District 92 – Brandon Faber
Posted on 25. Feb, 2010 by admin in Brandon Faber
“Sssshhk. . . Ssshhk k k !”
My left eye pops open like a tube of Pringles. “Sssshk!. . . Ssshhk k k !” My right eye joins the party in a miserable state. “Ssssshk. . . Ssssshhhhhk k k !”
“What the hell is that?” I think to myself and, even more alarmingly, “why does it sound so close nearby?”
I lean over, looking down from the lofty heights of my bed and see an object moving behind the curtain, roughly half a metre to my right. “Sssshhk. . . Sshhk k k !”
“Holy hell!” I scream in silent horror, “there’s a Tokolosh in my room!” What ungodly creature could make such a strange noise? I pull the curtain aside to find my cat, Max, prodding at the source of evil with a paw.
“Meaaaauw” he says with the kind of intensity that means “bring the garlic, wooden stake and silver-bulleted shotgun, something from the ninth gate of hell has arrived and has earmarked this house for a quick lesson in demonic possession.”
“Shit babe!” I alert sleeping beauty of the imminent danger. “Switch on the light quickly, there’s something dark and dangerous lurking in the corner here!”
Before you can say “Jacob, you are my father,” the lights flash on and 1 X female form takes a giant leap for mankind – downstairs, returning half-a-second later with a bottle of poison that promises to “leave nothing alive – guaranteed!”
I grab the can of salvation and lift Max to see who our mystery guest is . . . and there it sits. Horror of horrors, more terrifying than photos of celebrities without makeup, more sinister than Schabir Shaik’s pending pardon, Beelzebub’s Foot soldier – a big black Parktown Prawn and, by the looks of things, he is the “Mike Tyson” of prawns.
I take a step back, contemplating my mortality before calling on the power of the legendary prawn hunter, Wikus van der Merwe. With the fury of a thousand farts and a “Fokkit Wikus, here we go!” I let rip with my can of “never fail demon insect slayer”. The “odourless” gas sends everything flying: the cat, a mosquito from the Third Reconnaissance Brigade, three beetles and a retired moth.
The haze from my Shock and Awe campaign starts to clear. . . I can just about see my victim… “ARRRGH!” With murderous intent the Prawn of Darkness jumps into the air ala that chick from The Matrix and climbs around the front of the curtain to face his attacker, “me”, head on.
I let out a manly shriek and grab the cat from the path of destruction as Hellboy leaps from the curtain, onto the bed – with nothing but death and vengeance in his eyes.
In a flash the lady of the house swoops around the other side of the bed, flicks open the sliding door and does a praying mantis Avatar warrior back flip over to my side. With grim determination she executes a super-swift wrist swipe with (rather fittingly) a book about South Africa’s secret nuclear programme.
The Son of Satan is sent flying out of the house, off the balcony and out of our lives.
Here I am, still standing with the cat in one hand and the can of empty promises in the other.
The lady of the house and I exchange a meaningful nod: “And the Oscar for best Actress in a supporting role goes to, Brandon Faber.”
Yeah.
Not to be outdone, however, the Oscar for best written screenplay, AKA, fictitious piece of writing that could not, should not, ever be remotely considered near the truth – “goes to the makers of all cans of insect spray.”
Frankly none of us would cut it on the streets of District 9.
Missfits and morons – by Brandon Faber
Posted on 28. Jan, 2010 by admin in Brandon Faber
Apparently the Miss South Africa pageant was held in December last year.
Apparently a certain “Nicole Flint” is now the ambassador of the nation, or whatever title we give winners of this sort and, apparently, there are some concerns in lofty circles that she is, in fact, white.
Well klap me with a golf club and call me Tiger, you mean there are white South Africans?
I must say that I have always considered myself a brother of this land and I, too, find it absolutely unacceptable that a pale skinned brunette with great boobs and wonderful legs should win such a prestigious and meaningful title.
