Intro

A year or so after writing the original intro to this blog I find myself in somewhat different circumstances. Having finished my studies in 2011, procrastination is no longer the driving factor behind my pieces. As it turns out, I have joined 3 friends from varsity, two of which left London last July, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for a trip home of a slightly different kind. A trip that allows me the luxury of not giving a continental about the fuel price but more about the direction of the wind and the gradient of the road as we endeavour to cycle back home to the city we all met, Cape Town . When time, money and UN's most recently added human right, internet access, is available I will be spending my time turning random notes, scribbles and possibly illustrations fit only for display in the age 5-7 category at the Bathurst Show in my leather-bound journal into readable content of varying natures. I'll do this to satisfy my own need to write crap as well as to ensure that memories made are never forgotten, much like the memories never remembered every weekend in my undergrad stint at UCT. If it turns out people read this and enjoy it...epic! My fellow adventurers can be followed on TomAndMattCycle.com and Along4TheCycle.blogspot.com.



Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Gym Class Heroes

If you know or need to know one thing about me, apart from the fact that I hail from the glorious Republic of The Eastern Cape, it is that I am utterly obsessed with sport. I am an armchair sportsman of note, excelling at casual banter in Cricket, Football and Rugby while scraping a standard grade pass in Tennis, Golf and Rhythmic Gymnastics. Without ever being particularly good at one sport, I’ve always involved myself in as many different sporting codes as possible, apart from the sports that involve water. Since the day that my sister’s friend (who is three years my junior) had to swim out to sea with a boogie-board so that I could float to safety while my little cousin of about 8 managed to swim back to shore with relative ease, I have stayed well clear of water in which I cannot stand. I was 14.
Sport acts as both my primary means of entertainment as well as my method of avoiding a repeat of those awkwardly chubby years of early high school. When the exam period hits, the internal UCT leagues tend to shut up shop. The lack of organized sport, along with my almost-negligent concentration span leads me to spending my numerous study breaks arbing around the house annoying my digs mates to such an extent that I actually start to annoy myself.
After a brainstorming session that accompanied making a study timetable, filing all my loose papers, cleaning my room, buying stationery, and making another study timetable in preparation for commencing my actual studies, I came up with a few solutions to the conundrum at hand:
         i.            Walking: this means of ‘exercise’ is as much a form of exercise as chess is a sport. Chess is not a sport.
       ii.            Running: living right next to the Rondebosch Common may sound like an ideal location from which to start a run, but a lap of the Common is barely 2.5km and no matter how much I try coax myself into multiple laps the thought of repeating what I have just done and not receiving any kind of medal seems as enticing as rewriting an Auditing exam.
      iii.            Cycling: driving a car on the Cape Town roads places you in harm’s way as it is. Cyclists are less of a challenge to the head-mental taxi drivers that plague our streets (and pavements) than the dead mosquitoes splattered on my digs walls were to me.
     iv.             Swimming: glug, glug, glug.
       v.            Gym
It has taken me four years of varsity and a number of heavily under-utilised gym contracts to finally get me visiting the gym with some form of consistency. A lack of self-discipline and pure dread for the embarrassment posed by an attempt on the heavy machinery had kept me at bay prior to me launching a fresh assault on getting my money’s worth from a new Virgin Active contract.
A month or so later and my reasonably recurrent visits have seen some form of progress from the pathetic, fairy-like knee rehabilitation exercises, through the rowing machines and the circuit and eventually even branching out into a lesson on how to use the stick weights from my rugby playing digs mate (and Tim Whitehead… just saying). Despite the obvious satisfaction of a decent workout, there is still no doubt that one of my favourite parts of a gym session is taking notice of the many different types of people within this gym of gyms:
1.       The Looker: An obvious place to start. These ladies are generally on the treadmills or the stepping machines not too far away. Their sheer presence makes the many TV’s in that area of the gym completely unnecessary and wearing specs while on the spinning bikes absolutely imperative.  For the lads with game the gym provides a pivotal scouting platform, while the guys on the unlucky end of the game-scale at least have their evening showers made that much more interesting.
2.       The Long Term plan: Not unlike the philosophy of Barney Stinson from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ (I just bumped into her this one time at Forries if you were wondering. I was drunk, she was keen…-15 points) some real rough diamonds can be found in the gym. If you’ve got the scouting ability of Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger you might find yourself at the beginning of a fruitful five-year plan. If not, everyone’s allowed at least one chubby chick in their lifetime!
3.       The Insignific*nts : Schoolboys. The star denotes a vowel that is not an ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘o’. These ‘buggers’ are truly too cool for school so they hang around with the grown-ups in large groups while chasing tail and feasting their eyes on the treats on display. To their credit, a lot of them adorn their Speedos and head straight to the pool, the one place in the gym I try stay farthest from at all times.
4.       The Cardio Man: This guy has it sorted. No matter what his reasons may be, the real reason he spends 45 minutes on the bike is because he is perfectly situated directly in between the treadmills and the step machine things, and if he hasn’t been forced to take up the bike next to a man in full cycling gear pitting more than a pregnant nun, the belter on the bike next door is just an added bonus to the view.
5.       Boet: Need I say more? “I’m really dedicated to my gym, Mondays to Fridays at least”, says the buff chop while he walks, not unlike a 3-year-old with water wings on (or 14 in my case), past every single mirror in the gym flexing his triceps, biceps and whatever other –ceps he has that you don’t.
6.       The Naked Old Man: I want to say that these beauts are my favourites, but that would lead you to question my sexuality and I’d rather like to avoid the debates we have about our Tax lecturer every time he cocks his wrist, leans back and wafts on in a particularly un-manly-like voice about Capital Gains. Back to the naked old man. This wrinkled, old specimen is only ever located in the change-room. Whether he be in the sauna, on his way to the shower, or having a fat chat about the weekends round of bowls with his old friend Trevor, a mere 30cm away from him, the dear old grandfather is always completely starkers, except for maybe a towel around his neck. His wife Margaret probably gives him a disapproving look of such disdain every time he drops his rods at home that the gym is the only place he can get into his birthday suit.

