Lullabies, Fairy Tales and Other Self-Delusions

Visitors

2011-05-17T13:10:00.004-04:00

My Granny hasn’t been well for the past couple weeks, so I’ve been spending some afternoons sitting with her and chatting. It’s interesting to hear the stories she tells about her childhood and earlier life pre-me. We always assume that our parents and grandparents had no lives before our birth, that their youth was something in the hazy past, unknowable and disconnected from our own reality.

When I hear Gran speak about the past, I am transported to a time that I can’t even really imagine. It helps that she has a bit of a local reputation for being an orator and storyteller. It also helps that she has a family reputation for embellishing her tales a bit to make them more exciting. That aside, the grains of truth are there. I’ve heard the story about the time, when she was a girl, that she and my great-grandfather had to ford the Rabacca Dry River when it was full. The river, which is usually a trickle in the middle of a vast volcanic sand and rock trench, sometimes rises due to heavy rains in the mountains, becoming impassable. For some reason, she and her father had no choice but to cross it one day when it was deep and rushing. They had to swim their horses. This is a phrase I’ve only ever seen in fantasy novels, and only ever heard when Gran tells this story. They had to sit strong on the backs of their horses, and force the reticent, insane animals to swim across the river. Gran, despite her youth, was more than up to the task. She loved horses, and was a keen rider in her day.

Anyway, this post is not really about the plethora of stories than Gran has to tell, but about the one she told me yesterday in particular. She asked me, quite out of the blue, if I’d ever had a ‘visitation’. I had no clue what she was going on about, and wondered if her fever was coming on again, causing her to babble. When I looked blankly at her and professed my ignorance she clarified. She meant visits from the afterlife.

As I told her, I’ve never had any experience with that sort of thing, although I know several people who claim that they have. My mother, for example, tells the story of the little blonde girl who peeped at her in the bathroom one day. Her helper tells of seeing my dead uncle walk across the living room. The house I lived in years ago when I was doing my A’ Levels in Barbados was notoriously haunted by several spooks. I never saw any of them, but I was pretty much scared shitless most nights if I happened to be there alone.

So Gran went on to tell me that she’s been ‘visited’ quite often in the past few days. She can’t identify her visitors, but she knows they’re benevolent and loving. She’s not scared of them. She thinks they’ve come to comfort her. She knows this because this is the second time she’s had visitors from the beyond. She and her second husband (my grandfather was the first) were going through some difficult times financially and decided to rent out their house. While it was rented, they would live in her mother’s old house, which was empty at the time. According to her, they lived in two rooms in the massive old house.

Her husband was away when she fell ill. She was in a sickness-induced sleep one day, immediately after having a bath, when she felt the strangest sensation across her face. She woke and saw several people standing over her. She recognized these people immediately as some of the domestic workers who had lived in her mother’s house, and who had all passed on. They stroked her face and one of them, a man, told her to leave the house that night or she would die. She turned up at my father’s house a couple hours later. This was before my parents were married. She pled her case and told him she had no choice but to stay with him until she could evict the people she’d rented her house to.

The point of all this is that she’s having visitors again. These aren’t one-off visits, but people who seem to be hanging around. Included in this company is the only one she recognizes – her dog, Sammy, who was put down nearly two years ago. She not only sees Sammy, but she feels him brushing up against her. While this would creep the fuck out of me, it brings comfort to my granny, as do the nameless, faceless ‘friends’ who visit. It brings comfort because my granny, who is eighty-five, is feeling the effects of age, and appears to be ready to die. She’s not scared of it; she even seems to welcome it. She says that when we get old, we start feeling obsolete, surplus. She doesn’t deny that she is loved, but she simply feels like she can be of no use to anyone.

I think Gran is simply feeling a bit low because she’s ill and needs a little help. But suppose she’s right. Suppose, in truth, she is having visits from people who she once loved (including Sammy the dog), people who once loved her. And suppose these visitors are there to comfort her in her last few days or weeks or months. What if they’re visiting her because they’re the pre-welcoming committee for the afterlife? This would scare the living shit out of me. In fact, it does. Because if Gran dies anytime soon I’ll know for a fact that her passing was presaged by the presence of other worldly beings. If she doesn’t (which is what I really hope), then I can easily pass it off as an old woman’s comforting, sickness-induced delusions.

I believe her though, much as the cynical skeptic in me hates to.

Treadmill Thoughts

2011-05-07T16:37:00.003-04:00

So Osama bin Laden, the scourge of the Western World, has been eliminated. The most intriguing part of that whole story (for egocentric little old me) is where he was hiding out: a place called Abbottabad. For those of you who don’t know, my last name is Abbott. Lord save me from the hilariously witty, topical jokes that have been, and will be spawned. Fuckin’ bin Laden.

Anyway, this morning, in an ambitious drive towards becoming physically healthy (and, as a result, emotionally and mentally healthy as well), I spent about thirty-five minutes on my mother’s treadmill huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf with emphysema. In between gasping for breath, dodging my belly as it bounced into my face and cursing myself for being a lazy bitch, I got to thinking about this whole Osama bin Laden thing.

I don’t know how many people remember the celebratory nature of the video footage coming out of various parts of the Middle East in 2001, just after September 11. I remember. I remember the singing, the beaming smiles, the shouts of joy, the dancing in the streets, the exuberantly anti-American landscape of certain parts of the Middle East at the time. The funny thing is, I almost thought I was watching replays of that footage last week when the reports of bin Laden’s killing first came out. The only difference is that the people in these videos weren’t from the Middle East; they were Americans. The flags being waved were American flags.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying the guy didn’t deserve what he got. I mean, he claimed responsibility for several of the world’s worst terror attacks in recent times. He presented himself to the world as someone who relished in the downfall of the West, and who was ruthless and merciless in his pursuit of this. I’m simply pointing out the eerie similarities between the celebrations 10 years ago, and those now. What exactly is being celebrated? I don’t think the death of bin Laden is going to decrease the threat of terror from al Qaeda. I don’t think terrorists are currently cowering in basements and caves the world over, shaking uncontrollably and screaming out that terrorism has died because bin Laden has been shot. In fact, I think they may very well be starting a campaign to martyrize the man, and use him as a catalyst for further, possibly greater, terror.

If I were a pragmatist (and those who know me well would scoff if I tried to pass myself off as one) I would say that the greatest victory in the killing of Osama bin Laden came for the PR machine that runs the USA. This was no real victory against terrorism. I can understand and appreciate the sense of relief and closure that many Americans no doubt feel as a result of the death of the man who so violently shook their reality on September 11th, 2001. I am, however, curious as to why he was summarily killed, rather than brought to more public justice on the world stage, like Saddam Hussein was. I truly feel that bin Laden’s death has very little to do with the essence of a “war on terrorism” and more to do with revenge, with a certain amount of immodest PR spin thrown in for good measure. There’s always more in the mortar than the pestle, and international politics is never transparent.

2011-04-26T18:03:00.002-04:00

photos provided by the SJCM Young Leaders

I’ve been a teacher in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for twelve years. In my tenure here, I’ve observed countless RBTT Young Leaders projects. I have to say that, of all that I’ve seen, this year’s project by the Young Leaders of the St. Joseph’s Convent Marriaqua is the most impressive. SJCM is located in a rich, agrarian community, and has a vibrant agricultural science programme. Their project reflects this school and community commitment to agricultural development in SVG.

Under the guidance of Biology teacher, Melanie Banfield, The SJCM Young Leaders group has taken on the task of researching and implementing a hydroponics programme in their school. This programme fosters not only water conservation, but also an actual, sustainable option for the agrarian communities in SVG.

Most years, the RBTT Young Leaders groups from SVG engage in projects that focus more on research and public education than anything else. We see signs painted on school walls, hear radio programmes and advertisements, and observe the odd march through Kingstown. This is all well and good, however where is the sustainability in these projects? Where is the practical application? How can these things be expanded and developed into initiatives that have an actual impact? Public education only goes so far. What the SJCM Young Leaders have embarked on this year that I have rarely noted in SVG is a project that will last well beyond the time frame of the competition.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines is an agricultural state. We are constantly talking about ways to diversify and improve on our land use, as far as agriculture is concerned. What the SJCM Young Leaders project has done is present us with a very real solution in terms of both water conservation and agricultural diversification. Their hydroponics project is modest, but it works. Using water they gathered from the school roof via gutters, and stored in a tank, they have managed to produce a crop of celery and lettuce entirely through the use of hydroponics.

I won’t go into the nitty-gritty of hydroponics, since I think the SJCM Young Leaders themselves have done a creditable job of that themselves in their periodic newspaper articles. I will, however, say that I believe this project has much scope for development and is entirely sustainable. If SVG takes proper note, this project could, potentially, present us with a real alternative to the way our agricultural land is currently used. This project has started at the school level. It’s no stretch of the imagination to see it expanding out into the Marriaqua community, and then into other agricultural communities in SVG.

I wish the SCJM Young Leaders all the best in the RBTT competition. I trust, even if they’re not successful in taking the top prize for the country, that the powers that be in SVG take note of their hard work and dedication to providing a viable alternative in terms of agricultural development in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Triumphant Return? Not if CSME has anything to say about it...

2011-04-08T10:57:00.007-04:00

Tap tap tap… Is anyone there? Does anyone remain?

I’ve been MIA for several months now. I’ve also been hemming and hawing for the past few weeks about how to come back. Well I’m back. I think.

I’ll gloss over the past few months just to catch people (or person) up. To put it as succinctly as possible, I was (am?) suffering from Major Depressive Disorder. This spilled over into all areas of my life. Around July 2010 I thought I was better, and embarked on my greatest glory to date: a PhD at UWI Cave Hill. Apparently I wasn’t better. I went into one of the deepest, darkest places of my life late last year, culminating in a total breakdown/breakthrough over Christmas. I’ve been much better since then thanks to intense talk therapy and the magic that is Paxil. Oh. I also dropped out of the PhD programme since it was a major contributor to the depression. It’s not what I really wanted. I just wanted a different life.

Now to the present, and the issue that’s been burning in me for the past couple weeks. I want to live and work in Barbados. I’ve always loved BIM, and these days I love it even more, and definitely see it as the place where I want to make my life. For me, it represents the best of several worlds: it is patently Caribbean, yet it has many of the conveniences of a big city. It’s close to home, yet separated by an ocean and the exorbitant prices of a LIAT trip. I know it well, yet still have much to discover.

Here’s my issue: the friggin’ process I (we? Do all Caribbean nationals face this?) must go through to get my CSME skilled workers certificate. I took all my documents to immigration here in St. Vincent, waited nine weeks (supposed to be six), and finally received my shiny new CSME certificate. Now I have to replicate the process all over again in Barbados. As I understand it, this is how it works in every CARICOM member state. Your state of origin processes the certificate and grants it to you once you qualify. Then your ‘new’ state, the one you want to work in, has to process it all over again just to verify that the immigration in your original state aren’t a bunch of morons. This can take up to six months.

CSME is, as I understand it, supposed to make free movement among skilled workers throughout CARICOM an easy, simple matter. What’s easy and simple about having to wait nearly a year to qualify for this status? What’s easy and simple about having to obtain police certificates of character (TWICE) from every country you’ve lived in since you were sixteen? I have to somehow get my fingerprints to Jamaica. Somehow. In fact, it appears as if it’s easier for me to just get a regular work permit rather than this CSME thing. I have a job waiting for me. It’s not like I’m going to be re-entering Barbados as a lay-about with my arms swinging and my hands empty. My Prime Minister has issued the CSME skills certificate after all.

As I understand it, this is how it works in all the islands. Barbados has received some bad press recently regarding immigration issues. From Shanique Myrie’s allegations of inappropriate body cavity searching (I refuse to use the term “finger-rape” which is sensational, stupid and utter nonsense), to this pseudo-intellectual (and completely lacking in factual information – what are this woman’s sources?) rant, BIM has come under a lot of fire. But why?

Yes, if the Shanique Myrie thing actually happened, the immigration official involved should be reprimanded. But that one incident is not indicative of any covert Bajan foreign policy regarding CARICOM! It is ONE incident, which may very well be ONE immigration official who is, possibly, a sociopathic freak.

Of course, all the forums have been burning up over this. “When I went to Barbados they treat me so bad”, “those Bajans so piggish”, etc. Poor Barbados. And yes, I mean it. Poor Barbados! If we were to all document our stories of the odd piggish official or perceived moment of ill-treatment at “official” hands we’d have reams of paper to go through!

So why is Barbados coming under such fire? I have a theory (don’t I always?). We Caribbean people love to place blame on someone else whenever we can. We love nothing more than pulling each other down by shouting at each other across the ocean. Something bad allegedly happens to one person, so let’s make it into a regional crisis where we all gang up on one country. It’s odd though. The one country we’re all ganging up on this time just happens to be the most developed of all the CARICOM states. Could there be a modicum of jealousy involved here? Could we be picking on a sister state simply because we don’t usually have something to nitpick about regarding said state?

Bajans are a proud people, and rightly so. Their country has succeeded where most, if not all, of the other CARICOM countries have not. Their education is fantastic, their health care is above par, their poverty levels are remarkably low. Crime, though often unreported, is low as well. They have one of the highest levels of immigrant entries, from the Caribbean, in the region. That’s right, when it comes to countries we all want to live in, Barbados is tops. I suspect this is because we all recognize that Bimshire has it all! And yet we jump at an opportunity to scream abuse and vitriol at her. I do believe that if this incident were reported in another country we would still be just as vex. However, I also believe that the furor would die down much quicker, and the verbal attacks would be less hateful and irrational.

And when Bajans lash out in retaliation we shouldn’t be surprised. They love their country. Barbadians are a fiercely patriotic, nationalistic people. They defend their country at all costs. They have every right to. If we spew irrational hatred at them, they will retaliate. If someone spewed garbage at us, garbage intended to denigrate us, or our country, we’d react as well.

I just realized that I’ve gone completely off-topic. I started talking about how the reality of free movement in CARICOM is a farce when compared to the theory of it. Then I somehow segued into a spiel defending Barbados from the naysayers. Actually, they’re related. I DID have a broader point growing from the BIM thing.

CARICOM and CSME fail a lot of the time, in practice, simply because we refuse to work together. We’d rather shout and scream and cuss and fight than actually come together to make our collective nations better places. Why do I have to go through all the red tape to be able to get a job in a CSME country other than my own? Because we don’t trust each other. It’s as simple as that. And if we don’t, at some point, start trusting each other, and seeing each others’ strengths rather than each other’s weaknesses, then CARICOM will fall apart, and the CSME will reveal itself to be a farce.

I mean come on. After two horrendously divisive world wars the EU has somehow managed to pull together and function effectively as a body. We’ve never had any wars with each other. Are we so petty and narrow-minded that we can’t shelve minor issues for the purposes of the greater good of regional integration?

Plus I really want that damn certificate.

Hiatus

2010-07-06T22:07:00.005-04:00

I just realised I haven't blogged in forever. I have stuff in my head to write about, but the will is just not there. So I suppose Lullabies is on a bit of a hiatus. Keep checking every now and again though, because you never know when my mojo will suddenly return in a rush and drown me in blog posts.

Later!

What I did on my two weeks' vacation in Jamaica

2010-06-07T19:29:00.004-04:00

I ate so much food over the past two weeks I’m sure I’ve actually gained weight. But the food was a necessity. The food was a necessity because every time I ate, I ate with somebody else. I was not alone. I had sushi and learned that depression is not unique. I ate kebabs and lentil soup, and realised that all roads are rocky. I ate Chinese and jerk chicken, and discovered that loneliness will drive a man to do strange and unusual things. I ate Indian and Thai, and found out that past loves will always inform present loves. I ate good, Jamaican food and lost myself in the fact that everyone is broken, everyone is buried under something, everyone is trying – with various levels of success – to heal themselves from the inside out. I cried only once, when standing in the middle of an exhibition of intensely personal art created by one of the many parts of my soul, who lives and breathes with me even if we are out of touch for months on end.

I feel like I am in the process of shoving my bony right arm deep into myself, through my small mouth, down my tight gullet and into a chest and belly that is so knotted up, that is so much in turmoil, that the only release is to grab everything swirling around down in there and yank it out as forcefully and painfully as it needs to be yanked out.

And after more than six months of not knowing why I have not been myself, I finally realised that no man can hope to be emotionally functional if he tries to hide behind false realities of contentment. I heard people read words that either overwhelmed me or lost me completely. I met a poet and wanted to open myself up, but lacked the courage and (perhaps) strength to do so. I almost met a friend of a friend who (you never know) may have been the one. I have spent so many years hiding behind good friends, supportive family and the uncomplicated, sincere love of my godchildren that I forgot (or ignored the glaring fact) that I need something more.

I made the realisation that every love of mine has ultimately failed because the first love was for someone unattainable; the first love could never have happened and yet I have spent fourteen years waiting for it to happen. In the interim, the only loves I have sought out are loves that never stood a chance because I carefully chose circumstances that were doomed. As a result, I have caused as much pain as I have felt. I have put that first love behind me, now, in the rediscovery of a good friend. I thank the Blue Mountain mist for that. With that coming-to-terms also came the more immediate coming-to-terms with the fact that other people have their own journeys to make, and these journeys do not include me because my journey does not include anyone else, except as very welcome mileposts along the twisted path to a place that I cannot yet see, have never been able to see apart from in my waking dreams; and my waking dreams are too utopic to be taken seriously.

I have released blame for every failure. I know that the only person you can ever blame is yourself. And blame may not even be the correct word. We cannot help or hide who we are. I cannot help or hide who I am. I will always put myself on the purist of golden platters and present me to you – and you are a single person, and a group of people, and the memory of people, and the whole world. You are both specific and general. And no, this is not about you, this is about me. I will always give too much information. I was not built to hide my feelings, my thoughts, or even my experiences. They are part of what make me who I am and they inform every human interaction I have ever had in my life. I will forever tell you things that you wish I wouldn’t. I will continue to make you uncomfortable with my raw exposure of thought and feeling. You will either push me away or you will embrace me; either way I cannot control how you experience me or choose to experience me. I can only control me.

Yet, deep inside there is something uncontrollable. I cannot control me and I know I have just contradicted myself and I grip that contradiction because that, too, is me. My bony right arm is still rooting around my insides, overturning and displacing the shit that has been building up in there for the past gods-know-how-many years. Tiny pills that create serotonin bridges in my brain can only restore balance for the briefest period of time. What I need to do is pull my arm back out of my stomach and bring with it the toxins and poisons and abortions that I have allowed to fester inside me since I first fainted away while serving on the altar of the Christian god who disappointed me.

I wrote this (and realised that it is a poorly crafted piece of self-indulgence):

I see galaxies in your eyes
Entire worlds
Of fancy and science
Fiction
Ecosystems both familiar
And alien
I see what I think
Possible
Yet which you think
Improbable
I see the family
I would choose
If I could choose
My family
I see a Utopia
Of fantastical proportions

In my eyes
What you see
(unfortunately)
is a flat reflection.

And I wrote this (ditto parenthetical information):

I gave you a flower.
I put it in a little pot,
Watered the fertile soil
And gave it to you,
Though you told me
You are no gardener.

Daily I watch for you,
Hoping you will water your flower
With more than just the blocks of ice
That you keep frozen in your chest.
Instead all I see
Is the lone flower, dying.

And finally, I wrote this (ditto again):

In a little box
On my desk
I keep the world

And when I open
My box
The first thing I do
Is wade through the
Dross
Until I find you

When I have found you
In my box
I want to hold you

And each of these is unedited and should never have seen the light of day, just like this blog post, which I am about to publish. And each of these is a representation of a feeling that comes from somewhere bigger. And the “you” in each poem is one person who had the misfortune to meet me at a time when my delightful crazy is at its zenith, and who stayed despite my crazy, but may have finally succumbed to my crazy and decided I am just too much hard work. This too is sad because my crazy is so much bigger than one person, and my crazy is not even crazy, it is simply me, years after telling myself the lie that I could be a loner and be happy that way. So the “you” in these poems is also every poor, selfish decision I have made in the past fourteen years.

This post was supposed to be cathartic, but has not been. I am glad I have written it though, because it has solidified and given shape to what has been going on inside me for two weeks. And so, my own healing from being broken and buried begins. This is what I did on my two weeks’ vacation in Jamaica.

Dedicated to Analisa and Kashka and Tanya and Pam and Anna-Lisa and Christina and Wayne and Saffrey and Kai and Livingston and Brian and Victor and Kei and Ryan and Tracey and Lisa and the people I didn’t get to see or meet or spend as much time with as I would’ve liked to. And of course, to

Calabashmentisms

2010-06-01T16:44:00.011-04:00

This may be one of my shortest blog posts (bar the video ones, possibly) ever.

I'm in Jamaica; I spent the most amazing weekend at the Calabash Literary Festival in Treasure Beach where I listened to words, met Kei Miller (and his resonating poetry), reconnected with old friends and got the worst sunburn I've gotten in the past six years (and didn't care).

I blogged my experience for Nicholas Laughlin over at the Caribbean Review of Books blog, Antilles. If you're interested, check it out there.

