Breaking news!

Right, then.

Thanks to the Sunday Tribune’s decision to axe my weekly Durban Poison column – a move right up there with Decca Records’ decision not to sign The Beatles in ’62 – I have spent the last couple of weeks gathering my thought and getting my duck in a row. I have only one thought and one duck, both of which involve finding something to keep me from drifting off the freeway and down the boulevard of broken dreams.

When I posted my farewell column, many of you were outraged and threatened to cancel your subscriptions to the Tribune, destroy Independent Media and make the country ungovernable. I was deeply touched by your messages of support and even offered to read some of them to my landlord in lieu of rent. He said he’d prefer money.

Craig was one of the first to suggest a viable alternative. “Simple solution,” he wrote. “A site all of us who appreciate Ben’s work can subscribe to. He has a huge following and rightly so. I suggest a stipend a month to read his incredible wit. Whatever you think it is worth. Cheaper than the paper and it is the only thing in it worth reading. Will keep him in beer and all of us highly entertained. I hope everyone is in.”

I thought he’d be shouted down by the anarchists and the tightwads, but the idea proved more popular than I expected.

Mark said he’d “happily pay a couple of bob, maybe even a pickled egg as well”. Anthea offered a case of beer a month. Dan said “We’ll pay” and Dave said he’d be happy to “sign up to some funny shit weekly”. Jennifer said she’d pay to get her “weekly chortle/eye roll/guffaw fix” while Penny, Sandy, Pamela and Sherry all said they’d be delighted to subscribe to my online posts. Penny also said she couldn’t live without my column, so we do need to keep her wellbeing in mind.

Matthew said he’d pay to read my stuff and he’s a lawyer. It’s almost unheard of for a lawyer to offer to pay for anything. Rigid (possibly drunk) said, “You’re one of my favourite thinkers. I’d pay to read your columns. Not what they’re worth, of course, but I’d pay. Let me know how.”

So now I’m letting you know how.

You will soon notice that my blog looks different. That’s because it has grown up, left home and become a website. I started my blog in 2011 and began using it as a kind of retirement home for my writing. During that time, it has attracted 50 000 followers. That’s more than even Jesus scored in his first seven years. He has overtaken me since then, obviously.

My 657 posts have been viewed a staggering 943 500 times. I say staggering because that’s the condition I was in after writing most of them.

In the past year, my blog has been visited by people from every country in the world apart from Central African Republic, South Sudan, Western Sahara, Iran, Turkmenistan, Greenland, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and North Korea.

When I told my friend Ted that I have readers in 186 countries, he projectile snorted beer through his nose with such force that a hadeda in the neighbour’s tree was knocked from its perch. WordPress fortunately provides very detailed statistics and he was forced to withdraw his claim that my relationship with the truth made Donald Trump look honest.

In what appeared to be an attempt to make amends, he said, “You should capitalise on your brand and monetise your content.” I thought he’d had a stroke because none of that made any sense to me so I slapped him hard across the head, which is apparently what you need to do if you suspect someone is having a brain attack.

After calming down, he used simple words and diagrams to explain. I have to admit that it made sense, although I did warn him to never again call me a brand. “I am a man!” I cried, rising to my knees and attempting to strike a noble pose.

Let’s not get sidetracked.

Editors haven’t exactly been beating a path to my inbox since the Tribune released me back into the wild. In some ways, I am relieved that I haven’t been sucked right back into meeting brutal deadlines and complying with the plethora of draconian editorial restrictions that come with writing for a mainstream newspaper.

On the website you’ll find a PayFast button. Or something like that. I appreciate that not everyone will be in a position to contribute and that’s fine. But if you are, that’s even more fine. You will also be able to buy books and posters and other contraband.

You, the people, are now my new employers. Congratulations!

PS. I’m taking you all with me to my new home and you should get redirected to the new site. But if you’re not, please make a note of my new address – https://bentrovato.co.za – and subscribe to the site.

It’s not active just yet but it should be up and running first thing Monday morning. Unless my web guy has a nervous breakdown.

Here it is again – https://bentrovato.co.za

 

Prints of Darkness – Payback Time

 

Prints of Darkness – Payback Time

super-saturday

Psst! Wanna book?

