Eish!

It is unwise to criticise the youth.

Specifically if you’re criticising their music. It shows how old you are.

I recall how my own parental units turned up noses and plugged up ears (and unplugged radios) at my music when I lived under their roof. And I was listening to such innocence as Duran Duran, OMD, Big Country and Gerry Rafferty. OK, admittedly I interspersed it with bouts of Halloween, Quiet Riot, G’nR and vintage Metallica but normally when I was hiding at Gerald’s house. The days we’re long, the summers warm, my t-shirts torn and my neck whip-lashed stiff.

I kind of wish someone had criticised me properly, intelligently (with force if necessary) and shown me the Path. I mean, honestly, Big Country? Was that just a phase or did Gerry Rafferty lead me to harder drugs like the Waterboys?

Either way, it’s not wise to criticise the music of the youth for fear of ridicule if nothing else. Unless of course they are listening to utter shite. This is altruistically acceptable. I can name a few:

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I like a good rant as much as the next guy.

This is no exception. The flu has kicked in, the drugs aren’t cheap and they just make it worse[1]. However, before I rant away merrily and stew in my own melancholic torpor, take this disclaimer and memorise it well children:

Disclaimer: Eish! has no delusions of grandeur. It receives 43 spam comments a day and has a readership of 12 accidental hits a week, none of them from my mother (incidentally, even she doesn’t know about it). 3 of those hits are by me refreshing the page in different browsers to up the ante, 3 of them are stalkers and the rest are by your mother Googling for boot polish so get over it. I know I have.

The 2009 SA Blog Awards have left me with a somewhat stupefied expression on my face. It is the same expression you would have seen me wear when Bush beat Gore at the Polls, Zuma beat the NPA on the street and when I walked in on an erstwhile housemate beating it on the couch.

The cause of my stupour is easily surmised, though, by the Blog Awards website itself:

Quote: If you’re a winner or a runner up in any of the categories, please contact us and we will forward you your winner/runner up badge for you to put on your blog. Thank you.

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I suspect I’m a little colour blind.

They say that, in life, there are two kinds of people: those who believe the world can be divided into two kinds of people and those who don’t.

The latest meme to hit our follicles in the endless quest to dissect humanity into its constituent parts is the colour[1] coding of menial tasks. Pink jobs for girls and blue jobs for boys. Say that last one fast ten times and you’ll see why I’m not feigning my interest in this dialogue[2].

A Blue Job is supposed to be something that boys are good at: mowing lawns, changing light bulbs, lying about Ukrainian strippers, opening jam jars and keeping remote control buttons from siezing.

A Pink Job is supposed to be something that girls are good at: erm, cooking? cleaning? bending credit-cards? running out of motor oil? Why am I drawing blank on this one?

I confess I am judging this by the calibre of my ex-girlfriends, all master-chefs and/or fastidious house-cleaners (with the exception of one who claimed she was the 3rd member of a touring girl-band. I did her laundry.)  No, I am not trying to marry my mother.

The Nice Dog Lady, however, is not so easy to break down into constituent parts in any way. If you did manage it, you would probably find two parts gin and one part vermouth. I’ve seen her mow the lawn, mount an outside light, open jars and use a remote. I’m just waiting for her to lie about Ukrainian strippers and then I’m going to dig into her past to see if she wasn’t at one stage, indeed, the Nice Dog Lad.

Disclaimer: I fell deeply in love with the Nice Dog Lady when I went over to visit one Sunday and found her in the back yard wearing leather gloves and feeding branches into her own personal wood-chipper. It is an image that shall stay with me always.

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[1] for our American audience, that’s color with a ewe

[2] gosh, all these ewes, what will the Republicans think?

The other day I considered dog nipples.

I took the Nice Dog Lady out of quarantine, introduced her to my friends in good faith that she was ready and she decided that after dinner was the perfect time to mention that she had felt dog nipples. I’m wondering if it’s an English tradition that I’ve missed.

That being said, after the blank stares were replaced by nervous coughing and offers to make tea, I thought about some of the things that I’ve felt in my time. The list extended to the inside of an impala, a soggy bread-roll in my trouser pocket and a sheep aorta wrapped around my index finger as a kind of organic ringlet.

Pretty standard really.

There was also the snot streak from a six year Madagascan boy that flung itself in a wide arc across my forearm. That was special too. I’ve also stood barefoot in more poo than I can care to mention. Can you spell suppository? I am not proud.

So why should the thought of touching dog nipples arise a sedimentary response in different people. According to Python [1], wolf-nipple chips were a Roman delicacy. Dog-breeders alike often have to rub the milk clots out of canine-cans so that the puppies don’t choke.

You don’t have to like it but you do have to try it. At least once.

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[1] that bastion of historical accuracy

Sometimes in life you’re just not a winner.

Being that time of year again, every blog worth their salt in this fine, tasteful and highly remarkable corner of the internet is trying to get nominated for the 2009 Blog Awards.

I’ve just read the rules. The bit that frightens me most is the first prize:

Apart from the honour of being the best, the winner of the Best overall South African blog will win a purse of 2009 South African cents (R20.09).

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Occasionally I am right.

Especially when it comes to the hard questions like butter vs margarine.

The one gives you cancer, the other clogs your arteries. The one tortures flowers, the other gives cows something to moo about. The one makes you fat, the other makes you dance on the beach with your family, your dog and the Heart Foundation.

Ultimately, though, the one is yellow and the other is only yellow because the marketing people wisely considered not selling margarine as a tub of black, soggy soot. This is only one of the benefits that a first-class education has bestowed on the world.

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The mighty Pound Sterling has been dropped.

Literally dropped. It is no longer on my keyboard. In it’s place is the Mighty Euro (to be fair, the Mighty Dollar has been there all along, it just used to share key space with the Pound).

This is fine by me mostly. I’ve decided not to worry ever since the U.K. decided that my passport is far too dodgy and Third World for an island full of:

• immigrants opening chippe shoppes,
• refugees trying to look innocent at bus stops,
• marauding Vikings ravishing all the women,
• scowling West Africans pretending to be French,
• chinless British Rail engineers foraging for nuts and berries in your luggage

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It is sometimes easy to get things wrong.

Like whether visiting Red Hot Pawn on the internet should get you blacklisted by your company’s content filter. Or whether repeatedly browsing Instant Rimshot could get you red flagged by your local Puritan Protection chapter[1]

Perhaps, even starting that last sentence with a preposition is flagrantly incorrect or the distinct lack of commas as a pause at the end of a clause[2],,,,, could be seen as hopelessly and poetically unlicensed[3].

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While the home-town blazes, I packed up the belongings in a wet cardboard box and hit the Moederstad underbelly for some Afrikaans cultural stylings.

While Gardens is not exactly the musical epicentre of Cape Town’s indie underground nor the bastion of Afrikanerdom , it is still apparently dom enough to enjoy some mindless post-punk or neo-grunge or alternative rock or whatever the young folk of today are calling it.

I got to attend a music video launch for Van Coke Kartel. I was impressed. There was free Jagermeister.

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Occasionally, just occasionally I actually do know what I’m talking about.

Especially when I’m being SPAMmed.

Now foreign SPAM is understandable to a point. They’re just middle-class Vietnamese hackers trying to eek out a living between lobbing farang off of wooden boats or picking weevils out of their flied lice. Georgians irked enough that several mothers-in-law are now dependent on their mining exploits and refuse to clean the insides of the tea-pot. Nigerians who genuinely believe that the world is fundamentally gullible. Columbians pretending to be French Canadian pharmacists so that they can fuel a new revolucion!

The list is endless and absurdly embarrassing. Read the rest of this entry »