The Ant, Melville

Thursday, May 06, 2004

Service: * * * 1/2
Food: N/A
Ambience: * * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

I finished work at around eight o'clock tonight, and headed off to Hyde Park for a delicious omelette at JB Rivers. Eran called. "Hey, Roy, come to Melville. Bunch of people with me. Including Lucinda from Cape Town."

I like the sound of that.

The Ant is tiny and smoky. Eran's brother, Amichai, an artist is there. He looks at my sketchbook. "Roy," he says, in a thick Israeli accent, "come for lessons, man. I give them to you for free. I'll teach you about shading. Look at this, man, you're concentrating on line work. Learn to shade. It'll open your work up, man. And maybe your composition will open up too. You've gotten static. Come for a lesson."

He gives me his card. Of course I'll go for a lesson. Brilliant.

Jade's also here. Eran's babe-o-rama girlfriend. She's delectable. But she's looking sad tonight. Not saying too much. Not talkative at all. A bit of tension in the air?

And then there's Lucinda from Cape Town. Sigh. Babeage. Deluxe.

Originally from London, has been in South Africa for years now.

"How long?" I ask.

"Oh, about three," she says.

"What do you do?" I ask.

"Oh, no," she says, "I realllllly don't want to talk shop now. I've decided that I work too hard, and I want to have a life outside work."

"Oh," I say. "Okay. What's your favourite movie?"

"That's work," she says.

"Favourite book?"

"Got turned into a movie," she says.

She's blonde. Killer figure. I pull out the ink and the trusty Maped Ruling Pen.

"Are you going to draw me?" she says.

"With no shading," I tell her.

"Please don't emphasise the Habsburg jaw," she pleads.

It's true. She DOES have a rather large jaw. But it's a very nice looking large jaw.

Somehow, I manage to get the conversation beyond one-syllable, "That's work!" answers, and we start gelling. Talk about relationships. And she opens up a bit. Finds Cape Town to be a very difficult place to meet really nice guys. Is still smarting from the end of her London relationship. Feels homeless.

I read her palm.

"Can you really do this?" she asks. "Or are you just feeding me lines, telling me what I want to hear?"

"A little bit of both," I say. I'm a bit psychic, and I've got some seriously advanced exposure to therapy, having been in therapy for the better part of a decade, and having been a crisis counsellor. But most of all, I'm exceptionally intuitive, and I really do work at being in tune with myself and with the people around me.

And I do have a bit of palmreading experience. I was interested in it when I was in high school, and I did a bit back then.

So now I'm looking at her hand. And she's got the most unusual head line I've ever seen, with no heart line. Well, not that the heart line is COMPLETELY absent. It's more like it's vestigial. "This is what I'm getting," I say. "My guess is that around the age of 16 you had a serious health crisis. Life-altering."

Her eyes go wide, and her large jaw drops. "How did you know that!!!??"

I point to a snarl-up on her life line. "That's around 16," I say.

"Glandular fever," she says. "Definitely life-changing. Still suffer from some of the side effects. Tiredness. Lack of endurance."

"Okay," I say. "This strong head line. To me, it indicates that you're really very intellectually inclined, and that you've developed huge defences against your emotions. You've been badly hurt in relationships, and you simply don't want that again."

She nods.

I continue. "But, the fleshiness here and here indicates that you're actually quite a sensual woman, and that you're somehow repressing that. There's a wild, emotional woman inside you, and you're searching to let her out. That's what this vestigial heart line and the fleshiness show me."

"I'm trapped in my head," she says. "But I love massage and body work like that."

It's just her and me at this point. Eran is talking to Jade. Amichai and his buddy have left. And it's late in the restaurant.

"Okay," I say. "Put your left hand here." I put my own hand on my chest, over the heart chakra. Lucinda follows suit on her own heart chakra. I'm still holding her right hand. I start calling on energy from the universe, and ask my ritual question silently. Dear Universe, I say, my eyes half-closed, please bring white light and healing to Lucinda, if it's for the greatest good. I say to her, "Okay, now breath," and I take a deep breath myself.

I feel my hands warming up, and the energy is flowing. And her eyes are half closed, and there's a look of almost surprised bliss on her face. It's as though she's never had the opportunity to get in touch with her heart.

I breath a few more times. Then I say, "Okay, we'll stop when you're ready. Come back in your own time." She breaths a few more times, blinks, opens her eyes. I keep holding her hand between mine. "How was that?" I ask.

She ponders. "It was amazing," she says. "I wish I could have that more often in my life. I'm always so in my head, so intellectual."

"Would you like to be able to do that at will?"

"Yes."

"Okay," I say, "let's go back to it." She puts her hand over her solar plexus, breaths, and she's back in, just like that. "Now we're going to anchor it." I press my forefinger to my thumb and ask her if she ever uses that gesture in real life.

"No," she says.

"Cool. Now follow me. Feel this blissful feeling. Now touch your finger and thumb together." She does it. "Release." She does. "And breath in, feel the bliss, touch them together." She does. We repeat it several times.

"What we've done is a neuro-linguistic anchoring," I say. "Your homework for the next week is to access this feeling as many times as you can every day by touching your finger to your thumb. Repeat this about ten or fifteen times per session, and as many sessions as you can get to. After that, you'll be able to get to this state any time you want by just making this gesture."

"Thank you, Roy," she says. "Phshew. I really didn't think I'd end up having a healing session tonight with a total stranger."

"When are you moving to Joburg?" I say.

The Spur, Balfour Park

Thursday, May 06, 2004

Service: * * * 1/2
Food: * * *
Ambience: * *
Babe Count: * *

After my Spur debacle on 27 April, I did some phoning. I called the Cape Town head office. I called the Johannesburg head office. Left messages.