We all know where this leads.
Miss South Africa’s of pageants past have been known to influence local and foreign policy, establish peace in the most notorious of conflict zones, save millions from starvation and have always been the moral compass for the nation to follow when times were dark. . . OUTRAGEOUS that we should entrust such immeasurable responsibility and, frankly, the fate of the world as we know it, to a white chick – from Pretoria, or Tshwane (who cares as long as it works?) – nogals.
I find this injustice ranks right up there with Willie “die Breker” du Plessis winning the Summer 2009 Margate Mince pie Eating Championship and a foreign actress being chosen to play Winnie Mandela in a feature film that is bound to have as profound an effect on the box office as quiet diplomacy had on Uncle Bob.
Take heart though all ye upset souls, at least you are not a certain Mr. Daniel Roux, the boyfriend of the new queen of the country. Reportedly Nicole had stated that her title now comes first in her life . . . which is pretty kak news for Daniel who was probably looking forward to coming first for some time.
Be strong lad, we all have to make sacrifices.
Yours is to say goodbye to love, forever cursed to walk the planet alone, a broken soul with nothing but your memories and the promise that the pain will eventually subside (a few decades from now). For the rest of us it is having to contend with the dramatic impact a white Miss South Africa will have on the country in 2010.
Shares are bound to plummet, two suns will appear in the skies, crops will fail and tsunamis will wreak havoc along our coastline. The end of days is not 2012, 3013 or 4014, no. The age of anarchy has now surely arrived with this aberration – this, scandalous ascent to the national throne of beauty.
I don’t know about you but I am heading for the nearest cave to wait out the worst. Nicole is bound to appear in a string of powder puff advertisements flogging hair products and nail polish and I, for one, will not stick around to witness the horror of it all.
May you and your family survive this calamity called 2010 . . . May this not be the end.
“It’s a mystery.” – Brandon Faber
Posted on 09. Dec, 2009 by admin in Brandon Faber
So the Mayans reckon we’ve got about three years left before we never have to see another dishwashing liquid ad. . . or read copy marketing luxury guesthouses – with riveting selling points such as, “our hand-picked staff will make sure you blah blah blah”.
Hand-picked staff hey?
What a novel idea. Here I was under the impression that a big bus rides around town, randomly dropping off hospitality industry employees that venues are obliged to use. Sounds like something the intellectuals at Cosatu would come up with. . . For most part however, hotels, guest houses and the like have to go the old-fashioned way and interview people for vacant positions.
Yup. All hail the random adjective – after 21 December 2012 we shall sadly hear of it no more.
Returning to those Inca Impies and their pot-fuelled predictions. I bet they never knew that getting bored with chiseling millennia worth of detail would culminate in block buster movies and over 34 million Google search results.
I bet if they saw the cult offshoots and nervous clambering by the feet of men who claim divine inspiration from Alien communication and / or messages from their future selves, living free from fear in some parallel universe where humanity is at one with each other, they’d have done the right thing and at least put a “To be continued…” at the end of it all.
“We are running out of leaves to smoke, finish this later, promise” would also have done the job.
Instead the hysteria is gathering momentum as we prepare for the Apocalypse, the end of days, the (apparent) re-entering of “Planet X” into our solar system that will see Jupiter “ignite” and become a second baby sun. According to 2012warning.com we should all be able to see two suns’ in the sky by no later than May 2011.
Well I, for one, say “bring it on”. An extra sun would certainly add a bit of excitement to getting stuck in mid-May morning traffic. Products like “Hotballs Sunscreen” will keep us from frying like Like It Lean bacon rinds on a Sunday morning and Barack Obama will tell everyone to remain calm, while the US prepares to move its most important souls to The Hilton “Underground”.
Here in Africa the ANCYL will blame apartheid for the two suns while the unions will threaten to mobolise and take to the streets if Planet X doesn’t immediate heed their calls to retreat to the cold darkness of outer space.
