... Wasilla's all I saw ...

... ok, sooo ... I grappled with admitting, here on my open-mic blog, that I had to remind myself what a palindrome was ... well, I did ... there you have it ...

 ... I'll give you benefit of doubt, but if a reminder is needed now's y'chance ... skip and continue if you're confident ...

dictionary.com :- palindrome - noun .... a word, line, verse, number, sentence, etc., reading the same backward as forward

... the reminder helped me get a kick out of Bob Thaves' Frank and Ernest comic link sent by a friend in Texas ... she who once knit a Rasta tam big enough to house the copious hair I was

rocking at the time ...

... while I'm checking the word I expose myself to multiple examples of ... palindromes ... only now I fully understand this word-phenomenon that some of my nerd-fellows hold on a pedestal ... palindromic words, sentences, phrases, verse, numbers ... but mostly it was those first five letters I was focussed on, so off I went in search of Sarah Palin-dromes ...

... APPLICABLE TO ... - John McCain ... 'Cain, a maniac 

- David Letterman ..... evade me Dave

- Oliver Stone ...... O. Stone, be not so

- U.S. Congress .... star comedy by Democrats
- Democrats ..... no, it is opposition
- Republicans .... Dubya won? no way bud!
- Tea-baggers ... bombard a drab mob

- Health Care .... lepers repel

- Animal shelters .... senile felines

- Special-needs kids .... tug at a gut

- Iraq ... drat Saddam, a mad dastard
- Japan ...... a Toyota's a Toyota

- Hugo Chavez .... yo, banana boy!

- Ahmadinejad .... God damn mad dog

- Homeland Security ....... bar an Arab

- the Vice-Presidency ...... title fit, I felt it

- the Presidency .... first, ladies rule the state and state the rule, ladies first
- the electoral campaign .... rise to vote sir

- losing the election .... dash sin if I finish sad

- Going Rogue ... are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to a new era?

 - writing a book .... I did, did I?

- parochialism ... no, slang is a signal son

- the liberal media .... harass selfless Sarah

- the Couric interview ... party boobytrap

- periodical to read for next time ... Semite Times

- wardrobegate .... too hot to hoot

- more wardrobegate .... too bad I hid a boot

- must-have glasses for next time ... mirror rim

- "I can see Russia from my porch" ... ah, Satan sees Natasha

- Madonna ..... yawn! Madonna fan? no damn way
- (Lady Gaga likely makes her gagag)

- labels ... avid diva

..... mom

..... kook

..... boob

..... Ogopogo

and .. for good measure .... I, zany Nazi

... browsing punditkitchen.com turned up this satire veritas poster definition ... I'll continue to refer to the media's popularity radar to see if this intellectual dud and her dewed eyes will be deified ... hoping she grits her teeth, says "dammit I'm mad" and runs for civic office ... maybe taking tot Carrie Prejean and her solos with her, bib provided ... ahh, so many dynamos for the old guard to level at high office ... perhaps even the top spot ... next thing you know it'll be sex at noon taxes and a doom mood at America's Obama pep rally ... wow!

...... ok ... there might be something to this ...

... one more just occurred to me ....

..... drill baby, drill ....

... Lioness On The Rise ...

... everywhere I turn these days someone is analyzing Jamaican Music, the entertainment industry it spearheads and the relationship it has with cultural forces of the day ... both in Jamaica and the wider world ... this isn't idle study, because despite technological adjustments, erratic sales and noticeable market marginalisation, Jamaican cultural expresssion continues to influence beyond local origins ... for better and for worse ...

... much is made of tuneless digi-beats ... aggressive hyper-hetero masculinity ... gunplay and war-worship ... crass content ... repetetive themes of fundamentalism and political entrenchment ... certainly there is enough to repel those who found the bubbling heartbeat and sincere songcraft of earlier eras so embraceable .. if .. it is accepted that the new has obliterated the old ... but Jamaican Music is a living continuum and the truth is more complex than that ...

... first and foremost it is important to recognize that dreck and drivel is not exclusive to current output ... there has always been forgettable music ... only the best survives to represent an era ... secondly it will surprise some and vindicate others to be reminded that the pedigree of musicianship and the power of invention that comes from poverty continues to translate into a tradition of gamechanging on the wide open playing field ...

... it's the time we live in that has changed ... the proverbial pie has effectively shrunken as more clamour for a share of it ... the standouts will include those with the maddest flex, the baddest gangsta gun, the lewdest act ... but also highlighted will be the artiste with the innovative incantation, the fresh lyrical flow or the expanded inspiration ... Jamaican Music has always reflected these and other dichotomies in the society ... if the listener is discerning (granted this can be difficult as it's the hype shit that gets the videolight) then revelation awaits ...

.... I'm a lifetime beneficiary of Jamaican Sound ... readers of Ackeelover Chronicles will come to know this ... there has always been music from the island and it's wider sphere of influence that "sweet me" ... at this point in my life there is enough variety to cater to all my instincts, including those times when I want to feel the high-drama excitement of the dancehall that causes so much hand-wringing and consternation, think Dutty Fridaze in Fletcher's Land Square ... for listening pleasure it's different vibes, all sorts of oldies, "pop-reggae" ... Virgin Islands reggae, Various Artist Samplers ... any Marley, Toots, Tarrus, Tanya, Prezident Brown, the list is virtually endless ... most performers have some superior material in their prolific catalogues ... Sizzla, for example, can sizzle and fizzle ... finding the hotta track is part of the addiction ...

... then, every so often there emerges an artiste who hits stride and produces work that is consistently a-cut-above ...

