Letters to Life, Death and God: Things We Lost in the Fire

Dear Life, Death and God,

I hope you guys are well. I haven't written in a while. I've been busy living, dying and questioning everything. Here we are now, though, and I want to speak to you about loss. I love Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy as you know and I feel like a loser in the sense of Peter Quill's speech near the end of that movie. I am someone who has lost a lot of things. My friends and family are losers in this sense too.

Loss is a large part of the human experience. We lose things like keys and cellphones and that can be annoying. We lose friends and lovers and that can be heartbreaking. We lose people to you, Death and we succumb to grief for ourselves left behind and for them and whatever mysterious end or new beginning you offer. As humans we cannot avoid loss; it seems to be one of the prices we pay for the gift of Life.

Loss has been on my mind a lot lately. I look at my life up to this point and realise just how much I have lost and when I weigh it all up against everything I have gained I'm not sure how I feel. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for everything I have and my life is rather charmed in its own weird way. It seems that I've had to lose quite a great deal to get to where I am now. Life seems to be very much like a game of chess in which you sacrifice pieces to win the game. I have been thinking about those pieces lately, the things we lost in the fire as Bastille puts in their song. I miss my sacrificed chess pieces because I loved them and I'm a mildly OCD hoarder. Matter matters to me. I miss all my old books, video games and people.

My reference point in life is always stories, especially in the form of books and like any reader worth their salt (I prefer pepper though) I collect books and fill them as much with memories and emotions as they fill me with good stories, bad stories or just outright weird ones. I have lost many books on my journey. I left some of them with good people that I know will love and cherish them and I have left some of them with people I'm sure won't even care what happens to them. I don't know, I'm just feeling nostalgic and sad for my old things and friends.

To tell you the truth, guys, I'm really just scared of what the future holds for me. I'm almost 30 and have not even achieved half the things I dreamt about when I was 18. I live in limbo, I avoid my family as much as possible except now people are dying and I feel guilty about avoiding them and the girl I love lives on another continent. So, yeah, I'm a little scared moving forward. Life, your fire is hot and I don't know whether I will be consumed or refined by your flames.

Lots of people are doing so much better than me and I won't lie, I hate those people. Fuckin' hard working, intelligent, never-give-up-guts assholes! Lots of people are doing worse than me and I'm lucky that I have a job that I like (and seems to like me), my family still tolerates my shit, I have money for food and beer, I have a girl who loves me, I have friends that like me or at least are nice enough to pretend to like me (pretending goes a long way) and though I have moved a million times in the last two years I have a place to sort of call home. Still, fuck you guys a bit for being so demanding! Life with all your shit, Death with you crazy efficiency (you're probably German) and God for all your silence. Fuck me a bit too, though! You guys are not the biggest asshats to me. In fact I'm a huge asshat to myself in many instances.

Anyhoo, that's just what I'm thinking and feeling at the moment. I just feel like a loser right now and just wanted you guys to know and maybe get a hug. I like hugs.

TheCITY and Tholakele

My original review on Quicket.co.za.

I like cool things as much as the next person . . . okay maybe a little more than the next person and last week Thursday I got to go see a pretty cool thing. I was at The Waiting Room on Long Street to see two bands that I’d never heard of before but sounded interesting so I gathered my entourage (I have them just lying around) and with the promise of beer and good music we headed for The Waiting Room to see TheCITY and Tholakele. I’m glad to report back that my promise of beer and good music was fulfilled because both bands blew me away and I had a rocking good time. You should check both bands out some time.

The Waiting Room is the sort of grungy and intimate place that draws in cool and artsy people and the crowd consisted of these kinds of individuals. The setting was cosy with comfy chairs placed facing the small stage and there was some space for people to dance it up should the music move them. This was the sort of gig where people get to chatting with each other and the bands, making friends and just having a good time jamming to some cool sounds.

Tholakele were first to grace the stage with their African Jazzy sound. Bronwen Clacherty is the leading lady and vocalist of the band and her voice is just amazingly rich and with the band performing songs like Ngqo Ngqo Ngqo, Nozimama and Nyemamusasa they really are an act that is representative of South Africa’s linguistic and cultural diversity. Bronwen also showcased some remarkable usage of traditional instruments like bows and something that I’m 93.4% sure is a mbira in adding an African flavour to their music. Bronwen studied at The South African College of Music, University of Cape Town and explored musical areas such as Jazz Vibraphone, Classical Percussion, Cuban Percussion and African Instruments focusing on South African bows. You can catch some of the songs Tholakele performed on the night on her Facebook page. You can also catch her hanging out in the Twitter streets: @Bronwenclack.

TheCITY closed off the night on a very high note with their heart pumping Future Afro style. The band is made up of Bonj Mpanza on vocals and her voice is powerful and downright haunting. Clement Carr works magic on the keys, Ryan McArthur rocks out on bass and Ruby Crowie drives the truck on drums. I was looking forward to this performance after I had their song, Long for You stuck in my head from listening to it the previous evening on PopsicleTV.com. These guys are the epitome of cool and every single song they played had me singing along, tapping my feet and bobbing my head along to the music. My favourite three were Long for You, Nguwe and Something Sweet. You can download their EP on iTunes and it’s pretty damn amazing! 