So next time you go to the gym, take a second from your strenuous workout to feast your eyes upon the Lookers while keeping your eyes peeled for the Long-Term Plans, ignore the Ignsignific*nts, admire the cunning of the Cardio Man, laugh at the Boet and just let the Naked Old Man have his glory. After all, without his blue pill he doesn’t get it in the morning anymore.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Mother Game

Many a theory has been proposed as to what the key to a woman’s heart is. In the film, Finding Forrester, Sean Connery says: “the key to a woman’s heart is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time”. James Bond just got less cool. The afore-mentioned gifts vary within a very limited range from chocolates and flowers to teddy bears and diamonds. Other pathetic, fluffy phrases like ‘making her feel beautiful’ and the like are bandied about as possible alternatives to the cliché presents. In my many years spent living rather than searching for this key,  I may have stumbled upon a plausible alternative to selling your soul with dismally soppy Facebook wall posts documenting your undying love for your “better half” of 3 weeks, 4 days and 15 hours. I call it ‘Mother Game’.
Mother Game is the art of making a positive and lasting impression on mothers. The necessity for Mother Game arises from the two primary characteristics of the mother. The first of these is the tendency for a mother to take more interest in their child’s love life than they do in their weekly dose of Binnelanders. Accompanying this, there is absolutely no form of secrecy vow that will stop a mother from blabbing absolutely everything about their dearest child to anyone within earshot.  On the end of this line of book-club gossip and motherly advice may be an absolute babe. By this stage in the gossip chain, the reference to you in casual chit-chatter may have inflated from ‘nice guy’ to ‘ideal boyfriend’, your image from plain old you to James Dean and the recommendation from a mild approval to outright insistence.
Before I get cracking on the topic at hand, I must point out two glaringly obvious flaws with this piece. First is the basic premise of the article. As chauvinistic and crude as this may sound, ladies, there is no doubting the fact that your heart is the last part of you that the lad chatting you up at the Tiger shooter bar was trying to access. That said, there are guys out there who just want to get to know the real you. They are gay.
The second issue that casts tremendous doubt over the validity of this content is the fact that my game is as bad as Paris Hilton’s acting, singing and general knowledge combined. Having said that, I do feel I am in possession of this rather unique attribute and potentially highly effective weapon and feel it only fair that I share my insights, so here it goes:
·         Mothers love a well mannered fellow, just never over-do it. No one likes the chop trying too hard to impress. 2 points.
·         Don’t focus completely on the mother. Show off your manliness by talking sport with the old man. Don’t mention chess; that’s not a sport. The reason for this is that, unless the mother in question loathes her husband and spends the hours she’s claiming to go to the gym nailing his best friend and financial advisor, she probably digs him, so her seeing that the two of you have things in common can’t hurt. 3-5 points.
·         Never turn down a beer for a coke. Grow a pair. Encourage as much drinking as possible and always offer to fill up the mother’s drink when it starts to get low. 5 points.
·         Once she starts getting rosy-cheeked bring out the old-school music classics and swing her around on the dance floor a couple of times.  7 points.
·         Don’t lunge. That would be horribly awkward. -15 points.
Add your points tally, double it, subtract 2, and double it again. Anything over 55 will do (Accounts 3 is getting to me).
Do this, my son, and mothers will dig your vibe. Admittedly, and not at all surprisingly given my track record, none of the above tips have helped me get anywhere with the ever-complex female specimen. Nevertheless, following in the footsteps of most our lecturers whose voices we use as a natural alternative to sleeping pills: if you can’t do, teach.