Not many people know that I have written twelve books. I imagine even fewer care. Be that as it may. The fact remains that I have, without even really trying, built up what writers and publishers refer to as a ‘backlist’ and what writers’ wives call ‘those bloody boxes at the back of the garage’.

Some of you might even own one or two of my books. Now you have no excuse not to own all of them.

I am doing this is a public service and not because I have been told to clean out the garage.

Books will not be sent via the Post Office, unless you specifically want them in time for Christmas 2015.

Here, then, are the Dirty Dozen listed in order of their year of release. Point and click.

Thank you.

Ben Trovato

Application for the post of Principle Planner – SA National Parks

Dear Sir,

It is about time you advertised for someone to come up with a plan for Table Mountain National Park. The place is going to seed. It is covered from head to toe in unsightly fynbos. Deadly snakes and unattractive animals like tortoises and dassies carry on as if it’s their home. Nobody I have spoken to has ever been there.

Let me tell you that this pitiful excuse for a park would be a lot more popular if it didn’t have that dirty great mountain blocking everyone’s view.

Once I have the job, the first thing I will do is appoint a task team to look at relocating Table Mountain to the Cape Flats. The area could do with a bit of topographical excitement.

I am closely connected with people in the brewing industry and am confident that we will be able to secure a sponsorship whereby we get unemployed people from Athlone, Mitchell’s Plain, Khayelitsha and so on to move the mountain rock by rock and pay them in heavily discounted brandy past its expiry date.

With that horrible pile of stones out of the way, I will have enough space to begin planning the Apartheid Theme Park I have always dreamed of creating.

I envisage attractions like the Amazing Water Torture Ride where visitors are strapped into roller coasters with their hands lashed behind their backs and wet pillowcases placed over their heads.

We will also have the Accidental Fall of Death Ride in which tourists are blindfolded and left to wander about on a 100m-high platform scattered with bars of soap.

Liar, Liar Balls on Fire won’t be a ride, but rather a quiz show in which white male contestants are hooked up to polygraph machines with electrodes taped to their genitals. They are then interrogated about their part in propping up the former racist regime. Fun, fun, fun for the whole family.

I will also convert Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens into a parking lot for staff and faculty of the nearby university. As you are doubtlessly aware, the only people who bother visiting this absurd jungle are little old ladies and Nigerian muggers. And they can find somewhere else to practice their flower-sniffing, purse-snatching ways.

You want a park? Alright, then. Park right here, madam, for just R200 a day. We will be rich in no time at all.

You will be pleased to know that my vision extends all the way down the peninsula to Cape Point. If you ever go to this desolate region, you will find nothing there but tour buses full of relentless Germans and snap-happy Japanese.

Let me remind you that views do not make money. Casinos make money. Open-cast kaolin mines make money. Strip malls make money. Either give me the job and let me do what I do best or, for the love of god, rename this place Cape Pointless.

I expect to hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ben Trovato (PhD Peri-Peri Rural Planning)

Application to Transnet Freight Rail for the position of Apprentice Welder

Dear Meneer,

I have been looking for work but nobody wants to hire me. I think the problem, apart from being white, is that I am setting my sights too high. But who wants to be a brain surgeon, anyway? Pompous old pederasts poncing about in white coats. They should grow up. Welding cracked railway tracks is far more fun than welding ganglions in some loser’s cracked brain.

Your advert says applicants must have matric maths and science. I expect that all your train drivers have degrees from Yale. I am a Harvard man, myself. We have certainly come a long way since the days when working for the railways was first choice for anyone who had been dropped on their heads as a baby.

Your ad says I will have to manage equipment and fix battered rail ends. No problem. But you also say I will have to ‘repair skid marks’. I need clarity on this. Are you referring to train lines or my supervisor’s underwear? I agree there are times when only an oxyacetylene torch can get rid of the most stubborn stains, but then I would want some sort of danger pay factored into my salary.

You mention that I would be required to assemble ‘flashbutt joints’. I suppose, after a lunchtime spent deconstructing Descartes’ dictums with the wheel tappers, your welders would need to unwind. But joints – flashbutt or otherwise – are a little gay in my opinion. When I come for the interview, I will bring my Hong Kong bong along and show you how the workers can relax without wasting half their break looking for the Rizlas.

