Existential Crisis!

Last week the bulk of my week were spent getting quotes for several projects hubby and I still have to complete around our house. Phase II of our renovations is about to start and I am looking forward to it with as much enthusiasm of a prostitute about to catch crabs for the 40th time. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to the end result but having gone through this less than four months ago, the fights with contractors and the mess they make while working are still very fresh and somewhat raw in my memory. As the quotes started rolling in I was shocked not only at the prices but the fact that the warranties and guarantees on services and products reminded me that I am getting old(er). On the precipice of a full blown existential crisis about ageing, I had to make myself stop and ask, is growing older such a dreadful thing?
Presently I am slightly sensitive about the “ageing” thing. You see on Thursday I will be celebrating surviving another trip around the sun. Yes, it’s my birthday and I shall be celebrating my 31st birthday for the 3rd consecutive year. Normally I don’t dread my birthday as I quite enjoy the attention, the gifts, the phone calls and the potential fire hazard of the ever increasing number of candles on my birthday cake. But this year it seems there are constant reminders that I am hurdling towards the wrong side of thirty. In just a few more years I shall be sliding down the slippery slope to 40. Soon I’ll be 40 and middle aged!
Not being an advocate for self-torture, I horribly disappointed myself the last few days as I was doing exactly that. To the great annoyance of my husband, every time we received a quote or made a new purchase I obsessively checked the warranties and guarantees. Then compulsively made my calculations to determine when a certain product would need to be replaced and then, to both our horrors, calculated our estimated ages at that time. “These lamps have a 3 year warranty so I will be 36 and you 37 when they start giving problems. The light bulbs have a 8 year guarantee so they’ll keep until I am 41, the sails have a 15 year non-fade guarantee so that brings us to 48 and 49 respectively when they’d need replacing”. With each agonising calculation the inevitability of father time’s persistent pursuit of pilfering my “youth” became more terrifying.
Before reaching a full blown existential crisis about my mortality, the cruelty of nature and the toll gravity is taking and still will take on my body; I forced myself to take a mental “time out” and stopped my silly pre-mental-breakdown. “So what? I am getting older, so is everybody else! What am I so damn afraid off?” After some self-resentment and allot sulking for being bitchy with myself, I realized I am not afraid of growing old, after all I will be doing so with my husband and we will be gay, grey and crumpled together. So why then am I so emotional about this birthday?
Celebrating my birthday reminds me of all the wonderful years I have had on this lovely planet earth and the many more I hope to still have. I am reminded of all the good times and also those bad times some of which I often rather would want to forget. Sadly, the last few years my birthday also reminded me of all the marvellous people I had in my life and later lost. You see, for many years on my birthday the first phone call I would receive was from my grandmother. This would always happen just before six o’clock in the morning while I would still be fast asleep. I use to find this irritating, but now that it no longer happens I miss it. The second phone call would follow shortly after my granny’s wake-up call and it would be from my mother – her voice now too has faded with so many others and this birthday reminds me of all of them and how exceptional they were and how precious life truly is.
Every couple of years I experience a nostalgic spell brought forth by some minor incident causing me to wonder down a labyrinth of remarkable memories, most of which I will cherish for life. This year the pending and lasting renovation that we have done and are yet to do evoked a sense of fleetingness. We are making permanent and positive changes to our home that will outlast both of us. In the coming years and birthdays I shall see the plants and trees in my garden grow and flourish while watching our home evolve as we mature. More voices will be silenced with whom I would have loved to share more special moments. Old phone calls on my birthday will be replaced with new ones and I will treasure each and every one of them. Old memories will be amassed with new ones, as time and life goes on.
Thursday is my birthday and I will be turning 33. This will be a very special birthday as I have so much to celebrate and be grateful for. In the last few years I have learned many important and also some very entertaining lessons. The most important one being that life is something very complicated, very special, very unpredictable and constantly evolving. We are only here for a brief period of time and we should revel every moment, seek out every joy, love every person and never take it or ourselves too seriously. In a few years I will be forty and middle aged, and that is ok! So here’s to celebrating another successful round-trip around the sun with all I hold dear and for many more journeys to come and loads of more stories to share!