A very concerned Bev called me from Cape Town, and asked me to tell her what happened.

So after much flirting, I sent her to this website.

Within an hour, one of the managers in the Cape Town head office called me to tell me that they were taking my complaint very seriously indeed, and that the Johannesburg head office would be calling soon to make arrangements.

So Wouter from Joburg Spur called, and told me that the new owner of the Balfour Park branch would be calling me shortly to make arrangements. He also told me that J.J., the manager who offended me, would be apologising personally.

So Clifford, the new owner of the branch calls. "Wow, I read what happened, and I really want to apologise completely," he says. He's got a South-of-Joburg accent. Sounds like he must have been a bit of a streetwise chap in his youth.

"Thanks," I say.

"I'd really like you and your editor to come around for a free meal. We want to fix this up for you. And J.J., the manager who offended you, will apologise to you personally."

"Hmm," I say. "I'm not sure I ever want to see J.J. again. In fact," I say, "I'm surprised you haven't fired him."

"Look," says Cliff, "I understand. But we're actually sending J.J. on a customer complaints course, cos he's actually a very good manager in other respects. But yeah, we've had a few complaints about how he deals with certain customers. But then again, some of our regulars love him."

"But Cliff," I say, "we're not going to come for a free meal if they're gonna get it wrong again. I don't want a raw burger. And Steve doesn't want a raw burger either. And we don't need any fights with J.J. either."

"You have my guarantee," says Cliff.

Which is how Steve and I come to be sitting in the Spur this fine Thursday.

And the good news is that there's no sign of J.J.

But Cliff is here, and he's a really cool looking dude. Middle-aged, thin as a kebab-skewer, and a heck of a lot of nervous energy. This guy's a workaholic, and an old-school "my word is my bond" kinda bloke.

He accompanies our waitress, who takes our order. It's the same as the one we had last time. Ultra well done patties. The rolls toasted on the insides. Pepper burgers. This time we go for chocolate milkshakes instead of soft drinks.

"Are you from Germiston?" I ask. I grew up there, so I think I recognise the accent, the body language.

"Nah," he says, "just next door. Alberton."

"Hey," says Steve. "I'm from Alberton."

They chat about school. Turns out they both did matric at Eden College. "When did you matriculate?" says Cliff.

"Ninety-six," says Steve.

"Yis," says Cliff. "I was in seventy-nine. We had this English teacher. Little round oke. Got away with murder. What was his name?"

Steve's jaw has hit the floor. "A little round guy. About this tall? Hurwitz!!!"

"Ya! Hurwitz!!!" says Cliff. "What a pushover. We used to smoke in his class."

"Us too," says Steve.

The food arrives. And Cliff and the waitress watch anxiously as we examine our order.

It's perfect. Thumbs up to the Spur.

Except that the chips and the onion rings are cold. They must have put them on the plate before they cooked the burger patties. Which must have taken way longer than they normally cook them, leaving plenty of time for the extras to cool down. But it's not worth complaining about, and they're not THAT cold, and they're tasty, and we're hungry, and we've got work to do.

The milkshakes are delicious.

J.J. still hasn't appeared.

Cliff comes to us and says, "J.J. is just busy in the back, and I've got to shoot. He's going to come and apologise. Thanks for coming back, and I hope we'll see you again."

"You will," says Steve.

We wait a while, wondering if J.J. will have the guts to face us.

We're about to leave when the waitress arrives. With a bill.

"Uh," I say, "this meal's on the house."

She looks surprised. But recovers quickly. Picks up the bill and smiles broadly.

She's just about to walk away when I say, "But your service was good, so we're giving you a tip." Steve and I pitch in, and give her what would have been a twenty percent tip if we'd paid for the meal.

Still no sign of J.J.

Steve and I look at each other.

Steve says, "I don't really want to see the fucker."

"Me neither," I say.

And we slip out of the restaurant and head back to work, burping contentedly.

Fournos Bakery, Rosebank

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Service: * *
Food: * * * *
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

Yay! Just skived off work for a coupla hours to see Anthony Minghella talk about filmmaking at Cinema Nouveau in Rosebank. The whole of Joburg's filmmaking community pitched up for a mutual masturbation session (cos that's what happens when filmmakers gather... serious unreality, air kisses, grumblings behind backs about "massive lack of talent", and "what a hack!" and other compliments). Half of the Cape Town wankers were here too. Brilliant. Major schmoozing opportunity.

And I've finally managed to get a coffee-date commitment from Robyn Aaronstom!

Excellent. Worth all the schmoozing in the world. She's babeage deluxe. And hopefully she's single. Seeing as I am. What with the breakup and all that. Sigh. We'll just have to see what develops over coffee.

Robyn's one of these success stories. She's been the Script Continuity person on dozens of Hollywood movies. Until recently, she used to spend half her year in Hollywood, and the other half in Cape Town. I'll find out over coffee why she's now based in Joburg. And what she's going to be doing next.

I order the Cajun Chicken salad and a glass of water. And I'm in a hurry, cos I've really got to get back to work. Lots and lots and lots of Ethiopian Chemistry lessons to view before midnight on Friday night. And I really do not enjoy working late nights, even though that's what I have to do some nights.

While I wait for my lunch, I make eye contact with a pretty blonde outside. (I'm sitting inside, cos I've brought scripts with me to check, and I don't want them blowing away.) And it's one of those situations where you just know that if you could somehow find a reason to chat to the babe, there might be some chemistry. But it's really a case of "ships-in-the-night-that-pass-very-fast". Eye contact means zip unless courage is on the table. And I'm all couraged-out right now.

