pappyshow occupying my life: the reckoning

as much as i loved being a dancer in it, this year i stage managing the 3canal carnival show instead. my mind+fingers crying for writing and my body for dance, but all i doing is wukkin; cast of 47 not counting preshow, and 3 completely separate shows in 1, teching in 2+half days insteada the usual 5.
so meanwhile, i offer wha' catch my attention in the moments i been forcing myself to take every so often, to let myself breathe:
read mark zuckerberg's letter about why fasbook exists.
yes, i worry about world poverty+hunger, but the science nerd inside studying the unsolved mysteries of physics.
making me feel positive about local film
was already loving this tune, and the video win for using a favourite theme, doing it well, and being exactly the sentiment i need right now...walk good. ooohhh...ps: bonus hilarity!

edutainment [edited 24hours later]

big tings a gwan, eating up my time, but i always need food for thought, so...
andrew sullivan on obama's long game outsmarting his critics.
plus, they say it safe to smoke green; if you do, once lifted, entertainment...
and more: pothound is a must-see trinbago-made short flick.
walk good.

ignorance is bliss, yes...

thanks to my favourite gremlin for sharing; they title this madness right, somebody should tell this girl this cyah be done. enjoy the impossible. walk good.

share colbert

probably done say this here 'cause it true long time: the only american tv programming i make sure i catch every single time i possibly can is jon stewart's daily show and the colbert report; stewart's my favourite, but the consistently maintained genius of stephen colbert's character and show and realworld manifestations, simply blowmind- love that they doing the superpac and, well, everything...read the new york times' charles mcgrath's how many stephen colberts are there?
walk good.

as doctor who pronounces?

cyah wait to buss this on them gremlins i teach...read out loud:
dearest creature in creation,
study english pronunciation.
i will teach you in my verse
sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
i will keep you, suzy, busy,
make your head with heat grow dizzy.
tear in eye, your dress will tear.
so shall i! oh hear my prayer.
just compare heart, beard, and heard,
dies and diet, lord and word,
sword and sward, retain and britain.
(mind the latter, how it’s written.)
now i surely will not plague you
with such words as plaque and ague.
but be careful how you speak:
say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
cloven, oven, how and low,
script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
hear me say, devoid of trickery,
daughter, laughter, and terpsichore,
typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
exiles, similes, and reviles;
scholar, vicar, and cigar,
solar, mica, war and far;
one, anemone, balmoral,
kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
gertrude, german, wind and mind,
scene, melpomene, mankind.
billet does not rhyme with ballet,
bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
blood and flood are not like food,
nor is mould like should and would.
viscous, viscount, load and broad,
toward, to forward, to reward.
and your pronunciation’s ok
when you correctly say croquet,
rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
friend and fiend, alive and live.
ivy, privy, famous; clamour
and enamour rhyme with hammer.
river, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
doll and roll and some and home.
stranger does not rhyme with anger,
neither does devour with clangour.
souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
shoes, goes, does. now first say finger,
and then singer, ginger, linger,
real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
query does not rhyme with very,
nor does fury sound like bury.
dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
though the differences seem little,
we say actual but victual.
refer does not rhyme with deafer.
foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
mint, pint, senate and sedate;
dull, bull, and george ate late.
scenic, arabic, pacific,
science, conscience, scientific.
liberty, library, heave and heaven,
rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
we say hallowed, but allowed,
people, leopard, towed, but vowed.
mark the differences, moreover,
between mover, cover, clover;
leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
chalice, but police and lice;
camel, constable, unstable,
principle, disciple, label.
petal, panel, and canal,
wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
senator, spectator, mayor.
tour, but our and succour, four.
gas, alas, and arkansas.
sea, idea, korea, area,
psalm, maria, but malaria.
youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
doctrine, turpentine, marine.
compare alien with italian,
dandelion and battalion.
sally with ally, yea, ye,
eye, i, ay, aye, whey, and key.
say aver, but ever, fever,
neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. H
heron, granary, canary.
crevice and device and aerie.
face, but preface, not efface.
phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
large, but target, gin, give, verging,
ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
ear, but earn and wear and tear
do not rhyme with here but ere.
seven is right, but so is even,
hyphen, roughen, nephew stephen,
monkey, donkey, turk and jerk,
ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
pronunciation (think of psyche!)
is a paling stout and spikey?
won’t it make you lose your wits,
writing groats and saying grits?
it’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
islington and isle of wight,
housewife, verdict and indict.
finally, which rhymes with enough,
though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
hiccough has the sound of cup.
my advice is to give up!!!


