PattiLain

is in my ears,and in my eyes…

Tatfive – the journey 13/07/2010

Filed under: Random — pattilain @ 13:44
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This event occurred in November last year. Shame on me for only posting it now.

So I got a fifth tattoo (yay). This one is special in many ways, and I will explain why below.

One Wednesday, while huffing and puffing on the treadmill like the unfit lout I am, I get a phone call from my brother. He asks if I plan on getting any more tattoos. I do indeed. But… this coming from the guy who got so angry at me for getting my first at 16 (technically 15)? Turns out, a friend of his did a course and now has to ply her trade (for free) on some innocent victims.

Me me me! Oooh, pick me!

She phones. I tell her I’ll pop by the shop the next day after work. The deal is made. Man, am I EXCITED. I tell every IMer who might want to listen.

The conversations go like this:

“I’m so excited! Getting a new tattoo today!”

“Cool! What of?”

“Um… haven’t decided yet. Something pretty.”

“Oh, cool. Where?”

“Not sure. Not too visible though.”

“Cool.”

“It’s free.”

“How come?”

(I explain)

“Oh, I’d never let anyone do that on me.”

Yes, well, my ink is not the most well thought out, and I’m really not that fussy. I just like tattoos. They’re all small, black ink, thick lines. I’m collecting them like stamps.

I was just like “OMG! FREE TATTOO!”

I decided to get this baby somewhere visible for once. Not my wrist, I wear too many bracelets for it to ever be seen. Not the back of my neck, too cliché. Not the fleshy part under my thumb, too prisony. So I selected… The part of my arm just above my inner elbow (due to a certain episode of Blossom, I still sometimes call it a krelbow.) The reasoning behind this spot was, I have one on each shoulder and one on my lower back. If I get one by each elbow, and I stand with my arms at a slight angle, you can draw a connect-the-dots pentacle. I’ll ignore anyone who says this is lame.

To see if it’s appropriate for journos like me to be sporting visible ink, I ask the Twitterverse. Not many people follow me so… I got two “Go for it!”s and one “Just make sure you can cover it”.

So off I go, excitedly, to Skintrade in Boksburg (not yet opened…) and ask for Shawna (not actually working there…). I tell her what I’m thinking of, and we’re looking through pictures, when one of the other employees sidles up, asking what I want to get.

“’tis none of your business, little man,” I tell him, in my head, a few hours later.

In reality, I tell him what I want and where. I say I want something like a tree or a flower, he says I’m a hippie and asks why I want my tattoo where I want it. He says it’s pointless.

Um… pointless? The location of a tattoo has a point?

I chalk it up to jealousy, and inwardly sneer at his cliché tattoos. So Shawna and I continue looking for the perfect tattoo. Not too big. Not too intricate (it’s her VERY FIRST ONE EVER). But something pretty.

A ha!

We find a triple-spiral-type design. I want it, I like it, I love it. I’ve been wanting to get a triple something for a while, because, well, because three is such a neat number. Everything is packaged in threes (beginning, middle, end). Mine is a nod to the maiden, the mother and the crone.

My husband arrives. Shawna begins preparing the tattoo. It gets dark. I get nervous. (“I’m letting a first timer tattoo me somewhere VISIBLE? OhmygodwhatthehellamIdoing?”) So, after some faffing, positioning the tattoo in the right place, letting the purple ink dry, we begin.

Yes, there’s pain and blood. It’s a needle, what did you expect? But I am the zen master. Tattoo pain = good pain. I stare composedly at the wall, the artist working in silence, my husband playing pool with the previously mentioned guy.

So… after several minutes and photos later, baby number five is ready.

But that is not the end of the story.

Hubby gets his too. They joke, say he wanted to check mine out before admitting he, too, wanted one. Pshaw, he’s been eyeing that design for months.

His is bigger. His takes longer. Mine took, oh, about an hour. Bear in mind, a first timer would take longer. His took, oh, three hours. At least.

