... not like the ones I used to know ...

... if you've never heard the song White Christmas recorded in 1965 by The Wailers, with a fresh-out-of-his-teens Bob Marley wailing the lead vocal, I recommend you add it to your holiday programming the next time this season rolls around ... at the very least you'll get to hear the youthful legend adapt the lyrics to suit his tropical experience of the holiest Christian festival ...

... "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,
not like the ones I used to know"...

... but my 2011 Xmas pictured Irving Berlin's original dream ...

... despite a paucity of real snow in my formative years, there was often plenty of the aerosol variety, and, even as the best-wishes remain the same, the parameters of enjoyment may shift ... to quote another modern Jamaican Christmas offering ...

"I wish for all mankind,

a Warm Jamaican Christmas time,

where there is no snow,

where the good sensimilla grow" ...

... celestial Christmas ...

... wherever you look in the night sky, if the elements co-operate, you can see stars ... it's little wonder then, that humanity has embraced, as iconography, these mysterious distant twinkles ... the pentagram is a universally accepted symbol which achieves ubiquity at Christmas time, partly due to that biblical example of star-as-beacon and partly due to it's graphic design utility ...

... St Paul's Hospital on Burrard St. in Vancouver is festooned with stars for the season supporting the laudable theme of hope ...

... meanwhile, seasonal lighting choices in Toronto's Eaton Centre feature larger-than-life reindeer assemblies, looking for all they're worth like stylized constellations, against the backdrop of a bright-night skyroof, complete with astral streaks ...














... much of the incandescent radiance on St Paul's prominent wall, normally more modest outside the festive season, celebrates corporate donors ... and beneath the mod-vaulted ceiling of      Mr. Eaton's grand mall sits some very seductive merchandising ...

... stars are married to Christmas mythology and stellar marketing is a lovechild of that union ... still, wonderment is our default setting when it comes to the heavens, and in light there is a sense of hope, so we should forgive ourselves if we are given to gape ...

... Happy Holidays from Ackeelover Chronicles! ...

... paradise by the dashboard light ...

... cross country bladers, recreational boarders and avowed winter buffs will take issue with the cliche of paradise as a sunny hotspot, but this year, 2011, found Ontario's Muskoka region atop National Geographic's touted list of summer destinations ...

... even though "paradise" sorta rhymes with "snow and ice," the comparisons end there if you are hot-blooded, thin-skinned or partial to polar fleece and fur ... left unheralded is the under-appreciated, out-of-season visceral beauty to be experienced when Arctic perimeter expands through the area ...

... allow yourself to picture that chilled winter wonderland, warmed by in-seat heating and auto climate-control, dusk and nightfall suggesting the urgent carnal condition Meat Loaf sings of on 1977's "Paradise By The Dashboard Light"... my best guess is - your imagination excludes freezing rain, sludge and road-salt ...

... that said, and in the interest of honoring the grandeur of the universe, I can still make a case for low-temp surrealism ... in this instance, tab snapshots taken in the same evening by you and I, lovers driving separately through unconnected weather systems, hint at a synchronous spark across time and space ...

... inside-out, eerie eye-views speak of the driving conditions ... please note telltale tachometers, indicating the foolish needn't also be foolhardy ...

... build a ladder to the stars ...

                                           ... climb on every rung ...

"... may God bless and keep you always,

may your wishes all come true,

may you always do for others

and let others do for you ..."

"... may your hands always be busy,

may your feet always be swift,

may you have a strong foundation

when the winds of changes shift ..."

"... may you grow up to be righteous,

may you grow up to be true,

may you always know the truth

and see the lights surrounding you ..."

"... may your heart always be joyful,

 may your song always be sung,

and may you stay forever young,

forever young, forever young,

may you stay forever young ..."

                                   

                                                    - Forever Young - Bob Dylan -

... summer street seen ...

