Own Little world.

"He's in his own little world." I've heard that sentence many times in my life. "Uh oh!", I hear you thinking. "Not one of THOSE blog entries!" But I assure you I'll try to keep the nostalgia and self-indulgence to a mild roar. I will make every effort to keep this amusing to the reader, but I admit that this is my therapy. Often I haven't got a clue about how I'm feeling until I've written something about it so keep a barf bag handy. Lately I've been losing at the dating game again. I hate reruns and remakes of old classics so I'll spare you the details, but basically hounded after someone who just couldn't be "sure" how he felt about me. Our last conversation felt like the final dress rehearsal for an episode of Santa Barbra. Cliched and predictable but like any dedicated actor I made like it was all happening for the first time. I'm disappointed but I'm not devistated. It's really not his fault. I think I only chose to fall for him in the first place because I could never really have him. Another excuse for drama, another reason to stay up late staring glassy eyed at the moon stretching my imagination with his image. Poor man, it's hard to imagine that we inhabit the same planet never mind the same wavelength. I think I just imagined that we could communicate through the impenetrable glass of our different space ships in the vastness of Gay outerspace. Sigh!A lot of what I wanted to say to him seems lost in translation. Through my tainted spectacles now everybody seems isolated and unable to communicate with others. I notice those alone. I see people desperate to have their stories heard. I watch hundreds of knuckles knocking on thousands of doors and like me not recieving a much longed for reply or opening. Working long hours immersed in the desperation of the townships is also not exactly doing wonders for my outlook. But if you ask me I will swear on my life that I am an optimist. However, I am not blind. Watching small children fight over a small handful of soggy fried potato chips puts things into perspective and then I notice how song and laughter permeates and soothes even the most dire of circumstances. The poor and abandoned I have encountered laugh and smile so freely. I see so much dissatisfaction amongst adults but I think it's merely my own that the world is reflecting back at me. This would make sense because I have been looking for myself out there. I understand why alchohol and drugs play such a major role in society because I find myself longing for something to numb the intensity of the thoughts that climb into bed with me at night. But instead of watching TV, I face them and its not unbearable. I am,for the most part happy in my own world. I make good company and am blessed in so many ways by so many people but it does feel at times like we are all in our own bubbles packed up against each others as tightly as foam. All together yet, each in his own little shiny rainbowed orb ocassionally popping one another as we squirm for our own space. I live on faith and I survive on a positive mindset and I can do this because I recognise the breadth and depth of the potholes in the road ahead and go around them rather than try to convince myself that they are not there. My current potholes are bad habits carried over from the past and the illusion that I need fame or a meaningful relationhip to be a succesful individual. This is not true, what I do need (I'd like to believe) is Love and laughter and already my accounts are brimming with both. Perhaps I'm not meant to come out of my own little world, and if so it wont be that bad because in here I am safe and Loved and maybe the "real" world can learn a lesson or two from me,even if its how NOT to do things. I think that if I just keep planting a Little Love and Laughter everyday of my life that eventually I will find myself the beneficiary of a very rich harvest. One can only hope, but even if I don't it will be a noble occupation nonetheless that should make the world a better place. Mine and everyone elses.

Falling Prey.

You say you want to pray for me. Then if you must please pray for my peace of mind. Pray that I may know and share Love in my life and that I show courage in the face of adversity. If you feel the need to discuss me with God then thank him for his creation and his blessings on my behalf. You would be doing me a service and I would thank you. But should you wish to pray that I be not what I am, that I change for your judgement and that I challenge your ignorance less, then I ask that you keep your prayers, because I fear that you will need them more than me. Amen.

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?

Muse-ou

I have to talk a bit about my greatest Love. And this would have to be music. Even though I cannot play a musical instrument, I know that in my soul I am a musician. There is nothing else that gives me more joy than creating and performing music. When I sing I struggle to make eye contact because I feel that the great wooden doors of my being are flung open and I am completely exposed to the naked quick. I fear that I will be seen for all that I am and that this may not be enough. Yet I am slowly learning to be seen, as I sing. I feel guilty about how much I enjoy any work relating to music because to be paid to make it seems so drastically to my advantage. Even if I never earn a cent from music I will never stop making it. But I pray that that does not end up being the case.
“Singing takes the pain away. Singing helps you face another day.” These are the lyrics of my latest song entitled Lovely Old Lady. It speaks of how I truly feel about singing. When my heart has been broken and flinching in a corner like a trampled cockroach, music was the bostik that I used to put it back together. I have sung all my life. In the shower, on the loo (Yes Tipsy Tart I know you do too! ;)
When in the studio working on a song I forget about everything and just zone in on the layers of sound being weaved together. (Yes Jacob, even Gaydar!) Time speeds up and all of a sudden I’ve been sitting there for six hours without thinking about myself or analysing my existence. I have been purely consumed with the creation of a something that provokes feeling. I am not able to do this alone (Thanks Zayne!) but it feels like the truest purpose I have ever served. I love acting and writing but creating a song and then performing it, make them both pale in comparison. If God spoke I think He/She would sing.
I hope to create many songs and share them with the world. Songs that tell stories and songs that bring relief. I want people to feel my songs stir something inside them. I want my lyrics to tug at their hearts and quieten their minds. I also want to make songs that make people smile and laugh at themselves. If I was trapped on a deserted island all alone it would be the songs in my head that would keep me company and prevent me from losing my mind, as they do now.
Love and Songs are so intricately linked together and even though I am still perplexed as to what Love really is I know in my gut that it has a lot to do with music.
“It’s like losing control; it’s like being a part of a whole. It’s like losing your mind, trusting your soul, just letting go... For better or worse how I love music.” – Lebo Mathosa R.I.P.