Who I Am!

“De pain and the fight, the hate and the lies… Pain and heartbreak, supm inna it weh mi love, all a mi life experiences build me up as thug.”
Alkaline (Juggernaut)

When the valley couldn't hold me, they throw me in the river, Thinking I would drown, but man, ah, good swimmer, whoa, When the river didn't drown me, they throw me in the fire, But the fire just cool, I could never burn, oh
Major Lazer (Believer)

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
Proverbs 27:17 (Bible)

My journey to me starts in 1919… why because it is where my mind has a definitive anchor in history. That is the day Dorothy M. Thompson was born, my mother’s mother, I would spend 33 years of my life imbibing her life and that of her children and grandchildren. When I say imbibe her life experiences, imagine what it was like for me as a child in a pitch black room at nights with your granny’s voice recanting her life experiences, in the pitch black when you can’t see your own hand so you feel disconnected from your body. The black room become your own mindscape and that voice and those experiences become stitched in and meld with your own, when it is as though that voice inhabits your psyche now till this present moment… then my life can seem at times to start 1919… in the midst of history and milestones.

Understand I was with Dorothy in Rock River Clarendon, when she went to vestry, when John took her to the UNIA, when she ate Milly mango in Diamond, when she met her husband Allan Thompson, when they came to Montego Bay, from Gravel Lane to Tate Street… when she met Howard Cooke, when she became the PNP matriarch, when she worked at WoolWorth, till she got her tuck shop up at Cornwall Regional Hospital, when she became the pillar of the community in Paradise Acres. Through all her pains and heartbreak, joys and suffering… what I didn’t glean in the dark room I would live to see in action myself.

I am my parents… I am my father, when you see me being an entrepreneur… no matter how I may fail or flounder, it is an instinct that comes from having imbibed his life and am still imbibing it. Everytime, I draw I am my father, for the gift came from him, and everytime my daughter or her classmates, or children in the community look at things I draw or paint, when they look at me as some hero, it's because my father drew me out of a thousand school projects and was my hero. And even though I haven’t become a millionaire just yet, every dollar earned from that talent, is what he gave me in a manner of speaking. Plus so much more. For I was with him when he grew up in Four Paths in Clarendon, catching water in the early mornings before dawn, with his brother. I was with him going to Glenmuir, I was with him when he came to Montego Bay, when he met my mother, when he wooed her, when he married her, when he sold insurance, when he became an entrepreneur, when he made his life and forged his own path.

I am my mother… who I inherited social activism from. I am her quiet nature, I am her silent strength… the fortitude it takes to go through long suffering and go the distance. Yannick is a hebrew name that means, the grace of God, and if there is any grace in me I am sure it came through her. She taught me children and family over career… not through speech but her choices and actions, and I have seen much value in it. When I write poetry it is the amalgamation of my parents… their love affair with the English language, her social sensitivities and keen sense of emotional observation, his concubines… a green websters dictionary with a tree on it, Reader’s Digest, Time Magazine and National Geographic.

I am my community which manage to teach me in the 80’s that it takes a village to raise a child. For it was as simple as this, “all wah mi do and don’t do, dem tell mi granny.” So now I will forever fight to return the community to that type of communal love. For I am also the community’s victims of that lost love… I am Gully, I am Delano, I am Little Dread, I am Goosey, I am Sticky Bean, I am Baboo, I am Warface, I am Marley, I am Andrew Bailey, I am Joab, I am Zuggy, I am Jooky, I am Stumpy, I am Sweaty, I am Stubba, I am Goodfy Jeffrey, I am Umpa, I am Jigs, I am Wiz/Alkaline, I am Delly, I am Kerris, I am Shorty, I am Hulk, I am Jevaughn James, I am Danny, I am Warrick, I am so many more fallen soldiers. I am the best of my community, I am E. T. Webster, I am Tappa, I am Jimmy Cliff, I am Cecil Donaldson, I am the Youth, I am the Senior Citizen, I am the community heroes like Venise and Tash… I am I-crus, I am the elder, the mechanic, the shoe repair man, the upholster, the shopkeeper, the selector, the Juta Driver, the artisan, the labourer, the mason, the carpenter.

I am my teachers, I am Mr. Mcpherson, I am Co-Hall, I am Ms. Gordon, I am Ms. Nelson, I am Mr. Barnes at Cornwall, I am Mr. Miller, Rev. Myers, Mr. Maddans, Mr. Haughton, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Clarke, Ms Daze/Wilson and Reverton Bailey. I am Aggrey Brown, I am Roxanne Burton, I am Earl McKenzie, I am Tunde Bewaji, I am Dr. Bamikole, I am Jalaani Niaah...

I am more than a slim natty in a 5’11 frame. I am Pan Africanism, I am Rastafari, I am Socialism, I am African Spirituality, I am Afrofuturism, I am tomorrow, I am that which makes you uncomfortable, I am science, I am arts, I am metaphysics, I am human, I am supernatural, I am God, I am man, I am community, I am football, I am basketball, I am cricket, I am mistakes, I am failures, I am success, I am unstoppable, I am unbreakable, I am indomitable and my name is Yannick Nesta Pessoa.

I Am a Believer

“Don't underestimate the power of your vision to change the world. Whether that world is your office, your community, an industry or a global movement, you need to have a core belief that what you contribute can fundamentally change the paradigm or way of thinking about problems.”
~Leroy Hood

“Be brave to stand for what you believe in even if you stand alone.”
~Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

As a child I thought belief was the stuff of fools. Science and knowing was the way of reality. Soon as a youth infused with science and pan africanism at an early age, I divorced God at age 10. I remember it like yesterday, I was in Sunday school at Hillview Baptist Church, when my Sunday school teacher says while discussing Revelation that “God will give Jews a second chance on Judgement day and Gentiles will be judged immediately!” This godly bias didn’t sit well with me, for if God prefered a people that was not my own, as a young pan Africanist then this could not be my god. Worse he could not stand up to the rigor of scientific reasoning, and he didn’t stand up for my people then, I couldn’t stand up for him. I had lost spiritual conviction.

