Mike Brown                                                                                                                                Nedbank                                                                                                                                         email: mikeb@nedbank.co.za

Dear Mr Brown

I'm writing to say that despite MYRIAD attempts to Fica my child's bank account, since we first Fica'd the thing when we opened it, Nedbank appear unable to do the paperwork and as a result, we can neither close the account nor can my child access his money.

My child is a teenager Mr Brown. He eats money.

The account was opened at the beginning this year and we did once receive a letter confirming that. In February. We were excited. At the time, I told my child that I had been banking with Nedbank for 30 years.

We have been to visit various branches of Nedbank on a number of occasions to sort the matter out. We have stood in queues. We have filled in forms. We have been sent away. We have been summonsed back. We have been provided with extra forms to complete. We have been told forms have been lost. We have been told forms were never submitted. We have spent our petrol. We have made phone calls. We have written emails. Most of all we have wasted our time.

I have cried in one of your branches. That also did not help ... though I can tell you it was not put on.

You are certainly teaching my child to save his allowance and use mine instead. You are also teaching him that bloated bureaucracy does not work and that respect has to be earned.

This morning we received a mail from one of your staff who advises us that your Fica Department have actually received the paperwork. Amazing. How on earth did this miracle happen?

However, she further advises, that "due to the back-lock" we are going to have to wait. For an amount of time she does not stipulate.

I attach herewith an invoice for R5000.00. This includes all the costs we have incurred and a small service charge for repeatedly doing your organisation's paperwork for nothing. We are not charging for aggravation because we do not think your company would be able to afford this invoice and are writing it off to extremely bad debt. However, I must advise you that unless my child's bank account is fully functional within 24 hours I will consider laying a charge of theft.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any queries.

Yours sincerely

Lesley Perkes

in Durban, all roads lead

 the installation of 240 temporary road name signs in Durban reading: Sutcliffe Ave, Sutcliffe Blvd, Sutcliffe Rd, Sutcliffe St, Sutcliffe Str, Sutcliffe Pl, Sutcliffe Cr and another five odd in similar vein.

On the historic occasion of the Ethekwini Municipality’s hosting of the United Nations 17^th Conference of the Parties Framework Convention on Climate Change a lightning-fast art squad deemed it appropriate to celebrate the City Manager by naming as many roads as possible after him in three hours of careful work using Easy-Peel-Off Resistance Tested Stickers.

We are inspired and expect to make people laugh and laugh and have fun and wonder what's going on and think about what they want from leaders and what makes a good leader.

We especially want people to think about what makes us / them great and how come we often end up looking mediocre or pathetic when we are not.  We are most certainly not.

There is genius and magic in South Africa but there is also too much Idiocy in charge that attempts to disempower us. There are tendencies ha, in our beautiful land, to give the job to the opinionated, ill-informed bully, and this can and often does result in the marginalization of real power, beauty and potential. We want to be proud of ourselves – for each other and for the world (for instance when have a lot of international visitors), so why do the people in charge make that so difficult?

Last minute briefs for emergency artwork; year-long lobbies for spectacle-scale public art ... that lead to last-minute go aheads. And while, of course, there are exceptions to this (and we are exceptional grateful for these sparks of what might be normal), it is high time people who value public space, public life and creativity – stood up to those who would water-down, damage or utterly spoil great ideas for reasons that remain obscure - but that are most likely to do with how mediocrity feels when it is control.

I love us, our land and this precious planet but I am bored with the dulling of opinion and the constant stupid obstruction in the way of good work.  I have found that if I speak out against powerful mediocre people or their projects – e.g. if I  say why was the World Cup 2010 Official Opening so appalling?, I will be accused of being an unpatriotic party-pooper. I should rather get into the spirit of the nation – which is that every one just wants to have a good time.

I am certain that we have much more to offer than we are releasing to shine.

