... Methuselah was a white man? ...

... The marriage of an 80 year old man and a 20 year old woman was the talk of the town. After being married a year, the couple went to the hospital for the birth of their first child.The attending nurse came out of the delivery room to congratulate the old gentleman and said, "This is amazing. How do you do it at your age?" The old man grinned and said, "you got to keep the old motor running"...

... The following year, the couple returned to the hospital for the birth of their second child. The same nurse was attending the delivery and again went out to congratulate the old gentleman. She said, "Sir, you are something else. How do you manage it?" Grinning, the old man said, "You gotta keep the old motor running"...

... A year later, the couple returned to the hospital for the birth of their third child. The same nurse was there for this birth also and, after the delivery, she once again approached the old gentleman, smiled, and said, "Well, you surely are something else! How do you do it?" The old man replied, "It's like I've told you before, you gotta keep the old motor running" ...

... The nurse, still smiling, patted him on the back and said "Well, I guess it's time to change the oil. This one's black" ....

* * *
... this is one of those frequently forwarded, text-only funnies that circulate in cyberspace or get retold at workplace water coolers ... if you've heard it you may have cracked a smile or cranked out a chuckle ... chances are you didn't bust a gut ... taken simply as a piece of humor there's a certain inconspicuousness about it ... a standard set-up, a good rhythmic build-up ... and a snappy punchline to sum-up ... painting a vivid picture in the mind ...

... Methuselah breeds with twenty-something, again! ... plenty room for humor here ... yet, hardly had the second chortle escaped from my throat, when I questioned why the ending proved so unexpected and effective ... had I subconsciously defaulted to the assumption the subjects were white? ... with ages being the only descriptives the very first indicator that they were indeed white was the very last word in the joke ... hence the racial assumption was made to the common default ... white, unless otherwise specified ... if not, why the bada-bing?

... don't feel no way ... I am not re-publishing this joke here to daisychain the humor but instead to explore themes of race, racism and racialism ... words as powerful as we make them ...

... in this dispensation of time, as the eloquence of Peter Tosh might refer to the here-and-now, while we are experiencing a re-invigorated bangarang around race issues, it is important to consider variables in perspectives ... so ... while it's true that the joke could be re-tooled to apply in other demographic circumstances, it is also true that this version wouldn't work without some basic assumptions ...

... comedy must always have been a medium for testing public resistance to race talk ... I am remembering the mid-seventies spotlight on Richard Pryor and his in-yo-face challenges to society's ostrich approach to racisms ... I'm certain the influential comic who gave us 1974's "That Nigger's Crazy" would have had something to add to the joke of the old cracker cuckold and the bastard tarbaby ...

... the revolution is being televised and it will be blogged too ... conventional and virtual media carry power to balance out the default eurocentricities in the collective subconscious ... comedy and a sense of humor is a must ... compulsory ... jokes release tensions, sometimes after raising them ... one time sweet, next time salt another time bitter as gall ...

... I will peep more jokes and laugh at more foolishness ... maybe generate some of both on my own ... this picture of an elderly gent and his companion came in my e-mail a week before the joke did ... I couldn't resist associating the two ... a judiciously-juxtaposed visual can aid a story ... to this end I'll take it upon myself to suggest posting the image with the joke for the remainder of its shelf-life as humor-of-the-day ... it doesn't prefigure the punchline nor does it require a default assumption ...






... and somehow still ...

in the end,
bottom line ...

Gramps has got himself a brand new bag ... and Ellie-Mae got a whole lotta 'splainin' to do! ...

... the man for the job ...

... we won't fully understand the impact of the life of the forty-fourth President of the United States until there is some context and hindsight around his time ... but for certain it will all have been observed comprehensively and ... chronicled ...












... the emergence of Barack Obama on the big stage continues to generate big ink ... this is a reflection of how universally significant are American fairytales, the twists-in-the-tale enshrined in its constitutional contradictions and its historical realities ... the circumstances of the United States of America's birth and growth are established and well studied around the world ... even more far-reaching is the glossy appeal of American marketing and culture ... it's true, Americanism is an amalgam of cultural influences and can claim to be a prototype and leader ...

... speaking of leaders ... since the earliest days of the nation until now, the head hombre (yes, it's always been a hombre but that's another discourse) has been an older (than me anyway) white bredda .... today as we all know by now, there's a younger (ditto) black bredda ... a first among firsts ....

