Emerge

I am in Cape Town (well Durbanville and Grand West casino to be exact) performing in a show called "The Sponge who could fly". It's about a character named Sponge Bob square pants who aspires to be able to one day realise his dream and fly with the Jellyfish in Jellyfish fields. I play his supportive yet intellectually challenged chum Patrick Starfish. In short a pink morbidly obese mollusc with a heart of gold. I wear a fatsuit and a plush pink cotume that weighs a ton and sing in my lower registers. It's a blast and I am thoroughly enjoying every minute because the rest of the cast are also completely mentally unstable and the most fun to get silly and sweaty with, without the raunchy stuff. Playing this role is the equivalent to dancing my ass off at a rave club wrapped up inside a sleeping bag so I sweat a lot and have lost quite a bit of weight. I have also laughed until it hurt at some point almost every day we have rehearsed and performed. The talent and comic timing of this cast has vastly contributed to my attempts to flatten my stomach. But ironically I have also been wrestling with one of the heaviest and most challenging times of my life internally.

Despite the warm sunshine of the show, my friends, family and being able to pay my bills (for a change) I have sat huddled under a cloudy wet depression that I have struggled to shrug off. It came out of left field and just seemed to block out all good warm and fuzzy things. What is worse is that I had no real reason for it. I had no real reason to feel down, I just did. It appeared at my door like an unwanted evangelist who would not leave me alone. It would come in waves like an ice cold breeze. I would be stuck in writing, having a conversation or readng something and then this leaded feeling would sink into me and everything I was doing would feel pointless and like too much effort. Icy isolation. I would continue smiling and laughing and engaging with others without the usual ease (10 years professional acting is good for some things) and every now and then the sun would come out, sometimes even for a whole day and then without reason or warning my consciousness would begin to feel overcast again. I'm a proactive person and started researching my feelings and symptoms on the internet because I knew there was something wrong. Synchronicty is an amazing thing. The Bob Marley and the Wailers lyrics "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds" ran through my head like a stuck record. I would rise humming the wise yet cheerful tune despite the dark funk I would usually wake up in.

There is a history of depression and anxiety disorders on both sides of my family so I could have just embraced it as an early inheritance, but I truly believe that with awareness and proper nutrition many conditions can be prevented and even avoided. I remenbered a small section of Patrick Holford's book "The Optimum Nutrition Bible" in which he wrote about individuals suffering with high levels of histamine in their bodies. I read it over 4 years ago and I had ticked all the symptoms and something told me to explore it a little further now despite all the time that had past. High histamine in the body is known as Histadelia and the symptoms are: A fast metabolism, high energy, heavy allergies, sneezing in the presence of direct sunlight, elongated fingers and toes especially a long thin second toe, low tolerance for pain, high body temperature, addiction or cravings for drugs and alchohol and severe often unprompted depression and anxiety attacks. This is me, I thought as I read about the condition. Many schitzophrenics have been found to have high levels of histamine in the brain and though I don't quite hear strange voices (other than the characters that I write into my shows) I am not quite that bad. Turns out there is actually a number of articles written about this condition on the net and that histadelics suffering from depression have been found to experience fewer positive results and less relief from traditional depression and anxiety medication. The remedy is actually quite simple although not immediate in its efficacy. I started taking 500mg of an amino acid called methionine as well as 500mg of calcium and magnesium morning and night because they have both been found to lower the bodies production of histamine over an extended period of time (results can generally only be felt after 6 weeks). I have supplemented this with St. Johns wort and 5HTP in the hopes of speeding up the process a little and have felt a bit of relief. 5HTP is a precursor for seritonin production (happy brain chemical) so perhaps that is what has been helping me lift the cloud a bit. St. Johns wort needs to be taken with caution because it is believed to make you photosensitive and more susceptible to sunburn as well as affecting the efficiency of female oral contraceptives so I would advise anyone keen on following this regime to first chat to their doctor.
I am also trying to eat a low histamine diet which cuts out sugars, (real and artificial) and basically anything fermented from yoghurt to smoked chicken. It's a challenge but I really feel it has been a dead weight that I have been dragging behind me and I'm determined to cut the dark cloud loose. Other than that I begin rehearsals for my one man show Little Poof! after the 16th of January and hope to open in a lovely new venue I am negotiating with on or around the 10th of February. This year I am determined to make things happen for myself. I am terribly nervous and have had a few sleepless nights already but am also very excited and cannot wait to work with my director Neels Clasen and musical director Catherine Hopkins. The photos that I have had taken by the brilliant Gerrit Joubert and expertly styled by Wim and Amalanka for the posters and the PR are exquisite and hysterical.
Watch this space because now that I've figured out how to get rid of aunty "Debra" this "Little Poof" is getting ready to make a BIG BANG!