I can only imagine the madness as the time draws closer.
Unfortunately the world is full of souls with a home-shopper-mentality . . . hell, we do not need a mysterious planet to take us down, the pure idiocy of those who surround us is enough to destroy any civilization, given the opportunity.
Err. . .
I don’t know what’s going to happen and, frankly, I don’t care.
The true mysteries of this world comes not from the skies above, but from within. We find it in hand-picked hotel staff and “surprised” moms, truly impressed by the amount of foam some new dishwashing liquid makes. We find it in the choice of music used in Makro radio spots, in specials that are not really so “special” and in movies about our supposed demise.
We find it in our fascination with destruction and holiday death-tolls, in superficial presents and super-sensational scandals.
The year is gone. . . perhaps we only have three or so left. . . more likely, however, there’s a lot yet still to achieve and many more dreams to be realised.
Of course this also means that we’ve got many more years of award losing advertising ahead of us.
I can’t wait.
Super heroes and silent shopping? – by Brandon Faber
Posted on 26. Nov, 2009 by admin in Brandon Faber
Apparently making a roast chicken for dinner involves food fighting with Jamie Oliver’s under 13 cooking graduates and a team of hungry Romanian rugby players.
Lord knows only a bunch of pre-teen hooligans and sportsmen with little ball sense (but lots of brawn) can cause the chaos, damage and disaster as presented in the latest Pre-Mr. Muscle kitchen. Sure they pretend that it’s just a mom and some attention deficit disorderly offspring that prepared the meal (with their feet and Caterpillar industrial earth moving equipment) but we all know the truth.
A mere minute before the man in orange arrived, package protruding as he sorted out the mayhem with one foul swoop, Anatoli Dimitru showed the kind of individual brilliance that’s made him the Romanian player of the year . . .thrice.
Sidestepping a stray leaf of iceberg lettuce and a tin of canned tomatoes, our hero ripped the roast chicken from the oven before sprinting down the right-hand “touchline” for a last gasp try in the corner, next to the basin under which all inferior cleaning products are kept.
Anatoli was then carried outside on the shoulders of his comrades while the under 13’s immediately retreated to the safety of the living room to twitter about their humiliation – and the futile nature of cooking anything at home anymore. . .
And, by the looks of the queues at Woolworths Food stores, they may have a point.
Every night the same crowd. Some doing actual grocery shopping but, most, just looking for something half-decent to eat. Hell, anything will do and, we’ll convince ourselves, we are actually really getting good value for money. Of course R28 for 10 grapes is a bit steep, but, “they are from Spain, you know”.
Alas I digress – but humour me for just another minute if you will.
Could someone from Woolworths head office please explain to this pale male why I never hear any music in any of your stores? Are we supposed to shop in silence for eternity? Will some normal background entertainment upset the fragile state of the orchids? Will a bit of radio adversely affect the freshness of the veggies, or sour mentioned grapes a day early?
For Pete’s sake man. I am going to spend R500 on two small bags of goodies and a plant I don’t have space for, the least you can do is make it a semi-pleasant experience.
Nah, this library-esque atmosphere does nothing to unleash the compulsive shopper in me.
If I wanted to be silenced to death I’d attend poetry readings and “performance art” exhibitions in liberal parts of Cape Town – or – become a political activist in my choice of oppressive regime.
This here is just shopping, let’s not pretend it’s a serene and beautiful thing.
And let’s not pretend that we need to have grime-smeared walls and donkey hoof-prints on the kitchen ceiling in order to get the Mr. Muscle message across, please. A simple “clean your kitchen you dirty fools” will suffice. Most of us “get it”.
But then again what do I know? I buy my chicken at Woolworths . . .
“What’s that you say lady?”, “Next customer please?”
Sing Hallelujah!
I know what you bought last summer
Posted on 28. Oct, 2009 by admin in Brandon Faber
You just can’t resist, can you? Sitting there, mesmerized, transfixed, and somehow powerless to just say “no”.
