I am an averaged sized male, 1.78m tall. I have olive skin. I cannot be classified as white. The best description that I can think of in the conventional methodology of boxing people is Caucasian – whatever that means.

I enjoy growing a beard. I am privileged enough to be able to don one of these majesties of male testosterone. I am also relatively alternative in my fashion sense, my tattoos and my approach to people.

Over the years I have progressively struggled more and more with the issue of racial classification. I studies politics at Rhodes University and for some reason we never covered the top of racial classification, where it began and why it has never been lost or forgotten. I wish we had because maybe then maybe I’d have some insight.

It all began when I was about 16 and started to realise that I could grow a sizable beard in a short period of time. I now have a 5 o’clock shadow at 11am and a full beard within 5 days of growth. I would venture out to the local hotspots for teenagers my age and could see the confused look on the faces of people around me, people I met and acquaintances who didn’t quite know me well enough to know my last name or heritage. I would meet these people, they would shake my hand, bemused and I quickly began to recognise the look: “What is he, where does he fit in, should I know where he is from, should I treat him differently, what’s he doing here? Black? White? Indian? Arabic? Mediterranean? Bomber?”

You might think that I am being oversensitive about this and so did I initially until I began to speak to people around me about my perceptions. All of my friends jokingly and openly admitted that it took them weeks to figure out that I was not X, Y or Z but was W. They tried to place me but couldn’t. Girls that I would interact with, meet and talk to began to intimidate me because I was wondering if they were concerned about the ambiguity of my racial classification. Many of the girls I dated would later tell me that they knew I was Muslim when they met me. I’m not.

Flash forward to 2004. I organised a trip to the United States. You can see where this is going. 3 years after 9/11 and I had no chance. I shaved my head, cut my beard, stayed out of the sun, wore my best suit and brought along all the sworn testimonials that I required to gain entry in to the US of A. Approximately 4 hours later and barely escaping without a cavity search I was granted entry in to the United States of America. I made sure that I shaved my beard every morning, that I stayed out of the sun and spoke with a pronounced English accent. I could not afford to be misrepresented in the USA, that would almost be fatal. I was young, naive and impressionable back then. In spite of all my best efforts, I still received the looks, questions, queries and was “randomly stopped” at almost every airport terminal I entered and exited.

Moving onward to 2005. I was freelancing in the UK at the precise time and in the precise location of the 7/7 bombings in London. I was at the Canary Wharf station 2 days after the bombings occurred. I hopped on the tube and carried on my merry way. I was carrying my camera bag on my back sporting the typical freelance photographer look; long hair, unshaven, scrappy looking Camel-Man image. Bad idea. Three men approached me, prodded and poked me and forcefully asked me what I had on my back, was it a bomb and did I know who I was messing with. At this point I was slightly more aware of the world. I probed them as to what, precisely, they meant, showed them my Cypriot and South African passports and calmly told them that I had a camera on my back. Not good enough. Two more men joined the onslaught and forcibly removed me from the train. I walked the rest of the way home, went straight to the bathroom, cut my hair and shaved off my beard, yet again. I was beginning to think that being hairy on the facial area was somewhat of a curse.

Again in England but this time it was 2006. I was getting on the Eurostar heading for Paris for 4 days with my girlfriend. We packed one bag – short trip – and I carried it in to the metal detector area. Wrong move. We passed through the metal detectors unscathed but as I picked up the bag and the security guards were able to confirm that the hairy, dark-skinned man owned it and I was done for. They stopped me and proceeded to unpack our bag item by item by item. They stuffed everything (underwear, sensitives and fragiles) back in to the bag with no regard for privacy or respect for personal property. My girlfriend has since carried every bag that we own through any security. She is white-skinned, brown haired and clearly not going to bomb anyone, you see.

