Sufferable Tendencies

Meme 2.

2007-12-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

I was recently challenged to list 8 suitably random facts about myself, this by someone with an already all too lucid picture of my deathstyle, age 28.

1. I love my new forklift. It's so smooth and yellow.
2. I wish I lived in San Juan in the fifties. I'd have hated communists and loved a blonde girl.
3. My bonsai is a year older than I am. I've defeated it in every debate we've had until now.
4. If my building burnt down - I'd likely suffocate of smoke inhalation or be burnt to a crisp. C'est la vie.
5. Rugby is my drug. Like all addicts everywhere I silently harbour a fixation that is tempered by strict civility.
6. It's very likely I dont even have the one novel in me. (That said the temptation to sell the lot, head for the tropics and open a hack beach bar is greatest during December, when the Cape mistral pounds us relentlessly.)
7. My audience escaped the theatre a while back - since then I've been forced to read dead authors, and wait expectantly till my favourite living ones shot themselves in the face with shotguns in American ski resorts. (Thanks Hunter.)
8. "I have never been disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil- minded, I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage" and I miss drinking mango juice and rum on white tiled terraces in the heat of a Cuban afternoon.

Encore @ Overture!

2007-11-05T02:56:00.000-08:00

Or should I say Overture Restaurant @ Hidden Valley Wine Estate, just outside Stellenbosch, Mzansi! Chef Bertus (whom, contrary to popular opinion is not of Cuban origin) has fulfilled a dream, a successful opening week at his own - and soon to be renowned - fine dining eatery.

Set high above the Boland vineyards (overlooking such pompous though comparitively meagre venues as Ernie Els Wines and Guardian Peak) Overture is discreetly situated alonside the state-of-the-art wine cellar - allowing for sweeping vistas and much quaffing of the best sparkling wine: in fact the preference for local ingredients, wines and women is a major underlying bias in the proprieters make-up - much to the eternal glee of patrons and mates alike.

The facade of mystery surrounding our table of diners disapperared as quickly as the empty plates could be cleared: foie gras and duck tart served with brioche (other favourites included seared trout) followed by succelent lamb with gnocci - see below - (pork belly served with three varieties of pumpkin slices for the ladies.)

Followed by two courses of deserts: generous use of stone fruits, chocolate sorbets, mousses and coulis - each prepared on the premises, just as the bread is - and hand grinded cafe served from individual pots at your table - the way God meant for it to be.

Nice touches include an ever changing menu, printed daily - with dishes paired by suggested wines (by the glass if preferred) - and yes, for those of you in the know, real linen towels at the wash basins. Do yourself a favour, contact Overture @ + 27 (021) 880 2646. Bon Apetit! B.

Rage Against the Machine!

2007-10-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

Zach de la R. has been telling (more like screaming at) us for years - hell I've personally travelled in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cuba and the UK and happen to live in deepest darkest Africa - but I still wasnt exactly clear on what it was about US foreign policy that played out in these regions whilst directly influencing our entire existance, our generation and the powers that will subjugate our children - that didnt quite gel...

More to the point, dear reader, the snippets of attrocities you might have heard about via independent news - or the question marks you saw when your Aussie mate in London mentioned his friends being crippled in the war on guerilla insurgents in East Timor - (what fucking war?!) and of course the bullshit surrounding the war on terror - are each a part of a greater whole.

It takes a someone of Noam Chomsky's brilliance and scholarship to piece this farce together. Download (for free) the fantastic paper "What Uncle Sam Really Wants" on the informative Rage Against the Machine website at http://www.ratm.com/ . (Look for it under the heading "Reading List") - better yet, print it out and peruse over coffee / rum / opiates / stellenbosch red wine or red bull.

Bear in mind, this is the most quoted international critic on the subject of globalisation and US foreign policy - and current academic at a respected USA Uni, not some nut job conspiracy theorist living in the deep South. This is happening in your world. Or at least, what was once your world. Insight is the 1st step to reclaiming it.

Brown Paper Bags, Baby

2007-10-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

words get tangled on your tongue, and you stumble on yr feet, when you miss somebody.

and everywhere you think you see them, walking down the street, when you miss somebody.

you tell yourself a hundred thousand times nobody lives forever, so you give it one more try,

to wave goodbye.

every hurtful thing you ever said is ringing in your ear, when you miss somebody

and everything of beauty that you see only brings a tear, when you miss somebody,

you tell yourself everything will be alright, try to stand up strong and brave when all you want to do is lay down and die!

how long I've waited for an answer or a sign, lonely and weary from the troubled task of trying to wave goodbye.

(Thats Chris Cornell - wave goodbye form Euphoria Morning. Steal it now.)

Resident Evil Extinction - film ' the week

2007-10-28T03:34:00.000-07:00

Lets be frank: Alice the uber ex supermodel milla jovovich has never looked more alluring in a scarlet dress and knee high boots - or bikers' leather coat and Lara Croft's blood stained hand-me-down shorts - but as all post apocolyptic sci fi buffs know, real women prefer knives - and if either you or your clone is destined to protect a convoy of the un-infected by slaying legions of the flesh eating undead - panga blades make for coolest weapons of mass destruction.

For those of you non-water signs, this is the third instalment of the franchise - and there's a fairly consistent plot throughout so it would definately enhance your viewing pleasure to check out the first two.

Yes its financed by Sony whom we dont like, descent of Hollywood producers whose agendas are profit - but Sufferable Tendencies is about sifting through a variety of stimulus including popular culture and enjoying zombie ass kickers in all their g(l)ory. Oh, checkout the impressive site www.sonypictures.com/movies/residentevilextinction.com Enjoy!

Reach 4 a Dream

2007-10-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

A while back, Chef Bertus, Ettiene and myself had the honour of helping out at the Reach 4 a Dream organisations' Simonstown camp - held for about 50 kids under the age of 10, each terminally ill. (The majority born with HIV Aids which is pandemic in South Africa.)

With a view to involving and stimulating Zizipho here and her best friends, we baked our own bread, braai'd the halaal meat and put together a lekker al fresco lunch. All hell broke loose somewhere between the sweets being served and the dance off!

Everyone had a jol - the kids demanded no pity - (only more finger biscuits) - and were too young to begrudge what the rest of us would perceive as dire circumstances. A persons sincerity is too be cherished, be they young or old. My own practiced cynisim tells me to work towards a hope based in the former. (checkout http://www.reachforadream.org.za/ for ideas on contributing...)

set it off!

2007-10-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

lest we begin with someone else's words... The almighty chris c. sings of a freedom midst the eery silence of the vacuum left after a once great revolution - short months before he parts ways with a brotherhood destined to rage against an enemy - the same complicit illness that some would have us believe to be eradicated...

this site may oneday represent more than a mere distillation of seemingly diverse inspirations, it may oneday come to represent a singular spirit of clear struggle given enmity between opposite realities - for somewhere over such plains of personal perception lingers a greater truth, one that resonates through a multitude of beautiful people and suffers the conscious and weary blot of too many more.

whatever becomes of such endeavour, know it was borne of a latent desire to better understand the sufferable tendencies of one and in so doing find a new frame of reference given the struggle of others .

This is no treatise, not yet - it's a copper pot-still full of dings. Here's hoping action follows belief as much as love might trail insight.

Hamba Gahle, Barry S.