Khajeel Mais and Rule of Law in Jamaica

The crown found the will and impetus to pursue Adidjaheim Palmer with vim and vigour to the ends of the earth... yet, I somehow suspect it lacks the same zest and conviction it did in this Khajeel Mais case. One also has to ponder if the 'Crown' represents justice and the will of the Jamaican conscience and unbiased objective legal acumen of our collective intellect! The crown's stamina in the never ending battle for truth and justice, to me has been called into question since it lacked the cojones to pursue the JLP MP named in the Miami Herald.

I seriously doubt that we will have a happy Law and Order UK ending in this Khajeel Mais  case... No the DPP and the crown will not cleverly unearth evidence of corruption and bribery in this case... I suppose the primacy of law shall prevail, rule of law as they say... The rule of law upheld slavery then, and it still does under the 13th Amendment of the American constitution... In my time in law school one thing I have learned well is that lawyers believe in the law...

They believe either authority comes from vested and recognized bodies of men or some may think God, but they both neglect the Marxist and legal realist view that law is the will of the ruling class, lawyers will forever believe in the rule of law and words to regulate man's behavior... Like letting man abide in slavery... Like legally forcing one to be a slave... But I don't believe in the rule of law... But an international morality... Not law but morals... And His Imperial Majesty did say if the dream of world citizenship and international morality remains a dream or fleeting illusion then everywhere it shall be war. 

What is it when we see this crime but an unstated civil war. The war that cost us Mario Deane, a war and blind justice that will sacrifice and sentence the deaf and mute Damion Cargill, a war that has cost us Khajeel Mais... Mi nuh care who waan talk pretty if Jamaica nuh mek the moral decision then WAR! It shall come to the house of Parliament, to King's House, to King's street, to Kingston, to Belmont Road, to your houses to your doorsteps...

Are we going to watch as wealth buys justice? Are we going to watch the main witness lie and shrink in cowardice and say nothing?

Will we watch as a judge uses law to bludgeon a victim's family into subjugated silence?

Will we watch the police murder the witness should he ever grow the balls to speak the truth?

Will we watch as sloppy police procedure botch another case in Jamaica in front of us?

Does #blacklivesmatter only sometimes in Jamaica?

Are we going to continue to wish for the police to use brute force and intimidation instead of forensics and proper investigation?

#mariodeane #damioncargill #khajeelmais

The Way Forward for Social Media Jamaica

So yow when we going to come to grips that Facebook Jamaica is not the real Jamaica, where proudjamaica and I am a Jamaican and Jamaicans.com is who we are in theory and who we want to be, what we aspire to be, even what some of us are... Jamaica isn't all small intimate communities, isn't all exotic locations, photo filtered and photogenic Rastas in rich textured backgrounds, isn't pretty beaches and sunset... Because between those pretty shots of multicolored fruits is sweat tears saltiness saltness bomboclaats and million hard and inconvenient truths. After the exquisite video shoot is a reality not captured and backdrop noise put on mute. And granted we live in the age of poverty porn and stark vivid 4k humanism, there are still things people will not want to behold... Still lives that politicians can't wipe off with their handy sanitizers andeyels. Things that don't let us sleep so well, thing that compel us to our self lies tell, like those who suffer or are poor are just lazy or crazy. And though the zinc fence and rust add grit and movie like finesse to our pics and social media antics and academics... I find it hard to believe we cannot channel our social media reality into a constant energy and vision and economics that transfers that reality that ethos that we are projecting online more tangible on the ground in Jamaica... Make communities safer more comfortable. Can we find away to make the diaspora realer, to twin communities abroad with yard to set up systems of empowerment, exchange and distribution... Why does twinning only occur on a municipal level with cities and towns, set people free... We use to have penpal from pen and paper days and people made links and connections and discovered ideas... So how has this not quickened with drastic impact with WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram... Why has nobody that left Norwood and in a foreign community joined a citizens association abroad and adopted their home community, pumped some resources into local community associations, sponsored education vigorously... Why no local community Church and foreign church linked up for robust community outreach, live stream shared sermons? Can we only post pretty pics and quasi roots, semi deep stuff to satisfy our egos that we are good parents, push away our insecurities with a 1000 likes... Jamaica can be Earth's first utopia, I am certain... But we have to be bolder, braver, stronger and do MORE! Communities supposed to be linking like new neural networks, social and sustainable action and activism supposed to fire off everyday like neurons, the spiritual people, the philosophers, the creative among us are our third eye, they vision the future for us, they are our visionaries, luminaries, let the technocrats link let the artists artisans and architects be about building the visions of the visionaries, lend strength and impetus to all and any positive action... Forget Trump forget Clinton, Jamaicans are and have always been the Earth's leaders and only we can show them how it is done... So make we turn all this social media into our real social lives... Because should Facebook ever have a feature live all the while or constant throughout our lives, when the seo metrics come in and show we spent our lives posting the Jamaican dream than being about letting it actually be...

Summer Lightning

It was a mango time,
That my stars aligned,
The Sol and Mercury were in my sign,
Season of Simeon and Levi,
Twins of the Gemini.

It was a time my reflection in the mirror,
Showed the future,
The past buried behind glass,
It was a month of moments,
When moths like Maat,
In Jamiekah they call them bats,
Flitter on uncertain paths,
From the bath... room
And round my bedroom.

