IT’S CARNIVAL MONDAY in Trinidad and I, the most Trinidadian Trinidadian in Barbados, am in Barbados, not Trinidad.
I can state fairly confidently that I am the most Trini Trini in Bim today because anyone who is more Trinidadian than me is obviously in Trinidad, playing mas; but I kind of wish I were – in Trinidad, not more Trinidadian than I am.
If I were more Trinidadian than I am, I’d have to be less Bajan; and I’ve chosen to be more Bajan, or I would not be living here. The easiest way I can think of being more Trinidadian in Barbados would be via driving badly: I’d have to hop up on the shoulder in preference to the road, go the wrong way down a one-way street, or park in handicapped spaces and claim I was handicapped by a hot pee.
So I don’t wish I was more Trini than I am; I just wish I were in Trinidad today. I have the feeling this will be a memorable Carnival.
It’s not that I’m fooled into thinking the music is any better, or any less bad, this year. The music’s crap; has been for a long time and will be for even longer, probably.
That’s not an old fogey pining for David Rudder and Shadow and Gabby and the Rolling Stones; nor is it a blanket denial of, say, Bunji Galin or Li’l Rick. It is just a reluctant acceptance of the reality.
Go to Trinidad yourself this morning and come back tomorrow night and see (and hear) for yourself.
The same four or five songs will be played on stage, determining what will appear to be the “runaway” Road March from the very shallow pool of half-decent tunes capable of touching people. On the road, just like the last five, maybe ten, years before, it will be a “back-in-time” Carnival.
In the considerably shorter, less demanding (both on individual stamina and general discernment) Kadooment, it might be possible for a modern soca song to carry a band the length of the parade – but in the far bigger, far more exhausting Trinidad Carnival, that throwaway crap just can’t satisfy people. They have to go back to the past to live in the moment.
Which, again, is not to deny that the poorest milk will give rise to a skim of cream at the top; last year, Kes had a great line and Benjai a great song; this year, David Rudder’s Hot Spot could be a lesson to all young songwriters.
Despite the usual crap music, though, I have a feeling people will be talking about this year’s Carnival – the events of today and tomorrow – for a long time.
And a realization’s just hit me and a shudder’s just run down my spine; now I can’t wait for tomorrow night to prove me wrong, and I find myself praying – or as close as an agnostic can get to it, anyway – that it’s going to be the usual crap Carnival. Old people say, be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.
And I’ve spent the whole weekend convinced this is going to be a highly memorable Carnival – somehow forgetting that both Sir Donald Bradman’s last innings and the maiden voyage of the Titanic were memorable. In the extreme.
• BC Pires is jumping up in steelband; email your mud and glitter to him at [email protected]
