Death in the Family

For Cousin Rupert Sterling, a.k.a Spanky


He lies there all by himself
On some cold gurney
The big, foreign cities prepared him for the cold
Didn’t even know he was sick
Didn’t even know he was above me
On a ward in the same hospital where I work
And he was family

The first time I came across his exercise book
All those trigonometric signs and symbols
He must be bright, the brightest, I concluded
With handwriting so clear, the pages looked unworthy
I must go to school to become as good or better
Because he was family

How did we find place and pride at the top of a new village?
And fall from grace and place in one generation?
Some thing, some sin, some contract
Must have come our way
Or maybe some of us are just too smart
Too smart for our own good
And too dangerous
For family

And yet he taught the world's best steel pan player, arguably
Arguably the best but not arguably the teacher
And to think my father was responsible for him in his first steel band
When my father reportedly drank a drum full of "brebritch"
To win a bet I presume
And how many other bets were wagered
One for my maiden mother?
And so for my immediate
Family too?

He gave me my first saxophone
So I should go and play at his funeral, if asked
To say thanks and ease his tortured soul
Because with his earthly passing
The grief, hurt and destruction heaped on members of this family
Will not be buried with him
But we have to move on
And live on
And learn that good and evil comprise us
Because whatever he was, he was one of us, inside us
Family

You Must Remember This

Driving Miss Hazy

Dr. Lester CN Simon-Hazlewood

I am at the Transport Board. My vehicle, not me, is undergoing inspection. The inspector tells me to do this; I do this. The inspector tells me to do that; I do that. So far; so good.

The inspector tells me to put on the high beam. I put on the high beam. The inspector tells me again and again to put on the high beam because, apparently, I am not putting on the high beam at all. I am simply turning the headlights on and off. It suddenly hits me, unlike a high-beam of light, that I do not remember where to find the switch for the high beam; in my vehicle. The first thought that comes to my logical, scientific mind, I kid you not, is that they should do this part of the inspection, about lights and high beam, at night. Don’t you think so?

Memory loss can be an awful thing, especially since you may not remember that you cannot remember. And so here I am asking myself if I am one of the 35 million people in the world suffering from Alzheimer disease. Have I lost my memory, my cotton-picking, cane-cutting mind?

I remember that the disease got its name from the German psychiatrist and neuropathologist, Alois Alzheimer, who first described the disease in1906. So my memory is good; great. But I had read about Alois Alzheimer over 30 years ago in medical school and in the early stages of Alzheimer the most common symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. Ah! Surely I don’t have Alzheimer because I hardly use my high beam and most likely I have not used it in recent times. Or have I? Lord, let me see the light; the high beam.

Maybe I should call my mechanic. Or maybe I should just stay here and wait until nightfall. But changes in behavior and eccentric thinking do occur in Alzheimer.

At least it may be in the early stages. But what about the later stages when memory loss for long term events creeps in? Will I remember anything about the fight for reparations for slavery? And how will my family and friends cope with my confusion, irritability, aggression, difficulties with language and mood swings?

By that time I will not be legally allowed to drive and the instructor will not bother me, as I sit in my stationary vehicle, coming from my imaginary service station, driving all over the island, without high beam, music blasting, sailing away from family, friends and society. At least I will still have music, if I remember to turn on the real radio, instead of the blasting radio in my head.

Can it be that it is the instructor who has Alzheimer? Maybe I turned on the high beam and he forgot. After all, it may take a long time for Alzheimer to develop before it is recognized. And after diagnosis, the average life expectancy is about 7 years. Quick. I should exit the vehicle to warn the poor fellow.

How will I explain to him that the cause of this disease is not clear? He might think I just do not remember. Maybe he reads a lot and he knows that the main risk factor for Alzheimer is age and that the incidence of the disease doubles every 5 years after 65 years of age, even though Alzheimer is not necessarily the outcome of aging. He is probably in his late forties so I should advise him (if he will remember) that some cases of Alzheimer run in families and can occur earlier in life than the more common, non-familiar, sporadic type.

