Illustrative image: Kabelo Gwamanda (Photo by Gallo Images/Papi Morake) | Johannesburg Skyline at sunset, Gauteng Province, South Africa. Photo by Gallo Images/Graeme Williams Dear reader, I trust this email finds you paid.
As you know, these are tough times for lifestyle journalists like myself. Influencers have come along and now no one cares about my well-researched articles on the best nail polish colours for spring. Hence, I have decided to launch a new men’s fragrance that I am hoping to market to a premium clientele – think top businessmen and top politicians.
I’m calling it “INCOMPÉTENCE – the fragrance for a real king, a fragrance for the man who need not compete.”
It will, of course, be very exclusive and very expensive and you probably won’t be able to afford it. But fret not, there’s a way in which some of you might be able to help.
If any of you know anyone who knows someone who knows anybody who knows Kwabelo Gwamanda, please let me know. I am desperately trying to get in touch with him.
I’m a huge fan of the extremely popular South Africa S*** Show (Sass) spinoff game show, The Johungersburg Games, and his time on the show has been nothing short of inspiring. I can think of no better person to be the face of my new fragrance – the striking face of INCOMPÉTENCE! I mean just look at that face; that’s the face of a man who should not bother competing. That’s a king right there!
Lovely Gwamzy provides a perfect canvas for the message I am trying to send with INCOMPÉTENCE, unburdened as he is by qualifications, experience, ability, merit, self-awareness, public support, and many other things we sometimes imagine a more average leader might find useful.
King that he is, he took one look at John Steenhuisen, said “Hold my beer”, and then took his Grade 10 certificate to the very top spot as The Johungersburg Games’ youngest and longest-serving occupant of the mayoral seat in the past four years, during which a total of seven players have sat in it.
A man known to serve up remarkable word salads from time to time, he has inspired many fellow players to craft some spectacular phrases and sentences to describe his life in The Johungersburg Games.
Build One South Africa’s Ayanda Allie describes him as “a puppet mayor” – who doesn’t love puppets? – and “a useful figurehead”. Like my mama always reminds me, “Make yourself useful”. Many would do well to learn this lesson from K. Gwam.
And come to think of it, is figurehead not just a synonym for monarch?
But it was ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba who captured the Gwammy essence best, describing his time at the top of The Johungersburg Games as a period characterised by “catastrophic incompetence”. Now that I think of it, perhaps that can be the name of our top-of-the-range version of the fragrance, “L’INCOMPÉTENCE CATASTROPHIQUE”.
Understandably, some of you might feel there are many other candidates who would be excellent – possibly even better than Gwamgwam – as the face of INCOMPÉTENCE.
I welcome your ideas; please comment below and let me know. Could there be someone who better exudes the spirit of Incompetence more spectacularly than our most Gwamiliscous Kabelo?
In the interest of transparency, I should probably divulge that I spoke to my sangoma before writing this, and they gave me a potion to spray on my keyboard so that my words may reach Gwamzito himself.
If my sangoma is indeed as good as whoever Jacob Zuma uses, then there is a strong possibility that Gwamzo is in the room with us, virtually, if you will, reading this article.
Perhaps I should take a leap of faith and address him directly:
Dearest KG, please, pretty please, let’s do this, my king!
If you need any more convincing, please just take a good look in the mirror; just sit there and reflect on the past year and a bit and I’m sure you’ll agree that you are absolutely the personification of “L’INCOMPÉTENCE CATASTROPHIQUE”.
Now call me, sweetie darling and let’s get paid! Xoxo DM