kagablog

Education - some really bizarre updates!

It has suddenly dawned on me that the ANC government is trying to do as much as possible without white help, while at the same time maintaining a white facade e.g. Ina Cronje (Education)

Here are some example of really bizarre strategies:

1. The freezing of teacher salaries in 1997 until last year when there were all those teacher strikes and now they come up with some sort of inadequate compromise to try and ‘compensate’ for 10 years of progressive UNDERPAYMENT. Some teachers who took the voluntary severance packages (enormous payouts) in 1997 simply came back into the education system via the governing bodies. New teachers coming into the education system are being paid what teachers with 10 years experience are currently earning.

2. The removal of SPORTS teaches from schools. There are no teachers in schools specifically employed to handle spprt in the schools. (Except of course the very rich schools who realised the importance of sport and employed their own specialist sports coaches) Teachers, who have a normal teaching load, have been expected to become sports coaches and administer the sport in the school. The latter alone, is a full time job. Now they are complaining that there has not been enough redress in terms of transformation in sport!@!!!

3. They are currently introducing sports coaches into schools on a part time basis paying them R1,500 per month (I kid you not) to come into the schools with R40000 worth of equipment to train educators in the sporting codes. This extra training will not impact on teachers salaries.

4. There are no longer going to be specialist schools catering for the disabled. i.e at Fulton which is a school for the deaf will in future be expected to take in cerebal palsy, blind, or any disabled person. i.e. all disabled people are being seen as equal. I kid you not@!! Teachers currently in disabled schools will be given 3 three-day workshops in the holidays to train them to deal with all disabled learners. I kid you not.

Who are these idiots in the education department that come up with these clever sentences (my term for their policy for education) and then expect every else to make it work?

At the moment there is a deathly hush regarding the current salary negotiations.

Xenophobia has sent absolute shock waves…..probably more so because it has received world wide focus.

AND because it is such a slap in the face for the revolution…..

these were the people from countries that harboured and supported anti-apartheid activists etc….

but while it is obvious that xenophobia was bred by apartheid

ANC fat cats have got to take some blame for NOT doing enough to create jobs and seeing to all the bureaucracy that goes with it…they have had power for 14 years and they should know something by now!!

but you know all this…..

I do not have television but I believe there has been an upsurge in non xenophobic exposures etc …

catching the black taxis every day I cannot say that where I am, that people are any different….

taxi fares have gone up for the 5th time this year bringing the cost to an Extra R5 per day…my rent went up
by R500 last year and this year is going up by R400!!! NOt to mention the cost of food basics….

the Education department continue to plough ahead with their changes using the best performing schools as their guidelines…i.e. about 10% of the country….(certainly in my subject LIFE SCIENCE) creating enormous academic pressures in schools…..rural schools in particular must be in an absolute DAZE!! Dare not say where this is about to lead???? Exam papers have also become heavily TEXT based. There has been some publication recently making some noise about new salary guidelines to keep ‘good’ teachers etc. but I have not yet had an opportunity to read them. These are released NOW when schools are all under hectic exam pressure and there is just no time to read these LONG WINDED articles with any immediate understanding of exactly what it is that they propose. It all seems to be about delay tactics…..and where is that going to lead??? What I find particularly BIZARRE about Education in particular is that these are people WHO SHOULD KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION. It seems to me they have ABSOLUTELY NOT A CLUE!!

sorry but education a bit of a sore point right now..

much light

helge

life is very crazy right now

the writing of the new novel has been progressing very slowly….like I am chipping away at some incredibly hard granite…its as if I have to attack it ‘consciously unconsciously’….
and it exhausts me quickly….so my approach has been totally different to Tell Tale.

the speakers began to steam
and smoke and behave most oddly
10 minutes into the set
so they transferred me to the main dance floor
and things just kept rocking…

directed by Aryan Kaganof

Between 2005 and 2006 Aryan Kaganof unofficially produced four video-clips with the famous French group NOUVELLE VAGUE. Their most recent concert in Paris to date was on the 25-04-07 at the Grand Rex, one of the capital’s largest concert venues. During these two years the group successfully brought out four cover versions of English or American tracks.

In order to show you the telepathy between Kaganof and ourselves, we’re going to quote our comments from KagaBlog from 14-08-06, where we referred to the song “Bela Lugosi is Dead” by Bauhaus, concluding that the latter is not dead. At the same time, without knowing, Kaganof was filming the video-clip “Helgé Janssen. Undead” with a remake of the same song by Nouvelle Vague this time. Helgé Janssen is a South African dancer and writer who has already published a novel with the publishing house directed by Kaganof. He dances half-naked in the video of Bauhaus’ song covered by Nouvelle Vague. With great talent for four minutes he emphasises the metaphorical aspect of the song, reminding us that Lugosi was a defender of counter-culture in his time, and Kaganof wants to emphasise the fact that this counter-culture is not dead today, but revived by extraordinary people such as Helgé Janssen and Kaganof himself!

“Too Drunk to Fuck” is the Nouvelle Vague’s cover of an old track by the Dead Kennedys. Kaganof puts the song’s context into a new problematic. Through the real images of an adolescent Catherine Henegan playing with her friends, he is trying to underline the naïve side of the lyrics with a touch of discreet humour. The Super8 images of family scenes are full of charm and grace, a grace lost with time, but seen again from an angle that is sexist and nostalgic-lyrical: that of the lines of the song and that of the producer, who manages to blend the contradictory elements.

“Fade to glass” is the remake of Visage’s old song “Fade to Grey”. Kaganof presents two dancers on two screens, interpreting a choreography directed by Ysabelle Evers. The producer’s editing is full of rhythmic interactions between intersecting and superimposed images. With the technical term of the title, the producer highlights a home-made technique where the special effects are used only for their poetic value, not for their effect of illusion, as is done in commercial cinema.

“Venus Emerging” is the title of the fourth video, but not the fourth song. It’s a remake of the Special’s “Friday Night” in which we see, above all, the impressive sub-marine images shot by eran tahor of a beautiful young diver in slow motion. She is diving gracefully and the camera observes the carnal aspect of her beautiful athletic body.

These four video clips produced by Aryan Kaganof are fairly simple as concepts and productions, but very liturgical and effective as artistic events – they are liturgical for it is a special mass that they are celebrating, that of youth, charm, music and love. They are effective because these films highlight the essential values of cinema – the rhythm and vibration of life, colour, dance, art, youth and love.

Dionysos ANDRONIS
translated from the french by lucy lyall grant

Just after I had been djing at nonono and I was still sweating profusely I went through to the bar where I should have been djing. They had removed the sound system that had begun to spontaneously combust, and which had been placed over a pool table. I was looking for Leo as I needed somebody to help me carry my dj box to the waiting taxi.
A silly young twat, who was about to play a game of pool says to me:
“Put a plug up your asshole.”
“Are you telling me to put a plug up my asshole?”
“Yes.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are telling me what to do with my life? I’ll put whatever I like up my fucking asshole, asshole! I’ll do whatever I like with my fucking asshole! Don’t tell me what to do with my asshole shit head! Don’t try and make me like you! I live as free as I want. Nobody tells me what to do….get it, wet head?”

I said this coarsely - whispered into his chest, into his heart, closely, hard, directedly, for his mind was already lost. A Glenwood boy? His parents and education had certainly failed him.

Yet later when I thought back to this incident rather wryly, I realised what an enormous compliment this idiot had given me.

