Archive for February, 2010

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08
Feb
10

The Voodoo Demon T-Shirt – An Update

By SlickTiger 2 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot about this whole voodoo demon T-shirt thing and I may have inadvertently scared all of you out of actually bidding for that godawful, demon-possessed piece of hell lovely and stylish piece of clothing.

Let me just say this once and for all so you don’t all get nightmares and wet the bed – the T-shirt I’m offering for the Nerdies ’10 raffle isn’t actually possessed by demonic spirits, it’s just a normal T-shirt. It won’t make you turn into a gargantuan, destructive force of nature when you put it on and I promise it won’t make you want to eat anyone.

 

 

See, what I was doing there was indulging in a little bit of fiction (you can read the original post here) a flight of fantasy if you will, in order to pique people’s interest in what is otherwise a normal T-shirt (a seriously radass T-shirt, but it doesn’t give you superpowers) so that you guys would go wild and in a frenzy of bidding, end up buying the shirt for somewhere upwards of R5k.

Then I realised I didn’t really explain the auction itself very well and maybe that’s what the real problem is here, so here’s the dealy-o. You have to go to this website and scroll down in the comments section (scroll right to the bottom) and find my thread about the shirt and start bidding. Don’t be a stingy fucker, if you give money with an open heart it comes back to you x3, fact.

I can’t really say I’m surprised though. I did some charity work before once, trying to raise money for the Walter Sisulu Paediatric Cardiac Centre for Africa. The MAEN! and I dressed in drag and ran the Spar Women’s Race and while it wasn’t a pretty sight, we got a damn good time and more wolf whistles than either of us could really handle.

 

 

Before I ran, I got people to sponsor me and managed to get about 50 people or so to sign and pledge an amount per kilometre, whether it was R5 or R50. I was stoked by people’s response and it gave me a lot of faith in the generosity of the human spirit. That is, until it came to collection time.

Out of all the people who sponsored me, you know how many actually paid up? Two. Two people, that’s it.

It was quite a wake-up call in a lot of ways because it got me thinking about all the times I’ve donated money to charity and I can’t say it’s been very often, so I’m just as bad as all the people who never paid up. Actually no, I’m not that bad because usually if I say I’m going to do something, I do it.

So let’s do this people. Right now there have been a grand total of (wait for it) THREE bids on the shirt – Angel, SheeBee and my main man, Supa_Dan. We’re currently sitting on R40 for this shirt, which is pretty damn cool as it was designed by Laurent "Lags" Barnard, the guitarist from the English hardcore punk band Gallows.

That fact in itself should fetch at least R150 for this shirt. All proceeds go to Wet Nose Animal Rescue Centre. So let’s lend a helping hand fer chrissake.

 

 

I’m re-opening the bidding at R60. Anyone have the stones to top that?

There are upwards of 150 of you who visit this site every day, don’t think I don’t know who you are, I know exactly who you are. I know where you live, where you go to work, your banking details, the whole deal.

Not that I would use that information to, say, destroy your life or anything, all I’m saying is think of the puppies guys, think of the puppies.

-ST

07
Feb
10

Suitcases and Empty Spaces

By SlickTiger 3 Comments
Categories: Killer Posts
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Nothing sounds like polyurethane suitcase wheels bumping over bricks. You could record that sound and play it to anyone and they’d be able to tell in a second it’s the sound of a suitcase being wheeled around, it’s the sound of someone arriving or someone leaving.

This morning it was the sound of my girlfriend starting our new life by herself. It kills me that I couldn’t be there with her, stepping onto that plane together, hand in hand to face whatever the future brings. Instead I’m left behind, sitting on my bed in a room as bare as it was before she moved in.

And round and round in my head the same line from the same song plays on infinite repeat.

Baby I’ve been here before, I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor, you know I used to live alone before I knew ya…

I never bothered to decorate my bedroom before J-Rab moved in. It was functional; bed, bedside table, lamp, bookshelf, washing basket. Patrick Bateman would have loved it. Then she arrived with her photographs and her drawings and her Indian elephants and her stars and the space I lived in came alive.

