Monday 11 February 2013

friday poem fanclub #40: Hunting the Great Lesbians of Sadness at the Fokofpolisiekar gig

(written 5 January 2012)

My sadness is an ocean rising
Searching, like a boat unmoored
My sadness is unhinged, it ravels out and tangles in
It wanders boundless from its hold behind my chest
It feels for me like fingers from the mist - I can see it on the wind
My sadness is a prodigal, coming home to me


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Some things don’t go well with beer - not prawns: prawns go well with beer. Friday afternoon goes well with beer. Chicks in crop-top vests go well with beer. Another beer goes well with beer. Poems about prodigal sadness go well with beer… Freaking delicious Italian nougat doesn’t go well with beer – it makes it froth in your mouth. Egh.

Fokof Polisiekar
So we’re waiting for fokofpolisiekar after watching the barlady for a while and then watching Adrianne’s friend rock her shit off – she runs a band called “Habit to”, which is a dumb name – what the hell does it mean? At least you know what fokofpolisiekar means. It means fuck off police car. What does Habit to mean? Name aside, the band is brilliant – Michelle Stent – this is Adrianne’s friend, with soft strawberry blond curls - is like Dolly Parton hits Joan Jett in an AC/DC vest and a Gibson SG with 15 screaming effects pedals.  Rock and fucking Rock and Roll.

So we’re waiting for fokofpolisiekar. Up front of the stage is packed with huge guys – all drunk and as big as I am and pretty much really really full-on into fokofpolisiekar. They’re all Afrikaans. The band kind of come up on stage and kind of be there for a while – the drummer has a really unbelievably bad hairstyle. The guitarist is wearing a lame old golfer and a bad padded denim jacket. He’s got old-guy curly hair and a beard. He looks like Eddie Vedder. And there are some other guys up on stage – and then they start up! and it’s fucking amazing – the lead singer looks like an overgrown baby – scruffy side-parting haircut and a Sabbath t-shirt – absolutely no dynamism – but he raises his hands like a lazy Roman emperor and the crowd goes fucking bananas and they all hold up the rock n roll / satan hand sign. Apparently he’s a fucking legend.

The whole thing is a mosh pit, plain and simple – no space for head-banging or other fancy shit. I don’t know what the fuck is going on but everyone else does – they all know all the words to all the songs and they don’t stop shouting them while they hurl themselves around. Dudes get up on stage and scream the lyrics. The singer gives the microphone to a guy in the front and he bellows out the song. The bassist swings his gigantic bass guitar round hard enough to knock someone’s teeth out and points and screams at the fans – he’s got a Human League kuif and big rabid eyes that make the pointing and scream fucking crazy-looking. The singer pulls little piggy zap signs with his fat fingers, and screams fokof / fokof / fokof /fok jooooooooooouuuuuuuu. And the dudes in the audience are having the time of their lives. The band does a heart-rending anthem about playing beneath the lights at Loftus and these guys are living their dream on this Saturday night, howling the song and gripping their eyes shut and holding their heavy arms high and crying or sweating and then the guitar kicks in full-on deep and heavy and we all start smashing into each other again.

The singer signs off “Ons is fokofpolisiekar, van die Kaap”. Fucking IN-SANE.

We are waiting in the car outside the cafe on the corner while Sam goes in to buy Coke & chips. In the window of the cafe are movie posters. Caitlin is reading them, but the sunlight is reflecting off them so she can’t see them 100%. Catilin: “The… L.. i… The Lesbian Hunter.” Me: “No, it’s The Lincoln Lawyer.” This is a movie starring Matthew McConaughey as a lawyer who drives a Lincoln. Caitlin: “The L… n… er – it looks like The Lesbian Hunter.” Caitlin: “… It looks like Lesbian Hunter.” Caitlin says The Lesbian Hunter 3 times to me which is hugely disturbing.

Hi, - oh wait - sorry - shit, not “Hi” - fuck - man I’m completely fucking up this goodbye bit,

Tom

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