A LIST OF BANDS/PERFORMERS THAT WERE CENTRAL

JOY DIVISION CABARET VOLTAIRE
NEW ORDER BURNING SPEAR
DEPECHE MODE ANNIE LENNOX
BAUHAUS/PETE MURPHY NINA HAGEN
SHRIEKBACK GRACE JONES
NEPHILIM SEX PISTOLS
NICK CAVE/THE BAD SEEDS POWER AGE
DAF EXPLOITED
SISTERS OF MERCY GREGORY ISAACS
THE MISSION KEITH HUDSON THE CULT KRAFTWERK MR. YELLOWMAN MISTY IN ROOTS
THE CURE U2
DOG DETACHMENT SOUXIE SIMPLE MINDS VIA AFRIKA
BLONDIE PERE UBU
THE DYNAMICS COCTEAU TWINS B52’S VIOLENT FEMMES THE THE THE SMITHS/MORRISSEY KISSING THE PINK PSYCHIC TV
REM THE SPECIALS
ALIEN SEX FIEND MADNESS THE STYLE COUNCIL THE JAM BLANCMANGE PETER TOSH
LKJ THE STRANGLERS
BOB MARLEY ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN
LOVE AND ROCKETS BIG COUNTRY
THE DOORS LLOYD COLE/COMMOTIONS
TALKING HEADS DEVO
BOWIE ASWAD
TUXEDOMOON HOLGER CZUKAY
ENO JAH WOBBLE
IGGY POP MINIMAL COMPACT
KALAHARI SURFERS JOHNNY CLEGG
LOU REED WOLFGANG PRESS
SINEAD O’CONNOR RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS
TOM TOM CLUB JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
PIXIES PJ HARVEY
FUN BOY THREE BANANARAMA
LAURIE ANDERSON VELVET UNDERGROUND
JOHN FOXX PET SHOP BOYS
EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL DEAD CAN DANCE MARVYN GAYE OMD MARTHA AND THE MUFFINS CHRIS AND COSEY
A CERTAIN RATIO FAD GADGET
THE SUGARCUBES/BJORK ORANGE JUICE
THE PALE FOUNTAINS PREFAB SPROUT
KING SUNNY ADE 23 SKIDOO RICO ABC
JENNIFER FERGUSON DANIEL DAX
HEAVEN 17 ASSOCIATES
LOGIC SYSTEM BLACK UHURU
CHRISSIE HIND/THE PRETENDERS AFRICA BAMBAATA
COLOURFIELD TOM VERLAINE
THE SPECIAL AKA FLYING PICKETS
ELVIS COSTELLO JAPAN
LOTUS EATERS SPANDAU BALLET
LENA LOVICH HAPPY MONDAYS
EURYTHMICS SOFT CELL
THE CLASH SISTERHOOD
THE WATERBOYS YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS
BOOMTOWN RATS NEW MODEL ARMY
NINE INCH NAILS JANES ADDICTION
TOM WAITS LEONARD COHEN
GANG OF FOUR RIP RIG AND PANIC
SHEEP ON DRUGS

ANOTHER PLAY

Ampleby wrote his fifth ‘play’ called the ‘Come Uppance of Punch’. This was a solo play, and it looked at how history repeats itself in different guises. He contacted the manufacturers of Red Bull energy drink giving them a brief history of his discovery of this image, his performance endeavours, plus photographs. He had video footage if further proof was required. He requested sponsorship (R5000 - a fortune to him, nothing to them) to enable him to take his latest play to the Grahamstown Festival, seeing as he had already prepared the ground for them in extensive free advertising over the last twelve years, and had quite firmly ingrained the image of the Red Bull in so many people’s minds. They responded by sending him three cans of his own blood, telling him that his play was not the type of event with which they were interested in being associated. This was identical to the stock response he had been given when his paintings were rejected by the Market Theatre: “This is not the type of work that the Market Theatre likes to exhibit.” 1983 and 1995. Pre and post Apartheid - the response had been exactly the same - yet he had submitted completely different work! Culturally, it seemed, everything was being left to its own old devices. The Navy, Army, Post Office, Judiciary, Education, could all undergo transformation, but culture….oh….oh…culture, culture could be left to its own devices! This type of bland response mechanism that is so prevalent within the establishment - within the corporate world - is exactly the type of backward thinking response mechanism that goads further endeavours, and proves how utterly vampiric they really are. It proves they can only make money out of other peoples’ energy because anybody producing that type of understanding cannot possibly have a creative fibre anywhere in their bodies. He thus declared that: anyone drinking Red Bull drank his BLOOD.
Red Bull was reeked and ranked with his blood. He had suffered, and the pain of that suffering was never more encapsulated in the image of the Red Bull. It had bled him, and he was bleeding still. It was through the Red Bull that he had let his blood. This bloodletting. This was not a rational issue.

“LOOK AT THAT THEN AND NOW I AM”

The swing to the Berea Inn kick started the gradual four year final transformation of Ampleby Trump. He noticed one day, not any day of any particular note, that he was becoming invisible. He held up his hand to the light, and he could see right through it. This strange and gradual transformation was the complete and inevitable final stage in his arduous, phenomenal and enlightening metamorphosis. He advertised to start a new alternative venture, and nobody came! He no longer existed in any physical sense. Once he had given up djing, he was no longer in existence. He learnt that what was, had nothing to do with what is. At the same time he felt strangely free. He had given it his best shot, given it everything that he had, held nothing back. Doing thus had released him. He let the entire burden of what he had been carrying slip away from him. He lightened. He no longer held the responsibility of nurturing. As he transformed, so he became more transparent. As he became more transparent, the horizons broadened, the landscape deepened. Durban became larger. He could be seen in different places simultaneously: in a new club, on television, in a cutting edge dance performance, at a painting exhibition, in a fashion show, in a new dance group, in the streets, on a bicycle. The more he was denied, the more rampant he became. He had multiplied into a thousand different facets and was reproducing ever more - a non-pathogenic virus undergoing replication, no longer stoppable, sustained by an autotrophic energy that required no host, no knowable sustenance, no light, no dark, no water: the ether of life itself. Thus it was that he became rooted in every single creative phenomenon across the country. It was 1996.

AN ENERGY DRINK

Someone came up to him and told him that an energy drink called Red Bull was available at the bar at CRASH. At first he thought that that someone was pulling his leg. He made an enquiry.
“Yes there is such a thing,” the barman said oddly.
He wanted to laugh.
“You’re not being serious?” enquired Ampleby in genuine disbelief.
The barman shrugged impatiently.
“Can I see one?”
Yes…there it was, in a can. Really and actually there. He examined it carefully, curiously, as if looking at himself in the mirror for flaws.
“Now I’ve finally cracked”, he thought. “Now I’ve seen it all! How very very curious - curiouser and curiouser - the commercial world imitating life! Wasn’t it supposed to be that ART imitates life, or that LIFE imitates art? This is a real
fine howdy do!”
“That can has my life in it” said Ampleby and handed it back to the barman.