So after pizza, a beer or two and a TV show about the world’s heaviest man, midnight Friday morning is creeping into our tired eyes, and he can’t take it anymore. After three hours of needle-in-skin, he’s had enough. We’re on the final stretch but… I just want to go home and sleep, too. Plus I worried about our cat, who hasn’t been fed since Thursday morning at 6:00. My tattoo is getting ickier by the second. The scab is too thick, there’s a giant bruise around it, and it bloody well HURTS. Also, we both had work in the morning.

We all leave. Oh, what a night.

For a few days, both our tattoos are painful. Mine really hurts and has a giant bruise all around. That’s never happened before.

That Friday, we show them off to friends of ours. They’re studying medicine and dentistry respectively, so the future doc eyes mine suspiciously and suggests I go to the doctor if it’s not better soon.

That Sunday, we were supposed to go on a fun run (in my case, walk) but the husband couldn’t, his leg was too sore.

Monday, I go to the doctor for a non-tattoo reason, and I ask her to check out the tatt. She says it’s infected and prescribes antibiotics. At first, I was pretty embarrassed, I mean, it got infected! Am I a gross dirty person? Turns out, no, it happens.

So, after a few days, the pain subsides.

Then, The Itch begins. Oh, god, the itch. Where tattoo pain = good pain, tattoo itch = OHMYGODJUSTMAKEITGOAWAY.

But finally, more than two weeks later, the scabs have come off and my arm is healing. It’ll need a touch up, definitely. I’ve never had touch ups, so I fear it’ll be like getting a tattoo all over again. But hey, that’s for another blog post.

 

Zeplin’s – in which our heroine takes a journey into worlds unknown 30/11/2009

Filed under: Random — pattilain @ 05:07
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The first things that struck me about Zeplin’s Rock Shack in Pretoria North was how hard it is to get to. Okay, granted, it’s in a better area than where it used to be, the centre of town. But it’s still complicated and we did get lost. And it’s nestled among car dealerships.

 

The next thing that struck me was the name. Sorry, I’m finicky about apostrophes and spelling. Does it belong to someone called Zeplin? If it’s a reference to zeppelins or Led Zeppelin, then the spelling is wrong. If it does, indeed, belong to one Zeplin, and the person got their nickname as a reference to Led Zeppelin, the spelling is still wrong.

 

After extensive research (ie, one Google search for “zeplin”) the only possible scenario where “Zeplin’s” could be correct is if it belongs to a person called Zeplin, so named for the ZEPLIN (ZonEd Proportional scintillation in LIquid Noble gases) programme (or someone with parents who can’t spell. After all, I have seen a Micheal or two in my time. Or Zeplin could be an incredibly obscure surname). The programme has something to do with dark matter. Emo enough, I’ll let this one slide. But I do expect there to be a person called Zeplin behind all this, because that apostrophe is certainly not a contraction.

 

The place is littered with NO SMOKING signs which no one obeys. An irritation for the non-smoker like myself. And the website is painfully bad. Painfully.

 

Dear every club ever: making the music ear bleedingly loud does not make it better. Just saying. I am capable of appreciating music without having a headache.

 

Another issue for me is that of the slogan “for people with a mind of their own”. Really? I think we can safely say that NO ONE who subscribes slavishly to ANY subculture can totally say they have a mind of their own. I’m sorry, it’s just not gonna happen. If you spend three hours on your appearance to give the impression of being hard core, then I’m afraid that little mind is not completely yours. But that’s another post entirely.

 

The worst part of my evening was definitely the people. More specifically, the 14-year-old girls on ecstasy who are standing the front row desperately trying to get the attention of the trendily bored vocalist. It’s scary how the “mind of your own” crowd seems to be just as misogynistic as the car shows and beer crowd. Aw, you guys have something in common. Okay, so now I’m just finding reasons to shoot the place down. Sorry. If you like Zeplin’s, by all means keep going, (and keep supporting local metal, fuck yeah) just don’t claim it’s because you’re so totally alternative and unique.

 

Metal: like the music, hate the scene. I’ll stick to CDs, thanks.

 

Media imperialism, how I despise thee. 06/09/2009

Filed under: Random — pattilain @ 14:40
Tags: , ,

Even before I knew it had a name, and even before I knew it was actually a phenomenon, I’ve had a huge problem with cultural imperialism.