Anthony Minghella is a really warm and funny British filmmaker. He wrote and directed THE ENGLISH PATIENT and COLD MOUNTAIN and TRULY MADLY DEEPLY. He created the British television hit, INSPECTOR MORSE. And the lovely thing about sitting in a full cinema with him talking is the realisation that he's just a dude. Just someone like me. Someone who made a decision to follow his passion.

And here he is, wearing ordinary clothes, talking about his gorgeous wife, telling us about the American backlash he got for using non-American actors in the quintessential American story, COLD MOUNTAIN. Telling us how he got to spend $83 million of other people's money. Breathtaking.

The food comes. I eat it. Very nice, thank you. Now bring the bill with some urgency, please. And the bill doesn't arrive. And then when it does, it takes the waiter another ten minutes to ignore me. So I walk up to the till and ask the lady there to process my bill immediately. Which she does. And I go back to work knowing that Robyn and I will be coffee-ing, and that I might be spending several million dollars of other people's money within the next five years. Cos my heart is set on making movies.

Doppio Zero, Greenside

Sunday, May 02, 2004

Service: * * * 1/2
Food: * * *
Ambience: * * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

Phone: +27 11 646 8740

I was on my way to the Fullstop again this morning, laptop stowed in the boot, screenplay printout in my bag. But something made me choose Doppio. Probably cos I was going to have supper here last night, but it was full, and I hadn't booked.

So I park, and make my way inside.

There's Damon and Wendy. Which is a wonderful coincidence, cos I've just smsed Damon to let him know that I'm venturing forth into the world of coffee-shops with my laptop, and that today is the day I'm going to finish HOME, my feature film screenplay.

And it's also coincidental cos last night I was at The Radium Beerhall with Damon, watching Wendy play ultra superb music yet again.

"Uh!" says Damon when I draw up a chair. "Stop procrastinating!!!"

"Breakfast first," I say, "and then writing."

"I'm totally starving," he says.

I order a breakfast from Laura, our blonde, young young young waitress. Yumph. She's divine.

"But Laura," I say, trying not to see if she's wearing a g-string under her white, tight pants, "can you please make sure I don't have any mushrooms with this?"

"Can we give you a second sausage?" she asks.

I'd like to give HER a first sausage. Then a second. Maybe even a third. Depends how fit she is. "That'll be great," I say, "as long as they're beef sausages, not pork, and as long as the chef cuts them open and burns them slightly." See, if you're offering me breakfast, you'll find it safe to assume that I want EVERYTHING well done. Hard eggs. Crispy bacon (no fat). Very brown toast (made with brown bread). Burnt sausages.

Damon orders the vegetarian breakfast. And Wendy gets an awesome sandwich.

The decaff cappuccinos are possibly the best in Johannesburg, and I have my first of the day before the food arrives.

After breakfast, which is exactly as I ordered it, and absolutely hits the spot, I get up and search for a table that has a plugpoint nearby. Laura shows me to one just inside the door. Perfection.

Smooch smooch air kisses with Wendy, a nice assertive hug with Damon, and I'm on my own. Me and my laptop. And my screenplay. In a world I've been living intimately with for the last four or so years.

Last night I printed out a copy and bound it. Slept with it in my bed, where Jacqui would have been sleeping had I been in a relationship with her still. Woke this morning, reached over, and fondled it. Would have been right where Jacqui's squiggly bits would have been.

When Mariaan smsed me yesterday to ask if I wanted to do coffee with her, I was deeply engrossed in being unbearably solitary, and very sad. I spent the day thinking about Jacqui. And one-night stands. And how love doesn't go away. Hence no real squiggly bits to fondle this morning.

So, directly after fondling my script, I read it.

And I have to admit to feeling rather impressed with myself.

I've known for some time that I only have about ten or so pages left to write, and that these pages are very much setup pages that have come about as a result of the way the story changed in mid stream while I was writing it. So the ending I've written needs various bits and pieces to be inserted early on in the story and rippled throughout the screenplay.

What I hadn't realised is that I've written a very tight film, one that I'd love to see onscreen. It's a film I feel I'd be able to say, "I wish I'd written that!!!" after seeing it.

So I spend the entire day, till about 7 o'clock, finessing, honing, tweaking, adding, removing, fussing. And at that magical time, I type the most beautiful words the in the English language (except when used in the same sentence as 'Roy and Jacqui'): THE END.

I rock! I rock and roll! I am a god! I am a genius!!! I cook!!!!!!! I am awesome!

I've finished my feature film screenplay!

The first person I want to phone is Jacqui. And I don't. I don't sms her. I don't do anything. I don't email her the script. Why? Because she's asked for no contact at all. None whatsoever. She's said it'll be cool if we bump into each other somewhere. She won't run away or hide or anything. But no active communication between us.

Which I find odd, cos she reads this site. I can't imagine how it must feel for her. This is a woman who loves me dearly. So reading about my exploits must be unbearable for her. I would find it very difficult reading about her exploits. And it's very difficult for me. Cos I love her dearly. And I don't want her to be hurt. But I want to move on. I want to find a way to get her out of my system. Because as senseless and obscene as this breakup is, that's how it is. It's final until proven otherwise. And that's just not going to happen.

So I feel odd with this outpouring. Knowing that she and hundreds of other people are reading this stuff. As Mariaan said on Wednesday, it's weird. But Zahava, my therapist, reads it too. And thinks it's incredibly good therapy for me. And I agree.

But right now, sending an sms to Eran, Damon, and Janet -- my three first-readers -- feels very empty. And the accomplishment of finishing my first major screenplay feels a tad hollow. All I really want to do is curl up with Jacqui and Sheepy and cry.

Instead, I'm heading off to Rosebank to watch SWEET OBLIVION, a movie about people who don't fit in.

