The Spear saga in 1min24

John Cleese's eulogy for fellow python Graham Chapman

It's 1989, and Monty Python legend John Cleese pays tribute to his late colleague and fellow comedic genius Graham Chapman in the only way possible. By irreverently taking the piss out of the very institution he's supposed to be honouring. This is the way it's meant to be done. Actually, I can't wait for one of my reprobate mates to peg! And if it's me that pegs, be sure to tell the people I told Cape Town to fuck off and put lank swearwords in magazines!

How you know you're forty!

While you’re snogging to Purple Rain, watching Ferdi in the garden on Big Brother and
queuing to buy nappies at Woolworths, time is marching on. Next thing you know, you’ll
see fresh-faced cherubs purchasing liquor, someone who must be still a child driving a
Polo... A bearded beast of an MMA guy will recite his ID number at the gym reception
and it’ll start with 940226… People this young can’t possibly be adults! But they are.
And you, sir, you may well be forty. In case you’re too busy on the driving range to be
certain, here are some ways to make sure.

You don’t have a sixpack, and you don’t care
You stopped taking your shirt off in public at the ’05 Oppikoppi. The one where you caught a glimpse of your side reflection in the window of some guy’s Hi-Lux double-cab. That was roughly when the point of going to gym became “avoiding a heart attack” instead of “attracting the attention of a Red Bull promo girl”. Not having a sixpack also
removes the responsibility of having to display it at places like H20, which exist largely for that. These days, the only person who sees your exposed abdomen is a party who asks diplomatically, “Do those jeans still fit you?”

Sportsmen described as “the veteran” are 10 years younger than you
And you find yourself even agitating for them to retire because, “the oke’s too slow
to the breakdown, and our scrums are suffering”. This in between asking the Brazen
Head waiter to please pick your dropped wallet up off the floor for you, because you did
something to your back getting the coffee plunger out of the bottom cupboard.

Kids are dropping oom bombs on you
An incidental, “Skies oom” as the young scamps hurry past you on the moving walkway
at OR is fine. But when a greying, mustachioed man with a boep and a clipboard outside
Spar wonders if he can interest oom in a funeral plan, things have gone too far. I mean,
how old does it look like we are? Forty?

You get to go sit with “the men”
There was a time when an African family gathering meant you and the rest of the young
people gathering in one place to smoke and drink away from the eyes of the grown-ups.
These days, if you attend an umsebenzi, you find yourself seated in the shaded side of
the garden with a bunch of madalas speaking Xhosa so deep you need a submarine to
understand it. At least you get first dibs on the booze.

Music is starting to proper suck
That Janelle Monáe has got some talent and Rihanna and Nicky Minaj are not hard to
look at. But if anyone left you in a room with those guys from One Direction, there
would be slaps issued. And if there’s ever a competition for who wants to burn Dave
Guetta’s fringe off with lighter fluid, you want fifty entries. There is some decent music
stuck away on the back end of the multipipe, on Hypemachine or lost.fm, but the best
stuff’s on your iTunes. Mbongeni Ngema in his prime! Now that was music!

The world’s getting a bit scary
Maybe you’re losing pluck. In your glory days, you once got picked up by these
Senegalese guys while hitch-hiking from 206 to Melville at night, drunk. They invited
you to a nudie bar in Hillbrow, where you spent the whole of Saturday morning, before
walking, barefoot, to the Troyeville Hotel for a pub lunch. These days you take a longer
route through Sandton to avoid the one robot where the beggars are a bit rude.

You have glory days
The very fact that you have stories to tell about what you got up to some time in the
distant past implies you may be past your prime. As does the way people wince slightly
when you tell them, like they know this one about the roadblock in Greenpoint verbatim.
And the one about the time in your car outside the Purple Turtle, after Nude Girls played,
that you always tell after that.

People are polite to you
The days when you hung out at Ba Pita, where your barman mate could give you sneaky
tequilas? What’d he used to say when you came in? “Yo, dog! How’s the head today?”
with a full shoulder bump! These days it’s, “Afternoon sir. Table for four? Near the
kiddies’ jungle gym?” And you find yourself demanding quality service. “Can we clean
up this table? And maybe get some focaccia?”