The mere mention of plaques and tangles in the brain in Alzheimer might sound odd to him. More confusing might be that the plaques are due to a normal protein in the brain that has folded into an abnormal shape. Worse, I will have to tell him that the enigma of Alzheimer is that the biological function of this normal protein is unknown. Almost like me not knowing about my high beam; in my vehicle.

I will also have to say that there are tangles in the brain because another protein is altered and it reacts with more protein to form tangles that can affect the brain’s function. Similar to the tangle in which I find myself over the high beam.

When I tell him that evidence suggests that Alzheimer may be delayed by a balanced diet, mental stimulation and exercise, he may recommend that I leave the vehicle, go for a walk, and call someone to show him the high beam.

So here I am walking on what I suspect is Factory Road, wondering as I wander why I am walking seemingly aimlessly on the road. And where is my vehicle?

I may not remember where my vehicle is located. I may not recall names, faces, or which political party to vote for, even if they take me to the polls. But there is one, single, solitary thing in my ambling, rambling solitude of which I am certain; as certain as night follows day; or is it the other way round? I am absolutely, dead certain, as cars pass cars and swerve to avoid me (or is it each other?), that wherever my vehicle is located, the high beam is unquestionably not on.

Jah Know Jabow

For Lowell Jarvis

I know the man
I know his name
I know his warming smile
I asked myself just bout 6 hours ago
What has become of him, and is he in pain
I know the man
I know his name
I know his steely grin
I asked myself months ago “what the ‘badwud’ is this”
When I saw the name
On the request form with the surgical specimen
To the pathology lab it came
I know the man
I know his name
I know his Grammar School
And so I don’t think he will mind
If I quote a line
Or two
Do you?
From A Grammarian’s Funeral
By Robert Browning
“Our low life was the level’s and the night’s;
He’s for the morning”
I know the man
I know his name

(Dr. Lester Simon)

Somebody Knocked Me

Knock Them Back

Dr. Lester CN Simon-Hazlewood


I was planning to end the year quietly; thanking God for my seeing out another year. But somebody knocked me. Somebody knocked me hard, hard. And I can’t knock them back. I can’t knock them back because it’s my fastness that caused them to upset me in the first place. Same thing my maternal grandmother used to say: I will read and read until one day I will drop off the edge of the page, like Christopher Columbus would have dropped off the edge of the flat earth. May I have some round paper, please?

And after I got myself in pickle with the knocking, I could not sleep. The only cure for vexation and sleeplessness is to write. Throw some good, hard words under the same criminal, son of a man, and pray, like a good Christian, the words seek him out, find him, and box him down flat.

This is how the story goes. Growing up and growing old on BBC, I should have fallen asleep that night, listening to the World Service, or to comedy or drama on BBC Radio 4 Extra. No. Too early to sleep, my fastness and me took to surfing all over BBC. Arsenal had drawn nil all with Chelsea and cricketing news was as annoying as the bothersome cricket insect chirping in the gully. The occasional, lone mosquito was glad for the occasion and circled above my busy strip.

It was so I came across the news that Andras Schiff, one of the world’s greatest pianists, played a hugely demanding programme of the Goldberg Variations by Bach, and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, on his 60th birthday. The article, by Tim Franks, was captioned, “Andras Schiff: Why I won’t perform in Hungary”.

Franks wrote that Schiff had been described as the greatest musician Hungary had produced since the composers Bela Bartok and Zolton Kodaly, in the first half of the 20th Century. The article went on to outline the reasons for the rupture between Schiff and his homeland.

Schiff said he was opposed to the current political situation in Hungary. His criticism of the government was documented. The disturbing, expressed xenophobia and anti-Semitic stance of the “Movement for a Better Hungary” were recounted. The article reported that it was not just the government that disturbed Schiff. He was annoyed with some of the Hungarian people, who showed very little civilian courage, scared as they were to speak up. He delved into Hungary’s sordid past and referred to the deportation of half a million Jews to Nazi death camps. Schiff lamented that he had been threatened. Apparently if he returns to Hungary they will cut off both of his (piano) hands. He rightly noted that art and politics cannot be disentangled and that the audience matters to performers.

