Liking it Like This
Times have changed. I can’t recall going to the shop (the store) to purchase bottled water in the 80’s. We never had home phone nor cell phone. How did we manage? I remembered taking chances to go to ‘whoy whoy’ (no planned visit) just to see friends and hoping that they were home since there was no cell phone to call. If they weren’t home, we just had to come back, ‘a soh it go.’ The only Laptop was your Trapper Keeper, “yuh memba dat!” Shows like ‘Days of Our Lives‘ and ‘Lime Tree Lane‘ kept us glued to our TVs. Certainly we ‘Liked it like that” as our late Gregory Issacs would say. Let’s ‘tune in’ and relax a little as we reflect our past-times.
Entertainment
Rarely did we had portable video games. We had to go to the game shop and spend our last cent to play Pac man, Donkey Kong, Phoenix, Space Invaders and other games that I can’t even remember now but it was fun! Our home video console was Atari, Gemini and Nintendo. And, talk about movies, there were no 3D movies. You could hardly hear ambient sounds as the room was packed with people who never had color TV at home. Few houses were fortunate to have home entertainment such as DVD or VCRs and they were labeled as ‘Carib’. I could remember someone spilling popcorn (Cheese Chip) in the auditorium (veranda) and the entire movie had to cancel because the theatre manager (mama) was upset! LOL.
Shows such as: Six Million Dollar Man, Invisible Man, Little House on the Prairie, Marcus Wel and Trapper John MD, Iron Side, Matlock, Lone Ranger and Time Tunnel were all favorites even Voyage To The bottom Of the Sea too. “RING DING, concert time!” with the Late Louise Bennet Coverly, and dancing sensation “Where It’s At.” Lime Tree Lane and ‘Tory Time‘ with Cordel Green as Breda Nansi and Breda Tucuma. Foreign broadcast entertainment were: Soul Train, Wayne And Shuster, Coral Burnett, Threes Company ‘knocking at our door’ with DYNAMITE Good Times, Halo, Halo, Banana Split, Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street and many others.
Continue…
The cartoons were, Grape Ape, Top Cat, Precious Pup, Atom Ant, Sylvester and Tweety, Tom & Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, Frank stein & Buzz, Impossible, Fantastic Four, Spider Man, Superman, Heman and Birrrrrd Mannnn! Bat Man and Robin, Aqua Man, The Super Friends, and others to name few. Our favorite past-times were; marbles, gigs, and elastic band collection. I remembered boys and girls gather around. If you have a lot of marbles and elastic bands, you are favored, as these were treasures. We rarely needed money those days.
Dancehall Daze
And speaking of fun, dancehall was king when Lecturer, Professor Nuts “Ina de bus” and Stichie, sorry a beg yuh pardon.. Lt. Stichie “Young gal wear yuh size!” who use to put stitches in our bellies when we laugh! They were comics of the dancehall. The trend setters were, General Trees, Ralston Fernando Gordon, AKA Punnany Ginigog, Shabba Ranking. Alongside, Super cat “Gal yuh Mud up!”, Welton Irie, Papa San “I will survive“, Flourgon, Major Mackerel “NE NEN NE NEEE!” Admiral Bailey and Shaka Demus “One Scotch” & “Murder She Wrote.”
We had the Divas like Sister June, Shelly Thunder who reminded us that sometimes “A Man Fe Get Kuff!”, the immaculate Lady G, Chevel Franklin and others to name a few.
Gold teeth Ninja Man was kung fu fighting along with Red Dragon, Peter Metro and Jose Wales who was the Lone Ranger firing many shots in the dancehall scene. Beenie Man, Bounty Killer and many others who are now Stars, were behind the scenes sucking on the proverbial dancehall nipple bottles and building their lyrics with their spliffs.
Incidentally, Beenie Man was little but talawa though. I remembered his great stunt he pulled off at the stadium when he was showered with bottles. I guess those were part of his stripes and accolades before being dubbed the KING OF DANCEHALL! Speaking of shandy bottles, Super cat got his share when he nearly “pop off pan de crowd,” only to get another shady ‘across im forehead’ before a good Samaritan ‘cyaat him off de stage”. DR. Early B was the rider who gave us the “One Wheel Wheely” it was certainly a bargain and a deal when and his DJ topped the chart for a long time. We will now ride our way out to Dancing.