Beggars stop asking you for money
Even when you do find yourself at a patrolled robot, you get snubbed. Preying on the
weak as they do, beggars eschew anyone resembling a grumpy hard-arse. Presto, the
minute you turn forty, you’ll find the guys with the empty bags at the traffic light head
straight for the lady with the poodles in the mini SUV.

You took your birth year off your Facebook profile
Just the year, not the date. Because it’s still nice to get all those birthday wishes. But
there’s no need for everyone to know your exact age. And if you ignore it long enough,
hopefully you’ll start forgetting yourself. Unfortunately, 41 messages saying “Happy
belated” and “Have anything special planned?” aren’t guaranteed to prevent depression.

You still have clothes from the last millennium
And you don’t just own them. You’re wearing them! Those Facebook pics of you guys
at St Georges, when Symcox and Donald had that stand? The T-shirt you had on then is
the same one you wore for your monthly gym visit on Tuesday. You might’ve pulled a
rotator cuff. Could probably do with some physio.

If this is you, then by the sounds of things you should go to physio. Those people know
what they’re doing. They’ll be able to conduct a thorough physical analysis and confirm
whether your body is forty years old. But I’m telling you now. It’s not looking good for
you.

Taking frisbee to the cutting edge...

...where it belongs! Yeah man! The outrageously chinned Ronn Moss, aka Ridge Forrester from the Bold & The Beautiful makes a rare feature movie appearance here in the timeless Eighties classic Hard Ticket To Hawaii. Check out the greatest frisbee scene in a movie. Ronn stars as undercover drug operative Rowdy Abilene. Fist-pump that shit,  Rowdy, because it is awesome!

"This is for the Molokai cop!"

The Spear: Straight Outta The Art Ghetto

In my mind, Brett Murray's painting, The Spear, is art in its most powerful form. It has challenged people's values, spoken truth to power, caused controversy, stimulated national debate and transcended the elitist ghetto where this kind of art traditionally resides.

That it has done so largely because of the coverage given to the piece by City Press is apt. In these hyper-mediated times, just about everything can be amplified out of its original context to become a national debate.

Witness model-racist Jessica Leandra's career-immolating twitter firestorm the other week. In the years before social media, her k-bomb would've been a throwaway comment to her like-minded friends and it would never have emerged from Bedfordview, or wherever people like her reside.

Likewise, Brett Murray's painting – despite being artistically conceived – could easily have been a throwaway K-bomb of its own type.

Doubtlessly made to outrage society as much as critique our president's priapic personal life, it could easily have elicited little more than chuckles over canapes on the exhibition-opening scene.

Thanks to its mediation by City Press and its subsequent adoption as topic of the week by the social media set, it broke out of those confines and began to do what the best art often does. Challenge the audience.

Unfortunately, a lot of that audience were unwilling to be the audience. They'd not gone to an art gallery, they'd simply bought a City Press, or logged onto Facebook and now they were confronted with the (artistically) corrupted derivation of a Soviet propaganda poster originally depicting a heroic Lenin. But this one showing the president with his penis out.

It was likely a comment on President Zuma's numerous children in and out of wedlock, perhaps questioning the implications of that for our national culture in the time of HIV.

The unprepared audience was outraged. Cries of racism were quick to come and inevitable. Interdicts were brought by the ANC to force the Goodman gallery to take down the painting. "Rights go with responsibility," quoth ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe. "If you don't respect the responsibilities, you are going to destroy those rights."

Conspiracy theories have emerged on Twitter, some even implicating Murray himself in a performance-art defacing of his own art work.

But what this latest fiasco reflects is the breaking down of the walls that have kept our various cultures separate and bringing them into starker relief. The comfortable, privileged white enclave's opportunities to be quietly racist among themselves are fewer. Likewise the demurely outspoken art scene's chance of outraging patrons in a titillating, stylish manner, but remaining out of the way of blue-collar society with its less refined take on what constitutes art.

Swedish Culture minister Lena Adelson Liljeroth and "blackface cake" creator Makode Linde might agree.

We are finding it harder and harder to live past each other. The ubiquity of social media, and the fact that some media – notably City Press – are transcending their traditional audience demographics means we are increasingly being exposed to each other. (Pun, upon reflection, intended).