English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité
walk good.
ps: more so i can find it again than anything to do with this post, cabletv.com's dr.who timeline infographic. gorgeous.

flash fiction friday #41

experimenting with trigger, please tell me if it easier, harder, if you hate it and never want it like this again; insteada my usual inclusion list (send me starters+closers!) this is a few short groupings gathered into a longer list of easier words. we go see; i feel i'll be vex with meself, but the point of fff hadda be experimentation+challenge wherever i can find it.
with no further ado, flash fiction friday #41 (inclusion)trigger: dare, dear, deer, fair, fare, fear, hair, hare, hear, here.
rules of engagement:
you will send in your suggestions for flash fiction friday triggers (starter sentences/phrases, closers, titles, inclusions, etc.) anytime during the week up to 11.55a.m. friday, trinbago timezone; i will post the new fff trigger by noon friday trinbago timezone.*
if your trigger is not chosen and you think it is too brilliant not to be chosen, you will send it in again the next week.
you will write an anecdote, short story, or novel length prose poem using the trigger provided.
you will add comments and appropriate linkage to my trigger-post indicating your desire to participate and the completion of your piece (don't need a blogger/gmail account to comment on my blog).
you may join in at any time prior to the deadline.*
you will display your piece as a post on your own blog (or as a comment on my trigger-post or fasbook note or whatever, once we can all read it- please make sure we can all access the link to read it, not just those who are your friends on fasbook; there's a way to create public links for that, right?).
you will be done by monday noon trinbago timezone.*[in light of collective busyness and my general mentality, i not pressed about these deadlines 'cause i'd rather have fun reading late than never, so if you want to fff past deadline, go through hard, just make sure you comment on the appropriate trigger-post so we know which it belongs to, and if is a real old trigger, comment on the most recent post as well so we know something new to back-back+read...if nobody fffs i'll leave the same trigger up until at least 1person other than myself writes a piece]*
write fresh!

walk good.

fff#40

was feeling dramatic; tell me wha' you think, nah...
flash fiction friday #40 (inclusion)trigger: bare, beer, bier, bear.
i hated the bed in that room, like a bier, stiff platform on a bare bones frame bolstered with bedsheets instead of funeral flora. plus, growing up in the tropics i had no positive context for attics- places where eerily-resembling children were locked into creepy incestuous relationships, where crazily aging family members were kept away; the staircase warned at every step this was not for the faint of heart, and the feint of heart wouldn’t make the top.
i had been a secret in the attic.
the foreign cousin.
by then i was old enough to enjoy it somewhat. i decided to let them think me exotic and enjoy the perks. the attic wasn’t one. when i left that place, i left it far enough from my mind that i was shocked to recognise the faded, peeling wallpaper that was the most depressing thing about the cramped space- little yellow and pink and blue bears dancing, riding tricycles, juggling, bears wearing party hats, wearing tiaras, groucho-marx-noses+glasses, bears pretending to babies they aren’t in an attic.
thoughts of paleskinned inbred babies hidden away up there until they faded into those whispering walls haunted my sleepspace from approach, making me long for now less-terrifying jumbies of home, to trade some soucouyant sizzle or douens calling for those creaky stairs.
climbing them this time, opener in hand, my unopened bottle in the other clatters against the railings as a barrier to the sound clawing at me from a grave piled with small corpses. when i open the door and the room pulls me the need to breathe outside air drags me across it to open the tiny window. i slide to the ground, lean my head against the windowsill and crack the beer with a toast to bringing the right demons to face down this unexpected return to my crypt.


walk good.

flash fiction friday #40; prezzie-for-me

at this time of year i remember the simple but valuable gift that is time with loved ones, so this flash fiction friday #40 (inclusion)trigger speaks, simply, to the crucial elements of community; scandal, celebration, morbidity, plus a wild animal: bare, beer, bier, bear.
rules of engagement:
you will send in your suggestions for flash fiction friday triggers (starter sentences/phrases, closers, titles, inclusions, etc.) anytime during the week up to 11.55a.m. friday, trinbago timezone; i will post the new fff trigger by noon friday trinbago timezone.*
if your trigger is not chosen and you think it is too brilliant not to be chosen, you will send it in again the next week.
you will write an anecdote, short story, or novel length prose poem using the trigger provided.
you will add comments and appropriate linkage to my trigger-post indicating your desire to participate and the completion of your piece (don't need a blogger/gmail account to comment on my blog).
you may join in at any time prior to the deadline.*
you will display your piece as a post on your own blog (or as a comment on my trigger-post or fasbook note or whatever, once we can all read it- please make sure we can all access the link to read it, not just those who are your friends on fasbook; there's a way to create public links for that, right?).
you will be done by monday noon trinbago timezone.*[in light of collective busyness and my general mentality, i not pressed about these deadlines 'cause i'd rather have fun reading late than never, so if you want to fff past deadline, go through hard, just make sure you comment on the appropriate trigger-post so we know which it belongs to, and if is a real old trigger, comment on the most recent post as well so we know something new to back-back+read...if nobody fffs i'll leave the same trigger up until at least 1person other than myself writes a piece]*
write fresh!