... the popular new guy is going through his baptism rites/hazing rituals during these initial months of tenure, some of which can be said to come with the territory ... the biggest politico-post in the world ... still, one of the many noticeable consequences has been the racialized spike in polarity of the political polemic and its subtler cousin, the trading of tonal tenor-isms ...

... nazi-fied, Hitlerian and witch-doctored images ... even if extreme ... find exposure in places where enlightenment hasn't penetrated and arenas purporting to be eruptions of a "grass-roots movement" (an easily mis-appropriated descriptor) ... fueling opposition passions ... but far more frequently I've seen thoughtful iconographical representations of Barack Obama ... including several which are positive in connotation or cast our main man in the role of hero ...















... now, before you start buggin' out don't think for a second Barack and his team are claiming to be faster than a speeding bullet ... though I'm praying he is ... like the old American hero Superman (birthers where are you? ... he was born on another planet) ... but it doesn't hurt to align with a spit-curly, square-jawed, supernatural figure with a big reputation and a large constituency ... the guy would clean up in the UFC or a national party convention, 'cos kryptonite doesn't actually exist ... even though we're led to believe Saddam had a vial under his pillow and Ahmadinejad is in advanced stages of development ...

... the outlook of this U.S. administration appears to go beyond the left and right coasts ... Obama himself is a bit of a pan-cultural polymorph, so it's unsurprising to me that comparisons have extended to the closest thing we have to Superman on earth at the moment ... one lanky Lightning Bolt phenom ... regardless of the fact that he isn't American ...





















... this POTUS will know, instinctively, there's a wider world within which American magnificence must exist ... and dare to lead ... the world recognizes him in return and the opportunity is there for further iconic integration with the pantheon of global giants ... humans who have been right for their times, become emblematic of a purpose and have left legacies that outlive them ...

... there ought not to be any "grass-roots" movements to deify Barack because such regard is bestowed not engineered ... nor is there any payoff in politicising the figureheads who've achieved immortality via their own personal connection to God ... I've seen juxtapositions of Obama with Bob Marley, MLK, Marcus Garvey, Mandela ... even H.I.M. Haile Selassie ... counteracting those images previously referred to but deliberately omitted from this space ...

... in Bob's case there is scholarship on the comparisons between the Marley story and the unfolding Obama trajectory ... I recommend trying to track down UWI lecturer Dr. Matthew Smith's cover-story reasonings in The Beat magazine Vol 28 #1(2009) for cogency ... though a quick internet search will tell you this is not an isolated notion ...

... there will be those who see this as a trivialisation of the presidency and others who will seek to keep politricks away from the sanctity of the latter day prophet but there's a compelling synchronicity in the details despite the obvious differences ... the satirists, photographers and photoshoppers don't have to stretch to fit these two leaders-of-men into one sentence or a single frame.

... welcome to Parkdale! ...

... I've had opportunities to be part of many different types of projects in my time as an actor ... I can attribute much of that blessing to a combination of good fortune, genetics and effort ...

... oftentimes I'm questioned as to whether I fear the dreaded "typecasting"... my responses alternate between the flippant "bring it on!," or a post-Jerry Maguire "show me the money!," and the quizzical, mild annoyance of a "whaddyamean, which type are you referring to?" ... I've come to believe this is related to my personal flava, hybrid accent and mannerisms ...

... y'see, my personal blend of youth and age, public and private schooling, urban and rural upbringings, "dread" and "baldhead" influences, Jamaican and Canadian world citizenships, isn't usually the character description in the casting breakdowns, yet happily, I've managed to play a few variations on this theme ...

... and then there are the rare, though not entirely unique, instances when a role gets crafted toward the mongrel in me ...









... the initial phone call was innocuous enough ...

... my friend Michele and her filmmaker cousin Frances-Anne had a really talented cast, a concept and a plan, plus the fortitude to combine them ... they proposed adding me to play the central character Gene Wright, a well-meaning social worker with challenges and shortcomings of his own ...

... the open aperture beckoned, and before long I was deep in development-workshops on the grittier end of Queen Street West, a place with notable population history and not enough to show for it ... welcome to Parkdale and long days spent brainstorming, improvising scenarios and bonding into a tight unit ... a workably representative cross-section of contemporary black Toronto ...







