At­til­lah Springer

?You know things are bad when it's bud­get day and no­body in your taxi par­tic­u­lar­ly cares to hear the speech. It is no longer just good old Tri­ni in­er­tia. The mere sound of the dron­ing speech elic­its a cho­rus of ste­ups, long wa­tery ones, too boot.

Your taxi dri­ver is bored. The peo­ple in the taxi are nod­ding. It is Pe­tit Car�me heat in cli­mate-change times. Sweat is every­where. Your taxi dri­ver switch­es off the drone. Switch­es to Busy Sig­nal. Up in ar bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly. The mu­sic is an as­sault. But you'd rather take the dag­ger­ing from the dance­hall than the dag­ger­ing from the Gov­ern­ment. The vi­o­lence with which every de­ci­sion stabs at your core. Sounds like noise in your ears. You try your best to un­der­stand what the hell they are say­ing. It is of­fen­sive. It is an­ti­quat­ed mas­culin­i­ty. It is a gov­ern­ment gone man. Take your stab­bing like a woman. Take your stab­bing like you like it.� You can't ask the Gov­ern­ment for a re­fund if you think they're do­ing crap with your mon­ey. You can't ask to see their sup­port­ing doc­u­ments, you can't ask what pos­sess­es them to fund this and not that.

Up in your bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly. Every point is a stab to your core.�Leav­ing you weak and too tired to protest or even cry out in an­guish. So what's the point of the bud­get? What pur­pose does it serve when I have no say in one red cent of that mon­ey? What's the point if it's tagged to a fu­ture vi­sion that is at the very least ill-thought and at the worst blind?

Busy Sig­nal comes out ahead of Karen Tesheira. At least the mu­sic is se­duc­tive. At least there is some mi­nor plea­sure to be de­rived. Even if it dis­guis­es the ugli­est sen­ti­ments. Even if it is a dirty, filthy ob­ject of mass me­dia brain­wash­ing.� You can have some emo­tion­al de­tach­ment to it. In an­oth­er stew­ing traf­fic jam, in an­oth­er end­less wait­ing at the side of the road for the riv­er that has come rush­ing down your city's main street to sub­side so that you can get to the oth­er side. At least Busy Sig­nal is try­ing to en­ter­tain. The bud­get is like the Abu Ghraib of speechi­fi­ca-tion.

What is the point of this pre­tense? You can see this dance­hall vile­ness in a con­text. There is no con­text for the bud­get dag­ger­ing. There is no sense in the inane ta­ble-bang­ing by Red House yes men and women. There is noth­ing even re­mote­ly sexy about their win­ing on your fu­ture. Busy Sig­nal is ad­dling your brain. Busy Sig­nal is mak­ing you crazy. You keep ask­ing the dri­ver to change the track. He doesn't un­der­stand why you are so up­tight. I mean every­body likes a lil dag­ger­ing every now and then. Pub­lic or pri­vate is im­ma­te­r­i­al. You feel ex­posed. He turns on the ra­dio again. It's the bud­get again. And the dirty feel­ing re­mains. The as­sault on the ears nev­er ends. It changes ca­dence and ac­cent but there is that same fa­mil­iar note of con­tempt in the de­liv­ery. The same dis­dain for your life, for your hu­man­i­ty. The same un­der­ly­ing threat that you bet­ter like it, or else.

Up in your bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly. You want to run scream­ing from the two hor­rors. You want to turn off all the ug­ly voic­es, all the un­nec­es­sary plat­i­tudes about love and com­mit­ment spliced in be­tween vi­o­lence and fluff.

But you take it. You don't want to be im­po­lite. Again. You don't want to get out and walk in this heat. Every­thing is just too much. Up in your bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly. Every­thing is over­done. Every­thing is wib­ble wab­bling non­sense. The mu­sic re­flects the crass stu­pid­i­ty of the politi­cians and their dag­ger­ing ways. The mu­si­cian knows that this is mad­ness. The peo­ple in the Red House would like you to be­lieve that they be­lieve that they are mak­ing sense. Who gives a damn. They do it be­cause they think they have to. We en­dure it be­cause we have no choice. Up in our col­lec­tive bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly. So take some more dag­ger­ing. This is your lot in life. This is your des­tiny. This pas­sa pas­sa pol­i­tics is all that we need. Up in your bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly bel­ly. Noth­ing but emp­ty words. Bend over Trinidad and take your es­sen­tial gov­ern­ment dag­ger. Bend over Trinidad and take your stan­dard is­sue stab­bing from the rough­est win­er. Pon de edge pon de edge pon de edge of dis­as­ter.