walk good.

banana baby bjorn?

before you read another word, far less watch the images below, you must see not-for-swimwear, or miss the hilarity of the fact that my mother sent me today's teehee, but the aforelinked is way more her usual style than these; thus, coming from her (trust, click that link above) these (below) are the batch that actually shocked me:

and speaking of warm+fuzzy: back by popular request and my own selfish desires, flash fiction friday returns tomorrow.

walk good.

pole envy

[finally posted monday december12.2011]

i have a confession (and no, is not the backshots, get yuh mind out the gutta).

actually, no, i apologise, sans parentheses, 'cause that inside joke aside was so inside it was completely self-indulgent; entirely script-based.

apologies aside: i have pole envy.

this show was cast smart and i weirdly enjoy "aunty sam"s weirdness but lately, after playing on the pole to build choreography and realising how easy it come for me and what i capable of, now i wish i were cast as 1 of the 3girls who work gutta beautiful's public pussy project 'cause i should be on that pole. i wanna show off my skills that nobody will get to appreciate...sigh...so jealous...oh, speaking of which: dear universe, for christmas what i really want is u$600 to buy a freestanding portable pole...

*needle scratch on vinyl*this post interrupted- yesterday i pause writing to go do production stuff and tech; post-rehearsal, everyting change.

gutta's director threw a hissy fit and quit tonight. our last run was monday in the rehearsal space, we never run in the theatre yet, jes' basic tech; we have opening night audience friday. we have no director.

radio silence.

i readily admit i cyah write someting while it happening. only when a situation over/resolved can i speak on it, to it, about it, of it. so i started this post, came back to say the world was falling apart, and never came back since because it only now done. the las' time i was here it we didn' know if it still could, but gutta happened. it was a good show. we had a director but much more stress+difficulty than those words suggest. general feedback: acting was very good/strong/of a high calibre, the production was too long but looked good, choreography was good and sox rock the pole, not everybody understood all layers of the piece, certain directorial choices were questioned. i was happy with my work as choreographer+actor, and was complimented on delivery, clarity and intention.

jes needed to get the basics off my chest so i can create again (gyazette musical to write, 3canal carnival show to plot plus warrenman inveigling me to choreograph for it...)- full gutta story sooncome...walk good.

we have a show

it happening.

fragments, pieces, motivations, inspirations coming together.

we seeing hearing feeling this gutta beautiful we in, creating it as we living it, our lives and our characters', scary and enervating and exhausting and glad. so much work being done, so much wuk to do...props creeping in, costumes in varying stages of assembly, posters+ads getting make, pole reach in rehearsal space, soundtrack almost completely in place, choreography getting nailed down and cleaned up, unnecessaries getting trimmed...we have a show, now is to tighten and sharpen, now is about moving the journey along.

walk good.

ps: randomly read+enjoyed and determined shareworthy after a simple edit: "i love you like a cupcake loves an overweight child, very similar to the mannerisms of a whole cake but personal, and minus the commitment issues, plus just the right amount of icing, and only a smidgen of the guilt."

and we say we want drama?

well, we get.
we cyah say griot's gutta beautiful doh have drama.
first+foremost, we have no $. we sooo have no $ that we eh pay for nutting yet but still tens of thousands overbudget because we so doh have $ that (inevitable) basic production costs are pure debt. we so have no $ that even though the first $ we get wasn't even enough to pay a production-team-member or bring a single production element to stage-execution, a happy dance was in order.
then photographer ring night before las' week's scheduled photoshoot to say, death in the family, he cyah shoot us wednesday. he cyah do nutting for a whole week so we reschedule for the following wednesday (this week) which mean we behind with creating tickets and promotional material, plus now i missing because this week i in coco dance festival and tech+dress monday-wednesday and perform thursday-sunday, thus can only make griot for the 1st half of sunday's rehearsal before coco calltime.
then costume designer say, las' minute without enough pre-photoshoot notice, she cyah make at all, and following that news, photographer ringback+say he still dealing with family stuff and cyah shoot this week neither.
i might not be in the gutta with griot right now but still hadda be about griot+gutta: scrambling to think of a way to make it work without pre-production photoshoot (to no avail) then finding another photographer las' minute, figuring out how to source+afford costumes for photos+run, debating whether we can afford both scheduled performance weekends and a character we thought we were cutting from the piece, managing other little behind-the-scenes drama to maximise productivity, learning lines+accent backstage@coco; plus we behind rehearsal schedule because of everybody's conflicts- besides me in coco this week+rehearsals-past, we have/had sox juggling next top model and anime caribe, disa+nickolai's gyazette rehearsals+gigs, abeo's other gigs, marvin juggling school+job, and camille+danielle with school and random tings...making theatre is truly a wuk of love, yes, 'cause it facking hard and the $ sooo not worth it...
at least no-curfew is a few more hours/day to make/art/wuk...not staying productive provokes existential crisis, constant awareness of being less than human without rights makes the state of emergency life threatening...