... in my world Jamaican Music is a twentyfourseven, threesixtyfive prerequisite, without which life just wouldn't feel right, but sometimes it is seen as mere summertime sound with diminishing relevance as the cooler months set in ... while I strongly reject that attitude in principle, I tend to shelve my objections in July and August when, everywhere I turn, there's a bumpin' bassline or bubblin' beat to keep the vibes level ...

... at the base of the world-famous CN Tower in downtown Toronto, while testing the touchscreen camera app on a new Android Tablet, my attention was drawn to a familiar image on a vending machine ... the resultant snapshot benefitted, quite unintentionally (pinky swear), from a pair of strolling sightseers in my pre-set frame, recalling an early 90's dancehall lick that rocked clubs and looped out of every audio-cassette deck ...

  chorus:

" ... a jus' de Coca-Cola bottle shape a it a run di place,
bruck-out bruck-out gyal, a u have de shape, 

a just de Coca-Cola bottle shape, a it a run di place, 

skin-out skin-out gyal, a u have de shape ..."

   and verse:

"... inna de place, uptown girl have de shape, 

inna de place, downtown girl have de shape, 

inna de place, a London girl have de shape,

inna de place, New York girl have de shape, 

inna de place, Canadian girl have de shape,

a dem have di shape and a give man headache,

a dem have di shape mek man body shake ..."

... you get the idea ... within the genre there is always compulsion to big-up the female form, frequently in illustrative or graphic fashion ... this familiar theme, with attendant effect on the equilibrium of the enraptured beholder, is an eternal spring ...

... here on record (spot the misspellings inspired by yardspeak, a fun-for-all parlour game with reggae covers and labels), figure and bodyline are linked to curvy coke-bottle design and presented over a tuff Bogle riddim, with hooks from the quirky-smirky vocal of self-deprecatingly named DJ, Simpleton ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRUuGVu_JDM

... Christopher "Simpleton" Harrison (1971-2004), late of  St. Andrew, Jamaica, shot to fame in '91/'92 with this hit ... he reportedly suffered from high blood pressure and died of a heart attack at just 33 years old after releasing three albums ...

... I remember him, and his catchy phrasing, whenever I spy Scarlett Johanssen ... or a retro pop-vending machine ...

... Chevron 7.7 ...

... it's a truism to be sure, but one of the things you gotta do to maintain a career in the public eye is to, well,  appear in the public's eye from time to time ... and I don't mean grocery shopping or a mid-day stroll down Main Street ...

... one could conspire to get nabbed running a traffic signal on Sunset Boulevard reeking of rum, or marry conspicuously with a seventy-two day divorce sequel to slam the dunk, but there are safer ways to rack up stage-time and tally a twitter following ... look no further than actors who've played science-fiction characters ... we, as a species, needn't delve into the charade chest of cheap trix - provided there's no objection to venturing into the lion's den to meet 'n' greet the fanbase ...

... the cool thing about this is that fandom is no respecter of borders or division, chapters of sycophantic adulators spring up everywhere on the globe, perhaps even beyond some say ... and for the most part, the rank-and-file fan is a big-hearted afficionado of the genre who has the chutzpah to bring the proverbial mountain to Mohammed ...

... and move mountains they do ... calling them Conventions, cash is pooled, hotels are inveigled, dealers enticed, punters wooed ... the carrots-on-the-stick are us, performers who've brought characters to life by lending ourselves to the cosmos, and the cause ... on this occasion Northampton, England plays host ...

... there's no call to wear costumes off set ... truth be known, actors don't own 'em anyway and the attendees don't need the competition for their own sartorial creativity ... the interest is in the encounter, the photo-op, the collectormania and camaraderie when common interest binds an admixture of personalities ...

... with judgementalism at minimum, everyone is free to express passions ... whether it's adolescent idolatry, gratuitous hugging, sharing a preferred song with anyone who'll listen, playing Pied Piper to a string of gents while coquettishly sporting sexy new knee-high boots, or paying tribute to fictitious aliens by dressing up and acting out until the bar closes, the field is wide open ...

