Key Issues

Keys are important.
Keys keep us safe.
Keys bind us together.
Keys mean we're afraid.
Keys mean "I love you".
Keys get lost in the laundry.
Keys get locked in the car.
Keys mean you're 21, which means you're grown up, for some reason, but at least they're easier than having your foreskin chopped off.
Keys make a jingly clink sound that lets you know where they are about your person.
Keys in your hand mean you're about to leave, or you won't be staying long.
Keys can be a weapon, they say, if you're mugged in a parking lot.
Keys get old and smooth, like the smoothed iconic stone feet of the Virgin Mary in Rome, caressed by pilgrims for centuries, but not like that at all.
Keys might as well be screwdrivers when they get like that.
Keys make handy pendants, if you're a latchkey kid. Like plectrum necklaces for musicians.
Keys are about eight bucks to cut at a hardware store.
"Keys, keys, keys," is what you say to yourself while turning your room upside down so you can find them and leave the flat for a photo shoot with a rock band you're already 20 minutes late for. And you haven't even started looking for your wallet, your sunglasses or your phone yet. So they gonna have to wait.
Keys will all be smart cards soon. Or iris scanners, or fingerprint readers, or voice recognition devices.
Keys can also be allen keys, those L-shaped spanners that are also shaped like honeycombs.
Keys was the last finance minister - Derek, not Allen, and no relation. He was the one before Manuel. Keys was very good, apparently, but now, it turns out, so is Manuel.
Keys are little islands between the swamps off the southern tip of Florida, apparently. There's one called Key Largo.
Keys rhyme with quays. You get them in harbours, apparently. There's one called Victoria Quay.
Keys are what songs are in. There are 14 in all. It's to do with root notes and you have to end on the same note you started with, most of the time.
There's one called E, which most blues is in.
Keys can be buttons, and occur on keyboards, for typing, or playing the blues.
Keys can be verbs, adjectives, nouns and adverbs, like all the best words.
Keys give you a sense of belonging. And belonging is a key sense.
Keys come in bunches, like bananas, but they taste of metal, like iron supplements, so they must be good for you, like a long holiday in the Comores. Because sometimes all you need is a change of environment to feel completely invigorated, and that's exactly what keys give you.

Buying umbhaco for Baby

Baby’s colleague Tumi was getting married and we had cracked the nod. It was to be a township wedding at Tumi’s home in Refilwe, outside Cullinan. “Dress: traditional,” it said on the invitation.

            

The night before the wedding, Baby said we’d have to swing by her friend’s house the next day so she could borrow a sari.

            

A sari? No, no, no, no, no.

            

As a white dude of mixed ancestry, I could get away with wearing a suit to a traditional wedding. But Baby is a lovely Xhosa maiden. I was having none of this sari talk.

She would be wearing traditional Xhosa dress or nothing. We set out to find authentic isikhakha, or umbhaco, in Johannesburg on Saturday morning. We had exactly an hour to find it.

We’d seen clothes shops on Louis Botha Avenue, so we headed down there. Our first stop was at a hole-in-the wall shop run by a West-African man named Daniel.

His dresses were of the shiny, green, nylon, party-dress variety, not the thick, cotton, five-piece ensemble in bright red that Baby had in mind.

“No problem,” said Daniel, “Come up to my room and see if there’s something you like.”

We were taken up to this Nigerian guy’s room and there was a moment of, “I hope this is okay,” as we left the lift on the third floor. Luckily Daniel was cool, unluckily his back-up dresses were worse than his front-of-house selection.

He recommended we try Braamfontein.

Braamies is in downtown Jo’burg, where the Mandela Bridge leaps the Park Station tracks across to Newtown. It’s also the site of a Business Improvement District, so it’s a pretty safe neighbourhood.

But still, it’s downtown Jo’burg. And any place where you need an armed security guard on every corner isn’t that safe. Especially not for a couple wandering about and gazing down alleys wistfully, wondering if there might be a dress shop down there.

All morning, Baby ran a cellphone investigation. As we left Ibrahim Tailors in Jorissen street, we got a call back from Penny in Alexandra. She said traditional dresses were usually made to order, with a two-week waiting period. But we might find something at the Market Theatre flea market.

Skeptical, and a little demoralised, we gave the cheesy tourist market a cursory visit. It was exactly as we remember it, awash with clichéd trinkets, paperbacks and woodcarvings of eagles.

By this stage it’s 10.30am, two hours till wedding time. It’s time to go.

Forlornly, we make a parting query of a drum vendor down the final alley. “You don’t know where we can get isikhakha?”

“Down the alley on the left,” comes the instant reply.

And there it is, as promised: T&T fashions, owned and managed by Sisi Thandi. Like a saving angel, she welcomes us into her shop and presents the only ready-made umbhaco in the place.