A friend used to joke that I would complain about Americans because I had lived in Canada for a spell. This irritated me too, because in Canada, I don’t recall any rivalry between the two North American countries, but the media portrayed it as such.

I had just always assumed this natural disdain came from the internalisation of the “Americans are stupid and ignorant” rule. It wasn’t that, really. The fact that the US knows nothing about my country didn’t really bug me. What bugged me, is that if I saw a two-letter US state code, I could tell you what it stood for. I could probably name the capitals of several states, too. What bugged me is I knew exactly who George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and JFK were. I could show you where, on a map, California, Texas, Florida and New York are, and possibly others. I knew the stars on the flag represented the 50 states and given time, I could probably name each damn one. This was not the result of a class in American history. This was not even from an interest in the goddamn place. This was from the media. This felt so unbalanced to me.

How many Americans would be able to name the capital of South Africa? Or even point out where it is on a map? The only famous South African Americans know is Nelson Mandela. It felt to me like a very creepy unrequited love affair, and I wanted no part in it.

I was very disapointed with what television had done to us. I shuddered when my classmates pronounced words with an American affectation. I was disgusted when people would regurgitate culturally irrelevant cliches. I was horrified when SA music and movies and television were regarded as so far inferior to international media. I felt like screaming at people to wake the hell up when they knew more about the Obama vs Clinton election saga than who was actually going to run the very country they’re living in.

In university, I learned the term for this horrifying display of idiocy. Cultural imperialism. Knowing the monster’s name has not made it easier to deal with. But discovering feminism and, through that, the concept of white and male to be “neutral” states, I realised how terribly, terribly messed up everything is.

I’ve read pages and pages of blogs where people complain that men are “neutral” and women are “other”, where white is “neutral” and anything else is “other”, where heterosexual is “neutral” and all other orientations are “other”. But these bloggers? They’re American. So I guess that makes me… “other”.

Why is it that the US snatched up the .com domain extension? The rest of the world is .co.country code. Proving again that if you are not American, you are “other”. I remember my mom used to get annoyed in Canada, when a missing person or criminal at large was announced, they would sometimes describe the person as having “no accent”. NO accent? You might as well say a white person has no ethnicity.

I felt it was time for a blog on this subject because A) it has been bugging me for at least ten years now and B) I don’t consider the bloggers I would usually expect to blog about this stuff as qualified in anyway on this subject. Sorry guys, but I don’t. Not even you British or Australian folk.

It can be blamed, quite easily, on lack of exposure. We are not active in the media. We only have 4.5 million internet users, so we’re not well-represented online. No one gives a shit about SA news unless it’s to show that we’re either still racists, or we’re moving on despite the Injustices of the Past(tm). For those that do care about us, we’re like a plucky goddamn underdog. “Aw… look at that… South Africa has won a gold medal in the Olympics! I suport them because I didn’t even know they had decent swimming pools there.” Screw your gold medals. We produce that stuff. And diamonds. And hordes of platinum.

As a South African I’ve had to defend my country so, so many times against my fellow citizens. Things are bad enough with our own mess ups (yes, we know we have bad crime and corrupt a government) but now I have to handle being constantly and I mean CONSTANTLY compared to America. “Oh, what kind of a hellhole is SA anyway? We don’t have a Starbucks or internet as fast as in the States.” It is true, we don’t. But we still have decent coffee and we still manage to run businesses online.

But what exactly can we do about it, besides discussing and lamenting? The whole of the developing world is in a similar boat. We can’t refuse to consume Western media. And we really can’t expect those in developed countries to learn about the world around them.

I suppose I just wrote this article for the hope of awareness. Maybe, maybe an American will read this and think about cultutral imperialism and what it must be like to have an even number of patriots and haters. There. I tried to do my bit to dispel a teensy bit of ignorance.

 

My altar ego 24/04/2009

Filed under: Feminism,Life: a survival guide — pattilain @ 07:26
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It seems I have an aspect to my personality that I never knew about, an alter ego, if you will.

By day, I’m a journalist, name alliterated in the tradition of comic book reporters and photographers everywhere. By night, I turn into… someone’s freaking wife.

