So It Go

Followers of this column will know I’m always preaching that we should, whenever possible, present both sides of the coin when we’re discussing issues in the homeland; that as we take time to rightfully criticize the shortcomings, we should also be pointing to the good news happenings as they occur.

Six years ago, within weeks of my return to live in Guyana, I was in conversation with a very well-known Guyanese – someone I admired but had never met – and he suddenly said to me, “Dave, what are you doing coming back to live in this godforsaken country?”

It pops up constantly. It never truly goes away. This week, it came at me again in an email from my friend Ken Corsbie, living in North Carolina, as he relayed a collection of complaints from folks in his generation; their problem was dissatisfaction with the state of popular music today, and the language was on the strong side.

As we sit right now in the middle of a firestorm in the media and elsewhere enveloping the West Indies Cricket Board following the abrupt cancellation of the India series by our team, one is left to wonder how long it is going to take to convince us that our regional cricket arrangement needs urgent revision.

Hardly a week goes by without some reference in the media to the depressing statistics of the number of Guyanese who continue to migrate.

There will be disputations about this one, but I will stand my ground: overall, in a region of powerhouses, with many different island cultures competing, the Jamaican version today is probably the most dynamic of them all.

I enjoy writing these So it go columns partly because I’m free to pick my subjects (which annoys some columnists, but who’s stopping them from doing the same?)

His name is actually Jerry Goveia, but folks refer to him as ‘Banks Jerry’ (he worked as a manager at Banks DIH for many years before his retirement) to differentiate him from the other guy, the pilot one, with the same-sounding name, and he actually came to mind recently after a column I wrote on flamboyant Guyanese from times past, not in the sense of being flamboyant but as one of those people who leave an impression on you that endures.

I am likely to get a lot of flak from some Guyanese for saying this, but it seems to me by just looking around at the kind of people one encounters in our country these days that we had far more flamboyant folks in times gone by.

In the Cayman Islands, where I once lived, a part of the culture there, as in Guyana where I grew up, is a toy called ‘gigs’ (our word for it is ‘tops’).

In the case of Guyana, we’re talking about two contrasting, even conflicting, sets of values and priorities for living, gradually formed and developed and ingrained, for over 150 years.

Punctuality is a big thing with me. From a boy, as the Jamaicans say, I’ve been that way mainly, I believe, from the example of my mother who was always on time or early for everything.

I don’t get golf, and never did. People say that’s because I never played the game.

I’m admitting it from the start: I am not a fisherman.

Like any poor country, Guyana is replete with occasions for despair about standards in everyday life.

At some point, almost every time I perform, I make reference to the value and beauty of our various Caribbean dialects.

In recent days, with the CPL centre stage in the Caribbean, concurrent with England/Sri Lanka Test matches in the UK, we are seeing quite a contrast in cricket compared to the sport most senior folks grew up with in the region reaching back to the Union Jack days.

Song-writers are essentially observers; that’s where the process begins; that’s where the ideas or interpretations or slants that song-writers present in a song originate.

Among human beings caught up in a hectic life, it is often the case that a thought will come across our mental screen, sometimes from a comment overheard, or a sign encountered, or even from a prolonged and heated public discussion, and the thought flits in and flits out and is gone.

God knows if I’ll ever finish it, but after several proddings from various quarters I have begun writing a book.