“Bite Me (The Rabies Song)”

(With apologies to Flight of the Conchords.)

Come on if you think you're hard enough.

“How much is that doggie in the window?”

It’s free.

It’s got rabies.

It bit me.

Now I’ve got rabies.

If you come into my shop I’ll bite you and give you rabies.

So come into my shop if you want to get rabies.

Come on if you think you’re hard enough.

Free rabies with every dog.

It’s a once in a lifetime offer.

 

Man, I’ve got a headache.

Say, could you hand me that tall glass of water?

I’m getting kinda thirsty in here.

And while I’m foaming at the mouth, would you

Hand me that razor on the desk?

No sense in wasting good foam.

And if you keep annoying me, I could slit my wrists.

My god you’re annoying.

If I could still move my arm I’d come over there and slap you.

Wait, does my arm look hairy to you?

It wasn’t this hairy this morning.

My palms weren’t so hairy this morning, either.

Hmmm. Maybe my parents were right.

Perhaps I’m turning into a werewolf.

If I were a werewolf, I’d come over there and slap you.

I can’t believe I got rabies working in a pet store.

I can’t believe I’m still working in a pet store.

It was supposed to be a summer job.

Say, is it getting hot in here?

God, I could really use a drink about now.

Could you pass me another glass of water?

There’s no more water?

Damn. Just my luck.

You want to give me a what?

You want to give me a shot?

Sorry, I don’t drink spirits.

Say, you wouldn’t have any rabies shots?

I dunno – vodka, Tabasco and a lime wedge, I guess.

Ha ha.

Wait, no, not frothy enough.

Let’s see.

Something with egg white.

Beer is pretty frothy…

Don’t you have any beer?

Nevermind, I brought my own froth.

Who knew rabies gives good head?

Er, wait, no, I don’t think I’ll drink that.

Is that Tabasco?

Only, it looks like diarrhoea.

I don’t think I’ll have that drink now.

What’s this? You think I’ve got en… syphilitis?

And my dog … my dog has it too?

You’re saying my dog has syphilis?

God, who gave my dog syphilis?

Someone fucked my dog, and now my dog has fucking syphilis.

You people make me sick!

Oh wait, what’s that?

You mean I’ve got … inflammation of the brain?

That’s a relief.

It explains the talking groundhog, at least.

Ha ha, just kidding. Nothing explains a groundhog that’s as big as a house.

It’s not just my brain that is swelling…

It’s all getting a bit hard to swallow.

But who’s gonna take care of my dog now?

Oh, he’s stopped spasming.

Twenty minutes ago he was humping my leg.

Then he got rabies and died.

My dog got rabies from humping my leg.

What the fuck is up with that?

Come into my shop and hump my leg if you want to get rabies.

Or you can come over here and bite me.

Yeah.

Remember that guy on TV, used to have a show on SABC3 where he pretends to commune with one of the guest’s dead relatives/friends/pets? Ever wonder what happened to him? (Except, you know, going into the interminable rerun loop that local TV loves so much.)

No doubt you’ve been lying awake nights, wishing, praying, and sobbing for an answer. Well, wonder no more. Due to the kind of snafu perpetuated daily by the postal service, we accidentally received a transcript of the last (unaired) show.

It starts with the host already annoyed. According to a note attached to the transcript, ratings were down, he’d just been served with divorce papers, he’d lost money on a large investment, his bank loan had been denied, and his sponsors were about to repossess his teeth.

Read it and weep, lovers of quality television. If only the cowards in TV Land had had the guts to show this life-changing episode.

LONG CREDIT SEQUENCE: over soft focus shots of the host looking pensive, the ANNOUNCER describes the life of a kid who talks to imaginary people, is picked on by others, and then grows up to annoy the whole planet.

Title Card: SPONSORED BY THE ZUCCHINI BROS., CHICAGO

FADE IN:

From left, THE GHOST WHISPERER walks onto center stage to the sound of SCATTERED APPLAUSE. Impatient, he stands in front of TONIGHT’S AUDIENCE and waits for the FOUR SYCOPHANTS HIRED BY THE STUDIO to stop applauding like idiots. After a beat, he waves them to silence.

THE GHOST WHISPERER:
(visibly annoyed)
Right. I’m getting a name. Gene – Geoff -
Geoffrey – George – Georgina – Genevieve -
Geppetto – Germaine?

(Sensing he’s losing the audience, he changes tack)
Gerry – Gerald – Geraldine – JAMES?
Jane – Janice – Jamal – Jason – Jasper – Jade?
Joan – Joni – Jameson – Jared – Jacob – Jaden -
Jarvis – Janet – Joshua – Joss – Josephine – Jo-Ann?
Joanna? Jocelyn? Jacosta? Jordan? Joy? Joyce?
Julia? Juliet? Julie? Juno? Justine? Jean-Paul? Jesus!
Jeremy? Jimbo? Ginseng? Joachim? Joel? Jules? Julius?

(desperate now)
Justus? Jethro! Jillian!? Jennifer!?! Jim? Joe?
Jehoshaphat? Joseph? JOHN?

No one has put their hands up yet.

THE GHOST WHISPERER:
(apoplectic)
Oh, give me a break! ONE of you inbred bastards
must know SOMEBODY named John!

(Beat.)

FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Well, my husband is called John…

The Ghost Whisperer turns to her, gawping.

FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER:
… But he’s not dead, he’s sitting right here.

She points to a BURLEY REDNECK, sitting on her left.

JOHN:
(grumpily)
I didn’t even want to come here in the first place.
I hate this [CENSORED] show.

THE GHOST WHISPERER:
Fine.

