An Index

A Collection of Work
created in South Africa, 1985 - 2005

Who is Ian Fraser?

PLAYS

'Bring Me Gandhi'
'Charles Manson'
'The Accidental Antichrist'
'Dogs of the Blue Gods'
'The Gospel According to the Mafia'
'The Sugar Plum Fairy'
'Heart Like a Stomach'
'Blitzbreeker & the Chicken From Hell'
'Sleeping Chickens'

ESSAYS

'A Demonstration in Winter'
'Conversation with an Apartheid Spy'
'The Sweet Smell of Gangrene'
'New Years Eve 1992'

FICTION

'Loneliness of the Long Distance Rider'
'Pixie Dust'
'Killing the President'

FILM SCRIPT

'Butterfly Jam'
'White Kaffirs'
'Into Alien Skies'
'Yours Til the Cows Come Home'
'Road Rage'

MUSIC

'Song Lyrics'

Song Lyrics

Authors Note:
Creating music is a interesting form of expression. I like the idea of using melody to communicate idea's, thus bypassing the need for the words to be understood, in order for an emotional response to be created in the listener.

Despite not being able to write down the notation for the melodies, I've always had a lot of music flowing in my head, bugging me with insistent repeating sequences of notes, that I wasn't able to write down or in any proper way, get out of my consciousness. I've found the best of dealing with it, has always been to ignore it. Stick with words, that at least I can put down on paper and walk away from.

Thanks to some musician friends, I had two attempts to get rid of some of the music I was always hearing - the first time was way back in the mid Eighties, with a happily mad friend called Rusty Stanley. We recorded some material, used repeating sounds of a kitten that happened to be in the area at the time (called 'Audible') and laid further tracks.

There was only one 'song' such as it was, and the lyrics weren't too complex. It was called 'Curse of the Swamp Thing'. Psych fans might be interested though, given the shit-storm raining in my life at that point, to read the lyrics, so its posted below, ahead of the later, and (to me) much more elegant lyrics, that began emerging on my second foray into music.

Some years later, a musician friend Nick Hauser and myself got together and began doing the 'music thing' a little more systematically. I'd take a melody I had in my head, then write down a 'vocal melody' - using each word as a specific note which acted as a counterpoint to the original melody.

Then I'd trundle off to Nick, sing him the vocal melody, and do my best to sing the 'original' melody - and he, being one of those irritatingly talented people, 'got' what I was trying to hum, sing and in various ways communicate to him, and reproduced the original melody, near as dammit.

Then, using a four track mixer, we'd do a busking session, me on vocals, him on whatever instrumentation he felt like - and we'd lay it down and record it. One take, rough, but interesting as hell - given that the music emerging was clearly very different to anything 'local'.

Nick's own musical history was wide and varied, originally from England, he'd been part of Mango Groove (a local pop band) in their early days, and had brought the 'pennywhistle' sound to the group, something he'd grown up with as a kid. As Mango Groove got more and more commercial, and began being on the brink of being 'a commercial success' ie: yet another local pop group, Nick had decided 'euwww' and left.

Mango Groove naturally became local darlings with their supposedly 'African' sounding pennywhistle. Nick however happily dived into another alternative band called Kakhi Monitor, and had a lot more creative fun than he would have, doing the 'pop' thing.

And Nick and I had always got on, I think because we're both 'artistic' types in our different ways, who've always seen the creative benefits of being independent - regardless of the cost. We're also both painfully thoughtful about what we do creatively. So even though I was a wordsmith, and he was a musician, there was always a kind of mutual respect going on.

The music that emerged was a strange hybrid of styles, a very 'old' retro-folk Celtic sound was emerging from who knows where. Nick kept asking me if I'd heard of this or that band, and usually I shrugged and said nope. These were the melodies that I had, and where ever they came from, I had no clue.

We kept recording and laying down songs, I got better and better vocally, and despite Nick's growling, everytime I went outside for a cigarette (he's one of those ex-smokers) - we got on well, both enjoying the creation of something completely different.

We chose an arbitrary name 'Wailing Wall' - who knows why - I don't. And made a few DAT tapes, and sent them off to local radio stations, and got some airplay - the DJ's enthusing over this odd sound.

One of the songs, a one-take special, which happened to have some previous track bleed over into it, accidentally adding another layer of sound to the recording, was a little song called 'Scars From Dreams'. Nick took this to Benjy Mudi at Tusk Music, who fell in love with it, and brought Nick and I into a recording studio to redo it professionally.The song was to be included in some local compilation of music - but that fell through for some unknown reason.

We did some live performances - the best were at small folk music clubs, where the audience could 'get' the odd folk-sound that we were creating, the worst were at large live concerts - where the crowds really weren't interested in a very classical and oldstyle precise sound, that had no relation to anything they'd ever heard before.

One of the years, I forget which - we took the music to Grahamstown Arts Festival, which - thinking about it, was a mistake creatively, because the audiences there had so much baggage about me. I was the 'standup comic' 'hellraiser' 'windswept angry and interesting' playwright - so naturally they initially came, thinking this was going to be somehow connected to these other genres they were used to seeing. Instead, what they got was utterly unconnected to any of these other persona's they thought I was.

It was actually kind've a headfuck realisation for me, as I began to see that I'd been so stereotyped as being something I'm actually not - that I was unable to present a different creative/artistic genre to audiences, and have them able to 'perceive' let alone 'enjoy' what I was doing.

As an analogy, to audiences - maybe it was something like Eddie Izzard deciding to create Julian Bream-style music. They weren't interested. Couldn't comprehend that I'm not only not the thing they'd gotten used to, but that I actually clearly prefer this other persona.

To make matters more freaky, at the same time that I was doing the music with Nick (in a glorious old vaulted ceiling cathedral - a perfect setting for the music - I was also performing my own standard 'hellraiser' type comedy shows and other plays. Big clash of preconceived idea's in audiences. People came, and after a while, quite rudely just got up and left midway.
A few of the people stayed, raved and enthused at us - perhaps those who really could 'get' that what they were seeing was a totally unconnected-to-any-other-persona bit of creativity in action.
But the general perception and reaction was total incomprehension.

Meltdown occurred. (It was sad, given that of all the 'creative' work I've done - I have to admit that it was/is the music, that I have found most pleasing, artistically satisfying, and comforting to myself. )

A Sidetrack About Grahamstown Arts Festival:
It was only a year or two later, that I realised, standing after the final show at the Arts Festival, having filled 15 performances in a 600 seater, for my comedy shows, that I looked down at the money I'd made, and realised 'Enough was enough'. This had just been 'work' to me. This was no fun at all, not creatively satisfying anymore - and I was repeating myself.

The other layer, I should add - that few understood, during my 10 year run at the Grahamstown Arts Festival - was that I was there and doing my plays, and standup comedy - not for any ego, glory, recognition, supposed fame, or free pussy (although I did get some of that, I have to say) - I did it because I had things to say. That's the only reason.

So I had many years of walking around, signing autographs and being nice at the public who came up to me, but getting absolutely no ego-gratification out of it at all. Just a nonstop 10 day blur of alienation, massive loneliness usually, and constantly maintaining a front that wasn't 'me' at all.
Adding to this weirdness, was the weird reaction of many of my fellow 'artistes' - who clearly were in it just for their ego's. The desire to be looked at, liked, regarded as being somehow 'special' or better than everyone else. I don't know. (I'm glad I don't fully understand the motivations of those in the creative fields who do things because they want people to like them, or want them to fill up the empty vacuum of their Ego, which seems to be dependent on the admiration of others.)

Whereas I was gratified months earlier by the simple creation of whatever the Play or Work was, and public reaction was just an odd almost unnecessary and difficult 'extra' for me.

I remember standing in the auditorium, the year Capab did 'Blitzbreeker' - and I stood at the back in the darkness watching, and although it was a magnificent production - afterwards, people are coming up to me enthusing about it, and I'm consciously aware that I'm having to 'act' thankful for the praise.
Not because I'm so great or anything - but just because I'm not emotionally connected to the live production at all. It's impossible for me to gain any ego-satisfaction from other people's enjoyment of stuff that I already sucked dry of that possibility, back when I first wrote it.

So I have to pretend that this production they've just seen is somehow of value to me. The truth was and is always, that the valuable part of the creative process for me, was way back when I wrote it. Sitting quietly and relishing the creation of the piece while I wrote. This live performance stuff is disconnected from my ego entirely, so every time anyone said how wonderful a play was - I had to consciously thank them and adopt what I figured was the right kind of response to make the fan feel good. And also not to come over as the wankers preening and gloating over every tiny bit of public attention they got.

Weirdness. Total alienating weirdness..

