Lev David | Rehumanize yourself.

Wowza! The wheels really came off this morning.

I'm usually woken up by my cellphone alarm. Oddly, my cellphone's clock lept back an hour sometime during the night. Why? Who knows. Perhaps it left it's hat there and went back to fetch it. Regardless it never came back.

I woke up, though, quite naturally, half-an-hour late, which means 5am. Glanced at my cellclock, and figured I had 30 minutes more to lie in.

How much earlier the sun has started to rise, thought I. And the birds too. I felt very rested.

When I grew suspicious and checked my laptop clock (my laptop happened to be resting right next to my bed), I was more pleased than upset.

Good, I thought. And very casually wombled off into the day.

When you're late, you're late.

We introduced Travis, the new producer, onair. He was really nervous.

Good, I thought.

I've been taking more chilltime than usual this week, still, I'm very careful about where I spend the spare hours.

Somehow, I've managed to watch the movie Magnolia twice. It was three hours long. Both times.

It's so beautiful. I weep. Sure, I weep a lot when watching movies. Especially Babe: Pig in the City. But this....

Please watch it. Twice, even.

Hmm.... A low level of involvement today, which is good given that my trainee, Travis, is taking over. So I'm just chilling and advising and chilling.

What should I do for my last show?

Thanks to Benita Levine and Derek the Bandit for their messages of support! This is a friendly industry.

I've started work on a new comic essay about the silliness of patriotism in South Africa, and anywhere, really. I have 300 words or so of bits and pieces, and my sister thinks it's funny. Good. Will be done by Friday evening. My last Friday evening in Durban. Egad!

Who is she? She's lovely. I know, she's just an actress playing a part, but you can't fake magic like that. Dammit.

I'm watching Oprah. You have a problem with that?!

She's talking about pathological liars. It's all very serious and morbid and hilarious.

Yay!

Got some great coverage from www.biz-community.co.za, which is read by all the important people in the media industry.

Here's the link:

http://www.bizcommunity.com/Person.aspx?c=59&l=196&pi=2165

Is this going to be the kind of blog where I tell you that I've had a haircut? Just in case, I better tell you that I've had a haircut.

I also went to pay an Admission of Guilt fine for doing 77 in a 60 zone. R140-00. The people at Durban Metro Police were friendly and efficient, and have been so whenever I've needed their services. Poor bastards get such a hard time from the public. Of course, my opinion might spin on a dime given the right or, rather, wrong experience. Until then, though, I like'm. And I'm determined to not speed again. Not even a little bit. It's stupid.

A woman behind me in the queue kicked me in the heel. Kicked me! Not hard, granted, but you don't go kicking strangers in queues, however gently.

"Why are you leaving Durban, hey?" she said. Obviously, she'd heard the show this morning.

"It's time for a change," I said. That's become my standard line.

"Well, my son's going to miss you in the mornings."

Thank you, Shamila in the purple dress, and thanks to her son, Praveen, who she tells me is 15. I hope I'll get to meet you someday.

I can't remember when last anybody was so nice to me in so violent a fashion.

My ears are itchy with little hair clippings. Is this going to be the kind of blog where I tell you that I'm going to have a shower?

Having breakfast with my dad at the coffee shop downstairs from the radio station. He's a school teacher and these are the school holidays.

Well, four more shows to go. Got to play Battle of the Sexes, which was a blast. Heard about auditions for a hot new TV show. Dammit, I'm gonna audition. These are the Days of Everything.

In case I haven't told you already, I've been producing a major breakfast show for 4 years. Of course, to follow the money in Joburg, I have to quit my job here. And I have. I've just made the announcement onair. The emails of thanks and support are already, a little overwhelming and sadmaking. Oh! The emotional ambiguity of it all!

I'm usually paranoid about quality control for my writing. Here, in this blog, I'm letting go. Typo? Screw't!

I should've mentioned that that's the address for my new website, dammit. Silly boy.

So, I've just watched the last JUDGE FOR YOURSELF on etv, the socio-political debate show hosted by the excellent Judge Dennis Davies. The show's never long enough, methinks.

Is it just me, or did the good Judge age very suddenly? He's sharp as ever, of course, but now he's doing that licking-the-top-lip-in-mid-sentence thing that only old people are supposed to do.

It's just over a week before I drive to Joburg. And don't come back. Well, for a while, at least.

I, like so many others, was once incredibly biased against the place. That's changed. The idea that the place is mindless, soulless and money-obsessed has not manifested itself yet. In fact, in my frequent visits over the past few months, I've found a wonderful optimism and lightness of spirit.

People want to do great things. And they're doing them. Then again, I think the same culd be said about many places.

You find what you're looking for.

Bugger. I'm the world's worst packer and I haven't even started thinking about starting to think about how I'm gonna move all my shit. I've decided to buy an 80GIG portable hard drive to rip all my music to; it'll help to not have to carry all those CD's.

Shower time. Then find some fruit and chill with a book. Hanif Kureshi's THE BLACK ALBUM. Good one. Feeling great about everything.

Well, LevDavid.com's up! Thanks for all of your messages of support so far. The site's gonna become increasingly rich and useful. One of the features on the way that I'm really looking forward to is the FreeThought community--soon, we'll be sticking it to the man together!

If you want to get a headstart, though, mail me now at lev@levdavid.com.

Peace!

Hello! This is my first post. Let's get straight into it.

I overheard a conversation between a manager in the media industry and her deputy this morning. "I never get into a fight unless I know I can win it," she said. Ugh, poo! My mind was immediately taken to a great quote from Teddy Roosevelt. I'm not a fan of his politics, but even Republicans have something useful to say. Sometimes.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

I'm constantly astounded by how many piss-poor people there are in powerful management positions, in spite of never having truly distinguished themselves.

Do you know a manager who just doesn't deserve their post? Tell us about it.