My 1st Infinity Dreams Award!

Anand of blabberwockying! has nominated me for an Infinity Dreams Award! This is actually a good sign… It tells me that he doesn’t regret nominating me for all the other cool Awards. Anand is… well, let me not bore you about how cool he is because it’s gonna sound like I’m just saying it just for the sake of saying it but look, if you love life, if you love good vibes, if you like educating yourself and getting a bit of insight or views on either writing, astrology, religion and all the rest, you’re gonna love blabberwockying! and of course, you’ll love the guy behind it as well… oh yes, I also mean to thank him for this award, it means there’s hope for me ouchea!!!

The Award Rules:

1. Thank and follow the blog that nominated you.

2.  Tell us 11 facts about yourself.

3.   Answer the questions that were set for you to answer.

4.  Nominate 11 bloggers and set questions for them.

11 Facts About Myself

 

1. I lied my way out of pre-school.
2. I lied my way into my first job.
3. I hate following trends, so I don’t.
4. I love music… shocker.
5. I can’t stop myself from writing, it’s an itch I can’t help but scratch.
6. I recently discovered that maybe I’m a moody human being… yea
7. Selflessness is one of the most important things to me.
8. My mother doesn’t know about my interest in writing, she doesn’t even know that I have a blog.
9. Though some may disagree, I’m very shy/reserved.
10. I can only count up to 10.
11. Okay, maybe I’ve attempted counting to up to a million but got stuck between 0and another number.

My Answers To Bohemian’s Questions

 

Do you enjoy the City or Country more

Country

The Movie or the Book

Movie

Home cooked meal or take out

FOOOOOOD

Which super villain would you choose to be?

Lord Voldemort… mostly because of the British accent… anyone villain with a British accent will do for me.

Love is…..

Free

How do you like to spend a rainy day?

Curled up with something good to watch

Can you share one quote or saying you love, that keeps you going in life?

PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME PICK

If you were mayor for the day, what three things would you change about your city?

I have days when I want to save the world… today isn’t one of them… sorry…

What’s the most anti-establishment thing you’ve ever done?

Gee… Thanks for making me feel like bubble-wrapped Mr Play-it-safe

What’s one favorite thing you do by yourself?

I love being by myself… Almost anything you can think of is my favourite thing to do by myself

Share one thing you didn’t understand about the world when you were a kid.

Digestion.

My Nominees Are!

stephellaneous

Chape

thebuddhasutra

Atomic Words

Spoken Like A True Nut

FrancisKarl

Must Be This Tall To Ride

HeartwordsForPoetry

 

Anand’s Questions To My Nominees:

1. Who is your mentor or who inspires you the most?
2. Who is your best friend?
3. What is the role of gratitude in life, if any?
4. If you could meet one person from any period in history (it may even be fictional), who would it be?
5. What is the sweetest thing someone ever did for you?
6. Which were the best years of your life – childhood, youth or whichever age you’re now?
7. Do you suffer from any kind of phobia?
8. What do you need to be happy?
9. What is love?
10. What is peace?
11. Who are you?

P.S I didn’t cheat… Okay, I’m sorry, I’m a bad example, please don’t be like me 😦 Follow the rules.

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Taking Las Vegas Home

This song brings me so much quiet joy, it defeats me with happiness, it smothers me with wonder, it kills me with our truth. Defeated by our intentions, we curl up once more.

So many songs are about looking for love in all the wrong places… finding it in hopeless places, it doesn’t have to be a physical place but a state of mind we may or may not share.

So many people meet in loud places… parties… clubs… though the vibe seems to be the same in all or most of these places, the people aren’t always… Nor are their intentions…

 

I go to loud places

To search for someone, to be quiet with

Who will take me home

You go to loud place

To find someone who

Will take you higher than I took you

 

 

 

Intentions were never the same, with a facade here and there, the relationship blossomed… with every second… minute… hour… days piling up, down comes the facade. Stranded in love all by herself, it’s clear that it wasn’t meant to be… but still, her heart clings to what she thought she had… what would’ve been…

 

I go to those places

Where we used to go

They seem so quiet now

I’m here, all alone

You go to new places

With I don’t know who

And I don’t know how

To follow you

 

 

We want it, we go out of our way for it, but how would we know where or when to search for it when we don’t really know where or when it was lost.