Clutching your credit card with sweaty palms, eyes glazed like the finest of Durban dock dwellers, you reach for your phone.”Must buy now,” you rock back and forth on your couch as you repeat the mantra of the Saturday Glomail Shopper. “Hmmm, weekend specials… must have new plastic thing that slices stuff (and is easy to clean).”
I am convinced that the power behind Glomail’s indoctrination lies in the bushy eyebrows of the 80’s (News presenter-suit-wearing) show host guy. “It’s my promise, to you!” he says whilst rudely pointing at the herd of credit shopping cattle – with both hands, nogals.
If you record one of these Glomail “weekend special” bonanza broadcasts, and you play it backwards, I bet you will hear the sound of sinister giggling and chants, pleading for the souls of those whom we dare not speak of:
The witless Armies of American Express, the Vacuous Visa throng, the Melancholic masses from MasterCard. They are the true force behind the rise and rise of bushy-eye-brow-man and his crusade to decimate the disposable income of the (very) average shopper.
Their homes, chock-a-block with fads, crazes, gym pills that magically “peel away the pounds” as you continue to eat like a professional darts player. Cupboards hide four varieties of floor whizz sweeper things, each with an extra cleaning pad, cleverly obtained through the financially savvy decision to “buy now”.
Why is it that we have warning signs on alcohol and cigarettes, and force casinos to declare that winners know when to stop, but there is no disclaimer, no warning, no assistance for the intellectually challenged citizens who just cannot say “no” to Captain eye-brow and his crew?
There should be a national outcry and demands of proof for the claims made when flogging magic beans, stairways to heaven and other “must have” goodies. But there’s none. Our silence deafening as we condone the exploitation of the masses, defenseless against the supernatural power of the man with the thousand yard stare.
“Damn those eyes!” they yell in fits of rage as yet another delivery van arrives with their latest purchase. “I can’t even remember buying anything. . . Damn those eyes!”
In messed heaps they sit, quietly surrounded by their plethora of worthless worldly possessions. They need our help, they need our guidance, they need this nation to stand up and with one voice declare that we shall tolerate no more.
They need us to be strong, to bravely fight their fight, to rise above the daze of that man’s gaze and release our mortal brothers and sisters from his iron grip.
Down with swirly green duster thingies! Down “power pack” gizmos that “flatten abs in ten minutes a day”! Down with Made in China plastic pedicure paraphernalia. . . down with bad suits, bad hair, bad scripts, bad lighting and the relentless pointing of fingers at cattle-class consumers!
The uprising starts today. . .
“It’s my promise, to you.”
Read more about the author: Brandon Faber
Be a man, Gary – Brandon Faber
Posted on 09. Oct, 2009 by admin in Brandon Faber
There’s a growing sense amongst the hairy-chested that Gary the Tooth Fairy could do well to take a leaf out of the latest (Hans) Dolph Lundgren book, “Winning like a man in a loser world.”
“The sooner he learns that real men don’t prance around in tutus and make cocktails swimming pool side, the sooner he can get his hands on the prize and get out of there,” they grunt in beer-soaked unison.
“Mhekmhekmhekmhekmhek, Gary. We don’t drink blue drinks.”
Had Gary spent some time in the illuminating company of “The Dolph” he would know three things: How to win fights, how to get the girls and how to (nearly) handle his liquor . . . managing to just win his gamesch after a long day of kicking butt, bedding beauts and drinking with all the menace and intent of a washed-up actor.
Personally I think “The Dolph” never got over that time Jean-Claude Van Damme messed up his hairdo, back in ‘92 when they were both supposed to be “Universal Soldiers”. If memory serves correctly our Swedish stallion had access to even more super-juice than his nemesis yet, still, got his hat handed to him faster than you can shout “thanks for the nauseating pile of pooh, Silversands”.