 

 

I’ll never forget the Saturday when her and Jenni-fuh busied themselves for hours cutting little golden moons and stars and spaceships out of some wrapping paper they found and sticking them up on our living room wall. It wasn’t long after I started this blog if I remember correctly, you can go here if you want to read that post.

I arrived home on Friday to find J-Rab taking the last of those stars down. There’s only a tiny crescent moon left, high up where her and Jenni-Fuh asked me to put it, too close to the ceiling for either of them to reach.

I think I’ll leave it up there.

We drove most of the way to the airport in silence this morning, her hand resting lightly on my thigh as I drove, and ironically, it was one of the most beautiful mornings Joburg has had in weeks.

“Well, at least Joburg is giving you a nice farewell,” I said.

“Yeah, great. It pisses down with rain for almost the entire summer, then on the day I leave the weather couldn’t be better.”

“Heh heh, yeah,” I chuckled, “asshole city.”

The man at the check-in counter told us J-Rab’s luggage was 2 kilos over the limit and looked like he was going to do something about it until the two of us verbally clothes-lined the motherfucker.

 

 

“C’mon, she’s moving her whole life down to Cape Town, everything! How the hell do you expect her to keep to your ridiculous 20kg limit? So she’s 2 kgs over, I’m pretty sure the plane’s still going to be able to take off. Please dude, help us out here, this is an emotional time for us both…”

Of course he let it slide. Only problem was J-Rab’s overhead luggage was the size of a St Bernard, but he let that slide too. We make a great team, my lioness and me. I wouldn’t want to fuck with us.

I held her for a long time before she went through the departures gate, but it wasn’t long enough. I watched her take her laptop out of her bag and put it through the x-ray machine along with the St Bernard and then put it back in on the other side.

She turned and waved one last time, I waved too. I swallowed hard.

I spent the rest of the morning at Peggles’ flat – he was actually arriving back from Cape Town at the same time J-Rab was leaving so I gave him a lift from the airport back to his flat and drank coffee there and tried to enjoy the morning.

By lunchtime it was pissing down again and I drove through the deluge back home and wandered aimlessly around the flat, opening the cupboards, staring into the fridge, stacking the dirty dishes but not washing them, eating the couscous salad J-Rab made us for dinner last night and then finally collapsing onto the bed with all my clothes on and falling into a restless sleep.

We watched Dexter until 3 in the morning together, season two, we had to finish it before she left because it’s not the same watching it alone. I think I dreamed about it, but I can’t be sure.

I know I dreamed about something.

She called once she’d arrived at our new place and took some pictures with her phone and sent them to me.

I found myself squinting at them, trying to get a feel for the place, weighing up the pros and cons. Here the pictures are. It’s weird to think this is going to be the place where I’m going to live and you, a bunch of perfect strangers mostly, know as much about how it looks as I do.

 

 

 

Tomorrow I’ll wake up and look at this city with new eyes. I’ll drive down the same roads I have been for years, but they’ll carry a certain charm that they didn’t before and the tiny details that make up this city will jump out at me, larger than life because in two weeks and two days, I’m packing everything up and hitting the open road.

In my mind I can see myself pulling into the dusty driveway of the wooden house where we’re going to live and I can see her running out the front door, her henna-red hair moving in slow waves as the afternoon sun sets quietly behind us, and the distance between us closes for the last time.

It’s not long now… not long at all.

-ST

06
Feb
10

Not dead yet

By SlickTiger 1 Comment
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,

I’m not dead yet! This last week was a bad week for blogging and the posts I wrote smacked of mediocrity, but I’m only human and not yet the blogging machine I hope to one day be, but I’m getting there, one post at a time 😉

So what’s been going on in my crazy-assed life the past few days? Well, for starters I visited the dermatologist yesterday and he nailed this big skin tag that’s been growing on my forearm with some liquid nitrogen and now it looks like this:

 

 

Fuck blogging is awesome! Guess what else!? I had a salami sandwich for lunch today! I know! Stop the fucking press right?

Ironically, there are actually major changes happening in my life right now, like the fact that tomorrow at 9.20 I drop J-Rab off at Lanseria Airport and don’t see her again for two and a half weeks.