A side effect of listening to all the literature was the drive to write a little of my own (I know... I know... what am I, twelve?). So here's a little something I scribbled on the last day. As usual, it's baaaaaad poetry. But I think it may actually be poetry, of sorts.

The starving thing that lives in my chest falls
and breaks
too often and often too self-indulgently,
through no fault but its own.
If ever I have an undoing,
that scalded armadillo will be its cause.
I spend too much time trying to mend this
broken, hyperbolic thing.

Ockchallee, Oi'm Gnat British

2010-05-03T22:02:00.003-04:00

My iPod seems to have lost its mojo. I’ve had it about three years now, and the battery no longer holds a charge for longer than one or two songs. I don’t know why this is, but it sucks because I can now only listen to it when it’s sitting in the cradle of my iPod dock (Bose - cos I’m a show-off). The real tragedy here is that I can no longer wander around the grocery store using pop music as an excuse to tune out the cheerful greetings of people I’d rather not see, or lie in bed at night listening to celtic mood music to fall asleep. Well I could do the latter, but the dock is out in the living room and, for me to hear it in the bedroom, my neighbours must also be subjected to the soothing strains of druidic harps and bodhràns. I somehow think this will be an issue. At the very least, the neighbourhood dogs would raise a rousing cacophony at the first sign of a pennywhistle.

All this aside, the actual real tragedy is in the fact that I’ve been relegated to listening to the few paltry FM stations we have in Sin Vincent. I’m not going to bash any one station here, though, mainly because I think they’re all pretty crap. It’s not that I don’t like the music they play (well all right, I hate the country and gospel stations because of the music, but the others are okay), it’s the announcers and advertisements that get on my last good nerve. For as long as I live, I will never fully comprehend the necessity for people on the radio here to speak with forced, American accents. I mean seriously, are they trained to do this? Do they go on courses where half the time is devoted to American elocution? What’s wrong with our Vincentian accents?

The other day, I was driving along listening to one of the evening music request shows. You know the kind, where people call in and ask for songs that are so popular (or were once so popular) that you groan the second you hear the opening notes. The host of this show had the most soothing, deep, smooth voice - perfect male radio voice. Unfortunately, he found it necessary to speak as if he’d gone to the States on vacation for a month (you know how we do it here - we hop on a BeeWee [now Caribbean Airways or whatever], land in Brooklyn, acquire a pseudo accent and some Tims, and head back home with a grill on our front teeth or purple braids in our hair). We call this kind of thing “talking dix”. I have no idea where the term originated. Anyway, what made this so much worse is that the guy was speaking with this great voice, irritatingly fake accent, and more green verbs and hard “th-s” than I can even remember. There’s really nothing worse than someone speaking a non-uniform mashup of Vincentian Creole, American Standard English and urban, ghetto slang (BET inspired). Naturally I switched stations. The announcer on my next choice was doing the exact same thing. It put me in the foulest mood.

Tonight, as I was driving merrily along, coming from the grocery store (I shop at Sunrise Supermarket), the Rihanna song I was listening to was rudely interrupted by an advertisement for KFC. The advert is really a dialogue between two women about their weekend plans. One woman is harassed because of all the errands she has to run, the other is chilled out because she and her family are eating KFC for dinner. There’s nothing wrong with the advert eh. It uses standard advertising principles. My problem is that both women speak in American accents, yet they are obviously not American, because it is that generic accent we get when we spend too long assimilating Uncle Sam’s ways. The harassed woman even has to pick up her “kids” at “soccer” practice (as opposed to picking up her children at football). Not only are they using the accent, they’re also using the vocabulary of America. Who the hell is KFC targeting with this advertisement? Beleaguered expat mothers? Let me be clear. I’m not upset by the women eh - if this is their accent on a regular basis, then fine. I’m just befuddled as to why a Caribbean advertiser would choose to use people with American accents? Surely there’s such a thing as cultural relevance in advertising.

I remember once, when I was designing a handbook for the Communication Studies department at the college, I used an generic icon representing a face for the logo. Super teacher, Clare, quite happily let me know that the logo was completely unusable. I was stunned. My remarkable work of graphic genius unusable? Apparently, the silhouette of the face was not as generic as I thought. The nose was caucasian. At first, I thought to myself, “there goes Clare with her airy-fairy, bohemian, hippy, all-inclusive consciousness again”. After a bit of thought, however, I realized that she was right. In my twelve years of teaching in this country I think I have taught just barely enough caucasian students to count on my two hands... possibly with one foot thrown in. Where was the cultural relevance to what I was doing? Which cross section of students was I catering for? We scrapped the logo and I came up with an even better one - this one was a bit more abstract. Heh.

Maybe what our radio announcers need is a few lessons in who their audience is. Hell, perhaps their audience wants them to sound fake. If this is the case, maybe this post should really be about the Caribbean belief that speaking “good”, or speaking “proper” means putting on a vaguely American or British accent. My family has a word for people who speak with pseudo British accents - we call them “okchallees”. Dad tells the story of a man he once knew who’d moved home to Sin Vincent after a few years living in Britain (he was born here, by the way). As the story goes, they were all liming by a bar one night and the guys were giving this man a hard time because of his accent. They ribbed him about being Vincy but speaking like a Brit. The man’s retort was, “okchallee, Oi’m British!”

Now I know when you live in another country for years and years it’s easy to pick up the accent - especially if you do a job that requires a lot of customer service. I’m not disputing this. But when I think about, I always remember my uncles and aunts who migrated. None of them speak with the accent of their chosen countries. And almost all of them have spent a significant amount of time in one service industry or another. So where does it come from? Does it come a desire to fit in? Is there a certain embarrassment in speaking with the accent of your homeland? And why, when you are in said homeland, do you still feel the need to “up” your status by speaking like you’re from somewhere else? And finally, why am I forced to listen to people speaking the language of BET and Tyler Perry cinema whenever I turn on my radio? The television announcers who read the news and so on don’t feel the need to “talk dix”. Why do the radio ones feel this need?

And I know there are theories about where these things come from, and why they happen - most dealing with the status-laden nature of language; the socio-economic clues that speaking a certain way send out. But this is not enough for me.

Dear Papa

2010-04-29T21:34:00.005-04:00

Dear Papa,

I’ve never really addressed you directly, I’ve always been a bit scared. You’re a rather intimidating man, you know. Apart from your physical bulk (which is considerable, and has grown so much since you married Mum that I fear for your health), your very manner suggests an air of superiority and, in some cases, utter contempt for any people that you seem to think are beneath you. This is odd, because you consistently attempt to talk down to people. Of course, the issue really is that in talking down, you make it clear that you’re talking down. I am uncomfortably suspicious that your use of the vernacular is an attempt to curry favour with those who you deem to be too unintelligent to understand you otherwise. It’s a pity you never truly embraced the education of your stepchildren in such a way as to make them genuinely aware that some of your rhetoric is utter bullshit. Like all the other stepfathers we’ve had to endure over the years, you seem to prefer to keep us malleable through flattery, bribery and a sort of education that relies heavily on propaganda.

I hate to sound so condescending, Papa, but I’m truly at the end of my tether. You know, when you first came into my life I was really optimistic that you’d always do what is best for me and my siblings. I remember the night you married Mum so clearly: the fête was amazing! All the family was drinking and dancing like there was no tomorrow. We were all so pleased that you’d finally managed to convince Mum to marry you. Yes, I know there were a few people around who were wary, but we totally ignored them because our previous stepfather had been such a rascally spider.

Now, several years into the future, you’re almost worse than that old spider. I don’t doubt that you have some love for us, eh. I mean, I think that when you married Mum you did it because you love her, and by extension us. But somewhere along the way you decided that to show your love would be to do stuff for us that YOU think is good for us, not that we really need. All these elaborate gifts you’ve been showering us with are truly wonderful, but do we really need them? I mean, just last week one of my sisters was ill and you decided to buy her a toy plane rather than the medication she needed. It’s not your love for us that I’m doubting, it’s the way you seem to show it. We’ll love you for giving us what we need, not what we want. And we’ll love you even more if you give us things that make us better people, rather than wealthier people. Do you know what I mean?

You know, I’d like to thank you for my education, but I can’t. The truth is, it is Stepdad Spider who sent me to university. When I did my postgraduate work I didn’t even bother to ask you to help out, even though by then you and Mum were married. I just didn’t feel comfortable doing it because, though the honeymoon wasn’t over yet, I’d already seen the seeds of something suspicious. Now I’m considering going off to do more studying, and I really don’t want to ask you for any financial help. I feel that if I do, you’ll ask me to be a loyal stepson in ways that go against my own beliefs. It’s like you demand so much of us, and you make us feel like these demands are only natural; like our personal development should be sacrificed on the altar of family commitment. Is that really fair?

Please understand, Papa, I don’t hate you. You’re a man like any other, and you have a particularly difficult burden to carry since Stepdad Spider left Mum in really dire straits. I just think you shouldered this burden too ambitiously, and possibly a little disingenuously. You told us so many things that I now know were merely chat; just you speaking for the sake of sounding good. You do that a lot you know. You talk and talk and talk, and say nothing substantial. And I can see that you have (or maybe had?) the desire to do good by us, your stepchildren, but you promise things that you can’t really deliver; or you promise things that you deliver in a half-assed, barely successful manner. And let’s not forget that when you give us things, you make us feel like we owe you, personally, for them. Sometimes I wonder if you’ve forgotten that by marrying Mum you are duty bound to take care of us. We don’t owe you anything, Papa; yet you owe us everything. Isn’t that what parenthood means?

Anyway, I seem to be rambling on in this letter. I just want you to know that, although your relationship with Mum is souring, I do think you tried to do what you think is best for us in the beginning. You have been misguided, and you have let certain negative aspects of your personality dictate behaviours that were destructive, not only to yourself, but to your marriage and the lives of your children as well. I don’t think you did this maliciously, but I do think you lost sight of your true duties as husband and stepfather. If Mum does decide to end it with you, please don’t blame either her or us. We all gave you a chance. It’s not our fault that you changed and became selfishly involved in looking good to other families.

I hope the weather remains fine.

Yours sincerely,

Will

8:56 Minutes of Pure Shite

2010-04-26T00:02:00.005-04:00

Nads came to visit this weekend. If she were running a race I'd shout "go, Nads!" and it'd sound like I was screaming out "balls!" Sort of.

Anyway, we decided on Friday to document our day and make it into a short video. It is completely random. Completely. But the soundtrack is cooler than Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses were in the 1980s. Unfortunately the upload quality to youtube seems to be crap. Damnit.

This video is dedicated to HOLLY. Mainly because we suspect she's the only person on the face of the planet who will get a kick out of it.

Pony Tale

2010-04-24T20:46:00.003-04:00

Not A Love Poem

2010-04-12T19:23:00.009-04:00

original image

Sometimes,

I wish I could cut open my chest.

Not a sterile, surgical slice,

but a raw slashing,

ragged-edged ripping of muscle

and sinew and

cracking open of bone.

I would reach inside,

grab the purply-red,

erratically throbbing organ.

I would fling it into the dirt,

stomp on it

like a toddler refusing to accept

the nonfulfillment of his wishes.

Afterwards,

I would smooth it out,

hang it up in the middle of a forest,

and leave it there.

The Consequences of Diversionary Tactics

2010-04-09T12:26:00.011-04:00

Technically, I should be grading CAPE internal assessment projects right now. Instead, I’m... well... not. Several years ago (six in fact) I was in a similar situation. I was supposed to be grading end of year exams for my fourth and fifth formers. What I ended up doing was “writing” and “illustrating” a quirky little thing that I called Losing It! A Not-So-Pornographic, Alphabetic Tale! I then scanned the thing onto my computer.

I was twenty-eight when I did this. Twenty-eight years old and this is what I produced. It is both my shame and my disgrace that I produced something so puerile at the mature age of twenty-freakin-eight.

Naturally, since I yet again find myself in a doldrum of non-productivity, I’ve decided to share my shame with the world (or at least with the seven people who read my blog). Never let it be said that I refuse to let people see the less grown-up aspects of my self.

Dedicated to the #WITArmy Slackers - you know who you are... ;-)

Written in 2007

2010-04-07T14:09:00.001-04:00

34

2010-03-29T12:52:00.004-04:00

This month I turned thirty-four. This happens every year, by the way. You can actually mark the date on your calendar. Birthdays haven’t held any special significance for me for the past several years. I can vaguely remember a time, as a child and even possibly into my early twenties, when I felt a certain nervous excitement and anticipation once March started. Back then, I looked forward to celebrating the day. I looked forward to everyone treating me special and showering me with adoration (and presents). My parents, especially, treated the day as almost sacrosanct. They generally treated me like the reincarnation of Jesus on any normal day, but on my birthday this was intensified to a degree that’s almost obsessive. This is not a criticism, eh, just a statement of fact regarding my exceedingly charmed upbringing. It’s not everyone who can claim that their parents dote(d) on them.

Having been raised Catholic, I was always keenly aware that my birthday is also St. Joseph’s day. The convent schools celebrate this religious feast day. It’s kind of a big deal. When I was a child, it made me feel extra special. Once I started teaching at one of the convents, it also became a day when I’d take my class on a community service day. We’d schlep around to the houses of elderly shut-ins, carrying groceries and singing hymns; or we’d bus ourselves to a financially struggling day nursery, carrying toys and help for the day. They changed the date for community service day at some point and St. Joseph’s day became, instead, a day when the entire school would go on an outing. Either way, something special happened on that day, something bigger than just me. Even this had a certain significance.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the line, my birthday became just another day. A friend of mine has a theory that celebrating birthdays forces you to evaluate where you are in your life, and this often leads to regret. On the surface, I’m not entirely certain I agree with this, but there’s probably something to the theory. In the past, the very last thing I’d do on my birthday is introspect. In fact, even now I never really do it on my birthday. I do it all the time. I introspect every day of my life. My father seems to think it will be my downfall. All the great tragic heroes had their hubris. I have self-reflection. You’d think that should be a good thing. I mean, the reason most of the tragic heroes ended up dead, maimed and/or marrying one of their parents (gotta love those ancient Greeks) is that they never took time to self-reflect. On the other hand, too much self-examination and rumination leads to (in my case) dissatisfaction and a painful awareness of what is lacking.

Some people, the ones who I imagine know the true meaning of the word ‘zen’ and who think that fluffy bunny rabbits need to be hugged on a regular basis, relish introspection because it allows them to reflect on what is good in their lives. I do that too. Unfortunately, the cynic in me also nudges me and says things like, “yeah ok, you live on the beach and get to hug your godchildren on a daily basis; you have friends and family who treat you like a prince, so what? Why the fuck aren’t you hugging your own children? Your bed is cold and your job makes you want to rip your clothes off and poke pencils into your eyes.”

People say things like, “2010 is my year! I can feel it! Great things will happen this year!” Other people run around on their birthdays grinning and shoveling cake into their faces. In St. Vincent, people dress extra special for work on their birthday. Others don’t even go to work at all, they stay home and do whatever it is people do when they’ve taken a pointless day off. When did this sense of optimism die for me? When did the joy leak out of birthdays, making them into days to be dreaded because other people assume I want smiles, hugs and pseudo-witty jibes at getting older? At some point, I clearly decided that it’s all a crock, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. It’s been over a week since I turned thirty-four and I’ve had cake every day because it’s still sitting in my fridge taunting me. It’s my favourite cake – sticky chocolate – but I’m forcing myself to eat it... alone. I may be fucked.

The Perks of Being a Grandmother

2010-03-20T23:15:00.002-04:00

This is the scene: three generations of women are sitting at a table, post dinner. The nearly-four-year-old daughter is sitting opposite her early 30’s mother, while the grandmother-whose-age-shall-not-be-divulged-even-approximately sits at the end of the table, between them. Among the debris of dinner, there is a little bowl with some melting ice cream in it, and a spoon. There are a few other people at the table, but apart from the weird man sitting at the head, everyone else is immaterial to the following dialogue, apart from their close observation of the proceedings.

Let’s call the daughter Mary, the mother Margaret and the grandmother Mavis.

Mary is playing with a (clean) spoon and is about to put it into the ice cream bowl, which already contains a spoon.

Margaret: Don’t put that spoon in there, eh. There’s one in there already.

Mary stares directly into her mother’s stern face. Her own face is completely expressionless.

Margaret: Mary, did you hear me?

Mary’s chubby, nearly-four-year-old hand slowly raises from the table, grasping the spoon. Her poker face only barely displays subtle signs of defiance.

Margaret: Mary.

Margaret’s eyes begin to narrow. She and Mary are staring unswervingly at each other. Mary’s hand begins a slow movement toward the ice cream bowl. She is not looking away from her mother. Margaret’s eyes get narrower and narrower; her face gets redder and redder. Mary’s spoon continues its measured, steady journey towards the ice cream bowl.

Margaret: Mary.

Mavis is looking on in obvious delight. Her eyes move from her daughter to her granddaughter. All we can see in her face is teeth. Mary’s spoon has arrived at the ice cream bowl and, in a very deliberate motion, dips into the ice cream. There is steam coming out of Margaret’s ears; her face is on fire and her eyes are so narrow that it would seem a car jack may be necessary to ever open them again. Mary, still gazing into her mother’s deadly face, brings the spoon to her mouth and, almost absent-mindedly, licks the ice cream off it.

The air around the table is tense and cold. Mavis, however, is looking on with relish and grinning a grin that would make a Cheshire cat jealous.

Weird Man at the Head of the Table: What’s going on down there, Mavis?

Mavis (in the smuggest of tones of pure enjoyment): Payback!

The entire company erupts in laughter.

FIN

The Forest Is Burning

2010-03-19T00:47:00.003-04:00

The forest is burning,

and the fleeing parrot

cannot use the hot currents

to coast,

and is a meteorite falling from the sky,

screaming the words

he learned through mimicry.

The forest is burning,

and the iguana almost made it out

before the flames

caught him,

and his cold, reasonable blood –

it is revealed –

boils just like any other liquid.

The forest is burning,

and the peacock’s colours

are engulfed and paled

by crimson

and gold and the hottest blue,

and he is becoming

even more ethereal.

The forest is burning,

and the armadillo is trapped;

he is baking in the oven

of his nature,

his inside flesh is searing and

mutating into a charred

version of itself.

The forest is burning,

and when it is done

there will be only the swirling

grey and black flakes of soot,

drifting down,

and a solitary phoenix will hatch

like every other myth.

____________________________________________________________

More pseudo poetry. Sorry.

Two Boys Kissing

2010-03-15T16:07:00.007-04:00

FROM: http://www.kchronicles.com/

A few weeks ago Vincentian society went briefly crazy. I don’t know if the drought has gone to people’s heads, or if the political mire in which we’ve become trapped has prevented rational thought, but something happened that revealed to me just how depraved a society can be when it succumbs to mob mentality.

Reports (please note the plural – there’s always more than one report; which itself is quite telling) leaked out of a local educational institution (not official reports mind you: all hearsay), saying that two boys were seen kissing and “fondling” each other in plain sight. Why this should create the furor it did is entirely beyond my own naïve brain to comprehend. The more popular radio talk shows took this tall tale and ran with it. The most sensational of our three local papers plastered the alleged incident across its front page (getting most of the facts completely wrong). People were up in arms against the sick perversion being displayed for all and sundry. The multitude lost all sense of decency and basic humanity.

According to reports, the two hapless boys were observed kissing each other at the side of the school facing the main road, around lunchtime. Clearly, these two young men had a death wish. It is obvious to me that they were being shamelessly suicidal. I mean let’s think about this rationally for a moment (I know, I know, rationalism is a lost art; just try). Two teenaged boys, according to allegations, were observed to be romantically entwined in plain view of the people on the main road, as well as other students who were going to buy lunch.

Seriously? This fuckry was actually believed?

From what I can gather, the following day (not even the same day, eh), the story of this cable television-esque, man-love extravaganza had spread around the school and it’s environs. An angry throng of their schoolmates, who proceeded to hurl verbal abuse at them while threatening worse, surrounded the boys. They could do nothing but sit and wait to see what their fate would be. Lucky for them, a representative of the school’s administration had been called and escorted them to safety. Apparently, the boys were later told to go home for the remainder of the week for their “safety”. Their families came to collect them. Before the week was out one of the boys had migrated. I have no idea what happened to the other, or if he has even returned to school.

Of course, as later reports revealed, the whole thing was a lie. The “kissing boys” were actually just “sitting boys”. They were sitting together. From what I’ve been told by some of these boys’ classmates, the entire thing was set up because various unevolved members of the student body merely wanted an excuse to beat them to a pulp for being different. Two lives completely changed because one person decided to spread a rumour. One person, who thought he would fabricate a juicy piece of gossip (for reasons unknown), has affected two young men, and their families. When you really think of it, the person who made up this untruth has affected an entire community.

The indictment, for me, does not however rest solely on the shoulders of our young liar (I may have used the word “indictment” incorrectly here; but I stand by it). The true condemnation here is of the society that reacted so violently against these two young men; it is of the community that willingly chose to suspend rationality, logic and humanism in favour of crass, simple-minded prejudice. Lest I be accused of dealing in binaries, I should hasten to say that I am fully aware that it was not the entire society going insane.

