Mr. Vegas, Mr. Muppet or Gal Clown

ClovisToon

Last week I discovered that there was an entertainer in Jamaica called Mr. Vegas, up until that point I had no idea that this man existed. I must admit that his Genre of music is not something I listen to or consider to be music.

However it seems that this Mr. Vagas’s baby mother had cheated on him, in his house, on his bed, in front of his 1 year old which caused Mr. Vegas to have one of the worst public mental emotional break down I have ever seen. I have never seen such a ridiculous display of emotions especially from a person who entertains his fans with such man like bravado. For a person who sells himself as such a “Gyallis” one would think he would have shown the woman and her lover the door, head to the Frig for a ice cold beer and watched a movie or some football before going to bed, the whole incident treated like water off a ducks back or call up the second in line for the throne and have her move in instead of this public display of mental emotional breakdown, a pity party to beat all pity parties and on display for all to see. Now I fully understand why she finds the need to find herself another lover, a real man because clearly the Mr. Vegas is an over emotional muppet who take every opportunity to cry and carry on like it’s the end of the world, while being interviewed all over the world, in the international press.

Gyallis - A Player, A male who's good with the ladies

Almost everybody has experience love and lost love, it is one of life’s learning experiences. One would think however that with age, one would acquire a more dignified way of dealing with it, instead of this low class desire to have a Public Mental Emotional Breakdown, which is why we have best friends and close relatives to help us through the tough times, drink a beer and have a chat… I am embarrassed for him, I cannot understand why he thinks his personal life belongs in the public’s domain because this is information pollution from a man-boy who is not mature enough to deal with love and lost love, maybe the tight pants they are now wearing is affecting the circulation of blood to the brain which intern is affecting the decision making process.

I have been reading in the papers where some Jamaican men have turned to suicide, when they found out their women is with other men or as we call it giving them bun. I am not sure when Jamaican men got this soft, totally void of the concept of the “Stiff Upper Lip”. I only wish Mr.Vegas had taken this route and spare us the details of his broken heart. I can only say to him and others… “Man Up!” For goodness sake, grow a spine and move on.

Epiblogue (Epilogue)
I have been told that Mr. Vegas represents a real man with feelings who is not afraid to express it but I had no idea that to be considered a Real Man one needs to take to international air waves and make private matters public and cry, curse and threaten to release damning evidence of a 3 hour long infidelity to the world. Women have been cheated on for years much more than men and yet I do not see them taking to the airwaves to shed tears like Mr. Vegas, except for the regular Dear Pastor section of the Star, which is just pure comedy.

Yes we all have feelings but how he expresses these feelings matters, Mr. Vegas chose the “Over the Top” way and became a laughing stock, he pushed a private matter into the public's domain and the public is free to respond any way they feel like. Some things are best dealt with among close friends and relatives but these days everybody wants to make their dirty laundry public, everybody wants to mimic the behavior of low class entertainers worldwide where everything is “youtubed”, twittered and ‘facebooked”, every aspect of their boring lives.

What gets me is the hypocrisy of Dancehall entertainers because here we have a person preaching through his songs, educating young vulnerable minds on the merits of being a “Gyallis” and glorifying “Gyallisism” as a valid way of life when all this time he was in a loving monogamous relationship or so he believed. If dancehall is a reflection of real life then he should have been educating our young people on the merits of marriage, love for one’s children and staying in a monogamous relationship, instead he preaches something that was foreign to him, typical do as I say not as I do.

We see this a lot with our entertainers they have a knack for saying one thing and doing the complete opposite, they sell the lowest common denominator because it is an easy sell. There are Dancehall entertainers who sell and brainwash our young people’s minds with nothing but Murder, violence and graphic sex and as soon as they make some money they move uptown to Norbrook and Jackshill and Cherry Gardens with their significant other, away from the Murder, violence and sex of the Ghetto. They send their children to the most expensive uptown schools like Campion, Ardenne, and Hillel Academy shielding them from the dirty, disgusting Murder, violence and sex of the Ghetto life, they move in different social circles and only return to the Ghetto to sell more Murder, violence and sex since it is how they finance their uptown lifestyles. If ghetto life is so nice as most profess in their songs then why do they leave the first chance they get, why don’t they teach their offspring’s about the nice ways of the ghetto?