THE BEREA INN

Ampleby had been focusing his energies at the Berea Inn, on a Tuesday night. The Goth scene had become the only authentic option, that still had an underground identity, that still gave the impression of breaking the mould. A core of ‘thinking Goths’ were quickly disillusioned with the commercialism of the new club. Yet the managers of the Berea Inn were not too happy with the Goths because they were not alcoholics - they did not drink to excess - they were more interested in wearing black, wearing makeup, silver jewellery and dancing to Nick Cave, Sisters, Nephilim, Bauhaus, Cure. The Goth boys were utterly divine looking, with long black locks, black skirts and dark eyeliner. The Goth couples looked like lesbian couples. And nobody could play a Goth set quite like Ampleby! Watching a lone woman dancing to Orff’s Carmina Burana took him to heights that no performer on the professional stage had ever done. Swirling black skirt. Swirling black silhouette. The bright multi-coloured squares of the Berea Inn dance floor flashing at her feet, enhancing the contrast, shadows reflecting in the surrounding mirrors. He adored these night creatures that shied away from the sun. So anti grunge. But a strange dissonance constantly recurred. The chords were out of synch. The desire to experiment, to innovate receded. The Goths had become just as subject to fear of change as anyone else. The moon ebb of excitement pulled ever harder away, away into a fear of expression, a negation of that edge that leapt into new territory. Nobody would dance to the new Nick Cave album “Murder Ballads” apart from the commercial track with Kylie Minogue and the slightly less commercial track with P.J. Harvey. Nobody would dance to Christian Deaths’ brilliant version of “Venus in Furs”. Too dramatic. Too passionate. Too intense. Madly, change became synonymous with a need for self preservation. It was as if letting go had previously presumed a safety net which now was no longer there…letting go became impossible….the fear of change created strange counter currents indeed! The Rift had swooped in on the alternative movement with its radio brand of rebellion. They had done more in one month than the entire Security Branch had been able to do in years, surfing the ten year impetus little caring where it all went. Initially, Ampleby did not mind this shift. He thought “Let them have it…they want it that badly…let them take it….” Yet, for him there still was a sustainable sense of progression: he saw his move to the Berea Inn as little more than a detour. But as time progressed, the conservative wave that enveloped the country congealed into something harder to shift than anything even Ampleby could have imagined. The mountain had returned, heavier, darker, wiser - like a clam that had been swooped upon unexpectedly, prized open - now more sensitive to intrusion. It would never allow what had happened to ever happen again. The alternative movement lost sustainability: it had transformed into contemporary rock, no more, no less. What the Rolling Stones represented in the ‘60’s without the challenge. By 1994, as the country prepared for its first ever democratic election the regressive madness turned obsessive. Two white females had a fight that was over in seconds: the one ended up concussed, the other, a gaping hole in her cheek where a broken beer bottle had pierced. As she swigged her beer (still in shock), beer and blood streamed through the hole, down her neck, soaking into her blouse. Then the Goths had a fall-out with the Punks, with both groups boycotting the Berea Inn. Everyone wanted to have their say. Discernment became a dirty word. It was as if the sudden sense of democracy meant that ‘anything goes’, as opposed to ‘anything is possible’. But the interesting thing was, was that everyone had to make a paradigm shift - the Zulus, the Xhosas, the Whites, the Coloureds, the Indians - no one group occupied centre stage. Yet nobody was interested in common ground. Yes, it was all happening politically, but that was politics, this was real life! People arriving at the Berea Inn had no interest in whether or not Ampleby had a history. He might as well have just been born. Nobody was interested in his experience. The fact that he had been djing for fifteen years held no sway whatsoever. That he might have known something of where this could be going was of least importance. Patrons would bring a CD, request a track, dance to nothing else until it was played, and then leave. His exposure of New World Music never gathered momentum - was shut out with indifference. Transglobal Underground, The Orb, The Future Sound of London, Eat Static, Leftfield, Underworld, cleared the dance floor. “Now what does this guy think he’s doing?” Too much new stuff, too soon, all at once. Souxie, the Cure, Pete Murphy were all hitting middle age. Marylin Manson was a Cover Queen. Computer technology force-fed the record industries and the splurge of new music overwhelmed. Nobody could tell the difference between what was good and what was bad. Progressive music tastes shifted from the ‘collective’ to the ‘personal’ where the personal did not translate back into the collective. It stopped right there - like trying to have a conversation with somebody who only answered in monosyllables. Rave Culture tidal-waved in, and with it the wonder drug ‘e’, swamping the last vestiges of individualism. If the endless doef doef challenged no one before, now it made no difference, it was just an excuse to be somewhere rather than somewhere else. And being ‘somewhere else’ rested purely on who else was there - hopefully everybody. Music became the shadow, the hazy background. Lazer lighting hit the clubs transporting the crowd into ever increasing highs. ”Trainspotting” the new cult movie. All that drugging that Seremia had been talking about became reality. There was no longer any need to ‘think’. “Think? That’s the last thing I wanna do,” said somebody when Ampleby suggested an amazing movie. Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band suddenly sprang to mind. “e’ created everything inside oneself, just pop the pill and an amazing time was guaranteed to all. Hit the shopping mall! And thus it was that shopping mall ethic superimposed on/into night life. Wandering around 330 on a Saturday night was like wandering around Musgrave Centre with its lights out and lots of loud music. That was the way they wanted it! It never occurred to Ampleby to experiment with ‘e’. It looked all too stupid…’e’ bunnies mindlessly bopping their heads like those toy dogs at the back of some cars. Besides he had his own energy. Energy that he had been honing for the past twenty years. Performance energy. If the music was right, and it seldom was, that was all he needed. ‘e’ is everywhere - in your television set, ‘e’ TV, Felecia on ‘e’, the impetus behind every single 20 second byte advertisement, into the consciousness of your children, fashion. ‘e’ is here to stay, the new alcohol - and far superior. Nobody ever had a fight on ‘e’. Pity about the come down. Pity about the fact that the Nigerians were making all the money out of it. Pity about the fact that it gets laced with rat poison. But ‘e’ is a desperate thing and life and living can make one very desperate - so who will be the judge?

There was only one thing for him to do - let go.

At the Vic Bar one Saturday evening, Ampleby noticed Cheth. He was sitting at one of the tables and he was crying. He was talking to a woman and he was crying. Tears were streaming down his face. He and Maya had broken up. Conversely, it was the first time Ampleby felt there might be some hope for him yet. It was the first time he had seen Cheth express any real emotion. Two weeks later he was dead. Overdose. Wellconol. He curled up into bed and went to sleep.

WINDS OF CHANGE

Negotiations were underway to release Nelson Mandela. By the time the negotiations were made public, deals had already been signed: what those deals REALLY were, were never made known to the South African public. The negotiations had begun as early as 1986. The first intimation that the possibility of change was probable came in 1988 when a Government delegation was sent to Dakar to meet the ANC. South Africa was blessed with a black leader without any sense of personal retribution. The Nationalist Party could no longer sustain the onslaught and had miraculously come to their senses. By 1990, from the impending blood bath, the country was headed for a multi-party democracy. Who could forget the day Nelson Mandela and Winnie Mandela walked in slow motion, hand in hand, into the New Country? Throngs of people in bewonderment? In one moment South Africa had a Hectic History, in the next, the birth of a New Nation. Yet the ongoing tensions between the ANC and the IFP did not auger well. Forces - the ‘third force’ - fermented violence. Murder sought murder, retaliation sought retaliation. An IRA mentality threatened. Buthelezi, leader of the IFP, was in the pocket of the Nationalist Party and had probably been hoping for some bigger slice once negotiations had been concluded. To Ampleby it seemed that he fermented violence, rather than trying to stem it. Every presumably sane word he uttered during those tense times of 1990 to 1994 were clouded in threat. Threat with a smile on its face. Violence was the negotiating tool. The right wing buffer. The Broederbond, that secret Afrikaner club, that ever watchful Afrikaner eyeball, had to disband. As if they actually did, could, or would. The unenlightened Afrikaner once more sought to ‘trek’, this time to Oranje. “If there is one thing that the 20th century has taught us,” said Ampleby one day to Canopy, “surely it is that prejudice/racism has no place in the modern world. That animal should be allowed to sink into extinction.” “Liberals” were being trashed in the press as having ‘sat on the fence’ - the implication being that it was far better to have been a racist! The Talking Heads track “Road to Nowhere” could now be heard frequently on SAFM. Yet the first real shock in the New South Africa came with the divorce of Nelson and Winnie. The first sign that something was awry. The press, the public, had to have a black scapegoat. Nelson had no choice. The fact that everybody was emerging from circumstantial insanity held no sway. A circumstantial insanity of which wars were all too familiar. But the changes that were to take place in the country had quite an unexpected outcome amongst whites: it created a conservative stasis - the country could change, but everything else had to stay the same! Change came at people faster than they could handle it. Held in abeyance for so long, it now flooded in. This lead to them clinging to whatever it was that they felt need not change: music and fashion was a prime reference point that could still that sense of intrusion. A surge for everything retro, anything to slow down the progressive wave predominated. Yet what was very curious, was that the ‘winds of change’ appeared to be a world wide phenomenon, not isolated to South Africa alone. The Impassable Berlin Wall came crashing down: Communism in tatters. The London Tories were swept out of office. The Democrats replaced the Republicans. Croatia, the Middle East…….
Stella Court was sold to make way for an Allenby Campus. It became impossible to find cheap accommodation. Black or Coloured people suddenly saw him as a threat:
“You’re white,” they said, “you can afford to pay higher rents. You earn higher salaries than we do. Don’t steal our cheap flats from us. Go and live where
you belong - with the Whites!”
He could hardly believe he was hearing this! Change obviously meant different things to different people. The cheapest flat he could find was a bachelor flat for R400 per month at a block in 6th Avenue, Morningside. It was all White.
But there was no other option. And that was how it came to pass that for the next few years, in the New South Africa, Ampleby lived exclusively amongst whites!
Yet he continued to pursue his performance images, performing excerpts from the “Parade’ section of BLOOD plus “I’m looking for my Country” to startled clubbers. Students who had video’d his performance went round interviewing people at Ampleby’s request:
“Hadn’t he taken the image of the Red Bull a bit too far?”
“We’re bored with this by now! He’s suffering from apathy!”
“Does he expect us to be embarrassed because we’re white?”
“Why doesn’t he do something new?”
These statements, coming in particular from two obvious-looking alternative youths, stunned him to such an extent that he wondered whether they were not working for the Security Branch! It made no sense.

