NIEVILLE DUBE

Master Futility and the Boys

Jahan Nissan was probably the closest I’d get to getting advice from an old pimp, at least when it came to selling art. It was the kind of advice that was hard to come by as a young hustler when navigating the boozed up indecisions that ultimately form a modern day art career. A month or so prior, during my tour of August House, I met Jahan for the first time, on the 5th floor. He was a tall skinny man who dressed like a cricket umpire at an all boys high school and he was kind enough to give me a tour of his money maker. We instantaneously hit it off, he was as cynical as an inmate on death row and he envied my youth. He figured if he had the plethora of knowledge and experience I could tap into at my age he’d be unstoppable.

He said, “Writing? You’re going to die poor and unsatisfied.“

I tried to convince him that poverty was my greatest asset, and soon it would run out, however he seemed more concerned with my choice of medium rather than the ticking time bomb caged by my chest. When our meeting had adjourned he invited me to visit him whenever I felt like it. I found him strangely profound and it would be some time before I saw him again.

One night after a father’s day cookout at Che that Jared was playing at, I heard a “pssst” coming from between the rectangular cast iron flower pots. A well dressed figure in a straw hat emerged and waved to draw my attention. It was Jahan, leaning against the wall. We shared a cigarette over which I described how I was still writing gonzo and that he’d walked straight into the eye of another whirlwind experience. He told me that he’d be joining us to see what Jared and Neville’s infamous adventures of discovery entailed. The clock soon struck an ungodly hour and Jahan came along as we left the Maboneng eatery.

Upon arriving (drunk), with a backpack full of beer we made that familiar death defying trip up the dark stairway of the ex Mandela and Tambo building.

Jahan would beguile me with endless tales of unforgettable nights and gorgeous women at the summit of Johannesburg and the ground zero of my literary journey. The premise of the story was how he’d gone from art dealer to artist. Much like myself, although I would discover that art was much more lucrative to deal than marijuana. I guess we were sneakers in the same sweatshop, working for the enticements of others. I always fancied myself an anti-hero of some kind running around with a pen and pad defying my obvious deficits while Jahan fancied himself a martyr, someone who had suffered for their craft and thus he was reaping the rewards. He was a Dane who had written for Vice, travelled the world and settled in the armpit of Johannesburg to a digital art hustle which seemed to be going great for him. He loved every second of it. In fact, he made me appreciate our urine and death scented surrounds a little more with his misplaced love for slumming it which seemed to be a well of inspiration for him.

He said, “This place is gold Neville, pure gold if you really do write as well as they say you do, you’ll be alright! I’ve made millions selling my art and it’s a funny industry, selling bits of your psyche to the highest bidder. The dark, the light, the stomach fluttering joy and the limb twisting medieval torture that is ordinary existence; all turned to currency.”

“You see son Joburg is a cruel dame, better yet, she’s an unattractive female landlord whom you’re not proud to say you’ve had relations with, but she keeps a roof over your head and food in your belly. She hates stagnation, word on the street is she’ll pluck the heart right from your chest, right before kicking you to the plastic littered curb. I guess you’ll need all the chest room you can get, if you’re doomed to huffing glue at a dead-end.”

“How is that gold old man? I mean I’ve been toiling this corner of the earth for some time now, when do I get my share, is it before or after the eviction notice?”

He laughed. “I like you kid you might make it here after all. You can’t get evicted if you pay your dues to the city.”

He put his skinny arm around me, “Take Jared and I. We’re silver spooned white kids and yet here we are all are. I mean for god’s sake Neville, I’m triple your age and yet here we are arm in arm on a rooftop in a city that has as much possibility for us as it did 20 years ago.”

“Twenty years ago I was a year old Jahan. A waste of drugs, gorgeous women and rooftops if you ask me.” I said.

