GLAD ATTITUDE

Off to meet my friend and kindred spirit Liza at a bookstore for a peaceful cappuccino and mutual book-buy, I was cruising along the motorway in my sister's jet-black Peugeot convertible, which is a toy of a car, the kind that in this part of the world is perceived as a "gay car", the kind it should be compulsory to drive with the hood down, regardless of the weather. But you can't drive with the hood down, of course, no matter how hot it is, or you think you are - you don't want your Armani shades snatched (the very ones Leo wore in Blood Diamond), not by some pushy Ghanian fobbing off cheap Chinese fakes, and making it very difficult for the local chap who spent all week stringing tiny, margerine-yellow glass beads onto a wire penguin (which I recently purchased for my twelve year-old niece for the dual purpose of supporting the craftsperson in feeding his family without resorting to violence, and confirming her disdain for anything of local colour or, yuck, hand made - as is the habit of her age - with a superior little frown and a curt, What'm I s'posed to do with that? And you know I can't have yellow with my copper curls).

As I slowed at a set of traffic lights ("robots" they call them here) and braced myself for an approaching multi-coloured beach ball vendor (the balls being multi-coloured, not the vendor, and very handy in a city that's at least seven hours drive to the nearest ocean), I noticed a woman glide into the turn-only lane in a sleek silver Beemer, with a book opened on the steering wheel. She was making her way to a meeting, I decided, she was checking her direction, she couldn't possibly be reading. I needed to know, but I was stuck in a line a few cars back. The lights changed and I slowly pulled up beside her as she eased forward to turn at the crossing. Without looking up. She was reading. Perhaps the war-plane-looking car drove itself? Switch to auto-appointment-router and submerge yourself in a novel. I craned forward as she turned a page. It was one of those attention-wrenching self-help books, hyper-designed by on-the-pulse upstarts from a lunch-break's worth of market research in the local Ital-afro bistro: large format; matt black cover; lime neoned title: BAD ATTITUDE.

So intrigued was I by this feat of auto-reactive machine operation whilst polishing your emotional intelligence, that I stalled the gay car, just as that other self-driving model slid through amber and taxied its passive operator to a no-doubt zenly-executed corporate take-over. Trapped between a rusty, twenty-seater taxi, driven by the Nigerian Hulk, and a pile-up of cars around me whose collective blaring seemed to electrify the ever-reddening robot as it glared at me in a manner that said: Hey dipstick, that's really not a good place to park... a gay car! I noticed, in the rear-view mirror, a man cursing and gesturing with fists the size of bricks in a way that I knew he was comparing my driving with the genitals of a reclusive nun.

Up ahead, The Hulk was popping at the seams, his eyes turning in their sockets, as he reached under his seat. I braced myself for the inevitable appearance of an AK47, or equivalent weapon used in Joburg to get people out of your way. "I know a good book," I blurted aloud. "That nice, calm woman was reading it, just then, you saw her, the bitch, the one who caused all of this, whilst I, on the other hand, was concentrating on my driving!"

Fear can paralyse you. But terror? Not for long have I started a car so quickly and manouvered it so deftly through an implausibly small and awkward gap only a gay car could manage. As the explosion of bad attitude faded into the distance, I stabbed my finger on the car radio volume and then threw it up at them all, turning my attention to the purpose of my journey: me and Liza were meeting to choose a book for one another to counter the latest life-traumas we had manufactured for ourselves. I had a very good idea which book I would not be suggesting.

LW

SALTY DICK

There's a great expression here in South Africa which refers to those expats like myself who - as the saying goes - have one foot in Europe and the other in Africa, leaving their private bits dangling in the sea: "sout piel" translates literally as "salt cock" and is rather cutely abbreviated as "soutie" (salty).  One is therefore "a souty", which is like being "a gay", and is equally meant to be derogatory, but it really amuses me now, having returned to Joburg after two decades in London, carrying my wisened and well-pickled member around with great pride. Yet it's odd how difficult it is getting anyone particularly interested in it. Beyond the initial friendliness of folk, there's a wariness here of others which is quite unique: a "one-of-us" attitude in a thousand guises, a creeping defensiveness, and a disconnectedness that makes it difficult to simply meet people. You can't exactly hop on a bus, or pop into a pub, or - god-forbid - go for a walk. (Do not mention transport - you actually have to drive yourself around this city, and yes, of course, blind drunk!) 

The thing is, I'm just too old to be wandering around shopping malls exposing myself to the disinterest of everyone about me, and my persistent waving from my car window on the motorway has yet to bear any fruit. I suspect that might be the car. It's old and borrowed, and has only one windscreen wiper which has been a bit trying in this recent bout of drizzly-chilly-London weather (which, I'll confess in a whisper to actually enjoying!) 