SUPERMODELS

Athena, modelling for Ampleby proved to be the most phenomenal model. It was as if his garments magnified her essence. At the next 330 fashion show she was a total hit. If ever Durban produced a super model, this was her. Yet she was not interested in approaching a modelling agency or going through any conventional channel. Eventually she would only model for Ampleby. On the ramp she transformed into a super creature that completely galvanised everyone. He had created a red corduroy bustiere dress, short, strapless, a short red corduroy jacket with a peplum style collar, which framed her face. He made long gloves to hide her scar. Her hair: white blond and styled into a forties crimp, short, gelled, waving into her neck at the back. False eyelashes and her 16 hole Doc Martens completed the look. Mathyra had come down from JHB to model for him. For her he had created a short flounced silver skirt, shiny silvergreen bustiere top, and burgundy velvet jacket lined with pink black-spotted fabric. Her Eastern looks, thick crimped long black hair, her Doc Martens, her movement to Tuxedomoon’s version of ‘Venus in Furs’ had the audience spell bound. The ever innovative Genie created a range using feathered masks, headdresses. Spacey (the third designer in this show) had the tall waspish Gaiela, goth-like, wafting in layers of black and purple chiffon.This fashion show, held on the Friday night, was electrifying. Two Tech students video’d the show, went back stage and filmed the models making up. Daida, beautician and make up artist, back for a short spell from London, was on hand to work her make-up magic. The same show held the following night met with stiff upper lips and aloofness. Oddly, Ampleby was accused of having some secret source of inspiration….some exclusive design magazine from overseas….that nobody else had access to…..these garments could never possibly have been inspired by his own imagination. For them, there was no such thing as a designer that created designs, that set the trend - in Durban designers followed fashion, they did not create fashion!
He was a marked man - a persecution.

CRASH

Cheth had a motorbike crash. It happened in the pouring rain along a stretch of road that Ampleby dubbed Durban’s Rain Belt. If there was rain anywhere in Durban, this is where it would be found: from approximately half way along Cowie Road, into Botanic Gardens Road almost as far as Mansfield Road near the Natal Technikon. A tricky bend dipped into a curve as Botanic Gardens Road twisted above Botanic Gardens itself heading towards the Technikon. Cheth lost control, careering into one of the street poles or palm trees. His lower leg was smashed just below the knee, having borne the full brunt of motorbike metal slamming into steel/trunk. For a while his leg was in danger of needing to be amputated. A 6cm gap in his tibia from where crushed bone had to be removed refused to grow. Eventually the doctors performed bone grafts and built a bridge between the broken bones to encourage growth. He spent the next six months in Addington hospital where he proceeded to give the nurses a hard time. A total brat screaming for pain killers. When they found out that he was a druggie, they curtailed and eventually stopped giving him any scheduled drugs. When he was finally discharged with a set of crutches and his leg in pins, he was physically more of a wreck than when he went in. Maya, with whom he had been living for about a two years, stuck with him throughout this ordeal. He recovered with a distinct limp.
Two years later he and Ampleby went on a jol for old times sake. Cheth took him to supper, then they went on a club crawl. Cheth proceeded to get more and more ‘out of it’ and Ampleby could not work out what he was on. In the early hours of the morning, Cheth insisted on coming back to the flat. When they undressed, he saw the scar on Cheth’s leg for the first time since the accident. That exquisite calf was gnarled and mangled. It looked as if a shark had torn a chunk out of him and the wound had been left unattended. Ampleby could see no evidence of stitches, or of any attempt at plastic surgery. Approximately six months later, Cheth and Maya invited Ampleby to supper. What became evident was that Cheth had been behaving extremely non-rationally. He had put jik in his landlords fish tank. When Maya was away he would pass out for hours and appear to be unraisable….the landlord could see his abandoned arm over the edge of the bed, immobile, unresponsive to bangs. Now, it was difficult to make any sense out of what it was he was saying, although he himself was oblivious to his lack of logic. Maya gave Ampleby a pleading look, and from time to time, Maya and Ampleby just looked at each other as Cheth continued in his incoherent reality.

ISOLATION

Ampleby celebrated 10 years as a DJ. He hated any form of nostalgia, or celebration, but 10 years as a pioneer of the alternative movement is not something to be passed by lightly - as Zee had impressed on him. A cake was made that looked like a vinyl record - black liquorice icing! Somebody, probably Zee, passed a shirt around on which everyone signed their name and wrote a short message. At the same party he heard a rumour that he was ‘closing down’. That he was giving up djing. In typical Durban-speak, this meant that there was a new club on the horizon and the organisers were preparing the Durban public for their opening.
Many other alternative clubs had risen in opposition during his dj career. None had taken root. The new club prided itself beforehand as being the club that was going to close PLAY down.
The new club THE RIFT opened with overwhelming determination. A fair section of PLAY ‘faithfuls’ did not go to the opening which came at a time when he was needing a break - two years and not a single Friday had he missed! Three weeks later and it became obvious that PLAY had a struggle on its hands. He approached Kim and Betty and suggested that they overhaul his overheads, as he was now working at a financial loss, and that they should rethink their strategy. That he needed their support in what was going to be quite a tough time, even if only temporary. They showed no interest in his plight. He said that he would take a break for a month and that they should renegotiate if they wanted him back. He did not reject them, or part on bad terms, due to the sometimes strange cycles within the club scene: Faces surely was a case in point. The owners of the Rift (ex Faces ex Play supporters) had wasted no time in cashing in on the burgeoning grunge wave that fitted into Durban like a glove. This was an exact reflection of how Durban dressed surfer-style, so very little change or adjustment was needed. They could go exactly as they were. They could continue without any further threat to their closet being opened. Nirvana with their hit single “Smells like teen spirit” epitomised this new shift towards the over ground. The radical face of commerciality. It was a track Ampleby never played. “No wonder Cobain committed suicide,” thought Ampleby “it was all going horribly wrong…” And then of course the grunge bands came in thick and fast, all trying to sound like each other. This was the backlash. Yet the dj’s did not know HOW to look for music, what QUALITIES to uphold, what it all MEANT. So they just played follow the leader. And the leader was none other than an 5FM radio dj who had been playing alternative music on the airwaves, who up till then had never seen the inside of a club, who had no idea of what ‘dance’ actually meant, and was simply playing a handed down playlist anyway. Playing music of the ‘rebellious establishment’. A contradiction in terms. And those tapes that Ampleby had made during his dj sessions for all and sundry, certainly came in very handy! But Kim and Betty never got back to Ampleby. He drove past the club one Friday night on his way to the Vic Bar, to see parked cars and waves of alternative sounds drifting into the night air. What had they done? Had they hauled in another DJ? Gyreth? Gyreth getting in on the act while he could? So, that was it. He was out. He was replaceable.

EMMA AGAIN

Ampleby received sporadic late night visits from Emma. 3am visits. Platonic visits. That insistent rap rap rap at the door. No sooner had the door closed, when she started crushing a mandrax tablet still within its silver casing between her front teeth. Deftly. As if she were nurturing it…a mother cat defleaing her kitten…the black hood of her cape falling from her head.
“This…..this is such a safe place to be” she would say breathlessly, placing the silver enfolded crushed mandrax tablet carefully on the floor next to her.
“Fuck, Emma…….it’s 3am…are you OK?”
“Ya, no I’m fine…..”
She was now brushing her long dark heavy hair, tufts of which came out with each brush stroke.
“Shit….check this…I’ve just had a fight with some silly cow….she virtually pulled all my hair out….” Emma pulls knots of hair from the brush, rolls it into a ball, places it in the ash tray.
“Fuck, Emma….” said he pathetically.
“Oh…its nothing…..comes with the territory….”
She was working at a call girl agency.
“Do you have a bottle I can make a pipe out of…..?”
She ably heated the bottle neck over a candle and cracked off the end. Depipped, crushed the dagga. Prepared her mandrax pipe. There was no longer any sense of ritual to this preparation, any sense of “African time”. They spoke about this, they spoke about that. At 26, she still had the looks of a 17 year old. In spite of the drug and alcohol abuse, her body just bounced back. She threatened to tell him who some of her clients were……..
“I really think you should write a novel… I’m sure there are many tales you could tell…” said Ampleby seriously.
“I will, one day……..there’s something……there’s something I must tell you……………..they’re…..they’re after you…..”
“What?…..Who….?? What are you talking about……?”
“They’re out to get you……”
“Emma, what the fuck are you talking about…..this is bull shit…!”
“I…I wish it was…..”
“Who….? Who is out to get me….?”
“You know……you know….”
“No…I don’t know….I don’t know…”
“You do….yes you do….you do…..just…..think…..”
“Think? What for…?…..But why….? What have I done….??”
“It’s what you haven’t done….”
“Now what the fuck what….??”
“You’re…..you’re not…..you’re not corruptible……”
“Shees….Emma….this is bull shit….”
Finally lighting the pipe and sitting at the base of Ampleby’s feet, she looked like a sacrificial Llama or Buddhist devotee, transforming into a cloud of smoke after setting herself alight in protest. Smoke emanated from every pore. Filtered out through her long flowing cape, now all swoosh around her. Damp leaves waiting to ignite. And as she rushed and went limp, she barely managed to slob her spittle into the broken bottle. Next minute it was 5am and the early morning light cast a dreamlike shroud over the smokey room. They both passed out on the bed. He awoke a few hours later, Emma still in a deep sleep, more like in a coma, with spittle, like snails trails through her hair.

