED that babies are being raped and killed, BUT this is a CHALLENGE from the previous regime. BUT we can overcome it.” Aaaarrgh!!!
You cannot escape popular culture, with the media, celebrities and the average Joe chasing Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes, this area is constantly in flux. My only wish is that this year there are at least a few people who are celebrated for doing much more than, say, buying yellow his and hers sports cars.
With the arrival of new players in the television market, we can only expect that the SABC especially will get its act together and maybe, just maybe, there will be something worth watching in Mzansi public television fo sho! I truly hope that the most publicized of the new entries to our tube, Telkom Media, do not take a page out of their parent company’s playbook, whether it be when it comes to cost, customer service or efficiency and honesty in its billing processes.
As far as the heady world of fashion goes, there is far too much I am appalled at, but if I were to be granted just these few wishes it promises to be a good year. It is my solemn wish that everyone from newsreaders to PR Executives would stop wearing their shirt collars over their jacket lapels and just tuck them in where they belong. This little irritation has become so bad that I feel compelled to walk around with a pair of scissors and chop off any collar I see protruding. This collar abomination is one of the few fashion statements culled from the 70s which should remain there, dead and buried. In my lifetime, I also hope that all 80s fashion, elements of which have returned over the past few years, is also relegated to the annals of history, never to return. I can’t believe there are women out there who think its ok to wear fishnet stockings. There are probably the same women who walk around with their G-strings sticking out and probably date those guys who still wear earrings and wear their pants sagging all the way below their bum. They deserve each other!
Moving onto our roads, I hope that the ladies in the Mini Coopers, the Jackie O sunglasses and cellphone to one ear – yes, you! - will finally learn how to indicate when weaving patterns through traffic. I genuinely hope that Taxi drivers…ok, forget about that one, it’s a pipedream. I hope that Hummer drivers will watch the road, instead of watching other motorists admiring their lumbering, ineffectual monstrosities.
You see, I do not ask for much and if the most high can grant me just these few wishes, I might just make some resolutions in 2009, and stick to them.

*Originally published in True Love, January 2008

All sorts maketh a lover

2007-11-08T00:50:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

I have been told on infinite occasions that I am a strange man. Now I am not talking about channeling the (chainsaw-wielding horror flick character) Jason in me at the Alsatian’s expense type strange. No, I am rather referring to what is said to be my lack of a predisposition to a certain type of woman. Some of my friends see this as an anomaly because men, you see, have types, just like women have types. So Woman A might like salt of the earth, knobkerrie-wielding traditional type from Emzinto; Woman B might go for Fabiani-suited BMW driving (and driving the rest of the world crazy on the fast lane) banker type and Woman C might favour the hard-partying, ‘deep’, creative hedonist type in an Ad agency. So it goes then, that Man A might go for the pretty, giggly, weave-flicking type in sales; Man B might be smitten with the scholarly, fiery, Jenny Button suit-wearing consultant type and Man C might be comfortable with the ‘headwrapped’ dreadlocks, A-line skirt and All-Stars wearing poet type.
I have been told that these archetypes (and many others that would take an entire book to do justice to) are pretty constant. That is, once bitten by one, you never look back. Or so this particular theory goes.
Back at my house however, things are not as simple. I have seen, up close and personal and with varied success, the best and the worst of many an archetype, the giggly, weave-flicking sales type not withstanding. I do not have a type and am richer for it. This natural attraction to the woman rather than the type has helped shape many insights as far as women go.
I have known women of many sizes, shapes and dispositions and if there is one thing they have all had in common - ok, maybe three things – is that they were always beautiful and never boring. What is the third thing you might ask? Well, it is the perpetual weight issue. Spend enough time with a woman and this will eventually come up in one form or another. They may be on a diet, oh wait, ‘eating plan’; their friend might be anorexic; there is of course the eternal bum issue or she could be mortified at Amy Winehouse’s withering away. Weight has always been a part of the landscape.
From my previous column, you will be aware that I empathise with weight issues, so what I have to say comes from a good place. I empathise with the fact that many women have struggled with their weight throughout their lives. Being ridiculed, not fitting in and being picked last in the netball team cannot be pleasant. Unfortunately in business – whether stock broking or pop music – weight still plays a role.
Although women’s struggles with body image and romantic relationships are well-documented – not least of all in this magazine - I am however slightly befuddled by the whole thing. Over the years, as far as I have gauged from peers and observed in public spaces, it looks like a “fuller-figured” woman (I love that term!) who takes good care of herself, will, sooner or later, bump into a man that finds her attractive. If Nollywood is to be taken as a snapshot of reality in Nigeria, the fuller-figured woman has more than a fighting chance in that country as well - although some men, like the hilarious character Mr Ibu, take it a tad too far, insisting that his bride to be must have plenty of stretch marks and snore like a drunken truck driver.
A friend of mine from good Ugandan stock often has what US comedienne Monique calls ‘skinny bit*^&$’ throwing themselves at him. For a lot of brothers this would spell the unfolding of God’s divine plan for them, but my friend could not be bothered, his habitual riposte being: “Call me when you’ve had a few burgers”! (A friend from the Eastern Cape takes this burger analogy further, suggesting that instead of just paying lip service to the cause for healthier looking models, demonstrators should sit in the front row at fashion shows and throw those giant Primi Piatti burgers at the size zeros on the ramp! To each his own…but I digress).
In stark contrast is a recently married friend who has no time for a woman who can’t fit into, at the most, a size 30. My friend’s new wife, herself a dainty former beauty queen and part-time model, should find comfort in the fact that if he wanted to cheat on her, he’d be hard-pressed to find a suitable candidate for the deed, there are only so many ‘skinny b#**^&$’ out there! Come on, think of every pool party you have been to, what’s scene like? Fully-clothed guys; one or two skinnies prancing around in bikinis annoying the hell out of the rest of the girls – of a more ‘conventional’ size - in costumes, concealed stylishly with sarongs and breezy see-through tops. That’s what I thought.
Another friend, who once confessed to liking his women ‘slender and tender’, has found true love with a beautiful woman who might have a tender personality and a normal-sized body (yes, contentious I know, “what is normal-sized?!” I hear you ask) but cannot be called slender. So what can we learn from all of this?
It’s like this you see: There are many decent guys who would love to be with petite women, but their own shortcomings, whatever they may be, make success at this pursuit erratic at best. So we have a handful of ‘skinny bitc&*$’ and a handful of guys who are good looking enough, shallow enough or have enough money to have them on their arms. What’s left is the majority of the dating population just waiting to have fun! So what are you waiting for?

