Represent ♥’s Everyday Tweeple – Meet @umlungux
And with @umlungux, Represent ♥’s Everyday Tweeple series just gets sicker. If you haven’t got it yet, we’re sharing our own twisted bouquet of everyday Southern African hearts and minds with you, we hope you’re keeping up. It’s takes a lot of different people to truly Represent. So we’ve still got a long way to go. Don’t forget to follow us on @sisiwami. Sharpile Garth Shoebridge for the hawtness and for being toi… * Name: Garth Shoebridge * Location: Melville, Jozi * Bio: There ain’t room enough in one line for me and my summary What does the X stand for? I don’t know if you remember, but back in the day there was a left wing political party who’s leader renamed himself to Khoisan X (After Malcolm X). I thought this was such a dickhead move, that when I had the opportunity to use umlungux, it only felt right to continue the idiotic tradition. My partner and myself decided to call our company umlungu in 1999. And I have used umlungux ever since. Over the years the best mutation of it that I use is oom lungu. Here’s some room, tell us your summary A failed rockstar, pornstar and deathstar, umlungux divides his time between gun and drug running, running a small digital agency in Jozi, and trying to perfect a bubblegum flavoured strain of mary jane on his plot. Why Melville? Melville is where the company router and server is. During the day it’s got a fantastic vibe and when on its best behaviour, it reminds me a bit of Yeoville. At night it becomes a very good place to practice your “Don’t fuck with me” walk. I used this to good effect when in Nuremburg, Germany recently. To answer your next question, the trademarked “Don’t fuck with me” walk consists of wearing Michelle Pfeiffer’s cat suit but cutting a hole for your dick and balls to hang out. Seems to have worked thus far. Melville is also the Yang to my Ying which is a smallholding 20mins south of Johannesburg. The contradiction between the somewhat urban Melville and Farm like home environment is invigorating. (see attached pics of our 4.2 Hectares of south african happiness) WTF is a sushiup? Vegetable, Animal or mineral. Some of us that have met on Twitter get together over dinner every now and then – at a Sushiup Tell us 5 things that are Very Bouffant for you right now 1. The never-ending rollercoaster of a journey that is living in a house with 4 females (1 missus and 3 daughters) 2. My job – working with things that go click-in-the-night...
Represent ♥’s Everyday Tweeple – Meet @mnazania
Cruise from the tropical heat of Durban down round the coast to that breathtaking city we rate for December holidays and retirement (once we’re rolling in $$$’s big pimping it…soon soon!) and you’ll eventually pull into… Cape Town… Meet Milase Mzamo, our fifth interviewee in the Represent ♥’s Everyday Tweeple series. Milase finds Cape Town a lonely place and Nando’s current advertising dumb; she believes the boysboys could win the World Cup and that running makes you wrinkle. We agree on three of the above. Follow Milase on @mnazania and keep up with us on @sisiwami for the next installment… another dude, this time from Jozi, just for a change 😉 Location: Cape Town,south africa Bio: Enlightenment and a higher level of awareness is true wealth. Tell us about the everyday practicalities of true wealth in your life? I believe that increasing our level of awareness between humans/nature/energy/universe reduces our obsession with ourselves and gives us true happiness and thus true wealth can be attained. Racism is a big example. In the bigger scheme of things, we are all so equal. We are equal in all the things that matter, like giving birth and death so why do spend our lives focusing on things that do not matter. When mother nature takes revenge on us, it does not chose white people, coloured or black people. It strikes us all. So why can’t we use all our collective wisdom to preserve our world to teach our children what is right to generate enough positive energy. Sometimes, I can see it happening albeit in small measures. Have you spent 10000 hours on anything? What would you call your expertise? Always have been an aspiring writer. Building up enough hours to write a science fiction novel. I’m fascinated by science fiction because I believe it’s a preamble of things yet to come. If you follow sci-fi movies and track technology developments, you will see how they are related. Why are you Labour for life – do you have a connection to the UK? Met 2 people who influenced my direction in life. During apartheid SA, I worked at the Young Vic theatre in London and I was hosted by a lady who was an author, I told her of my ambition to be published and she advised me to become a journalist, saying, “ That’s the fastest way of seeing your name in print darling” The second one was Neil Kinnock, leader of the Labour party, who was a champion against apartheid SA Besides flying, what other fears do you have? I hate driving and moving things whilst being motionless. Think I...
