Interview with tonymac04

1. You have a wonderful sense of the continuity of history and the impact of accident on us all [Hubbers, see The Journey of My Life for an account of Tony's interesting past]; which event do you think may have been the most definitive for you in shaping who you are now?
   If I were to be facetious I would say my birth! Everything else has, after all, flowed from that event. More seriously though I really can't single out one event as the most definitive. There have been so many events that have shaped me, that have played parts in making me who I am today. And many of them were indeed accidents of life, things that happened without conscious thought or effort or planning on my part, and yet have been essential experiences that have moulded me in one way or another. What I have come to realise more and more is that we are all a part of history, that we can't take an a-historical view of life without losing the richness of life. We are all in that flow of history, that great story of humanity.
2. You were recently reunited with the family of your boyhood friend, Boy Bikitsha, through HubPages, and a hub you wrote about Blythswood Station. Great story, but with such underlying love and gratitude for the memory of your old friend that it prompts this simple question: how important is friendship?
   Friendship is the cream in the coffee of life - it's what makes life satisfying and enjoyable. As I have lived through this life, my humble little life, I have been touched on many, many occasions by the love and kindness of so many people. Some have been part of my life for many years, some for relatively short times, and all have enriched me in some way or other. And I am truly grateful for their friendship. Without it life would not have been so great.
3. How important are the arts for the life of the mind?
   For me the arts are important for life in general, not just for the life of the mind. Like friendship, the arts give a depth and meaning to life. Writing is the art I participate most directly in, both as a reader and as a journeyman writer. I feel am still at the early stages of learning about this great art, and hope to go on learning for the next 20 or 30 years. Part of my learning is through reading, which I do constantly. Right now I am reading Karen Armstrong's Islam A Short History and a book, a memoir, really, by a young white South African who went to live in a formerly Black township in Cape Town. The book is simply called by the name of the township: Khayelitsha. "Khayelitsha" means in isiXhosa "New Home" and is so appropriate for this memoir by journalist Steven Otter.
4. Where did your passion for jazz come from, and why is 1959 such a pivotal moment in jazz history?
   I must have been about 12 years old, still living in Blythswood, when my late brother Chris brought home an LP of Duke Ellington's music, I can't remember which album it was, and I was just blown away by the sounds. Chris was at the time a student at the College of Music of the University of Cape Town and was starting to explore jazz and the local jazz scene, building on his experience of the music of the amaXhosa people among whom we lived. Chris had, as the saying goes, very "big ears" and listened to sounds and music in ways which a person like me with relatively "small ears" could not. Then on a vacation in Cape Town towards the end of 1958 I heard him play at the old Ambassador Club in District Six and at a restaurant in Sea Point called El Pescatore and was totally enraptured.
   Why 1959 was such a pivotal moment in jazz history I'm not sure, really. I think it has something to do with the decline of bebop and the rise of the free and modal jazz styles, combined with a new appreciation by jazz musicians of the cultural importance of jazz as a mode of expression of black history in the US, with the Civil Rights movement getting under way at around the same time. The rise of pride in Black cultural expressions combined with the evolution of jazz styles must have created a nexus, much of which, very fortunately for us, was captured in studio and live recordings.
5. You speak about Desmond Tutu with great reverence. How can one man make such a difference in people's lives, and who else had an impact on recent history in South Africa?
   Desmond Tutu is just a wonderful human being. I think what has made him so great, and made his witness so powerful, is that he is prepared to be fully himself at all times, often at great cost to himself, and also, often to the discomfort of those around him, whether well-disposed or ill-disposed towards him.
   Extraordinary times call forth extraordinary people, and South Africa has as a result had many such people, some well-known, others unsung heroes. One such person was Dr Beyers Naude, whom I also had the great privilege of knowing. Oom (Uncle) Bey, as he was fondly known by thousands, gave up an almost certain stellar career in the Dutch Reformed Church, to lead the Christian opposition to apartheid. As an Afrikaner he was regarded as a renegade, as a "volksverraier" (traitor to the Afrikaner people) and was ostracised by his church and his people.
   There have been many, many others, from Helen Suzman who single-handedly witnessed to justice and non-racialism in South African politics, to people like Tom Manthata. Wesley Mabuza and countless others, whose names are not well-known, but who nevertheless in their own quiet ways made contributions to freedom and justice.
   And for me, of course, I can never forget David Webster. Another human being. Another martyr for justice. And one who I counted as a friend.
6. You don't seem to take the whole concept of retirement very seriously! Can you tell us a little about the Life Coaching you do?
   Well, I try not to take life too seriously! Retirement really is just another stage of life. Life goes on and I try to make the most of what it offers me at any one moment. I see life coaching as a way to share my experience of life and the insights I might have gained with others. The process I follow is to start with helping a person who wants to achieve more in their life, to find out where their life might be out of balance, where they might be able to find a more fulfilling way of being, and then to set some targets or goals, some steps along the way to a more meaningful life. Then to help them find within themselves the motivation to take some action to realise that more meaningful life. My slogan, if you like, is "From insight to action."
7. You have been writing here at HubPages for over seventeen months now. What brought you here, and keeps you writing such great hubs?
   I wanted to find an outlet for the writing that was burning me up inside, and so I researched writing sites, finally opting for HubPages because it seemed to me to be, as the techies would say, more "user-friendly" than other sites I had found. As to what keeps me writing, it's really a need to find expression for what is going on inside me, which in turn is a reaction to what is happening around me. A therapist I was seeing recently, when fighting off the black dog, said that in his view depression was a lack of expression, and that seemed to fit for me.
8. There is great variety in your writing, from how to cook mincemeat to looking at history through the pictures on old postcards. Which of your hubs are your favorites, and which do you consider your best?
   Well, I love eating and the mincemeat Hub was all my own recipe and I love it so I guess that has to rank as one of my favourites!
   If pressed I would say my favourite one is the Blythswood one as it combines my interest in history and the personal. Blythswood was a place in which I felt so much a part of history and it's that experience which has given me the insight into the historicity of each individual's life, that each person is a part of history, that history is not just dates and battles, but the cumulative experience of every human being.
9. The number of hubbers is growing quickly. What is your advice for writers just starting out at HubPages?
   All I can do is share what has been my experience, and that is that writing what I enjoy talking about is the best for me. I don't write for the Hub score or for page views. I write what I want to write and if others get some enjoyment out of reading what I write that's great.
10. And now the question everyone dreads: Who are your favorite hubbers and why?
    Well that is a leading question, isn't it? There are many who have made an impression on me as writers, and there are many who have made an impression on me as readers, in that they have made interesting or supportive comments on what I have written. For them I am very, very grateful, as their interest does help me keep going.
    One Hubber who has deeply impressed me both as writer and as reader, one who has made very insightful and valuable comments on my writing, and who herself writes up a storm in my view, is my interlocutor, Teresa McGurk. Usually, when reading one of Teresa's Hubs, the thought that goes through my mind is something along the lines of, "Hot damn! This dame's good!" I hope that doesn't come across as sexist! It's not meant to be. Just appreciative.
    Generally the Hub community, if one can call it that, has been very good to me. I felt very welcomed early in my time here by that inimitable writer from "down under" MrMarmalade, who made appreciative comments on my early writing efforts, and whose rambling style I found kind of homespun and friendly.
    Others I have deeply appreciated are Frieda Babbley, Cindyvine, Darkside, Ralph Deeds, ESAHS, Russ Baleson, and really many, many others. I am just so grateful for the friendship and support, as well as the challenges from those who disagree with some things I have written, that I have experienced on Hub Pages.