*Originally published in True Love Magazine, RSA, November 2007

What men want

2007-11-08T00:35:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

"So how's your article going, you know, the one about what men want?" asked a female friend a few days before deadline. "It's fine, but I am struggling to stick to the word count, there is just so much to write," I said naively, never suspecting that I was being set up. "Come on now, that should be the shortest piece you have ever written. When it comes down to it, men only want three things: sex, food and a Mother!" she quipped laughing raucously while I sported a stony expression. Now I know that most men, like me, will not be amused right now, but to be honest, after the initially reeling at this chirp, I had to think about that one for a minute. Were we really that simple? What did our three alleged surefire “needs” say about our make up? Feed us, have sex with us and tuck us in and we are straight? Surely not?
From the onset, I must stress that I believe what I am about to say about our kind is true of the majority of men, not all men. After all, even the greatest of species has a few lost sheep. Now that we have cleared that up…
Yes, we love sex, but age has taught me that the opposite sex is right up there with us. And yes we enjoy a hearty, gluttonous shot at a giant rare sirloin, but the reality is that food sustains us and without it we all die. And the habitual need to be mothered? Or the more disturbing Oedipal route of dating someone who resembles or has similar characteristics to that of your mother? I was not too sure. Our lives have got to have more meaning than that, I thought. It stands to reason that sometimes, being the sensitive lot we are, we need to be held, talked to tenderly and told that everything will be alright, in a manner not too dissimilar to what a mother would. But in a few hours, we could be reenacting a scene from a dodgy etv late night soft porn movie; sealing a multi-million rand deal or literally swimming with sharks. Feed us, shag us, tuck us in and we are straight? No, we are so much more than my friend would have you believe.
There are many jibes that the modern man has to deal with, some laced with wicked wit and others just plain nasty. Men have grown so accustomed to the low blow that we don’t even flinch anymore. It has become fashionable to slam everything that men are about. “To the left, to the left,” young and old, women sing along to Beyonce at the top of their voices. In mass media, images of men as inferior beings are all consuming. One need only think of the 1st For Women adverts and you get the pathetic picture. And so the blight continues. In the golden age of the emancipation of women, men are unhappy.
Our President has shown us the way with his efforts for the empowerment of women in government and - admittedly lagging way behind - the private sector is trying to keep up its end of the bargain with significant, relatively recent appointments at Absa, Anglo and Mvelaphanda among others. Believe me when I say that most men welcome these strides, recognising the need for diversity and equal opportunity. No, men are not unhappy because women are advancing, men are unhappy because they stand helpless in the wake of that wave.
In my previous incarnation as the editor of a men’s magazine, I was privileged to have insight into what many a prominent and ordinary South African men had on their minds. It was no surprise that many conversations ended up being about what was “expected” of us by the opposite sex. I recall a particularly engaging exchange with a much-loved news anchor.
“Just like anyone else, we want to be appreciated,” he said. “The reason why men are so reactionary when it comes to women is that we actually do not know what is expected of us and when our best efforts are not appreciated, we are bound to be defensive.” That statement took me back to an incident in my own life which pointed to this problem. Approaching the exit of an office building many years ago, shoulder to shoulder with a pouting brunette in a power suit, I speeded up, opened the door and waited for her to walk through first. The suit grabbed a head-to-toe eyeful of me and hissed: “I am perfectly capable of opening the door for myself!” Standing there, mystified, I could almost cry to the heavens: “Why have you forsaken us?!” Was I to unlearn years of etiquette training at home and at school to satisfy the modern woman? Had the modern woman become so obsessed with equality that subtle chivalrous gestures such as letting her go through the door before you; standing up when she enters the room or draping your jacket over her shoulders when it gets chilly were now seen as Neanderthal-like? It was truly depressing and as the years dragged on, the situation did not improve, the cycle never stopped, choosing instead, to speed up. Just the other day at a braai, waiting in the queue to dish up, I offered a lady a plate and in the coldest, most disinterested manner, she waved me away, “I will get my own plate thanks,” she said.
