Loyiso Gola has nothing to say. At least that is what he has been telling me for years every time I ask him to lunch despite the public evidence to the contrary.
When he agrees to come to say nothing to me over breakfast at the newly renovated Father Coffee in Rosebank, I am a bit nervous, I won’t tell a lie.
If it is possible, Father is now even more achingly cool and urbane — minus the ping pong arena but with a new wine section that is as carefully curated as the coffee. I think to myself, well, at least I can take to alcohol if his whole “I have nothing to say” thing persists through the poached eggs and bircher muesli.
I am happy to report that he has a lot to say, but none of it is what you would expect from that easy rapport and masterclass in comedy stuff he pulls off on stage.
It seems he is a minimalist by nature and inclination. Conversationally, he is a man of a few and considered words. It’s true — I think he has a quota. If he hasn’t worn an item of clothing for more than two years, he gets rid of it. His apartment would be minimalist if not for the plants. He has more than 60 and his daily routine is to peacefully tend to them in the manner to which they are accustomed.
He rides a bicycle about town, not in Lycra but as a means to get from A to B — a vintage Bianchi from the 1980s he sourced on the internet. He left it earlier this week at one of his friends and needs to collect it. Maybe later. He likes to potter around, listen to music, research stuff he is interested in, take a well-timed nap. He sounds positively beatific.
At the moment he is fascinated with the ANC in the 1940s. “I want to write a paper about it. Since the 1940s they have never operated in a time, in circumstances, that allow them to flourish. Ever. Remember, it’s a resistance movement, it’s always fighting against some shit. If you want to think of it like this: imagine it’s an organisation that runs a stokvel and then one day you’re like, this organisation must run a huge business. What are you talking about? There’s never been a time when they provided a service — now they must keep all the lights on.”
His interest runs deep and granular. He goes into detail about the ANC electoral conferences in the late 1930s and 1940s that saw the rise and fall of James Moroka, and what, if anything, this history tells us about the present. I get the impression that this is just one of the many subjects he is mulling while pottering.
He also gets bored by lazy narrative. This may be true of all narrative but also in reference to ones about himself. For example, the pat story that he is a boy from the township, Gugulethu, who made good, when actually his story and probably most people’s stories are more a mixed bag of tricks.
There is that childhood to contend with and he tells me he liked to return to Gugs on the weekends, but his family moved to the suburbs in his youth. His mother worked for a bank and his father for the South African Council of Churches; he went to high school in Woodstock where comedy came to him on a silver platter of opportunity when he was 17 — and he has been eating off it since.
Last year he reached one of the big milestones of that comedy game — he played full houses at the Apollo in London.
A lot of cultures are stoic by nature. I mean, you can’t go up the mountain and not be stoic
— Loyiso Gola
He has been a comedian for longer than he has not. But to be fair, I don’t think he wants to talk about his comedy career over this breakfast given the paucity of my specialist knowledge in the field and his broad range of interests, which I gather he would rather I pressed him on.
I take the hint because I don’t think breakfast wine should become my thing and I don’t want to tempt fate while he is actually telling me the things.
He tells me his grandfather was a priest, and I wonder if he is religious. He says that he is a stoic. He tells me that the way that approach to life lands for him is in the way he deals with circumstances.
“I don’t have control of what is happening to me, but I can control my reactions. When we talk about reacting to life, I have to react with a particular set of values. A lot of cultures are stoic by nature. I mean, you can’t go up the mountain and not be stoic.”
To make his point, he asks me to name the first freedom fighters that pop into my head — Mandela, Biko, Tambo.
“Xhosa men, they all went to the mountain. People die. You know you are supposed to survive, you come out from the experience a different man … no more questions about your honour.”
What then are his values?
“That’s not happening to you, that’s not happening for you, that’s just happening. There’s no why me, then why not me?”
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