... collectively we evolved a living script ... the contribution from each player inhabits the textured nuances of the final product ...

... veteran turns from the remarkable Leonie Forbes, a versatile Jamaican treasure who had previously played my grandma in Soul Survivor (1995), and Dennis "Sprangalang" Hall - an avuncular Trini-icon, grounded the film in bridge-building territory by commanding respect up and down the English-speaking Caribbean and its extensive diaspora ...

... younger cast members, particularly the rising talent of Michael Miller, gave everything of themselves to infuse the piece with G.T.A. street-realism and anchor the story firmly in the context of urban North America ...





... the workshopping and rehearsal journey was rewarded by a sell-off, limited-run stage-production lauded for its intelligent use of minimal material resources ...

... the rich, sincere, non-sensational storytelling, around issues the Caribbean-Canadian family are only too familiar with, ensures the humanizing of every character and makes A Winter Tale compelling insight for broader audiences ...

... having engaged with focus-groups, community screening-forums, university and school groups of various ages, far-flung film festival folks, regular-release houses and even a non-West Indian audience at a police-sponsored showing in a charming Calgary, Alberta rep-house, I'm convinced Frances-Anne Solomon's direction accomplished its intent ... namely, a story reflective of social conscience and relevance, eschewing much of the self-consciousness sometimes found in this vein ...













... from this actor's p.o.v. there's no downside to socially-relevant credits on a resume ... I experienced a singularly organic process in making this film, binding camaraderie, splashy-bashy openings in Toronto, New York, Port Of Spain, St. John's, Antigua, and the particularly sweet irony of seeing my own largeness on the screen at the Carib Theatre in Kingston, Jamaica where I'd watched so many double-bills as a yout' ...

... A Winter Tale ... http://www.awintertale.ca/ ... has won some honors and much acclaim along the way, and if the award of recognition I was given at last year's Caribbean Tales Film Festival for my work is the result of some kind of typecasting, then so be it ... whosoever will may come ...

... so long silky Mike ...

... this week they finally got around to interring Michael Jackson and the saga that has been with us for half a century continues to leave behind a palimpsest of a ripple effect ...

... one of my very first acts as a newly licensed teenaged driver was to cruise the Kingston Sheraton hoping to glimpse The Jackson Five who were in town for a show ... an event! ... I headed uptown from Wolmer's Boys' School drawn by the heart-pumping excitement of proximity to these contemporaries of mine from another world ... boys ... nay, young men ... in charge of their own destinies already ... tru' talent! ...

... in particular I hoped to see Michael who was born within months of me ... wonder if he had his driver's license ...

... I got close enough to see Jermaine and Tito and someone who could've been Marlon ... or another relative, enjoying poolside ... Michael was just disappearing down an adjacent walkway but there he was! ...

... such a fleeting, fan-fueled, faux-encounter carries poetic gravitas for me thirty-four years on ... and like everyone else I feel like I coulda saved silky Mike ...

... see seashells ... safely ...

... duck for cover, here come da seashell lover ... another one of those beard-grooming neo-hipsters who softens unashamedly at the compound beauty to be seen throughout nature ... and he wants you to see what he sees in the photographs he's taken ...

... avoid your eyes and slide by or risk an assault on the pleasure receptors in your head ... y'never know how you'll react, feelgood can escalate to addiction, especially if supplies are plentiful ... check it, have you seen how many seashells there are? ...







... ignore the oohing-and-aahing you hear, it's a psychological ploy to make you think you're missing something good ... don't be fooled into swinging around to actually look, most aren't able to resist what they see ... seashells have perfected the use of colour to seduce your senses ...







... do not touch either for that matter ... there is a verifiable connection between touching seashells ... picking them up, feeling their smoothness or heft, and an overwhelming desire to own them ... it doesn't stop there ... many, many shells are aware of this and offer tactility designed to ensnare you ...








... of course it was inevitable that seashells would start to drift upmarket ... initially there was the seemingly ad hoc patterning, but frequent observation of geometrically consistent design in shell after shell, combined with use of colour and sheen, indicates malice aforethought ...