Another example is the single mother who has had one too many bad romances; has absolutely no relationship with the “good for nothing” father of her child and has “had it with men”. They cheat, are irresponsible and insensitive, she says, ignoring the possibility that she might just have bad taste. Her remedy? Lesbianism.
When I hear some female friends relating their stories, with varying degrees of drama, it saddens me. The unconscious comments made in my presence about my brethren are often shocking, and deeply hurtful. If you didn’t know, there is a war out there.
In the red corner we have the modern woman: educated, experienced, driven and ready to kick any male butt in her way to the top. In the blue corner we have the modern man: all suited up; manicured; straight from Bikram Yoga; just wrestled a lion; holding unwelcome roses in his hand, with no clue how to please her. She doesn’t need his money; she doesn’t need his car; she doesn’t need his recommendation for that job; she doesn’t need his affection; she sure as hell doesn’t need his protection and can even have a baby without him. This is her time and God knows it has been a long time coming.
We are all familiar with the black woman’s plight: hard enough being black, but a woman at that! Inadvertently, in the days where this phrase was indisputable, as black men we did our fair share to keep her down. Our great grandfathers, proud, responsible men who tended the land and kept livestock so their families could have food and shelter were forced into virtual servitude in the big city. Being without their families and having to endure being called “boy” and humiliated daily by snotty-nosed 20 year-olds whom they had to call “baas” eroded their manhood and unfortunately the only way they subconsciously thought they could reverse this emasculation was to come back home to their villages in drunken stupors and beat their women to a pulp. That cycle continues today, HIV/Aids adding a deadly dimension to the scope of damage. After years of putting up with that kind of abuse, it is understandable that women should feel compelled to do all in their might to succeed and show men that they are worth much more than they have been made to believe all these years. In their efforts to make this abundantly clear however, an opportunity is constantly lost, an opportunity to make a powerful alliance. No revolution has succeeded through fragmentation and it may well be time we admitted that we are still in the midst of the revolution and need each other more than ever. When that happens then, the signs pointing to the true emancipation of all our people will have begun appearing. But the road to this ideal is littered with obstacles. Not least of which, the man’s plight.
During a series of focus groups my research company Random Window Insights & Trends conducted early this year, it became clear that men battle everyday to keep up with the latent and patent demands of the modern woman. Married and single men shared their daily toils, covering the spectrum of what it means to be a man – and particularly a black man these days. The obstacle course that is a relationship with a modern woman was laid bare. De-sexualised parenting roles; not having any problem with a better earning partner but being consciously made to “feel it” nonetheless; being loved one minute and loathed the next; attacks on ones manhood when the stresses of life prevent one from “standing tall” on request and so it continued. Men are unhappy.
So what do they want then? "Men want to be left alone," said a friend when the question "What do women want?" was flipped on its head at a dinner party. The ladies in our midst had gone to great lengths to try and describe to us, in weird and wonderful ways what we didn't understand about them and predictably at the end of it all, we were more confused than before.
“I am tired of being told that men are immature, have commitment phobia, are no good and that we are all players. I go to work and have to fight battles; I come home and face bigger battles. What’s a man to do?” Men want to be listened to, men want to be engaged, men want to be loved, respected and appreciated. In short, the irony is that men want all the things that women want.
Maybe it is going to take our children’s children generation to wake up to the potential we have as equals united in one vision. But as long as we are at odds, we will die fighting ourselves, not ever having discovered exactly what the other wants.