It changed me somewhat. I was still a person who believed in good, and treating people how you wanted to be treated. However the world was a dark place, the prospects of an afterlife removed, I had no psychological cushions, I was left to drift in space and to face cold hard material realities. As a result I became more stoic and less emotional. I was bracing for death and all the adversity life had to offer. I floated and wafted in this oblivion, obsidian like outerspace place with no anchor to life beyond science and pan Africanism with threads of socialism grasping me. I was intellectually lonely most of high school, for this wasn’t a topic friends wanted to broach, God was definite for them.Who didn’t recoil at the mention of the possibility of no God and run in fear of me, simply looked at me like “why do you think about these grown up topics, don’t you want to live and be young?”

This atheistic thinking putting in more problems than I knew. My mother was most distressed. I didn’t even try to mention it to my grandmother. My father who planted some of the seeds for me to be on this path, as the more scientific of my parents. Sunday evening in a debate with my atheist Uncle Tommy and devoutly religious Uncle Monty, they asked my father to weigh in and his response was “God can be very well Jewish mythology like Zeus dem a Roman mythology!” The women round the house were in an uproar. So imagine one day my father and I end up reasoning and he comments on how great God is and the care or skill it took to create the gait of man, as scientists have such a hard time mastering it in robots. I responded by saying “well if I had all eternity at my disposal to do it as God did, I would get it right too, I am not impressed by such a feat.” Woaheee who tell mi fi seh so… the don was most appalled and livid. So as it went even who I had thought would get it, was not out there with me on this one…

The first dent in the armor science had built around me to religion came with a guidance counselor at Cornwall College who interrogated my atheism, but seeing that I had really given the bible a real read and shake, he pointed me to the esoteric aspects of the bible and pointed me to the Maccabees, and the book of Enoch. It never budged me in my stance one bit. However I did realize my investigation and interrogation of religion was not thorough nor complete. My battles with science and belief would tussle and tumble into the year 2000 or Y2K as some of you may remember. It carried on with me at the UWI, Mona… where atheism would put me into a major debate with a young lady named Kadene under the then Arts(Humanities) tree. Where she would brand me a devil worshiper and the crowd would dub her Ms. Kitty. So even at the institute of the most free thought my thoughts are under siege. But I would meet a subject call philosophy, the mother of all subjects and the love of wisdom. It would carry me to topics that would rip through science which had become my religion so to speak. These courses were logic, epistemology, etymology, philosophy of science and most crucially metaphysics.

Metaphysics showed me that I had been living under the science delusion. It is the belief that science already understands the nature of reality in principle, leaving only the details to be filled in. This is a very widespread belief in society. It’s the kind of belief system of people who say “I don’t believe in God, I believe in science.” Science is a method of investigation and not a world view. But because of inherently human biases today we refuse to use science to investigate thing which we think we already understand. Yet the world is filled with a magic and wonders science has yet to explain or investigate to truly answer.

Where is the mind, is it in the brain, is it the same as the soul? How does science explain will power, which is proven to exist? Telepathy, telekinesis? The floodgate of unanswered questions, the quest, the journey, beliefs and a need to know pulled me from outer space and rooted me to today, to yesterday, to tomorrow. Why? Maybe because Y has a long tail, maybe because why is a long tale, maybe Y is the first letter of my name. I all I know is that has injected me with belief, when what I sought was knowledge and to know. So now I know that belief brings purpose. I believe in His Imperial Majesty, I believe in Montego Bay, I believe in Jamaica, I believe in my community, I believe in the youth, I believe in people, I believe in tomorrow, I believe we are the substance of God, I believe in love, I believe in life, I believe there is more to know, I believe we can be better, I believe Montego Bay can lead Jamaica to tomorrow, I believe in my daughter, I believe in my mother and father, I believe in my brothers and my sisters, I believe in my wife, I believe in hope, I believe in hope against hope, I believe in RCGBS, I believe we as a people can lead the planet and show them a better way to live, I believe we are greater than we know, I believe in family, I believe in friends, I believe in Rastafari, I believe in Africa, I believe in magic, I believe in Marcus Garvey, I believe in Sam Sharpe, I believe in everyday heroes, I believe in you, I believe in belief, I believe in ME.

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist Entrepreneur and Law Student. Follow Yannick on Twitter at @yahnyk | yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

Pot Holes: Filling in the Gaps

Infrastructure investments lead to jobs. And quality of life starts with a good job.
John Hickenlooper 

When I am driving my car down the street, I try not to go down the potholes.
Philip Green

The potholes in the roads are a problem, the political ones, the metaphorical ones, but I'm talking about the literal ones now… they are one of if not the biggest headache we have right now on the road. It seems like every year we complain that potholes seem worse than they have ever been. But this year, they really do seem worse than they ever have been. I haven't seen any part of the city, or peripheral town or village that is immune to pothole pox, and the rains of the last few months has really made for brutal rides on many many roads. It seems that the busier they are, the worse they are, particularly because the city has been cheap with their paving budgets. Even though Jamaicans depend on this infrastructure to go about their daily lives in safety, our mayor has been relatively quiet on the need to revitalize the city’s roads, bridges, sewers, dams, and water treatment plants.

I am not saying we need an ambitious and expensive plan to modernize their city’s infrastructure, however, a competitive city simply cannot have sewers backing-up into basements and streets flooding every time it rains. The savvy voters and taxpayers in Jamaica today are looking to get the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to the cost of government. That includes the cost of building and repairing streets. For that reason alone, our municipality should require bids for both asphalt and concrete pavements. And those bids should include a life cycle cost analysis for road construction or repair projects. Doing so helps them determine whether using asphalt or concrete materials is the more cost-effective, sustainable investment.

Alternatives 

A possible solution could be, using old vehicle tires as a long term solution for patching the number of potholes on roads across the city and possibly the country could easily be piloted in Montego Bay. The process of using rubberized asphalt to pave roads has been working well in the US and Canada. This process can fix both the stress and damages caused by the poor quality of the roads and cut down on the large quantities of old tires. Rubberized asphalt is made from asphalt concrete and mixed with crumb rubber from recycled tires. The city can look into at taking our old tires, which is another headache to us, and turn them into rubber the steel and the fluff from the tire itself it can pave the roads. The roads become softer and you wouldn’t skid or slide on the roads. Maintenance solution waste removal solution, safety solution, financial solution… all rolled into one. It can work. We can take our tires and turn them into crumb rubber and pave the roads with them. There is so much more use for old tires. It is for our municipality, our city to decide the way forward, not follow the tides of time as usual and get left behind.