Ending that trip in England I had to leave on the passport that I entered on, my Cypriot passport. It seems as though everything I do is wrong when it comes to security because I showed my passport and was lambasted with an onslaught of questions and queries. Yet my passport is a valid EU passport. No one else was being stopped (then again they were all pasty white folk who clearly had not propensity with their light skin and light hair to bomb anything). Why was I? Why was I being scrutinised? I stood at the check in counter for over 90 minutes while security ran my name, passport number and fingerprints through every security system in the world. That is not a hyperbole. They literally ran my details through every possible system that they could. After almost two hours I had almost missed my flight but they smiled at me, doffed their caps and called for the next in line. Goddammit now I’m getting pissed off.

The same premise still applies today and for some reason more so in the current climate. Indoctrination has moved to an uncontrollable level. The Western world is pushing their fearful concept of terrorist rebellion on to the rest of the world and you might laugh at me but it has reached South Africa more rapidly and more pervasively than you would like to admit. I can admit it, I live it. I decided that I had had enough and that I like my beard, I liked wearing scarves around my neck even if it was a black and white scarf that resembled the ones you’ve seen Bin Laden wear on TV. Fuck you, I am who I am – take it or leave it.

I have been flying a lot recently. Work permits me to travel to Cape Town fairly often. One would think that a simple evening trip back from Cape Town to Johannesburg would happen without an incident. But I am becoming wiser now to the ways of the fearful and Western-indoctrination. Waiting to board the plane in the Cape Town airport a family of four sat opposite me. Father, mother, daughter and son, all, one after the next took turns to look over their shoulders, confirm that I looked like a bomber, and whisper their concerns. At one point, the father even approached the airline employee asking if I was on their flight. Call me paranoid but I watched it happen. At this point I started to get irate. I put my leather jacket on over my hoodie, put my hood on over my shaved head and covered up my beard with my scarf. I put my laptop (bulging bomb) on to my back and stood in line, right in front of the family. They were shitting themselves. Bastards.

Now do me a favour, think about this one really carefully, tell me if you judge people based on the colour of their skin, the length of their beard or the way that they dress and think about it the next time you interact with people. We know you look at us differently, we know you think of us differently and I’ve started to like it. I’m coming after your preconceived ideas, I’m going to destroy them, your ideas, not you.

*Disclaimer: I am not, nor have I ever been involved in a terrorist movement of any kind. In spite of my appearance I have never considered bombing anything or harming anyone. Ever.

I am a South African with Greek/Cypriot heritage and proud that people cannot classify me. I am unclassifiable to the naked eye.

Here’s Jade doing my most recent piece that he now needs to complete (3/4 sleeve):

And here’s the piece:

I was fortuitously invited by one Don Packett who MC’d the event.

Don is a brilliant MC. He is, by nature, a funny guy but knows when an event is not about him and his talents and humour. Last night’s event was about Jade and Don made sure to focus events as much as possible on what was at hand, or in this case leg, thigh, full sleeve, half sleeve, bionic arm, ankle or any other body part you could imagine with ink on it.

Here are some videos from the Tattoo Fashion Show that Jaded in put on:

After this event the most incredible thing that I realised is that the culture of tattoo bonds people. It brings like-minded individuals together no matter how far removed from one another they are.

Jaded Ink will definitely be doing my sleeve in the very near future.

Or is it possible that there was an American in the war fighting with zegermanz who tried to bring forth and uprising upon Hitler??

If you are wondering what the hell I am on about here is a list of the comics that I read everyday:

Truck Bearing Kibble

Amazing Super Powers

Cyanide and Happiness

John and John (Not safe for people who don’t like sexual and twisted off the wall humour)

Babylon Sticks

Dilbert

Buttersafe

Geek and Poke

Jeremy Nell

Now tell me, what are you reading online? Have I missed some pearlers?

Springbok scrumhalf Ricky Januarie was arrested on Sunday morning in Durbanville, Cape Town, for drunk driving.

This article was written on September 15th at IOL. Guess what? Ricky Januarie is playing rugby on Saturday for Western Province.

What is wrong with society that sports people (celebrities) are allowed to go free in spite of an arrest? Surely Januarie should be suspended until his court hearing? Surely the Western Province board doesn’t care that much about winning? Surely it is more important to create a sense of responsibility among the idols of SA rugby?

