amabumpastickas

Today's bumpasticka has a nice little bit of irony attached. Sitting in the combi waiting for it to fill at the impromptu (read 'illegal') rank opposite Windsor, Cresta, this little gem reads: 

GONNER THE DAYS

SEX WAS A PLEASURE

NOW IS A DEATH SENTENCE

Gonner, indead... Can't help thinking Freud had a hand drawing up this one...

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I have this theory about innercity muggings that was almost found out today. I don't think it's an original concept but when you're crossing town you don't always have the advantage of checking your references. If you are thinking, and only a fool switches into overdrive between combis on the streets of Jozi, then you're awake to the nuances of interracial action where memories are scarred into the group conciousness and nothing is ever simply going to gloss over because you want a better life for all and a receeding past.

I've been played for it often enough and after my first and since then only mugging some years ago I realised that there was a certain level of engagement needed between both players. Very seldom will you be walking along a crowded street in town and get hit over the head and robbed. The mugger requires an opening, provided by the muggee, the right, if you will, to be mugged. If you don't offer the right, the invitation is withheld, and the mugger will be required, through some twisted application of social norms, to remove the threat and move on.

The request comes in the form of recognition at first followed by some form of physical 'real' contact. Perhaps recognition is too strong a term, but then the victim needs to recognise the threat and somehow affirm it, agree to the terms and cons. The power switch is sudden and meant to disarm, entirely. The moment you affirm the scenario you are entitled to perform and can extract yourself only from the end of it once you have been mugged.

Sometimes the only way around being mugged is around being mugged. The semantics are as paired-down beautiful as the moment itself, that automated instant when you are singled out by someone you manage to ignore without offending and slip around and carry on and don't get mugged.

Today though it's hot, and you have spent a long time on the road and the pavements are a real people mashup. You're stepping out a slow taxi, people heldup, mamas manoeuvering themselves from a rustcan tinbucket and you're into the shove and someone walks passed and reaches out and stops you, arm across chest. This is the theory fucked, stopped, not engaged prevented from engaging, demanded attendance at a sudden trial no words at all no time for words a single moment when you do manage to move through the motherfucker and kill the motherfucker in your mind and then you are crossing the road just crossing fuck the cars and the taxis and there is a general crossing of the crowds and you're into the Bree Street rank and you don't look back this isn't the bible this is real life.

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Bullets for Malema. Bree Rank Shootout

Today I got a healthy dose of deepdowntown. I did a Tshirt run, as usual. This involves catching a combi into town, Wanderers, walking the two grimy blocks to Noord Rank, MTN Rank (Meat Too Nice... no seriously... the butchery on the corner of Plein and Noord is the MTN Butchery) and then catching a combi from lane 3 (Alex) down Louis Botha (pronounced: Loo-is Boota) and then walking the last kay and a half into the factory district of Wynburg, where my printers are located.

Today is a good day. I am printing Hitler with his Rhythm Stick... a design not many people dig but a design I worked really hard at. I chat with the owners of the printers for a while... they're plenty busy and that suits me fine... bringing my work into a nicely oiled concern where all the teeth and grooves are meshing sweetly is a bonus... then I walk back out with the Hitler Ts, having deposited a load for Ou Skool. Things are ticking and I even whistle as I walk back to the corner of Ark Wright and Loo-is Boota where I catch another combi back into town.

The interchange between Meat Too Nice Rank and Bree Rank goes smoothly. I get out of the cab on Ntemi Peliso and then all fucking hell breaks loose. I'm at the intersection of Ntemi and Sauer (Sawyer pronounced Sour) when 2 3 4 gunshots go off to my left, about 50 meters away, and people scatter... The crowds are thick here, bru... not like one or two people in clumps but thick, gooey urban stew, do you know what I mean, and you can see them all move as one animal, out and AWAY like to-fucking-day, OK? I scarper quick, it's funny how that happens.. your mind doesn't need much of an invite. Shots = Fuck Off!. 7 or 8 more shots go off as I run bowed around the corner, between a bus and a combi then out across the street to the other side, people scarpering with me. More shots, and now sirens. The cavalry has arrived but I ain't waiting around. Some people don't seem too phased and turn to watch the show, but I've got better things to do with my life and I'm outtathere. I skirt the park and move past some guy who's looking back.

