Wish upon a star...

It's strange how sometimes you know exactly where you wanna go and who you are... but right now???? let's just say maybe a bit of routine won't be such a bad idea, hey?

If a genie or whatever, who grants wishes? Maybe I'll wish upon a star,,,, or my fairy godmother, god forbid... descends on me now , I'll only have one wish,,,,

I just wanna sit in a room, with floorboards and low ceilings. An atmosphere that smells of chalk, candle wax and deep red wine. It'll have a window overlooking Montmatre or the Latin quarter in Paris, a small fire raging in the fireplace, reflecting red against the snow and frost on the window. It should be at the turn of the 20th century, in the midst of the bohemian revolution. I just want to sit there drinking wine with somebody that I can really talk to, you know... About the wind blowing, my favourite food, politics, philosophy, my fears,and hopes and dreams... and why I prefer my coffee with warm and not cold milk... I just want to talk about irrelevant things, life changing experiences... I want this person to feel the same passion I feel, when I write something, or dance, or act... I want to lay my soul bare... with the cacophony of the Moulin Rouge in the background.

I want to speak and laugh and scream and argue and,, and,, feel. And drink wine until we reach the golden moment, that is the stage where everything makes sense, even karma and murphy's law... And you drink to retain that feeling but eventually it passes and you get unbelievably plastered ... dancing on the widows walk embracing Paris, whilst a Violen is given life, the musician's entire body leaning into the creation of his music. He's standing on the steps of Sacre Coure which is glowing pale in the frosty night, making your pulse race and the cold air around you a raging furnace of wine, companionship, and pure undiluted passion...

I was born too late....

Doorways

As a little girl (about seven years old). I once asked my mom how deep a grave was. I remember the look in her eyes as she stared at me confused before saying, “about as deep as a doorway is high.”

From that day on every time I passed through a doorway I thought about passing through death, damp ground, maggots and a rotting coffin. Holding my breath until the images faded and the doorway disappeared. I associated passageways with the end of all things, which was kind of ironic. I felt inferior passing through a threshold, because I knew I wasn’t untouchable... Just like my best friend; and she was only... fuuuuck can’t even remember how old we were when she died, ten maybe?

But what I do remember is how I struggled to breathe at night in my bed when the lights went out, the air became too heavy for my chest, how the earth started spinning the day she died and how I’m still waiting for it to stop. There was a crushing pain splintering my chest as the heavy stones crashed onto her coffin, and somehow with every ragged breath I took she became part of a doorway that I couldn’t pass through. For months I wanted to run to her grave to start digging until I could reach her coffin so that I could shake her awake, but I never made it past our house’s threshold. Entryways scared me to death – excuse the pun – and now so many years after I still think about rotting ground and unfinished good-byes every time I pass


through a doorway.
Right after her death I became angry at everything in the world, but I was subdued in my rage, imagining myself dying, being hit by a truck, a train, kidnapped, my broken body found in a ditch. For me life became passing through one doorway to another...
But maybe that is what life is all about, making it from one hard part to another.

The Human Condition

So, what’s your talent? Apparently I can write, I’m not saying that I’m good or shit at it, I’m just saying I can. Thing is I can also breathe and I can also eat and so far that hasn’t made me very special. Yes, yes I know what you’re thinking; but eating and writing are two different things. That may be my dear Watson but everyone can do something; run, write, dance, kick a ball, swing a bat, strum an instrument the thing is, what makes a person extraordinary how does one go about initializing your own x factor? This is what I struggle to comprehend because I may think that Shakespeare is the definition of pure awesomeness but someone else may be believe that David Beckham is the true epitome of godlikeness. So now you’re probably thinking, opinions differ, so fucking what. Exactly right there, everyone is different and special and blah blah blah. Why? How can you say that with such confidence? Because everyone has different personalities? Lately I’ve noticed a very tragic human condition; wanting something you can’t have. And I am as guilty as any other random on this globe we call home. Why is that though? Every song, every movie, every argument, every murder, every war is because of one single thing. Secretly wanting something that you’re not allowed to fucking have. Be it the hot dude with a girl, the oil rigs in some sad third world country or the chicken mayo sarmies in your friend’s lunch box. Essentially what is the reason; the catapult to wanting power? It’s very simple sunshine it’s the need to eat. Centuries ago you were judged on how much live stock you had, how many apples you had in your orchard how big your well was. Nowadays power isn’t counted with the actual munchies but with money, but what the fuck do you buy with that money? Fair enough some fuckers buy stocks, others yachts, some purchase big mansions and the tragic ones buy drugs. But what do you spend 

money on every single day?