*Originally published in Tribute Magazine, RSA, 2007

A bulging battle

2007-11-08T00:31:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

When a friend called me after the December break and in an animated tone asked: “Are you sitting down?” I knew it had definitely happened. I cannot explain how I knew this, but perhaps knowing this guy for most of my life had something to do with it. “I popped the question, she said yes!” he proclaimed as ecstatically as only the talented actor can. I was also excited, not only because he had chosen to spend the rest of his days with a beautiful, driven, supportive and loving woman, but also because I was going to be the best man. But this was short-lived.
As my friend broke down the day they were planning, I became increasingly nervous, their vision for the big day belying my vision of sharp suits and summery frocks.
“Isibeshu?!” I exclaimed in horror, “Topless, inner-thigh chaffing extreme horse riding, knight in shining armour stuff?” I shook my head in disbelief. Yes, his was going to be an all-day traditional wedding with dramatic twists in a not too familiar plot. I was horrified. The fact that it was going to be a traditional wedding was not the problem, all I could think about were the outfits. Most Southern African traditional garb is not flattering for any man who does not have the body of the late, great Henry Cele in Shaka Zulu. Just recently, a resolute, successful female friend in her mid-thirties could hardly breathe after bumping into the most famous “Zulu King” of all time at a function. Her friends scrambled like awestruck hip-hop groupies for pictures with Cele, their eyes seeing not a man who now had a paternal aura, but a young stud with that legendary glistening jet black 8-pack of yesteryear.
A few days later, as I stared at my somewhat tubby naked frame in the mirror - what my other half refers to as a sexy body, she’s in love, you see – I decided there and then that I wanted to channel the Shaka Zulu in me, make good on the sexy allegations and drop some baggage, lest I, on my best friend’s wedding, be mistaken for Jacob Zuma, with man boobs and matching boep.
As you are reading this, I should have lost close on 10 kilograms. That is to say, three months ago, I started a health plan, anchored by Yoga, walks/runs, skipping, some balance ball exercises and getting aggressive with a heavy punching bag, having invested in minimalist home exercise equipment, replete with overpriced Yoga mat and boxing gloves.
On the diet front, I have cut out fast foods almost completely, I avoid too may ‘carbs’ but on the whole I eat what I want, but in moderation. As a high school athlete, the diet considerations above were never even close to my radar screen. As a growing, active boy who played an array of competitive sports seven days a week, I could eat anything I wanted, in whichever portions and my gut would remain ripped. At University, much as I still took part in football and rugby, sport was much more of a social pursuit, with beers at half time to boot. But still, I remained in relative good shape, weekend hangovers notwithstanding.
My working years changed everything. As a young, hungry journalist, I spent hours at the keyboard honing my craft, trying to live up to the expectations of gargantuan veteran journalists who saw a world of potential in me. As my writing abilities swelled, so did my midriff. A lack of exercise, combined with daily ‘soul food’ from the canteen, fattening cocktail snacks at regular events, Sunday home-cooked meals and a new appreciation for whiskey, I had no chance.
Sadly, some of my most treasured photographs from that time, side by side with international movie stars, sporting greats, musicians and politicians all display in full glory, my pudgy self. My mother found some of these pictures about two years ago and commissioned a bespoke frame for them and presented that to me as a birthday gift. Much as I appreciated her heartfelt gesture and loved the workmanship on the frame, all I could concentrate on were my balloon cheeks and generous girth. I pleaded in vain with my mother to change the pictures and carefully pick more flattering snaps. I have come close to disobeying her wishes on a number of occasions, especially when a visitor says, looking at the pictures: “Hey, I didn’t know you had an older brother!” My guests call it the wall of fame and in my eyes I see a sorry wall of shame!
This obsession with the body might strike some of you ladies as odd, but the reality is that men are just as concerned about the way they look as you are. Yes you might look around at your local BEE hangout and see the big tummies and ill-fitting suits and think I must be smoking something pretty potent, but it is true. There are few urban men with what football official Andrew Dipela calls ‘public opinion’ who are genuinely proud of their paunch. Some are one day away from getting a trainer, but most just let it be because they are spending tireless nights working at the next deal or finalising that tender document. I suppose for some, multiple millions in your bank account can compensate for a lack of a six-pack any day.
Some might blame the emergence of – and thankfully the subsequent death of - the Metrosexual for this heightened awareness about body image. This is the being typically seen a few years ago at the Clinique counter at Stuttafords, in a pink shirt discussing the finer nuances of combination skin with an attractive saleslady. This guy made it acceptable for men to fuss about their looks and in turn opened a whole new can of worms.
The increase of bulimia, anorexia, the use of steroids and obsessive, counter-productive exercising among men are all symptoms of body consciousness in an age where looks have come to mean so much more that being presentable. Looks have been proven to affect your chances at a better job; a better mate; better service at restaurants and more attention than the other groomsmen at traditional weddings!
So my motives are clear and if I have indeed stuck to my guns and the 10kg is gone, the next time you see me, you had better recognize.
Bayete, iNkosi!!