Gal Clown Mr. Muppet

Vegas Verse 

"Anywhere di gal dem deh mi deh

From yuh seh gal move long time mi ready

Bun down Foxy now mi have ah Brandy

Telephone ah ring gal waan mi candy

Two gal buck up and start a big war

One ah dem fling a big stone inna mi car

But mi know mi and nuh bag-a-man nah par

If a bwoy funny well mi haffi stay far cause"

"Well! competition haffi gwaan cah mi fuss

Sight da gal ya Jah know seh ah war buss

Between Sean & Paul and Mr. Vegas

Ah which one ah pour di coffee dung inna her thermos

Mi haffi get di gal ya now (man ah gi yuh di gal)

She let go her number pon mi (could be di wrong number yow)

Mi beg her for ah date (and then she kill yuh wid di no)

Yeah but she still ah woman nuh bait and man ah ole pappy show

Because mi haffi mek a try, haffi get a bligh

Get an eagle eye I and I nah guh ramp wid nuh guy

And mi haffi mek a cruise inna mi rubber shoes

Gal a get bruise Sean & Paul win and Vegas ah lose"

More about → Mr. Vegas, Mr. Muppet or Gal Clown

A Question of Class

There was a time when Low Income did not mean Low Class, they were not one and the same, I know some rich people who are totally Low Class, gutter trash and I know some poor people who are Full of Class.

Class is not defined by your financial standing as money cannot buy class, which is like putting lip stick on a pig, it’s still a pig or in this case a low class gutter trash with money and no class. Class is defined in my book as how one sees one self, how one carries one self, it is manners and respect for your fellow man, it is an understanding of who you are and where you are going in life and how you intend to get there, this is not your old time European concept of class…

One of the classiest individual I knew was a gardener who worked for the family. The way he carried himself, the way he spoke, his outlook on life impressed me and I spent many hours talking to him as a boy, about his work and life in general. In all the years he worked for us, he was never late, he never turned up at the house dressed in his gardening cloths and he never leave the house in his gardening cloths, he had a sense of style that transcends time. He had great respect for himself, others and his profession. He was a proud gardener, a landscape engineer and what he did to our yard was pure art, how he managed to shape those unruly bushes with his clipper and machete was amazing to me.

His dedication to his work and how he relates to everyone earned him a lot of respect and trust from almost every house on the street, so much so, that as a result of his good reputation and goodwill he was hired by almost every house on the street and on a given day he would take care of the gardens of at least 3 houses per day. He would start early, moving from one house to the next, watching him work was a pleasure, a true artist at work, he would make a change to the garden, then step back and examine his work from many angles then return to make various adjustments as he snipped and clipped various edges, every cut done with a sense of purpose and at the end of the day he would clean up after himself leaving our yard in a state of pure perfection. He did brilliant work and was so admired by all that he was always remembered at Christmas time. He went on to create a business and hired some boys to help him service his customers because he had more work than he could handle by himself, everybody wanted him. Sadly he died and everyone on the street went to his funeral, he was missed by all and was a true gentleman.

We went on to hire some of the worst people to look after the yard, some stole from us and others had no pride in their work and themselves. Some would not even bother to show up on the agreed date or show up on time and would leave before the work was done. Their work left a lot to be desired, slam, bam, thank you ma'am pay me, one came to work but was found in another house having sex with the helper, in the bed of the people who hire the helper. They did not view what they were doing as a business, they had no love for gardening and I think actually hated it and the people who hired them, these people looked down on themselves and simply had no class.

More about → A Question of Class

Life, Debt and GDP

I am reading an interesting piece on the relationship between Debt and GDP, this continued from my reading last week on Debt and the Exchange Rate… I am trying to figure out at what point I should start to feel good about increasing GDP and lowering exchange rate. Since increase borrowing can increase GDP but only marginally so that the trade off is not worth the borrowed money and increase borrowing can lower our exchange rate since we artificially flood the market with currency we did not earn. Our Governments have trained us to react to certain stimuli without giving us the real story behind those stimuli.

Marginally increasing GDP and lowering exchange rate through excessive borrowing, doubling our debt is nothing but window dressing, eye candy and false positives as it is not sustainable or real, unless we earn way more than we borrow and debt repayment is a low percentage of every dollar earned, currently our debt is over 140% of GDP and 80 cents out of every dollar goes towards servicing the debt. Our Governments love to play with words, “we grow the economy” or “we lowered the exchange rate” even when the reasons for these claims are there for all to see… Yes because they doubled our debt or consumed the NIR.