I worry about them pointlessly,
The bother of croaking lizards,
And nibbled wings,
Oh where is my cat?
I miss my cat,
And not...
Because of the returned rats.

And sudden lightning landing,
Over head at Overton,
The alarm cannot be avoided,
But what joy to sit in the season,
And see overseas,
Dark clouds churning electricity.

As I count the remains of the day,
What can one say,
About the big gains,
Niggling nagging pains,
And alas...
The loss of little things,
The loss of so many things!

The Epidemic that is Violence in Jamaica

Jamaica is violent let us not get antsy and make up clever story like Anansi just true a white woman said it on CNN... Also is violence defined strictly by murder and or violent crimes.... isn't violence broad and we meet it in many scopes and spheres... Yow mi live fi see man chop off man hand, people tripe spill on ground after abdomen stab, man march through Paradise with rifle in a umbrella and kill Zuggy, I have a host of friends that I grew up playing basketball with in Albion n Glendevon, a portion of them dead, so many dead friends from Gulf inna Norwood, around 2004 mi usually go dead yard weekly, and funeral like a social event... man did usually all a ask a who fah dead yard dis week, who fah funeral we a roll out pon yah now, mi all go a mi breddrin yard an look on his mirror an haffi ask "don a only funeral u an yuh ooman go" since 2004 mi see Gully dead a Paradise, Radeeka, Froggy, Delano, Buju, Jobe, Jucky, Shorty, Baboo, Kerry-Gaye... And that is just down the road, mi nah talk bout mi wider circles... We say as part of our religion spare not the rod or spoil the child... Didn't we have the 3rd highest murder rate with the most churches per square mile... Violence is inculcated here, men glorify gun an equate it with their penis, Kartel a major icon is in jail for perpetuating violence, many popular songs are violence Fyah 105, play "a bwoy shoulda dead but di Berretta jam, scheme hot today mi a di weather man," no amount of euphemism can not make not feel the evil chill when he says that so many time mi live fi see man come fi man an gun stick, 9 milli jam.. Man get way an ppl a scatter, mi feel robbed of normalcy in Jamaica... Carla Moore said in a long a go article seh we are victims of an unsaid Civil war in Jamaica, a shell shocked citizenry, we live with a numbness to violence, some time we n'even can see how violent we are. Which country you know man hail dem one another as dawg, johncrow, pussy hole, batty man, how ugly man come yah, come yah yuh ole bombo ole a long time mi nuh see a dutty raas like you. We hail in deep gutteral basal voices. Camara Brown and Thura once schooled me on the theory of "culpability" and Jamaica's penchant for violence. Yuh fuck with me I beat u up, mi fuck around police beat mi up, mi beat mi gal if shi slip, mi beat yute if him chat, slave master beat mi fi work Bible seh mi fi beat, So as Kartel said... Beaten beaten dats why mi doah bow or go prayer meeting... So now tell mi why we Vex over the violent speech, we deh pon spike TV splendidly for our women's use crates to beat each other, we on vice TV fi crime, we name shower posse abroad fi deh kill ppl in showers. I have grown immune to callous expressions like suck yuh ma... If so if so... How are we not vile? How we find cause to pretend... We have great qualities but we must come to terms with the dark aspects of our collective Jamaican personality! If Jamaica's violence is in pockets as Fae Ellington proposes in her defense of Jamaica and violence, those that think in such way best know then that it is then literally in every one of our collective pockets, pants pockets and all!

Musings on Identity!

Identity... In community life and wider Montego Bay l was Ms. Thompson grand son, during various stages of school life I was Dax brother, with the advent of my Dawta, the new ID is Kee-kee Faada... Did Yannick Pessoa ever exist???

Do you know him? I don't think anyone has ever really employed that name... It seems a vague thing I hold dear for some reason I forgot. I know I am called Yaneek by the average Jamaican, Johnick by caucasians, a Hebrew name lost in so many translations, I am the oldest birth certificate holder in the island with that name, maybe one or two women inspired me with the way they said it in my ear, I am Yanni to many in Paradise, Yanni-man to another section of Paradise, Jesus to quite a few in Paradise, my mother calls me 'come here mi big son or handsome son', my grandma said 'maah-yan' and 'Maas yan' that one would kill school mates who bore witness to it in use, it was one I was terribly afraid of people discovering, I am Yannicky-pooh and pooh bear can you believe that to the most serious and morose spirit on earth my father, my sister says 'nick', at least that one seemed cool, bin Laden's to my uncle Tommy, yan to my wife... Yah Neck when she upset, Piss power to Camara Brown who would discover that name I received in 7th grade... Trooper and troops to Dax, Poppy, Thura... No no no mi nuh sure mi ever meet Yannick Pessoa!

Jovexx Paradise Acres Accapella

Let your dreadlocks down!

Listen to 8. Monkey Nation (Requiem) by Lij-Tafari #np on #SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/lij_tafari/8-monkey-nation-requiem

Sunset

Going on a 1038 mph evening run,
Like Wally West chasing the sun,
I nuh want sunset done...
A the only time I feel at one.

poem by Yannick Pessoa

Horoscope!

