Friday night
Marianne Thamm
Friday nights in the city are rather predictable. I’ve never really liked them. Most of us are generally too tired from the week’s toil to really let rip. There’s nothing brave about going out on a Friday night. Friday nights are for the faint- hearted.
But Monday nights are another thing. Going out on a Monday when you know you have a full day’s work ahead of you on Tuesday is, as far as I am concerned, deeply rebellious.
And so it was on a Monday night that I found myself taking the left fork at the end of Main Road, Sea Point. Here the street beomes Regent Road and the Chinos- and-docksiders brigade begins to thin out as the string of lights from the hostess clubs marks a distinct change of tone in the district.
We were heading for Mimmos, a cavernous, budget Italian restaurant that, at 6.30pm and despite the wind and rain, was packed with a cross- section of those in the know.
Pensioners jostled with biker boys for a table. They all came to eat an enormous pizza for only R10 – the Monday special.
I was there because of “Pete the Meat” and his partner Tracy who invited me along on their regular weekly jorl. Just to fill you in, Pete is a reluctant but highly successful biltong and dre wors salesman whose slogan – “Pete the Meat. Nice and Thick and Juicy. Just like his wors of course” – has much to do with his renown in these parts.
Tracy is a bookbinder – surely the only one left in the country. We met while walking our dogs in the park.
After Mimmos – and I must say the “muchroom” and ham pizza was great and well worth it – Pete and Tracy dragged me off the The Bronx, a rollicking gay bar in Main Road, Green Point.
It was there that I learned of Pete’s secret yearning. He would have loved to have beeen a rock ‘n’ roll star, he confessed as we arrive, and on Monday nights at The Bronx he can be just that.
Karaoke night at The Bronx attracts a large, loyal and totally mixed crowd of wannabe stars. The amateurs timidly slink up on stage before 10pm when the hardcore professionals begin to arrive. Pete warmed up with an astonishing rendition of Frank Sinatra’s Under My Skin and followed up with the particularly tricky Great Balls of Fire.
Competition was stiff and the applause more than generous. Soon the whole bar was caterwauling along to Rhinestone Cowboy, Sweet Sixteen, Private Dancer and All Shook Up. The brisker the service at the bar, the braver everyone got.
In the end, the night went to someone called JK who outshone the rest with his slithering, lip-licking, mike-stand- stroking version of Prince’s Kiss.
I was too shy to do it in public that night but the next day I did find myself practising Love on the Rocks in the early morning traffic. Who knows, maybe next week I’ll get my chance to shine like the rest of them.
Marianne Thamm is the contributing editor to SA City Life magazine