- shots, I tell him
- they're standing for Malema, he says and laughs.

yeah, I bet they are... the Africa I know is not the Africa I am told, and times are changing quickly, perhaps. I make my way around Bree, cross the Mandela Bridge, whereever he is, and find a combi to Cresta from outside the old FoodyX.

This is not the first time shots have been fired at Bree. I remember walking towards the Cresta lane and seeing cops chalking round 9mm casings, a handful of them. Jerry Springer crowds minus the pretension looking on. It's just one of the things we do... if we can... we carry on and ignore the signs, besides the ones that take us home.

Those we follow religiously.

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Change

The return of white man jumping.

It has been some time, but I have decided to continue my blog on jumping between joburg taxis. By this I mean traveling Mzani-style, not literally dodging these things in the road. That would be manic.
In the interim I have discovered a new route through to Fourways that doesn't take the M1/N1 highway exchange. My reluctance to use the highway has nothing to do with the new tolling system, I simply don't enjoy hurtling along at highspeed in a taxi, I prefer it when they're boxed in traffic on the city streets, hooting and jostling, vying for position and edging along the yellow lane. I feel it to be a bit safer this way. An illusion I entertain to while away my hours spent on the road.

People in taxis are friendly. We enjoy a camaraderie lacking elsewhere. Handing over your fare to a stranger and being forced to share with them a tiny section of seat as they cram us in, traveling in the same boat as it were, centring the experience around the common goal - a destination, has a harmonising effect. All men travel equal, and there is little time for attitude.

The other day, moving across the Mandela bridge the guy next to me excuses himself and tries to give me R2.50, claiming I had over-paid. I know I handed him R8.00, which was the fare from Bree to Cresta, but this guy, a well-spoken student-type, clearly my junior, insisted that I take the R2.50. In his eyes, if a mistake was made it could only be mine, in handing him a R5 coin instead of a R2. I saw he wouldn't be dissuaded so I took the money thinking I could make a fortune this way, the obligatory white guy in a taxi casually accepting handfuls of change through fare-errors with people being super-nice all the time.

Like this other time, on the new Fourways route, there was massive change contusion. The passenger in front was not a money minded fellow and straight away things went awry. He kept on handing back the wrong change, and with people working out their own fares between them and passing them forward at different times, the three rows behind the driver that is, you can imagine how, with only your wits to manage the transactions, if you get it wrong it can go all the way wrong. Nearly in Bryanston the driver had to stop on the side of the road and whatwhat everybody behind him, and next to him to try figure this out. The end result... we started again, everybody got their money back and repaid. This doesn't work though as people have already managed change between themselves, and the money came back in rows. Of course, being the white guy I got more money than I should have, I already had my change but the nice lady next to me insisted I must have made a mistake this money was mine... so I repaid, kept my change, and made R1 out of the confusion. What can you do? It's difficult to argue with sincerity.

Add this to the few times where I have completely forgotten to pay, simply hailed the taxi and sat down lost in thought, and then jumped, later figuring I had jumped for free, and I suppose I am becoming quite flush, quite street-wise in my dealings. All in good spirits though, as we toot and teeter on the brink of freedom.

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u cant be a winner always

Yesterday I needed to get to Bryanston.

I caught a taxi through to Bree that was playing "Takalane Sesame" (Sesame Street in Zulu) at full ball... This was followed by English Made Easy (Good morning Good morning how are you... children can you say "COW" Say "COW" Children.

CUNT. although in this case slightly softer. cunt. like that.

The driver didn't hear me. God knows what he's going to do with English anyway, Zuma doesn't hold with that kind of shit. As a matter of fact neither does Julius.

