Cutbacks...

Right there...

Yeah, well, this photography thing is becoming a bit embarrassing — especially the surfing side of it. I'm starting to feel a piece of the furniture down at Llandudno and along the Sea Point breaks. One day though, I'll get it right and head for the hills — picture taken.

"Who's that old #$@*?"

"Dunno. He's always there. Does nothing else. Sits and takes pictures of the sea."

"Mad #%$@!"

"Yeah. It takes all types."

As indeed it does. After a week from hell and only one day resting at work, we decided to get out of town and do what we do best, i.e. sit on rocks and stare at the sea. During summer, there's very little surf to be had in Cape Town. Winter brings a howling north-westerly, rain, and a dip into the south Atlantic storm swell. During summer, the weather's reversed, there are no waves, very little rain, and a howling south-easterly generally drives people berserk. My favourite headline, Dinner Table Gun Battle Kills Three, kinda sums it up.

To compound the problem, we're talking South Africans here. They're already off the rails. Come summer, 'psychosis' does not do us justice. The best thing to do is head out of the city and lie low until the explosions, screams, and gunfire die down.

Llandudno and Sea Point are not 'out of the city' but, given the sea washing their crazed coasts, they are bearable. Saturday we spent eight hours in the sun taking photographs of by-now-well-known surfboards desultorily carving an indifferent two-foot swell. It was cloudy, balmy, and the ozone layer had buggered off to Australia.


Smacking the lip...

If it's hot on the rocks, it's not so in the water. Although as kids we'd surf these breaks in baggies, I know the Atlantic coast's bloody cold. It gets down to 10 or 11 degrees at times and is considered pretty warm at around 16. Around the corner in False Bay, it gets up to 23. Back then, we'd spend half-an-hour in the water and two weeks in bed with hypothermia. Today, as old Bob points out, "Things have changed." Baggies are found in California and surf ads. People who spend the day in the water are fully covered, their faces protected by peaks.

As someone who likes to photograph the innate speed and grace of surfing, these bodysuits are bloody ugly. They're not photogenic and don't cut it in terms of style. And no wonder so many surfers are getting chomped by Great Whites. They're all seals now.

Eventually, a lack of rideable surf and decent pictures drove us from the rocks of Llandudno towards those of Queens on the off chance it might be working. There were three guys out and the waves were coming in larger and more surfable than at Llandudno so, though the light was bad, we planted ourselves on our usual rocks, maintaining a low profile while travelling incognito.

"HI! ARE YOU MIKE GOLBY OF YBLOGZA?"

It was like a sonic boom. I ducked under the nearest rock and pulled my .44 Magnum.

"Who wants to know?" I screamed. "And get your hands in the air, you demented fucker."

"Hey, there's no need..."

"You from the CIA, NSA, Revenue Services or what?" I snarled, pulling Wendy in behind me to back me up with the 30mm cannon borrowed from the hood of Marek's Caddy.

"I'm Hugh."


Spiderman heads south...

I must admit that every hard man, good Catholic boy, and blogger to boot has a soft spot. This startlingly frank admission by the obvious thug confronting me disarmed me totally.

"The poet?"

"Umm...yeah, except that I'm not a poet."

I was about to shoot.

"Except that Spike says I am."

I lowered the weapon. It was indeed Hugh 'Hectic Drop' du Toit, my resident. He's been living in my comments box ever since he moved down from Jo'burg ten years ago (you know what they say — "You can take the boy out of Jo'burg..." etc.?). A Sea Point local, he rouses himself whenever matters pertaining to waves are raised. He has enlivened and generally raised the tone of this blog by his informed presence.

The poet thing? It's the job description of the guy listed above him in a series of articles featured by Wavescape.

"Hugh, you dumb bastard!"

"Heya Mike, you @#%$ idiot!"

It's a Cape Town thing, but it happened just like that. Ask Hugh. He's as open and friendly on the Web as he is in what some term the 'real' world.

Which kinda gets back to my original observation, if you will. Heading for the mountain or the coast, I escape the town, the city, and the 'real', respectable, obligation-laden world of this, that, and other mundane things whenever possible. So my finding the surf pictured here while speaking to a friend met here meant a melding of the so-called 'real' and so-called 'unreal'.

Unreal, eh?

And really good to meet you, Hugh. Who are these two, by the way? They really tore into (or worked with) the good stuff that came along after you'd headed for home.

The Return of La Honda

Making the most of it...

The fiddler, he now steps to the road | He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed

On Monday evening, my car was whipped and I found myself head of a no-car family. We'd been treated to lunch by Sean and Margie at The Brass Bell in Kalk Bay, offering opportunity to whip off long-distance shots like the one above. On Tuesday, I bought a car, but had to wait to take possession of it. The economics behind such a transaction by yours truly is explained below. For now, though, circumstance — having done others favours on various occasions, put me in a position to buy a new car.

All this incident has done is lead me to formulate a new theory of social economics — one which, I believe, highlights the intractability of resolving inequity.

