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.