My Jamaican number is 876.498.4012. Let’s see if I can keep this number till I return, given the rat maze it takes to keep your number from returning to the Great Digital Spirit in the corporate sky.
If I go online once a month and purchase 100 Jamaican dollars of credit every month, my number will survive. If not it will be born again in the grand 876 shuffle.
The telecom industry here has got the impoverished scrambling for credits, talking as swiftly as possible. If you call the rival network your credits are drained.
But now I can call cabs and in this final stretch, reach friends here that are away from Wi-Fi and Whats App.
Things as basic as a burner phone and buying credits hand to mouth on every street corner and cart, like bottled water; it says something about a place and how to squeeze bucks off the backs, and right out the mouths of people.
I still don’t understand how people can afford to live in Jamaica, at the very bottom. I am not even sure where the middle is.
Think about about the money Jamaicans with work visas send and bring back home. Think about the fact we just eliminated work visas for Haitians. Kids are hungry here. Haitians are starving now. It just doesn’t add up how a person here lives on the minimum wage, when so many people are not making even the minimum wage.
But then again neither does Seattle rent. But for how much our government and intelligence apparatus allegedly panicked at the the remote possibility Jamaica would join forces with Cuba, this island nation sure could use our socialist safety net. You know the socialism what we got to evade a Communist Revolution, with our New Deal.
You know the “keep the Government out of my medicade” f_ckery.
You know the 40 hour work week and breaks, and children no longer being swallowed as scarred coolie labor by factory belts. You know that beer you drink and the hot dogs on your grill on Labor Day is celebrating America’s Socialist victory against unlimited Capitalism. The only Freedom you are celebrating on Labor Day is the small concessions we won peacsfully from our early 20th century Oligarchy. Sorry, not sorry.
Sometimes you have to wonder what would have happened to Jamaica if they never claimed Independence.
Was that stepping off the gravy train and onto the burner? Without England, America stepped in, and this negative influence is not only chronicled by Rastas, it is echoed by the portrayal of America and Americans in Ian Fleming’s Bond novels as they pertain to Jamaica.
Would Jamaica have an extension of England’s welfare system and visa-less travel to the Queens land? You might be free, but it doesn’t mean you own the ground you March on.
Independence is where it’s at, but read the fine print. There are reasons why Puerto Rico sits in limbo between American banana state and free Republic.
What’s fair is fair, but little care. Jamaica should have gotten Bristol since they built that city with cash delivered to absentee Landlord pimps like Edward Colston. The slaves of Jamaica funded a hefty share of The British Empire and its once formidable Navy that kept Asia, Africa, and many in the Carribean on their knees.
Off I drift to sleep. Beyond the pale are Pirates. There are still many Pirates in the Caribbean. But now they have logos. Colonel Sanders has many bases here.
THAT JAMAICA LIFE: The squad rolling four in the back. This is a compact film crew.
We got drones. Off to the Blue Mountains to wrap up this ‘Free Your Mind’ music video.
Walking on a Jamaican moon.
(Free Your Mind video shoot)
When you are shooting a music video in the Blue Mountains with Jamaicans and couple Cubans and they are freezing like it’s a disaster survival movie. But you are really enjoying how pleasant a little warm rain can be at this elevation.
It takes a while for the body to adjust to climates. I just enjoy a good sauna.
Davin’s new song has been released. Listen here on Reggaeville: DAVIN MICHAEL STEDMAN & ANTHONY RED ROSE – FREE YOUR MIND FEAT. SLY & ROBBIE WITH LENKY MARSDEN
– Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many musical ventures and is one of the driving forces behind the Staxx Brothers. He is networking and reporting from Kingston, Jamaica right now.