Was it ever there? Will it ever be?

They say the worst part of ending is starting again, but does it ever end?

Chasing an unknown high, we keep chasing… To start something that we hope will be better than the last, something that will get us higher than our last fix…

 

You’re in ecstasy, without me

When you come down

I won’t be around…

 

Her grip… she weakens…

 

Lonely Teenagers Broke Down My Groove

After spending so much time in a relationship with someone, is it ever a good idea to part over “differences” of a sort? I’d like to think not, but truth is, we do… But why do we allow this? Hell, what are all these differences about anyway?

Through the blossoming days we are most probably aware of what we like as well as what we don’t like about each other and it is in such a conscious setting that we are able to acknowledge a problem for what it is, a problem, a situation with an expiry date on it… Something we can sort out… It is when we lose sight of who we’re with and why we’re with them that we start seeing each other as the problem as opposed to seeing the situation as the problem that the “differences” are born… That’s when what we have is stamped with an expiry date.

We as people are not temporary, situations are, problems are. It’s when we start confusing each other with the situation we may be in that we blindly throw everything into the garbage bag.

Detach     your partner from     the problem, stop trying to solve your partner, solve the situation.

 

I want so much to open your eyes

‘Cause I need you to look, into mine

 

Lionized by pop culture (esp. TV series) “Open Your Eyes” by Snow Patrol has mostly been implied to be a literal opening of the eyes of a near death (or already deceased) loved one. It has been featured in both ER as well as Grey’s Anatomy to set the theme of distress of fearing the possibility or perhaps facing the fact of not being able to look into a loved one’s eyes ever again… The disbelief…

The song has also been used to ferry it’s more figurative message as the theme for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, perhaps suggesting that the nation should be awake and or aware of the situation, not only that but to be conscious of the necessary steps (voting for him) to help the situation the American nation may have been facing at that time.

 

Get up, get out, get away from these liars

‘Cause they don’t get your soul or your fire

Take my hand; knot your fingers through mine

And we’ll walk from this dark room for the last time

 

Words that can be applied to a personal relationship… A romantic relationship. We forget that we’re in it together, we start villainizing each other, we start blaming each other for the situation, for the space we’re in, instead of teaming our way out of that space, the dark room.

 

 

 

Shouldn’t Talk About It

Like most people, I am proud of who I am, the colour of my skin as well as where I come from… I love my home city, but lets face it, it’s no secret that if ever a cool international act/artist comes to South Africa there’s but a foggy chance of them coming to my home town, Durban. It’s always Johannesburg and Cape Town. So naturally, when I first heard that Milky Chance would be heading to SA I wasn’t totally excited… Them coming to Durban was but a cloudy, milky chance… okay, I’ll stop.

This time I was in for a surprise, yea… I’m not sure why or how, but Milky Chance came to Durban.

I only started paying attention to the German folk/reggae/Electronica duo after hearing their hit number “Stolen Dance”, Which leads me to the question… how do I put it? Wait, that wasn’t the question…

Alright, I’ll just dive in.

If masturbation is sometimes referred to as a “lonely dance”, then what really is a “stolen dance”?

Now you’re probably thinking the song is about adultery, I think the same… but wait, it’s justified adultery (if there’s such). If you listen to the words in it, it appears the main character in the song is sweet talking his way out of a tight situation… Perhaps blaming loneliness for his actions of dancing with someone else (maybe he gets lonely because he and his love interest don’t get to see each other as often as they’d like)

 

I want you by my side

So that I never feel alone again…

I hope they didn’t get your mind

Your heart is too strong, anyway

 

Above, the main character is basically hoping that his love interest isn’t buying all the rumors and isn’t paying mind to all the obvious signs of him cheating… he’s hoping she’ll brush it off and follow her heart back to him.

From a different perspective, the main character on this song is but a victim of a long distance relationship, though the trust is there, he can’t help but wonder if his love interest is being as faithful as he is, if she’s enduring the pain and cold nights as he is.