... but, apart from the common colds which get communicated and the odd hangover proliferated for posterity by phone-cams, there is usually no safer arena for runaway individualism ...

... engaged celeb guests get the most out of such a milieu too ... ego value is inestimable but if you don't take yourself too seriously and can walk the fine line between madness and mission, you'll be able to pull off anything ... I found humility when faced down by a young woman with a soccer ball seemingly glued to her feet, and only regained my pride by rocking a party with judiciously selected oldies, remixes and reggae (from a hard drive that goes everywhere with me for just this purpose) ...

... satisfaction with my own DJ-ing would have been enough to provide a fitting punchline to this exercise in shameless self-promotion had I not been comprehensively upstaged that same afternoon by a macho, mind-reading monkey named Chico ...

... but that's another story for another day ...

... Gladwell and I ...

... the story's been told so often I take it as truth, part of my personal mythology, repetetive support for one of my earliest memories ... indeed, I can see the scenario now without closing my eyes ... being led through the front entrance of the public library on Tom Redcam Drive in Kingston, Jamaica, not long after my fifth birthday, by a purposeful thirty-something mother, isn't the sort of life-experience you'd expect to be emblazoned on the brain, but that day caught us on a determined mission ...

... before I had a passport, or a driver's license to guarantee my adult freedoms, I first had to get a library card, a ticket to a world of possibility and a gateway to an unending avenue of education and reading for pleasure ... for years all was so, until bookishness yielded sway to relatively sexy tele-news and glossy periodicals ...

... my book-reading love affair eventually took a hiatus but the die was cast, I was hooked on words ... the likes of War And Peace remain unfinished but National Geographic, The Economist and TIME subscriptions were faithfully renewed ... dailies were devoured, specialty-mags mined for target info, while Mad honed sarcasm and satire ... Shakespeare, Chaucer, Steinbeck and Miller, sounding like a law firm, were covered academically but my own reading stream was fed by populist tributaries ...

... eventually the book bug bit back, coming full-circle, and again Mama featured in da mix ... on a recent visit she hit me with the question, "Have you read any of Malcolm Gladwell's books?"...

... this, it turned out, was less of a query than a recommendation, to which I wasn't unreceptive, having been exposed to the author via publishing blitzes illuminating his bestseller celebrity, and, I had previously taken note of his pre-eminent New Yorker byline ... plus, knowing what he looked like, I felt a quasi-cosmic kinship not entirely unrelated to politics of hair and heritage ...















... so, God bless 'er, Mom marches me to the nearest bookstore in a manner reminiscent of our library visit in an earlier age ... by the time we exit she has gifted me The Tipping Point, Blink and the fascinating Outliers, Gladwellian pop-philosophy tomes which become my proper introduction to this modern thinker who, like me, has a preternatural penchant for verbiage, and proto-filial connections to Jamaica, Britain and Canada ...

... at this point she sweetens the pot with archival information dating from beyond her own childhood into the days of her father, my grandfather, the late Rhamos Sutherland Taylor ...

... "Teacher Taylor," as he was respectfully known, was a formidable man by nature ... an educator, and one of a legion of unsung nation-builders who, by discipline, tenacity and sense of self, embodied the fortitude of Jamaican identity leading up to and beyond 1962's independence from British colonial rule ...

... a man of average height ... "Saddie"(derived from Sutherland) to his inner-circle, possessed a crisp countenance, garrulous laugh and a passion for tall glasses of ice-water and sweet mangoes ... because of him I learned to peel an orange the skillful way, in one unbroken, coiled peel ... he had quite the insatiable predilection for citrus and fetching fruit was deemed to be one of my primary duties as eldest grandchild ...