Till next time.

Roseanne Barr And Jackie Beat Make Up Diva

Gay Wedding Rules

Now that gay marriages are become increasingly legal, here are some rules all queers should know.

1) On the day of a gay wedding, it's bad luck for the two grooms to see each other at the gym.

2) Superstition suggests that for good luck the couple should have: Something Bold, something Flirty, something Trashy, something Dirty.

3) It's customary at Gay and Lesbian nuptials for the parents to have an open bar during the entire ceremony and for the sound system to be loud enough to drown out their sobbing.

4) Gay wedding tradition dictates that both grooms refrain from eating any of the wedding cake because it's all carbs and sugar.

5) It's considered bad luck for either of the grooms to have dated and/or have slept with the priest.

6) During the first dance, it's considered unlucky to use glow sticks, flags, whistles or hand held lasers.

7) For good luck at the union of a Drag Queen, the bouquet is always thrown in the face of a hated rival.

8) The reception hall must have a disco ball and at least 3 go-go dancer.

9) The wedding singer is not allowed to play and/or sing Let's Hear It For the Boy, It's Raining Men, or I Will Survive.

10) The father of the Bottom pays for everything!

Mom Dad I'm Gay

The Undesirables & the Golden Girls Brigade

Since moving to suburbia my and hubby’s lives have changed quite a bit. Having lived in a relatively small apartment for the last nine years, the space and privacy of our new house have been a welcoming and positive adjustment. Yes, we have become proud Stepford Fags and it is quite agreeable. However, not everything has been sunshine and roses, afternoon tea- and raunchy pool parties. You see we have some peculiar neighbours for which good fences does not necessarily make for good neighbours. On the one side we have the Undesirables and on the other side the Golden Girls Brigade, both contributing to a perfect recipe for great entertainment and frustration.

When we moved into our neighbourhood we caused quite a buzz on our street. Finally the queers were moving in! Some curious neighbours came and introduced themselves and one particularly inquisitive woman actually asked for a tour of our house to which I courteously obliged as I didn’t want to be rude. She inspected our furniture, queer art and decoration choices as if she was making mental notes. Later, I would learn that this woman was requested by the other housewives to come and “check us out”. I was thoroughly interrogated by her and everything was reported back to the ladies of the neighbourhood during their weekly Thursday afternoon tea.
You see in our neighbourhood we have a very sophisticated network of social gossip and news being collected and disseminated. Fortunately for me Gossip Headquarters is right next door with the weekly briefings being done on the patio right by my study’s window and I can overhear everything. Thursdays at around half past four the ladies will get together and catch up on the week’s activities. First their favourite soap operas and television shows are debated with Oprah being a permanent fixture. Then they’ll get stuck in with all the truly important subjects (what have been happening in our street) often times expanding as far as 6 blocks away. Nothing is left out and everything from their husbands, children, grandchildren, the neighbours, neighbourhood tramps (apparently we have quite a few) and us the queers are discussed. The gossip is downright fantastic!