Emma had been to prison a number of times for possession of drugs. She had had at least five sessions in rehab of varying lengths of time. She ran away each time. Escaped straight into the nearest drug. She had attempted to commit suicide again. Now, the police were no longer interested in arresting her for any reason as she had been declared psychologically incorrigible.
Emma made her fourth attempt at suicide and almost succeeded. Her heart had stopped beating and by the time help arrived, almost twenty minutes had passed with no blood to her brain. She pulled through. Brain damaged. A few months later Ampleby bumped into her hitching up Berea Road. He had just bought a packet of cheap greasy chips from Leydens Takeaway on Berea Road just below the Caltex Garage. Were it not for her hair and profile, he would not have recognised her. Her weight had doubled. She was not alone.
“Oh wow….is that you?…Emma….Emma…EMMA!” called Ampleby.
She swung her back to him hoping he would just shut up.
“Hey Emma! Emma!” insisted Ampleby “Where are you guys off to…?”
“Buttons” said Emma and half looked at him. “We’re….hitching..to..Wentworth. This….is…my friend Simphiwe.” She had obvious difficulty with her words.
“Hi there” said he, as an intolerable sadness enveloped him. They moved on up the road, thumbs out. It was the last time he ever saw her. Four years later she finally succeeded. In the toilets. Louis Botha airport. Overdose. One month before her 30th birthday.

CREATIVE HIBERNATION

One of the sub texts of living in such a parochial town as Durban is the fact that ones creativity is seen as a free for all. Taken for granted. By anybody and everybody. Art at the lowest rung. Particularly, or because of the fact that one is not really famous…..or because one does not have any financial backing to make the most out of one’s own talents….the age old trap of having money to make money……it means that anybody with half a mind to create who sees and recognises the quality of this output in terms of its value in the material world, is able to connect with it…turn it into some crass concoction…..without a qualm….and get praise for it…try and make a fortune out of it. Suck life out of it. Rip out the embryo of the idea. Drench themselves in the foetal blood of their creative abortion. Plagiarism without a face. These were the true Satanists. In this way creativity was belittled, made insignificant, made a disposable despicable entity that comes by cheaply. Discredited. Trashed. The consequence of such an action is of no concern to our vampires. Ampleby stood by helpless as he watched this happen to his creative input time and time again. Of course nobody is without influence, and we all use and bounce off each other’s creativity. But to do so clandestinely, with stealth, is more than just theft - its a complete negation of the creative surge. And because it falls into the grey area of intellectual property, which is unclaimable, there is nothing that anyone can do. Except to become more guarded, more secretive. Which leads to a self imposed inhibition. A self imposed curfew. Self imposed negation of the creative spirit. A withdrawal. A form of exile. The last line of power. The only power he had was to withhold his power. Outwardly appear spent, wasted, no more to give. Inwardly, everything still surging, moving, sparking, firing. The last refuge for the defiant/creative spirit: creative hibernation. To bide his time.
When he spoke about the pain people thought that he was complaining. He had been through all the pain of being famous, without the fame.
In the mid nineties, when he explained to a young female he had just met at a party all the things he had done after she had questioned him, she said: “If you have done all these things that you say you have, why then have I never heard of you? How come I do not know who you are?”
“Darling” he said in his best camp voice “I hardly went round trying to get my dial on the cover of YOU magazine……and what other infrastructure was there?” He felt tainted, dirty, as if he had been lying.

HALLELUJAH

For the most part, PLAY at 330 ran smoothly. There were very few police raids, if any. Yet he could attribute police ‘interest’ directly to his discovery of an album by Zeke Manyika, South African drummer for The The. He released a solo album called ‘Bible Belt’. This title track was/is the most devastating attack on the Christian/Apartheid mind set ever recorded. It was lethal. The police raids therefore confirmed that he was still under surveillance. Yet, even when the police did raid, there was never the same air of intrusion that the FACES and CAW raids had had. By 1990/91 the country was well on its way to its new democracy - and the police seemed less concerned about the subversive context of club life. At 330, he enjoyed a certain amount of anonymity as the dj box was sealed off with a glass facade which was difficult to see into, and it had a door that locked. This meant that he wasn’t that easily accessible, less of everyone’s property. The upside to this was that he felt less emotionally drained by morning. While he enjoyed this level of anonymity, it also meant that he was becoming a nonentity. New patrons did not recognise him when he walked around the club. He became distanced, removed, separate from the party. However he was occasionally visited by those that had left the country, returning for a brief holiday, to be told that they had never been able to find anything remotely akin to what he had offered them in vibrancy, import, impact.
Christians picketed outside the club claiming it was a den of evil. He received a phone call from a female journalist asking him how one gets into Satanism. After recovering from what seemed a joke, he realised that the journalist was being dead serious.
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“But are you not into Satanism?”
“Hardly. Why are you asking me this?”
“Why do you play Satanic music at your club?”
“Well…its not my club, and I don’t play Satanic music.”
“Then why do you play Nina Hagen?”
“Nina Hagen? What’s wrong with Nina Hagen?”
“She’s a known Satanist and you play her music….Born in XXX, for example.”
“I’ve never been bothered about other people’s religious beliefs and if she’s into Satanism, that’s her problem, not mine.”
“But then why do you play her music ?”
“Because…..because people dance to her music, quite wildly actually……and that’s what I’m about….getting people to dance….its why they come to the club, surely. Are you trying to tell me that the Devil has all the best tunes?”
For the first time, the journalist did not respond immediately.
He continued: “I play such a wide range of music that I could not even begin to be bothered about which of the artists are Satanic. So if you have a problem with that you know what to do. I have heard that heavy metal has a lot to do with Satanism, but I find the music utterly boring, so I avoid it…its sort of ‘headsore massacre’, if you get what I mean. I find it crass. Its as simple as that. And its a well known fact that most rock singers are gay. Even the Christian ones.”
There was no reply, so he put the phone down.
A young man who had frequently come to chat to Ampleby within the dj box told him that he had burnt all his Smiths records and that he had converted to Christianity. That he had only come to the club to give him this good news. “Well that’s great for you” said Ampleby, “but why didn’t you just give the records to me?” In the months to come, this man pestered Ampleby about converting to Christianity - visiting him at his flat, chatting to him at the flea market stall, in fact whenever he bumped into him - seemed overtly concerned about the state of Ampleby’s soul. His attention to Ampleby almost amounted to stalking. He honestly believed that Christ was going to come down on a cloud and take all the chosen ones up to heaven…….soon. Ampleby had done everything in his power to discourage the young man, while trying to be polite and considerate. But it seemed that being polite and considerate just wasn’t enough:
“But God loves you”, said he for the trillionth time.
“Well if God loves me, does he fuck?” came the exasperated response. “I’m feeling quite horny right now and a fuck would be really great! So, does he fuck?” That was the last time Ampleby saw or heard from him.
In 1992 he was approached by an Indian man who said that he was from the University of Natal, and that he was writing a thesis on the ‘Alternative Movement’ for his Masters Degree and wanted to know if it would be all right if he had an interview. Ampleby agreed.
The man arrived two hours ahead of schedule. The floor of his flat was covered in fabric as he was arranging pieces for his wallets. Politely, he told the man to go away, and come back at the appointed time.
When the man arrived, and Ampleby had made themselves coffee, his first question was:
“How does one get into Satanism?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How does one get into Satanism?”
“I thought you wanted to interview me about the alternative movement?”
“Well, aren’t they synonymous? The alternative movement and Satanism?”
“I’ve never heard such rubbish. Look, I think you had better go. You’re labouring under some huge misconception, and it seems perfectly clear that you are coming from a distinctly prejudiced point of view. It is terrifying to think that you are doing a thesis on the alternative movement at University level, with such a misconstrued brain wiring system. I’ve heard about people being into Satanism, obviously - I’ve heard about all sorts of things - but I have yet to come across a single person who kills cats, aborts foetuses, drinks blood, worships Satan. Surely, this is an issue for the police. It’s always somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody, never the actual person. So if you find out anything, please let me know. However, I would like to point out that Christianity has been used, is used, will be used, to justify Apartheid. I would also like to point out that I have often performed the dance of the Red Bull - in night clubs, fashion shows, performances. For me this is a symbol representing the evil of Apartheid. The isolating, the capturing, the destroying of the creative spirit. I have also performed as the Apartheid Demon in a play I wrote called ‘Blood’. This has been my apartheid protest - call it a private mission if you like. But it is no secret. And I certainly am not alone. That I have performed these characterisations with energy and intent is true. I am proud of that. But to accuse me or the alternative scene of Satanism on the basis of these performances is tantamount to accusing an actor of being a criminal because he plays a thief on stage. You might as well arrest tea-room owners for dealing in drugs because they sell rizlas. Now, please leave.”