walk good.

emergency stashes; a mishmash

• in my teens, dancing 5-7days a week, it was a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup in the dance bag that i never made chocolate milk with; i keep tea in my smoke box for as long as i've had one, and sometimes dry milo. i seem to have settled on tea, catch(dark) and (patsy's split)channa as constants, with a rotating cast of tunnocks, jubjubs, red mango and roughtops, and tamarind balls when i lucky, for the munchies.
• i met a stripper ('missy' from new zealand) who performed with a little velvety green+gold-trimmed bailey's cloth baggie tied to her garter to keep tips. i told her i had a similar soft purple+gold-trimmed crown royal bag i'd bring her from when we used to do shots in the dressingroom before every hedwig show; she was thrilled. i got home and realised (duh, had i thought of the bottle that came in it insteada studying cloth sliding up missy's thigh) my bag was way too big for the same purpose as her bailey's number, but never saw her @ the palace again anyway. now i keep sextoys in it, in her honour.
• boys are gross and hilarious. a friend tell me how back in the day when one of his pardners bep in a lime, them boys would crack open a raw egg over his bumseecrack and leave it drying sticky for him to wake+find and think somebody violate his arse while he sleep. a few days later i telling another pardner how appalled i am and he bawl, "like them eh know yuh suppose to sprinkle a little peppersauce too, for the burn and to look like blood? steups!"
• and as we hit a theatrical note, please help save our naparima bowl (online petition)- we cyah afford to give up what few performance spaces we have...

walk good.

public pussy project

tonight we started wukkin the gutta [beautiful] girls' public pussy project choreography; thus far i been wukkin movement for transitions and group scenes, tonight was the 1st time we get down+dirty. and it was goood...
carpetburn, bruised knees, skinned shoulders+elbows, stretched groins, and a rehearsal video to prove it! (doh mind the chaotic opening moments, i was djing and still critiquing+choreographing in my head while tryna get me+phone in position, but i reach before disa, sox+abeo start, so enjoy...above is me+danielle, non-public-pussy-movement...)

walk good.

sticky inside my mind

another "what's percolating" post; sometimes my inner archivist just won't let me complete anything more focused+articulate until i do this with the untethered pieces floating in my mental amniosac...too gross? i'm a bit of a science(-meets-art) nerd so i like the amnesiac-meets-archivist play...litter, debris, detritus, damage...anyway, gutta beautiful research is an entertaining diversion in+amongst the firing of port authority chairman for refusing bobol juxtaposed with this well-executed political historical theatre and state of the nation of the republic of the people of the world...all 7billion of us...
be impressed by pole control of ms. jenyne butterfly

and power of ms. felix cane

walk good.
ps: can it pleaseprettyplease be jouvay soon?
pps: all in 1day, more spam from myself, plus gaddafi (postmortem) and (methinks, stupidly) spam that says [spam] in its subject line...

the marijuana glove compartment...

...talent all outta proportion, more than should swim in this tiny pool, yet we refuse to think for or help ourselves, no matter how representatives prove they not truly for we.
drowning ourselves in fantasy lifestyles rather than contemplate our reality, we never identify and run no risk of resolving our problems.
these dark days are one with cowering nights, these nights the silence squeezes tight, a veil of oppression staunching attempts at productivity already broken by sirens and hiding from the tramp of those government boots…
doh sleep to dream when nightmares stalk dreams to change the world.
still, live curfew music is made at a small gathering of guitars, minds and restless artistic spirits, softly but persistently defying the state because we cyah let them take this; new songs are voiced of these nights’ troubled debate.
small groups gather, and bigger ones, in spite of knowing we need profess no malice for trouble to come to the door, kick it in, ramfle our lives and leave us rummaging through rubble in this twilight zone; we gather knowing they say we shalt not and are prepared to stop us; we gather because we are, thus we must.
so music is made of this, bodies move to this, visions become visible through this, creation will come of this surviving the state of emergency. we will create question, create protest, create suggestion, create+recreate ourselves, re-evolve, become a new nation anew, become ourselves…
walk good.