It is humiliating to stand by and watch while those who really should have no power have it all. Great projects turn to nothing short of pathetic ridicule, further exacerbated by a chorus of sycophantic encouragement for complete rubbish. Artists cannot operate in this atmosphere. The hot air climate in Durban has got to be the worst example of forms to complete and bullies to please that I have ever experienced. If the sea level does not rise because we can't get the temperature to go down in time it's highly likely that nice people will all fade away into depression in the face of the tsunami of dementia that is Ethekwini.

Before we did this installation, I was warned that we should be careful because the City Manager would most likely not see the playful side of the project – which, although it is obviously about him, is also about every one like him. (And it is a warning to others like him: that should they lose their sense of humour in equal proportion to their capacity to wield whips, it is likely they too will find themselves at the centre of imaginative repartee).

Perhaps the recent parliamentary passing of the Protection of Information Bill (read: as bad as a kidney stone) finds its most intense impact (already) in  the cementing of a disquieting self-censorship around board room tables, in business-government company. And similar. Worse, this general repression slowly, unrelentingly, bullies the atmosphere and gives the bad guys a sense of odious self-righteousness.

Mr Sutcliffe’s style is part of a bigger dis-ease. During the planning of this playful installation we considered that it might enrage him, which in our experience is easy to do. We also considered that some people may get lost and confused and that bus and taxi drivers might get the moer in (but they probably already are considering the humidity and existing name change debacles in Durban).

We knew also that we might be blamed for all sorts of things but also that the installation might not even be noticed or that the easy peel-off stickers might be removed even faster than we could put them up ... 

There was consideration given to all kinds of fascist attitudes:

 1)    the you are not allowed to do this attitude

2)    the we can’t see the playful side of this attitude

3)    the longings of many in Durban to go back to a time when the streets were named after only some pink people

4)    the longings of many in Durban to be invited to dinner with Mr Sutcliffe

 We rather hope that the meek shall inherit the earth.

Here's a link to the  video on the blog: http://lesfolies.posterous.com/sick-people

Suggest you pause till loaded ... #lesfolies is amazed so many people are all looking for the same thing. And: can you spot the moment when even the Dalai Lama finds himself looking for himself? Plus, there's more: #lesMutt finds her Jeff!

(download)

Click here to download:

WaitingfortheDalaiLama.m4v (10.38 MB)

Following is the full content of the unreadable section of the above form that I have just sent to @TheGautrain after an episode yesterday, and a delayed (re-prompted and less than effervescent) response. It is published here in the interests of a future picnic full of friends and poets bound for Pretoria with a basket of raucous atmosphere and a flute or two.

Dear WhoEver is on the End of this Line

Here are my suggestions:

1. Please personalise this mail response form so we know who we are writing to. It's only fair. You now have my name.

2. Please ask your friendly guides who take people through your Automated Ticketing System to verbally advise everyone to read the small print on your brochure that says that you can pay R10 for parking the whole day BUT if you only go for the ride (there and back to see how far out it is) and then come home and get off the train at your return destination you better not do last minute emergency shopping or having fun in Rosebank for more than 60 minutes or you will be charged another R80.

3. Better still, a suggestion: tell the friendly guides they must tell people that if they don't read the brochure there might be other rules you have that are flagrantly stupid and/or unfair (NO SINGING I HEARD?! In SOUTH AFRICA?!) that we may have to pay for - and which we could avoid paying for if only we knew. Of course we might decide it is still worth singing.

4. Considering the scale of the unfairness perhaps you could also hand the brochures out and stand there while we read them to make sure we do.

5. Put yourself in my shoes. And the shoes of everyone else who would much rather be having fun with you and being proud of our new train. I'm sure I read somewhere that @TheGautrain is our investment.

6. I want a human train. A friendly train. A chook chook train. My friend and my child want a bicycle-friendly train. Everyone wants a music-train. Even you I bet. A laughing train. We even want a train that is cool to take to work because it makes us feel like life has some small pleasures.

7. I think you might need this link which I find very helpful when met with injustice. http://lesfolies.posterous.com/for-the-saddest-in-you 

I will also send it to you on twitter.

Thanks. I think you can. I think you can. I am sure you can if you want to. Toot. Toot.

