Tattoos, Ponds and People

This weekend, Cape Town hosted the Southern Ink Exposure Tattoo Convention. It was held at the CTICC, this is where I have spent most of my weekend… and money. Now the CTICC is exactly what the ICC is in Durban, but they couldn’t come up with a better name so they though if they added CT, they’d be one up on Durbs, in reality, they have made their name very hard for dyslexic people to say out loud. In fact it sounds like a close relative of C3PO and R2D2. Despite the name, the venue was quite lovely, there was lots of space, plenty of bad service at the over priced restaurant to ensure South Africa lives up to its name and lots of fossils in glass windows. There was also a pond. Quite a large pond. In fact if you had to Google CTICC, you would see that the pictures all boast this rather large reflective mass of water. But it’s not as grand as it seems in the photos, the pond is in fact a large enclosure for trillions of species of deadly bacteria, it is a stagnant pool of what looks like snot and hair and that slimy creature from the ghost busters. It is a massive mixing bowl of cholera, bilharzias, dysentery and leeches. But that is not what has made this frothy gunk so infamous to the many colourful people who visit the CTICC… it is the smell. Oh and it is tremendous! A smell so foul only the greatest writers could describe it. It smells worse than how it looks and the smell is like a fog which sits over the muck and hovers, a slight breeze carries it to the nearest nostril. It’s a heavy smell, thick, a blind person might imagine breathing in a brown stirring liquid when confronted by it. The odor leaves an aftertaste in the back of ones throat which I imagine is what gangrene tastes like… the pond is like a disturbing Dadaism work of theatre, it attacks your senses on so many levels. Your eyes are captivated by swimming worms and what nuclear waste should look like and your mouth fills with gastric fluid as soon as you get a whiff of it…. It also has a ladder incase anyone should feel the urge to climb in for a dip.

In spite of the all too sudden shock to the body as you absorb toxic waste in the parking lot, the convention on the whole was brilliant! Hundreds of people paying artists to use them as a canvas for flowers, swallows, demons, portraits, bleeding hearts and teacups. Everywhere you look, people lifting shirts and rolling up pants to be admired by other walking pieces of art. Books on everything from Russian prison tattoos to biographies of famous dead people and cute little coffee table books all over priced but wonderfully pretentious! Five hours feels like ten minutes and boredom never sets in, who knew that watching people cringing and in agony could be so entertaining… truly suffering for art! The people are wonderful and friendly and original. And if you took their art away, they’d be so ordinary, if not unattractive. Anywhere else these people would be criticized but here the admiration is not lacking in any degree and it’s like being at an exhibition only you can talk to the art and follow it around and see what it becomes next. And which part of the body will become the next spot for expression. (Imagine trusting someone so completely with something so personal and so permanent? It blows my mind, I feel so in touch with social behavior right now!)

Last night I spend many hours being repeatedly beating at pool and in between that I watched a movie being filmed in the street into the early hours of the morning and shiny confetti was floating everywhere and toothless prostitutes on drugs were singing below the balcony where I sat and street children, unusually small from malnutrition were growing old all too quickly.

Cape Town is a strange place.

I saw a street child peeing on an electrical box.

One girl had a teapot tattooed to the back of her neck. I loved it.

Another had a telephone on her arm.

A lady requested a large unicorn be placed on her back.

A man played the harmonica and played Johnny Cash covers.

I read a very simple little booklet, no more than ten pages long, which I thought was for children, about a chicken and an egg which had profound social significance and blew my mind.

There is an animal, kind of like a seal, I am desperate to find out what it’s called. It has what seems like tentacles, or flinger things on its snout. Perhaps I imagined it?

I have become the Xenia of cockroach killers!

I miss Jimmy

I miss Mom and Dad

And the boys

And my animals

I wish I had work

The first casting.