So what really knocked me and suspended my slumber? Franks said that Schiff could not understand how senior Nazis could commit terrible crimes, and in the next moment, listen to Beethoven’s string quartet and weep like children. What!?

I have to tell you that I took a long, tortuous journey from first dismissing and discarding European classical music to holding on to it with all the familiarity of a kaiso. I had to listen and read and play and listen again, until one day, in cold London, I found myself chipping to Dvorak’s cello concerto in a semibreve moment right after jigging to David Rudder. Classical music, including some of Andras Schiff’s recordings, comprises one third of the 19,000 plus songs on my iPod. Schiff can play and talk about Beethoven like the literal back of his hand.

So how is it that this great musician, this conveyor of emotions, this champion quencher of musical thirst, does not understand a simple, fundamental, musical fact? When the senior Nazis weep, they are not weeping for the terrible crimes they commit. Schiff knows that. The weeping like children is all about the collision and collusion of emotions that only music can release; that pure, naked, incandescent ecstasy that says the world is now what it should be; void of the evil and lesser ones. In the beginning was the word, and the glorious music after the inglorious deed takes them back to the script of primal, puerile purity.

It is all very disturbing to me because Schiff should know that the most maddening thing is to see and feel something that you know someone else sees and feels and yet they claim that the seeing, the feeling, these common human senses, are not all inclusive. They belong to them and to them alone, because they are the special, unique, chosen ones. Chosen by God even!

So we may have to talk until our throats parch and we become dehydrated. The other side will see our just argument and the financial proof, and still claim only they are entitled to make such arguments. They will claim that music and logic and right and reparative justice can change the world. But only they have the right and the authority so to do, if and when they feel to do so.

And so, this business of reparations, and it is a business, is really long, arduous work. But we have to do it because somebody knocked me and my people. And we are not going to take last lick.

John Bull A Come

Oh Come All Ye John Bull


Dr. Lester CN Simon-Hazlewood

This Christmas you should replace your Christmas tree with a John Bull? Not a real John Bull. Start with a mannequin. Add a crocus bag or two. Cover it with fig leaves and cane trash. Pad it up with grass and straw. His eyes must be bulging, blood red and fierce, piercing through his masked, daubed face. Angle his head so it is poised with assurance from the cattle horn, tied to the “catacoo,” falling off with the jigging and jagging and digging, and dipping to collect the money.

The Bull masquerade used to be rampant in the Caribbean. Red Bull in St. Kitts-Nevis. Jam Bull in the Virgin Islands. Jonkonnu in Jamaica. Junkanoo in Bahamas. John Bull in Antigua. Writing in the journal, Folklore, in 2009, Robert W. Nicholls explores the Bull masquerade in the Caribbean and claims the Bull masquerade entertainment reached its apogee in Antigua.

Falling from apogee to nought might have to do with a John Bull meeting his match, literally, when he was burnt to death in 1981. The immortality of John Bull was hinted when it was assumed that the deceased John Bull was the great Arthur Sixteen, only for Arthur Sixteen to appear at the funeral undead and unburnt.

The death of John Bull in the year of our independence might also signify the removal of one of England’s national symbols, John Bull. Nicholls writes about making up John Bull to appear fearsome but turning the tables on him by whipping him in return for the whipping of slaves. The author also underscores the psychological aspect and insight associated with this inherent inversion in which the negative experience of oppression and resentment against the colonizers is re-presented in a perceptible but camouflaged form.

The detailed study of slavery is important for many and varied reasons, including how we re-presented oppression in a perceptible but camouflaged form. This is vital because oppression seemingly never ends, regardless of the source. Hence the modern day need for new re-presentations in new perceptible and new camouflaged forms.

