Geewizz Creepers - It’s that time again

It’s that time again - Time for self-reflection, self-loathing, self-inflicted “pats on the back” and a few air punches thrown in for good measure.

So a lot of shit has gone down this year some good, some bad, but all of them pretty much jerking me from the safety and nonchalance of childhood to the unrecognisable and peculiar place I find myself in now. It would be wrong to call this place adulthood – I think I have a few more regrettable deeds to get under the belt before I’m there.

My name is Lyle and this is my first step to self-reflection.

Stuff that was important then:

Getting my parents to supplement my income at every chance I get.
Being surrounded by as many “friends” as possible.
Giving a damn
Being thin

Stuff that are important now:

Trying my hardest not to get my parents to supplement my income.
Being surrounded by the friends that really matter.
Not giving a damn
Being thin

Seems there are quite few things that still need working out, so stay glued as I iron out the creases of my polyester life.

Crazy Beautiful

A few hours after I hear the news, I make my way to the DVD store. Its hangover day, which in my world means: DVD’s and a truck-load of junk food.

Bored with the new releases, I mosey over to comedy. Standing with a copy of “Stranger than Fiction” in hand, my eyes begin to leak, and my breathing gets all weird.

I break down in the comedy aisle.

Later that day I realised how my little episode kinda reminded me of you – ironic, fresh and completely original.

It’s in your memories that we’ll find solace and from your life that we’ll draw remarkable strength and inspiration.

See you soon Lau,

BURGERSDORP

This past weekend took me to what felt like fifty thousand miles away from Cape Town, to a little town called Burgersdorp. If you were to reach down to grab a handful of biltong, for just one second, you’d drive right pass it.

As a child, Burgersdorp was a marvellous place. The rolling hills, never-ending veld and plethora of nooks and crannies set us off on new adventures everyday. In later years, when teenage angst set in, all the rules of the teen handbook deemed it completely uncool – hence my parents dragging us there at gunpoint, gagged and bound.

But it was only when a certain level of maturity set in that I learnt to appreciate Burgersdorp – the unique, slow accent of its inhabitants, the harsh and untainted beauty of its landscape and its complete disregard for the outside world – it was and still is something quite special.

On Saturday afternoon as I stood at the little church on the hill, the setting sun turning the dusty streets to gold, I wondered if I’d ever return - now that she was gone.

To my Dearest,

Things have been quite rough lately – at times during the day I would find myself not knowing where I was, what I was doing or what I was about to say. No, it’s not an early onset of Alzheimer’s, but rather symptoms of a very hectic, very busy patch in my life.

No matter how many excuses I make, nothing justifies the fact that I shut you out. I guess it’s a classic case of, “Hurt the ones you love the most”.

I would like us to move on from here and try to rebuild what we once had – well that’s if you’re willing to forgive me.

I’m just a boy, standing in front of a Blog, asking it to love me.

Yours Forever,

All my life I fought against being like you. Being quiet, gentle, soft spoken, kind and unselfish were the kind of virtues I ran away from, thinking it was a show of weakness.

But as I grow older I realise that beneath the hardcore “show and dance” I’m exactly like you – and you are one of the strongest people I know.

What's on your mind?

I have views on most things. From cheese, to politics, from getting just the right amount of vodka in a cosmo, to the dating rituals of the ancient Inca people - if it’s worth talking about, I have an opinion.

Today I bring you my latest view - hot off the press.

FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATES: If it’s not funny or just outright ridiculous, nobody gives a fuck.

So last night I trawled through my Facebook account, dropping in on all the status updates of my “friends”. Believe me when I say this: there were quite a few shockers, and not in a good way. Allow me to share a few: (names have been changed to protect the identities of the pathetic)

John White is going for sushi tonight.

If it’s the kinda sushi I’m thinking about, it sounds like quite a fun and raunchy evening. But I’m guessing it’s not. Fail!

Jill Frank: Through god everything is possible.

Hey, I’m all for God, but as far as Facebook evangelists go, they irritate me just as much as those guys who come to your door on a Sunday morning to give you a flyer with pictures of pretty people and peacocks. Fail!

Georgia Smith says: Is anybody going to be PE tonight? If so, let me know.

Here’s a tip Georgia: Stand on the side of the road, stick your thumb out and show some boob. That’s bound to be a little more fun than bumming lifts on Facebook. Fail!

These are just a few of the mind-numbing status updates out there. But hey, they aren’t all bad. So I leave you with a pearl of delight: (name has not be changed, to maintain the identity of the awesome)

Lukanyo Sopotela: I like my women like I like my roads... flat and well travelled.

Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? – Art in this case being movies.

How often have you witnessed a random act on the street that got you thinking: ‘Geez, that’s such a movie moment” or had an experience straight out of one of those weird, “made for TV” flicks on the SciFi channel.