I’ll tell you one thing for free, I fucking hate long-distance. It’s hellish – the missed calls, the smses, the g-chats, the Skype calls, I wouldn’t fucking wish it on my worst enemy. J-Rab and I did it for a year and a half, I was here and she was in London, then after that she moved to Boston, that’s a 6 hour time difference kids, 7 in winter.

You think we’d be used to it, but the truth is you never get used to it. You get used to being close, coming home to the person you love, the little things y’know? Brushing your teeth together, curling up to go to sleep, all that retarded shit, the shit you never bother to put into words, you get used to that stuff.

And then she’s gone and you’re finding tiny pieces of her for weeks afterward – strands of her hair, maybe a pair of earrings here, some lip gloss there, her scent on your pillow, and you’re remembering the feeling of her breath on your neck and what it looked like to watch her disappear through the boarding gates the last time you saw her.

 

 

And then the phone calls, fuck I remember them well. The first month or two it’s bearable, but by month three, month four, it feels like you’re dating a ghost, a voice on the phone and not much more.

People said we’d never last, but we found a way, just like we’ll find a way through the next two and a half weeks.

I hope it goes by fast. The weekends are the worst and there’s two of those to get through, so hopefully it won’t be too bad, and even if it is, I’ll fight on through cause that’s what I do.

If nothing else, it should free up a little time for me to write some great material and I already have ideas bouncing around for a couple of killer posts, so watch this space 😉

Later Party People.

-ST

04
Feb
10

Salome’s first day

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Being Slick
Tags: , , , , ,

Hey party people.

This won’t be a long post. I’m feeling kinda down and don’t really know what to write about today. The day started out all sunshiny and turned to pouring rain and grey skies. More grey skies. Just when you think things are clearing up, more grey skies.

 

 

I guess it doesn’t help that I’ve been listening to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds all day, but I don’t know, I find solace in that crazy fucker’s music, the way he’s screaming mad one minute and singing heartfelt ballads the next. Reminds me of this one guy I met once in a crowded bar, drinking himself quietly to hell, writing poetry on paper napkins… I wonder what ever happened to those napkins…

I think about our maid Salome’s first day when she started with us and how I was on school holidays and went to make myself a bowl cereal at 2 o’clock in the afternoon cause I was hungry and lazy that day.

I remember how I paused when I reached into the fridge for the milk because the milk jug with the cartoon cows on it wasn’t there.

Instead I found myself staring at a Hunchback of Notre Dame milk jug. Identical in shape, but with a red cap instead of a white one and pictures from the animated Disney movie all over it.

I asked my mom later what happened to the milk jug and she told me that Salome broke it by mistake, but was too scared to tell anyone so she walked up to the Pick ‘n Pay on her lunch break and tried to buy an identical jug. They were sold out of cartoon cow ones, so she bought a Hunchback of Notre Dame one instead and just kinda hoped no one would notice the difference.

She burst into tears when my mom asked her where the cartoon cow jug was.

I don’t know, I think about Salome’s first day sometimes and how it must have felt to watch that milk jug slip out of her hands and smash on the floor.

It’s stupid, I don’t know why I think about that. I wish there wasn’t so much junk in my head sometimes.

Tomorrow will be better.

-ST

03
Feb
10

The Tale Of SlickTiger And Voodoo Demon T-Shirt

By SlickTiger 8 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

The tale I’m about to tell you is pretty damn incredible, so much so that many people, friends and family alike, have warned me against putting it out there. “Whatever you do, DON’T blog about this!” they warned, but seriously, what the hell do they know?

I tell ya, it’s EXACTLY like they said in Spiderman “With great power comes a tidal wave of shit you probably don’t want to deal with” (or something like that) and, well, I’m done picking the flesh of my loved ones out of my teeth, I just want my old life back, is that too much to ask?!

It all started with Vincent Hofman, that evil bastard. Him and his site www.moralfibre.co.za started ALL of this.

There I was one day, minding my own business on the internet, probably surfing some porn or playing Farmville or something, when he attacks me on G-chat about some competition or other that he’s running.