Starter Fluid is rich mixture with low auto-ignition temperature sprayed into a spark plug hole of an engine to get added fuel to the combustion cylinder quickly. It is not used to continuously power the engine but as an added booster to kick start the process… Borrowing should be like starter fluid to the economy, borrowed money is injected into the economy to kick start the process, once kicked started the process is supposed to be self-sustaining, generating the energy/funds required to drive the economy, create new investments and pay back the loan. You cannot run a business on only borrowed money, you can however inject borrowed money from time to time in order to improve the process of auto-income generation by the business but if the only money coming out of the business is money borrowed then that business is not sustainable and will fail, it is only a matter of time, it is not if but when.

The Jamaicans economy is like a failed business borrowing large sums of money, most of which is not being used to kick start the process of income generation but is being used for day to day operation of the country, to finance the over the top lifestyle of the people. Most of the money coming out of our economy is borrowed money because we have failed to use this money to make the right investments and common sense decisions needed to put our economy in auto drive. Not only that our borrowed money through imports is used to drive other people’s economy, every time we buy imported items from overseas we are building overseas economy at the expense of our own and don't get me started on the interest and loan repayment which is like a chain wrapped around a swimmers leg.

It seems the in-thing in Jamaica these days is to talk about GDP as a measure of success or failure of any Government without understanding that GDP rate is just one of many Economic indicators use to determine the state of a country's economic and social health. GDP is the measure of goods and services produced within a country in a given period and not a measure of welfare, it tells us nothing about Income distribution and the lives of people. Along with Economic indicators we also have social indicators which show us the standard of living of all the people within the country. The whole purpose of Government is to service the needs of the population and the whole purpose of the economy is to also service the needs of the people, both Government and the Economy exist only to better the lives of all the people and if they fail to do that then, they are both completely useless as the only thing that matters is the standard of living of the people.

Examples of other important Economic indicators are unemployment rates, inflation rates, Consumer Price index, income distribution, Balance of Payment and Balance of Trade, etc. All these indicators and more must be considered favorable, all moving in the right direction for the majority of the people to sit back and declare that all is right in their world. Favorable indicator in one and bad indicators in the rest means nothing and could still represent hardship in the lives of the people.

Hypothetically let’s say a country had a GDP growth rate off 20% but 25% of the people are unemployed, 23% live below the poverty line and Inflation rate is in double digits… The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The country suffers from income inequality and a quarter of its population cannot read or write, supermarket shelves is full of imports but only the rich can afford it…The majority of the population suffers from poor standard of living, kind of like colonial Jamaica.

Hypothetically again, Let’s say we have 6 companies and five of these companies are foreign owned, and they produce a lot of widgets, tons of the stuff and sell so much widgets that our GDP jumped 10%, lets also say these companies pay meagre wages and piss poor benefits but make super-duper profits which they export back to their mother country… Yes our GDP is up by 10% but we are no better off because that super profit did not contribute to the increased welfare of the people, income distribution was poor.

In the above examples it makes no sense boasting about GDP to the population as their lot in life have not changed and in fact got worst. GDP is selective indicator used when someone wants to prove a point. Highlighting GDP without highlighting any other economic and social indicators means nothing as It does not give us a full understanding of the true state of the country and the plight of its people.

Then we have the Social Indicators:

• Infant mortality rate:
• Life expectancy at birth:
• Availability of Healthcare
• Availability of affordable housing
• Literacy Rate
• Employment Rate
• Crime Rate
• Etc.

So the next person who tries to big-up GDP had better come with the state of the remaining economic and social indicators. Yes we want GDP and all the economic indicators to move in the right direction but going crazy about one indicator as if it is the beginning and end of it all is Crazy and a complete waste of time.

More about → Life, Debt and GDP

Christopher "Genocidal Maniac" Columbus

I cannot think of anything worse than celebrating Columbus Day, well except celebrating Hitler Day. When it comes to Columbus I see nothing to celebrate, I view Columbus like how I view Galactus the Destroyer of Worlds, a character from the Marvel comics, except that Galactus is make believe and the actions of Columbus actually wipe out entire civilizations from the face of the planet and all for the love of Gold. I view Christopher Columbus no different than I view Adolf Hitler or any other Genocidal Maniac.