Hope Stoker

The processor that runs my head and heart is due for a service and probably an overtime pay out. I sure do know the full length and breadth of the word "transitional". My life is like an airport terminal with the strange and shapely comings and goings of positive and negative thoughts and my mind is the aggressive lady at customs who is keeping the illegal bad thoughts at bay. Yet as with most terminals there are more than a handful of unwanteds that manage to slip through the borders. A few weeks ago I auditioned for a big role in a major soapy and even though the audition went well and I have been keeping a very posistive mindset, I found out today that the casting offices will be closed until next year and that only female actresses have been offered contracts for roles next year. Frustration mounts because I am desperate for some kind of steady income and my efforts to keep the bank and my other debtors at bay is becoming increasingly more difficult. I'm broke and I'm basically unemployed until the ednd of the month until I start rehearsals for Spongebob squarepants the musical which will atleast keep me going until mid January. I have been auditioning for so many different things and although it's always been done in a nice way I've heard the same thing: "Lovely, but no thanks." I believe to a certain degree that you should "fake it 'til you make it." So I've been donning a very happy and contented air and meeting every rejection and red lettered bank warning with a smile and a motivated attitude. But some days its tough to play along and pretend that everything is hunky dory. I'm finding it hard to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to this blockbuster called THE RECESSION that everyone is talking about. I feel like I'm swimming in a gala with poverty consciousness and although I've been winning, it's catching up to me heels and every now and then I choke on a mouthful of water. Okay so that's the bitching and whining part done (gimme a break I am a Cancerian). But there is also some amazing stuff going on which is adding to my confusion. I'm 'relaxing' with my folks on the Vaal due to lack of money and work but also because I am writing a new draft of a one man show which I have finally committed to doing in February next year. Everything has fallen into place, I have found a beautiful venue (Zietsies in Brixton owned and run by Elzabe Zietsman) and I have secured funding (from my beloved brother) and even a musical director
and piano accompanist (my gifted and adored friend Catherine Hopkins). I will finally be doing my own thing in February of next year and its one of the most exciting things I have embarked upon in ages. Also I have met someone wonderful (barely a week ago) and although things are still premature there are few things in life as stimulating as watching sparks igniting a fire. I'm really in a very good place, all things considered, but I'm scared of dissappointment and I guess in some ways also terrified that some things may actually take off and thrive. Am I ready for success? Will I open the door for it and let it in? Failure is something we've all dealt with on occasion, but just how good are we at taking centre stage when it's our time to shine? I hope I'm man enough to face up to my own happiness. In fact I pray I am. Amen.

