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KIF. In a time of media tribunals and draconian secrecy laws that challenge our free society, it’s good to remind ourselves of the power that is mightier than the sword.

“Charming spot. Inspiring prospects,” Sir Ian McKellen whispers. He’s perched on the edge of a makeshift stage, glaring into the darkness. Into the gloomy half-light of Oliver Tambo Sports Hall in Khayelitsha. Things are going on. Real things. Not in the play. A plastic chair squawks. An infant squirms. A young girl folds her homework. But the show has begun. In Waiting for Godot the landscape the two main characters (Gogo and Didi) amble through in the opening scene

KIF. This is the only way you can dress up as Batman’s biatch and still maintain your high levels of street cred. KAK. The Batman custom sneaks will make you look like a dumb fanboy and are devoid of the kif, ironic self-depricating vibe of the Robins. *We found these customised Nikes for sale at Brassmonki.com, via BoingBoing.

Dr Catherine Stewart is lost. Although she’s a successful gynaecologist, she no longer knows how to seduce David, her husband, and feels invisible in a world of younger and supposedly more beautiful women. The men around her are obsessed with girls – her teenage son is sleeping with his sweetheart under her roof, her male colleague has a partner half his age and David, a university professor, is constantly chatting to his young students. Things come to a head

What has a hundred legs and one pube? The queue outside Jesters in PE. Nah, it’s usually not that bad. More like a handful of birds and a family feast sized braaipack of wors. For a place that usually caters for white painted faces, black nails and emo fringes, the other night’s menu served up a jovial mix of genres with the usual copious beer drinking quota. This was my first time covering a gig. So to be honest

Ferial Haffajee looks like she’s about to bitchslap Jackson Mthembu! The media finally meets the ANC national spokesperson over the proposed Protection of Information Bill. This is the SABC’s attempt at an unbiased current affairs debate. But what it turns into is an opportunity for Mthembu to blatantly lie about the biggest threat to media and public freedom in South Africa. He swears the proposed bill won’t lead to censorship or the arrest of journalists. Even Zuma recently said

It’s getting a little late. We’re pumping Doomriders first album Black Thunder, nodding heads to their abrasive blend of bluesy hardcore, and screeching down Baden Powell Drive like a soccer mom car out of Hell. I didn’t get a Pontiac Firebird for my 21st. Renault Modus. Laugh it up. The Hidden Cellar isn’t built for bands. It’s cramped. Hot. Loud. It reminds me of Roger Young. I like it. Dylan, the lumberjack I arrived with, and his bottle of

Hello miserly ones… want free double tickets to the 340ml gig at the Assembly this Saturday night? Just tell us the name of the sexy, sexy man who plays the bass for this Jozambican dub band…

Cynical Me and Positive Me are having a fight near the edge of the Assembly’s stage during New Holland’s set on Saturday night. Cynical Me is clearly losing because we’re no longer at the back sitting on the steps and judging from a distance, which was our position during the guitar power pop (without any real power) of Third World Spectator. I had missed Red Huxley due to a certain reluctance, lets just say, on my part to even

The lives of the young and disaffected are now spent in a war against boredom. In this fresh century, modern sensations are so easy to find and experience as to have become almost assaultive: they throb on screens, and wail from radios and brush up against your thigh when you’d rather be alone. Experiences that would’ve excited and fascinated entire heritages past are reduced now to plastic playthings. There’s no excuse for anything to be boring. And this was

I met one of my heroes the other day. His name is Sage Francis, a slam poet and emcee hailing from Rhode Island, USA. He is the anti-thesis of the 50 Cent candy rapper generation and is one of the few people making hip-hop today that is truly taking the music to new frontiers as well as remaining true to the old school heroes like Public Enemy and KRS One. He has gathered a worldwide cult following as is

KAK. Either they’re advertising what a bad driver they are, which is actually quite KIF, or they’re admitting to being KAK for driving a huge gas guzzling SUV in the city. Either way, putting it on your number plate doesn’t make it better.

We like our chips. Almost R2 billion of the almost R5 billion South African snack industry falls to those salty little heart-stoppers. This is certainly beer, convenience and absent health-literacy related. Quick and cheap is the real ubuntu. The commonest common denominator. But that kind of out-sized market share is a throbbing red dot on the multi-national scanner. So it’s no surprise that Pepsico, the colossus bested by Coke in the great cola wars of the 80s, bought half

Hola ma Cheapies, Hand over all that un-used surf gear and we’ll distribute it to grass roots surfing communities in Cape Town, JBay, Transkei and KwaZulu Natal. Mahala Surf Co. is now officially registered as a Non Profit Organisation. We exist to empower grass roots communities through the culture of surfing. Get involved!

Rum and coke #1: Speedway, what a great venue – huge hall, two bars, one sweaty punk-as-hell stage area and an owner deeply rooted in the old school South African music scene. Good vibes all around… Rum and ginger ale #1: The picnic in front of a movie screen atmosphere is new and refreshing, people grab tables and, sadly, sort themselves according to the established Cape Town cliques, guess we can’t be asking for too much… Rum and coke

Last Sunday, Athlone, 11h56. All images © Pierre De Villiers.

Pablo Escobar – the name incites images of secret jungle hideouts, lavish lifestyles, and overweight Spanish men doing lines of cocaine off large breasted, topless women. If that’s what you imagine when thinking of the notorious Colombian drug lord, then Sins of My Father is probably not going to satisfy you. This documentary, one of many fantastic films on offer at the Encounters film festival, explores the Escobar saga from the perspective of his family left to face the

You know those strip malls that began appearing when we swan dived back into the ‘international community’ around the mid-90’s: chain outlets, nail places, shoes paralleling bigger (more branded) brands, bulk buys, generic hardware and software vendors, and a lone coffee spot nursing dreams of morphing into global ubiquity? You do. What’s missing is the promotional overlay, the glossy sheen of a ‘real mall’ – sky lights and marble, buffed surfaces and scale. The telling absence of marketed labels.

It is sometime in 1943, autumn or winter judging by the man’s jacket. His dark coat looks new and, in the black and white photograph, matches the colour of his neatly combed hair. The man in the photo holds a camera. It is tilted sideways and focused on a wall. In the black and white photograph, the camera’s antique flash has already, or is just about to make that Hollywood sound. Pooof! In truth, it is not the man

Up until now, my experience of the intimate downstairs area of Mercury has been dedicated to getting loose to the thrashes of d’n'b… getting sweaty to beats that assault the crowd with dirty audio pleasure. This all changed the night of the 18th. That cold Wednesday night, I experienced what I can only describe as feelings of nostalgia – nostalgia for a time that I was not even a part of, and for memories that didn’t belong to me.