On Wednesday, owing to miracles, flaming crosses in the East, spells cast by Father Christopher, publicity by Kat, and friends in high places, I owned two cars — but did not possess either. Actually it was due to either damned good or fortuitous police work. The perps are behind bars, having been picked up by the cops in School Road, Strandfontein. The school of hard knocks, I guess. So, by late-afternoon Thursday, after taking possession of a new Volkswagen, I found myself a First World archetype, the head of a two-car family. I'll be getting rid of the Honda as soon as possible — give it a decent burial, as it were. And so to speak. Etc.

Needless to say, sorting out this stuff took the stuffing out of me; hence no feedback. Nevertheless, the response by those who commented below was heartening — to say the least. Yeah, it means a lot. Today, the upshot's that the Honda's in a police pound, but retrieving it is going to be bloody difficult. The admin side of bureaucracy is alive and well and living in the details.

Last thing: I've no idea whether the valuables in the car were retrieved and the police can't tell me either.


The SAPS swoop...

On the back of the fish truck that loads | While my conscience explodes

Damn, I don't give a shit about 'stuff', but wheels are wheels. For a couple of days after the theft, I pondered my lack of discombobulation. Wendy was angry and the girls were upset. I felt nothing. The thing had been nicked and I had to sort it out. The taxis hiss by my window.

It has to do with economics, a subject in which I have some experience. I've often written of the vast income disparity fuelling crime in South Africa and, frequently, I find myself sympathising with the 'have nots' as, generally, I have not. But there is an enormous difference between having little and being poor and in this country, where wealth is so clearly and unfairly divided, I'm in the company of the filthy rich.

Look at it this way. The circles or cycles of wealth and poverty are very much like the circles forming a Venn diagram or those indicating adjacent weather systems. By dint of birth, education and association, I fall into the circle of wealth. I will not, unless something really bad happens to me, ever know dire need and cannot, therefore, speak for those living in the circle of poverty. Like weather systems and Venn diagrams, these two circles meet or intersect and it is at this intersection that crime and a host of social ills occurs.

It's also where we, from differing backgrounds, get to know each other. In short, because it engenders constant awareness, the place where wealth meets poverty is a cool place to be. It also explains to me why I've never lived in a suburb — I've always chosen to live on the edge of one.

It's at this intersect that a modicum of wealth redistribution takes place and the possibility of 'crossover' occurs. A fringe suburbanite, I'm well aware of the drug and sex trades — they're conducted outside my front gate. The drug and sex industry workers? I'm sure they're more than familiar with the sordid tastes of people wearing pre-packaged facades of respectability.

The nut of it is that my aged Honda, for a time, travelled towards poverty and almost made a meaningful contribution to alleviating it. Happily, it did not and the criminal classes remain with us.

The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain | And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

Bob Dylan | Visons of Johanna

History's Heavy Tread

Journey to the End of the World

Over the next week or so, I'll be putting up a collection of these shots, taken at Rooikrantz and other areas of Cape Point over the weekend. It's an extraordinarily beautiful place, but it's one I won't be visiting for some time to come.

My car, and much that was of great value to me, was swiped opposite Kalk Bay Reef this afternoon. The insurance value won't amount to a row of beans and certainly won't provide down payment on a new vehicle so, like most South Africans, I find myself footloose and fancy free — in a manner antithetical to that which the term implies.

It was to be the end to a perfect day. I'd picked Sean and Margie up from the airport and they took us out to lunch to celebrate their return from Thailand and Margie's birthday. Thailand's a hole, from what they tell me, and they're immensely pleased to be home.

One thing, though. The Thais regard anger as barbaric and have great respect for others' property. So, unfortunately, their return from the Third to the Second World was met by typically South African behaviour.

Their gifts, bought for the girls, did not even make it from the airport to our home. They, with the car, probably ended up in some chop shop in Mitchell's Plain, from where they'll be moved to the house of a low rent-gangster.

The guys who stole the car not fifty meters from where we were seated, probably scored around R2,000 for it which, no doubt, went to feeding insatiable tik (meta-amphetamine) habits.


Palaeolithic tire tracks?

Such is the way of the world and South Africa.

Wendy and Cathryn were angry and Sarah was upset. Surprisingly, I wasn't very much of anything until we got home. And then I realised I felt immensely depressed and, yeah, greatly saddened.

The indifferent callousness with which we regard others and their necessary possessions (the car's seventeen years old, for God's sake) grows fat feeding on our continued denial of a poverty born of obscene wealth.

Like a rising tide, the gangsterism of the Cape Flats is swamping Cape Town and only those with property on the Atlantic seaboard have sufficient guns and money to buy a blinkered security.

Down on the Flats, people are more than desperate — they're at war to survive.

Me? While I've not been directly affected by crime — in a physical sense, I've been indirectly stripped by it.

And the funny thing is, I continue to see this descent into anarchy as the rich robbing the poor rather than the poor robbing the rich. Like it or not, deny it, decry it or don't, the rich continue to be white and right while the poor seem always to be coloured and left behind.

There is a solution to crime, but it will take a generation and changed attitudes and practices to see it effected. We have the generation, but we do not — sadly, seem to have the rest.


Country living...

The snaps I've been able to catalogue over the past eight months have, frequently, felt like my documenting of the end of something. I'm not sure what; but that's the way it's felt to me. The end of a city's innocence, the end of the democratic dream, the end of 'sharing'?