Hi, here is my horoscope: Mood: The planets point out some irregularities relationship-wise. Blame the Moon-Uranus sextile. You will lack self-control. Love: Planetary aspects point to a rather complicated love situation. You are not in a good state of mind. Your emotions take precedence over things that you don't like. You will not be able to manage two things at the same time. You will not talk about it right now. Be careful, staying quiet could be a mistake. Think! Work: Today is a good day overall! You pursue the goals that you set for yourself. Health: Your energy levels are low. You will make an effort to not make it noticeable. Others believe you are invincible.

Marvel's Netflix Series Reviews

Well as I wait to watch Batman v Superman and Captain America: Civil War... I thought I'd review the Netflix Daredevil Series and Jessica Jones. I'll start with DD...

Firstly let me say... The shows are HOT! To me Daredevil scores major points for many things. 1. It's Law and Order UK, Sopranos and Super hero rolled into one. It makes you believe Superheroes can happen if you allow yourself to suspend belief for the notion that a little boy can get heightened senses once blinded by chemicals. The legal wrangling ties into the grimey New York world of Hell's Kitchen crime belly, that wreaks of Soprano-ness, with a robust Kingpin performance, though I wish it explored the court room and legal concept a little more if only philosophically if not flesh out the legal academics. But greatest of all is the rendition of Daredevil... Compelling... A good intentioned liar and lawyer trying to win in and outside the court house. Daredevil stands alone as an edgy yet artful, dark and gritty ensemble drama that have elevated the superhero origin story in a similar fashion to HBO’s “True Detective” and how it ratcheted up crime procedural.

2. Cinematography and fight choreography... Off the chain. The series that has some teeth to it. Rich in a textured pulp story telling style,crime noir and brutality. The tale is so powerful it could really serve as a metaphor for how the agencies of power and power brokers operate in the USA. Matt Murdoch a legal figure, employing torture, lies, spying(heightened hearing akin to NSA) and deceit as tools shows the dual diversity in the series. At the same time a vivid and a higher sense of realism (I'm wondering if it is those new 4K cams and newer), which is counter-balanced by the unreal and somewhat surreal notion of a blind superhero, a handicapped Spider-man if you would who skitters up walls and employs Batman-esque tools like grappling hooks and martial arts. As usual Marvel's heroes serve as human interest pieces from various psychologically nuanced angles.

3. World Building and Community. Something that hooked me was the world creation that I am more used to seeing in Sci-Fi and Fantasy films of the J. R. Tolkien type order or James Cameron maybe. The show also has a sense of theater or stage-like community, from the scenes and setting to the cast... something that reminds me of that old Brit comedy 'Allo Allo' and 'Dr. Who'... The Brit transfer hasn't gone so well for Dr. Who's Rory and Legends of Tomorrow over in the DC Universe camp, I have a leaning to British actors and film and independent foreign film, so for me Charlie Cox's depiction is epic, articulate, intelligent and nuanced. I am not a fan of comedic foils, the cliché  silly sidekick, but Foggy is a witty, sarcastic counter point to some of the arguments that are expounded throughout the series, he plays the voice of reason, doubt and conscience, hence the humor is more real, as to me life can be sardonic in certain ways, and it makes perfect sense to me that a successful blind man would be more gregarious than loveable but fat and frumpy fudddy duddy. Foggy and Matt have a very credible emotional dynamic in what other actors, writers and directors would possibly have crafted as campy or didactic even stilted scenes.

Deborah Ann Woll's secretary worked as well. Some people and less feminine in-tuned minds may contend that the Karen character is weak combo of too gullible to be true, improbably competent in her 'investigation' and like a bastion on issues of 'morality and ethics'. I however have had experience with a lot of women who are both intelligent & flaky, genius and neurotic, brilliant but psychotic, slutty looking catholic mathematicians who are astute calculative, yet who are shy and caught up in complex religious mores and beliefs, will party yet won't have sex! Women can be that multi-layed and I think she some up some of that.

All in all I say it's a hot series... I am in the middle of Season 2 and just starting Jessica Jones... I recommend you check em out... Piratebay or Netflix... anyone!

A Letter to Dorothy Maud Thompson

Remembering Dorothy

"He who learns must suffer, and even in our deep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop on the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God"~Aeschylus

Dearest Grand Ma,

I am sorry I couldn't have read my piece about you at your funeral, I had so much to say and I felt it would take forever, and every time I thought on speaking at the moment to speak, I became overwhelmed with emotion, and still do until this moment when I think of you. You were a monument in my life and the tree under which I could always shelter. It's been a year now and it still hard to know you are not here, and sometimes I think I tell myself you still are here and it is how I handle the reality. I am so glad you met Kyrha, and will never forget the day you took her picture from me and I couldn't get it from you and gazed at it all day and told me how beautiful she was, and I am glad she loved you. She speaks of you often and recalls how you were protective of her and saying in you grannified voice "don't run outside," "where you going with you naked bottom," or simply "come touch mi nuh, hold mi hand." She refers to you now as the ancestor she knew.

KeeKee and her Great Grand Ma

These days when she sleeps with Juilette, I remember all the nights I slept beside you,and would listen to you conversations with Aunt Elise on the old telephone with the round dial. How my mind would wonder in the dark beside you, to what England looked like and what Tate Street was like in the days gone by that you were speaking of, listening to you discuss politics, and say "YES... AT YOU" How I wondered about the Jamaica you described, was it like the pictures on your wall? How I imagined the Kendal Crash as you recounted it, and Hurricane Charley... how I imagined Diamond as an orchard filled with "Milli" mango. So too I wonder if Kyrha is imbibing yesteryear with Juilette and taking imaginative psychic journeys.