The host takes out a gun and SHOOTS JOHN, then turns back to the female audience member.

THE GHOST WHISPERER:
John says hi.

John, dying in his chair, gasps for breath.

FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER:
But he’s not dead yet!

The Ghost Whisperer raises the gun again and shoots John TWO MORE TIMES.

THE GHOST WHISPERER:
John says thanks a lot, you stupid bitch.
Now shut the hell up.

FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER:
(sobbing with joy)
That’s my Johnny!

In the back row, an INBRED REDNECK kid wearing a checked shirt, baseball cap and overalls raises his hand shyly.

KID IN CHECKERED SHIRT:
Um. My cousin Jay died just last week…

The Ghost Whisperer looks at the Redneck contemptuously, then unloads the rest of the bullets in his head.

ANNOUNCER:
Join us next week for more…

The host turns the gun towards the camera, somewhere off to the left, empties the rest of his gun, and the screen goes blank.

Title card: “The End.”

Once upon a time, an upcoming election was both a daunting prospect and a moral imperative. Which party should you vote for? Which set of politicians had South Africa’s interests most at heart? Where would they lead our country, and who would benefit and who would suffer?

It’s been a long time since our famously free-and-fair elections in ‘94. Nothing much has changed, if you think about it. The poor are still among us, begging for handouts, crapping on our pavements, and stealing our shit; the rich are still demanding tax breaks, pissing on the less powerful, and redistributing wealth into their own pockets; and the ever-expanding middle class continues to snipe jealously at everybody from behind their Vibracrete-and-barbed-wire walls. Only now, of course, there are more black and coloured people in the ‘burbs – and maybe 3 more black guys at the country club.

Viva democracy. Viva the free market. Remember with self-satisfaction the struggle of your forefathers, gloat about where it got you, and fuck anyone who even looks like they’re trying to take your shit.

Again. What’s new?

Opposition? What opposition?

For one thing, no more NP – and no NNP either, which tried to sell itself as the Nicer™ National Party. Also, no DP any more. Oh no: now it’s the DA, some mutant bastard “special needs” offspring of the incestuous relations of the power-hungry ineptitude that was the so-called Democratic Party and the skulking, spineless remnants of the Nats – you know, the ones who didn’t join the ANC. (Yep, my Nazi-loving forefathers are still stuck in the spin cycle over that one.)

Now, as much as I’d like to focus on the Nats and how much of a fuck-up they were (God, is there no end to their fuckheadedness?), there’s a scarier elephant in the room. And by “scary” I mean not at all imposing and more closely resembling a bag of wet rats. Surely, the DA must be one of the least effective opposition parties since the Conservatives decided not to contest the ‘94 elections and in so doing locked themselves out of Parliament. (Well done, Ferdi! Darwinism at its finest.)

The HelenAtor: J'Oppose!

Despite their rabid pitbull of a head mistress, the DA comes across more like your aunt’s prize Pekingese abandoned outside overnight, barking at every shadow in the vain hope that somebody will let it back indoors. Still, you must admire their persistence, I suppose. Christ, they’ll oppose anything. Whatever the ANC suggests, they’ll suggest the opposite. If somebody else proposed the exact same measures they did today, tomorrow their party’s charter would be rewritten entirely – that’s how dedicated an opposition they are.

They’re so committed to contrariness that the best they’ve come up with, when asked why you should vote for them, is so that they can “STOP ZUMA!”. I’d prefer if the doomed underdog at least showed some fucking pluck, like when the Happy Hippy Flower Committee sent Stalin their famous Let’s All Hug And Promise Not to Say Anything Hurtful Ever Again letter in ‘37.

Not that COPE is much better. After all, it’s basically the Mbeki ANC Redux – you know, the guys who brought you the unmitigated disaster that is 15 years of AIDS denialism, failure to address deepening socio-economic inequality, and general inability to remove their heads from their asses. Fuck ‘em. I wouldn’t vote for them if they promised to turn Julius Malema into a girl and make him service rabid assholes with unwashed, uncircumcised cocks for the rest of his life. Come to that, I’d rather vote for the ACDP, those self-appointed guardians of public morals and imposers of mindless dogma. Fortunately, all is not lost. There’s also the Vryheidsstront, I mean, the “Freedom Front Plus”. Now there’s a group of highly enlightened mouth-breathers if ever I saw one. They cling desperately to the idea that “their” people can exist in this country in some strange kind of racially-pure stasis, like a boil eternally filling with pus and yet never bursting. And why? So they can vouchsafe a culture based entirely on overweight retards spending every Saturday swigging beer and getting worked up about a bunch of sweaty men in short pants groping one another in a field.

And the winner is…

Which brings us to the ANC, the people who got us here from that high-water mark in ‘94. When you look at their policies regarding housing, crime, corruption, infrastructure, and job creation, you can begin to understand the DA’s problem. If you want to bill yourself as “the opposition”, whoever you’re opposing must take some kind of stand first. So far the ANC’s strategy amounts to keeping their internal politics in the headlines and their leaders out of jail. So far this doesn’t look to change any time soon, which means that the two parties will remain frenemies for some time to come.

So where do we go to but nowhere?

Which leaves us with what, exactly? When your choice is between hypocrites, liars, thieves, and cunts, what is the right thing to do? Voting in South Africa right now is like having to decide which lunatic should run the asylum.

The ruling party has reached critical mass, and it’s bound to implode sometime. The opposition, meanwhile, is running around like so many headless chickens. If you’re pinning all your Great White Hopes on any of those fuckups, I have bad news for you. They have less chance of winning the election than when Richard Nixon ran against John Fucking Kennedy. Of course, as their supporters will be quick to point out, they’re not even trying to win the election (just as well, ha-ha): but even so, they can barely crack 15%. When your opponent is a wounded behemoth who’s had its brain removed and replaced with a high school dropout, and you still can’t win, you know you’re a real loser.