*Originally published in True Love Magazine, RSA, October 2007

Naija Musings: a note on Xenophobia

2007-11-08T00:26:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

“It’s gonna be rough, but certainly not boring!” enthused my soon-to-be chaperone, with the intuitive knowledge that I was already sold. Her words would ring true a few days later as we sat for two hours outside a crowded Oweri “International” Airport in 35-plus degree heat, with humidity levels Durbanites would baulk at, waiting for an aeroplane to take us back to Lagos. But I get ahead of myself. Let’s back up a little.
The place in question was Nigeria and a small group of journalists had been selected to attend the 3rd annual African Movie Awards (AMAA) in Bayelsa State. It was to be my inaugural Naija trip and having missed the opportunity to go to last year’s AMAAs, there I was, grinning at the prospect of being in one of the world’s most fascinating countries.
I might have never been to Nigeria prior to this trip, but living in Johannesburg, you can understand how I would have come across one or two brethren from Nigeria. I have come across all sorts of brothers from that part of our continent. The helpful, burly fellow on the street corner who gives you directions you when you are “lost” in Hillbrow; the hard-working doctor in the public service who just wants a better life for his children; the driven, South African-educated Nigerian whose entrepreneurial spirit is beyond what many locals can comprehend and the proverbial multi-tasker, master of all trades like a business associate of mine Adewale Ajadi. The UK and Nigeria-based poet, writer, speaker, thinker and businessman, is a shining example of what the Nigerian dream should be all about: a global outlook, an enterprising spirit, tenacity, a commitment to excellence and a passionate but easy approach to life and business. Exposure to people like Ajadi has always made my aversion to the often incessant Xenophobia I come across all the more visceral. Stereotyping and prejudice is the most common manner in which the insecure person can nurse their inadequacies and unfortunately those Africans which modern borders would deem “foreigners” are some of the first victims of this pathetic, reactionary mindset.
Xenophobia is by no means a South African peculiarity. In fact, coupled with Tribalism, it is an endemic continent-wide scourge that will forever undermine the ideals of a united Africa. You see it as much in Kenya and Nigeria as you do in Morocco and Tunisia. But in our never-ending quest to be the best African nation, as South Africans, we seem to hijack these stakes as much as we do crime statistics.
We have uninformed opinions on other countries, their people, how they conduct business and their political status quo. We venture not beneath the propaganda we feed ourselves because it comforts us. Our inadequacies cannot be borne of our own deficiencies, so the glaring target has to be the cause, we tell ourselves. Unemployment is high because foreigners are taking our jobs, we say. We look past the fact that unemployment is high because the majority of our people lack skills as a result of poverty and an inferior education and other factors much more sinister than “foreigners”.
I have always had a pretty good handle on the levels of Xenophobia around me. I have friends from other African countries that have experienced it, in my presence and many more times on their own. I have both South African friends and acquaintances who are not Xenophobic and those that are. In my home town of Port Elizabeth, Somali business owners are being assaulted, their shops looted and chased out of the township of Motherwell. It has become so bad in certain instances that whites long cottoned onto the dark climate and I for one have heard more than one white South African utter the words “It’s not ‘our people’, it’s the damn Nigerians doing the crime,” to affirming nods and smiles from the room full of black South Africans. I never thought I’d see the day, but then again, the Nats merged with the ANC.
My time in Nigeria reinforced some standard stereotypes and at the same time exposed the similarities to South Africa I have always sensed about that country. In three days I had to learn that even when someone is using an aggressive tone with you, it doesn’t mean they are being confrontational. A charged exchange could very well be an expression of excitement and culminate in laughter. I had to learn that much as I have been known to subscribe to African time, time is a virtual concept in Nigeria, things get done, eventually. I learnt that light-skinned women generally hold an unfair advantage in this a nation of “sun-kissed” people. I learnt that pride is a huge driver; stubbornness is a virtue and street smarts were a prerequisite
But I also learnt of the generous nature of the people; their zest for every minute that life generously provides and their incredible implicit self-belief. Wait a minute, am I describing Nigeria and its people and not good ol’ Mzansi? Mmhh, I am reminded of that old saying about loathing what’s most like you. It’s all very silly isn’t it?

*Originally published in YMag, RSA, 2007

A brand new day: A tribute to Lebo Mathosa

2006-01-12T01:01:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

“Having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream,” is how the trusty dictionary.com defines the word surreal. In the case of the tragic death of sensational entertainer Lebo Mathosa, the surrealism involved is more akin to a terrible nightmare.
As I write this, it is but days since socialites, friends, family, politicians, fans, opportunists, hacks and voyeurs said goodbye to her, yet the hazy nightmare persists, getting more terrifying by the second.
As usual my colleagues in the newspaper trade are furiously “doing their jobs”, looking for saucy angles to splash all over the front page or to pass off as “Insight”; radio stations are blowing their local quotas out of the water, blazing one of Ekurhuleni’s finest daughters’ music like never before and murmurs of impending drama over the sticky issue of royalties permeate the toxic Jozi air. An icon is dead, and that disorienting, hallucinatory feeling is most uncomfortable.
Conversations way past and more recent revolving around the Drama Queen come to mind. A friend takes me back to 1995 in my native Port Elizabeth, in the build up to a massive kwaito bash at the St George’s Park cricket grounds. The show would feature Arthur, Trompies, Thebe, Mdu and everyone else you can think of that was worth their kwaito salt. The headliners Boom Shaka were all we cared about.
This was a time when Lebo and Thembi Seete on stage was all a teenage boy needed to get worked up. Those thick braids, tiny waists, rubber-like pelvises and beautiful, fresh faces sent sordid teenage fantasies raging wildly in our collective heads. Of course the music was great, “Makwere-kwere” and “It’s about time” being solid favourites. The group had annexed the genre that was a hybrid of dance, r&b and ragga which was subsequently en vogue and spawned a host of imitators. That night they almost caused a riot.
This was not because they came on stage late, lip-sinked or just didn’t pitch – which, frightfully still occurs in 2006 – this was because what transpired on stage had a sizzling edge that had not been seen before. The quality of it all was too good to be real and made one proud of South African music. Thankfully the barricades held up the hoards of fans wanting to get closer, to touch - even if it was a bead of sweat – but the graf was on the wall, it was about time to sit up and take note. And boy did we take note, taking them all the way to multi-platinum. It was of course short-lived in the greater scheme of things. While a track like “Bambanani” – off their self-titled 1999 album - featuring Ihashe Elimhlophe broke ground in its fusion of popular music with Maskandi and “Lerato” off the same disk was popular, in truth sadly, Boom Shaka had reached their apex the previous year with the release of their most complete album, Words of Wisdom, which contained the definitive dance tracks “Gcwala” “Don’t be ashamed” and “Free”, the latter a glittering tribute to Lebo’s often ignored dexterity with the pen.