I still have my first memory of you solid in my mind, with you arms on your hip, standing in the doorway before the hallway to the kitchen, under a wooden clock with a metal face with flourishes painted on it, and you were talking to Juilette and Roy at the door the Veranda, and you asked them if they had come for me, and I said "bye Dada" for Dada was the name I called you, and I turned around and looked at Roy and realized he was Daddy, and I had given you his name, and having a guilty feeling as though I had cheated him of a title, for in my tiny mind at the time it was a title akin to God as that is what you represented to me a matriarchal start, a genesis of sorts, and I had established in my tiny mind that you had come from a more primordial place than Juilette and Roy and you would be my cognitive ambassador into yesteryear, you would forever be my marker in history, as though 1919 was the year my life began as well, and every event in history that happened after 1919 would be an event that I would wonder where you were or what you were doing or where was Tommy at that time or Carol or Juilette, where did you live at that time, what schools they would have been attending at the time etc... I doubt Kyrha's connection with you was powerful enough to start her at 1919, but there is hope, like I said before... she remembers you well and even carried yuh name go abroad, speaking of you as though you were still alive, and when asked about she responds you are in heaven and you are her ancestor now! So it seems you are on your way to joining some pantheon of God's or gods, even if it's just our personal familial pantheon. And even she doesn't start 1919, I hope she at least can start at 1952 now that she sleeps with Juilette.

I don't know why but I feel charged with keeping an eye on your children and nieces and nephews. I wont say I am doing the best job, as many days and nights I wonder if we will or have already become scattered and dispersed like seeds in the wind. Not as connected to a central hub as when you were here. I am glad your friend Nurse Donaldson, comes by and I think she fills the gap you left for Juilette.

Here is another thing... since your departure, my eye and mind has turned to things like the senior citizen's association and their activities. I followed Nurse Don, on one of her excursions, was a decent experience, but so so heart rending to see even at ages of 70 and upward human being frail and on the edge of existence and to me a bit between worlds closer to a spiritual place, than they are here in the material, and yet they push on with some sort of effort some sort of activism, making a difference to community and society, impacting babies, another set of entities fresh from the spiritual plane and frail to this material plane...

I am trying to keep up with your SOCIALISM and SOCIAL Activism... but to be honest it is much disheartening and disenchanting to see what your beloved PNP has become, a far cry from the Manley's, a far cry from the veranda philosophers and ideologues that shuffled about the Republic of MoBay in your heyday... ushering in Howard Cooke as a political staple in Western Jamaica, far cry from Marxism and street side debates on proletariats and bourgeoisie... far cry from the free education "UWI 'I am black and I am proud' middle class intellectuals", a far cry from Rock River Clarendon type grassroots, a far cry from collective action, a far cry from people's cooperative, far cry from the left even the face of modern leftist successes. Its a popularity contest of personalities and populists pandering to the public with only personal gain in mind, power and position. I am sometime tempted to believe we will never see any political revivalism of that conscious 70's Black Power, street intellectual order. But I press on in hope...

Shortly after before your funeral Syreeta (Ms Ritz) and I were discussing you and your impact and your legacy, something she wasn't so familiar with. The concept is this... you are the first mega star weh mi know... but I think she may having been wondering how so, so this is the perspective I let her be privy to...

[8/25/2014, 6:35 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: Isah... jah know the security n warmth she was,
[8/25/2014, 6:36 PM] Syreeta: Ok
[8/25/2014, 6:36 PM] Syreeta: Sigh she was
[8/25/2014, 6:36 PM] Syreeta: We had our moments; we used to reason n ting
[8/25/2014, 6:37 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: Mi know she n everybody do dem one a way... a di general enuh
[8/25/2014, 6:38 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: Some ppl know bob marley or manley or obama... I n I know dorothy thompson
[8/25/2014, 6:38 PM] Syreeta: Ye fa real star
[8/25/2014, 6:39 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: A she mi see from mad ppl to pj to howard cooke to manley etc come a 15 hoyt drive..
[8/25/2014, 6:42 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: She a mi real icon... n mi a tell u in real real life like mi feel honored n proud to be her offspring n descendant...
[8/25/2014, 6:43 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: She build bare mega n mini star as her bloodline
[8/25/2014, 6:43 PM] Syreeta: Ja know cuz is real talk dat
[8/25/2014, 6:45 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: She to mi build tommy monty n roy as 3 mini megastar... n camara grow under her hand and do ar ting... n mi jus never meet more real or potent characters or smarter ppl dan mi family members an who surround me that she build or bless up
[8/25/2014, 6:46 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: All dj is a story n a colorful character
[8/25/2014, 6:46 PM] Syreeta: Dat is so true
[8/25/2014, 6:48 PM] Syreeta: N so many people luv n rate har like its amazing to me
[8/25/2014, 6:48 PM] Syreeta: Daddy tell mi how much yute she help n raise dat wasn't fi har own
[8/25/2014, 6:48 PM] Syreeta: Dem type a people nu mek again
[8/25/2014, 6:50 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: Parri as a yute every weh mi go inna paradise n norwood mi unda watch n protection all who mi nuh know seh miss thompson granny or mi nuh waan unnu touch im dis one yah a fi ms thompson
[8/25/2014, 6:51 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: As yute I used to wonder how so many ppl know her...
[8/25/2014, 6:51 PM] Syreeta: Yea
[8/25/2014, 6:52 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: Even in paradise the amount of ppl weh sit mi down an seh yute ms thompson do dis fi dem she a di backbone of the community etc
[8/25/2014, 6:57 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: U have a don up yah weh police kill name goosey... a rasta inna him late 40s an a eediat waan war over him ooman... n from di man a pass n smaddy tell him she tusto waan war of ms t gran son over dis lilly bar gal..  di man nuh know mi in person enuh... di man fly inna di bar n rush.di man n tell mi seh no man cyaah do mi nutten n mi nuh no man no talk u granny do more dan enough... an seh come on out.. rolling in fat suv
[8/25/2014, 7:00 PM] Syreeta: Wow
[8/25/2014, 7:01 PM] Syreeta: Dats so crazy
[8/25/2014, 7:03 PM] The Emperor's Attorney: Anytime mi waan name drop or draw rank certain way pon ppl... dorothy a di most powerful ting mi can pull pon... when mi n ppl all deh reason n dem nuh know mi n seh yow dah rasta meds high... some paradise smaddy always jump n seh man a tru ms thompson gran man di whole a dem brain big u nuh see thompson forehead
[8/25/2014, 7:05 PM] Syreeta: I'm not surprised that so amazing to me tho...