You want my vote? I got my vote right here, motherfucker…

Perhaps next year I’ll start my own KISS-style protest party. Only, instead of some batshit crazy-looking old biddy, my campaign posters will be of Jesus giving you the finger, with the slogan, “Make yours a vote of No Confidence.” (Catchy, innit?)

The No Confidence party: 2013!

In the meantime, there’s only one viable option for a right-thinking human being, apart from voting for the IFP. (Hey, at least that way you aren’t voting for “the white guy”, and you’ll piss of Malema no end. And since I live in the Western Cape, there’s no chance that they’d actually win here. Not to mention that, if Buthelezi regains prominence, nobody would want to become a politician, lest they’re subjected to one of his famously convoluted speeches. God I miss that guy.)

But let’s suppose you don’t want to vote for a party that doesn’t stand a chance in hell. (Thank you, Helen.) Why not enter that voting booth on Wednesday and make yourself count in the only way that makes any sense: spoil your ballot. That’s certainly what I intend to do.

So if you’re waiting in line for hours on end, and you’re getting annoyed at the asshole who refuses to emerge from the booth they entered three hours ago, take a deep breath, grab a seat, and relax. It’s probably me. I’ll be in there, defacing the image of every motherfucker on the ballot whose values, incompetence, and lack of balls offends my moral principles. I expect to be in there a pretty long time.

To my boss

Regarding our amiable conversation this morning. I believe you mentioned that I arrived late. Oh, was I late this morning? Thank you for letting me know! Gosh, you’re useful. A talking human clock. So that’s why you get the big money. You can tell what the time is and when I arrive? How very informative. Thanks – thank you for telling me that I was late, as opposed to being on time, or early, or in outer space. Wow. The summit of human accomplishment, you are. Your logic circuits alone must weigh a ton. (Pity the wiring’s a bit rusty, but I suppose disuse will do that.)

You’re a goddamn technological marvel, that’s what you are. The only way you could be more useful is if you could keep track of all the other times I’ve been late and rub my face in it whenever I arrive at work even a minute past the start of my designated timeslot. Wait, you can? My god, your usefulness never ends! It’s just my luck that you are also capable of sending me an e-mail every time I am late, to remind me of all the previous times I was also late. Because Christ knows, if there’s something I love, it’s being reminded of that time three years ago when I arrived at 8.37, during the hurricane of ‘04, every day of my life. What a cunt I am for being late and making you wait on such a regular basis.

What’s that? I’m late with my work, as well? That extremely urgent project you’ve had planned for months, on which the entire future of the company depends? The one that the clients have told us will make or break us, not only in this town, but the industry? The one that requires an additional 50 staff members to complete properly, the 50 staff members the HR department hasn’t hired or trained because nobody told them about it, the HR department that doesn’t exist because you never thought we needed one? The project you only told me about three days ago, two days after you fired three dozen of our existing staff – that one?

I do apologize. I realize that the imminent failure of this essential project is entirely my doing, for which crime I happily tender my resignation.

That said, may I just take this opportunity to congratulate you once again on the stellar job you’ve done in your position as company overlord, I mean manager. By valiantly taking the path of least resistance, by dismissing the facts and embracing wishful thinking, by refusing to compromise your bonus for worker equity or logic for expedience, in every single instance regardless of the odds or contradictory advice, you have successfully dragged this once-magnificent company kicking and screaming to the brink of collapse.

The Burning Black Hole, A.K.A. Employee of the Month.

Words alone could not to express my admiration for this accomplishment, which must surely be beyond compare. It would require a cataclysmic event to encapsulate in all its glories. Bravo! If every business in the world were represented by a single astronomical object, this company would be Galaxy OJ 287, and you would be the supermassive black hole at our centre.

I was particularly impressed by your response to the global economic downturn, or meltdown, or whatever the hell we’re calling it now. Contacting the Army Surplus store and replacing our already low-grade toilet paper with an even cheaper variety, to encourage people not to waste valuable company time by expelling in the bathroom cubicle what they are forced to process at their work stations? Brilliant. Insisting that the people who have to leave home before dawn to drive to the backwater outpost you’ve chosen as the new location for our business must stop drinking coffee or tea or having breakfast at work, so that instead of functioning at peak performance levels they fall asleep at their desks or become so light-headed as to be practically comatose? Absolute genius. Buying the cheapest, loudest, and least effective vacuum cleaner, so that employees are forced to waste hours in the kitchen waiting for the noise to reach mere industrial levels instead of taking a break at their cubicles, to discourage them from wasting company resources by checking the news online? Priceless.

My Boss, Servant of the Beast

I was more than gratified to have my suspicions confirmed. I always knew you couldn’t run a company if it consisted of a rabbit and a duck, even if all you needed to do was get the rabbit to fuck and the duck to shit everywhere and make a racket. You’d probably waste all your time trying to force the duck to mate with the rabbit or trying to find a sporting goods store that sells a racquet that shits itself.

I will be eternally grateful for my experiences at this establishment, as nothing in this world or any version of eternal damnation known to theology could compare to the misery and suffering I have had to endure in your company. For this I thank you from my very bowels.

I wish you and your human resources-free, well-timed, mission-critical scrapheap of a company the very best of luck without me. May your children curse your heritage and diarrhetic cats shit on your grave. Rot in hell, you odious toad.

Yours truly, asshole.