It’s a bright-red Xhosa dress, complete with voorskoot, iqhiya headscarf and matching handbag

Within two hours, Baby would be the most beautiful lady at the wedding. Well, the second most.

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Marrying Black Girls For Guys Who Aren't Black

Things I Learnt About White Guys By Marrying A Black Girl

Comrade Baby And The Gateway To Hell

White Boy Things

Marrying Black Girls For Guys Who Aren't Black

Are you a guy? And you’re not black? And you dig black girls?
            Not just to look at their asses from a distance, but actually to talk to them and ultimately try pomp them?

            And then actually pomp them and start going out in public together and stand in the queue at movies with them and all that? Go to braais and say, “This is my girlfriend Letsego?” or Lonwabo, or Sibu, or Kate because she grew up with a white family. Or whatever.
            If this sounds like you, and you follow things through to their natural conclusion, you may even end up marrying your babe, differently coloured as you might be.
            It happened to me, so I have prepared a list of tips.

Marrying Black Girls for Guys Who Aren’t Black:
           
Prepare to not follow the conversation
You’re not black, so don’t even try to be. Maybe you know some Xhosa, maybe you’ve had black friends all your life, maybe you been building RDP houses in Katlehong for the past ten years. But you’re not black. When you hang with her mates, you will spend a lot of time staring blankly into the middle distance, smiling vaguely, while people bellow at each other in vernac, laugh their arses off and generally have more fun than you. If you stick with it, you’ll get to meet her family, where the same scenario will play itself out times a hundred.

Prepare for the speeches
African culture is big on making speeches. Cultural ceremonies are basically extended talk shops where the okes – the men, mostly – get to showcase their thousand-year-old debating skills. African culture is basically a massive, continent-wide Toastmaster’s club. While everyone’s making speeches you don’t understand, nod politely, and only ask what was said afterwards. Sooner or later they’ll ask you to say something. Keep it concise, because you’re about to make a total cock of yourself.

Lobola: a minefield
It’s supposed to be a patriarchy, but in reality most black kids are raised by women. Lobola negotiations are supposed to be handled between the uncles of your two clans. A quick check will confirm that you have only three uncles, two of whom now live in Australia, and Oom Johan, currently on probation for assaulting his farm workers. On her side, there will be roughly 27 uncles, brothers, half-brothers, half-uncles, cousin-uncles and cousin-brothers. They will all insist they are the right person to conduct lobola negotiations with.

You are a racist: face it
You can marry six black babes in a row and you’ll still be a racist. We all are. Being a racist is part of being South African. Luckily, she’s one too. You okes are made for each other. Just admit it at every opportunity then wallow in your inbred racial prejudice and bigotry. Park in front of TV talking in ethnic accents, ripping off every race group in turn. Every now and then you’ll wade into a political debate with an unthought-through clanger of such ignorant racism you’ll shock yourself. Don’t stress about it. You can still marry her.

Embrace the B
Choice of music remains one of the most powerful cultural signifiers. So unless you’re dating earth’s only black female fan of Facing The Gallows, you’re going to be listening to a lot of R&B. There will be Beyonce, yes, but old-school stuff you didn’t know existed. Try Silk, Tamia, Johnny Gill, Shai and Tevin Campbell. And you will never get to like it. It will be a living hell every time you hear it. On one occasion you’ll drive the whole way from Sandton to Kempton listening to Forever My Lady by Jodeci. Oh, and your Bon Iver will not be tolerated. Trivium? Forget about it.

Black babe = gold digger
Ja I know. Not necessarily. But to your folks that’s all she is. So they’ll insist on a pre-nup to stop her stealing your family’s dynastic fortune. Even if her dad’s a company director, and your old man’s a caretaker at the Boknes caravan park. Life will suck at this point. And you’ll have a moment in the lawyer’s office where you’ll want to rip your face off. But on some deep, twisted level, there’s a certain pride in being a target of gold-digging. Misguided as that pride may be.

You get a new wife every month
Because black women do hair like nobody else does hair. Your babe will pop off to get her hair done at ten in the morning, and return, like, eleven hours later! When she left she’ll have looked like Keri Hilson, and she’ll come back looking like Diana Ross the time she dropped her toaster in the bath. It’s disturbing having your lady look completely different and you’ll be shocked when she first walks in the door. But don’t give the game away. Try not to gasp – she’s invested eleven hours in this, after all. Practise saying, “Wow! You look amazing.”

You’re going to have to defend your territory
When you go out with a white babe, guys seem to at least grant you the basic respect of waiting till you’re not around before they try to woo her away from you. Not so much with black ladies. You can be standing right next to her at the gym, and some dude will grab her by the arm and ask her where she’s from. Policemen will wolf whistle her while you’re walking right next to each other. Beggars at the robots will tell her she’s phakile. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to take someone by the throat and threaten to rip his fuckin’ eyes out. Think of it as a romantic gesture, defending your lady’s honour. You old smoothie, you.