I am going to say it again, I am exceptionally disappointed with the situation and believe that Januarie should be indefinitely removed from professional rugby. This is not his first offense either and that should be even more cause for concern. No, not in our rugby ranks. Here drunk driving is an acceptable crime. Placing other people in danger on the road is seen to be an acceptable way of existing in society. Well I think not. What if Januarie had killed someone? What if he had rammed his car in to someones wall, car, child, mother or grandmother? What then?

It seems that Ricky Januarie will be able to play the rest of the year since his driving under the influence of alcohol case has been postponed to 29 January 2009.

“Januarie, who was arrested by police in the early hours of Sunday morning in Durbanville near Cape Town, has been named to play for Western Province in a Currie Cup match against Griquas at Newlands on Friday. WP coach Allister Coetzee confirmed this week that he will continue to select the player, despite the scrumhalf’s off-field troubles.” – source

But instead January walks free and gets to earn more money and play more rugby all the while, leaving a great trail for the youth to follow. Well done Januarie, well done.

Watch this and you’ll know why:

Now SA has a Murderball team but for some reason we aren’t competing at this years Paralympics. Either we didn’t qualify or our team didn’t make it over there? Strange but intense anyway.

Those who are mentioned “seem to not care” but care enough to blog about themselves being blogged about. I have been mentioned a fair amount and I am now partaking in my own condemnation (oh the irony). I am blogging about blogs by bloggers on blogging and bloggers and who’s the bestest of the best and whose daddy is bigger than whose mommy and who has the nicest fanciest shmanciest housiest home or rather, blog, and who is more influential than who and how often they influence those that influence others.

Can I just chime in here and say that I actually think it’s a load of rubbish. In spite of my participation in Mandy’s “Top Ten bloggers” post over at MoneyWeb I honestly think it’s irrelevant. Mandy asked on twitter yesterday: “Who has more influece?” and listed three bloggers for others to compare. Link. Bait. It’s link baiting. Not journalism. It’s irrelevant in my opinion (and only in my opinion). What does matter is that its time we refocus our energy on relevant content for the every day reader. Not the bloggers who blog about blogging.

Has content become so drab and non existent that we have turned to each other, looked one another in the blog and decided that we are the only content relevant enough to blog about? Are you kidding me?

I reiterate that I grasp the fact that I am doing the same thing right now that I am condemning, do not point it out in the comments, I get it, I know that I am doing it but occasionally it is unavoidable.

What I am getting at is that people like to stir the pot, we like to back rub, we like to have our backs rubbed, we all do and we all know it, we just can’t help ourselves. It’s the old adage that people like to see themselves on TV, look at America’s Funniest Home Videos. That show has never gone away and it’s because there are regular people focusing on people like themselves. That doesn’t make it good content though. It just makes it long-lasting.

Maybe it’s time I shift my focus to writing for readers, not bloggers. Writing for people and writing about things that people like to read. In my opinion readers don’t like to read about bloggers blogging about blogs and other bloggers egos and ranks and pages and pageranks and technorati and lists and links… see I’m bored already.

I am fast losing faith in the medical profession.

Here they are:

What now? Where does Zimbabwe go from here? Can it get any goddam worse for the poor people of a once stunning country?

The people of Zimbabwe are now set to suffer for a long time. Human rights injustice is not a bad word in that country right now, it is almost par for the course. Now, it is only going to get worse. The people are going to suffer. Everyone. Not just white, not just black, everyone.

It breaks my heart and brings tears to my eyes thinking about how many people are suffering and how few people are willing to assist them. Fuck the politicians, the big corporates or anyone else who is benefitting from the situation in Zimbabwe, dammit all to hell there are people dying.

Has society taken so many steps backward that we condone the mass killing of hundreds of thousands and the torment of so many more. Has the Western World lost so much punch that they talk about change but don’t implement it. Have we all lost our fucking minds?

I feel so much sympathy and so much respect for Morgan Tsvangirai. The man has tried, he has been arrested, beaten, broken and watched his family, friends and colleagues be murdered for a cause that is virtually all but lost now. I pity him for the lack of support he has from South Africa and the world. I pity the world even more for letting the good people of Zimbabwe lose.

I pity society if this is what we have become.