Represent ♥’s Everyday Tweeple – Meet @dcuthbert
Uhh, no that’s not @dcuthbert on the horse, however, that is one of Durban’s finest photographers Daniel Cuthbert’s photos. Did that make sense and were my apostrophes in the correct place? Moving on…Meet @dcuthbert, freaking talented photographer from Durbs you’all… his twisted tweets caught our ever-roaming eye – so he’s the 4th bastard agent in our Represent ♥’s Everyday Tweeple series. Next up… a lady in CT… follow us on @sisiwami to keep up. (PS: Daniel’s the dude in the desert) Location: L’Afrique du Sud Web: http://hmmm.co.za Bio: Documentary photographer currently based in South Africa How come you get to check out so many transit lounges all the time and why can’t we do it too? I think it’s an internal need to be surrounded by so many badly dressed travelers with poor choices in luggage and footwear. It takes a strong person to do this, not for the faint. Why Durban? It has the best balance out of all the cities. Jozi is like a spotty angry teenager, full of spunk and often no substance. Cape Town is your 22 year-old who thinks they know it all but underneath, the soul is cold as hell. Durban is just, well, hundreds! Why should we Rethink the Afrikaaner? Since ’94, the emphasis has been on reconciliation and often this means forgetting about anything white-related. The true Afrikaner is a tribe in Southern Africa and part of our heritage, so we shouldn’t dismiss them as South Africans often do. What top 6 soft music songs would you recommend to accompany a bottle of vodka? The Cinematic Orchestra (any song by them) Seasick Steve – Happy (to have a job) Portishead – Chase the tear Sigur Ros – Saeglopur Jack Parow – Cooler as ekke We sense a bit of anti-I-pod/I-pad/i-phone … whyyyy? Don’t get me wrong, i’ve been a big apple fan for a very long time but recent events have seen them turn into the microsoft of this decade. The iPad is expensive for what it is, a fat iPhone, and yet it’s billed as the second coming. I think they’ve moved away from the “Think Different” approach no longer applies to Apple and it’s rather sad. Tell us about what South African broadband providers SHOULD be doing? Stop treating the SA public like retards. Telkom and other suppliers have done more damage to SA’s growth as a nation than any other country out there. The fact that the Internet is still a middle-class luxury in 2010 is insulting. Remove the pathetic caps and get people online and learning. R20 a month to have a 3gb cap, that way everyone...
Represent ♥’s Everyday Tweeple – Meet @MelanieMinnaar
Je vous présente number 3 in our (newish) series Represent ♥’s Everyday Tweeple– @MelanieMinnaar . Inspired by tweets in our stream that made us want to know more about the hearts and minds behind the 140 characters… Meet Melanie Minaar, she shares some fabulous insights with us… we most hearted finding out about the local term SABC… South African Born Chinese… I’ll leave the rest for you to discover. Sharpile Melanie! Don’t forget to follow Editorista on @sisiwami to find out who’s next in the series… It’s another dude… Twitter Bio: Head IMC at Standard Bank, mom to archangels Michael & Gabriel, wife to an IT networking consultant. Part of the Chinese diaspora – rooted in Africa. What is IMC and what is a day in the life of the Head of IMC at Standard Bank? IMC is a marketing management philosophy that advocates integration of business and marketing, as well as of the various marketing disciplines. In my position at Standard Bank it stands for ‘Integrated Marketing Communication’ and my role is to primarily ensure synergy of messaging across traditional and emerging/digital media channels, and secondly to optimise how we implement campaigns across the new media spectrum. Marketing Ops and development of the group wide creative look and feel also fall under my responsibility. A typical day is filled with meetings, meetings, meetings, teleconferences and presentations – all necessary as we operate globally and need to keep use our time effectively to communicate with our non-South African based colleagues and agencies. In between these diary-fillers, there are campaign deadlines to be met – approvals or direction is sought and provided by a network of advertising, online and studio managers. There is always much to learn when you work for a company like Standard Bank – whether it be about growing your marketing skills, financial service industry acumen or general knowledge about the countries which we operate in. I am currently enjoying maternity leave so no deadlines other than the next episode of Girls of the Playboy Mansion to look out for… How would you summarise your nearly 5000 Tweets? A fellow Tweeter asked me if I had OCD after seeing all my Tweets in their timeline! Sadly, that is how I would describe my online and offline habits. Once I find something that I enjoy, I give it my all. Knowledge and information sharing is key to who I am so my Tweets are predominantly about passing on useful information across a broad range of topics and also engaging in conversation whether it be social or on a topic where I can contribute. It’s been a great...
Introducing Vula Malinga
We recently stumbled across the soulful vocalist Vula Malinga who’s stirring up some musical waves in the UK after her success recording with Basement Jaxx. She’s an East London girl, as in Hackney luv, London, not the Eastern Cape, but born to South African parents in the States… Kinda pop meets RnB with the potential to do something different, she’s got some serious range on her- with her oodles of talent, we’re hoping she heads for an original sound. We’re hustling an interview with her soon, watch this space. Bit of PR on Vula – you can catch her on Facebook here : If you don’t already know about Miss Vula Malinga, chances are you’ve seen her everywhere and just didn’t realise. With an impressive catalog of work already under her belt with collaborations with UK heavyhitters such as Basement Jaxx and MJ Cole, she has gained respect in the UK music scene as one of the most gifted singer/songwriters on the scene and now after a sell out tour supporting Sam Sparro, Vula has dropped her long awaited E.P. “If You Want It” released under her own label “DivaGeek Records”. With a new single due out early 2009, Keep your ear to the streets…. Vula Malinga Live on Radio –...
We will be back!
