BC Pires

My name is Pe­ter Samuel and I've been King of Car­ni­val eight times.I was born, grew up and spent most of my life in Wood­brook, Al­fre­do Street, three streets from (band­leader) Stephen Lee He­ung. I now live in the West but my navel string is still very much in Wood­brook.Wood­brook was sub­ur­ban in my child­hood. Every­body on the Av­enue was res­i­dent. The whole of south of Wright­son Road was a play­ground. End­less downs trees. Eat downs 'til you get sick.

I en­joy the age I am now. I would not like to be a teenag­er grow­ing up now. All the temp­ta­tion and the crime and the drugs and the Aids.The on­ly year I didn't fight in Fa­ti­ma was my last year, but the most would hap­pen is your clothes get rip. Now, who ain't com­ing to school with knife, com­ing to school with gun.I love sports. Any sports. It could be tid­dly­winks, once is com­pet­i­tive.

I can't tell you the last time I went to see a West In­dies match. I'm turned off it from an ad­min­is­tra­tive point of view. Our crick­eters are far bet­ter than the re­sults they're pro­duc­ing and it's due to man­age­ment.

I'm not putting down my gov­ern­ment but I'm yet to meet any­one from any part of the world that knows Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause of our politi­cians. They know Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause of David Rud­der, Ato Boldon, Dwight Yorke, Hase­ly Craw­ford. Once, in Greece, I met an Ethiopi­an liv­ing in LA who knew about Trinidad be­cause of Bri­an Lara!

My first in­volve­ment in mas was while I was in Fa­ti­ma in 1986. Star­lift had a band called Shindig. Ray Hol­man, who was ar­rang­ing for Star­lift, was teach­ing me his­to­ry and Span­ish. I brought out a sec­tion in Shindig. Your band fee was a dol­lar. You made your own cos­tume. The band had 5,000 peo­ple in it and the mu­sic was Star­lift alone. You play­ing mas but all you hear­ing is the shuf­fling of the feet. Af­ter that, I was hooked.

Pe­ter Min­shall would tell me, "This is what we por­tray­ing. You take it where you have to go." I would try to be­come part of the cos­tume. The year I played Dev­il Ray, when I was cross­ing the stage, as far as I was con­cerned, I was un­der­wa­ter.You want­ed peo­ple to think the cos­tume was danc­ing, not you. You could hear when the au­di­ence re­act­ed when you did some­thing and you tell your­self, "Right! That works!" You might want to go left but the wind telling you, "Eh-eh, we go­ing right." One per­for­mance, I walked off stage back­wards. The crowd loved it but in re­al­i­ty the breeze just wouldn't let me turn around.

You'll hear oth­er peo­ple talk­ing about how they worked on a cos­tume for four months. We used to laugh. Sa­cred and Pro­fane we did in a week. Tan-Tan and Saga Boy, both cos­tumes were done in two weeks. It was al­ways tak­ing it down to the wire with Min­shall.Your adren­a­lin goes through the roof when you hear the North Stand or Grand­stand erupt.The year I played The Sa­cred and the Pro­fane, down to my par­ents didn't recog­nise me. I didn't recog­nise my­self. Mr Min­shall spent eight hours do­ing the first paintjob on the body­suit. I shaved my head, beard, eye­brows half-an-hour be­fore go­ing to the Sa­van­nah. I had on over­alls over the body suit. Friends stand­ing right next to me ask­ing, "Where Pe­ter?" When I stood up on­stage I heard one loud, "Ohh­h­h­h­hh!" And I just saw peo­ple run­ning to the cos­tume! I had to have se­cu­ri­ty be­cause peo­ple were run­ning up to touch me, to see if I was naked.

I per­formed with that Saga Boy cos­tume last year. More than 21 years lat­er these cos­tumes are get­ting the same re­ac­tion.The best part of be­ing King of Car­ni­val was a show for Bastille Day in Paris with Jean-Michel Jarre. I was the open­ing thing on the show in the Pray­ing Man­tis, a cos­tume that nev­er hit the stage in Trinidad. Vi­su­alise a stage 100' x 100' six storeys above the ground, lit­er­al­ly over the Champs Elysses. When the cur­tain went up, you were see­ing peo­ple as far as the eye could see, lit­er­al­ly to the hori­zon. It was in the Guin­ness Book of Records for a while as the biggest ever at­tend­ed live open-air con­cert, over three mil­lion peo­ple.

The worst part of be­ing King of Car­ni­val was my fel­low Trinida­di­ans. My cos­tume, Tiger, Tiger, Burn­ing Bright, we got to the Sa­van­nah late. The kings had al­ready crossed but the judges were pre­pared to judge us. I was in the cos­tume at the foot of the stage and my fel­low com­peti­tors lit­er­al­ly phys­i­cal­ly formed a hu­man chain to pre­vent me get­ting on­stage. On­ly the band­leader Glenn Cavarl­ho tried to help us.I re­mem­ber, as a child, watch­ing George Bai­ley com­ing up the road, and you watch­ing re­al char­i­ots! I get goose­bumps to talk about Rome. That's what Car­ni­val is miss­ing.

I won't play my own king in my first year as a band­leader. I want to make sure my mas­quer­aders get what we promised, the mu­sic, the drinks, the food.Read a con­sid­er­ably longer ver­sion of this fea­ture at www.BCRaw.com