I guess the latter says it best. The forced redistribution of wealth, where those 'without' are as much victims as those who 'have' in abundance, is not sharing. Theft is brutal, violent, and barbaric. And it reflects an abysmally ugly side to our society.

The ruthless, cunning, and mercilessly vicious way in which those who 'have' cling to obscene wealth reflects this horror as clearly.

It was my father's car and it had great sentimental value. I do hope his spirit drives the bastards who pinched it into a tree, but I hope so in a detached way — having no knowledge who these assholes are. Were they to return it, I'd probably thank them and carry on as normal.

For now and the foreseeable future though, I'll be relying on our remarkable taxi and train services (sic). And learning to appreciate nature's beauty and raw power through pictures already taken.

It's a fucking rip, but c'est la vie for now, I guess...

Kurtz lives.

Web 2.0 What?

Sitting on a rock at the beach today...

Riders on the storm | Riders on the storm | Into this house were born | Into this world were thrown | Like a dog without a bone | An actor out on loan | Riders on the storm

"Too many companies are targeting an audience of 53,651."

Josh Kopelman | 53,651

As someone who takes pictures of surfers and crows (this one flew by this morning) with a digital camera, I understand the attraction of futile, unrealistic, and technically impossible pursuits. As far as action photography is concerned, the time delay between focusing and making the picture is always going to screw up a good shot so, to get a reasonable snap, you have to take hundreds.

Or thousands. So what? I have the time...

So too, it seems, do millions of others.

Earlier today, while sitting on a rock taking pictures of surfers riding waves, it struck me I know nothing (or very little) of Web 2.0. As far as I know, Google's Web 2.0. It has everything I need. So what the fuck is this thing? What's the buzz? Why are so many people I know making such a noise about it?

Arriving home, I Googled the term and, naturally, landed up at Wikipedia. The Web's indeed a wonderful tool for those of us with access to it.

At the outset, Wikipedia tells me:

Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O'Reilly Media, in collaboration with MediaLive International, used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences and since 2004 it has become a popular (though ill-defined and often criticized) buzzword amongst certain technical and marketing communities.

I certainly didn't know the origin of the term, and so learnt something right off. But I guess that's the reason we populate Wikipedia, eh?


...I started pondering the sanity...

Theres a killer on the road | His brain is squirmin like a toad | Take a long holiday | Let your children play | If ya give this man a ride | Sweet memory will die | Killer on the road, yeah

Wikipedia's article is a lengthy and, I guess, comprehensive rundown on Web 2.0. Go read it. Essentially, it tells me I wasn't far off the mark. Web 2.0 appears to be a Google on Steroids, a Web-based social-and-every-other-from-of-human-interaction platform exploited and added to by a global, networked user base.

Kinda like what we wish we had now, I thought.


...of those promoting Web 2.0.

A long time ago, Niek Hockx said of blogging and other Web media — this is not a direct quotation: "Blogging is another way to put up stuff on the Web."

Bang on. And Wikipedia's entry — and TechCrunch — seems to echo that basic premise when explaining what (or what does not) constitutes Web 2.0.

Web 2.0's a whole lot of ways to put up stuff on the Web.

Nothing else.

The rest is hype. And the hype is dangerous. We are not looking at the wired world of the future. Anybody believing we are has been suckered by New Age Tech++. Web 2.0, as it's touted by small companies trying to make names for themselves and fat profits for their owners, is a non-starter. It will not fly.

Why? If you need me to explain that one, you shouldn't mention the term Web 2.0. You should drag yourself away from your PC and go take a look at the world around you. Should your mind not already have fried on your motherboard, you might give yourself an inkling as to why this is so.

Besides allowing educated, predominantly North American moneyed elites to play around on a corner of the Internet, most people have other, better things to do. And, for those not part of Josh Kopelman's 53,651, Web 2.0 did not and will not exist. Ever.

Seriously. I mean, if I have this whole thing wrong, please explain it to me. But do so in English, or at least define phrases such as "...data as the driving force", "...software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of The Long Tail", and "...network effects created by an architecture of participation."

Web 2.0 sounds a lot like digital photography. It's a good idea, but it has a long way to go before it fully replaces that which went before it (the good old SLR) or creates something new. If the latter's the intent, why give it such a dumb-ass retro name?

And, hey, ain't it' good to have old shutterclog back?

Girl ya gotta love your man | Girl ya gotta love your man | Take him by the hand | Make him understand | The world on you depends | Our life will never end | Gotta love your man, yeah

Doors | Riders on the Storm

Note: Tomorrow, I'm going in search of a Muslim 'saint'. A colleague tells me he's buried in one of the caves at the base of the cliffs pictured here. Last weekend, we got this close to the spot. Tomorrow, low tide's at midday so... umm, I'll take some pictures. As for the Muslim 'saint', I cannot vouch for the veracity of the story told me.

Jewels and Binoculars...

...hang from the head of the mule

Tourists to South Africa are breaking all records this year, the cabinet has been told. Cabinet spokesperson Themba Maseko said that the 4.7 million visitors in the first seven months of this year were the highest for this period, a 15.8 percent increase from last year's figure.