... but, more pertinent to this anecdote than his Ortanique habit, is the fact that one of his closest friends and associates was a man I know only by the surname Nation ... fast friends since their days as batchmates at Mico College, Taylor and Nation were cut from similar country-cloth ... Mico, today a University, is a respected teacher-training facility established in 1836, roughly coinciding with the official end of African enslavement in Jamaica ... it survives as the oldest institution of its type in the Western Hemisphere ... nuff tradition, in other words ...














... such tradition is layered with inter-generational markers ... Taylor's pride, my mother Ivy, is one of the first daughters of an Old Miconian to have actually taught there too, a significant gender breakthrough at the time ... one of Nation's twin daughters, Joyce, Malcolm Gladwell's mother, is herself an insightful author, a key strand of her famous son's poly-cultural chromosomal psychology, and his own understanding of it ...

... like their fathers before them, these "girls" are contemporaries from adjacent rural towns ...

... they continue to parlay paternal impetus into lifelong contributions to community and offspring, with strong faith being a common, sustaining thread ... in fact, the other Nation twin, actually named Faith, in her capacity as board member of the Bible Society of The West Indies, is at least partially responsible for a Jamaican patois, audio re-enactment of popular Bible stories falling into my hands ...

... appropriately titled "A Who Run Tings?" in the vernacular, complete with reggae instrumental background music, this work came to me via Miss Ivy's social network ... on listening, it's not difficult to imagine looks of satisfied ('Saddie-sfied?') mirth on the faces of Taylor and Nation, runnin' tings in repose from inside the Pearly Gates ...

... as they gaze upon the vibrant extensions of their bloodlines ...

... almost artificial android autumn ...

... it sure is gettin' tres chilly 'round here ... watch the squirrels, bear and deer,

an' forget undressing bare as you dare ... dip in a lake now, privates disappear,

but, nature's concession thru powers that be ... is color-change on each deciduous tree,

a timely reminder to you 'n' me ... the best things in life are still wild and free ...

... leaves warm the cold,

... rich landscapes, behold,

... my android-tab snaps, to have and to hold ... flash-frozen, in vivid reds, greens and gold ...
magic Muskoka moments inspiring to share ... constant as time, year after year,
the cycle of life goes on ev'rywhere ... reassurance there's really nothing to fear ...

... fast track to London ...

... the sun has long set over South Korea and the echoes of the starting pistol at the recently concluded Daegu World Track and Field Championships reverberates no more ... in replacement there is the slipstream of Caribbean athleticism and a drooling anticipation for the 2012 Olympiad, set to usher London into a bright new future ... maybe ...

... cynics will posit that Olympic gloss has dulled in modern times, given public distrust of relationships between high-performance humans, multi-syllabic pharmaceuticals, sponsorship-driven agendas and all-powerful quasi-governmental bodies along the lines of football's FIFA or the United Nations itself ... such organisations can be topheavy with empowered officials who carry weight when it comes to direction and decision-making ... career diplo-politicos sit at the UN, FIFA chiefs are ultimate footballing backroomers and International Olympic Committees are headed by the likes of the late Juan Antonio Samaranch and Jacques Rogge, names largely unknown outside of their specific circles ... the face of the 2012 London Olympic Organising Committee (LOCOG) however, is a premier athlete of modern Olympic lore ...

... legendary British middle-distance runner Sebastian Coe was transcendent on the track in his day, and true to form, has been doggedly aspirational since ... Coe is a household name in his homeland, having won gold medals, owned world records, entered politics and been granted peerage, titular membership in that most exclusive club of the realm, the preserve of Lords and Ladies ... his enduring and uncommonly close(ted?) link to former Conservative Party leader and "elder statesman" William Hague, Britain's current Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, has kept the newly-divorced Lord Coe in the UK public's voracious imagination ...

... an uncharacteristic false start and the subsequent automatic disqualification of Usain Bolt in Daegu's 100 metre sprint final sent shock waves through the sport ... that split-second, of a less-than-ten-second event, stunned observers and provoked comment from the terminally staid when Coe decreed there would be no rule change in London for Bolt, whose status as marquee king might otherwise have forced one ...

