A Weekend at the Loeries

Neither my press credentials nor my VIE pass get me into the Velocity party, but a tricky climb involving a barbed wire fence and a ramshackle down pipe do. Fortunately, the cubicle into which I snake my way in is unoccupied, and I take a moment to catch my breath, tuck my shirt in. I run my finger over the toilet's tank lid, and then massage the findings into my gums. It's just dust and grime, and a slight saltiness. Obviously, this party hasn't started.

The music inside the club is of the kind that makes people want to go outside. The weather outside on the balcony is of the kind that makes people want to go inside. It is a dilemma that is reflected in the way people move, now a little weight on the left foot, now a little on the right, an indecisive kind of bopping, and a futile defense against this two-pronged assault. The DJ, on the other hand, suffers none of this indecisiveness, he seems to be battling it out with the cape of storms itself, "is this the best you got?" he seems to be shouting as he ups the volume another notch and jubilantly throws himself into a grand mal seizure.
Because of the dilemma the doorway is crammed, and I have to spill drinks to get to the edge of the balcony, where I wedge myself into a blind spot between a person called Barnabas and a person called Chloe. They don't see me because they're sending and receiving text messages on cell phones. While they're talking.  
"This just doesn't feel like the Loeries."
"Yeah."
"It feels like holiday."
"Yeah, it's too busy."
Barnabas and Chloe will be awarded a Loerie later tonight. For excellence in communication.

The balcony offers a splendid view of Camp's Bay; you can see the Loerie shuttles bringing Loerie nominees in from town, see them make their way up the stairs to the Velocity party, see them being turned away, "by invite only," see them making their way down the stairs, see some of them getting back in the Loerie shuttles, see others standing for a minute at the edge of the beach, comparing the actual beach with the brochures in their heads, see them also get back in the Loerie shuttles, see a storm building over the South Atlantic Ocean.
I leave the party in an appropriate manner and join the Very Important Ego's at Caprice for free drinks. There's a table of women discussing what they're going to wear tonight, "dress like your ego depends on it," and a silent drinking competition, which I enter, and win. The last shuttle out takes me to the Good Hope centre for the Gala Prize Giving Ceremony Part One.
The Good Hope centre is as glamorous as an inverted crater. It is a gigantic pimple of reinforced concrete and stale farts. It is a monument to the belief in UFO's. In an effort to disguise its hideousness somebody pasted pictures of colourful little aliens on the walls, somebody else rolled out a red carpet. I sip the last of my winnings from the silent drinking competition and watch the Loerie nominees arrive, watch them make their way up the stairs. I can tell who will go home with a Loerie tonight from the way they walk, the way they claw onto the red carpet like tree dwellers onto branches, posing for photos. The advertising habitat poses numerous mechanical challenges to animals moving through them, leading to a variety of anatomical and behavioral consequences.
"Have you seen Gwen?" somebody asks.
"Who's Gwen?"

"Gwen Gill," he says, a cocky little fellow with shoes the size of skis. "Have you seen her?"
"Isn't that her?" I offer, pointing to a woman wearing shoes with toes facing forward, toes facing backward. He replies with a little sound which I struggle to interpret because I'm still looking at her feet, zygodactylous, impossible to say - looking at them - if she's moving up or down the stairs. I smoke a cigarette, then follow a woman with a broken wing to the VIE bar for free drinks.
 
An invisible voice announces that the ceremony is about to begin. This results in a stampede and then a shared kind of sardine like feeling. There's a frotteur in the crowd. I can tell by the way he shoves me towards the entrance.

Gala Prize Giving Ceremony Part One is opened by Jax Panik, a band of four guys jumping up and down on the spot, as excited and as attractive as four loaded condoms. I make my way to the bar. The bar is closed. For the duration of the ceremony. For two hours. Outside, on Sir Lowry's road, a man with Richie Rich tattooed on his forearm agrees to show me a bar in exchange for a drink. He takes me to place called Africa Junction hidden in the railway station. A staircase leads up to it, but it is an optical illusion, because this is the kind of place that can only exist underground. Trolls and ogres gather here, foaming from their mouths, brandishing beer bottles like swords, swords you unsheathe by banging them against the edges of pool tables, your opponents' heads. I ask the barman for take-away beers.

"First you drink a bit," he says, opening two quarts, "then we'll talk about take-aways."
A mean looking bouncer eyes me suspiciously.
A woman introduces herself as the mother of the city.
"You've got beautiful teeth," I say.

She laughs, takes her teeth out, and then laughs some more before she introduces me to her daughters. She's offended when, by daughter number seven, I still don't show any interest. Richie Rich does, and asks me for a loan. I give him a fifty and then convince the barman through example that I can easily hide four beers in my five figure suit. On my way out I notice that the mean looking bouncer is in actual fact a card board cut-out, an advertisement for Windhoek that will be awarded a Loerie.
People are getting into shuttles when I get back. In one of the shuttles I find a gap on Mr. T's lap. It is not the actual Mr. T, he only shares a likeness to the actual Mr. T in the seemingly generousness of his lap. Mr. T suggests I wait for the next shuttle.

