Ramblings

Let’s say you’re a foreigner visiting Jamaica for the first time and you’ve somehow managed to get on the wrong side of a local woman. It doesn’t really matter how or why you’ve upset her – lets say you stepped on her toe, you cut in front of her in the line at the JPS office, or maybe you stole her husband – all that matters is that you’re now being confronted by a belligerent and insulting adversary who wont let the matter go. You, in turn, feel compelled to respond, but you’re not from Jamaica and you don’t know how this whole tracing (“cussing”) thing is done.  What should you do?

The year 2011 provided Jamaicans with many irritating distractions including a General Election, the Manatt Phelps Phillips enquiry and the JDIP scandal. Despite the pointless, self-defeating drama that is Jamaica’s politics, we were able to find entertainment and respite in a thriving music industry which churned out scores of fun, danceable tracks to take our minds off our problems. ThingsJamaicansLove.com’s favourite songs for 2011 were:

Jamaica is an intruiging place. For the philosophically inclined there are many profound existential and metaphysical questions upon which to ponder. For example:

Why do bulla and pear taste so good together? Hmm…

How comes taxi drivers never seem to crash and die violently when they do all kinda madness on the road? Hmm…

In the age of Facebook, Twitter and videoconferencing why do people still love to send Greetings from Farin on tv at Christmas time? Hmm…

How comes the mentally ill men seen wandering naked on the streets of Kingston always seem to have extremely long____? Hmmm…

Were “Shower” and “Power” intentionally designed to rhyme? Hmm…

As a somewhat precocious child (my parents preferred the word “rude”) I was often in trouble with my parents. My parents, on the other hand, were old-fashioned Jamaicans who believed that the remedy for “precociousness” was a good flogging every now and then. We can argue about the merits of corporal punishment but what always fascinated me was the fact that the flogging alone was never enough. There was always some kind of verbal commentary before/during/after the process. I’ve taken a moment to jot down down some of those comments along with my thoughts on those comments as they were said to me. If you were also a precocious child some of them may sound familiar to you –

Ladies and gentlemen, here at ThingsJamaicansLove.com we believe in recognising exceptional performance in whatever field of endeavour it may occur. One area in which Jamaica has consistently produced remarkable performances is bad roads. Jamaica’s performances in this area are so numerous and the standard so “high” that its almost impossible to say which are the worst of our terrible roads. We went ahead and tried anyway. So, without further ado, the Nominees for ThingsJamaicansLove.com’s Worst Roads in Kingston & St. Andrew 2010/2011 are:

Even when money to spend, sensible leaders, and pot-hole free roads are in short supply, one thing Jamaica always has in abundance is music. This article celebrates some of the songs ThingsJamaicansLove enjoyed most in 2010:

Count Your Blessings – Nas and Junior Gong. “I’ve got love and assurance, I’ve got new health insurance, I’ve strength and endurance, so I count my blessings” Nas and Junior Gong’s exhortation to appreciate the simple things in life was one of our favourite conscious tunes of the year.

Drinking Rum (Rum and Red Bull) – Future Fambo and Beenie Man. We suspect this was probably the biggest party song of the year? TJL heard this song at wedding receptions, birthday parties, football matches, dances and uptown sessions – and guess what? It done di place every single time. As big as this song was, it might be more fair to say that the bigger hit was the “One Day” riddim by Seanizzle on which the song was recorded. Other hit songs on the One Day riddim were Swaggerific (Mr. G.), I’m Ok (Beenie Man), Wifey Walk Out (Liquid) and the monster hit Nah Sell out mi Fren (Khago).

You may not have noticed it, but we live in a world that has effectively become a high-tech prison. Yes, it’s true, and no, I’m not being paranoid. It seems to me that we live in a fascist regime where our liberty is being restricted from every conceivable angle. That liberty is not being restricted by the police, the secret service or by Big Brother, mind you, but by legions of computer nerds who’ve fixed it so that pretty much every little thing we do requires the submission of a code, password or pin number. No, don’t laugh, it’s the gospel truth. We’re being hemmed in on every side by the need to submit intricate combinations of letters and numbers before we’re allowed to do even the most mundane tasks. I tell you, without a trace of melodrama, that our very freedom is under threat.

Let me demonstrate to you how passwords, codes, and pin numbers have become an inescapable part of our lives.

Sometimes yuh haffi tek serious ting mek joke. As I was mopping out my flooded kitchen last night in my water boots and gloves, I thought about the sure signs that Jamaica is experiencing flood rains:

1. It doesn’t matter how many times the warnings are announced on radio and tv, it’s GUARANTEED that somebody’s car will get washed away as they try to drive through a gully during the rain.

2. Muddy brown water is coming through holes in your roof, cracks in your window, spaces under your door, gaps in the floor and all manner of openings and crevices in your house that you never knew existed.

3. There’s enough water in your backyard for you to seriously consider planting rice.

Guys, if you could tear yourselves away from your cell phones, Blackberries and iPhones for just one second we’d love to get you to stop and think about something. Have you ever considered the large number of convenient acronyms and initialisms you use when sending text messages? (Explanations of the big words at bottom of post) Ok, it may sound silly but think about it for a second… When someone says something funny you have the option of responding with LOL (Laugh out loud), DWL (Ded wid laugh) or BOAL (Buss out ah laugh). You can also use ROFL (Roll on the floor), LMAO (Laugh my ass off) or DWBCL. (You can figure that last one out for yourselves).

Many of you will frequently use OMG (Oh My Gosh), IKR (I Know Right), KK (Cool Cool), SMH (Shake my head), KMT (Kiss mi teet), OMG (Oh my God), TMI (Too much information), WTF, and at the end of a conversation you may often close with TTYL (Talk to You Later). These acronyms are convenient because they shorten commonly used expressions down to a few letters that are easy to type while on the go. And since they’re so useful (and entertaining), ThingsJamaicansLove.com figured that we should come up with some acronyms specifically tailored for Jamaicans to use while texting. So here goes:

Yea though I drive through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…

In many developed countries the morning commute to work is a reasonably comfortable and event-free experience. Even when the traffic is heavy, the roads are good and people go about their business in an orderly fashion. But this is Jamaica… and my drive to work is a little different.