Yesterday I got frustrated. My fringe was in my eyeballs. My mom usually cuts it for me, she’s good at it. I figure it cant be too hard, and so I attack it. Nothing to lose, kamikaze style! Well I had a lot to lose. Approximately two inches of my fringe. It sloped from an inch above my right eyebrow to the corner of my left lower lid. Oops.
I’m a little shocked. A little horrified. Thirty seconds later I receive an sms. “casting tomorrow for a soda company.”
So I go to a hairdresser immediately. She tells me she can’t save it. She cuts. I want to cry.
I look like something out of Star Trek. 80’s sci-fi. I try to be positive. At least you can see my eyebrows, that’s good because I express myself through them.

My alarm goes off at 6am.
I shower, I attempt to dry my hair quietly, not possible.
I get dressed, cant decide if I’m under dressed or over dressed. I put on some makeup, something which I’ll never get used to.
I’ve gotten up too early, I go back to sleep for another hour.
Wake up at eight, call a rikki, he’s on my street so I have to run. I forget my hair clip.

I arrive half an hour early.
The doorway is small, a large person would have to go through it sideways. There is a yellowing piece of grubby paper stuck to the inside of the glass door which reads “casting studio” I walk up the stairs. An alarm goes off, I’m wondering if I’m too early and the I’ve set the alarm off. I realize it’s a car outside. I walk into a room, fairly large, chairs lined up all along the wall and a few counters to the right where scattered arty looking people sit amongst many pens and newspaper cuttings boasting well made film and well performed theatre. I walk to a desk, looking for something, a form, anything. A pretty lady smiles and say that I should sit down, she’ll give me a form just now. I’m embarrassed and try to save myself by explaining it’s my first casting. She doesn’t care. My humiliation is suddenly compounded by my ridiculous fringe. I cower to a chair. I see a girl also sitting on one of the navy plastic chairs which hugs the wall. She’s a pretty girl, ordinary, short, sharp features, shorts and high heels, dark makeup, a vast contrast to my own. A possible friend? I say hello, a big smile, toothy grin. Showing my nervousness, hoping she’ll reassure me. She doesn’t. She stares at me, she takes in everything about me. I can feel her eyes surveying my shoes, my jeans which are a little too short, my shirt which is a little too unusual, my hair which is just plain stupid, my face which is vulnerable. She makes the kill. She smiles, a smirk, not a hello smile. A satisfied smile. She knows that I don’t have a chance, and in one little glimmer, one little upturned lip, she buckles my self esteem. She then looks away, satisfied that she’s done her worst.

I am still smiling. Still excited, still curious. I wonder if the girl is just shy, I make excuses for her rude behavior in my head. She’s nervous. She’s just quiet. She’s having a bad day. We each fill out a form, I enquire the date. She tells me 24th, but she’s written 22nd. We are given numbers, I am number two. We wait. Two more girls arrive. One blond, I think I recognize her. She smiles at me, also a smirk, with one look and a small shrug she has asked the first girl who I am, the first girl shrugs and rolls her eyes. The third girl has curly black hair, too much makeup and also wears shorts. They all wear high heels, I am wearing slops. We sit. They talk, I try to join in, they ignore me. A man explains what we have to do, he mentions a flat trolley. He walks away, the girls snigger, I take a bold strand and say the only thing which enters my mind “We have to stand on a trolley?” the room goes quiet. I’m staring at the back of the first girl’s head, I’m grinning, hoping to make a friend. She turns slowly. Deliberately so that I can see her contempt. The others shift in their seats so that they can see how much damage this girl can do to me. She looks at me, another up and down, reassessing her original calm and collected idea that I am no threat. She does not change her mind. She says nothing. She turns back to the girls slowly. And she laughs, two little ha ha’s. And she stops. And then the three of them burst out laughing. I can feel my face turn warm, I can feel a slight dampness to my previously dry eyeballs. I can imagine how stupid I look with this BeeGees hairdo. I want to cry. But I focus. I decide to use this in my performance. Stanislavski.