"Drive with us," says a man with a bald head protruding from a suit the colour of cooked salmon. He offers me his elbow and I follow him to his car, three other passengers waiting, reading CD covers out of boredom. A woman with a runny nose helps me undo my fly in the back of the Dodge, helps me to retrieve the beer bottle that has slid down my pants and got stuck at the stove-piped trouser leg. It's a short drive to the after party which happens to be at Baldy's place and not at Long Street Caf� as I thought. The woman with the runny nose disappears into one of many rooms with the rest of the passengers. I make myself comfortable on a couch overlooking a lounge wherein quite a number of people have passed out, naked. One of them resembles a boy. Baldy joins me, hands me a glass of champagne.

"What's your biggest fear?" he asks when he refills my glass from a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.
"My biggest fear," I say, "is that the rapture takes place while I'm on a plane and the pilot is a Christian."
"That won't happen," says Baldy, running his hand up my leg.
"How can you be so sure?" I giggle.
"Because, my dear boy, I am God."
A taxi takes me home.

There's a note on the fridge, it's from my wife. It's long and it makes my head hurt to read it, so I don't. Instead I check text messages on my cell phone, I have overslept the press conference with four hours. I open a bottle of champagne, finish it in the bath, then catch a taxi to town for the Gala Prize Giving Ceremony Part Two.
The red carpet is rolled up, the town is wet. I feel kind of sorry for the Loerie nominees being ushered toward the stairs, Technicolor umbrellas protecting their delicate feathers from the rain, so I don't linger, go to the VIE bar for free drinks instead. There's a girl handing out pamphlets for a strip club called the House of Rasputin, "redeemable for a naughty surprise." She smiles at me, and I really can't tell whether it's in a personal or a professional capacity. There's a man dying to exchange business cards, he carries his fanned out in front of him, like an amateur trickster, a little magic for small change. I indulge him, give him the business card Baldy gave me last night, "Executive Creative Director," it says. There's an Indian couple inspecting the inside of a samosa, they seem well impressed. The woman is tempted to take the last bite, but then she controls herself, wraps the remains in a handkerchief, she can study it further at home, reverse engineer it. When the food plate comes round there is no more samosas left, I take a piece of stale white bread with caviar enveloped in a slice of salmon instead.

"Margate was better," somebody says.
"Yeah," somebody agrees.
"What is a Loerie, by the way?" a girl asks, her mock naivety a tell-tale sign that she's a slut.
"It's a bird," an interested party explains. "It's Afrikaans for Go-away bird."
"O," she says, drawing attention to the lip gloss she uses, For Plumping Effect by Yardley.

There's an advertising executive from Joburg with the label still stitched on the right arm of his four figure Truworths suit. There's a guy looking around for his personality. Maybe he lost it last night. You can tell which people went to the after party last night from the puffiness of their bloodshot eyes. Rolled up red carpets. I finish a fourth double vodka and Red Bull, and relieve myself in the men's room, running my finger in a zigzag pattern over the tank lid, massaging the findings into my gums. Desperate times call for desperate measures, waste not, want not, and all that. I return to the bar and stuff the cavities of my outfit with free drinks so that I'm armed against the onslaught of boredom.
Goldfish opens the ceremony. Smoke, lasers, and balloons. Giant screens which make the actual persons appearing on them seem obsolete - and make-up a must. John Vlismas. Helen Zille. Festus Masekwameng. Other nameless giants of the advertising industry, struggling to look at home in five figure suits. The prerecorded voice of Percy Montgomery reads the names of the winners while computer generated images of outer space mesmerize the audience. "These images of outer space reflect our ambition as advertising creatives," explains one of the creators of these images, "it is the final frontier in terms of advertising space," - a little motivational joke which the audience enjoys. There's an adorable little advertisement about Chilly the Real Snowman Boy for Chicken Licken which only gets a craft certificate because the real eaters of Chicken Licken do not have snowman childhoods. Somebody gets a Loerie for an upside down Tetris downloadable to your cell phone. Somebody claps his hands. Somebody yawns.
In order to sidestep another rupture I make my visit to the VIE lounge for free drinks quick, taking one for the road, and then rush to get a seat on a shuttle to the after party. The whole upper end of Long Street is cordoned off and it is difficult to tell whether I am in actual fact at Long Street Caf�. I ask a policeman whether I am in the right place. He frowns like a constipated horse and let me pass. It is difficult to walk. It is difficult to tell whether I am actually walking or being carried. There's a giant flat screen television in the VIE lounge with live feed from the actual party.

This is where you dance, in front of the television, if you don't want to be too far from the free drinks bar. A gay couple moves in on me, their combined age a three figured number, I get a free drink, make my way to the actual party. People are milling around the pay bar, indecisive about what they want to drink, now a little weight on the left foot, now a little on the right. The DJ, on the other hand, suffers none of this indecisiveness; he takes a perfectly timed sip of bottled water, and then metamorphosize himself into the actual moving parts of a giant loudspeaker. I feel motivated by his dedication to his craft, down my drink, unbutton my shirt, advertising myself, and then penetrate a little niche market of three little dancing girls. I show them what I can do with my pelvis to the beat pumping from the loaded-condom-driven giant man-speaker. They clutch their little handbags and move off. Fucking Go-away birds.

Somebody wakes me up. It's my wife.
"How was the party?" she asks.
"I missed it."

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What Others Said

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Mo said
on 14 October 2009

Hilarious!