Almost 9 months in Cape Town, and the only interaction I had with the police was a greeting or a fat chat at the robots about random things, back in Jozi one week, one week, and I am harassed, pulled over searched, wasting my time. And how is this for foolish the bra was going the opposite direction to me and I flagged them down to ask them if the municipal strike was over because I need to go and renew my drivers licence. The bra answers no, but pull over we are running a random search. I am like dude, what kind of an idiotic criminal would I be to stop you if I was guilty of any crime….aaah Jozi!!!

But those issues aside man, there is some other kind of energy here, lets not fool ourselves it doesn’t have the sights and sounds of Cape Town or my Buttercup ☺, but it definitely does have its own vibe. People all hustling to do things.

A few weeks ago in my blog where I spoke about racial tensions etc. I wrote something like lets move on, and it seems as if people misunderstood me. I am not saying lets pretend its not there, on contraire , what I am saying is we all know the problem, hell we’ve been stuck on the problem for how long now, lets find a way to solve it, find a way to live and let live, work with it u know…sigh it tires me so we move on.

Hey maybe you guys can help me with this, but whats the whole hoo ha about the dude saying don’t touch me on my studio…is it cos he said on my studio as opposed to in my studio? The way he said it, cos the joke flew riiiiight over my angular head.

So how has the world been so humbled? We as humans think we are sooo powerful, soo great, we know best, but last week boy were we showed that Mother Nature and our creator have power over all. A mountain spitting out a few rocks glass here and there into the sky, then the wind decides to gooi it down south, oooops no more flights. Gotta feel for those people who don’t have the financial means to support an extended holiday, and I guess happy days for those who had an extra holiday they can afford. But have you thought about the impact the grounding of flights has had on the worlds economy? Airlines are going to take a fat hiding in an already tough environment for them. Still have to pay staff and other cots but getting zero revenues. Oil prices should have been affected, people selling jet fuel sorry for them, those supplying food and services for flights….etc but on the upside though less carbon emissions thanks to flights being grounded, and those people stuck in those countries where tourism revenues is their lifeblood or a large part there of, well happy days for them cos they have the tourists for that much longer, oh wait maybe not, because they could have had more who may have spent more but may end up not coming because of their leave window period elapsing,…oh whatever

Todays topic is one that is quite close to me. I look at the world at the moment and in particular the youngsters. And man, I am really glad that even though I still have a whole lot of growing up to do, I am well pleased that I am not a in my prepubescent and pubescent stages, some might argue otherwise but lets leave that convo for another time. This thought was re ignited by an article I read today in the Times. Man kids are poked at the moment ey, shoo wee. Maybe it was because we didn’t conduct these surveys in my day, but the amount of kids wanting to commit suicide, members of gangs, drink on a regular basis, have fallen pregnant or fathered a child is insane. Now I guess I wasn’t the model student cos back then it was about sport and books, ladies and boozing didn’t feature much, but when I did observe it, it was soo discrete. We had, whats that term respect! Why was that? Was it because of corporal punishment? Discipline from home? Just the fact that the parents were home a lot of the time to watch over us and teach us right from wrong??

Now I have an idea how many of my mates were raised cos it was similar to how I was raised. But I will speak for myself here. When I was younger id get faaarked up!! Luckily or not so much it was only my mother, pops never hit us thank goodness cos the man was large when we were growing up. But Moms on the other hand anything goes, ladle, pot, shoe, hand belt, we even got to a stage where we’d fake the double clutch cry, so moms would feel sorry for us and let us be. But dare you cry when she leaves u be, yoh yoh yoh hell would rain down on you again. And I don’t think I was such a bad child hell I had no idea what a girl was, nor booze nor drugs, but my mother had a great pet name for me…DEVIL, me? I mean really??!!

Anyway so what I was getting at was that u did wrong you knew there was hell to pay, not just sit in the corner and think about it or think about ways to not get caught the next time, nah man. Even if they thought you did wrong, they being teachers or parents, you got an uppercut for making them think that you could have done wrong.