This whole episode, the bullshit sesame and the bullshit OLSET program (Open Learning Systems Education Trust for christsake) reminded me of a taxi with the following marking I saw in its back window about a week ago.


U CANT BE A WINNER ALWAYS.


Tell me about it.

To get to Bryanston you need to go through Randburg Rank. Somebody tell me an easier route, cos when you get to Randburg you gotta sit in the Bryanston Taxi and wait for it to fill up. In this instance 40 minutes. And the kid in the first row starts screaming 20 minutes in. It's still going full tilt when I get off at Bryanston Shopping Centre. I would have preferred to listen to Takalane Sesame, but not the OLSET crap.

I have a thing against the OLSET program. It brings back bad memories of Helen Joseph Hospital, when I ended up after my motorcycle accident in 2003, trussed like a gimp in traction, and every morning, every godforsaken morning in that slimepit, someone in a room down the ward played OLSET at full volume. Every fucking morning for 6 weeks.

Do you know what that can do to a man?

On a lighter note. I rode in a taxi the other day that carried the following instruction over the "footledge" behind the driver's seat.

PLEASE DO NOT PLACE FEET
OR SEAT ON THIS SHELF.
IT IS MEANT FOR PARCELS.

Some drivers adopt this stance with a military intensity. Others offer you some leeway. My advice. Keep you feet on the floor and your eyes on the prize. You can't be a winner always, but tomorrow might bring some slight respite, at least.

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markings

today I rode a taxi that featured the bumpa sticker:

THE ONLY TIME WOMEN LISTEN IS WHEN MONEY TALKS
(inside: above the driver's door)

while travelling behind another taxi with the following marking in its back window:

FIVE MILES EMPTY

On the way back from work I sat behind the driver and someone had used an artline kokie to scratch in downward tending letters

F U C KER

on the guy's leather seatback

and earlier this morning someone outside MCALLISTERS Shoes along Wanders street just short of Noord Rank reached out for my arm to mug me but I ignored them and carried on walking

MLUNGU

fuck off


Things are heating up ahead of the world cup

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Stop Striking Taxi Drivers

They have been known to strike back. Striking Taxi drivers. They strike back. Ahh fuck. Old joke. Anyway. On with the show. Today taxi drivers all over Joburg striked (struck?) over the introduction of the Metro Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Link Transit system, or more accurately, local and national government's inability to address their concerns at the city bringing in hundreds of new buses and dedicated traffic lanes to cart people back and forth during the upcoming FIFA Soccer World Cup (football?). You know what I mean. 10 - 15 000 angry fucking taxi drivers walking down the streets of urban Jozi wielding knob-kerries and shouting machine gun verse as their war-torn victor leader had done before them (many drivers are zulus who support, and who are supported by? Jacob. Zuma. Him of the techni-color scapegoat).

Reports of violence filtered in. Strangely I didn't take the taxis in today. No I mean haha I didn't have to even if there wasn't a strike on because I was sitting in for an absent manager at one of our bookstores (my role now with the bookgroup is very ill-defined. It's like I do everything and nothing). Of course, it wasn't the taxi drivers who committed these acts of atrocity (one putco bus driver was shot, and some people who caught a meter cab were accosted. somehow. vaguely. hurt. over the radio) it was detractors to the cause, arbitrary third party influences who played foul of the ball.

It's funny like that. A group of people do something that acts as an opening for another group of people to push the limits of the law (reference: looters during anarchy/ emergencies; violent perpetrators during demonstrations) yet the original group who created the opening want no part of the blame. Fuck that. GUILTY. Motherfuckers. Probably those same cunts who shot off those rounds at Bree Street Rank I was talking about. Good luck to them. The Rea Vaya Rabid bus lynx is coming to maul them in their spring-sprung seats, in their filthy 20-hour-a-day moth-beaten shirts, hanging on to their monkey-wrench steering wheels flinging their rattle-traps along the roads like ketties. Or, the projectiles that come out of ketties, once you release them. ...fuck.