I think I still hold the record at Grahamstown Arts Festival for the most numbers of performances of a single persons' work. One of the years, I think it might have been the year that Ben Kruger brought down casts to do Sleeping Chickens, Heart Like a Stomach, Sugar Plum Fairy - and I was doing my own play as well as a standup comedy show, I vaguely recall counting total performances of my work - and it was something ridiculous like 36 - 45 performances in total of stuff I'd written.

Now imagine a disconnected headspace, having to deal with x35 or so loads of audiences who've all just seen this or that production, and want to enthuse about it. Never mind the growling envy of the actors and actresses who seemed to need to have the high profile and attention that I was desperately trying to avoid, and didn't want at all.

To keep myself otherwise focused, I'd get stoned, stay stoned, and hand out literally thousands of leaflets as adverts for my shows. It gave me the chance to personally and consciously develop my social skills, interact one on one with audiences and the public - as well as kill time inbetween doing shows.

I recall one year letting my guard slip, and bursting into tears and sobbing uncontrollably in front of some woman I was sitting chatting with - I think the alcohol I'd had - like one drink's worth - was just enough to rip down my already abraded psychic defenses. I'm sure that to most folks, ten days of adulation and glory is a positive thing - but not to me. I can't process it, can't file it, or use it in any positive way for myself. And I tried to cover it up as best as possible, and probably over-compensated at times, and appeared to be revelling in the glory.

By my final year at the Festival, although I'd given up dope, I developed a nasty coke habit, which kept me going through the 24/7 freakout of the Festival (to the point where the local dealer was trying to buy product back from me, I'd bought so much. Yeehaa.)

Besides, what else was there to do? I didn't really drink, there wasn't any art that I wanted to see, I moved around looking at the people, and enjoying the interactions with them, far more than anything inside any galleries or venues. I also began to find I had far more in common with the New Agers and 'hippies' that were beginning to make their presence felt each year, than I ever did with the 'upper ranks' of the Festival organisers or fellow artistes.

With hindsight, the drug use probably was a good catalyst for me - as it helped bring home to me the crashing alienation and creative boredom that I'd avoided facing, for so long. So it was either '94 or '95, I forget - that I reached the end of that years Festival, having clawed my way through the days and people and shows, by what felt like torn and bloodied fingertips, and reached the end, the last show - and decided, in the words of The Smiths - 'never never never again'.

The only benefit remaining that I was getting from doing this, namely 'the money' - was just not a good enough reason, given the amount of angst I was having to deal with, intellectually and artistically. The positive responses from whoever, gave me no real happiness, merely insecurity and a further layer of things I had to intellectually be on guard against.

(After all, if you 'believe' people when they tell you that you're good - you'll believe them when they decide you're bad, as well. ) So you better get be guard against absorbing either of those extremes, when it comes to your own creative work.

You know if it's good or not. Trust yourself. Delight in your own creativity - and beware of ever relying on, or needing anyone elses opinion, approval, acceptance or awards, in order to 'confirm' that what you create, is 'good'. Please yourself completely, and if the Fates will it, others will enjoy it too. If they don't, well - tough. The object of creativity, to me, isn't about pleasing others, or using creative work to get yourself any 'pats on the head' for being a Good Dog - its about expressing yourself, to yourself. Making sense of the world as YOU see it and feel it.
So ignore your teachers, and anyone else who tries to make you conform to some preconceived idea of what is 'acceptable' in structure, form, and especially content. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the only 'good' Art is that which everyone else SAYS is Good Art.
Decide for yourself.
And differentiate between your ego's need for comfort, adulation and acceptance by others - and the satisfying creation of Art, as a solo action to please yourself, as a fine end result in of itself.

Who cares what the 'reason' is for the creativity - the only bad reason for Art - is maybe to try and get the love you perhaps never got as a little kid. Use a therapist rather.

Although I'm a fine one to talk. A lot of what I've done, has been, it seems with hindsight - therapeutic creativity, to make myself feel better, and understand reality and myself a little more - using creativity to prune the dead wood off my own psyche.

(And along the way, oddly enough, I seem to have pleased other people who've seen some of the things I've made. But it was only ever for me.)
So what do I know?
Given this blatant contradiction, between my advice, and my behaviour - I'm clearly full of shit myself.

Here are the song lyrics, finally. These probably come closest to honestly showing aspects of 'me' - than any of the untold quantities of writings I've ever done. Although you're not getting the music side, of it - they more or less work as 'poems' (ewww - hate that stuff).

If I can find online storage space, I'll link to audio files of the songs themselves, so you can hear the complete audio artwork in action, and decide for yourself if they suck or rock. And thanks again to Nick Hauser, for helping me do it - even though I'm a smoker.
-Ian Fraser, 2005

The Dancer

With no rights to be proud,
shadows on the Turin Shroud,
life comes life goes-
and round and round and round she goes
(and where she stops nobody knows)

All the books burned in vain.
All the lives lived in pain -
never stopped the falling rain,
we are able Sons of Cain.
(I suppose)
and round and round and round she goes,
(an where she stops nobody knows)

A Dancer whirls whirls in an empty room,
(gone with the wind like a lost balloon)
never talks, never speaks-
on friction-burnt red pointed feet-
She never slows.
And round and round and round she goes,
(an where she stops nobody knows)

Beam me up, I don't wanna live this life no more.
My hands are cuffed, eyes watch from the peephole on the door.
The Master calls ( through the walls )
dance alone in a green forest when a silent tree falls-
Who knows?

and round and round and round she goes-
(an where she stops nobody knows)

Dance.
Towards the Light do not be afraid,
we're just a Game that unseen Players play.
In a star-filled room.
They laugh,
well they may
(you know?)
and round and round and round she goes-
an where she stops nobody knows-

and round and round and round she goes-
(an where she stops nobody knows)

You know?
You know?
You know.

SCARS FROM DREAMS (recorded by Tusk Music SA)

My mouth can't chew, my eyes don't blink it's hard to say, just what I think-
trapped here in this place without a rhyme or reason-

My legs can't move, me towards you
my ears can't hear, but I'm alone without fear
(A thousand years ago I would've been Moses)

There're wolves out there
( or so it seems )
I've got snakes for hair
( and scars from my dreams- )

I could differentiate in the state of leaves, I could tell the change of seasons-
but I remember when I didn't want to know
I didn't want to know reasons-

My hands can't feel, just what is real my tongue can't taste, so food is a waste
so the Sphinx just stares-
and the pyramids are there-
the lines on the Plain
well, they remain-

There're wolves out there
( or so it seems )
I've got snakes for hair
( and scars from my dreams )

The game goes on,
there're songs to be sung-
my dreams take place,
whether I'm asleep or awake-

There're wolves out there
( or so it seems )
I've got snakes for hair
( and scars from my dreams )

So who moved the Stone?
And where is home?
For now I burn,
awaiting Your return-

There're wolves out there
( or so it seems )
I've got snakes for hair
( and scars from my dreams- )

The Primary Colors

So where are you?
So where are you?
The primary colours of my state are black and blue-
(all for the lack of warmth,
and some enchanted meaning)

The rising sun can't warm the cold depths of my heart
has the runner yet been born
for the race that is to start?

So where are you?
So where are you?
The primary colours of my state are black and blue-
(all for the lack of warmth,
and some enchanted meaning)

I can't see through the mists of time-
the Fates with traitors do contrive,
I dont just want my elbow to be adorned-
no cardboard cut-out,
that folds in the wet mists before dawn-

Wanna take a sentimental journey?
Wanna take a cigarette an burn me?
Have I lived too early?
Or have you died too late?
Is all this a christening - or is it just a wake?

Got a Gesthemene in my heart
got a Redeemer in there too,
Judas has gone to do what he always does,
the Last Supper's for me and you.

The hiss of the foam from the incoming tide.
It's warmer in here an it's cold outside.
The cold vacuum of outer space.
The unblinking stars shine down on our faces.

So where are you?
So where are you?
The primary colours of my state are black and blue-
(all for the lack of warmth,
and some enchanted meaning)

The Games People Play

The games people play,
an nothing ever stays the same-
the thoughts of a disordered mind,
keep on walking don't look behind-
Coz the wind blows-
and glittering pearls
float in the sky,
(seeds sown from on high)
And this I know you sometimes sense-
there's no such thing as coincidence..

Midnight, and half the world's asleep-
it's allright, miles to go before we weep-
the wind blows-
yeah the wind blows-
blows the mist before us on the Path,
and when it goes,
those who now are first will be last.

Dawn-
the birds sing in the eaves of the asylum-
Dawn-
the sun hits the pan of the sky and starts frying-
Dawn-
like any tree we are seed then sawed,
(up and down and back and forth)
as the wind blows
as the wind blows..

