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...

Man Killng Man

I picked up an Eastern European man off the street this morning. Everyone was passing him by and just looking down at him. He was drunk, and soon after I'd picked him up and found out how he was (he apparently wanted a cigarette and thought the only way to get one was to lie down on the pavement and pick a half-smoked butt off it) his friend (another Eastern European man) came over and started talking to me in a language I didn't understand. I asked the second man if he was friends with the first man and he said he was, by nodding. They both looked like hardened gangsters so I felt it necessary at that point to make a swift exit and go about my own business (my own prejudgements coming in).

It did get me wondering where the common universal connection I've believed we all share had gone at that point. Fear had stopped others picking the man up but when I stooped down to grab his hand, everyone around looked down at me as if I were doing something wrong. I must admit that if I thought I were doing something wrong I would have gladly left him there. But what's wrong with getting another person back on their feet, both literally and metaphorically?

I'm very discouraged now, especially with the state of the universe. If things are, indeed, in perfect balance and if the universe does indeed know what it's doing then why is the world not climbing on board and succumbing to their base instincts to help one another, whether known to them or not? When we're children we're told never to talk to strangers, and rightly so, but I fear that this concept is being (and has been) drummed into us too harshly for it has now created boundaries between us; divisions which we find hard to cross. We now feel the need to know someone on some level before we can help them. Surely, I could have stooped down this morning and asked the man where he was from, how many children he had and whether he liked sports before I picked him up. I could have lunged into a light conversation about his life, and shared my life with him, but that would have taken too long and wouldn't have changed the fact that he needed my help (if only just to pick him up off the floor).

Even worse, I think, is the fact that that if my Eastern European friend was soaked in blood on the street people would have been even more reluctant to help him for fear of contamination. They would have stood aside and called the authorities, probably thinking it his own fault to be in such a state, while other might have looked at him in disgust and whispered amongst themselves about the possible causes of his misfortune. Why, then, do we expect others to help us when we are down? Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic about the current state of human nature but my incident this morning only acted to highlight my position. We are often taught to stand on our own two feet; that no-one will do anything for us and that we have to create our own opportunities in life, but when it comes down to it and the proverbial shit hits the fan it is still a human instinct to cry out for help; when we are in the most dire of circumstances perched in a pool of our own blood and sweat at 3 AM on a Saturday morning.

Next time you're walking down the street; notice how many people don't look you directly in the eye for fear that they may have a connection with you; that they may, in fact, allow themselves to be sucked into the unknown. I hope it changes. I envision a world with no division, where people realise that we're all part of a universal system and that we're all connected whether we like it or not. I envision a world where we pick Eastern European men off the street and anyone else for that matter, and where we lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it. In revolutionary spirit, I reject circles, squares, triangles and cliques. I reject personal space, and I reject the constant and unnecessary compulsion to run away from human connections unless we're intoxicated.

By the same token I think that if necessary (which they're not), wars should be fought while under the influence of non-violent substances. If this were the case there would be no more man killing man; a war would be just one big piss up, with all manner of substances, where soldiers, civilians, and their supposed enemies would lay down their arms and hug one another saying "I love you, man" in their stupors, and where they would arm-wrestle to settle whatever disputes they have. It was one Christmas day during the first world war when British and German troops came together in no man's land to play a game of football. All grudges were set aside for that day, and arms were laid down in one big event during which all those involved implicitly said, "my fight is not with you, my brother. I'm just following the orders of an old twat three hundred miles away with a big chip on his shoulder." It was a glorious display of man helping man.

I think anything is possible, a trait which has made me the target of some criticism recently. But is it so hard to believe in this type of world, and pass it off as mindless idealism? I think not.

Peace, love, revolutions

Face Cream

A positive change will be effected when we realise the importance of positive thought. However, we are now more than ever subjected to the worst kind of negativity imaginable. When we walk we are bombarded by billboards telling us in no uncertain terms what we’re not – listing our imperfections in a detestable catalogue of insecurity. When we sit at home we are flooded with messages feeding our negativity; big corporations and giant conglomerates telling us what we need and what we want in elaborate advertisements showing off the latest in perfection-bound accessories – the face cream for her, the shaving gel for him; promising exotic locations and infinite of attention from the opposite sex usually portrayed as the universal beauty. And we succumb to these symbols of our downfall – we ache to be just one step closer to their portrayed ideal, and we berate ourselves when we fail to achieve their impossible goals. And while we watch our lives waste away in an endless stream of persuasion, we tend to miss the one most important fact – the one unadulterated truth which binds us in our striving – which is the cycle of life; we age, we die, we eventually lose all we’ve built up, and there is not a product that yet exists which will stop it. Eventually the billboards teaching us to think in terms of what we don’t have will rot and fall to the street, and the television advertisements will cease to pollute our airwaves, and only then will we realise what we have become? Think and live in positive terms for the eternal optimist is not a fool but a hero in this revolution of the mind. Live, love and reach out to everyone. Stop sitting in your own mind curled up in a ball of negativity waiting and wishing. Touch the world, and you’ll be surprised at what you get back.