Now. Where's that sweet, sumptuous waitress of mine? I wonder if I can persuade her to pose naked for me?

The Fullstop Cafe, Parkhurst

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Service: * * * *
Food: * * * *
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

I've hinted generously and abundantly in my smss to Mariaan that I'm hoping to get her naked tonight.

She arrives for our date looking radiant and ready to get undressed. But I could just be projecting.

"Jeez, Roy," she says. "This is so weird. I mean, I don't really know what to say. It's just weird."

"Me wanting to get you naked?"

"No, the whole Coffee-Shop Schmuck thing. I don't really know what to say."

"Cos it might make it onto the site?"

"Yes!!!"

"Relax, I'm not going to put anything incriminating onto the site. I'm quite sensitive that way."

"No, that's okay," she says. "I trust you."

There's been some sort of odd mistaken identity thing between me and the waiter. When I arrived, I was playing with my Nokia 6600. The waiter said something along the lines of my having my entire life on the thing, and how I used it for everything. I was wondering how he could possibly come to that conclusion when he said, "I mean, I even see your phone coming up on our website statistics."

"Hmmm," I said, "which website would that be?"

He cuffed me gently on the arm, and smiled broadly, a kinda, 'how-on-earth-could-you-FORGET!!!-which-website' kinda smile.

"Come on Sandy," he said. "Our website."

"Uh..." I said, "Bad news... I'm Roy, not Sandy. But now I've got to know about this website."

"Oh no!" he said. "I'm so embarrassed. Oh no!!!!"

And he disappeared.

So I tell Mariaan about it. Our speculation is that this MUST be gay underground. I'm fairly camp, and very much in touch with my feminine side, and many gay guys mistake me for gay.

So when Ian arrives to take her white wine order, he calls me Sandy again, but this time in jest, to show that he's not ALL THAT embarrassed.

He brings the wine, and I say, "Oh no! No quick escape this time. Reveal all!"

So he digs around in his little waiter-sack, and slides a full-colour business card onto the table. No information on it, except for a funky graphic, and a web address. http://www.artlounge.co.za.

"But what IS it?" says Mariaan.

"It's a party we're organizing. At CarFax. Can't give you any details," he says. "But we'll be putting snippets onto the site to tease people. Hope we'll see you there!"

Mariaan orders the haloumi salad. I go for the California chicken. I've been a regular at one or other of the FullStops for a good ten or so years. I don't even recall when the first one opened in Melville, but I was there for its first night of operation. And ate there almost nightly for around four years when I lived in Brixton. And for some odd reason, I simply don't recall the California Chicken. Which I deeply regret. Cos it's seriously lovely food.

Chicken breast, with mozzarella cheese, bacon, and avocado. Hmmmm. Yummmmmmy.

And Mariaan appears to have ordered the starvation version of supper. I'm guessing that she's like many women... obsessed about her weight. And she's probably read some or other John Gray type of book that suggests that it's un-ladylike of a woman to order a decent meal, since it might give the man ideas that she's greedy or out of control or something.

"You can tell a lot," I say, "about how someone is in bed by the way they eat."

She's picking at her food, as if she's a touch scared of it. Maybe she thinks it's going to rise up and bite her?

"Are you serious???" she says.

"Well, think about people you know," I say.

"Wow. Never too old to learn something new," she says. "It explains A LOTTTTTTTT about my ex-husband. A LOT."

"How did he eat?"

"Very very anally," she says.

In that case, she's in for a treat if she ever gets naked with me. I'm a very carnal eater of food. I love the stuff. I enjoy rolling it around my mouth. I'm also the slowest eater I know. And I love tasting every mouthful. I chew a lot, and really get to the flavour.

One thing that puzzles me about myself, and ISN'T reflective of me in bed is my aversion to sticky food. I simply cannot abide getting sticky stuff on my hands or face. I have very mild obsessive compulsive traits, so I think this would be one of them.

In bed, I LOVE juices. All of them. But at the table, even sugar water is too sticky for me to get on my skin.

We talk about her breasts. They really are enormous. "I just wish men would be able to see past the breasts," she says. "They're really just breasts, nothing special. Just part of me. And men don't seem to get that there's actually a person inside here."

A common complaint women have.

"We don't have to get naked, and we don't have to make love," I tell Mariaan. "Why don't we just go home to my place and cuddle a bit? And if you like, I won't even touch your breasts."

The Spur, Balfour Park

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Service: *
Food: *1/2
Ambience: * *
Babe Count: * *

Ouch!

Because of last night's chat with Kate, the woman who'll be managing the Spur when the new owners take over, I've persuaded Steve, my editor at Memar, the Ethiopian educational tv project, to come have lunch with me here.

Our waitress duly took our drinks order, and then disappeared for twenty minutes. So we flagged someone down and asked if we could order.

"Well, I'm the manager," says J.J. "Of COURSE you can order through me!"

Steve and I are both eating the same meal today. "Special request," I say to J.J. "Two things. Both burgers must be ULTRA well done. NO pink bits. NO blood. So well done that your chef is embarrassed to put them on the rolls. Is that cool?"

"No problem," says J.J.

I've learned in my life never to trust anyone saying, 'No problem.' The alarm bells should be ringing. But hey. He's the manager. What could he possibly get wrong?

"Number two," I say, "please can you ask them to toast the insides of the rolls?"

He repeats the order back to us. "Two pepper burgers, both ultra well done, no blood, rolls toasted on the inside. No problem."

He disappears. Five minutes later the drinks arrive. I've foolishly ordered the fruit cocktail. Rule number one, Roy. DON'T ORDER FRUIT JUICE IN A SPUR! It's got a preservative in it that I'm allergic to. Wonderful. So I get a coughing fit four sips down and have to abandon the stuff.