You also say that visual acuity and psychomotor abilities are essential. I don’t mean to be rude, but you risk confusing applicants who might still be working towards their doctorates in developmental neurobiology. What you really mean is that you are looking for someone who doesn’t need the help of a Labrador in finding his way to the bathroom and back, and who can follow a conversation while simultaneously lowering the tinted visor of his welding helmet.

Other requirements are physical fitness, balance and agility. Are you looking for a trapeze artist or a welder? I may have to reconsider if the job involves working on top of fast-moving trains and then leaping onto other trains speeding in the opposite direction. Similarly, the prospect of racing to finish a job before the 8.45 from Kapteinsklip slices me in half leaves me less than enchanted.

If I am unsuitable for the position, please consider me for the post of trainee shed assistant. I would love to work long and irregular hours for a transport company that openly admits it cannot provide transport for its staff.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ben Trovato (PhD Welding)

PS. I would like to be based in Kroonstad among the cream of Transnet’s intelligentsia.

To the Chief Executive Officer – Potchefstroom Hospital

Dear Comrade Doctor Sir,

I am applying for several positions at your hospital, largely because of the spectacular salaries, the great working hours and the gorgeous nurses who will doubtlessly be assigned to assist me in the performance of my duties, which, I imagine, would include opening people up, taking rotten stuff out and putting good stuff in, sewing them up, pumping them full of drugs and then taking the sisters out for drinks and whatever happy events may transpire thereafter.

I have several degrees in medicine from the highly respected Luanda Cyber University, which only accepts 500 000 new students each month. The paying of one’s fees up front constitutes 80% of the final mark and for geniuses such as myself, an MBChB with all the bells and whistles can be obtained in less than three weeks. I am unable to send you my certificates at the moment as they with the laminators.

You will be pleased to hear that I have specialised in all the fields mentioned in your advertisement.

Although damnably difficult to spell, especially after a few drinks, ophthalmology is really my forté. There is something profoundly magical about looking into a new patient’s eyes and knowing that it won’t be long before you are holding them in your hands. Naturally I will wear surgical gloves. I would never place myself at risk of infection by handling other people’s disgusting body parts without protection.

I believe eyes are the windows to the soul. This is why I have invented a device that plugs the eye sockets once the balls have been removed. I have seen far too many hospitals where souls have been allowed to escape because the windows were carelessly left open during surgery. I don’t need to tell you that there is nothing worse than being inside a ward full of troubled souls flitting about, switching the medication and tickling the patients who are in straitjackets.

You will also be interested to know that I have developed a technique in which the patient is able to leave his or her eyeballs with me and then come back for them in a week or two when I have finished scraping, painting and polishing them.

Paediatrics is another of my specialities. I love children. Even the sick ones. Actually, I am not all that fond of the sick ones. They never stop crying and complaining and, unlike my grown-up patients, I cannot take the horsewhip to them.

My ideal paediatrical patient is a 10-year-old who pretends to be sick in order to miss school. With a little whispered collaboration and the dispensing of certain substances that shall remain nameless, it often ends up that the child manages to miss two or three years of school. I expect some of them will want to reward me handsomely later on in life once they are in a position to throw a couple of juicy tenders my way.

I understand one of the requirements of this position is a willingness to train junior doctors. What an excellent idea. Given the nature of the field, it makes perfect sense. An eight-year-old girl with a sore throat or crushed vertebrae would feel far more comfortable in the hands of a doctor her own age.

I showed a tremendous amount of interest in playing doctors and nurses at a very young age and can testify that by the time I was seven, I could identify and name every part of the female anatomy. Blindfolded. After I got married, I began removing the blindfold at bedtime but it wasn’t strictly necessary since I still knew my around and nothing much had changed.

I see you also have a post in orthopaedics. Be sure to count me in. If there is one thing I know, it is bones. I have five dogs. Don’t talk to me about bones. From where I sit, I can see dozens of them strewn across the floor. My house looks like Hannibal Lecter has moved in.