 

 

I don’t remember the conversation exactly, but I think it went something like this:

Vince: hey! you! buddy! hey! stop fucking around, i know you’re playing Farmville, stop trying to look busy
me: Um, hi Vince, how are you to-
Vince: you visited MF today?
me: Huh? No, not yet, but I was just about to I swe-
Vince: why not!
me: Dude, I was just about to, I swear!
Vince: whatever. you finished writing that piece i asked you for?
me: Um, which one was that ag-
Vince: fuck man! The one about how contemporary society has become eroded by the twisted moors of pseudo-intellectual, quasi-omnipotent, western corporate consumer masturbatory ontological fascist antidisestablishmentarianism?
me: Oh yeah, that one… sure, um, should be ready any day now…
Vince: good. i want it 8am tomorrow. also, i’m putting my name in the byline. but don’t worry, i’ll link it to your site, right at the bottom of the piece. in font size 3. in turkish
me: Ok, um, yeah, that sounds fair…
Vince: also, im running a competition on the site
me: Cool! what’s the prize?
Vince: a shirt
me: I love shirts!
Vince: yeah, a dude from that band the gallows designed it himself, sealed the print onto it with virgin’s blood in some kind of elaborate ritual sacrifice to Satan presided over by a Haitian voodoo priest or something
me: Fuck yeah!
Vince: for some reason not many people have entered the competition yet, so get your ass on the site and enter the competition and there’s a better than average chance you’ll win it
me: Fuck yeah!
Vince: um, there’s probably just one thing I should tell you first though
me: Eh? What?
Vince: the last guy to have the shirt tore his entire family limb from limb and was found crouching with nothing but the shirt on in the corner of his room, eating their remains
me: Huh. But the shirt’s free right?
Vince: yup
me: Fuck yeah!

And so it came to pass that three days later the announcement was made over Twitter that the winner of the Gallows Voodoo Demon T-Shirt competition was… me!

Having never won anything in my life except a 10kg bag of Epol dog food (which tasted like total crap, but made my coat really shiny) I was so excited I could hardly sit still!

 

 

For the first few days, my excitement levels were tolerable, and my friends and co-workers shared my enthusiasm and were genuinely happy for me as I jumped up and down excitedly and sang songs I made up about my new T-shirt.

However, two and a half months later, when the T-shirt still hadn’t arrived I had to be put on powerful sedatives after my booth-buddy at work screamed something about not being able to take ‘anymore fucking singing anymore’ and stabbed me in the neck with a pair of scissors.

About a month after that, the T-shirt arrived! I rushed home to put it on, and with trembling hands, slowly pulled it over my head and slid my arms through the sleeves.

The instant the shirt was on, this feeling of raw power flooded through my entire body! It was like this one time when my friends spiked my drink with liquid ecstasy at a high school social and I ended up with my underpants on my head gyrating wildly to “What Is Love? (Baby don’t hurt me)” while the other grade 8s ran screaming out of the school hall.

I turned to look at myself in the mirror and this is what I saw:

 

 

The Gallows T-shirt had transformed me into a bloodthirsty gargantuan beast! I immediately went on a rampage around the neighbourhood, smashing buildings down with my bare hands, swatting helicopters out of the air like flies and using tank turrets as baseball bats while I bashed army dudes over the horizon and clear into the ocean!

I also ate a few people. They tasted marginally better than Epol.

Of course it wasn’t long before they sent in the big guns and called a nuclear airstrike in on my ass and that’s when I realised that maybe I’d taken things too far.

It’s not right for one man to have so much power, and so I’m offering The Gallows T-Shirt, designed by one of the dudes in the band in some kind of dark, evil, blood soaked voodoo ritual, as an item to be raffled for the Nerdies 2010, because all the proceeds go to Wet Noses charity and puppies are cyoot.

But whoever wins the T-Shirt BEWARE! On wearing it you will become a bloodthirsty gargantuan beast, filled with murderous rage and a savage appetite for destruction and human flesh, but it sure beats spending your free time jacking off and playing Farmville right?

Let the bidding begin…

MUAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

-ST

02
Feb
10

Saturday Night – A Photo Journey

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Good Times
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

So yeah, we lost radio transmission for a few days back there and yesterday’s post wasn’t exactly what you’d call ‘worth a damn’ (not in my opinion anyway, I mean sure, there’s nothing wrong with pics of girls with see-through bras splashing around in pools, by there was no goddamn SUBSTANCE there! Nothing to sink your teeth into!) so here’s what went down at our farewell party.