Legal Humour

Comics, E-books, Audio Books and the New Literary Era! - PART 1

The Literary World I Entered

I don't know but I have to do this post... as an avid comic reader in Jamaica since the 80's, when my mother first introduced me to Archie comics... I quickly became disillusioned for it seemed perpetual that Archie would forever pursue Veronica whom I disdain rather than Betty who I preferred... Jughead would never get fat, and Reggie would forever be a bad-mind fr-enemy! Then a friend of mine or a co-worker of my mother Woodrowe Brown and my sister Tanya, introduced me and my brother to Asterix, so for awhile I had the Gaul to defy Caesar with Asterix and Obelix while sip on a brew from Getafix... then the summers became filed with those big Garfield comic magazines, some how a lazy conniving feline craving lasagna never charmed me long, then my cousin Camara brought forth Calvin and Hobbes, I fell in love with that comic... Calvin's perception of the world mirrored my own!

My adventures with Superheroes started before reading however, and the earliest parts of the eighties were spent reaching home by 3 o' clock and changing off the signature uniforms of St. James Prep. and Mt. Alvernia Prep, then waiting in front of the T.V. watching the rainbow thingy, with the black bar at the bottom, yep keenly watching the little rainbow square pixels of the cathode ray tube till JBC signed on and it was time for the evening cartoons.

Enter Transformers, Thunder Cats, G.I. Joe (for some reason I hated it) Mask (this too I hated) He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Silver Hawks, Jase and the Wheel Warriors, Galaxy Ranger, Spider-man & his Amazing Friends, Superman in many many many incarnations... yep the corridors of many a school I attended would be filled with booming chants like Mumra's 'Ancient spirits if evil, transform this decayed form to Mum-RAAAAAH, the ever living' and 'Moon Star of Limbo... give me the mighty, the menace, the muscle... of... MONSTAAAAR.' I remember one day at Cornwall in Bio Class, 9 grade... I'm probably 14, and we all full of testosterone and pretending to be little men, fascinated with the words Vagina or the vulgar vernaculars... days spent imaging female teachers in lurid fantasies...

So it surprises me one day in Bio class, we are doing an ecological study, at a time an age when eco means simply recycle and don't litter... so the teacher asks some questions but we on top of it more than usual so she was from Nigeria and asked in her African accent how come we had all the answers for a change, and for some reason either myself or someone beside me started singing "Captain Planet he my hero..." and the whole class breaks out into chorus... "GONNA bring pollution down to zero..." all the way through to "Earth... Fire... Wind... Water... Heart... GOOO PLANET!!!" So for all the testosterone and bravado and force-riped-ness... we were still boys watching cartoons and thinking about Super Heroes. But for the most part it never ceased to amaze me that every boy in class instead comics were for kids, worse a girl my age's opinion of comics was that it was for immature dolts.

 

I was never a literary connoisseur, the books I read were all for school... Except for a summer where I was bribed into reading Enid Blyton's "The Greedy Goblin and other stories" blaaaaah... Boring but I waded and ploughed through it. 

Those days English books and cartoons seemed dull and dreary... Grays and dark blues and boredom. Stuff like Curious George and Little Blue... The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe television series. Lots of scary claymation! But back to the books. I never read much literature... Give me the Astronomy books, Daddy's old National Geographic and Time Magazines, he and I spent of my early life watching Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of" documentary series... he had some Conan but I never got the joy of Savages and naked women at that stage of life, as girl loving as I was... I'd rather have looked at the lingerie models in the back of Mommy's Cosmopolitan and read about the 6 to 12 new sex tips the editorial team had discovered each month. Dad also had Reader's Digests and Louis L'Amour... But those never got me either, so like I said my journey with books was more about reading Astronomy books and grasping the next Monday night episode of Star Trek the Next Generation on JBC. I also had a thing with a series of books called Tell Me Why...

I remember bookshelves like this, especially my cousin Camara's... full of Enid Blyton!