The moaning tidal wave we call 'the future'-
the unexposed film of 'next year'-
the Serpents Egg of our actions,
waits to be hatched,
its shell is like mist it's unclear-
as the wind blows,
as the wind blows
as the wind blows

dead earth
A Republic of Insects and Grass-
dead earth,
A monument to a farce-

The burned remains of humankind,
float as ash and rest on our shoulders,
like arrowed blankets,
showing us-
the way to
dusty
death.

As the wind blows.
As the wind blows.
As the wind blows.


The Last Chance (for couples in love)

It's the last chance for
couples in love
it's the last chance they'll have to breath,
on the altar there's a coffin or is it a ring-
(if you listen carefully you can hear red velvet heart sing)
and they say
I love you just for the moment,
I love you just for the thrill
we're the only lovers through recorded time
to know exactly how this really feels-

With this ring I thee wed
(two children later she wishes she was dead)
but for now she can feel that it's real-
for now it's really sublime-
(staggering in a tunnel with lights in her eyes)
would pulling the switch be such a crime?

on the altar there's a coffin or is it a ring-
(if you listen carefully you can hear red velvet heart sing)
and they say
I love you just for the moment,
I love you just for the thrill
we're the only lovers through recorded time
to know exactly how this really feels-

the candles have burned down
the room has grown cold,
(facing the prospects of being home alone and old)
when you fall in love with a dream,
be prepared to lose your mind
I've got no reels,
to rewind,
in my refridg-erated mind
amidst the mists and coldest frosts
she beats her fists against the posts
and still insists she sees the ghosts

on the altar there's a coffin or is it a ring
(if you listen carefully you can hear red velvet heart sing)
and they say
I love you just for the moment,
I love you just for the thrill
we're the only lovers through recorded time
to know exactly how this really feels.

The Tooth Fairy

The tooth fairy's come with pliers and files
leprachauns shiver through the Emerald Isles
can rage rise off the printed page?
Set free the bears, unlock their cage.

(You can't see me now.)

I removed the boxes of all my possessions,
gotta say thanks, for teaching me a lesson in life-

(You can't see me now.)

Went through my phone book, erased your friends names,
threw all your photographs into the flames-
my naivety was an armchair to your desire,
pictures of you hisss in the fire-

(You can't see me now.)

I wash my hands at the thought of your face,
my expression shows a perfected state of grace-
into the big world into the night
we're scribbles on a board, a sum wrong and right-

Here there be Dragons, Here there be Tigers
the loneliness of the long distance riders-
(soft air being pushed, before a storm)
Tie me down light the stake let me get warm-

In time, we'll all be ashes-
In time, we'll all be slime-

Bow to your partner, assume the stance-
a stately Pavane, devoid of romance.

Another cask of Amontillado
My tell-tale heart, for now beats slow-
this place is not what it seems,
the blasted heath where
nothing grows green-

The tooth fairy's come with pliers and files
leprachauns shiver through the Emerald Isles,
can rage rise off the printed page?
Set free the bears, unlock their cage-

Sometimes I Wonder

Sometimes I wonder what they're saying-
Are they swearing
Are they praying?
And here I sit all brokenhearted-
( We're at the movies but the film hasn't started)

Come closer to the fire, and get warm
have you got your orange juice and popcorn?
my heart, bleeds on the seats
I'm a carnivore in a field of wheat-

I throw my head back stare at the sky
I'm too bemused to ask why
my throats too sore to speak aloud
so I stare
at the birds and bee's and clouds

- Sometimes I'm happy,
sometimes sad
I cry when I get too glad
so I
control that line of thought
So I
control just how I'm bought
So I
control just what I see
So I
control what you mean to me-

But let me take control of my heart
I'm putting the horse before the cart,
we're at the start,
of the story
we're gagged and bound
gagged and bound for glory..

Gagged and bound for glory..

At Sixes And Sevens

I went to the Buddha there was no one home
A note on the door 'leave me alone'
Went to church but God wasnt there-
Just people singing songs
and Satan grinning as they talked in tongues-

And why's it always raining in Heaven?
Why's my mind and body at sixes and sevens?
so is yours so is mine-
(Comes the dawn it'll be fine-)

I went to the parties I cruised through the night
Ideology is grey but we are black and white,
-And I smell the blood of the little boys
Who went to war and broke their toys-

And why's it always raining in Heaven?
Why's my mind and body at sixes and sevens
so is yours so is mine-
(Comes the dawn it'll be fine-)

And I bark and spin and jump for joy
on the graves of all the deluded boys.
who wonder
why's it always raining in heaven
-and why the mind and body's
at sixes and sevens
so is yours?
so is mine-
(Comes the dawn it'll be fine)

Come let's talk about the death of kings
And puppets dancing on their strings
( I'm a ghost dancer with a hole in my soul-)
(I'm a ghost dancer with a hole in my soul-)
(I'm a ghost dancer with a hole in my soul-)

The Blues

When I was a child, when I was a little boy..

When I was a child-
I put on a uniform an played the game of war
when I was a child-
I mistook kicks for caresses blood for love,
but not anymore-
when I was a child
when I was a little boy.

when I was a child-
I learned how to sing the anthem and salute the flag
when I was a child-
I thought fear and pain were the only feelings to be had-
when I was a child
when I was a little boy.

when I was a little boy,
I believed what they said on the radio
when I was a little boy-
I thought it was clever saying I dont know
when I was a little boy
when I was a little boy.

when I was a child-
I looked at people dancin' an thought they're having fun,
when I was a child-
now I'm not I see they're not an in thinking this I know I'm not the only one-
when I was a child
when I was a little boy.

Now I'm a man-
wet from the womb destination: A Cold Tomb
now I'm a man-
my back to the Cross with no sense of loss
Now I'm a woman-
and I cant get to sleep at night
Now I'm a woman-
an in this whole wide world there's gotta be someone who'll treat me right-

break my heart,
take my soul
turn diamonds back to coal-

when I was a child-
I believed we were all born to be free
when I was a child-
I believed what they said about Democracy-
when I was a child
when I was a little boy

Something old, something bought
one or two of my thoughts,
when I was a child
when I was a little boy-

Wanna take a sentimental journey?
wanna take a cigarette and burn me?
Burn baby burn baby
burn burn burn
burn baby burn baby
burn burn burn

when I was a child
when I was a little boy.

Heart Like a Stomach

the battle is won but the war is lost,
lust to dust and heat to frost,
oranges lemons and tangerines,
gotta heart like a stomach an I must feed-
I'll bloat up as I pig out-
twist an scream an shake an shout
come on spin that roulette wheel,
my fists are claws an my soul is steel

Like an eagle I am soaring,
indulging in debauched whoring-
come on spin that roulette wheel,
my fists are claws an my soul is steel-

At the abbatoir buy by the pound
(keeps me busy till the moon goes down,)
make a line, gimme some speed-
got a heart like a stomach an I must feed.

Fly in spiderweb on wall, you can't run if you crawl,
if I cut you would you bleed?
got a heart like a stomach an I must feed-

Miles of road across your throat,
four letter words like Love and Hope,
we are just products of seed,
got a heart like a stomach an I must feed.


Brown Eyed Moon

The moon is full
but my heart is fuller
tonight,
The moonlight's still
as the evidence
is lowered from sight,
And the grave
yawns beneath covering thorns,
my claws
become hands
my pads
become toes
when I'm back home I'll put on fresh clothes-
Dont worry Ma,
I was only dreaming-

The moon is full
but my stomach is fuller
tonight-
So don't worry Ma,
just don't turn on
the light-

Rings in circles
rings on bells,
you an me will burn in Hell
an no one will know
that you
ever cared-
An no one will guess
that you an I
ever were here-

The moon is full an it's so bright
I don't need eyes to see you tonight
so don worry Ma
It's not your son
who's bleeding-
The moon is full an my course is set
I don't know
where I'm headed yet
I cleaned my nails an scrubbed my clothes
I been a bad boy
again I suppose
tonight-

But don't worry Ma
just don't
turn on the light-
I been good-
I been good-
I been good-
good.

I been good-
I been good-
I been good-
good.
Ma.

Fly to the Moon
We're gonna leave the barbed wire behind.
Gonna see what Mysteries there are to find..

Swim on moonlit waves,
liquid roads that are paved,
we'll glide as we fly to the moon-
through gossamer clouds, above frenzied crowds-
who all want to be Me and You-

The witches are dancin' around the fire,
our leaders are talking, but they are liars-
the New Age as a concept is not coming true,
only thing we can do is fly to the moon-

Come ride with me-
above the tree's,
Come fly with me,
to when we all were free,
and had nothing to be afraid of-

The animals call you by your name,
your dreams at night make you wake in shame,
this cannot last it should all end soon-
come with me baby come fly to the moon.

