AT­TIL­LAH SPRINGER

What is wrong with mankind

why they al­ways blow­ing mih mind

If I slip and I fall down

Man telling me I am wrong

Any­time I do a wrong I am bound to know it

My con­science is very strong

You bet­ter be­lieve it

When man con­science beat­ing them

And they mind in trou­ble

They go off on oth­er men

To hide they own evil

-Doh Mess Wid Mih Head, Mighty Shad­ow

Dear Shane,

You don't know me but I was one of the 45,000-plus peo­ple who saw you be­have like a wa­jang on Youtube. I was re­al vex too, be­cause I know Gre­go­ry Wight to be a gen­tle, fun­ny soul. And al­though I've on­ly met him once, I know his wife and his chil­dren and I lime in his house and I feel that gives me enough right to feel pro­tec­tive of him.

I mean, hoss. I have to give you props for be­ing armed and ready for bat­tle all the time. I am on­ly a tree-hug­ging hip­py and the on­ly de­fence I have is sar­casm, which re­al­ly is not the kind of weapon that could help you out on the mean streets of Port-of-Spain. Hear nah, I couldn't watch the whole thing, fuss I want­ed to vom­it. You didn't stick at all. The man tell you some­thing you didn't like and you deal with the case one time. Like a boss. But I sup­pose you re­al­ly are a boss.

Be­cause your fa­ther have a big post and is your time now and who the hell is this white man telling you to take off your car. Look, I am not in­to vi­o­lence at all. But maybe licks is the on­ly thing that can save us now. Be­cause vot­ing didn't bring the change that we thought it would. I am propos­ing we be­come a kind of dy­nam­ic duo. You the brawn and I the brains. I think we should start a planass move­ment of na­tion­al uni­ty.

Maybe Un­cle Jack could give you a sub-con­tract, in the spir­it of keep­ing it in the fam­i­ly, to do some pre-emp­to­ry strikes on the crim­i­nal el­e­ments who are so farse and out of place as to have us un­der siege. But be­fore you start on them, I have a few oth­er peo­ple I think you should sort out. I re­al­ly think the char­i­ty should be­gin at home. So why don't you start with your own fa­ther?

First­ly for bring­ing up a child who could be­have so low. I mean, if a min­is­ter son could be beat­ing a man with a cut­lass nor­mal so in the road, what is stop­ping all those half-man and woman walk­ing around the na­tion's schools from pulling sim­i­lar stunts in their class­rooms?

But on the ques­tion of schools, you could even start a planass­ing as an in­dige­nous mar­tial tra­di­tion course. It would put your skills to good use and it would al­so make the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem a lit­tle more rel­e­vant to lo­cal cul­ture and his­to­ry. Next you could start to rain blows on the rest of the Par­lia­ment. Please, beat them all.

The PNM and the UNC and the COP and any oth­er self-serv­ing acronyms up in there. Please roll up and start to pelt your blade be­cause like they for­get­ting who they sup­posed to be work­ing for. They can't seem to get this whole lead­er­ship thing right. And that is a big dis­re­spect to the whole coun­try and some­body need to do some­thing about it. I feel you are the best man for the job, yes.

Next on my planass list are all those Car­ni­val band­lead­ers who are more in­ter­est­ed in the busi­ness of Car­ni­val than the cre­ativ­i­ty. You know who I talk­ing about. The ones charg­ing $9,000 for stock-pho­tog­ra­phy mas. The ones who make you send your phys­i­cal di­men­sions be­fore they could say whether you could play mas in their sec­tion. Speak­ing of Car­ni­val, pelt some blows be­hind the so­ca mafia too. And all the ra­dio sta­tions that on­ly play lo­cal mu­sic three months out of the year.

What about the po­lice? I find you could beat the po­lice that took so long to find you. That take so long to launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion that town say you had time to fly out be­fore they could find you. I find you should deal with them be­cause that is not just in­ef­fi­cien­cy. That is clas­sic out-of-tim­ing be­hav­iour. Is your time now in truth, Shane boy. Is your time now. So play your­self.

But you look like a frus­trat­ed fel­lar and beat­ing peo­ple might be the on­ly thing giv­ing you any kind of re­lease. So maybe if you com­bined your frus­tra­tions with a more right­eous form of in­dig­na­tion, that might help you choose your planass­es a lit­tle more wise­ly.