... Melrose on the fly ...

... I'm not certain how to assess the extent to which I was seduced by the typical tapestry of Los Angeles media subtlety ... the billboards were everywhere and I developed an unexpected urge to see Iron Man 2 ... on opening weekend no less ... the character of the City of Angels hasn't changed much since I lived there for a brief stint some years ago ... and while Melrose Avenue has seen significant transitions, it remains as good a place as any to get a taste of the place if time is limited ...














... three or four years flew by since I last had the luxury of an afternoon to kill in L.A. ... the ubiquitous Christian Audigier namecheck and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art banners hyping Renoir's 20th Century work served to remind me that splash is expected with any type of product here ... and ... that this is no one-horse town ...

... there are more cars in L.A. these days fo' sho ... and more people passing through from elsewhere ... I somehow knew I'd run into a familiar face ... that it happened in a vintage emporium called Wasteland means what exactly? ...














... though I've heard L.A. called a land of waste, it's not that it is an actual "wasteland" ... indeed ... here there's a penchant for re-selling used clothing and it spills out from the stores into impromptu street-marts set up in parking lots and sidestreets ...













... in this urban fame capital I saw no celebs but trod where one of the biggest of 'em all walked ... MJ loved the appropriately named quaint little landmark at 7325 Melrose ... Off The Wall Antiques and Weird Stuff ... which for all it's worth resembles a glorified ye-olde-pawn-shoppe ... or ... judging by that day's sidewalk display, perhaps that should be prawn? ...














... with so much style for sale there's no shortage of takers for a quick hit of the spotlight ... the glam lure conspires to attract everyone ... not just on screen but in print ... glossy free street mags could be found in every-other shop along my route that warm afternoon ... seems ev'rybody be lookin' for copy, bylines or portfolio ... one curbside fashion shoot invited my gaze and didn't care how long I gawked ...













... some peeps make their noise with a flashy ride and a look-at-me attitude ... no fewer than five LAPD cruisers were drawn to the driver of this white rolling statement ... just another live act in the land of showbiz ... requisite paparazzi kneeled in the middle of traffic for long-lens shots but I couldn't identify the perp ... I do know that it wasn't Rodney King or O. J. Simpson ... nor did it appear to be David Hasselhoff or a Lohan ...














... in the time it took me to walk to my easternmost turnaround point and head back westward, the billboards I had noticed earlier were screaming the release of Hollywood's next blockbuster, Sex And The City 2, electronically flipping between present hype and ever-present next big thing ...

... as if life was imitating art, I espied a scene seemingly inspired by Carrie Bradshaw herself ... fit legs, fine threads 'n' all, conjuring images of 8th Avenue in Manhattan, or Fifth ... a passing Lexus flossin' a Florida license plate underlined the American cosmopolitanism of the Golden State ...














... this guy was late for class ... perhaps very late I mused ...














... still, here's betting he knew Melrose Avenue more than I ... may've even watched the 1,200,000 sq. ft. Pacific Design Center go up in the seventies ... he prob'ly saw it get added onto in the eighties, and knew what building was there before that ...














... the structure sometimes referred to as The Blue Whale occupies a long city block ... my tired legs could attest ... fittingly the nostalgic stroll ended near there, the diversity of facilities within mirroring the diversity of sights and experiences of a few hours out 'n' about on Melrose ... I could do it again and come up with an entirely different report ...

... ah well, nex' trip ...

... maple magic ... and music ...

... even though I periodically take a break from caffeine by giving up coffee for months at a time I count myself among those addicted to the brown brew ... medium-strong with a little honey for sweetener is how I take it ... no milk, mochas or macchiato to alter the experience for me ... then the unthinkable happened ... I tried a Canadian grind called Muskoka Maple which hails from Huntsville, Ontario ... there's something about maple sweetness that warms those of us who have spent significant time in this cold country on the edge of the habitable world ...

... the maple leaf imprimateur was everywhere when I got off the plane in Vancouver ... a cultural identifier amplified by the Winter Olympics roadshow which just blew through town ... my American-Airlines itinerary routed me through Miami and Dallas so it felt pleasantly drama-free to meet a receptive Canadian welcome and a freestanding, bar-code reading dalek machine that accepted my declarations at face-value ... admitting me readily to the country of my citizenship ...














