Soundbite

Do you speak "Boer"?

the friendly American asked me.

No, actually it's called "Afrikaans" and yes, I do speak it.

Oh yeah, "Afrikaner", that's right.

No, "Afrikaans".

Oh yeah, "Afrikan".

Ssssssss.... never mind.

meeting Charlize...

A few years back just before she won her Oscar for MONSTER, I went to a screening of the film and a Q&A with her. I had been obsessed with running into Charlize since I first got to LA on a 90 day tourist visa. Anyway, 88 days into my (first) 90 day stay I not only saw her, but spoke to her, shook her hand, hugged her, asked her stuff, told her stuff - she is a very, very accessible movie star.

As always, after 5 questions in the Q&A the dumb interviewer starts on the "well, we have to wrap this up - last question"-theme. Charlize says: "Oh, why? I'm having such a good time. Do we have to go??" To which the audience howls: "Noooooooo" - so the questions continued. However, after about another 20 minutes the management of the Laemmle Theatre was adamant that we stop, so Charlize took the session into the lobby. Just like that. She was like:" Wait, let me come down to you guys " (she was on a stage) and walked to the lobby with the audience in tow, stopped there and continued to answer people's questions and chat to people individually. The crowd thinned out, but I had rented the spot next to her left elbow and for the next 45 minutes, I was not moving from there. I guess I was being a real hog, but I did let other people ask questions too and about 3 people wanted autographs. In between, I kept firing off questions and I told her that I had been waiting to run into her during my time here and now it had happened. We eventually got kicked out of the lobby, so we carried on on the pavement. She told me she also came to Hollywood on a 90 day tourist visa and asked how long I had been here and what I was going to do and I told her... and she listened. She wanted to know where I was from in Jo'burg and when I said Randburg she was all: "Oh, I went to De Kruin art school there!" Anyway, I won't give you every question and every answer..blah, blah, but I am absolutely amazed at how available she is to her public.

There was a guy filming her with his handycam, so I know I'm all over that home movie - I just did not want to leave! I know it probably looked a little excessive, me glued to her elbow like that, but I had hatched this plan to ask her in Afrikaans (so that no-one else would get it), if she had time to have tea with me...I chose tea, because "koffie" in Afrikaans still sounds like coffee in English! Well, at the last moment I thought I may be pushing my luck and then I thought a guy near her was probably a bodyguard, so I dropped my plan. As it happens, this guy walked her to her car, but then she got in and he walked the other way. I could SOOOOO be having tea with her right now! I considered racing up to the car window with my proposal....but, luckily, I realized just in time that that would have been a very dumb move. Maybe. Actually, maybe it wouldn't have been such a dumb move after all - ? oh, W H A T E V E R. Now that my little fantasy about running into her in Hollywood has actually come true, I have a new obsession - how to invite her to the screening of my short film ... never fear, I have a little plan already (and yes, it does involve the use of Afrikaans).

Joshua Tree Natl Park

A few weekends ago, V and I drove to Joshua Tree National Park in the desert. We arrived in a very, very hot Palm Springs, screeching in unison to the strains of ABBA's Greatest Hits on the car CD player
After a seafood dinner in the desert, we checked into a gloriously seedy motel called "El Rancho Dolores" and watched an HBO non-fiction series on forensic pathologists and the crimes they have solved. Very desert-like behaviour to get us into the spirit (especially the seafood).

The Joshua Tree itself is actually a yucca – and thus a giant member of the Lily family, but it looks a bit like a tree with its craggy branches. Mormons travelling through the region in the 1850's thought its branches looked like Joshua, with his arms outstretched, leading his people to the promised land... thus the name.
We did some short hikes in the park itself, but seeing as 'Queer Eye' thinks "outdoors" is a rude 8 letter word, much sightseeing was done from the comfort of the air-conditioned SUV (!!). The highlight of the day, however, was when I stood up on the car seat and stuck my head out the sunroof to have an outdoor experience, whilst 'Gloria Glitterwitz' (V's alter ego) pumped the tunes and the air inside the vehicle. So although we were in the same place at the same time, we were both having very different experiences.

Anyway - on our last day in the desert we went for an outride on horseback after which Gloria Glitterwitz did much complaining about the state of her adductors. We then spent 3 overheated hours in the Living Desert Botanical Gardens in 41ºC chatting away in Afrikaans and making up silly stories. Heat-stroke, I think.

Every single activity (such as animal feedings and demos) had been cancelled due to the heat, so we went into the animal rehab hospital - ostensibly to witness animal rehabilitation, but in reality we were after the climate control. We skunked around the place for a while, peering into all sorts of labs where there was nothing AT ALL going on and being ignored by the few remaining staff members.
This rehab hospital was not to be taken too seriously. For starters, they had a toy-gecko splayed out on an operating table with a camera trained on him. At first I thought it was a real creature, but the black beaded eyes gave him away as being nothing but a not-so-fluffy toy soon enough. I'm no fool! So finally, for want of a more authentic living thing to witness being rehabilitated, V inspected his tongue under a microscope that had been hooked up to a screen. At least we got something out of it.