An interesting... sokkie dans

For the first time I went to a sokkie sokkie for the gays - termed a GAT party by the regular attendees.

There are few things more enjoyable than watching people dancing. Hand in hand, cheek-to-cheek, spinning around in rhythmical fashion. The smiles shared between couples waltzing around a dancefloor make me feel great, and I sat a few weeks watching this parade of people swishing gracefully anti-clockwise around the room. It was such a grand, chilled-out evening with few worries, cheap beer and no drama whatsoever. And full of homos.

It is the first time I have ever been at a gay party which came with so little admin, drama and judgementalness, and so much happiness.

The gays are a tricky bunch. Very few of us are the typically screechy queen that popular culture loves to display us as – in fairness, that’s the meaningful equivalent of the hypocritical white liberal, the khakid-up Dutchman with a comb in his sock and the fact that the logo for every single thing in KZN is a badly-drawn King Shaka. I digress.

Although every subculture has its own politicking, (open generalisation) gays have a nasty bitchy streak that’s constantly on show (close generalisation). In fact in our world, being a bigger bitch adds to your brand value. Unfortunately, this manifests itself in our behaviour – becoming the biggest prick (no pun intended) means smashing other people down with your self-confidence rapier. This, in turn, possibly on a subconscious level, means we need behave as if we are impervious to criticism, hence the obsession with highly-crafted bodies, dress sense and other superfluous and expensive crap.

Because of our obsession with keeping ourselves at the top of our game constantly, it is very hard to just chill. Even what we think is a chilled, relaxed evening out ain’t no rugby braai. And this is why the aforementioned sokkiedans partytjie I was at on Saturday absolutely blew me away. Quite frankly, it was a room full of gays enjoying themselves in a very “straight” and traditional way – simply by dancing. Not in a showy-off, check-out-the-junk-in-my-trunk manner, but proper, lekker, classic dancing – I did a (toe-crushing) waltz for the first time in my life there. What could have been a night of personal-worry was actually stress-free fun – like singing alone in your car.

I think that we sometimes forget that fun is a simple thing, and in amongst the showmanship the simplicity gets lost. As ridiculous as it sounds, straight people have a lot to teach us when it comes to enjoying ourselves. I can sense that people may think I am saying that gays don’t have fun or are miserable inside – not so. My point is that fun is not necessarily an extension of judgemental bitchiness, a waxed, contrived body or Dolce & Gabbana. I think that the sooner we realise this, the happier more people will be.

So thanks to the sokkie-dansers. The lesson was good.

An interesting... change has already come

I live in oddly the most racist city in South Africa, but also boasting some of the most chilled subjects when it comes to race integration. This utter anomaly that is Cape Town was on full display at Assembly just off Buitenkant Street last night. Freshlyground launched their new album there, so there were a lot of black folks in the place ("a lot" being relative - probably 80% white and 20% black - more than you see in the average Cape Town establishment). I only arrived afterwards when Freshlyground had gone and some odd, yet interesting, Eastern European dancy music was playing.

After about an hour, people began dribbling out and it got to a point where there were only about 60 of us left there - the averages were now probably around half black folks and half white folks.I was drinking so my maths may be off.

The DJ eventually got over his Eastern European obsession, and started pumping out some local tunes. And we danced to a few of them. Out of the blue, he started playing Vuli Ndlela by Brenda Fassie, and simultaneously, the dancefloor all became excitable. I shrieked like an excited schoolgirl because it is one of my favourite songs, and then I realised that my friend's new boyfriend was also amped that it had come on. It is not often I come across other white folks that know any Brenda Fassie songs, let alone are able to sing along with them phonetically (I know it's lame - I have fokol idea of what the song is about, but I know how the words sound, so I sing along).

Straight after Vuli Ndleda the DJ played Weekend Special (also Brenda Fassie) and the mood on the dancefloor carried on. Now, I have no co-ordination whatsoever, and it is just not a nice thing to look at when I begin throwing myself around during a song. I can't dance to save my goddam life, but what I lack in ability I make up for in effort and enthusiasm. And my enthusiasm was directed to some like organised dance movement thing by other people - we threw ourselves in and tried to copy (some more successfully than me) and all danced together.

Yup, the white folks and the black folks and the coloured folks and old folks and young folks and gay folks and breeder folks all danced together. If Nelson Mandela had seen it he would have orgasmed.

South African folks, dancing together, to classic South African music.

Really, this divisive shit we like to espouse all day gets over-ridden by what happens when we all get together with a few drinks and some tunes and just fucking chill.

Christ, I love living in this country.

If you go out looking for some happiness here, you'll find it. Easily.