MOTIVE8

I just listened to the last crack and fizzle of a Highveld thunderstorm. I remember sitting in my hostel room in Braamfontein just over ten years ago swatting for my matric finals and enjoying the sound of the rain on the corrugated roofs outside as I took a moment to phase out and chew on my highlighter. I’m sure this rain can clean a scuffed heart, but mine doesn’t feel scuffed at all tonight, in fact it’s been licked all shiny clean by some interesting new acquaintances.
Today my best friend Sonia (the Guava Panty princess) and I visited a domestic animal sanctuary in Roodepoort named FORA. Hundreds of dogs and cats desperate for Love and affection crammed into a relatively small space, but clearly cared for as best as possible under the circumstances. All the more emotive because the land on which the sanctuary stands has been sold to developers and the people who run the place are now trying to raise funds to be able to prevent all these furry creatures from becoming homeless and abandoned AGAIN.
Off the bat the place reminded me of a gay club. The same hunger for affection and acceptance and the same happy-go-lucky ‘jollers’ who didn’t give a shit and just wanted to shag. (Quite a few of the dogs tried to hump each other and they didn’t care if their “stuk” was male or female.) I saw myself in the puppies, the old scruffy Labrador with a hoarse bark and the one eyed smoky cat that shared its living space with another few hundred cats in a space no bigger than a garage. The constant barking and the occasional scuffle ending with a high pitched “tchank!” got to me a little initially, until I decided to try and see if there was another way to look at the situation. We played with some adorable puppies who somehow managed to splatter us with their poo through the fence and afterwards we walked through different gated sections that housed many types of dogs of all sizes, ages, breed and personality. Each section lead on to another and the place seemed to go on and on with an endless variety of abandoned dogs yapping with gay abandon. Right at the back were these old granpa dogs in one section together wheeze barking at us, all arthritic and one even had a moony white cataract. Finally I ended up in the cat “cage” on a deck chair with at least four cats on my lap at a time; one would disembark only for another to quickly take its place. I love both cats and dogs but I really connect with cats because they are more intelligent and complex (just like me!). They’re aloof and then affectionate and I love that they keep me guessing.
The place in its entirety also reminded me of a squatter camp. In the townships I’ve performed in I’ve seen humans living in worse conditions than the animals I saw today. At least the animal had food, shelter and people caring for them. I can see you thinking “SHEESH DUDE! Where’s the friggin silver lining already!” Well, I did notice that almost all the animals like the people I encountered in the poorest of areas seemed for the most part happy and friendly. I know that sounds weird but beside their visible need for affection most of the animals seemed quite content in their set of circumstances and I realized that any form of dissatisfaction or self-pity I could conjure would not stand up against what these animals are purring and wagging their tails through every day. I left the place energised by all the Love they showered on me without me having to qualify myself to them in anyway. They just gave it to me. No holds barred. It was inspiring this Gung-Ho no fear Love that they freely and easily extended to me. Many have probably known great pain from the human hand and yet they didn’t hesitate to lick mine.
According to my personal numerology for October I am having an 8 month in a 7 year. An 8 month is supposed to be a month in which hard work and dividends begin to pay off. 8 is about intelligent work, motivation and reaping the harvest of all the seeds planted in days gone by. So far this month has been just that. Clearing the clutter, deciding what I want and then getting down and dirty to make it happen. I realise more and more everyday that life is not so much about what is presented to me but more about how I choose to see it and what I then decide to do with it. I must choose every day what day I want to have and then, like an order from Mr. Delivery, it arrives, even though it does sometimes come a bit late. So my strategy for success is to think cunningly like a cat, work hard and loyally like a dog and Love unabashedly like a puppy. Thank you FORA I’m going to find a way to help you.
www.fora.org.za