Well, what happened yesterday made me feel like I was in the Twighlight Zone (a super-weird trancy series, aired on the Go channel late at night). So at 17:00 I hop out of the palace of advertising to buy some smokes at the little Grease Factory on the corner. All of a sudden, whilst walking down the road, I could not for the life of me remember where I was and what I was doing. Now usually one would attribute such momentary lapses in memory to a range of hallucinogenics - none of which I was on yesterday.

But movie moments aren’t all bad – It would seem that I just had a really bad trip.

My friend, Kitty let’s us in on her “Big Screen” moment:

“Saturday we went for a drive to Koel Baai. Where there is this cave and water runs down the Mountain and off the rock to form this amazing natural shower. It was too beautiful not to run into so I stripped down to my undies and I went in :)
On our drive back we stopped to watch a pod of dolphins swim by.
It was amazing. Then we went for soft serve in strand.”

Well we might as well just call this girl Meg Ryan and crown her the Queen of the Romantic Comedy because this certainly beats the box-office off my weird and disturbing “made for TV” moment.

Goodbye Winter Blues

It’s usually round about this time of year that I start saying fond farewells to friends and acquaintances. I bid adieu to the alternative Cape Town social scene and retreat into a merlot induced coma in the comfort and warmth of my apartment, only venturing outdoors to fill in my timesheets at the palace of advertising.

It’s during these times of extreme comfort and self-indulgence that I would imagine myself as a fabulous recluse, tucked away in my loft apartment in the city. This was of course until a close friend commented on how lame and pathetic I was actually being.

So this year, I plan a different kind of winter. I intend on braving the cold and misbehaving as if it was the sweltering middle of February.

To loosely quote Dylan Thomas: “I plan to go rocking into that good night.”

Mzantsi for Sure!

For some it was the first time, but for true political activists such as myself, it was the second time I was making my mark.

After shorter than expected queues, and a slight altercation with an electoral official, we celebrated our freedom of choice by hopping over to our favourite hangout spot and taking part in the national past time of South Africans worldwide.

You can’t help but love this country!

COMMON SCENTS

It’s Saturday morning, 10:40 and I’m standing in the aisle of a busy supermarket debating the merits of a swing lid bin, against the one where the lid opens by gently tapping your foot on a pedal.

All of a sudden I’m transported back to a time when the highlight of my day was swinging upside down on the jungle gym and it took all my resolve not to cry when my parents dropped me off in the morning.

No, my crèche days had nothing to do with trash, or any kind of reference to garbage. It was the smell of a lady who walked past – a smell almost identical to that of Teacher Lillian, my much adored pre-school teacher. It was like a mixture between flowers, and a kind of shampoo. (Must’ve been some really good shit because her hair was always silky soft). But what are the chances of some random lady smelling exactly like my pre-school teacher, 18 years ago?

What is it about smell that has this amazing ability to transport you to the often special, the sometimes scary, but mostly forgotten times in your life.

For example, the smell of the green Lux body lotion would always remind me of one of my best friends Nisi, our high school days, and getting ready to go out to some dodge spot without our parents knowing.

What is it about the whiff of baby powder that would have me thinking of my mother and subsequently developing a lump in my throat?

The smell of freshly baked scones transports me back to my Aunty J’s kitchen on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Some would attribute the ability of smell to unlock memories to simple science. But I would like to think of smell as little vessels that hold and carry memories though time, unleashing them on you at just the right moment.

The Easter weekend has come, and like my abundantly stocked choccy egg stash, has gone. And what an Easter it was: apart from running around the apartment in my underwear, as I’m prone to do on occasion, I spent 4 Margarita fuelled days with a few very special people.

This experience got me thinking.

In different phases of life you encounter certain people. You spend a few consecutive Fridays nights together at Fiction, followed by hazy early morning breakfast’ at Arnolds, hangout together at the container every Sunday afternoon of your high school career and play Mission Impossible while frantically running from the headmaster, in an attempt to bunk school for the day.

And then a realisation suddenly and unexpectedly hits you in the face:

You can’t imagine living life without these people, freegn hell; you can’t even remember life before these people came along.

It's me mum!

Ok, I’ve been thinking lately, and it’s long overdue, so I’m just going to say it.

I haven’t always been the easiest of children, and I think as the years went by, I’ve gotten worse.

And I imagine much like calm returned to Hiroshima months after the atomic bomb, peace falls upon the household after one of my visits. (On that note, I’ll be dropping by in June sometime.)

But what I actually wanted to say was; strip away all the demanding, antisocial behaviour and you're left with the same chubby little boy - cake smears on his cheeks, a big smile on his face and a heart filled with love and unrelenting gratitude.

Better luck next time

In life, more so in advertising, it’s not often that you get things right the first time. Every frowned brow, every “I don’t get it” and each” It’s just so layered” stinging more than the last.

So you go back, use some of the resilience that came as standard issue when you signed up for advertising, and continue scamping - until the pencil starts chaffing the skin off your middle finger.

And then one day, in one glorious review, a choir of angels sing from the heavens and history is made.

I’m holding out for my choir.