The Golden Girls Brigade is unapologetic, frank and sometimes slightly crude with their subjective observations and revelations – even I sometimes blush and I am not even part of their conversation. At least they think hubby and I are fine young men with their only concern being that they never hear us fight. One lady actually asked curiously “Is that normal for gays not to fight? And I heard they are married! That’s just crazy all married couple have fights now and again!!” They are also quite intrigued by this beautiful girl that visits us for a couple of hours some Saturdays and baffled that she always arrives in a different sports car. “I wonder what she does there and what is up with her cars?” one lady asked. “You don’t suppose they are doing ungodly things over there?” the other responded, and I just giggled silently. Hubby once told me, while I was updating him on all the gossip, that I should one day peak over the wall and ask to join them. I am sure they would welcome me with open arms!
Like family you unfortunately can’t choose your neighbours. Apart from the Golden Girls Brigade, whom I quite enjoy, we also have the Undesirables. On the other side of our house we have a young unhappily married couple. They are constantly fighting with prime time fighting occurring between five and six o’clock in the mornings. I never can quite catch the gist of their fights, not that I particularly care, but they are best heard from our on-suite bathroom and/or the kitchen. They also have a small farm of pavement special mutts that regularly add to the noise pollution. If the couple aren’t fighting their dogs are barking!
Apart from being unhappy they also don’t take pride in their property, probably because they are renting it. Their backyard is permanently littered with dog poo that's rarely cleaned up -very unhygienic! Their property always looks neglected as do they and their dogs. The woman’s hair is never done and her plastered on makeup looks like her face will crack and crumble if she smiles, alas she never does. I have seen her only twice and neither of those times did she even attempt a cordial hallo, so I decided to ignore them should I see them.
Once I had to phone the police due to one of their fights sounding like it was spiralling out of control. It was a Friday evening and while watching television ghastly screams emanating from next door gave me a fright. I first thought they were being attacked, but as I made my way to the kitchen I could tell that it was the two of them going at it again. The police later showed up and the ruckus stopped. Later, I was told that the man said the wife fell off a chair and that was why she was crying – I don’t believe that for a second as I know what I heard! Presently we are not on speaking terms with the undesirables and all communications to and from them are done through our Italian intermediary (the owner of that property). The Italian is quite an eccentric man and his flamboyance can sometimes be quite draining. He too has grown tired of the undesirables’ behaviour and plans on evicting them soon. In the mean time we will just have try and ignore their screaming and dogs barking until they move back to their side of the railway tracks.