We are a culture that seems to love radio talk shows. Our talk show hosts, whatever their credentials (or lack thereof in some cases), tend to generate huge and loyal followings. Two in particular took this story and blew it completely out of proportion. These men are clearly smart enough to understand that a topic such as this would attract the most ignorant vitriol, yet they allowed their shows to play host to a barrage of hatred and (pseudo) intellectual violence. Of course, they quite likely feel justified in doing this because they are, technically, the press and have certain freedoms. But what about their responsibilities?

It would seem to me that pandering to the baser instincts of a community displays a lack of social responsibility. In bolstering an already stridently intolerant majority of the vocal, aren’t these talk show hosts merely perpetuating hatred and ‘judgmentalism’? In this regard, how are these people in any way adding to their society? Surely, they are simply playing on the fear and hatred of their fan base, rather than trying to actually do some good by helping their callers to see reason and think critically. I have little regard for the majority of the talk show hosts that I have listened to on the radio here. I now have absolutely no regard for at least one of them. He had the opportunity to take an incident, and use it to spark serious, intelligent discussion, but chose instead to make it as sordid and hateful as he possibly could.

And the vocal majority lapped it all up. People screamed bloody murder on these two young men. The empty barrels rolled long and loud. No one seemed to even consider the possibility that actual lives were being affected by these public speculations and vilifications.

Never one to let these medieval witch-hunts pass by unexplored, I brought this up with my class. I was heartened to learn that the majority of my students were as appalled as I by the way this thing was handled, both by a certain faction of the youth and in the media. They all seemed to realise that the thing was obviously a lie and, even if it wasn’t, that it didn’t warrant the kind of outcry generated. They felt (as I do, but didn’t tell them at the time) that it is the height of hypocrisy for these two young men to be publicly exposed and condemned when heterosexual students routinely engage in public displays of affection (and more) on a more or less daily basis in schools. I would like to believe that all my students genuinely feel this way. Realistically, however, I am aware that some of them may have been silent because they do not. Also, some of those who spoke may have been influenced by my own obvious intolerance of intolerance. So it goes.

I have sat in meetings and listened to highly educated adults refuse to teach children who may be homosexual (this despite the fact that teachers should never discriminate). I have observed intolerance and ignorance in the highest strata of what should be this country’s educated elite. Prejudice does not recognise levels of academic achievement. Discrimination and bigotry do not disappear in the face of seeming intelligence. The radio talk show hosts I mentioned earlier are symptomatic of a problem that pervades this society across the board. When a ruling party can issue a letter to voters, urging them to vote in support of a proposed constitution that will outlaw the possibility of gay marriage, and using that section of said proposed constitution as a selling point, then it is clear that irrational phobias exist from the top down. If the head hates something (or gives the appearance of such), this hate will trickle down, and the feet will hate it as well. This is how societies operate.

I am disappointed in many of my countrymen. I am disappointed in those who allowed themselves to violently express their hatred so publicly and without regard for the lives and feelings of the people directly affected. I make no apology for the fact that, right now, I view many of the people in my own Vincentian society as a dangerously intolerant, judgmental collection of hypocrites and narrow-minded moralists. And just when I thought the youth would develop in ways that surpass the restrictive mental oppression of their elders, I am reminded that the lime tree never bears guava.

Side Effects

2010-03-10T15:39:00.002-04:00

IMAGE FROM: http://www.plaidcreature.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/insomnia.png

tick

tick

tick
tick

tick

tick

slap away a tiny vampire
dengue carrier
irritating buzzer
refugee from the drought

tick

roll over

tick
tick
tick

scratch the place where
my blood was so recently
siphoned away

tick

tick

roll onto my back

tick

stare through the plastered ceiling
into the space beyond
where I have allowed my drenched, fanciful
utopias to roam free

tick

tick
tick

tick

roll onto my stomach

tick

release the loaded sigh
that has been blocking
my passage

tick

get up to pee

tick
tick

miss the bowl completely
curse the relentless darkness
and brain fog

tick

fall back into the treacherous bed
adjust the cool sheets
hug a pillow between lonesome
arms and legs

tick

wordlessly
lament the heat
of the drought

tick

tick

click the bedside lamp
allow the glare of full
wakefulness to
intrude on the deceitful, comforting dark

tick

read Terry Pratchett

tick

lose interest
return to the darkness
and its lies

tick
tick

lie on my side
lie on my back
lie on my other side
lie on my stomach

tick

pace for ten
crushingly dry
minutes

tick

repeat
every night
like clockwork

tick

tick

tick
tick

spend every day
in longing for
darkness and the wet

tick
tick
tick

____________________________________________________

I apologise. Every time I try to write a blog post, pseudo-poetry comes rushing out instead. Feel free to search for meaning in here. And good luck with that. Hah!

IMAGE FROM: http://www.funnytimes.com/archives/files/art/19951127.jpg

A Trifle

2010-03-05T15:12:00.004-04:00

you can see me
and you can touch and feel me
you can even hear me and
smell me and taste me
with my salty sea-
blasted skin

you can identify me
by the smoothness of my head
or by the lilt of my tongue
by the ocean in my gaze
or by the brown spot
clinging to my arm

you can analyze me
when you observe my tears
and when my laughter makes you
stop up your ears
and when I rant and when I rave
and when I tell you things I shouldn’t

but you can never be me

Tallulah-Belle

2010-02-10T21:09:00.005-04:00

Tallulah-Belle

I’ve taken to locking the gate at my front door these days. I’m not afraid of being attacked and robbed in my own home or anything (despite the fact that I do live in Indian-Bay); it’s just that my upstairs neighbours/landlords/bffs have an intriguing little habit of waltzing into my flat when the mood strikes, and creeping up on me unawares. Well, to be fair, it’s only really Robert who does that. Melanie (Robert’s wife) stands at the front step and calls out because I’ve spread it around that once I’m home I’m naked, and I think she’s mortally afraid that she’d walk in to find me spread-eagled on my bed, gloriously unclothed, reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky or similar.

But Robert now. Well. I suspect Robert secretly wants to discover me doing something shameful and unattractive so he can send a broadcast message on his Blackberry Messenger about me. Possibly accompanied by a picture. He has the knack of being able to open the gate without it creaking and squeaking the way it usually does when I open or close it. I’d be here, sitting all innocent at my desk doing work, or chatting online, or staring at my computer screen intently while trying to transform myself into binary code to see if I can transport myself over the Internet, and he’d just appear around the corner with a smirk on his face, causing me to jump out of my skin while screaming like a little girl or eunuch. It’s the kind of thing my father would do to get his kicks.

Anyway, a few days before Christmas (2009 – duh) I was in the middle of painting birdhouses when I popped into my room to check something on the laptop. All of a sudden the entire family from upstairs appeared (grinning like Cheshire cats) in front of me as if materializing out of the ether. After they picked me up from the floor and mopped up my pee, they told me that I needed to come into the kitchen. Lila (aged 3 ½ - ish) took my hand (all the while smiling like she’d just managed her biggest jump) and Logan (1 ¾ - ish) toddled ahead of us with the most intense look on his face, glancing back periodically to point at my kitchen while shouting “DIS! DIS! DIS!”

I harboured secret hopes that they’d brought me food. Melanie is one of the best bakers I’ve ever met, and Robert barbeques a mean rack of pork ribs.

Instead, as I got to the kitchen, I saw a blue budgie, sitting in a white cage, looking for the world as if someone had just deposited her in Hell. I was confused. I was bewildered. Had they really, honestly brought me a bird? I immediately said, “oh you got the kids a budgie! You want me to keep it down here so they can come visit it then?”

“Errrr… no,” said Robert, looking at me as if I were an idiot, “we figured you haven’t been having much luck with cats, so we’d try you with a bird and see how long it lasts. Merry Christmas.”

Since I’ve been living here (it’ll be a year at the end of April) I’ve had three cats. Just before I moved I was supposed to be getting the cutest, all-black kitty who I’d already named Oscar Wilde-cat. He was killed, by a rampaging ram-cat, while still too young to defend himself. When I moved in, I inherited Frank, who would sit with me, and hang with me and give me company in the lonely days (he once playfully swatted me in a rather sensitive area, but that story will stay locked in the vault). Frank was also killed by said ram-cat. Just after Frank was murdered, his mother, Jones (I named neither Frank nor Jones, Melanie did for very obscure reasons) came to visit, bringing her latest offspring (all these cats were Jones’ progeny by the way – she’s a huge slut). I named the new one Zee (a compromise with Lila – I wanted Zorro, Lila wanted some other name that rhymes with “ee”). I was juuuust starting to tame Zee when the marauding ram-cat got to him one afternoon. I heard distressed kitty noises outside and ran out only to see the ram-cat sauntering off, looking as if he’d just been passing by. Zee took his last few breaths while I petted his little head.

Frank

I figured, until I personally crush the ram-cat’s sociopathic head under my heel, I would be better off not having a cat, and not having to go through the trauma of losing one again. I steeled myself for a lonely, cat-less existence and focused instead on other things like origami, pedicures (manly ones) and the pursuit of happiness (all three have been major failures thus far).

Then, a few days before Christmas, through some odd machinations in Robert’s brain, Tallulah-Belle entered my life. I kept budgies when I was a teenager, they even bred, but I never thought I’d have one again. My initial response was one of great joy. I imagined taming Tallulah-Belle to fly around the flat. I imagined gleefully wiping her crap off the backs of chairs and computer screens. I imagined her perched on my iMac chirping blissfully while I tweeted on Twitter.

What I did not imagine, and what turned out to be the truth, is that budgies, like humans, have the potential to be psychotic schizophrenics with a smidgen of manic-depressive disorder. Simply put, the freaking bird is mad as a hatter (my second Alice in Wonderland reference in this post! Who can tell us which is the first?). Sometimes, I approach her cage and get absolutely no response. She’d sit on her perch, acting as if my existence is beneath her notice. Other times, she’d swivel her head, shuffle her feet and stare balefully at me, as if challenging me to make one wrong move. Then, of course, there are the flip outs. At these times, before I even get close enough for her to see that it’s me, she starts flapping her wings, screeching and batting herself against the cage as if she’s trying to bust through the metal and skewer me with her head. Feeding this thing is both nerve-wracking and potentially suicidal.

I named the thing Tallulah-Belle out of some misguided attempt to appear knowledgeable about American/British pop culture of the 1920’s and 30’s. She’s named after Tallulah Bankhead. Little did I know that names have a curious power over animals. It is as if the bird is actually channeling Bankhead’s sprirt. I’m fairly certain that she’d snort cocaine and have wild, bisexual romps with other birds given the chance. Having said that, however, she’s also remarkably chatty at certain times of the day. Sometimes I hear her jovially belting out (what I imagine are) budgie show tunes or greeting the morning with chirps of obvious praise and worship. It’s just a pity she never does this once I’m in the room. For me, she only has malevolence and disdain.

Tallulah-Belle and I have reached a sort of understanding over the past two months or so. I approach her only to change feed/water/paper. She will either attack me or make me feel like an inferior pleb. Note well: this understanding is all on Tallulah-Belle’s terms. I have nothing to do with this, apart from doing what I am told. Sometimes I feel like an ex-husband who’s been beaten down by a particularly viraginous ex-wife who shares my physical space. I feed her, support her, cater to her every whim and fancy, yet all I get in return is poisonous looks, periodic berating and physical violence.

Every now and then Robert and Melanie ask how she’s doing. Actually, what they ask is, “is Tallulah-Belle dead yet?” I always reply that she’s great company. This is not true. Tallulah-Belle is a six and a half inch long ball of furious feathers who sees me as a necessary irritant (I measured her just now while she was asleep). If she were a literary construct, she’d be Charlotte Brontë’s mad-woman-in-the-attic (a la Jane Eyre) complete with mad hair, a tendency towards pyromania and long, white nightgowns. Come to think of it, perhaps she is my mad-woman-in-the-attic. After all, I do keep her locked in a cage all the time and would cheerfully deny her existence if a younger, more facile budgie came along.

Remedy

2010-01-26T07:36:00.006-04:00

Every now and then a song comes along at just the right time. Maybe you’re feeling a little bit down; maybe life (or karma) has been kicking you in the rear a lot; perhaps discontentment and disillusion are rearing their insidious heads. One day you put your iPod in shuffle, hit play, and a song you never remember hearing (or even downloading) pops up and lifts you out of your reverie, changing your mood so drastically that you start fearing you may need meds for bipolarity.

This song need not be one that possesses any kind of depth, or expresses your angst; it simply exists to pull you out of yourself and force you into a state of mind that is all positivity and adrenalin. Suddenly you feel like you can take on the world. Suddenly all you want to do is hop on a plane destined for a large city (where you can be anonymous), take a taxi to the nearest trendy (and flash-in-the-pan) club, join the crowded dance floor and fade into the mass of humanity around you. All you want to do is lose yourself in that beat which resonates deep inside you. All you want to do is be part of the collective of other people, all unknown (like you), all locked in their own world and own happiness, all dancing.

This song will not be important to you for longer than a few weeks at most. You will wear it out. It will be in your car when you drive to work, you’ll make the chorus your mobile ring tone, you’ll post the video on Facebook. It will become a fleeting ingot of cheap silver: its shine will soon tarnish, but that’s okay. Like a child's security blanket, it’s served its purpose. It’s lifted you, elevated you beyond your current state of ennui or existential crisis. You’ll be on a high for months, years even. You don’t know why you’ve become so optimistic. You suddenly feel like you can grab life by the neck and make it your bitch. The song will be gone, but your resulting headspace (heartspace? soulspace?) will stick.

You’ll hear it again a few months later. It’ll be a minor irritant, you may pass it by on your play list. That’s okay. For a few brief weeks it made you feel better than you have in forever. So it’s served its purpose. Right?

(Little Boots: Remedy | for @gwto's Project 2010)

Cocoon

2010-01-05T20:16:00.006-04:00

image (my self) by Nadia Huggins

I feel like I could write about so many things. I feel like, over the past few weeks, I have done and experienced so many things that are amazing, mundane (but relatable therefore interesting), out of character, new, despicably unfair and perhaps even emotionally harrowing. I could write about 10 things I did on my Christmas vacation. I could write about Carriacou or about Cristobel’s house being broken into and the police hilarity that ensued. But I don’t want to write about any of these things.

For Christmas I built my presents with my bare hands – something I have never done before (and never will again hopefully). I felt the grain of the wood as I hammered it together and smelled the heady paint as I dressed it to suit the personalities it was intended for. I took a trip to a new place with almost complete strangers who made me see myself all over again, and in a completely new light; and who wormed their way into my soul because of this (and who did not, after all, cut my throat in my sleep). I fell slowly, gradually in love with someone despite my full knowledge that it would be an impossible love. And I am still falling despite myself, all practicality, and the person who prompted the fall, because I believe that love should always be given a chance and that not giving it a chance is one of the greatest mistakes a human being can make in life. I found peace and had it shattered, all in the space of two days. I discovered parts of me that make me sing inside, but I also discovered other parts that are making me cringe. I took myself outside my comfort zone and both reveled in it and regretted it. I felt connected to my closest friends in ways I have not before, and all because I allowed them to see a part of me that I have hidden from them for years upon years upon years, but which they knew about anyway because they know me that well. I smoked a cigarette (or three) and comforted myself with the fact that they taste like absolute shit and make me nauseous to boot. I revealed myself as vulnerable to people who were previously oblivious to this. I hid myself from someone. I lay in my bed, curled like a comma (that's a line from a poem, but I forget which) and cried until I felt like my body would implode, and all because of a situation that exists solely in my head. I was brave up to a point, and then became a coward from my own feelings. I hugged someone both despite and because of my indifference to that person. I came to the realization that my life’s imperfections are my own fault, and can only be addressed by me and no one else. I was happy. I was sad. I am both happy and sad. I straddled both ends of an experientially bipolar seesaw that I am still riding and that will either end up shooting me into space and towards the stars or anchoring me deep within the earth and my self. I don’t know which I would prefer. I don’t know which I should prefer.

And I have ended up in a place I am calling now.

Now is a place from which I am seeing possibilities. I see bits and pieces of what my future can be. I see bits and pieces of what my past has pushed me towards. I feel a certain dissatisfaction with the now. The now is a place that is stagnant, motionless, unhealthy and dangerous. The now is a place that makes me regret. I have never truly regretted before, but I am doing it now. And it is funny because what came before now is what led to the positives over the past few weeks. But the overriding soullessness that I feel in the now is something I have never felt before, and yet it is closely tied to before because tiny, disconnected parts of before have congealed into what is now.

And inside all of this I am grateful. I am grateful to my parents, for their ability to look into my face and see that I am happy or sad, and for their ability to take my bullshit and love me without reservation. I am grateful to a myriad of other people, my best friends, my children who are not really my own, my siblings both real and imagined. I am grateful to you.

I look down at myself and see someone who needs to move. I see someone who needs to finally take that chance, make that decision, chase that impossibility. I see someone who has allowed what other people have put into his head to dictate what is in his heart and soul. I see someone who is discontent.

And there is something rumbling inside me. There is something welling up inside me that I don’t think I can control; I don’t want to control. I no longer want to be the teacher, but the student. I no longer want people to recognize me solely for my good qualities. I no longer want to conform to ideals placed on me by other people. I want to own my truths. I want my truths to be known.

Someone that I love called me a “clown prince” today. I have cultivated that image but I also reject it. I am the one who has clothed myself in the motley of a jester. I am the only one who can strip myself bare of that costume and reclothe myself. But I cannot do that in the place that I call now.

And if you have read this, and if it has confused you, I do not apologize. It is confusing the fuck out of me too. But this is what I needed to write. Nothing else, but this.

"Hero" | image (my self) by Nadia Huggins

How To Stave Off The Bad Times

2009-12-27T21:09:00.001-04:00

My Killing Time Blog Post

2009-12-11T21:31:00.002-04:00

The rules state that once you are in an exam room keeping an eye on the students writing the exam, you should be standing quietly and watching them, while occasionally walking around. I have been in this room, watching these students, for just shy of two hours. It is a three hour exam. There was one minor moment of excitement today, near the beginning of the exam, when a young man (one of my students obviously) began shaking uncontrollably. Unfortunately, I sorted that out within five minutes. Although I felt like a superhero, I still had to return to staring at everyone else.

Time passes differently in situations like this. It’s almost as if there’s a gaping, invisible vortex floating around the room arbitrarily sucking bits of my temporal reality into itself, never to be seen again. If a student asks me a question it feels like I’ve accomplished something so life-altering that neither the student nor I will ever be the same again. The three hours that starts when I say “begin” are like the time spent waiting for a flight in an airport. There seems to be no purpose to that block of time other than waiting.

If you’re in an airport, you can spend that time people watching. This is usually quite mundane, but can occasionally reward you with the odd lover’s spat, argument between staff and customer, scolded child, or minor personal tragedy (like some guy falling flat on his face while his less-than-three-ounces of personal lubricant squishes onto the ground in front of the horrified expression of his aged mother, who’s wearing a crucifix around her neck). You can also spend the time reading, doing something non-specific on your laptop, blackberry or similar, or writing in your leather-bound journal. Unfortunately, readers are looked on as being pretentious, laptop users are looked on as being geeky, blackberry users appear to be unsociable and journal writers are assumed to reek of marijuana and sandalwood. All this, however, is immaterial to today’s post.

In an exam room there is no official way to pass the time other than watching your students go through the torture of trying to remember obscure bits of trivia from things that happened in a play they never fully understood to being with. After five minutes the pleasure in this palls. Pacing uncontrollably is a no-no since it spooks the already skittish exam-takers. Speaking to them is, likewise, not allowed for obvious reasons. Once, I tried practicing some moves from an interpretative dance I’d been working on, but apparently, my urban pirouettes and slightly pained expression were a distraction. Ditto on the time I allowed my artist friend to sketch me while I was nude and sprawled across the teacher’s desk.

Essentially, once you’re in that exam room proctoring that exam, your time becomes someone else’s. Since you no longer have control over your time (for that period of time), a certain existential ennui sets in, forcing you to invent manic activities to help make things bearable. Just today, I experimented with focused staring. I stared hard at a diligent (yet suffering) student, willing her pen to burst into flames or, at least, run out of ink. It didn’t work, but she did look up at me and cringe, so something clearly happened.

Of course, eventually I get fed up of the soul-sucking non-time of the exam room and give in to my baser desire for constant occupation (I’ve never been one to cheerfully sit and stare vapidly into nothing). This afternoon I broke (and am breaking) the rules by: 1. texting random gossip and slackness to a couple people, 2. playing a game on my phone, 3. playing a game on my laptop and 4. writing this very blog post (how’s that for self-reflexivity?)! If I had internet access I’d probably be tweeting, facebooking and farming (don’t judge me).

By the way, if there’s a headline in next week’s news along the lines of COLLEGE LECTURER PROPOSITIONS STUDENT or TEACHER THREATENS NAKEDNESS don’t believe it. Here’s what really happened: a student told me, in jest, “oooooh sir that’s a pretty shirt! It might distract me!”