... the Swiss-effect passport and experiences like that civil re-entry are big deals to people from other countries and those who have travelled to other countries ... call me naive but I believe that's most of us ... then ... give a thought to the folks who have yet to travel beyond their own borders ... their relationships with home soil are naturally ... colloidal ... where prejudice, pride and protectiveness may feature but ... make no mistake ... the national identity of contemporary Canada is maple-sweetened and strikingly nuanced with complex diversity at the same time ...

... I was here in Hollywood North on business ... usually more than enough reason to do my thing without pausing to smell the cherry blossoms or to regard the grander signs sent to ease the preoccupied mind ... but as fate would have it ... I was about to be treated to some maple magic without actively seeking it out ...













... "so you're an actor ... what restaurant do you work at?..." goes the joke which came to mind when I was approached backstage by Mark Burgess (Dr. Jeremy Franklin on Stargate Universe) ... we worked together in a restaurant a lifetime ago ... it had been many moons since we last saw each other and ... coincidentally ... our former co-worker Jowi Taylor was also in town ...

... Uganda-born Jowi (a Luo name meaning "buffalo") shared mix-tapes with me back in the day before we went in different directions ... I persist as an actor and he has become an alchemist of sorts ... a manufacturer of sacred relics ... a Canadian consciousness-raiser-on-a-mission ... an honorary Buffalo Soldier fighting the good fight with his media-art ... he's most famous perhaps for a guitar made up of sixty-plus pieces of Canadiana which has come to symbolize the national DNA to the extent that it tirelessly tours the country to be experienced, posed with and played by many ... the Canadian Mint even honored the effort with a commemorative coin shaped like a guitar pick ...









... nuff respec' Jowi ... only the passion of a person inspired by the sometimes ill-defined chromosomal weave of Canada could have conceptualised such disparate components into a whole greater than the sum of its parts ... the six string nation guitar ...

... a canoe paddle belonging to Pierre Trudeau ... the only piece ever taken from the three hundred year old Golden Spruce of Haida Gwaii ... Great Bear Lake rock, whale bone, antlers, iconic hockey keepsakes ... pieces of a prairie grain-elevator and the Newfoundland lighthouse that recieved the Titanic distress signal ... black cowboy John Ware, Metis rebel Louis Riel and author Lucy Maud Montgomery are represented, as are Acadian, Doukhobor, Africville artifacts, Montreal club memorabilia and plenty more ... comprising this tangible living history ... I felt compelled to imbue this comprehensive statement with my energy ... and get something intangible in return ...













... Gordon Lightfoot, Colin James, Steven Fearing ... the list of talented players making music on this labour-of-love is long ... I like to think each one finds extra inspiration in the instrument and leaves a bit of soul in the hallowed hollow of Voyageur ... as the six-string-nation guitar is now known ...

... maybe the next strummer will vibe the noodling two-string Jamaica Farewell/Linstead Market melody I plucked out of it ...













... as if the reassuring emotional comfort in making Jamaican sounds on this Canadian guitar, with renewed friendships, over a pint at a popular spot on a spring day in Vancouver wasn't enough ... I could also rest assured in the knowledge that friends in Ontario had sent me a large bag of Muskoka Maple coffee ... effectively bridging the width of this expansive country ... magic! ...

... big up y'self Canada!

... "just read it"... she said ...

... "I'm not sure how this one passed you by" ... ... I think those were the words used when she lent me the book ... adding a touch of sheepish culpability to my receipt of her kindness ... "but," she ventured to add with a sage tone in her voice, "it doesn't really matter much when you read it ... just read it" ...

... of course I devoured it right away and have been keener to life's de facto ironies ever since ...

... Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho's 1988 mystic novella The Alchemist will do that to you if you've ever dreamed or dreamed of dreaming ...

... either you have or you want to ... and many of us can find some liberation in our dreams ...

... additionally, embedded in this tale-of-journey is profound reflection on the road travelled ... the factors that can affect decision making, direction of conscious energies toward what the heart desires and the satisfaction of soul ...

... if we accept that matter can neither be created nor destroyed then we flirt with the concept of alchemy, or change, in nature ... when we further expand to see alchemy at play in changes of circumstance ... even geographical scenery ... we realise alchemy in reality is not about medieval potions and the turning-of-lead-into-gold conjuring of hooded magii, but simply about ...

... understanding ...

..." just read it," she said, which I repeat and endorse ... and, I suggest you'll want to do so before the long-anticipated release of the movie version by Laurence Fishburne ... now expected next year ...

... age quod agis ...