Living in suburbia has really been fun thus far. The quality of our lives has improved tremendously and we love our new house. Every Thursday afternoon I make sure to leave work a couple of minutes early to catch up on my weekly gossip and every morning at 5am our living alarm clocks next door wakes me up with the sweats sounds of why some people should get divorced. Apart from the undesirables I would never want to move back into an apartment and would not trade our lovely home for anything else.

Till next time.

Sherry Vine - Gang Bang

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's day to all the dads out there!

Illuminatus Faggotus

I recently watched a documentary about cults which I found fascinating. The phenomena of cults have a long and interesting history – some quite bizarre and other just plain hilarious. The common denominator amongst them is the fact that their leaders profited from them in one way or the other. It must be fun being a leader of such a group where people will believe and do anything you tell them to no matter how wacky it may be. Which led me to think; maybe I should start a cult!
Essential to starting any cult is finding an appropriate name. Something catchy that will deceive people into believing this is the cult for them. It should be something that sounds both ominous and exclusive at the same time. You want people to believe that they are special after all and entice their sense of adventure! I played around with a couple of names: Queers of Zion (too out there), Fabulous Faggots (too gay), Brothers and Sisters of Gaga (too obvious), none seemed quite fitting. None had that rolling off the tongue panache that would draw in my unsuspecting followers. Then after smoking a cigarette and laughing diabolically (as becoming of a potential cult leader) I came up with the perfect name – Illuminatus Faggotus! It is the perfect combination of scary, powerful, dangerous and secretive with just the right pinch of gay that will draw in the queers, have the heterosexuals confused and make all the outsiders jealous.
Now that I have the name of my cult, the next step is to decide what type of cult it should be. I imagined there would be more choices but it came down to a political cult, a religious cult or an economic cult. Firstly, a political cult will not work for me as the type of followers I would want to attract will not care for politics. Secondly, a religious cult will also not work as I am already under the Vatican’s radar and I don’t feel like dishing up a sermon every week or pissing off the Pope any further. So an economic cult will have to do. I will ask every member for all their money and become fabulously rich in the process – perfect!
Wait a minute... Nobody will just willingly give me all their money without there being something in it for them. I need to promise them something, something fantastic. I will promise them eternal life! If they follow me and give me all their cash they will never die. You heard me, they will live forever! I am not crazy (yet) and know I can’t accomplish this, but Ssht! ...don’t tell my potential followers! It’s the perfect scam. You see as they age and/or fall sick or even die those poor folks will be branded as not being loyal enough to the cult, not devoted enough and didn’t give enough money and this is why they didn’t make it. Clever, don’t you think? You may ask yourself what I will say if I get sick, simple – exactly the same thing blaming them and asking for more money. Those who don’t comply with the one fundamental rule of funding my elaborate cult and lavish lifestyle will age horribly! The secrets and special energy, personal "fountain of youth", I possess will not be bestowed on them. To further enforce compliance all members who transgress any other rules will be forced to do voluntary work at retirement homes’ frail care facilities.
No cult is complete without some sort of cohesive bond or branding to create that all important sense of belonging. All Illuminatus Faggotus members will be expected to go blond, go to gym twice a day, follow a special healthy diet and look fabulous all the time. All members will be expected to have a bad attitude and portray an image of being better than anyone else. Contacts with non members will be kept to the absolute minimum to further emphasize exclusivity and the only contact will be for recruitment or punishment purposes. Seeing as I have all their money I will provide them with one fabulous outfit each (preferably knock off Armani), member’s will have to build their own gyms from scrap yard material and grow their own food. Their shared suffering will facilitate the creation of a strong bond and a loyal following.
The official language of the cult shall be gay slang and a thick gay accent will be mandatory and limp wrists will be an added advantage. Speech therapy will be provided to those members’ who struggle to manage the gay lisp. Weight gain will be strictly monitored and all overweight members will be chastised and be forced to watch “The Biggest Looser” nonstop until they lose weight or slip into a coma. Members will be made to believe that all non-members are evil and are dying slowly every day and any contact with non-believers will age them prematurely and ultimately cause their deaths. The most important rule, apart from sacrificing all their hard earned cash, will be to never admit to being part of a cult. Nooo... it’s not a cult it’s a “society” or a “lifestyle” insistently adding “I have never looked or felt better in my life, you must really consider joining”.

My cult will have a long and illustrious future and my true believers will live very long but not so full lives. Yes the Illuminatus Faggotus will be fantastic, but all the lies, deceptions and maintenance to keep it going will be hard work - I would need staff! Any volunteers? Come on you know you want to...
Till next time

Margaret Cho

A Heterosexual Education in Sports

The 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup has started without any major glitches (i.e. Al-Qaeda blowing up any stadiums or fan parks). Apart from the lack of fireworks I am also grateful that this tournament has not taken over our regular television schedules as I would be utterly annoyed if I had to miss any episodes of Ugly Betty’s final season, the escapades of the doctors of Grey’s Anatomy or the toils of the ladies on Wisteria Lane. During the last few days I actually watched two soccer matches, an astonishing feat as I am not into sports unless the guys are wearing tights, speedos are topless and/or are on skates. Having briefly infiltrated the domain of the heterosexual man I must say I have received an education, but probably not the one I expected.

