Certified, Sanctified Church Lady…

Wow. My second post for today. Apparently I have alot on my mind. Or, more likely – very little to do at work.

Sooo…

My ex has just gotten baptised and has now joined the ranks of the bible totin’ holier-than-thous… Sigh. She became baptised in the Church of Holy-Rollin’-Heathen-Homo-Hypocrites this past Saturday (insert scandalous tongue-smack here).  

See, what had happened was…

we had been seeing each other for about seven months, when we parted ways due to circumstances that I don’t quite want to get into. Long story. Anyhow we both moved on, but maintained occasional contact. Anyhow, during the course of a year, she seems to have gone through some sort of spiritual revolution of sorts and has become a devout Christian. One of my closest friends thinks that our breakup was hard on her and may have contributed to her conversion. But I don’t buy that for a few reasons. 1. I’d have to have a pretty huge ego to think that I could have that sort of “Axe Effect” on a sista. In Trinbago we’d call that Tabanca. But I don’t think my mojo is that powerful.

2. She’s always been a bit of a seeker. Maybe it was a natural evolution for her to reach to this place that she currently resides in…

3. homophobia is a hard thing to deal with, especially in a conservative christian carribean country such as ours. Internalized homophobia??? That, my friend, is even harder. Some “family members” survive it, some don’t. I’m not just talking suicide. I’m talking total renounciation of “the lifestyle” as these Was-bians like to call it.  But honestly, if it makes her happy, then I’m glad for her. Which is why, as curious as it seemed to me at the time, I never had anything but words of encouragement for her. My personally feelings about Christianity, Christians, and their treatment of my type of folks (Black. Gay. Female.) is something that I kept to myself when speaking with her. I have thusfar managed to hold my tongue and refrain from bringing up conversations about Exodus and the whole ridiculous “ex-gay” movement. I mean – who am I to rain on her parade??? And more importantly – it really isn’t my place to do so.  

What I did have a problem with was, when I mentioned in passing that I am Buddhist (you’d think that I’d know better than that by now. Sigh), Miss Thaaang proceeded to tell me that she hoped that I would come seek the One True Living God – because “He” is a Living God (didn’t ya know?). Of course, being a person who is well known amongst my family and friends for my phenomenal patience…

I proceeded to cut her off right pronto, and, in an admittedly nippy tone told her, 

Hold up. Now I’m happy that you’ve found peace of mind in the church. If it works for you, then cool, do your thing. But you’ve known me long enough to know that I don’t think that there is only one correct faith. I think that I question too many things to ever make a “good christian”.

And God said, let there be an uncomfortable silence on the other end of the phone…

I continued:

 Faith is something personal – one person may be a Hindu all her life, and when she picks up a bible, everything falls into place for her. Someone else may be christian all their life but nothing works for him until the day he picks up a Qur’an. So basically I’m saying that I may change my faith a million times in my life, though right now I ‘m pretty sure that I’ve come to something that works for me. The bottom line is, if I ever do consider changing my religion, it won’t ever be to christianity. Any religion that asks me to stifle who I am, and accept the questionable answers that I’m given – really isn’t for me.

Needless to say, she changed the subject in a nanosecond.  My curious side was itching to ask her whether she now subscribes to Pastor Winston Cuffie’s belief in “Spiritual Transference”.  My evil side is rather tempted to mail her a copy of Elton John’s Greatest Hits. Hey. I said that I’m Buddhist. I never said that I’m a good one…

All in all – despite the witty sarcasms splattered throughout this post – I really am happy that she has found some peace in this world, even if it means that she may soon be wearing frilly ankle socks over white tights, while peddling bible tracts on unsuspecting passers-by at the corner of Murray Street*. In front of Sky Bar.**

And to all of my sistas and brothas in the  “family” – keep your heads up. Turn inwards and draw from strength found in a deeper place. And last, but never least -

QUESTION EVERYTHING.

Incog’ signing out…

*a street well known for its active gay community**an openly gay bar at said corner.