This utterly wifely aspect is one of the reasons I chose to keep my name when marrying. We both kept our names. That sounds fair. That sounds… equal. It sounds like something women’s libbers were fighting for. I have a job, I drive a car, my name is on the property contract and yet… our wonderful home affairs department decided for me that I am done with my surname.

You know what? I like my surname. I’ve grown rather attached to it these past 22 years and I’m not ready to part with it now, nor will I ever be. I’m sick of generations of strong wonderful women being separated from their history and latched onto some male.

Okay, I understand that my name comes from a male, my father, but I’m sure no matter how far back I trace the women in my bloodline, the name will always be male. So I’ve decided the buck stops here. I’ve even considered having our as-yet-unconceived daughter taking my name and seeing how far we can run with this female line thing.

When I went to vote (thank goodness I still have that right) the name on the voter’s roll was not the same as the name on my ID, my driver’s licence or any documentation I use to prove I am who I am. Instead, I had my husband’s surname. I thought it was just a little glitch.

Getting to work on Thursday a colleague of mine (who also chose to keep her name) and I were discussing it, because the same thing had happened to her. Her phone call to home affairs confirmed it. We are not who we think we are. We are “and wife”.

Now, it is possible to go change it. But my problem is, why was it changed in the first place? I did not ASK for it to be changed. I didn’t phone up home affairs and request new documentation. I have never once on a form ticked the “Mrs” box or listed my surname as my married name.

So, I’ve been gleefully bounding along since October thinking I was still me. Relieved that I was saved all that trouble and admin of changing my name. Hmph! Now I have to schlep on down to home affairs and ask for my damn surname back! Those dadblasted good-for-nothing surname stealers!

For any woman getting married who wants to keep her surname, please remember to apply for surname retention. I’m not sure how one does it, but contact home affairs (and blog on it, for posterity), otherwise you too will find your identity has changed over night.

Found this on the home affairs website, maybe it will help:

Section 26: Change of surname of majors

In terms of section 26(1), a woman may assume her husband’s surname, or revert to her maiden surname or a prior surname she legally bore and since 1997 a woman may also join her surname with that of her husband’s as a double-barrelled surname. No application to the Department of Home Affairs is necessary in these instances, but to enable the Department to update the Population Register, women should notify the Department of such changes in writing.

http://www.home-affairs.gov.za/personal_amendments.asp

Notice how it’s “revert” instead of “retain”. Pah!

 

DVD review: Flashbacks of a Fool 11/03/2009

Filed under: A Good Cry,Movies,Review — pattilain @ 12:04
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This film had been staring at me from the shelves of our local Blockbusters, and it looked like your typical empty-life-leads-to-journey-of-self-discovery movie. After watching it, I wouldn’t call it that.

Firstly, the movie title should drop the pluraliser. The movie is pretty much one long flashback, so much so that you forget it’s actually happening in modern times.

Essentially, it’s about Joe Scott (Daniel Craig) who leads a hedonistic, empty, materialistic existence as an actor (don’t they all?). The death of his childhood friend as well as his rejection from a film for being too old lead him to go to the beach, float poetically and fully clothed out to sea and remember his time growing up in a little British seaside town in the 70s.

This flashback of his teenagerhood is the bulk of the movie. It explores the story of why he eventually left the little seaside town.

At first, I thought it was based on a book because there is so much that isn’t said and so many unanswered questions (like, who exactly is Peggy Tickle anyway?). I thought it would all be clear if I read the source material, but alas. It was an original screenplay.

Perhaps it’s because the writer/director is a music video maker. I guess he’s too used to saying a lot in a short while by implying most of it. But we don’t really engage with the characters of music videos, now do we?

I won’t lie, this film got a tear or two out of me at the end. Perhaps I’m just weak to the effects of the sight of someone crying desperately to a moving soundtrack.

The final verdict? Give this one a skip. If you want a good movie about someone who goes back to their roots after being successful somewhere else, check out As It Is In Heaven.