Twenty minutes later, the waitress brings our food. Steve and I are by this time sawing at our fake-leather Spur placemats we're so hungry. We're even contemplating eating Morrie and Edna and Beulah and Clyde at the table next door. They're VERY loud geriatrics. Octogenarians, by the look of things. Morrie has a stroller. We know their names because they have to look at the person they're speaking to and bellow that name first to get their attention.

"Hold on," I say to the waitress, who has basically dumped the food on our placemats and is starting to flee. "I just want to check this." It's basically luck of the draw that I happen to cut into the well-done burger of the two. I slice open my pattie, and it's perfectly well done. "But hang on," I say, pointing my knife at the roll. "They were supposed to toast the insides of the roll. They haven't done that."

Steve's examining my pattie, and he's satisfied that if they're gotten it right with mine, his will be fine too. BIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGG mistake, it turns out.

The waitress offers to toast the rolls. "Nah," I say. "I'm really hungry, and now we're late for work."

We eat.

Steve's eating with long teeth. At some point, I catch sight of his pattie. Bloody hell. I'm almost completely through with mine, but he's only about a third of the way through. Oh man. This is disgusting.

Even to a rare-meat-eater, Steve's pattie would have been too rare. Escaping past the pepper sauce is a tiny trickle of blood, and a little bit of icy water.

"Steve," I say. "Don't look now."

He looks. Folds his knife and fork together. Calls a waiter.

"Please find my waitress."

She arrives ten minutes later. And I'm NOT exaggerating about these times!

"I'm sending this burger back," he says. "It's completely raw. And I asked for it to be well done. Take it off the bill. I'm not paying for it."

"No," says the waitress, "don't worry, I'll ask them to put it on the grill."

"No," says Steve. "I'm not eating another bite. I don't WANT the burger. I want you to take it off the bill. I refuse to pay for this."

"Okay," says the waitress, and she takes our plates away.

"Please bring the bill," I say.

It's now five minutes to two o'clock. We've been here for around an hour and a bit, and work is beckoning. Steve and I have to turn out 14 half-hour chemistry episodes every week, and the pressure is enormous. Long lunches are definitely not the norm.

The bill arrives at ten-past two. The waitress flees before we open it. I open it. Full charge. Two burgers and two drinks.

I flag a waiter. "Please call the manager," I say. "We need him here right now please."

Our waitress arrives from nowhere and whisks the bill away from us. Goes to the cash register, where J.J., the so-called manager, whips out a calculator. We see him do a calculation. He smiles in our direction, and the bill comes back. It's now twenty-past two.

He's given Steve a discount off the price of his hamburger. Instead of R28, Steve only has to pay R14.29. J.J. must have figured that Steve ate slightly more than half of the burger.

"Steve," I say. "This is outrageous. I'm refusing to pay ANYTHING on this bill. They've now just crossed the line."

We get up and go to the cash register. But now J.J.'s not there anymore. "Call the manager," I say to someone there. He goes to the back. J.J. arrives exactly ten minutes later, just as Steve and I are leaving.

"J.J.," I say. "Are you actually the manager here?"

"One of them," he says.

"Well, J.J., you've now kept us waiting on this query for more than twenty minutes, and you've charged Steve half-price for a raw burger. I placed the order with you personally. Do you recall?"

"What's the problem?" he says, smirking. "You ate half the burger, so you pay for half the burger."

"No, not at all," I say. "You messed us around with the most appalling service I've encountered in a restaurant, and we're not paying ANYTHING of this bill."

"What? You're paying nothing? After I've given you a half off the price of one burger out of the goodness of my HEART? I'll tell you what... you pay nothing, and don't bother coming back here ever again, okay???" An aggressive rugby-player stance.

"Who's the owner?" I say, notebook out, pen open, the black blood flowing onto the page.

"Ashley," he says.

"Phone number," I say.

"083 283 5418," he says.

Just then Morrie and Edna and Beulah and Clyde arrive, the stroller clanging against the floor. "EDNA!" says Morrie. "THERE'S J.J.!!! EDNA!!!"

"OKAY MORRIE, OKAY ALREADY!!!!! NO NEED TO SHOUT!!!! HEY, J.J.!!!! COME HERE YOUNG MAN!!!!!"

J.J. puts his hand on Edna's shoulder. She presses a fifty buck note into his other hand.

"FOR OUTSTANDING SERVICE!!!" she says.

Mugg & Bean, Cresta

Monday, April 26, 2004

Service: * * *1/2
Food: * * *1/2
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

I've been watching this blonde two tables away for the last twenty minutes or so. She's having an earnest conversation with an older woman. She fumbles around in her handbag, and pulls out a pen. Scouts around the table, and starts writing stuff down on something.

I'm not certain what she's writing on, but it seems as though it's a paper napkin.

Now I'm here cos I've taken half a day off work cos of yesterday's food poisoning still being in my system, and I've got four Ethiopian educational scripts to get through by tomorrow morning, regardless of what poisons line my stomach. So I've got my notebooks and a pad of writing paper. Tons to spare.

Now the blonde has walked past my table earlier, so I've scoped out her figure. And she's a good looking babe. Nice curves. Very interesting face. Very smiley. With extremely long hair. Below the bottom of her buttocks.

So I reckon it'll be nice and gentlemanly to scoot over to her table and offer her some paper.

Which I do. I simply tear off a couple of sheets, walk over, hand her the pages, and say, "You look like you could use a few of these." I smile. She smiles. Says thanks very enthusiastically. And I go back to checking my scripts. The good deed has been done. And I didn't even slip her my Coffee-Shop Schmuck business card.

And she wasn't writing on a napkin. It was the back of an old slip. Crammed to the brim with tiny tiny handwriting.