Eekmotion

All of us live with our own little clutch bags of emotion. Some of us have clutch bags, others have tiny purses of emotion they can easily put away into their pockets out of the public eye and then there are those of us with huge duffle bags that we lug around wherever we go, hoping to check in our baggage somewhere en route to our various destinations. Eckart Tolle in his book 'The Power of Now' suggests that emotion is what keeps us living in the past or the future and robs us of the skill of living fully in the moment. In a casting or an audition for something that I really want my emotions will go from a manageable moonbag size to an industrial sized tin trunk in ten seconds flat if I don't manage to calm myself down. I often wrestle with my emotion but I am determined not to lose my sensitivity and ability to truly feel things in my life. Men (and nowadays even a lot of women) are encouraged to show no emotion. To be ruthless. Its cool to be cold. We try and numb ourselves with painkillers, cigarettes alcohol and other drugs but sure as the sun rises those raw nerve ending around our hearts appear in the morninglight throbbing and more demanding of our attention like ear ache in our hearts. Emotion is like Pepe LePhew the animated skunk. Pepe is besotted with a black female cat who due to a brush up with some white paint, he mistakes to be a female skunk and therefore his potential perfect match. We are like this cat he has mistaken for a possible mate. Wherever the cat runs and however far it gets or how many doors it locks behind it, Pepe is always right there behind her waiting to plant an opportunistic kiss on the unfortunate creature. She cannot escape him and his skunky stench and like the kitty we wake up after a night of numbing to the alarming odour of all of last nights left over and now off emotions. Emotion must be faced. Better to do it when its still relatively fresh. I suppose in this regard its a lot like taking out the trash. But your own more importantly than that of others. Emotionally I have been apprehensive about the same basic stuff: money, career, romance and relationships in general. I notice how prevailent it is in everyone around me. I go for dinner with two good friend who are a couple, after a few glasses of red wine they start squablling with each other and their fears and insecurities become layed bare on the restaurant table, but they're both tipsy and each so immersed in their own sea of emotion that they hardly notice one another as they plot their arguments. On a dancefloor the music is so loud and the lighting so erratic we are all forced into our own little worlds despite dancing within inches from one another. We all allow the music to dictate the rise and fall of our emotions as we search the smear of faces for love and recognition. Sometimes I'll sit in a dark movie house with mates and allow myself to be immersed in the story and give my tearducts a good flushing. Rarely in everyday life do I come in contact with those kinds of emotions and feelings within my interactions with other people in my life. Most of my emotion is kept in bags under my bed, only to be sorted in absolute privacy. When others parade or expose their emotions in front of me I am often left feeling alienated or angry. I have studied acting most of my life and nothing gets me more ruffled than crocodile tears. But even authentic raw emotion from someone that I don't know very well can make me want to hitchhike to the Himalayas. I withdraw in outbursts and drama and I wish others didn't rely on them so much for catharsis and stimulation. I trust my emotion to guide me towards the things that are right for me and away from the things that will harm me. But otherwise I see them as large boisterous dogs that need to be contained or else they will do damage to me and other peoples property. Often things said from emotion can be more troublesome than things said from careful thought. So when you see me and my clutch bag on the street don't ask me whats inside unless you're standing firmly on your feet cos heaven knows I probably wont want to know whats in yours.

SugarFatCaffeine

Sugar Fat Caffeine
Projections on a green screen
Supersize and lean
Enamel smiles of saccharine

Out the box obscene
Second-hand and gone green
The venue to be seen
Botox leather teen dream

But through the numb I know you feel
Under the plastic pure and real


It’s spring and there’s a lot of magic around. I’ve been working my ‘noombies’ off and doing wonderful things in artificial environments. Late nights in mock casino’s and long days under white rehearsal lights. It’s been amazing. I’ve worked with people I only dreamed of meeting and have been a part of a performance that I truly believe brought the rain. Magic.
Successive graveyard trips home with only petrol stations as supply depot detours and yet I have paced up and down those narrow aisles of ghost pops, nuts and fizzydrinks expecting to find something new. I never do.

