One Word: Comedy

These are some pics from the week!

Arriving at Amsterdam’s Airport

» Read more: ThrowBack Pics

AFAR was able to participate in the festivities for the World Aids Day Celebration. They call it a celebration because they are celebrating life – Life in spite of HIV infections and Life through precautionary measures to prevent HIV infection. This trip has literally been a learning experience for me when it comes to AIDS. So many people can speak intelligently about the subject and it’s because the government does so very much to make sure that everyone is informed to make the appropriate decisions.

Our performance was at the Shivava Café in an area called Newtown, in Johannesburg. We knew this would be a special show because the people were getting into us at sound check. » Read more: Catch Up Time 12/01/06

Friday 12/01/06 was World Aids Day. Africa has a serious aids problem, although I often wonder if the difference between Africa and other countries is that they’re not afraid to talk about it? A lot of countries do a lot to hide social issues like this. Stats say that four to five million people have Aids here and out of a country of about 50 million people, that amounts to 1 in every 10 people with Aids. Stats also say that 40% of all new aids cases is in the age range 15-24. This means that a lot of people are being born and a lot of the older people are still living, but the people in the middle are dying. It is a blessing here if you are still alive and healthy between the age of about 35-50. I saw a commercial where a guy just wanted to live to see 35. I’m not sure of Life expectancy stats, but I’m sure it’s very low. Aids is so common here that when someone gets sick with a cold or from drinking too much, they joke that it’s from complications due to HIV. It’s seriously not a joke. I was even told that whenever there is an assault or accident involving someone else, the first thing you should do is go to a hospital and get tested for HIV, even before you call the police. That’s how serious it is here. When I get a chance I’m going to look up stats for the US. If you know any please comment on the blog.

Please everybody, take the measures necessary to protect yourself from Aids and HIV infection. If you don’t know what to do, ask someone. You can even ask me and I’ll post some info on the blog. Please take care of yourselves!

We did a series of radio interviews here in JoBurg and it was really cool to meet the DJ’s and staff at the stations. They were all really nice and even though they could claim “celebrity” status here, they all were really down to earth. One of the things about being an artist on the road is that it’s really easy to forget your schedule because everything is thrown at you really fast and your memory of all the events seem to mesh into one. Well how about every station that we went to asked about our schedule? Sucks right? I’m going to just start taking notes on our gigs.

Radio here is soooooooooooooo much better than in Atlanta. I feel confident saying Atlanta radio is the absolute worst compared to radio here. » Read more: Radio

What’s the breakfast of Champions?? Yeah, that’s it… Fruit Loops. You ask why Fruit Loops? It’s because the other food at this house just isn’t good. This Bed and Breakfast has a complimentary breakfast that’s just not good. It’s so bad that one of the band members flushed his eggs in my toilet just so that the cook wouldn’t know that he didn’t like them. I’m not a cook at all, but from what I’ve been told, you can’t really mess up breakfast food… I guess that’s not so true after all. So Fruit Loops – The breakfast of Champions, because you have to be a Champ to survive through breakfast every morning.

Anyways, today was cool. We went to a part of Jozi called Ennerdale. No workshop today, but just a show at a community civic center. They had people from the area to open up for us and it was good to see talent from the area. Only half of the people there seemed to enjoy hip hop, and that sub-set of the group had tremendous energy. They learned our songs very fast and sang with us very loudly. Thanks for the love! » Read more: Catch Up Time: 11/30/06