My potato gratinee bake arrives, and I start plowing through it. I'm really not very hungry, and the food poisoning really feels like it's ready for a resurgence any minute now. But I do need sustenance, and there's nothing at all in my house except for some soup I cooked two winters ago and froze in Tupperware. I haven't dared look inside the Tupperware. Contrary to popular belief, frozen food DOES go off. It just takes longer to do so. In fact, two winters should just about do the trick.

So while I eat what would ordinarily be a delicious gratinee, I leave the scripts for later and observe the snivelling humanity sitting at the next table.

It's one of those families people flinch to see.

The man. Beak nose. Hair in a crest over one eyebrow. When he was young, he must have been a neat stiff-arm dancer. Unbearable vomit coloured jacket, the colour made up of a sort of blue-ish wool, cross-woven with a light-gray-brown wool. Ugh!!! People spend thousands of rands on this stuff.

The woman. No chin. None. Whatsoever. Just a bottom lip joined by a long sloping piece of pink skin tucked into a black collar with tiny white polka dots. Very wide collar. Visible above a pinky-red cashmere cardigan. A sprinkle of gold drizzled around her necklessness.

Two daughters. The young one around six. Wearing a pink pajama top with flowers embroidered on it. Still young and innocent.

The other around eight or nine. As soon as I see her, I start mouthing a word silently in her direction. "Escape!" I say. "Escape!!!" But it's too late. She's already trapped. This little madam has a blue and white striped polo-neck top in varying shades of blue, with glitter wool. She's wearing knee-high boots over skin-tight black slacks. Her nails have been shaped, and they've got clear pearl varnish on. And she's wearing dark pink lipstick. Not slap dash. Expertly applied.

She stares at me. "Escape!" I say again, exaggerating my mouth shape. She frowns, looks past me, turns away and doesn't look back. Will never look back.

I finish half my meal, and resume script checking. I'm almost through the fourth one when the smiley blonde with the extreme hair comes to my table. It would be reallllllly nice right now to have her hair spread out over my pillow. Or cascading down past her breasts, to stroke my cheek.

She says, "I just want to say thank you so much for your act of kindness earlier. You took the trouble to notice my need. Not many people would do a thing like that. Thank you so very much."

She gives me a dazzling smile. And I WANT to give her my card. But that'll dash the purity of the moment. So I just smile back and say, "Thank you!"

She smiles again, turns, and her hair catches me in its wake, and I watch her walk away from me.

Later, the manageress, Kate, comes and chats to me. I've paid with my Master Card, and Mugg & Bean has a special on at the moment where you get a free coffee voucher every time you use the card. So she's come to give me mine.

I wheedle some info out of her. I find that she's on her last few days at Mugg & Bean, and that the Spur in Balfour Park has just been bought by new owners, and that she's about to move over there and manage that place.

"Sheesh," I tell her. "That's going to be a challenge. I work across the road from it, and there are only three places in Balfour Park to eat at... the Mugg & Bean, which is TERRRRRRIBLE!, the chicken place next door, and the Spur, which is worse than the Mugg & Bean.

"I know," she says. "But the new owners are going to make a huge difference."

"Maybe I'll try it out tomorrow," I say.

"Let me know. I'm sure things can improve there," she says.

We yack a bit more, and it's time for me to go home and sleep off the rest of this food poisoning. I check my jersey for long blonde hairs, but nothing's caught. I'll just have to imagine.

Chantal's house, Rivonia

Sunday, April 25, 2004

Service: * * * *
Food: N/A
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * *1/2

I'm at Chantal's place in Rivonia. Damon and Wendy have joined us for lunch, but I've been lying on Chantal's bed most of the time, sleeping. And when I haven't been sleeping, I've been leaning over her toilet vomiting up warm, rotten soy-milk mixed with musli.

That was breakfast earlier.

Chantal and I met to do a visioning workshop together, which involves spreading dozens of magazines on the floor, cutting pictures out that answer a question, and then making a collage on huge sheets of paper. She's the woman who runs trance dances every month, and I've done about ten or twelve of these. I get in free nowadays, cos I lend her my radio lapel microphone.

This particular kind of trance dance is a bit of a shamanic thing. It's NOT a bunch of rave bunnies getting high and loving each other up on drugs. This is strictly a mystical experience. We all wear blindfolds, and dance to this incredible music while questing for solutions to our own particular issues.

I most often use the trance dance as an opportunity to do a shamanic vision quest.

Today's magazine collage session has gone very well, apart from me skipping the first of the two sessions. This is a tool I use in my creativity workshops, and Chantal's been in a space where she needs some answers from her subconscious, and I've been in a space where I want to actualise my next relationship.

I've made a picture of my ideal lover. And then I've dialogued with her, using my non-dominant hand. So she's told me some things about herself and what she expects from me. I don't want to make the same mistake I made with Jacqui.

I suspect that what happened with Jacqui is that I decided I wanted a relationship, and then Jacqui came upon the scene, and I recognised her as someone I wanted to be with, and I made the DECISION that she was the woman for me. Aside from the fact that we're mightily compatible, and our sex life was exceptionally wonderful, I think I overlooked the period in which two lovers explore whether or not they're meant for each other. I just took it as given on my side, and expected her to recognise that on her side.

Maybe I am her ideal lover. Maybe not. The timing was wrong. And I hope she does indeed meet her ideal lover. And I hope I meet mine.

Right now, lying on Chantal's bed, suppressing the gag reflex, I'm really quite peeved. Mariaan -- the blonde with the pneumatic breasts -- and I were supposed to go and see a movie tonight. And I realllllllly wanted to get her naked. I've even bought a foldable easel so I can draw her anywhere, anytime. I've had to phone and cancel our date.

