My premature Bucket List

Seeing as though it has just occurred to me that the Grim Reaper is closer to visiting me then I suspect. It is time to take stock of my life and do a bucket list.

Before I get messages of commiserations and heartfelt tears. Let me state for the record that I am not going to die anytime soon and I do not have a fatal disease! This post is what I would do if I WERE going to die or if I HAD a fatal disease!

I have actually been inspired to do this by a work colleague of mine, Tracy Hancock who is also a new follower of this site. Welcome Tracy...also welcome to Asha and a very very good friend of mine…Eleanor.

This could go on for a while Tracy and I suggested that we limit lists to a certain number of activities. She’s doing 10 and because I always have to be one up on people, I am going to do 20.

1) Bungee jump off the highest and second highest bungee jumps in the world. I saw this in the Amazing Race last night and if the Grim Reaper is going to visit me I might as well show him I aint scared of shit!

2) Get a significant loan from the bank and then travel to Vegas and put it on the tables on the strip. Following on from the first item on the list everyone would agree that it would take balls of steel to do this right! But then again if you have a fatal illness with only weeks to live its not like they are going to haul your ass into a court room asking you for the money!

3) Tour Asia for a month visiting China, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Burma, Cambodia, South Korea and finally Japan. Something about the east fascinates me. And no, it not their women. The asset portfolios of Asian women are generally not impressive enough for me.

4) Cage Dive with Great White Sharks. Technically I can cross this off my list because I have already done this. But I would love to do it again.

5) Smoke Weed in Amsterdam. I am not a drug user and do not condone it, but again if you have a fatal illness with only a month to live…who cares!

6) Visit the Mayan and Incan temples in Central and South America. When the Irish were walking around in loincloths struggling to master the art of speech, the Mayans and the Incans were already the most civilised nations in the world with empires comparable to the Roman and British Empires.

7) Visit the Trevi Fountain…strip down into my swim trunks…and do few laps while singing “Eye of the Tiger”. What’s the worst they can do to you? Arrest you? Its not like you care that much if you only have a month to live!

8) Visit Buckingham Palace and mark my territory on the perimeter fence. Every English haters dream!

9) Provided I am released from incarceration in Italy and England I would visit the Mosi-O-Tunya. To non Swahili speaking people this is the Victoria Falls. I would visit the falls (from the Zambian Side) have a Mosi beer watching the sun set over the falls while listening to a bunch of Zimbabwean hubeed try and jump over the border fence into Zambia.

10) Visit the Masi Mara during the annual wildebeest migration. Who wouldn’t want to take a hot air balloon ride and get a birds eye view of the worlds biggest mass migration?

11) Provided I still have money from my trip to Vegas and provided I have been emancipated from my incarceration in Italy and England. I would take all of my friends down to Cape Town to have a week long jaul at the various clubs, pubs and shabeens where we would get extremely molar and comment on the asset portfolio of hot Cape Town woman. No explanation necessary on this one!

12) Me and my brother would visit Jamaica where we would drink loads of Red Stripe and visit the Bob Marley museum at Nine Mile St Anns! Every reggae lovers dream! We would then visit Cuba and try to have a meeting with Fidel Castro.

13) Try and jump the border fence between Zimbabwe and South Africa at Crooks Corner in the northern portion of the Kruger Park. Just to see if normal people and not Super Habeed can do it!

14) Try and jump the border fence between Mexico and the USA by swimming across the Rio Grande. Just to see if normal people and not Super Mexicans can do it!

15) Visit the pyramids in Egypt. Going back to my nomadic Arab roots.

16) Take a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. What every self-respecting Catholic should do.

17) Take a pilgrimage to Lebanon. What every self-respecting Maronite Catholic should do.

18) Go to the houses of all my ex girlfriends and cause a big scene where I would probably get arrested. What every self-respecting man that staring death in the face should do.

19) Go to Japan where I would purchase a Paul Chen samurai sword and then try to smuggle it out of Tokyo or Yokohama where apon my demise it would be left to my brother. You need written permission from the Japanese government to take a Paul Chen sword out of Japan as it is considered a item of national pride.

