An old friend is getting it together to publish a history of the South African Heavy metal / Punk scene that began in '84 and continues to this day. It's something I, and later he, played a big role in establishing.
Nu? We have not been in touch for years. He'd become somewhat distant ... no, holier-than-thou, and that attitude just drove me away. Until now...
***
I'm really excited about the book - when's it coming out? Let me know if there's anything you want to discuss.
So, yes, it has been a while since we have been in touch. And you hit the nail on the head(banger) when you touched on the subject of arrogance. Perhaps a harsh term.
I found myself wondering why someone I knew so well, whom I'd seen at the bottom and claw his way to the top, would be so dismissive and ... oh, wtf, arrogant.
And that hurt me, because I never felt you, or anyone else I cared for, ever had to prove themselves to me.
In time, I realised that, perhaps, it was your way of trying to say, "I'm OK. I put all that shite behind me, and it was so bad; and it freaked me out so much I just had to distance myself from it any way I could."
Forgive me if I presume too much.
This was my reasoning and the reason why I contacted you.
I too, learnt.
And maybe now these following lines are more about me than you/us ...
I have no reegrets but those were harsh times, between the laughter. So many people I knew didn't make it. Dozens probably. So many that I - and I don't know about you - I stopped counting. I recently wrote to a web-friend who had lost someone close for the first time and I said to her that while there is always sadness there is always love as well and that makes the reality (of dealing with death) easier."
And maybe that is why I could never push anyone away or put myself on a pedestal above them.
***
Years ago I wrote about life as a single person for some magazine...
When we left the club I said to my friend that maybe we should just check the singles party out at the upmarket tennis club. "You talked about me being an ex-punk with street cred, well, maybe there are others? Somewhere there must be a woman who used to spike her hair, carry a flick knife, shoplift hamsters, get in fights with Porra's, shagged in alleyways and got arrested on a sporadic basis, who's still single and desperately looking for someone like us to rescue her from the "He-e-e-y-bay-beh" singalongsong crowd?"
Of course we never found her.
And as the night drew to a close I left him behind. Got in my car and fired up the engine. The cd player flipped out of the dash and Kid Rock began to rock n rhyme. When I heard him sing I knew I would never be single and 50, barn dancing around a dance floor with the office tart.
I was sad. I was angry. We both were.
I drove onto the highway and headed south towards the centre of town. I thought about those ex-punks n rockers we all used to know and what had happened to them over the years. And I thought that maybe, somewhere in the middle of town, in a parking lot that was once a dingy building that was once home to an even dingier club, the ghosts of William and Raymond G, Margie and Paul VD, were standing, leg-up against an equally spectral graffiti-covered wall, cracking a pipe (a term for smoking a bottleneck filled with Ganja, not crack), lighting farts and sneering at passers by who were oblivious to their presence.
And then my SAAB's turbo kicked in, and I thought about "those late nights and freeway flying that always make me sing...I hope I die bbbbbefore I get old."
"Fuck it! I'm only 37," I snarled. And I went home.
And I did. That final singles night pushed me to leave SA.
When Jews immigrate to Israel it's called "making Aliyah". Which is the term used for when you are called up to read from the Bible on the Sabbath day. You climb a pedestal, above the crowd, to see the words.
But it is also a spiritual rise; one that can only happen when you approach God and when you come home to (the land of) Israel.
I hope to see you here one day bud. (And also in SA of course.)
Nu? We have not been in touch for years. He'd become somewhat distant ... no, holier-than-thou, and that attitude just drove me away. Until now...
***
I'm really excited about the book - when's it coming out? Let me know if there's anything you want to discuss.
So, yes, it has been a while since we have been in touch. And you hit the nail on the head(banger) when you touched on the subject of arrogance. Perhaps a harsh term.
I found myself wondering why someone I knew so well, whom I'd seen at the bottom and claw his way to the top, would be so dismissive and ... oh, wtf, arrogant.
And that hurt me, because I never felt you, or anyone else I cared for, ever had to prove themselves to me.
In time, I realised that, perhaps, it was your way of trying to say, "I'm OK. I put all that shite behind me, and it was so bad; and it freaked me out so much I just had to distance myself from it any way I could."
Forgive me if I presume too much.
This was my reasoning and the reason why I contacted you.
I too, learnt.
And maybe now these following lines are more about me than you/us ...
I have no reegrets but those were harsh times, between the laughter. So many people I knew didn't make it. Dozens probably. So many that I - and I don't know about you - I stopped counting. I recently wrote to a web-friend who had lost someone close for the first time and I said to her that while there is always sadness there is always love as well and that makes the reality (of dealing with death) easier."
And maybe that is why I could never push anyone away or put myself on a pedestal above them.
***
Years ago I wrote about life as a single person for some magazine...
When we left the club I said to my friend that maybe we should just check the singles party out at the upmarket tennis club. "You talked about me being an ex-punk with street cred, well, maybe there are others? Somewhere there must be a woman who used to spike her hair, carry a flick knife, shoplift hamsters, get in fights with Porra's, shagged in alleyways and got arrested on a sporadic basis, who's still single and desperately looking for someone like us to rescue her from the "He-e-e-y-bay-beh" singalongsong crowd?"
Of course we never found her.
And as the night drew to a close I left him behind. Got in my car and fired up the engine. The cd player flipped out of the dash and Kid Rock began to rock n rhyme. When I heard him sing I knew I would never be single and 50, barn dancing around a dance floor with the office tart.
I was sad. I was angry. We both were.
I drove onto the highway and headed south towards the centre of town. I thought about those ex-punks n rockers we all used to know and what had happened to them over the years. And I thought that maybe, somewhere in the middle of town, in a parking lot that was once a dingy building that was once home to an even dingier club, the ghosts of William and Raymond G, Margie and Paul VD, were standing, leg-up against an equally spectral graffiti-covered wall, cracking a pipe (a term for smoking a bottleneck filled with Ganja, not crack), lighting farts and sneering at passers by who were oblivious to their presence.
And then my SAAB's turbo kicked in, and I thought about "those late nights and freeway flying that always make me sing...I hope I die bbbbbefore I get old."
"Fuck it! I'm only 37," I snarled. And I went home.
And I did. That final singles night pushed me to leave SA.
When Jews immigrate to Israel it's called "making Aliyah". Which is the term used for when you are called up to read from the Bible on the Sabbath day. You climb a pedestal, above the crowd, to see the words.
But it is also a spiritual rise; one that can only happen when you approach God and when you come home to (the land of) Israel.
I hope to see you here one day bud. (And also in SA of course.)