Maseko told a media briefing yesterday that the rapid growth was "exceeding even our positive expectations".

The fastest growth was in visitors from Africa and the Middle East, which jumped more than 20 percent, followed by the 11 percent increase from the Americas. Australia and Asia improved 8 percent, but Europe, which was already high, grew only 3 percent.

Business Report | Tourist numbers to SA are breaking records

South Africa's medical tourism industry has skyrocketed with the number of overseas patients drawn by 'scalpel safari' packages more than doubling in three years, an expert said on Friday.

The booming sector now earns $37-million (28-million euros) annually, Martin Kelly, president of the Association for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, told AFP, underlining that this was a fraction of the potential. Industry estimates predict that about 20 000 health travellers will visit South Africa in 2006, up from around 8 000 in 2003.

"South Africa has a very good reputation internationally for the quality of its medical service facilities and because it's cheaper," Kelly said. People are jetting in for nips and tucks, organ transplants and orthopaedic surgery and then soaking up the South African sunshine at world renowned game parks, spectacular mountains and pristine beaches, he said.

Independent Online | SA medical tourism booms

South Africans should not be surprised at the anger and brutality that was sweeping the streets when they continued to refuse to acknowledge the socio-economic inequalities in the country, Dr Mamphela Ramphele said on Thursday.

Ramphele, one of the World Bank's four managing directors, was speaking in Cape Town at a conference reflecting on the work of the former Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its continuing worldwide impact.

She said the drafters of the TRC's terms of reference had been timid in limiting its mandate to crimes against humanity defined solely in political terms. Excluding crimes perpetrated in socio-economic terms in South Africa had been a great mistake, because the majority of the people in the country "continue to bleed", she said.

Their wounds were unrecognised, and their pain was totally unacknowledged.

Mail & Guardian | Don't be surprised at violence in SA

Note: Order your FREE copy of Sunny Business from the Department of Trade and Industry — and make a killing today.

Angel Arrives at the Coast...

Quite frankly, I thought it was Kat Herding. I sent her a note, inviting her to join me here in Cape Town with a view to a long-term relationship and, perhaps, marriage.

I mean, for God's sake, is she not the sexiest girl you've laid your eyes on...?

'Pulchritude' does not do her justice. Her diamond eyes, Barbie face, and Cheney lips mean business to be sure, but only in the most compassionate way — everybody has their price.

She is, to put it bluntly, the new love of my life. Not that Wendy minds; she's used to my frequent peccadilloes and enjoys throwing them out when I'm done.

"Go back to your whining, snot-nosed, drunken savage," she snarled at Kate Moss, seeing me salivate over Kat's blog and my keyboard. "He'll look after you, Bitch. Mike's got a new one coming out now..."



Damn... where was I? Yeah, I thought it was her — uh-huh, she sent me that picture of herself (behind the link) from Bimini this past summer.

The chopper flew in low, circling the beach before taking up station off the point. A small, feminine figure plummeted from the cockpit to the water and retrieved something before signalling to be winched back up.

Lifted from the sea, an obviously elated trainee 'something-or-other' was hoisted across to the rocks on the far side of the bay, where she slipped out of her harness and ran off to join the chopper — which had landed on the hill behind us.



Weird. It made me wonder. It obviously wasn't Kat — I was expecting her at any time, but nobody paying any mind to the mini-drama played out off the beach seemed to give it second thought.

Why not? Who was this girl who fell from the sky? A life-saver, paramedic, reality-TV competitor, military commando...?

Who knows? She appeared out of nowhere and, after about ten minutes and an immense cloud of dust high on the hill, disappeared into nowhere, her mission accomplished.

What else plays out before our unseeing or uncomprehending eyes?



As for Kat; a new day dawns. For those of you who thought RageBoy and Sessum were the Web, you're right. They were. Kat Herding Media is now in town and you have no idea what Web 2.0 offers.

At first, I was as puzzled as most. I thought Kat Herding might be a pastime favoured by those living on the Isle of Man, but a quick glance at her portrait convinced me otherwise. She injects meaning into the term 'magazine mind'. Her forthrightness renders limpid the mock outrage of our former icons. Listen to this....

Hi! I'm Kat and this is my little corner of Web 2.0 where we can chat about some of the things I'm so excited about. Like video blogging, podcasting, social media, Second Life, YouTube, lipstick, wikis, RSS, citizen journalism, customer evangelism, shoes, MoBlogging, photocasting, tagging, folksonomy, widgets, Digg, iPod, cute suits, social bookmarking, massively multiplayer online games, indymedia, hairstyles, javascript and Ajax. Ready? OK then! Let's get started.



Eh? Step down, Halley, your nemesis has hit town. And you should hear the way she says "Mmmmm....?"

Even Father Christopher has deigned to pay her a visit (in search of that fool Locke) and, I am told, is considering offering her the Chair of the School of Business Studies at the Jesus Bunker.

Should she drop Jeremy, of course. Jeremy's a pooftah and we don't abide pooftahs at the Jesus Bunker. It's not that...good God, there's no way anybody could accuse me of being sexist or anything...