If there was ever going to be a genuine Boom Shaka reunion, there can never be one now. Groups come together, break up and reunite. They change band members as often as they have drinking binges but can remain every bit as great as the day they played their first note. But Boom Shaka is a different story, there could never be one without Lebo.
Her solo albums (Dreams, Drama Queen and Lioness) although not as successful as the Boom Shaka albums, were leaps in comparison to the rest of her ex-colleagues. What she lacked in sales, she sure made-up for in racking in Voyager miles across the continent performing to wild appreciation. Her tight, well-choreographed stage act will remain unforgettable among those who loved it and those corporates who blushed through the show but knew their clients had had a good time. It can be argued in fact, that one of the main reasons we now have KB, Chomee, Kelly Khumalo – young women who pay homage to the art of stage performance, no matter how misguided some of them may be – is because of Lebo.
In another conversation, a friend of Lebo’s decries the consistent and inaccurate comparisons to Brenda. Yes Mabrrr said it herself that Lebo would be “the new Brenda” and yes, Lebo was flattered by this but she had her own shoes to continue breaking in.
Yet we persisted, we wanted her to ‘replace’ Brenda, as if Mabrrr could ever be replaced, by anyone, ever. We were not content with her just being the shy, kind Lebo she really was, so she fucked with us, taking ownership of the label of Drama Queen. That’s what we wanted right, that’s what we saw – so she gave it to us? The tantrums, the diva bit, the controversial sound bites, the outrageous persona, all of it, we lapped it all up. We lapped it all up so emotionally either way, for one reason: she reminded us so much of ourselves, of our own imperfections.
I had a paradoxical writer/artist relationship with Lebo over the years. I have been her biggest fan and then on these pages many moons ago dismissed – and still believe – her collaboration with Keith Sweat on “I’ll Trade (A million bucks)” as a stunt by the American and not the big international break it was touted as. There were times I thought her fashion forward and times when I’ve thought she had completely lost the sartorial plot and that her hairstyles were sometimes plain scary. I have even been afraid of her, but have always been mindful of not judging her chosen life as an artist. Unless you are born with latter day Kabelo Mabalane faith, the life of an artist is going to test you as often as you breathe.
Money, record labels, managers, the media, family, lovers, fans, politics, it all takes its toll. And much as many fans would have believed her to have superpowers, they now know only too well that she was as mortal as all of us. What she thought about the continuous interest in her life was best articulated in “Free”. “Tell me why/ you like to make me feel/ my life is never real/ how can you be so cruel/ you make me lose my cool. So many times I cried/ so many ways I’ve tried/ to find some peace of mind/ this world is never kind.”
In our last interview (BL!NK Magazine, May 2006) , I asked her what her favourite Lebo song of all time was and eerily, this is what she said: “It would have to be the last track off Lioness (her current album) “Bayangihleka”. Nowadays, with so many people dying, I find myself in the hospital quite often and seeing how people suffer just before they die is a painful feeling. This is one of those songs dedicated to those who are in pain and those who are yet to experience it, either themselves or their families.
“It (the song) talks about what can happen to another person can happen to you. That song just consoles me. I get goose bumps and tears in my eyes and just think about life over and over again.”
That was the Lebo that few people knew, the caring, kind and selfless Lebo or as a good friend of her says ever so quaintly, “Lebo had a hug for everyone, even if they didn’t deserve it.” Lebo told me herself: “I love collecting things and collecting people. I love being around other people and pleasing them, (often) at my own expense.”
If there is but one thing we can learn from Lebo’s death it’s that unconditional love can lead to your detriment, but you need to do it anyway.
It is indeed a brand new day, but can we handle it?