They tried to make me go to rehab, I said “no, no, OK fine”

“They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no!” Singing Amy Winehouse’s greatest ‘treffer’ every time Herschelle Gibbs got near a raucous bunch of 30-something Warriors fans at Newlands was definitely a highlight of an evening that included running away from security guards, being officially warned for ‘hate’ speech (brandishing a placard reading “Worst Proteas ever – Justin Ontong and Vernon Philander”), and another Warriors victory. Apparently it’s hate speech even if it’s true.
 Why I ended up in a psychiatric clinic (a fair colloquial synonym would be rehab) is a story far too deep for me to type and you to care, so we’ll leave it at that. However, for those who feel a supporting story is necessary, think: ‘mainlining’, ‘Vicodin’, ‘dopping’ and ‘lank’ and let your imagination run wild. Then double it.
The clinic I found myself in was conveniently situated in East London. Convenient because even sharing a room with an ex-policeman named Vusi from Alice who flatly refused to change into anything bar his blue overall and Jesus sandals seemed more enticing then venturing into the boring drone that is the rest of the city. Occupants of this Eastern Cape metropolis will counter with a defense weaker than that of a centre pairing comprising Naas Botha and Mike Catt with one single word: ‘Numbers’. After that they slowly fade off with a mismatched grouping of barely audible murmurs including ‘beach’, ‘Selborne’, and ‘bru’.
After surrendering my shoe-laces and all sharp implements, I was shown to my room where I was to spend 5 days and nights. Initially this seemed a plausible alternative to going to varsity and failing another Accounts test, but my first encounter with a fellow patient (a distressed deaf woman screaming at a nurse in incoherent noises) left me more terrified than the day I arrived at the Afrikaans pre-school at which I spent three years of my childhood (it’s awkward, I failed). Thankfully, being relatively sane, I managed to work my way out of spending the evenings at the clinic and spent them instead at a B&B with my folks, shoelaces in place.
The three days I ended up spending at the clinic could be described using a number of unfavourable adjectives. Three group therapy sessions a day all kicked off with a routine straight out of a movie: “Hi, my name is Richard and I have a drinking problem”. Most people are more surprised that I have a first name.  My self-description didn’t start out being so pin-point. I tried to be much more subtle about it and say things like “sometimes I drink too much and black-out”, but just didn’t have the gees to argue my point with the all-wise Indian lady in charge and in the company of people who frowned upon the insignificance of my issues.
After two nights and three days my parents realized I had had the shit sufficiently scared out of me and agreed with my argument of needing to get back to my normal varsity life, less the lank jolling. Apart from my gloriously boring group therapy I also had a couple of casual chit-chat sessions with the head psychiatrist. These proved to be far more beneficial than listening to how a lady (not particularly dissimilar looking to the one who begs at the Mowbray Shoprite) progressed from one glass of wine a night to two or three bottles, this after her second stint at the clinic.
My head doctor explained that I had an anxiety issue which had built up over time due to various factors and lead to a depressive breakdown. Not recommended. The drinking became a problem as it was my self-discovered remedy to social anxiety, and once I got going the little angel on my shoulder was having such a fat jol with me that he almost always forgot to tell me to slow down. I won’t lie to you, this lead to some rather interesting events, most of which I don’t remember. Waking up in Zoology 1 lecture theatre was a particular highlight, Stellenbosch medi-clinic not so much.
Life is slightly different now. The cane has had to take a backseat for Castle Light, and the girls in Tiger look half as good as they used to. As one should, I suppose, I took a couple of things out of the whole episode.
·         Time your blow-outs: waking up in hospital a day after being stripped of your phone and wallet while passed out next to Terrace is not easy to explain to the parents.
·         If Christmas isn’t proving sufficiently fruitful, your parents tend to be really generous when you finish your stint.
·         Rehab is boring and crap. East London is worse.
·         No matter how bad your issues may be, there are people with much bigger problems.
And finally, because I’m not sure if my High School English teacher will be happy with me finishing on a bullet point; if there are things that need to be said and done in your life, say them. Do them. Deep.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Awesome Night, Awkward Morning

