Post Carnival Recap - Part 1

I suppose I am a little late with this recap but cut a brother some slack, I'd been partying non-stop 4 days straight.

WOW what an experience. Atlanta Carnival 2013 met and greatly exceeded my expectations from Cooler Fete through breakfast fete on Memorial Day, I definitely had a blast. It wasn't all fun and games of course, I did have a few gripes and quibbles here and there but nothing major.

Recap
I started partying from the Thursday night, having taken Thursday and Friday off work. My first fete was Anti-Stush with Bunji Garlin. For all intents and purposes, it was a great, damn good fete and Bunji had that crowd going from start to finish. You know what wasn't so great? The flipping sound system. How hard is it to do a sound check BEFORE an event? Maybe we'd learn a few things like "the microphone volume is low" or  "why is the music way louder than the mic?"........I'm just saying, maybe we'll be able to actually hear the artiste sing next time. It was even worse at the Blaxx fete but more on that later.

Also, Atlanta does not have a sizeable enough, active Caribbean community to adequately support multiple fetes with multiple artistes on the same night. So Anti-stush had a decent turnout but the place certainly wasn't packed, you know why? Because somebody decided Destra needed her own fete the very same night. Yes there's a lot of politics in party promoting especially here in Atlanta but for the love of Christ it would be nice if soca lovers only had one fete to go to see their favourite acts on any given night.

The same thing happened the very next night and soca lovers were forced to choose between either Kes/Shal/TC/Ravi B  in one fete or Iwer, Cassie and Lyrikal in another. Imagine how bess Friday night would have been if we'd had a Iwer, Kes, Cassie, Shal, TC, Ravi B and Lyrikal fete.......oh well.

Kes was good, don't get me wrong, but in this day and age, why is it still impossible for big artistes like Kes and Bunji to fill venues in Atlanta? The people who brought Machel seemed to have figured it out because gawd damn that place was packed. One show, multiple major artistes, no other competing performances.......dance RAM.

Saturday May 25th of course was the day of the parade itself. Masqueraders and spectators alike enjoyed themselves tremendously and with the exception of one overzealous police officer "catching a whif" of some weed, the event mostly went off without a hitch. My son and I hooked up with a riddim section coming across MLK and we had a ball. As anticipated, parking was a bitch and the traffic snarl around the parade route was biblical. I hope people took the train, I sure did.

Truth be told, I had a few misgivings about the new venue which I've chosen to discuss here: http://www.twowithslight.com/2013/06/carnival-village-shenanigans.html

Saturday night after the parade (and after more than a couple Red Bulls) I managed to make it to the second Kooler Fete featuring Blaxx. I talked about the problems with the sound system at the Bunji fete earlier. It was worse at the Blaxx show; it's almost like they learned nothing from Thursday night. Further compounding the problem, this was an indoor/outdoor party, and if you'd suffered the misfortune of setting up your cooler in the outdoor area, you had to deal with the outdoor speakers tripping on and off at random. After a while, the outdoor speakers went off entirely and never bothered to come back on so either way, it was a shitty situation all round.

To make matters worse,  the deejay didn't seem to have any of Blaxx's music. So when the big man himself came on stage to perform, the deejay seemed to have two or three of the man's songs on hand. Blaxx was calling for chunes, and the dummy would drop a Machel or a Bunji or some other fuckery. Eventually Blaxx  had to ignore the deejay entirely and started singing acapella.....bad, bad, bad, bad. I was shaking my head through the entire performance.

In case you're wondering, the Bunji and the Blaxx fetes were both held at Karibbean Konnection. The folks that run the place clearly need to do better with setting up the sound system correctly and hiring proper deejays. Needless to say, I came away from this particular fete with a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

I'm going to cut this short here or this post would end up being too tedious to read, I'll come back with a recap part 2 in a day or two.

