Cultural Creative Journalism

established 01/04/00 Sustaining the principles of love in action : ubuntu /sharing
PORTFOLIO OF CULTURAL JOURNALISM : the doors of culture and learning shall be opened
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					Mac is currently writing out compositions for orchestra, 'the journey'

Mac had ridden the tragic hustle of fame through incredible ups and downs. He disguises a very rough voice with hot chops on the guitar. He had been cash strapped for years. Reputations change as do people. So he put down his electric base and Mac started playing guitar at the age of 45. When there has been so much hard work in your private space, practicing to a point of perfection. This ART becomes YOURS and no-one can take it away.

The richness comes from WITHIN.

Mac Mckenzie is a molato at heart. That means of mixed blood and of relaxed attitude. His mamas turning 79 in March and she's the guardian angel. The front garden is hers, resplendant in roses herbs and flowering indigenie. The yard is Macs. He's built a studio out of scraps of dry walls, wooden panels, windows and doors. There is a herb garden but the most dominant plant is empty beer quarts planted in rows, in crates, in piles.

When MAC was barely a man his honourable papa skopped him out the house because he thought if you going to be a musician you better toughen up. Due to his regular refuges to the strong spirit of the table mountain, the young Mac knew he was guided and had no hesitation in starting a ROCK band. He called it the Genuines and attempted to shift the consciousness of the hard livings to GREEN PEACE. If you can't beat him join him at least as a ruse to be later overcome. Mac carries the slogan 'lighten up and tighten up.' They dropped an album in Amsterdam 'chasing the voodoo'. He crashed the camper van into one of those hoof shaped canals. Well the life of Mac is indeed surprising he was to put all his hard earned DUTCH DOLLARS into a jazz album: 'night of the Cape gypsies' when he returned home after his father died: Samuel Mckenzie, banjo player, leader of Cornwalls carnival troupe, St Secilia Christmas choir. Hannepoort noem vir hom 'die Charlie Chaplin of Cape Town'.

Mrs Ma' Mac has 8 or 9 great grand children and as many great great grand children, and 15 grandchildren. She says in the 50's there was no TV and radio got shut off at 9PM. "So what else was there to do?" Mrs. Mac still says she wishes her son got a day job because he is full time with music, which means that sometimes the cupboards are full and sometimes the cupboards are bare. She has got used to it even though she says the times are much harder than when her husband was alive. He had a day job and then would come home and practice and go off to rehearsals in the evenings. "These men worked so hard in the choirs when they came home from a days marching performance they were so tired all we could do for them was wash their feat. And they could not eat. They would have to leave the food next to the bed.” She had a terrific pickle recipe but as she became too old to deliver she passed it on to her daughter. More than a year ago the stand opposite her at the monthly market sold raw aloe juice. This man sold her the product at R25 and to this day she doesn't have to take diabetes medication. By the way the healing power of herbs is written into an agricultural revolution of the future.

Why is it that the only books in this great musicians house are Bibles? Because it is the faith in God that allows us to forget about the things we have lost. And focus on the blessings and abilities you have. And why everyone got no money? Because if they got they gotto share with everybody else. Sharing knowledge is easier. For instance if you put ice in flowers they keep longer.

When there has been so much hard work in your private space, practicing to a point of perfection. This ART becomes YOURS and no-one can take it away. Perhaps only to imitate? But you got to be a grandmaster like Pat Metheny to really imitate a grandmaster like Pat Metheny.

Disorder comes from order that is open to the elements for some time. Because the elements are the one true force we can be certain of. That thing we call sun I am dependant on that therefore I am. And this continuous stream we call water. I am dependant on that therefore I am. And this paradise of soil where fruits and trees and herbs may grow I am. So if Descartes were a goldfish we may have called him De Je Voux. Gavin describes smoking crack because of pier pressure as "SUCKING THE DEVILS COCK". Perhaps likened to "DOING A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL". White pipe is an extremely dangerous weapon developed as a weapon. It turns the physical sense of men into apes. This has an effect on the mind, unknown to me. And it has very little effect on Mac. He says he uses it to change gear to a new perspective to assess his creative work!

"Change is slow but change is here." Mac Mckenzie wrote fifteen years ago. And now finally we see this. CHANGE COMES WITH MIRACLE.

One of the greatest performers the Cape has ever known, Robbie Jansen is nicknamed the Cape Doctor because he blows the shit out of the city. There is a healing wind that pumps around the mountain taking all the viruses and bugs floating in the atmosphere around the whole city and then throws them out into the sea somewhere past Robben Island. It is called the Cape Doctor. Robbie Jansen days short of seventy years, comes back from the dead. That's the kind of moves he knows how to pull. In fact there should be a statue of him. Robbie was the leader of the Rockets (often referred to as Cape Towns Beatles) in the 60's. And now he takes a Frank Sinatra kind of role with his band Sons of Table Mountain. Frank is quoted as saying 'never under-estimate your audience'. This GREAT man will die in the house he was born and perhaps this signifies the ultimate success of his sustained activities in music and culture. Oh yes how the richness comes from WITHIN.

In a sense this is a time to confess. The egg came before the chicken: Hatchlings borne from seeds planted by the HONOURABLE UNKNOWN.

"Look mummy there's a strange flower growing over there in the yard." Ha Ha Ha he was talking about me. I was sitting the Hadedah position dressed from crown to ankle in red and orange but mostly yellow. Writing away on a sunny day.

When Mac his merry melody men and hearty heavy henchmen were to perform that afternoon in the city gardens even chubby old Bezlibub was bouncing about saying 'this is the sound of Cape Town'. All of sudden Cape Town is ranked number three best city in the world after Paris and New York. And Mac and the guys are as big as the Brooklyn Funk Essentials.

"We live in a pirates world, not like Europe where they put on their velvet gloves. And then after the blow to the head there is a doctor you can see. You got to watch out" MAC draws his forefinger to his throat pretending it were a knife.

The music industry has forced us to lay low. I am astonished at the longevity of Mac Mckenzie. His most famous saying is ‘off the cuff you show your hands,'

This is in dedication of Mac's great dream of a composers workshop, whereby the youth may grow in the non pretentious of true fine ego-void footloose and free music. Such that Mac knows all about it. This represents a chapter in the musical explosion of Cape Town music that was pie in the sky because that was all we could afford. I suppose this is the only way to lift ones self up from the bootlaces.

Mac Mckenzie stood up as a composer that could talk the language of table mountain. He selected a team of musicians named the ‘goema captains' and began an anthemic journey into the heart of the rainbow nation as witnessed from the Cape of storms, or Tavern of the Seven Seas as this gorgeous land was once known.

But, when the news of the computer being used to file vast archives of music, copy them and ultimately share them on the WORLD WIDE WIRELESS WEB, broke, so the industry began to fall. Good things come to those who wait.

The revolution is simply the resurrection of the relationship between musician and audience. Free of all pressure and active only in the humility of humanity. And this is the original position of music. Now the waters are being cleared by Pirates, we, the sailors, may flow with the Pure expression of music like river round a rock.

It was therefore not that CD collections were becoming worthless. No work is wasted. Collections are expanding to become collectives. And it is not that money will no longer sift down to artists. Printing presses and retail outlets will size down ensuring greater budget for artist research and development.

It was therefore that the musicians, composers and writers are the guardians of the gold that is music. We must care for their needs.

* The Mac Mckenzie & Goema Captains insisted we record further compositions to supplement the live show at the wondergigs. With the assistance of Mama Dance records the CD 'Healing Destination' was released 21/06/03 and licenced to Paddy Lee Thorpe of Mountain Records until 7/09/08.