“Oh my boy don’t you see it?” Jahan said with his palm to his face, “It’s all arbitrary. You and I, all of us. We’re rich, we’re poor, we’re junkies and conquerors, we’re all of this and we’re nothing. Sell if you sell, or don’t but, for Christ sakes dear boy don’t stop moving. The day you die is the day you set aside your expression. If you write, if you really write then write this, write me, write the world. Do it or get chewed up and retired to your cul de sac with the rest of the stagnants, laying there still and expressionless. There’s no difference between us and the homeless, high as a kite, fingers stuck together from the glue huffing. Sounds a lot like an art studio if you really congeal it.”

The semi solid truth would be hard to swallow for anyone else. In the few years of trying my hand at the game of self expression through the self deprecating pursuit of documenting my own experiences, the futility of the act never escaped me. Perhaps that was its driving force. I had seen Joburg’s attempt at catharsis. It was much like my own. It was free and unbound by any real purpose, all except the genuine desire to be something else, something better. Though drunk and disorderly, it was a genuine attempt nonetheless. If Joburg had something to say over some beers and assorted white powders I’d be there to listen, make notes, pass out and awaken to a head full of pounding regret. I’d walk her down the stairs of my apartment block, peering over my shoulder for witnesses. We would groan from the pain of overexertion on the way down, the pain of deriving meaning from the arbitrary. I’d see her off as a comrade, till the next time we needed each other, or until we both needed nothing.

Jared came crunching around the corner, the floor littered with curled up shards of paint, he’d been exploring the roof top, envisioning how many drugs and gorgeous women the penthouse could hold. The general consensus was that it could hold a lot after some much needed sprucing up.

“Jared , Neville and I were just pointing out our place in the world, care to join?” Asked Jahan.

“Yeah, I figured once I hit the bestsellers list I could pick up a penthouse or two of my own.” I responded.

“Oh yeah which ones?” Asked Jared unphased by my outlandish statement.

“Now you’re getting it boy!” Said Jahan proudly.

“That one, with the round windows.” I blurted out. “The three story cocaine white palace overlooking the entire city, thats the one I want.”

“You want like an artist I’ll tell you that.” Snarled Jahan.

“I wonder how many drugs and gorgeous women it can hold? “

“Well bro you’re the city’s bestseller, you tell us?” Said Jared, smiling and taking a swing of beer.

“As many as I can write about.” I replied.

The hours that followed were a sunrise lit decline into just how arbitrary the happenings of my life were becoming. I had spent the night drinking and choosing my slice of the city from the penthouse of one of its most prolific buildings, by dawn I was in a mini bus taxi heading to the buzzing fluorescent lights of a nine-to-five. I was surrounded by blue collar citizens of all kinds, of which I formed a part of. We were lined up neatly in four rows of four and miles away from the cream of the crop. I wondered what set me aside from the nurse to left or the well dressed man to my right. Was it my dream penthouse, my imaginary fancy cars or the quaint charm of having empty pockets? As we sat there I certainly felt distinguished. Maybe it was the fact that I insanely reveled in an opulent lifestyle that only existed in my head. Maybe it was that I solemnly believed that my imagination was my wealth.

Joburg had taught me to live a life of paradoxes, forever in a state of flux between rich and poor. That was the allure of my city, it was the same place you could get hijacked in and the same place you could make a million selling a pretty picture. My pretty picture was yet to be seen, a picture of my truth, as rotten as it was. I felt like the homeless man with a needle hanging from his arm stumbling through an art district, trapped between two versions of the city. Occasionally the patrons of this other world would toss a coin at me or offer me wine and snacks at the end of a show. I lived in a show of my own, forever behind the glass, one minute a part of the show and stinking up the place the next. Like everyone else I did the daily dance trying to please lady Joburg so she would see me as cream and not dregs.

My stop was coming up soon and my thoughts were settling back into the reality of being yet another artist trying to make it in the city of fool’s gold. There was something about driving through the city at 6am that inspired a twisted kind of hope. The streets were teeming with people making the most of what they had, selling anything and everything just to hold on. There’s nothing more reassuring than realising you’re not alone in the grand scheme of things; that everyone else is also trying to make it from the pavement to the penthouse.