If Judge Lamont in Mr Malema's hate speech trial was correct in saying that "How words are understood is more important than intention of the speaker" then Fleabook would be closed down, as would Twitterr and all Bogs. Nevermind the free press, they would be gone.

And while such a precedent may mean we may be relieved of the utterances of some well-intended fleas who tend to scratch the poodle nerve a bit too often, I'd rather have them than have the poets silenced ... in case they say something that is misunderstood.

It is true that #lesmiserables would not like having a malevolent song(!), or any other oxymoron that does not intend to be cruel shoved in her face complete with gun-gestures. Nor do I find any dignity in being lumped into - i mean impaled on - Darren Scott's addled brain-mouth. It just means that if Judge Lamont is right then freedom of expression can only be granted us mere cannon fodder after we all have had a really great education. And what is a really great education? Or how can we make sure everyone understands ALL words the way they were intended? Excuse me Gareth Cliff? Messrs Scott & Malema? Come again? I do not need a Court to tell you I think you are sometimes (see how careful is #lesmots) mean and stupid. And expedient.

Don't you be too careful about how you respond. Tra la la la la la la la la. I'm singing that song. All by myself. I'm in the banned.

Oh Lord. Please don't let me be misunderstood.

Image Info: Sourced on Wikimedia. According to their post, this image off flickr by ohconfucious was banned by Green Dam Youth Escort (!? no, no idea) who recognise pornographic images by analysing skin-coloured regions, causing the barring of this image of pink pigs.

When someone is raped you should treat them like they have just been nearly murdered. They have. They need you to bring them love and flowers and make a fuss and talk for hours about what happened. While they tremble it out and you all cry and find reasons to be grateful for being alive.

When someone is raped they need their granny. Granny needs to be strong. Granny knows life is not a bed of fucking roses. She can handle it. She's seen stuff I promise. And your dad will get over his castration fixation. If you talk it through, the bunch of you might even come to terms with why people hurt each other. That would be useful. More useful than death penalties and lynch mobs which, radical as they are, treat only the symptom.

There is not enough loving going on.

Try to imagine that the person who has just been raped and survived has actually just survived being run over by a bus. Treat her like that and you are closer.

Well I could have done with a dose like that. Instead of The Family Secret. The Society's Shame. Which is most unhelpful. 26 (very) odd years since I was raped and here we are, still pandering to those who want to talk about rape as if it should be a comfortable conversation, or easy chat, something you can keep from every one else by glossing over it before you read the next day's news, something that will go away by itself, or a single tranquilizer pushed across a polished dark wood desk by a doctor who means well.

The strange forms of silencing. I didn't get the: "you asked for it because of what you were wearing" because I was wearing a black tracksuit when he woke me up. Instead, I got the: "you need to think hard about why you brought this onto yourself" by (arguably also well-meaning) folk who were big on karma in those days and who also thought I would buy their pretty quartz crystals to ward off my jinx. At my ongoing cost.

All that stuff about shame and "she does not want to talk about it" is used to protect the family - the larger family - from the difficulty of it not having been a bus. It is also used to make sure that rapists and the societies that make them do not actually have to be confronted with the truth. Which is that they - we - are really not very well.

Rape survivors do not need reasons to keep quiet. They do not need to find appropriate language to explain themselves to so-called conservatives. There is something perverse about the so-called conservative who says they want to discuss brutality in a nice clean envelope. I am going to call them peversatives from now on. They remind me of something my brother-in-law said (he heard it somewhere else I think as well): "The difference between the fascist and the democrat is that the democrat washes their hands before they cut out your heart."

Going on a walk called a #slutwalk is supposed to be confusing and wild for people who think that words about fucking rape should be dignified-up for a decent conversation to occur. There is enough dressing up. There is enough silence. And mostly, there is enough silencing. While we are distracted into explaining ourselves in language that is considered acceptable, we are distracted from the issue: we want to go for walks dressed however we like - i.e. we want men and women to be safe from each other. And they are not.

Why? Why is it the great-granny who makes sure of the clitorodectomy? What bad habits do we live by?