wethepublic

these nights the silence is a wall of oppression staunching my attempts at productivity;

doh sleep to dream when nightmares stalk dreams to change the world.

these are dark days, my love,

dark days, one with cowering nights, hiding from the tramp of those government boots...

republic(1979) of sweet trinbago, as strange as it is irresistible.

as a people we show talent all outta proportion, way more than should swim in our tiny pool, yet we refuse to think for or help ourselves, no matter how many times our representatives prove they not truly for we. we drown ourselves in fantasy lifestyles and religion rather than contemplate our reality, thus never identify and run no risk of resolving our problems.

republic [noun]: state or nation in which the supreme power rests in all the citizens entitled to vote (the electorate), and is exercised by representatives elected, directly or indirectly, by them, and responsible to them.

from res publica: a public affair.

the state of the nation is that the people, or some significant portion of the people, retain supreme control over the government, and offices of state are not granted through heritage. yet [i say again] our people and natural resources are put in harm’s way to fatten the pockets of the few we have given the power to put their own financial independence above the nation’s welfare. the value of this nation is in its people, underfed+underemployed, potential underresourced+undersupported, creativity squeezed into ever-tighter mental boxes to fit in the mainstream, a people represented by individuals independent of conscience, concern and responsibility toward we who give them authority.

fundamental rights and freedoms under the constitution of the republic of trinidad+tobago:
a. the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;
b. the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law;
c. the right of the individual to respect for his private and family life;
d. the right of the individual to equality of treatment from any public authority in the exercise of any functions;
e. the right to join political parties and to express political views;
f. the right of a parent or guardian to provide a school of his own choice for the education of his child or ward;
g. freedom of movement;
h. freedom of conscience and religious belief and observance;
i. freedom of thought and expression;
j. freedom of association and assembly; and
k. freedom of the press.

with these in mind i offer 2 items percolating and waiting to be aired:

c.l.r.james on working democracy
and a reminder of the brutality of the denial of our rights.
walk good.

"h" and other letters

we start tech for h today, the dance show i been in rehearsal for (not the only ting i rehearsing recently, but other gig getting its own post so everybody could know carnival band "explosion" on shit and doh deserve your support/$). we@littlecarib this week, performing thursday-sunday, 6pm curtain to accommodate curfew- is the 1st time our director showing a collection of her choreography so we doing pieces created from 20years ago to 3weeks ago. i have a fun little stardust solo with a brolly, plus in the group winery piece and the drum piece (cyah call it a folk piece because is a folk-limon fusion and the limon technique makes it not at all what my brain conjures everytime folk rehearsal call, leading to repeated-tiny-disappointment syndrome). i have mixed feelings about the drum piece partly because of false advertising frustrating my dancing desires, and partly because of a solo-sharing arrangement that starting to feel unfair:

when this piece was cast i was told i was in the group sections plus understudying the soloist (also does duet). i wasn't told we were double-cast, but that i was understudying, as in, only going on if someting prevent the soloist from performing. rehearsals underway, and the soloist never rehearses the sections she in with us; i hear she cyah make any of our rehearsals and choreographer been working with her separately; i also start hearing she going new york for a month to return a week before opening. she rehearses once with us before going n.y. carrying tape of the piece, i have 2rehearsals for duet+solo each in addition to group rehearsals, live drummers join us, i dance the solo+duet plus sections i in but soloist not in @every rehearsal, but only get to work solo+duet once each with drums. 2weeks to show i hitting my stride with the solo+duet (choreographer done say i'm 1 of the strongest in group sections) and director/choreographer say i wukkin hard and wukkin it and will perform 2-of-4shows, pick 2 nights, my choice; i say lemme see when my people can come and i'll choose based on that, and a week before tech tell her none of my people making thursday night and some coming friday. couple days later she say she eh sure the soloist will be ready when she reach back so i should do opening(thursday) so we look good media night; i remind her none of my people can make thursday and ask how we'd accommodate that; no clear answer. a week before opening, soloist rejoins rehearsal uncertain of choreography in spite of watching tape, and marks everything the whole time; dancers saying she eh ready and i need to do all 4nights, i try to give the benefit of the doubt and put ego aside and put it down to 1st time back and absentee drums; hear her moms coming sunday and ask choreographer/director who doing which nights, to no avail. yesterday we did a run of show, stopping only to work soloist+duet with drums and work her into group and she mark again. choreographer keep saying she not gonna be ready and i hadda do thursday, i keep reminding her i already picked not-thursday. i start wondering why, if she telling me homegirl not ready plus homegirl now telling me the same, are we wukkin so hard to make sure homegirl gets 2nights even though me doing opening/media night would be a favour for the director/choreographer and screw me? it starting to feel like if they want me to do thursday as a favour and homegirl moms coming sunday, considering how much we each committed+wuk for this, i should just do thursday-saturday and she do sunday...