Never mind. I've no doubt about it. Kat is the face of our fiscal future and the Web. Her new media musings are incisive, provocative, witty, charming, chatty, philosophical, and intellectually challenged. In short, she's a girl after my own heart.

Now, back off. I'm going outside. I expect her to drop in at any time.

The Black Jew

An unashamed racist, anti-Semite, homophobe, and terrorist sympathizer who enjoys mocking cripples, I was heartened to hear of my hero Cosmo Kramer's fall from grace with the American public.

Apparently he called a bunch of niggers a "bunch of niggers."

Or something like that.

Either way, and much like our raving anti-Semite and good Catholic boy, Melvin Gibson, Cosmo's gone and fucked up his career by publicly indulging both a fit of honesty and a grovelling apology.

"I'm not a racist — that's what's so insane about this. For me to ... flip out and say this crap — I'm deeply, deeply sorry.

I work in a very uncontrolled manner on stage — it's spontaneous, I go into character. The rage did go all over the place — it went to everybody in the room.

I'm really busted up over this, and I'm very, very sorry to those people in the audience, the blacks, the Hispanics and the white, everybody who was there and took the brunt of that anger, and hate and rage."

Yeah, me too, Cosmo, but for different reasons. Living in a police state, where every thought has you thinking twice (kinda compounds the problem, doesn't it?), pressure's gonna build.

When you earn a living from words, increasing amounts of energy go into vetting your every utterance. And when, finally, you do get a chance to relax (and who among us does not relax at work?), something's bound to give.

Face it, my Jewish friend, we're all racists and every other vile thing under the sun. Moment by moment and pretty much unconsciously, we just choose not to be. Most of the time.

You Americans spend so much time worrying about meeting the needs of the Patriot Act, you lose sight of your need to — once in a blue moon — vent your innate prejudices and bigotries.

It's relatively easy. Given our revulsion of bigotry and our history of avoiding it, we're lulled into believing that hoary old one-liner, "I'm no racist / anti-Semite / homophobe, etc."

Bullshit. We're all as guilty as you — no matter what we believe. For going public in your anal society though, you're culpable and will never work again.

Pity.

I revered you, man. You were right up there with Borat. And now it turns out you're human.

Lenny Bruce was bad | He was the brother that you never had.

Bob Dylan | Lenny Bruce

The Big Pink

Flames of another type...

A year or so ago, a drunken Brit razed Table Mountain. Well, okay, he didn't raze it, but we've since borne the inevitable visual consequences of his loathsome act of arson. He killed a fellow Brit too, a hiker who — probably terrified by the flames surrounding her, succumbed to smoke inhalation.

What a way to go. You travel six thousand miles to escape your windswept rock in the North Sea, but are murdered while in the middle of nowhere by one of your unthinking own.

Never mind...these things happen. Tourism is not an easy gig and its hardships are legion. But we endure.


...at the foot of Table Mountain

So too does the mountain. I was told, by an attractive blonde on the slopes of Lion's Head — Wendy photographed the encounter from the car, that an abundance of watsonias signifies the mountain vegetation's regeneration (that we were standing in a sea of pink and purple should place the encounter in appropriate context).

Fires marring the face of the mountain are few and far between. We're not due (or planning) one this year so, what the hell, get on over and enjoy the view. Following reports of unexplained pub fires breaking out in Slingsby-on-Slime, I believe Cooper — the Pom who made these pictures possible, has long since fled our shores.

Making Waves

Cranking Thermopylae

Spike was right. Last Tuesday, that is. The surf was up. A massive swell accompanied by howling crosswinds that blew the waves to hell and gone came in Wednesday and lasted pretty much the whole weekend. We trudged the Peninsula from Dias Beach to Smitwinkelsbaai to Scarborough to Llandudno to Thermopylae and every place between.

Nothing. Nada, zippo, zilch. I believe there were some 20-footers to be had, but I reckon I missed 'em good an proper. They were either breaking somewhere up the west coast or they moved in as I moved on — something that seems to happen with alarming regularity.

Either way, never let it be said that a lack of waves, too much wind, unseasonable rain, or a lack of money ever spoiled a Cape Town weekend. I've beefed up the Cape Point album and have added a welter of old photographs to Surfing Llandudno.


Shooting for the moon...

With more than 1600 pictures taken over eight months cluttering this blog's gallery and my posted entries becoming increasingly scarce, I'm inclined to see YBLOG ZA as a place for posting pictures. Politics is a mess. We wrote what would happen through the halcyon days of late 2002 / early 2003. Armageddon's going to take some time to play itself out — don't believe any of the shit you read in the MSM — and I've little desire to watch it happen.

It's the link thing, y'know? To blog, you need to read and I've not been reading sites I generally open without thought. I spent several hours with Mark Woods yesterday, but I guess that's no way to catch up on the blog buzz. I was transported to weird and wonderful places, reading gems by authors I'd not heard of and, by the time I fell back to Earth, time was the last thing I had to spare.

Speaking of which...

Birds Of A Feather...

Honorable intent...

Ah well, why the hell not? For those dripheads out there who still believe in the pursuit of peace, happiness and clientology, here're a couple of bedtime stories that'll leave you howling at the moon...