I quite innocently replied, “Would you prefer me to take it off?”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realized, with horror, that it sounded as if I were flirting with my student. Several other students looked at me funny. I tried to save myself by saying, “’cos that would make you nauseous” and chuckling nervously. Instead, I think it sounded more like I was continuing to flirt by being self-effacing and, on top of everything, had a creepy, dirty old man chuckle. Anyway, I am pre-empting any backlash this could cause by blogging it and hoping that no one in their right mind would ever believe that I’d flirt with a student.

In other news, dead bugs keep showing up in my house. On any given morning I wake to find at least two dead beetles, one dead cockroach and several dead moths. Lila said to me the other day, “Uncle Wivee, you live in the dead bug house” (on that day my house hadn’t been cleaned in about two weeks so the insect carcass count was particularly high). Logan, who as yet speaks only semi-coherently, simply squats, stares at the offending corpses, points at them, glances at me and says, “dis!”

My mother thinks I have something toxic in my walls that causes my household bug mortality rate to be so high. My personal belief is that I have a insectophobic jumbie who kills all my bugs so I don’t have to waste money on Baygon.

On that note, I think I’ll abruptly end this post (plus I need to get up and tell the students to stop writing and hand in their papers).

The Willie Jakott Show

2009-12-07T16:44:00.005-04:00

My parents are getting up there age-wise. Mum’s a recent retiree who’s trying to adjust to a fixed-income life of volunteerism and loose fitting kaftans, while contemplating the relative merits of flower arranging as a possible alternative to head-shrinking and pedagogy. Dad, on the other hand, frequently expounds on the possibility of his becoming a lepidopterist, while honing his skills as both a codger-in-training and energetically geriatric world-traveler (as an aside, I don’t think I’ll be invited to lunch for a while after they read this paragraph). At any rate, thoughts of a life without the pressures of gainful employment appear to be rattling around in their not-yet-quite-creaky brains. My father, in particular, is forever ruminating aloud over the fact that he is ready to pack it all in and be financially supported by the sons for whom he first mortgaged his soul, sanity and income thirty-three odd years ago.

Over the years, Dad has made a habit of maligning me because I’ve never used any of my seeming “talents” in an effort to make his life as easy and financially utopic as possible. When J. K. Rowling made her first couple billion, Dad cursed me soundly for not writing the Harry Potter series before she did. Similarly, he’s often expressed disappointment and disgust over the fact that I am not a Hollywood leading man with homes in exotic far away places and my own jet. Mum, thankfully, has always been staunchly (though not always quietly) supportive of my humble (cynics may say non-existent) ambitions.

Just today, at lunch, Dad outlined a several-point business plan for lining his nearly retired pockets that involves several Vincentian yokels, a television production company, livestock and me. Ladies, gentlemen, provincials and goats, I’d like to introduce you to IKTV’s soon-to-be most popular programme: The Willie Jakott Show. This “homegrown” television show (‘cos we like homegrown things in SVG) will be Jerry Springer-esque in both scope and content. We will feature cousins who are cheating on their cousins with their cousins; we will encourage people who lead amorous lives with four-legged critters to showcase their love-that-dare-not-bleat-it’s-name to the rest of the country (I think we’ll call this segment X-TREME ALTERNATIVE LIFESTILEZ); we will scour the island in search of the perverse and the perversely normal.

The deal, however, is that I have to be Willie Jakott (Willie Jakott is not the name originally chosen, but it sounds a bit more salacious and punchy than Hanky Harrison or whatever it is Dad chose). I am the one who has to sacrifice his good (?) name and sterling (?) reputation to be the face/voice of this televisionary venture. I am naturally skeptical and unwilling. My brother, however, in a bid to corner the fraternal market on inheritances and power-of-attorney-ships, cheerfully volunteered himself to be the “Steve” of The Willie Jakott Show. Both my mother and sister-in-law refused to streak and/or expose random tittage (pronounced teetahj – like if it’s French).

The plan is that we start small. We’ll produce the show locally, and for IKTV (ie, channel 45). Our viewership will, likewise, be local. However, anticipating the general mako* nature of most Caribbean people, we fully intend to have a region-wide audience within six months. We will then expand production across the region to include Jamaican dancehall queens and their dramas, Bajan Kadooment flag girls (or whatever), politicians, Guyanese riverboat captains, Grenadians etcetera. We’ll try to shove as many seedy sexual shenanigans down the region’s collective throat until Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Commission, PETA or Greenpeace get wind of us and start making a global stink.

In these times of global economic emergency, we need to do whatever we can to safeguard our financial futures. With CLICO and British American currently flushing (or rather, having flushed) half the life-savings of Caribbean people into a financial black hole, we need to do something to recover as quickly as possible. Dad figures that we could be billionaires within a couple years. I agree, as long as we keep all our profits in socks under our mattresses, and place no trust in either insurance companies or national banks. But that’s just me; I tend towards paranoia in these matters.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I don’t necessarily think that I’d make the best Willie Jakott, despite what dear old Dad thinks. I tend to have too much pride in my public self, despite the fact that I recently purchased a cowboy hat and fully intend to wear it when I go on long journeys or take a bath. So I’m taking applications for the role of host for the show. I reckon I’ll do best as hair and make-up person. I have experience as a clown make-up artist and kiddy face painter, so I figure I qualify in this instance.

Here are the qualifications needed for the host of The Willie Jakott Show:

• A UWI first degree (honours preferably) in Communication & Media, Theatre Arts or (because this’ll widen our range of applicants considerably) Law;
• Several years’ experience at any back-stabbing corporate job in the region (past employees of SourLime given preference);
• An extremely pretty/handsome face with as few battery acid scars or chewed up earlobes as possible;
• All you own teeth, or at least the appearance of such;
• A penchant for pissing off the hoi polloi;
• A certificate of course completion from a reputable speech therapist of ‘Enry ‘Iggins’ ilk (note well: experience as a LIAT Cabin Crew Member cannot be used as a substitute for this certification).

• Experience in the Caribbean political arena; preferably in a Prime Ministerial role.

• People from outside the CSME need not apply, unless you can finance our legal fees.

Blogger’s note: No actual stereotypes were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

*For my international readers, to mako means “to pry into the affairs of others” or “to indulge in [scandalous] gossip” among many other, similar things – definition courtesy Richard Allsop's Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage.

She & Me: an intellectual conversation

2009-11-29T11:02:00.005-04:00

And So We Said No

2009-11-26T16:55:00.007-04:00

I felt a sort of visceral connectivity last night – I watched the tallying of the referendum votes on television while simultaneously checking the (slow, due to heavy traffic) government website, tweeting a commentary for the #WITArmy and having several conversations on Facebook, Gtalk, the phones (landline and mobile) and via text message. The commentary on television was perhaps the best on the proposed constitution that I’ve heard since the process began some seven-ish years ago. The discussion between Andrew Cummings and Renwick Rose (both considered political pundits on the Vincy home front) was balanced and avoided the polarity of opinion that has been in evidence thus far.

And the votes are in; it’s official: by a count of 55.64% to 43.13% the people of St. Vincent & the Grenadines have rejected the current manifestation of a proposed constitution for this country. This is not to say that we don’t want constitutional reform, however. I firmly believe that people want this to happen, but it appears as if we want it on our terms, not on the terms that we were given. There is more, however, in this mortar than the pestle.

I am blatantly not a political guru. My knowledge of politics comes through my study of literature and the political theories that affect literary analysis, and not through in-depth study of politricks. However, I have my own little pet theories as to why the referendum failed this time. My theories are entirely based on my own reasons for voting the way I voted. I voted against the referendum. I couldn’t bring myself to support the proposed constitution for reasons that are, for me, valid and important. Not everyone may consider these reasons valid, but for me they constitute the core of a worldview that goes against my own.

I firmly believe that people voted against the referendum, not because they disagree with the articles of the proposed constitution, but because they wanted to send a message to the country’s current administration. There is an atmosphere of silence in this country generally; people tend to keep unpopular or potentially anti-administration views to themselves. To put it bluntly, people are afraid to speak out openly against the administration, so this is how they got their voices heard. People did not vote for or against a constitution, they voted against the ruling party, specifically the Prime Minister. The majority of the workers in this country are civil servants – the government is the country’s largest employer. It is just sensible that you keep criticisms of your employer to a minimum for fear of retribution. This referendum is a silent indication that people are dissatisfied with our leader. This is sad because, as one Facebook friend said, “the victory of the ‘no-Vote’ is a Pyhrric victory. The reform process was a sacrificial lamb at the alter of partisan politics. It could have gone differently if they had simply listened to the people.” Another Facebook friend had this to say to me when I responded to his emotionally charged status update: “William I just sat here and cried tears tears I aint cry in years. I feel so free, I feel like the enslaved in 1838 on August 1st on the streets of Kingstown. I feel like I could finally talk now” [my emphasis].

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed, in Vincentians, a growing mistrust of our leader. Perhaps I am mistaken in this, but the pervading atmosphere seems to be one where we have no conviction that our PM will do/is doing right by us. It is true that politrickans are generally mistrusted, but there is an unusually strong undercurrent of wariness with regard to our leader. It is unfortunate that the PM decided to take on the proposed constitution as one of his darling projects. Because people lack trust in him, they became naturally suspicious of the proposed constitution. This suspicion (at least in my case) makes for a reading of the document that would be purposely aimed at exposing possible points where power could be abused. Perhaps if the PM had not been so personally invested in the reform process (at least outwardly), the document may have stood a better chance of surviving the referendum.

One suspicion that has been widely conjectured (but not, of course, confirmed) is that the PM’s deep, personal involvement in the “YES” campaign was really motivated by a desire to test his popularity in preparation for our next general election. I have no idea if this is true, obviously, but it is yet another reason why his direct involvement in the process may have been ill advised. The PM himself said (according to blogger Kenton Chance of I-Witness News) “that he and his party ‘[got] the message’ and would renew themselves before the next general elections.” Again, it all comes down people being suspicious – whether warranted or not – of the motives behind the Comrade’s involvement.

Coming out of this mistrust issue, is the issue of confusion and misunderstanding. Here again, I can only conjecture based on my own feelings, and the feelings of several people with whom I’ve been in discussion over the past several weeks. There are sections and articles in the document that I, quite frankly, do not fully understand. These areas were addressed by both the “YES” and “NO” vote campaigns. Unfortunately, the fact that my edification on the matter came from campaigns rather than an unbiased source, only served to confuse me further, and I allowed my interpretation to err on the side of caution rather than acceptance.

I do not, for instance, fully understand the role of the ceremonial president who is meant to replace the Queen of England as head of state. The “YES” campaigners have said that s/he is completely ceremonial, with some minor executive powers that are, in effect, useless. The “NO” campaigners have declared it a travesty that we, the people, do not get to vote for our own President, who is to be chosen by Parliament. But here’s the deal, my reading of the thing indicates that the “ceremonial” president does, indeed, have executive powers, and these are pretty powerful powers which can easily be abused by the Prime Minister (PM in general, eh, not necessarily the current PM). The President, it would seem, has the power to remove any MP, without consent of the people, but under advisement of the PM. Theoretically, s/he can remove the minority leader if the Parliament advises it. Who runs the majority in Parliament? Who chose the President? It seems to me like there’s the potential for the President to want to avoid biting the hand that feeds her/him.

There’s one other main reason (or a collective of three reasons ecapsulated in one) why I chose to vote against the referendum, and why I think other people may have voted against it as well. I received a “personal” letter from my Prime Minister urging me to vote “yes”. This was obviously part of the campaign, but it gave me pause. In the letter, certain reasons for supporting the referendum were outlined; it is these reasons that made me angry, mainly because their inclusion had only one role in my opinion: that is, to incite the people, and (in two cases) to play on their baser instincts.

The letter urged me to vote “yes” and do away with the Queen of England as head of state. Don’t get me wrong, I completely support the idea of a republican form of government, and I completely support the removal of QEII as head of state. She is, indeed, the last vestige of our colonial past and, psychologically, we’d probably be better off if this remaining symbol of our once-subservient status is eradicated. But the “YES” campaign treated this issue with such reverence that it almost seemed as if the other issues were unimportant to them. You can’t expect me to vote for something wholesale on only the strength of one issue. It’s as if the proponents of the proposed constitution were hoping that we’d focus on QEII and ignore other stuff.

The letter also presented the marriage clause as one of it’s selling points. According to the letter, the “new” constitution is great because “it prohibits ‘same sex’ marriages”. This is problematic for me for two reasons. Firstly, marriage is primarily a religious institution (civil union, on the other hand, is not). The constitution has no business regulating a religious institution, especially the same constitution that states, “the maintenance of human dignity presupposes safe guarding the rights of privacy of family life”. In addition, this constitution states that the “Nation is founded on the belief in… the freedom and dignity of man”. It goes further to speak of individuals’ freedoms and “social justice for all”. I see an inherent contradiction in a document that speaks so intensely of freedoms, rights and dignities, yet specifically seeks to restrict the freedoms of one of the society’s minority groups in a way that they have not previously been restricted. I do not think Vincentian society is ready for gay marriage – homophobia is still rife in this country. However, there is nothing to say that our children’s society will not accept it. And is the constitution not for our children? Why presuppose the cultural mores of a society yet unborn?

I think that the inclusion of this clause is antediluvian, narrow-minded and decidedly patriarchal. It also harkens back to the days of Queen Victoria, when sodomy was first outlawed. How ironic that our “homegrown” constitution pulls outmoded laws from Victorian England. Why get rid of QEII and introduce something initially proposed by Victoria Regina? I can only assume that this clause was added to play on Vincentian homophobia – if that isn’t fear-mongering then I don’t know what is.

The third reason for voting “yes” that I was given in my special letter from the PM is the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder. Sorry eh, but this is not a selling point for me. This is obviously one more, spicy clause thrown in to appeal to people’s baser natures. It also ties in with doing away with the Privy Council in favour of the CCJ. I’m all in favour of this, by the way, but don’t tell me that the reason for getting rid of the PC is to reintroduce the death penalty, especially when Adrian Saunders, the Vincentian who sits on the CCJ, is stridently opposed to automatic death penalty. Don’t tell me that the big, bad Privy Council wants to restrict my right to hang people by the neck, because the CCJ, thus far, has not upheld any death penalty verdicts (to my knowledge – I speak further to correction). This is just further evidence, for me, of the misinformation that has been confusing me, and which prompted me to mistrust, thereby forcing me to vote “no”.

I could not, in good conscience, vote "yes". I cannot endorse this document because I think it has some fundamental flaws that offend my ideological stance on a couple things. This does not mean that I do not want constitutional reform, just that this manifestation of it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Nor did I vote along party lines. I do not support either political party at the moment, since I am disillusioned by them both. It is difficult to assert this, however, since people here immediately assume that a disagreement with one party is an automatic sign of sympathy with the other. Sometimes it's difficult to flex your intellectual muscles in this system since everyone wants to label you without actually listening to what you have to say.

I hope the constitutional reform process is not over. I hope that the government uses this opportunity to take the document back to the people for some practical suggestions. Clearly the consultations over the past six years have not worked. Somewhere along the line, something went wrong. I hope the government tries to figure out what it is, and fix it. Unfortunately, I do not think this will happen. According to Kenton Chance (I-Witness News), “[the PM] said [today]… that constitutional reform as a government policy [will] be placed on the backburner.”

Are we being punished for not accepting something we clearly disagree with? The one thing I noticed about the reports of the PM’s press conference this morning, more than anything else, is that he blamed everyone possible except himself. He placed blame and has not yet thanked the people of his country for telling him how we feel. He sees himself as completely blameless in the failure of this referendum when, in fact, he may have been the biggest problem from the outset. It seems that some people just aren’t made for self-reflection.

For other bloggers' thoughts on this check out: I-Witness News, Vincentian Life, Discuss SVG and And Still I Rise. My soul-sister, Empath, has yet to respond, but I'm expecting that she has much to say on this matter.

The Philosophy of the Murse

2009-11-17T22:40:00.006-04:00

I am fed up of the debate over next week’s referendum. I am fed up of the last ditch efforts being resorted to by both the YES and NO campaigns. I am fed up of the egomaniacal, misleading pronouncements from on high. I am fed up of the Facebook notes, blog posts, letters to the editor and weekly newspaper commentaries. I am fed up of seemingly intelligent people debasing themselves to the lowest common denominator in order to get votes. I am fed up of my own intelligence being insulted every time I listen to or read anything about the proposed constitution of this country. I am voting on Wednesday next week (soon eh?) and I am voting based on my conscience. I am voting based on my worldview and how this proposed constitution syncs with my worldview (or doesn’t, as the case may be). That’s how I’m voting.

And I’m framing the letter that I received from my Prime Minister urging me to vote yes since it is probably the only letter I will ever receive from someone in that position. It doesn’t bother me that almost everyone I know received the same letter. Nor does it bother me that the letter addresses me by my first name, as if I am regularly at cocktails with my PM in ambassadorial circles, rather than being a lowly teacher who would rather not wash his feet, thank you very much.

And I think I’m going to youtube the YES campaign advertisement that features a prominent Vincentian businessman saying things that he clearly knows nothing about. It is hilarious.

And tonight I am not going to blog about any of this. Instead, I am going to blog about my one time bromance with murses. Just to clarify, by murse I mean man-purse, not male nurse. Urban Dictionary says that the word can mean both things. So I just wanted to clarify.

I’ve always thought that the murse was a useful, functional tool for a man. I’m not a fan of bulging pockets. I usually have several things to tote around with me: my wallet, my mobile phone, my sunglasses and my keys. Sometimes, there are even other things like letters or odd bits of paper. I don’t like these things in my pockets because they make me feel loaded down below the waist, and I have enough weight to carry around in that region as it is (booyah!). Also, when I put my wallet in my back pocket I usually end up sitting on it and breaking my credit cards.

So, for me, the discovery of murses was like the discovery of… well… something really nifty. The unfortunate reality is that murses only really work in Europe or in very specific parts of North America (not the parts where they grow corn or wheat or potatoes or raise cows or anything like that). I had several when I lived in the UK – all different styles, colours, fabrics and pocket amounts. When I moved back home I, with a heavy heart, packed them all in a barrel and never saw them again, except when traveling North. Apparently, real Caribbean men have bulging pockets.

I did find a solution, however. Nowadays I’m all about messenger bags.

Anyway, the point of this whole thing (this entire murse discussion is only the preamble to more wonderful stuff) is that I had occasion recently to dig up in that old barrel. I’ve lost a substantial amount of weight of late, and I went hunting for my skinny clothes. In my search, I came upon three of my old murses. I held them, stroked them and opened them all. The first is a sort of washed out, soft, blue denim (doesn’t even feel like denim), the second is brown and full of pockets and the third is sleek and heavy. It is in the third murse that tonight’s story really takes off (finally).

About four years ago I accompanied my dad to the UK for medical attention (his medical attention, not mine). I took this murse along for the ride. I also apparently took it to Toronto with me a few years ago on another trip. Anyway, here’s what I found in my murse:

Colour coded e-mails from the friends I’d planned to look up in the UK, and who I’d already told to expect me;

Two pens – one from ECGC and the other from a marketing company my friend started, which went under when her business partner stole all her money;

One of the weird clip/ticket type things you get at museums; this one is from the Royal Ontario Museum;

Body Shop Coconut lip butter (don’t ask);

A couple credit card receipts from some place in Wales; and

The photo negatives from a tour I took (along with über friends Analisa, Geneva & Analisa’s mother) of some of the all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica; this is a particularly odd thing to find since I took that trip in 1997, long before I even entertained thoughts of owning a murse!

Of all the things in my murse, the one that gave me the most pause was the sheet of paper with the colour coded e-mails from my friends. For the life of me, when I was in the UK with dad for those three weeks I could not find that e-mail list anywhere. I searched high and low, completely turned my murse inside out… all to no avail. I was unable to look up any of these friends when I was in London, except one, whose number I had written on another piece of paper somewhere.

Consequently, I did not get to reconnect with people who were, and remain still, very special to me. I’d contacted a couple other people who either never got back to me or weren’t in the UK at the time. Anyway, I spent most of the time nursing (mursing?) dad back to health, so it’s not like I would’ve been able to spend much time with these guys. But a phone call is always nice.

On a slightly related note (but not really), one night while we were on that trip I went out and left dad alone in the flat. I was out for about four hours. Now here’s the deal with the flat we rented. It was below street level and there were two doors: one to the foyer and the other to the stairs leading to the street. In the foyer was a walk-in linen closet. About ten minutes after I left, dad thought he heard me coming down the stairs and decided to open the front door and scare me. He let himself into the foyer and the door to the flat closed behind him. It was not me he’d heard. When I returned to the flat four hours later, dad was sitting in the linen closet, covered in towels (it was late November) and wearing nothing but his underwear, a shirt jack and the bandages on his face. The poor man had huddled up for all that time waiting for me to come home and let him back into the warm flat.

Now back to what I actually set out to talk about.