You will be thrilled to hear that I have invented a procedure whereby people are able to remove the bones from their arms before they sleep. I won’t go into detail because you will steal my idea and win the Nobel Prize, but be honest, who wouldn’t welcome the end of awkward nocturnal arm syndrome? Just imagine, no more waking up in a blind panic thinking you are having a heart attack when it’s only paraesthesia, or, as we know it in the medical fraternity, pins and needles.

However, I still get the odd patient who wakes up and forgets to put his bones back in and then finds he can’t pick up his cup of coffee or beat his kids, but generally the ORA (overnight rubber arm) procedure works remarkably well.

As for the positions available in the intensive care unit, say no more. I simply adore the ICU. My absolute favourite is the machine that goes ‘ping’. Are you familiar with it?

I also find that patients in the ICU are the best-behaved of all. No idle chatter about the rugby or whining about the food. Lovely people, they are. Tolerant, respectful and, above all, dead quiet. And also you’re not wallowing about knee-deep in misery, blood and gore. The nurses are sexy, full of jokes and they keep the place spotless. I should have married an ICU nurse.

The hospital will also be able to utilise my skills as an anaesthesialologist. I have first-hand knowledge of everything that makes you pass out. Growing up, my father would come home and play games with me. One of the games was called chlorocatch. We would chase each other around the house and whoever got caught would have to sniff a dishcloth soaked in chloroform. I never managed to catch my dad, but every time I woke up after the game, my mother would be pregnant.

The part of anaestheololology I love the most is when you get to have a little fun with the patients while they are unconscious. I have yet to meet a doctor who can resist drawing a happy face on someone’s grumpy penis or taking cellphone pictures of a particularly pretty vagina. After all, isn’t that why it is called theatre?

One last thing. I see one of my duties would be to ensure adherence to something called Batho Pele principles. Is that the South African version of the Hippocratic Oath? I hope not. Have you seen the Hippocratic Oath? It says things like: “In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.”

I am sure you will agree that the whole point of being a doctor is that you get to have sex with vulnerable patients. Well, that and the money, obviously.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Yours truly,

Dr Ben Trovato (MBChB; FNB; ACDP; MWeb)

Application for the position of Director of Rugby at St John’s College, Johannesburg

Dear Arch-Vicar,

Congratulations on having the courage and wisdom to create a position like this.

People think there is something wrong with me when I tell them that the reason education is in crisis is because schools are not focusing enough on rugby. Sure, a lot of them have a team or two that plays on the odd weekend, but that is nowhere near what it should be.

Without a director of rugby, a school is little more than a place in which young people congregate to have their heads filled with rubbish like science and history. Would you believe that they are even being taught mind-rotting filth like evolution theory? No wonder our lunatic asylums and prisons are overflowing.

I am very pleased to see that a Christian school has taken the lead in showing the government where its priorities should lie insofar as teaching the next generation something of real value is concerned.

As Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians: “Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortioners, nor those who play not rugby shall inherit the Kingdom of God.”

Far too many schools in this country treat rugby as if it were just another homosexual activity like cricket or hockey. Tennis, needless to say, is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord and yet it is still played openly, often in front of children and the elderly. May their rotten souls burn in the hellfires of eternal damnation.

Watching the Sharks or the Blue Bulls, even the casual observer can quickly tell which player is the product of a worthy God-fearing school such as yours, and which is the product of an evil system propped up by the antichrist.

When I have the job at St John’s, I will make it a rule that any player who scores a try, drop goal or conversion and then turns to wave at his mother, or wiggle his hips for the cameras, will be forcibly removed from the field and locked in the Sin Bin, a one-metre-square steel box I have built, where he will remain until he is able to recite the Ten Commandments in their original Aramaic.

Players like Bryan Habana set an outstanding example by giving credit to God whenever they score, make a pass, kick the ball into touch or even tie up their shoelaces correctly. There is nothing that gladdens my heart more than seeing a player fall to one knee and point to the sky. He is letting us know that God is guiding him – that he is simply a tool. A big, hairy tool.

Having said that, I do find the tactic of bowing heads and kneeling in silence to be marginally less intimidating than that disturbing pagan dance the New Zealanders do.