At “Old Ed’s” Virgin active men’s locker room, there is an electric hand dryer between the basins and two of the toilet cubicles. Almost every time I walk past it the sensor detects me and it goes off like a jet engine, and every time I get the fright of my life. It’s only because I am completely in another world whenever I walk that way through to the showers. Yet I never seem able to remind myself to avoid it or not to be startled by it if it starts blowing.
I’m content.
I’m still not rich and famous and God knows I’m not enamoured with anybody in particular (more like a handful of people) but I feel good. Not in a manic kind of grinning cartoon sort of way. I’m still trading stock in frustration and getting ‘A’ grades for effort, but, I just seem to be enjoying my moments more.
I’m beginning to make peace with my apparent decision to follow what I Love in favour of what I may want (Blackberryboyfriendpicketfences).
I don’t really know what’s coming next but I’m very stimulated and my life is brimming with Love and affection. Everything else just seems unimportant all of a sudden. (Maybe that’s just because I’m about to get paid) Well, whatever this is I pray it lasts and that the magic that seems to have settled over my mind has staying power because I am filled with gratitude.

Man-ifesto.

Now that I have become a man, what is to become of me? I feel as though my boyhood is like an abandoned snake skin just, just behind me and I’ve been handed a new role to play. Now that I’m a man I must do manly things mustn’t I? I must be a brave, a big, strong protector. I must provide. Or can I just continue to cast my creative nets into the seemingly unyielding ocean that is this industry and hope to sustain myself ten, twenty or sixty years from now ? In other words: Is it time I got a ‘real’ job and stopped ‘mucking about.’
I started Speech and Drama as a child because my little (Little) brother had a lisp (now gone) and my mother asked if I wanted to join. I was the proverbial duck to water and when I turn around and wipe the Kryolan make-up out of my eyes I realise that despite the “sukkel” and the uncertainty, I have adored every projected utterance. I love to entertain. Strange that I have recently been feeling such pressure, having turned thirty, to suddenly produce the real estate with the white picket fence and the Toyota RAV in the garage. Do I really have to cash in my chips now? Have I been playing for long enough? God knows that I don’t want to but I feel bogged down by guilt and obligation. I’m not getting any younger and I don’t have any real assets to my name, whilst people I know and watched grow up are sitting pretty, high on top of gilded nest eggs. I’m also tired of being snubbed because my clothes are not new or expensive or feeling bad because some of the men I have dated can afford the finer things in life while I choke on my half of the dinner bill. Then there is also the ‘where to from here?’ As an actor or entertainer in South Africa, are the greatest aspirations and long term goals I can have, to be a feature on a soapy or the lead in consecutive musicals? There must be more to my life. There must be more for all of us. What though I don’t know. One thing this lifestyle does afford is time to think (when you’re in-between gigs) so I have been doing a lot of it because it passes the time and is free. There are a few corporate type jobs that may be on offer, if I play my cards right, but I can’t help wonder if it would just be giving up the ‘goose’. Or would a steady income and responsibilities provide me with a ‘golden goose’? I am sure though, that if my income continues to be so erratic then my ‘goose’ is ‘cooked’. I’m unsure about just about everything else.
Also, now that I am a man, I am finally getting attention from other men (I’ve always liked guys in their thirties who’ve only recently returned the favour) and though they now seem attracted and give me the eye brow shuffle, they seem to shy away or disappear once they realise how inconsistent my finances are. To be honest I don’t blame them. Dating any artist in a recession mean that you are either stupid, besotted or he looks like an Abercrombie model. Fun, but not necessarily a good idea. Since my last blog I have been reminded of two friends of mine who have been in a loving monogamous, that’s right, I repeat: MONOGOMOUS, gay relationship for eleven years. One is corporate and the other creative and so I am starting to believe that there are no hard and fast rules. Things are generally a less flattering shade of grey. There are people who need to constantly upgrade their lovers like cell phones, there are people that are committed. There are artists that make plenty money and there are loads of poor people doing kak jobs they hate. Some people can and some people can’t. Some people will and others won’t, but I just need to figure out which of those people I want to be (Even if it changes from time to time.)

Saving Yourself.