When it comes to sports I am your stereotypical queer. I’m not fond it and when it comes down to having to choose between watching sports or a talk show (don’t care which one it is as long as it’s not Dr Phil) I’ll always choose the latter. In the absence of such a choice male gymnastics, figure skating, diving and swimming shall always win over football, soccer and cricket. I am aware that with my sport preferences it’s evident that I don’t like team sports, but in my defense I’d rather have my attention focused on one Greek god, at a time, and rate them individually on my person scorecard on a scale from one (ugly) to ten (oh my god!!!). This clearly is not the same motivation of my heterosexual male counterparts as they become quite irritated when one digresses from the actual game and focus on an individual player and not pointing out his technical skills but biological assets, as for me they are one and the same.
When watching sports it’s always a good idea to learn the "lingo" prior to watching a match. One thing I learned is that the person talking you through the match is called a “Commentator” and NOT the “Narrator”. It was politely pointed out to me that sports games aren’t scripted, hence the difference. This fairy was quite embarrassed and blamed my mistake on being blond, but in actual fact I should have blamed it on being gay. I was also educated on the difference between a foul and a tackle in soccer. “A foul is when the one player hits the other player before hitting the ball and a tackles is when he hits the ball before hitting the other player”. Both sounds painful and is best avoided. Now only if we can replace the word “hitting” with “caressing”, a foul and a tackle would be so much more interesting to watch!
Straight guys also can be quite curios about the teams they support. They will have their principle team whom they’ll fiercely support, but when that team fails or isn’t playing they are quick to pick another one supported with very technical and logical reasoning. I, on the other hand, can make up my mind with the national anthem part prior to the game. As the camera waves past each team I too have a very technical and logical system in place – pick the team that’s hotter and as the game progress and the sweaty hunks of the opposing team attracts my fancy I have no qualms switching sides without the need to explain. Straight guys can also be obsessively invested in their teams and should their team loose they are crushed and depressed for days, even weeks - some will even weep! I suppose it’s the same sense of loss that I felt when Friends and Sex and the City were cancelled.

Sports evoke a lot of passion. I suspect the only other time straight men gets quite as excited is during sex. Sex and sports have quite a lot in common. Both are best when you are not alone - that would be considered a solo race. Both requires physical excursion, some sweat (if you are doing it right), great technique and when you score it’s climactic! But sex like sport can also have a dark side with those nasty injuries, torn muscles and the one thing some straight women knows very well – match fixing (ladies, they don’t always have to know that their game didn’t quite make it to the finishing line, now do they).

Sports really aren’t my thing, but the two soccer matches I watched was quite entertaining. I am not convinced that I would give up my Saturday or Sunday afternoon to take time to voluntarily watch sports, but in the spirit of Africa hosting the first Fifa World Cup I may just sacrifice a couple more hours of my time to ogle and drool over some more soccer matches. After all it’s a selfless act as I am doing it in support of my country and in the spirit of understanding my heterosexual counterparts.
Till next time.

Kathy Griffin - Balls of Steel

Hilarious Lost in Translation

Must be Good !!? ‘Be gone’, I say!

Not to be confused with ‘Hetero’ sausage.

Insect repellent? Are you sure that’s what it’s for?

For Paris Hilton?

Bet it don't taste the same in a can? Not that I'd know the difference...

Only one thing better than regular Shito – new, improved Shito!!!

What are you looking at me for?

I really shouldn’t find this funny...

Wow! MEGA!! PUSSI!!!! Hard to refuse - NOT!

I hope ‘Marie’ knows about this!

Soccer World Cup: Oh Mr. Ronaldo Please Score Me a Goal!

I have to be honest and make a small confession. I don’t really care much for soccer. This should not come as a surprise to those who know me, but taking the current circumstances into account it’s almost a blasphemous thing to say. South Africa is hosting the Soccer World Cup and it kicks off in less than 24 hours. Already the sights and sounds are overwhelming and all consuming in South Africa and one can’t help but become enthralled by the anticipation and excitement. Over the coming weeks the world will be entertained by sexy and sweaty men running behind a ball, but this will not be the only source of entertainment. The oddities and idiosyncrasies of the South African people will provide for so much more.

