Once, I met a man

Once, I met a man. He rose and fell like the tides, and at his highest highs and lowest lows he always contemplated what he did or did not have. He was one day accosted by a group of thieves who beat him badly and took his possessions. For many years afterwards the man was afraid to go outside. He would spend his days in his room and, for lack of anything else to do, would tally what possessions he had over and over again and murmur reassuringly to himself. He became anonymous even to himself, experiencing even higher highs and lower lows.

He would no longer entertain at his home and let it fall into disrepair while he sat for months counting his possessions, every day being subjected to the most repugnant smell from the room next to his. The days went by and the smell became worse until the man could take it no more. On the day he decided the smell had become too much to bear he stood up, leaving his calculating equipment on the table, gleaming in the artificial light, and slowly opened the door leading out to a hallway. He sniffed inquisitively, as an animal does to reassure itself of its surroundings. He exited his room and stepped into the long, bright hallway. His nose led him to a door further up the hall, for the glare rendered him almost blind, and he opened it. The smell overwhelmed him as he entered the room into which the door opened. He persevered with a determination he did not know he had.

He scanned the room and his eyes fell upon a shrivelled body on the floor, near an old dressing table. The man wept horribly at length, took the body over his shoulder, and walked outside shielding his face from the blinding sun. He was truly free.

Day Three: How to be Great (Ten Days and a Bass Guitar)

Every Thursday afternoon throughout 2001 I would stand in front of an easel with a piece of black charcoal in my hand trying to draw the live nude model in front of me. On occasion, my architecture tutor would pipe up and say, “…if you want to be a great architect, you have to think like a great architect, and live like one. Go out and buy a fancy sports car, live in a fancy house and eat fancy food – live like an architect!” We would all laugh at this madman, with his crazy notions. But as I was ‘shlappin’ yesterday, I started to wonder whether there was actual method in his madness.

“Fuck it,” I thought, “what’ve I got to lose? I’m alone in the house after all” I then proceeded to stand up (because I was sitting down with the bass on my lap), put the strap over my shoulder, widened my stance ridiculously and started to play while gyrating my hips and bobbing my head. Now, I’m not going to say I instantly began to play like a master, but I did see a significant increase in my ability and, the more I gyrated, the better I played. I don’t claim that standing with your legs stupidly apart, moving to the rhythm physically affects how you play, it may do, but it may not. What it does do is make you feel great; the rest of the world drops away and you actually feel like you’re an expert bassist just by virtue of doing what expert bassists do.

Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers is really good at strutting his stuff on stage so I guess what I was doing was Flea-esque. The realisation that you can’t be a great guitarist AND a great bassist simply dissipated as I stood there jamming to Born Under a Bad Sign, and as I sit here at work (on my lunch break, of course) I can’t help but relive the moment I was looking at my bad rendition of a nude model all those years ago and listening to who I thought was a raving lunatic. I would advise you to pull out those old VHS tapes and ad hoc recordings of Cream, Pearl Jam and the Stones, watch the likes of Bill Wyman and Joe Osborne (and Flea) in action, and from that develop your own style of bobbing, gyrating and fancy footwork – feel the music, play with soul, live, breathe and act like a great bassist.

Songs learnt: Jimi Hendrix – Born Under a Bad Sign
Red Hot Chilli Peppers – The Zephyr Song

Day Two: The Predicament (Ten Days and a Bass Guitar)

So as I was 'shlappin da bashe' last night (which, mind you I'm still learning to do because slapping da bass requires considerable practice and skill) and I realised that the bass guitar isn't like a normal guitar. Apart from the obvious four strings instead of six and the extended neck (which leads to difficulties even for my long fingers), there is a key point on which bass guitars differ from your average, run of the mill, bog standard electric or acoustic which is that you can't let notes ring out and play other notes over them in the normal scheme of things. There are techniques, I'm sure, which allow for this but I'm yet to learn them and until then if I want to play two notes consecutively (which would be the norm, unless you're Prince) I have to stop the first note, either by palm or finger, before I start the second one lest my guitar playing starts to sound like a mangled wreck of notes, one on top of the other.

Now, this is a predicament. I've been playing the guitar for nearly eight years and I'm used to letting notes ring out over other notes. What I'm not used to is stopping a note every time I want to play a different note. An even bigger pickle I came across in my mind while I walked to the central station this morning was the realisation that it would be very difficult to be an excellent bassist AND an excellent guitarist. It's like one of my friends used to say, "playing squash messes up my tennis stroke" - I had just thrashed him on the squash court and took this as an excuse from him so that he didn't have to play squash again. But maybe it's true - maybe playing squash really DOES mess up your tennis stroke. Let's face it, do you know any squash players who excel at tennis, or visa versa? So, in the same way, playing bass messes up your guitar stroke, and visa versa!

