Yes, the old days gave you good cricketing memories!Now you have 20/20 or, if rain falls 5/5. First you had fast sex, then fast food, then fast dancing, now it's fast cricket. All the same thing: trivial and unsatisfying.The new cricket is really a Savannah fete-match madness: nice for a while but not to the exclusion of real cricket. It's a vooping frenzy by "batters," and what word better describes the falling standard of the game than that one used instead of the traditional batsmen–"batters" who don't read the game and get out stupidly when a blocked ball would have sufficed to win and make it to the semis of the last ICC Champions Trophy. All surrounded by screaming DJs, blasting music, wining Carib girls and a whole set of people who know nothing about the game posturing for the TV cameras like monkeys in the zoo.
Yes, the lime in the Oval can still be sweet, but that's because of the old-time characters there, not the cricket nor the players, and certainly not the new crowd in the concrete stand gulping down KFC instead of Michael Holding oil-down.The days of J'Ouvert, when people were allowed, nay invited, to play themselves, ole mas, dress-up, cross-dress and mamaguy pompous public officials as long as it was clever and witty, are also over. The days when, regardless of race, colour or creed, you could play mas anywhere in town.Many were the Monday mornings when my uncle, brother and I, with or without Gill, Kenny, Carlos or one or another of the Smith brothers, would end up late morning sitting comfortably on the pavement sucking orange on George Street or Duncan Street before returning home by pushing pan with Invaders back up Tragarete Road.Can't do that now. Crime. Plus there is no pan on the road. Those were the days when steelbands ruled J'Ouvert and the chip, chip, chip, chip of thousands of feet was the beating heart of downtown Port-of-Spain. Steelbands paraded on the road, surrounded by and included within the people. None of this nonsense of being driven round on top of a truck, separated from the soul and fury of the masses.
Bring back steelband on the road where it belongs. If you can find one, that is, what with the proliferation of DJs and "get in yuh section" business organisations that have taken over the J'Ouvert.
The less said about the dearth of horse racing in the Savannah and around the country the better. The move to centralise at the Arima Race Track, as far as I know, was to improve the standard of horse racing and that certainly has not happened. Not one of our horses has been able to compete outside of T&T with any degree of success and foreign horses regularly come here and buss up the locals. Decreased public exposure has made the sport less popular and, from my reading of the papers, the industry lurches from problem to problem and bacchanal to bacchanal.Another example of art, culture and the zest of life in a small island losing out to financial concerns without anyone benefiting but a few businessmen, who, like others, will no doubt emigrate north as soon as they get their first heart attack so they could get "proper" treatment by white-robed blonde automatons.
Frederick Street is there. It's still exciting, still crowded, but the doors of the shops are mostly closed now and malls on the outskirts of Port-of-Spain have taken over; they are the places to be, to be seen and to gallery and pretend you are really not in the Caribbean but in whatever North American place you prefer, where you can stuff yourself with some piggish fast food. Miami lifestyle, bro!As far as dropping in for a small lime, even if you have time after work and getting home in traffic, those days are over. No one entertains at home anymore; go down Ariapita Avenue or to St James.So what is there? Well, there's the breeze. And the high sky. The family of iguanas that live in the mango tree next door. Hummingbirds in the garden. Crix. Julie mango. Full moon over Laventille. Turning on the radio and, surprisingly, hearing pan. Old talk about coverty pocham. Church choirs at weddings. Dogs–Trini dogs, a breed apart–you ever see one crossing the road, taking its time? Cricket commentary on the radio, still entertaining, regardless of the match. The spontaneous remarks heard in the cinema.But you have to go to a real cinema, downtown, quick, quick before they close down.The lilting cadence of our speech and words that put people in their place. The equally beguiling sashay of our women, strolling around the Savannah. The kids from the Two Cents Movement. And the folks who walk up Chancellor on Saturday morning and say hello. Above all, the children who keep hope in the future alive. Life without hope is like crab neck soup. It does not exist.