Until then, hol it down, doh rape it.......... :)

DTJ

Carnival Village Shenanigans

I had some mixed feelings about the new venue for the Atlanta Carnival Village. For years, the Village had been located on Fort Street between Edgewood Avenue and Auburn Avenue, in the area alongside and beneath the Interstate I-75/85. Fort Street itself was perfect as it allowed for multiple points of entry and provided a long, wide route for bands to organize themselves and a wonderful viewing point for spectators to experience the mas in all it's glory.

Well at least we're not looking at the underside of I-75/85 anymore

 For one reason or another, after 5 or more years of success at this one location, the powers that be decided to move us to Herndon Stadium at Morris Brown College. I've attempted to articulate my misgivings in a few bullet points:

1. Carnival village ticket/entry clusterfuck                                                                     You'd think that after running the 3rd largest Carnival in the US for 25 years, they'd have figured out some things by now. Yet after all this time patrons still found themselves having to stand 30-45 minutes in line just to purchase tickets. Then after that harrowing experience, folks still ended up in yet another 30 minute line just to get in the damn place.
   
   I'd like to offer my opinion on a simple, somewhat elegant solution. For those who haven't bought tickets online, let people pay at the gate, forget the ticket thing entirely. Once you pay you get your armband and you go in, no more having to wait 30 minutes in line then realize, oh shit, you're in the wrong line, etc etc.....simple is always better.
   
   
2. Where are we.....Chernobyl?                                                                                          I'd like to know the reason for switching the venue to Herndon Stadium........derelict, abandoned, total state of disrepair Herndon Stadium mind you. The Carnival did quite fine for the last 5 years down on Auburn Avenue. I suppose the City wanted to hide away all the gyrating waistlines, wanton alcohol consumption and unbridled debauchery us Caribbean folk are known for.
   
   But did they have to put us on an abandoned college campus? They didn't even try to clean the place, overgrown bush everywhere, grit and grime and broken glass. And it seems like vandals had a good time destroying the commentators box, smashing all the glass windows. Did anybody bother to clean the glass that rained down on the seats below? Nope.
   
   
3. Brainless layout                                                                                                                I'll give the organizers the benefit of the doubt, that this is their first year using Herndon Stadium so a couple lapses in judgement are forgivable. To be honest I'm not even sure why a fire marshal didn't shut the place down because had there been an emergency or something, we'd all be dead, nobody was getting in or out of that place alive. It's a college football stadium right? It'd be reasonable to assume that there would be multiple staircases coming leading down from the stands onto the football field right? How many of those access points do you think were open for patrons to pass? NONE.....not a single one.
   
   Upon entering the stadium, one had to walk all the way down to the other end of the stands and access the grounds through a back staircase. All the other access points were blocked by food tents and food trucks. Even when you got down to the grounds, folks still had to squeeze through a small space between a food truck to get on the damn field. Oh and it gets better; there is normally a separate section away from the main stage where deejays play dancehall music to cater to the yard crowd. It's a fairly popular part of the Carnival Village every year so as you could imagine it was pretty packed.
   
   Guess where they decided to locate the dancehall area. Exactly, right at the top of the main only staircase access to the field......brilliant.
   
   
   

   

   Not pictured, picking the glass out my ass

   
   
4. Performances                                                                                                                    I am all for giving everyone their fair share of time in the limelight. But does it not seem logical that we limit performances at a Caribbean Festival to those that are Caribbean in nature? I'm not sure I understood the need for more than a few rap performances. I don't have a problem with rap, I love rap actually. What I don't like is having rap acts taking up precious time, only to rush through the soca segments later. At a point I swear artistes barely had time to say "Hello Atlanta" before organizers were rushing them off the stage. 

Honestly, it might seem like with all my griping that I didn't have a good time, quite the contrary actually. Logistical issues aside, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the Carnival Village. I didn't have any issues getting in as I'd purchased my tickets online, and though some of the performances were lacking, the big names in soca came through in the end and really saved the day. Burning Flames, Iwer George, Pumpa, Rudy, Lavaman and Edwin Yearwood, completely destroyed the place, but came on much too late in the evening, by then a good portion of the patrons had already left.

Thank you Iwer for making it all worth it.

I certainly hope that the organizers will learn from the various mistakes made this year so that they can provide us with a top notch festival experience come 2014.