CLOSET CITY

Descending into Durban from Tollgate Bridge, the unsuspecting traveller may well believe that he has arrived at a throbbing, vibrant city. Those tall scrapers that bedeck the sea-front horizon along Durban’s Golden Mile shade out the shimmering sea - create a discordant perspective that from that side (the sea side) the city is far larger than it actually is. And if one is feeling positive one may well tell oneself that that early morning fog hanging over the city is the result of a heat shimmering from a city steaming in tropical readiness for life. But closer inspection - and depending on one’s disposition - may reveal something quite different - a fog of gloom embedded with the words: Closet City. And its about time somebody said it! Taking its lead from the booming surf industry in the ‘70’s with it’s insistent bisexual imagery, the surfers have become unwitting guinea pigs in some closeted advertising saga. Durban IS Surf City, isn’t it? The surfers bought the bisexual image, but they forgot about the fact that life and sexuality are intimately interwoven. And so somewhere in between, it was life that had to be sacrificed, replacing it with its Ugly Sister, Heterosexism. There are no gay surfers, are there? There are no gay rugby players, cricketers, soccer stars. A surfer is yet to be found at an art exhibition opening, or at an interesting movie. They guard their closetness with the astuteness of a nesting mammal. They will not be seen in any ‘grey’ (gay) area. This is where their natural instinct shines most brightly. They can spot a suspect area 500 surfboards away. Would that they used this perceptive gift more constructively. Convert this instinct into a sea level, and we see it rushing from the sea shore through the city, into the campuses, into the interior, like some tidal disaster. And into the clubs. They take their heterosexism with them. Has anyone ever tried to ‘do’ anyone wearing one of those “Just Do Me” T shirts, and had success? The one T shirt the surfers wear most? Imagine the fantasy wish list of the male who dreamed up that slogan! Surely, one of the prime examples of a philosophy that has inverted in on itself. Ampleby would have thought that club life represented a haven away from the pressures of a conformist society. He would even have hoped that TV might have had an effect on them. But no - there they go, into the clubs with their closetness, waiting for that brief moment when Everything Can Be Forgotten. When they can dip into the sexual cesspool and not have to remember anything. Preferably they would rather like to stagnate in some rock pool on the Bluff. They steadfastly refuse to do the one thing life expects of them - take a leap of faith. Faith in themselves. To fight back with every fibre of real life. Of emotional honesty. But emotional honesty has never been an aspirant male quality. Neither has it been a female one. Patience is a Virtue. People come to Durban to learn that Virtue. One might be forgiven for believing that Durban is ‘laid back’ - it’s not…its inhabitants are in the grip of Patience - at best. At worst - they’re in the enthral of his Ugly Sister: Procrastination. But this was the god that Ampleby worshipped - the god of Patience - there was little choice. Patience revealed all truth. It was just a matter of time. In order to deal with Patience time had to be transcended. Time passed anyway. It was how you passed the time that mattered. This was the secret of Durban.

THE FLIP SIDE

The Hum of African Traffic. Anarchic. Chaotic. Urbanic. Bright Durban light. Sangomalong red skirt, wrist skin-fur, chestbead laden, white beaded black headdress, beaded ankles, yellowedeyes bloodshotganga muti-concoction drenched blood pressure seeing Shaman. Reflections. Bright sparks. Luminous green padded thigh wrapped Mama baby backed sleeping head bobbing. Fingers stirring bight white phuthu hand feeding. Bark smells, monkey skulls, drum dries taught salt cow hides. Chicken feet. Dust cakes nostrils flare. Colour-sparked combinations flash clash. Drapery rich textures odours earths cottons. Turban-headed hooped-neck-beads leap dark chocolate skin. Jeans mix denim, white vests see Europe. Taxihoots throng mesh metal flesh.

Rules cannot translate into any language. Nobody understands them, they drop off like over ripe fruit no longer edible.

A whitey. Nobody can see him. Of no consequence. Incongruency does not register reality. They don’t believe he’s there. Alone. Unafraid. He’s higher than that whore goddess sea had ever thrown him.

BLUE MONDAY

Chlorell appeared at Ampleby’s door. She pushed him aside, sped through an ‘inspection’ of his flat, eyes darting everywhere as if looking for something, left without saying a word. Two days later, a robbery.

Ampleby and Abby crossed paths for the last time the night he was due to leave South Africa for Australia. The accidental coincidence of this meeting was shocking and phenomenal. After all of his concerted attempts to ‘bump’ into Abby in those early days of infatuation, and here it finally happens in Abby’s last few hours in the country, spontaneously! Abby had been at the beach front for a last swim. Ampleby had been swimming at a different beach. At the corner of Gardener and Smith streets Abby was held up at the traffic lights. Ampleby pulled up behind him. The recognition of Abby’s vehicle was sudden and shocking: the familiar jolt of proximity alerted, sharpened his spirits. Keened his attention. Abby felt Ampleby’s presence….caught himself in time from taking obvious cognition….their eyes barely glanced at each other through Abby’s rear view mirror. As they continued down Smith Street, the traffic lights out of synch, Ampleby kept catching up to him. Eventually, when his vehicle turned off at a junction, Ampleby continued home.
Farewell beautiful friend….may you find what you are looking for…..

That night Ampleby had a nightmare - the sea had transformed into a huge amorphous silver vampire sucking out the life blood of Durban’s youth. A beguiling crystal magnetic mercury that fed on teenage energy, pacified them, absorbed their rebellion, sent them home flaccid.

A SHARE PLAN

He formulated that he was subject to a ‘stocks and shares’ approach to his social standing. He could work out his popularity according to what he said to whom, to which party he had been (a rare occurrence these days) and how successfully he had conducted himself according to their criteria. He could do this because his popularity was directly linked to door takings: people voted with their pockets. Nobody really knew him. He rarely socialised. He became an enigma. If nothing else, it affirmed for him how outside of the mainstream he really was. There was no point in him feeling alienated. He enjoyed his own company. It left him freer to create. In fact he had developed a rather formidable reputation for NOT being invited to parties. He came across as too arrogant. He could not keep his mouth shut about most issues and invariably ended up offending someone. He was completely immune to fads - either intellectual, fashionable, or expedient. He did not fit into any of the strata of Durban society. Apart from being invited to dj at a friends wedding, he was never invited to dj at a party or an event on a Saturday night.

Ampleby was always interested in the undercurrent, never the mainstream, never the obvious, always the hidden. And for that there are no guide lines. It stands to reason therefore, that he was regarded with suspicion, with fear.

Yet something about Durban began to ‘recede’. Play at 330 represented a ‘stalling’, a change in the tide. Apartheid had been going on for far too long - a weariness was dragging everyone down that even the most vibrant club scene was hard pressed to counter. The creative brain drain, the cultural boycotts, the commercial boycotts, were finally breaking through to the consciousness of every man in the street. In Durban it was no longer possible to get alternative vinyl as preference for CD’s gathered momentum. It was now well over R100 for an album and CD’s were much cheaper.

