XPost: soc.culture.south-africa, za.misc, soc.culture.african   
   XPost: soc.history, alt.history   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   A sad story about man man who deserves to be known better.   
      
   Michael Tshehla Phahlane, the man who gave Soweto its name   
      
   Sam Mathe wrote in Facebook:   
      
   Michael Tshehla Phahlane, the man who gave Soweto its name back in   
   1963, slipped away quietly two weeks ago without a single mention in   
   local media despite the fact that he was the real doyen of black South   
   African journalism and one of its finest wordsmiths.   
      
   Only the Sowetan carried a 31-word funeral notice accompanied by the   
   standard black and white photo in the weekly In Memoriam section. He   
   didn't make it in the obituaries page.   
      
   His huge significance in South African journalism in general and jazz   
   writing in particularly was a fact that the paper's editorial team was   
   evidently unaware of. He was just another dead Sowetan.   
      
   The man nicknamed The Indestructible because of his legendary   
   reputation for having survived a number of near-death experiences,   
   lived most of his life in obscurity and died in oblivion, thanks to an   
   uncaring, insensitive and oblivious society. He was the invisible man   
   in the real sense because all South Africans simply refused to   
   recognise the squat, forlorn figure who roamed the streets of   
   Johannesburg as one of the city's homeless people. He lived a hard and   
   undignified existence, not out of his own choice but because as a   
   country we failed him.   
      
   Born 26 March 1921 in old Sophiatown, in 1943 he joined Zonk, the   
   first English language magazine for African readers. He covered a   
   number of beats including crime reporting but distinguished himself as   
   a jazz critic, definitely the first one on the continent. He wore his   
   passion for this noble art on his sleeve and with his elegant but   
   cheeky prose, championed its beauty and cause on the pages of the racy   
   publication.   
      
   Jazz introduced him to a young and lanky pianist from Cape Town. He   
   loved the shy musician's efforts on the ivories but he didn't like his   
   name. Johannes Adolphus Botha didn't have a ring of showbiz to it. So   
   he gave his protégé a new identity - Dollar Brand.   
      
   The intrepid scribe reasoned that a dollar was the world's most   
   powerful banknote at the time and his charge was destined for bigger   
   things in the US, a brand everyone wanted to experience its dream.   
   Very prophetic. Years later the protégé expressed his gratitude when   
   he recorded Bra Timing From Phomolong, a tribute bluesy, meditative   
   hymn that came straight from the soul of Soweto. It can be found on   
   Abdullah Ibrahim's 1989 album, The Mountain.[1]   
      
   And the old timers will remember Heyt Mazurki, after the legendary   
   1977 encounter with saxophonist Buddy Tate. There's also Tintinyana.   
   Originally published in 1971 in the Peace album, it's an evocative   
   jazz tune dedicated to Phahlane's daughter, for Tintinyana was her   
   name. She grew up to become a fine lady and brilliant medical doctor   
   but sadly she passed away in the prime of her life. He also lost his   
   only son, Dr Michael Phahlane. The US-based psychiatrist was killed in   
   a car crash in 1981.   
      
   In 1983 he was diagnosed with amnesia and confined to Sterkfontein   
   Hospital, a psychiatric institution for the mentally challenged as a   
   state patient. One of his fellow inmates was Dimitri Tsafendas. When   
   Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was assassinated on 6 September 1966,   
   Phahlane had quipped that Tsafendas had exterminated apartheid. The   
   authorities never forgave him for that.   
      
   His institutionalisation cost him enormously. He lost his Soweto house   
   and other priceless belongings. It was reportedly auctioned off at the   
   behest of a vengeful ex-father-in-law. Since his discharge from the   
   psychiatric institution, Ntatemoholo Phahlane, as the indomitable   
   nonagenarian preferred to be referred to in his twilight years, has   
   been struggling to get an RDP house. He initiated a series of   
   correspondence with the former Gauteng premier, Mbhazima Shilowa and   
   the Gauteng Department of Housing.   
      
   His pleas fell on deaf ears.   
      
   "I'm so angry I could explode. I have just returned from the   
   Department of Housing, at their new 1066 premises in Pritchard   
   Street," he told a journalist in the spring of 2005. "Nothing seems to   
   materialise concerning my two-year application for an RDP house near   
   Kliptown railway station.   
      
   I'm really homeless. As it is, I have no place to sleep. I do not have   
   the slightest idea of where I will sleep tonight. Last night I slept   
   in an open veld in Mzimhlophe. It was also raining. I'm a very worried   
   man. I do not have anyone to turn to. People I knew in Soweto are long   
   dead and buried."   
      
   In his halcyon days, he earned the nickname Mike Mazurki, after an   
   American professional wrestler who distinguished himself in Hollywood   
   playing tough characters ranging from bouncers to gangsters. And true   
   to his moniker, he feared no one - including Sophiatown's dreaded   
   gangs, the Americans, the Berliners, the Vultures as well as those in   
   neighbouring Alexandra, the Spoilers and Msomis.   
      
   An all-round sportsman, he had a flair for golf and in the square ring   
   his hard-as-cement fists were reputed to have send many opponents into   
   early retirement as a result of serious injuries. "They call me   
   Mazurki because when I was a kid I was pretty fast with my fists," he   
   wrote. "Those were the good old bad days of Sophiatown - Magictown, I   
   called it - before they pulled it down and built a place called   
   Triomf, though that sort of triumph I've been trying to figure out   
   ever since."   
      
   A man about town, his penchant for the best attire on the market was   
   peerless. "Mazurki dressed like a typical American newshound -   
   broad-brimmed hat (Fedora they called it then), background or Widmark   
   (mackintosh), sleek Florsheim, Robblee or Nunn Bush shoes and other   
   US-made clothing he had a strong penchant for," wrote the late scribe   
   and contemporary, Doc "Carcass" Bikitsha. "He lived as hard as his   
   American counterparts because he was nurtured in the Viking atmosphere   
   of Sophiatown and Western Native Township.   
      
   To a certain extent, he brought that element of toughness in his   
   journalism. He did not fear man or god and was frequently on the   
   receiving end of the stick because of his addiction to the white man's   
   "fire water". Who was not at the time?"   
      
   As editor and columnist at Zonk, he penned a must-read column called   
   Swingcerely Yours. There couldn't have been a more apt name for a jazz   
   column during the swing era. "I'm no ordinary rapscallion. That's for   
   sure. I've seen a few beautiful dolls in my time and run into a few   
   stray hens," he wrote in Mazurki's Zuka, his other column in later   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)