The witches are dancin' around the fire,
our leaders are talking but they are liars-
the New Age as a concept is not coming true,
only thing we can do is fly to the moon-

Air surfing at night makes no sound,
truth wont set you free it'll just make you frown,
block your ears my dear, an hum a tuneless tune-
to muffle the screams as we fly to the moon-

The bare Globe shining, (yellow wine)
in Heaven, everything is fine-
with your arm in mine
it'd be too good to be true,
we'll set the night on fire as we fly to the moon-

An skim on moonlit waves
liquid roads that're paved-
come with me baby come fly to the moon-

Fly, (fuck) Flee-
Fly, (fuck) Flee-
Fly, (fuck)Flee-

Fly away with me..

Never Get Old

Walking down the street, shuffling your feet-
with a nurse at your back well how about that-
take a walk in the park (feed the coughing pigeons)
but be locked in your flat, when it gets dark-

me? me?
I'll never get old.
(You wont need Winter, to feel cold.)

Breaking glass, hissing geyser
another pot of tea move close to the heater-

me? me?
never get old-
(You wont need Winter to feel cold.)

It's really a rave.
Oh yes-
It's really a rave.
(Waiting to fall into a silent grave.)

Installments in the mirror, stroking the cat,
memories of picnics by softly gurgling rivers but now they're sewers,
well how about that?

me? me?
never get old..
me? me?
never get old..

(You wont need Winter to feel cold.)

Mozart
-There was a piece of Mychael Nyman re-orchestrated Mozart, which I really liked. So took each note, and paired words to it, wrote a song, following the exact melodic progression. Ultimately creating a strange but beautiful soaring choral prayer - using just Voice and organ.

Which way to Never Never Land?
There where the sea meets the sand-
I know we can't really see,
through the spray on the beach-

Now
-the dawn's head's in the sky-
Now
-angels no longer fly-
Now
-the dragons have all gone-
Now
-the magic carpet's,
undone.

Which way to Never Never Land?
There where the sea meets the sand-
I know we can't really see,
through the spray on the beach-

Now
-we go from gold to blue
On
-our knee's before You,
Crisp,
-and kissed we are golden
Ice
-before You becomes molten-

Which way to Never Never Land?
There where the sea meets the sand
I know we can't really see
through the spray on the beach-

It's beyond belief,
Time
is the thief,
increasing our fear
-blood turns yellow when mixed with tears.

Which way to Never Never Land?
There where the sea meets the sand
I know we can't really see
through the spray on the beach-

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Rider (fiction)

Authors Note:
There was a shortlived local 'fiction' site, where you could submit short stories - there was a word limit - I forget how much, something like 1500 words or so.
And I thought it could be fun to try and create a complex and interesting story, while being forced to keep my tendency to waffle, at a minimum. Tell the story as fast as possible, with no wasted words. So this was the result. It more or less worked, a little stodgy at moments, but overall - at least an interesting concept.
-Ian Fraser, 2005


Adolf Hitler died so easily it was ridiculous.

He'd set up the meeting with the young would-be architect, in a small out of the way coffee-house - and after a brief discussion with the pale faced eager young man, under the pretence of showing him the vacant lot where a future house was to be built - he'd led the way through the back alleys, and in the shadows, had cut the young man's throat.

And that was that.

Nothing changed as he walked swiftly from the twitching body, turned a corner and became lost from view in the maze of cobblestoned narrow streets..

The town stayed as it was, and back in the small guesthouse after exchanging pleasantries with the elderly Frau, he'd ascended the stairs to his room, quietly closed the door, and gazed at his reflection in the shaving mirror above the wooden bowl on the sideboard.

There was no going back, he knew that. But even so, the look of disappointment and surprise on the man's face as his life blood gushed out, had disturbed him more than he'd imagined it would.

But there was no going back. He rose and quietly began packing his few possessions.

From the day he'd left his timeline, he knew he was alone forever. They'd explained it all. Time was a river and it flowed one way only - if you went back - you went back into 'another' Time. Not the one you'd left.

The action of altering events in this new Time, splintered the universe, into infinite similar universes and worlds that ultimately were not his. Nothing changed for those left behind in his Time, life went on as it always did. But in the new worlds, the unfolding history would be different.

As to whether it would be better, well - that wasnt for him to say. But at least, he thought, unpacking the transmitter to amplify his brainwaves and begin the process to push him sideways into the next world and the next appointment - at least there would be no death camps in this world.

A dove fluttered to the windowsill and began cleaning itself, as he assumed the lotus position on the threadbare carpet, and began focusing his mind. The thick uneven glass of the windowpanes distorted its shape, and as he mentally approached the required Alpha state for ignition, it seemed as if there were an infinite number of doves - all fluttering and busily fluffing their wing feathers, in each of the squares of glass, unaware of the infinite rooms they perched beside.

A distant church bell tolled, and he shut his eyes.

Dallas, Texas. 1963.

A grubby little CIA agent and oilman, whose code name was Poppy, would not help murder a President soon.

A war in a far off place called Viet-nam would not kill millions this time.
An intelligence agency would soon be split apart and destroyed, and there would be no secret military coup to pervert the shape and ideals of a once great nation.

A shadow government would not covertly spread across the globe like a cancer, and the world would not suffer for decades beneath the yoke of dictators propped up by secret money, oil cartels and death squads.

Poppy would not blackmail his way into the White House this time, or be able to prepare the way for his son, who shared his name.
And his father's infinite ability for evil..

He would see to that.

The dove on the windowsill fluttered briefly, as a soft glow seemed to well up from the room within, and then as time went by and it became clear that the room was empty, it relaxed and resumed its quiet, mindless staring, over the town below.

New Years Eve 1992

Sue Kelly Christie stares out from the TV screen, eyes glittering with naked ambition which undulates just beneath the surface, like maggots in a corpse. Her mouth is artfully held open - just wide enough to reveal a glimpse of expensive dentistry - but not wide enough to show her large and unsightly buckteeth.

The eye isn't drawn to the teeth but to her eyes, which have a glittering desperation etched into the face, and her mouth is so wide that there should be wrinkles to show how happy a person she is usually- but there aren’t. Presumably the instant the spotlight is off, her face snaps from the gaping bovine grin, into something approaching neutrality. The robot sags in its closet.
She’s live on television and this is New Year’s Eve entertainment, South African style, 1992.

There’s always something tragic and wonderfully perverse about watching the entertainment the local TV channel supplies for those poor souls sitting at home on this celebratory night. On the one hand there’s the ghoulish voyeurism of watching the enforced teeth-gritted gaiety of people on duty at the one time of the year when almost everyone else is out making merry. And then there’s the curiosity value of seeing just what the local South African Broadcasting Corporation provides for the house bound on this night.

This being South Africa, they’ve gradually stopped broadcasting live from various city centres, as the violence levels amidst the drunken crowds has increased, instead only doing live broadcasts from more ‘controllable’ areas.
Tonight they’re broadcasting live from Gold Reef City - a local theme park based around ‘an authentic turn of the century mining town’. Strictly for dumb tourists, divorced fathers to schlep their kids around, and assorted poor white trash to get out of the house for an evening.

Chintzy little houses and nice flat streets with minimal steps for drunk people to fall over and sue the owners. Real, genuine and totally authentic.
In other words, the Mouse House - without the Mouse.

South Africa is a home from home for low grade would be singers and bands, and there’s been a procession of them this evening so far. The blonde thing known as Sue Kelly Christie, arrives on the scene, in-between the big titted tight leotarded bimbo’s doing their little pop song bids for immortality, and does a truly foul Margaret Thatcher impersonation for the assembled and rather puzzled crowd.
It's not surprising they're puzzled, given that Thatcher has been out of office for some years now.

The TV crews have set up the stage beneath what some deluded architect undoubtedly pitched in the early building stages as ‘an authentic turn of the century gazebo’. This is your brain - this is your brain on drugs.
And with the addition of the bright TV lights, you can see the moths and insect-life are absolutely delighted. More so than the crowd, who - although you know they’re there - you can clearly hear Not Laughing as they apparently should.
The confused silence increases as Sue, with a handbag over her arm, and an accent even more bizarre than her natural one bemuses everyone with a long rambling monologue, notable for being peppered with references to “my husband Dennis” and - rather oddly for a comedy routine - having absolutely no comedic elements, examples of good timing, insight, or anything that even this drunken crowd can laugh at.

The Mob, who’d probably prefer the return of the chicks in leotards, stare and try and drink as much as possible. The camera soaks up this assembled collection of puzzled people all individually thinking 'Hang on, I'm drunk, I'm supposed to be having a good time - what am I not doing right?'