PS. No managers were harmed in the making of this diatribe. Not yet, anyway.
[Originally published on africans.co.za, on March 12, 2009.]

[4 out of 10.]

From the same team who brought you the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes the 12th, rather pedestrian installment of the Jason franchise. For anyone who hasn’t seen the original film, a belated spoiler warning – albeit one that should have come from the filmmakers themselves. The new remake/reboot begins with a tedious prologue that gives away the ending of the original film, so if you never got around to watching it and you want to leave that option open, you should perhaps show up 5 minutes late.

Not that anything in this film would make you want to watch another one, except perhaps to wash the distaste out of your mouth. The film starts with a group of college kids on a trip into the forest to find a weed plantation of camping trips past. Being a Jason film, they set up camp near Crystal Lake and in so doing disturb the peace-loving ways of Jason, he of the hockey mask and machete, so don’t get too attached to them.

That won’t be difficult. Predictably, the characters are as memorable as a burp. Asking anyone to care about these kids would be like asking Ghandi to drive over Mother Theresa and the entire cast of Slumdog Millionaire in a large truck. That said, asking anyone to care about the characters in a teen slasher film is like asking diners to bond with their veal before it’s killed. Aaron Yoo makes the best of one good line, but there isn’t much for the rest to go on; mostly it’s a bunch of bland white kids getting offed by an inhuman killing machine. Hooray for progress.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers soon run into what could be called “the Superman problem”. Once you realize that Jason is immortal and that the kids are all going to die, the only way to keep up any kind of tension is by using jumpy, person-suddenly-appears-in-frame scares. While these can be effective, they soon get rather tiresome if they’re the only thing on offer. A better storyteller would be able to wring some tension out of the flimsy premise by getting us to care about the characters who are in peril. Alas, there is no bonding of any kind in this film, apart from a few sub-par sex scenes featuring people who are much too good-looking to be real boys or girls.

Reactionary moralizing is par for the course in this genre, as is gratuitous violence and nudity, but since it’s a Michael Bay production, the message is a bit muddled. (Suffice to say that drugs are bad, mmmkay.)

The film starts slowly and there’s a lull in the middle, but for the most part the killings come quickly and without much fuss. Disappointingly, each death is about as memorable as the character involved, and the horror enthusiast I saw the film with lamented the total absence of novelty deaths. The final confrontation has all the suspense of an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, minus the wit and audacity.That said, the target audience for this kind of film will probably settle for the various, pointless tit shots and the splatter, but I felt violated by this film’s stupidity and lack of imagination.

Fail.

Mary Wanna, ek het jou lief.

Lots of people in this country complain about crime. But let’s face it: we actually like some of the crime. There is some crime, for example, that you only get around here. And yeah, I think that we ought to, you know, be proud of what we’ve achieved: we’ve given the world whole new kinds of crime – we’re famous for it. And that’s an amazing accomplishment, if you think about it. And I think about it a lot, especially when I’m enjoying some of the finest crime in the world.

Some fine street crime

In Cape Town, for instance, you can procure perfectly delightful crime on practically every street corner. Another thing I like is the way that crime here is cheaper than anywhere else – it’s so affordable, you can even take some home to share with your friends! I mean, if I wanted to get the same crime in, say, the U.K., or the States, I’d have to pay, you know, at least double what I pay here. At least.

Myself, I think cheaper crime ought to be part of my civil rights. Not to mention the fact that, some crime, you get caught in the U.S., you might even go to jail. (California’s prisons are so full they’re letting people back out again. Not the druggies, mind you; just parole breakers.) That’s nothing like here, where the worst that could happen is that maybe you have to pay the cop a bribe and then he’d like, let you off with a warning. Sometimes, you even come out of prison a hero! Just like most of Parliament.

Which is why I don’t think we need to hire more police officers. It may solve the problem of street-crime, okay, but it’s the wrong problem. Also, it fails to apply the Big Picture thinking that we need right now. The problem isn’t the crime, it’s that crime is so difficult to get hold of. Also, there’s not enough of it to go around.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another, you know? Every few years there’s a massive drought, and then every three months or so you hear about some big raid that’s stopped a bunch of criminals with some primo crime on their hands. And even when we’re not at the mercy of climate change, then those selfish xenophobes in the townships attack harmless Nigerian families, including some of the most efficient purveyors of crime. I mean, what the fuck, man? Where am I supposed to get my portion of crime now? When is my shit going to come in?

That’s why I say, don’t complain about crime – encourage it. We should take civic pride in our crime. After all, it’s why lots of people come to this country, and why so many people come back or end up staying.

So I think our new government should embrace crime the same way that we’ve embraced tourism, and encourage all good citizens to do the same. Because god knows we need more rich American and European visitors coming to this country, bringing their wonderfully inflated “crime dollars” to stimulate local trade and industry – particularly with global markets and consumer confidence in the state they’re in.

What better way to lure these disappointed and oppressed foreigners to our shores than by offering them access to the kind of crime they could only dream of getting back home? And if we get a just few extra “crime tourists” a year, we could totally feed, like, seventy poor people a month. Minimum.

Now, you’d think that Government would want to show ingenuity, and actively encourage this kind of lateral thinking and problem-solving, what with it being an election year and all. But does government embrace this extremely practical approach? No. Instead, they intend to unfairly burden our already overworked police force even further by criminalizing the sale of alcohol in shebeens, bed-and-breakfast venues, and other such hotbeds of vice.

I ask you – does that make any kind of sense? I mean, what’s happening here? Have I suddenly turned into a Moslem? This is a Christian country, goddammit, and as any true Christian could tell you, the easy availability of alcohol has always been one of the primary consolations for living under such a ridiculous system of belief. Do you have any idea how many bottles of spirits I need to cope with continuously being bombarded by high-handed proponents of such strict and backward morality? More than ten, I can guarantee you.