... well, check it out ... time marches on and some things are secrets no more ... other things have evolved from suspicion to belief and even though health-care reform has come to America, first-time occurrences are fewer and farther between ... it's just the way of the world ... yet, game-changing moments still happen, like the election of Barack Obama into the U.S. old boy's club for instance, or this summer's World Cup on African soil for the first time which will stamp its mark on the game of football ...

... so too the Usain Bolt athletic breakthroughs of the last few years ... about which we will marvel for a long time ... Bolt has put Jamaica's love for track-and-field into the brightest spotlight yet ... Trelawny yellow yam, dumplings and country-cooking notwithstanding, most of us know that school-age competition in Jamaica is the most crucial element in the formula for success ... and not doping ... a regrettable component of the sport but less so in Jamaica where professional running retains the ingrained youthful passion of high-school euphoria ...

... in each of the last one hundred years a high-school track and field summit has convened in Kingston ... it's known simply as "Champs", where hype and bluster can rival a hot stage-show or political rally ... the inaugural event was held in 1910 and Wolmer's Boys' School became the first victors ...

... last week Saturday saw the conclusion of Champs 100, the grand centennial! ... a round number for a more-coveted-than-usual slot in the history books ... with heroics aplenty, Wolmer's snapped a fifty-four year winless streak to establish current bragging rights ...

... "age quod agis" reads the inevitable latin school motto emblazoned on the official crest ... it translates to motivate students as "whatever you do, do it well" ...

... props to Bretski for the cris' commemorative artwork ...

... proudly represented by the colours maroon and gold, Wolmer's is a venerable institution ... the oldest high-school in the Caribbean, in fact ... it has served up a roll call of stellar past-students from former Governor General Sir Florizel Glasspole and former Prime Minister Edward Seaga to sporting greats (Jeff Dujon, Ricardo "Bibi" Gardner) and entertainment stars (Belafonte, Sean Paul) ...

... for this history-rich school the latest triumph ranks alongside the 1971 triple-winning footballers who swept all before them ... immortalising themselves in time ... and in the imaginations of all such as I who bore witness ...














... Wolmer's cannot claim Bolt as an alumnus ... but Julian Forte and Dwayne Extol made names for themselves last week in the cauldron of competition ... the Jamaican sprint factory is in full production, the secret is out, Jamaicans run faaas' ...















... wins such as these are inspirational to young minds and mi glad bag bus' to the pulse of Wolmerian pride, home an' abroad ... like me, most readers here weren't born when Wolmer's last won Champs in 1956 ... and during the years I attended, '69-'75 if you must know, the victories didn't come in bunches ...














... both my parents went to Wolmer's, my mother having been schooled on the female side of the actual fence ... my father, the late Dr. John L. Williams, served in the early seventies as President of the Wolmer's Old Boy's Association ... as a student he was said to have been a wily footballer halted only by knee injury and he led a strong Wolmer's Cricket side as skipper ... my thoughts went to him as I know he would have felt his chest fill up and his head swell like the rest of us ...












... it is fairly safe to say the good doctor would not have phrased it quite this way but I can't resist ... ... Wolmaz mi seh!!

... seashells and the sick cyber-stalker ...

... seems sometimes ... only a hit of pure, unabashed nature can counteract malady and illness ... if any of you in blogland have been with me from the beginning of Ackeelover Chronicles or have poked through the archives, you'll have seen evidence of a seashell aesthetic ... every so often I'll throw some at you ...

... I do this in part to share beauty with readers, and in part to help inure us all to some of the ugliness out there ... to throw wonder at some insanity ... and there's plenty evidence of that too, everywhere you look ... even where you're not looking ...













... pretty much the first thing to notice here are the holes in each of these shells from my favourite beach-of-the-moment ... wonderful creations, previously home to many a happy clam ... but now they have holes in them, protective cuppings with bored breaches ... apertures which can freely admit grit, and irritants ...














... any breach of this "homeshell security" threatens the wellbeing of a self-respecting bivalve ... and I, ostensibly a higher life form, know exactly how that feels, for I too have an irritant that has breached my homeshell ...

... said irritant, in the form of a very disturbed individual wielding a computer like a weapon, is easily identifiable when you come across the madness online ... evidently, such people are as commonly occuring in nature as these shell holes ... when I mentioned the offending cyber-stalker recently to a friend, the response was an unimpressed, "welcome to the club mi bredda" ...












... these blanched sea-urchin shells have holes in them that are meant to be there ... when alive they are protected by long, sharp and painful spikes to keep away attackers ... the internet has no such protection or assurance ... so, until such time as a suitable cyber-pesticide is developed, or an exterminator is found, I am treating the breach with the beauty of the beach ... and whatever additional tools I can get my hands on ...