... in 1988, a similarly rejected call for exception meant 8oo metre world-record holder Coe missed the Olympics ... his ties to the not-so-distant corners of the British Empire might have seen him win glory for India, by virtue of his Punjabi maternal grandfather, since ill-health caused his failure to qualify at the British trials ... if that was a disappointment in Seoul it would undoubtably be topped in London where no-one but the competition (and the odd bookie) wants to see another major final with an empty block where Bolt should be ...

... so, the poignant drama of a sporting pinnacle is built into the fabric of Olympian battle - at every level, exposing cynicism as merely that ... every four years the universal spectacle of The Summer Games brings geo-politics into the cocktail-mix for the world to imbibe ... (even more than the Winter incarnation, which has a shallower history and intrinsic need for snow, ice, sang froid and thermal underwear) ...

... London, seat of a culture that once claimed proprietorship over so many world cultures, now becomes the focal showroom for retributive contest (dare I say reparation?), a forum for moral redress and assertive statement, in a conflict where the subordinated are wounded in pride only and human casualties are not counted by lives lost ...

... meanwhile, back in the boardroom, Lord Coe will be brushing up on his "jive" (referring to a comment he once made about Jamaican-born, British sprint star Linford Christie's speech patterns), betraying attitudinal distinctions implicit in the relationship between landed gentry and the hoi polloi ... Coe's recent genealogical quest for his aristocratic lineage led to roots in the sugar plantocracy of Jamaica, a revelation that exposed family ownership of hundreds of slaves and inter-mixture of bloodlines ...

... ground-zero in this particular plantation pot-pourri was Trelawny, the same north-western parish of Jamaica that Usain Bolt hails from ...

... period maps of the region, and others like it, survive to shine light on the ancestry of those who are descended from the principals of the lucrative industry-of-the-age, and most of the Caribbean cast of competitors will relish the opportunity to overtake Rule Britannia on the track and in the field ...

... certainly it's compelling to study the little ironies of intertwined legacies ... to wit, George Hyde Clarke, Coe's ancestor, shares a surname with the bloodline of Bustamante and Manley, scions of modern Jamaica, cousins, National Heroes and founders of both major political parties ... there's plenty reason to salivate at the thought of strands of history sharing a distilled moment of clarity in the still evolving post-colonial landscape ... it may even spawn a new dance ...

... currently, Jamaican athletes in particular are in a rich vein of dominance, just in time for 2012 - which is also the landmark 50th Anniversary of Independence from British rule ...

... celebrations will be in full swing by the opening ceremonies and contemporary demographic realities suggest there will be as much black, green and gold in evidence as red, white and blue ... think Princess Beatrice one-upping her wedding hat with a voluminous Rasta tam or Pippa skanking with Roots Manuva at a street-party ... just keep the dreadlocks wig away from Prince Harry ...

... if in doubt, execute ...

... there's irony in a handshake and potential for lies,

but no mistaking truth revealed in pained eyes ...

... who ultimately believes a smile can really conceal

innermost knowledge of the conflicts we feel? ...

... and, until we know without a shadow of doubt,

what gives anyone the right to turn life-light out? ...

... judgement of man, fallible, inconclusive, unfair,
... tell me again, why we keep Manson in there?

 

... ohhh, for an "a" ...

... rise and shine, onward and upward ...

... a New York state-of-mind, ten years on ...

... steel concrete crumbles ... brittle from impact and fall,

that billowing knock-downtown ... a 911 call

punched a hole in the sky for prayer to slip through ...

where we were ain't where we goin' ... give us our due,

live up to build up, in triumph, over destruction and pall ...

... Attack The Block, aliens and allegory ...

