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Archives For March 2005

what me guilty?

March 11, 2005 — Leave a comment

i`ve been catching snippets of the Jackson trail every now and again, i`m not really that interested, but i`m getting inundated with them whether i want to or not and it`s given me enough to form one solid opinion.

whether or not he is found guilty, they need to send the parents of the child(ren) he is purported to have molested straight to jail. i`m sorry, i don`t care what kind of childhood issues Jackson had, this is not the first time these accusations have come up and for you to voluntarily send your children unaccompanied to the house of an adult once accused of inappropriate conduct with a child is a criminal act.

i`m not speaking legally, i`m speaking as a parent. what do you have to be thinking to voluntarily send your child to hang out with a 40-something old man, unsupervised. most normal parents wont send their child to spend time at their friends` houses, unless they meet and approve of the parents and even then there is a degree of worry, because this person isn`t you, much less to the home an adult man. what were these people thinking?

is it possible to become so star-struck that all good sense flees? or is it greed; are people are willing to sacrifice their child`s innocence for the possibility of the big pay off?

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all your money are belong to us

March 10, 2005 — Leave a comment

i`m following with abject fascination; you know the rubbernecking at a fatal crash kind of way; this new bankruptcy bill and it seems like indentureship and poorhouse are on the way in, again.

one of the reasons i`m watching on, in abject horror, is we are struggling with some debt of our own and have received all manner of threatening phone calls and completely untrue statements from the credit card company. vic had this credit card for over 10 years, making her payments until November 2003 when she lost her job, about two months after i arrived they phone calls started coming and it`s interesting the lengths these companies will go to get their money. they accused me of being a bad husband for letting my wife running up this credit card debit; never mind the majority of it currently is interest; then told her she was a bad wife and mother because she couldn`t pay, told me my credit would be ruined if she didn`t pay, because i`m married her, the debt was now mine legally; those last two statements are patently untrue. we`re currently making interest payments; just barely; and squirrelling money away until we can make a settlement offer.

we`re not intending to file for bankruptcy; we`re sort of solvent, we have no credit cards so we`re not incurring anymore debt and we`ve got health insurance; sort of; but we have no savings so in the case of major emergency we would be in trouble and we seem to be the lucky ones. i thought bankruptcy protection was supposed to help people out of a tight spot, not just the ones with money.

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are you experienced?

March 9, 2005 — Leave a comment

even without a formal education there are things i am qualified to do based on years of experience. there are things i will try my hand at because it seems straight forward and i`m fairly intelligent person. then there are things i have a natural aptitude for, but that doesn`t mean i`m going to make it my profession. which brings me to Bono.

now coming from a developing nation and seeing first hand the effects of World Bank policy, they`re not my favourite organisation in the world; but come on Bono?

what are his qualifications? he`s an advocate for third-world debt relief. how nice. that does not qualify him to run the World Bank. does he have a degree in economics, a background in finance? i`d really be interested to know.

you really want to do something about third world debt? how about giving up a percentage of the sales of the last U2 album. every little bit counts. jetting in and out and hobnobbing with other wealthy people and talking about bad the situation is doesn`t help.

when i was working in Florida, the agency i worked planned and staged an event to raise money for a food bank. it was a $500-a-head, three course charity dinner that eventually cost about $60,000 to produce and this figure didn`t included the wasted food in unfinished courses. the irony has never escaped me, in Trinidad there used to be a poor man`s dinner to benefit various organisations that were trying to help the less fortunate, it was black tie event that you paid through the nose to attend and dinner consisted of broth and a hard roll prepared by one of the organisations who would eventually benefit from the funds. that makes sense to me. if you`re really interested in helping people you need to make the sacrifice and not just when there is a press opportunity.

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holy brass knuckles

March 5, 2005 — Leave a comment

went to see Constantine; mispronunciation not withstanding; last night and i have to say i wasn`t disappointed. it was a hell; pun sincerely intended; of a lot better than i expected.

one of the many redeem factors about this movie, is unlike a lot of other movie treatments based on comics it wasn`t automatically made PG-13, which in a lot of cases just strips a lot of the best elements out of it in order to make it palatable. another saving grace was the supporting cast and visual effects; Tilda Swinton rocks. and unlike a lot of Kenau`s other recent roles he wasn`t clueless and a determined Kenau is kind of cute.

go see Constantine just for entertainment value alone.