Soccer is not really a sport I quite get. You put a bunch of guys on a playing field, two nets and a ball and their goal is to kick their ball into the other teams net. Once they achieve this, the proud striker takes off his shirt, run around like a crazy person pulling faces and climatically ends his celebration by hugging and kissing his team members. Honestly, we gay folk do this all the time and we don’t call it sport! Having to watch all this occurring on a sports field probably could become quite boring if it wasn’t for some players. You see, I recently was sent an e-mail of a certain Christiano Ronaldo and after viewing some of the steamy pictures I can’t wait watching him score a goal. I don’t care whether his team wins or loses; I just want to see Ronaldo take off his shirt, run around flexing his muscles and kissing other guys. But I digress…

In South Africa we celebrate soccer matches with accessories. Normally soccer fans will paint their faces and bodies and/or wear funny things. No not us in South Africa, we also come armed with a secret weapon. It’s called the Vuvuzela. It is plastic, a meter long, brightly colored and is suppose to sound like an elephant if blown correctly. Blown incorrectly it sounds like a goose being raped. Vuvuzelas have been blowing around me for the last couple of days increasing in number and frequency and volume, slowly driving me crazy. Not only are they excessively loud but they are also becoming annoying. In the last couple of days many geese have died gruesome deaths both at my work and at home. I feel like Clarice Starling wanting to know when the lambs will stop screaming! So good luck soccer fans, remember to bring those ear plugs.

Another essential item on the South African soccer fan’s armor is the Makaraka and yes it’s as strange as it sounds. It is a type of helmet, if you can call it that, and it’s purely decorative. It’s a hard hat that has been modified artistically and almost can look like a piece of installation art worn on your head. It’s also accompanied with over sized sunglasses. Some folks have took this a step beyond and modified the Makaraka to be functional as well; you can now also add two beer cans and drink it through a straw thereby leaving your hands free to blow your Vuvuzela. Personally I own neither, and I couldn’t be bothered to wear a Makaraka because it will ruin my hair, besides I leave crazy head pieces to be worn by Lady Gaga.

In less than 24 hours the Soccer World Cup will start and South Africans are prepared. Many have bought their tickets, planned their parties and are keeping their fingers crossed for our national team. Adorned in the colors of the South African flag, protected by their Makarakas and Vuvuzelas in hand thousands will pitch up at the stadiums or community viewing points and enjoy each game. I shall be enjoying watching Mr. Ronaldo and be keeping my fingers crossed that he will make as happy as he is each time he scores a goal.
Till next time.

Official Fifa World Cup Song

Fundamentalist Christians & Your Porn.