Isn’t it enough that we’ve outlawed prostitution? Marijuana? Drunk driving? Aren’t our poor old understaffed flatfoots under enough pressure? Don’t they have their hands full fighting everything that’s already illegal? Isn’t it enough that they have to cope with co-workers who are incompetent, corrupt, untrustworthy, illiterate, bad-tempered, and underpaid?

Let’s waste less energy pretending to treat crime as illegal, and give more attention to the pressing need of our communities: providing a safe, accessible, and clearly demarcated crime point where tourists and locals alike can gather in order to get their fair share of crime.

We should welcome visitors, and encourage them to come to South Africa and get a taste of our delicious home-grown crime. Don’t quash the entrepreneurial spirit that we need so desperately in these times of global recession. Forget the soccer. Forget 2010. Forget roads, and infrastructure, and shebeens. I say, support South African Crime. It’s the right thing to do.

We thank you.

[Originally posted on africans.co.za, Wednesday, February 11, 2009.]

2009 American Inauguration Special.

Welcome back fuckers, and say hello to the 21st of January 2009, the first day that the world woke up to an African-American running the White House. In my previous post, I mentioned Barack Obama’s election victory in the U.S. as, well, one of the positive changes we could look forward to in 2009. This was just over three weeks ago, when 2009 still seemed like such a promising year, full of potential and sweetness yet to be savoured.

But having been back at work for just over two weeks, I realize that my optimism may have been a tad premature. And it’s not just because I didn’t have much of a holiday, or that I’ve returned to find my life pretty much as it’s always been. It’s because what initially looked like a ripening pomegranate turned out to have been a rock all along, which is something you only discover once you’ve tried sinking your teeth into it and broken your face.

Now that my own excitement has died down, it strikes me that getting excited about Barack Obama is like looking forward to your annual check-up. That’s if you’re like me and you only remember about it every four years.

Perhaps it’s my renewed faith in the virtue of cynicism, but I no longer understand the fuss. Maybe it’s because we’re Africans (sans hyphenate), and we’ve had black presidents before. Fuck, we’re on number 3 already. (Count ‘em.) Whatever the reason, the post-Bush Novocaine has started to wear off, and we’re left sitting in the dentist’s chair, waiting for the root canal that’s coming. The drill is out and we’re waiting for that miracle, but we know what’s really going to happen next.

So okay, maybe it’s a historic occasion and we should savour the momentary excitement. But when you get right down to it, the new guy is just one more politician. And we all know what they’re like, don’t we, kids? A bunch of lying, double-dealing, two-faced triple-crossers, who’ll do anything to get elected, promising the earth and when, once firmly entrenched at the top, delivering nothing except a fat, juicy worm. The only difference between the outgoing administration and its replacement is the ludicrously high expectations hanging bat-like from the rafters of the Oval Office.

At least the second Bush administration didn’t come with any promises. (Except maybe, “Hi. I’ll try not to fuck up too much. Oops, sorry, too late. What’s that about Katrina? Katrina who? I can’t hear you, you’re saying Katrina and… waves? I loved that band!”) But the new guys sold themselves as the dustpan of change, who were going to sweep out everything bad of the last eight years and just keep the good stuff. To which my response is: “Oh yeah?” Personally, I believe in Obama’s ability to change the world as much as I trust Helen Zille – and that’s not fucking much, let me tell you. (And I like her even less than Pikes does.)

To all those who think Obama’s the next great hope, I hope you’re ready to get your illusions trampled and crushed, because you’re sadly mistaken. Like the thin soapy bubble of consumer confidence deflated by the sharp pin of global financial instability, your optimism is about to come to an abrupt and unpleasant end. But since there’s nothing I like more than spreading despair and disillusionment, I’ll happily be the bearer of bad news: keep those blinkers on much longer and you’ll find you’ve been led like a horse to slaughter.

Don't Drink the Water.

Although really, kids, by this stage of life we shouldn’t need to tell you this stuff. You ought to have had ample warnings against politicians and electioneering promises in particular. Not least there’s The Great Thom Yorke, musical cynic extraordinaire, the soles of whose shoes the likes of Coldplay and Muse don’t deserve to suck the dogshit from. (If you’re still caught up in the post-election hype, heed the warnings on “Electioneering”, from the third of the magnum opuses that Radiohead calls albums.)

You might as well face it: everyone’s still doing the political two-step, and the dance hasn’t changed – it still involves the high rollers getting ahead and everyone else getting left behind. But if you’re confused and you prefer your politics in faux-profound, pithy-sounding non-sequiters like the rest of the Chris Martin-loving crudmunchers, I’ll engage in a little indie rock doublespeak: “You can lead a horse to water, but don’t buy the cow if you can get the milk for free.”

Okay, so there’s that whole business of him stopping the Gauntanamo Bay prosecutions on his first day of office. But that’s a far cry from his promise to close the whole place entirely. You ask me, this is just the first of the avalanche of smaller, increasingly insistent disappointments in store. And yeah, so you’ll say that there are many politicians who’ve improved the world somehow: Lincoln. Mandela. Ghandi. But remember folks: flies can pollinate flowers, but it doesn’t make them butterflies.

And so I’ll leave you with the wisdom of Jarvis Cocker, who said, most eloquently and astutely, all the way back in ‘06:

“Cunts are still running the world.”

Welcome to the new world. Exactly like the old world. You know what I’m excited about? Coldplay just disbanded. Talk about positive change – now that’s something to celebrate.

Sayonara, bitches.

