Wine and Tabacco Smoke - A journey through the Overberg
A cool wind is whipping up from the valley floor and screams over the rocks where we are huddled in a circle around a fire. We're passing around a pipe and the tabacco smoke mingles and sets in with the smell of meat on open coals. The milky way and the Southern Cross keeping a watchful eye over our campsite. It's been a tough day of hiking but the beauty of the Overberg mountain range brought a simple kind of peace over group. We drink wine and talk with muffled voices, careful not to disturb the deafening silence. My beautiful country, my friends, my dreams. All right here in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but make and share memories.
Happy nights like this tend to hold a mirror to your soul. Often it brings more questions than answers. It is Sunday night and I know that the city ,that I am temporarily calling my home, is getting ready for another week. Traffic lights, sirens, business meetings and a seemingly endless rush towards a dead end. I've got mixed feelings about the city. My work is there, I get payed and have security in my profession. I have great friends and opportunities to explore the many delights and comforts a big city can provide. I get the chance to play little venues either as a solo act or with my friends and we get to share stories and connect with strangers. I understand that for me, the city is a means to an end. I am responsible with my money and my decisions and I'm plotting my exit. Sooner than later. I'm working to get back to the farm, wherever that might be. My herd of mother cows are slowly expanding and my plan for setting up processes and systems to sustainably farm quality beef cattle in the future is slowly coming together.
Storytelling, whether accompanied by music or not, is as old as time itself. From the beginning people have been struggling to communicate or convey emotions partly due to the restrictions of their respective languages and the differences in alphabet, culture and history. When stories are told and metaphors are used however, empathy enters the room. People associate with stories and draw parallels to their own experiences and there the connection happens. I don't understand French and I've never been to Belgium but I know exactly what Jacques Brel is saying....and feeling. His stories and emotional delivery is unmistakable. We can go down that road. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Koos du Plessis, Willie Nelson, Van Gogh, Claude Monet. Storytellers in their chosen medium telling stories with empathy, respect and fearlessness. Think about "Starry night over the Rhône". See the couple in the right hand corner and the harbour lights reflecting on the water. See the battle between darkness and light. Feel the story that the scene is telling. The strokes of genius flowing from a tormented genius. Universal language. In a way we are all just lost souls speeding hand in hand towards the great dark nothing. There's something beautiful in that. For some reason I don't think art would have this much meaning if we could live forever. For me being an artist comes with a responsibility and burden to carry. I don't think being an artist allows you sit around and wait for the muse to find you. I embrace the notion that the muse likes to find an artist working. In fact I prefer the title craftsman to artist as it implies hard work and discipline as well as the search for perfection in the chosen medium. Tom Waits once noted that the world is a hellish place and that bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. I think he's right. But I'm not just nodding my head in approval, I know I've got a responsibility to keep reinventing myself and to strive for honesty and integrity in my art. I realize there's something more important than me at play when I put songs out into the world. I refuse to make it shallow and cheap.
I started this newsletter a few days ago up on the mountain and as I'm writing now I'm in the back of a rental car with my friends winding through the back roads of the Western Cape winelands. Adventure around every corner. Postcard landscapes filling the windshield. We've been hanging out with my dear friend Bokkie Fourie and his wife Anchen. City people who traded the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg for the beauty and hard work of their farm called Rusty Gate, nestled high in the mountains, surrounded by stunning peaks and several varieties of protea and fynbos. We talked late into the night and we were treated to lamb rib on the fire and a sunset drive to see the King Proteas, our national flower, on the farm.
And now, with a head full of whiskey and the cool wind from the ocean on my face I realize that I can still dream, allow the child in my heart to run free. Take the zip line and dive into an ice cold lake. Hug my friends, recall and somehow relive, the days when our laughter was wild and undeminished.
JB