... mano a mano ...

... when my friend Georges moved away a few months ago I was the beneficiary of a bunch of stuff he left behind ... mostly useful ... but, though I appreciated them ... this is the computer age and I had no idea what I was going to do with the 1970/71 vintage LIFE magazines he gave me ... until just now ...














.... the eureka moment came in the form of query ... my daughter, knowing me to have abiding reverence for Muhammed Ali the man, the athlete and the icon, asked me for thoughts on the third epic Ali-Frazier fight having just watched a documentary on it ... in which the overshadowed Frazier perspective of this massive event is finally presented ...

... remembered as it was billed in 1975, "The Thrilla In Manila" retains sociologically significant sporting import thirty-five years on ... pitting as it did the poster-boy of black pride against another proud-to-be-black champ of the boxing ring ... mano a mano ... on an all-too-eager internationally syndicated stage ...















... over fourteen rounds they put on a full throttle thrilla and, to put it simply, beat the brains out of each other for considerable compensation ... but it was more than a prize-fighter match-up ... for each man there was nobility in their cause and backstory to their behaviours ... huge hype at the time but more clarified today with the added perspective of time ...

... the fight itself is what it was ... a grueling encore of encores adjudged to have tipped in Ali's favour before being stopped by Smokin' Joe's corner ... but it should come as no surprise that both men emerged with their share of the critical spoils ... and rightly so ... some of the weapons-of-mass-rhetoric prior to battle had racial overtones which served to amplify the tensions leading up to the event and surely added intensity to the performances on the day ... that Ali was naturally the more loquacious casts him as the main offender ... he gave everything in the ring and said everything outside of it, even if it was offensive ...

... this was war, all guns a-blazin'! ...















... Central Casting couldn't have done a better job ... the controversially brash brown-skinned Adonis who was effortlessly charismatic in the spotlight versus the rock solid black-powerhouse who did his talking with his fists ...














... seasoned performers both, neither were young phenoms nor past-it has-beens ... Ali in particular carried political weight in his insistence on being his own man in an age where that was an incongruity for one of his background ... by refusing to go to war he fought the law and the law didn't win ... he transcended his sport and while doing so developed his shtick ... a contradictory amalgam of supreme confidence and behaviour black men often manifest in order to project themselves to the widest audience ... ... y'ever notice how that inevitably seems to involve or feature comic mugging on some level? ...

... it is sometimes said that nothing in life is truly black or white, there are only shades of grey ... I'll add to that ... history isn't merely a timeline but also a prism ... while there is something troubling in the image of two proud, talented black men beating each other down, punching their way to a better life, you can't blame either fighter for their approach ...














... the depiction of Muhammed Ali, flaws and all, in the 2009 HBO documentary is not incorrect ... nor is it disrespectful ... it only serves to texturize the picture of this larger than life figure who captured human imaginations worldwide ... for some balance the film ought to be watched alongside the 1996 documentary ... "When We Were Kings" ... about the 1974 Ali-Foreman "Rumble In The Jungle" ... in Zaire, central Africa ... killer soundtrack on this one too ....

... Joe Frazier was as tenacious a pugilist as there's ever been ... and Muhammed Ali wasn't the only boxer with poise and style ... but, in its historical context, with all that resulted from his empowered achievements, from the Olympics and Sonny Liston through Joe Frazier and living with Parkinson's, the magnitude of this man's legacy is documented ... and safe for all time ....

... run, jump, fly ...

... lately I've been thinking about the power of primal scream therapy ... not necessarily to vent any repressed childhood trauma, but as a lusty stress release ... full throated yelling ... preferably into a stiff wind, well out of earshot of anyone who might be tempted to come to the rescue or dial 911 ... an emotional bloodletting, without any rorschach splatter ....









... one of the best ways to exorcise is to exercise ... so, fanned by the freedom of Brandon's Beach, Barbados, in a morning ritual before daily duty, I claimed for myself a gift of fantasy which cost no money, but proved priceless ... outsprinting Bolt and Asafa I shattered world records right there in the sand ... before rising above the Brazilian defense to head home a winner in the World Cup Final ... listen to the roar of that crowd! ...













... as I understand it stress is a killer ... and psychological disquiet can inhibit the most confident voice or the surest gait, especially affecting those of us who are prone to not making the most of what we are equipped with ... the effort of exertion and the purposeful use of lung is tantamout to meditation ... bringing a centered balance ... ballast in the keel ...