Experts claim the road requires less maintenance and still allows for drainage, while tyre recyclers claim the technique will also save money because the new material is thinner than standard roads. Rubber roads were first built in the 1960s in the US, where today there are 20,000 miles of road made of recycled tyres. Rubber roads are also popular in China, Brazil, Spain and Germany.
Another solution that came to me is tied to social enterprise. Wikipedia defines social enterprise as an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being—this may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for external shareholders. So what do potholes have to do with social enterprise? Well I have been thinking… why doesn’t the municipality hire the men who already go around patching the roads informally as a side hustle to officially operate as road maintenance personnel. I think it ought to be fairly easy for the municipality to employ them give them a minimum wage stipend, negotiate with the chamber of commerce or the hardware businesses directly to provide them with propatch asphalt and cement to help alleviate a road crisis, at the same time encouraging motorists to donate to the cause by tipping the road patchers. The social benefit is the road patchers receive official pay and employ, the road is not as bad for motorists and commuters, improved safety, a good public relations look for the municipality. Maybe the plan could be tweaked in some places but you get the picture we need to be more innovative about the road that lies ahead, it is filled with ruts and potholes, to fix them and navigate them require a new outlook.

Future Change 

Our city needs an intensified island-wide road works programme. You would think that with all of the technological advancements we have seen in our lifetime, someone would have figured out a better way to fix damaged roads. There is a ton of money to be made, and I'm sure the insurance companies and municipalities that pay out claims for damaged vehicles would be happy to see it. Of course, the municipal corporation could spend more money on routine maintenance and paving that would prevent a lot of these problems, but that ship has obviously sailed. I can only hope that one day someone in public office might begin to take responsibility for genuinely solving this problem, as they say nowadays “own it”. If not and we continue to dither, delay and propose inadequate measures , we will leave a bigger problem for Montego Bay’s children.

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social/Community Activist and Law Student at Utech Western Jamaica. Follow on Twitter at @yahnyk. Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com

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!

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

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...

Top 6 Jamaican Television Series

As I continue my foray into the current blogging trend of publishing and posting all kinds of lists of wonderful Jamaican gems etc. After months of inactivity a day with two posts. WOOOOOO! Say hurray! I did a list of Jamaican movies a few years back and now I noticed you've got quite a few on the market... but I haven't noticed any blogs that touch on Jamaican Television series... So being the nuff person I am, I have to try and see if I can do it first, and maybe set a trend, and see people's lists with stuff I missed or forgot. But here is my list of TOP 6 Jamaican TV series:

Oliver at Large:
In the 80's when I entered the world... Oliver truly was LARGE... to me he was Jamaica's first larger than life celebrity! Oliver Samuels uncovered fame on the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation's television series Oliver At Large, created by producer Calvin Butler and playwright Aston Cooke. In this series, Samuels played his alter ego Olivius Adams, aka Oliver. The series featured sketches from Oliver's exploits, often with his sidekick, Maffi. Several spin-off theatre pieces have been created for the Oliver character, including Large Abroad, Oliver's Posse (1999), Oliver and Pinocchio (2001), and Oliver and the Genie (2002).


Lime Tree Lane:
This JA Sitcom as it were, introduced me to a nuanced inspection of Jamaican community life... especially at time I couldn't do road so intensel. Lime Tree Lane was an original comedy series which aired on JBC (later @televisionjam) in 1988 until 1997 was Jamaican TV’s first soap opera. Are you too young to remember the series? Here’s a clip!


Titus in Town:
This great situation comedy to me was hilarious and a direct result of the successes of Oliver at Large. The 1980s Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation television series Titus in Town saw local actor Glen Campbell rise to spectacular heights in the world of Caribbean acting and theatre.

Claffy:
Another situation comedy spinoff - Claffy better known as MAFFIE in Oliver-at-Large was Oliver Samuel's foil and side kick for years and as is the trend in Television, he goes on to try his hand at his own series and so CLAFFY was born!

Ity & Fancy Cat:
This is currently the hottest comedy act in the Caribbean! Revolutionary & relevant in its substance, pioneering & playful in form as well as style... This bit of modern art is high in entertainment value. A Half our Comedy Skit akin to In Living Colour and Saturday Night Live, Ity and Fancy Cat that will “mek u laaf till u wata come a yuh eye".


Royal Palm Estate / The Blackburns:
This was the show that during my high school years introduced me to ideas of what high society Jamaica maybe like, and I never could break the cognitive link between Sonny T, and the real life Tommy T, Sonny Tavares and Tom Tavares, Tivoli, and even that Damian Marley song, "Things just ain't the same for gangsters." Royal Palm Estate  was broadcast 1994 from CVM TV in Jamaica and around the Caribbean. After 15 years, the producer has shifted the story-line to address the concerns of the younger Blackburn family in an evolving society. “The Blackburns” looks at the social dynamics of a family that exists in large part due to the legacy of the patriarch, the plantocracy, the remnants of slavery – Ted Blackburn and the plantation state.

Proposals on Revolutionizing and Fixing Education in Jamaica!

Document | Article: Proposals for Education Ministry and System in Jamaica

For a long time the media and most thinks have purported the idea that we live in the information age. We live an age where cell phones and gadgetry pervade all walks of life. Computers and the internet are constantly creeping into our lives. Sociologists will contend that the family is the primary agent of socialization. But most of know and will very well contend that it is the TV. Especially in an age where the family is in crisis and in the third world where the core notion of family lives in a state of flux, the television and cable have taken prominence.

Folklore, Anansy and the oral tradition have been usurped by Sponge Bob, Dora and Hannah Montana. With absentee or limited supervision parenting rampant and the television controlling brain space and time at all times and any given hour, whilst the education system will only have them for 6 to 7 out of 24 hours much of which will be ruled by televisions and corner time no wonder we are unable to transmit and pass on the education, knowledge and morals we need to.

