R U ready

Ok another random hip hop title today. This time from the Beatnuts back when Fash was a part of the group in the Intoxicated Demons era.

Anyway today I've got two items to talk about. Completely separate items, with nothing in common. The first part is sort of directed at my fellow bajan bloggers, Urban Sis, Camp, Marlo damn they aint alot of us are they? Anyway I read this article on Friday and thought I'd share it with you guys since I figure one of you guys may be the next big bajan writer. Maybe we could do a reality show and I could get to do a little critique. ha ha ha. Just kidding but maybe the article could be motivation.

After producing such internationally acclaimed writers as George Lamming, Austin "Tom” Clarke and Dr Kamau Brathwaite, Barbados’ future when it comes to creative fiction isn’t too rosy.

Put another way, the problem comes down to: who will make up the next generation of Bajan writers?

Both Clarke and Brathwaite, who have won major international literary awards, don’t like what they see on the horizon

So guys step up to the plate. Where's my next great novel by a bajan writer?


Ok that out of the way I'm going to speak a bit about my favorite TV show right now: 24. Boy me love this show bad ya kno! Wicked show dat! If you haven't seen it, its this fictional series with actual real actors not the reality TV crap that has taken over TV. It deals with this fictional counter terrorist group (CTU) based in LA. I could go on and on about this show and how I've watched all 3 and a half seasons so far. Its that good. Its based on real time where a minute in the show is an actual minute and the show takes place in 24 one hour segments representing an entire day so we see how the characters develop and handle situations over the day. Surprisingly they go to the bathroom a lot less often than one would imagine one goes in the average 24 hr span. Anyway they do keep it real or at least rather intense on this show most of the time but I wanted to focus on some of the not realistic parts of the show.

Now me and one of my bajan sistren sit around on Tuesdays and go over the episodes and why certain things just naa mek it just in general and also from a West Indian perspective. So I thought I'd share a few of the things we chat about. Wont chat about how the black man, Curtis, with the seniority in the organization was passed over for the top job last night even though he was in line for the position cause that's just keeping it a bit too real and hits home a little too uncomfortably for most of us, lol. So here goes:

(1) This season the main character Jack Bauer, who's played by Keither Sutherland, is involved with a married lady who is separated from her husband. The authorities realized that the husband may have been somehow affiliated to the criminals in the show. So they send Jack in and somehow Jack ends up torturing the guy with electrical shocks ......... in front of his estranged wife/Jack's current girlfriend. Ok I've never been in the torture business but its safe to say that was a faux pas on Jack's part as now the wife has switched from not caring about the husband to being all mother hen-ish about his wellbeing. Clearly unless you're trying to establish credentials as a bad mutha...... (shut your mouth!) torturing someone who your girlfriend once shared a bed with in front of her eyes is a no no. Unless you're really secretly trying to get rid of her in which case GO FOR IT!

Now where we have difficulty with the CTU personel is their attachment to their jobs. Clearly none of these people are from the Caribbean because these people love their jobs real bad. I mean dedication to the extreme! Three incidents this season sort of solidified that theory for us:

(1) This one lady was accused of being a traitor and tortured by her bosses. They found out later that she had been framed and they released her. After talking to the boss who said she was sorry, this lady went back to work immediately. Hold on now? I mean the woman was getting electric shocks and all sort of torture one minute from her bosses and 1/2 hr later she's back at her desk working for the same folk? She never hear about sick leave? I mean I know some fellows in Barbados get a stomach ache and they find the right doctor and that's two weeks of sick leave. Surely after being tortured the least you could do is spend the rest of the day at home. You could imagine a West Indian going back to work after being tortured? No star you would get up, cuss management bad bad bad, threaten the good for nothing so n so's about what you would do to them if you see them on the road. Then ya wud cuss all your coworkers for not standing up for you, spill all the secrets you know about them, clear out your desk and walk out the building, calling the doctor, the lawyer and the union rep one time. I lie?

Only way you were going back to work is if somehow you could frig up the whole operation. No way you heading back to work like nothing happened and putting in a full day's work. Oh hell no!

(2) This one computer guy Edgar was working on saving the country from nuclear holocaust by stopping the meldown of various nuclear plants. Unfortunately one of the plants he couldn't save was one close to where his disabled mother lived. Now my man Edgar finish saving half the country then ask the big boys to send someone to rescue his mother and they said sorry cant help you its too late. Too late? The guy just saved billions of people and you cant send a taxi for his mother in her wheelchair? I mean cuhdear now. So Edgar gets a bit huffy and tries to leave the building to go try and help her himself but they convinced him that he was needed in the office and not to leave. Can any of you Caribbean folks imagine ya mudda dying and you staying at work? Not me!

First off you would hear 'oh so wait wunnah want me ta save the country an wunnah cant even send one soldier boy to find my mudda? Oh dat is how it duz work bout hayso nuh! I musse look like a idiot ta wunnah! Wunnah got me hayso saving sam pooch an de duppy (interpretation: evabody) mudda but wunnah cant save my one mudda dat gi birth ta me? No star dat naa going mek it! tings cant work so! Ya feel wunnah cud unfair me so? Alright then, see all wunnah in hayso, I dun wid all wunnah den. D.U.N dun ya understand? Same way I turn off dem tings I cud turn dem back on ya kno? Looka wunnah got me real vex I gotta leff in hayso an find my mudda. Doan get infront me tryin ta stop me cause I cannot be held accountable fa what I do ta wunnah.' Then Edgar would have gone off on a venomous explicit filled tirade while collecting his jacket and he would have walked out the building with not a man daring to stop him. I lie?

(3) The lady who was running the CTU office had a child who had some sort of mental illness. She brought her to work and had her down in the medical facilities. Sadly the child committed suicide. So now you're thinking ok well the mother will break down, seeing as her only offspring dead, and from where I standing she aint really no spring chicken to be looking for another chile, and go home.

Well it happened sort of. Can you believe that the woman was back on the job 15 minutes after the child died? Eventually she broke down and left but again if she was from the Caribbean this scene could never work.

First off any West Indian mother would have gone home from the time they heard the child sick. Especially since she is the boss. Oh she would have delegated responsibilities, grabbed her handbag and be out of there in two seconds. Bring sick child to work? Nuh uh, that naa work. If things desperate you might call a family member to go and keep the girl till you can reach but bringing child to work. Nope.

And just in case you had been silly enough to take the child in to work and the child died any Caribbean mother would have had a instant breakdown. Child dead because you were too busy with work. Cuhdear, instant grief and blame one time. All work done! The mother would brek down bawling and weeping and they would have to send for her sister or her grandmother to come carry her home. But no instead this woman goes back to work. Boy these people not West Indian at all, den. Not even close.