Probably you are I told Afflicted. On one hand Bruce Golding’s become the fall guy for decades of garrison politics from both parties but on the other hand, he did lie.

And then, our Prime Minister was the politician who famously distanced himself from garrison politics far, far over the hill with the National Democratic Movement. Well, until he wanted the top job and had to rejoin the Jamaica Labour Party to get it.

And so he took up the ultimate JLP garrison seat of West Kingston. And after a massive tropical storms and recession (c’mon the poor guy’s just salt!), the United States (bigger hypocrites) make a move for Dudus, the biggest Don of the party they helped arm during the Cold War.

Poor Bruce, all alone as a one man fable for the failure of Jamaican society and politics. It sucks being left on your own. How about the other 59 MPs join him in purgatory?

Today’s tweets by @afflictedyard (marginally more sense than Daryl Vaz):

• RT @bruceJLP: Am I the only person who feels sorry for Bruce…? /via @afflictedyard•Nah you can be damn sure I feel sorry for myself…
• Nayga dem run up and dung with AK rifle and big up Prezzi at dance and uptown brown girl a dance to dat…#hypocrites
• Since most people see Dudus as Jamaican Robin Hood why dem vexx now that the Sherrif hire big lawyer fi defend against Yankee badmine?
• But Bruce a defend di Prezident and if him nuh hire big lawyer fi him di people a go call him battyman at dancehall session
• So Bruce is a PARIAH because 1) he defend Don that the people big up every day 2) Peter Phillips seh he’s a Liard 3) Dancehall CD nah sell

Read more:

Jamaica’s great hypocritical outrage by Sherman (Sherman in farin who don’t like Bruce)
http://twitter.com/afflictedyard

Jamaica has become a violent and heartless country where most people have become desensitised to things that would make people in civilised places pass out. Something is blatantly wrong but everyone goes on with their daily life like everything is fine, wake up my people and smell the stench of death around us.

We need to stop hiding behind the excuse that the person must have been involved in some kind of mix up to justify the violence that is perpetrated against them. This is the excuse we use to reassure ourselves that things are not as bad as it seems. Some will wait for a general feel good march or some kind of PR feel good stunt that makes uptown people go back home feeling like they have done their part in curbing the violence…

After the apparent attempted assassination of Oneil Edwards from the group Voicemail the other day, the emotional bandwagonists were out in full force on Facebook, Twitter and the other social media. There were people gathering in Half-Way-Tree and outside Kingston Public Hospital.

I am truly sorry for Oneil, I do not know him personally but my anger is the same for any innocent hard working person who is gunned down by these animals. I however will not be a part of the hypocrisy that the music and media fraternity is promoting.

Where was their anger and sympathy when two children were brutally murdered last week? Where was the mourning and condemnation for the assassination for Dennis Hamilton, soon after he participated in exposing alleged fraud at the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica? This man died for an honourable cause and all he got was three sentences written about him in one of the major newspapers, yet we give coverage to any dribble these entertainers utter?

We are a hypocritical set of people and I am waiting for Beenie Man and company’s self-satisfying musical tributes to come out. The usual suspects, including the Minister of Culture will do the media walk and talk; The church will jump in with calls for various peace marches, the talk shows will have the usual rhetoric and the calls for the death penalty, then finally the ultimate cry of “Bring Back Adams!”.

We have seen it already. STOP!

When the nation is appalled at student athletes being denied visa’s to participate at the Penn Relays but not a blip when women and children and viciously being raped and murdered every single day, something is definitely wrong with our priorities. Jamaica’s murder rate for 2010 is about four-and-a-half persons per day and people who have lived in civilised country are supposed to move back to that?

I think about my uncle who was so optimistic about the formation of the National Democratic Movement and the prospect of being a part of a new movement in Jamaica, that illusion was quickly erased when a gun was stuck in his face at the entrance to his home in Meadowbrook with his two children in his car that the gunmen wanted.