Mister Minister on the heels of your party’s message of change and changing the course, the courses and course of the education system has changed little. At this crucial moment in history the education system with all its short comings are in need of radical overhaul and requires new approaches and revolutionary thought. We need to design a curriculum to stimulate the development of analytical skills. The thing I care most about is that we focus not on the specific set of tools, but on the ability to “learn and apply a current tool set”.

The truth is that we constantly acquire and discard sets of tools. So we should not be fixated on one specific set of tools for all of life. Society, technology and the times change so fast that any fact, process or algorithm we learn at school is by definition not going to be useful for any length of time. The real skills that serve us are the ability to adapt, learn, apply the products of that learning, and participate in the discussions and challenges of the day. That doesn’t mean that facts are useless, or that specific tools don’t matter. Unless you can demonstrate an ability to absorb and apply both, fast, you haven’t actually gained the knack of becoming effective in a given environment.

How can we better communicate with them?

The traditional talk and chalk won’t work with this generation. Our communication style is structured, yet they want freedom. The old order stresses learning, they like experiencing. We react, they relate. We focus on the individual, while they are socially driven. Here are four essentials to consider when engaging with youth today:

Real:

Not only must our communication style be credible, but we must be also. They don’t expect us to know all about their lifestyle, nor do they want us to embrace their culture. They are simply seeking understanding, and respect. If our communication has a hidden agenda, or we are less than transparent, it will be seen. This generation can sniff a phoney from a long distance.

Raw:

Today’s youth have access to the most advanced technology, movie special effects, and video games with which we can never compete. But the good news is that they are not impacted by slick presentations. They don’t want a rehearsed talk, or a manufactured spiel. The more spontaneous and interactive we are in the classroom, the less intimidated, and more open they will be.

Relevant:

Obviously what we are communicating has to fall within their area of interest. But the style, as well as the content of our message must be relevant to a generation who are visually educated and entertained. There is no point in giving music to a friend on a cassette tape if they only have a CD player, or on CD if they only use MP3. Similarly we must research in the most appropriate format for those we are reaching. So in understanding the communication styles of our target cohort we will be better equipped to reach them.

Relational:

There is an old and true saying in education circles: “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!” Communicating to this generation requires openness, vulnerability, and genuine interest in those we are trying to teach, and above all else, understanding. The more relaxed the environment, and the more socially conducive to discussions; the better will be the quality of the learning.

The Issue of Text Books and Learning Materials

Today, many children and individuals have MP3 Players, I-Pods, Smart-phones, computers, DVDs and DVD players, Radios and Televisions. Lots of in Jamaica are in some way linked and have some access to the various media. Today, I believe it is a tragedy that books, audio-books, tutorials and classes and the entire Jamaican and Caribbean syllabus are not posted online in PDF on accessible sites, material and content for our youths’ education should already be on their cell phones, in their DVD players, on YouTube.

It is an even more horrendous thought that every entrepreneur with a two-bit dream of becoming a media mogul can implement far reaching cable stations, whilst JIS is relegated to a time slot on TVJ, instead of being a Caribbean BBC, the U.S. has PBS and as a matter of fact the BBC has managed to pervade the island. We have an A.M. Band going to waste and yet I have seen people in small communities with their small means and incomes set up small radio stations and internet radio stations, why is JIS being broadcast, why aren’t we making full use of all the channels and vectors we have that can be used to bombard people with sensible, useful, practical, culturally relevant information.

I have lived to see middle-aged women become interior decorators watching HGTV and seen nearly illiterate dog lovers in the garrison swear they are dog trainers after a few episodes of dog whisperer on Discovery channel. In this vein I do believe if we have relevant content people will be willing to watch it. If you build it they will come. I do believe we have a wealth of content that can be drawn from, old documentaries from JBC and such. More can be commissioned, after all this is the era of YouTube movie directors, Open Source content and citizen journalism.

I am convinced the government has been lacklustre in pursuing technologies such as Linux, Open Source and notions such as FOSS. Brazil, Mexico and India are already using these to bring technology more cheaply to their nation. There are also revolutionary methods of implementing technology in the class room all throughout the Americas.

Also Mr. Holness I am sure you will probably have played dominoes with illiterate people as I have and been beaten by people who have never learnt primary school mathematics, which is proof that the education is disconnected from the everyday realities we face. Someone must have the potential to learn math if he can grasp the process of deduction and numerical elimination it takes to play domino well. We live in the Caribbean and still don’t learn enough about where we live. Why isn’t there our national geographic?

The other day I had to watch on foreign news that lizards that do morning exercises had been discovered in Jamaica. Lots of municipalities and small nation states have set up their own, local intranet that can provide the general populace with basic informational resources, like wikis and encyclopaedias and educational material. Today it is the nation’s own fault we are falling behind in education.

The government must become the primary agent of socialization, as parents and the family are lagging. If we are to grow a nation we need to grow people. We need our human resource to grow and develop. Technology, TV, internet, cell phones and the Radio are the way to reach them.

A Final Word:

The quality outcome of our education system is dependent on our understanding of the youth. Once we have a foundational grasp of their characteristics, communication styles, and social attitudes, we will be well equipped to effectively impact this enormous and emerging generation.

We want to create a curriculum that can:

Be self taught, peer mentored, and effectively evaluated without expert supervision.

Provide tools for analysis that will be general useful across the range of disciplines being taught at any given age.

Be an exercise machine for analysis, process and synthesis.

The idea is not that children learn tools they use for the rest of their lives. That’s not realistic. I don’t use any specific theorems or other mathematics constructs from school today. They should learn tools which they use at school to develop a general ability to learn tools. That general ability – to break a complex problem into pieces, identify familiar patterns in the pieces, solve them using existing tools, and synthesise the results into a view or answer… that’s the skill of analysis, and that’s what we need to ensure the youth graduate with.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

#education #youth #jamaica #revolution #change #governement #governance 

A Poem for Emancipendence: An Ode to Daddy Sharpe!

SQUARE
written by Yannick Pessoa

"I would rather die among yonder gallows, than live in slavery."

 Black Birds shit on me and in ur hair,
You pass me on the street in the square,
You barely see me and u do not care,
About all the things that happened here,
340 executed in Parade...
U know where I'm talking?
Do you know which Square.