... ok fam, so it's jus' a movie right, 'cept it's more' than tha', innit ... it's bere laffs for one fing, and it chucks right off th' screen at u, an' pawns u by the bollocks ... not just y' biggie smalls bruv, but them bollocks in y' brain as well ... f'real gangsta! ... an' you done know seh it's not jus' di man dem pon the ends got bollocks, the girls dem too, yeh ... trus' me! ...

... Red, Gold and Grey, the colorz of a new Rainbow Country ... don't fear if you're allergic to spoilers, the call whether to continue reading is entirely up to you, but I'm more likely to be looking at a bigger picture than specific plot-points in this fun indie flick ... Attack The Block is set in the same Britain that recently ruptured close to social seams that have been straining for some time ... when they call it "Blighty" you can picture the traditional imagery, 'cept now a swathe of pop-youth-culture is inflected with reggae-isms and hip-hop ... 

... aliens and allegory, right and wrong, cops and robbers, boys and girls, weed and wisdom, not to mention guns and guts ... this movie finds a balance between modest (in focus and means) and boasty (in characters and thematic riches) ...

... trash an' ready for the Leicester Square red carpet, the young cast of this entertaining little feature presents a reflection of an emerging generation of tenancy in UK inner-cities ... young, gifted and bored ... poly-racial little-big-men slinging yard slangs and attitudinal overtones of cockney-cool and bluster ...

... the allegorical story survives precocious characters, even daring to feature a leader named Moses, humanizing the very people historian David Starkey pointed to before invoking lurking memories of Enoch Powell's 1968 "rivers of blood" speech ... his statements read like cliche formula, race equals riots, but the big picture is more instructive, beginning with the historical veracity of expansion into lands considered claimable ... occupants therein deemed inferior and taught, indeed bred, behaviors of subservience, in deference to a lust for sweet lucre ...

... zzzzzp (the sound of scrolling through intervening years) ... to a world where Bolt and Becks are boss, Mavado matters more than Mountbatten and Yellowman is still known in some dances as King ... a one-time vortex of empire we know as Jamaica continues to resonate that very energy, only now it plays out in the wider world precisely because of the complicated psychologies associated with shedding shackles of any kind ... the pushback of life's pendulum is the riddim of Creation ...

... it doesn't escape my notice that Starkey and Bob Marley were born early in the same year ... I compare how relevant their respective legacies are to the youth on the block, who, like punks generations ago, get called-out publicly by people who just don't get it ... is like dey dealin' wit' aliens, blood ...

... and still, natural as change is, there's always friction at the intersection of past and present, with lessons to be learned and adjustments to be made by all concerned, assuring social advancement, even as variables continue to require adaptation ...

... writer/director Joe Cornish sends for extra-terrestrials in Attack The Block as foils for our heroes, effective dramatic counterweight, the blackest of avenging intruders ... ironically, their deep darkness actually illuminates common-ground above the socially stratified post-colonial Queendom ...

... British expediency, Tudor through Victorian, before and after, has woven itself into social DNA far beyond the ports of Bristol or Liverpool, and back ... that the hybrid language of the street should bristle is understandable, but the true "tell" is in the tone of the reaction it elicits ... Mr. Starkey's freestyle, on-air apoplexy over "Jamaican patois" was fed by troubling imagery of wanton looting, but the selective tack and torque of his commentary betrays fear and revulsion, two cornerstones of racist reaction, so often negative in intent and impact ...

... the economical, character-driven storytelling of Attack The Block ecourages viewers to calibrate private sensitivity to larger issues via developments that find truth in the personalities of the protagonists and their personal choices ... but, lest you get the impression it's a dry celluloid lecture, and use that as reason to delay, I assure you, this rollick's a real riot ...

... oops, I mean ...  it's a lark innit, bashment yeh?! ... the movie's boom! ... believe! ...

... Tiger and Steve, Steve and Tiger ...

... a winless "twennyleven" seems destined to go down as another annus horribilis for Tiger Woods ... one of high-profile Sports' poster-children for the cause of self-examination has public relationship issues, and I'm not solely referring to the specific skill-set one needs to juggle a dumper-truck-load-a-gyal ...