My uncle now lives happily outside of Toronto in a place that he calls civilised and has no plans to move back to Jamaica, This was a man who swore that his son had to follow in his footstep and go to his alma mater in Jamaica. I use to think he was a sellout but now I realise that he just saw the decay through very clear eyes.

I am angry, angry that I need more fingers than I have to count the number of friends and acquaintances that have been brutally murdered in Jamaica in the past 15 years. I am scared for my family that still live in Jamaica because it can be any one of them the next time. Some people are going to be offended but I don’t care if I can get some kind of movement going. The night is turning to day and eventually a lot of you same hypocrites will have to run away because some of you are the breeders, supporters and instigators of these murderers.

I am suggesting that we start having an intelligent national conversation, without the ignorant rhetoric amongst ourselves to find solutions to this murderous cancer that is devouring our country. Time and history has proven that violence against violence has not worked and Senior Superintendent Renato Adams is not our saviour.

It is time to make real demands for action from our failed MPs that have been cuddling and serving gunmen and criminals instead of creating a safe atmosphere for business to strive. Full support must be given but pressure must be kept on our new police commissioner to be vigilant in his drive to arrest and eliminate the criminals in the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Finally, everyone has to make a serious call for Prime Minister Bruce Golding to resign because he has deserted his leadership of the country to serve the interest of his garrison.

Previously by Sherman:
Jamaica nuff problems…by Sherman
The Cancer in Jamaican music
This is Stone Love at The Tropics Nightclub in 1985…

Contact Sherman:
Email: blazetv@gmail.com
Twitter: Twitter.com/justsherman

Dubious fame:
Sherman in Observer

Readers of this blog should by now be familiar with the wisdom of Sherman Escoffery, husband, father, jerk specialist, kite-flyer and panty importer.

Sherman doesn’t actually live here anymore – he’s in New York City – but like any other Jamaican in big foreign, that gives him the confidence to pontificate about happenings in the backward place where he sends his remittances (thank you, really).

Latterly he’s become a noted commentator among the Diaspora about reggae and the government he couldn’t vote for – because he making too much money to actually live here. Published on FIRST, his ‘Jamaica nuff problems’ post also made ‘Letter of the Day’ in the Sunday Gleaner, while ‘Cancer in Jamaican Music’ has exposed him to others who like to hear the sound of their own voices.

Today, live on air you can hear his latest reggae-related rant, this time on the Reggae Nation show, audience of you, the producer and possibly Sherman’s sympathetic family. Listen, consider and then attack him either here or via @DatNiggaSherman.

Listen at 6:00 pm DST (7:00 pm Jamaican time) tonight: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/e2-reggae-nation

How did you get on the show?
They read the Cancer In Jamaican Music and I once quoted Michael Manley so they thought I was deep.

What will you rant about?
How the radio DJ’s and groupies who say that they are radio DJ’s only play music from artist they are sleeping with or extorting.

And why should anybody care?
Because it means that LA Lewis or Goofy could be the top dancehall DJ’s if they spend enough money or give ******* the right sex.

Previously by Sherman:
Jamaica nuff problems…by Sherman
The Cancer in Jamaican music
This is Stone Love at The Tropics Nightclub in 1985…

Like the rest of us you’re likely struggling with the current drought: bathing from water bottles and negotiating with water truck drivers. All at great cost and annoyance.

While we can’t blame the government for failing to deliver showers of blessings – that’d be El Niño – there’s no doubt that successive administrations have failed to implement proper water management.

We may continue to pray on the weekends but as this video from TuffChin.com observes, maybe we could spend the weeks actually doing something about it. Y’know, take action for ourselves, not just jump up and down in green and orange shirts?

Meantime water threatens to be just another resource we’ve allowed to run to waste while blaming outside influences only – in this case the weather – while refusing to do anything but talk, blame and defer responsibility.

Just so long as there’s always another party to go to…

Successive administrations have mismanaged, misappropriated and now this administration has finally sold Air Jamaica. I am disappointed but I understand the need to get rid of the national airline. It has been such a financial drain on Jamaica for so long. Why should we be angry now?