Sy Hersh opines on the influence Papa Bush, James Baker III, What's-His-Name Gates, and other Carlyle Group associates will have on Baby Bush and goes on to mock Democrats for the supine, bed-wetting wimps they are...

Noam Chomsky preaches to the embittered, resentful, and deeply cowed choir on the left from an upturned soapbox at NPR...

...and Fisky reports on the latest consequences of the disastrous policies of Lord Blair of Kut Al-Amara.

Just in case you thought I'd forgotten you. Or didn't care. Or something...

The Sex Life of Kelp

Kelp doing it...

What can I say? I'm innocent? I'm not? Doesn't matter. What does one do with the family snaps, anyway? You spread them around and show them to anybody who'll sit through the interminably boring monologue accompanying pictures of nothing in particular...

Not that these are pictures of nothing in particular, mind you. I was thinking of Kat Herding and, for some reason, sex popped into my head. Which naturally led to kelp. As most of you who don't live where Frank lives, the above snap is of kelp. It's a kind of weed that grows in the sea.

I believe Jesus Freaks eat it. It brings on Raptures or something. Or eugenicists turn them into pills, because they don't eat meat — the eugenicists, not the kelp.

Actually, I don't think kelp eats meat either.

Whatever...speak to Locke about this. He knows about such things.

Anyway, I just thought I'd remind all those fucking Creationists out there that kelp didn't just appear six thousand years ago. Nor did it crawl out of the ocean. Nor is a slimy plant that trips up surfers, sometimes leading them to fall on their boards and have a fin driven through their faces (I kid you not), the result of intelligent design.

I mean, this shit lies around in the sea, waving its arms and legs and thinking of sex. It pays no attention to anybody. Along comes a surfer and BAM!... he eats it.


The result — baby kelps...

That good enough for you? The above's a picture of the kelp when it was a baby. Or sextuplets or whatever they call the multiple progeny of people pumped full of hormonal soups.

And, just like us, kelps look a lot more attractive when young than they do when old. I dig the colours.

It reminds me of a time... never mind. I just thought I'd share this with you. The family album and the sex life of kelp (or kelps), that is.

You never know when you might be quizzed about these things. Down at your local airport... Or border post.

Think about it.

Note: I didn't do the picture of Kramer, by the way. That's his official potrait. You can buy a copy on art.com. It might cheer him up. The crow flew by this afternoon. I'm wondering if it's a sign or something...

Spike sez...

"Thar' she blows!"

Oh the time will come up | When the winds will stop | And the breeze will cease to be breathin'. | Like the stillness in the wind | 'Fore the hurricane begins, | The hour when the ship comes in.

...a massive bloody system parked in the middle of the south Atlantic for the better part of a week has been generating swells of a wintry magnitude. We are, according to our world-class wind and weather guru, about to be hit by some of the best surf seen since the ice melted — from the mountains; this past winter.

Whatever. Let's hear it from The Man before we speculate on the more recent past and Spike's relative silence since Friday...or whenever it was.

"Into the week, the swell fades by Tuesday, and then it's the turn of the SW Cape and West Coast to get a DIK 15-20' WEST SWELL from Wednesday into Thursday and still solid waves lasting into Friday." ... "The waters are freezing now, and the wind is pumping. Swell hanging in at 3-4'. The tow ous are deep in an underground bunker chowing testosterone and dopping milk and running on specially adapted underwater treadmills in the new gym called Sturgeon Active. Dust off your wino chaser for a large thundering WEST swell comes next Wednesday from a huge storm that forms all weekend, stabilises on Sunday and then simply squats in one spot for 2 days, spewing forth a multitudinous brood of storm-smeared squealers."

Indeed. And he has pictures to prove it. But, I ask, what has happened to Spike? Where is he? We've heard nothing from him since his last convulsion. Is this brooding hulk slouching towards the Cape the figment of a wave-starved imagination? Not according to magicseaweed, which has been predicting an offshore swell of five to six meters for around a week now. But magicseaweed's assessment of the resulting surf has been tempered by predictions of unfavourable winds and other factors to which only to salt-and-beer soaked wave watchers are privy.


When even the bad times are good...

Oh the seas will split | And the ship will hit | And the sands on the shoreline will be shaking. | Then the tide will sound | And the wind will pound | And the morning will be breaking.

I'm banking on receiving an update from Spike some time tomorrow — just to calm my fevered brow, you understand. I've been sitting on rocks taking pictures of kelp lice riding six-inch slop on popsicle sticks for the past month or two and cannot take any more of it. Mind you, some people, like Chancy Gardener above, appear able to make something out of nothing. I caught him at Dangers a week ago. But, really. I'm tired of watching the garden grow and want some decent surf pictures. Yeah, and I want them now.

It's not that I don't believe The Man. The waves, like the whales, will come. I know this to be true. I am, after all and when all is said and done, a man of faith and an occasional blogger to boot. And I now have a camera. I have therefore taken two days' leave and will be plodding the Atlantic shore from Wednesday evening. It's not that I'm not used to trudging rugged trails. This past weekend, we spent hours beating a path less travelled around the Sentinel, home to Africa's largest waves. I've posted the pictures here, intended writing a storyboard essay on tourists paying a fortune for an hour's fun while we get a day for nothing but, as usual, ran out of time.