TheCITY and Tholakele are two rocking bands and my entourage and I had a great time at their gig. As I’d said before, if you have time and they are in the area it’s well worth your while to pop in and listen to some good music.

TEDx Table Mountain

My original piece on Quicket.co.za.

Africa is the continent that gave birth to the human race, it is a place of abundant natural wealth and it is a place of great beauty. By rights Africa should be the Eden of our planet but, alas, it is not. When the rest of the world thinks of Africa they think of war, poverty, laziness and people who are late for appointments. The rest of the world either looks down on us or sees us as some sort of charity case. South Africa, like many African states is a place of vast wealth and crippling poverty all in one place. TEDxTableMountain, like all TEDx events all over the globe, is an independently organised event that looks to get people together in the spirit of nurturing ideas worth spreading. TED is a non-profit organisation devoted to spreading good ideas. It started as a four-day conference in California some 26 years ago and has since spread to the rest of the word, even darkest Africa. The idea is that thinkers and doers are asked to give a talk in 18 minutes that will share a great idea. Independent events are organised under the TEDx name with support from TED. So although Africa has many problems there are many individuals working hard and working smart to address our problems. TEDx TableMountain hosted their second event on Monday night, 25 May and the theme was: Journeys of Excellence. 25 May is also Africa Day so what better way to celebrate the continent than listening to a great line-up of speakers explore ideas that can help ease some of our problems or at least start a conversation that will pave the way to solutions.

This year’s TEDx TableMountain event took place at the Artscape Theatre and curator, Candice Pelser (@CandicePelser) and her team did a great job organising the event. I’m a super nerd for any event where people share ideas and dragged my ever suffering girlfriend with me to the event. We were welcomed with a ‘passport’ to the talks each and some other cute freebies and it was all rather cool. The crowd was massive and everyone looked excited to be there as they stood around chatting. We had to wait a bit longer than expected to be seated because the previous Africa Day event ran a bit longer than anticipated. Once everyone was inside the theatre and seated we were ready to go. Some important and somewhat familiar looking people could be seen in the front rows, the most recognizable being Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille. I made a mental note to take a selfie with her later.

Our Mistress of Ceremonies for the evening was the beautiful, delightful and super enthusiastic Chi Mhende (@chi_mhende). The evening saw some powerful performances by the Ikapa Youth Dance Theatre (http://ikapadancetheatre.co.za/trai/youth-dance-theatre), Derek Gripper (@derekgripper) translating great African composers whose music is passed down for generations but never written down and the group, Whispers of Wisdom (@Whisperzofwiz) delivering a performance that inspires Africans, especially the youth, to dream bigger than is expected of them. The overarching theme on the evening was that even though South Africa and the rest of Africa are facing serious and very large problems Africans can step up to the plate and through individual and collaborative journeys of excellence we can rise above those problems.

The speakers were made up of Dr Gubela Mji who spoke about her experience working as a researcher collecting data about how to improve the lives of disabled people but then seeing that research just being stored up in shelves and never being used for anything. She formed a network with other researchers and like-minded individuals to take all the data just sitting around and started exploring ways to make the date accessible enough so as to actually be useful in improving the lives of disable people. Paul Mesarcik (@paulmesarcik) showed a device that he and his team created to detect shack fires before they spread and leave many people homeless. The device is called Lumkani, which loosely translates from Xhosa to English as everyone beware. Dr Llewellyn Padayachy, a paediatric neurosurgeon spoke about his research into non-invasive techniques to diagnose and guide the treatment of critical conditions affecting the brain, especially in poor communities in which many people can’t afford expensive surgeries for diagnosing such conditions. Dr Tindile Booi is a qualified medical doctor and now works in a psychiatric context and helps children from difficult backgrounds and teenagers affected by HIV cope with their situations and helps them believe that life is worth living. One of the ways she does this is interactive storytelling. Dr Tindile Booi’s talk/performance was my favourite of the evening and her way of telling stories, singing and dancing is a thing of beauty to behold.

Shadreck Chirikure is Associate Professor of Archaeology and Director of the Archaeological Materials Laboratory at the University of Cape Town and he addressed the negative view that people have of Africa as never having produced any technology. He explored some old findings to the contrary and showed that Africa has produced some advanced technology through its history. Continuing with the technological trend Prof Robert van Zyl showcased the CubeSat he worked on with his students. The CubeSat is a nanosatellite in the shape of a cube that can be sent into Space at relatively low cost. Joseph Wamicha, a young man after my own heart, spoke about how the idea of deeper space exploration and eventually colonisation is not just the stuff of science fiction but something we can work on right now. The Earth’s resources are finite, as we know very well here in Africa, but if we could look beyond the Earth and tap into the bountiful resources of the universe we could solve many conflicts here on Earth.

What I took away from the evening is that Africa is more than just a place of darkness and backward thinking. Yes, we have problems but Africans are more than capable of surmounting those problems with the wealth of resources we have. Not resources in terms of gold of silver but rather our human capital. Africans know hardship but this is also what makes us more resourceful and think outside of the box. Africans can be excellent and be a force of good change in the world. Events like TEDx TableMountain are very important because they provide us with the platform to get together and discuss our problems and our ideas for solving them.

Toya Delazy - My City ft. Cassper Nyovest

I love Cape Town but some days I just miss Jozi, my city.