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sample this

March 4, 2005 — Leave a comment

in my reminiscing about the halcyon days of rap and hip hop i put my rap playlist on the ipod and enjoyed the sounds of the late 80s and early 90s.

i think part of my enjoyment of the early days of this musical artform was the sampling; not so much the blatant ripoffs a la Puffy; but the snippets of tracks. i grew up with a diverse musical background with all manner of influences. my mother had music appreciation on Sundays after church and she`d unleash the Al Green, Bob Marley, Handel`s Messiah, Ace Cannon, Herb Albert, whatever she thought was appropriate. I also spent a lot of time at my aunt`s house and she had children in their late teens to early adulthood who shared their music as well. this sound musical background help me rediscover music i`d know and loved as an element in music i was just discovering.

i`ve always said i would give almost anything to go through Fatboy Slim`s record collection, his use of obscure samples is sublime. there also used to be a website that kept track of samples in popular hip hop but it seems to have gone the way of the dodo.

lately i`ve been enjoying the smash-ups. i`ve never been a big fan of either the Beatles or Jay-Z but i love Dangermouse`s Grey Album as well as the Kleptones` Queen/hip hop smash-up and the London bootmixed which is a remix of the Clash`s London Calling.

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i’ll see you later unless i see you first

March 3, 2005 — Leave a comment

we have digital cable because that`s the only way i can get speed channel which is where i get my Formula One fix. season starts in two days. digital cable has also afforded me the music video channels, you remember those, what MTV and VH1 used to be when they launched. to ensure they can still be called “Music Television” and Video Hits One” they have a plethora of channels that show only music videos.

i`ve realised that i`m getting older because of the eight or ten possible music video channels i watch only one with great regularity; VH1 Classic; home of blocks of videos from the 70s and 80s; and i am content. lately i`ve been drifting to VH1 Soul because they`ve been featuring blocks of music and when i do get sucked in it tends to be artists i like; on sunday there was a one hour block of Bob Marley videos.

i really started writing reflecting on rap and hip hop. i`m not a fan of most of the current crop of hip hop, primarily because it all sounds the same. i`m not saying that rap was always a fount of originality but there was a moment when everything was new and dare i say it; fresh.

the misogyny and violence don`t bother me as much as it should; i own the first two Ice Cube albums and at the time the sound was new and interesting but there comes a point where it gets old and you find yourself wondering what you enjoyed. then there is the concept that the only purpose for recording a lot of this music is to increase profit margins. i think fundamentally that`s what bothers me; the anger, sexuality and violence perpetrated on records don`t come for some place genuine; it`s all about making a profit. and it`s not just hip hop, the music industry is all about profitability; if they can`t make money off you with the trite pop, they can make money by appealing to your baser instincts; anger, lust, you get the idea; they believe there is a niche for you.

i long for the days of the pure storytelling and fun that were the roots of rap and hip hop. or maybe those days never existed and it was just the innocence of youth.

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it’s been a long time since i left you without a strong beat to step to

March 2, 2005

tomorrow will be one year since i arrived on these shores. and what fun and exciting adventure it`s been.

so much has changed and so many things have gotten better since i got off than plane one year ago. i think the timing for filing this paperwork is kind of appropriate, it`s another milestone and quite possibly the final hurdle in securing our life together.

in the past year i have been welcomed completely by vic`s family, celebrated our birthdays, holidays and special days together. we`ve got to go to bed nightly without the worry of how many days it will be until we see each other again. we can sit and talk or just sit and savour each other`s company. we`ve had our disagreements but we`ve worked them out. things have been difficult but we continue to persevere. we have each other; to sound off, to comfort, to congratulate, to support.

it`s been a very good year and i`m eternally grateful, i`m truly blessed. here`s to many more of these years.

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SOSUMI

March 1, 2005 — Leave a comment

little Mac insider joke there.

the boychick has a snow day today. how many inches were dumped on Nashville, TN to warrant a snow day you ask? zero. zip. nada. how many inches are expected today? more of the same. it`s flurrying outside my window at the moment, but the temperatures are climbing and by midday any chance of flurries will be over.

i come from the tropics and i find this completely laughable. there is absolutely no reason for a snow day. there are reports of patches of ice on the interstates and i`ve managed to find the national weather service advisory for Davidson County:

URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NASHVILLE TN

658 AM CST TUE MAR 1 2005

.COLDER AIR WILL REMAIN IN PLACE ACROSS THE REGION TODAY ALONG

WITH GUSTY NORTHWEST WINDS. THE COLD AIR…ALONG WITH LINGERING

MOISTURE…WILL CONTINUE TO BRING SNOW SHOWERS TO THE REGION.

ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATIONS WILL VARY DEPENDING ON EXACT LOCATION AND ELEVATION. GENERALLY…MOST AREAS WILL HAVE UP TO 1 INCH OF

ADDITIONAL SNOWFALL WITH GREATER AMOUNTS POSSIBLE AT HIGHER

ELEVATIONS ALONG THE PLATEAU.

this is astounding, there are places where an inch of snow fall accumulates in minutes. i got in the car this morning and i didn`t even have to scrape. there was light powder on the car. i don`t get it.

i shouldn`t let this upset me, i should know better. this is the same city, where i never saw a snow plough on my street when it actually snowed and froze just before Christmas, but there was one clearing the lot of the neighbourhood mall.

That`s all from Nashville where the current weather conditions are partially cloudy and 29F (-2C) with a 30% chance precipitation.

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