“Short left!” I shouted.

My stop had finally come, I was back in the rat race. On my way into the office I was thinking about what Jahan said and the bigger picture eventually cleared up. Putting myself out to be criticised was the trick to it all. It was a simple task that could change everything or change nothing but I was in charge, a master of my own futility.

Pink Envelope Slopes

James and I spent a week preparing for our first exhibition in the height of spring. The Jacarandas had gone from fragrant to pissy and pungent and the city’s signature musk filled the air. Joburg was an absolute fuck fest in the spring time and some freshly exhibited artists were about to enter the pool. We’d gone through the barbed wire maze that is the Joburg nightlife and made it into the open fields of possibility. Jared had hooked us up with the David Krut gallery in an exhibition entitled “Post This.” The names on the showing list alone were enough to gather tanks of clout let alone the art. I was being mentioned in the same breath as artists like Roger Ballen, Shepard Fairey, RISK and Kronk and to drive the point home we’d be opening in Joburg and Cape Town.

“Jimmy, how long have we been working? I feel like this stool is fusing to my spine.” “It’s only been two hours, quit whining .” Snarled James.

Although we’d worked together a lot in the past our approach to work was very different. Creatively my methods were akin to getting out of bed, getting everything ready neatly and compactly and waiting for the inspiration to hit me. James was a prospector who could endlessly mine ideas from his mind. Different as we were, we similarly looked to the well of personal experience for the most inspiration. Most of our mornings we’re spent smoking cigarettes on the porch beguiled by some philosophical trope or the other.

“Who would win in a fist fight between David Bowie and David Attenborough?” “Karl Marx vs Karl Lagerfeld?”

We enjoyed the crudely complex discourse that came with not giving a fuck. The kettle stayed at the rumble with bottomless spiked beverages. Falling in love with the vices of the craft took time, hours of uninterrupted self intoxication. The alcohol always moved quickly through me, radiating from my belly outward to my crown.

I fancied myself a sampler like St Nicolas or J Dilla, each chemical bond a new way to express. It was the thrill of bending my own blood at will; the self control or lack thereof. As I sipped I pictured myself at a corner cafe, my romantically brainwashed desires lean towards Paris. There’d be slow moody music coming from the cafe speakers above me; inciting a gentle rock my to movements just me and the rhythms of Jacques Dutronc and a blinking cursor.

5 meters away from me on the other side of the Cafe window would be James painting on the street, blaring The Sex Pistols into the shy suburban air. His paint and brushes would be sprawled all around him, as he chips away at his liquid sculpture. In the sandbox of my mind we were artists doing what artists do and doing too well to be ruled out as amateurs. I was never one to chase titles that required a majority’s validation but my art was the one thing I knew I couldn’t appreciate alone; the itch to create tends to call for an audience. This made the exhibition a milestone and reaching it a point to prove. In the penultimate days we had formed a boozy routine and Jared hated it. We liked our inspiration diluted with day drinking and loquacious jest. It was hard not to be excited. We were in a reputable gallery, a stone’s throw away from the Goodman, where William Kentridge was currently showing and we were drunk. The day we opened we still had some finishing touches to do and this time the booze was on the house. We kept the hasty operation in a small office the gallery had lent us. I remember fanning a wet illustration and nursing a glass of wine when suddenly the door opened.

“Is Jared in here?” A clearly American or Canadian accent spoke from behind behind the opening door. A lanky figure in a Supreme cap appeared. “They said he was in here.”

“You must be Byron bro” said James.

Byron nodded and the room went quiet. For a while he watched us make 2min masterpieces and this seem to bore him terribly. He was a boisterous character, bursting with energy and drive. He easily joined the cast of dope Americans I’d come across in my adventures. He spoke about LA and his own life, being friends with the Kardashians and working with Supreme. He made the degrees of separation melt away following suite with my entire journey.

