Merrie Olde England

Why didn't I wear my long-sleeves!?

What the hell am I doing here!? It's cold. It's expensive. And, I'm dressed inappropriately. It's a bit early to be forming stereotypes, but so far people here seem extremely quiet and subdued, especially when coming from the constant social hubbub that occurs whenever you gather a group of people in Africa. I don't fit in either. As further evidence I'm no longer in Africa, everyone dresses in really dark neutral colors. I'm wearing a bright blue striped golf-shirt which seems to scream "TOURIST!" It's even worse when I open my mouth and hear how American I sound. (I had somehow forgotten this in South Africa.) Fortunately, they don't seem to hate Americans unlike the rest of the planet.

It's a bit of a letdown. They listen to the same garbage here that they listen to everywhere else. There's a reality show where they've taken a bunch of R&B and hip-hop wannabe's to the US to learn how to rap and sing from authentic Americans. But, it's really hard to take the rapper guy seriously when he tries to act hardcore and at the same time speak the queen's English. Quite a few of the TV shows are American. They even watch a version of brain-numbing American wrestling, complete with spandexed macho men and macho women. Nearly all the movies at the DVD store seem to be American as well.

I expected Britons to be polite. And they really are. They're apologetic when not knowing the answers to my questions. I don't mean to come off as an ungrateful guest. People have been kind and helpful. No one has tried to involve me into a legendary English pub brawl. It's just that... As far I can tell, I don't belong here. To be fair, I still haven't seen London.

Really I'm here on business, meaning I'm not here to explore. I think they got sick of me screwing things up in South Africa. Africa's got enough problems, so they decided to unleash me on Europe. I've only arrived this morning in Saint Albans. Saint Albans is a 20-minute train ride to London, but from what I can tell it might as well be in Montana. All the staff I've spoken to at the hotel said they don't hang out here and go to London if they want to have fun. My plans are to go to an authentic English pub and drink beer and smoke cigarettes that cost five times what they do in South Africa. I thought I might like to flirt with an English rose, but as I walked through town a group of female joggers clad in lycra shorts, which did nothing to hide their hideous bottoms, made me want to return to South Africa that much sooner.

You may have assumed this is an English-speaking country, but somehow I keep having to ask people to repeat themselves. They really don't make much sense. I know people like to say Americans don't really speak English, but I'm not convinced these guys do either. Everybody sounds like they're from a Harry Potter movie. I was in the cab on the way to the hotel chatting to the driver, Chris, an old guy that's lived in London his entire life:

Me: "Hey man, can I bum a cigarette from you?"
Chris: "Look inna compa'tment theh. Ye hafta roll it yesef. Ye ekay wi thet?"
Me: "That's no problem - I used to smoke a lot of weed."
Chris: "Mmm... Ye kin tell."

I'm still not sure what he meant by that. Anyways, notice how when I speak it's spelled properly, and when he speaks it's a grade school phonetic spelling? It's because English people don't know how to speak English.

More than the language, there's something else different as well. I was strolling through the town square for a bit when I noticed that everyone was standing motionless as if everyone had agreed to play a game, and the leader said "Simon says 'freeze'!" I looked around obviously confused and saw a man glancing at me with a slight smile. I walked towards him and asked, "What's going on?"

He laughed. "They're having a moment of silence for dead war veterans." Or maybe they didn't have to be dead, I don't remember. Anyways, it was surreal. I can't imagine trying to get everybody in South Africa to stand still and shut up at the same time. It wouldn't last for 5 seconds before someone got bored saying it was stupid. But in England this was a national phenomenon. When I got back to the hotel room, they showed replays of the same scene on TV from across the entire island. There were sombre parades just like the one I had seen.

So that's what I've experienced in England. It turns out it'll cost 10 pound to get a ticket that lets me take the train all day in London, but that's a lot of money when I don't have the time or luxury to just bum around. I do have to work in the morning.

I can't wait to get to London...

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"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar." - Edward R. Murrow

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By the way, I know it's been a while... If you actually read this - thanks! I've been meaning to write about the prostitutes of Dar es Salaam and my safari with a socialite in the Serengeti, but it will have to wait.

Cheers!

Go see "Tsotsi"!

I finally saw Tsotsi last night. Tsotsi is the latest South African contribution to the Academy Awards, other recent ones being Yesterday and Charlize Theron.