Chantal reckons this vomiting is the universe trying to tell me something. "Roy, do you KNOW this girl? How can you just want to SHAG someone you don't KNOW? I can't shag just ANYONE! I think you should listen to the universe."

"It COULD be the universe," I say to Chantal. But I think it's the soy milk.

And anyway... Mariaan and I will be seeing each other on Wednesday night. I'll have my easel ready.

Nino's, Melville

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Service: * *1/2
Food: N/A
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * * 1/2

Damon's just left. He's off to have supper with Wendy. So I'm stuck with Akbal.

"Here," he says, looking a heck of a lot like Jay Naidoo when he was a student activist, "look at this one. A real collector's piece. Not more than thirty of these in the world! You know how much? Guess. Take a guess how much."

We're on the sixty-seventh movie poster. This one's for a movie called EPIC ASTEROIDS. It's Japanese, and the photos on the poster are really cruddy kung-fu style pics, but with sci-fi costumes. Sheesh.

"Nah, not for me," I say. "Next one, please."

"It's very collectable," he says. "EPIC ASTEROIDS. Only R400. But make me an offer."

"Akbal," I say, "I'm really only interested in the R50 posters, so you might as well skip the expensive ones."

"Okay," he says, and he bites his lip a little in disbelief. I'm passing up EPIC ASTEROIDS. Chance of a lifetime.

Akbal comes to Melville twice a week, and goes around the restaurants flogging these old posters. He gets them by buying up the stock of old movie companies.

The only reason I'm looking at them is cos he might have some outrageous horror-movie titles. And since Damon and I are writing a horror together, it'll be nostalgically correct for later on in our careers to have crappy b-movie horror posters.

He turns to the next one. Carefully unfolds it. "Early 70's porn," he says. "R800."

A hand gesture from me. The bitten lip from him. A pause before he opens the next one, as if to say, 'Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you want me to move onto the next gem??? This is a CLASSIC!!!' He opens the next one.

I'm passing time, really, so it doesn't matter how long it takes him to get through his pile. As long as he's through by the time Mandy arrives. She's smsed me to see if I want to do coffee. Of course I do!

"Please, Akbal," I say, "if it's more expensive than R50, please don't even show it to me. Truly. If it crosses the impulse-buy pain threshold, I'm not interested."

"But this one!" he says, and he can't go on. I fear tears, and am about to ask the waitress for a wad of serviettes. But he composes himself. "Look," he says, "this one's starring Red Buttons."

"How much?"

"This copy is R1800."

My hand gesture.

He holds up a hand. "But," he says, "I've got a damaged copy in my car. R50."

I look at it. It's for a movie called WHO KILLED MARY WHATS'ERNAME? The slugline reads, 'Somebody just murdered your friendly neighborhood hooker.' Hmmm. It's not horror, really. But it does sound like a slasher. And the movie Damon and I are writing could be called a slasher.

Mandy arrives.

"Akbal, Mandy. Mandy, Akbal." They shake hands. Mandy sits.

"I'll take the damaged one," I say.

He keeps showing us posters for the next twenty minutes, and my stomach starts asking for supper. Eventually, I take two extremely damaged posters for R50 each, and he throws in a third even more damaged poster for free. When he leaves, I ask Mandy if she'd like it.

"I quite like that one," she says.

Damon and I have just had a minor adventure. We wanted to see the five o'clock show of STARSKY AND HUTCH, but we couldn't really decide where to see it. Eastgate and Cresta would have queues around the block. Sandton was too far. Rosebank Zone would be filled with trainer bras.

"Hey, hold on!" said Damon on the phone. "What about The Carlton Centre?"

"Hey," I say, "that used to be a flagship movie house." I was actually thinking of the Kine Entertainment Complex across the road, but it's been a long long time since I've seen a movie in Johannesburg central.

After a bit of discussion, we decide to see it there. We'll be urban warriors reclaiming the city centre. We'll be white boys showing that we're not afraid of inner city thuggery.

We get to the cinema, and I pull out my Vitality Card. This entitles me to see movies for a mere R11. I don't even know what mortals like Damon pay for the things. Somewhere around R30, I reckon. But the guy at the ticket booth looks at me as though I'm a crazed whitey. "Eish, broer," he says, "tickets here are R10. But if you WANT to spend R11, gimme your card."

"I'll save a buck," I say, and we all grin insanely.

Buy popcorn. Go into the cinema. And it's in top-notch shape. Ster Kinekor must be spending bucks upgrading inner city cinemas. Very impressive. The sound isn't as good as it could be, but it's a beautiful experience.

The adventure part comes when I slip out to the loo midway through the movie.

There's this shady looking rasta man lurking outside the door when I arrive at full trot, bladder full to pre-bursting. I go into the loo, and he follows me. 'Ah damn,' I'm thinking. 'Shoulda given my wallet to Damon. And my palmtop. And my cellphone.' But hey, I've got my Swiss Army knife. So this guy must just try. AND I do tai chi.

He steps up to the urinals, unzips, and lets rip. I do too. And for a moment we're busy having a pissing contest. I'm using my stream to write, 'Jacqui, I still love you,' on the porcelain. He's just gushing. I glance down at the urinal next to mine.

In it, covered in yellow wee, a frilly, lacey pair of white panties.

And that's my movie adventure in The Carlton Centre. I'll definitely be going to see more movies there.

Mandy says, "I'm quite hungry. Where shall we go for supper?"

"Let's walk around Melville and take pot luck," I say.

"Great," she says. "But supper's on me tonight. How about Mezza Luna?"

"Excellent," I say, and pick up my two posters. She picks up hers, and we head into the Melville night.