Opening my murse was like opening a magical bag of memories. I remember that trip so clearly. I fondly remember each of the friends that I never got to see. I remember the entire life I once had in London. Hell, I even remember how dry my damn lips kept getting, prompting me to buy the (now greasy – I checked) lip butter. So not only was my murse once stylish and practical, it is also the repository of an entire segment of my life. When I packed my murses into that barrel and shoved them into my parents’ cellar, it is also as if I shoved a piece of me in there with them.

We all like coming home. Home, no matter how contentious a place it is, will always be the ultimate comfort zone (by home I mean your physical country, town, parish, whatever – not the house you grew up in), but being away from home made me who I am today. It is being away from my comfort zone that made my brain expand; it is being away from home that made my realm of experience grow beyond what is on my doorstep, that made me see my home culture through eyes that can both appreciate and criticise in equal measure, rather than operating in polarities. I would never wear my murse while walking through Kingstown, but I would cheerfully carry it around with me when trawling Knightsbridge for a pair of boots or walking up Yonge Street in search of the World’s Biggest Book Store.

Does this mean that I am hiding my true self in order to navigate the streams of my home? Does it mean that I am assimilating to the colonial mistress’ culture when I traverse her pathways? Perhaps it means that I am a chameleon – ever changing the skin that I am in, in order to fade into my surroundings. I’m not really certain, but I’d like to think that it simply means that I like murses, but only in a certain context, and that the Vincy context is not a murse context. It just isn’t. But this doesn’t mean that murses won’t catch on eventually, so I think I’ll hold onto mine a little longer. ☺

And in a very strange, roundabout way, this blog post was kinda, sorta about next Wednesday’s referendum after all. My murse reminded me why I’m going to vote the way I’m going to vote.

Retalliation

2009-11-08T21:18:00.004-04:00

Dear Thirty-Three-Year-Old-Will,

Thanks plenty for your wonderful, prophetic letter. It’s not every day that people get letters from their future selves. In truth, it sort of freaked me out a little. I was in the middle of popping my zits and resenting my parents for not allowing me to be free when it materialised on my floral bedspread. I almost gouged out an eye, and for a brief moment I even stopped wishing evil on mum and dad.

You have neatly pointed out all my flaws for me. I am so grateful for that since, as you clearly seem to believe, I am a completely blind idiot who is too self-involved to even notice his own pathologies. Please stop me if I use any words you don’t understand, Future Self (I, as you may or may not remember, am an avid reader); I am aware that advanced age rots the brain cells, and obviously yours would be even more decayed due to the direct sun-exposure of your hairless scalp.

To speak plainly Future Self, I am entirely offended and affronted by your patronizing epistle. How dare you assume that you can speak to me in that manner? I can only assume that your regular approach to young people is one of condescension and pop-psych-inspired guile. You alternately berate me (using quite profane language) and encourage me. Is this a strategy that you use when dealing with adolescents? It’s very American, I must say: sort of a good-cop/bad-cop scenario, with the two personalities moulded together in one, substandard, thirty-three year old body. I assume your body is substandard because you mention physical fitness at least twice in your letter. You scathingly speak about my obsessions yet clearly you need to inspect your own value-system vis-á-vis corporeal self-image. Exactly how shallow have you become?

In short, Thirty-Three-Year-Old-Will, I wish to inform you that I whole-heartedly intend to ignore your little letter of “advice”. I am fully fed up of old people telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. I will say this, however: I will never stop giggling.

Please acquire some sort of a life and leave us young people to lead our own. Don't presume to tell me what to do, or who to be.

Regards,
Fifteen-Year-Old-Will

PS: Who’s to say that all the mistakes and mishaps which are happening, and which will happen, with me aren’t what make me into who you are eighteen years into the future?

Hindsight: That Bitch!

2009-11-03T23:42:00.004-04:00

Dear Fifteen-Year-Old-Will,

I was looking at some photos of you this evening, and I got to thinking. As teenagers go, you’re okay. You’ve got some issues, but I think all teenagers have those issues. Granted, your preoccupation with being liked is probably above the global average in terms of its obsessiveness and downright level of insanity, but overall you’re not as different as you think you are.

I can see from your photos that there are certain people who are very special to you. From what I can tell, every single one of these people will remain special. There’s perhaps only one of them who will fall by the wayside, but that’s not too big a deal since she’ll spend most of your teenaged years making you feel like shit anyway. Sometimes it’s best just to cut your losses.

I’d like to give you a few pieces of advice, if I may. I know, I know - teenagers never like to listen to advice, they want to make their own mistakes blah blah blah. You don’t need to take this advice, but these are a few things I’ve learned (some of them were quite difficult lessons to learn too). Just hear me out. I know you’re going to make your own decisions and your own mistakes, but there are few things you did well too. Anyway, here goes.

1. Do not, under any circumstances allow yourself to study Accounting, Economics and Law for A’ Levels. You’ll only be doing it because you think it’ll make you money, and you’re not particularly interested in those areas anyway. You’ll get miserable grades and disappoint everyone, most of all yourself (don’t even get me started on how huge a blow to your self-esteem it will be). Instead, I think you should explore the possibility of studying Literature, History, Geography and French. Four subjects may seem like a lot, but you’re a pretty smart guy. Plus, if you’re honest with yourself, these are your strong areas. Don’t discount Art or Photography either. Trust me.

2. Get involved. Don’t be lazy and wait for life to happen to you, because it won’t. I discovered that when I was in my early twenties and boy do I wish I’d known it when I was your age! Get out there and play some sports; it won’t kill you, and you may even enjoy it. Join a drama club. Just do something for fuck sake!

3. Understand two things. First, you have the potential to be a boss writer, but you need to explore it more. Don’t be afraid to publish your stuff, however godawful it may seem. It sucks to discover, in your thirties, that you could’ve spent more time seriously developing your writing rather than assing around, getting drunk and sleeping. Secondly, the stage is your friend. If you ever find yourself living in Jamaica, for whatever reason, get involved in the theatre and STAY THERE. I can’t emphasize this enough. That is where you need to be, and you don’t want to wait until Facebook is invented to realize that all your old friends from UDAS are involved in theatre in a big way, and that you could be right there with them, doing what you truly love. I’m just saying.

4. I’m fairly certain that the opportunity to pursue your MPhil in Literature will present itself even before your undergraduate years are over. Take it. Take the fucking scholarship, get a job and do it. If you don’t, you’ll more than likely find yourself in your early thirties debating the relative merits of a settled life versus doing a PhD and having to write a damn thesis. Again.

5. Be honest with the people you love. They will love you no matter what. This counts for your friends as much as it does for your family. Those who don’t love you are better off out of your life anyway. The important people will always stick around. Trust me.

6. The zits will not go away until you’re thirty. So stop squeezing the suckers because they’ll turn your pores into craters.

7. Get professional help for the whole hair-pulling thing. I’m almost 100% certain that you don’t want to go bald at twenty-three.

8. Take more chances with people. They won’t bite you, you know. Well, not unless you ask them to (chuckle). What I’m trying to say is that you’ll miss many great potential relationships if you keep so much to yourself and play it safe all the time. Everyone has to face rejection, and locking yourself off from people because you’re afraid of the possibility that they’ll snub you is surely no way to live your life. I, myself, have grown close to several people in my later life, who I knew peripherally in my younger life, and I wish I’d explored friendships with them when I was younger.

9. Watch what you eat, lard-ass. You have the Minors shape – the shape of your mother’s family. If you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself battling forever against a big belly and skinny limbs. So quit being a hungry-belly glutton and shape up, bitch! Put down the KFC chicken leg that I can see you wolfing down, pick up a goddamned carrot stick and get some muthafuckin’ exercise already! If you develop the habit of swimming every afternoon (you live on the beach after all) you’ll find that it will come as second nature when you’re an adult. Trying to develop these wonderful habits after thirty is extremely difficult since the bad habits are so ingrained.

10. Never, ever puff a cigarette. Ever.

11. Own your insanity. To hell with what people say – you be who you are, because who are is just bloody wonderful. Quit feeling guilty for not being who you think people want you to be. People just want you to be you, so get your whiny ass in gear and join the human race already! Damn teenagers and their damn insecurities.

12. Stop crying so much when you’re alone. It’s not as bad as you think. Everything will be okay in the long run; and even though you feel like you’re the scum of the Earth, that’s just the Church screwing with your head. You’re not bound to believe in the things that you’re told to believe in, especially since those beliefs keep making you feel like you’re going to Hell. You’re not.

13. You know how you like to giggle? Keep that.

Good luck and best wishes,

Thirty-Three-Year-Old-Will

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T10:56:00.005-04:00

Witch Hazel is one of my favourite Bugs Bunny characters, political incorrectness notwithstanding. ;-)

Grand Family Independence Lunch Celebration

2009-10-27T23:26:00.009-04:00

Today marks 30 years of Vincentian independence from British colonial rule. We’ve come so far, and accomplished so much in the last 30 years. To celebrate, my family had a luncheon. Instead of engaging in my usual verbosity, I’ve decided to simply list today’s menu.

_________________________________________

Appetizers:

Nothing. We can’t afford frivolities like quail’s eggs, snails and dainty salads, especially since the introduction of VAT on top of our already aggressive income tax. Tapas are from Spain, (i.e. almost the mother country) so are off limits despite the fact that they are made by people who speak Español (which we love).

Entrees (that’s a French word, and I’m not sure how we feel about them):

British Pig Roasted with a Thick Skin and Stiff Upper Lip (we ate this rather quickly since we wanted to get rid of it as completely as possible; we gave the dogs the bone)

Authentic Vincy Yard Fowl Sans Neck & Spine (easy to catch, kill and defeather)

Friendly Sides:

Turkish/Lebanese/Iranian Hot & Spicy Couscous Salad (because we’re all about the flavours of the Middle East)

Revolutionary Roasted & Basted Patatas Cubana (unfortunately, not harvested using our own tender hands), Sour Cream Optional

Simon Bolivar’s Eggy Empañada de Maíz (on loan)

Free Trade Seasoned Green Banana Souse (we almost forgot these in the fridge, but they made it out in time for us to have them for seconds)

CARICOM Steamed Vegetables (steamed separately and kept apart until the point of ingestion), Heavily Oiled

Ikea Zucchini (because we’re all about cheap substitutes for the real thing)

Wilted Green Salad dressed with Agent Orange (thanks to the developed world for this recipe)

Stuffed Full of Ourselves Mature Politician Stuffing (aged to perfection since youthful politicians tend to be altruistic, innocent and selfless)

Real Thick, Rich American Gravy to Smother All Over Everything Else Thereby Killing Any Authentic Flavours And Giving Everything a Hint of Heinz Tomato Ketchup (nuff said)

Just Desserts:

Rejected Banana Crumble (because we have a lot of bananas lying around these days; it’s not like anyone’s buying them up or anything)

Imported Melon Fruit Salad (bland, but expensive, colourful and prestigious)

Frisko® Vanilla Ice Cream

Bar Menu:

Tap Water (the safest in the world, but definitely tapped)

Pepsi and/or Coke (duh)

Coke Light (because we had 2 diabetics and slim ting me at the fete; plus using actual sugar as a sweetener is so 200 years ago)

Hairoun Mixers (for Granny, the quintessential patriot)

Chilly Chilean Wine (brand unimportant since all we need is generic alcohol to kill the pain)

Some Beer That Fell Off the Back of a Truck in Canouan/Mustique/Any of the Grenadines That Plays Host to the Rich and Famous

1 Dented Can of Hairoun Gold (left over from Carnival)

_________________________________________

Tomorrow morning I look forward to my independence indigestion.

And now, for your enjoyment and entertainment, an audio clip of 3-year-old Lila reciting the pledge of St. Vincent & the Grenadines. She only made one mistake!

Happy Independence SVG!

My Reactionary Irrationality Regarding Hair

2009-10-15T21:31:00.006-04:00

Some wounds need to be licked

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts about hair, and the debate about black women’s hair. Well, when I say I’ve been reading A LOT of posts, what I mean is that I’ve read two posts, but these two posts are by women who are very close to me, so that counts as a lot right? The debate about whether to wear her hair natural or processed is one of the oldest, most politically charged debates in the (post 1960’s?) history of black women. Remember the whole Joan Andrea Hutchinson debacle several years ago in Jamaica (in short, she was a television news presenter who wore a natural hair style and was widely criticized by the Jamaican public for looking unprofessional)?

Blah Bloh Blog, the unofficial slackness supervisor of the West Indian Twitter Army (#WITArmy) blogged about the good hair/bad hair dichotomy the other day (or re-blogged rather – she actually re-posted something that someone else re-posted from somewhere… or something. Re-blogging can be confusing at times. I blame sites like Twitter, tumblr and posterous for this new, potentially bewildering Internet craze). At the end of her re-blogging, she asked a question of Caribbean women: “do we really identify with our hair the way this article [i.e. the one she re-blogged] & [its] comments seem to suggest?”

Empath, my spirit sister and potential vigilante extraordinaire, blogged about her own hair, perceptions people have of it and some random Tyra Banks idiocy. Let’s try to get a handle on Empath here. I feel like we need to. Empath is relevant. She doesn’t really hold with trivialities and unimportant bullshit. This is not to say that she has no sense of humour; it’s just that she actually cares about stuff, and cares about things that matter. She worries about the state of the country, the escalating crime levels, the dirty politics, and the ineffective health care of SVG. She sees the importance in taking a stance on the style of her hair. And she has great hair. Empath’s hair is like Medusa’s snakes, without the creepiness. Her locks are long, sinuous, thick, uniform and tinted ever so slightly burgundy by the sun. Sometimes, I have unrealistic yet scary thoughts of her locks strangling her in sleep. Oh yeah, she likes comic books and graphic novels. She REALLY likes comic books and graphic novels. Like really (this is irrelevant, but intriguing to me).

Empath in her vigilante/crime-fighting costume; designed by me, inspired by various comic book hero(ine)s

Tonight I am fighting back against all the hair talk. Tonight, (or today, depending on when I decide to post this) I am here to say: ENOUGH! Stop the fuzzy insanity! There are people out there – poor, unfortunate people – who have (and this is the gods’ own truth) ABSOLUTELY NO HAIR WHATSOEVER! You people are arguing and discussing and theorizing and intellectualizing and bemoaning and whatever else, but what about the rest of us? What about those of us who have to scratch at our scalps to try to inveigle the tiniest bit of hair into revealing itself like a hostage emerging from a cave in the middle of a desert somewhere?

I began losing my hair at the tender age of 23. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I used to have a weird sort of OCD thing that started when I was 12. I would sit and twirl my hair around my fingers, getting it well knotted, then I’d yank it out. By the root. So I spent a lot of time as an adolescent with a bald patch right in the front of my head. I was, needless to say, the subject of much scorn and ridicule since I also had a terminally ingrown toenail that forced me to wear sandals all the time. I was a sandal-wearing, bald-patch-sporting, braces-flaunting adolescent. It was not pretty. Eventually I stopped though (with the hair pulling I mean), and my hair became my crowning glory (clichés be damned). By my final year of UWI, I had long, curly, golden-brown-blonde-reddish locks.

By the time I moved back to SVG, I was able to encourage the growth of dread locks. Unfortunately for me, my locks were not the fashionable, salon locks that we see everywhere today. No rented dreads for me. No, I had big, wutliss locks. Bongo-knatty we call them here. In fact, I sort of really only had one massive lock on the back of my head, and a few satellite locks that flocked around it as if worshipping it’s size and density. I did not purposely twist my hair to create these locks. I just stopped brushing or combing it. What the hell was I thinking?

I attribute my hair loss to the afore-mentioned dread lock (singular). It was so heavy it pulled on the roots of my hair, so I cut it. I cut it just in time for j’ouvert, then I bleached it and dyed it orange. That was the beginning of the end. I went from the guy with the gorgeous hair to this:

Me; a self-portrait without head hair, but with facial and uber-masculine chest hair.

As the artist’s rendering of me (above) clearly shows, I am now completely glabrous. A couple of weeks ago, one of my students actually put his fist on my head (I was seated, taking the register) and polished my scalp in an attempt to see his reflection. He made squeaking noises. I was horrified.

There have been many theories put forward by scientists and old wives as to why men go bald. Scientists say it has to do with a surplus of testosterone (extra-manly men tend to go bald). This accounts for the proliferation of men (like me) who are bald ONLY above the cheek. Everything under the pate is hirsute and pelt-like. My own hair growth, for example, extends from my eyebrows down to my toes. I actually have hair growing on my toe-knuckles (whatever they’re called). This scientific theory holds no water because Robert, my best bud, is even hairier than I am (if you can believe that) AND has a full head of thick, soft hair. The bastard. Plus, you can’t get more manly and gruff than him.

The old wives say various things. One of them says that baldness is inherited from the mother; the other says that it is inherited from the father. Below is a picture of my parents:

My parents (an impression). This is actually three bastardized "symbols" from Adobe Illustrator. I changed the clothes and hair/beard. Plus my father never drinks martinis - substitute that (in your head) with a beer. The dog looked funny so I included it.

Notice the most important thing here: neither of these people is bald. They both have wonderful, perhaps even superlative hair. So mash down that lie (a Jamaican PM used to say this, but I can’t remember which one).

My uncle Paul, Mum’s brother, is the only bald family member of whom I am currently aware (apart from my brother, whose hair-loss is as severe as mine, and started at around the same age). Uncle Paul used to do the comb-over until his daughters, Paula and Lisa, convinced him that the fashion is to shave your head clean in order to avoid teasing one or two wisps of floaty hair from one side of your scalp to the other, thereby looking like an idiot who is going bald. Uncle Paul now looks like Mahatma Gandhi, sans dhoti (but not sans other clothing… thankfully).

Uncle Paul? No, Silly! It's Mahatma Gandhi (sans dhoti).

I want to speak about one other bald comrade of mine. Cristobel has a rare disease that has caused her hair to fall out. I think it started some time in her fourth or final year of secondary school, and no one has ever adequately been able to tell her why. So anyway, she is my bald, bootylicious beeyatch and we have great fun making fun of people with hair. I can’t imagine her ever arguing with someone about the sociological implications of a straightening iron versus prickly pear and dread wax.

People who haven’t gone bald don’t know what it’s like. Voluntarily shaving your head for fashion is not the same as going bald genetically. I wish I had the luxury of being able to shave my head, secure in the knowledge that several weeks later I’d have a full head of hair once more. Doubtless, Cristobel wishes she didn’t have to wear that damned head wrap everywhere she goes in order to avoid the malefic stares of Joe Public and his wife, Malicia. As a misguided pretense at having hair, Uncle Paul spent years doing the comb over.

We miss our hair. We miss combing it, we miss washing it, we miss styling it. We miss going to the hair dresser, personal stylist, barber, lawn guy, our mother and saying: “just a little off the top, Scotty… and don’t skimp on the brilliantine!” I’d say we miss cleaning out our drains, but I don’t miss that since I really do have THAT much body hair that I still have to do it. I can’t speak for Cristobel in this regard.

So please, the next time you feel like clambering up onto your fleecy soapbox to pontificate about the socio-political status of your mane – about the historical bases for keeping your hair either natural or unnatural – remember us, the follicly challenged. Think about our plight. You know the old saying about complaining about your shoes until you meet a man who has none? Well we baldies fit into the category of the man with no shoes. We have no hair, and we did not choose this state of being. We have nothing to celebrate or argue over. What we have are shiny, squeaky, mirror-like scalps. We’re bald, we’re bare, we’ll never get used to it.

Dread By Design

Tsunami

2009-10-10T22:53:00.003-04:00

For the past month or so, SVG has been suffering from one of the most belligerent heat waves that I’ve ever experienced. My headaches, which had all but disappeared due to my quitting smoking and putting myself on a strict health regimen, are slowly becoming a constant irritant again. The other day, one of my students stripped off his shirt in class because the room where all my classes are held is a two by four plywood box that holds heat like a Pyrex dish. I allowed him to carry on simply because my own shirt was moulded to my body like I’d just been in a wet dress-shirt contest or similar. “Me skin hat” is a Vincentian Creole expression that goes further than just saying, “I feel hot”. It implies that the heat is so oppressive that your very skin feels as if it is peeling away from your flesh, the way an envelope peels open when it is steamed. This is the kind of heat we’re facing here.

In addition to the heat stifling us, the wind appears to have deserted us. Every day is still. The leaves do not blow, there are no cooling drafts to soothe the hot skin. It is as if the very island is waiting for something.

Thanks to Svein Overgaard, we now know exactly what’s going on. Svein is a Norwegian visionary who’s come to SVG to give us a most solemn warning. Apparently, by the end of the year, we will be struck by a tsunami of astronomic proportions. Luckily for us, God got to Svein just in time to tell him about this disaster. Svein boarded a plane to a country he’s never heard of before to warn us of our impending doom. I hope you heard me correctly. God spoke to Svein. I shan’t repeat that (although Svein persists in repeating his warnings). I’m not sure how many people are taking this prophet seriously. Obviously he made the newspapers – I mean it’s not every day we get Caucasian, non-Spiritual Baptist soothsayers in this country. Unfortunately, his credibility (for me) is slightly suspect due to the fact that he looks like he’s either been smoking some good weed, or is, in fact, hearing voices not dissimilar to those heard by people who need to be on regular anti-psychotic medication.