The title "Tsotsi" is Safrican slang for a gangster. It was one of the first slang words I learned when I got to South Africa when a guy got shot in the neck in a shebeen a block away from my house in the village.

Here's an example of tsotsi being used in a sentence: "South African tsotsis make American gangsters look like a bunch of pussies."

I won't go into a full summary of the movie because it would be easy enough to find a better one on the internet, but basically, it's about a criminal and a baby. The movie wasn't great but it was good - a bit sentimental and obvious but sincere. The lead actor is excellent. He gets mad props. The other actors/actresses (actrons?) performed well for a majority of their scenes.

But most of all you should go see it because it shows why the hell I got sent to South Africa in the first place. The township I lived in wasn't as bad as the squatter camp portrayed in the movie. Actually, most of day-to-day South Africa isn't as bad as what's portrayed in the movie, which is more like a paranoid white nightmare. The movie is accurate though on many counts. It gives a clear picture of the gap between the rich and the poor in this country, how great it is and how it is now transcending racial lines with the emergence of the black elite. It's true to South African life and captures the way things look here, especially the interiors of the average township home. The train stations are actually a lot dirtier in real life than they look in the film. They must have really scrubbed the places down before they shot the movie.

The crowd I was watching it with seemed to have loved it as well. They were laughing a lot, which was weird because I don't think it was supposed to be funny.

Anyways, you idiots never came to visit while I was in Peace Corps, so now you can conveniently go to your nearest indie theater, watch the movie and see what I was talking about...

The Perils of Purple Hair

This is the heartwarming story of a boy (or a very immature man) and his hair.

I went to a hairstylist yesterday in Jo'burg. I wanted blue hair. This is what I got...



For some reason, it's bluer in the photos than in real life. The hairstylist insisted that it was royal blue. I insisted that he was color blind, that my hair was the color of my car, my blog, and that I looked like the Joker and if Batman saw me he was gonna beat me up. This guy then gave me a businessman's haircut, despite the fact that it was clearly an unbusinesslike purple. Then, he kept trying blowdry my hair straight. I said, "Dude, it's curly! It's naturally like that! I don't fight it. I just... go with it." I then had to walk around Sandton City with people looking at me funny and avoiding walking too close to me. Sandton City is a fancy-shmancy mall where people actually like to dress up before they shop there. I like to go there dressed up as a dirtbag. Usually I'm successful. Instead, this time I was dressed up as a dork with purple hair.




But then I began thinking about it. It wasn't a total loss. In fact, it might just work out. I got home and took a shower which turned my bathtub a dirty indigo. The washing tamed the purpleness of my hair and the water brought back the curl. I then gelled my hair to accentuate my smurfy blue curls.


Then I saw that it was good, and I was at peace.



The end.

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"It is not white hair that engenders wisdom." - Menander

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PS: I'm flying to Tanzania tomorrow and spending New Year's on Zanzibar, then heading up to the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Kilimanjaro. All this while being accompanied by a totally hot chick! My life rocks!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Bru, my life is like so hectic, hey?

Ahhh, the joys of chaos...

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but since it’s okay to plagiarise myself I’ll say it again here: It’s hard to live and write at the same time. So yes, it’s been a while since I last updated this blog. It’s not because I want to put it into retirement, or for lack of things to write about. In fact, it’s because there’s too much going on for me to take a breather and write about anything at all. The sad thing is that I don’t even have a single solid excuse with which to lay the blame. It’s just a million little things that take my time and attention.

To compound my lameness with further lameness, I will now summarise these things in outline format, with salient points bulleted making it suitable for a nice little Microsoft PowerPoint slideshow and presentation which you could give at the next project status meeting explaining why I’m so lame.

So first, let’s begin with Point #1, subsection A, where I...

* Made the Gossip Pages - Sitting on a train in Hungary returning from Romania last November I get an SMS from Nzinga saying, "Babes, what are you doing in the newspaper?"

I really had no idea what she was talking about and SMS’ed her back, “I’m not in the newspaper, I’m in Hungary. What are you talking about?”

Her reply, “There’s a photo of you at a vodka party gyrating with some young ladies in the Sunday paper.”

