Mugabe: The Musical.

“Don’t Dream it. Be it.”-Richard O’Brien, The Rocky Horror Show.
I am enthralled in the marvellous mayhem that is rehearsals for The Rocky Horror show. I am spinning like a top but am also squealing “weeeeeeeeee!” like a kid on a swing. I love musical theatre! I’m not sure which day it was on that God created the homosexual, but I am sure that he created the Musical shortly thereafter. I didn’t study musical theatre or dance like most of my fellow cast members and am still quite ignorant about a lot of things that the genre’ is made up of but, like a handsome stranger, I know that I like it and that I want it in my life. The days zoom by and we spend all day running around, singing, dancing and learning new things. It’s like kindergarten without the powder paints and crushed egg shells. The cast is phenomenally talented and I am so entranced with the wonderful world of Transsexual Transylvania, that all my previous concerns have just “poof!” disappeared (Someone tell that to my credit cards.)
There are other perks as well. Because of the constant singing and dancing your body gets ripped and you get to dress up in fishnet stockings and grind your crotch against attractive, talented people and on top of that get paid! Why would I possibly want to do anything else with my life? I’m not sure why anybody does anything else really. I might have to cut my gushing short because I would hate society to lose thousands of much needed farmers, neurosurgeons and aeronautical engineers when they discover how wonderful it is to be a performer in a musical. Other than the show I also have a new man in my life. His name is Martin and he has brought both direction and a refreshingly crisp British accent into my world. I am completely enamoured with him. He is a fantastic GPS application that came with my new phone and I now feel like there is nowhere in Johannesburg (or the world for that matter!) that I cannot go. I talk back to him and am sure to thank him when he suggests I turn left or right at an approaching intersection. He’s very clever and just because he isn’t a real person does not mean I should compromise my concept of good manners and decorum. Otherwise I am still flying solo and -to be perfectly honest- it’s turned into a rather pleasant flight (despite some initial turbulence.) I’m good company and my conversations with myself are becoming more eloquent and animated by the day. I’m looking forward to seeing how they will develop. I know I probably sound like a thin gay version of Shirley Valentine, but I’m enjoying myself anyway (in every way possible.)
Perhaps if Robert Mugabe, and Jackie Selebi were more musically inclined the world would be a better place. Then again Jacob Zuma has already been heading that way with his classic “Umshini Wami!” which is after all a musical ode to the AK47. Maybe it is just The Rocky Horror Show specifically that would be the solution? Winnie could be Magenta, Nkosazana, Columbia, Zuma, Frank ‘n Furter (being the master of seduction that he is.) Then Mugabe could rather fittingly be the deformed alien Riff Raff who becomes the new commander and kills everybody at the end with a beam of pure anti-matter (lack of food and medical resources are basically the same thing.) I think I’ll put in a proposal to Mbongeni Ngema first thing in the morning and rename it Mugabe: The musical. I wonder if the NAC would fund it?

B&B

I am in my parent’s new home, just a stone’s throw away from the Vaal dam which is like an inland mini-ocean. I have been going running along the banks in the afternoons so that my body doesn’t start illustrating my love for my mother’s cooking. I feel like I am in a gay South African version of the film “Like Water for Chocolate” because every meal that my mother serves is fortified with some kind of magic ingredient that loosens my highly strung nerves and cradles my heart until it stops its bitching and moaning. The house is gorgeous. Its double storey with four bedrooms and the belly of the house is a generous open plan, connecting the kitchen and the living room with a high churchlike roof, which is made up of whitewashed wooden beams that hold everything together under the watchful eye of Angelica. Angelica is the hand carved guardian angel that I bought my mother for her birthday to look after us all, and she does. I have been here a week already and it has been a warm hazy blur of Love, laughter and tea. These people have and always will Love me and it feels like the gooseflesh you get sitting in the sun when even your bones have gotten cold. They don’t just accept or tolerate me. Here I am enjoyed like a square of rationed chocolate. I Love my family because they Love me for more than being a brother or a son. They are above all things in my life my greatest blessing. I will move back into my little flat amongst the trees in Northcliff soon and commence rehearsals for The Rocky Horror Show, but until then I am enjoying every minute of the time I spend with these wonderful people that made me. I Love hearing my father’s authoritative tone in my voice when I reprimand the baby in our family (a gorgeous three year old German Sheperd named Zack.) I love setting the table and putting Pompy , our adopted terrier (previously my Ouma and Oupa’s now both watching over us like Angelica) to bed outside under her own duvet because she suffers from late night potty training memory lapses. I spent way too much time on my own in Cape Town and am so happy to now have all this wonderful company. The bed in the room I sleep in is so comfortable that even three of the five cats we have are constantly to be wrestled with for a comfortable spot. I am glad that I have not settled with anyone yet because it makes this time I share with my family so much more intimate. This week we had so many guests that I now feel confident that my mother and I could run a lucrative bed and breakfast. My uncle came to stay followed by a friend of my mother’s and then my aunt and uncle and niece. So much territory was covered. Love, betrayal, death, regret and even marriage (which some would argue is an accumulation of the former four.) Conversations became heated and then cooled and all was punctuated delectably by my mother’s sublime cooking. She is the happiest I have seen her in years and I taste this in every mouthful. My Little brother that is so much bigger than me in so many ways has set something in motion that may provide me with a career. But even if it is not lucrative and so nothing comes of it now, I will feel its rippling impact for the rest of my life. It is good to be believed in.