207 killed during revolt,
Bodies piled to be carted,
All because of what I started,
Imagine how my heart felt,
Feel my heart melt,
Buried in mass graves ,
Outside of town late at night,
Just for the freedom fight.

Black Birds shit on me and in ur hair,
You pass me on the streets in the square,
You barely see me and u do not care,
About all the things that happened here,
340 executed in Parade...
U know where I'm talking?
Do you know which Square.

Rebellion is what the crown hates me for,
Some of my kind don't rate me,
Cause I preach no war,
No my son and daughter go astray,
For I didn't die to see my city,
Become Guntego Bay,
Where are the parks?
And someone tell me...
Where do the children play?

Black Birds shit on me and in ur hair,
You pass me on the streets in the square,
You barely see me and u do not care,
About all the things that happened here,
340 executed in Parade...
U know where I'm talking?
I'm talking, I'm talking...
Sam Sharpe Square.

Click the Sam Sharpe pic to read a small bio!

Madiba: Aluta Continua

African leaders whose vision could be toppled by the secret hand of capitalism!

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.” ― Nelson Mandela

The chronicle of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, and the variety of ways in which his story crossed paths with Jamaica is important to the island's history and that of our diaspora. It must become part of the story of the emerging self-belief of people of African descent. It is also an account of a human being allowing his best and noblest self to prevail.

It is easy and very plausible to tell Mandela's story without also speaking to Jamaica's story. But as a Jamaican it would be remiss of me not to mention, how this little nation, smaller than the population of Soweto and separated by thousands of nautical miles from the shorings of South Africa, prognosticated for the isolation of South Africa in response to apartheid from as early as 1961, three years before Mandela was condemned to Robben Island.

One of Jamaica's prime ministers, Michael Manley, was in numerous ways the designer of the sporting and cultural boycott of South Africa, which, incidentally, was more cogent than economic sanctions to that degree that the psychology of being a white South African was concerned. It is little wonder that Jamaica was one of the first two countries visited by Madiba after his incarceration. He visited Jamaica and Cuba in July 1991, with our beloved Winnie Madikize Mandela at his side, and they received honour from the Jamaican people.

He was a visionary, he had a grand project. He was political. He had an avid sense of strategic timing. Yet he wasn't Machiavellian. He was loved because he was neither Mugabe nor Blair. His vision ran through his life. He was noble. And, like a virtuous father, to be kind, he sometimes could be cruel.

He was distinguished and most especially he had an vast love for his people and for the project of establishing a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.

Mandela vigorously defended of his loyalties to Iran, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, all of whom supported him in his battles against South Africa's apartheid regime.

Mandela was on the U.S. terrorism watch list until 2008, when then-President George W. Bush signed a bill removing Mandela from it. (Obama is yet to oblige Marcus Mosiah Garvey similar courtesies.)

South Africa’s apartheid regime designated Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) as a terrorist organization for its battle against the nation’s legalized system of racial segregation that lasted from 1948 to 1994. (Marxist legal theory at work here: Karl Marx argued that the law is the mechanism by which one social class, usually referred to as the "ruling class", keeps all the other classes in a disadvantaged position).

Former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also described Mandela’s ANC as a “typical terrorist organization” in 1987, refusing to impose sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. President Ronald Reagan did as well.

But Madiba was more than that, he was an African man of moral sense. He was a man of virtue. Moral excellence and moral sense that made him so acclaimed globally since he led a nation at a time when virtue and morality were universally absent amongst global leaders. He slammed Bush and Blair for the war on Iraq: 'What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight and who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.' For Blair he had these words: 'He is the foreign minister of the United States. He is no longer prime minister of Britain.'

He rose above acrimony and bitterness. He was unselfish and could reach out to his enemies and cross many divides. He was eminent because he was the great unifier. In many ways he was the designer of the New South Africa.

Mandela was neither magnate nor angel. Mandela wasn't unaccompanied in the grand journey of African redemption in South Africa. One only has to read Bertolt Brecht’s great poem, Questions From a Worker Who Reads, to know: 'Who built Thebes of the 7 gates? / In the books you will read the names of kings. / Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?...'

The fight to emancipate South Africa was a collectivized crusade. Furthermore it was the force of the most oppressed, the workers in the factories, the destitute in the community, blue-collar women and youth that ultimately carried the apartheid government, if not totally to its knees, at the least to talk terms and discuss the conditions of the end of their racial scheme.

All struggle requires a vehicle, a social movement with leaders that can present political focus, tackle the arduous strategic and tactical routes. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's ANC came to prevail. Even so, Mandela was the first to recognise the parts played by a broad array of social movements that formed the fight for national liberation and the mass democratic movement.

And while Mandela was the one to start dialogue with the apartheid government, he tied himself to the collective leadership of the ANC. He took the first steps, he led but he did so as part of a collective. He was an organisational man. He took pains to explain he was a product of the ANC. He was a man of the black, green and gold – but he could reach beyond organisational limits.

He had this quality of being able to keep people together. Even his critics – and he had them – submitted to him at the end of the day as a moral leader. Without him I can't envision how the transition would have gone.

Aye, zillions of words will be spoken and written on Madiba’s legacy, now, in the months to come, next year and thenceforth. And we will scramble to do this legacy justice. The hardest part will be to catch the essential Mandela, going beyond myth-making whilst precisely evaluating the inconsistent nature of that legacy.

Since the present can't be interpreted without understanding the past, and not everything that is haywire with current day South Africa can be put at the doorway of Zuma or Mbeki. The negotiated resolution that effected a democratic South Africa on the cornerstone of one person one vote will be reckoned as Mandela’s greatest accomplishment. It avoided the scorched earth route of bloodletting which we at present see in Syria. And even so it's those compromises that are nowadays falling apart at the seams. The unharmonious social inequality (very Marxist in nature) that has given rise to South Africa as a country of two nations: one white and relatively prosperous, the second black and poor (I believe arx would have termed these the: bourgeoisie and proletariat respectively).

Social divide the hallmark of society today!

Mandela’s legacy will likewise have to be weighed by the reality that South Africa is more disunited than ever as a result of inequality and social exclusion. The rich are richer and the poor poorer. The great unifier could undertake great emblematic acts of reconciliation to pacify the white nation but because, by definition, this involved sacrificing the redistribution of wealth, reconciliation with the whites was performed at the expense of the large majority of black people.