[Originally posted on africans.co.za on January 21, 2009.]

I’ve written a lot about movies this year, both for Africans and for other sites. I’ve attended film festival after interminable film festival, attended preview upon preview, and that’s apart from renting movies, watching TV series on DVD, and paying to see films on the big screen.

So you’d think I’d have an easy time deciding which films to recommend and which to deride, but the honest truth is that I can’t even remember most of them. Sure, there were some great films on circuit this year (or were there?), but frankly, who gives a shit? When Hollywood churns out innumerable multi-million dollar movies every month, with nary a break or a modicum of sense between them, it devalues the whole enterprise. Only more so if so much of the output is total dreck, like Love Guru or Meet Dave or The Mummy 3.

Instead, each new product begins to flow into itself and into the others, like the colours in a children’s water painting, and soon it all turns to muck. Which, frankly, is the point at which a soulless husk of stupidity like Beverly Hills Chihuahua can make it to the number one spot on the box office – not only Stateside, but also on our shores. My fellow Africans, I ask you: what the fucking fuck?

So rather than combing through the year’s release schedules, trying to find one worthwhile movie, I’ve simply thought long and hard (okay, 15 minutes) about the movie experiences that stick out in my memory. And now, without any further ado, here is…

YTAH Presents: 2008 in Movies

11. Planet Terror [2007] – Dir. Robert Rodriquez. One word: Machete! Also stars the guy who played the uber-talented mortician in Six Feet Under (Freddie Rodriguez).

10. Death Proof [2007] – Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Again, it may be that I saw this at the right time, with the right crowd, but this was an amazingly enjoyable film. Perhaps this makes me as much of a fanboy as Tarantino himself, but I preferred it to Rodriguez’s zombie jaunt.

9. The Brain That Wouldn’t Die [1962] – Dir. Joseph Green. This Z-grade 60s “horror” film has it all: a recycled plot siphoned from better films, plot holes the size of the Titanic, and an exuberance of moral outrage. Classic!

8. Wall-E [2008] – Dir. Andrew Stanton. Read my review to see why this isn’t higher in the list.

7. Tropic Thunder [2008] – Dir. Ben Stiller. Any film that gives the shaft to Forrest Gump is alright in my book. Everything about this film is simply fantastic. Also, two words: “eye rain”. Welcome back, Mr Stiller.

6. The Dark Knight [2008] – Dir. Chris Nolan. I think Pinvictor’s said enough, don’t you?

5. L’Avventura [1960] – Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, who also brought us Blow-Up. This would be higher up in the list if the picture didn’t keep pixilating. Boo! Hiss! Classic film though. The section in the ghost town stands out in memory.

4. ¡Maldito Bastardo! [2008] – Dir. Javi Camino. Hints of incest, bestiality, and ridiculously over-the-top performances … what more could a discerning filmgoer ask for? The undisputed comic highlight of the HorrorFest.

3. Pervert! [2005]– A Russ Meyer love-fest, in honour of the director who brought us Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and other films involving scantily-clad women and threadbare plots. Directed by no-one you’ve ever heard of (Jonathan Yudis).

2. Häxan: Witchcraft through the Ages [1922] – Dir. Benjamin Christensen. Memorable not only for the live soundtrack performance, but also the imaginative visual storytelling.

1. Persona [1966] – Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Bona fide genius. Seeing this film on the big screen – and on a film print, at that – was worth braving the worst rainstorm I’ve ever tried to drive in. It’s quite a shock to realize where so many people (David Lynch particularly) got their inspiration.

Granted, only one of these films was released this year. And to add insult to injury, none of the movies I watched for free managed to crack the Top 5. (Thanks Pinvictor! At least I didn’t have to pay for the dreck that was The Incredible Hulk… Of Shit.) Also, it’s a rather odd number for a best of list. But those were seriously the films that stand out.

Hopefully, these are the films I’ll remember when I think back about 2008. More likely, though, these fond memories will be soured by the recollection of getting suckered into watching Eagle Eye, or seeing Edward Norton go from class act to class “A” asshole. Way to go, 2008; now go fuck yourself.

Meantime, my fellow Africans, I can only exhort you once more to enjoy your crispy-fried carollers safely this festive season, and remember: when you’re out doing last-second Christmas shopping, or driving on SA’s beautiful roads, do the world a favour – indulge in some active aggression. It’s so much more constructive.

[Originally published on africans.co.za on Tuesday, December 23, 2008.]

A new fan of metal.

I’ve never been much of a metal fan, but I’ve been introduced to a wide selection over this last year, courtesy of the X-Fest and the HorrorFest, where I scored some nifty freebies by attending every goddamn screening possible. Thanks to said freebies, and lots of time spent hanging out with Pinvictor, I’ve discovered that I actually like metal – as long as it’s melodic. By the same token, I find that while I listen to both classical music and metal, I simply can’t abide it when they’re combined. Call it misplaced purism, but it bugs the shit out of me. Female vocals are okay, Midnattsol, but I draw the line at a full-on orchestra and operatic vocals (we’re looking at you, Nightwish and Hollenthon).

So counting down from 10, here is my list of the best new albums from 2008. I recommend you enqueue all of these albums and press Shuffle, for a DIY festive season mix that kicks the shit out of your average pop idol, waits for them to recover and then kicks the shit out of them again. Eat your bitchy little hearts out children, because suddenly it’s…

10. Midnattsol – Nordlys. As close to opera as I like my metal, thank you very much. An appropriate song for the season is “Northern Lights” about the Aurora Borealis, which you’d see regularly if you were the debased capitalist reincarnation of an old Norse god. (How many love songs have a rockin’ beat like that then, hey?) Similarly, listening to “Wintertime” ought to put you in the appropriate end-of-year mood better than any lacklustre Christmas cash-in album by the ingénue of the month.

