just a quickie today as i’ve just rushed in from an already intense day at the studio, now have to go and play in N1 traffic to go and represent at a reach for a dream charity event in pretoria. man, i’m all for suiting up for charity, especially where kids are involved, but driving to pretoria in peak hour traffic? eish! and yet, i lived in los angeles for 12 years and i frequented the many parking lots that masquerade as highways. i’ve spent hours on the 1o1 and the 10 and the 4o5, etc and i accepted the fact that the trip  would take 45 minutes whenever i went anywhere. though it did help that i drove an automatic! now i have no doubt that i’ll get a work-out doing the stop and go thing in order to get to snor-city. i spoke to the organizer and asked what time i needed to leave in order to get to the event by 6 and she said 3 o clock! 3 hours!? eish!

anyway, i digress. what i reall wanted to talk about today, was the conversation i heard on 702 yesterday about green funerals and green coffins. yes, you too, can go green and return naturally… apparently nowadays, one can take your final trip in a cardboard box or one made of wicker.  there is even a south african goverment company, called working for water which makes coffins out of alien trees that are cut down. they can make you a coffin without nails or screws (does that mean you won’t get screwed over one last time?), you can have rope-handles instead of plastic and you can forego embalming, which requires the use of dangerous and potentially toxic chemicals. and it costs three to four hundred rand as opposed to over R2000 for the conventional coffin.

there are so many funerals in south africa what with our high hiv and aids statistics, and people go into debt in order to give their loved ones an honorable burial. here’s one way to save at least a little bit of money as well as save the earth.

in my case, i say, don’t bother with a coffin. non of that “alas poor yorick,” for me.  recycle. use the bits you can and burn the rest.

and then have a rip-roaring party that goes on for days.

ok. now i have to hit the road. pray i make it back in one piece! mercury being retrograde and all!