Greetings and salutations you gorgeous cunts.
Been ages, but fuck it.
I haven’t had a creative thought for about five months now as I have been so engrossed with my job, that the hypervigilance of working in a prison has rendered my brain to be extremely paranoid.
I’m trying to find tools to cope with this, because going to the gym or mall with my kids should not have me on high alert and suspicious of every big armed wanker in a crop top and nipples like gorilla fingers. This morning I decided to take down a bushel in my backyard that has been blocking the garden entrance since I bought this house a few months ago.
My wife had borrowed my wireless Beats headphones (RRP NZ$240) for the gym last night and killed the battery. She was probably listening to nineties R&B while running on a treadmill. Boyz 2 Men, Aaliyah, SWV, Dru Hill, the solo efforts of Sisqo from Dru Hill, she absolutely loves this genre. I don’t mind it as well.
Anyway, I had no headphones to entertain me while I took to the mundane task of tearing down this unnecessary bit of foliage that was of no use to anyone.
I started by pulling at it with my hands in some old leather motorcycle gloves. This got rid of most of the leaves and the skinny branches that took up most of the space of the entrance. But I wanted it gone completely, and I do not own a chainsaw, so I took to the thicker branches with my circular saw. I had to remove the safety guard to expose the blade first though. I also had to stick a pencil down to the microswitch that senses if the guard has been removed. Not safe, I know, but I was extremely careful not to get my hands anywhere near the blade. Everything was fine.
However, this blog is not about gardening or blatantly disregarding safety and power tools, but doing this kind of mindless work without distractions left me alone with my thoughts. Something I haven’t done in what feels like paleolithic eons. It was like a kind of meditation to me. The same as when I’m riding or playing sport. My mind was completely off unnecessary stress or worry, only crisp clear thoughts of the task at hand and a deep sense of purpose once I was done. It took about three hours.
That being said, this is what had me baffled since waking up this morning.
I work twelve hour shifts a few days a week. And working those shifts are obviously extremely tiring, and on my days off I try to enjoy a lovely lay in.
Since leaving South Africa, the most prolific point of contact with my friends and my people is on social media, and because all of us are now geriatric millennials, it’s via Facebook. The last few days there was a huge sense of occasion in the build up to the Premier League match between Manchester United and Liverpool.
I don’t really watch football at all, sure I’ll catch the highlights now and then when I’m taking a shit, but I find that sitting through ninety minutes of watching a game extremely boring and a monumental waste of time. I know that this might seem like a strange position to take because I still play football and I played at a pretty high level when I was younger. I’m not sure why I am in this conundrum, I think it is because I’m a goalie. Goalkeepers operate outside of the paradigms of the general order of the game. I was blessed with the reflexes of a mongoose and the anticipation of a raven. So as long as you don’t play it back to me, I generally get the job done. Everyone who has ever seen me play knows this.
So because I payed for a Sky subscription to watch the Springboks inevitably fuck up, I had HD access to watch the game this morning. I was still bored, I didn’t even know that United are shit now. I thought that they were still the Champions. I didn’t finish it, instead I spent most of the time Googling the links between South Africa and the English Premier League.
South Africa in the early nineties was a very strange place.
I remember fondly the day that Paul Simon had that concert to mark the end of our cultural boycott by the rest of the world. I remember this because it marked the opportunity for a 13 year old boy to dream of playing in a FIFA world cup. A dream that I never came close to at all, because of the reasons I mentioned above. My friend and competitor for the number one shirt however did play in a World Cup, and I played vicariously through him, so I am satisfied. Anyway, we were now open to the world.
Nelson Mandela was released just two years earlier and we were on the brink of civil war. White people were disappearing to Browns Bay faster than white people in the final of a 100 meter sprint line up. Black people were aggressively taking power over everything that was voided by the ones who left. Then there were the riots, the lootings, the violence and everything else. The uncertainty of everything was worse than the pandemic of the last few years. Complete existential anxiety gripped a whole nation.
Then through all of this, South Africa had its first showing of an English Premier League match. We had only ever been exposed to domestic cups from our own country, and being a coloured, this was not ours. Soccer belonged to the Africans, and it wasn’t until 1995 that rugby became a thing for us. So we claimed the English Premier League for ourselves, even though we couldn’t even point out England on a map.
The beauty of sport is that it is simple. The results are clear cut. There is a winner and a loser, or a tie sometimes, but the simplicity of it gives one comfort in times of extreme discomfort.
This might seem far fetched and overly analytical, but here is why I think that this is the case.
Everyone loves a winner.
A resounding majority of South Africans you speak to will support Manchester United. This is a fact. It is also a fact that in 1992 and all the way through the nineties, the Red Devils were the most exciting team to watch. They went through a long period of success while stealing the hearts of so many South Africans who needed something to hold on to and make them smile.
The ones who backed the underdogs went for the clubs who were threats to Manchester United. Liverpool, Arsenal, Leeds, Chelsea, some even going for the likes of Blackburn and Newcastle. One thing is clear though, without cultural or geographical links, all of us chose who to support. None of us were born in England, we had no obligation to support anyone.
I however supported the Reds, it is the team my older brother supported, and having met the side in 1994 when they held a coaching clinic at Westridge Football field, I was sold. David James told me to learn to kick. I never did.
My Dad supported United of course, because he enjoyed bragging rights.
My Mum supported Arsenal.
This was a strange choice because she only liked one player. He was their goalkeeper. So growing up people used to ask why my Mum supported Arsenal, I’d have to say “Because she likes David Seaman.”
This is a fact, you can ask her yourself.
I hope everyone enjoys the football and don’t take it too seriously. Life is meaningless chaos and it is up to each individual to find his or her own meaning. So whether it’s saving lives by finding a cure for cancer, supporting a team who doesn’t even care about you, or even pulling out a bushel, I hope it gives you a feeling of purpose.
I’ll try keeping up the blog for the sake of posterity.
Dog Bless