Sue pops up a bit later, the camera catches her poised ahead of the backing tape, she's obviously been Having Lessons - as the camera's catch her frozen pose, like a vulture poised contentedly over carrion. She’s dressed in a glittering creation, and as the backing tape starts, begins swaying from side to side, trying to keep in time to the music playing.

Obviously she fails miserably - thanks to having no nopticeable natural rhythm, but mainly because she’s holding firmly onto two rather confused black people - a man and a woman - plucked from the crowd. Oh lucky lucky us, they're probably thinking, in some local dialect.

She’s also wearing elbow length gloves on each arm, one white and the other black – these arm-length gloves are visibly clenched in a vise-like grip around the two somewhat drunken victims that Sue’s found.

The opening music is playing, and she introduces the song as ‘A little song I wrote’ - speaking in an affected little girl voice, sounding something akin to Shirley Temple in her breathless cutesy tones, but with a British accent.
The overall effect is one of deranged kiddie porn, a little girl voice coming from this obviously old woman with wide mouth, buck teeth and skin on the neck showing layers of overhanging wrinkles like a plastic melting tree stump in a firestorm.

The two black captives are drunk and bemused in equal measure, unable to escape from this woman who has them in her grip. And the whole scene is framed by the columns of this gazebo, and the background is filled with red faced rubber necking whites, doing their best to focus on the proceedings. The insects remain delighted, whizzing in and out of every camera shot, reminding us that they at least, are having a lovely time.

The song begins:

“I’m putting on my black glove-“

She’s singing flat, but the twinkling eyes show that she doesn’t notice and even if she did, her ego’s getting a well lubricated handjob from being the central focus of the camera and the crowds. She holds up the arm swathed in the black glove, just to make sure no one misses the relevance of the line she’s just sung. This one, see? This is the arm I'm singing about.

I'm already frightened - this is the Carnegie Hall of Retards, Todd Browning's Freaks but in colour and with music.

Her eyes betray a flicker of unease as the black woman she’s been holding tightly onto, breaks free of her grasp and whirls drunkenly, lost in an alcoholic stupor. It’s a moment that hold some interesting possibilities and I watch ever more keenly to see whether or not we’re about to see some unfortunate random aspects introduced into the proceedings.

Personally I'm hoping for projectile vomiting.

Sue keeps on singing, eyes flicking nervously, every now and again, to this drunken face of black Africa that doesn’t often get the chance to dance on live national television.
Finally the amateurs in control of editing, see the problem, and there’s an abrupt cut to a close up of the blonde chipmunk, which merely makes the glittering nervous eyes and wrinkled neck more visible - but it removes the background sea of embarrassed and drunk whites, as well as the whirling dervish black woman, who may have been chosen spontaneously for her apparent meekness, but whatever she’s been drinking has kicked in, big time.

“I’m putting on my black glove - I’m putting on my white glove”

She misses the beat on the tape, and like the rank sucky suckster and Queen of all that Sucks Real Bad, goes flat as she tries to listen with one ear while singing at the same time, trying to work out whether to speed up or slow down.

“And I feel f- i - i - i -n- e..”

The moths whirl in fear, and the note she gets would make copulating cats pause in admiration, but her face doesn’t falter in its grinning - and her grip on the remaining black man stays as white knuckled as possible. You can actually see the tension and 20 pounds of pressure grip she's using to stay clamped to this poor drunk.

She let one of them get away, and it’s clear that there’s no way in hell she’s letting this one loose on the little stage she’s standing on.

Her head starts bobbing back and forth like those little dogs the trailer park folk glued to their cars, back in the Sixties and Seventies, and she gulps in air qucikly. There’s a faint sheen of sweat visible now on her forehead as she tries to keep up with the music tape, which swells with added instrumentation, presumably signalling the repeat of the chorus.

I wonder if she’s wet between the legs about now, or whether that’ll come later when she’s reviewing the tape in the comfort of her home. If she had any brains she’d get into a hot bath with a clutched razor and do the noble thing, but that does require some perspective and it’s one of the many things she obviously doesn’t have. Pity.

“I’m…”

It’s interesting, when speaking, she adopts a Lithium version of Marilyn Monroe via bad Seventies porn voice - but her years of operating in this parochial backwater, have taken a toll on her speech patterns, and the word comes out sounding like:

“A-r-r-r-m-“

The legacy of the Dutch lingers on-

“Ar-r-r-m putting on my-“

The word ‘putting’ seems to be a problem area for her, it just doesn’t come out right - somewhere between her brain - such as it is - and her lips, it gets shredded and realigned into the word ‘pudding’. The ‘T’ degraded into ‘D’ by virtue of lazy vowels.

“Ar-r-r-m pudding on my-“

Another word falls bleeding to the floor, whimpering in pain. She just cant get her mouth around ‘my’ - so instead it comes out like a poor white trash kid calling for their mother - “M-a-a-a”

“A-r-r-r-m pudding on m-a-a black-“

The vocal slaughter continues, its a total massacre that's unfolding here - forget My Lai, this is bloodier and more cruel. The word ‘black’ is summarily attacked and thrown to the ground and re-emerges in the traditional way that people overseas tend to mock South Africans when they speak - ‘black’ becomes flattened into ‘bleck’.

“A-r-r-r-m pudding on m-a-a bleck glove..”

The mass graves of bloodied and mutilated vowels, consonants and words, continue to fill up at a remorseless pace. I'm fascinated. This is like watching a 400 pound woman do a slow striptease
, who honestly doesn't know that she might be a little bit overweight and therefore slightly less than aesthetically appealing .

She can’t hear herself. That must be it. There’s no other reason for her not stopping in immediate self-disgust, pulling out a weapon, and blowing her brains out live on the air. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Move over Howard Beale, there's a new voice of discontent in town. And she thinks she sounds Real Good.

The word ‘love’ is the next one to get the treatment, twisted into the standard Trans-Atlantic slurred ‘lurve’

“A-r-r-r-m pudding on m-a-a bleck glurve…”

Not content with an all out assault on the English language, and singing flat to boot - she adds in the aforementioned kiddie porn cute voice, to help make this little song she wrote, sound even better. She’s a little breathless too. Breathing in little panting gasps. Christ, at least someone tonight is hopefully coming in short pants. Not here though.
Maybe deep in her mind she’s Marilyn, singing to the President, images in her mind of the orphanage where she’d show her crotch off, just to stay the centre of attention.
"Come on, show us your pussy Norma Jean!"

But Sue isnt Marilyn, any more than dazed middle-aged transvestites busted in police raids are women, and if this is entertainment then MGM never existed.

The drunken black woman whirls on, an alcoholic Robin Knox Johnson, lost in a world of her own, adrift on a sea of incomprehensible occurrences. The white rubber neckers are pink and shades of red as they do a passable impersonation of the frogs in the ‘We All Stand Together’ music video.
It’s a bizarre scene straight from Hell, as if Hieronymous Bosch had decided to direct his first karoake TV show. All that's missing are the simmering cauldrons and pitchforks.

Sue first emerged on a local television game show, leading red faced participants towards banks of TV sets with buttons on their tops, and at the correct answer from their team mates, they’d get the chance to hit these buttons and see what prizes they might’ve won.

“Turn on the TELLY!” she’d shout, the catchphrase entering and spreading through the local South African culture like a meme whose time had come.Or scabies.

It begins to rain gently, the lights reflecting off the soft drizzle and shining on the faces of the watching crowd filling the frame behind her. Not enough to drench her, unfortunately - after all, it would be interesting to have a local version of Senator Muskie’s snow-laden eyebrows unfold before our eyes – but the rain stays soft and gentle, unlike everything else on display.

“And I-“

She cant say ‘and’ – as usual, the word is raped and bent over into ‘End’- the ‘I’ is similarly molested and thrashed into submission before her strangled larynx and tungsten steel unconsciousness. “Aaah” not ‘I’. (as in 'eye')

“End a-a-ah…”

In her mind she’s singing ‘And I feel fine’ – but the first two words already lie bloodily penetrated, and now it’s the turn of the word ‘feel’ to go through the clearly brutally punishing assault course in existence between her brain, lungs and vocal chords.
It’s given an artificial peak in its middle, where there shouldn’t be one. The peak, a little vocal quirk, works for Lou Reed in The Velvet Underground’s ‘Heroin’ – in the line ‘And I feel just like Jesus’ son’ . But it’s not working here, where Satan is quite evidently loose and thrusting his scaly fine tipped tongue into the ears of listeners via this cacophony.

“End a-a-ah feel fine...”

The word ‘fine’ is quickly dismembered, and dropped to the floor in little chunks of oozing solids. “Faarn” is how it emerges, blinking into the light and the drizzle and the drunken watchers.