Not that I mind, I must be honest. I haven't caught a bus in years. I don't know why. My blood might be red but I must have a black heart. Maybe I really am an African. I think I need to ask Julius Malema next time we meet to shoot the hoop, spear the queen on the corner by his donought shop. Because, of course, most of what I know about the world I have learnt from Julius Malema. My homeboy.

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good news and bad news

I've got good news and bad news. The good news is there's another funny taxi story on the way. The bad news is it will have to wait until after the Taxi Violence.

So today right... and I haven't been writing but I have been jumping, travelling, getting on and off more taxis than you can ever imagine. Green ones, red ones, blue ones, white ones white ones... I am coming home from Balfour, just around the corner from our Lyndhurst Bookshop warehouse, where I am now putting in some time for being such a great guy, anyway. I get through Noord Rank (what a story Noord Street Rank is... I must let you in) and make my way to Bree. At Bree Street Rank I'm crossing the road to the rank and I look right and there is an ambulance with flashing lights. I think nothing of it. I move along, keeping my distance, keeping my eyes on the ground (change, remember...) and I get to the Cresta line. Fucking cops. Everywhere. Not metros. Cops. Badges. Bastards. I'm like, HoKay I'll just get in here then... and I sit next to this cute little black number and ask, what's with all these cops. They are standing around at the head of the Cresta line, the taxi is even seated a couple of meters back. She doesn't know. Then, they haul out the yellow DO NOT CROSS CRIME SCENE POLICE TAPE, and we're all, hahaha, this taxi is going to go straight through that shit when it starts up (which it does, by the way, the cops just lift the tape up, knowing better). As we pass through the cordon I look around and on the ground there are coke cans and sprite cans with chalk circles drawn around them. What, have the cans like pegged, I wonder, until I see the AK47 shells lying next to them. Before the chalk lines were drawn the cans were used to demark the areas where they landed. Bit of a dunce move, there are fucking cans littered everywhere in Bree, in between the change.

We move off, leaving the shells behind (I know they are AK because the word stands out in Zulu - ask Zuma...).

Tomorrow I'll let you know what the good news was.

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Enjoy!

My my, it has been awhile. Still jumping though, taxi to taxi...
an old hand.

Something funny happened on the way from the rank this afternoon. Something that had "Africa" written all over it. So we leave Eastgate rank. A nice Inyathi (an "Inyathi" is like a local "Toyota" I think - don't hold me to this, I only ride the things). The driver, as soon as he gets out of the Eastgate parking lot, and has turned onto the slipway of the R24, the part where the freeway becomes the not-so-freeway into Jozi central, pulls the cab over to the side of the road and gets out. I'm thinking, not again (about a week ago we got pulled over by the pigs and I witnessed my first bribe - more on that later...).

Anyway, the guy gets out and goes behind the taxi. Others look around, I stay looking ahead, not your regular rubbernecker. Until I hear snickering. Our driver is taking a leak behind the cab at the side of the road. This draws out mixed responses from the other occupants. I know to hold my piece, haha, but I do smile. Once done he moves back along the cab and jumps back in, grinning from ear to ear and looking, to his credit, slightly embarrassed. He turns around to his audience, smiles an apology then holds up a 500ml Coke bottle in explanation. "iKoldrink..." Funny thing is I also needed a leak. I held it in until I got home an hour later. It was a long one. Not the ride.

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Smileys sighted at WITS

For a change of pace, today, I am bringing you, at long last, an image of the Tshirt Terrorist bombing run of WITS university. Tomorrow I might revert to tales of taxi travails. I might also simply post more smileys. Watch this space.



Oh, before I forget... Today's BUMPA STICKA is:

IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS GIRLS COOKED LIKE THEIR MOTHERS
NOW THEY DRINK LIKE THEIR FATHERS

WHITE TAXI, by White Man Jumping
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