Continue…
Disco, Dancing & Fashion
Dancing was the craze as that got many girls turning their heads. We had so many crews, not even the Titanic could match them. We had Dark Vader, Suicide, Drop Dead, Windmill, Pop Lock, Phoenix, Invader, Freakaziod, Mad Squad, and Thriller. BTW, most disco hits had their crew name…get the picture? There were many others that I can’t remember. Tony C and Napoleon hair style was the Hype. Disco comb in back pocket, rag on shoulder with rolled up shirt sleeves. If you weren’t wearing Ballet, (suede) Travel Fox, Clarkes, Giorgio Brutini and Nike, ‘yuh nah sey nutten’. Don’t let anyone catch you wearing Ballet (Plastic), Hush Puppies or Bata Boot or ‘dawg nyam yuh supper!’
Cabbage Patch, Running man, Wave, Windmill, Bronco, Suicide, Drop Dead (yes, no error) Moon walk, Pop Lock or Brukings were the Disco moves. In The dancehall were Dela Move, Butterfly, and Whine n Go Dung, Poco Man Jump, Jump UP Pop Pop, The Admiral, was jumping off the charts. Rubba dub or Rent-a-Tile was the dancehall move.
And speaking of Rent-a-Tile, I learnt in my late stage when I went to a session (party) with money in my pocket. I wanted to rent one of those tiles but I was evicted because I never had a partner to occupy the premises. Rub-a-Dub was a private dance for adults as they pinned their partner to the wall or hold them very tight and whine in a slow motion. Kina like dirty dancing but in slower motion…get the picture?
Continue…
More Entertainment Pioneers In Music Arts
Now for Disk Jockeys we had: The Boogey Man, Barry G, Ritchie B giving you “What you get from what you want“, The Late Bagga Brown (Weh Yuh Sey!), Don Topping and Kurt Riley (radio) Winston Williams with the Rock House and Neville Willou with the Evening People Show. The Disco and Dancehall Sound Boxes were: Kilimanjaro, Gemini, Renaissance Copper Tone, Metro media, Sparkles and Road Star (BBQ and Fete), SUPER DEE, Deltone, Mad Squad and many others to name a few.
Singers and Sing jays were: Nitty Gritty who said “if yuh have a girl an she a rundown de world, she beta gwan an left me“, Pinchers, Ghost, Shine Head, Gregory Peck, Wayne Wonder, Courtney melody, Little John, John Holt, Half Pint but FULL gallon in the dancehall scene, Leroy Gibbon with his “Magic Moments” and Gregory Isaacs, yes ‘Tune In’ and liking it like that.”
Religion
And last but certainly not least, how could I forget the good old GOSPEL with my friends and pastors who have been spreading relentlessly, the undiluted word since salt fish shingle roof. There are many other pastors in those daze who we could remember: The Spiritual Transporter Al Miller, Evangelist Errol Hall, Paul Lewis, The Blairs, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Wittingham, Oral Roberts, Reinhardt Bunkey, Rev Dr. Farrell and many other who used to visit Jamaica and church used to ‘caulk’! ‘People roll outta wheel chairs, ‘fling whey dem’ walking sticks n’ eyes pop open that couldn’t si! Yes, this was REAL! Gone are the days of real miraculous spirit healing!
Who remembered the days when church used to be’ soh soh’ tent or board house with wooden collection plate? Now we have atm and card machines in some churches now, talk about technology! Church members threw collection and go home without feeling guilty back in time but now when you don’t pay tithe, you can’t sleep comfortable! You felt like you just robbed the church.
One ardent Christian said, “Cologne use to be the devils perfume and hairstyle was hat and mantilla.’ ‘You couldn’t use makeup nor face powder much less fe bleach but now you can’t even mek out some people who se down beside yuh ina church now cause dem look like monkey.”
‘High heels were the pinnacle for Satan as it was banned some denomination. Gold was not permitted and you had to strip it off everything except yuh wedding band before coming into church, now it’s accepted most churches. No music was allowed in some and you couldn’t even clap hands. Now it is music to our ears when the spirit moves in our churches. PRAISE GOD !” she further shouted.
Continue
Forever Memories
These are some of our memories as we stroll through memory lane. I am wondering if we are any better and closer now with these new technologies that we have. I personally think the more ‘techy’’ we are, the more we are letting go of our rich and ethnic cultural lives.
I purposely left out the legendary Bob Marley because his musical energy still resonate in us. His past-time is still our future as millions of listeners enjoy his music. I would suggest that the Government invest in Creative Arts and Culture because where things change, the spirit of the people never changes.
Life and Love is in our music people so pass it on
BLESSINGS!
Menu