*Originally published in YMag, 2006

God bless the music snob

2005-11-08T01:15:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye

I blame my parents for being a snob - a music snob that is. Much as those familiar with me will attest to my open mindedness and balanced view of life and everything else in the periphery, I am rather parochial when it comes to music and my parents made me do it. Growing up, I did not come across just any music around the house. I was in tune with Pink Floyd, Donny Hathaway, Joseph Zawinul, Sam Cooke, John Coltrane, Nina Simone and others of the same intellectual and musical calibre. I would unconsciously read the liner notes on the records and listen intently when my father would have endless music-related conversations with his friend Bra Bheki, while my mother lamented the fact that I had foregone piano lessons for football and missed out on making my late grandfather, the sensational saxophonist Dalton Khanyile, happy by being the next Oscar Petersen. She also never forgets the fact that I “ran away” from Karate class and missed out on being the next Chuck Norris. Ahhh, Chuck…ok, ok, another time.
As time went on and I grew older and developed my own tastes - however entrenched they were in my home schooling – I knew what was rubbish, no matter how popular it was, and for the life of me, could never comprehend how perfectly good ears could go through the same sonic torture I was going through and mistake it for music.
When it comes to jazz on the world stage, contemporary musicians, with some exceptions like Terence Blanchard and the Marsalis clan still hold it down in the tradition of Monk, Dizzie or Miles. When it comes to what one would lazily term “commercial” hip-hop, the heydays were in the nineties – Biggie, Pac, Dre, Snoop, The Lost boys et al – and that is where it ended. Sadly, the same goes for kwaito, it was all snuffed up by TKZee; gyrated to death by Boom Shaka and the chapter was closed with Thebe, Stoan and Nicholas’ choreographed panty-dropping moves. It’s all over I’m afraid, yet there are some that still insist on going into the studio purporting to record music, when the sane among us hear absolute crap. I have never felt the need to apologise for my insular preferences and as you will see below, neither should you, unless of course fit into any of these categories.
The Jamie Foxx fan – you should know better, yes he’s a great actor and yes he can hold it down on the stand up comedy circuit, but come on, as a singer, he is only tolerable when impersonating other people (not Ray Charles, that bit’s just tired). And yes, we know about the first album way back in the day and no, that one still doesn’t hack it by along shot, you’d do better to listen to Chris “Is your man, on the floor?!” Brown and we all know how nauseating that experience is.
The soft jazz nut – if your idea of jazz is Kenny G’s soundtracks to teenage suicide movies camouflaged as soothing music, then you deserve an all-night vigil. Surely life cannot be that bad?
The “ballad” devotee – your Sunday afternoon is only complete if it is wallpapered by “the repertoire”, spewing the same pool of 25 sing-along excuses for love songs, performed by one-hit flukes; has-beens or “never will-bees” like Sam Saulter, Tevin Campbell or Jagged Edge respectively. You are sad and definitely need to be exposed to people with good taste, because your current crop certainly does not make the grade.
The “conscious hip hop” head – If you cottoned onto this 'genre' recently and now swear by Common or Talib, then I can see you clearly: neo-poetry session going, weed-smoking wanna-bee revolutionary. Now I have been there, a closet “head” with a penchant for analysing Q Tip’s verses in Tribe; Emcees like Wordsworth in the Lyricist Lounge series and the now ever-popular Roots or pre-Fergie Black Eyed Peas, but I refuse to believe the hype completely.
With exceptions like KRS One – who incidentally is beyond reproach – and Dante “Mos Def” Smith who still keeps it where it should be - even though some of his biggest, if unschooled fans still don’t get the rock thing – the sad news is that Common uses homophobic lyrics in his rhymes; the word bitch is not far from Talib’s lips; Black Thought is as blinged out as any Nelly or Lil’ John, albeit in a tastier manner; Rawkus Records is dead; “clean living” Emcees inhale as much Heineken as the next guy when few are watching. It’s all very noble and yes I am still down, but it’s time for less self-righteousness.
The Kanye West aficionado– if you are enamored by this gentleman, all I have to say about is that the con is on, and you’ve been a victim since College Dropout. Yes he has beats – and has more stamina for sampling than Diddy when Bad Boy ruled the roost - but he’s no Messiah, no politically-sussed breath of fresh air. My three year-old son could have told you that George Dubya gives squat for darkies.
The kwaito loyalist – truth be told, what Mandoza passes off as kwaito is truly sad. Guitar riffs, uncreative positive messages that go in one ear, out the other and baffling imitations of white dudes that cannot dance, disguised as the latest moves, are truly appalling. I’d settle for TKZee’s lazy roaming around the stage “put your hands in the air” disorder any day. Or, provided the volume is on mute, reruns of Arthur’s performances on Studio Mix.
Some latter-day stuff has been a throwback to the good old days, Zola – once upon a time -; some stuff from the mask-less performers at TS records; Magesh before Botswana happened and Kabelo when he still got high and didn’t rely on a tested formula. You would do better accepting that with HHP, Tuks, Morafe and the like, this shit’s gone full circle: Mmabatho is slamming like it’s Woza ’95 at Letlamoreng Dam. The future’s there, even if their music is essentially hip-hop.
The pussycat dolls fan – I don’t know their names, all fifty of them, but they irritate the hell out of me. They sound like a choir of J Los trying their darndest to leap off the top storey ledge. I think this group, along with many of their breed, was created by the evil doctor Read, a megalomaniac book publisher creating wretched music in a bizarre attempt to get more people reading rather than listening to the radio.
There are many more of you out there. Yes, you too, busy lapping up everything on the afro-pop conveyor belt and you, with your Smirnoff Spin in your hand, sweaty spaghetti top and hipsters, at 4am entranced by some “doof doof” house song with not an inch of soul. I see you all.
Shame on you!