Mandela was great, but not so great that he could bridge the social divide built into the 21st century capitalist economy that has given us the era of the 1 percenters. It is the ill-fated timing of South Africa's transition, coming about as it did in the period in which global power got inextricably tied into the global corporation, empowered through the conventions of neoliberal globalisation. Reconciliation necessitated the forsaking of ANC policy as vocalised by Mandela on his discharge from jail, 'nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industry is the policy of the ANC and the change or modification of our views in this regard is unimaginable.'

Nevertheless it's this forsaking of nationalisation, nationalisation representing the redistribution of wealth which was determined by the needs of reconciliation not just with the white establishment but with the international capitalist economy. His encounters with the international elite at Davos, the home of the World Economic Forum, convinced him that compromises needed to be made with the financiers. In the words of Ronnie Kasrils: 'That was the time from 1991–1996 that the battle for the soul of the ANC got underway and was lost to corporate power and influence. I will call it our Faustian moment when we became entrapped.'

It's exactly this capitalistic road that's verified such a calamity and which could ultimately demolish Mandela’s life’s work. To do justice to Mandela’s lifetime of commitment and sacrifice for equality betwixt black and white, the fight must continue.

It today has got to stress on subduing inequality and attaining social justice. In this fight the entire African Diaspora will require the greatness and sapience of umpteen Mandelas. Our brethren and sistren in South Africa require an organisation committed to marshalling all South African black and white for the freeing of the wealth of that state from the hands of a bantam elite. It will necessitate a movement akin to Mandela’s ANC, a social movement based on a collective leadership with the blended qualities of Steve Biko, Neville Alexander, Walter Sisulu, Albertina Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Fatima Meer, Chris Hani, Ruth First, Joe Slovo, Robert Sobukwe, IB Tabata and the many greats that led the battle for African liberation. But most importantly the African Diaspora and South Africa will need the multitude who take their fate into their own hands and become their own liberators.

Are these the things that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela struggled to achieve?

Open Letter to the Western Media (UNPUBLISHED)

The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much. There are really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It's not healthy.
Ted Turner

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
Noam Chomsky

There's less critical thinking going on in this country on a Main Street level - forget about the media - than ever before. We've never needed people to think more critically than now, and they've taken a big nap.
Alec Baldwin

I am the voice of a generation
Bob Dylan

Greeting once again Montego Bay, after some introspection, rummaging through the remains of the day, I have realized I wrote a slew and rash of Open Letters tackling many of the National Institutions and Government Ministries, and realized that there is one entity or body I failed to tackle and that is the MEDIA. The media in western Jamaica particularly, and the Western Mirror is not exempted from this. For I believe the media in western Jamaica has been lackluster and underdeveloped for too long now. Once people could have escaped under the notion that we are a small demographic without a very intellectual or reading population. Not so anymore. This is the Mobay and western Jamaica of big names, characters and events like Brown Sugar, Usain Bolt, Colin Channer, Jah Cure, Queen Ifrica, Mackie Conscious, Sumfest, ATI Weekend, Jazz & Bluesfest and such. We are now witnessing a growing intellectual community with UWI now officially here and a whole host of other cultural and artistic facets growing fast behind it. Hence it seems odd we have the same floundering fledgling television stations, and only two surviving newspapers of note, and two radio stations.

I believe the western media has been slow in growing fostering and honing great talent. I sincerely believe in the second city lies the next set of big television personalities. I believe Mirror has been long overdue in becoming a western paper, with a western edge and vantage point with NATIONWIDE distribution. I believe western media has also been slow in harnessing new technology and grabbing the new generation’s attention. They have also been slow in reaching deeply and widely into the western Jamaican diaspora abroad. The media out west now needs to be a platform and voice, giving legitimacy and credibility to its talents, writers, columnists, TV personalities, to its audience.

Self-examination by western news and media organizations is always useful and crucial at this junction in Western Jamaica’s growth. In this great future, the Western Mirror needs to mean more to the minds of the people than SUSS and Death notice and Murder updates it is time we seriously go about "Preserving Our Readers' Trust." Because, politics, a republic, a democracy cannot operate without an independent, critical, and responsible press, it is now MOST incumbent on western news and media organizations to continually assess their own performance to see if they are fulfilling their obligations to the PUBLIC.

Because of its importance to the functioning of our political and social life, the press and media will always be subject to criticism and critique. It is then our obligation to take such critiques seriously; doing so requires not only responding to legitimate criticism, but having the fortitude and integrity to reject baseless attacks and the more basal natures in our society.

Today the western media is polluted and clouded with a mountain heap of archaic and ancient media pundits and demagogues it is time to whole heartedly embrace a real and legitimate generation that is of age and time and deserving of having their opinions heard. It is time to “diversifying our vantage point", but not out of fear of sales, but out of a genuine desire to report on the full scope of Montego Bay and Western Jamaica’s social and political life. We the media need to stop perpetuating some of the crudest stereotypes of the nation holds of those outside the main metropolis, like the idea we are small, backward or unentertaining and lacking in vibes or opportunity.

The Wesern Mirror in particular must understand that this paper occupies a unique place in Montegonian and western journalism, with an ability to set the news agenda and the larger political agenda that is unparalleled among news organizations, even those with vastly larger audiences. This power confers upon you a particular obligation to act responsibly and uphold the highest standards of our profession.

Reality for Old Media representatives and executives is self-fulfilling. That is, the reality broadcast through the airwaves and printed on dead wood has for so long influenced the way that the general public perceives reality, it has become inconceivable that a time would come when our pictures and words would no longer drive public opinion.

I am writing this to you as a final warning. That time has already arrived. With the advent of the Internet, people from all over the world, able to tell their own stories and reflect their own perceptions to willing eyes and ears have provided an awakening and shake at the very foundations of what you currently perceive to be reality. A whole generation will be influencing opinion through their peer groups and relying on YOUTUBE and blogs to influence and inform their understanding of our city and how it is perceived. The radio or the paper may not affect this generation if you don’t begin to reflect a modern reality and not the dream of sleeping giants the western media and news organizations have become.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa
http://yahnyk.blogspot.com
yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

Boyne, atheists and the Bible

Published: Thursday | September 24, 2009

The Editor, Sir:

Ian Boyne's articles on militant atheism makes no case for Christianity's validity, vitality and value to humanity, if not of religion in general.