As I alluded to last week there is a clear and present danger threatening my private porn collection. Yes, you read correctly, I have a porn collection and I am not ashamed to admit it. In a society where talking openly about our sex lives is considered distasteful and watching porn or admitting owning it shameful, the moment a fundamentalist religious group of people want to reinforce making sex taboo or even illegal, we will find ourselves in dangerous territory. In South Africa one such a group has emerged and is trying to do exactly this, and I for one will not stand for it.
The Justice Alliance of South Africa (JASA) was established in 2007. The name suggests that it’s a group of legal professionals but in reality this is not the case. This is a fundamentalist right wing religious group that has taken it upon themselves to be the “moral police” of the nation. They are trying to influence government to ban pornography and play God with the rights and lives of the South African people. If this sounds familiar you are not mistaken. Last year a similar situation occurred in Uganda with their proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, in Rwanda where they almost brought back anti-homosexuality laws, in Malawi with the sentencing of the gay couple and the violence against homosexuals and aid workers in Kenya. A golden threat is spun through all these events and it’s that of fundamentalist “Christian” groups meddling with these African governments and inciting intolerance and homophobia. First they test the water taking one civil liberty away in the name of morality and once they succeed they go for the jugular.
After I got wind of this JASA and their evil little plot I joined several queers in South Africa in taking action. Numerous e-mails were sent to the appropriate government department intimately involved in this pending malicious attack against our civil liberties. They responded very disrespectfully stating that clearly our value systems differ significantly from theirs and that we should just acknowledge our different views in this regard and leave it at that. In essence they told us “Go fuck yourselves we will do what we want and there’s nothing you can do about it”. Falling short of adding “Turn or Burn and God made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve” to their post scriptum, I am quite sure they fully realized where we were going with our e-mails and are aware that we are seeing through their diabolical smoke screen campaign.
You see, apart from wanting to ban porn they also introduced the term “any material deemed inappropriate” which leaves the scope for censorship wide open. Today they ban porn and tomorrow they deem homosexuality “inappropriate” and poof... there goes the legality of my marriage and double poof... my blog is banned and I get arrested! Sounds incredible don’t it? In reality this is a very real possibility and a very real threat. It begs the question, what exactly is it that these people really seek to achieve, are the secretly conspiring to take over the world one African country and one soul at a time or have global warming started to fry the grey matter they supposedly have in their heads? Who knows?
It’s said that pornography constitutes about 70% of the traffic on the Internet. Whether you care to admit it or not many people visit the odd naughty website from time-to-time. Personally the majority of my online time is spent on social networking websites and I do consider myself a professional Facebooker, a lazy Tweeter and an avid blogger. But yes, I too do visit a few “you must be 18 years or older” blogs and websites that would, in all probability, make you blush. To be perfectly honest, if all those sites were to disappear tomorrow I will not go into a frantic panic and end up crying myself to sleep smearing my mascara all over my crisp white sheets. No, I won’t pitch up for work the next day eyes swollen and distraught going through porn withdrawals. However, I would be pissed off as I like the fact that I can watch porn if I wish to do so. If it is banned, I am sure queer folk and straight folk would want to view pornography even more just because they are not allowed and new inventive ways will be found to access it or smuggle it into the country. I am imagining cavity searches becoming a whole lot more interesting and the black market a whole lot more lucrative.
In reality pornography is not the actual issue that motivates the JASA, I suspect their true motive being a whole lot more sinister. Not being one to encourage or perpetuate conspiracy theories one can’t help but wonder and be suspicious off events in Africa over the last three years. State sponsored homophobia is spreading like a wild fire, while in almost all instances the fire was ignited and fanned by religious groups advocating morality, influencing governments and targeting the gay community. Now that fire has reached us. Should gay South Africans be worried?

Till next time.

Lady Gaga - Alejandro

Banning Porn? WTF?

Some weeks should come with a mandatory warning that reads “This week your patience will be tested, brace yourself and make sure you’re well stocked up on Valium – you are going to need it!” Today is only Wednesday and already I had quite enough. Several fights with certain institutions, whose sole purpose is to support the mental health’s pharmacology industry, drove me nuts. Another gay club closed its doors after lying to me saying they were only revamping it and now my government is considering banning pornography. Seriously! What the hell is going on?

For the last month I have been trying to close down a bank account I have in the United Kingdom through Old Mutual International. One would think the process should be rather easy, even straightforward. After all it’s my account and it’s my money. The exercise of closing a bank account in a foreign country is equivalent to applying for a United States VISA while you’re on their international terrorist watch list. In the last month I had to complete several sets of forms.

According to the bank you are homeless and don’t exist until you can proof the contrary. I had to go to great length to show proof of my physical address. All the documents I presented finally convinced them I wasn’t homeless and two weeks later they accepted that I really do exist. All seemed fine until I received a call stating that my signature on one form didn’t look original – I had to come into their offices and sign the form again this time in front of a witness. Seriously, I am not messing with you! Already annoyed due to yet another delay I complied. The following week I received another phone call – the same problem different document! Livid, this time (thinking to those damn people only work on Wednesdays) I made an appointed and went back to their offices.