More and more, we are sharing the same mediated space. This offers great opportunities for artists hoping to make an impact and a social comment. It offers fewer opportunities for racists.

It also offers a greater space for debate, support or universal condemnation as the culture deems appropriate. And yes, there is a racial component to art. What some deem provocative, to others is an insult to the nation. But the cultural and media boundaries that kept our art out of each other's way lest we offend each other are no more.

We're going to have to deal with each other and our means of expression. White people can no longer ignore "dubul' ibhunu", we need to engage with it and formulate opinions. Understand what our countrymen are saying. Are they trying to offend us? Or are we usually so firmly separate from each other, culturally and linguistically, that it's not usually been an issue. The courts must rule on whether a derivative image of the presidents cock violates the president's dignity and mocks his office. And if it does, does it still have a right to be displayed?

Is that judicial call any different from pronouncing on an image of a massive, presidential phallus in a cartoon by Zapiro on the Times's comment page? Will the ANC's next call be for an Arts Tribunal to make our country's artists more accountable?

The Big Brothering of our creative industries is an ominous prospect. But a greater awareness of each other's cultural attitudes might make for different art that appeals to more people and can open more minds with a more culturally inclusive visual language. So in that sense, the debate that The Spear has stimulated is welcome.

It's all the media's fault that we're having to deal with this, with each other and our different cultures. With our different forms of self-expression. But it's about time we did.

Inspector Ras – "Cyan1"

A produced version of a song I do on acoustic. Just about works, I reckon. "My conscience will be clear, and my children will be yellow". Ha!

You'll probably hate The Buckfever Underground!

This band is so beyond the purview of conventional entertainment that anyone with mainstream expectations of what an artist should deliver is bound to be disappointed. If not disappointed, then quite possibly angered. Pissed off. "What shit is this?" is not an unheard of complaint at a Buckfever Underground show.

Thing is, the Buckfevers do a style of music fusing poetry, spoken-word, rock, funk, psychedelia and free-form jazz experimentalism that defies categorisation. So it's hard to even say, "If you like this, you'll probably like the Buckfevers." That's why it's easier to say you'll hate them! Anyone with a commercial taste in music will certainly find them difficult to digest.

They are about as far from the mainstream as it's possible to get. Despite that, they've flirted with actual success. They've won awards for the albums, played Oppikoppi, got their vids on MK. But if, for instance you prefer your frontman actually singing, you'll hate Buckfever Underground. If like hip-hop, you'll hate Buckfever Underground. If you prefer short, concise songs with a verse, chorus, bridge and a planned ending, you will despise The Buckfever Underground.

But if you're in the market for a creative take on musical expression, experimental songs in English and Afrikaans that push the limits of stage convention,  and offer visceral reflections of and on South African culture, then we might be in business. If you're open to musical poetry, free-form improvs, jam-band freestyles, an underground, anti-supergroup, and a unique bunch of artists who are on track to become a South African institution, you want to see Buckfever Underground.

The band is fronted by bilingual poetic genius and award-winning journalist Toast Coetzer, often carrying screeds of notes, which he recites over the Grateful Dead-style jams of his collaborators. These include Stephen Timm on drums, another writer and also creating futuristic electro music in bands like Myric Ambre and Polstar. Bassist Gil Hockman is a solo artist in his own right, a neo-folk troubadour who last year was possibly the giggingest performer in the country. Buckfevers guitarist Righard Kapp's style is close to the more out-there efforts of ex-Chili Pepper John Frusciante – during the heroin phase – and he has also produced some super-bizarre solo stuff, including sweet recent album Strung Like A Compound Eye. Pop genius John Savage, erstwhile of Cassette, and Samas musical director, completes the line-up, as he has done intermittently since they were established in Grahamstown in the Nineties.

It's almost like a surrealist Wu-Tang clan, if you think about it. The Buckfevers have been going about 15 years already. They go into hibernation as members refocus on personal projects, then reconvene to put out another album, a video, a tour. It's low-key, DIY in a punk style, and untainted by  commercialism. That said, you can buy their six albums at thebuckfeverunderground.com, or download tracks at Rhythm Records, or you can go see them live. Cos they're in a reconvening phase, the okes. A new album is approaching completion and that should mean a few Buckfevers appearances.

