The Port Elizabeth Premiere of Tunnel Rats

I finally watched, Tunnel Rats! My friends and I organized a mini-premiere last night as part of my birthday.

I spoke to Darryn earlier in the day and asked if we could use his place to screen my movie debut. He has a pretty sweet projector and sound set-up that would really simulate a theoretical experience. He agreed to have it at his house. So everything was set.

I didn’t know about their plan, but as a joke I arrived with a little black bow tie as an addition to my very casual dress. My friends however, surprised me by arriving in full formal wear, which enhanced the authenticity of our premiere night. Bryan even organized a fine bottle of bubbly for the occasion.

I was blown away. It’s not every night that there is a black tie event in ol’ PE, so it was quite a change to see the guys and girls all dolled up.

The movie is best described as a war horror, filled with gore and depicts the futility of war. The action scenes were great and in my opinion, there was some good character development, given the relatively short duration in which the film maker had to do it in.

It was a strange experience for me to relive some of the scenes and recount the performances from some of the actors, especially due to the different angles (that I experienced) in addition to the accompaniment of mood music and scores.

The entire experience was very special and one which I think I will always remember fondly. I could not have asked for a better ending to my birthday.

Wild, Bearded Man of Borneo

Temporary, blindness and migraines gone; I made sure that I set my alarm today. Both of them, the clock on my bedside pedestal and my cell phone as a back up...I was not going to be late like I was yesterday. So with both alarms blaring, giving me the fright of my life, I might add, I was up and off to the gym. The one thing I love about going to the Virgin Active in Wembley Square is that afterwards, if you're feeling sorry for yourself for sadistically, inflicting pain upon your body; you can still reward it with a good ol’ Vida coffee… It makes all the pain worth it. Well, almost.

The bright side (not that the sun is up at 5am) of getting up really early is that you have a lot more time to get ready for work. I figured after 2 weeks of neglect, it was time to haul out my trusty Philishave, electric razor and get rid of my beard. To my dismay the shaver was nowhere to be found, and I guess from the absence of its use, I seem to have misplaced it. I guess fate had decided for me…the bearded look was going to be in.

Now I’ve never grown a beard before, so sporting my new look I reckoned the facial hair would get a lot of attention…but no-one even noticed! I had supper with my good friend Natalie at Rick’s Café, for a catch up session, since I had not seen her in a while. And yet there was no mention of my beard, none at all, although she does also think she’s a squirrel so perhaps her opinion doesn’t count!

Okay, okay so I can’t really grow a proper beard, in fact if I leave it for too long all that happens is that I get a pretty mangy looking, patch-work of whiskers. I remember a few weeks before the filming of Tunnel Rats, they asked me to try grow a beard. But when I arrived on set the make up ladies took one look at me, saw how erratically my facial hair had grown and made me shave it off immediately.

I’m still not sure when Tunnel Rats is going to be released, unfortunately there seems to be some controversy with regards to the director, Uwe Boll's other recent releases and this has caused distributors to keep their distance away from it. However I do know it was shown at the film market section of Cannes Film Festivals, and I have heard that it has gotten some rave reviews. Fingers crossed, I really hope that the film gets a major release; the actors were brilliant and with their raw emotion, really portrayed the Vietnam War and the characters involved realistically, methinks.

Paul and I have decided that no matter what happens with the distributor debacle, we're somehow going to get a hold of it, and hold our very own South African, red carpet premiere at the Labia Theatre! Lets hope by then I would have found my shaver and will be looking neat, cleanly shaven and sharp.

Restaurant Hopping is the New Pub Crawling

Normally, one tends to sleep in or nurse a serious hangover, as is accustomed facing the aftermath of a crazy, Friday night. But not me. My mate Ernst and I became tired of wasting away Saturday mornings and began a ritualistic Saturday morning coffee at a new coffee spot each week to get the weekend started, from there, a few more people joined and a few more, and yet a few more...it has grown to such an extent that it is now its own entity and is called the Saturday Morning Cape Town Coffee Club. Saturday morning coffee has become so important to me that I often even forfeit a night out on the town just so I can be fresh and ready for the morning.

This morning I had a particularly early start to the day, as I was assigned the task of picking up some stunt pads for Paul and Action Dan from the Linex Yamaha in Roeland Street...and here I thought they only sold motorcycles.

Paul and Action Dan, by the way have every, boys dream job. Being involved in the production of stunts for motion pictures, they get to travel, blow stuff up, throw themselves off of high buildings, and generally do crazy things that every person wishes they could do...for a living. The first time I met Dan he approached me randomly in the gym and asked if I wanted to be in a movie, he said the name of the movie was Tunnel Rats...I dunno about you? But at first, it sounded like it could have been a dodgy porn film. If there was a strange, blonde, good-looking, British dude asking if you wanted to be in a movie involving "Tunnels", what would you think?

He said he was desperately looking for Vietnamese looking characters for a movie based on the Vietnam War. And being oriental, I guess I fit the bill. As he explained, what it was all about; I thought I'd take a chance, take down his number and give him a call. I mean what did I have to lose?...Actually don't answer that! I sussed Tunnel Rats out on IMDB and the rest as they say is history. Action Dan and Paul, whom I also met on set, have since become good mates.

After picking up the pads, I had a hectic day of running around and catching up with people. It started at Saturday coffee, where two of my best friends Tracy and Natalie, whom I've not seen since my move back to Cape Town decided to join coffee club for the first time.

Tracy and Natalie, are both from Port Elizabeth (PE), a place I called home for 10 years. Tracy was a few years ahead of me in high school, and Natalie I met randomly on a plane ride from Cape Town to PE, I helped her with her bags as we boarded, and turned out she was a year ahead of me at the Junior school I went to, but I had just missed her as I started there the year she left. Small world huh? And so, on the plane ride home, we just clicked.

Next, I was off to Gourmet Burger, or the GB as I'd like to call it, to meet an old mate and ex-colleague from Korbitec, Afzal. GB has some of the best burgers in town, served any way you like, with some inventive combinations to choose from, it's also Halaal in case you ever need to entertain some Muslim mates. As far as I know there are now three GBs, the original one is situated on the side street next to Cavendish Square, one on Long Street and a new one which has just opened in Cavendish Square. Since there was no chance of me sitting in a mall after spending a year of running around servicing every Clicks store, in every mall across the country, we opted for the side street original.

We reminisced the glory days at Korbitec, and as we finished up our burgers realized there were no desserts on the menu. I guess when they say they focus on burgers, they weren't kidding. It's odd not to have dessert on the menu but focus is good and we couldn't complain since they do, do their burgers well! It also gave us a chance to cruise around for a dessert spot. We ended up at the Milky Lane, I've not been to a Milky Lane in years! And ordered a Chocolate Brownie Sundae, man it's sweet!...quite literally and figuratively!

Coming down from my sugar high, and getting ready for two birthday parties this evening I doubt my day could get any better...good food...good friends...who could ask for more?