Slowly I picked through my recent memories of South Africa... yes... There was a vodka party... There were ladies... There were people with cameras... Gradually it came back to me. It wasn’t really a vodka party. Itumeleng had to cover the music video filming of a local rapper, Pro Kid. She asked if I wouldn’t mind giving her a ride to the shoot, which I didn’t. I was really tired and needed to stay home and prepare for work and my trip to Hungary, so I figured I’d just drop her off and pick her up when she was done. I was supposed to see Siya before I bounced to Hungary and she to Italy at some point that night as well. As we pulled up to the alley where the shoot was taking place in Newtown, I saw two red sportscars covered in snow surrounded by bikini-clad women. It didn’t take a lot of arm-twisting for her to get me to change my mind and come in with her. Itumeleng had an extra invitation reserved for a cameraman who wouldn’t show. So I pretended I was a cameraman sans camera, signed an indemnity form, and passed the surreal scene of half-naked women dancing in snow. Half-naked women are a common sight in South Africa. Snow is not.

We entered the warehouse next to the graffiti covered alley and the environment changed dramatically: neon lights, comfy couches, a disco ball, a dancefloor, a stage complete with DJ, and what would later become my centerpiece for the night - a big shiny bar. At the bar, one had two choices: Smirnoff Vodka, or this disgusting lolly-water stuff called Smirnoff-something. I think it was Smirnoff Red or Smirnoff Stout or Smirnoff I’m-gonna-knock-you-on-your-ass-and-make-you-puke, which is exactly what it did.

The best thing about it was it was entirely free. Not one Mexican Peso. Absolutely mahala. So, I did what any red-blooded drunkard would do and spent the rest of the night clutching a bottle in each hand like a greedy child. Each time Itumeleng finished her drink, I would give her one of mine and run to the bar to fill the empty hand.

After a few gratuitous trips like this, Itumeleng and I were utterly trashed. We started inventing stupid moves on the floor and dancing nasty with a gaggle of local celebrities in attendance. In truth, we probably had more fun than anyone else there, as most of the people were there to impress and be seen. No, not Itumeleng and I! We were above such petty things as image consciousness and self-respect. We probably could have benefited from a little embarrassment. I vaguely remember the occasional bright pop light of cameras, but not clearly. I’m not sure how I did it, but I got Itumeleng and myself home safely at the wee hours but felt like I’d been run over by a public taxi the next day.

So as I sat on a train in Hungary, this is the only thing in my life I could remember as possibly being newspaper-related . I tried to discuss it with Marton. He did his best to be interested, but I think it was hard for him to relate. Instead, he told me a story about how he got stoned with Kevin Spacey and Gwen Stefani in Austin, which was actually quite funny and made me forget about the newspaper for the time.

Later, when I returned to South Africa at the Johannesburg Airport, Itumeleng did a dance in the terminal to welcome me back. She came with Tumaole, Kaix, Keneilwe, and her sister Nina. The newspaper photos quickly became a topic of conversation.

In Zulu, there’s a phrase, “Izinto ziyabuya”, meaning things have a way of coming back to haunt you. There is always a reckoning. People started calling, asking Itumeleng about her and her “white boyfriend” they saw in the paper. She went to work and her boss said, “I sent you to get the story and you became the story.” I got off lightly. Oddly enough, no one in my office happened to read the paper that weekend. Either that, or they are sparing me the humiliation. I was petrified that my clients would see it.

They did. As I stepped into one of their offices, one guy yelled from down the hall, “Hey! Dancing shoes!” Some guys at another client laughed and said, “We saw you getting down in the newspaper! That’s cool. We South Africans like to party.”

Graciously, Tumaole saved a copy of the paper that weekend for me which I present to you here for your reading pleasure. Names have been marked out to protect the innocent and the guilty...



In case you missed it, here it is again up close...



DOESN'T THAT ROCK! I especially dig the caption and the fact that I’m the only white guy on the spread. There’s actually a much more incriminating photo where I’m quite obviously plastered on Itumeleng’s blog. I’m really glad they didn’t print that one. Siya says I’m turning to a “zelebrity”. I wasn’t sure what that meant either, but she explained, “It’s people who get seen all over the place but aren’t actually celebrities and don’t actually do anything.”

Ha! Siya, you will see. The fame and celebrity which are my destiny are just around the corner. I can feel it coming. Already, I can sense people looking at me with a hint of recognition. Tomorrow, they’ll be asking for my autograph!

Ahem... Ok, maybe not. Let me continue to the more traumatic events of the past month...


(Ok, this isn't the full outline, I'm coming back to finish, I swear!)

