One Month in L.A.

I can’t believe it’s happened so fast, but already a month has flown by. I remember getting the letter from USC (University of Southern California) to say I had received a Pulitzer fellowship and that I was being offered full tuition to study an MA in Specialized Journalism. I was listening to an Ahmad Jamal record, a song where he plays a frenetic piano refrain that perfectly matched the storm brewing inside me. Finally, the dream is coming true, and yet now I everything has to change. Freak out.

Long story short, I promptly started packing up my life, went to Joburg a couple times to see Antoinette, said goodbye to friends and family, and hopped aboard a very very long flight. Erna (one of my professors, acclaimed journalist and all round amazing person) picked me up at LAX airport and we proceeded to the nearest Soulfood place…. HELLO LA!

When I first got to LA, I had this dread feeling of “What have I done?” I felt so far away from my friends and family… and getting engaged just before I came threw some extra emotion into the mix! (That story is a whole post in itself that will probably never happen.)The first few days was really hard and I missed Antoinette but I found solace in small mercies … my housemates were cool South Africans (one of whom I know from university), I found a nice coffee shop close by (essential), and  living close to one of the best record stores in the world didn’t hurt either…

Once I settled into my neighbourhood (Hollywood, of all places) It was time to get ready for classes to start. The building where we were having our Summer Multimedia Bootcamp class was a beautiful old Victorian… the classes went well and the professors, instructors (Sasha Anawalt, Erna Smith and Jon Vidar), and classmates were all cool. They called it “bootcamp” because we were in class from 9 to 6 everyday…luckily coffee and Trader Joe’s snacks were always at hand. Bootcamp was a great experience because we were able to forge strong friendships in an intense non-stop learning environment. We were able to rally together around a single cause… getting through bootcamp.

On the first day of bootcamp, Kool A.D. performed in Echo Park. Needless to say, he’s from one of my favourite groups of all time, Das Racist. I missed his set trying to finish my homework for the next day but myself and my friend Tricia hung out till we spotted him… and subsequently approached him for a picture. He was really obliging. All round cool guy. Trip made. I can go home now. Oh wait, school just started.

One of the projects we did in our bootcamp was an audios slideshow, which I made on one of the servers at this taco stand in my neighbourhood, The Cactus. I saw this place in one of my favourite LA blogs before coming here. Incidentally I also met Earl Sweatshirt here (turns out one of my friends from class is a family friend.) Best taco stand ever. (On a side note, I got to meet Fatlip from Tha Pharcyde on the bus…  he sat down right next to me. )

Also something crazy and awesome happened. I got to meet Jared Hess, director of the cult hit Napoleon Dynamite, one of my favourite indie movies. Jared was in Cape Town shooting a commercial and saw my friend Kent’s (Alpha Longboards) piece that CNN did on him. Long story short, Jared met up with Kent, Kent made him some skateboards and told him about me. Jared looked me up when he got to LA and we had dinner together. Surreal? Definitely. But also so normal. It was a great experience because it showed me how there are still people in showbiz who are down to earth , ‘normal’ people, regardless of their success and talent. 

I also got to meet up with some old friends from SA and meet some new ones…

Which brings me to where I am now… in the swing of things with Fall semester just started. I’m starting to get comfortable with the idea that LA is my home for now. This is the kind of place where anything seems possible, where anything you wanted could be out there, and probably is. Reflecting on the month that was, I have already learnt a lot, not just in terms of schoolwork, but in terms of what’s possible. I am starting to realise more and more that in setting our intentions for goals and dreams, we might be surprised how obtainable they are. That in itself is a scary thought.

One time for ya mind

Back again in Dubai… I’m here to edit the Al Jazeera documentary on Fatima Meer that I’m working on. The company producing the project, Hotspot Films, is based here. I worked for them early last year on the film about Tatamkhulu Afrika. But this is not what this post is about.

Yesterday, when flying to Dubai, was one of the most trying days of my life… no exaggeration. I missed my connecting flight to Dubai at Johannesburg airport. While it being my error for not double checking, my boarding pass for the JHB – DXB flight had my boarding time and gate closing time left blank. All it said was time : 2PM. I assumed that meant the  boarding time as there was no other time on the pass. When the time came for me to board, I got a call from Emirates saying the plane was about to leave. Panicked, I ran to to the boarding gate and while trying to duck to through the queue barriers to get to passport control, I tore the front of my pants! Crotch flapping open, I frantically ran what felt like a kilometer to the boarding gate but by the time I got there it was too late. The flight had been closed. And I was in the airport all this time! At Mugg ‘n Bean nogal! I couldn’t believe I had let this happen. I just focused on trying to not hate myself and called my mom (as you do when your world falls apart.) My girlfriend too.  Since my passport had been stamped out, I was technically out of South Africa and in no man’s land. After about 4 frustrating hours of confusion and misdirection from airport officials and the most walking I have done ever in one day, I eventually managed to check back into South Africa and get onto the next flight to Dubai.

Once on the flight, I noticed a familiar look woman sit right across the aisle from me, it was Fatima Meer’s niece! I had met her in Durban when interviewing her dad Dr Farouk Meer, Fatima Meer’s brother. This coincidence was just to good to be true. I told her that I was on the way to Dubai to finish work on the documentary on her aunt and she couldn’t believe it either. It was a really good omen for the work that lies ahead of me, especially since I was feeling some anxiety around the edit (as I always do before an edit.)

For me these kinds of coincidences are God’s way of steering you in the right direction, or to tell you you are on the right path. If I hadn’t missed my flight, I wouldn’t have been sitting next to her. In that sense I realised that sometimes life doesn’t go as we plan, but we just have to roll with it, and just maybe there’s a reason why bad things happen. And when we do make a mistake, we have to not hate ourselves for it and get caught up in the drama, but accept and move on.

Today in Dubai I started listening to the new Roots album Undun (amazing) and I felt this next track just jumped out at me

I was always late for the bus
Just once can I be on time
Then I start to think, what’s the rush
Who wants to be on time
Feeling unlucky and if I ever got lucky it was one time
In this crazy world

Happy weekend, everybody.