This is indeed a sad day and I hope to wake up tomorrow having no memory of this realisation. On the bright side, I did learn to play the bassline for Santana's Smooth, and probably kept the neighbours up.

Peace, love, revolutions

Ten Days and a Bass Guitar

A friend of mine today took it upon himself to lend me his bass guitar while he went meandering through the dessert. While walking home with it on my back, amplifier in hand, I was checked out by three girls, treated like royalty, and sang to by a crazy South African man. Something about that bass guitar said, “here’s a man worth noticing.” Or, “here’s an arrogant twat.” Either way, the experience was a change from the normal walk home, which often involves being metaphorically shat on and gang-raped by swaggering, tracksuit-wearing buggers or unnecessarily angry kids carrying unnecessarily complex phones.

The bass guitar gave me a sense of power. I was safe in the knowledge that if one of those angry kids decided to hurl his phone at me off the cuff I could easily bat it away, or at least dodge it and break out into a lean, mean, groovy bass riff. So I’ve decided to document the next ten days, in honor of my bass guitar experience.

Day 1: The long walk to freedom

Cry freedom! The South African’s are here to sing us Bob Marley and make everything ok! Yes, I didn’t know his name but I knew he was from South Africa. The man who stopped me near the central station looked rough – almost as if he had been through the Anglo-Boer war three times, on the wrong side. Perhaps it was the amp in my hand which attracted him to me, perhaps it was my good looks, charm and professional swagger, nevertheless he was attracted to me (in the most heterosexual and plutonic way possible) and took it upon himself to sing me his rendition of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song. I say his rendition because what came out of his mouth sounded more like a bad version of Cats (drowning) than Redemption Song. It was terrible. So terrible, in fact, that I was tempted to use the aforementioned bass guitar to hack my arm off just to take my mind off the pain of listening to him. I’m still thanking God he didn’t make it passed the first chorus.

I walked on in good humor (for not even Bob ‘Schultz’ Marley could put a damper on my mood – I had a bass guitar, after all) and became very aware of low-hanging road signs and signals. I’m quite tall and the bass axe added around half a foot to my stature. I also became aware of the fact that everyone was looking at me. Even the unnecessarily angry kids took time out from listening to their blaring phones to have a gander. One would think I was carrying an AK-47, not a guitar. People stopped what they were doing, got out of their cars, abseiling window cleaners lowered themselves on pain of losing their jobs, and girls took it upon themselves to unhook their bras when I passed. Ok, that last sentence was a load of crap and happened only in my head, but I’m certain that that’s what would have happened if it weren’t for my overgrown ‘terrorist’ beard.

All jokes aside though, the main thing you notice when you have a bass guitar on your back is bass lines – from the funky bass riffs of James Brown to the bluesy bass riffs of Clapton and Hendrix, and the overdriven bass riffs of Rage against the Machine and Muse. I’ve been a guitarist for many years and, while I’ve always been really good at picking out each instrument in an arrangement, I’ve always focused on the rhythm or lead guitar tracks. You must understand that suddenly and automatically focusing on the bass track blaring through my earphones was a completely novel experience; even more novel was the realization that this focus was present only by virtue of the fact that I was carrying a bass guitar. It is truly and amazing instrument.

The next ten days are going to be fun.

Peace, love and revolutions.

The Nature of Self-Absorption

...and as I sat in my own vomit, I realised that everyone must be looking at me through the walls. Why is he down there, they must have thought, and what must he have done to deserve such a fate?. My Self consumed me; I had to find an escape but couldn't move but a few inches towards the toilet only to find that the contents of my stomach would not relieve themselves of their prison, and my thoughts would stay locked within my mind for all time. I became deadlocked as I spiralled deeper into the abyss of my Ego where no-one, not even my closest friends, would follow me.

My mind was but one black dot of many on a deflated baloon. Upon its inflation, the dots would break apart from one another and go their separate ways. And each dot, in itself, would see its counterparts moving away and not realise that it too was moving. Each dot would be caught up in itself so as not to pay any attention to its movement or the movement of its counterparts, except to know that they were leaving it and becoming more and more distant. This is my nature. The nature of self-absorbtion.

And to solve this through constant pain I find is the only way forward. For pain is a healing force when it has passed, leaving no remnant of the internal struggle I face. Pain passed is truly revolutionary, and it is the uneven path I have now chosen; my stomach contents freed, my mind absolved.