*Unpublished, written in 2005…I think!

Zimbabwean beer to the rescue!

2004-01-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

By Siphiwe Mpye
I lost my T-shirt in Zimbabwe. No, I was not ambushed by a gun-wielding militia desperate for forex; the T-shirt disappeared after I had made the acquaintance of Zambezi Lager on a two-hour sunset cruise on the mighty river sharing the same name.
Before embarking on my whirlwind visit to the spectacular Victoria Falls, my boss had ordered an investigation into the quality of Zimbabwean beer. Being the dutiful foot soldier that I was, I happily obliged - perhaps beyond the call of duty. But we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves.
Stepping off the British Airways Comair flight hours earlier, I had been brutally assaulted by the 30°C heat. Not a whisper of a breeze, not a hint of humidity, just dry, unbearable heat. After the sprint into the Victoria Falls airport complex, I joined the non-existent queue for travelers from the SADC region, while each of my foreign counterparts endured a grilling from gentlemen who would not be out of place at the Hefer Commission soapie. There are a lot of these gentlemen stationed all over our neighbour's troubled land.
The Elephant Hills Intercontinental, the five-star establishment where I'd be staying, had an interesting recent history, my driver - whose name I scandalously forgot as soon as he had told me - said.
I, of course, knew that it had been damaged by fire and had only recently been re-opened, but I indulged his tour guide tendencies. In the short drive to the hotel I learned not to talk politics, trust anyone or exchange money on the street - no matter how good the rate was.
"I live in Jo’burg, bra, you don't have to tell me twice," I said, only partly in jest.
The view from my room was spectacular. Overlooking the championship 18-hole golf course and both the Zimbabwean and Zambian sides of the Zambezi River, the word "heaven" came to mind. With a fully equipped mini bar and some time to kill, I took in the expansive view. From certain sections of the impressive hotel, one can see the Falls, which in Shona are called Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders).
"Please be advised that monkeys and baboons do enter the rooms, do not leave your door open," the sign on the sliding door read, putting an end to my stint on the balcony.
A phone call from the hotel's Tafadzwa Furusa - whom I consistently called Tapuwa in an apparent Big Brother Africa hangover - announced my lift to the river bank where the sunset cruise and "beer investigation" would resume.
The war of tastes was between the aforementioned brew and Bolingers. There was no contest - Zambezi Lager's rich, beer drinker's bite won hands down, all the way to the bottom of the swimming pool where I think my T-shirt now lies.
You see, after the cruise, on which about a gallon of beer was consumed, a couple of crazy local lasses had convinced me and an Aussie bloke to go out on a night on the town. After the disappointment of not being able to go white water rafting because of time clashes and missing out on the lauded Flight of the Angels helicopter ride over the falls - I was told the aircraft was "broken", but in truth, according to my local companions, there was no fuel - I had to make my own fun and gladly accepted the invitation.
As we drove off towards town, the blonde young lady behind the wheel of the ancient, battered pale blue Mazda proclaimed: "I've had about 11 accidents this year so hold on tight." We all lounged back, comforted by the thought.
One unsuccessful attempt to view some rapids in the dark later, we made our first stop, safe and sound, at Explorers , a drinking hole equally popular with backpackers, other foreigners and a thirsty crowd from Chinotimba township. Our time there was limited to two beers and a traditional meal of pap and vleis. On to Shoestrings we chugged along.
Our new haunt was much more to our liking and offered an outdoor atmosphere more suited to the debauchery we were all clearly in the mood for. The lager, at mega-Zim dollars which are meaningless at rand rates, flowed freely and in a moment of childhood nostalgia, we all ended up in the pub's swimming pool - clothes, passports, cash, handbags and all. In the midst of all the madness, my T-shirt also did a Houdini.
The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur, but somehow by the end of it all, I sported a highly feminine vest and mine and my Aussie friend's hosts had made like the T-shirt and vanished, leaving us with silver-tongued taxi drivers to deal with.
We crawled into bed way after the birds had begun chirping, having missed an elephant-back safari.
A day later, back in good old Johannesburg, I opened my email to find a message from an unknown address. It was blonde Schumacher.
Subject: VICTORIA FALLS IS MISSING YOU!

Originally published in the Saturday Star, Weekend Argus and IOL.co.za, January, 2004