With your permission, I will get the lads to perform something out of the Crusades. I expect the swords will be provided by St John’s. This should work particularly well when we play against the Muslim, Jewish and old Prussian schools.

I will also be changing the outfits. Although you are Anglican – what the infidels call Catholic Lite – and would probably rather stick to tradition, my research has shown that the best way to get people to watch the game is to put the boys in tight shorts and shirts.

Rest assured that under my firm hand the team will return to the ancient practice of allowing forward passes, using a sheep’s bladder for a ball and stoning the unmarried mothers whose first-born play in the losing team.

There will be none of this drinking the blood and eating the body of Christ at half-time. Quite frankly, I think it is an appalling practice and sets a terrible example for the boys. Instead, we will share vials of amyl nitrate, a biblical balm which, as Moses discovered, goes a long way towards boosting team morale.

Unfortunately, this energising ambrosia has over time been misappropriated by sexual deviants for purposes which rarely have anything to do with rugby.

By the way, sources not far removed from a certain archangel by the name of Gabriel have informed me that the Springbok coach is planning on using me as his secret weapon in the match against Scotland this weekend. Please keep this to yourself. It wouldn’t do to have those haggis-snorting brutes get wind of the plan.

I shall let you know when it’s convenient for me to start work.

Yours in Christ and Rugby,

Ben “Tighthead” Trovato

Application for the position of Chief Executive Officer of the National Gambling Board

Dear Sir,

I take it you are a sir and not a madam because it has been my experience that, apart from the moment when they stand at the altar and say, “I do”, women are not gamblers by nature. I have always felt this to be rather a pity. Although their sixth sense clearly doesn’t cover the selection of a fit and proper husband, there is no reason to think it wouldn’t work when it comes time to decide whether to hit or stick, see or raise, or just plain have another tug on the old fruit machine.

I assume the position of CEO does not require much of an education. I do have one, though, but it is currently not in use. What I do have is an overwhelming love of gambling. I bet that you will not find anyone else whose passion for this sport of kings surpasses mine. I bet you R500. By reading this, you have automatically accepted the terms and conditions of the bet. Best you get your wallet out.

As the country’s gambler-in-chief, I will obviously be introducing a number of changes. My first act will be to install slot machines in every bar, restaurant, cinema, theatre, museum, supermarket and rehabilitation centre in the country. I don’t know who had this job before me, but he clearly dropped the ball on this one. Nobody should go out at night and not be within two minutes of a slot machine. It is simply unforgivable that this situation has been allowed to develop.

My second act will be install roulette wheels in schools. This wonderful educational tool will teach children about centrifugal force, the law of averages and the difference between red and black.

It must be remembered that the children of today are a new breed. When we were at school, we were never given pocket money. Our parents were in the church or the army or police force and never earned very much, although you would think that anyone who worked that hard to keep the blacks out of government would have been paid handsomely.

When our mothers packed us off to school, we were given a punch in the face and a piece of bark to chew on. Today’s kids are spoilt rotten. Not only are they given food, but the little darlings get money for the tuck shop, too.

That’s another thing. In our day we couldn’t get crystal meth and ecstasy from the tuck shop. We could only buy rubbish like cream donuts and fizzy stuff full of sugar and caffeine that would drive us demented and force our teachers to beat us mercilessly until we were hollow-eyed shells barely capable of absorbing even the most basic facts surrounding the Great Trek.

But I digress.

My point is that these children have access to disposable income which should be put to better use. Just because they are shorter than most adults doesn’t mean that their rights should be trampled upon. Smack them about, by all means, but don’t deny them the right to gamble.

A child who doubles or even trebles his money between classes is a happy, motivated child. I am nothing if not a responsible gambler, so it must be said that a child who loses all his money will suffer self-esteem problems and may try to commit suicide.

Seriously, though, who wouldn’t want their son or daughter to learn from a young age that one doesn’t necessarily have to work hard to become rich? I made this discovery relatively late in life – I think I was 32 – and that was only by a fortunate coincidence involving my uncle, two Indian fellows and a Chinaman with a rabbit down his trousers.

As CEO of the Gambling Board, I will also strive to ensure that every suburb has at least two casinos. With religion dying out, it should be a simple matter of buying up the churches and converting them into bright, shiny pleasure palaces.

