News from Zimbabwe

Thick tongue protruding out of the corner of his mouth, Max the Gorilla wields his pen as if it were a banana, aimlessly scribbling in the little cage that is his mind. One cannot help but to watch this from the gallery above and hurl peanuts at such a spectacle. An ape that can write! Which is almost as pleasing as watching a poodle peddle a bicycle. Now I don’t know what kind of musical background Max the Gorilla

Get Pixar to make you a giant pink wobbly jelly. Put it on a table on Kruis street in front of the butchery, right next to the guy who sells bootleg shangaan electro CD’s in earshot of the taxi rank. Wait for a herd of military elephants to march past on the way to Shell House, and then record the sound it makes. This is, I’m certain, how Spoek Mathambo recorded his new album, Mshini Wam. It’s like Fischerspooner

The A-Team plays cannibal to its own history. Consuming decades of banal Hollywood gristle, it spits out every cliché, every time-worn trope, yanks at every fruit which dares to hang within the adolescent’s grubby reach – and the result is predictably bullshit. The thing is, if you’re the sort of person who buys a ticket for this film, then this is the sort of film that you’d pay to see, which means you’re the sort of person this film

The first time I went to Origin I was picked up by the back of my dress and thrown out the door by a bouncer three times my size. I had accidently taken the fact that about five people were smoking on the lower balcony as a signal that this was the smoking section. Instead of spitting and swearing, I twisted my neck back in apology but the meaty tower would have none of it. Wait. I lied. I

This is why the beautiful game has got such a bad name! We love the take on the Star Wars bad guy soundtrack.

What is it that annoys me so about Cape Town’s wannabe-hipster crowd? They absolutely rub me the wrong way. When I say wannabe-hipster, I am not using some sort of umbrella term for everyone everywhere who likes cool, happening things. I mean the certain “skinny jean ironic tee/check shirt and trilby hat” wearing clan. Yes you. Graphic design-animation-illustrating eggheads often found at media colleges like City Varsity. They amble about with a smug self-satisfied look – proudly showing off

For some, a near-religious pilgrimage, planned well in advance. For others, spring break, a chance to cut loose. For the regulars, a chance to relive the old days. For everyone else, three days in the dirt. Minimal solid foods. No parents. Loose chicks. Beers for breakfast. Good times. Oppikoppi this year offered a wide variety of music for the discerning listener – ranging from rock, all the way to hard rock, and even metal! DJs and electronic acts meanwhile

KAK. Our national pastime. Suppressing your emotions under a tidal wave of booze. Stay beautiful South Africa!

Splashy Fen is KwaZulu’s premier outdoor music festival held annually in the Drakensberg. Whispers of music and mud stomping kept finding me here in Cape Town until I finally said to a friend, “Hire a care – we’re going!” We were only 21 and to hire a car you have to be 23. Boo. So we joined the convoy up with local band Captain Stu and the Llamas. I knew them from high school so they agreed – even

Written on the painful crawl back. I’m face-planting myself into the crash barrier, jumping and generally engaging with my inner animal. In front of me: Mike and Disco, the cracked-up Kiwi bird and the mystical penguin, spit their rhymes through easily the best set of the entire festival. PHfat destroy, there is simply no other word for it, utter death by bass. It’s great to see a band who don’t take themselves seriously – Mike’s monkey impersonation is the

So Waiting for Godot is in town. For two weeks only. Part of a whirlwind world tour. It’s Saturday night at the spanking new Fugard Theatre. Tickets are prized. It’s a palpable hit. Gandalf being in it probably has a lot to do with it. A big star. On our little peninsula. It can’t be the play can it? Is the play the thing? Godot is about the suspension of normalcy and the reign of dread. Perfect for a

Kak. The Protection of Information Bill is the biggest threat to a democratic, free and transparent South Africa since the arrival of democracy. If the Bill is signed into law it gives the government sweeping new powers to classify a whole bunch of information that is currently not secret. It also makes it illegal to leak or publish information deemed classified by the government. And should you break this law, the offence is punishable by imprisonment. So basically they’re

Art openings during a recession are confusing. Two things: a). Free alcohol is non existent and b). Legit art enthusiasts are pretty much in extinction. No free booze and yet everyone treks to the new gallery opening – to see and be seen of course, because nobody really gives a damn about the art. The Michael Stevenson Gallery in Woodstock recently hosted new exhibitions: an awesome photography display, an eccentric (read: disturbing) video art installation and some awful combination

“The Victorian freak show never went away, now it’s called Big Brother or X Factor where, in the preliminary rounds, we wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multi-millionaires.’” – Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais, Extras) In a drought of television programming, I found myself watching Pop Idols. This show jumped the shark from the very first episode – when audiences were subjected to the inane grin of Colin Moss, but you won’t believe the depths to which it has plunged. Pop

Hola Freeloaders! The Mahala Surf Co. is gearing up for another Santa Claus surf trip up the coast, delivering surfboards and equipment to the grass roots surfing initiatives we support in J-Bay, the Transkei and KwaZulu-Natal. So if you’ve got an old surfboard lying around gathering dust, please donate it. We’ll arrange to collect it, clean it up and hand it over to a stoked grom who would otherwise be excluded from the sport of kings. Contact us

Saturday, Day 2, written from Dante’s third circle: In the beer queue, I’m suddenly a swallow under the wing of an Afrikaans hawk. The hawk is bearded, in web-development when sober and teaches me to be rude to strangers and to answer every question with a “fuck you buddy”. He tells me to remember him. I will, but there aren’t that many people to be rude about today, the line-up being much better than yesterday… “I’m Captain Beer and

Mitchell Park, Durban, 11am. Images © Kevin Goss-Ross.

Oppikoppi. Scraps of the slaughter, part 1, written under extreme duress. On the road, I see an American Indian driving a Mazda 2, he bares his teeth at me, and, with a howl ‘Opppppiiii’, cuts us off violently from the left. The crazies are all along the three-hour drive from Jo’burg, gathering for the slaughter – Boere freaks, already dirty jocks with buzz-cuts, acid-heads dropping tabs on the way to arrive in style, car-loads of pretty girls. Good people.

A hunched-over toothless man has polio. Or whatever makes people bend that way. He mumbles to the large lady next to him. Her curves push at the bright silk of her sari. Her ears resemble dried apricots. An orange stripe parts her hair and a red dot sits between two pencilled eyebrows. She ignores the polio mumbler until they both exit the bus in a narrow street on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. The creepy kid next to

Panjo was found. Lured out of a sylvan forest with hunks of raw beef. The endangered kitty ambled over to Goosey Fernandes, his keeper and one of the great names in news lately, to lovingly lick him. And scene. That’s a wrap. Who knew Tigers do endings better than the Coen brothers? Endings are hard. They either have to reduce uncertainty definitively (your average Hollywood ending) or open us up to unforeseen vistas of unknowing (try Stanley Kubrick’s 2001).