... several years ago I caught a Tony Rebel show at the venerable Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, Canada ... a great concert venue ... one favoured by reggae acts when they make it up the West Coast ... the Flames Label undercard featured a young Rebel protege who rocked the spring-loaded wooden dancefloor with a ska medley of her father's hits ... this year she released a CD of admirable quality ...

... the music speaks for istelf, diverse material showcasing strong vocal delivery both as a DJ chanter and a singer ... Queen Ifrica is one of the brightest lights on the scene and an obvious antidote to the prominent mediocrity and negativity... in the greater scheme of things it is important that positivity is uplifted in ways that will encourage emulation ... gratuitous Gully/Gaza/Daggering lyrics are primarily hype, by nature temporary, and it feeds critics a steady stream of ammunition ...

... solidly rooted in Rastafari this Queen is a winning personality with interests outside the world of music ... the "Fyah Muma," daughter of ska luminary Derrick Morgan, is also a film buff as she told me in the Carib Theatre foyer last year when she came to see A Winter Tale during the general release ...

... the discussions will continue, talking points will invariably start with the sensational ... but after the brouhaha passes on to the next flashpoint we will still have the core of the music to provide continuity and anchor the soul ... Queen Ifrica is part of this core and it is heartening to see that she gives a good interview ... http://www.reggaenews.co.uk/interviews/queen_ifrica.asp  ... she is conscious of thought and accurately represents herself in song as a Lioness On The Rise ...

... "UNBURNABLE" ... a reader appreciation ...

... in two weeks it was over, I had read the whole novel ... not just the words, I followed the flow and felt the flesh between the fantasy, experiencing the author's efforts ... it had all been laid out before me, vivid characters with ancestral contexts that raised them above the realm of the merely well drawn ... the multi-generational subject matter is rooted as firmly in the layers of the past as it is in the 21st century here-and-now ...

... the book, set in Dominica and Washington D.C., is a first effort from Antigua's Marie-Elena John ... titled "Unburnable" it has been in print three or four years now ... recommendations came from more than one person ...

... written reviews I've seen are overwhelmingly positive ... were I to write one it would heavily skew towards the favourable too ... some testimonial anecdotes have referred to the plethora of characters and intersecting timelines as requiring back-referencing during the read ... this was not my experience ... I, famous for sometimes starting but not finishing a book, was compelled by the artful storytelling and entertained from beginning to very end, even when, at times, I was able to anticipate a plot turn ...

... now, books are great ... reading is good ... many of us actually combine the two on occasion and actually ... read books ... I was a keen reader as a boy ... historical chronology has me reading at three years old (!!), and indeed, one of the earliest memories I have is being taken to join the public library on Tom Redcam Drive in Kingston ... (Thomas MacDermot was a Jamaican writer from the turn of the previous century who encouraged local readers with local fare ... he published under the mischievously inverted surname pseudonym Tom Redcam) ...

... at a certain point in my life, probably when other things started to make demands on my time ... sports, girls, academic nonchalance ... it became acceptable to my set of personal standards to read fewer books .... I favoured newspapers and the picture-heavy, sexier kid-sister of the book known as the magazine ... the competition for my reduced time-allotted-for-reading now has to take the blogosphere into account as well ...

... my reading habits weren't pre-figured ... I was one of those students who enjoyed English Lit., Shakespeare, Chaucer, the entire axis of de rigeur Anglo-American literati ... Hemmingway, Hardy, Steinbeck ... who can forget To Kill A Mockingbird or The Crucible ... characters like Holden Caulfield ... and Dickens, it's a long list ... in my time we were also taught broad historical and geopolitical identifiers of our diversity but academic acceptance for homegrown authors and artists, barring a select few, was still in the process of being won ...

... true too is the admission that adolescent education of the libidinous sort found in Lady Chatterley's Lover, dog-eared, passed-around copies of Fanny Hill, or passages in parentally ratified blockbusters-of-the-day like Portnoy's Complaint, Valley Of The Dolls or Fear Of Flying, lured me away from Tolstoy and Tolkien ... in my imagination gulag and hobbit could never compete with gonad and hormone ....

... thankfully today there's a vibrant literary scene encompassing the whole "carry-beyond" and it's scattered bloodlines ... poets, novelists, playwrights, biographers and bloggers abound ... the beauty of a work like "Unburnable" is the seamless representation of so many factors in this reader's socialization ... Caribbean cultural themes replete with indigenous, African, European exposition, contemporized by concurrent doses of Diaspora featuring media-savvy lifestyles and BB texting ...

... we of the islands are known to be a matriarch driven social engine, and appropriately, the female characters in this book reflect a variety of strengths and authorities ... all have innate understanding of yoni power and how it can make the world ... and the men within it ... turn ... or burn ...

... a homecoming ...

... I realised I was smiling ... one of those involuntary responses that you're initially unaware of until you break the plane of reality, step outside of yourself and "see" the face you were given revealing a thought of private pleasure ...

... it happened the other day when I saw someone else's creative raggedness on the random chain-link fence ...









... and here again quite unexpectedly, this time walking down the concourse toward my flight ... slipping by milling bi-peds, blissfully content with the image of us making love in the purposeful way re-uniting lovers do ...

... the homecoming, a stress-relieving shagfest of the type that makes you wonder how you lasted this long ...

... yes good people ... good people now channelling this lovemaking in your own heads ... I see slippery nipples and pooling wetness ... I saw tasting tongues and passionate fingers ...

... I see-saw between what you see and I saw ...

... see-saws are timing and thrust ... up and down, give and take ... they require a squat and a straddle ... and the best ones have handles to grip ...

... I saw you see ...

... I see you saw, now you smile too ...

... soon, we'll pivot on the fulcrum ... friction greased at the point where parts fit ... no resistance ... joining with the bond ... and bonding at the joint ...

... I missed you ....