Blast from the Past

Hello, my name is Lyle and I’m a child of the 90’s.

It was the decade that symbolised my education – where my character was moulded and formed both in and out of classroom. But apart from all that character building shit, the movies and TV series were freegn awesome. The likes of Steel Magnolias, Pretty Woman and Dying Young kept me in my PJ’s and in front of the Telli on a Saturday morning; Julia Roberts, holding the key to my heart.

So about a month ago I found myself researching the 90’s for some or other project. One Wednesday morning, during the week of research, something quite extraordinary happened. (This story has a point, I promise).

I woke up feeling quite chirpy, skipped towards my door, which I had locked the night before to keep it from banging as I slept with an open sliding door. Horror of horrors: the fucking thing wouldn’t open. I struggled for what must have been 30 minutes, at which point I just said fuck it! Lying on my bed, living through my darkest hour, the memories of the 90’s came flooding back.

“What would MacGyver do?”

I reached for my tweezers and with gusto headed towards the door, but all that I was left with was a mangled tweezer and a locked door. I wouldn’t give up yet – it was a matter of life and death – it was a Mission Possible. If he had only witnessed what I did next, Tom Cruise would have been so proud. I hitched my gown between my legs and hopped onto the ledge outside my bedroom window. The fact that the ledge was the width of a loaf of bread wouldn’t have been that bad if I hadn’t lived on the thirteenth floor. I made my way towards the lounge sliding door, which thank the universe, was open. As irony prescribed, my bedroom door opened perfectly from the outside. My ordeal, thankfully, came to a glorifying end.

Let this be a lesson to all those 90’s bashers out there: if it wasn’t for the 90’s I might not have been here to tell my tale.

Oh how far I've come

I rather enjoy making up stories – the taller the better.

A few weeks ago I met a new friend, TamTam. She makes pretty pictures on a freelance basis and this week she was hanging out at the palace. So the other day I was regaling TamTam with one of my flights of fantasy, and up until I told her I was lying, she believed all that came spewing forth from my mouth.

At first I found this surprising, but I then realised, of course she wouldn’t have caught on. Because you see; TamTam wasn’t there when I was developing my story telling skills, she hadn’t been burnt by my trickery yet, therefore she was none the wiser to my dubious past.

But Dee on the other hand was. Dee, an aspiring lawyer and I come along way. At an utterance of a tall tale, he would either hand me a cup of shut the fuck up, or indulge me – all depending on his mood.

From drinking Sambuca in the Parking lot of Vincent Park Shopping Centre as tweens, smoking behind the high school pools, Dee and I then graduated to other types of escapades, one of which landed us on the pavement of Greenacres Hospital in PE, drunk and still drinking from the night before. Up until today, all present that morning are still unsure to exactly what went down.

Point being: back home there was never a need to consciously make friends; you grow up with people, they become your friends, and that’s that. These people would then know that the reason you’re behaving like that was because of X that happened 3 years ago, which was then compounded by Y which occured at some or other shitty varsity party about 2 months ago .

So you can imagine the shock when I moved to Cape Town and had to proactively start making friends. I found myself having to explain, even excuse certain behaviours. But after two years and many excuses, explanations and skyscraper high stories, my CT clique have finally come to understand and even tolerate my antisocial behaviour.

Hail Caesar!

From day break, an air of peculiarity descended on the kingdom, hanging thick like mist on Table Mountain. I remember it clearly, as if it was yesterday (in reality it was probably a month ago).

Behind glass doors the Generals conspired, speculated and strategised.

Deflecting from his austere commitment to punctuality, Caesar had not made his appearance yet.

Whispers started permeating the hallways.

Then the workmen came. Piece by piece they disassembled Caesar’s portrait that for decades kept a watchful eye over the court. From where I was sitting I could see gold birds, roaring lions and other gilded statues being carried from the thrown room – destined for the same brown box as the regal portrait.

The whispers got louder.

At the hour of 4, the court assembled to hear the news: Caesar was not coming in today; Caesar was not coming in any day.

From the ranks a warrior rose, brave and true. She would lead the kingdom into the battle that lay ahead.

As bizarre as the day seemed, people who have lived in the realm of advertising eons longer than I have, still maintain that stranger things have happened.

Enchante

It's kinda grey, not in a bad way - just pantone wise. I like that.

She said not to be self-conscious - can't help it though - everyone is staring at me.

It feels like first day of Sub A (yip, that's what it was known as back then) - except for the tears and smell of guava juice. Or even the first day of Thinking School - except for the perfect shiny blonde soon-to-be suited girls and their rugby playing, Headboy-type counterparts.

She also said not to be nervous, everything that will be will be. I wish she was here (said with knob in my throat) .

Ok, maybe I should introduce myself - "please to meet you, and you, and you, frantically trying to close your window, because your fag creative director is sashaying up behind you.

And the last thing she said was "If you start a blog, you'll get lotsa ass".

Ok, I made that up. But if I look at her rate of "ass-getting", starting a blog certainly worked for her.