They're also visually literate to say the least, which makes their videos sweet watching and their actual albums collectable artefacts.

Without many people noticing, save their passionate fans, these guys have crafted a career worthy of great respect. They do what they do, on their own terms, in a style unlike anyone else. They might not get rich off this, but whatever happens, they'll be doing it with integrity intact.

No comment

Pride, and whiteness, means never having to say you’re sorry

The recent utterances of those now iconic spokespeople for South African whiteness, Jessica Leandra and FW de Klerk have filled me with shame to the point of wanting to hand in my Weber.

If these two fools – for now the international face of my ignominious tribe – still find themselves unable to put together a sincere apology for the incontrovertible harm done by their own racism, how can we ever expect to be taken seriously as partners in our nation-building project!

As former leader of apartheid South African and the National Party, Mr De Klerk has always tempered his apologies for apartheid with protestations that he had never condoned human rights violations and they happened without leaders' knowledge – for instance during his TRC testimony in 1997.

His recent interview with CNN suggests he still believes apartheid could have worked – it was just the implementation that was a bit off.  He says of apartheid's bantustan policy, “…saying that ethnic unity with one culture with one language everyone can be happy and can fulfil their democratic aspirations in an own state, that is not repugnant.”

This overlooks the fact that bantustans were created to disenfranchise black people within South Africa, thereby denying their most basic human rights. From this flowed forced removals, pass laws and the need for a massive security apparatus to suppress the movements expressing the people's opposition to the policy, which the apartheid government was determined to ignore.

As a former leader of white South Africa, De Klerk is in a position to own the fact that apartheid was a crime against humanity and that as supreme leader he bore ultimate responsibility for all its evils. Having done so, he can offer a sincere apology. The apologies he does offer generally take the form of, "of course I'm sorry, but…".

Also exhibiting the sin of pride, if not the gift of comprehensible communication, is model racist Jessica Leandra. Her telling twitter rants betrayed a deep-seated racism and an almost offensive bemusement that people could be insulted by it.

When it became clear that this was quite serious, and that what might fly at a whites-only braai in Bedfordview is actually a human-rights offence in the real world, she posted that, "I do apologize to those that have taken offense to my use of language."

And later, to would-be nemesis and fellow twitter bigot Tshidi Thamana at DA spokesman Mmusi Maimane's reconciliation breakfast, "Tshidi, I do apologise if the word I used offended you. It wasn’t intended to cover the entire black race, but rather at a certain individual that offended me in public.”

Another semi-apology! "I'm sorry if you were offended by what I said" is a nuance away from blaming the victim for being offended. The subtext is, "How was I to know everyone would kick up such a stink? I was just racially abusing this one person behind their back to my thousands of followers for disrespecting me."

For someone so insistent on respect, Ms Leandra shows little appreciation of its reciprocal nature.

The "Together we shall achieve" sign-off of her press release accepting Mr Maimane's offer jars in a letter that should be a groveling apology more than a proud clarion call to nation-building.

In these cases and in others, pride seems to be at the root of many white people's refusal to own their role in the historic and ongoing systematic oppression and exploitation of our black countrymen.

We demand respect, but refuse to engage. We apologize generally, but don't take personal responsibility. The truth is, we exist in this country thanks to the most generous settlement terms imaginable following three centuries of systematic oppression. Our economic control of the country has continued uninterrupted.

Gratitude is one attitude we should exhibit, respect for our fellow South Africans another. We can also no longer afford to hide in our enclaves and mutter darkly about the place going to the dogs.

Pride, arrogance and self-regard were at the heart of our bloody, oppressive tenure as SA's political leaders. Now that we are reduced to economic power alone, humility would serve us well in trying to heal the still festering wounds of the past and trying to build a more equitable dispensation as well as a non-racist, non-sexist, free and democratic society.

Joan As Police Woman – The Ride

We were turned on to this in the artist sampler of a recent issue of Mojo. In that context it was meant to be part of Paul Weller's mod movement. Quite what it has in common with that dude, we don't quite see. However it has served to represent for the female kind on our playlist, where things do tend to get a bit blokey.