It's not just a weather thing, though it does affect people badly. If I remember correctly, this is a good thing, and this weekend will have been winter. Next week it'll all be sunshine and smiles again. It's the days you see, they're great, come rain or shine, it really doesn't matter, but something really strange happens in this town when the sun sets. Like cold gravy, the nights congeal into something dull and lifeless. I don't expect raves (they happen, apparently) but where are the people, what are they all doing? Where's the buzz? Surely couple-parading in an area collectively known as "The Parks" cannot be it? Pleeze. And don't give me that "it's because you're white" crap, I've tried Newtown, and the rest. Newtown? It's so "new" it doesn't exist yet. At night. Or am I missing something? 

It's weird being an immigrant in your own country, which is sort of how I feel. Weird and wonderful. Can I even call this "my country"? Someone once said: A man without a country is like a dog without a bark. Whatever that means. But let's not dwell on the morality of it all, it's far too tedious. Wherever I lay my hat and all that. I had my reasons, political and personal, and I learnt a great deal. I'm not concerned with definitions of belonging. Or not belonging. It's a waste of energy. It's all about embracing the now, the here.

Why am I back? Because it's time. It's right. And the truth is, I'm liking it, the rawness of it all. I guess I just need to get my salty pecker up and wave it about a bit more. There must be folk who will appreciate it. Funny folk. Witty. Dry. Droll. Ironic. Sarcastic folk, even. Anything but literal. What's with the taking everything so literally guys? I feel for this bloke Shapiro, a cartoonist, a satirist at odds with the powers-that-be (just as it should be). He's funny. Take note. He's sharp. Cool. Right on. He's climbed right into bed with newly-energised Pres J. Zuma, and he's still not getting any. It's not right. Takin' the piss, 'Avin a larf, Pullin' one ova... these are highly commendable acts, and should be rewarded with great self-effacing ovations, really they should. I'll leave you now (no I'm not going back) with two points of advice: 1.) The term Jozi is the one thing in this country that should be banned. 2.) You can't get someone to do your irony-ing for you.

Okay, I'm off to bathe my salty dick in something warm and comforting. Think on the bright side: It could be you. 

YOU WILL LOVE ME

Hi, I'm Luke. Luke Warn. I'm 26, ecstatic, tough, radiant & gorgeous (that's penis size in centimetres, emotional ineptitude, thickness of skin, level of denial, and degree of delusion, respectively). 

I am, in a word, Wrong. It's the only apt single word that truly, accurately describes the incredible complexity that constitutes me. Totally. Wrong. If I'm allowed an adjective.

Wrongness is in every detail of my peculiar life, and has been since the first fateful moment the World was unblessed with my presence (on 11th September, need I add, ominously?). I am constantly baffled by the fact that I am still able to be here, being me, being Wrong. It's not right, I am not part of The Plan. I know this for a fact, it's obvious. My genes don't fit. 

The reason I am here is a consequence of our extraordinary post-post-modern (PPM) world, assisted by virtually paranormal PPM pharmaceuticals, and my rightfully given dose of PPM self-obsession. Frankly, I think it's a waste of PPM Energy, but I go along with it, anyway. You do, you have to, when you're utterly irresistible, in a unique PPM way, which I am. You Will Love Me, I know it, it doesn't take long. You will imminently be Smitten. 

Now, I'm told everyone reads blogs, everywhere, all the time. Personally, I don't know a single person that does. But then not too many people actually talk to me personally, they're too stunned and overwhelmed in my presence, they just stare at me with wide eyes and fixed smiles. Until I go away. So maybe they do read blogs, I just don't know it, which is a good thing because they'll love this one. Even if they can't share it with me. 

Yesterday, as I travelled on London bus number 63 to Tate Modern to see Rothko's profoundly preternatural painted planes (that is, a bunch of deep redish-brown blackish squares, ish) I watched from the safety of the upper deck cyclist after cyclist teeter and wobble treacherously in the bus' filthy slipstream as we hurtled past, which made me shudder. It's been five months and I still can't bring myself to take my bicycle in to be unbent after a motorcycle courier careered into me and knocked me into the path of oncoming traffic. 

I was lucky, I only broke two ribs, and not a single one of the eighty-seven odd hairs on my hirsutely-challenged head was harmed, even though I was wearing not a helmet but my new Rothko-red D&G beanie that Her gave to me as a very pre-9/11 gift because I no longer celebrate my birthday, people aren't much fun on that day, for some reason, they never want to come out and play with me. 

There I was, in the relatively safe confines of a half-empty full-fried-fowl-smelling bus, with an army of profound thoughts marching back and forth between my bizarre sticky-out ears, when I noticed an attractive young black girl (it's important to point out she was black, and attractive, because she was, and that's what we do isn't it?) who was smiling, no she was grinning, at me. I tried to return this unusually open display of friendliness but my synapses, in signaling the appropriate facial muscles to arrange the required amiable expression, suddenly short-circuited because they, in conjunction with said facial muscles, were already occupied with operating the task of verbalising the thoughts dashing through my head. 