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"There is never enough time, unless you're serving it." - Malcolm Forbes

Looking for Hungary

I'm nearing the end of my stay here in Hungary and feel I have something very important to say: Europeans can not dance.

I know this because they think I dance really well. I know that because the women at the clubs and music pubs keep saying, "Dance with me!" and then put my hand on their waists so I can feel exactly how rhythmless they are as they shake the little they have and bounce up and down to house music. It's not just Hungarians, since it seems every other person in Budapest is from western Europe or America. I should probably mention that I haven't danced with any Italians or Spanish people and suspect that they may be able to redeem Europe since at least they have flamenco, salsa, and the lambada. Perhaps I've gotten spoiled in Africa where two-year-olds can do the Harlem Shuffle. If so, Europe needs all the African immigrants they can absorb.

And treat them well once they arrive, of course. I haven't had much time to watch the telly but I keep hearing bits and pieces about the riots in France. Hungary has been really calm. Then again, Hungary doesn't have any Africans. Marton suggested starting a riot here in Budapest. I said, "How? We kill two black people and the other four will start burning stuff?"

As exciting as a riot might have been, we didn't kill anybody, Budapest stayed calm and all the tourists got to enjoy their vacations. And there are a lot of tourists here. I was a bit disappointed and thought that Hungary as a former eastern-bloc country would be a bit more challenging. It seems Budapest is becoming the new Prague. Americans are everywhere. They're in the clubs, the railways, the subways, the streets, the restaurants. They're in even in Hungarian heads with 50 Cent, Christina Aguilera, and Madonna. Their stomachs are filled with McDonalds, Burger King, and Coca-Cola.

All the clubs and bars I go to play the same music I listened to in South Africa, lots of hiphop and R&B. I should have seen this coming back in 1991 when I was in Indonesia. The DJ played Vanilla Ice and everyone ran to the dancefloor. But, I suppose it beautiful in a way - how something that started with a handful of Puerto Rican and African-American kids forming words over music in the parks of New York City has spread and taken hold over the world. It says that there is something relevant and meaningful in this youthful artform, and people worldwide recognize it. At Bank! Music Club young Hungarian heads were wildstying, or at least trying their best. I danced with one girl who was pretty good. I tried asking her how she got into hiphop culture and dance, but she couldn't speak English.

So, if you're looking for someplace exotic, this probably isn't it. Looking for something more exotic, Marton and I did go to Romania briefly. Did I say before that Hungary had it bad? No, Romania has had it bad. Those guys got colonized by the Romans, and apparently never got over it based on all the pizza joints they have. Then they got ruled by Vlad Tepes, better known as Count Dracula "the Impaler". More recently they had Ceausescu who used to bombard political opposition members with radiation so they would get cancer. Fortunately Romania is past all that now and progressing. It was the first time that I saw what I considered poverty in Europe. It wasn't on the scale of poverty in Africa but I did see a couple shacks. One of them had a guy who, while I was staring from the train, jumped around, bent over, started mooning the train without taking his pants off, shaking his butt and slapping it as if to tell me where to kiss. This guy will probably be the reason they won't let Romania join the European Union.

You can see a lot of restoration and development happening. It looks like they're resurfacing the all the roads of Oradea at the same time. Many of the streets are nothing more than gravel, the kind I expected in central Africa. Marton and I found a fairly cheap hotel, which was a surprise considering how fancy it was with polished tiles, vaulted ceilings and ornate woodwork on the trim of the doors and ceilings. It was named Hotel Parc, and the people who worked there acted as if they had never had a guest. It got a creepy after a while as the hotel started looking more and more like the one in The Shining. In fact, it's probably the creepiest place I've ever been. Every footstep would echo throughout the building. It felt deserted. I wasn't even sure anyone was there. I kept thinking about the ghosts of Romanians massacred over and over again for the past 1000 years and really got spooked. I don't even believe in ghosts. Marton pointed at the ceiling and said, "Look Henry! There's blood on the ceiling. What is that?" And it did look like blood. Marton put a chair in front of the door, saying "That way, when they come into the room, we can hear them." I checked in the morning that the chair was in exactly the same position it was when we went to sleep.

We didn't make it to Transylvania because it would have taken too much time and we still had a lot of other places to go in Hungary. Unfortunately, I'm still human. Some people would disagree with that, but at least I can assure them I'm not a vampire. I've decided to make Romania part of some other trip in the future.