My boon in Superhero Comic Books sailed off with an entrance in to a Pharmacy at the bottom of Union Street, named Jamaica Pharmacy or someting to that effect, in their my brother purchased a Superman story arc called "Panic in the Sky" and it was a great intro to the plethora of DC comic superheroes, but I had purchased another hero, it was Spider-man Amazing Tales, which I think printed 70's re-run of old Amazing Spider-man comics. I had hopped into Spidey's world while Ron Frenz illustrated it, and Spider-man had just returned from Secret Wars in central park in an alien costume he didn't comprehend... he was going to college(school) he was working at the Bugle, he had a social life with lots of hiccups... and I was forever stuck in the web of North American re-branding of Anansi as Peter Parker. I also got my hands on Flash, Wally West's run as The Fastest Man Alive, and I jumped on right as they had been looking at his youth origins in a series of Year One stories. I was struck by that comic and it's lightning and Wally West's coming of age story... at the right kinds of time in life...Literature for me really began in High School... prior to that it was "Reading Books" in Prep School.

Those final days of prep school and forays into comics would see my vocabulary expanding, my grasp of science spreading... as I scrambled to the dictionary to understand what "Red Skull meant when he said Captain America as 'UBIQUITOUS'" or to encyclopedia to understand what Spider-man meant when they discovered his suit was a "Symbiote", or to ask science adept people like Woodrowe Brown to explain how Flash vibrated through walls and what atoms and molecules were and there different states etc... Ubiquitous I wouldn't meet until 8th grade Lit at Cornwall, Symbiote I wouldn't meet till 9th grade biology, atoms and molecules came with 9th grade chemistry and physics, but the science behind Wally West and his through wall molecule trick wouldn't be till 10 or 11 grade. Imagine... comics encoding all that science in me prior to high school. Comics contributed to those 80's and 90's averages and grades at the good old CC! Yep those days were some Wonder Years... not unlike the television series of the same name.

My official debut in literature came at the bothersome stage of life called puberty, as I entered first form or as I knew it then... the 7th GRADE... with insecurity and testosterone roiling in combo. It was at this time I met Sprat Morrison... The Young Warriors, Three Finger Jack Treasure. Shane, The Chrysalids, The Pearl, Green Days by the River, The Wooing of Bepo Tate, A Cow called Boy, A Brighter Sun...



A Brighter Sun is the apotheosis of a Caribbean bildungsroman, a quintessential coming of age story. What I loved about this book was that it was about a young couple... trying to forge a life, in what was considered in my time as TWEEN years... yup Tiger and Urmilla were tweens trying to forge a family and the book was littered with all the sexual tensions of teen life and the wonder years of sensual and sexual discovery... granted it was an undertone of sorts. What is so philosophically great about it is the social reality illustrated in the novel and how it lovingly examines sections of working-class life like a microscope to a microcosm, its an empathic and human interest fiction of Trinidadian life, even Caribbean life to an extent.

Tom Sawyers and Huck Finn weren't bad, but I hated Tom Sawyers for his attitude towards Black people, so Sprat Morrison and the adventures of a young boy living in Papine, a suburb of Kingston, was great refrain. It is widely studied in Caribbean schools and deservedly so.

TO BE CONT'D...

Quote!

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quote of the Day

Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them- a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. - Muhammed Ali

Speak Truth to Power!

Created with Kwote!

Rubble and debris from everyday thoughts!

If you think I can be pigeon holed... meet the Indomitable Yannick Nesta Pessoa... even if mi nuh popular, even if a nuh 10 million likes, mi sure seh mi Mother, mi wife and mi dawta still love me (even if Keez never waan hold mi hand to skool this morn)... mi sure seh mi real and mi keep mi heart clean as is posible fi mi do... nah mean... whether you or Mr. Big Neck never see it... I wasn't marketing myself I was busy being real, and doing real stuff... without award or accolade... I was building community facebook pages... and being immersed in community life... Youth Club or Football Team or 6-A-Side or Residents Assoc. all the Senior Citizens Assoc. before mi reach old age... before Blog Awards and social media awards, I was blogging it and repping as JA's first blogger... Repping in the Western Mirror for Young working people every where as The Montegonian Friday evening to Friday evening... learning in the streetside University hot off the heels of learning all sort of philosophy from the UWI Mona... rolling through the years... poet... cartoonist, freelance journalist, entrepreneur, community resource person... now I find myself at Utech doing an LLB for a million reasons and continuing my fight for a better MoBay and a better community, so that Jamaica may under God, increase in beauty, fellowship and prosperity, and play her part in advancing the welfare of the whole human race... doesn't end with an election, it doesn't end or begin with politics, to nuh shrink wrap in red or green...

Now mi believe seh mi a genuinely a genuine decent beautiful human being... inside and out... and mi nah seh so from place of arrogance or ego... yeh mi feel like yeh mi might slightly edgy, slightly angry, slightly intense, slightly eccentric, rough round the edges yeh... and if you truly know me... then you know me electrifying.. illuminating and edifying, and when given the chance to speak my words make the cinema and theatre appear right where you are... almost every waking moment of life is an adventure to me and for the most part my heart and soul are always a glow... my mind always on fire and my conscience light... so yes I know I am beautiful human being... aren't you too?

Nah stop all when mi dead... mi have duppy and pickney and inspired ones fi do this... as an African domiciled in Xaymaca i seh this still without apology Jamaica land we love, and Africa Unite... I don't need any likes, feel free to like if you feel thus compelled mi nah be anti-social, but a nuh dat mi deh pon, caah Google Blogspot/Blogger never had like buttons when mi started writing and graffiti the internet and cyberspace...

