Opening

Some things in life you need to do alone. This was not one of those things. There were long lonely hours on occasion, grappling ideas early hours of the morning. But most of the time I had someone holding my hand or kicking my ass when I needed it most. A week ago today I opened my show LITTLE POOF! And I feel that I cannot even really refer to it as something that is mine when there have been so many other hands and voices involved in its creation. Like my show I feel I have experienced a great opening. But let me share some of the days and weeks building up to last Wednesday:

There was a brick where my stomach should’ve been and because the brick took up so much space there was hardly any room for one of my favourite things on earth; food. I constantly had to talk nicely to myself and ease myself down to a mild panic. At times I felt like I was gripping the reigns of a bucking wild horse that wanted to cause me more harm than mistaking my finger for a carrot. This horse kicked and flailed and although it wasn’t really a talking horse its eyes said: “Who do you think you are? How dare you do this to me?” I have no idea how I managed to break that particular horse in. I was struggling to sleep and soon the days were beginning to take on a sheeny haze like I was staring at everything with my head on the floor watching the hot tarmac warp everything above it. Deep breaths…deep breaths....Oh my God! What the hell was I thinking!! Just me, Cath and a piano! I had nowhere to hide, for an hour, so up close and personal. All these analytical eyes at arm’s reach.
I borrowed a chunk of money from my beloved, benevolent little brother and proceeded to chew my pillow with the back of my head for weeks worrying that the show would not earn enough to pay him back. What if everyone hates it? What if it’s only funny to me? After taking a month off writing to do Sponge Bob the musical I returned to a script that suddenly seemed juvenile, bland and completely inadequate. My other internal organs began to chew on the brick. Then the firm guidance and warm sunshine of my director Neels Clasen and the constant earthy support and litres of tea from my musical director Cathrine Hopkins lifted me under my arms as though I were a child on the floor and things began to take shape. I evolved slowly from fear to faith, then from faith to confidence and then from confidence to sheer excitement to share what we had made with an audience.
Zietsies is an amazing venue and once we moved in there for the last week of rehearsals the fantastic view over Johannesburg helped give me a visual of what it was I was trying to do. I was announcing: “Hi Joburg, look at me! I love you! If you gimme a break you may just grow to love me too.”
Elzabe (the owner and a powerful and accomplished performer in her own right) and her sister Retha were warm and helpful from the start and I hope to keep them both in my life beyond this production. Before the show high on adrenaline Cath and I have bent poor Retha’s ear off many times and she smiles warmly and goes about her sewing and arranging things for the venue. It’s a cabaret space and a guesthouse but mostly it’s a home. Some nights there is extra food and Cath and I are in our element. The food is so good it even dissolves stubborn bricks!
Finally opening night emerged like a great white fin in a paddle pool and after all the stress and fear I was now just eager to get it over with. Next thing I knew Elzabe had announced us and I watched in horror as Cath stepped out to bow and greet the audience and then take her place at the piano. I fantasized about bolting up the stairs and never being seen again. But I could feel all the Love from inside the glass bubble of the dining room and instead I marched in and clung to my clothes rail, steadied myself and on Cath’s cue I began to sing. At first it was a bit shaky but it settled and became more rooted and suddenly I was having fun. Most of the time I was in my own world but every now and then I would emerge to see a close friend or family member laughing from their gut or wiping away a sad tear. Strangely, I remember thinking I was probably dreaming because they were reacting better than I had ever imagined they would. I took a journey and over 30 people took it with me that night. By the end of the opening night we had already sold enough tickets to cover the loan I had taken from my brother (Retha was responding to e-mails for bookings that were still coming through at 9pm that night!)
Since then we have enjoyed full houses and standing ovations every night and although it is still early days I am grateful from the very source of my being. The relief of opening night was so mammoth that I came down with a strange virus (still unidentified) that caused me to sleep straight through the two nights and a day I had off until beginning my next week of shows tonight. I have almost completely recovered and the adrenaline of tonight’s show seemed to have given me a clean bill of health. Most of the tickets sold so far have been people who don"t even know me, and if atleast half of my mates come to see the show we will have to extend or do another run it's wonderful!

Tigger, Tanz, Mom, Si, Cath, Neels, Elly, Wim, Amalanka, Gerrit, Elzabe, Retha, Hopkins family, Collett, Luiz, Bruce W, Coenie K, Sonia, Peter, Sean, Tess, Nicci, everyone on Facebook and many more people... thank you all for the roles you’ve played in this amazing experience. I’m not counting my chickens. I’m merely sharing my gratitude at this point of the journey. I am fully aware that I am still flat broke and am not sure what the Universe has in store for me beyond the end of this run but I am feeling very optimistic nonetheless.
Irrespective of what the future holds I am so thankful for every helping hand and every ticket sold, but I can’t help being a “Little” excited about it too.
So much Love.
Little Poof!

Venture

For the past few weeks I have been preparing a show called Little Poof! It's a collection of monologues from different characters from different walks on life that share their perspectives on Queer life in South Africa. I open in four days. It's difficult for me to describe what this process has been like for me. First of all if it wasn't for my brilliant director and my phenomenal musical director and close friend Cath I would have run in front of a taxi ages ago. They, together with my amazing family (especially my brother!) , have made this an experience I can proudly say I am just coping with. Getting up one day and going about making your own show is impossible without the help and constant Love and support of those dear to you, but it is the wrestling with myself that I had not quite bargained with. I realise now that I make a formidable opponent. Most mornings I wake up sport a thong, and heavily douse myself in baby oil. I then step into a slippery ring to face my own image and some tricky toussling then ensues. I'm a sneaky and dexterous wrestling partner and most nights I collapse in a heap of exhaustion. The underhanded tactics employed by my opponent involve whispering things into my ears that attempt to scramble my mind and tremble my heart. Chants like: "what makes you think you can do this?" And "you don't have what it takes, you're going to humiliate yourself.". Then I'll have a kick ass rehearsal that leaves champagne bubbles in my heart which gives me the upper hand to get my bitchy "little" foe in a headlock. Self doubt is rife! It's a plague amongst most of my loved ones. We find it necessary to send ourselves home as the weakest link long before anybody else could have the desire. But I realise that I should in fact be the guy in my own corner, my own pink pom pom thrusting cheerleader waiting to do cartwheels from behind the wings. Rather than my own judge and jury. There are some aspects of this process that have facilitated a few of the loneliest moments of my life, but in the same breath, never before have so many people selflessly come forward to lend a hand and demonstrate their faith in me. I can't wait to perform for you, to demonstrate my gratitude. Also I cannot wait to get up there for my own face off with my shadow and really get to test the sureness of my footing again. Worst case scenario is that I fall on my ass, but even that has entertainment value and should get a laugh.

It's frightening to be the captain of your own ship. It's been easier for me to be one of the crew in so many other instances. Now there is noone to blame if I should styeer myself to crash among the rocks. But then again I may also be the only one qualified to steer my vessel to Shangri-la. I guess that's what adventure is all about. Once this big venture is completed I am already planning my next great big expedition. One that should take me out across the roughest seas of all, The oceans of the heart. But for that one I'll have to find me the right first mate to man the deck with me. And that is no light recruitment task. But for now I will paddle this canoe on it's set path to centrestage sharing my thoughts with a (hopefully) appreciative audience, and who knows maybe I can kill two birds with one stone? Perhaps all this attention will attract the right crew member to assist me casting off on my next great adventure. There's a naughty nautical thought. Ships ahoy!

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.