The creative arts will save us whether it is good, regular public theatre, televised soap opera, or double entendre calypsos, etc. There is always need for a John Bull. Our culture is awash with healing arts. Healing includes being thrown into comic relief on seeing some female members of our tribe abandon (must be wittingly) their beautiful hair for a discordant wig that neither complements nor compliments them. Instead, the results represent the natural outcome of a raucous fight between an old, wet, stringy mop and a traumatised, sodden floor cloth. Life is more bearable when it is reflected in a story, a song, a photograph, a painting, or even when heard (sometimes) on the radio.

But we must also learn that being a performer is not just about re-presenting and entertaining. We ignore the financial origins of slavery and we disregard reparative justice as much as we discount the financial and marketing aspects of our culture, to our detriment. The John Bull must be paid. The John Bull must pay.

Notwithstanding all the apparent fun and excitement at Christmastime, Nicholls makes the crucial point that the John Bull, like the Mocko Jumbie, functioned as a vehicle of social control. The Mocko Jumbie used his intimidating appearance to modify behaviour, particularly among ill-disciplined children. So too, was the John Bull used as a cautionary threat to reprimand children who had been naughty, especially a bed-wetter child. In return for the dancing and the disciplining of children, the John Bull was offered money, drink and food, with varying degrees of liberty to help himself to food and money from vendors.

These days, children are raised differently. We no longer use Mocko Jumbie and John Bull to control children. Some regard such measures of control as abusive. What is remarkable about the social control the John Bull purportedly engendered is that the John Bull himself was under the control of the clap-whip man. This probably suggests that even if the method or the vehicle of social control changes, the new method and new vehicle also should be under the control or scrutiny of a new clap-whip. These days we have new John Bulls chasing and abusing children without clap-whip justice.

The passing of John Bull into mythical status must be re-presented by retelling and reshowing because the absence of myths is said to leave a vacuum for real monsters to plague us without control. In place of a Christmas tree, a bedecked John Bull with his attendant, controlling, clap-whip man might just be the perennial, Caribbean symbol of conscience we need.

The Road to Independence

Jumbies on the Road

Dr. Lester CN Simon-Hazlewood

If I had one wish to make this country better, what would that wish be? And what would be the basis of such a singular, important choice? I should take a good look at the finest machine on earth and see how it functions so I can learn something.

A man comes up to me with flailing hands and fluttering lips, asking me if I am done registering to vote and if I want to join his party. Not getting an answer, he wants to know if I am going to vote, and for which party. Not giving him a chance to ask me another personal question, I tell him I am going to vote for myself. His mouth and brow move quizzically in opposite, parallel directions, pondering that I have a party too. Before he offers to join or merge I let out that my political party is called Me One Party.

Me One Party will campaign on the sole promise to mop up, fix and revolutionize the transportation system in this country. Just that. A good look at the adult human body, the finest machine on earth, tells me something essential. With over 100 trillion cells, numerous tissues and many organs, the most important system in the human body is the transportation system. Indeed, any pathology textbook will disclose that problems with the transportation system in humans are responsible for more sickness and death than any other category of human disease.

Take a drive on the eastern main road in Cedar Grove. You will descend into a trough that spans the width of the road. There are two remarkable features of this inverted sleeping policeman. Firstly, after mashing up the road some months ago to run pipe or wire, the debris that was dug up was simply put back. In a few weeks, a trough came. It took many weeks after that for the roadmen to fix it. And in a few more weeks, the trough returned, only this time it had fragments of materials from the repair.

Secondly, all this mashing up and just putting back the debris, and the delayed repair and the return of the trough, have happened before, under the other government. Does this not suggest that at some time, some of us have to look in the mirror on the wall and ask ourselves if we have done a good day’s work? When will we stop negotiating our vehicles through troughs and holes and craters and start ensuring that people like us, not just politicians, do a simple job well?