A Stray Email...

An email sent not long ago...

I just wanted to remind you all about Moondog Max...the mad boxer who used to eat glass (?) and talk funny on TV...as in ZTV1...not Joy TV...well, sometimes JoyTV...although, was JoyTV even invented back then?? I don't know. The point is; who names a TV channel JoyTV? It's a bitjie mal. Actually, maybe Moondog never ate glass, maybe that was someone else.

Still, thinking of him takes me back to when I was a little child, standing in the National Lottery section of the showgrounds during the Harare Agricultural Show, holding my bag of toy soldiers (which I would later destroy in a glorious shower of flame!). Don't know why; I don't think Moondog ever did make it to the Agricultural Show. Even though, he was every child's hero (or just mine I think). He represented the underlying insanity in society proper; an insanity we all harbour. Oh yes, we'd all love to eat glass and talk funny on TV...admit it.

He was indicative of the fact that anyone could make it - even ludicrously crazed boxers who ate glass, talked funny on TV and never won a fight (well, maybe he did, but I like to think he didn't and, for dramatic effect, you will too!). The next point is; I don't think anyone could make it like Moondog did in Zimbabwe nowadays. No-one could come close to capturing the hearts and minds of the nation in the way he did; not even Morgan. As soon as he became famous, every man woman and child on every street corner began to imitate his stupid voice (especially the coloured community, who thought it was hilarious!) In truth, it WAS hilarious, but it was also a symbolic rebellion against 'normal' society - this one man was absolutely insane and his voice was completely out of the ordinary and yet he was able to make his mark on us 'normal' people; a mark which has stayed with us. You don't find people imitating Morgan on street corners.

The greatest achievement of any leader is to have his people imitating him. It's basic psychology, people imitate people they have a connection with - whether it be good or bad (Franz Fanon, Master and Slave Paradigms - case in point). People imitated Henry VIII...and he was a bit of a twat quite frankly, and was the worst type of womaniser! But people remembered him, and still do (Henry the Tudor Dude?). And when people remember you, they respect you to some extent. Robert Mugabe has already reserved HIS place in history. And people will be ecstatic in 2000 years when they remember him because they'll say to each other, "remember Robert Mugabe? Glad he's dead, he was such a dickhead!"

To that end then, I don't think Zimbabwe needs food, clean water, a GDP over US$1.1 trillion, or even stable economic conditions. It needs another Moondog Max, who'll broadcast his stupid antics to the nation and make everything okay, making everybody happy when they imitate and remember him. I raise my glass to Moondog; who was a social revolutionary in the truest sense of the term.

Peace and love
Ishy

P.S. was his name Moondog Max or something else? Have I just negated the point I was trying to get across?

P.S.S. How is everybody?

Twenty-Eight Years of Slumber

I've found that I've been asleep for a long time. Twenty-eight years to be presice; and, seeing as we're being presice, my entire life. Waking up was difficult. The sun scorched my face and almost blinded me. I felt the lethargy of the last twenty-eight years coursing though me and saw a life ahead of me that would be labourious, unenticing, and uncertain. I've been waking up slowly over the past two years. Slowly throwing off the blankets and rubbing my eyes. Getting myself up to have a shower and cook breakfast. The water was cold and when I opened the blinds I saw that it was raining outside as I looked back on my life thus far, taking stock. The eggs were rotten and the toast was mouldy and hard, but I scoffed it down.

The sun is now breaking through the clouds; Southern Electric have decided to gift me with a small measure of hot water and I've been to the shop and bought fresh eggs and bread. The full weight of the world is beggining to hit me and I've finally begun to open my eyes to the infinite possibilities facing me. Positive thoughts have begun to infiltrate my mind over the last week and I've started to see myself and the world in a completely different light. A light not glazed over with a lense of negativity.

My true self has started to shine through; and my neurotic, possessive and negative self has slowly started to die off in a beautiful shower of flame. I've started to open up my heart and mind to let the sun in. The side of me I thought I'd lost was old and dirty, but I've begun to clear away the cobwebs and have seen that there is no reason not to let it out. The negative thoughts which enter my mind are now vehemently challgnged and I've started a battle against them for my mind. It was Bob Marley who said; "Emancipate yourselved from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds." It has now fallen to me and me alone to challange the negativity which has degraded my mind to this point. I now have the power to change. Free yourselves from degrading thoughts which cage you in a vicious cycle; killing your will. Spread your wings and soar as high and wide as you want to. Absolution is clearly within reach.

Peace, love, revolutions...