Having AND eating cakes since 1977
 

The South African Bunch of Clowns (The SABC) Do you ever get that feeling like you are being completely and utterly shafted? Like when you're listening to your radio whilst driving to work or watching 'Scoop Scoombie' or whatever on a Wednesday night and your mind suddenly starts thinking, 'Hang on. Can't the SABC hire anyone better with our money?' Mark Lottering was about as witty and hilarious as watching a 20 vehicle Hi-Ace Taxi pile up in your rear view mirror moving towards the back of your new Land-Rover at considerable speed whilst you are stuck at a broken traffic light during rush hour. I, for one, am glad that the SABC recognized his continual belittling of colored people and cited it as one of the reasons for his sacking. Apart from the main reason, that is, he just wasn't funny. His dress sense is something that'll go down in history as a wonder within itself - when his producers said 'The James Dean Look' - I am sure that they meant before the accident. Now, because I'm going to be working with these people, I can't mention what appears under section 21 number 16 in the Code of Conduct (if this were to get into the wrong hands, my future might be limited to selling hands-free equipment at the intersection of Sandton Drive and William Nicol). Oh damn and blast it, I will anyway. 'Under no circumstances is food, including hot dogs, allowed into the studios.' To the clean-living folk at the SABC - I friggin' worship you man! Last week, the SABC pulled another smelly thing out the hat. Alex Jay was fired. The man who has done wonders for South African music and comedy (not that it's funny but anyway) is most certainly not getting the respect he deserves. For many years, his 'Breakfast Show' kept people sane on their way to work - his extensive musical knowledge will make Randall Abrahams (judge of Idols and self - proclaimed 'walking encyclopedia of music' ) look like a family holding hands and walking in Cotswold countryside on a Sunday afternoon. When the SABC hired the foul-mouthed panhead that is Mark Gillman (please, please, leave those comments about 'a late night sneaky uncle or whatever for later), Alex Jay was brushed aside and given the 9am - 12pm slot (only politicians in the Western Cape listen to that show - everyone else is working). Not that it deterred him from starting 'Brunch' and giving new appeal to an otherwise boring hour schedule. Respect? None of it from the SABC - you can tell just by looking at his replacement. A young guy called Gareth Cliff, recently disciplined, has been named as his successor. 5FM - well done. Dicksy Nqaula, Nicole Fox, John Walland, Mark Gillman and now Gareth Cliff. There goes the neighborhood or rather, your neighborhood of listeners (that's what the total probably amounts to these days anyway). To say that both Mark Gillman and Gareth Cliff were destined for pizza delivery is being too harsh; no, I think breaking the speed record of a car towing a caravan was much more their path of eventual fate. My advice to the SABC (before I start selling chargers that kill mobile phones by the side of the road) is simply this; instead of 'air time', give Mark and Gareth 'run - way time' - free passes for their cars and mobile palaces into Johannesburg International Airport on a Saturday morning where they can get cracking with their destined careers and save themselves spurting countless uneducated opinions. Someone upstairs is toy-toying with our entertainment acumen. I can see a shape, a large shape, sitting in a purple three-piece suit, with a diamond tie-pin and enough gold jewelry on his fingers to kill a small farm animal. I can hear laughter, booming laughter, like the laughter Robert Mugabe will hear just before the trap door opens and he falls into the fire. I can smell pungent cigar smoke but I can tell it's not Cuban. It's from Roodepoort, as is the remix of Shania Twain's 'Don't be stupid' playing in the background. Suddenly I know who this man is. Not the devil, not Fidel Castro or Lord fookin' Lucan, but rather the South African media version of Mugato from Zoolander, saying things like, 'Oh, Gareth Cliff, he's soooooo hot at the moment.' In order to stop this onslaught of ear-and-eye-garbage, we start our own radio station, like my publisher once did to great effect. We get him back and offer people like Alex Jay and Tim Modise management positions (there can be no greater mercy bestowed upon stupid people; the sound of Tim Modise gently downplaying idiotic