Cultures clash
Have you ever bought something on lay-bye? How do you rate the taste of umleqwa compared to normal chicken? Do you want some of this delicious tripe? Aren’t you dying for some magwinya? Aren’t you broken that Oprah’s off air? Not? Well maybe you a white oke going out with a black babe. Or, to be honest, maybe you’re me. Let’s stop pretending these things are universal – these are just some examples of what I’ve experienced in my relationship. And to generalize is to engage in racist stereotyping, and we agreed we’re trying to cut down on racism. As if that’s possible.

I’m pretty happy indulging my personal case of jungle fever, and if you’re into something similar, I wish you the very best of polychromatic good luck. Maybe I’ll see you guys out some night. At a Kenny Lattimore concert or some shit like that…

LIKE THIS? TRY THESE!

Things I Learnt About White Guys By Marrying A Black Girl

Comrade Baby And The Gateway To Hell

Buying Umbhaco For Baby 

White Boy Things

This pic of Lisa Nicole Carson

When I lived in a digs called the Zoompf in Port Elizabeth, South Africa,  my sole design solution was buying imported magazines by the kilogram, then tearing them apart and prestikking the pages to my walls. I spent several years living there, so most of the images have been seared into my brain's read-only memory.

Among them is this image of a lady named Lisa Nicole Carson. Her career peaked in around the turn of the millennium, when she was appearing in supporting roles on ER and Ally McBeal at the same time.

I'm not sure what mag this comes from, although I suspect it was one out of New York called Paper. The gutter credit implies she was shot for Vibe magazine. Suffice to say that for several years this was the sexiest idea of a woman in my life.

I believe the lovely, curvaceous LNC experienced substance and psychological issues and pretty much fell off the celebrity radar after her halcyon years. But thanks to the glory of the magical multipipe, I have been able to dig up the very same image that fascinated me for so many years.

I don't know a single thing about black women's hair, save to note that it is a thing of power and glory. And to remark that you just don't see enough of this kind of hair these days. Or bodies as bangin' as late-Nineties Lisa Nicole Carson. Or cheekbones like that. Or tops like that. Okay, jury's out on the top, but the overall impression is pretty fly. Just thought I'd point that out. For me, this lady was the queen in the Nineties.

Apparently she's made a comeback of sorts recently, appearing in an episode of Harry's Law. But this here was the heyday, man!

Asses Of The Caribbean

...or, as it should be titled, "Men Who Ream Donkeys." It's a fascinating sociological analysis by those geniuses at Vice magazine, of a custom followed outside Cartagegna on the north coast of Colombia. Apparently over there, teenage boys often have their first sexual experience with a donkey. They believe it makes your penis bigger, or some stuff like that. Edgy enough watching, but brace yourself for the part towards the end where things get pretty graphic. And yes, it's exactly what you think. In fact, the creepiest part of the whole flick is the New York sexologist putting her analytical spin on this cultural curiosity. If ever someone took the fun out of pomping donkeys!

 

Inspector Ras – Welcome To My Car

The latest manifestation of my new cover versions pluck. This is one by South African rock music icon Bernoldus Niemand aka James Phillips. Recorded in my car, naturally, on the humidest day of the year.  Schwitzing like a rapist, then, as I strummed this one to glory...

She's Lost Control vs She's Lost Control

Joy Division remain one of my favourite bands of all time. They helped invent alternative rock, and were among the first groups to fuse electronic and rock music. Singer Ian Curtis tragically topped himself in 1980, just as they had their first international hit with Love Will Tear Us Apart. But the band regrouped as New Order, with a more electro sound, and went on to worldwide fame and fortune. Some – including me – say they never again matched their early work. It looks like drummer Stephen Morris is using drum triggers in this BBC performance of She's Lost Control from 1979. I remember seeing those for the first time around 2002 and thinking they were terribly modern. Not so much, I guess. 

But! Just for an experiment! Try watch the Spoek Mathambo video on mute while you play the Joy Division video with the sound on. Fkn rocks, I'm not gonna lie!

Spoek Mathambo is a bleeding-edge artist out of South Africa, but based in new York. His musical style fuses electro, dubstep, hip-hop kwaito and rock. His videos are even more compelling. This one, for what he calls his "darkwave township house" version of the Joy Division classic was directed by Pieter Hugo and Michael Cleary. It's off his Mshini Wam album, and was shot in Langa, Cape Town with a cast from the local Happy Feet dance troupe. Check out the amazing stuff Pieter Hugo's doing at www.pieterhugo.com.

 

Table Mountain wingsuit flight

A crew called Molde Base hopping off Cape Town's table mountain. Lovely stuff. Just wonder why they mostly feature the rear view. This is a transcendental form of extremism. Nuff respect and all that. I'll leave the okes to it.