The man comes out and he calls in number one. Thank god she’s gone. More girls arrive and get numbers and sit down, saying hi to the other girls and inspecting me with their eyes. The man comes out, he calls me and the black haired girl into the room. we have to pull the rope on either side of the trolley. I do my bit, and then it’s my turn to audition, and the two girls. The horrid ones. They are sitting there and I have to perform. And I want to kick myself for letting this get to me, but it does. I feel shy, I feel unable, I don’t give it my all, I hold back, I mess up, I retake, I try a little harder, I can feel their eyes, judging my performance and suddenly, I feel so armature, so alone, so angry, so disappointed with my choice in career. And then it’s over and I leave.

I walk from Loop street all the way to Marmion. It’s a long walk, it begins to rain, I hope that no one can see my eyes become blurry. I stop for coffee at a café. I want to cry.

No one is friendly unless you have met them previously in the different town.

I have met one gay man.

I have seen one dead squirrel.

I have walked my land lady’s dog and refused to pick up its poop.

I have cried on a boulder by the sea.

I have had cramps in my feet from the cold water.

I have seen a man with no front teeth.

I feel diminished by the beauty of the other women here.

I wish I had done accounting.

Cape Town.

The airhostess was Afrikaans. A blond girl named Sanette. She was grumpy. Fed up. Looked as though all she wanted was a cigarette. Maybe her boyfriend dumped her. She threw her toys out the cot at some particularly stupid people. It was all very entertaining. She had a pink elastic in her hair which clashed a tremendous amount with her oversized orange mango uniform. She had big blue eyes. And they grew in size the more frustrated she became. There were two people behind us, they smelled like cattle. My dad said it brought back memories of his childhood growing up on a farm. The two people did not sit down, they were mother and son and they were the most confused I have ever seen people in my life. There was a guy (whom I actually know… Julian… some of you know him. I didn’t say hello, I know he does not have high regards of human beings in general, but in particular, people who are friendly towards him, I pretended I did not recognize him.) Julian sat by the window and the confused people had to sit too, but there could not work out who should sit in the middle or the isle. The blond girl had veins throbbing around her eyes as the blood pumped to the muscles which held them in their sockets. They sat down half way through lift off.

The lady next to me who had the window refused to swap seats despite my complaints of claustrophobia. She had so much hand luggage that it ended up mostly on top of me. Mango has these little TV things which play for the entire flight. They’re not loud enough to be understood but they are they are loud enough to annoy anyone with out a very bad hearing condition. My friend Byron was on the little TV. That made me happier. Although I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

The mountain from the back is not flat. I just want every one to know that. They also light it up during night time. Which is freaking cool but also so very stupid! Ridiculous, it made me laugh how I would laugh at a beautiful girl admiring her face ina mirror in public. So vein and so stupid, but freaking cool. There is a little cloud that sits on the hill… there are no other clouds, not even one, but on this mountain, there is a cloud. And the wind blows at 100ks an hour but this stupid little cloud goes no where. I think that they have lights for night time and a smoke machine for the day time “Look at our mountain!” Bloody Capetonians and your stupid flipping random hill!

I have seen coloured people.. not that many though, and a lot of Indian people too which was interesting. I saw seals that was cool, but I have yet to see a squirrel, which is the only reason I moved here.

Staff are much more friendly than any other person here. The other people seem very bitter about something. I’m not sure what, I’d like to find out.

Every girl in this town is a 6 foot blond beauty with huge tits and stunning features, they are all also aspiring actors. I don’t feel defeated though, I think because it’s still early days, besides, I think I’m more friendly, which might not get me work, but it does mean that I don’t look like a beautiful blond sucking on a lemon.

I have not seen a single gay person. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong areas.

I know my way home already from Long street.

I’m fetching my pink scooter on Wednesday.

I cleaned my carpet today. It was rather dirty.

I need a lamp.

I miss Durban a lot.

I miss my animals.

I’ve been eating absolute junk. It also costs a lot more.

I can’t find a post office.

There are not many brunettes here.

I want to see the beach but its really windy.

The sun sets at 9 o’clock.

I miss Jimmy.

I miss my band.

It’s only been two days.