callers on SAFM is beautiful expression of tolerance and humility). We make it regional (we want nothing to do with the SABC (jokes buddy!!!!)) and give it no color. Musical selection is made by the brilliant Vinny da Vinci and the exquisite Khanyi Dlomo-Mhkize (she chairs studio management, PR and publishes the station's magazine - which immediately becomes the most popular magazine in SA - even if it is just because people want to look at her in the editorial). We interview people like Paul Oakenfold, Roberta Flack, Burt Bacharch, Alicia Keys, Michael MacDonald, Van Morrison (we'll be lucky), Mirwais and bands like Massive Attack, Radiohead, The Brand New Heavies, AIM and U2. We'll stage ambushes - N'Sync or the Backdoor Boys will be sitting and talking about their musical influences (Snow, the Dixie Chicks, Rednex, DJ Otzy and everything else called 'crap) when our station' s guerillas, disguised as Jimmy Hendrix, , jump out and cover them in cream pies, egg and tomato sauce. I will hope, that when this does happen, at least two of the young ballad pricks are wearing white suits. It'll go really nicely with their usual 'all snot and marmite' look. The station will be housed in a former military base, with lots of very long passages, just so that I can emerge from my janitors office from time to time, hand an unsuccessful job applicant a BMX (Jeremy Mansfield, Sam Cowan, The Bioplus tit, Tove Kane, Hlomla Dandala, entire cast of Popstars etc.) and give a very figurative meaning to the saying, 'On your F&*!!!* bike, pal!' We will receive a license to perform medical operations, such as the surgical removal of Heinz Winkler's tongue and host an internal barbershop that will serve the likes of Watershed and Just Jinger nicely. Nothing would satisfy me more than to make Amor Vittone look like Billy Connolley. There is no eating in the studios - including hot dogs and as we stand without a color - we stand without a sex. Grass will be banned but overlooked - you will be responsible but not guilty. Every week, we'll have competitions like 'The most disgusting thing you can do with a picture of Robert Mugabe' and throw challenges in the way of opposition DJ's, like, "Well Gareth, now that you've managed to successfully lose your index finger by placing it in a blender, your next challenge is to bunji jump off a small wall with a little yellow karate belt as your rope.' Before you know it, our status is international and we receive the MTV 'Free Your Mind' award for our campaign to re-instate the death penalty to rapists. Our efforts to provide free, anti-retroviral medication to HIV positive pregnant women, mostly funded out of our own profits, receive world-wide acclaim. But it is in our stance as professionals for which we are truly loved and admired; a group of people - managers, dj's and hosts who let the public make their minds up for themselves, instead of providing frivolous and futile propaganda. All we can do, until that day happens, is encourage dissent amongst the ranks with our current entertainment system. Bring back Sex in the City and The Vice! Scrap the crap on 5FM, clean the wheels of 94.7 Highveld Stereo (you are, after all, privately owned) and ETV, please, if nothing else, take off 'Who's line is it anyway' and 'Felicia' before I start drawing rude pictures on my television set with a black marker. These days, I'm moving closer to feeling that I've just dropped the soap in the Pollsmor Prison showers every time I switch the remote or play the radio. To the SABC, ETV and Primedia - my name is not 'American History X,' and I'd appreciate if you'd give me the code to get into Heinz Winkler's apartment building. Don't worry; the only object I'll be taking with me is a little yellow karate belt (apart from three seasoned members of the 28's prison gang, that is). Oh boy, looks like Heinz is gonna do himself a mischief… Just you wait. There will come a time when you are sitting with your spouse in a bistro somewhere, drinking coffee when the sound of something nasty starts attacking the airwaves. 'Oh,' says your spouse, 'sounds like the Backstreet Boys.' 'Yes,' you reply in sudden fits of pain, writhing at the temporary paralysis which has crippled the lower half of your body, 'feels like it too……

Simon Reader is a producer and consultant for a South African communications company. He intends to complete his first novel within the next year.The views of the writer are his own and may not be supported by the website- Editor

click to email editor