... in no time I am airborne ... not quite leaping tall buildings in a single bound but at least driving to the basket like Kobe, in a sport I don't even play ... momentary sanity hands off my Canon EOS Rebel to KP ... snap-snap-proof-print! ... I believe I can fly! ...

... note to self ... practice this more often ...

... karaoke and the cricket ...

... this is no secret or revelation ... most of us wish we could belt out a tune ... and, as we all know, there's an app for that! ... it's called karaoke, a word I don't recall hearing before it took the world by storm some decades ago ... everyone wants to be a SingStar ... take it from me, most actors would love to be singers ... in the same way that so many singers want to act ...


... often seen in a corny mood light, gifted pipes can turn karaoke into a fine art ...

... to others fantasy and fun is all that matters ...

... skip a few connecting thoughts with me as I leap from karaoke to the more crucial consideration of the sport known throughout the remains of the British Empire as ... cricket ...

... now, having alienated most of my readership with the very mention of these two scintillating topics ... in one devil-may-care post no less ... I continue in the knowledge that if you're still with me you've probably been to Barbados, know a few Bajans, or are from this reef-ringed, easternmost island of the Caribbean ... a place where karaoke enthusiasts abound and a constellation of cricketing superstars had their beginnings ...

... the Best Of Caribbean Tales Film Festival which opened with a screening of A Winter Tale attracted a vanguard of attendees to Barbados last week, surviving technical challenges to augur well for the future of filmmaking in the region ... those of us visiting couldn't miss the indelible nation-building stamp of larger-than-life players from the consecutive golden eras in West Indies Cricket history ...

... the triple-headed memorial to "The Three W's" (Frank Mortimer Maglinne Worrell, Clyde Leopold Walcott and Everton DeCourcy Weekes) at the UWI Cave Hill campus is a testament to favourite sons with great career stats, knighthood and a last initial in common ... when you add uber-cricketer Sir Garfield St. Aubyn Sobers, whose statue graces Bridgetown's showpiece Kensington Oval, and a host of other native greats you get the picture ... modestly put, this ground has been walked by some of the finest ...













... fast-forward to the present day and we find endemic underperformance within contemporary Caribbean cricket ... while listening to a shamefaced radio post-mortem of a Windies capitulation to unregarded Zimbabwe in a recent 20/20 match I was reminded of a standard Cowellian reproach to many an auditioner on American Idol ... "that sounded like karaoke," he's been known to say, when faced with soulless mimicry where authentic virtuosity is required ...

... in Barbados the pervasive pride in sporting achievement exists in tandem with respect for recreation ... typically, after a day of beach and required activities, we head out in search of food ... the colourful gazebo at the food village in Oistins is a popular spot which invariably has a karaoke set-up, complete with mellifluous DJ, interactive entertainment, good natured and light ... nary a boo nor bottle thrown ...














... a Wednesday night at Hal's Bar along the cosmopolitan St. Lawrence Gap strip provides unexpected entertainment ... there's Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, a superb Otis Redding, two Teddy Pendergrasses (Pendergrassi?) ... Marty Robbins, Waylon Jennings, all The Platters rolled into one man, some requisite rap-aoke ... and an unforgettable Tom Jones ...













... Bajans are also genuinely proud of their pop princess Rihanna ... right now she has many imitators-at-the-mic and may yet get a highway or round-about in her name ... might we even see her face on the money like the cricket gods? ...











... that's Sir Frank (who broke the colour barrier in 1958 to captain the West Indies team) on the fiver, partial and defaced to thwart counterfeiters ... but, the cricket world prays for current players to copy the example of excellence and translate it into something viable, in the tradition of the more interesting karaoke acts, who may lack in originality but can approximate or bring something bright to a performance ...

... we cling to the faith that a phenom or two will eventually come along, both in the music field and on the cricket pitch ... still, I know I'd be happy if in the meantime some young batsman/bowler/all-rounder could do a credible impression of Gordon Greenidge or Vanburn Holder or Keith Boyce, in the same way someone always does a spirited approximation of Billy Paul's "Me And Mrs. Jones" wherever there's karaoke ...

... well, why not? ... sure these are tough acts to follow ... but, as a case in point, there will always be Michael Jackson impersonators riffing on the Thriller's genius ... more often than not they'll be as blurry in their tribute as I am with my drive-by photography ... yet still, we do love 'em for trying ...