There was no such thing as bringing a knife or a gun to school. No such thing as back chatting a teacher, who remembers Phils and Mr Le Roux ☺. You were scared of being late for school, even though its not your fault, you had to stand in front of the whole school during assembly, not cool . We had discipline. Why because we had parents who were parenting. Our parents were there. I am no parent now nor do I have any authority to pass these comments but I speak from a place of observation and it just doesn’t seem like its the same, but then again the types of parents our parents were is not exactly the same as how it was when they were growing up, but I digress…Parents in my time were there.

It wasn’t all about chasing tin, well at least not for my folks. During the day we could watch Joe Perkins and Kelly Capwell, Cruz Casteel (that’s Santa Barbara by the way), but at night but at night dare we try and watch Blake, Krystal and Alexis Carrington or JR, Bobby and Sue Ellen Ewing….woooow watch out now, flying uppercut headed your way. Reason, its not for children and you must go to bed because you have school tomorrow…didn’t stop us from trying to sneak a peak though. But parents man, we could learn from them in terms of how to treat each other, relate to adults and people in positions of power. You knew your place. There was no we are all equals speak to me pops, don’t just tell me what to do, ask me what id like to do…..watchout upper cut. Extremes of any sort are no good but a good balance, proper roles as to who is in charge. That goes a long way to building a society of functional people.It goes a whole lot further too If you are ‘man’ enough to impregnate a woman, you are more than man enough to make sure the child grows up knowing and having a present father. Parenting from my experience of being parented, does not start at school or out on the streets but at home man. At school even though I fell foul of the rules a few times I’d do anything I had to to get a good report or to make sure my folks don’t catch wind of what I did wrong if anything. I’d want to do well in class not cos I wanted to be a hero, ok that too but mainly cos my old man, 60% was like a fail. May sound like my parents were tyrants and all, far from it man, they slaved hard so we could have every opportunity and most of all they were there inspite of whatever hardships that may have befallen them, they were there to make sure that we had a foundation and once I left home man they knew they had done a good enough job…shame ☺

Whats going on now man? I don’t know mate. Simple things like hair cuts, girls skirts not more than 2 fingers above the knee (haated that rule), simple rules that were there even though random, instilled much discipline in pupils as well as the sense of right or wrong according to rules. Now man, it looks like anything goes. 16 year olds cruising the malls looking like 25 year olds, all dolled up mammaries protruding, made up like porcelain dolls, smoking, I mean really that shouldn’t be cool. Kids should be kids, I mean what will you have to look forward to at third year varsity if you are already doing this stuff? Paying pre-primary school fees?? Nah man!! Nah man respect, that’s key, yes it has to be earned etc, but man If you respect another you tell me if you will try and harm them, speak ill of them, try and plot their demise or waste their time etc etc. I think not, its an integral part of this hear society I tell ya!

So where the problem is? Ahh boss, its us as parents and would be parents. We don’t raise our kids man. Agnes does. We don’t discipline our kids because they can call child line. We throw money at the problem, to make up for our absence. Late nights at the office, travelling this that the next. Hoping that money will make sure my little girl or boy doesn’t grow up smoking tik.

I hope if I am ever blessed with a little one, I am that guy who teaches him or her to play tennis, takes them to the library, oh wait that wont happen only dinosaurs go to the library ;), the guy who she comes to speak to when that little boy pulls her afro puffs, the guy who says dude, what’s this nonsense, what happened to the other 40% the dude who makes sure that damnit rules are rules irrespective of how silly you might think they are!! Cos man if that distinction isn’t there, every rule is breakable!!! I don’t want to be spending my Saturday afternoon going to visit anybody in jail boss, I have S15 to watch man!!

Birthdays
19th Patrick, E-man, Bron
21st Anthosh, Ravi, Ronelle
24th Kirst Goldby, Tasneem
25th Shaka

Ya man, a ripper is my wish to ya’all!!

Bags of love, wait truck loads man and maximum respect.