We want every one to be nice. Ja, that's sweet. I know. Why are we not?

A lot of men are being raped. They must be even worse sluts than me there's so much silence about it.

There should be a lot more unpleasant, open and honest conversation using harsh words and difficult phrases and until there is, there is just going to be a lot more rape, near murder, similar, horror.

This is not a happy conversation.

One of the reasons I am going on #slutwalk is because I am looking forward to wearing something that enables me to feel the sun on my back and my front and my legs - in public and safely. That is not extraordinary. Is it?

Shew. It's been a long time since I was brave enough to be a living creature. Either some maniac is going to hit you on the head and take your power from you because he has none. Or some person playing intellectual headmistress-headmistress is going to tell you to behave yourself. Nah. I got this great pair of gold hot pants with tassels and my son says I'm going to look like I made them out of curtains. Can't wait.

SO, WHERE WAS THE MULITI-TASKING-EMERGENCY-ACTING HOD OF LIMPOPO ARTS & CULTURE LAST FRIDAY?

(TICK THE CORRECT BOX)

IN HOSPITAL? (         )

AT AN EMERGENCY MEETING AT THE LIMPOPO PREMIER'S OFFICE? (         )

AT AN EMERGENCY MEETING ABOUT SPORT IN PRETORIA? (         )

ALL OF THE ABOVE?  (         )

OTHER: ____________________________________________________________ (PLEASE PRINT)

THE 1ST CORRECT ENTRY WILL RECEIVE A BIG SURPRISE WE ABSOLUTELY PROMISE. SNIGGER. SEE BELOW.

Urgent Open Media Release                                                                                                                         

To: MEC Mashamba, DSAC, LCAWSC etc                                                                  

per emails; various

From: Limpopo Arts & Culture Association (LACA)                                                     

14^th August 2011

Open Letter to the Honourable MEC Mrs Mashamba the Dept Sports, Arts & Culture, the Limpopo Community Artists Working Steering Committee, and all concerned Arts Stakeholders and Interests, 

Nearly a month after the Limpopo SweetheART Petition, the recently deployed Acting HOD instructed the Senior Manager to set up a meeting with LACA and the LCAWSC.  On 5^th August LACA received an invitation to a meeting on 12^th August at 10h00. On the 11^th LACA received an email and cell call confirming the meeting and that the Acting HOD, and not the MEC, would attend.

LACA and LCAWSC delegates duly arrived at Olympic Towers just before 10h00 on the 12^th.

The HOD's Office claimed to know nothing about the meeting. An Official said the Acting HOD was in hospital. Another one told LACA Chairman the Acting HOD was in an urgent meeting in the Premier’s Office.

We were asked to wait in a boardroom for Senior Officials.  We waited, and waited. The Senior Manager arrived, waving his hands and telling us we should not be upset; then he left. When he reappeared with a Senior Communications Official, he gave a garbled apology for the meeting-that-wasn’t-happening, as the Acting HOD had been called to an urgent sports meeting in Pretoria and could not be contacted.

As it is evident that DSAC intentionally or incompetently sabotaged this meeting, fabricating and passing the buck, LACA Chairman made it clear that the apology was unacceptable; the approach was disrespectful and unprofessional. LACA requested a new meeting with the Acting HOD and/or the MEC asap; clarifying that we are not interested in meeting with other Officials. The Senior Manager assured us he would schedule this meeting and notify us asap. 

We appeal to the Acting HOD and the MEC to ensure this meeting asap. The sooner we meet, the sooner we can bring to a close, rather than gear up, our legitimate but distasteful public protestations and disclosures.

We have invoiced DSAC for the costs variously incurred by LACA and LCAWSC delegates who attended the failed meeting.  

In addition to mass media, this Open Letter will be forwarded to the attention of the Premier, Ministers Mashatile and Chabane, and the Public Protector, adding to the many complaints and disclosures about DSAC that we have lodged with them since February.  

We reserve our rights. 

Respectfully

LACA Board

ceo@lovelimpopoart.com