The recent Sunday articles are in the usual vein of

Boyne's cowardice and intellectual dishonesty.

He does an exposé of atheists, probably for the hype of the topic and the rise of atheists like Bill Maher and much of the literature he discussed, but, as a religious man, Boyne takes no stance and seemingly presented the atheist argument so well that there is no defence he can make. I am of the belief that he is incapable of giving a creditable answer for Christianity and all its faults.

I cannot see how well-thinking black people who have suffered at the hand of slavery backed by the Bible can still cling to it. Christianity is losing on two grounds, the logical invalidity and inconsistency in the Bible and throughout its arguments, as well as the history and authenticity of the Bible and its account of history and the world.

Will never subscribe

I, as a black man, will never subscribe to a religion that claims:

"When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property." Exodus 21:20-21

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ." Ephesians 6:5 NLT

I am, etc.,
YANNICK PESSOA
cyber_yan@yahoo.com
Montego Bay

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090924/letters/letters2.html

Writer's Profile

Eintou Pearl Springer

Well... hmmm... I stumbled upon a book by the name of "Out of the Shadows" in my house, I believe belongs to B.U.M. (Black Urban Militia) field operative agent Dax and seeing that the book was of Trinidadian linkage, written by an Eintou Springer, and I know a modern Springer, no not Jerry... Attilah, it just piqued my curiousity.

"Eintou has been a traditional storyteller for more than three decades. She has demonstrated her craft in the USA, UK, English and French speaking Caribbean and Africa. She has conducted storytelling workshops for teachers and educators all over the world and is herself a creator of original stories in the folk tradition of her native Trinidad and Tobago.

Eintou, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, is the recipient of a national award, the Humming Bird Silver Medal, for her contribution to the development and propagation of Arts and Culture. An award-winning actress, and in 2004 was awarded the Vanguard Award of the National Drama Association of Trinidad and Tobago (NDATT), an organisation that she helped to form. She recently retired as Director of the National Heritage Library of Trinidad and Tobago an institution which she holds the distinct honour of creating and developing.

Her career as an activist and artist has been a lifetime of service to the dispossessed youth of the inner cities, young artists, dramatists and performers and basically any bright spark with the gleam of the future in their eyes.

It is this drive to empower young people that inspires and fuels her talents as a storyteller and magician of the spoken word."

Writing on...

Well this silly season will soon be upon us and "here we are princes of the universe, here we are fighting for survival(9to5:pon the slave) in a war with the darkest powers(Babylon & Rome: The system)"... So all you happy troopers who will be looking forward to X-mas bonus and Pardna draws, all who ketch the red ball inna Cashpot... don't forget the friendly neighborhood Rasta Man...

Haven't you noticed as of late... the ants are still out... when it should be cold season, butterflies are less, flies are in while the fruit seasons are out, hmmmm nature may have gone haywire, maybe this the global disaster our last warnings. Global warming is upon us!!! Yup, the meek shall inherit the Earth... gee I feel so heartened to know its this big toxic dump that we are inheriting meekly from our predecessors. Oil junkies... Aye check it seen. My granny was born in 1921 seen and she had only seen two hurricanes from then till 2000, those were Charley and Gilbert... after that Emily, Dennis, Ivan, Dean and a string of close encounters. Hmmmm something seems odd wouldn't you say. Ding ding ding... you guessed it right Global Warming... and you can see it live here in the Caribbean twenty four seven... just watch the world.

Aye shudder to think... does the government have plans to address the drastic changes to life that Global warming will bring. We see the sudden rapid and expansive road deterioration... extended rain seasons and hurricane seasons, can our economy manage this... dom dom duuuuuuum (u know that mystery show scary puzzling question sound)... Anyway enough of my anecdotes lez just see wah mi write seh this month... aye a buildback mi gwaan build back the blog vibes and energy suh whapp'm unnu support mi nuh... leff a comment or post nuh... Chu!

“What!” he said. “Do you not realize that there are souls
in endless torment? They are craving for dreams and
action, the purest passions, the wildest pleasures, and
thus they cast into all kinds of fantasies, and foolishness.”
Then she looked at him just as you gaze upon a
traveler come from a far-away land…
“Look at us, for instance,” he said, “why did we
meet? By what decree of Fate? It must be because,
across the void, like two rivers irresistibly converging, our unique inclinations are pushing us towards one another.” And now he took her hand; she didn’t take it back again. --Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

I shut my eyes so I can see. --artist Paul Gauguin

Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life. --Burton Hills



GRAND POETRY FIESTA

First I'd like to kick off this poetry cue that I have here with a poem a young Miss Shannon Smith did in response to a poem of mine published in the Bookends Segment of the Sunday Observer... called The Whore... its posted in the post before this one I think so check it out an get up to speed after you read hers below eh... the others are all mine so feast and dine...




Tonight I Whore
by Shannon Smith

Tonight i strip of
ribbons and lace
of lipgloss and makeup
my second face

for tonight
for him once more
tonight i am his dream
his whore

Tonight i lose all gentile demeanor no remnants of the Lady the daywalker For tonight i am for him not his lady but creature of the night tonight the apple is in reach for him, my Tantalus which was once only in sight Tonight he finds a warm embrace not in my arms but where my labia part ways So tonight no giggles no girlish guise just the raunch of a woman with fire between her thighs For his feindish desires I am the cure and so tonight once more for him tonight I whore.



Christmas

I had dream where Jesus turned in his grave,
Christmas consumes the souls he came to save,
Money and mammon are masters and many are slave,
Picking up their crosses and forgetting his cross and all he gave,
Neon signs on the road to future we pave,
Commerce and WWJD is all the rave.

The cock crows thrice on Christ's mas Eve,
Many celebrate not knowing what they believe,
Content with meager salaries and bonus the receive,
Merchants peddle and use fat red saints to deceive,
Tell strange and compelling stories about how a virgin did conceive,
Always forgetting the truth of how the King does grieve.

One Night In December

The sky is in her deepest blue,
While stars glow bold in the cool of night,
Ackee trees rock as the breeze comes through,
All is peace even the mongrels cease to fight.