Yes you guessed it… FOOD! Boiling all of this down I do come to the conclusion that humans are just as primal as any other animal on earth. We will kill, maim, lie, deceive, kick, bite so that we can get to the top and when we are there what do we do? We fucking eat!!!!!! Really? Somehow I feel that in essence life is truly pointless, or maybe I’m just being very, very pessimistic. This is most probably the time in the debate where someone will say, but what about religion? Religion is a coping mechanism for humans to help them understand the things that they can’t comprehend. The Greeks had their gods on mount Olympus; the Druids had their forests; the Christians have their bible; the Muslims have their Koran, etc, etc. All of these different religions, but essentially all the same, praying to a higher power so that you can believe that there is a reason to life other than eating and procreating. Either way the truth is whether you do have an extra ordinary talent, or banks full of money or eight wives, essentially we are all the same, we eat so that we can live so that we can strive to be different. Oh the irony of life.

Time and Mankind

What if there was a way to turn back time? Would there have been the Holocaust, forgotten wars on the borders of Botswana, Apartheid, the great Depression, the cold war, communism, witch burnings and raped babies.

If we were aware of the mistakes we were about to make, would things be more rose coloured? Or are we just doomed as humans to live out our fate? Would going back trying to rectify those mistakes help mankind or would it send it down the precipitous it’s hovering on?
Humans in general are destructive by nature, when challenged with the unknown. Maybe the past is such a stranger to most of us, that going back four hundred years in one second could backfire immensely. Culture shock would rip your psyche to jagged pieces, and the truth of time would be wrenched from your grasp.

What would happen if you didn’t have to count your days by minutes and hours anymore? Instead, centuries would be your long weekend holidays. Memories would mean nothing, you could go back and marry four different people and live all four lives; love would not be forever and forever could reach millenniums or barely touch hours.

Would humankind still perceive the same morals and disciplines as the norm, or would the laws of different eras mingle and form one massive, cohesive, chaotic law book? A law is based on the right and wrong of an era. What counted as witchcraft in the middle ages would not necessarily raise an eyebrow in the 21st century. Hygiene standards which were acceptable in renaissance Edinburgh could raise major questions and riots in present day.

Imagine great minds such as Aristotle and Einstein, bickering over a cup of coffee, Da Vinci and Hawking collaborating on new ideas. Bill Gates and Alexander the great chatting about world domination. Or villains such as Osama and Hitler planning a new hate war. What would a collaboration done by Beethoven and Kurt Cobain sound like? Imagine Britney Spears having tea and Cake with Marie Antoinette, Paris Hilton and Joan of Arc trapped in an elevator together. Steven Spielberg and Charles Dickens; writing and filming a new story.
The world, universe and history would into one big melting pot, and all of time would become an increasingly smaller place.
Time is the one and only constant reality mankind has, without the reassuring tick - tock of a clock and the changes of the moon, we would be lost in a world far more empty than we could ever believe possible.

Talking about a Revolution

And as we grow older we are supposed to understand why some things are happening to us and how we can change it, fix it; make it better. Is it normal to feel so overwhelmed that the only way to cope is to throw yourself down on the ground and whine like a five year old, or to sit in the corner in the fetal position rocking back and forth pulling a blanket over your head, or turning your car into a quiet street just so that you can scream and beat at the windows like a toxic gas victim, or to simply just lay on your stomach staring at the wall an inch from your face and seriously contemplating to find a way to be part of that wall instead of a human.

