THANK YOU FOR HAVING US /// THURSDAY AT YBM

I received the event invitation on facebook and i accepted, assuming it was an exhibition opening, when i read a little further down i noticed that there was no artist name/bio or anything to do with the art that might be on show. All the invite revealed was the name of the gallery YOUNGBLACKMAN, the date, the time and the title which was 'THANK YOU FOR COMING'. After thinking about it for three and half seconds i wondered if it was a closing party, which would be very very sad because many of us have grown and maintained very intimate relationships with 340ml bottles of Black Label at YBM.  Plus i've enjoyed quite a few artworks there and i really don't like the idea of galleries closing their doors forever.  Actually, i still can't really confirm that it was a closing party, I didn't see Mr Young or Mr Blackman at the event so i didn't get to ask them the real story, so don't take my word for it, i'm not really a journalist. I still do think it was a closing though because i asked other guests there and they said it was, and after walking through the usual crowd outside i walked into the gallery to find only a metal basin full of Black labels, no art on the walls. My friend Richard quipped "Finally we can get on with the drinking without having to look at pretentious art", and then he burst out in his beautiful and infectious laugh. I left a bit early as sober people often do, plus i could hear myself sounding incredibly boring. I was going on and on about my 2-week old sobriety experiment, and i'd promised myself that i wouldn't behave like one of those boring straightedge-wannabe types, yet here i was babbling about the early stages of sobriety, i don't think i would have been able to deal if i was on the receiving end of this conversation. In fact after a few minutes of chatting to my friend Mavuso i noticed he was just nodding his head, giggling at predictable intervals and occasionally throwing in a yes at inappropriate moments, i eventually figured out he'd stopped listening a while back so i said my goodbyes and told him i was on my way home, he nodded giggled and said yes.  I also promised myself i would not blog about sobriety either because i went on one of these sober missions last winter and i blogged about it only to fail less than a week later. But hey. Let's hope i can do a couple of months this time and more importantly i hope when i eventually return to the bottle it will be as a moderate drinker who always keeps below the legal limit for driving. Stranger things have happened.