Children frolic through the street with sparkles in hand,
And old reggae rhythms softly and wistfully scampers across the air,
The spirit... no ghost of nativity captures the land,
The weary soul can rest without fear.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

She's Gone

She left me,
For the beast, for mammon and his money,
I laugh myself to sleep at night,
But really... it isn't funny.

She left me,
Headed to Virginia and Cleveland,
While I'll try to nobly toil,
In my hectic homeland.

She left me,
Not to follow a dream,
But for the coveted green dollar,
And a white collar H2Worker scheme.



MY LOLITA

So, so, so...
I've be lulled by the way you loll,
By big bottoms and dimpled thighs,
Imperfect skin like mine and coy smile,
Unrevealing eyes.

Here I am in my secret place,
Cursed in the strangest of ways,
By you my Delores Haze,
Captivated, I simply look and gaze,
...And view,
You.

Sixteen,
Young fresh and not so green,
Black velveteen,
And me the Natty libertine.

Bubbler bubbling in...
Her Rapunzel room,
Her Board House Bordeaux,
Secret smiles,
With secrets in eyes,
Do you realize,
You are my Lolita.


Left Over Wine

I must have been forgot,
In his Majesty's schemes and plot,
For I am king too...
Am I not?

It seems in the grand design,
I was left behind,
For after lesser mortals do dine,
It is I who must suffer sipping the left over wine.



She Greaves

Some how...
I failed to expect such vulgar and hostile silence,
An uncommonly profound and intangible sort of violence.

She left and still leaves,
She grieves,
Because I deceive,
She couldn't believe,
In the web of lives and lies this dreamer weaves.

Was my presence so bitter and so vile...
Such a nuisance all the while,
That now...
Not even a smile.

And has my doubtful path,
My unwavering course of majestic disasters,
My penchant for being the dirtiest of pretty things...
Caused this harsh and parched and caustic... exile,
To the periphery of your embattled existence,
Have I compounded the blighted years,
Add green bottles of tears.

I don't know...
But I do understand...
That though she ...
I'll never See Moan or mourn,
I now know she Greaves.



Rahab: Into An Harlot's House

She has eyes like fire,
That dance and flitter with desire,
She had harlequin lips,
Soft subtle hips,
Coy postures and quirky quips,
She shimmers with the danger and legacy of hollow tips,
Black and comely,
She is a lovely... thing,
And oh how the crescent is alive with whispering,
Rumouring... that you might be inviting,
The neo libertine... The Herlequin King... in,
And oh isn't he tempted to prolong this legacy of sin.

Seekers of Dreams

Across the blank, white landscapes,
We battle the vapid and mundane,
Lexical mancing and lexical graphing,
To paint images to bland minds,
To link soul to art,
We make works of heart,
Searching the caverns of the brain,
Ever yearning for the pinnacle of the mind,
We battle on a deep, silent plain of white,
Spilling ink with ever slash,
We tie yesterday with memories,
Bound to honour beauty,
Love and art are our duty,
We are the seekers of dreams.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

Untitled

Immersion,
How I would like to be in you.

Emulsion,
How it is that I would like to cover you.

Emission,
The star that radiates from the mind of such a wunderkind.

Emersion,
Your reappearance after many moons.

Eversion,
How I undo your soul.

Aversion,
How you cast your gaze when mine becomes intent.

Revision,
How I try to recast this love.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa


Monochrome/MonaKhroma

She looks out the window,
She is monochrome true.
Her speech is song,
Her soul glows blue.

Her hair frizzles and it frazzles,
She knows and I don't know.
As the sun burns the morning cold,
I must come and I must go.

Zygote of a pregnant miracle
Was, is, she will always be.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

Turquoise Sea

…And I see it clear,
It’s fluid,
somewhere in here,
whispering of something,
I should know out there.

It’s the world I want,
it’s mellow,
With the girl I want,
supple and spirited,
I need to reach yet I can’t.

My eyes burn with clarity,
As I am immersed in briny waters,
Sky blue and teal,
Colour the world I can feel...

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

Silence On All Frequencies

I won't speak,
For to speak is to lie,
I won't listen,
For to listen is to be deceived,
I won't think,
For to think is to make belief,
I won't be touched,
For to be touched is to hurt,
I won't smell and taste,
For to smell and taste is to remember.

AM, FM, I'm dead on all frequencies,
I'll take it on mono,
I'll take radio silence,
Fly solo,
Its hard to determine,
Did I dream a belief,
Or was it that I believed a dream.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

Middle of Nowhere Restaurant

…I sit amongst devils and a whore,
Exactly where I’m not sure,
The Middle of Nowhere Restaurant most certainly.
The children of the damned scamper here at dawn,
The wretched of the earth stumble in,
Here is home and haven to sin,
The elderly are imps of darkness,
Bent and crooked and thin.

I’ve heard it said,
That the rapture must come,
The good ones must go,
While the rest will reap,
Hell in the evils we used to sow.

The light shines here,
But it’s still dark,
It mourns of a yesterday with a hope and spark,
But its all gone now,
The Beast has left its mark.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

The Wandering Jew

I wash the dried saliva from my face,
I hope the scent of sin will wash away too,
I look out the window and see the world by night,
Pastel designed in mellow moods and tragedies,
While stars, watchers, sing melodies of memories and maladies,
I search the sky for David's star on my way to my very own beloved Bethlehem,
And I wonder...
Are the stories true...
Is there really a long lost wandering Jew.

Ode to Idle Thinkers

For all those who stare out the window,
Beyond the mountain and beyond the tree,
This poem connects all those who think like me.

Holding on to all those... though,
Shackled by people's alleged reality,
Still manage to look pass the ocean and deep into the see.

Unleaded

The sunsets and the evening sky is period red,
Simon Garfunkel's Cecelia is playing in my head,
I unhear all the things she said,
I only wish the succubus were dead,
She said she liked me cause I was unleaded.















Mr. Marley wid the toolie...(Above)

Yannick Nesta Pessoa
(Writer / Graphic Designer / Cartoonist / Entrepeneur)

The Resume: http://www.geocities.com/cyber_yan/yannickresumeV2.htm