I usually steer clear of commenting on current events and political issues, as I tend to be as articulate and insightful as a damp piece of Rooikrans braai wood. The recent "Xenophobia Mania" however, compels me to comment.

Taking in the various newspaper reports, television coverage and the opinions of various old people I encounter on a daily basis, my feeling is this - the attacks seem to stem largely from a faction of sheep and opportunists, rather than blatant "xenophobes".

I think it's obvious that this is primarily a socioeconomic issue, combining years of unemployment, frustration and general unhappiness at the back of basic service delivery, which then boiled over into the situation we have now. But I think the target of the people's hatred could have been anyone at the time - from fat or obese people (they always seem to have money to feed themselves. Let's f*ck 'em), to people who drive cars (where did they get the money? Let's f*ck 'em)

In this instance, it was the foreigners of Alexandra, who were the scapegoats and this then created a domino effect. South Africans, by their very nature, are sheep. It merely takes a few strong-willed and persuasive individuals to successfully influence the masses - how else does one explain the musical career of Danny K?


A Typical South African - And A Danny K Fan?

So suddenly we have flare-ups occurring all over the country, as people seemingly believe that foreigners are "taking their jobs", "their houses" and "their women". Added to this "sheep factor", are the blatant opportunists who see the, well, opportunity to enrich themselves through looting of shops and outright robbery.

Basically what I'm saying is this, I don't believe these attacks are directly due to xenophobic hate crimes. I think this is primarily due to sheep and lazy opportunists.


An Angry Mob - About To Attack A Zimbabwean.

That's my 50c. Now f**k off and leave me alone, I'm busy today.

No I'm kidding. Sorry for swearing.

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Saturday mornings will usually find me lying on top of The Girlfriend, trying to seduce her with rose petals on the bedroom floor, and roofies in her tea. On this particular Saturday though, her muffled voice alerted me to two things; firstly, that I should stop stealing the roses from the local cemetery, as the pesticides they use there causes The Girlfriend's tongue to swell up, and she struggles to speak.

More importantly however, it was probably time to shave my chest hairs, as the thriving eco system I had been nurturing there was beginning to suffocate her, as well as giving her horrible hair burn.

Male grooming has always been pretty low down on my list of priorities, usually lumped together with my other seldomly used activities - such as haiku writing, falconry and showering. Nevertheless, I had noticed that my body hair was beginning to become a problem. Earlier that week, I had been shot with a tranquilisor by a conservationist, who assumed I was an orang-utan who had somehow managed to put on a pair of bootleg jeans, and was walking around Long Street, looking for bananas and other orang-utans to have sex with. I also kept getting mistaken for a werewolf, and was quite aware of the funny vibe my friends gave me whenever a full moon lit up the night sky.

Being a hairy Neanderthal, I was thus not familiar with the protocols involved and so decided to make use of this "Google" thing I keep hearing so much about, and read up on male grooming procedures, which I now know involves the following:

Facial Hair - The well groomed man is a clean shaven man, with a face as smooth as the underside of my foot. I have always been a big fan of stubble as I think it makes me look manly and rugged, like George Michael, or the various male hairstylists who work at Partners Hair Salon. Strangely enough, many women disagree with this sentiment and do not enjoy the rough, sandpaper-like texture that stubble offers. Apparently this can also cause adverse skin reactions for many women, which probably explains why The Girlfriend regularly gets that rash on her inner thighs.

Chest Hair - It seems the vibe with chest hair is not dissimilar to the old Vagina Rule, namely - a little fluff is okay, but an unkempt jungle is completely out of the question. Basically, if you find yourself using Head and Shoulders because of that annoying dandruff problem on your chest, there's probably a good chance that you need to whip out the old trimmers.

Skin - The days of soap and water, with a dab of Jameson behind the ears, are long over. These days, most men cleanse, tone and moisturise. Apparently, one should also use night creams for when you're sleeping, as well as skin replenisher for those crow's feet and ageing effects of the sun. My skin usually resembles thick cow's hide, the creased and worn leather found on the belts of grizzled sailors and unnamed henchmen in B-grade action movies starring Don "The Dragon" Wilson.

Nails - I love having long nails, just as much as I love picking my nose, and cleaning out the gunk that forms between my toes during a long week. Having long nails means I can really get in there, but of course this is also frowned upon, and so your cuticles should always be kept clean and short. The same applies to toenails of course. I was shocked to discover I actually wear a size 8 shoe, rather than my usual size 10, after undergoing a pedicure, and having my yellowed talons clipped. Now it's off to the shops for new loafers.

So that's just a brief breakdown on the basics. I could have gone into more detail, but I felt I already wrote quite a bit and didn't want to scare you off with a long and drawn out thesis, Paying attention to the four key issues I brought up should ensure that you will look reasonably presentable, whilst greatly reducing the chances of you being shunned by the general public.

You can thank me in the morning.

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This morning found me waking up with an interesting flavour on my tongue - the unmistakable taste of feral cat wee. This could either mean that a great celebration was had the previous night, or that a wild feline somehow slipped into The HQ and really did urinate in my mouth.

Seeing as that it was the great 23rd Birthday yesterday, we will go with the former. Or is it the latter? Christ, I just don't know anymore, I used to be able to explain the difference between the former and the latter, but now I can't. It's really embarrassing as that used to be a favourite dinner party trick of mine, together with explaining the difference between irony and coincidence, and making farting noises with my mouth.

Anyhoo, the point I'm trying to make is that I don't think it was a cat, I'm pretty sure my fresh breathe and sunny disposition is due to the increasing familiarity I developed with a certain Fish Eagle Brandy the night before, who I spent quite some time socialising with at Cape to Cuba's Cigar Bar.