 

Coldest winter for me

No sun is shining anymore

The only thing I feel is pain

Caused by absence of you

Suspense controlling my mind

I cannot find the way out of here

 

NOTE: The artwork I’ve selected illustrates how risky a “dance” a romantic relationship is, and how trust is an important building block… It’s dumb? Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

 

The Children of The Son Are Burning In The Sun

Something caught my attention in the news, I usually miss important stuff but this time I didn’t. Said to potentially cure HIV in collaboration with other drugs Truvada is a drug that is claimed to prevent HIV infections by up to 100% to those prescribed with it…

Take whatever you want from this information but I think the last thing we need is something that’s gonna encourage us to have unsafe sex with people we’ve never tested with… Yes, call me paranoid but I smell noisy propaganda all around this.

Brothers and sisters, how HIV/AIDS came about is still a very grey conversation, Whilst many claim that the virus was man-made why it was made is also a cloudy conversation… Sex is a weakness for us as a people, a weakness that anyone can use against us, a weakness we can use against each other… Which brings us to the question, are we as free a we say we are, is the struggle really over?

 

 

“In my backpack, I got my act right

In case you act quite difficult

and your is so weaken with anger and discontent

Some are seeking and searching like me, moi

I’m a peace-loving decoy, ready for retaliation

I change the whole occasion to a pine box six-under

Impulsive, don’t ask wild wonder

Orders given to me is ‘Strike’ and I’m thunder

With lightning fast reflexes on constant alert

From the constant hurt that seems limitless

With no dropping pressure”

 

World peace is something any honest Jesus freak hopes for, Ironically it’s also something any honest Jesus freak knows we’ll never get. The good book itself bares prophecies of the end of time. Yes, many of us may speculate about how the chains are already in motion, looking at everything that’s happening around us. In Mandela Girls I blogged about an encounter I had with a pride of prostitutes… yes, a pride… It felt like one them was about to pounce for the kill. It’s so easy to ignore something you hear about or something you see on TV but when you get to actually see it, a whole new reality rings in.

Poverty has so many of us in a chokehold, so much so, for what may seem as change to another may just be enough for so many others not to even think twice about risking their health, their lives for…

 

“The cost of life, it seems to get cheaper

Out in the desert with my street sweeper

THE WAR IS OVER, so said the speaker

With the flight suit on

Maybe to him I’m just a pawn

So he can advance

Remember when I used to dance

Man, all I wanna do is dance”

 

Featured Song: Dirty Harry – The Gorillaz

 

Though We’re Never Gonna Survive, Unless We Get a Little Crazy

Twenty-Four years ago this very day, the greatest grunge song of all time was released. As iconic as Smells Like Teen Spirit is, it was nominated for a Grammy only to LOSE to “GIve It Away” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yes, as controversial as the Grammy loss/win was or still is, I’ve made it very clear that I live for both songs and with that said I don’t really mind which one of the two won the Grammy. Which brings me to the most important part of Kanye West’s speech at this year’s VMAs. Well, we all know he wants to run for president in 2020, I’m very happy for him and stuff, and yes it served as a very dramatic ending to his speech but I don’t think that was the most important part.

If you haven’t realized it by now, I had two huge artists in mind when I was putting together this Blog… The 1st of course being Kurt Cobain and the rest of Nirvana and the 2nd being Kanye West… don’t believe me? Check out my header. Yeap, the prophecy has been fulfilled. They say history repeats itself and from where I’m standing, that’s exactly what happened at this year’s VMAs… Wait, LISTEN TO THE KIDS BRO… Well, I’m one person and I’m not really a kid, but hear me out…

Before Kanye West, Kurt Cobain is the only other artist that had balls big enough to give MTV the middle finger. You may or may not know this but when Nirvana had “Rape Me” as their latest single, MTV asked them not to perform it on their VMA stage but to perform “LIthium” instead… MTV practically forced them to perform a song they weren’t planning to perform… Nonetheless, once on stage Nirvana started performing “Rape Me”, (MTV) in panic and about to switch to a commercial break, Nirvana switched it up and only then started performing Lithium.

This year something of that proportion happened. Kanye basically said he doesn’t understand the whole thing of award shows ON AN AWARD SHOW STAGE. He also went on to point out MTVs obvious attempts to increase their ratings. Though the attempts are or were obvious, no one else would’ve mentioned it on their stage.