The resultant, and what I can only imagine to have been, frightful grimace sent her smile scurrying as far back inside her as it could and she never as much as glanced in my direction again. She had clearly been smirking at my unashamed verbalising, in public, on the number 63 bus, of my various opinions on whatever it was I was opinionating on. 

In much the same way you feel obliged to laugh out loud to save face after falling over and shattering a kneecap, I continued talking aloud to myself for the rest of the journey, and I didn't feel in the least bit embarrassed. I. Don't. Care. I muttered. Fuck. You. Anyway. At least I wasn't cursing at myself, because that would be embarrassing, that's just mad. But what harm in sharing my deep, meaningful ruminations on life, and stuff, and.. oh, the wrongness of it all?

And that, folks, was my incentive to share my musings here with yourselves, because everyone reads blogs, right? And I'm always telling myself to Write It Down. So now I am. For you. 

I would love to be able to say You Heard It Here First, but there will inevitably be someone, somewhere, fortunate enough to have been trapped opposite me on a bus or a tube, stunned and incapable of moving, who will have heard it all before. Lovely for them.

LW

CONTAMINATED

It's been intriguing listening to the largely irate reactions to the delightful Chaplain who observed that homosexuals, like all conscientious health hazards, ought to display clear, sharp warning signs, like cigarette packets, or toxic drain fluid, or anything with nuts. These, the Rev Dr Peter Mullen suggested somewhat brilliantly, gay men could have tattooed around their... uh, holes.

How marvelously hilarious. I know, I'm very very sick, but I do enjoy a good laugh at my own expense, and the man surely was joking. Either that, or perhaps every time his dry, Holy wine-stained tongue curls towards a pungently pubescent bumhole, a voice deep deep inside him painfully cries out: "Oh God, if only there were a large warning sign tattooed right here across these taut, peachy little buns that I so greedily pry apart with my sweaty, trembling fingers, I would surely, surely, be able to stop myself!" 

Pondering this rather profane thought, I had a revelation of my own: Could this be the solution to my own perverse sexual compulsions? Could such warning signs perhaps assist me to lead a healthy, normal life? Could I one day be doing it Missionary with someone whose name I actually knew?

I headed straight to my gay tattooist, Dimitri, who is in fact an unbendably straight, Glaswegian ex-biker built like a tower block, who happens to specialize in tattooing poofs. But Dimitri, the ill-named Glaswegian (his poor mother, when she first laid eyes on him, had a flash-back to a blacked-out, reckless hen-week on the island of Capri nine months previous and gasped out that name), despite his intimidating appearance, is a gentle soul, and he absolutely will not do faces, so I must apologise Reverend, but my sinful facehole and blessedly full lips will continue to tempt the filthy likes of you without the appropriate heeding that FELLATIO KILLS.

Still, Dimitri was a real sport about the whole affair and soon I was on knees and elbows, pants around ankles, bum akimbo, whiting-out and stuffing Mars Bars into my dangerous gob to keep up my sugar levels so as not to totally pass out like the wuss I was born to be, whilst he inked HEALTH HAZARD - ENTER AT OWN RISK across my bubble-ish butt. (I did consider the much simpler deterrent EAT SHIT, one word on each cheek, it would certainly be cheaper, but Dimitri pointed out that this could be confusing, it could be read as an invitation, and anyway it was a bit lay. And we both agreed that the Chaplain's own suggestion of SODOMY IS A SERIOUS HEALTH RISK just didn't have the right ring to it, it sounded dated. Tattoos are, after all, not just for Christmas.)

Thrilled by the apparently rewardingly-unusual tattooing notch and resultant snap-shot of my indelibly-marked hazardous derriere which he proudly added to his voluminous catalogue of queer body-adornment, Dimitri offered me a freebie. I opted, in outstanding faith, to have CONTAMINATED tattooed across my back in large, appropriately fashionable Roman lettering, just like a football stud/star, but not quite. (This ought, at the very least, to deter awkward and pointless pre-penetrative conversation.)

I will continue to update on whether these public warnings do in fact aid my usual religiously futile attempts to keep my holes free from foreigners' objects. (Anyone interested in testing the efficacy of my new precautionary anti-Ho measures, I will as always be up for the challenge. That is, at least until these measures take full effect.)

In the meantime Reverend, as a heartfelt thank-you for your sacred and potentially life-altering advice, might I suggest that an inverse BUM RULES tattoo reflected off your mangy mug in the mirror before morning prayers might more easily assist you in resisting those pesky little fellatio, rimming and fudgeing temptations that evidently haunt you so (and your congregation will be none the wiser to the real meaning of SELUR MUB). Another blogger suggested: MAY CAUSE INVOLUNTARY BLEEDING, which is good, very good, but I'm not sure your face is really the right place for that one. 

Whatever you do decide, I'm certain Dimitri would be happy to oblige, he's very open-minded and he doesn't only do poofs, and I know for a fact that he has a special range of glow-in-the-dark inks. But do hurry, no doubt he'll soon be inundated.

LW