anyway, with that building on top of the (still unpaid) frustrations of dealing with "explosion" shittongs up to a week ago, when i found this forgotten note it felt like i need/deserve it for this show like never before:

this is the perfect example of why i need to fuck post-performance: at 4.52a.m. i was eating potato salad over my kitchen sink in a desperate attempt to silence the controllable 1 of the voices aiding+abetting my insomnia. no amount of smoke could quell the others, all critiquing my every moment onstage and even backstage, or bring sleep. i stopped the stomach growls and still had to masturbate. if i had somebody willing to bring me home and fuck me senseless post-show, i'd fall out immediately after with none of the shit i putting up with from my brain...
walk good.
ps: almost forgot, letters...jes get spam with subject line "this email is for the owner of this account"- not as imaginative as spam used to be...

fragments, exorcised

bits+pieces i been meaning to say but never got around to crafting, but still wanna get out:

they say you don't remember pain, you remember it hurt bad but not how it actually felt, but i put on those pointe shoes for the 1st time in over 10years and before i even went up my toes screamed my betrayal of our agreement to never do that again. still i went up. or at least my left (i think) foot did; my right (the other, either way) refused pointe-blank. my feet have not yet forgiven me, and i understand.

these baby lizards need to get smarter+faster; is not like i tiptoe, i live alone. how i end up crushing 1 and de-tail-ing another in 1week?

woke up a morning this carnival with 2 small punctures on my thigh, spaced about 4 front teeth apart, black+blue around the holes; next evening a bat started flying through...i feel fine though...[months later, the bat is a regular; i almost worry if too many nights pass without the swift swoopy circling above my head]

walk good.

indepen-dance

as we celebrate emancipation in the face of modern-day slavery, so we must ask on our 49th anniversary of independence, under a state of emergency and curfew: is trinidad+tobago truly independent? before we can even bemoan what local radio programming tells us of our national culture, we must start by asking: can a nation consider itself independent if it cannot or does not feed itself? can a place be independent if its priority is producing for somebody else, and its concerns of people who do not live there? should we believe ourselves emancipated from mental slavery when we needlessly sweat while we sweat, dressed in the suits of our colonisers, denying the daily reality of where we exist now? is any people independent when common sense and the national good are not applied to questions of social responsibility, and administrative accountability is nil?

independence: freedom from dependence on or control by another person, organisation or state; freedom from the influence or determination of another or others; an income sufficient for a livelihood.
is independence the true state of the nation?
ask yourself if our agriculture and related food production industries+standards are what they should be for an independent nation of our resources+capabilities. ask if our health+education institutions+standards are what they should be for an independent nation of our resources+potential? ask [simply]: are we self-sufficient?
instead of regional cooperation, we of the caribbean “independently” grovel at the feet of the so-called 1st world, giving them preferential treatment to our own disadvantage. our people and natural resources are put in harm’s way to fatten the pockets of the few we have given the power to put their own financial independence above the nation’s. we prostitute our culture, cheapening it for foreign dollars to feed the wine+jam mentality that is increasingly all we have to offer.
the value of this nation is in its people, underfed+underemployed, potential underresourced+undersupported, creativity squeezed into ever-tighter mental boxes to fit in the mainstream…is trinidad+tobago an independent nation, or a group of people dependent on individuals independent of conscience, concern and responsibility toward those who gave them authority? we the people don't even have the run of our own homeland as we commemorate this date in our history, our civil liberties dependent on those seemingly independent of rational reasoning about how to solve the problems we face in this country.
the battle for true independence is not yet won. we must be ourselves for ourselves, develop our resources to our own benefit, to take care of ourselves weself, become self-sustaining, an independent nation not only in title but in action and in the daily reality of all her people.
with freedom comes responsibility and we must all take responsibility for our independence.
walk good.

while i write, lockdown in my livingroom that i always tryna run back to until now they say i hadda stay in and it suddenly reeks of confinement, st.james quieter than i ever see+hear the place, except maybe the wee hours of ash wednesday morning. but this stillness different from the annual post-revelry hush.