An Open Letter to the Five Star General- Bounty Killer

Greetings to Jamaica and the Five Star General Rodney Basil Pryce in particular,

 I remember somewhere back in 1993, I had held this notion that Reggae was the God and Dancehall was the bastard demi-god who had inane chatter gibberish and nonsensical if not simply whimsical lyrics and rhyme schemes like "zungy zungy a zunga zeng"! ABC 123... nothing too intellectually challenging or vocabulary expanding... zeen come again, wah di clock inna London name big ben, missa chin money name yen! Shabba and Super Cat weren't so bad but Dancehall as genre lacked definition and umph! Then comes PEEEEEEEEEEEOPLE DEAD! A man who would become the archetype of what a DJ and social commentator in the Dancehall should be.

I remember in 9 grade at the esteemed Cornwall College in 9-1 to be "pre-xact" every session a teacher missed was an opportunity for aspiring musicians. Long before the age of rising star, the class would be a riot of drummers banging desks and chairs as we cued up the main acts, those days the class was divided in two, the school of Beenie-ites, and the House of Bounty. The best representatives from the competing sides the likes of class mates named Clive Lawrence, Romaine McIntosh, Winston Brown... they would represent the factions and vocalize the discographies of Bounty which would be pitted against the catalogue of Beenie ballads. I happened to be in the Bounty camp.

Why some may ask? At the time I was a comic book junkie, whose favourite hero was Spider-man, but in terms of social development and coping with the teen world, and the Jamaican social context... well "with great power comes great responsibility" as a mantra wasn't cutting it all the way. And Spider-man a teen with superpowers and a horrendous social life and the guy that everybody hated wasn't gonna save my psyche through to 10 grade. So when you need a local Superhero, and a most verbose character, fearless, Jamaican, garbed in all black like Blade, Punisher or the Black Panther... A man the people dubbed "the poor people's governor" "the ghetto gladiator"... Titles not unlike "The Uncanny X-men" or "The Spectacular Spiderman." Bounty Killer became to me the very first Jamaican Super Hero, equipped with grand titles, monikers and mantras, secret identity Rodney Pryce, with his Justice League or Avengers, known as The Alliance. "Yeah Yeah Yeah" "Huh!" Bounty was the Jamaican icon from he became one of the local champions of that Patrick Ewing 33 sneaker, Jamaicans at home supporting Jamaicans abroad!

It is no coincidence then that his 1996 album My Xperience impacted fans at home and abroad spending six months on the Billboard reggae chart. Personally that was my favourite album, and I didn't even realize it till one day when a friend of mine Gavin Carey called me at home... yeah back in the land line era... and when he called he said... "my yute a one cd you have, and a one song deh pon di cd, caah everyday mi call you, all mi here is 'dem get gun dung inna miggle of guntown, well mi silent gun will emit no soun'" I then realized I had to rotate my musical diet... not that it wasn't varied... I grew up on Bob Dylan, Melanie Safka, Sam Cooke, Beres Hammond, Simon and Garfunkel... in he 90's I met Alanis Morrisette, Sarah Mclachan, Goo Goo Dolls, Alternative Music from D. Shadow and Rick Dee's Top 40, interspersed with Jungle, Techno World Beat... so my diet wasn't bad but in Jamaica Bounty was my boss. At the same time he also expanded my musical ear... The My Xperience album would introduce me to The Fugees, Busta Rhymes, Wu-Tang and many others... subsequent albums in the 90's would introduce me early to Kardinal Official on "The Bacardi Slang."

Bounty's career too has been as layered and textured and storied just like a comic book series, with arch-nemesis manifesting in Beenie Man and eventually Vybz Kartel, clashes as epic as any Ridley Scott film, feat and accomplishment that echo on in the perpetual street dancehall discourse. I can only imagine the day when teens and adults read a Bounty Killer comic book or graphic novel. Maybe when Ziggy Marley gets time away from Marijuana Man he can bust me on the job fi draw and write a Bounty Killer Comic. Once somewhere in 2005 I had wanted to write a Bounty Killer Biography titled: Badman Bible! Even when close friends debated that Bounty's Tale is not best seller material, I have absolute faith to this day that it would be a mega success, accompanied by like a documentary... the legend of Bounty would be immortalized.

Anyway... this ratings of mine for Bounty Killer progressed as I entered into academia, when while I was in KGN, Bounty was in my backyard in Mobay donating computers to Albion All Age, giving public lectures at Mobay's Civic Centre and generally impacting the youth of Jamaica in a major way. His prolific work would not be forgotten by youth of Norwood, Paradise, Albion, Glendevon even unto this day. I remembered when Carolyn Cooper had held her usual Friday Dancehall Artiste lecture up by UWI, Mona... I will never forget the particular Friday when Bounty Killer lectured... as a Bounty fan since his career started... I would be present at that lecture with my placard and signs BOUNTY FOR PRIME MINISTER! A memorable biographical tale, topped off by a fan request performance, nothing beats that.