... long-time caddy Steve Williams (of the Kiwi Williamses) clearly thinks Tiger's the cad, and, following a recent triumph with his new employer, took a couple of psychological swings at his languishing, wounded, former number-one boss ...

... corporate relationships and "the kid thing" are probably more important to Mr. Woods at this juncture than trash-talk ... in fact, this Mr. Williams may not have even rated a mention, had he not also - by his actions, afforded me the opportunity to use the word schadenfreude, something I've wanted to do for years ...

... while Tiger experiments with facial-hair and tries to sync his knees to the sway of a new backlift, he might also wanna stabilize the rudder of the soul ... can't hurt to read Deepak or listen to some Bob during this off-season, it could re-align that zen ...

Addendum: - Dec/2011
- Once thought extinct, there has been a confirmed sighting of the legendary Links Tiger. The Tiger showed up to win the Chevron World Challenge in California ...

... this little light of mine ...

... at core, simplicity ... basic cause and effect ...

... with humanity's earliest discovery as catalyst ...

... fire is an element with so much utility that its beauty can remain under-regarded ... send up a Chinese sky-lantern after-hours on a still night to marvel at glowing alchemy in action ...

... Kongming lanterns, also known as khoom fay in certain Sino-Asian cultures, harness power from a temporary (f)lick-o'- flame to create fire-flight, a silent light excursion into dark distance ...

... this one cost $1.99 in Chinatown ... I bought nine of them, one for each year of the birthday occasion, but only released one, cautiously tethered to avoid accidental ignition of nearby dry pines ... lessons in levitation needn't be dangerous or costly, and on this eve, ascention is assured by natural physics ...

... handle with care ...

... the aural, and the oral ...

... seems I've been down this route before ... I'm talking about a mighty highway that may as well have been main-street, for it's utter familiarity ... Canada's roadways tend to be consistently maintained, at a high standard, even berms and sidewalks are usually groomed ... aesthetic homogeneity making for safer driving conditions is the governing wisdom, and while that may be so, monotony and sheer distances involved in traversing Canadian landscape can give an active mind too much room to venture-off into a world of contemplation, or distraction ...

... lately, I'm spending more time commuting in and around the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) ... yesterday, after tuning out several Mario Lanzas, one or two Sarah Harmers, Weezy, April Wine and Rush (not the band, but Limbaugh frothing from a Buffalo, NY station), I settled on eclectic CBC Radio2 for audio companionship, winning-out by virtue of a forward reggae groove designed to ensnare an ackeelover ...

... complacency with my listening choice was shattered by the unmistakable sound of Mick Jagger's voice in the mix, plenty Dave "Eurythmics" Stewart, Joss Stone and Ras Damian Marley's trademark Gong-flava adding to the surrealism ... wellwhaddyaknow, there's a new supergroup blowin' through the air and its first release is the groovy "Miracle Worker" exuding the sweet aroma of a phat Jamaican joint ... SuperHeavy ...

... alas, that was the only reggae I heard on this ride, still, it's good to know Robert Plant continues to make cool music, as suggested by "Angel Dance", his recent Los Lobos cover that rocked me for a mile or three ... any random graze over the music scene brings a freedom from delineation, non-binding as that may be ... and anyway, I find reggae in everything with a heartbeat ...

... between newsbreaks focusing on the Kandahar Karzai killing and traffic-updates regarding a fatal accident impeding flow in both directions, it was trippy to hear Andre 3000 being touted to play Jimi Hendrix in an upcoming biopic,  followed by some Outkast to link vibes old and new, and leave tragedy behind ...

... just then, as if some perverse puppeteer conspired to remind me of the traffic, an abortive overtaker brakes sharply into my lane ... one rearward guilty glance in a wing-mirror betrayed contrition on an attractive face, when she regained her nerve she pulled out and was gone, leaving me only the memory of a provocative license plate, BJEY 247 ... barely had I begun that first flushed fantasy, when BLEW 905 zoomed by in the fast lane and I was left wondering if there was a theme convention somewhere downline...