I will say this: Svein may be off his rocker, but I do think SVG is in for a couple tidal waves of the metaphoric sort. I’m not talking about the innovative social networking tool, Google Wave, which is currently being tested on a select number of lucky people (of which I am one). I am speaking about two waves that are drowning the country as I type: a political tsunami and a criminal tsunami.

I’m not going to spend too long talking about the political tsunami. I think I’ve made it clear in a couple of other, quite recent, posts that, in my completely ignorant opinion, the political situation in this country is absolutely messed up. When the red crowd is not tugging us one way, the yellow crowd is pulling us the other way. When we’re not being mamaguyed by one set of politrickans, we’re being bamboozled by the other set. Either way, politically, we’re fucked.

Perhaps this political tsunami is partially responsible for the next tidal wave I’m going to talk about. Surely, the economy of our poor, developing nation is responsible for it in a large way. The criminal tsunami that is crashing through SVG right now is perhaps the most devastating thing to happen to us since… well… ever.

I’ve spoken about the proliferation of rapes on this blog before. Just a couple weeks ago, I wrote about the armed rapist on the loose in my neighbourhood. Well, he struck again. Tonight. I was out at dinner when a neighbour came up to my table and told my landlord (who was at the other end of the table) all about it. It was almost the same scenario as last time: guy on the beach with girl, held up by fuckwit with a gun, guy dashed for a big stone with which to crush fuckwit’s head, fuckwit fires into the air (hitting nowhere). This time, one of Indian-Bay’ residents fired off a shot on hearing the fuckwit’s gunshot. The fuckwit ran off.

Drug-related crimes, from theft to murder, are rampant in this country. The officials keep trying to make it seem like everything is ok, but it blatantly is not. Of course, the domestic crimes are a whole other level of frequency and violence. Almost every week there are reports of domestic abuse, child abuse, negligence etc. Read Abeni’s blog, see how often she talks about one young woman or other being killed by her lover or ex-lover or stalker or whatever. In a population as small as ours, (less than half that of Barbados – which is roughly the same size as we are), this degree of criminal activity is absurd.

This week, we’ve added one more atrocity to the list of atrocities now being committed in Hairoun (the indigenous peoples’ name for SVG), the Land of the Blessed. Taking our cue from the criminal element in Trinidad & Tobago (we always take cues from either T&T or Jamacia), we can now boast our very first kidnapping.

This is making me so sick to speak about right now that I can barely go on.

According to the unsubstantiated stories that are currently circulating (I've heard nothing official yet), a young man, an A’ Level student, from a family that is no better off financially than many other people, was kidnapped on Thursday night. His kidnappers made monetary demands. It doesn’t seem as if they had the patience to wait for the money, because the young man’s body was discovered this afternoon.

How can I reasonably discuss something like this without completely breaking down? Whoever did this has not only sown the seeds of something that could tear a family apart, but they’ve also caused an entire nation to tremble in fear. How could you take a young man, full of promise, full of life, and deny him his potential? Aren’t these people sending a direct message to the country? Most of us have little faith in those who are supposed to protect us, so our fear will not go away. If this is the sort of country SVG is becoming, do I even want to have children? Would I be able to cope with the worry?

I have previously stated, quite openly, that I stridently oppose capital punishment. The more 2009 progresses, however, the more I feel like I need to change my stance. Before 2009, I felt that capital punishment could never be justified, but if the bastard who raped the women in my neighbourhood, on my beach, is ever caught then I want him dead. I want him dead and I want him tortured before being killed. He needs to go through what the women he has damaged have gone through. He needs to pay. So too for the people who have stolen the life from the young student. They should be allowed no mercy. Not only have they denied this young man his future, they have denied his family the joy of seeing him discover this future.

When I first heard about the kidnapping, chills went down my spine. Then, when I heard this afternoon that the young man’s body had been discovered, I felt like crying. I did not know this young man. He was a student at the college where I lecture, but I’d never encountered him. I do, however, know several hundred young men and women just like him. I work with them every day. Some of them are the children of friends, cousins etc. I worry about my students. Long ago, I planned (in my head) what I would do if one of my students were ever threatened in my presence. I actually give a shit about them – they’re not simply faces to me.

To hear that one of these young people has been kidnapped and murdered makes my blood boil. But I guess you already have that idea. How is this teenager's family ever supposed to heal from this? I imagine that they will spend the rest of their own lives wondering if they could’ve done anything. What gives anyone the right to cause this?

And still the island is hot. And still the wind does not blow. I wonder when we will feel some relief. Perhaps Svein’s tsunami may not actually be such a bad thing. Perhaps we need the cleansing that only vast amounts of water can bring. Maybe Svein himself will bless his tsunami before it hits, then we can all be drenched in the largest, holy water filled font in history.

The Proust Questionnaire

2009-10-02T23:33:00.005-04:00

I like this. When I do it, it makes me really think about some big things. It's also credited (well, the popularisation of it is) to Marcel Proust, so it smacks of psuedo-intellectualism, which I'm so all about. Vanity Fair uses it at the back of every issue - they interview a famous/relevant person. I guess it's a sort of highbrow parlour game. For posers.

But I like it.

Anyway, here it is. I don't think you're bound to answer every question. Lord knows I'm not answering every one of them on this blog. Feel free to re-post this. Or just sit there thinking about the stuff - some of it may even open your eyes to yourself.

The Proust Questionnaire

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Not being alone; never having to worry about people not getting me; never having to worry at all because I have nothing to worry about; plus not being alone.

2. What is your greatest fear?

Death.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Not knowing when to just shut up. Seriously. Like sometimes I want to smack myself and say "enough, you idiot".

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Apathy; especially when it comes to your fellow man.

5. Which living person do you most admire?

I honestly don't know. I want to say my parents though.

6. What is your greatest extravagance?

Books.

7. What is your current state of mind?

Unsettled & possibly slightly paranoid (but not so sure about the latter).

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Chastity.

9. On what occasion do you lie?

a. To soften the blow;
b. If the truth is immaterial to the current reality.

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

Big belly coupled with skinny limbs, bald head and no butt. Yes, I have serious body image issues.

11. Which living person do you most despise?

Not answering this one here. Suffice it to say that it's a type as much as it is at least 2 people.

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?

Loyalty.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Same as # 12.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

a. "No way!"
b. "Holy cow/crap/shit/fuck!"

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Secret.

16. When and where were you happiest?

2001/2003; London, UK.

17. Which talent would you most like to have?

Words.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

The overwhelming desire to be liked/accepted.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My academic stuff. Which hopefully isn't complete yet.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

I don't want to die, but if I did, I'd like to come back as someone indescribably wealthy and powerful. But not necessarily famous. Fuck my Marxist principles. I want money.

21. Where would you most like to live?

St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Most of the time.

22. What is your most treasured possession?

I honestly don't know. I think I could lose any of the things that I possess and still live a happy, content life. Perhaps my laptop?

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Being alone.

24. What is your favorite occupation?

Acting (theatre).

25. What is your most marked characteristic?

My ability to be so unassuming, non-threatening and open that you can't help but like me. Until, perhaps, you get to know me and I start to irritate the fuck out of you.

26. What do you most value in your friends?

Loyalty.

27. Who are your favorite writers?

There isn't enough room. Plus I find it difficult to have a favourite anything. Polarities and I don't do well together.

28. Who is your hero of fiction?

Oddly enough, this one is a secret.

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

I don't.

30. Who are your heroes in real life?

People who stand up for what they believe (as long as what they believe is also what I believe - hah. If, for example, someone stands up for the belief that a certain religion is better than any other, then they're not really a hero to me. This is all highly subjective).

31. What are your favorite names?

The names of my godchildren. And my name too. :-P

32. What is it that you most dislike?

Disrespect.

33. What is your greatest regret?

Not being man enough to see it through, even though it would've meant never making my home in St. Vincent.

34. How would you like to die?

I don't. But if I must, painlessly and in close proximity to people who love me.

35. What is your motto?

Don't shoot 'till you see the whi... erm... wait... that's not it! Who the hell has a motto anymore? Actually, I do subscribe to the "live and let live" school of human relations.

Yes! We... Must?

2009-09-27T17:29:00.007-04:00

I was in Bequia last weekend with some friends. It was a lot of fun (despite the fact that I’m a teetotaler) and reminded me how much I love simple things like food, friends, shopping for food with friends and eating friendly foods (like charred barracuda, eggless omelette and sin-your-soul brownies).

This post, however, is not a nostalgic investigation into things either gastronomic or companionable (or both). After disembarking the ferry, on our way back home from Kingstown, we passed the building that used to be the Ju-c/Bottler’s building. Now I don’t usually go into Kingstown. I think I’ve stated elsewhere on this blog that Kingstown makes me claustrophobic and causes me to curl up into the foetal position while groaning nonsense about my mother. So I don’t know how long the building has been as it is. Here’s how it looks these days:

I present to you (what I assume is) the campaign headquarters for the proposed new constitution of St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Yes folks, our government, in its efforts to campaign for the new constitution, has totally revamped an entire building in Kingstown. It’s a pity they couldn’t do the same for sections of the hospital. Ah well, I suppose the focus these days is all on the constitution and on little else (a commenter on one of my previous posts said that his? her? Pol-Sci Lecturer at UWI called the proposed new constitution a political red herring – I leave you to interpret that as you will).

The inside of the building definitely seems to be a sort of political campaign ground zero: there are desks all over the place and a bank of telephones, Ed McMahon (mayherestinpeace) telethon-style. Most importantly, it’s all decked out in the national colours and its frontage is plastered with the propaganda machine’s latest slogan: “Yes! We Must!”.

This slogan is a work of both pure genius and unadulterated borrowing (I wanted to use the word “plagiarism” but thought that may be a bit strong). Not only does it subtly (hah) conjure thoughts of Barack Obama’s famous campaign slogan, “Yes, We Can”, it also suggests all the things that go along with Obama’s presidential campaign: thoughts of change, thoughts of a victorious underdog, thoughts of perseverance for a better way of life, thoughts of toppling a hegemonic regime. Couple this with our Prime Minister’s admonition to vote “yes” or never be able to look our grandchildren in the eye because we’re clearly upholding the colonial shackles that we (apparently) have hidden away under our beds and have been lovingly polishing for the past 30 years, and what we have here is psychological warfare as best waged by Caribbean Roman Catholic family matriarchs of Portuguese descent. Like my dead grandmother (and living mother – love you mum!).

Essentially, the government has decided to put us on a massive guilt trip. We "must" vote "yes" in the referendum on the proposed new constitution. According to my mother, to use words like “must” and “should” in a slogan like this is a form of shaming: it implies that to do anything other than what is being suggested is to demonize yourself. The idea apparently comes from conflict/resolution theory. In other words, a word such as “must” communicates that this is a necessity, and to repudiate a necessity is to let (in this case) everyone down. I trust my mother’s word on this because: 1. she has two degrees in psychology; 2. she is a counselor (retired); and 3. she is my very own Caribbean Roman Catholic family matriarch of Portuguese descent. So, she knows what she’s talking about!

What’s particularly disturbing about the “Yes! We Must!” slogan (for me) is the underdog, anti-hegemonic message. This disturbs me not because I want to keep us in thrall to our colonial mistress, but because the ruling government is never the underdog! The ruling government of any country is, by definition, the hegemony! We are being made to believe that the government of our country is like the poor-boy-makes-good while, in fact, they are the people in charge. Yes, the ruling party was the underdog two elections ago. Yes, the ruling party was, two elections ago, the scrappy little revolutionary body that would save us from the demon government of the time. But now? Come on! It is the nature of politics and government (in this region at any rate) that the revolutionaries become the orthodoxies.

Once you’re in charge, you become the hegemony. Once you’re in charge, you are no longer the revolutionary; you have become the establishment. To have an education or wellness “revolution” is absurd. I think that our current government spent so long as a reactionary, sometime revolutionary opposition (minority) party that they don’t seem to understand that they are actually in charge, and are no longer the de jure representatives of the disillusioned and powerless. Strike that; they know that they’re in charge (they’ve proven so time and again), but they seem to want the best of both worlds: they seem to want supremacy and to be anti-establishment, both at the same time.

It is unfortunate that we no longer seem to have a voice for the disillusioned and powerless in this country. Our options are exceedingly limited. But this is neither here nor there for this particular post which, as usual, I have let get away from me.

“Yes! We Must!”, as a slogan, is impressively simple, snappy and (given the times in which we live) evocative. It is also, however, unoriginal, condescending (to expect us to not comprehend it’s origins and intents) and shameless.

To top it all off, below is the opposition party’s version of “Yes! We Must!” Campaign Central:

Ok, they’re the opposition party and haven’t as much money to spend on a campaign of this nature as the government does. Still, a comparison between the picture directly above and the one near the top of this post will clearly show which side of this country’s political see-saw is resting on the ground, and which is supporting the child who’s dangling her feet in the air screaming to get off.

Beware The Indian-Bay Beach Rapist

2009-09-22T13:42:00.008-04:00

I heard the crack of a gunshot, so I got up to look out my window. Of course, the beach was all blackness. All I could see were the reflections of my neighbours’ lights on the water a little way up. All I could hear was the waves. Then, in a flash, I saw a of a pair of white shorts dart in front of my house and disappear behind the young, bushy almond tree growing in the spot where the run-off water gutter meets the beach.

I flicked on my outside light.

The person slowly peeped out from behind the tree and called my landlord’s name. My landlord used to live in my flat. He now lives upstairs. I phoned him up. He turned on his beach spotlight and called to the man behind the tree.

Here’s what we learned. The White Shorts man had been a little further up the beach (quite close to us actually) with two women. They were just hanging out. Out of nowhere, a masked gunman approached them, ordering White Shorts to kneel down while pointing the gun straight at his (WS’s) head. This guy then ordered the two women to perform fellatio on him. It was at this point that White Shorts, fearing for his life and the lives of his companions, took off down the beach. The gunman shot at him, but luckily missed. That was the gunshot that I’d heard.

White Shorts went up by my landlord where they called the police. The police arrived shortly after with White Shorts’ lady friends in tow. They appeared unharmed. Presumably, the gunman ran away when he realized that White Shorts was on his way to find help. I don’t have the full story yet. The police, apparently, did not bother to get out and look for the gunman. No comment.

Now here’s the really disturbing part of all this. A week ago, a twelve year old, homeless girl was hanging out on this same beach (but a little further up) at night, with an adult man. He thought she was at least fifteen (like that makes it any better). A masked gunman held them up and she was raped. A few months ago, a masked gunman raped a young woman on this beach. On the same night (but a few hours later), another young woman in the general area was raped by, you got it, a masked gunman. An acquaintance of mine was parked on the beach with his girlfriend the other night and they were attacked by someone who’s face they couldn’t see. They escaped, but only after the faceless person threw a rock into one of this guy’s car windows. This masked gunman is fast becoming a local fixture.

“Come to Indian-Bay Beach anytime after the sun sets! Our fully trained rapist will remind you why property values in this area are spiraling downward, and why the people who live here have converted their open-concept beach homes into cages and prisons! Don’t forget to bring your pepper spray, mace, or hand gun!”

I’m not even going to mention the double murder of two weeks ago.

So this is a general warning for anyone who lives on or near Indian-Bay Beach. Lock up your houses good and tight. Women MUST be on the alert at all times. Keep your children inside. Only go to the beach when the sun is shining and make sure you’re not the only one there. The sad, horrifying reality is that we are not safe.

Our neighbourhood, the place that I roamed as a child (as young as four or five years old) with my (equally young) friends no longer exists. There are chain-link fences topped with razor wire, there are seven-foot walls around homes that were once open to the wind. Everyone owns a gun. The dogs are not just for show or companionship. There is a rapist on the loose and he has a gun. If we look back far enough, we discover that he (and his friends – there is the possibility that there’s more than one of them, and that they’re in cahoots) have been operating on and around Indian-Bay Beach for a good few years.

I hate to say this about a place that I love so much, a place that is so much a part of my history, a part of who I am, but I would advise everyone to keep away from Indian-Bay Beach at night. I would advise hotels and guesthouses to let their guests know that they will be targets if they go anywhere near there after dark. Do not go there for any reason once the sun has gone down. You are not safe there.

You are not safe here.

SVG Does The Splits

2009-09-18T16:48:00.006-04:00

We have two political parties in SVG, the ULP (Unity Labour Party – they’re currently in power) and the NDP (New Democratic Party – they aren’t). Actually, we have three parties. There’s also the Green Party, but they’re sort of like the one-legged six-year-old who you pat on the head patronisingly and say, “it’s okay buddy, you’ll be just like Usain Bolt one day”, while hoping that he forgets about that promise when he becomes an adult, and realizes that life is harsh, cold and unforgiving of optimists.

Now, given that we have two (major) political parties, you’d think that they’d be fundamentally different based on ideological grounds. Not so. Not that you can see at any rate. You’d expect one party to be liberal, and the other conservative. You’d expect one party to be somewhat right wing, and the other somewhat left. You’d expect one party to be full of hippies and beatniks, and the other to comprise men in dark suits and women with tightly controlled hair. Instead, what we have are two parties that oppose each other only for the sake of opposition. They’re both pretty much conservative, but they also both lean slightly to the left (generally). I have lost faith in the hope that my political leaders have any sort of genuine ideology that goes beyond self-aggrandisement and/or pocket-lining.

This country is neatly split in two. We don’t really have racial tensions in SVG (not to the extent that these tensions exist elsewhere in the region); our classism is not as overt and all encompassing as it is elsewhere. I’m not saying that these things don’t exist in SVG, that would be blind of me, it’s just that they aren’t as pronounced as I’ve experienced them elsewhere. What we do have, however, is a finely delineated system of prejudices based on which political party you support. If you don’t openly support any party, then people make assumptions based on how often and how vociferously you criticize whichever party happens to be the one in power. Don’t even get me started on the political victimization that exists despite the denials of the powers-that-be.

I am fed up. I am fed up of every issue in this country becoming, or being treated as, a political issue. I am tired of having to watch what I say or risk being associated with a specific political party. I am tired of decisions being made that are motivated solely on the red versus yellow power struggle.

My Prime Minister once implied that people who disagree with the building of an international airport at Argyle are unpatriotic. My opposition leader is calling for a “no” vote on our proposed constitution for reasons that I have yet to fathom in any coherent manner. What gives anyone the right to challenge my love of country based on whether or not I agree with the placement of an airport? What gives anyone the authority to tell me how to vote, while not explaining to me, in language that I can understand, why it would be in my best interest to do so?

Now the two parties are launching campaigns… political campaigns… to try to convince Vincentians to vote either for or against the proposed new constitution. There should be nothing as exciting as the process involved in forming a new constitution for a young country like ours. We should all be gung-ho about being a part of this process. We should all be involved in and informed about everything that goes on. Instead, the proposed constitution has been thrust into the public relatively close to the time when it is to be voted on, and we’ve pretty much been told to either agree or disagree with it, wholesale.

It’s been published in the newspapers in its entirety (very good), but it has not been explained to the people of this country in an unbiased manner (not so good). Every explanation of the articles of this constitution has been tinged with bias based on either party affiliation or (in one case) religious belief. The ULP is pushing a “yes” vote, and everything they say about the constitution implies that it is the most stunning document of its kind ever to be produced. The NDP, on the other hand, is advocating a “no” vote, and is claiming that the existence of this new constitution will spell the beginning of the end of for freedoms and liberties in this country. The Constitution Review Committee, whether we want to acknowledge this or not, will push a “yes” vote because this is their baby. The Thusian Institute are pushing a “no” vote based on what is ultimately their ire over the denial of human rights as being God-given.

Anyone who supports the proposed new constitution is immediately classed as a dogmatic, deluded supporter of the ULP government; its opponents are treated as political dissidents who have nothing better to do. In fact, one of the members of the Constitutional Review Committee (I think the leader) implied in a public television appearance that we, the average, unwashed masses, should not even try to understand the workings of this nation-altering document, because we are not trained in constitutional law. We should simply accept his word, and the word of the government, that it is in our best interests. In other words: “fuck you, citizens of SVG, you are too ignorant to understand any of this, and you’ll probably use the paper it is printed on to wrap up salt fish anyway.” (The salt fish thing was actually said by a high-ranking government official; he was addressing a bunch of Trinis at the time).

So we’re pretty much left high and dry. The Thusians have done a creditable job in convincing many people that the proposed constitution, as it stands, is not in our best interests. They’re the only group that has explained things to us in as simple a manner as possible. Their main contention is that the proposed constitution does not make any of the rights granted to us “inalienable”. In other words (and in short), they contend that there’s a lack of security in the new constitution, and that our rights could be snatched away from us willy-nilly.

