I’ve been thinking about developing a personality. No, not mine. I gave up on that some time ago. Earthworms have got the jump on me. Not my fault I like to wear an anorak, write down the engine numbers of passing trains, have a massive collection of pet rocks and have taped every episode of Noot vir Noot on VHS.
No, I’ve been thinking of developing a character, like sex symbol blogger Seth Rotherham has done so cleverly with TBG (Tall Blonde Guy) over at 2oceansvibe.com. And very charmingly too, if I may say so.
I did have one. A character. A strange, eccentric, reclusive one called The Bushguy. But then I left Umdloti to go on a unicycle marathon, found Stanford and lost him. Not difficult. Last I heard, Bushguy was still living in the thick coastal bush above Umdloti Beach with his dogs and existing on mushrooms.
So what to do. Where to find A Character? As always, one doesn’t have to go far. He’s been on my doorstep. No, not at Hatman Mansions. But on the doorstep of my conscious. And characters don’t come any bigger, colourful, tougher, crazier, more beautiful than “The G-man”.
Are you feeling strong today? Are you up for this? Sure? OK. Let’s take a look at him…
No sooner had he been introduced to Miss South Africa and The G-man takes a call from a fan
OK. Now I can’t speak for you but if I had just been introduced to Miss South Africa Nicole Flint, I wouldn’t take a call from anybody, not Nelson Mandela or even my close friend Gen Morton. Even if I had just bought one of those phenomenal new iPhones that look like a crayfish.
But this is how he rolls, The G-man. The man for every situation. So cool you need to wield an icepick to get near him. A man you’d want alongside you in the trenches in a particularly brutal and unconventionally-fought war.
The G-man is an ADD-addled action hero. He’s seriously feral. A natural-born actor. He’s South Africa’s Bruce Willis, Woody Harrelson and, er, Lou Reed all rolled into one unpredictable, fearless and insanely cool package. And you don’t have to take my word for it.
He lives noisily in a quiet village north of Durban. You might see him barking like a dog at the La Mercy Lagoon. He can convincingly imitate 36 animal sounds. I know. I heard them all during this madcap adventure.
I could go on. But I’ve used up all of my G-man force for the day. So this what I’ll do. Send me a photo of you with The G-man and, every Friday, I’ll choose the craziest one. The winner will receive one of those brand-new, totally insane Special Edition Crayfish iPhones. Yes, just like the one The G-man is using in that pic!
How cool is that? Yes, yes, I know. Please try to remain calm. OK. Here’s a tip on how to find The G-man. He really digs the coffee that Judd “Juddy-poo” Campbell purveys at the absurdly groovy Corner Cafe in Glenwood, Durban. You’ll find him there most days, high on caffeine and getting up to mischief.
Brace yourself, introduce yourself, get in a picture with our boy and send it to fred@fredhatman.co.za. If it’s the nuttiest one of the week, you win a Crayfish iPhone and I publish the pic on here. Well. Why are you still sitting there, staring at this word. Vamoose, babies!
Look. I thought that kicking off with a picture of 90s supermodel Helena Christensen wearing only a few watches in my first post on this blog yesterday worked a right treat.
So I’m doing it again…
No, this isn't Helena. And she's not even wearing only watches. This a more beautiful woman. Wearing her heart in the right place. And don't you dig the flowers too? Beautifulnesses.
OK. Let me introduce you to our angel. Annette Oberholster. Netty to her friends. That’s her sitting smiling angelically among those gorgeous flowers above.
So what about her? I’ll tell you what about her. Netty, who gets around our world quite a lot, is currently living in the desert of Qatar while her boyfriend finishes a contract working with a petrochemicals company.
She, being a long-time friend of our Heart & Sole Tour unicyclist Geoff “Heartman” Brink, heard about our little 1,700km jaunt from Durban to Cape Town to raise awareness of the scourge of landmines. And got thinking. About how she could help.
I hope that she won’t mind me doing this but I’m publishing an extract from the e-mail I received from her yesterday:
“hello dear friends,
i have come up with an idea to try and help raise some money for the heart and sole tour, so i am going to run it by you to see if you think it will ‘fly’. i will definitely need your help to pull it off.
in my idleness here in the desert of qatar, i have taught myself how to fold an origami crane. : )
bear with me.
in japanese folklore, if you fold 1000 cranes you get to make a wish. so, i could fold 1000 cranes and my wish would be to enhance the lives of landmine victims … that i would do by selling the cranes and donating the money to the heart and sole tour. the tag line could be this quote: ‘I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.’ - Sadako Sasaki (1943-55).
folding 1000 cranes is a BEEEG job! weeks and weeks and blistered fingers. so, before i begin, i need to know that it is going to work.
the math is simple, sell each crane for R1 each and we make R1000. or better still, sell each crane for R10 each and we make R10 000. but there is a problem, i am going to need your help to sell these guys in south africa.
Above headline more or less courtesy of Laugh It Off.
Justin Nurse. “Carling Black Labour”. T-shirts. You know about Laugh It Off. Clever. Sharp dudes. Brave too. Also Tom Eaton. Hayibo.com. Love these guys.
I don’t love Telkom quite as much. Hellkom and I go back quite a long way. Too long a way. Too painful. Too much of agonyness. So, when I popped into Corner Cafe in Durban the other day to say hello to owner Judd Campbell, eat one of his top-notch Full Glenwoodian Breakfasts and make full use of his wireless connection, I bought a Laugh It Off tee from the Wardrobe shop around the back.
Light blue. With a nice Telkom logo. And the words: “Telsomeonewhogivesashitkom”. Slogan underneath: “I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”
Sorry about the creases but the 'seriously stressed' look is very in for Telkom sufferers
This T-shirt has caused a mass outpouring in connectnessness among the degenerates at my local, The Bush Tavern in Umdloti. They’ve all been whacked by Telkom. Time and again. Too much of pissedoffness.
There are big, fat and ugly corporations. And then there is Telkom, the biggest, fattest, ugliest and couldn’t-give-a-shittest of them all.
And they have exacted a most horrible revenge for my purchase of Justin’s cool T-shirt. My ADSL has been “down” for the past five days. I’ve phoned Telkom 28 times. ADSL still down.
So, here’s a few words for our great country’s premier telecommunications corporation. I am sure that somewhere deep down in the belly of the awful beast that is Telkom, there are a few competent people. I would like to ask those few competent people to kindly leave the room. Now. Go. Please.
Good. The rest of you stay. Hmmm. There’s a lot of you. OK. Form lots of long lines. Now listen up. This is what I am going to do. I will come up to each of you, look at you in the eyes and… and… tweak your nose. Quite firmly. But, while I execute this rather civilised act of revenge – one that might be considered to be more than acceptable behaviour given the challenges of living in an emerging democracy – I want you to know this: in my mind, what I am really doing, what I so want to do, is swallow 937,412 bullets (one bullet, one Telkom employee – of the incompetent kind), and as I look each of you in the eye, I will vomit over you so hard, so forcefully, that the bullet takes out your eye.
Got it? Are you in full receipt of my drift? Verstaan jy?
Good. Now get somebody to the box at the end of my road and flick that switch. Because I have been wearing my “Telsomeonewhogivesashitkom” shirt for five days now. And I’m whiffing so hideously that the joke is starting to wear a bit thin down at the Bush Tavern.