prime minister announce state of emergency sunday evening before the president even sign off on it, no real details to guide people (maybe)needing alternate arrangements for monday, people go to wuk not knowing how reaching home wukkin until the powers that be deign to press conference@noon (except who have no work badge or jobletter to get a pass and hadda cancel wuk when news of public transport early lockoff buss later in the afternoon). we try to sleep sunday night knowing that the police and army empowered with special provisions we doh know enough about.
emergency power regulations state that we no longer have the right to meet, march or protest, just as labour disputes have public servants and police officers threatening strike. the prime minister issues a limited state of emergency that not so limited (sans presidential approval) and the acting commissioner of police sign a curfew order before actually appointed a.c.p. all while police commissioner gibbs and deputy ewaski out of the country without proper knowledge of the commission, the former detained for illegal entry into another country...as a pardner say on fasbook: the red house should be on the list of crime "hotspots" [thus far targeting predominantly black areas considered lower class] as tha's where most crimes against this country occur.
but i have long maintained: trinbagonians will take chain up, bobol and mamguy, and revolution will not come until they ban carnival; we riot when they threaten dance+drum. our democracy boasts an apathetic electorate, taking whaever they give us and obediently giving up as much as they choose to take- but remember benjamin franklin say, who "can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
they say the state of emergency is to take down (violent) crime and i for that but how, exactly, this supposed to wuk? we supposed to believe, with no longterm plan from the powers that be, that criminals not smart enough to take a 2weeks vacation and come back robbing+shooting + burning+looting come mid-september? when smaller criminals who cyah afford vacation get ketch doing their daily hustle, with the lack of opportunity our young men face we supposed to believe it doh have a nex' crew already jostlng to take their place? and a nex' crew rolling up to replace them? we supposed to believe little black boys on the block importing the drugs+weapons? laundering money on a streetcorner in neverdirty, morvant? local might be making a comeback but vincy still have the market, and who have more $ smoking arizona.

those behind the smuggling of drugs+weapons that fuel local crime are those behind our politics and industry, close enough and boldface enough to look we in we eye when they wining, groping hands deep in our taxpaying pockets, backed by our administration.
dialogue is necessary- sometimes we forget, because people around us understand and talking sense about the problems and dangers our nation faces, that others may be less informed- but we also need r/evolution. we cyah wait for coup d'etat mindset to start looking good; cyah wait until another generation must fight to the death to effect the change our humanity demands.
meanwhile, latenight doubles vendors will reset bodyclocks to sell breakfast or starve when current supplies run out; murray street and environs will feel like the disguised graveyard fares forget threatens the incautious; freelancers without passes will become hustlers as hustlers without options become pipers, and band launches will simply become curfew parties.
walk good.

others

the problem with believing in mythical beings/creatures/others is there's so much more potentially out to get you. and jes 'cause you paranoid doh mean they not out to get you...walk good.

thinking about how absolutely heart/gut/mind-wrenching being in love is and found myself wondering if that's the true root of my what-i-suddenly-wonder-is-fear-rather-than-unreadiness to make children...

walk good.

nonsense

as if women getting dressed+undressed such that they always end up prancing around in bra+panties+heels when we all know high heels are last on and 1st off weren't bad enough, wha's the real scene with movie characters going to bathe with towel wrapped around them and dropping that shit on the floor while they fresh? who the fuck does that? who leaves the towel you wanna dry your clean self with on the floor, regardless of housekeeping standards? i call bullshit.

walk good.

patron needed; please apply

the reality of my life is that some days, if it weren't for my mother i wouldn't eat. i call it the actor's/writer's diet: to do the work i desperately want to and do what keeps me most creatively productive, i make only barely enough $ to manage bare necessities so i have time to write furiously (which inevitably means that any emergency or unforeseen circumstance immediately renders me on the verge of eviction).

i see 2ways to write what calling me. i choose to freelance in the arts because it keeps me more creatively engaged and thus creatively productive and keeps my time flexible for the kinna ting that keeps me more creatively engaged+productive and writing. the problem with this way is how hard it is freelancing in the arts to make enough $ to afford the time to focus on the writing. the other way, which never wuk for me, is to get the day job, wuk mindlessly whole day everyday to come home tired to try+finish housekeeping to then try+write, exhausted and feeling uncreative. writing never makes any $ until it done and you find somebody who like it enough to back it, and bills hadda pay while writing still in process. i not saying it impossible. it's been done by millions and being done everyday and i technically doing it all now, at least until i fail, but i come closer more often than you know, so too often i despair. and it got me thinking: what would help my situation is a patron of the arts; a patron who understands that we not dealing in commissioned work, and what is created is what must be, giving them no creative control over what gets made while bills are paid; a patron only concerned with and trusting in my ability to make worthwhile contribution.

and as i realise this, i also realise this may be my only true fantasy.

walk good.