The rest of the time, Marton and I meandered from Hungarian town to Hungarian town. My daily schedule took on the following pattern:

• Go to castle
• Get drunk
• Wish I had warmer clothes

I don't know what I would have done without Marton. The entire time he became my guide, speaking Hungarian to locals for me and teaching me bits of the language. He is proud of his Hungarian ancestry but did get exasperated with Hungarian behavior sometimes. Once he told me, "We have all the things that the West does, but it's broken."

In honor of the Hungarian uprising against the Russians, I decided not to bathe. I didn't matter since European girls seem to hate Americans and I wouldn't have scored anyways.


(I'm running out of time here at the internet cafe, but will finish this post up tommorrow...)

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"Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire." - George Bernard Shaw

Üdv Magyarorszagrol (or, Hi from Hungary)

Communist Doorbells

I've found myself in Vác, Hungary. Marton tells me it's populated by working-class communist alcoholics. It's very quaint - old buildings, old drunk men, and backwards toilets shaped in such a way that before you flush you're forced to see what you've most recently digested.

Actually, it reminds me a lot of South Africa. Everybody gets really drunk - the pubs open at 6:30 in the morning. The kids love hip-hop, or "heep hope" as they pronounce it here. One boy plopped one of the earphones to his iPod in my ear so I could check his street cred, and we rapped Tupac lyrics together. I'm pretty sure I got more of them right than he did. The women aren't as hairy as I thought they'd be. Actually, they're not hairy at all and quite a few of them are very pretty. One boy in Club Mausoleum asked what I thought of Hungarian women. Marton had already warned me that lots of Hungarians would ask me what I thought of Hungary and would be very offended if I didn't reply that it's the best country in the world. I told the boy "They are the most beautiful women in the world!" and made an hourglass gesture with my hands and wolf-whistled for good measure. I think it satisfied him.

The Royal Palace on the Danube River - Budapest, Hungary

Like South Africa, the people are incredibly warm, though maybe not as curious about me. The people have a simplicity about them with an underlying hardness in their interactions with other people. I have noticed they have a great sense of humor. In a pub, an old man noticed a another pair leaving and said, "I hate them like a job...". When I came out of the toilet, I washed my hands and came out with my hands still moist. A man came to greet me and I wiped my hands on my pants to be polite. He laughed and said, "What? Did you piss on your hands? I do that all the time!" Then he grabbed my hand.

The Royal Palace on the Danube on drugs- Budapest, Hungary

One obvious difference is there really aren't many black people. I'd put it at about 1 out of 200 people. At least the Amsterdam airport had around 1 out of 100. When I have seen black people (about 5 total in all of Budapest, none in Vác.) I've felt the overwhelming urge to ask them, "How the hell did you get here!?" I'm really curious, but I've been able to resist... so far. They seem comfortable enough here. Marton tells me that although Hungarians like most Europeans are really racist, mostly towards neighboring Europeans, there simply aren't enough black people around for Hungarians to have formed an opinion of them. It's been complete culture shock for me. I'm used to being the palest guy on the street. Now I'm worried people might mistake me for a gypsy.

On my first night in Vác we stopped at an old-timers pub where this really drunk old man was clutching a dog in his lap. Really the place looked a lot like a shebeen in a South African township, except none of the old men sat on beer crates. The old man overheard Marton and I speaking in English and asked in Hungarian where I was from. Marton explained that I was from America and couldn't speak Hungarian, basically explaining why I'm so retarded and couldn't speak to him properly. He insisted on speaking to me in Hungarian so I started replying to him in Zulu and it just pissed him off. Then he said, "Listen to me! I live in America 45 years. Cincinnati. You son of a bitch. I fuck you! Left and right!" So much for international diplomacy.

From what I can tell, Hungarians have had it bad. Apparently Hungary is situated at the only pass between Asia and Europe that doesn't require going over a bunch of mountains, so they've been constantly invaded by a bunch of really destructive people - Huns, Turks, Austrians, Nazis, Communists, and now me. Budapest has been flattened and rebuilt at least three times. Not only that, it seems like every time someone invades the city they knock down the bridges that connect the two halves of the city. I didn't know this before I got here, but Budapest was originally two separate cities, Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube River. The only way to get from one side to the other is a bridge or a ferry. Rebuilding those bridges each time has to be really irritating. Hungarians are still pissed about the Treaty of Trianon after World War I. In central Budapest, I saw a map showing the "real" Hungary. It included big chunks of Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Serbia. I don't think the "real" Hungary is going to exist again anytime soon, but I'm not about to tell them.