“End a-a-ah feel faarn…”

I wasn't sure before, but - this is indeed one of the inner chambers of Hell that Dante wrote about.

There is only one newspaper catering to the Arts and Entertainment on a daily basis, within the Johannesburg region – namely, The Star newspaper. Its entertainment section is run by a man called Roy Christie, who is the Editor.
Any and all publicity and reviews of shows or events, given the nature of the business, have to go over his desk and through his hands.

This is his wife who’s singing.

It’s also his wife who – for a long time, has fancied herself as a ‘comedian’. There's obviously no connection whatsoever between her husband and the fact that she would regularly appear in the entertainment section, with captions extolling her as one of the leading comedy talents.

Inspite of doing jokes like the following, in her act:
“Did you hear the one about the Irish firing squad?”
“They stood in a circle.”

Wow. Now that's..that's um.. Gee, what can you say to that?
But back to the rain, the drunken whirling people, the rubbernecking others and the very happy insects.

“Come on, join in!”

she yells at the watching crowd, who - to my horror - begin to dutifully join in.

“A-r-r-r-m pudding on m-a-a white glurve…”

A copywriter who shall remain nameless, wrote two letters to The Star newspaper. One was for publication, complaining about the excessive publicity given to the entertainment editors wife – the other letter was directly to the editor himself, expounding pungently and venomously about the thorough lack of talent exhibited by the mans’ wife. Ole Sue herself.

The copywriter made the mistake of mailing both letters in envelopes bearing the logo of the advertising agency he was then working for. A certain authority figure called up the Managing Director of the advertising agency the copywriter worked for, resulting in the writer having to face a disciplinary hearing, and avoided being fired only by the narrowest of margins.

“Yeah! A-r-r-r-m pudding on m-a-a bleck glove...”

Local TV pay channel MNET has a yearly telethon, in aid of child welfare, and of course the very talented Sue was there.
The same talent that got her the weekly ‘gossip’ column in the entertainment section of The Star. This good fortune being totally unrelated - of course - to her husband’s position as Editor.

Her column is purplish prose, with phrases like “Don’t worry dear reader, I was thinking of you-“ popping up repeatedly, despite no signs that any readers were worrying much at all, and least of all, about anything she might say.

A new high in local journalism was reached one week, when Sue devoted a whole column to how funny and scary it was, not ‘being recognised’ by Chris de Burgh’s bodyguards, who refused to let her through the security cordon to see him, when he was in the country on tour.
Never mind the fact of De Burgh being a grubby little scab whose choosing to ignore Apartheid by coming here to rake in the money from the entertainment starved locals, who only have stuff like Sue to look forward to.
Based on this, maybe the bouncers themselves were the only one's capable of making a good decision, by stopping Sue from licking De Burgh's anatomy and making the scabby singer think we all were like her.

“A-r-r-r-m pudding on m-a-a white glove...”

Sue Kelly Christie went to the Edinburgh Festival, and performed a comedy show there – strangely enough though – there was no local reprinting of any of the UK critics reactions to her. Only the independent local weekly newspaper The Weekly Mail, had the gleeful duty of printing a section of the uniformly vile reviews. One critic frankly called her a racist, and described the shock within the audience as Sue - blissfully ignorant to the end – said things like

“Are there any black people here?
This next thing always goes down well with black people.”

Not surprisingly, people walked out en masse. If the Weekly Mail hadn’t taken the time to reprint the article, no one locally would ever have known. The Star, strangely enough, said nothing. Obviously a simple oversight, unconnected with its Editor.

Sad how overt some things become, in backward provincial backwaters.

Here in South Africa, there are no ladders or opportunities upward for the talented. In a normal society, talent is recognised and exploited – stand-up comics routinely make the climb from shows to TV and then film. There’s always someone on the make, looking for an angle to get a cut of the profits someone could make. Whether they’re singers, comics or writers, there’s always someone somewhere who’d like to see them succeed and make a buck for themselves in the process. The normal mutually profitable exploitation of talent.

Not in South Africa though. Here is no genuine star system - and the stars that do exist, have proven to the powers that be that they will roll over and play dead, when necessary. Suck dick bigtime, in other words. Keep their mouths shut. Conform. Be grateful for the roles in the daily soaps on TV. Don't talk about politics. Don't say anything to contradict the glorious mindless worldview of Everything's Fine.

As we live under the racist and vicious illegal regime of Apartheid - helping perpetuate the myth that Everything's Fine, is a bit like handing out towels in the showers at Auschwitz.

There are few ladders upwards to success in the South African entertainment business - and
those that do exist, are tightly controlled. Not by the State - but by the medicore and banal, who've either screwed their way into power positions, or just happened to have been lucky.

Those in positions of power tend to spend most of their energy in maintaining their position as conduits of The Way Upward to Success - and more importantly - doing their best to block any aspiring talent which doesn’t please them, or proposing alternative idea's - from rising up through the ranks.

The potential talent of a performer is secondary, generally, to whether or not that talent frightens or threatens the person who is the next rung on the ladder upwards.

The little talent that is allowed to emerge, is usually non threatening, completely skilled in the basic required social graces, and ability to Keep Your Mouth Shut. Mediocrity is for the most part, the norm, because that’s all that those in power will allow to exist.

The very specific de-educated and fascist system which was in operation here, meant that generally only the more pliable were allowed to rise to positions of power within the media.
Therefore, those docile critics in turn, choose to promote even more passive individuals who will never threaten them intellectually or artistically.

Performers rely on critics to review their shows, and given that TV generally ignores theatre, this gives a lot of power to the theatre critics, who can direct the public towards a show, or force it to even close prematurely.
There are a number of local theatre producers who’ve strangely enough, given the laws of averages, never had a bad review. Ever. And then there are the anonymous whispers within the industry, referring to stories of some critics getting free furniture and houses repainted, on a yearly basis.

I won a ‘playwright of the year’ award recently, which paid out a large prize of 15 000 rands. A certain Theatre Critic – after the ceremony, made some idle joke about what percentage I was going to give him. (At least, I thought it was an 'idle' joke, and brushed it off.) It took three or four years, thereafter of suddenly receiving increasingly foul reviews from this critic, who’d previously been reasonably positive, to make me think back to this incident and wonder.

It's like Hollywood in the early stages of its development - where the studio's themselves were loath to even publicize the names of its movie stars, for fear of losing the control over them.

There's a merciless abuse of power and influence in this local industry, and seemingly no way out of this tightly defined closed universe of 'South Africa's Idea of Good Behaviour In The Entertainment Industry' (ie: maintaining an attitude and creative work that is apolitical, servile, passive, non confrontational, and of course remaining eternally Grateful to those who provide the papal blessing of being considered 'talented' in local media reports.

Fuck that, I have to say.

Let us bite the hand that feeds us. Burn our bridges whenever possible. Cut off our noses to spite our faces.

Only then we truly become the Artists and supposed creative forces that we delude ourselves currently, that we are.

And on the TV, this aged blonde woman - the wife of the Arts Editor for the main daily paper in Johannesburg – croaks on through her little song that ‘she wrote just for us’.

Singing it just for us? Oh how nice.

This Thing opens its mouth, and I can smell the sulphur and rotting integrity in the air.

The drunken people in the background don't seem to smell anything.
Neither do the tag team of clearly bewildered black people, standing to either
side of this cyborg that wants us to think it can sing.

I think again of the Hanna Erlichman phrase about ‘the banality of evil’ as I watch the thing on the stage rock from side to side.

It drools mindlessly, opens its mouth and screeches on, for all of us.

We morons. We fools. We cripples. We retarded.

We poor blinkered South Africans, watching and waiting at home, for the year 1993 to arrive.

Who Is Ian Fraser? A CV

IAN FRASER RESUME AND AWARDS

Ian Fraser is an award winning playwright, published author (Penguin Books SA) - and is considered one of the best stand up comics in South Africa, achieving massive success and fame in literary and theatrical genres, as well as via his scathing comedy routines and performances.

Beginning under Apartheid in 1988, without any formal education to speak of, Ian Fraser has gathered up most of the available theater awards in South Africa, for his plays - and performed his comedy to record-breaking crowds, from tiny bars, through to sold out 600 seater shows at arts festivals.

After being conscripted in the then South African Defence Force, for a 2 year period (1981 - 1982) - at the height of Apartheid repression, he began to write and perform his own material,
and become a significant anti-Government critic.

The following is a list of his theatre works, including the Awards that he has won, either for his own performance, or his scripts.

In the USA

Blitzbreeker and the Chicken From Hell
Staged by the First Banana Theater Company, Madison, WI, 1998.