09. Fimbultyr – Gryende Tidevarv. How many metal bands would start an album with a country-influenced tune that sounds like it dropped off the soundtrack from some anime western? And how many would follow it immediately with a full-frontal death metal aural assault? And how many of those do you think could pull it off? Well these guys do, which is frankly astonishing. Can’t understand a word, of course, but great shit notwithstanding.

08. Holy Blood – The Patriot. Black metal, meet Flutes. Flutes, meet… There aren’t many metal bands who can break out the folk instruments without turning into Blackmore’s Night, but these guys pull it off marvellously – whether heralding the arrival of morning on a beach (“Meeting the Sunrise”) or invoking soldiers on the march (“The Patriot”). Also, if you’re feeling Xmassy and you don’t have the requisite carollers handy, give the “Blood of Christ” a spin and discover the true meaning of this season: a low growl and soaring vampire vocals over an organ riff that would make the Count himself sit up and smile his toothiest.

07. Kiuas – The New Dark Age. By far the highlight from this album is “The Summoning”, which is (sadly) the only time they channel their inner 80s hair-metal band. Similarly, “The Wanderer’s Lament” sounds like that old staple of 80s music generally, the so-called power ballad – if it was written and performed by people who had any balls or talent whatsoever. The effect is helped by the tightness of the performance and song-writing, effectively scuppering any hint of bloat. And pay close attention to what they’re doing with on guitars and drums and you’ll soon be as impressed as I was.

06. Oomph! – Monster. This band sounds like their Teutonic brethren Rammstein, if Till Lindemann and Co. were in the habit of singing twisted versions of Grimm’s fairytales. Highlights include “Labyrinth”, “Wer Schön Sein Will Muss Leiden”, and “Lass Mich Raus” – the latter being the heart-warming story of someone being born. (“Mother, spread your legs, release me…”) Pure class! What more do you want from a metal band? How about hints of Depeche Mode’s goth-pop tech savvy, like on “Revolution”, or the occasional tango interlude. Catchy as fuck.

05. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! A fine return to fuck-you form for the man of many projects. Between doing movie soundtracks (The Proposition, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Road), scriptwriting (Death of a Ladies’ Man, 2009) and winding up his inner Grinderman, Mr Cave also found time to record another gung-ho record with the band that carries his name. With tracks like “Albert Goes West” and the stellar title track, not to mention song titles like “Lie Down There and Be My Girl”, this is a spectacular return to form for our antipodean friends.

04. Die Apokalyptischen Reiter – Licht. “… And a rocking good time was had by all.” Again on the pop side of the metal spectrum, this band delivers an upbeat romp through various songs that, in another world, would have been real club anthems. Depends which clubs you go to, I suppose. “Es Wird Schlimmer” and “Adrenalin” put the vocalist’s versatility to good use. When not snarling in German, they show a winning way with a rousing chorus. Not so much “weighty” as “luminous”.

03. Asian Dub Foundation – Punkara. Not a metal or rock album as such, but a fine rockin’ listen nonetheless. Punk meets political awareness and a decent rhythm in “Living Under the Radar”, “Burning Fence”, and “Target Practice”, all of which are songs for our time. Special Kudo Bonus Points (SKBPs) for their damn funky cover of The Stooges’ “No Fun” – and frankly, what better anthem/theme/lament for one of the longest years in living memory. (Has any year so thoroughly and entirely failed to end at the right time?)

02. Amon Amarth – Twilight of the Thunder God. Distinctively heavier than their Teutonic brethren, the killer title track that opens the album serves as a good primer to the great tunes that follow. Particular standouts include “The Hero”, “Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags”, and “Live For the Kill”. But hey, don’t take my word for it – Pinvictor rates them even higher than I do.

and the Number 1 spot goes to…

01. Korpiklaani – Korven Kuningas.
By far my favourite metal discovery this year. Although Korven Kuningas isn’t my favourite album from this band, it features enough of the intriguing folk influences I find so appealing about their music. This encompasses everything from what sounds like Native American chants (on “Northern Fall”) to marching flutes (the more pensive “Syntykoski Syommehessain”). This album is going to be playing on repeat over the entire Christmas season, if only because Belphegor’s Bondage Goat Zombie was recorded in English and I still can’t abide stupid lyrics (even if they’re foreign, or written by metalheads). Other standout tracks from this album include the instrumental “Shall We Take a Turn?”, which is followed by the even more jolly (there’s no other word) “Paljon on Koskessa Kivia”. And on “Runamoine” they deliver an anthem that gives Oomph! and Reiter a run for their money. As metal goes, this is pure gold. Finnish and klaar.

Merry Xmas, bitches!

[Originally published on africans.co.za on Tuesday, December 23, 2008.]

People come up with some pretty outlandish explanations to justify their actions and beliefs. Regardless of how illogical, distasteful, or ridiculous it may be, some jackass will try to sell you their particular brand of horseshit even as the SWAT vans pull up to the curb and helicopters begin to circle overhead.

Take religious people. Believers from various belief systems and denominations will happily insist that they possess incontrovertible, scientific proof of God’s existence. Of course, if you press them for more evidence than “aren’t flowers pretty” and “what are the odds” etc., you should be prepared for all kinds of outrageous rationalisations. Fortunately for you, we here at africans.co.za are logic fascists, and we’ve put together this handy “Fuck You Religious Whackos” guide, which we are giving you access to entirely free of charge.

“It came out of the sky!”