OUTBURST

Ampleby went to 330’s first birthday party. He wore a thick black wig, wild and uncombed - one of the wigs he had used in ‘Blood’. He wore no shirt, a red G-string under a short red flounced gathered skirt, shorter than a mini-skirt. In a sense, unless there were those who knew his style, or had seen him perform at some point or other, he was in disguise. Abby was there and knew it was him immediately. Someone however, who did not know it was him, was Gazz. Ampleby was standing at the edge of the main dance floor when he became aware of a man pressing closer and closer against him. He turned to see that it was Gazz. He froze. Gazz made a slight gesture at the edge of his skirt, and this was too much for Ampleby, who fled. Not a moment later, he bumped into Abby, who was trying to tell him something. The sound was too loud to hear clearly, so Ampleby dragged him into the dj box from where the doef doef sounds were muffled.
“Hey Amp, I’m going to be leaving the country.”
Ampleby was immediately distressed as if something was being wrenched from him.
“Oh, really?” he said as nonchalantly as possible.
“Why don’t you come with me?”
This pang threw him into an immediate fury.
Here was a man whom he had not seen or heard from in the last seven months, suggesting that they go over seas together!!
“What’s the matter, Amp, what’s wrong…?” Abby had noticed the tightening of Ampleby’s mouth - literally all that was visible under the thick black wig.
“Fuck, Abby, do you know what the fuck you’re saying….?”
“You’ll do much better overseas Amp…you’re wasting your time here…your creativity will be much more appreciated over seas….you’re way ahead of this place…” Abby noticed some deep change in Ampleby:
“….your mouth…your mouth….why is your mouth so angry….???”
Ampleby snapped: “For fuck sake Abby, wake up! We go all the way down to fucking Cape Town and fuck all happens, you cannot even lift a finger to respond to me, and now you’re fucking asking me to go with you to London or where ever…what am I supposed to do? I haven’t even seen or heard of you in the last seven months….you still cannot even admit to me that Gazz is gay!!! Are you fucked in the head??? Or is it me? Is it you or is it me…?? Am I the one that’s fucked?? Help me…help…me! Help me! Tell me that I’m wrong! Tell me! Tell me I’m the one who’s wrong! Tell me I’m totally fucked in the head! Tell me its me!”
Abby stood there dumbstruck. The pause seemed an eternity.
“Fuck off, fuck out of my life…go.. go…go…get…fuck off…get the fucking hell out of here…” said Ampleby quite out of control, a sense of retribution, of finally letting it all go. He stormed out of the dj box and onto the dance floor and for the next two hours or so, danced out his wild wild anger, energetically, exhaustively regardless of what was playing. Like there was no tomorrow. Until he felt he had forgotten everything. He noticed Gazz notice who the wild creature was dancing under the black wig. A voice coming across to him from some source in the dance crowd asked him if he could get him whatever it was he was on.
“Try pain”, said Ampleby.

TEMPLE OF LOVE

In 1985 the Sisters of Mercy hit “Temple of Love” had become a dance floor favourite at Faces. He remembered the first time hearing it…people were sitting around in his black room, and Emma had put on a compilation tape which she said someone had made for her. The minute the track came on, somewhere in the middle of the tape, somewhere in the middle of his consciousness, he could not forget it. A week later he bought the 12” version. In 1990, requests for this track continued to reach him. In fact if there was any one track that had completely tired him, it was this one. Week after week, year after year. If he did not play it, sure enough someone would come and request it. Bauhaus had long since split up, but were still dance floor favourites. Pete Murphy (ex Bauhaus) as solo artist continued to dominate the Goth scene. The Cure, Souxie, after almost a decade, were still going from strength to strength, transforming with the times, always worth noting. Nick Cave was fast becoming the essential spirit and king of Goth, and ruled for the next six years - ‘Henry’s Dream’ being the most utterly brilliant album. Here is a 330 PLAY list 1991:
I’m Free - the Soupdragons
More - Sisters of Mercy
I wanna be adored - Stone Roses
Digging for fire - Pixies
Stretched out on your grave - Sinead O’Connor
Moonchild 12” - Fields of the Nephilim
Henry’s Dream - Nick Cave
All night long - Pete Murphy
Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
Losing my Religion - REM
Ask (clear plastic 12”) - Morrissey (still!)
She sells sanctuary 12” - the Cult
131
Spiderman 12” - the Cure
Doe - Breeders
All Winter Long - Pixies
Vishnu 12” - West East India Company (1984!!)
‘Tings and Times - LKJ
Carmen - Malcolm Mclaren
Happiest Girl - Depeche Mode
Hallelujah - Happy Mondays
Romeo and Juliette - Lou Reed
Smalltown - Lou Reed/John Cale
Stop - Jane’s Addiction
Candy - Iggy Pop
Give it Away - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Blister in the sun - Violent Femmes
Kansas - Wolfgang Press

One evening after a Goth had virtually broken down the dj door and demanded he play “Temple of Love” Ampleby retaliated with: ”If there is one record I am going to smash to bits on the dance floor, its that one!” Ampleby’s shares rocketed to ‘enemy number one’. However, there was a further aspect to djing that came to his notice at this time: that some people only came to the club once a month, others even less, particularly those from areas further afield. Unless they had their own music, there was no where else they were going to hear the type of music Ampleby played. This meant that over a year, they would only have heard a track twelve times…therefore the ‘pace’ at which the music ‘moved’ varied from person to person. So, if they had arrived after a particular track had been played, they would have to wait till the following week or the next time they came to the club. He seldom relented on the persistent requests to play a track because someone had ‘missed it’. “Get here earlier” was all he would say. However, and because of this, there were certain tracks that he delayed playing until he thought ‘everyone’ was there. Thus, in order to placate this sort of occurrence, he would play, between 11pm and 1am, all the greatest hits, and only occasionally throw in something new. Thus it was that he was accused of ‘not being able to move on’ - that he had ‘become stuck in a rut’.
“If that is the case,” said he, “then get here later…this is pressure time.”
At other times he would get excited comments like: ”Wow, the last time I heard that track was when I was here last year!”
In the mid nineties he went to an alternative club at the station, called CRASH. He heard the Sisters track, and a Goth girl all of sixteen looking like a replay of Baruda, rushed onto the dance floor as if she and the track were the latest combinations of rebellion.

330 FASHION SHOW

The first 330 fashion show was held in the cramped main dance floor. Genie contributed a range, as did Spacey and Eva. Club models, from the tall and outrageous Gaiela, to the sixteen year old Vareena, strutted their stuff. Ampleby did not design any garments but gave two dance performances, the Red Bull and the Magician. Gyreth dj’d. Some of the Saturday night crowd had come to see the show which was only staged once. When he appeared with red g-string and Red Bull mask, some patrons standing at the back, fled. He found this out a few weeks later when he went to 330 on the Saturday night and joined a group of people who did not know who he was. The event had obviously become a talking point. He listened with amusement. And then he told them who he was.

ATHENA

Nonchalantly dancing on the dance floor was a tall blond girl dressed only in underwear: G-string, suspenders, stockings, bra, high heels. A prostitute? No - too innocent. Not enough make-up. In fact she wasn’t wearing any make-up. People around her tried to suppress their laughter, but were excited anyway, danced close to her. She succeeded week after week. “Wow,” thought Ampleby, “that takes guts. I hope she knows what she’s doing….but please, please, not another Chlorell!” Time proved, that if there was one person who could ‘handle it’ it was Athena. She could not have been far more removed from Chlorell. Her infatuation with Zee, lead to them becoming lovers. This proved to be an extremely tempestuous relationship. Athena was bisexual and occasionally preferred women. This encouraged Zee into threesomes.