I never knew Cape to Cuba in Long Street had a Cigar Bar section, but I do now, because I was there last night. It's spacious and inviting, and resembles a large study, with leather bound books and shelves that smell of rich mahogany. The couches are deliberately old looking ( I think) and the whole place gives off quite the little Cuban vibe, which is ironic (coincidence?) as the place IS in fact a Cuban establishment.

The Cigar Bar section was also much livelier than the restaurant in the front, which wasn't full at all. In fact, I would suggest ditching the whole restaurant vibe and just chilling at the bar section, which could well become a permanent Monday night fixture for the Cape Town cool people.

So anyway, as mentioned, I'm not in the greatest of spirits right now, so will just keep this short, as I'm feeling quite grumpy and don't feel like hurting anyone else today. Who did I hurt?

Well let me tell you - this morning, whilst trying to remember where I parked my car, a guy with a luminous yellow bib suddenly appeared out of nowhere, in a puff of sweet-smelling smoke.

"Jesus Hernandez, where the f*ck did you come from?" I shrieked in a lady-like manner, as the brightness of his yellow vest caught me off guard, and left me feeling both uneasy as well as slightly depressed, as "Yellow" had been the name of my first imaginary dog, who had died of old age many years before.
.
"Yes boss, my name is Jesus," he said smugly "and I would like a R5 for watching your car."

I didn't have a R5, and I wouldn't have given him one anyway, as I lived there and didn't see the need to pay him so that he could watch someone casually walk off with my car radio, as I already have ADT for that. Instead, I decided to bite his head off, as he pissed me off with that remark about being Jesus, and if there's one thing I hate more than over-eager car guards, it's over-eager car guards who claim to be the Messiah. He had quite a small head, so I was able to get a good mouthful, but I did feel some empathy for him thereafter, as he couldn't really see very well after that, and people started slipping passed him and sneaking into their cars without him noticing.

So that's kind of been my day thus far. I don't really know why I shared that last bit with you, it really made no sense in the greater scheme of things. In fact, let's not tell anyone else about that then, shall we?

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It's Shaun's birthday again, and instead of having to come up with something new, why not just rehash last year's post? And so we have.

Yes, who would have thought on that dark and stormy night all those years ago (21 to be exact, give or take a year or two) that I would be here today, writing about that dark and stormy night, all those years ago. The years have certainly been kind to me, as my photo archive below will surely attest to. Some have put it down to very good genes, others to my uber (without the "kappies") healthy lifestyle, while a knowledgeable few even may point to the fact that I bathe daily in fresh goat's milk, which I source from the three goats who live in the storeroom at The HQ.

I was in a nostalgic and reflective state the last few days, and so dusted off the old photo album and put a few pics up on the net, showing my dramatic metamorphosis from little boy to slightly effeminate man.



A 12 year old Shaun, looking fresh-faced and innocent. He has just learnt to throw like a man, and is beginning to grow facial hair.


A 14 year old Shaun, looking less naive and more world weary. By this stage he has now mastered the art of peeing while standing, but has unfortunately lost the ability to throw like a man, showing the rather disturbing trait of throwing like a 72 year old woman instead.


A 18 year old Shaun, looking more manly now, with his ruggedly handsome features beginning to shine through. Still throwing like a 72 year old woman, but has now discovered the joy of gymming, developing biceps the size of Mossel Bay. At this juncture he has also had his first kiss - a 15 year old Belgian prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.


A 21 year old Shaun, looking like the rough-around-the edge, slightly dangerous and crazy guy everyone has come to know and love. His hair is soft and sleek like cotton, his biceps hard like a gall stone. The world truly is his mollusk (which is slightly below an oyster in the evolutionary cycle) and the sky may well be his limit.


Feeling a little drunk and emotional, I will now take the opportunity to toast all of you, yes even YOU - for those of you who know me, who did know me, or who now do not want to know me - give yourselves a pat on the back anyhow. It's been fun, look forward to seeing how the rest of this movie plays out.


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Recently I decided to take a bit of a sabbatical, leaving behind the exciting rockstar lifestyle of writing, to spend some time enjoying my other passions in life - such as quail hunting, synchronised swimming, and the relentless bullying of short, bald men.

I've now had my share of these pursuits and, although incredibly gratifying, I found they did not give me the ultimate sense of fulfilment that the writing of rude words would normally do. So now I'm back, from outer space, I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face.

So I hereby apologise to my readers - all fifteen of them - and hope you enjoy the rest of the show we have for you today, tomorrow and possibly the next day also. On a side note, I've also spent many a late night hour surfing the web for that elusive Patricia Lewis soft-core porn movie. This invariably proves to be a fruitless search, there's more chance of Allan Committee actually being funny than finding this damn film. My mind then tends to wonder, and I find myself reading up on other South African blogs.

The problem with South African blogs of course, are that they are either incredibly boring (which brings us back to Allan Committee, sorry Al), or they are all about techie / marketing / geek speak. Nevertheless, there are quite a few gems out there, and seeing as I'm waffling a bit right now, I'll highlight a few of them which you should add to your reading list:

www.2oceansvibe.com
www.baglett.blogspot.com
www.bangersandnash.com
www.slxs.co.za

Do yourselves a favour make these a part of your complete breakfast. They are mostly updated daily, and are on various topics - like a newspaper, except their articles are not as long, and they won't leave you with newsprint on your fingers, which then leaves you smearing your fingerprints all over the cupboards and doors thereafter.

And then make sure to come back here - as mentioned, the team is back and running on full power again, like a man with erectile dysfunction who has just popped a few "V's", and is amped to give the flossie he picked up at Tiger Tiger a good old roger-ing.

Sien jou later.

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