In school we studied how the Spaniards wiped out entire tribes in their quest for gold, they did not come to the new world to make friends, they came to lay waste, to rape, pillage and murder while taking the resources of the new world, they did nor value humanity. We read in school that the Spaniards played a game, to see who could remove the head of an Indian with one blow from their swords. We learned how they enslaved the local population and when the local population died out from war, slavery, cruelty and European diseases, when there was no one left, they traveled to Africa, captured, extracted and enslave the Africans, all with the blessing of the Religious Order who also wanted gold and cared nothing about Humanity.

But when the victors write history, they write it in such a way as to create fantasy and nostalgia of days gone by, they write from a position of their greatness, how wonderful they were and what they did for the world and the people they enslaved and murdered. Columbus brought riches to Europe and as a result delivered nothing but death and destruction to the peoples of the new world, his arrival opened the very gates of hell and unleashed the genocidal demons on the native population. Christopher Columbus’s actions wiped out civilizations, cultures and enslaved millions resulting in hundreds of years, of genocide from the tip of North America to the tip of South America and Africa.

The world does not remember or care about the millions who died and suffered as a result of this little European expedition, European Greed. They labeled the local populations as savages, less than humans and the Europeans who murdered and enslaved millions labeled as Civilized and worshiped as great heroes to this very day. I find Celebrating Columbus Day disgusting, I see nothing to celebrate, this was genocide and if we lived in a Just World, today would be a day to honor the millions of human beings who were murdered, who suffered not the murderers who killed them.

 

…We stole countries! That's how you build an empire. We stole countries with the cunning use of flags! Just sail halfway around the world, stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain." And they're going, "You can't claim us. We live here! There's five hundred million of us." "Do you have a flag?" "We don't need a bloody flag, this is our country you bastard!" "No flag, no country! You can't have one. That's the rules... that... I've just made up! And I'm backing it up with this gun... that was lent from the National Rifle Association."

 

More about → Christopher "Genocidal Maniac" Columbus

The Question of Stable Leadership: 1980 to 2007

During a recent online debate, a certain muppet began to blame the Jamaican people for the Peoples’s National Party being in power for 18 years between 1989 and 2007. I find it completely unfair to blame the Jamaican people for the PNP being in power for 18 years because it was not the people of Jamaica that was at fault but the Jamaica Labour Party, who did not present themselves as a viable option and who I believe should return the opposition salary they received after 16 years of being the worst opposition on the face of this planet as it was not until after the question of leadership for that party was settled that they began to focused their attention on the Jamaican people and do the job they were paid to do.

In November of 2004 Edwards Seaga announced that he was stepping down from representational politics and by mid-January of 2005 his announcement came to past. The Jamaica Labour Party had not won any of the 4 elections between 1989 and 2007 and if one was to research the series of events that took place between those periods, one would clearly see why.

The Peoples National Party won every election between 1989 and 2007 not because that party had the answers to Jamaica’s problems, because they did not, not because Jamaica was moving in the right direction under the PNP Government, because it was not, not because the standard of living of most Jamaicans flourished during those years, because it was not but simply because the Jamaica Labour Party was a party in turmoil. The JLP was not a unified party but a party that had separated itself into different warring factions. It was always the gang of “Some Number” fighting Edward Seaga for the leadership of the party and it took 16 long years for the JLP to settle the question of leadership and 18 year to return to power. “We remember well the Gang of Five and Gang of 11 disputes, as well as other squabbles over leadership that ruptured the party over many years.”

Within those 18 years it was not so much that the PNP won the elections, it was more like the JLP lost the election or did not bother to turn up and there was no way under the sun the Jamaican people or any sensible people could vote for a party that was going through such intense internal power struggle and infighting. During one election the PNP campaigned solely on the words of the Gang of “5/11” as they publicly attacked each other like Hyenas fighting over a dead carcass, all the PNP had to do was play the recordings of these bitter attacks straight from the horse's mouth and use it against them, during that period JLP man cuss JLP man like dog.

I would go even further to say that during those 16 years Jamaica did not have an active opposition we were in fact a one party state. We paid the opposition to keep the Government in check and to be ready at moments noticed to take over the seat of power but there was no opposition to be found.

More about → The Question of Stable Leadership: 1980 to 2007