The updated Cape Point album is here, by the way. Tourism by proxy always was a good idea waiting for a blog to happen.

There are some good pictures to be taken out there and I want one — or many more would be good — of them later this week. Fifteen feet? Who cares? I don't have to ride the buggers. Ten to twelve feet and a taste of winter would be fine.

Oh the fishes will laugh | As they swim out of the path | And the seagulls they'll be smiling. | And the rocks on the sand | Will proudly stand, | The hour that the ship comes in.

Bob Dylan | When the Ship Comes In

Note: Okay, so I probably don't fully agree with where he's coming from or his assessment of the imperial ambitions of 'fundamentalist Islamic jihadists', but Iain McWhirter certainly blows the whistle on the latest round of mealy-mouthed endearments being whispered across the killing fields.

Nobody else in the mainstream media appears willing to call the cowed Yanks and callow Brits to account for their increasingly nauseating rhetoric. Instead, they amplify it in the face of looming disaster. McWhirter's piece is about as close as it gets to a reality "...too ghastly to contemplate" — as former South African prime minister and Bush soulmate B.J. Vorster would undoubtedly have put it.

Nothing, bar the situation becoming more precarious as a bunch of crazed neo-imperialists on drugs continues to drive the West over the edge into history's Black Hole, has changed. The pomo Hitlers of our age are still in control. Period.

Rainbow Nation...

Clouds over Khayalitsha...

The Colour of Money

"That ain't workin'..."

"...as long as injustice and inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest." ... "Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is people who have made poverty and tolerated poverty, and it is people who will overcome it."

Poverty is, as President Thabo Mbeki has so frequently observed, our country's gravest problem. Poverty and our skewed economy underpin all social ills. We could have reversed it, but we sold out our solution in 1996, swapping the RDP for GEAR. Will we indeed overcome poverty, Madiba? I doubt it. Should you believe otherwise, a day at the beach might change your mind. These people don't give a shit that our kids are raped at seven, are on meta-amphetamines at ten, have no education, homes, or health care, and are dead of gunshot wounds at 17.

Whatever...it doesn't matter. I'm chucking in the towel. For now. As my kids grow up and move off to Ireland, I become more inclined to follow them.

Faced daily with the world's greatest income disparity and unable to sustain a family on an income based more on global greed than any policy of the company for which I work or the skilled work I do, I cannot see my personal fortunes changing. While many of us work for others and struggle to put food on the table, overt opulence continues to flaunt itself in the face of abject poverty. I cannot believe that it will not continue to do so for generations to come. It has become the way of the world, the way we do business around here. Forget the church and state. It has always been about business and, after decades of not-so-covert manipulation, the money moguls have bought the future and are now riding us into the ground.


"That's the way you do it..."

"Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of fundamental human rights. Everyone everywhere has the right to live with dignity, free from fear and oppression, free from hunger and thirst, and free to express themselves and associate at will."

The rich are rapacious, rampant, and insatiable. The poor have no power and their future looks grim. Grinding poverty and short-term gain, Madiba — these things kill. Be it by AIDS, TB, crime, violence, social dysfunction, imploding value systems, the collapse of the family, or what have you, they squeeze the blood from our veins and the life from our country. Until we find ourselves a Castro, a Chavez, a Machel, or a young Mandela, it will always be so.

I'm not alone in feeling this way. Over the past ten years, I've seen hundreds of South Africans leave as economic refugees. My view is limited. Several million are earning a living overseas. Many faithful South Africans live and blog there, as homesick as all hell. Yeah, the English, the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh; they are Africans too. Social problems do not phase us — they are to be expected and perhaps even serve as signs that we are coming of age as a developing nation. We've been through too much over the past fifty years to be upset by minor irritants such as repression and revolution.

Thank God, over the past century and as President Mbeki pays statesmanlike tribute to the late Great Krokodil, we've had people of stature and integrity to guide us past possible futures every bit as horrendous as those faced by Sudan, the DRC, Iraq, Palestine, Angola, Chechnya and so many other countries. We've the Reagans, Thatchers, Bothas, Bushes, Blairs, Vorsters and countless others to thank for such grotesque failures of the human spirit. For every blood diamond on the world market and for every limbless landmine victim, there's a Mercedes, BMW or Audi being delivered to a sought-after address.


"Money for nothin' and your chicks for free..."

"Yet in this new century millions of people remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains. Massive poverty and inequality are terrible scourges of our times — times in which the world also boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom."

Nelson Mandela

Ultimately, our ability to sustain our dream boils down to the price of a loaf of bread and, perhaps because even buying a loaf of bread is a political act, I'm addressing this entry to you. I can no longer afford bread and I do not accept such a situation as a sacrifice in nation building. For as long as a minority live high on the hog, spending blood money taken from a majority forced to eat dirt, our dream will remain our illusion and the rich man's reality. And you will be flogging both like a dead horse, stating that which we know, mouthing truisms that hold no substance and offer no future.