In the beginning everything was cool, everything was chilled. The sun actually broke through the clouds for the first time in what felt like months sometime around 1pm, just before the party started. Not long after that, we posed for a sexy photo, me, J-Rab and THE CLAW OF DEATH!

 

 

A bunch of radass people arrived, one of which was Action Jackson who, even though he’s been at almost every party I’ve documented on this blog, has never actually had his picture published on this blog.

Ladies and gentlemen. With no further ado. I present to you. A great man and a personal friend of mine for the last 15 years. Wearing a Woody The Woodpecker T-Shirt and a badass grin. Mister. ACTION! JACKSON!

 

 

Another radass person to arrive was Graumpot. I asked him to hit us with his best ‘Heeeeeerrrrrrreeeeeee’s JOHNNY!’ face and good god did he nail it!

 

 

At this point, Jacey-got-the-aceys pushed me in the pool. The Red Mist descended. I got out, wrestled his ass to the ground, tried to tear his head off and generally put on a killer show for everyone else at the party, who all just stood around staring at us in a kind of shocked silence.

Shortly thereafter, everything was forgotten. Jacey gave me a high-five, I gave him a *5! and much hilarity ensued. Here’s a picture of some hilarity ensuing.

 

 

Then something weird happened and things took a turn, a dark turn, for the worst. Night fell and the volume of alcohol consumed took a sharp increase. Confusion reigned supreme, all around there was wailing and gnashing of teeth and somewhere, out of nowhere, a strange 40-year old man arrived and drank too much.

He then proceeded to try and pose in a ‘cool’ way for photos. But it wasn’t cool. I’m… sorry you have to see this…

 

 

After that, everything went to hell in a handbasket. More people arrived and we instantly made friends for life and then forgot each other’s names and had some more tequila. A loud splash was heard from the direction of the pool and before I knew what the hell was going on, I was in there, surrounded by ladies, it was amazing, it was like girl soup in there, party on Wayne!

 

 

And THAT my friends, was only the beginning of the party. Things still carried on until the wee hours, it was a truly sick, sick, sick party, wish you could have been there!

To end things off, here’s my favourite pic of me and J-Rab from Saturday. Sure, we might look a little drunk, a little starry-eyed, but more than anything we’re just happy to be surrounded by our friends on a warm summer evening, shooting the breeze and making some of the last memories of our life together in Joburg.

 

 

Thank you for taking this photo journey with me and my pals. Next stop CAPE TOWN MUTHUFUKKAHS!

-ST

01
Feb
10

Ploughing into the hurdles

By SlickTiger 1 Comment
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

He was an athletic machine. His legs pumped like pistons as he sprinted and he was miles ahead of the competition by the time he came to the first hurdle. His legs scissored over each hurdle flawlessly, it looked like he was going to break his own personal best and all around the stadium the crowd started cheering and screaming wildly as they stood up, fists pumping in the air.

Tension was high as he deftly reached into his gay little running shorts and pulled the hip flask out. The spectators all saw it and a hushed silence fell over the stadium as they stared at him, their mouths still hanging open, frowning in confusion.

He turned to his loving audience, winked and tipped the hip flash to his lips, gulping its contents greedily as he leaped over the last few hurdles, already starting to get a little wobbly on his feet.

He sucked the hip flask dry and threw it over his shoulder in a long, slow arc that ended abruptly as it struck one of the other runners in the face.

The crowd gasped in horror. What the hell was he doing?

He turned his head back and focussed his attention on the last two hurdles, but already the booze was taking effect.

He ran straight into the first hurdle without any attempt to jump it whatsoever and came crashing to the floor in a tangled heap of limbs and splintered wood. The crowd gasped a second time and started shouting and booing loudly.

He picked himself up shakily, laughing all the while, limped over to the last hurdle, kicked it flat as the other runners passed him by, and went to lie down on the grass by the side of the track for a bit.

He’d never seen a sky so blue before…

I didn’t post on Saturday or Sunday, the guilt of which is making me feel a little lousy. But in my defence, the party on Saturday was INSANE! One minute everyone’s all cool, all chilled out, next minute everyone’s in the pool going wild!

 

 

But more about that later, watch this space 😉

-ST

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