Away from the Timeline

(One two three four.)

First verse. It doesn’t get any worse. Me and Missing Link on the floor with guitars. We are family. We’re up against the door, by the stage, beside the girls. In the name of Jesus Christ we were blessed at birth. Family. Only space in the house. Family.

            We are family. Pata Pata come to praise. (I know it I know it I know it.) We family! Missing Link is polite on his nerves. Siya bear him load. Inan’out from di road. Family. Electronics bring the people to a night in the town. Monday Blues, Maboneng. The Soil upon the stage…

            (Know it I know it I know it.)

            Joy! Jo-o-o-y! Jo-o-o-o-o-y!

I know it’s the kind of feelin’

            Missing Link nurse a drink, just the one to ease the nerves. The Soil play a fourth “last song” in a row.

            I got love in my heart. I got love in my heart. And you know it’s the kind of feeling. Mama wam ndiyabu-le-la!

            (A got my mother-my-father-my-sister-my-lover!)

Master P want to say that today the born day. Thixo wam wakudala!

            Namhl’ ek’seni. Ilanga libeth’ebsweni. Ndahamba nday’ecaweni. A capella get down as down can ever get and the audience is swooning. Lovely ladies in the house got the songs verbatim! Usis’thandwa sam, You! Get up and dance! Now, you! Get up and dance and get as down as you can. Family. I’m saying this coz we are family. Family. I got joy in my heart. I got love in my heart. I got joy in my heart. And you know it’s the kind of feelin’… We are family. Family. We are family. I know it, I know it, I know it. We are family. 

            We come to praise. We come to know. We come to play our maiden show. UBongeziwe udlal’ingom’ethi uGunuza! Family! We come to stand outside. Shake the hand of a man, be smokin’ all that time. Coz we are family!

            Family. Family. Family.

           

            Meanwhile, in a twitterverse far away, racist bile vomits across cyberspace, as the repulsive, the evil and the stupid fight for microphone time with the self-righteous and the cuntish.

            Bigotry rides side by side on your timeline with wilful ignorance; condescending sarcasm passes for communication. The deaf fight the dumb. Everybody talks shit and nobody listens. Griffiths Mxenge died so spoilt children could spit on his grave.

But also for this…

            Coz we are family! Family! Family!   

Stitchmata – Juxtafly

Check out SA dubstep producer Stitchmata's killer video for Juxtafly. It uses images from an old South African sci-fi TV series called Interster. Stitchmata is Hank Liebenberg. He was signed to a subsidiary of Dope On Plastic over in the UK and is now back in the R of SA making filthy breaks like these, as well as harder, metal-tinged stuff full of twisted samples that you can listen to over here.

 

What would Wally do? or "Die eensaamste soutie in Tjoeras"

It comes on quick. At 29 kays I was still fine. By 30 I'm fucked. The hopelessness descends halfway up the M10 freeway. I'm not gonna make it. I don't have another 12 kays in me.

Marathons are trippy as shit. There's ten kays of quirky banter, another 20-odd of serious road-running, and then the psychedelics kicks in. Squeeze all energy reserves from your body, then feed it cups of Coke every fifteen minutes and you flip out.

Your vertical-hold is out, so you're weaving down Krugerlaan, some shamelessly suburban lane in deepest Centurion, water sachets glinting like condoms of crystal cum in the vertical sunlight. You're surrounded by strangers. Down to your last.

There's leg pain that can't carry on. Your body's not having it. The shin splints and the calf cramps and the thigh spasms and the ITB and the left knee. There's some kind of scrotal torsion going on, somewhere beneath your retracted penis... The right toe is one part arthritis, two parts gout. Blisters just starting to burst now. That must've been the one on the left just now.

It's impossible. 31 kays. I can smell myself: shit, piss, calcified sweat. Suppurating scabs of crusty, salt skin weeping beneath my armpits. Tears dry in the corners of my eyes even before they can merge with my diabetic spittle.

In the change pocket of my shorts I have some kind of energy ball. A last, vain shot of sugar. Without water, it congeals in my mouth like a dry turd. Its brownness clings to my teeth. I gasp through my calcified mouth, like a rectum. Even the other runners look away.

