Officially disguised as a Canadian
My brother works in selling things. From being a copywriter to a creative director, he’s sold a number of things. He’s won awards for selling things. That’s literally his jam. (He does not work for Gillette.) Gillette, and Nike before them, has recently come to realize that their advertising has power to create change forContinue reading Gillette, Nike, and social justice
I was born in December 1976. My first cousin Luke was born in January 1978. We grew up together as cousins do, only a year apart. We had similar childhoods growing up in South Africa. We went to the same family events, we hung out. If the photos are anything to go by, we mightContinue reading Luke Potter
Car accidents, I’ve had a few… In what must have been 1997, because the song Barbie Girl was released that year (it was how I referred to my best friend’s girlfriend), I was in a car accident. Barbie’s family had a house next to a lake outside of Johannesburg, and we were going to driveContinue reading In which Randolph sustains a concussion and whiplash at the same time
In 1990 I started at boarding school, aged 13. In what turned out to be eighteen months of living hell* interspersed with a life-long friendship or two, I learned the value of reinventing myself. I remember lying on my hostel bed a few weeks into the first term thinking that I could be anybody IContinue reading Reinvention
Two major events took place in 2001, exactly a month apart. On 11 August 2001, my boyfriend at the time and I decided that I should play hooky from work. He was a student and wanted to go ten-pin bowling. We were due to meet with my best friend for lunch at his house afterwards.Continue reading In which Randolph is hit by a getaway car a month before 9/11
When I was ten years old I almost died*. It was a Thursday afternoon at 4:50pm. The very last episode of my favourite show in the world, The Littles, was starting at 5pm and my mother had just asked me to go to the corner store and get bread and milk. I suggested that itContinue reading In which Randolph is hit by a car and nearly dies
Growing up, my parents had friends who themselves had three kids. The eldest (let’s call him Robert) and I got on quite well on a computer nerd level, but he was far more physically coordinated than me. This was especially evident in his ability to climb trees when we were much younger. Mostly I wasContinue reading In which Randolph falls out of a tree
There’s a saying that if something makes you angry you should wait before writing about it. In June 2016, I signed up my company in South Africa with Mailgun, and shortly thereafter connected a subdomain so we could send emails. We didn’t need 10,000 emails. Rather, we send between 50 – 100 a month, evenContinue reading Mailgun is a terrible company and it has nothing to do with their technical ability
One of the best sites on the Internet is also one of the most toxic. No, I’m not talking about Twitter, but Stack Overflow. In previous posts I’ve referenced my own issues with the Stack network, and a few years ago I cancelled my account entirely due to the toxicity of some of its membersContinue reading This made my day
Rehearsals are underway for The French Kiss Off, a Confederation Theatre farce I am directing, written and produced by Alan Le Boeuf. I haven’t directed a farce in Canada before, so it’s a first. The cast numbers nine in total, which is fairly large, so I have an able team to help me including twoContinue reading Directing for the stage