The Freedom Statue (Szabadság szobor) - Budapest, Hungary

One prominent feature of Budapest is a huge, winged statue atop the highest hill of Budapest. When I asked Marton about it he smirked as he told me, "It's called the Freedom Statue. The Soviets put it there. They called it the Freedom Statue because they freed us from the Nazis."

Protecting Saint Gellért from the Planet of the Communist Apes

Otherwise, we've been walking, bussing, trolleying, training, and subwaying our ways around Budapest. Of course I've had the occasional Jackass moment. I climbed a 300-year-old statue and urinated in public (which unlike in South Africa is not acceptable) in the presence of the police. Despite my behavior, Budapest is a very beautiful and romantic city. The narrow cobbled streets give you a cozy feeling as you walk and look at the glittering shops. I am a bit disappointed, though. I was hoping that Eastern Europe would dispel my feeling that Europe is just like America but with older buildings and all the ethnic diversity wiped clean. I got to eat Burger King yesterday. We don't have Burger King in Africa. It was crap.

Statue Sodomizing a Communist Duck

I've been looking around for gifts to get my friends in South Africa. Tumaole is a pornaholic so I've already got an idea for him. I'm hoping to find something really really gross with a title like "Hungarian Horse Humpers". It probably won't be in English, but I don't think it really matters for that kind of stuff. I did see a poster in Budapest with two girls kissing advertising a "Leszbi" something-or-other event. I was trying to read it out loud with Marton's brother in the car. His brother suggested that Marton take me to the opera instead.

At night we walked around aimlessly since the discos wouldn't open for another two hours. We decided to look for a place to rest our feet, drink a beer, and escape the cold. Walking the old narrow streets of Budapest we found a spot that was nearly empty but looked warm and had a bar. We sat ourselves down at the bar and I scanned the surroundings. It seemed like it had the potential to be lively with an interior balcony and walls painted red and a sickly pink. They played an odd mix of Madonna and Earth, Wind and Fire. As I drank my beer I asked Marton to ask the bartender what kind of place it was, if it was a club, a lounge, when the crowd would arrive. He asked and began to chuckle on the bartenders reply, "Ummm, this is a gay bar... Well, at least I know where to bring my gay friend when he comes to visit!"

The bartender began to laugh as well. I asked Marton to find out if any girls would show up at least. "No, it's Saturday. Apparently no women are allowed in on Saturdays. The bartender said girls were allowed in yesterday."

Curious, I asked Marton if there was much prejudice against gays in Hungary. He told me, "No, please, I don't even want to ask. I can tell you, they are very prejudiced against gays here."

Through Marton, the bartender asked us if we had ever been to gay bars before and then what gay bars are like in the US and Africa. Apparently the bartender began hoping that we might be bi-curious, and it made Marton a bit uncomfortable. Marton said, "I think he's hitting on me. He keeps saying 'You must try everything once.'" After we finished our drinks, the bartender said goodbye to us warmly and gave us flyers for a Halloween party and asked if we were sure we wanted to miss the transvestite show that night.

Communist Train Station

Today, we've been invited to check out a moto-cross competition in Kosd. Zoltan, a college boy we met in the street, tells us that the girls there give really good blowjobs. Zoltan pointed out a few of them in the club and they were cute. He pointed emphatically at one blonde girl saying, "See the one like Paris Hilton? She gives very good blowjob!" Kosd has a population of around 3,000. I'm counting on them being very desperate for new blood and able to ignore this little language barrier problem I have.

I think we're going to Transylvania on Tuesday, after we probably don't check out the naked muscleman show on Halloween. Maybe I'll get turned into a vampire in Transylvania. That would be cool.

Communist Phonebooth

Somehow, we're making our way to Italy to see Siya in Treviso and bumming around Venice for a couple days in the near future. I'm excited to see Siya out here. I spent the past two weeks with her in South Africa before I came out here. I'm not sure how to explain it, but she was very healing for me. She's down-to-earth and natural, though she claims to have occasional diva moments. We seem to "get" each other. I kept missing her gigs when we were hanging out, but she was performing on Saturday at Sun City at a jazz concert with Simpiwe Dana and Judith Sephuma. Siya promised to record it for me and give the DVD to me in Italy. I'd seen her perform many times before we met personally, so I'm looking forward to seeing it. When she sings a ballad, the crowd goes silent and her voice melts over them like warm butter. Hopefully, Siya can introduce us to Phillip Glass in Italy. I don't know anything about him personally, but I bet he's really weird.