... discretion on behalf of the presumably innocent means I must admit to slight alteration of the vehicle registration digits, but the experience is otherwise as told, complete with aural stimulation and oral innuendo ... then, they throw this out there, J.Lo is now single - stop!, too much! ... our highways and biways may be orderly and clean-as-a-whistle but with merest imagination there's sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll all over dem streets, and it could cause another ... mishap ...

... were succubi to overcome me on the road, necessitating any sort of legal plea, I imagine that basing my moving-violation case on solicitous license plates would backfire, so I'd be more likely to plead "not guilty yer 'onor!", citing public radio as my defense ...

... "blame it on the CBC!"...

... random riddim, Powa to the people ...

... walked into a Big Smoke burger joint the other day, having seen their sign nestled along the King Street stroll ... there's just something about the association of grilling and smoke that sells a Wimpy ... while ordering my avocado-gorgonzola topped burger, a lunching cabbie asked me to suggest one track for a random playlist in his ride (I must have that kind of face) ... so, "that's a cool idea" said I, before proffering the hottest hoodoo on youtube these days ... "Nobody Canna Cross It" , via DJ Powa ...

... DJ Powa's resourceful use of free time, turning an earnest news-report on rural flooding into a hot-pop media-byte, promptly rewarded with its own dance, is some clever-ass trickery ... but beyond that, he's created a flashpoint piece of cultural art possibly inspired by a hip-hop model which, when Jamaicanized, becomes its own stylee, strong enough to bend two branches of digi-driven modern music into a fusion ... explaining this to a stranger might seem a little ( ... that word again) random, but sheer randomness is a big part of this cross-over ...

... a self-identified Christian, Powa slays all secular competition with a dexterity that is driven by the riddim-of-life rather than any particular agenda ... the inherent musicality of Jamaican voice and expression is finely nuanced, tonal interpretations are numerous and his Fruity Loops mix of atmospheric beats complement this perfectly, serving up a piece of audio-candy ...

... the other star in this scenario is Clifton Brown ... a Jamaican everyman in the Chauncey Gardner sense, who unknowingly adds philosophical high-ground to the actual high ground he touts in the video ... being interviewed on television is enough to trigger a default twang in his natural delivery, setting up the humorous inspiration for the video, while his overwrought sincerity (try to say that Cliff) attests to the reality of the circumstance ... the truth of the matter is, this community needs a municipal solution to the very real problem of being swept away into St. Thomas Pond ... in a fascinating turn of events "Cliff-Twong" Brown is now a televisual personality and an oft-quoted spokesperson ...

... you might even say Jamaicans have a new cause celebre ... a kind of patriotic filip for a national identity drawn by distractions yet still in touch with the common strands of human need and nature as they exist for everyone, even in this cyber-age ... some get embarassed by honesty of spirit when it is exposed unselfconsciously and giggle hyperactively in its presence, as evidenced by some subsequent mainstream media attention, but the rest of us giggle 'cos we get it ... and it continues to go viral ...

... this sort of phenomenon not only heralds a potential shift in the sound-of-the-day but also adds to the ultra-dynamic street lexicon ... woe betide he or she who "canna cross it" ... jackpot too for Powa on other levels, as he gets to cross it, be it with the Cross of Jesus or Bounty Killer's sampled trademark yelp, "Cross!" ... don't tell me it's just a video 'cos, all over the world we jus' a siddung 'pon di replay button ... smiling ...

... my new cabbie friend works the Metro Toronto area, he took to the idea immediately and is presumably crossin' it right now, spreading Yallahs river lore all over the 416 ... while I head for Lake Muskoka ("... we lock away in the wilderness!") to show the younger ones how a kayak can "monidge the waughter" ...