Transit.

I am on the road again! I can hear Eddie Murphy’s voice as the Donkey in ‘Shrek’ as I say it. Once again I am doing the trek between the Mother City and The City of Gold. Hopefully this will be the last time for at least another four months. Right now I am propped up in a very comfortable double bed in a room at the KaMa Lodge in Richmond, in the heart of the Karoo, which is the land of scrumptious lamb and giant prehistoric mosquitoes. (Last time I was here they chewed me straight through a thick protective layer of Peaceful sleep!) This place is lovely and dirt cheap. The tannie who runs the place has just served me the most amazing lasagne and whilst I ate it I had a very challenging conversation in Afrikaans with a Oom from Robertson who leaves his wife to farm apricots and grapes as he travels South Africa evaluating the values of other people’s farms. I am contemplating how I always seem to be in transition. I have just finished one show (Let’s Mixit 2) and am waiting to start rehearsing another (Rocky Horror). So I am driving to my folks in Deneysville on the Vaal dam to take in some transitory R and R. I am currently, in between cities, in between jobs, in between boyfriends, and in between salary payments. That’s quite a few betweens to be in. But I have this really good feeling inside. I’m not exactly sure what or when, but my gut tells me that something amazing is on its way in to my life and I am so excited. It’s even more exciting because I haven’t even got a clue as to what it could be. Sort of like a psychic lucky packet I guess. I feel very strong and up for just about anything. Interesting because, just a few days ago I was shaking in my boots at just about everything and everybody. I think I was feeling lost and envious of others and was upset that I had nothing to believe in. Religion is such a load of garlic polony (processed and it stinks) and the entertainment industry is so pretentious and shallow at times. Something has shifted and I think that it’s my mind. I’ve been waking up with more gusto in the mornings and I can feel strength, creativity and vitality surging through me. Maybe I’ve begun to believe in myself. I hope so, because it’s about f&*%ing time!

No KTV For Me.

I only realised fully today that I will never be a KTV presenter. Strange as it may seem, I think a part of me still believed that my inherent children's television programme linking abilities would eventually be recognised. I have always felt that I would be perfect for the job, but as I approach my thirtieth year on this earth it finally dawned on me that even my chances of presenting 'Twentysomething' are slim, never mind finding myself in that skilled and eloquent stable of continuity presenters to be found at the SABC! I went to school with Jeannie D the presenter from Top Billing. I am sooooooo jealous of her. She gets to travel EVERYWHERE! Look fabulous ALL the time, and get paid to flirt outrageously on screen with Janez Vermieren (underwear model and D.I.Y. presenter.) She must have had a series of really shit former lives because the girl's certainly got it good in this one!
I think I would make a great presenter. I can be funny and when I don't have a acne break out that are like replicas of Lionshead (like now!) , (Not a word Jacob!!!!!), (bitch.) I can clean up nicely and lull you into not changing the channel. The irony is that I don't watch TV myself. I hate TV. I like being on it but it bores me if I watch it. I can watch about twenty minutes of Crime and Investigation (morbid I know, but I am fascinated with psychosis) and the odd Oprah Winfrey or Catherine Tate (same thing really) then I have to go and do something constructive like seeing if my soya milk has curdled in the fridge. I think I just may have A.D.D. or A.D.H.D or O.C.D. Whichever! All I know for sure is that I do not have K.T.V!