Pe­ter Ray Blood

Go­ing to Saly­bia al­ways means a time of re­lax­ation for me, but not last week­end. On Sat­ur­day, I elect­ed to do some fa­ther-son bond­ing and took my one-and-on­ly to the an­nu­al Parang So­ca Christ­mas Food Fes­ti­val at Saly­bia Re­sort, or­gan­ised by FB Pro­mo­tions, Yorke Inc and Saly­bia Beach. Need­less to say, the ex­pe­ri­ence was a blast, with the food se­ri­ous­ly ri­valling the mu­sic for lau­rels. There were live per­for­mances from the likes of Ken­ny J, Los To­cadores, Mar­i­lyn Williams, Nin­ja, and Los Ami­gos en Mu­si­ca, the lat­ter be­ing a unique group.

What makes Los Ami­gos so spe­cial is it con­sists main­ly of blind artistes, led by pop­u­lar ra­dio an­nounc­er An­tho­ny Tom. As for the cater­ing, that was su­perbly done by Jen­ny and Kay from Ba­lan­dra, and Car­ol Hold­er's Gar­den Kitchen of Tu­na­puna. It seemed that once you de­sired it, it was there for the tak­ing, from suck­ling roast pig to var­i­ous geera morsels with bus' up shirt, corn soup and, a dizzy­ing ar­ray of ex­ot­ic cock­tails.

ABOVE: Friends en­joy a sen­sa­tion­al evening in Saly­bia.

Car­ni­val time again

As you read this I am sup­posed to be pack­ing to get on a flight for Or­lan­do, Flori­da, to spend Christ­mas and wel­come in the new year. It's been al­most ten years since I've been to the US–def­i­nite­ly not since the 9/11 ter­ror at­tack on New York, so I am look­ing for­ward to these days up north. As usu­al, I con­tin­ue to keep my promise to my faith­ful read­ers that this col­umn will al­ways be pub­lished, de­spite my be­ing away from of­fice. To you, I wish a blessed, safe and en­joy­able Christ­mas, and a pros­per­ous 2010. Just a heads-up: On the Christ­mas Day edi­tion of Pulse, you can read what is re­gard­ed, lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, as the most re­li­able and com­pre­hen­sive Car­ni­val cal­en­dar of events.

Stay­ing alive on Sun­set Strip

There were beau­ti­ful, vi­va­cious mod­els on a truck in cos­tumes; im­port­ed meats and oth­er de­li­cious eats; a con­vivial crowd; po­lice of­fi­cers try­ing main­tain the flow of traf­fic along the road­way; an open-air bar­be­cue pit and pre­mi­um liquor. Oh, and a per­for­mance by Zig­gy Rankin'. These are but a few of the in­gre­di­ents that went in­to last Fri­day night's lime at Man­goes, lo­cat­ed on Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook. Ob­vi­ous­ly a mas band leader who is think­ing out­side the box, God­frey Enile and his Show­time Car­ni­val posse came to Man­goes with a trail­er load of girls to show off their C2K10 pre­sen­ta­tion–Ma­trix.

He ex­plained af­ter­wards that this was The Road Show, his unique way to tak­ing his mas to every nook and cran­ny of the coun­try. Enile said the mas on wheels will con­tin­ue every Fri­day evening, un­til Feb­ru­ary 12, at pop­u­lar pubs and clubs. With Christ­mas Day just six days away, one can ex­pect this strip to be even live­li­er this evening, es­pe­cial­ly at spots like Sweet Lime, Co­co Lounge, Satch­mo's, Nex' Door Pub, More Vi­no and Sand­bar.

Blood­notes:

The Fan Club is here

So you're look­ing for that spe­cial, hard-to-find Tiger Woods col­lectible. Well the The Fan Club is here to the res­cue. Opened a fort­night ago at Movi­eTowne by broth­ers Mikhail and Mario Singh, sons of Jack Warn­er bi­og­ra­ph­er Valenti­no Singh, the shop is stocked to the brim with sport­ing mem­o­ra­bil­ia and col­lectibles for all pop­u­lar in­ter­na­tion­al sports, es­pe­cial­ly foot­ball, bas­ket­ball, rug­by and golf. So, if you are plan­ning to go to South Africa for the Fi­fa World Cup next year, or sim­ply want a jer­sey of your favourite UE­FA team, check out the au­then­tic stuff at The Fan Club.

Whith­er Aulde lang syne?

For those artistes who still do not know, Trinidad Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny ac­tu­al­ly owns five ra­dio sta­tions (The Vibe 105.1FM; Sangeet 106.1 FM; Akash Vani 106.5FM; The Rock 95.1FM; In­spi­ra­tion Ra­dio 730AM), and a tele­vi­sion sta­tion (CNC3). The T&T Guardian al­so has a mu­sic crit­ic/re­view­er. So when you come to the Guardian Build­ing on St Vin­cent Street to get your new mu­sic on the air­waves, why not al­so ven­ture to our of­fices to have your CDs re­viewed? Con­trary to what al­most every lo­cal record­ing artiste un­for­tu­nate­ly thinks, news­pa­per ed­i­tors, at least me and most re­porters I know, don't have time to lis­ten to the ra­dio all day for your new re­leas­es.

The truth be told, we are not paid to do so. But, I did hear my first con­tender for Car­ni­val 2010 Road March ho­n­ours last week­end. It's Tony Prescott's Dan­ger­ous, aka Go Down Dey, aka Mind yuh break it up, aka Jump on de Bumper. This sin­gle has not one, not two, but four fiery, in­fec­tious hook lines. It's not a Road March con­tender but, with a sweet Panora­ma pick for C2K10, comes vet­er­an the Mighty Pow­er, with a very melo­di­ous dit­ty named Ter­ror­ists. Talk­ing of sweet mu­sic that will last way be­yond C2K10, every­thing I've heard by Crazy, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, De­stra and Patch (not on the ra­dio) falls with­in this cat­e­go­ry. Crazy's For Car­ni­val is an­oth­er gem in his long list of naughty dou­ble en­ten­dre items.

Thoughts of Car­ni­val

Con­trary to what al­most every lo­cal record­ing artiste un­for­tu­nate­ly thinks, news­pa­per ed­i­tors, at least me and most re­porters I know, don't have time to lis­ten to the ra­dio all day for your new re­leas­es. The truth be told, we are not paid to do so. But, I did hear my first con­tender for Car­ni­val 2010 Road March ho­n­ours last week­end. It's Tony Prescott's Dan­ger­ous, aka Go Down Dey, aka Mind yuh break it up, aka Jump on de Bumper. This sin­gle has not one, not two, but four fiery, in­fec­tious hook lines. It's not a Road March con­tender but, with a sweet Panora­ma pick for C2K10, comes vet­er­an the Mighty Pow­er, with a very melo­di­ous dit­ty named Ter­ror­ists. Talk­ing of sweet mu­sic that will last way be­yond C2K10, every­thing I've heard by Crazy, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, De­stra and Patch (not on the ra­dio) falls with­in this cat­e­go­ry. Crazy's For Car­ni­val is an­oth­er gem in his long list of naughty dou­ble en­ten­dre items.