ZEE

When Ampleby moved into Stella Court further down Umbilo Road, Athena and Zee were already living there. They were the only whities in the block. Zee was once gay. He took pride in the fact that he played hooker for the first rugby team and was having a scene with a male teacher at the school on the bluff, Grosvenor Boys High. He made sure his rugby mates knew about it. After he left school, he went to JHB with an intent to get into Television. He became the toy boy of the AWB. After two years, it still did not get him into Television. He returned to Durban and studied Drama at the Natal Technikon. It was in the closing days of Faces that Ampleby first noticed him. He turned ‘straight’. What it was that caused this turnaround remained unanswered. Ampleby and Zee shared an unspoken affinity. Something about the way Zee ‘lived on the edge’ held Ampleby’s attention. He was constantly at ease with himself, never seemed hassled by anything, took life in its stride. Zee was never without a quart of beer, and consumed any amount of mind expanding substances that came his way. By day, or rather when time allowed for he preferred working at night, he was a T shirt printer of note, printing slogans and selling them at flea markets, or taking orders for any company that needed a small run of prints. Athena visited Ampleby, but she did not confide in him, probably just needed someone to talk to, and Ampleby did not encourage any deeper involvement. He had learnt his lesson from Chlorell. Besides, he considered Zee a friend of his and did not want to get involved in his private affairs. Athena sensed this, and did not insist. However, her visits lead to a sense of strain with Zee, who assumed that confidences were being aired. One afternoon, Athena came screaming down the passageway towards Ampleby’s flat, sprinting flat out, Zee in close pursuit. As she neared the door, Zee dive-tackled her and her body weight caught the slightly ajar security gate, which was wrenched completely off the door frame as they both went sprawling down the passage, the gate creating a landing board. Zee dragged her back to the flat. A huge commotion ensued with Athena insisting that Ampleby call the police. When the police arrived and she was offered a lift out of there, she meekly refused, and returned to their flat. A few weeks later, Athena was rushed to Addington hospital and had to have 35 stitches in her arm. She had slashed herself from the pit of her fore elbow down to her wrists. Zee had attempted to set the flat alight by setting fire to the curtains. The flat looked like a trash heap. If their relationship pre marriage was hectic, marriage had the worst possible effect on them. It was as if they had given themselves a framework, a cage, around which to rebel. Take further liberties with each others emotional limits, break whatever pre-conception either of them had, or anybody else for that matter, about marriage. Ampleby designed and made their wedding outfits. His: grey and white pin-stripe suit (three quarter length trousers) and doc Martens. Hers: sparkling white bustiere flounced mini dress, silver and diamante trimmings, lace stockings and doc Martens! The veil: silver netting dotted with red fabric roses.
Athena worked in the VIP bar at 330 Saturday nights, taking the notion of ‘bar tart’ to ever new and increasing heights. She rampaged with her beauty. Zee rampaged with his dick. Athena fell pregnant. Not Zee’s child. They divorced. Athena married the father. Emigrated to England. Zee met a ballet dancer. Married. Emigrated to England.

A WITCH RAID

The fact that Ampleby performed as a demon ‘confirmed’ rumours that he was involved in ‘satanism’. This lead to further rumours that CAW was a coven for witches. The police raided. When he inquired as to the purpose of the raid he was told: ”We’re looking for witches”. They took photographs, much to the indignity (and spoof) of clubbers. It was difficult not to laugh this off. But it still had not sunk into him that he was living in a country in which you just do not laugh off seemingly innocuous accusations. The unmistakable whiff of tear gas
filtering through to him high up in the dj rafters was a stark reminder.

UNTOUCHABLE

The contrast between the club space ambience and the space of the country hit people like a brick wall. There were those who walked into the CAW and were struck by a deep resonance within their being…the music, the ambience, the energy, the life, the comprehension, the compression. The energy that he had generated. Many were transformed, gathered strength, grew, became, blossomed. Their lives were changed forever. They were given insight into a new way of thinking which they carried with them forever. Tools to deal with an ever changing creative dynamic. He had proved once again, that when left to his own insights, his own devices, there was no stopping him. For them Ampleby became a god, no mere mortal, an untouchable. The man who changed everything. The strength gave them the courage to pass through the curtain. To face the outside world with a belief in themselves that the political system could never give them - that the political system would never ‘get’ them. The existence of this ‘space’ became a constant reminder of the complete inauthenticity of the political system. A country gone wrong.
Eventually Dello had had enough of CAW and handed in his resignation. On-going issues were unable to be resolved. Exactly what these issues were, were unclear. The post was advertised in the local newspaper. Ampleby applied. He was subjected to an extensive interview by a Technikon lecturer and a distinguished looking grey haired man, whom he had never seen before. A housewife from Westville landed the position. The poor dear lasted a month. The post was readvertised. He was told that he could reapply. He laughed. Dello’s boyfriend took the helm for a while…but it was all about to fall apart anyway.

Culturally, nothing can be of value if artists are unable to find/claim their rightful place.

Shortly after the ‘witch’ raid, the CAW was under investigation by the police for its entertainment license policy around which there was no clarity. Lecturers who were amongst the initiators of the venture were adamant that they required no license to operate under the prevailing conditions as no alcohol was sold on the premises. The police, however, had other views. When he arrived to dj the doors were locked. Nobody was around. Nobody had said anything to him. It was the right wing City Council who held the lease, and by the end of 1988 they had resolved not to renew the lease under any circumstances. When this fact became known, the legality of the lease issue fell away. The balloon had been burst. In order to celebrate the closure of CAW a LAST BLAST FASHION SHOW was held on the 15th December. He performed two theatrical pieces and invited four designers to participate, including himself. It was a night to remember. The CAW stood empty for the following year while plans went ahead to establish a multi-storey office block on the site. Once again this closure marked yet another mass exodus of some of the most amazing contributors to the vibe and momentum of the Alternative Scene. Tess, Jon, Anthea, Bridgette, Daida, Mathyra, Divan and Sylva, Myra, Allison. The list goes on. The flats in Broadway Mansions were to be converted into storage space. Ampleby found a flat in Stella Court, further down Umbilo Road.

330

By the time he approached the owners of 330 with a possible Friday night deal, the groundswell to get the alternative scene back on track had become overwhelming. Wherever he went, he was inundated with queries. A couple of alternative music events had been held in the upstairs bar area. He was told that the owners, Kim and Betty (Betty who had dj’d downstairs at Faces) would be keen on the idea of him playing there. The club had been open for about two months and was situated in Point Road and was struggling for clientele. This was a time when ‘respectable’ whities would never have ventured into Point Road as it was notorious for prostitutes, gangs, robberies and many other forms of low life (it still is) let alone travel down it. At the time of making the deal, the ‘alternative scene’ had a very bad image in the eyes of these two owners. For them it was about kicking down toilet doors, smashing glasses, creating havoc - images they carried with them ever since the Nasty Party - an aspect which had nothing to do with Ampleby. Included therefore in their business deal, was a nightly ‘damage deposit’ (non refundable) of R200, that he would be responsible for paying staff salaries which included two bouncers (R100 each), the door person (R50), and a cleaner (R25). Thereafter the profits were split 50/50. All profits from the bar were to go to them. He felt this was a reasonable deal, seeing as he did not have to worry about rent, a sound system and all sound equipment, possible hassles with the police. It was agreed that Zee would be the door person, as he knew the clientele extremely well. Abby declined working as a bouncer. The alternative crowd were not at all phased at travelling down Point Road and it did not take long before the venture proved a huge success. Naturally, the owners were delighted. Being astute businessmen, they were quick to capitalise on this influx of people by encouraging them (the less alternative ones of course - they were easily spotted!) to visit the venue on the Saturday night. Zee really clicked with Kim and Betty and before long he was also working at the door on Saturday nights. The Friday and Saturday nights however, developed like chalk and cheese. A few months later, a rumour emerged that there was a third partner who wished to remain anonymous and that that third partner was none other than Trom. The rumour was never verified. Nobody would confirm or deny it.

Four hundred meters on the right further down Point Road, the Vic Bar became a centre of alternative attention as well. It had that run-down ‘lets support it for now’ air so favoured by white Durbanites, and the building itself was an historic monument. It was famous for delicious sea food meals, upon which rained dust through the wooden roof boards as a result of the activities upstairs. A narrow flight of stairs lead to two pool tables on the right and a longish narrow room in which they incredibly managed to showcase bands, on the left. Even further down the road to the left, round a corner, was Smugglers Inn which Ampleby, with much trepidation, took an opportunity to visit. It struck him as a place which had a 10 watt light bulb mentality. No more, no less.

BLOOD AT THE MARKET THEATRE

Largely through Petron’s communication skills, a two week performance period for BLOOD was secured at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. When he arrived in that godforsaken city five days prior to performance, not a single poster of his was to be seen anywhere - not even in the theatre itself. The publicity office had no explanation. No posters could be found anywhere in the offices. “We must have sent them all out.” came the excuse.
He presented the publicity office with photographs for press release.
“We cannot accept these pho