I give up, slumping to the sidewalk. Broken. My race is run.

The first old lady to pass mutters, "Wimp." beneath her breath. Pride stung, I stand and stagger on like a desert refugee. I can't swallow. I can't breathe. This turd in my mouth. The pain! Underarms bleeding freely. My face a death mask now, gasping and swearing involuntarily.

Jesus fucking Christ. Jesus Christ! Oh my fuck! Fuck sakes! Poes, man! Ah, fuck! Fuckin' hell!

A first-aid station appears. Guys, I don't think I'm going to be able to finish this race. I'm going to have to stop. It's these shin splints... My legs... Ek kannie meer nie, korporaal.

But there's no sympathy here either.

"Ag. You can stop, but... have you got someone to come fetch you? Thing is, the sweeper van is only coming past in another hour and a half. So you might as well just carry on. If you don't make it, they'll pick you up. so you might as well be on the road..."

Fuckers won't even let me stop. What kind of first aid is that? I stumble out of the emergency gazebo and immediately go into complete bilateral leg spasm. I lunge for the guardrail, paralysed! Gingerly stretch some circulation back in and then stagger on down the highway. Can't anyone plant any fuckin' trees in this fuckin' place? There's no shade for fuckin' days!

Ogh! What's that one say? 32 kays. It's too fuckin' far. If I had my phone, I'd phone someone. But I'm in fuckin' Centurion. No one would come. It's not fair! I'm stuck all on my own. I've got no energy. I can't.

I can feel a spot in the middle of my back, where the sun is cultivating a cancerous melanoma of death. There's no shelter for miles, not that I could get to it if there was. I've stopped sweating now, the first sign of dehydration and eventual death.

I'm lost in the wilderness here.

"Sal ons maar shuff tot die stopstraat?"

 It's a lady in an Irene strip. Shuff? I've never heard that. As in shuffle? The stop street is probably twenty metres away. I can probably shuffle that far.

And then walk, blissfully walk. Heart hammering, weeping for mercy.

"Ons stap tot daai volgende klomp asblikke. Dan draf ons weer."


And so we form a partnership. Myself and this lady from Irene. We walk to the bins and then we jog to the second lamppost. Then walk to the orange cone. Jog to the corner, or just round the corner. To the stop street. To the bakkie. The intersection. Allie pad tot die volgende waterpunt.


Dying a thousand deaths all the way. But dying them together.

This was to be my Comrades qualifier. But it's long been clear I'm never going to make the qualifying time. My greatest achievement would be finishing this outrage of a race. I arrived 15 minutes late for the start and then killed myself trying to get up to qualifying pace. Blew out at 30 kays. But still finished. If I can say that, I will have done something. I'll not be going to Durban this year. Those three weeks off training with the shin splints probably did it. Running Comrades in this shape would have killed me anyway. I've barely got enough to make that distance marker on the bridge... 35 kays!

This is it. The Lifegain Wally Hayward Marathon 2012. This is my Comrades. Being carried by my fellow traveller in her blue-green Irene strip. My experienced Comrade with her method. We chop it up into digestible chunks and we eat up the kilometres. Even if every step is sweet agony.

We hit some kind of second wind entering the business district of Centurion, such as it is. We're not running a qualifying time, hell, we're probably not even running an official finishing time. But we're finishing.

And it's the Wally Hayward. Even if I've mismanaged my race so brutally, travestised it, made a filthy animal of myself, I can still finish.

Through my psychedelic haze I recall the only time I saw Wally Hayward on TV. He was running the 1989 Comrades, trying to become the oldest Comrades finisher ever. The broadcasters were waiting for him in the stadium as the 11-hour cut-off approached.

He made it by two minutes, vomiting blood on live TV on the finish line. At 80 years old. If Wally Hayward could do that, I can certainly shuffle a couple of hours through Centurion.

Even if it is pure, living hell.

Comic anthropology ain’t broke!

To Joburg comedy fans weaned on the drunk, dingy, loose hilarity of The Comedy
Underground, the classy surrounds of Parker’s Comedy & Jive are physical evidence of
how far the scene has come.

That tonight’s Comedy Central Live… At Parker’s is rammed to the gills with eager, affluent punters on the same night as the latest Blacks Only show across town further proves that a lot of people dig live comedy these days.