Here’s my problem with these guys. They’re coming from a place that is all religion. The Thusian Institute for Religious Liberty is a Seventh Day Adventist offshoot. They claim to be a human rights organization, but these human rights are clearly the ones that they feel are due to any clean-living believer in God. In other words, they’re not actually concerned with all the minority groups who are affected by human rights violations. The very first issue coming out of the constitution that made people raise eyebrows is the marriage issue; that is, the fact that marriage must be between a biological male and a biological female (essentially). This was the first issue to be debated. The Thusians were nowhere to be found in that debate. Clearly, their interest in human rights is only for a select few humans.

So we’re left with a decision to make. We, the populace of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, will very soon have to decide whether or not we want the proposed constitution. We’re not going to be allowed to vote on bits and pieces of the thing. Oh no, it’s either accept the entire document, or reject the entire document. If we accept it, we accept the wonderful along with the deplorable. If we reject it, we reject the horrendous along with the magnificent. The ULP implies that a “no” vote is a rejection of what it means to be Vincentian, the NDP implies that a “yes” vote is a vote for despotism and dictatorship. Neither of these things is actually true.

One thing is certain. The country is split on this issue, as it is on any other issue that the politicians have taken, twisted and made their own. I have only been a member of the Vincentian electorate for fifteen years, yet I am ready to throw in the towel. The politicians in this country have succeeded in making me entirely distrustful of their ilk. I have a few friends who’ve gone into politics. Some of them (a very select few) actually have some sort of ideology and concern for the future of this country. Others are doing it for what is clearly their own advancement. The ones who have actual beliefs and principles worry me. I’m afraid that they’re going to get caught up in the political games that are played every day in this country. My fear is that, eventually, these people will lose sight of their ideologies in favour of the paycheck, the power and/or the desire to be remembered. Isn’t that what happened to the two men who held (have held) the highest position in our land, for the longest time?

Please Enjoy My Epiphany

2009-09-11T22:30:00.005-04:00

It's amazing how attending the funeral of a close family member can remind you where you come from.

I can live on the beach or in a city all my life, but I still felt a stillness, a rightness, when I walked through the banana fields, along the dirt road and up into the graveyard toward the family plot. It's like a special kind of solitude stole over me this afternoon. It wrapped me in something visceral... something primal... something that is ingrained in my soul. I was surrounded by people and by sound, by family, by the paradox of mourning and celebration, by the smell of earth and goats, by two guitars and a quatro and a harmonica and the wailing joy of spirituals being sung in voices that Lorna Goodison called "flat hill country voice[s]". Yet I still felt solitude. I felt like the noise and music and humanity were part of the landscape, and the landscape was part of me.

Weird.

Tomorrow

2009-09-06T20:10:00.004-04:00

work

again

sigh

my motivation is flagging due to disproportionate input/output ratios
also due to lack of intellectual energy

what to do? what to do?

i have my new plans
i have my new schemes
i have my new direction

i know where i should be going this year

but i am disheartened by last year

i need an injection of positivity
i need to feel secure in my professional abilities once more
i need to make absolutely sure that i leave nothing to chance

BUT

i should remember that i am dealing with individuals who have
individual needs and strengths and weaknesses

i should remember that i cannot spoon feed or
force feed or
feed at all

i should remember my principles and philosophies

perhaps it's not going to be so bad after all

at least i've lost 14 pounds

now i should just go shave my face and head in preparation
for tomorrow

XXX Virgin Sluts of Goat Heaven & Other Titillating Web Searches

2009-08-30T23:10:00.005-04:00

Real life has been pretty heavy for me of late, so here’s something a little frivolous to steer my mind someplace light (and hopefully yours; especially if your days are a bit intense too).

I have this StatCounter thingy on my blog that does all sorts of intriguing things. It can tell me how many people have visited the site, which ones were there for the first time, where they came from, etc. In addition to all this (and more), it also keeps track of the keywords that people have been typing into Google and other search engines, which lead them to my blog. Tonight I’m going to take you deep inside the bowels of Lullabies, Fairy Tales and Other Self-Delusions. I’m giving you an unprecedented, never-before-experienced tour of my recent search engine keywords. Hold on to your virginity folks (well ok, there’re no virgins left, so hold on to your shame and regret instead) because the ride is about to being!

The Tame Searches

Guyana Gyal – Apparently, searching for Guyana Gyal’s blog has brought several people to my blog. This feels suspiciously like I’m riding on GG’s coattails. I’m fairly certain that she wears coats sometimes. Just to extend my use of clichés, she’s the star that I’ve apparently hitched my wagon to, albeit unknowingly. None of this talk of riding or wagon hitching is meant to be sexual in any way.

Lots of lullaby stuff – That’s not the actual search. It’s just that many of the searches are for stuff to do with lullabies: history of lullabies, short lullabies, lullabies about [insert weird thing here (one person actually searched for lullabies about incest)].

Apple Juice Sistren – No comment. My sister-in-law (commonly called the Sistren) doesn’t look like a box of apple juice. She doesn’t even smell like apples (she usually smells like a combination of the essential oils that she uses in making lotions and ointments – it’s soothing)! I will, however, say this: until he was about ten years old, my brother would drink nothing BUT apple juice. Do with that information as you will.

Lord of the Flies – I think I made this reference once, in one post (possibly twice). Surely there are many, many more pertinent websites than mine that deal with this novel. Of course, mine is probably the only one with a photograph of a roasted pig as well. Mmmmm… that was some tasty pig.

Tales of the Wills – To quote Internet chat room aficionados: WTF?

Caprine Brother – Ditto above. Also, do you think someone suspects that his/her brother is a goat? Do you think it’s Suzy from my post of a few weeks ago searching for a long lost family member?

The Political Searches

Argyle – I get tons of searches for stuff to do with Argyle, from updates, to searches for pictures. This doesn’t surprise me since, for people in the Vincentian diaspora, there’s precious little information available online.

SVG Constitution – People also get sent to my page when they type in a myriad of searches for the SVG constitution. Fair enough. I just hope they realize that I usually don’t have a fucking clue what I’m talking about when I try to be serious and/or relevant.

The Good Stuff

UWI Mona Sluts – Huh? How on Earth does this search land someone on my page? This one is actually a frequent search. Another variant is “Whores of University of the West Indies”. I get that a lot too. Interestingly, I never got any sluts or whores approaching me while I was at UWI. Not one. I did have a girl once say to me, “why don’t you like me? Is it because I’m a virgin?” when in reality she WAS a huge UWI Mona slut. I know she was because when I told all my friends about it half the guys said they’d slept with her. I anticipate, after this post is published, that more searches ending up on my page will contain “slut”, “whore” and now, “virgin”.

St. Vincent & the Grenadines Community College X-Rated – These people are obviously searching for a much more specific version of Girls Gone Wild. Fortunately, one of the entry and graduation requirements of the college is purity of body and soul, i.e., everyone at the college (including members of the faculty, administration and ancillary staff) is a sweet-mouthed virgin.

Self-Post Nudity – This search comes up A LOT! Keep searching pervs, you’ll never see nekkid pictures of me up here. You may see them elsewhere, but I’m fairly certain that I’ve not been photographed or videotaped doing anything that would put other, lesser men to shame.

Nude Thong of the Day –I don’t get it. You mean, as opposed to dressed thong of the day? Is it like a daily photograph of thongs cavorting au naturel? How can a thong be nude? I’m confused and baffled.

Beach Thong Children Shame – I can only assume that seeing someone in a thong has traumatized someone else’s child. It can be quite traumatizing. I’ve seen people in thongs and have had to go have a lie down to recover. Thongs are not pretty. And they are not sexy. But I’ve said this before, so I’ll shut up. PS – the words “nude” and “thong” are favourites of the search engine circuit it seems.

Nude Little Fairy – I’m not touching that one with my ten foot pole. All puns intended.

My Favourite

Little Thingy Inside a Woman – Wow. Can you imagine the results of this one? What is the little thingy? Is it a clitoris? Is it an early-stage foetus? Could it perhaps be a reference to inverted nipples? Is it possibly something psychological? Intuition? I don’t know. Nor do I know why that searcher ended up on my page. But every time I see it I laugh like a 1990’s teenager at a Wayans Brothers movie.

What searches carry people to your page?

The Other Side of Paradise

2009-08-22T22:32:00.006-04:00

I had no expectations when I started reading The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin. Actually, that’s a lie. I did expect something. I expected it to sound like her performance poetry; I expected her entire story to be brash and in-your-face and shocking. I expected to recognize the Staceyann I knew several years ago when she was a couple years above me at UWI. What I didn’t expect was a memoir that fleshed out the person I knew so briefly all those years ago. What I didn’t expect was language that moves across the page simply and unambiguously, language that reminds me of patties stuffed inside coco-bread. What I didn’t expect was something that, stylistically, is reminiscent of a conglomeration of women writers from across cultures, genres and political ideologies.

The novel is a typical bildungsroman. We get Staceyann’s growth and development starting from her (supposed possible) conception, through to her boarding the plane that would take her away from Jamaica and into the world. Along the way, we see her living in various places and circumstances; we meet the people who populated her life at various times, many of whom end up being cut out at some point. We see her struggles with her own personality, her intelligence, her poverty, her sexuality, her appearance, her ethnicity, her connections to other people. This novel is, more than anything else, a personal investigation into the author’s life. It’s almost as if Staceyann is trying to make coherent sense of her early life through writing it down. It’s clear that her life has been one of unanswered questions and lingering doubts – from her paternity to her acceptance by (and of) family, we see that nothing for Staceyann is ever certain.

This is where the novel leaves me in something of a quandary. I can’t decide if Staceyann is a victim, or her own agent. Certainly, by the novel’s close she has taken charge of her own life, but until that time she seems to be at the mercy of everyone around her. This, for me, contradicts the strong willed, self-assured personality that is evident in Staceyann from the first time we meet her.

Near the end of the prologue, Staceyann says, “[i]t tickles me to think that from my very first breath, everyone expected me to stop breathing. Against the odds, I surprised everybody.” This tension between people’s expectations of Staceyann, and her own actions/behaviour/successes is central to the novel, but it can also be contradictory at times. It is easy to see Staceyann Chin, the Victim; it is also easy to see her as the Survivor. However, within that victim/survivor dichotomy, there is also Staceyann Chin, her own Worst Enemy. It’s challenging to write a downtrodden character who we empathize with rather than pity, yet this is what Chin has done. She is a victim that we feel with, not that we feel for. When she gets into trouble as a child for her quick temper and willfulness, we don’t feel sorry for her. We understand exactly how and why she got into trouble, we almost expected the outcome; but we don’t ever feel sorry for her. Rather, we appreciate how she must be feeling. When she is exiled from her grandmother’s presence (a presence that we can’t help but think would always represent “home”) by her uncle’s wife, we know that, however unfair, cruel and mercenary the act is, it could’ve been avoided. Staceyann is the victim here, but she is a victim who is oddly (and unfairly) implicated in her own predicament.

My friend, Empath, has always had trouble with Caribbean women writers who deny their female characters any agency. She considers the figure of the Caribbean Woman as Victim to be a by-product of the popular Black American Woman as Victim. Essentially, she thinks that Caribbean characters who have no control over their lives are literary constructs that pander to an American market. I tend to agree with Empath here (to some extent), and, on first reading, was irritated by Staceyann’s constantly being bumped from demonized family member to demonized family member, with absolutely no control over her plight. That’s when I had to remind myself: this is a memoir. It is not fiction. This happened to someone. This sort of thing happens to people all the time. How many of my students have mothers who migrated and forgot them, and fathers who are completely absent? This is a typically Caribbean dilemma.

It is the nature of a first person narrative that we distrust the narrator to some degree. This is especially true in a memoir. In fact, Chin even hints that she’s taken some leeway with memory here. Again, in her prologue, she says that “… in the absence of the most basic facts, I have had to create my own story and, in many ways, set my own course. The story that follows is the journey I remember.” The Other Side of Paradise is Staceyann’s journey as she remembers it, not as other people may remember it. So if, at times, it seems as if she lacks agency, and is too much a victim, we should remember that, for a child, it is easy to be a victim. In Caribbean societies generally, children are the most victimized group of people.

Of course, in the last few chapters we see Staceyann still as a victim, this time the hapless victim of her own self-assurance and verve. The almost-rape scene in the bathroom is physically out of her control until she is able to convince (or bully/threaten) someone else to save her. It is an interesting point that, throughout the novel, she uses words for protection, justification and attack, rather than to express more tender feelings. So much of what we know about her affections and softer emotions is what she tells us directly, not what she says to other characters. It is almost as if she is so beaten down that she cannot express herself, so when she does, it all comes rushing out in an overwhelming deluge of passion.

The thing that actually struck me most about this novel is that it feels like an invocation. It feels like Staceyann is calling several women together and asking them to help her tell this story. I don’t mean to suggest that Staceyann has no authentic style. Far from it, I can hear echoes of her from fifteen years ago in her prose. I remember her accosting me under the UWI Mona Arts Faculty trees one day, grabbing both my hands, staring into my eyes and fervently declaiming, “ambidextrous… loving… with both hands…”. She went on to say more, but that’s all I remember. I feel this woman when I read the novel.

No, what I mean by invocation is that I sense resonances of other women, all of whose experiences make up a collective of some sort, in this novel. Staceyann’s bungled (and hilariously tragic) first attempt at masturbation in a pit toilet is almost Eve Ensleresque in its outcome: “When I finally collapse, shaking and picking pieces of roach legs off my hip and thigh, I know I am never going to look at my coco-bread again.” Her description of the countryside of her birth and early childhood takes me back to the poetry of Lorna Goodison; her investigation of family relationships, especially the bonds that (should?)(sometimes?) exist between women, is reminiscent of Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John; and there are even hints of Jane Austen in Staceyann’s concern for people. What I felt when reading this novel was something specifically woman, something that cannot be felt if I were reading a man’s memoir. It is this vague sensation of a universal feminine that I’m talking about when I say that the novel is an invocation.

I haven’t even mentioned something fundamental to this novel. Staceyann deals with her homosexuality so naturally, and in such a blasé manner that it’s easy to forget that it’s one of the major themes of this memoir. It is mentioned from very near the beginning of the book, though not explicitly. It crops up every now again. She never actually deals with it until very near the novel’s end. It seems almost like a natural part of her experience – we expected it. This is not a novel about her homosexuality; it is novel about her. She never agonizes over it because it is only one aspect of her self. It is rare for a Caribbean author to deal with something so contentious as sexuality and not make a big deal out of it. I think that this could very well go a long way to helping people in the region accept alternative sexualities. We got to know her, and in so doing we discovered something about her. Yes, it is her sexuality (and the near rape that her embracing/sharing of her sexuality inspired) that forced her to leave Jamaica, but it is not something that solely defines the Staceyann Chin of this memoir.

This is not the first time that someone I know has written a novel or even a memoir. However, for some reason, this is the first time that I’ve felt an actual connection with the protagonist. I didn’t know Staceyann particularly well at UWI. She was two years ahead of me, and we had only a couple friends in common. From the little I knew of her, I would never have guessed at her history.

I do have three distinct memories of Staceyann that have stayed with me since the mid 1990’s (I’ll be no more specific than that). I’ve already mentioned the grabbing and poetizing, but I also remember her speaking on the phone at a friend’s rented room, telling the person on the other end of the line that men always have erections, then grabbing my crotch and saying, “I bet you have one right now!” I didn’t actually. I was too scared. My ultimate memory of her is in the performance of selections from Kamau Braithwaite’s The Arrivants that a group of students did one year for Tallawah under the direction of Carolyn Allen. Staceyann talks about this very performance near the end of the novel. I remember being mesmerized by her and her co-performers, but especially by her, during this performance. She felt it, and it showed. Reading how it made her feel and marrying this to what I saw was an amazing experience for me.

After reading The Other Side of Paradise, I now wish that I knew Staceyann. I think we could’ve been friends, rather than passing acquaintances. Back then she intimidated me a bit. She was a very visible person and I couldn’t help but be slightly cowed by her bravado, brilliance and complete immersion in literature and performance (she performed more off stage than on). Simply put, I felt intellectually inadequate around her. Her story, her memoir, is completely engaging. Her writing drew me in, her characters are real and relatable (once you realize that they are memories tainted by childhood) and her struggles are an affirmation of success despite adversity (both externally motivated and inadvertently self-caused). When I saw Staceyann crying for Oprah a few years ago (I can’t find this damn clip) I thought, “fuck me, I know someone’s who’s cried on Oprah!” After reading her memoir, I realize that I don’t. Not really. Not at all.

Staceyann Chin

PETA, PETA, Pumpkin Eaters.

2009-08-20T22:26:00.000-04:00

Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women

Something Caprine

2009-08-14T23:31:00.005-04:00

This is going to be the shortest blog post I’ve ever written. My good friend... erm... let's call her Suzy... was in the throes of passion the other night. She and her boyfriend were doing unspeakably naked things to one another when they heard the boyfriend’s brother, who lives just across the way, calling to them.

Boyfriend’s Brother: Oye! Fred! (assumed name)

Boyfriend: Pant, pant, pant.

Suzy: Squeal, screech, groan (possibly meh-eh-ehh; you’ll see why in a little bit).

Boyfriend’s Brother: Oye! Fred!

Boyfriend: WHAT???!!!

Suzy [under her breath]: Goddamnit!

Boyfriend’s Brother: De goat like it hengin’! Ah hearin’ de goat like it ballin’!

The End.

Synopsis:

Suzy’s boyfriend’s brother thought that Suzy’s cries of ecstasy were the cries of a goat in distress.
Suzy was making enough noise that the entire valley heard her. Luckily she sounded enough like a goat being throttled that no one really understood what was happening.
Suzy may be a Capricorn. I shall have to call her and double check.

A Meditation on Oral Aluminum

2009-08-09T23:37:00.003-04:00

I seem to have been infected with a sort of intellectual torpor. I’m not certain why, but I do have my suspicions. I’m on vacation and have all the time in the world to blog. I also have so many things that I can blog about if I chose to. However, my brain seems to be on a go-slow. Every time I sit down and start typing, I lose interest. I find something else to do. I feel like I want to blame twitter. I spend a lot of my online time on twitter, or monitoring twitter. It’s difficult to actually write something substantial when every few minutes I feel the urge to say something witty and pointless in less than 140 characters.

So I have what I call online-social-networking-induced-blogger’s-block. It’s a relatively new phenomenon that I think is affecting bloggers in the region, as a driect result of joining twitter. I dithered over what to call this blockage actually. I wanted to call it writer’s block, but then I got to thinking. Is the stuff that I blog real writing? I don’t intend to demean or degrade any other bloggers’ writing; I’m just referring to my own. Are my posts bona fide enough to warrant using the term “writer’s block” when I find myself unable to update? Can a self-absorbed blogger, like me, even be called a writer? Am I being arrogant and puffed up by suggesting that I have writer’s block? These questions don’t need answering, I’m just thinking on my keyboard. Of course, everyone knows how much I crave validation, so if you feel like you want to tell me that I’m the best thing since Oscar Wilde please go right ahead.

I have a handy little book called “The Writer’s Block”. It’s actually a block. It contains a plethora of spark words, scenarios and other minor catalysts to help writers jump start their brain cells. I’ve never actually used this book myself, but I used to use it when I was teaching secondary school English. There are some great ideas for teaching creative writing, as well as for coming up with examination topics. Anyway, I said to myself, “fuck it; just open the frigging book at a random page and write that for a blog post”. And this is just what I have done. The page that I opened the book to had “orthodontics” written on one side, and a picture of a retainer on the other. This is my spark word apparently.

The first time I saw braces, they were in/on my friend Vanessa. This was back in the 1980’s and poor Vee’s braces involved a complicated metal apparatus that rested behind her neck and pulled her mouth into a manic grin not unlike that of Jack Nicholson’s Joker. I distinctly remember her looking sheepishly at me (I was staring quite rudely it seems) and saying, “it’sh brashesh”. I assumed that they were as painful, potentially disfiguring and dehumanizing as they looked. I wanted them. I wanted braces like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. Surely, Vee had to be extremely special and unique to warrant the necessity of braces! How amazing life would seem with shiny aluminum bars strapped to your neck!

As luck would have it, around the time that I morphed into an adolescent, braces had become the thing to have for teenagers of a certain social background in St. Vincent. All of a sudden, everyone’s child developed grotesquely gnarled and dysmorphic choppers. St. Vincent acquired it’s very first orthodontist. Well, we actually shared him with Barbados and St. Lucia. He was a roving orthodontist (as opposed to a raving orthopedist, who laughs psychopathically before correcting your unsightly b0ne deformity). I think he was based in Barbados, but one week a month he was here, and one week he was in St. Lucia. I think it was one week. It may have been only a day or two. At any rate, it was so short that all the braced teenagers were given time off school to go see him for our adjustments. I thought I was the most special person around. And cool? Wow. Nothing could be cooler than missing a day of school once a month and then walking around with a pained expression for three days (after an adjustment) while eating nothing but soup, soft cheese and bread soaked gravy. The only downside was that orthodontics had, by the time I’m referring to, evolved beyond headgear and pure metal. Mine were just strapped to my back teeth and held together with wire and rubber bands. I tried for years, and unsuccessfully, not to be too disappointed.

