Notes from a small city, tales from a big town - Chapter 1

I just bought a Gatsby .

It’s a local Cape Town fast food take-away. It’s a huge bready-bun filled with hot chips (French fries), spicy steak, eggs and cheese and smothered in secret chutney of sorts called Mango Atchar. My neighbour once told me she went to a cafe in high heels, had half a Gatsby and walked home in flip flops. It is uber fatty, Heavy as hell, unhealthy, messy, awkward to hold and super very bloody F#$% delicious.

Much like Cape Town.

Cape Town is different. And by different I mean - ‘different’. It’s much like the old uncle who had a cheap Botox injection a few years ago and now decided to extend his saggy-eyed midlife crisis for a few years by piercing his ear... problem is, we love the old boy dearly. He is cool, funky, hip and laid back. But underneath that hardened exterior, pulses a beat to a tune filled with emotion and hidden stories.

Cape Town is situated at the tip of Africa. For a while after 1652 AD, it was – what we consider today – a glorified truck stop.  A Shell petrol station. An overnight motel in the middle of nowhere. It was the mid-way stop for ships sailing from Europe to India. (or so we’re told. I think they came here for the Gatsbies)

Because of this, several old wives saying were created: “Never trust a man with white shoes” for example. Navy sailors, tailored in their bleached boots, fathered many offspring here and vanished over the morning’s watery horizon. I for example am an offspring of the fruits of their forbidden passions... I am forbidden passion fruit.

Cape Town also became an epicentre of cultural fusion – a hotspot of inter-continental assimilation of ethnicity, traditions and new customs and ideas. From sun bathing on gorgeous beaches, to perving at those sun bathers from a mountain top nearby.

So there’s a mountain (or very high flat topped hill), some beautiful icy beaches, locals selling a vast array of flowers in Adderley street, Fresh fish (snoek) in Hout Bay, lots of taverns in shanty towns, a crazy public transport system that somehow works, a peculiar and proud people, a young nightlife, fresh Nigerians still operating the dated 419 scams, streetpreachers on street corners, the smell of spicy foods cooking away on Sunday mornings, American fast food establishments like McDonalds, Burger King, etc – though South Africa’s Steers Burgers walk circles around their offerings. There’s sunshine, and botanical gardens, there’s aquariums and butterfly worlds. There’s theme parks and flea markets and nightclubs and pubs and tourist traps and koe'sisters and penny polonies and beautiful human beings and ugly human beings and public zombie walk campaigns and school rugby and cricket rivalries and super malls and hidden cosy home-owned restaurants and false teeth and the Cape Coons singing and dancing under bright umbrellas, and so many other things...

But these things don’t make Cape Town, Cape Town.

What makes Cape Town Cape Town is the Gatsby... It takes all the years of traditions, the untidy streets, the cultures, the beautiful sceneries, the local music, the unique charm, the warmth, the accents, the everything – sums it all up into a meal way too large for a mortal soul to consume in one setting and  sets off a series of explosions of parties and flavours in your mouth.

So forgive me as I end this off quickly... I just noticed three chips fall from it’s doughy home and that upsets me.  It should be in my mouth.

Fearless Dave

Has Social Media killed “Till death do us part”?

 

Has Social Media killed “Till death do us part”?

My ex and I once had ice-cream at a small cosy unimpressive outlet on the beach one sunny afternoon. Everything was new, romance was fresh, I brushed my hair.

While chatting, I noticed an old couple in their late 60’s across the dining area. They were happy. Smiling. Gazing fondly at each other as they shared an ice cream and giggled at soft spoken words.

“I want to be like that”, I said dreamily to my ex... She gazed at them over her shoulder and muttered “They’re having an affair”.

Alarm bells should’ve gone off then, but one tends to think that bad stuff happens to other people.

I watched ‘Honey I shrunk the kids’ growing up. ‘Family Ties’. ‘Growing Pains’. Adults listened to dreary romantics swooning sweet lullabies poetically from their emotional lips. Billy Ocean’s ‘Suddenly’, Def Leppard oozing vocal harmony with ‘Have you ever needed somebody so bad’,  Karen Carpenter lamenting ‘Close to you’ , even Stevie Wonder’s ‘I just called to say I Love you’ made folk boogie their funky stuff to CNA to buy Valentines Day cards.

David Hasselhof had a curly perm. Bobby Ewing was the pillar of cool. Indiana Jones’s untamed spirit is what boys of my generation wanted to be like. In the 1950’s, 1920’s, 1880’s – it was more or less the same. Idols. Role models. Singers spewing lyrical romance guiding the world with their fantasies and versions of love.

So what’s changed? Why are divorce rates spiralling so high? Why are there so many people separated, single, or struggling to revive the spark that once was?

Is it the music? Justin Bieber does kinda drive me up the wall. Rihanna’s umbrella and that Minaj girl with the highlighter’ed lips could be contributing to it (I don’t understand why they’re popular. I can barely whistle their tunes)... It could be TV. I watched a soapie a few months back. It was awful. A character called Brooke had a child from an older man. They divorced and she ended up with one of his sons with a chiselled square jaw... Sooo, what does the child call his brother? Bro-dad? Bro’pops?

I think the flaw lies deeper though.

A few years ago, people traded in SMSes for new and upcoming apps like MXit. Teens went crazy, the world become smaller and guys started buying noodles for supper.

Then came Blackberry, Whatsapp, Twitter, facebook, Tumbler, Google Plus, etc.

Now, call me bias or Appcist or dull and stupid. But I think we may be on to something here.

There was a song called Secret Lovers in the 1980’s. The duet sang about hiding in dark corners, waiting for their partners to be gone before they met up months later, etc.

With Blackberry, WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook – you can communicate while one’s partner is around. Instead of waiting a few months, one can now chat to the secret lover instantly. One can see their updates, where they are, whom they’re with, etc. Legal stalking, without anyone knowing.

I know someone who did it all the time. Her actions caused a bubble to burst in their relationship and I became aware of many others in the same boat.

Was this a fluke? A once off occurrence never to happen again?

Or is this a hidden problem no one is really aware about? Or we’re aware about it, but hide it away like a drunk old aunt at a family gathering? Is it a relationship killer? A spark nullifier? A platform that can potentially cause so much damage that we’ll eventually utter “until we meet a new follower do we part”?

And what of future apps promising better, bigger, faster, closer and more features yet to be dreamed of?

Let’s discuss this. Where do we as a society go from here? Is this a fart in the wind or a potential accident waiting to happen?

...FYI, the old couple weren’t having an affair. They’ve been together for nearly 40 years. I asked them how they did it. Marge said “If something breaks, fix it”. William just smiled a knowing smile. They had no cellphones with them.