That blasted BOOGIE MAN!

"Miss I want to be a dangerous man...like Fifty Cent...killin people an ting." These are the words of young Joseph, a five year old Fist Year Infant student, in an early morning class discussion, after seeing Fifty over the weekend in Get Rich or Die Trying.

In Trinidad and Tobago the demand for boogie-down merchandise is ever growing, the booming $10-$20 DVD market being the most current and obvious example. Our need for pirated goods is quite honestly getting out of hand but even more alarming is the fact that this obvious symptom of our moral and social depravity is accepted as a mere convenience.

My mother often told me "stealing is stealing, whether you take a hundred dollars or one cent if you take something that belongs to someone else it is wrong." I believe that. It is hard to imagine a scenario where the buying and selling of these stolen foreign products could be legitimized and the market continue to thrive as it now does. These goods would become too expensive and demand would fall followed by their decreased influence on the masses. For our honesty and commitment to fair trade we pay by having to rely on our own creativity for entertainment. Instead of filling our consciousness with the sex, bling and violence of Hollywood we are forced to spend this time and money elsewhere.

With the blimp, and the anti kidnapping squad, the constitutional reform, and the community integration programmes, spending a few minutes and a few dollars to deal with this notorious Boogie man must be part of our agenda.

Sandre

Once upon a time there was a doy named Sandre. He was like a boy but just not cuz he was a doy. He used to work in masonry but he fine that that was too good a life and he had too many free things like a full scholarship to mason school and great frens and many more things, so he decided to give it all up and work as a cobbler AT NIGHT in this shoemaker's shop.

He spent his first four months in training, well that's what they called it but it was actually just three crazy women with a rake who would take turns passing it HARD over yuh back or beating yuh with it if yuh didn't do exactly what they said. In that period Sandre got alot alot ALOT of raking because them woman, DEY MAD, and they does talk fass fass or jumbled and cut material in a ball of smoke so neither Sandre nor any of his other cobbler trainee bretheren could follow. In time though by sheer default they learnt cobbling. As the saying goes "if yuh get beat with a rake enuff yuh go learn" and that they did.

In the months that followed Sandre grew more and more disgruntled in that shop. He realized that although he had not gotten a rake to face in a while the hours of work were really demanding and he had stopped doing many things that brought him great joy and fulfilment. He tried slowly reclaiming his old life but everything that he tried served only to passify his true zeal to become the doy that he knew he had to be. He quit his job! and converted to islam.

After one week of kneeling for prayers he realized that that wasn't for him so he left the mosk and with his new found discipline and hat he tried being a jew. He soon realized that that wasn't so easy cus the hats were really quite different. He spent months moving from one religion to another but just when he would get settled someone would ask him about his cool hat and soon he'd have to make up a sketchy story that never stood up.

He moved to Tobago where he spent some time planting crops in the hills amongst a group of female rastas and it was a fun time, to say the least, but it was not where he belonged. He then traveled to Rome in search of answers. After three weeks he realized that that was the same place with Aristotle and them but still, no purpose. He took a plane to Harare where he spent the following year living with missionaries. One day while walkign through the yard he hit his small toe on a big stone and buss out a big "OH MY STINK SLACK MUDDA GOOSE!" and immediately it came to him. He was clear on the meaning of his life and the purpose for which it had all happened. He then returned home went to UWI and eventually earned a PHD from an un-named University.

He then started teaching a class on how not to buss yah toe (and if you do how to avoid using expletives). This became an international movement that brought joy and happiness to all people with toes and those connected to toes or people who have them.