Now flash forward to current day Jamaica... 2016... Dancehall ain't what it used to be! Today we watch the acidic career of Alkaline as he spits nasal inflections of mundane lyrics on the hottest dancehall and pop chart rhythms. There is even today an analogy in the dancehall that I think originates with Aidonia... "mi bad like 90's dancehall," which to me Ithink is testament to the current state of dancehall. The only saving grace for Jamaican music is reggae revival as Kartel tries to holler from his cell "Dancehall can't stall, woaheee dancehall can't dead yet"

But there are some critical things I have been waiting to see in the dancehall still... Maybe I am idealistic and a dreamer... but I had imagined Bounty Killer having many more years... I was waiting on Bounty Killer and Linkin Park, an era where Bounty's social commentary taps into global youth angst and pain. Bounty and Eminem, Bounty and P.O.D. (remix Youth of the Nation), Bounty and the Trini version of Bounty... Bunji Garlin, I think they would make a booming earthquake combination that would shake from both sides of the Caribbean and quake the world. The romantic version of Rodney Pryce that was on "It's Ok and It's Alright!" with the like of Emily Sande. Bounty from those 90's Jungle Cd's on rhythms that Major Lazer builds, Bounty with Calvin Harris, Bounty with those European producers... dubstep Bounty, Bounty on some Ancient Tomorrow rhythms like Protoje, as a matter of fact mi a wait pon Bounty-Chronixx, mi await pon Bounty and Kabaka...

I am not from that school that says Bounty's days are over, I believe those that say that have a failure of imagination. I see much more work to be done by Bounty, Beenie, Sizzla, Capleton, Buju and the entire generation that made the 90's great.

MY THEORY ON PNP'S MUST WIN!

A Fairly Bio-Historical Thesis and Simple Treatise!

Watch yah... JLP nah no chance... if dem show we suppm we deh yah fi MATCH it... imagine.. halfwaytree look so an mi an fi mi entourage nuh di deh... wah u a seh...

I will never pretend seh PNP perfect but a dem mi go ever vote fah and a dem mi go try guide and cuss till dem get it write... mi wi write a million letter to the editor and advice suggest and cuss, but watch yah mi nuh inna nutten wid JLP... who dis rasta... yow a wah u a seh. Busta weh seh iron fist... man... mi Granny born 1919... mi sleep in a bed with her, say mi times table and lissen story as she walk me down the streets of history. I've read a million books, divining the pages of history... all mi si dat mek sense to mi in the long march forward... mi granny get build and educated by UNIA and Garvey, Garvey = self reliance PPP etc...

Manley co-opt that political energy, but still under pnp self reliance and such concepts persist... hence... mi Granny when garvey get shub back press fwd wid PNP and mi see michael manley meet him, mi end up sight Rasta, Rasta and JLP a nuh fren, by the time mi did reach sociology at A level... all when mi teach a laaf an bun mi out mi pick SOCIALISM and COMMUNISM, concepts native to Africa by the way!

All when teacher a SHUB globalization inna the 90's push NEO LIBERALISM, I man resist and bun dat. My Mother was a social worker inna the 70's under Manley era and my Mother went to university UWI when Manley brought forward free education...

Hence mi a di result of sensible PNP policy and courtesies, mi direct result of the scope and reach and testimony of Garvey... so mi live this and mi read through the pages of history and see where books bear witness to this truth an concur wah mi DNA a seh from 1919 through to the 70's...

Till mi manifest in flesh and grow in a house weh Marcia Griffiths and Bob Andy "Young Gifted and Black" play every day, weh mi a listen Bob Marley to Bob Dylan... mi get fi know of Nyerere... mi Mother a Christian mi nuh know of no bigger socialist than Jesus.... charity, equality....

Dem SHUB globalization and neo-liberalism pon mi all the way into UWI mona... an even then man resist, till mi live fi see 2007, GLOBALIZATION collapse, neo liberalism was too liberal and liberated economic monsters to wreak havoc.. mi get fi meet sensible thinkers weh a put up resistance too know seh neo liberalism is neo colonialism.... hence and therefore I KNOW THIS... JLP nuh mek it... try kill RASTA a Coral Gardens a conflict mi have DNA linked inas mi have a cousin that was the philosophical under pinning of nuff a di ideology in the Mobay rasta movements and conflict at the time and then let us not forget "Back To"...

With every fiber of my being I know the way forward for this country MUST be through anything, any vehicle or vector that can carry the ideas of Rasta/GARVEY to Jamaica, right now PNP a the major vehicle to do that, I also hope all independents thinkers rise too and do dem ting fi shake up the status quo... Astor Black and Haile Mikael... it is in those veins of ideas of Garvey and Rasta that any hope or sensible ideas for indigenous and the mass of Jamaican people ever come from... simple!

JLP has an image that seems to represents... NEO-liberalism, CIA(go watch youtube), the 80's Drugs and Cocaine, ONE DON, Tivoli which can never be a model to replicate across Jamaica, Daryl Vaz and him poko poko face screaming at me as minister of info and a bad mi up thru television... rumours that Jim Brown shot Bob Marley for you know who... the image that JLP is an elite of ruling brown people and descendants of the plantocracy cannot be easily shaken out of the Jamaican consciousness.. the only positive image mi can think of for JLP is Chris Tufton... and they seem to forever pigeon hole him... I wish Portia would give him a call.

So I just a chant for REPUBLIC, REPARATION, REFORM (Land, Political & Electoral), CCJ, OPEN SOURCE!!! That Jamaica need now fi mek some major leaps forward!