This being my first exhibition a lot was running through my mind. I kept questioning whether I’d flop or fly and the cigarette breaks matched the bouts of anxiety. Having spent almost a week at David Krut admiring the works of other artists I wondered how I’d measure up.

Byron definitely made the situation a lot more chilled. His veteran energy made me confident by association I went outside one more time to clear my head. It was dark out and the patrons began to trickle in. I saw all kinds of people, friends and strangers alike. I found solace in the fact that if I flopped it would be in a place of love and seemingly bottomless wine.

I made my way back to James and Byron to find Jared had joined in. There were a couple of beers out and the evening was starting to take shape. We wrapped up our little sewing circle with a toast and it was onward to face our curious guests. This was the part they didn’t tell me about, the silent scrutiny in every face.

Getting shitfaced off the complimentary wine was the only way to make it all slightly less gawky.

Of course I was pleased to see friends and familiar faces but what were they all looking at? They were so far removed from the gist of it all, the closed eyed dance with death that was my unfurling tale, the haplessly self deprecating release of my sour truths. What I would do to shake the onlookers awake and alert them to their padded walls and rounded edges. To open their eyes to how life is art; how the decisions we take paint their own pieces in time.

It was incredible to see how many people came. The overall energy in the gallery was vibrant and the wine lubricated the social gears. I entertained as many people as could but I spent more time smoking cigarettes. The smoke coursed through my lungs with each puff. I just wanted to know already, to know what people thought but instead I met façades very similar to my own. The night became more about celebrating firsts. I frequented the wine table and by my 3rd glass I was sliding through the place. Jared and Byron were talking about moving the party across the road to Byron’s book launch party. My head was buzzing and I needed to get to somewhere more upbeat. You could hear the party from across the road and I was ready to fall victim to a night well spent. James seemed a little antsy too, and by the time the exhibition wrapped up we were the ones getting the door.

Across the road right? How different can vibes be? I thought. The closer we got, the more bass came erupting from the doors of La Familia. At first it seemed we’d be partying in a sneaker store, but the further I walked along the more I was proven wrong. A converted outdoor space with a bar and dancefloor was the sinker to my hook and line. Being miles from sober every little moment felt amplified, my thoughts came in flurries and I felt slightly more than present. We didn’t waste time getting a table, in fact we set up camp with a great view of the dance floor and an unhindered path to the bar. Once again the concoction of drugs, status and the ego had entered the melting pot. Trying to separate hedonism from the artist’s path was like pulling teeth. Stepping away from any aspect of the lifestyle meant being out of the loop. The loop that forms the vicious cycles of the night. A wave of culmination washed over me. From my first night in the Madiba and Tambo building to this moment I was seeing the juxtaposition between the artist I was and the artist I had become. I had grown from opinionated nobody to writing about some of Joburg’s most important events, artistic or otherwise. It was surreal to be in the midst of it all. Before I could catch my breath bottle service came through with vodka and Redbull. It seemed teetering close to being blindly drunk was an occupational hazard. There’s no real way to describe the feeling, except purely blissful, and dangerously so. Everything felt weightless, decisions included.

I was amassing a great deal of pressure, the rest of my experiences had the great here and now to compete with.

At some point during the night it didn’t matter which table I drank from, the table next to ours was won in a bloodless coup. They were rich boys and seemed more than obliged. Byron also got his fair share of the VIP experience adding more fuel to the flame of experience. We lost ourselves in the trap music and free booze and before long we’d become a small crowd. It was time to move and the party was to be smeared across the entire Rosebank strip. Jared and I ended up sipping cocktails with our pinkies up at “A streetbar named desire.” While James and Byron held down the fort back La Familia. I had taken a bump of coke just before I left and I was feeling chatty. I stood by the DJ booth as usual and dance floor behind was livening up. When Jared started spinning the vibe was automatic, I was highly inebriated around music and nothing could feel better. Some dude with the look of a financial advisor came up to me and we got to speaking. He said his name was Gary and when marijuana came up in conversation as it usually does, Gary had something to share. He pulled out a small vial with a cannabis tincture in it.