Dogs of the Blue Gods
Staged by the First Banana Theater Company, Madison, WI, 1998.
The Village Playhouse of Wauwatosa, WI, 1999. (Won First place at the Wisconsin State AACTFest).
To be staged by the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Theatre, WI, 2008.)

In South Africa

The Accidental Antichrist
(Special FNB-Vita Award for ‘Most Outstanding New Production.’ Nominated for FNB-Vita Award for ‘Playwright of the Year.’ South Africa, 1994.)

The Sugar Plum Fairy
(Pick of the Fringe Award Grahamstown Arts Festival. South Africa, 1993.)

Sleeping Chickens
(Staged by Ben Kruger Productions, South Africa, 1993.)

Heart Like a Stomach
(Winner of the Amstel Playwright of the Year Award. South Africa, 1992.)

Butterfly Jam
(Amstel Playwright of the Year nomination. South Africa, 1991.)

Like the Pyramid on the Camel Packet
(Officially staged by the Performing Arts Council Transvaal. South Africa, 1991.)

The Gospel According to the Mafia
(Pick of the Fringe Award Grahamstown Arts Festival. South Africa, 1991.)

Blitzbreeker and the Chicken from Hell
(Officially staged by the Cape Performing Arts Council, CAPAB.
Amstel Playwright of the Year nomination.
Pick of the Fringe Award Grahamstown Arts Festival, South Africa, 1990.)
Staged by Bobby Heaney Productions at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg.

Dogs of the Blue Gods
(Tonight AA Life Vita Award for Comedy. South Africa, 1990.)

Charles Manson
(Amstel Playwright of the Year nomination. South Africa, 1989.)

Lenny Bruce Live
(Best Cabaret 1988, The Argus newspaper. South Africa, 1988.)

Bring Me Gandhi
(South Africa, 1987.)

Alongside these various plays, he also performed his own yearly (8 in total) 'one man' hour-long comedy shows, creating box office records at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival in South Africa.

Fraser's own experiences in the South African Defence Force, provided much of the background for his first novel - which was published by Penguin Books - Titled 'My Own Private Orchestra'. -This was a 'CNA Literary Awards' nominee in the 'Debut' section in 1994.

He began writing as an internet technology columnist in 1994 for the Johannesburg The Star newspaper, his column syndicated nationally and being read by some 1.2 million readers weekly.

He wrote for a number of years as a freelance columnist for the Mail and Guardian newspaper.

From 1994, he began doing 'voice over' work for adverts (for TV, radio and cinema) and he is regarded as being one of the leading voice talents in the country. He was also a contracted 'voice over' artist for the South African Broadcasting Corporation's 'TV 2' channel.

He relocated to America, in April 2006. He now lives in Willimantic, Connecticut.

The Sweet Smell of Gangrene

Neal Sundstrom is nervous, his leather jacket creaking as he talks to me.
We're in a restaurant in Yeoville, and his voice drops as he whispers to me - as if someone might overhear and drag him off. "Don't you understand? It's tax-free! Tax free!"

I nod, thinking Jeez what an asshole. He's roared up in some ancient sports car for the meeting - I've traveled in it and I'm not impressed - it's one of these pieces of shit on wheels designed for people without knees. Neal Sundstrom is a film director.

I'd never seen his work, and only caught glimpses of his big TV opus Homeland. He'd seen one of my plays years back, and was impressed enough to remember it. Now he'd got in touch with me because he needed a writer for a film idea he'd had. And I needed the money. Standard motivation. Remora's and sharks. Symbiotic mutually agreeable parasitic relationships.

I'd been in a car crash recently. I was sitting in the back seat of a taxi, and a car on the road in front of us swerved, and we drive into it at speed. I'm launched forward in the sitting position, I crush the empty seat in front of me , luckily my head's down at the time, because I end up in the windscreen.

One minute I'm sitting with arm around a woman, heading back from the airport in the backseat of a taxi - the next - I'm in the windscreen thinking 'Cool, I survived this, I think.' My heads down, I've broken the windscreen, blood starts to pour down my face as gravity takes over and peels me off the windscreen and the crushed front seat now beneath me.

I walk away from it. My scalp feeling mottled and uneven, due to chunks of the windscreen that've rammed into the top of my head and forced under the skin. But I'm alive. My l;egs hurt from being the battering ram that crushed the front seat - but the skin isnt even broken - and I could've ended up with two broken legs out of this, so I'm quiite content. Shaken and stirred, but aware of the fact that in the bigger scheme of What Might Have Happened, I'm doing pretty damn well.

A week passes, and I have a nightly fun time of lying in bed reading, hand absentmindedly pushing and pulling at the pieces of glass still embedded in my scalp, trying to squeeze them out, like pimples. On my legs the bruises seem increase, as does the pain. Eventually it reaches a teeth-clenching level of constant 'exposed nerve' like pain, and my legs are swollen.

I keep on trudging around, although it's getting difficult.

Finally, I get taken to a doctor, who tells me I have 'necrosis'. Dry gangrene.
How cool is this? All thoughts of the coolness of having an exotic disease you don't
hear about, outside of Captain Midshipman Hornblower, fade rapidly as scissors
are produced, and the process of cutting open my legs, and cutting out the diseased
tissue, starts. Local anesthetic - I ask - pouring sweat at the unbelievable pain and
stink as the blades snick through and open the swollen and bruised skin. No, I'm
told, 'we' need to have you be able to feel when we're cutting the healthy tissue.

Let's just say it was up there in the list of most unpleasant experiences I've ever
known. You haven't experienced fun until you've had your body being cut into,
without any anesthetic to dull the pain.

The gangrene is deep, it's almost reached the bone itself in my left leg - another week
at most, and I'd have needed an amputation. The right leg's infection is slightly less
advanced - but equally painful, as the small medical scissors and scalpel cut away
at me.

Finally its done, and I'm left with a gaping wide hole on my left leg, and a lesser one
on the right. I'm shivering from the pain I've just been through, and pouring sweat
and I'm cold - presumably almost going into shock. I can smell the gangrene, the
carefull trimmed and cut off pieces of diseased skin lumped in a neat pile in the surgical
tray, has an odour to it. Diseased meat, is perhaps the nearest description I can find.
Rot and a strange sweetness, mixed up.

Fast forward, I have an industrial sized jar of betadene, bandages, and a daily routine
of cleaning out the wide and deep hole, and its smaller companion hole on my right leg,
and carefully filling it with the orange cold gunk, and then rewrapping both in bandages.

"Tax free!" repeats Neil, nodding enthusiastically at me.

I'd been round to his house in Orange Grove - a suburb adjoining Yeoville - and had a number of two and three hour sessions with the man, as he lay on his couch like a therapy patient, telling me to think of idea's for this film he'd sold to 'the French'. This was how he described the potential funders. 'The French'.

"I've got them man, they love me" he'd confide - "I told them this story over dinner and they loved it - now I've got to come up with the script"

And I'd nod, enthusiastically, sipping the coffee which his maid brought in. She's docile, and keeps all her thoughts hidden, while in his presence. Even though Neil makes a big point of chatting to her quite obviously, in a 'friendly' way when I'm there - as if to try and show that he and the maid are old pals in some way. This clearly isn't the case.

After doing his demonstration of 'we're old pals' with the maid, as if to offset whatever I might be seeing or thinking, Neil asks me "Want some toast?" as if she's simply a tool to be used for his comfort - which I suppose is what being a servant is all about.

I'm always both fascinated and edgy when observing Master Servant relationships - coming from out of the white heat of the anti apartheid struggle I'm always very uncomfortable when someone is playing Master or Baas. But the writer in me knows that this is where the true person reveals themselves. When they talk to the people who clean their dishes and houses and wash their underclothes.. He all but clicks his fingers imperiously, as he tells her to keep my coffee cup filled, while I'm here. Good grief, he actually says this. "Now you make sure to keep his coffee cup filled while he's here!"
She nods.

Neil has this thing about meetings. He wants to 'do meetings'.

I'd rather work via faxes or e-mail. Instead I have to schlep to one or another arbitrary restaurant or - as today - over to his house, in order to speak with him.
I've been coming up with idea's - given that all he's got is the concept that two people meet during a robbery. That's all. Neil's big creative idea. 'These two people meet during a robbery.'

And?

"Uuuhhh"

He does go to great pains to tell me how much he loves this country, and that he wants to bring this out in the film. Okay. Cute. I smile inwardly, thinking of his reaction if I were to tell him to do a Woody Allen and just stand in front of the camera and do a monologue, in that case.

His house is a dump. Upmarket in its lack of mess, but a dump in my view - mainly by virtue of the carefully placed 'Complete Works of Shakespeare' which rests artfully upright, on the mantelpiece - in a way which shows that no one, least of all him, has ever read it..