Of course, we’ve also got a syndicated DStv channel, and tonight’s show will be filmed for broadcast on that. Every last Wednesday of the month is the plan. So proprietor Joe Parker gives the audience stern instructions on how we must behave during filming, while the blue-bangled media/comedian contingent furiously order their free drinks.

The night is hosted by Conrad Koch – him with the puppets, aka one of the most
technically skilled ventriloquists you’re likely to see. Casual comedy fans are more likely
to recognize the puppet Chester from the LNN show.

We always had a problem with featuring the puppet alone on TV, without
his “master”, since most of the impact comes from knowing there’s ventriloquism at play
here, and also from the repartee between the two characters. The material itself is good in
parts.

Culturally, Chester is black puppet, “an ideal BEE partner”. Cue gags about
tenders, Malema, Zuma, Buthelezi etc. All toe that delicate line between edgy and
embarrassing, and generally succeed. But the tone is set for an evening of race-based
gags.

Of course, this is the stock-in-trade of SA comedy. If you got 10 cents every time
an SA comic started a riff with “have you noticed how white people…” or “us blacks are,
like…” or “coloured people go like this…” Well, you’d have enough to pay the R150
cover for Parker’s tonight, that’s for sure.

It’s vital for us to be able to laugh at our differences. In fact Koch does comedy-
driven corporate gigs helping companies manage culture change through comedy. But
this is hardly post-racial SA at work.

But we know what to expect. The bewildered Canadian couple in the front,
perhaps less so. That the gentleman is named Milf doesn’t help his cause, and he
becomes the target of some serious Koch abuse.

The intro set climaxes with a vision of Jacob Zuma eating oysters off a
supermodel. Oh, hang on. Is that an oyster?

Then it’s time for Dave Levinsohn, the sole respite from the night’s barrage of
comic anthropology. Dave’s more into his observational humour, which transcends race,
and gets some of the evening’s best laughs.

Not that it’s conservative, just clever, perceptive and delivered with aplomb. A
smell-my-finger bit never looked this good. He also drops in some accents, some
physical comedy and a super-subtle crime commentary that you can notice or ignore, up
to you.

Dave’s also the kind of professional who makes you feel you’re in good hands.
Not for him the peaks and valleys of cringing failure, then hilarious redemption. It all
kills.

So we’re nicely set for our third artist, Simmi Areff, via a cameo by Koch’s green
mate Ronnie who remarks that one lady in the audience would be able to go windsurfing
with her hair.

By this point, the audience is nicely lubed, not least us barflies. So Simmi goes down a treat. He’s young, hip and rocks a style of Muslim humour not a million miles from Riaad Moosa.

He's a lightie, so there’s also no trace of that slightly bitter cynicism that infects your older
comics. It’s Muslims-on-a-plane without the sarcasm, a cool one about a guy in garb
drinking alco-halaal beer, into one about breaking up on Facebook, and we’re out of here.
Nicely done, sir.

Because of the taping, sets are short and concise. You suspect tonight’s Parker’s
audience – “The DStv crowd”, they call them – is better served because of it.
Then it’s half-time, some urgent brandishing of blue bangles at busy barmen and
some proper flirting like the old days. We’ve pulled a rather sexy crowd tonight,
comprising some flawless young ladies, generously rocking every inch of the curves their
ou ladies gave them.

Nothing wrong.

Then it’s Siya B. We noticed him doing a quick survey of crowd demographics
earlier (maybe one quarter black). And he bravely starts out in pure vernac, then tunes the
confused whities, “That’s how I looked, sir, on my first day at a white school!” It works
and launches us into a cool journey through the funnier aspects of black culture. To wit, magic and how it applies to your lady’s pussy, Daily Sun, and what it might be like if your cock was a machine gun. Also a poignantly satirical Madiba bit at the end there. Mr B leaves to a standing ovation – from us at the bar anyway.

Then an unnecessarily long coda from Koch and his babe Hilary berating the
crowd, with a trippy “human ventriloquism” thing to finish off.
We sneak off to catch extra time in the Real-Bayern game, pissed for free,
sexually piqued and happy to report SA comedy in a state of rude health.