Of Little Girls and No-Talent Singers…

So the latest controversy down here is the case of a fourteen-year-old girl who attended the Akon concert at Club Zen about two weeks ago, who ended up getting manhandled by the fabulously lacklustre Mr. Akon.  See, what had happened was (insert scandalous tongue-smack here)…  

He invited women up onto the stage to take part in a wining competition, promising that the winner would get, and I quote, “a trip to
Africa”. This young lady was practically pushed onto the stage by her “friends” (Yesss, the same “friends” who bought a 14-year-old a ticket to a venue that she is quite underage for).

Turns out that Miss Thaaang, apart from being fourteen, is also the daughter of a local pastor. So of course when the video footage was leaked, everyone made a huge deal over it, but in my opinion – for all the wrong reasons.

The whole thing made its way through cyberspace quicker than you could say “gimme ah roti and ah red Solo”. Now, I’ve had my whether to post the link to the offending video clip, which is why it has taken me a whole week after the story broke, to even post this. But I finally decided to post it, just so that you, my dear reader, can gain the proper context of my rant. While the whole country jumps on the bandwagon of bashing this young girl (“She look fuh dat! Yuh eh see what she had on???” and “How could a pastor’s daughter get on like this?”), several things come to mind… 

1. it is apparent to anyone who watches the video closely that the girl got up on the stage simply to ‘wine’ with a singer she admired. She did not, as folks are suggesting, get up there to be thrown around on top of a monitor, dry-humped on the floor, and tossed about like a rag doll.
2. her embarrassed smile is all that is needed to confirm that she really didn’t appreciated being made a part of such a lewd display.
3. Akon has absolutely no talent. But I knew this even before this debaucle happened (I always wondered why everyone was going off on a singer who romanticizes being “Locked Up”. Hmmm… I wonder if he let anyone “Smack Dat” while he was behind bars? Not too blessed in the lyrical department, I tell you…).  Anyone who has to carry on in such a way during his performance is obviously using a time-tested smoke-screen to compensate for his utter lack of substantive and lyrical skill.
4. The audience was full of morons because – judging from their whoops and hollering – they all actually fell for it.
5. While a group ofTobago pastors are busy protesting Elton John coming to sing for the Tobago Jazz Festival (spiritual transference being what it is, will apparently cause anyone who attends to turn into a flaming fairy) – not one of them  has so far had anything to say about how Akon treated one of our own Trinbagonian women - save Everybody’s Favorite Pastor, Winston Cuffie. Hmmm. Is it because it’s OK to carry on this way – once the interaction is between a male and a female???
6. our local police are spineless. They make sure that anyone who curses on stage spends a hot minute in the pokey (DMX was one of the apparently clueless performers who found that out the hard way), but stand around and do absolutely nothing while a woman is being assaulted in the name of entertainment.
7. money apparently talks in my country. As of yet, I have not heard of plans to press charges against the owners of Club Zen, for allowing a scantily dressed fourteen year old into an establishment where alcohol is being served.

Meanwhile back in Akonland, his career reps made sure to pull down that clip from Youtube right pronto, citing that the images of him flinging a young woman about the stage would hurt his “image”. Hmmm. Sounds like somebody’s catching a case of R-Kelly-Itis (“it wasn’t me???”).  

Which is another reason why I put a link to the clip here (cuz I can’t find a way to convert the file into something I can display on my blog… any advice on how to do this???). In protest for the fact that his fans in the
U.S. are none the wiser that their icon is pulling these moronic stunts overseas.

Anyhow I like how the young lady handled the whole bruhaha. She and her older brother went to the newspapers and on the evening news, where she apologized for her actions. However, during her apology, she claimed that she was “done with the hip-hop lifestyle”. ??? Since when is Akon a “hip-hop” artist, and what exactly is the “hip-hop lifestyle”? If she means partying, drinking, etc, I’m sorry to say that that can be associated with any other music. I could easily refer to that as the “heavy metal lifestyle” if I were so inclined. But on the other hand, I do believe that artists are responsible for the messages that they send through their music, videos, and antics… maybe this is what she was “influenced” by. I dunno. Anyhow, I’ll cut her some slack.

UPDATE – so apparently the police raided club Zen this past Wednesday evening, looking for offending video. Another exercise in futility, brought to you by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Force. I mean really – what did they expect, that Johnny Soong and company would keep that stuff laying around? Why didn’t they just go on the internet and download it like half the country already has?

So anyhow if I find out anything further, I’ll be sure to post again