Make a AnecNote of this!

So my friend Kevin Smuts [who has been one of my biggest cheerleaders in general life matters over the last three years while we were in Americaland in particular – side note: very encouraging to have cheerleaders! who are you a cheerleader to?] is part of an a capella band that he started called AnecNote [which is an amazing name altho i feel like i contributed at least 87 viable alternatives when they were going through their name-finding phase… so close… i helped weed out the bad ones, perhaps.

Anyways, being Kevin i suspected they would be good. He is a super talented muso and hoping to make movie music some day [pay attention Hans Zimmer!] and i’ve heard his stuff and i never doubted for a second music-wise it would be any good.

But an a capella band? Apart from Graham and Christine Weir’s most incredible Not the Midnight Mass who i got to see live on a few occasions back in the day, what other a capella groups spring to mind? That’s right. None. So talent evenings or school shows perhaps, but that’s about it.

Anyways, tbV and i got to go to a show on Sunday night after a day of Improv workshopping for me and house-warming for us both and by the time it came to ‘going out to social event with a bunch of people we would probably kind of know but mostly not really’ we were not super amped. But i did want to see Kev and support the band and so that clinched it i think.

[cue tbV and brett fish being blown away]

Because basically that is what happened. Not only are they musically fit, but they brought the funnest vibe you can imagine and it was a completely insanely amazing evening. Comprising five very different but extremely talented individuals, currently going by the names of Leah Adams, Emma de Goede, Morné Kahts, beatboxer supremo Daniel Nambassi and my main main Kevin Smuts, they rocked the house. If you’re in Cape Town, you need to make a plan to see them – having already played at TEDx, Kirstenbosch, 5FM and a bunch of other places.

i have some video clips [and you can find more on their site and on the You Tube] to give you an idea of their talent and diversity, but these really don’t do their live performance justice – fun, frivolous, a little bit cheeky and adventurous as they basically finished off the evening pretty much half making up a song and just giving it complete wings.

Here they are covering Titanium by David Guetta ft. Sia:

Then they took a dab at Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off:

And finally Problem by Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea

Don’t you just want to pick them up and eat them? Well you can’t, so stoppit! They have a strict non-cannibalism policy when it comes to themselves as band members. You can however find out a whole lot more about them though…

You can stalk them at their web page over here, on the Tube of Youing over here, on that most Instant of Grams by clicking here, or on the Twitterer as @AnecNote and you can even get hold of an original never-before-worn AnecNote t-shirt to display yourself as a true Groupie or AnecNotie as they are not called. 

Have you ever heard AnecNote live? How would YOU describe their gig?

Book launch – ‘i, church’ by me – The Venue

26 days to go…

There has been a book for ever [or it seems that way] that has continued to be rewritten, updated, tweaked and refined until it was ready to be unleashed on the public…

Then there was a cover pic and finally a full cover [yes, yes, “a horrendous” not “an horrendous” – this is just the most updated one i have access to]…

And finally there is a book launch [as the final proofreading and editing winds down and the book is actually printed and made available]

And by “book launch” i mean “book launches” cos of you being all spread around and all.

So this is what we are planning and RSVP is important as there are number constraints on the venues so if you are going to come to any of the Cape Town launches, please drop me an email at brettfish@hotmail.com with your name and how many people.

Thursday 19 March at 6.30pm at Vovo Telo [Steenberg Village] – this is a stunning little venue that can take about 80 people and we will be supplying some dinner snacks and inviting you to buy your own drinks as you vibe a vibe with us and get to hear a little bit about the book as well as asking some questions you might have. [This event is unfortunately FULL UP and so if you’re in Cape Town you’ll have to come to the Saturday one].

Saturday 21 March at 09.30 at The Warehouse in Wetton [12 Plantation Road] – for those who can’t make a mid-week time, Saturday morning felt like a good opportunity to gather and mingle and coffee and be introduced to the book with another opportunity to ask some questions. Click here for the Facebook event.

For those of you who live in the Somerset West/Stellenbosch area, we are looking to have a smaller, more intimate, home launch and so please send me your email address if you would like to receive the details for that one. Thinking the following week.

Also i am planning a trip to Durban to do a book launch there, dreaming of a trip to Joburg/Pretoria [a gift of frequent flier miles will be muchly appreciated] and holding on to the slim possibility of one in Oakland, San Francisco… and up to doing other ones in lounges, churches, small towns or wherever else i might be given the chance to – but those are the main ones i am looking to do – if you want to stay in the loop as details emerge, again just let me know with a contact email address.

Very much looking forward to this book actually being a real, live thing and hoping that it is going to be helpful, encouraging, challenging and get people thinking a little [and a lot] differently about church and all the potential it has when it is the thing God intended it to be.

Hoping to see you there.