Yes, we must keep one eye on the politician but the other eye must be on ourselves. This is why I am voting for myself and I am asking everyone to vote for that person in the mirror. A few blocks from the trough in the road in Cedar Grove, people gather to register to vote, and they complain and complain, almost wanting to swear and curse, were it not that they are on school ground and there is a church nearby. Yet we the same people cannot decide to block the road and refuse to move until people like us, some doing the same registering and fretting, fix the trough in the road, properly.

Transportation is paramount because transportation teaches us about communication. No matter how independent you think you are, you need to move, and people need to move for you to move. Movement is a basic characteristic of all living things. School children know this, although the way some of them use the road suggests otherwise.

Proper transportation brings people together. Using the transportation system wisely and courteously is a hallmark of civilized people. Not like the man whom I graciously allow out from a side road. I am wrong to blow my horn and gesticulate that he can at least say thanks. I am wrong because, the ungrateful son of a man tells me expletive stories about my mother and her private anatomy. My dear mother is long dead and, to the best of my knowledge, she is not walking around as a daytime jumbie. And even if she were, do female jumbies travel naked?

A good transportation system with the attendant proper controls and neighbourliness will allow us to be more considerate of others. So some of my neighbours in Hodges Bay will not think that their family can walk and ride bicycles on the road when my family cannot do the same because the road has literally gone to the dogs, their dogs. And their dogs on the road intimidate my dogs and my family and bite my people. Now suppose we were to bite them back? Your independence and my independence cannot collide.

Register to vote. And vote. But if you really want to know whom or what to vote for, whether good roads or good schools, or whatever, put yourself to the voting test. Look in the mirror and consider seriously if you can vote for yourself. And look back to see if you mash up the mirror.

Me One Party is campaigning that transportation is the most important system in any civilized, independent country. Transportation can either bring people together or push them apart. Be a truly independent voter and vote for yourself. The road to independence is not paved with good intentions. It is simply paved well.

Why I Play Music

I started playing saxophone in the 1960’s after a singing competition in school to win the favours of a schoolgirl went awry. My competitor sang first and either he or someone else had turned off the microphone. Worse, the damsel in distress in my quixotic mind was totally oblivious of my gallantry before but certainly not after my ridiculous disaster on stage.

I grew up listening to West Indian music and everything else of the radio and I actually thought Mr Benwood Dick was a real, decent gentleman! Thanks heavens I did not have a sister then.

I played relatively little saxophone at home with schoolmate Dr. Charlie Roberts but I recall walking home from his house one night with the music Why Was I Born played by Stanley Turrentine ringing in my ears.

In Jamaica I was fortunate to fall under the spell of the American trombonist and arranger, Melba Liston who was the first tutor of the Jazz class at the Jamaican school of music. The late Jamaican Cedric “Im” Brooks taught me the vital link between music and society as we played in diverse venues from the common yard to the uncommon prison.

It was also in Jamaica that the late Vincentian medical student, Ronnie Saunders introduced me to Weather Report and Return to Forever, two groups that told me music was indeed the language of heaven. Cushioned between them and Bob Marley and playing in Cedric “Im” Brooks and the Light of Saba, music became an indispensable part of my life, jostling with my medical career.

Coming back home in 1983, I always wanted to play the pan much more than the occasional touch I had on campus in Jamaica. The Hell’s Gate Steel Orchestra afforded me that opportunity in the Golden Gates Steel Orchestra, the adult class of pan players taught by Stafford Joseph.

I consider myself a woodwind player with all the saxophones, flutes, English horn, clarinet and bass clarinet and bassoon fighting for space at home. But the pan reminds me of being transfixed by North Star Steelband as a little boy until the shrilling sound of my grandmother calling my name in a perfect fifth interval or an octave reminded me that I was on an errand.

The nexus between a single player and a symphony of musicians in a steelband brings about a unifying oneness that truly underscores the fact that music is the language of heaven. For a fleeting moment during a rehearsal or a performance, life touches you on your shoulder and bids you welcome.