Quite a few people that I know believe that you give a part of yourself to every person that you sleep with. Now I’m not just talking about the usual saliva and skin cell exchange, they believe that you leave a part of your “spiritual essence” with every person that you are physically intimate with. Well, if that is the case then many of us are scattered far and wide like rainbow coloured shards of glass at the bottom of a very vast kaleidoscope (It makes sense if you consider all the mirrors and mirror-balls in gay clubs). I am probably the last person to advocate abstinence. With regards to most things I consider life to be like a “buffet” and I have queued with the best of them to sample a taste of everything on offer. It’s been fabulous. Until about nine months ago. I haven’t lost my appetite I just haven’t found a decent meal and I’m tired of junk food.
Originally I wanted to write a blog celebrating all the “singular sensations” that I know. I have become aware of how many gorgeous, creative, intelligent and sexy single people there are out there and I wanted to write something acknowledging them, thereby comforting and acknowledging myself. I was going to gush but, something about the content didn’t seem to sit authentically with me because I kept putting it off. There are loads of hot, clever, single people and there are also loads of scary, “Hildegard”, stupid people that have been happily involved with a significant other for years. There are also single “ugly stupids” and involved “pretty clevers” of course. It appears to be random, like being born with a tongue that can fold into a tube, or one that, despite working well in the tasting and blowing “raspberries” department, cannot. Being single does not equate being a failure or an inability to be attractive. It is merely what it is: being single.
Sex is something that involves both ‘single’ and ‘involved’ people and is in my experience something to be enjoyed most frequently by some of the ‘single’ people I know. I’m not exactly sure that I have left a part of my “being” with every person that I have had sex with like one would a sock, a cap or a pair of sunglasses, but, I do feel that there is no such thing as “no strings attached” sex, not for me anyway. It always means something in some way and every action has a repercussion. On one occasion it may leave you feeling sexy confident and grinning as you “mince” through a mall with your newly reinforced ego. On another it may leave you feeling inadequate, isolated and yoked with regret. It is no longer something that I feel that I can take lightly and although I have been charitable, has never been something that I have been able to dispense too generously. I realise now that, to me, sex is too important an expression for that.
I am by no means a monk; I am far too promiscuous with religion for that! (Buffet again) it’s just; I am beginning to think that (for the umpteenth time) Madonna had a point. “Like a virgin, touched for the very first time.” this from a woman who had previously marketed herself as a sexual ‘libertine’. From “the whore of Babylon” she repackaged herself as “the Virgin”. I think she did this for the purity and the clarity that this title would afford. Going around smearing yourself off on people must get a little emotionally untidy after a while.
A laser beam is potent because it is concentrated light focused on a specific spot. Diffused and general light does not have the same efficacy although it is very illuminating. If I try to shed light on everything I encounter I will become more aware of my surroundings as my light bounces off everything, but I will never have the potency to be able to truly penetrate anything. I think sex is a bit like that, and not just when it comes to the ‘penetrate’ part.
Sex is easy and available yet, I hope it has the potential to be more than just a mutual body function. I have never been of the opinion that it is overrated. Sex has killed and conquered thousands of brave and wise souls. There must be more to it than procreation or in our case recreation. I wonder if it is perhaps something worthwhile waiting for after the initial discovery and experimentation has ended. Do we ever stop experimenting and discovering? Two of the longest and most successful gay relationships I have encountered have been ‘open’ relationships. But why does that fact leave me with a dull ache in my gut? Maybe my massive actors’ ego doesn’t like the idea of someone I love getting sexual satisfaction from another soul. Am I deluded by thinking I can be the sole source of all that special man may want or need, sexually? Maybe I just don’t know enough monogamous and happy long term gay couples. I’m not sure.
I know that life is short, but I’d really like the next person to be someone I have a meaningful connection with. Not just someone who has the right look or ‘bad boy’ quality. Delayed gratification seems to be a recipe for many types of achievement, perhaps in this matter too. But then again the loins can roar like lions. I wonder if I can make them tame.