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"Hungary is very similar to Bulgaria. I know they're different countries." - Kevin Keegan

This post is gonna suck...

I really can't remember what has happened that far back but...

Friday (October 7th) - Dinner party at Paul's. Then go to Colour Bar. Snog with Brooke. Nothing serious, but weird since it's my first time to make out with a white girl since 1998 and first American girl since 2001.

Saturday - Wake at 7AM to transport Tumoale to exam in Pretoria, but I have to drop Brooke off. Tumaole smirks at us as he gets in the car. That evening, catch up with old Peace Corps friend, Mark, and introduce him to Tumaole and Itumeleng. Get in touch with an old friend Ipeleng who puts us on guest list for vibing hiphop party in Melville. Meet tons of cool peeps doing urban graphics and urban rhymes.

Sunday - Chill and catch up with Ipeleng entire day. Watch Napoleon Dynamite and Closer. Closer freaks me out because it's portrayal of men is just too damn accurate.

Monday - (What a day,) Marton's father dies. Delay tickets to Hungary for two weeks at a cost of R2000. Then Marton sends me a message ("NO! Change it back!") but it's too late. My vacation is now a funeral. It's OK because at least I can be there for an old friend who's always done his best to support me from afar. The Girl I've been totally sprung on calls. She wants me to help with a problem with her laptop. She shows up with a friend whose name and face I can never remember and don't really care. Find out she has read my blog. I'm mortally embarrased. There's only one way she could have found out. (I will have my revenge, Itumeleng, and it will be sweet.) Have intense discussion with her. Afterwards I'm even more confused.

Wednesday - Meet peeps for Brooke and Katy's send-off to Cape Town. Chris is there.

Chris: "Brooke looks so hot. It makes me want to try and hook up with her."
Me: "Have you ever slept with a girl?"
Chris: "No. I could try it out. With Brooke I feel like a home field advantage."
Me: "But you've never been off the bench!"

Then his boyfriend shows up. Ruins everything. Go home and call The Girl. Get dissed.

Thursday - Offered what amounts to a promotion. It should mean about 100 days of international travel a year. I'm stoked. Tell everyone I know. Tebogo calls singing a congratulation song. Nothing from The Girl. I resolve not to pursue her anymore. Meet up with Ipeleng and her sister, Lefentse, at Casa Del Salute in Mandela Square for impressive party which occupies half the restaurant.

Friday - The Girl calls. Still don't know why. I assume it was to help her with a computer problem, but she didn't get around to asking. I don't hear from her again.

Saturday - Meet peeps in Melville. Itumeleng's wearing high-heels which hurt her feet. Tumaole gives her a piggy back down the street. I can see her butt-crack and can't resist. Itumeleng screams, "Henry, get your Chinese finger out of my ass!" Crossing the street, I see Siya who sometimes performs with 340ml and Tumi & the Volume, two South African bands I dig. We'd met briefly before ("I remember you from '88'.") and she invites me to a nearby lounge. We get along swimmingly. Siya offers me a mixed shot called a "supermodel". I refuse because I don't want to puke on her. I walk on one of the old couches and my foot goes between the cushions, through the springs and onto the floor. We exchange numbers. Polish off an entire pack of cigs.

Sunday - Wake up with my throat feeling like I've been drinking lava. Tebogo comes to use my computer for a school project. After she leaves late-afternoon, SMS her to check that she's home but she never gets it. Get "that feeling" something's wrong. Call her parents' landline in Soweto. She answers crying. She was robbed between taxi ranks in downtown Jo'burg, but not physically harmed. Know it's not my fault, but feel guilty for not giving her a ride home. As Tumaole says, it always happens to people who wouldn't hurt a fly.

Today - Supposed to have dinner tonight with the beautiful and sometimes capricious Nzinga. We've been friends since the first time I went to Cape Town in 2001. She's completely gutted, as the British say, and really needs to get out of her flat. Found out recently that she reads my blog. Hi.

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Dan: "You think love is simple. You think the heart is like a diagram."
Larry: "Have you ever seen a human heart!? It looks like a fist, wrapped in blood!" - Closer, the movie