In terms of music, the most important thing Kanye West said is that he doesn’t understand why after doing so well and being loved by millions all over the would a song must then be put against 4 other songs, each great in their own rights but now given a chance to LOSE.

Yes ladies and gents, this is the very meaning behind Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. We as humans are our own worst enemies, likewise we are our biggest competitors… Yes, it’s so cliché, and I’m about to punch myself in the face for writing it, but we can’t take away it’s truth, it’s not always about being better than everyone else but it’s about being the best you can be. Your God-given gift is not to be compared but to be sharpened in your own betterment, to be appreciated, to be used in its entirety.

“I’m worse at what I do best

And for this gift I feel blessed

A little group, has always been

and always will

Until the end”

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT!!!!

Mandela Girls: The Truth Thursday Addition

Today the truth will come out: Mandela Girls? Why Mandela Girls? Fitzpleasure by Alt-J is one of those songs I can’t relate to yet intensely enjoy listening to nonetheless. The song itself is said to be inspired by a chapter from Hubert Selby, Jr.’s 1964 controversial novel about the brutality of urban life. The book was titled Last Exit to Brooklyn. The song inspiring chapter ends with the gruesome rape of a prostitute character named Tralala. A line from the song that always plays in my head is of course “little did I know then, that the Mandela boys soon become Mandela men”, So basically after writing a women’s day post about an incident I had with a group of prostitutes, I thought I’d change the “boys” in Mandela boys to “girls” for a title.

“There’s a gang in Southampton called The Mandela Boys. We were scared s—less of them when we were kids. The (next) line, ‘Little did I know then that the Mandela Boys soon become Mandela Men’ is me wondering whether they’re still in the gang or if they’ve just all got jobs and kids now.”- Alt-J frontman

The rest of the post swings back and forth from the featured Keane track to being about the world’s oldest profession. The originator of the phrase “The world’s oldest profession” was Rudyard Kipling. His 1888 story about a prostitute begins, “Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world.” As progressives debated how to deal with prostitution in the US in the early 1900s, medical professionals soon began to misquote Kipling, and the phrase took on a life of its own.

Shot by Brent Slirton the above picture of Maria, a drug addicted sex worker resting between clients in the room she rents in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine won him first prize in the Contemporary Issues Singles category.

 

In Mandela Girls I mentioned how you and I can only speculate about the psychological and emotional journey an aging sex worker goes through. Truth is, not many of them get the chance to age. After so many run ins with abusive clients as well as the health risks they put themselves through not forgetting their probable use of drugs, sooner rather than later, the body must reject the host to survive…

In Mandela Girls I also asked, when is that point in a woman’s life does she decide to pursue prostitution? How hard or easy is it, how long does it take for a woman to brace herself, to talk herself into taking that particular path? In ‘Til She Cries No More I made up a fictional character who naturally made love for free ’til her 1st love broke her heart and she “lost” her way as she spiralled into drug abuse and prostitution… You know how that 1967 rock number goes, The First Cut is the Deepest, and you know what people say, a girl’s real first love is her father.

 

“Fathers, be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers

So mothers, be good to your daughters too”

 

Sticking to the whole women’s month vibe, “Daughters” is a Grammy winning number by American singer-songwriter John Mayer. Lyrically the song is an appeal to parents, more especially fathers to nurture their daughters in their childhood because the relationship will affect their future relationships with men as adults.

 

“Oh, you see that skin?

It’s the same she’s been standing in

Since the day she saw him walking away

Now she’s left Cleaning up the mess he made”

 

Though prostitution is largely influenced by poverty and is seen as the “last resort” to making a living, unfortunately to some it’s not a last resort they had to take but something they’ve chosen to do as a result of bad parenting and them finding or trying to find the parental love they yearn for from all the wrong people… some simply do it to rebel. To break free from what is expected of them…

“The fact that they could juggle both the outside prejudice and the layers of euphemism (even deceit) their professions required was… inspiring me. … All of my problems were solved! It didn’t matter that I was a little girl with an armful of bad tattoos! I would be able to move out of my mother’s house completely! No one would ever be the boss of me again!”- Cathryn Berarovich in How I Became a Prostitute