When it was alleged that the airline was being used as if it was a car service/delivery van by its executives, why weren’t we angry then? When an executive had a departing Air Jamaica return to the gate to pick up her friend, why weren’t we angry then? When Bruce Golding shuffled that executive around like a game of musical chair instead of firing her, why weren’t we angry then? Because everything in Jamaica is “no problem mon.”

We as Jamaican’s have long learnt to adapt to adversity and banded our belly when necessary. Now we are like frogs in a pot of water with the temperature slowly rising. We are now feeling the heat but it seems we lack the strength or sense urgency to jump out.

We keep recycling the same set of stale failed politicians, the same one track minded hit men police, and the same failed business executive for financial guidance. We cling to the same old way of doing things even with diminishing or no returns.

The so-called intellectuals at UWI have become aspiring dancehall kings and queens, instead of articulating solutions and mental upliftment they have started worshiping at the altar of ignorance.

For our crime problems we have had The Eradication Squad, Operation Ardent, Acid and Kingfish to name a few anti-crime initiatives over the years. We actually boast about the killer policemen we have in the Jamaica Constabulary Force and what has been our reward? Do we them need kill more people?

A friend of mine recently commented to me that the country is being run like a go-go club; appearances are enticing but the aim is to take your money, screw you and leave you to die from some rotting disease you contracted. I no longer see PNP or JLP I just see a disease slowly rotting away the fabric of a once proud, productive and progressive country.

We need help. We need a change. We need to start looking within ourselves and stop making excuses and admit that we have not seen any upward trajectory in Jamaica for a while now. We need to acknowledge that we need a long term plan.

We need new, intelligent and unselfish leadership, the PNP and JLP no longer care about us.

We need real moral leadership as the religious leaders have failed us.

We need a new police force as the current one is no better than the gunmen; and sometimes they are the gunmen that hunt us.

Look around you, there are absolutely no plans for the country’s future being put forth by the political leaders. They are too busy protecting their political henchmen and figuring out new ways to tax the citizens with nothing reciprocated in return.

When are we going to stop saying “Jamaica no problem” and stand up like Paul Bogle? The country can’t even efficiently deliver water, which is a natural resource. How are we going to move forward without the basic necessity of water? I was in home in Jamaica during 2008 and there was always water lock off and there was no drought then. We have become too lackadaisical in our demands and have lowered the bar until it is now on the ground. It seems that we no longer care. When will there be a push back against political incompetence, political ignorance, the wave of violence and the state sponsored terrorists we call a police force?

In a 1973 speech, Former Prime Minister Michael Manley said “Change is the willingness to look at your system and have the courage to know what is wrong.”

Jamaica we need change, then we need a revolution.

Previously by Sherman:

The Cancer in Jamaican music
This is Stone Love at The Tropics Nightclub in 1985…

Contact Sherman:

Email: Blazetv@gmail.com
Twitter: Datniggasherman

Call us miserable but some things really need to be said about the music, it’s been bad for a while and it’s getting worse. In fact, have we already reached the point where all new artists are either generic ex-dancers or ‘i-insert-authentic-Rasta-name’?

It wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that our music is what makes us known around the world: good or increasingly bad. The retarded spectacle of a deejay in tight pants preening onstage with his mantourage burning out gays. It won’t sell and it will get you banned…

We’re embarrassed and so should everybody. And yet the few with talent and originality that manage to breakthrough despite the backward local industry, often end up throwing it all away, like Sizzla after his classic Real Thing album.

Three questions tweeted from our equally curmudgeonly friend @bigblackbarry to be asked of all deejays, producers, journalists and whomever else we should hold responsible for 99.9 per cent of the sickness that passes for music locally:

1. When dem a do di battyman tune dem an pose up wid gunman, it neva occur to dem seh visa can tek whey?

2. When dem a stick up promoters an doan show up fi dem dates it neva occur to dem seh it ago dun?

3.  Wen dem a do a riddim album a month an saturate the market till di music jus a last fi 2 weeks, it neva occur to dem seh it woulda dun?