My rating: 5

IMDb’s rating: 6.8

Directed by Baillie Walsh (Mirror, Mirror and music videos)

Starring Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Layer Cake, The Golden Compass)

Eve (Barbershop, xXx, her TV show Eve)

Claire Forlani (Mallrats, Meet Joe Black, Basquiat)

* The actors mentioned are merely the biggest names in the film, they certainly don’t have the most screen time. That would go to their younger counterparts. Except for Eve, she’s the housekeeper. The only black person in the movie is a housekeeper. Progressive, eh?

 

Movie review: Slumdog Millionaire 09/03/2009

Filed under: A Good Cry,Movies,Review — pattilain @ 06:03
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

It may not be worth it for me to review this movie, since it’s been done and talked about to death. But read on and I’ll try to explain what my thoughts were and why I think the hype is a bit misguided.

I never read Q&A or any of the reviews for this film, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect. But I saw the trailers and heard the big hoo-ha, and the biggest shock to me was how heavy and hard-to-watch it was at times. All the noise around the movie said how feel-good it is. I was prepared for a warm fuzzy feeling.

I was wrong. It only gets happy at the end. Most of the movie is about the pain of living in poverty and how difficult it is for children to survive alone.

I had seen one of Danny Boyle’s other feel-good movies, Millions, and I thought Slumdog would be similar to that, but it seems to be the bastard child of Millions and Trainspotting: “Fine, we’ll give you joy, but to get there you need to experience pain!”. Granted, had it been so happy it would not have won so many Oscars. The academy seems to like pain, loss, longing etc.

I was on the verge of tears for most of the movie, because it actually starts with a torture scene. Now, this had been called “the feel-good movie of the year” or something like that. A torture scene? Really?!

As misled as I felt, the movie offered more depth than I had expected. And that’s always good. Everyone loves the rags-to-riches underdog stories, and this one is better than the rest of the bunch.

It’s an emotional ride, but a fun one with a happy ending.

My rating: 8

IMDb’s rating: 8.6 (number 42 on the top 250)

Directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Millions, Sunshine) and

Loveleen Tandan (her co-directorial debut)

Starring Dev Patel (his feature film debut) and Freida Pinto (her feature film debut)

 

Movie review: The Wrestler 24/02/2009

Filed under: Movies,Review — pattilain @ 06:24
Tags: , , , , , ,

This film fits very well with the others by Darren Aronofsky – slow and heartbreaking. Also very gory. It was rather interesting to see a film about professional wrestling, and a meaningful one at that, since it’s such a silly and cartoonish industry, not really quality film fodder.

I’ve never been a fan of professional wrestling, not since the early 90s when my brother practiced wrestling moves on me in a ring constructed of pushing two couches together. But in the film, I found the relationships between the wrestlers fascinating. So I hope that was accurately portrayed. They are obviously hurting each other, although not as badly as we think. They are displaying animosity towards each other, and taking revenge by beating the hell out of each other except… before and after the match, they pat each other on the back and compliment each other. It seems like a very twisted industry.

The film was very slow-moving, especially at the beginning. Much of the movie is taken up by showing how he lives and where he works and most of the early beginning is a tracking shot showing the back of his head.

This movie portrayed the hopelessness and sadness so well. And Mickey Rourke did the washed-up has-been strikingly well. The badly bleached hair, the leathery tan… What I also liked about the film is that while you liked the protagonist, you had very little sympathy when he messed up because, well, he brought it on himself.

He was a very lonely character. His daughter hated him, the only woman in his life was an ageing stripper, his boss was a complete tool and besides his wrestling buddies, his only other friend was a kid in the neighbourhood that politely played an old Nintendo wrestling game to humour him.

It’s a very bleak movie, but I expected nothing less from Aronofsky. No one expected a happy ending, but you kind of hope for one.

It’s not schmaltzy in its emotion, having caused me to only shed two or three tears. And while I appreciated the honesty of the context, it was kind of painful to watch.

So if you feel like something with honest but painful emotions, and you’re willing to live without a happy ending, go watch it.

My rating… 8
IMDb’s rating… 8.5 (number 59 on the top 250)

Directed by Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream, Pi)
Starring Mickey Rourke (Sin City, Nine 1/2 Weeks, Buffalo ’66)
Maria Tomei (My Cousin Vinnie, Untamed Heart, Four Rooms)
Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen, Across the Universe, Running With Scissors)

 

 
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