20) Have a hubbly at a café in Beirut. What every self respecting South African Lebanese person should aspire to.

Nostalgia and drugs in the 80's

Bravestar
Bravestar

In a distant time
And far away place
The planet New Texas floats deep in space

Sky of three stars
Land of precious ore
The carrium rush brought outlaws by the score

Bravestar
Bravestar

Then one day a law man appeared
With powers of hawk, wolf, puma and bear
Protector of peace
Mystic man from afar
Champion of justice, Martial Bravestar

Bravestar
Bravestar
Eyes of a hawk, ears of a wolf
Bravestar
Bravestar
Strength of a bear, speed of a puma

Ok, so only some of you will know what the fek I am on about while the rest of you will think I’m psycho. Which I am slightly.

The discussion came up over lunch today about crap we used to watch in the old days, back in the 80’s, and the common thread of Bravestar came up.

For those who don’t know who Bravestar is, it was a cartoon back in the 80’s about an American Indian marshall who would stuff up hoodlums using the powers of a hawk, a wolf, a puma and a bear, which were bestowed onto him as a lighty by a shaman.

Yes I am aware that the creators of these cartoons were probably high on some shit most of the time, but this was a good cartoon.

This put on a very heavy trip of nostalgia, recollecting the programmes I used to watch on TV as a lighty.

One of the biggest shows in South Africa during the 1980’s was the A-Team, I’m sure everyone has come in contact with the A-Team at some point, but for those who haven’t basically the A Team was a bunch of soldiers from the Vietnam War who were arrested and convicted for a crime that they didn’t commit. They escaped from the PO PO and hid in the LA underground where they survive as soldiers of fortune. Basically, if you had enough money and you can find them, you could hire them.

Once again the creators of the show were on some shit when writing the stories, because in one episode, they are hired to flush hoodlums out of a convicted building in the Bronx. Why I say this is a bunch of crap is because surely if this was the case then the A-Team would have already had a go at rectifying the Nigerian Embassy in Johannesburg, otherwise known as Ponti!

Shaka Zulu was also HUGE in the 1980’s, just listening to the title track: we are growing that send chills down my spine some 15 years since the show was aired. Here the creators were on less drugs, the series shows the expansion of the Zulu Empire under Shaka Zulu, King of the Zulu empire. Who led the only army to ever defeat the British army with no projectile weapons. This occurred at The Battle of Islandwana.

There is just something about watching the Brits getting stuffed up that fills my heart with pride.

One of the first sporting events that I watched as a lighty was the 1992 cricket world cup, which was held in Australia. I woke up at 2 in the morning to watch the match between South Africa and Pakistan where Jonty Rhodes ran out Inzamam-ul-Haq with a full stretch dive at the stumps. Of course Wrestle Mania 1 was also a big thing back then.

Then came the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, once again, cartoonists on drugs. Any story that revolves around a bunch of mutated turtles with ninja capabilities that eat pizza and are trained by a rat is a show on drugs. What makes it even worse was the whole “re-branding” attempt. The public, especially the Japs, felt that ninjas were not the right image for the turtles as the turtles were crime fighters fighting for justice, morals and all of that crap, while ninjas were assassins for hire back in feudal Japan.

Other things big in the eighties, besides drugs and cartoonists using drugs, included Michael Jackson, dressing like, Michael Jackson, hairstyles, and fekd up fashion.

Just as aside, this has nothing to do with the post, I was at gym last night and as I walked in there was a middle aged wanger, please read wangers and mash below, talking to another dude , who was surprisingly fully clothed. So the wanger asks the dude if he has his skipper license, and the dude with his clothes on asks "Is this for boats?" I literally stopped in my tracks and had to stop myself from laughing. Because excuse me,  I so use my skippers license to drive my feking car on the road! ONLY IN THE SOUTH MY FRIEND, ONLY IN THE SOUTH!