Last Sunday Tobias Huber and Gabriel Holzner, who run seen., tipped us off about the latest version of their site, which relaunched yesterday, and a new series of Jamaica-inspired t-shirts for Spring 2011. The new site is very clean and robust (they did FIRST also), while the t-shirts themselves are subtle, relying on the strength of their graphic design. Thankfully also, no cheesy overuse of the national colours.

Our favourite from the new collection is the T above, part-inspired by the ‘everyone is a celebrity’ mentality of Kingston nightlife, no matter how overweight or rum-soaked. Nothing makes us feel better than foreign. Meantime the Germans like Jamaica just the same, explains Tobias. Just more strangely…

“There’s this one woman living in Negril hiding from German police after getting involved in the drug business a little too much, there’s this guy in Bluefields who has a weakness for Jamaican girls and who seriously asked us whether we have ‘tried out’ crack yet as it was the shit.

“And there’s that author who knows a damn lot about Jamaican history and politics who is living in Long Bay, and who spent a couple of years in prison for shooting at German police during the RAF years (Cold War-era terrorist group). He is running a guest house now. And there’s that Austrian guy training dangerous dogs in Spanish Town. Dylan also told me about German Town west of Kingston but I have never visited that place so far.”

*Now go buy a t-shirt: www.seen-site.com/shop/

Jamaica loves its tourists. Even in economically strained times, there’s no denying that the tourism industry feeds many people, and in return the industry feeds right back, much to the delight of sunseekers, Reggae enthusiasts, weedhead students and Stella’s of all shapes and sizes all looking to get their proverbial grooves back.

Not surprisingly, Jamaica’s tourists are as varied as the places they habitually return to: Italians on the South Coast, Germans in Portland, the Japanese in Kingston and timid returnee Jamaicans in the North Coast hotels.

In Negril, there’s actually a well-established community of repeat tourists who’ve been returning to the west end ever since wandering this way in the 60s when Negril was more or less just a lot of sand, coconut husks, and, of course, dreadlocked disco-dreads selling mushrooms that do bad things to the sky.

Year after year these tourists come back, regardless of the ever-reported crime and the lack of a Starbucks or a Sbarro’s. Ask one of them and almost all will tell you that even if they could have gone to the Bahamas, there’s nothing quite like the personality of this island and its people, who they watch with great interest.

And we watch back…

All the girls’ man are locked down with their women; then there’s the steppers with their hands cocked as if they are holding an M-16; the hopefuls across the line pointing to the single women across the lawn to let them know their intentions for the night; and the apprentice struggling with two cases of Guinness for the Dads and his crew. 

All of a sudden there is a change in the music, and Cancer takes to the mike bigging up all the hot steppers. The slow mourning sound of Black Uhuru General Penitentiary flows from the dual 18-inch speakers in the column of boxes positioned in the four corners of the lawn.

There is the sound of gunshots going off, and this time it is not fingers and mouth but the real M-16’s. The crowd starts to sing the chorus in their own words “Generaaaaal – General deh a penitentiary”.

Wee Powe lowers the volume on the mixer to allow the crowd to hear themselves and then wheels and come again from the top, The Junglists are ecstatic because this is a tribute to them. Slowly the other song comes across and the place goes wild.

John Holt’s militant voice of defiance emanates from the speakers. No longer the lover boy from the Paragons, but a hardcore and staunch believer in the divinity of His Imperial Majesty and the healing powers of the collie weed, “If they continue to burn up the herb, we gonna burn down the cane field.”

All the chalices and the bighead spliffs become visible and the smell of Indika, jerk chicken and the fumes from gunshots becomes entangled like an incestuous perfume. 

This is where love and hate collides. This is where relief is found from the pangs of poverty and the political hypocrisies are exposed. This is where the message takes flight to conquer the world, not with a sword, but an acetate dubplate.

This is Stone Love at The Tropics Nightclub in 1985.

Related: The Cancer in Jamaican music by Sherman Escoffery

Email: blazetv@gmail.com
Twitter: Twitter.com/datniggasherman
Fame: Sherman in Observer