Frankly I find it disturbing that so many pretty girls showed up to be man-handled by Hans, and on local soil, nogals. All this while Gary can’t land a tooth, never mind one attached to a pretty (morally and intellectually questionable) young thing.
Thankless job being the M-Net tooth fairy, innit?
It’s not all his fault mind you. . . I put it down to an all round poor team effort. How’s the man supposed to get the teeth if nobody’s sleeping – and how are they supposed to sleep if “whateverhisnameis” – the Sandman guy, can’t aim a grain to save his life?
Nah, the madness has to end.
If we allow a guy like “The Dolph” to be the new standard of manhood, and little guys like Gary doomed to forever stand on the sidelines looking in, we may as well start believing that five razor blades do a better job than two, that extra big wings on cars look cool and that stripy gym pants are this summer’s “must haves”.
If it carries on like this we can soon expect “The Karate Kid” to flog lawnmowers on national television, and the cast of the A-Team to open some new mall in a town nobody gives a damn about – between elections, that is.
So… so. To save humanity from the return of long-forgotten-actor-brigade I propose we petition M-Net and allow Gary to get his hands on one tooth. Just one.
That could be the catalyst, the force, the starting point for a series of actions that could set a new course, a new future and hail a new dawn for the survival of the average guy in a world gone macho-man.
The alternative is a summer of watching wrinkly last action heroes have their way with our women – and that’s just not on.
Read more about the author: Brandon Faber
Brandon’s theory of Relativity
Posted on 27. Aug, 2009 by admin in Brandon Faber
Shows you what kind of a sad society we live in when, after 18 months of delivering the world’s most astoundingly brilliant advertising column, the one that drew the most responses was written when I was as sick as Schabir Shaik. . . three days prior to his release all those glorious months ago, of course.
Suppose the fact that 3 Talk’s Noleen was the butt-end of the joke assisted somewhat . . . as did the fact that I shamelessly begged all my friends and the only woman (besides my mother) that loves me to leave some sort or a response – proving to the world that you do not need Facebook, Twitter, YouTube et al to make things happen.
Four written responses down the line I feel thoroughly vindicated.
Err. . .
No, really. I’m not convinced that social media is all it’s cracked up to be and will I, one of these fine days when the air is clear and the Vanish lady tolerable to watch, prove it’s the dog’s breakfast of marketing. . . along with a new twist on Newton’s law of universal gravitation and the true force behind Einstein’s Black Holes.
Frankly I think that Isaac and Albert were a few bytes short of a download when they hashed their so-called theories. That, and they never had the privilege of watching advertising that makes sailors celibate and politicians confess their sins to random strangers – fearing The Apocalypse is nigh.
In one highly offensive offering the (already mentioned) Pink lady of advertising misery waltzes in on a mother reading to her offspring. The family of three had just snuggled on the carpet (as one tends to do in these economic times) when, to their horror, they discover that nothing quite sucks like slumming it with Dino the dust mite and his three million friends.
“Surprised?” yells our intruder wearing a branded t-shirt and a look that says “I laugh in the face of Trellidor”. She then proceeds to attack the fearful family with a spray gun (under the guise of assistance) and then takes all the glory for the senseless massacre of Dino and his comrades. . .
Bloody colonialism, it never ends.
In another winning assault on our sanity, a proud manufacturer of toilet paper (and other paraphernalia) drags the very best clichés out of the cupboard by introducing a Golden Retriever puppy and a kid to our Prime Time viewing.
That puppy must be pretty gatvol by the way. Talk about typecast – poor bugger. I bet he just wants to grow up and get on with it – but no – a kid he shall remain, shoving things with his nose.
Anyway.
The tiny tot seeks high and low for the soft toy she usually smothers with love at sleeping time. Alas, little Johnny next door torched it in an alarming display of first-stage “schizophrenia”, so the puppy has to find a replacement in a hurry, otherwise our angel may never get a visit from the M-Net sandman.