I'm not used to seeing this. I mean, does he think I'm going to assume that he's read it - because he or someone has carefully arranged the book to stand upright and in pride of place in his lounge? On the other hand, I wonder what kind of people he has coming round, and maybe they are the ones who'd get impressed by this.
I get the immediate feeling that if Neil were to come round to my chaotic slum, filled with books - he'd be one of those nudniks who'd look from the books to me and ask "Gee, have you really read all these?"

I don't like people who try and impress me. I'd rather be impressed by accident than design. He goes to great pains to show off the sports car, and casually lets slip about how his racehorse did well the other day. I go 'Uhuh?' Thinking, jeez, what an asshole.

But back to now, in the restaurant.
"Tax free!"
"Tax free!" he repeats, coming in close to me - his eyes red rimmed - it's early in the morning and evidently Neal isn't an 'up with the larks' sort of guy. This moist red eyes show that he's got some sort of bad habit that's slowly beginning to bite his ass bigtime.

I nod again, pausing and taking a sip of my coffee. "But you cant tell anyone" he continues - "I don't want the tax department to hear about this." I nod, thinking 'What the hell does this have to do with me?'

Inwardly I'm seething, the original deal was quite different. His story, my script - he's told me that he's asking for 100 000 rands, local currency, to be split 25% to him, 75% to me. (His story - my script)
He talks about these amorphous "French guys" who 'love him' and who dont know anything about anything, but who trust him regardless. They've got the money - that's all that counts.

Suddenly amidst the various meetings, he announces that he's managed to come up with a deal that involves getting around 70 000 rands, to be split between us, payable at various points. "Uhuh" I grunt in a thoughtful way, and Neal stares like a carnivore eyeing supper, all the while pretending not to.

It's nearing Christmas, we agree to take a break in these endless damn meetings. Their purpose, I gradually realise, is simply To Reassure Neil. About what? I have no idea.

I head to Cape Town. I'm involved in the car crash. I don't have the money for plastic surgery. I'm stuck with holes in my legs and ladling betadene and bandaging myself, and limping around, and hoping that one day I'll have less pain.

I'm also on my third course of antibiotics to stop the further spread of the gangrene. If this latest batch of ever increasingly strong antibiotics doesn't work, I'm going to lose a leg.

Neal's on the phone just about every day - not asking about the crash, but asking when I'm coming back. He wants to be reassured that I'm 'part of the project'. Doctors want to put me in hospital on an antibiotic drip, instead, I fly back to Johannesburg to meet Neil. He tells me everything's on track, and "He wants none of this legs crap." Unquote.

"I don't want to hear any more of this legs crap."

"Can I rely on you?"he asks, all big red rimmed eyes. I tell him, I'm here, arent I? He blinks, momentarily nonplussed.

He tells me there's been a 'breakthrough' in discussions with the French. It boils down to all I'm getting is around 45 grand in total - and he launches into a long monologue of how this has to be kept secret, he doesn't want anyone to know about this tax free deal. As if I give a shit. I'm on antibiotics, I should be in hospital, I might be losing a leg. And I'm facing Mister Red Rimmed Eyes Who Wants Reassurance.

His speechmaking continues in a lengthy oratory about "This way we avoid the income tax guys and bank stuff and everything".

He repeats himself about how no one must know about this deal. I nod every now and again - letting him do his thing.

I'm just a writer who wants to do his job, and get paid. But being a writer, I'm dumb - I'm stupid - I want to believe that he's not a total shark, so I sip my coffee and say "That's nice". My legs hurt. The world isn't staying still like it should, thanks to the antibiotics. I watch the red rimmed eyes watch me.

Neal pauses, and leaps on the phrase as an excuse to whip out his diary and work out the points of payment - this much by this point, that much by then. He's got it all worked out. I'm the machine, the jukebox - and he's worked out how many pages of what should be delivered by when.

I sip my coffee, my legs are hurting. It's been a long flight, or so it seems, up from Cape Town to here, and a very long walk across the park from my apartment, down to the open air restaurant here. Every step tugs at the bandaged holes in my legs.

Neil roars off in his - what else - red sportscar, after carefully noting down the next time we're supposed to meet. He wants me to be doing 10 pages a day, and meet with him every second day or so.
It dawns on me, he doesn't give a shit about content. He just wants the pages.The pages, and my willingness to go along with his salesman pitch.

Time passes, and working on delivering ten pages a day (15 - 20 seconds of screen time per page) I hand over around a hundred and twenty or so pages, then after chatting with my agent, who puts me onto a lawyer - and they both tell me "Don't be stupid - get a contract!"

Yeah okay, I'm dumb - I'm a typical writer - I want to trust someone at their word. But it dawns on me that I'm slowly but surely being screwed, big time.

I hand over pages. Neil says nothing about how good or bad it is. No feedback. No pats on the head for the dog. Zilch. But I keep on delivering. I mention the desire for a contract to Neil, who tells that
a) Gee he doesn't know much about 'legal stuff' and
b) 'Give me a piece of paper and I'll sign it' .

and stares at me with a faint surprised expression and a little grin which he thinks isn't visible.

I want to believe. I need the money. The medical costs are increasing. Throughout this process, I have to almost beg for some money - he hands over first a cheque for 2500 rands, and then after a few weeks - another cheque for the same amount. Thrill. A writer I know tells me that Neil came back with over a million bucks from France, to make this movie.
Hmmmm.

Neil on the other hand, keeps saying that the French 'have to approve the script' before there's money, and the little he's paid me comes from his own pocket. He's paying me out of the good of his own magnificent heart.

I have to beg for it almost.

He's pathetic in the way he keeps asking for reassurance that 'We're friends, right?'
Over and over.

"We're friends, right?"

And those red rimmed eyes watch, unblinkingly.

And to be fair, I'm pathetic for buying into this. Not that I ever believe it. You know how like some people just give off the impression of being dirty, even though they've bathed and are clean? Neil gives off this - this aura of something that I know I wouldnt want around me, or to babysit my children. I can't tell exactly what it is. The overly wide grin of the salesman with the special deals, working from the boot of his car.

But in the interests of getting the work done, and ultimately the money, I keep my mouth shut.

I finally reach my own cut off point. And decide, I've done enough writing. I phone him and tell him this, and that when there's a contract, I finish writing.

He flips, starts literally screaming abuse. I have to hold the phone receiver away from my ear its that loud. I mention that 'Sorry, but the laywer says-' He interrupts, yelling "Every cunt and his monkey's got a fucking laywer!" I grin, now there's a great line. Maybe Neil IS an artist after all.

I remind him that it may well be his story, but it's my dialogue. What he says then?

"You cant copyright the English language!" he yells.

Er what? Excuse me? I mention the Berne Convention, and there's a puzzled pause in his tirade. I almost smile, both at his bullshit, and my dumbness in letting things go on so long.

It's kinda funny - he starts sounding like the average paranoid megalomaniac in the movies. "You've been plotting against me from the start!" No kidding. He uses this. I start wondering if he's gonna let rip with the classic B-grade Evil Leader line about 'I am surrounded by idiots!'

He goes into a subsection of the Paranoid Evil Leader dialogue
"They warned me against you! They did! But I didnt believe them!"

Roundabout the " I thought you were my friend!!" area of his ongoing vitriolic shrieking monologue, I realise I don't really have to be bothering to even be listening to this.

And I put the phone down.

I feel both a sense of relief, at finally cutting off from something slimy, unwholesome, and unclean - and an odd sadness at understanding now, why everyone bemoans the lack of good movies in South Africa - given that Neil is one of these Local Film Directors.

His attitude is that 'seeing as he's paid me R5000, the script is now his' - and according to him, as we had an arrangement for me to deliver the final chunks of the script in time for his meeting with these mythical 'French guys' - I'm now in breach of agreement, and therefore the script is 'his property'.

No screen credit, no further money, nothing. Just five thousand bucks. Divide by eight to get the pounds value.

I later find out on the grapevine, that since from way back, he's been telling film people, that HE'S been writing this new brilliant script.

No one else. Just him.

Ouch.

As they say in Southpark repeatedly near the end of each episode. "You know.. I've learned something today."

I guess I learned what local film making is about, and how not to conduct film deals...

I figure, putting this up online, is a great way to publicize a story which no one will otherwise ever hear about. Partly to get it out of my consciousness - and partly as a Cautionary Tale, to any writers out there, starting in the business.

And I am grateful for being taught a few lessons, in human behavior.

Now, six months down the line, I'm walking around, mostly without a limp. A big scar on my right leg, and a hole in my left leg that requires surgery, which I can't afford.

And the other hole, stays mostly invisible - that in the writer who's created something, only to have it stolen.

I'm somewhat poorer, but definitely wiser.

But I'm cleaner, and I’m free.