Win. From the pen of Pin.

To say Winston Rekert (1949-2012) had a big life before he met me is a self-centered way to start this remembrance, but the times I worked with Win altered the tone for what has become my life.

In fact, he was one of the first cultural touchstones I identified in my early years in Canada. Before I knew what all the fuss was with this Wayne Gretzky guy, I was ardent about Adderley.

Win's charismatic presence and sense of humor overcame the limitations of a nascent local television industry and made him cool enough to want to emulate. Canadian, yet still, more.

When I met Win in that hotel audition-room I remember being star-struck, but felt little pressure. Odd to say, but I felt as though it was he who knew me 'cos I watched his show.

 

As it happened, this was a threshold to my personal reinvention.

Neon Rider legend has it that it was Win who ammended my character, conceptually, from a Latino named "Chico" to a Jamaican called "Pin." I will always applaud that foresight.

What other show would encourage my Jamaican accent, hand me a cricket bat, dress me in black with a Lion Of Judah emblazoned on my back, run me against Ben Johnson and let me grow dreadlocks on TV over five seasons?

(Bizarre perhaps, but I been lookin' fi anadda gig like dat since.)

I didn't see too much of the hype-side that Win loved - never even sat in the Ferrari or the Lincoln, but I did know his fatherly, and dedicated, thoughtfulness. There were many hours spent in a defunct North Vancouver gym with Win and trainer Dave, learning how to improve myself through physical effort.

Win moved seamlessly from stage to screen to directing, to teaching - passionate as ever, this was the role in which I most recently saw him. His class was enacting a Neon Rider theme and I went along for the day. I happily recall that this exists somewhere on video. Maybe we did get our sequel after all.

His longtime brother and symbiotic crony, Danny Virtue, says Win gave half the people in Vancouver's film industry their start. If you consider the intangible "ripple effect," I'd say Danny makes a very conservative estimation.

Winston Rekert had a big life after I last saw him too, and by all accounts he had battled his cancer nobly and bravely.

 He was most definitely loved and his legacy liveth.

... 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 ...