By the way, I won't be buggering off just yet; I owe Trevor some money and the rest to the company store. But I will say this much. I'm on my way out of here and will probably end up in some corner of County Mayo, the land that gave voice to my grandfather and our President's favourite poet. Look at it this way, Madiba. In our wired world, a plane ride is several hours and another country. Distances have dropped and miles have diminished to minutes. So, Irish I may be, but I remain as much an African as you.

Note: Pictures taken Sunday while looking for a place in the sun.

Love and Marriage...

Sean and Margie...

I have, as they say in all the best circles, gained a daughter. Needless to say, I'm over the moon about it. And given that she's blonde...

"What?"

"You can't say things like that."

"Like what?"

"You're going to start in about blondes again, aren't you?"

"So what?"

"Asshole. She's your daughter-in-law."

Nobody has any need to remind of me of this. I am, after all, a good Catholic boy and an occasional blogger to boot. An attractive daughter-in-law is meat and drink to a man like me, but I should be a dead man were I even to suggest...

My son, like his father, is a man of honor and integrity and would gut me like a fish were I to...

emm...

...damn, what it is it with blogging? Does absence make the brain grow dumber?

...go beyond saying I think he's one hell of a lucky guy.

Whew!


Eating wild berries and roots...

Anyway, my aesthetic appreciations are neither here nor there. I have had many other things to deal with. This past week I became, yet again, an uncle and, next week, will see my eldest daughter turn 21.

"Life," as my former Spiritual Guide and Corn Flake Mentor, M. Scott Peck, was fond of pointing out, "Is difficult."

Not for me it ain't, Bubba.

Nonetheless, for a busy professional, an active social life is hell. I've been hiding out in the hills this past month, eating wild berries and roots, listening to Lord Randall on my iPod, and filling my current SG&M Father Christopher's Inbox with rambling allegations of black helicopters, flaming crosses in the East, scarlet mists in the morning, and a rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.

He's returned none of my mails, the bastard. I'll say this much though. He did send me a tin foil hat, a DVD of Repo Man, and a free pass to Brother Marek's next Love Clinic down at the Jesus Bunker. One way or another, Father Christopher always comes good.

"You can't say that."

"What?"

"'Comes good.'"

"Why the hell not?"

"It's my line."

"Ah, for fuck's sake, Lenny, it's not. Drop dead."

Umm, yeah...I don't know. I think I need the break I've just had. Or something.

In short, bear with me. Those mails that have come my way this past month, will be answered; those promises made, will be kept. Quite when (and given my family, South Africa, George W. Bush and the world), I'm not sure.

But hey, as I heard some kid remark down at the beach today (small swell, cross wind, but reasonable surf nonetheless), "I'm stoked."

As are all Margie and Sean's family and many friends.

Note: The above photograph of me eating wild berries and roots is not a photograph of me eating wild berries and roots. It's either a surfer about to eat sand at Llandudno a week or two ago or Van Gogh's journey toward the Bright Light. But so what? I'm not going to beat up on myself for posting it and neither should you.

Trust me on this.

Officer Materiel

False Bay afternoon...

I've not finished with Cape Agulhas yet... there's the inevitable lighthouse — which has a pretty interesting history. You also get to meet fascinating people in the country, including former generals charged with funding covert wars and chemical and biological weapons' programs, but these snaps couldn't wait.


Platboom sandscape...

Where else but Cape Town would an afternoon at the coast deliver such contrasts? On the western side of the peninsula — at Platboom, a windsurfer's paradise — a virtual snowscape of blinding sand and, on the eastern side, i.e. False Bay, a sun-purpled Sea of Tranquility.

I must say I empathized with the General and, for a while, felt I was chatting to another side of myself. He retired at 45, owns a couple of properties, and is a pillar of his community. A hell of a nice guy...


Ostriches on the beach...

Yeah, yeah... we're nothing special. But which other coast suffers birds like these?

Ostriches are classified as dangerous animals in Australia, the US and the UK. There are a number of recorded incidents of people being attacked and killed. Big males can be very territorial and aggressive and can attack and kick very powerfully with their legs. An ostrich will easily outrun any human athlete. Their legs are powerful enough to eviscerate large animals.

Wikipedia


A Chacma baboon ponders his next meal...

Or guys like this?

Their diet is omnivorous, but is usually vegetarian. They are foragers and are active at irregular times throughout the day and night. They can raid human dwellings and in South Africa they have been known to prey on sheep and goats. Their principal predators are man and the leopard, although they are tough prey for a leopard and large males will often confront them.

Wikipedia

I've always felt kindly disposed to conservative Afrikaner nationalists living the legacy of their war against democracy (in democracy's name, of course). I understood them in a way — back then, and respected them in many others. Fearsome opponents, their world view clashed with mine, but they were — and remain — as honest as the day is long.

Ah, well. As much as I'd like to have retired at 45 on a golden handshake (state employees were allowed to buy back pensions to age 19 at a nominal fee — or something equally ridiculous), I'd have made a lousy general.

Another time perhaps...

Note: And yes, for those who remember a time when English and Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans hid their guilt by taunting each other, the juxtaposition of the baboon and my mention of conservative Afrikaners is entirely coincidental.

Ask Gary Younge; he hits the nail on the head. Myriad responses to his article highlight his reasonable view...