I want to put the sex back into bingo. I want poker machines in public toilets and blackjack in the hospitals. I want horse racing in the mornings, dog fights in the afternoons and naked mud wrestling at night. I want heads or tails to decide political disputes and playing the Lotto to be made compulsory. The only game I want banned is craps. Americans are big on craps and, quite frankly, I think it is a revolting habit.

I can start immediately. But maybe I am just saying that. Maybe I can only start in a month’s time. Want to put something on it?

Yours truly,

Ben “The One-Armed Bandit” Trovato

Job Application to the Evangelical Seminary of Southern Africa

Dear Father,

I have received word through the Lord’s grapevine that you are looking for men and women to be trained as missionaries and sent into darkest Africa to convert the godless heathens to Christianity.

I do not wish to sound presumptuous, but I think you should forget the women. Don’t you remember what happened in the Garden of Eden? Of course you do. But nor do you wish to fall foul of the Commission for Gender Equality. Their wrath is worse than that of God.

In spite of my criminal record, I think I may have been born for this job. I love the idea of travelling to remote regions, meeting new people, absorbing different cultures and then, just when they are relaxing after dinner, rising up and telling them in a booming voice that the mother of all harlots will burn the number 666 into their foreheads if they do not change their graven image-worshipping ways.

There are nearly two billion Christians in the world. This is not nearly enough. The trigger-happy Muslims, cow-hugging Hindus and holier-than-thou Buddhists are right behind us and we have to move fast.

I am not afraid to go anywhere, but there are some countries where proselytizing is forbidden. Zimbabwe is one of them, now that Robert Mugabe is in the service of the Dark Lord. Sudan could be another. Should you wish to dispatch me to one of these wretched lands, it would be best that I go disguised as a tourist, a charity worker or a TV weatherman. It seems to be working for Derek Van Dam.

I would like to do for the pagans of Africa what the missionaries did for the Red Indians in America. In less than 200 years, the Comanche, Arapaho, Cherokee and Apache went from being noble savages running with the wolves to successful Christian alcoholics running drugs and casinos.

Today, I am happy to say, the reservations are full of face brick churches instead of satanic sweat lodges.

Before I accept the job, I need to know where you stand on witch burning. Luke 19.27 says: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”

I am a very tolerant man, but my friends know not to bring witches unto my house, especially not when the cricket is on. The Weber is used to sacrifice marinated lambs and spatchcock chickens. The bonfire in the back yard is used to burn witches. I have only ever set three alight. The rest escaped.

With the global financial meltdown, firelighters and decent firewood are luxuries that I can no longer afford. Please let me know if there is a cheaper way to slay mine enemies.

I appreciate that conversion by faith is the best means of attaining salvation. However, Africa being what it is, conversion by threats of dismemberment is often a quicker and more cost effective way of helping the natives to see the way, the truth and the light. It worked in Rwanda and it can work here. Stab the stubborn ones with the sharp end of the cross, say seven Hail Marys, drink three Bloody Marys and you’re well on your way to creating a flock of faithful followers.

Does your organisation work on the same principle as the ANC? In other words, are your missionaries mere tools that get sent hither and yon to serve at the seminary’s pleasure? If not, I would like to ask that I be posted to Timbuktu so that I may work among the Dogon people. As you know, these swarthy agnostics still worship Sirius, the dog star, which is linked to the Egyptian goddess, Isis, who is related to the Greco-Roman deity Bacchus and his iconoclastic cousin Priapus, who takes his cue from the sacred fox which has no name.

I will, however, need more than a gun and a bible to reconstruct these Pyrrhonian backsliders. The Dogon believe they were created by gods who came from the sky in space ships. They are madder than Tom Cruise and I will need twenty crates of single malt whisky, 500 condoms and a thousand aspirin if I am to convince them that it is not the god Lebe, but the Almighty Himself who visits them at night in the form of a serpent and licks their skins in order to purify them and infuse them with life.

As one of your newest recruits, my motto will be Convert Or Die. I have already printed the T-shirts so you have to give me the job or I will sue your holy ass to kingdom come.

Yours in Christ,

Brother Ben Trovato