As luck would have it he finds a suitable substitute Barney in the form of a super soft, cuddly white toilet roll. Mom’s precious darling happily snuggles up to the loo paper and jets off to dreamland on a cloud of mediocrity.
Now, if Einstein saw this nonsense he would have theorised that Black Holes have nothing to do with celestial mystery and more to do with commercial misery . . . and Sir Isaac Newton would have deduced that the attraction between two bodies of mass are conclusively proven by the back-to-back broadcast of undeniably kak advertisements.
It’s all relative, don’t you think?
Read more about the author: Brandon Faber
Here’s to orange pills and daytime TV by Brandon Faber
Posted on 29. Jul, 2009 by admin in Brandon Faber
I’m writing this, three days past deadline and infected by the Eish1 N1 (south) virus.
To my left sits Alfred the magic pig and, to my right, Fred the depressed donkey. Some might say these two abominations are creations of the bucket loads of medicine I’ve been taking – alas, I beg to differ. Alfred has taken the time to explain the inner workings of government and why nationalising our mines is actually a good idea. Fred pointed out that nothing is ever as good as it seems and that somewhere, the Pink Harpic Squad is waiting to invade our homes.
They are out there; patiently biding their time… pretty soon the emails will start flying – “Night of the Long Toilet brushes”. I suspect Zimbabwean war veterans and retired SABC board members are involved in this unprecedented attack on our way of life.
But I digress.
Combine the musings of Alfred and Fred with above mentioned new virus strain fighting for control of my frontal lobe which (for all those who failed biology, is supposed to control planning, organising, problem solving, selective attention, personality and a variety of “higher cognitive functions”, including behaviour and emotions) and you are left with a confused mess of a man that sees the value in Verimark veggie cutters and machines that mimic the sound of the ocean.
It is in this state of mental capitulation that I stumbled through the travesty that is daytime TV, and not just any daytime TV, mind you. Buckling under the pressure of morbid curiosity I descended into the dark, murky, world of the national broadcaster’s offerings:
- SABC 1 has some school education programme that I don’t understand. It has nothing to do with the language the episode is broadcast in and more to do with my level of intelligence – failing to grasp the true meaning of X and where you can find it on a cold winter’s day
- SABC 2 features a kid’s show about extreme sports where, in the audience, twenty “learners” were paid handsome bribes to be there. The host is doing a decent job but, in the front row of the two-rowed audience, the blonde chick with the nervous twitch is hogging all the attention. Lo and behold they allow her to speak. She’s into rock climbing – “nothing like it” she exclaims while her left leg seems to march to some beat only certain species of dog can hear.The camera moves to the dude sitting next to her but, unfortunately, her head has also started to swing from left to right. I fear for the safety of every person in the studio as clearly this lady is three tequilas short of a party. Someone gets a message to her because all of a sudden she quietens down. By the concentration on her face it’s clear she’s analysing the latest Julius Malema sound bite or, in fact, is holding back the world’s biggest fart
- SABC 3 and that Noleen lady is doing her thing, talking to strippers and strip club owners – at last, something I can identify with. On the couch two “dancers” are flanked by the owner of “The View”, a sexologist, and a huge woman that looks like something out of Starwars. “The mother of the stripping industry in SA” we are told. “Geez, nature can be very cruel” I think to myself as Noleen storms through a barrage of questions. “YAWN” I pop another two orange pills and was just about to see what delights the cretins at E-TV have in store when Noleen rescues the day.
“What kind of people can strip?” she asks Starwars lady. “Could I, for example, strip?”
Momma Whiteboots looks her up and down and then delivers a coup de grace for daytime viewing:
“Maybe if you charge by the kilo”. .
….I haven’t stopped laughing since.
If that is not something worth watching over and over again, nothing is. Bring on the flu and the whole animal farm to sit by my side. Bring on kak Harpic ads and those three idiots from Outsurance – this is what entertainment is all about.
Viva daytime TV!