Park Hyatt, Rosebank

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Service: * * * *
Food: N/A
Ambience: * * * *
Babe Count: * * * * 1/2

There's a pile of scripts on the front seat of my car. They HAVE to be gotten through by around noon tomorrow. Which means my morning is going to be frenetic and laborious and tedious.

I was going to go through them tonight, in a coffee shop, in a manner both leisurely and languid, and fitting for the artistic temperament.

But hey. Better things happen in life. Which is why they eight chemistry scripts are still on my passenger seat itching to be stroked by my red corrections pen. And that's where they'll stay till tomorrow morning.

Because right now I'm in the Park Hyatt Hotel coffee shop drinking tea with a curvy blonde émigré from Cape Town. She's ordered a glass of dry white wine.

Beauty, our waitress, arrives and produces a glass the size of Dolly Parton's old bra. It's big enough to hold at least three-quarters of a bottle of wine. Wow. Daunting.

But Mariaan is up to it. Must be her Cape genes.

I've just seen a movie... THE SHAPE OF THINGS, written and directed by Neil LaBute. And it's a beaut. 8 out of 10 on the Roy-o-Meter. Bitter, cynical, arty, self-conscious, witty-witty-witty.

But before the movie, I had to buy a ticket. And while I was standing in the queue, I heard some people wondering whether or not to see INTERMISSION. So I but in and say, "See it! It's an Irish cross between LOCK, STOCK & FOUR SMOKING BARRELS and TRAINSPOTTING. It's a thriller, a comedy, and a love story all rolled into one."

A blonde babe with pneumatic breasts and deliciously curved hips says, "And can you recommend COLD MOUNTAIN?"

"I haven't seen it," I say, "but I've heard it's quite a downer."

Somebody else pipes up, "But Jude Law's in it. And Nicole Kidman. It's brilliant. Brillllllliant!"

And so movies were watched.

When I came out of mine, there was a message from Eran. So I give him a call and walk around Rosebank while I'm chatting to him. I finish the conversation outside the Kitsch & Cool shop near the Park Hyatt, and there's the pneumatic blonde finishing a call of her own.

"Excuse me," she says, "how was THE SHAPE OF THINGS?"

I'm looking at the shape of her things, and I'm thinking how I'd love to take her back to my place, get her nude, and draw her. I say, "Ah, it was great fun. Very dark. But lovely. What did you end up choosing?"

"COLD MOUNTAIN. And it was VERY much a downer. At the end, I just sat there in the cinema. I couldn't move." She has big, bold, delicious-looking lips, and they're moving.

"Lets go to the Park Hyatt and have coffee and pretend to be rich foreigners," I say.

Which is how we get to be sitting on one of the couches.

Some things I certainly know about myself. I'm extremely probing, very easy to talk to, and pretty direct.

Soon we're talking about Mariaan's dreams. Her biggest passion in life is travelling, seeing the world, experiencing other people's cultures. She's got some plans that she's letting germinate. And one of these fine days she's going to be making a living doing what she loves.

"So imagine we're somewhere exotic," I say. "Where are we?"

"Brazil!!!" she says.

"Okay. We're in Brazil. Who am I?"

"Ooooooooo," she says, flapping her hand. Her eyes start to shine, and she smiles. He jacket collar is framing her right breast absolutely perfectly. "You're... you're a Brazilian hunk that I've met, and we're having a drink. It's Carnival. It's definitely Brazil during Carnival."

"Hmmm," I say. "So I'm this Brazilian hunk. And what are we doing after we have our drinks?"

Her eyes narrow slightly, and she peers at me. Am I detecting a twinge of lust? Or am I projecting my own desires onto the situation?

She's 35. She was married for ten years, and broke up with her hubbie one year and three months ago. She hasn't had awfully many sexual experiences with anyone since the divorce, but she's not closed to the idea of meeting a good man.

She takes a long sip of wine from the goblet.

"Hmmm," I say, "so I'm this Brazilian god, and you're this beautiful blonde, and we're having a drink during Carnival. I think maybe we go down to the beach and make love?"

She nods slowly.

"Do you mind if I draw you?" I say.

She flinches, crosses her arms, blushes madly. "No, you can't!" she says.

"Are you sure?" I say. "You don't look certain."

"No, it's okay," she says. "You can draw me. It's just that nobody's ever asked me that question!"

I open my leather satchel and extract my sketchbook, my ink bottle, and my gynaecological exploration device, the Maped Ruling Pen.

"Right here?" she says.

"You don't have to sit still," I say.

Three French-speaking black businesspeople in suits have been sitting on the sofa opposite us for the last hour, and they've said about eight words to each other all night.

Mariaan says, "Wow. They're VERY interested in what you're doing."

I say, "They're maybe wondering if I'm some sort of famous artist trying to get you into bed with me."

After a few sketches, I show her the results. I can't tell whether or not she likes them.

"There are two things I want," I say to her, after much deliberation and churning of the gut. This will be the first time I've said either of these things in a first meeting. I say, "One... I want you to pose naked for me."

"Oooo!" she says. "Not immediately!"

"Two," I say, "I want to make love with you."

"I think the ladies love you, Roy. Do the ladies love you? You have such a way. You've worked your way into my heart. Wow. I've never been asked such things before."

"I haven't asked such things before," I say. "Not on a first meeting."

She thinks about it.

She says, "Right now I'm coming down with flu, so, no, not tonight. But another time maybe. As for posing, I'll think about it. Maybe."

She has my Coffee-Shop Schmuck business card. Maybe she'll use it. Maybe she won't.

I say, "Please don't feel pressure from either of my requests. I just want you to know what I want. If I don't say it, you can't know it."

"You've worked your way into my heart," she says.

"That was quick," I say.

"You know it, Roy. You've got a way with the ladies."