When it becomes so bad that no form of narcotics, either legal or illegal can pull you out of that proverbial bell jar where you find yourself in. No matter how many times you attempt to lessen the stress. This may sound far-fetched but in the last five days I have seen all these things happening to people around me. And this led me to ask the dreaded question that is on everyone’s tongues. Is it worth it? Is this how it will be for the rest of our lives? Are we doomed to extract every ounce of humanity from ourselves just to have it all thrown back into our faces? Somehow a nine- to -five job sounds more and more appealing with every passing day. Why fight the system of consumerism and sheep like crowds following the massive corporations blindly? Why fight the idea of growing up, get a job, get married, have kids, suffer from depression, divorce, do it all over again and die? It is all planned out already which makes the tougher times easier because you know what will happen next.

Is the unknown scary or exhilarating? I suppose it’s both, depending on who you are and what you want from life. It takes a certain amount of balls and stupidity to study something that won’t guarantee you a stable job in the future. And I suppose that is one of the reasons that a lot of people are freaking out. What happens after this last battle? What happens once you have that degree in your grimy little paw? What happens when the institution you got your degree from sucked you so dry that your creative dreams and thoughts are rapidly becoming a wasteland where only office jobs can fit comfortably?

I think personally; the reason I’m finding myself in this uninspired, lethargic hole is because I realized that creative generations before us had something to fight for. Some fascist, idiotic policy that pissed everyone off; except of course the oblivious individuals that truly believed it. What do we have to fight for? Is there a bohemian revolution waiting for us somewhere in the shadows? This country never had that, when Europe started realizing that creative’s ruled the underworld with Absinth, Opium and Poetry it was too late to stop the revolution that was already in progress, same goes for England in the 60’s when the Beatles became parallel with the words, “make love not war.” And in America; San Francisco became the hub of everything that was anti war, fuelled by weed, open moral codes and music, it became one of the most memorable and biggest peaceful revolutions in history. Granted, things did get messy toward the end when the American government realized that they were losing the upper hand.

But my point is every country had an epic moment when creative people changed the course of history. Is this still waiting to happen here, or is this country so divided that we can have no voice because our little cliques are too proud to merge together? I suppose you can say that the voelvry movement that Koos Kombuis, Johannes Kerkorrel and kie started was a mini revolution but they stayed mostly underground because of their tiny numbers. And then who can forget the emergence of fokofpolisiekar who brought with them the rebellion against every Afrikaans tradition that ever existed, questioning not only themselves but every piece of our heritage trying to find a place to fit, in a culture that didn’t allow anyone to be too different. Off course the church made a back flip along with those who still inhaled the bull shit of Afrikaans people being quiet and in your place, bitching and moaning only in the dark behind closed doors. Which in return made the younger generations sit up and realize; that the shit their parents told them about children being seen and not heard was completely retarded. Why should the future generation shut the fuck up?

Along with this realization came hundreds of Afrikaans rock bands, skinny jeans, music festivals and Black Label. I suppose the choice of Black Label as the chosen beverage came in direct contrast to the beer that the older generation loved which was Castle. Let’s call it a subconscious flip off to the man if you will.
And pretty soon festivals which was notoriously only for pot heads and strange new age vibe people experienced an influx of people from all over the spectrum who believed that there was more to life than just obeying some set out rule that was placed in their heads since birth.
Whilst sitting at OppiKoppi this year chilling next to the stage with a drink in my hand I watched the scores of people who walked past me. And I realized that in a crowd of 18 000 people there was not one person there who have ever experienced war, or the threat of war, there were no trained soldiers waiting to be shipped out amongst any of them. This thought made me sit up and look at the passing crowd, but this time I looked past their indie clothes and hairstyles, I looked into their eyes and what I saw their chilled me to the bone. All of them had that vacant, murky expression in their eyes that is predominant in the eyes of soldiers when they return from battle. And this was not because of the booze that I or any of them have consumed. And that is when it hit me, we are in this revolution at this moment! It snuck up on us so quietly that not even the people involved in it have realized that it’s happening.

And if there are 18 000 people who is willing to brave the heat of the day and the chill of the night in tents without running water, electricity or proper ablutions only living on cheap liquor, questionable food, inhibited moral codes and music. Then there has to be another 18 000 and another 18 000. When there is no other reason for being there than to experience how live can be when one is surrounded by likeminded people who believe in the same things that you do, cry about the same things that you do and want the same things that you want. When art just happens, words become poetry and music fuels thousands into frenzy hour after hour. Then my friends: that is what one would call a bohemian revolution.

It’s happening right now! Are you a part of it?