Peace, love, revolutions

Chaotic Love

Don’t be afraid. The love you have will be expressed even if not verbally. It will plunge you into the utmost chaos and when you feel that torture you will know that you truly love. It is the fear of that chaos which will ultimately be your downfall. Love and chaos are brothers in this fight. When you love and believe you are not loved back you find yourself a tortured soul, with colours losing their vibrancy and sounds becoming lack-lustre. Your environment becomes an empty void in which you live a (believed) meaningless existence. When you love and are loved back you find your soul uplifted into a chaotic state in which colours become more vibrant and sounds become vivid and pronounced. Your environment becomes a magnificent painting in which you live a life with more meaning than you could ever imagine. The point of this game is to always feel the latter and the trick is to love and not worry about being loved back. Take the time to get to know those around you and spend your life showing those you hold close just how much you love them. Forget the torment of a lack-lustre life and approach love as a child; without expectation or ulterior motive. Love selflessly, and don’t stop. Ever.

Peace, love and revolutions

Signs

Signs affect us all and convey the emotions of their creators. They feed our need for order and sometimes even the seemingly unprovocative can bring about powerful emotions in us. Makeshift signs convey greater emotion and are easier to fall into rebellion against for they express an individual’s spur-of-the-moment feelings about a particular subject or situation. Strangely, working in an office, the signs here seem to express feelings of passive aggression between colleagues. It is a strange concept that the office environment could be seen as a total institution in the sense Erving Goffman described, but it can be – at the very least in the sense that all individuals within it are bound by the rules of the organization. And they rebel against this control in their own ways; by entering into conversations about their colleagues, constantly clamouring for attention and putting up signs against practices they believe to be wrong or for practices they believe to be right. They assert their authority, autonomy and their perceived rights to individuality because an office, like any other total institution, is made up of individuals with individual agendas – it is a buzzing microcosm housing love and latent aggression bubbling under the surface, waiting to spring forth. Gingerly peel back the top layer and witness the eruption.

Peace, love and revolutions…

Food is the Music of Love

Food is one of the purest expressions of love there is. It unites the masses and creates bonds through a common feeling of pleasure and ultimate satisfaction. Food knows no borders, it has no conception of age, ethnicity, ideology or sexuality; it is incapable of conveying hate or malice. Our humanity is brought out when we cook for others for not only do we feed them, but we invite them to take part in a shared experience with us. And they, the people we cook for tacitly express their ultimate trust in us.

We sit then, around our tables and create bonds with individuals we never thought possible. We eat and for those moments we talk about interesting things, our souls shine through and we are truly free to love one another. A fried banana machine, then, would be an essential component driving this revolution - a revolution of love and trust. Feed your friends, feed your enemies, feed everyone.

Peace, love and revolutions

Spatial Oppression

The space in which we live has become politicized; controlled for the furtherance of powerful interests. When we stand at a cash machine in a mall we are unknowingly conforming to the politics of that space; we subconsciously stand behind the line where the tiles on the floor change colours while waiting for our turn. We obey seemingly irrelevant and arbitrary symbols and words restricting access to various spaces in the places we live. Spatial oppression has become a norm in our times – we are told where to live, where to eat and where to walk. We are being oppressed by the words, lines and symbols which have become, in their own right, agents of control.

During the apartheid regime in South Africa, the National Party adopted a divide and rule strategy – a well known tenant in the Oppressor’s Handbook. They dictated where the indigenous African’s lived – pushing them into tight corners within the country. They controlled the majority by transforming them into several minorities – they told them where to eat and where to walk. How then, is our time any different? We are only happy because we are not subjected to torture and violence, and are kept in relative safety but in perpetual fear. We don’t see direct aggression perpetrated on fellow human beings so we don’t think about it until our memories are jogged by the odd news report which we talk about at the water cooler for a week (‘shame,’ we say, ‘did you hear about that?’) and then forget about for another fifteen years. And we are happy, conforming to symbols of our oppression, standing behind our lines where we are safe, and not daring to step over them.

Peace, love and revolutions

The Comfortable Revolution

Comfort is the ultimate goal of our leaders. When we are comfortable, we are apathetic – we don’t want change because this would destroy the sense of security we’ve gradually and lovingly bricked together over the weeks, or months, or years. The comfort leads to routine which, ironically, eventually acts to feed our comfort – we walk to work in the morning, and walk back in the evening. All day we sit in our offices, earning not just money but the feeling that we are secure; that our future is set to stay this way – and we are happy with that because that reinforces our comfort. We look to the street from our tall, double-glazed buildings at the unemployed masses living in their council flats and the vagabonds living in their cardboard boxes, and we judge them lovingly; pouring pity on them and secretly saying to ourselves, ‘at least it’s not me’. And we love this because it makes us feel good about ourselves; in our offices, earning our endless comfort. We like our routine and our comfort, and our leaders like keeping us in that perpetual cycle because no comfortable person will revolt for change. And those who do are crushed underfoot and removed from society proper to prevent further ‘contamination’ and influence. But we all harbour revolutionary thoughts; it stems from our need to believe that life could be better. And that is the irony of it, for the very same people who are and were the biggest tyrants of our time, and who would continually force revolutions and revolutionaries underground with gas masks and rubber bullets - the very people who would benefit from our contentment - once fought for a better life and were themselves discontent, and pushed underground by people with gas masks and rubber bullets. Is this, then, the nature of humanity? I hope not.

Peace, love and revolutions.