You never really know someone, ever

I'm always amazed when I find out something new about a person I know. Like when I hear my dad re-tell stories of his youth, I'm in awe most of the time, other times I'm laughing or crying, or both. When I hear what my mom's childhood was like, when I hear tales of my ancestry.

It makes me feel that I have so much more to learn about the people whom are dear to me, that I will never truly know enough about them.

I feel that way about everyone, and yet I never ask them enough questions, I just assume the minor details about them and their history and how it all fits in with my life.

Friday in Vermont, I was reminded of just how naive that assumption can be. The band was in Vermont to play a gig, and our drummer Rob - who has been with us from the start - the true heartbeat of this band, started to play the piano in our green room.

Usually I fumble through the opening notes of 'Head over Heels' but not Rob, he played various classical pieces, extensive, complex works. He took piano lessons for ten years, never sat any exams though. But his technique was very solid. I sat there in utter amazement, along with our bassist - Don, we were both speechless.

And then we went and played our set, and Rob became our drummer again, holding it down onstage.

But for thirty minutes before that, he was a pianist and we, for a change were his audience.

Suddenly you were gone

An old school-mate of mine was murdered almost four weeks ago.

Murdered.

He didn't die in a car crash, not by a heart attack, not taken early by disease. He was brutally murdered.

We were good friends for about two years in high-school and then we lost touch after graduation. That's part of life I guess, people drift apart and move on. We all assume rather naively that we'll stay in touch, and that we'll always be involved in each others' lives throughout the years.

He ran his own company - an anti-theft car retrieval service. He wanted to do something positive to fight crime in Trinidad. He was going to be the change that he wanted in his world. His name was Rawle Francis.

Rawle paid for that 'change' with his life.

Crime here is out of control and the most that the authorities can say is 'new initiatives are being worked on the combat crime'. Sounds reassuring doesn't it? Whatever initiatives that are being deployed certainly are not working. As of March 2nd, the murder rate for Trinidad stands at 91 for 2014, in a small country of some 1.2 million people. I'm pretty sure that's higher than the murder rate of all of Canada - a country of 30 million.

Rawle leaves to mourn a wife and three kids. The details of his murder are sketchy. To date no leads have been made in his case.

I wonder if his murderer felt any compassion at all, any remorse after reading the obituary. I wonder how could someone be so cruel, so wicked, so heartless.

At Rawle's funeral, there was a fair number of old Fatima boys - his classmates. His family look devastated. Who wouldn't be?

All the old boys greeted each other and stayed back to talk about what had happened and life in general. Some of us went for a drink in Rawle's honour. Some guys I had not seen since 1990 when I graduated.

I don't know if Rawle's killer will ever be brought to justice because of our terrible excuse for law enforcement and legal system here.

This country needs a lot of prayers and a concrete plan to combat crime on many levels, to deal with the root causes - trouble in the home, the breakdown in family life, unemployment, training and education programs for unskilled youths at risk, and initiatives to help those living below the poverty line find a better means of earning a living. Not just an increase in police vehicles. That's just dealing with the symptom and not the problem.

And yet, no government seems to have the common sense to understand our crime situation. They've all just dealt with the problem when it occurs. Like a reactive, clueless idiot they behave and hope that the country will be happy with their 'solution'

God help us all, because the government doesn't know how to save this country.

Rawle, rest in peace my brother. May your death not be in vain and may your killer be brought to swift justice.

What divorced parents don't know

My parents are still married, 43 years later. They've had some rough times, and they've had some laughs along the way, but they're still together. So that's one thing I am grateful for - married parents.

Today is their anniversary and as my sister and I wished them 'Happy Anniversary', they both said the same thing 'Today's our Anniversary?' It was the joke for the evening.

Many married couples don't last and I can understand why. It's hell really. It's hard work, all the time.

And very shortly, after I made my choice to teach guitar I became painfully aware of what some of my students have to endure in the lives, as young as they are, with their family life.

Yesterday at one of the schools I teach, one of my students, a nine-year-old started telling me how his parents got divorced earlier in the week and how he is stuck in the middle of this battle with his parents telling him secrets about each other. He almost cried and I did a horrible attempt of trying to change the subject and console him.

I should've done a better job of being there for him, but I had no idea what to say, other than 'it'll be okay in time'. How silly did that sound? What the hell does that mean? He probably felt so lost and asked for my advice and I just tried to console him as quick as I could.

Not because I didn't want to be bothered, but I really and truly, had no idea what to say to him.

I had no idea.

I can relate to why parents would want to split, but they must realize one thing - it is a terrible experience and feeling for their children.

Parents - your children want you to stay together, no matter what.

Please parents, do what's best for your children.

Please

A good friend sent me this

http://www.rebellesociety.com/2014/01/03/let-yourself-fall-apart/

Modern day living?

I don't mean to sound like a doomsday person.  Nor do I want to harp on the stark fact that so many people are getting sick. Or that there's all this stuff that's going wrong in the world.

Maybe it was always the case and we're just more aware of it now.

I don't know.

Modern day living comes with the harsh reality that there's so many more cases of illnesses and of new allergies.  There's a growing number of mental cases and learning disabilities. And if you ask me, people have more things in their lives and also more loneliness and sadness.

It seems like there's more health problems now than years ago.

And the scariest thing of all, is no one can truly say what's causing all this.

For all the advancements in modern medicine and for all the progress of technology and 21st century living,  we are living with more disease and more illnesses and no one can say why.

And that is very scary.

We have no control

We all think that we're in complete control of our lives.  We foolishly and naively believe that. 

Bad things are like a nightmare in a horror movie.  They're not real. They're not happening.  It's only make believe.

We go merrily along with our lives until illness strikes and then the world stops.

And all we can do is try to get moving in the face of bad news.

All we can do is take control of what little we can manage.

And that's when we all truly see that we are not in charge of anything but our mind. And trying to focus on the good stuff in light of bad news is the hardest thing to do.

Life is so fragile.

But we have to hope and try.

There is no truth in politricks

If it one group of people that I am tired of, is 'politrickians'. I mean, what a group of low-life, lying, cheating, mean-hearted, selfish, corrupt, evil, sly, vicious, blood-sucking rats. All of them.

And that's just putting nicely.

I'm not a utopian anarchist. I'm not a rebel without a cause. Never considered myself one to break the rules just for the sake of being a rebel. Who cares about all that nonsense really?

Some rules make life simple, others make life a completed mess.

I'd like to think of myself as a decent person, one who believes in the natural order of things, the course of natural justice and the goodness of everyone.

But I'm convinced now that folks that become politicians, or work with big businesses, multi-national corporations, banks and the main-stream media are not included in that group of decent people.

I'm singling out governments here first.

There isn't a single government that truly serves the people. They only serve their friends. It's blatantly obvious in the US, Canada and it's painfully obvious in Trinidad & Tobago.

Here in Trinidad, it doesn't matter who's in power - the PNM, NAR, UNC, PP. And all the parties who want to be in power but never had the majority stake - COP, NJAC, MSJ. It doesn't matter, the end result is the same - friends and friends of friends get the benefit.

You can see it time and time again, every government that comes into power after a while only serve their special interest groups.

It's disgusting and it's blatantly obvious. And nobody does anything to stop it. We only cast blame, look the other way and complain about it without changing anything.

But what's amazing and beyond comprehension is that voters will back their parties no matter what, as if this time in power will be the best.

I often wonder if Trinis are a special breed of stupid people, but then I see that same sort of stupidity elsewhere in the US, Canada, even in Europe.

And the results are always the same.

What's that saying again? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.