freedom.com6

the purpose of human trafficking is always exploitation; nobody should be bound in servitude, treated as property, or denied their freedom.
with estimates of this hidden population at 10-30million, there are more enslaved now than at any other time in human history.
modern-day slavery, like modern racism, can be less obvious, more subtle than it used to be; but that doesn’t make it less real. we may not see workers whipped in fields and kitchens as we pass by plantation houses, but do we know anything about working conditions+arrangements for dishwashers in restaurants+bars we frequent, missing persons reported in the news every night; what happens to the “disappeared”?
our attorney general says there is no empirical evidence to show the existence of human trafficking in this country, while a sunday guardian investigative report claims: “…the clandestine local trade, which operates through a well-organised network and is supported by several powerful agencies, is linked to an international human trafficking ring…they are mostly used as sex slaves and sometimes for slave labour. sometimes, they are used to make payoffs in the drug trade…the lucrative human trafficking ring is operating in the cascade/st.anns area, between sangre grande and tunapuna, diego martin and in south…”
meanwhile, international reports state that the government of trinidad+tobago does not fully comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, that child labour is rampant, from agriculture to loading+stocking goods to car washing+repair, construction, fishing, shop assistants, domestic servants, street vending, and sexual exploitation, and that for european and north american men interested in sex tourism, local tourist agencies and unlisted guesthouses offer package deals that include the cost of buying a woman.
all over the world: reports of people kidnapped, stripped of identification, violently violated to ensure fearful compliance, their families threatened to further terrorise them into obedience, and forced into servitude; “employers” keep all or most of what forced labourers earn, claiming for living expenses the enslaved must pay off to buy their freedom, at a rate higher than their wages.
trinidad+tobago is a regional hub for travel+transport of goods+services and we already know how this adds to local arms+ammunitions+drug trades; are we vigilant enough about being a destination, source and transit point for human trafficking? are we combating the internal trafficking of young girls from remote areas like guayaguayere, barrackpore, cedros, penal, drawn to “houses of ill repute” in our cities by ads promising to provide work or further education?
the purpose of human trafficking is always exploitation; nobody should be bound in servitude, treated as property, or denied their freedom.

walk good.

conscious

never fails to amaze me, maxi/taxi drivers playing "conscious" music while perpetrating some of the nastiest bad drives on our roads...
lewwe bring a real consciousness:

slavery: the state of one bound in servitude as the property of a slaveowner or household; the practice of owning slaves; a mode of production in which slaves constitute the principal work force.
modern-day slaveholders call this debt bondage, bonded labour, attached labour, forced labour, indentured servitude, anything to avoid calling it what it is.
slavery and human trafficking is an international multibillion-dollar industry with the number of slaves worldwide estimated @10-30million. with slaves being a necessarily hidden demographic, these estimates may be lower than they are in actuality.
the current slave price of us$90 is a historic low, as compared with roughly $40,000 in today’s currency 200 years ago. 200years ago, slaves captured+traded each had a significant market value; it was good economic sense to keep them alive+functioning in spite of regularly horrific treatment. today’s market, especially in the sex trade, pushes a high rate of return in a short time, with the availability of people easy to make disappear aiding high turnover. the laws of supply+demand make modern-day slaves virtually disposable.
is slavery happening in our own backyard?
is china exporting their glut of men, the fallout from 30+ years under a 1child policy? chinese workers in trinbago live+work in substandard conditions, with no governmental concern for workers’ rights or their fundamental right to be treated like human beings.
are local businessmen tricking foreign workers into giving up their passports on arrival and working for barely-minimum wage with no means of return home due to paying off travel+living expenses?
why are so many young girls kidnapped in trinidad+tobago? what happens to the countless victims never found, dead or alive?
can the colombians, venezuelans or other south americans here leave establishments for workplaces not engaged in sexual exploitation?
can child soldiers in war-torn countries leave the servitude they are forced into when it so quickly becomes the only life they know in a world run by adults gone crazy?
the purpose of human trafficking is always exploitation: domestic+agricultural workers in our homes+fields, the sex industry, sweatshops, the black market sale of human organs…
the u.n. reports that 54% of recruiters+victims are strangers while 46% are known to each other, and a majority of suspects involved in the trafficking process are nationals of the country where the trafficking process is occurring.
u.n. trafficking protocol defines “human trafficking” as “the recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, or fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation…exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs…”
but what can we do?
each 1 of us can help, with students’ and educators’ research, making informed travel choices not supporting sex tourism, using purchasing power to influence companies’ ethical business practices in supply chains, choices regarding child labour, forced labour, and workers’ rights.
nobody should be bound in servitude, treated as property, or denied their freedom.
we can all work to end modern-day slavery now.

walk good.