As I walked into their open plan office my account consultant saw I was in no mood for idle chat. As she placed the document on the desk infront of me she apologized for the inconvenience, I grunted and signed. Before leaving I double checked to make sure this was now indeed the last delay and she reassured me it was. It was no surprise when I phoned them this Monday that I learned that the 5-10 working days, to close the account, now 20 working days later would be another 5-10 working days as from next week Monday -the documents were still being reviewed for authenticity. I lost it!!! “I am not fucking homeless, I am a real fucking human being and all the goddamn signatures on all the forms are mine and bloody original!!! What is the goddamn fucking problem?!” Silence followed. An apologetic and somewhat scared voice broke the silence “Sir... I do apologize... the matter will be escalated to urgent, I’ll phone you on Friday, and once again I do apologize” I hung up.
To further ruin my bliss, I currently also have two mobile phones, one for private use and the other for work. The work phone’s contract is with Nashua Mobile and was due to expire last week and I was not planning on renewing it. At least two month ago I decided to be proactive and contacted the service provider informing them that I don’t plan on continuing the contract. They reassured me the contract would be cancelled. Being a bit anal retentive about a paper trail I insisted on getting this in writing. I was ignored. Numerous phone calls and e-mails later the end of May came and to my disbelief the phone was still working. Quite surprised I phoned the service provider only to be informed they never received my instruction. How convenient, six phone calls and three e-mails later and no one at their company knew I wanted the contract cancelled. All my proactive efforts were for nothing.

As I explained to the voice on the other side of the phone about my “paper trail” it was clear he was not interested as his system was saying “no, contract not cancelled” Clearly his system was more powerful and important than my little e-mails that apparently got lost in the Intrawebs. After telling him I don’t give a rat’s ass what his “system” was saying explaining I had proof, I also had to explain the difference between a computer and a real human being to him. It fell on deaf ears and inevitably I told him to shove his keyboard up his computer’s cooling fan’s vent which seemed to catch his attention. Only then did he finally realize that his liar system meant nothing in my world, he caved and asked me to forward the e-mails I sent previously to him and the contract would be cancelled with immediate effect. My phone is still working; I guess his system still says “NO”!

On Tuesday I learned that one of my favourite gay club called Legends closed its doors and my government is considering banning pornography. The two is not related but both pissed me off. Hubby and I were at that club on Friday and were told they were busy revamping it and we believed them. No wonder the drinks were so damn expensive and the fact that only 10% of the club was actually open and the rest covered behind curtains should have tipped us off.

The news that some religious group presented a draft bill to government proposing pornography is filtered out thereby preventing it from reaching South Africa outraged me. My first thought was what bullshit is this? This group claims to be fighting for the highest moral standards for South Africans and justifies the writing of this bill by claiming it’s to protect children. Can anyone say censorship? If this group is so concerned about morality why don’t they start with our president who allegedly fathered his 21st child, have multiple wives, clearly is promiscuous and not to mention his bastard children? I highly recommend that these self-righteous people focus on religion and leave politics to the politicians and leave my damn Internet alone! Don’t think we don’t know where all of this will end if they succeed: Today they take away our right to watch porn and freedom to information on the Internet, tomorrow they take away our civil rights.

Still traumatized about the club’s demise and the proposed banning of pornography I finally made it home last night being irritable, tired and angry – traffic also didn’t help my mood. I hated the bank, loathed the mobile phone service provider, was sad because the club closed down and angry because my gay rights may be in danger. All I wanted to do is sit on the couch under a warm blanket have a glass of Chardonnay and be left alone.

Then my phone rang. It was telemarketer from a bank wanting to give me a credit card which I rudely declined. Ten minutes later my phone rang for a second time and it was another telemarketer this time from a mobile phone company offering me a free phone and a contract. As I impudently tried to explain my mobile phone situation he would have none of that and was insistent that I should hear him out. I lost it! (The language I used cannot be repeated for fear of having to put an adult warning on my blog and maybe having it banned in South Africa).

It’s only Wednesday and my week have been sucking ass, and not in a good way. Maybe I should start attending anger management classes but if I do I am afraid I may hijack the class and could stagger the progress of the other participants. I think I am just a tad bit stressed and in desperate need of a holiday. If I make it to Friday without any further casualties it will be a miracle. Happy thoughts and remembering to breath...

Till next time

Miss Swan at a gay bar