It’s fantastically ironic how forgettable an “unforgettable” night can be. I’ve dragged my dignity through student life by using my life motto as a defence for any misguided or borderline inappropriate behaviour: “If you don’t remember it, it didn’t happen”.

Although this may stand true after being picked up off the Tin Roof floor and lunged by a female with the build of Serena Williams, or attempting to run to Claremont on the M3 from a 21st in Constantia, there are times that you have to accept that the previous night actually did happen.

One of these nights occurred last year in March; early on in the year when having a 21st every Friday and Saturday night is still a novelty. You can gauge just how big your night is going to be by the inappropriateness of your attire. At this 21st at the Tennis Club, the theme was WWE Gladiators. I squeezed into a luminous green, age-7 leotard. Unfortunately, such was the testicular discomfort the previous time I’d worn it, I had cut the leotard at the crotch, leaving me with a tight fitting ‘beater barely reaching my belly button to accompany my rugby shorts. My recollection of the 21st sadly faded away soon after a few too many down-downs of the strong yet subtle punch.

One of the most interesting things about a big night out is spending the following few days piecing back the blurry puzzle that lead to you waking up in bed, on the bathroom floor, at a ‘friend’s’ house, on an unknown patio couch or maybe even in Zoology 1 Lecture Theatre, as was the case on this occasion.

A tap on the shoulder woke me up from a somewhat familiar sleeping position: head atop folded arms while sitting at a desk. Familiar because that is the exact position that I spent most of my 9 o’clock Accounts lectures in. What made the situation a bit surreal, and far too complex for my still-intoxicated mind to grasp hold of, was that I was in the same venue that my Accounts lecture actually took place. The late-twenties male that brought me back to consciousness told me matter-of-factly that I was in the wrong place while his disturbed-looking female companion looked on from a safe distance. Once I had gathered my bearings I was almost as surprised to figure out that I was in a lecture theatre as I was to realise that my shorts and shoes were nowhere to be seen.

I raced out of the lecture theatre to avoid the judging eyes before assessing my situation. I was marooned on campus wearing Y-front jocks and a tiny leotard. On top of this, I was without my I.D., home keys and wallet. Fortunately it was early on a Saturday morning meaning most people would be curled up in bed unconsciously dreading the oncoming hangover. Also to my advantage was the fact that I lived nearby and still had a fair amount of Dutch courage left from the previous night’s consumption to counter the embarrassment.

The walk down Woolsack drive was definitely not your typical 6am stroll. Drivers by hooted at the sight I presented, whether they were disgusted, amused or sympathetic I will never know. Nearing home, I ripped a placard off a street pole, not to cover my snow white upper thighs, but as a souvenir of an interesting and rather unique morning. The poster was advertising an Athol Fugard play, aptly named ‘Coming Home’.

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