Interestingly enough, I really did have quite serious teeth issues. I’d sucked my thumb incessantly until the age of about ten or eleven (no comment from the penny section here please). My two front teeth (I’d say my top incisors, but I don’t want to show off my superior knowledge of denticular jargon) were about three times the size of the rest of my teeth, and they stuck out in a position parallel to the ground. In other words,they were horizontal. They didn’t grow down, they grew out. It was difficult to use these teeth as they would crush food rather than ripping it, like incisors are supposed to do.

I had a great aunt. Well I had several really, but I’m thinking of one in particular. Aunt Angela, my mother’s aunt. I think I only ever met her once, but I will remember her until my dying day. We were sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen, a room that I loved so much, and that always made me feel like I understood the meaning of the word “home”. Aunt Angela kept looking at me, pointing, and saying, “oh my he looks just like Bugs Bunny!” She taunted me. She teased me mercilessly, calling me Bugs Bunny in a funny little voice. Eventually I started crying and her sister, Aunt Iris (who I loved dearly, and who taught me how to foxtrot when I was sixteen because “every young man should know how to dance) eventually told her to shut up and leave me alone.

So you see, the teeth were in a pretty bad frickin’ state. The dentist had to remove six – SIX – of my permanent teeth to make room so that the rest could shift around properly in my mouth. By age eighteen I had six less teeth than the average adult. It’s less one more since I had a wisdom tooth removed. I am practically toothless really. I have to just about suck all my food through a straw.

I had braces for four years – from forms two to five. I then had a retainer that I was supposed to have worn for two further years, but lost after the first year. Conveniently. By then I was at Barbados Community College and braces were most definitely not cool. Plus, Aunty Arlene (mum’s sister this time… so not a great aunt, but an actual one) took one look at me when the braces came off and said, “I so fuckin vex! Watch how dat man fuck up yuh mout an gi’ you a mash mout! You did look so much better before!”

One thing you can say for my family is that we’re really honest. If you look like shit, we’ll tell you. God forbid I should ever need corrective plastic surgery. My aunts would probably band together to tell me that I was much handsomer before the horrendous lumps were removed from my face and scalp. I love them unto death though.

Eventually, my teeth shifted around again and came to some semblance of non-mash mouth order. In fact, by age twenty-seven I was able to attract a lover based on the state of my teeth alone! This is no lie. I was told, in a sexy, smoky Castilian accent, that I had the most perfect teeth. I then spent the next year and a half using those perfect teeth to nibble (and sometimes aggressively bite) something Madrilenian (with a soupçon of Moroccan). On the down side, every time I’m with my father and I bite into something hard or rip something with my teeth, he says, “boy I pay six thousan’ dollars for doze teet yuh know! Dem is some expensive teet in yuh mout!”

Gratuitous Picture of Jack Nicholson as the Joker

This blog post is dedicated to the Sistren, who (poor thing) is suffering through braces at age twenty-seven (twenty-six?). Better late than never, right?

Romance Novels & Three-Year-Old Princesses

2009-07-22T19:13:00.011-04:00

I was napping on someone’s bed recently (as one does when tired in someone else’s house) when I rolled over and came face to face with a swarthy, young gentleman in a blousy, white shirt who was clutching a virginal, blonde beauty in his arms (from behind). Her eyes were closed, and on her face was an expression of mingled anguish and ecstasy. He just looked predatory and mysterious.

The bed was my mother’s, and the lovers were on the cover of a book cunningly and creatively entitled: At The Argentinean Billionaire’s Bidding. An Amazon.com blurb of this potentially scintillating novel (if the cover is anything to go by) reads thusly:

Argentinean billionaire Alejandro D'Arienzo has fresh prey: heiress Tamsin Calthorpe. He sees her as a ravishing but spoiled beauty who destroyed his past—and he's ready to settle the score!

What Alejandro doesn't know is that Tamsin loved him, hiding her naïveté under the guise of willful sophistication. Now a talented designer, she's working hard to prove herself, despite her pedigree. But her credibility is in the hands of merciless Alejandro, who offers an ultimatum: her name in ruins, or her body in his bed….

Further investigation in the vicinity of mum’s beside table revealed the following cleverly titled narratives:

• Antonides’ Forbidden Wife

• The Mediterranean Billionaire’s Blackmail Bargain

• The Australian Millionaire’s Love Child

• The Sheikh’s Defiant Bride

• The Tycoon’s Very Personal Assistant

• Bedded For The Spaniard’s Pleasure

• A Night With The Society Playboy

• Capelli’s Captive Virgin

• The Greek’s Forced Bride

• The Spaniard’s Defiant Virgin

Now I don’t consider myself a literary snob. I’ll pretty much read anything that entertains me. I once quoted a character from a Terry Pratchett novel in an essay for one of my lecturers at UWI (I can’t recall the name of the course, but it was all about folktales and narratives). The essay was about the narratives of every day life and the quote was about the sexual proclivities of an emperor – he got off on stories. Not to brag, but I DID receive an A+ for that essay. The point is that I don’t hold my nose above Underdog Literature.

What gets me about these novels is their titles. I’m not going to argue that they’re crap reads or anything like that, because I’ve never read a Harlequin Romance (which all of these are, by the way). Plus, I think that escapism in any form is one of the primary functions of reading-for-entertainment. But the titles. I mean, honestly.

Almost every title implies that the man is hugely wealthy, swarthy (with the possible exception of the Australian one), and totally into ravishment. The women all seem to be either demure and unwilling, or defiant and virginal. Doesn’t this raise unrealistic expectations or notions of men, women and relationships?

I’m fairly certain that these books are aimed at women, so should men be worried? Isn’t it even the teensiest bit worrying that the models of masculinity and femininity presented in these stories are highly unrealistic, stylized and polarized? Do adolescent girls, when reading these novels, expect relationships to be all drama, electricity and ecstatic surrender? Because they’re not. Relationships are actually pretty boring and mundane unless your significant other forgets to take the mood stabilizers that the shrink recommended. Even the tired cliché about women and their menstrual cycle-induced mood swings aren’t particularly exciting, just scary as hell! [Just a note so that certain people don’t jump down my throat to rip off my testicles: I am fully aware that menstrual cramps are painful and potentially debilitating. I am also aware that many women actually DO suffer extreme alterations of mood and diet during their cycle. This does not mean that menstruation isn’t one of the most tired clichés ever used in relationships. Please direct all hate mail to williamjabbott@gmail.com. I prefer to keep my comments box full of light-hearted quips about bunny rabbits and rainbows.]

With this in mind, I propose the following Harlequin Romance titles. Some of these are specifically themed for our Caribbean reality, since I’m nothing if not all about cultural relevance. Perhaps some of the people who write these novels will see these and write a few stories based on real people, with real relationships:

• The Vincentian Sharecropper’s Overweight Market Vendor

• The Caribbean Con-Man’s Three Families

• The Vagrant’s Pregnant Crack-Head

• The Hidden Homosexual’s Frustrated Wife

• The Married Businessman’s Baby-Mamas (pluralisation necessary)

• The Politician’s Ambivalent Yet Upwardly Mobile Secretary

• The Grenadian’s Diabolically Dubious Fuck Buddy

• The American Tourist’s Gold Digger

• The Rastafarian’s Repressed Sistren

• The Van Driver’s Force-Ripe School Girl

I just had a thought – if anyone wants to contribute titles in the comment box feel free! Also, if you want to write make-believe blurbs for any of these go right ahead. Lord knows it’s all completely unreal anyway, and it could be fun/funny.

On a somewhat related note, Lila turned three last Saturday. How is that in any way related to cheesy romance novels, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Lila had a Princess Party. It was freakin’ hilarious!

We all had to work like donkeys to prepare for this grand event, no one more than Lila’s mother who organized, shopped, sewed, coloured, and printed... the works. We did everything from scratch. We built a castle façade for the front of the house, we decorated like crazy and some people even had roles to play (not me, thankfully). Sabrina, Lila’s ‘biggest’ and ‘favourite’ cousin played the older, more experienced princess. She crowned all the little princesses (boys not allowed to this fete! Well, except for Logan, but he was sort of a little mascot – the Iago of the court, if you will); she taught them how to walk, how to wave and generally how to be gracious. My own mother played the fairy godmother who appeared as if from nowhere (hah) to read a story (written and illustrated by Lila’s mother).

The little princesses were generally afraid, stunned, or completely disinterested (at first - they had a blast once they got going). It was great. They did all follow Sabrina around though, and they were more or less attentive to my mother’s story telling. There was a cake-decorating table where they were supposed to decorate two cupcakes to take home. Most of them doused the cupcakes in sprinkles and then ate them, or just licked the icing off and grinned. Then there was the fingernail-painting table. One little princess showed off her painted nails by showing us the palms of her hands. HILARIOUS I tell you.

Anyway, here are a few photos below from the day. Enjoy! ☺

Princess Lila

Princess Emma getting her nails done.

Princess Izzy Shakkin' Out.

Princess Sabrina the Ham.

Princess Lila paying close attention to the Fairy Godmother's story.

Prince Logan the Sensualist. Nomnomnom.

Bess Frenz. Princesses Lila & Saskia.

Lila's castle. Note to my twitter friends: see, I told you I was building castles in the air!

Decorating (ie, eating) the cupcakes. Princesses Saskia & Emma.

One prince, many princesses. Logan in his element.

Erm. Prince Logan in a whimsical moment.

"You hafta look at Uncle Wivee. Look. He's takin' a pikchure."

Sashing Princess Carese

Princess Lila: mmmmmmmmm... cupcakes!

Fairy Godmother/Queen of the Frogs

I said she was a princess. Not necessarily a lady. Princess Sabrina haisin' up she skyut.

The Little Princesses Lining Up Behind Princess Sabrina

Princess Sabrina

Ummm... I don't know who these people are. I'm assuming they're either court jesters or just plain idiots. [Moi, Miss Punny & Corporal Nasty - photo courtesy the Sistren]

Lila: 1 | iPhone: 0

2009-07-16T20:56:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, I was engaged in an online course on teaching effectiveness. One of the lessons was on technology in the classroom. We were pointed towards the following video as an example of the way children these days learn, and the kinds of things they are able to do. The point is that we, the intrepid teachers, need to be aware that our students’ level of technological knowledge exceeds our own, and at a much younger age. Here’s the video (for people without sound, don’t worry, there’s no sound in this!):

Amazing, eh?

That a two year old can not only figure this stuff out, but can understand what everything does, is truly mind blowing. This is the child of the future, and she’s here right now. The girl in the video is not alone. Most children are surrounded by technologies that never even existed ten years ago. Teachers need to be aware of that.

The beauty of the iPhone, in particular, is the app icons, ie, the little pictures that you press to do stuff (explanation included for the sake of my parents). It’s not surprising that a two year old can understand what to do. If you press a certain picture, then something specific happens. If you slide your finger across the screen, you can control what’s happening. The whole thing is both intuitive and simple.

Given all of the above, I’ve been letting Lila – my Goddaughter who turns three on Saturday – play around with my iPhone for the last several months. I’d turn it on for her and just let her fool around. She taught herself how to use the following apps: the iSwitchblade, the iZippo (these are the two most worrying ones, and the ones she likes best), the drawing app, the app for sending customized voice messages (she likes to hear the sample voices), the app that lets you control bursts of light, and three simple games. Everyone was amazed at how easily she learned these things and has gained control of them.

So I figured the iPhone was perfectly safe with little Miss Lila as long as she didn’t drop it. Yesterday she pressed a button and wiped off everything needed to make the phone work. One button, one press, RIP iPhone.

Now I don’t begrudge my beloved Goddaughter a single thing. It’s true that I am scornful and refuse to share a glass with her, but that’s not her, that’s me. I refuse to share my glass with anyone. That’s how people ingest backwash, other people’s crumbs and herpes simplex. And trust me, children under the age of thirteen deposit a lot of “stuff” in their drinking glasses. It’s ok if you’re the parent, but don’t expect me – Joe Schmo – to swallow you or your child’s leavings. I’ve seen Lila dip her bolognaise-covered kiddie spork into her glass of apple juice, swizzle it around, and then gulp the juice like it was the nectar of the gods. Eeeyuck.

The point of this is that I don’t begrudge the child the use of my phone. I can always get it fixed (there’s a two-week wait period during which I am forced to use my $40.00 special, but that’s ok). Here’s what’s irritating me and flabbergasting me all at once: how on Earth was the child able to wipe all the essential apps (like the phone app, the texting app, the iPod app, the camera, the contacts, the photos etc) while leaving the extraneous, frivolous apps behind?

This is what happened: she was playing the stick figure game (where you basically bash stick figures until they die and blood spills out – inappropriate but easily controlled). Then she wasn’t. She pressed something, I have no idea what, and the phone beeped. It then sent a message saying that it was resetting itself. When it was done, it had deleted all the essential apps, rendering the phone useless for all practical purposes.

Apple, I love you. Steve Jobs is my prophet. Your logo makes me tingle in my pants and get happy feelings running up and down my thighs. I have a saying that I say whenever I want to say stuff, “an Apple a day keeps the Blackberry away”. Well. I used to say that.

I don’t say that anymore because you guys let me down. Yes. I’m not afraid to say it. I blame you. I don’t blame myself for letting a toddler play with my expensive piece of technology. Bah! No, I blame you, Apple. I blame you for not making this tool abso-frickin-lutely perfect; so perfect, in fact, that a nearly-three year old could never hope to screw it up, short of dropping it from a great height.

But just so you know, I’m going to remain faithful to our relationship. I will not get a new, swanky phone! I refuse to bow to Blackberry pressures! I will get my iPhone repaired and keep on using it because I am confident that this will never happen again. Especially because Lila will surely not be playing with my phone ever again, or at least until she’s sixteen!

On Nudity, Thongs and One Unique Cock (not necessarily in that order)

2009-07-07T19:32:00.003-04:00

Posted after returning from Mayreau because I had no internet access.

Saturday, 4th July, 2009

It’s 5:15am and I am wide awake. The gods must be crazy.

I’m in Mayreau on the usual family escape from SVG carnival. Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you a tedious blow by blow of this little vacation from the Vincentian metropolis (hah) like I did last year. The way I look at it, if you’ve read last year’s account (which is tedious to the extreme) then it’s probably given you a fair idea as to what’s happening this time around as well. There’s only so much to do on Mayreau.

The roosters have been crowing for about fifteen minutes. One of them seems to have a poultry speech impediment. Instead of going “cock-a-doodle-do” like all his counterparts, he’s going “cuh-caaaaaw-cuh” repeatedly. He’s the loudest of the lot by far, so either he’s proud of his accent or he doesn’t realize that he isn’t talking normal. Maybe he’s speaking a Mayreau dialect. Perhaps he’s originally from one of the French islands. Who knows. He’s the “one unique cock” mentioned in this post’s title, so you can drag your mind out of that gutter you degenerate perv!

Anyway, perhaps as a result of the cacophony of the early morning cocks, I am lying in bed musing on nudity. The nude. The state of being naked and unclothed. Don’t ask me why I’m thinking of this; I can only assume that it’s because I am rarely awake at this unrealistic hour and my brain is rebelling by floating into inappropriate territories.

I like being naked. I’m not ashamed to admit that, for me, being naked is natural and comfortable. I don’t get the whole naked taboo that society has placed on us. We are born naked (unless there’s been some freakish accident during conception and you were born in a top hat and tails, or a cocktail dress – in which case, I’d like to see a photo of the birth please). Technically, clothing exists to provide protection from the elements (and perhaps also from the occasional hungry, hungry caterpillar). Throughout the years, however, the more “civilized” we’ve become, the more cloth we’ve needed to cover our bits and pieces. Society judges the propriety of its denizens based on how much skin is covered, and in what areas.

Remember when showing a bit of neck, shoulder or ankle was considered risqué? Well ok, maybe none of us do, because none of us lived in Victorian England. Similarly, I’m fairly certain that none of us (immortals notwithstanding) remember the original purpose of a wimple. My point is that the pillars of civilization have always prided themselves on the unnecessary lengths of cloth that they’ve managed to drape over their cohorts. And all for the sake of respectability and decorum.

Look at toddlers – not babies who cannot walk or talk, but the ones between the ages of one and five, the ones who have awareness and complex thought processes. These little people generally love being naked. They’ll run around all day peeing on the floor if you let them (please note, I am not advocating mass peeing on floors – this is just a figure of speech). At some point, however, they get it in their heads that naked = bad. At first, they’ll do subversive things like lifting their skirts to show you their panties (in order to prove that they’re no longer wearing diapers). They might strip because they “feel too hot”. In some cases (quite often in fact) they’ll escape from a bath or shower and run smack dab into the midst of the people you’ve invited for dinner screaming, “I’m naked! I’m naked! Yay! Look at me!”

Small children prefer to be naked, that’s the bottom line. And it doesn’t ever concern them that they are, indeed, naked unless an adult points it out to them. From the time Lila learned to talk, she’d always remark on my habit of not wearing a shirt when at home. “No sirt for you, Uncle Wivee?” Little did she know that two minutes before her parents knocked on my door I was stone, stark naked. I never wear clothes when I’m at home. Unless, of course, the company I am in demands it. Sometimes the company that I’m in actually demands that I remove my clothes, but that’s neither here nor there in this current discussion.

My family was always very open about this sort of thing. Growing up, I saw my parents naked constantly. It was no big deal. They’ve become a bit more conservative in their attitude to being au naturel since they hit somewhere around forty, but they’re still really comfortable with their states of undress. As am I. Granted, I’m not going to wander around Kingstown in my birthday suit, but I don’t see why I can’t.

I saw my Venezuelan neighbours the other night at a poetry reading. We’ve never actually met, but I know they’re Venezuelan because of gossip and because I overheard them speaking Spanish at the Venezuelan embassy. They kept staring at me, whispering and laughing. I can only assume that they’ve been spying on me drifting around my flat without any clothes on and suddenly realized who I was. But you see, it really doesn’t matter to me. Except for a very few unfortunate cases, don’t we all have penises, vaginas, breasts and buttocks (not all on the same person obviously)?

We were having this discussion the other day on twitter, and one of my friends made the following observation (which was later echoed by several other people): “I associate being naked with sex. Hence, when I am naked for reasons other than sex, I get confused and disoriented”. Is this why people are so uncomfortable with nudity? Is it because it makes them (unconsciously) think of carnal pleasures and generalized ravishment? Why? Surely there’s an innocence and purity to nudity rather than something libidinous. The naked body has inspired art because of the beauty of it’s lines, the subtleties of skin colour and the exposure of self that it engenders. Not because it makes us think of boinking. Although I suppose, for adolescents and most men, that’s an optional extra.

Then, of course, there’s the idea that partial nudity is sexier than full nudity. The hint of things to come I suppose. The cake before we’ve licked off all the icing, so to speak. There’s a reason the word “dishabille” is so intriguing. So people have come up with all kinds of ways to cover themselves partially and in a sexy manner.

Apropos of the above, I don’t get thongs. The whole concept of shoving a piece of cloth up my ass and leaving it there all day long is something I find singularly unappealing. Whale tails should stay on whales. They are not sexy. If you are in the habit of wearing your thong whale tail style then you just look plain stupid.

I’ll admit that I’ve flirted with thongs. Well, with one thong at any rate. A friend of mine once gave me a box of “goodies” for Christmas. This little crate o’ sex contained an assortment of confections and apparatus all intended to fuel the pleasures of the flesh. Within the confines of this toothsome Pandora’s box were two articles of clothing – both thongs. I wore the leopard print one once. Well ok, I wore it twice: once because I thought I’d try it out in a sexy situation, and once because I’d not done my laundry and had no other clean underwear. The “sexy” time became an evening of fun and games (not in itself undesirable) and the lack of laundry day was just plain uncomfortable and idiotic. I felt like a white trash ho out trawling for johns. Not a pleasant feeling for a man. I cannot speak for the fairer sex.

The other thong in my little pleasure chest was a… erm… let’s just say that I called it my equine underwear. Sometimes I called it Dobby. It was a horse. It was a horse that went “neigh”. It was a fluffy horse, with googlie eyes, that fit like a sheath (with a string going up the butt crack for support) and went “neigh” every time you pressed its nose. And its nose was in a very sensitive spot. I think the majority of my male friends have tried this on at some point or other. Over their pants I mean. It’s not like we all had a little male bonding session focusing on my horse thong.

How would one wear such a thong any way? Surely the nose would press up against your jeans causing your crotch to neigh at inopportune times? Is one supposed to wear it in such a manner as to reveal it festively while surprising one’s wife/girlfriend/partner/boyfriend/lover/sporadic love buddy/favourite coworker/classroom full of students/doctor? Is it a Halloween costume gone awry? I have never figured this out. Dobby seems to have gone missing sometime over the past few years and my moving house twice. I suppose you could say that he’s gone to the glue factory.

I have no satisfactory way of ending this blog post. There’s no real conclusion to be drawn. So I shall end with a poem; one of my favourites:

The Naked and the Nude

For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.

Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.

The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman’s trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.

The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometime nude!

Robert Graves (1895-1985)