[But that is the book about? For a teaser trailer preview of ‘i, church’, click here] 

Why Gwyneth Paltrow hates driving in South Africa.

i was driving to an Improv gig last night when suddenly i caught sight of the woman in the car behind me.

i did a quick double take, before i tried to sneak another look in my mirror, because it was none other than Gwyneth Paltrow [i know]

Wow, i could not believe my eyes. So i obviously had to take another look.

i think she may have caught me looking that time and so i quickly looked away.

And realised to myself, that that must be one of the horrible things about being a celebrity, and in particular, something i’m sure Gwyneth, must completely hate.

Because every time you go out for a drive and someone recognises you, there is the double-take and the let-me-make-sure followed by the OH-MY-WORD-IT-REALLY-IS and finally the ongoing staring.

i imagine it would be the kind of experience that would make someone like Gwyneth Paltrow [cos when you’ve seen someone in a car once, you like totally know them now, right?] make a decision to consciously un-carpool given the chance. And perhaps why so many celebs have drivers or wear disguises or probably have tinted windows [i have not verified this last one as the windows are tinted so you can never tell].

i decided that i needed to stop my celeb-watching and just let her get on with it [also because her car was now right up my bum and i was already a km or two over the speed limit, Slow Down Gwyneth!] and so i pulled into the left lane so i could have one more verification glance as she drove past.

It was very much NOT the woman who played Miss Pepper Pots in the Iron Man movies who drove past me. From the side view, actually not very close at all [same hairdo though!]

But i’m pretty sure still that this is why Gwyneth Paltrow would much rather have you drive when you nip out quickly to the shops [who needs that kind of stress?]

Have you had any encounters with huge celebrities that shaped your thinking of how they might possibly live?

The Book Launch: i, cover words

So, the brett “Fish” anderson written book, ‘i, church’ is coming soon and the teasers and pre-show snacks will continue to drop to hopefully give you all a taste and make you excited for what is to come…

i was hoping for an end Feb release, but in the interests of not rushing it and having the perfect launch i am now looking at the end of March and hoping this is the final date shift. Still some small mistakes to be fixed like an horrendous one you might find in this book cover pic, but otherwise we are good and ready to go.

Hopefully launch details will follow soon – definitely be a big party in Cape Town once i can figure out the venue and possibly an intimate one in Stellenbosch/Somerset West and then if i can find a not-too-crazy-expensive way to get to Durban, a launch there and ditto for Joburg/Pretoria…

i showed the cover pic last week which still has some tiny tweakage to be done, as does this back cover, but this is largely what it is going to look like, come release day.

i am super stoked for the work of my team [Heather Bailey and Linda Martindale with a class cameo performance by Kirsten Sims on Cover Design and big help from tbV with the wording] and something that was ‘pretty decent and ready to go’ even just a month ago feels like it is heading towards ‘Really great looking and feeling and can’t wait to release this on the masses.’ Which, as the author, is obviously a great feeling.

Does this look like something you’d be up to reading? Coming soon to a coffee-serving place near you…

The Book Launch: i, cover

You know Hollywood? A year and a half before a movie comes out, drops you a teaser trailer just to let you know the thing is happening but not giving you much more than a taste of what that thing is about…

Well i have been working on finishing up a book that i wrote years and years and years ago, and then rewrote years and years ago and then finally rewrote and finished three years ago just before we left to go to Americaland…

Since we returned to South Africa in August last year, just for the fun of it, i rewrote it again, or more just tightened it up and took out some stuff and added some stuff, and it has slowly been crawling its way towards self-publication since then.

But Aslan is on the move… or more excitingly [for me], ‘i, church’ is on the move and if everything comes together, then hoping for an end Feb release, but if not then more likely the end of March, as March is a bit of a busy month with Improv festivals and international family visits and cycle tours [eek!]

So as we head down the final straight, i thought it would be good to start sharing some glimpses of what there is to expect from ‘i, church’ when it finally arrives.

There is still a little bit of tweaking to be done to this, but consider this the teaser trailer for the cover of the book, with the title and possibly my name added at some stage – this stunning work of art [the robot man has stubble!!!] was done by my good friend Kirsten Sims who is an excellent artist…

So watch this space, or more importantly the spaces that will follow this space in the days and weeks to come, and i will hopefully see you at the launch or launches…

And for more of the amazing work that Kirsten does you can take a look at her page over here.

A Wrestling: Blessed are the Comfortable

Let me disclaim this right at the outset – this is not something i have sorted. This is something i wrestle with. Because being comfortable is relative. My ‘simple’ is another person’s ‘luxury’ and my ‘lavish’ is someone else’s ‘scraping by’.

Which is perhaps why we should not be the ones defining comfortable, enough, simplicity et al. That feels like an area where we strongly need to be led by the Holy Spirit as the Bible is not clear in terms of how this looks within the specifics of modern day life and context.

