This last week was big for hot, flashy colours, rainbow combinations, all for Carnival. Associating well with this vast array of colours of merriment were particularly the red, maroon and blue.
West Indies cricket teams, both men's and women's, showed that the "Old Maroon" still has punches, despite recent debacles. "Fantastic Friday" actually came on Carnival Tuesday for all things West Indian.
It is no coincidence that the new West Indies players' warmup uniforms are almost fully Caribbean sea blue. Austin "SuperBlue" Lyons, returning from out-of-the-blue to be crowned this year's Road March king, was so ecstatic!
I have great pride and respect for the rehabilitation and grand return of Lyons. As Morgan Freeman succinctly suggested in the movie "Shawshank Redemption", rehabilitation is a hell of thing.
I met "Blue Boy" as Lyons was previously known, when playing for West Indies in the first Test ever in Antigua & Barbuda in 1981. I did not attend the concert he invited me to on the eve of the Test but fully enjoyed "Ethel" from the hotel.
Two years ago, as part of the early morning programme "Mixed Nuts" for Vibe CT 105, I had heard that "Blue" was in a dire dilemma, bad shape, supposedly being overtaken bysubstance abuse, even scavenging streets. That same day, I went to look for the man, who first as "Blue Boy", gave us road marches "Soca Baptist" (1980), "Ethel" (1981), "Rebecca" (1983), my favorite "Get something and wave" (1991), "Jab-Jab" (1992), "Bacchanal Time" (1993), "Signal to Lara" (1995), and "Pump Up" (2000). What a set of triumphs!
I did not judge the man at all, like so many of his false friends, after finding him in the St James area.
We all have our own burdens to carry, some doing better than others. I simply could not let a fallen hero, a maestro of calypso, one of our best bards ever, to be so diminished and destroyed that way. I have always liked Shadow and Sparrow, but SuperBlue blew them away with 'jumpability', music that went straight to your head. I simply had to do whatever I could do, right then, to help a friend. What I did need no embellishment but rest assured that at least for that entire day, "Super" was properly fed, cleaned up and looked after, and taken away from his immediate surroundings. The best part of that entire encounter was, he actually knew who it was, saying croakily, "Thank you!"
I also know that many people, like "Big" George Gonzalez of Vibe CT 105, played a much bigger hand than me to help Super Blue on his way back. No-one, though, could have counted more than his family.Fay Ann (Lyons-Alvarez) and Bunji Galin (Ian Alvarez) must take high praise for that great fight, to bring the "Old Man" back to real excellence, that "super-ness" of 2013!
Even world super boy Machel, another calypso friend, who also likes aviation, was made to look like a boy compared to "Blue". Super's sensational comeback has been really unprecedented. Anyway, St Valentine's Day, that day that is supposed to signify real full love, celebrated with anything red, as many chocolates as can be eaten, with as false a scenario as can be imagined was also this week.
I could never understand the need to specially set aside a day to celebrate Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. These always suggest that "real, full, unadulterated love is always in the air". Really? If you are truly in love, with someone, even with yourself, Valentine's Day should be every day. But most people are not in love. They simply pretend, based on their specific situations, to suit their own basic agendas. Mother's Day is worse. Old Sylvia used to say; "Since I am sure that I am your mother, every day is Mother's Day. I have to put food on the table so that you and your brother and sister could eat!"
What can be more practical than that? Mother's Day is every day, even if you do not, now, have your mother anymore. Some of the West Indies men's team players who beat Australia on Carnival Tuesday are fathers.They could not think of prodigy though, when winning that sole Twenty20 (T20). As world defending T20 champion, West Indies had to deliver, to upkeep that reputation, and to keep the maroon flying high and proud.
While Kieron Pollard has made his name in mostly T20's, he will be coming for the first time, unlike Super Blue's comeback, when he is soon selected to play for West Indies against Zimbabwe in Tests.On pure merit, Pollard deserves to play Tests. He cannot do worse than some who have preceded him. Right now, like carnival in T&T, he is hot. Give him that chance to bend, to Tests, while the steam rises!
But it was West Indies women who outdid themselves. Whatever happens later today, against already vanquished Australia, our West Indies "Queens" are in another maroon world - a World Cup Final!Having already beaten Australia to get there, doing it again, today, like Super Blue, is possible! Enjoy!