“A few drops of this bru and you’ll be spinning.” He said.

I took his word for it and had way more than a few drops. Of course I was prone to suggestion. No good story could be written about clean sober fun. These were the days I would remember. The tales that would immortalise me in prose. It could be said that I just love drugs or that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for a buzz. To me, it was journalism 101 with the greatest teacher of them all, pure unencumbered life. I was a mediocre student, good for as much as one could lift with a dick but, boy did I know how to take a universal punch. The true art form was one’s disposition about being hit. It was about chronicling the ever changing winds of the mind just before each blow; the impact that sways decision. I was deciding to live happily on fate’s slippery slopes. The notion had carried me to this very moment and the gauntlet before it.

As the night drew to a close I had become a walking chemistry lab. Jared and Byron still wanted to party so we hit Sumo, although we didn’t stay for more than one drink. In the Uber home I remember feeling extremely accomplished, like I had won something. It felt good to be an artist in Joburg; part and parcel of the creative resistance. I wanted to shout, I wanted to cry but all I could muster was a smile.

R5

This shit never gets easier to tell. It seems I have to accept some kind of precognitive disconnect between you and me first. You don’t get me, you don’t get anything about what I’ve become, and therefore we can only speak to this part of each other’s minds when I say so.

The crux of this all basically revolves around a single question, would you pull R5 out of a public urinal?

My most profound realization in this monetary monitored world was made staring at a R5 rand coin in a puddle of piss. In the time it took to relieve myself of social drinking habits and any sense of dignity; I found myself hallucinating. Five cigarettes….

………………………………………………………………………………………………. A small takeaway box

bursting at the polystyrene joints with french fries…. the reason Karabo from the hood was stabbed in the neck during the 8th period… Five Rand.

Reach NIGGGA!

So my spirit conforms. Is this the lowest it can go?

Not by a mile. Once I sucked on my lunch money for a whole day in Pre-School; I guess that you and I can agree that I turned out quite alright. A fine upstanding citizen. A sewer rat getting him with only one place left to go; up. Up to the surface with you cunts; Kitcheners Carvery Bar. Flickering amber glasses filled with malt liquor of all sorts aren’t enough to dazzle a rat. I come to eat. Everything from your finest linens to the fake spinners on your Corolla, it doesn’t matter. The only matter is that you’re fat and I’m hungry. You do this life thing on the side and it’s literally, killing me. If you felt safe you shouldn’t. If you thought this stencil art, the Daily Sun side show we’re calling art would never be exposed for the sham it is. You were mistaken.

The day I pulled R5 out of a pisser; I became unimaginably rich. It was as if i went hunting and the most amazing thing happened.

This deer with a crazy conscious look in his eye comes charging at me. It thrashes me to the ground, leaving me disarmed. The deer takes my rifle and holds it to its own chest cavity and BANG! Cliche birds fill the skies around me. The deer topples over. Still in shock from this whole ordeal, I reach for my rifle. Those same piercing eyes meet mine once more. The deer begins dragging its own, near-lifeless body towards my hypothetical truck. With one final withering leap the deer hits the bonnet, harder than what it takes to write this shit; now isn’t that something?

Stranger things have happened. I mean this is the penmanship of some black kid who was always told he danced much too close to mediocre for how well-spoken he was. Yet here we are you and I living through a shitty ordeal. In no way do I intend to paint us with the same murky ditch water. Instead, my only plea is that you understand.

Now for the crux; it was five cigarettes, my choice. Now there’s something about washing your hands hard that feels futile to me: as more foam went croaking down the drain my hands remained tainted. Still. Pears Soap is starting to feel like a plan.

Let’s stare at your money a little longer you and I, it seems this is the only time we have. Let’s stare longer than we need to, and proceed happily to eat shit! Most sincerely your broken days.