Believers – or as we like to call them around here, “fucktards” – may try to fob off the fundamental questions of existence with this old stand-by: “You can’t see the wind, but you can see its effect, right? Ja, well, God’s like that.” As if that explains anything. What does that even mean? God is hot air which rises, thereby creating a vacuum and pulling in cold air behind it? Why does that mean I’m not allowed to eat pork, or wear clothes of mixed fibres, or covet my neighbour’s ass? I mean, have you seen my neighbour’s ass? I’d tap that! And then I’d fuck it, but that’s just me.

Gods and their sport.

I suppose it makes sense to worship some meteorological phenomenon. Humans have been trying to influence the weather since we could walk upright and lose ourselves in the middle of a hailstorm. Or celestial bodies: they were popular in the God stakes once. Makes sense: A rock from outer space hits your cousin and kills him – fine; I can see why you’d want to start praying to the Sky Gods to aim somewhere else next time they feel the urge to hurl great big boulders around.

Still, I sense a leap of logic here. Maybe if you prayed hard enough, the sky gods would hit your cousin Og’s house down the road instead of yours. And if that happens, maybe it’s because he refused to lend you his fire-sticks that time, okay. So you’ve got the beginnings of a system of morality right there. But surely things can’t keep going that way indefinitely. At some point, regardless of how much you pray, you’re going to be the one struck by lightning or floods or some other meteorological calamity. Which means you’re left praying to someone who sometimes smites evildoers, sometimes smites do-gooders, and generally leaves things pretty much exactly the way they were before anybody did any kind of praying whatsoever.

The origin of God

Granted, getting pummelled by all kinds of matter from the sky is unpleasant, but the point is that stars, weather patterns, and natural disasters are all physical phenomena which you can observe and examine. You can analyse them, postulate different reasons for them, and then test your hypotheses to see which one holds out. At least when the roof of your house gets blown off, you don’t need to take the existence of wind on faith. So there seems to be something remarkably thick-headed about just lying back and going: “Oh. Space gods,” without at least attempting some further investigation to figure out if they’re really there.

Why do we even want gods? Most people seem to conceive of God either as some a kind of cosmic guarantee, or as a scapegoat for everything that’s wrong. Both seem kind of, well, immature. Either you want somebody to blame for your fuck-ups, or you want the reassurance that somebody “out there” has a plan for your life – somebody who’s in control, even if you’re not. That’s why you also get people whose response to perfectly rational questions about things like suffering, ridiculous beliefs, etc. is the laughable sloganeering, “You may not believe in God, but God believes in you!” As empty rhetoric goes, that’s pretty pathetic. Now God is some Motivational Poster in the Sky? If he doesn’t exist, he can’t even believe in himself, so his opinion of me is irrelevant, don’t you think?

At any rate, this “consolation” of a god comes at an incredible price; and it’s not one I’m willing to pay. But how much of a consolation is it really, this idea of an almighty deity? If some omnipotent being created the universe as we know it, he’s obviously forgotten about it, or given it up as a bad job. Or maybe he’s realized what a bunch of pitiful wankers his creations have turned into, and is waiting for them to stop complaining before he comes around again. Either way, he sounds like a kid who got a puppy for Christmas and then lost interest. Can’t say I’m overly eager to take my “design for life” from an overgrown child.

Keep your crazy to yourself, KTHXBYE

God: Proof that morons exist.

Of course, I don’t mind if you’re insane. If you become convinced that the housecat formerly known as Whiskers is the personification of an almighty being that has been worshipped since the Ancient Incans, and that he demands a sacrifice in the form of a small human child, then please – go ahead. Only, kindly stop trying to inflict your insanity on me.

But while many people seem happy to believe in their special delusion, there are a select few who seem convinced that god only exists if they can convince you that he exists. Well, not so much Hindus and Buddhists. Buddhists generally are happier to leave science alone to do its thing; Hindus can’t be bothered to convert anybody, unless the Hindus in question are Hare Krishnas, or George Harrison. (Fucking Hare Krishnas.) Scientologists don’t believe in proselytizing to non-celebrities, since their god only wants people who are wealthy or famous. But you can bet that Jehovah’s Witnesses want to convince you. (They’re really convinced; you’d have to be, to go around like a vacuum salesman, knocking on people’s doors and generally making a cunt of yourself.) Meanwhile, the Zionists and the more militant Muslims don’t so much care which afterlife you go to, as long as you go there right now. And if you watch Bill Maher’s new film, Religulous, which started its local run recently, you’ll know that all Muslims are militant. (Just kidding, Muslims. Nice Muslim. I know there are exceptions, so put away that suicide vest, there’s a nice religious fundamentalist. Thirty extra virgins for you.*)

*Hey, just be glad I’m not defacing pictures of Muhammad – you know I want to.

So what’s your point, YTAH?

Okay, so maybe I’ve been “going on a bit” about religion these last few months. Death, the afterlife, the existence or non-existence of not one but many, many, many gods – these are all worthwhile subjects, but anyone can get burnt out on them. It’s tiresome repeating the same joke over and over again (as anyone who’s seen Religulous could tell you).

But now we are approaching Christmas, which is the season of giving – and taking, taking, taking. So I’ll end this tirade by quoting Kurt Vonnegut, another eminent satirist, who’ll be providing the weekly moral: “We are here on earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.”

In the meantime, I’m off to celebrate a year of writing for Africans. I trust you’ll have an enjoyably irreligious end-of-year break. Mug a caroller for me.

Sayonara, bitches!

(If you enjoyed Part II, you’ll be happy to know that Part I – written by Pikes – is available here.)

[Originally posted on africans.co.za on Wednesday, December 17, 2008.]