... despite the ubiquity of seashells and collections thereof, there has, to date, been precious little insight into this "condition," neither uncommon nor new, but strangely still unnamed ... perhaps because it's not known to be fatal ... in many cultures the very young may even thrive on it ... for grown adults though, tread carefully and use sound judgement ... seek help if you start to dream about seashells or hallucinate ...

... I'll include a simple yes-or-no test for your peace of mind should you feel uneasy about overexposure to seashells ... look at the next image and answer the question ...

... is this a seashell pretending to be a peacock? ...

... so ... why ackeelover?

... it's bound to come up eventually so consider this a pre-emptive reasoning ... ackee is one of Creation's more esoteric fruits ... tropical advantage makes it known only in certain parts of the world yet it is known of in wider latitudes due to its notoriety ... the story of ackee and its fusion with the DNA of Jamaica has been told ... wiki-information is extant ... and though ackee is not revered everywhere it is found, I come to testify to the incomparable appeal of this heartical food ...















... according to a wiser elder in my family I manifest the same ackee-loving gene as a great-grand aunt who loved it as much as anyone ... when he told me of this a few years back I came to understand my predilection for ackee ... as more of a divine right to eat plenty ackee ...

... whenever Belafonte sings about it, travellers and foodies talk about it and researchers learn about it, the mythical dimension of ackee takes on a life of its own ... and ... each person's frame of reference will likely come with a beat and a story to tell ...

... well ... reggae is a storytelling music and all kinds of everything have been complemented with a score ... here I'm reminded of a Third World Band musical touchstone,"The Story's Been Told" LP from 1979 ...




















... admittedly the record has nothing at all to do with ackee, but the title track celebrates the telling of true stories ... in history and culture ...











... and ... polishing off a plate of the real thing under optimum conditions is a like having a meal of history and culture ... nourishment for belly and soul ... the ears too, if we throw in the sweetening soundtrack ...

... the compromise of the canned fruit when you find yourself far from the tree is not to be regarded lightly ... it's a nex' bes' ting ... experimentation in the name of cuisine is all good too ... I've even had homemade ackee vol-au-vents recently ... hostess did herself proud ...

... ackee trees came to Jamaica with African slaves and their traders ... over the passage of time the Caribbean centrifuge blended in salted codfish, specific local flavours and several layers of addictive verve ... the results are reflected in the name of this blog, wherein the ingredients combine for succulence ... like the everlasting artwork on these early Worl'er albums and the fulfilling aural foods inside ...

... then there was her slyly mis-pronounced, flirtatious semi-query..."a-key-lover?" ...

... boong bang!

... now ... glad you asked?

... by way of introduction ...

... "when man plan, Jah wipe out "... a Rasta tenet articulated by Bob Marley among others ... succinctly affirming the overriding power of the Most High ...

... I have seen this happen ... the way we desire to live our expressive lives can easily differ from the actual output ... the contents of this blog could have appeared in another forum, yet here we are ... the ackeelover thoughtstream ... chronicled for John Public in my own flex and flow ...

... by way of introduction ... I am a curious man with global interests and my experiences as an actor, another outlet for my expressiveness, have helped broaden and hone my perspectives ... more on that in due course ...

... that I was born and raised in Jamaica explains me to some extent and the fact I've spent more of my life in foreign than yard means I'm a hybrid of a sort ... the sort who likes to riff on Coxsone and Basie, Roy Shirley and Muddy Waters, Jimmy Cliff and Al Green ... Lago Como or Key Largo, Prince Charles or Prince Zimboo, Maple Leaf or Ghurka Knife ... the birds and the bees and daggering ... American Idol and Masterpiece Theatre ...

... lately I've been exploring the blogosphere in all its vastness ... film and food blogs, sci-fi blogs, news punditry, erotic writing, even celebrity blogs ... and blogs by others of a recognizable tribe ... Active Voice, Afflicted Yard, Geoffrey Philp ... et al ...

... considering my spinning wanderlust after stepping off the rock you might find your head spinning too as my thoughtstream dances from hitching post to kotch or kimbo ... you could simply dismiss me as "neva-see-come-see"... that could stand some scrutiny but don't waste your time ... jus' watch di ride ... because this narrative is one that embraces the linear and the scatological, the good old days and new-age imperatives, conventional and random wisdoms ... the spiritual and the spirited ...

... to di worl'! ...