But this is a topic which raised its ugly head again for me this week and i can’t think of a specific example that brought it to the fore. Just a bunch of things i’ve been reading and thinking about i guess.

My theory is this: Many christians that i know choose comfort over obedience.

And they do it in such a way that suggests that this is the Godly way to go about stuff. As if God wants us to be comfortable.

Time and time again, i am dumbfounded by people who can read the bible and see something one way again and again and again and yet somehow end up with the belief that a Godly reality is otherwise.

FOR EXAMPLE

Jesus meets up with a young man [Matthew 19] and tells him that he will have to sell everything he has in order to be a follower. The young man walks away disappointed because he has great wealth.

Jesus has a meal with Zacchaeus [Luke 19] and Zachaeus responds by telling Jesus he will immediately give half of his possessions to the poor and pay back four times the amount to anyone he has cheated.

Jesus is hanging out at a dinner party shortly before He is arrested [John 12] and a woman comes in and pours perfume, worth a year’s wages, over His feet too symbolically prepare Him for burial.

In Matthew 8, a teacher of the law tells Jesus he wants to follow Him and Jesus responds by saying that “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Another disciple has the request of burying his father before he follows Jesus who responds, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

In Matthew 10, Jesus speaks these uncomforting words: ‘You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.’

How is it possible to read those stories [and others, see the Beatitudes for a long list of more] and come to the conclusion that God is calling us to comfort. Before Justice. Or Mercy. Or Disciple-Making. Or Love.

Or Obedience…

WE HAVE CHOSEN COMFORT OVER OBEDIENCE

In 1 Samuel 15, Saul has disobeyed God’s command on how to deal with a city in the interests of creating a burned offering for God. So it seems, for a minute, that his intentions are good.

²² But Samuel replied:

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
    as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
    and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
²³ For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
    and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
    he has rejected you as king.”

To obey is better than sacrifice.

In Matthew 5 we see that making peace with someone is a bigger priority than offering a gift to the Lord.

i’m not so sure that being comfortable is bad. i don’t think i’m saying that.

But when it comes at the expense of obedience or other things Jesus calls us to…

When it becomes the thing we firmly set our eyes on above all other…

Well then i am saying, that we need to be doing some wrestling and heart-searching and Jesus-following, so that we don’t end up one day standing in front of God with Him looking at us and saying, “I never knew you.” [Matthew 7]

Anyone else wrestling with this? Any thoughts you have on either comfort or obedience? i would love to hear about it in the comments… 

[To take a look at some of my favourite verses in the bible, click here]

Let There Be Good!

If you, like me, are a bit sick and tired and heading towards overwhelmed by all the bad news stories we have to take in online [from mass killings in Nigeria to dead cartoonists to children in schools re-enacting dog fights to live cattle being attacked in a turned over truck] then we should do something about it.

There is so much to be done, and it can overwhelm, but ONE THING that can start the ball rolling in the right direction, is for us to get less sharey with the negative stuff and up our virality on the GOOD NEWS front.

In the shell of a really big nut, SHARE MORE OF THE GOOD NEWS STORIES.

It is not like they are not out there. It’s just that we tend to gravitate towards the bad, the negative, the sensational.

Who do you know who is doing good? Get them to guest post their story on your blog or Facebook wall or tweet a link to their blog on your Twitterer feed. Let’s put the good stuff front and center.

For example, i see a story on Facebook of a young entrepreneur, 23-year-old Veli Moses Mackenzie, in Johannesburg who is standing at the traffic lights asking for money [a typical thing in many of the cities in South Africa] except that his ask is a little different:

For R1 [less than ten American cents] i will teach you one word in my language [Zulu].

Dubbed the Jozi Traffic Light teacher, his story goes viral along with the hashtag #trafficlightteacher and the next day i read about him being awarded a bursary to follow his dream by studying audio technology.

The ask continued to the public as:

‘Moses is now in need of finding suitable accommodation, and Jacaranda has asked for any help regarding this matter. Moses currently lives under a bridge and sleeps in an old television box near his Empire road ‘office’.’ 

The more viral we can make GOOD NEWS, the more news outlets will see the value of reporting it and the more stories like this will start coming out. Also the less we feed on the bad news, the less the call for it and the more the media will shift to telling good news stories.

It is a supply and demand business – and what we demand, they will supply. The obstacle is obviously the fewness of people sharing the good stuff and so this does need to become a movement.

SHARE THIS BLOG POST for example. Write your own on a similar vein. And start passing on those stories of good.

One wonders if there would be any correlation to teenage school shootings, for example, if we gave them no media attention at all [anonymity instead of fame?]

And in fact, there are many people who are already doing this. Do you know of a group or site or place where we can easily find the GOOD NEWS stories? Please leave your links in the comments.

eg. http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org or @good on the Twitterer

Where else do we find the good news?