But until then.......blessings.

DTJ

Event Highlight - Caribbean Unity Festival

Atlanta Carnival has been getting a lot of attention lately which is exciting considering what the festival used to be not long ago. A joke of a celebration just a few years back, the Atlanta Caribbean community managed to finally pull together and create a collective experience we could all be proud of. 

In it's 25 year history, Atlanta Carnival saw it's darkest days during the early to mid 2000's, a time that most would rather not speak of. But to ignore our past is to invite ourselves to repeat those mistakes in the future. Among other factors, it was our failure to work together that led to our downfall, trinis fighting among ourselves, expatriates vs us-born, island vs island eventually created disharmony and discord and the festival suffered. 

We've finally got it right it seems, we're working together and thus unity and harmony has brought us prosperity. This year marks the 25th year of Atlanta Carnival but it also marks the first year of the Atlanta Caribbean Unity Festival. I believe this celebration of Caribbean unity will come to symbolize the struggle to make the Carnival what it is today and a fitting reminder of what disharmony brings. 

As a celebration of both our common heritage and our inherent diversity as a region, I hope you'll all come out to experience acts from many caribbean nations. This isn't a trini party, nor is it a jamaican party or even a V.I. celebration, this is an all-island celebration. Come out to see Rupee, Demarco, Kerwin Dubois, Cool Sessions Brass Band (VI) and Rebel Band (Haiti) not to mention the cool rhythms of steel pan. 

This is a family event so bring the youngsters, bring your friends, let's come out and experience what true Caribbean unity means.....don't forget to come with your flags, come with your t-shirts, represent where you're from, wear your culture proudly on your chests.

Caribbean Unity Festival

Wade Walker Park

5585 Rockbridge Road

Stone Mountain, GA 30088

1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

doors open at 12:00

$20   adults

 $10 children

get your tickets: http://urticketpro.com/shop/concerts/unityfest/

See allyuh there

DTJ

COOLER FETE

I've struggled for 15 minutes to put into words, something that could effectively convey my excitement at the moment. Believe me when I say that if you missed last weekend's cooler fete, you missed out on what can best be described as "legendary."

This annual party (known simply as Cooler Fete) has for years, been the quintessential kick-off party for Atlanta Carnival, but it had always had a torrid history. This party has been shut down so often that many in the community started to believe Dekalb County PD had a Cooler Fete Task Force whose sworn purpose was to locate it every year and shut it down.

I am happy to report that this didn't happen this year. Mr. Po Po, saw it fit to allow us raucous Caribbean folk to party till sun up......and party we did. Fete regulars, so used to being forced home by 3 a.m. suddenly found themselves with 3 extra hours to drink.

Special shout outs to Mr. Lewis with the Hunch Punch, Anto with the curry rabbit, Mr. and Mrs. Mo for making my night, Stax, Krista, Rae, Ehi and the whole posse, the various remnants of Scandalous Crew, The Winer Boy Crew, DJ Stephen and fam, a party is not a party without allyuh.....BIG UP!!

Allyuh will be hearing this for a while so just get used to it............BEST COOLER FETE EVAAAAR!!

Priorities

It amazes me still that after eleven years, I still encounter situations that confound me. Obviously there are many cultural differences between us and the American people but honestly by now, I thought I'd seen them all.

Case in point, during a recent conversation, a friend mentioned to me that an uncle of hers had passed away, they were indeed very close. Then the conversation continued on in a manner I hadn't expected.

"My uncle's funeral is Friday but I'm not going, I've got this thing to do at work."

0_0.......wait, whut?

She then went on to explain that she'd spent weeks organizing an event for her job, thus it being her event, it wouldn't be right if she missed it, especially not for the funeral of a secondary family member. Had it been a direct parent or a sibling, then "maybe" things might have been different.

I only say "maybe" at this point because I'm not entirely sure if it would make a difference given what I've experienced of the American work ethic, which basically goes "work first and always, fuck everything else." 

As a Trinbagonian, this concept is entirely alien to me. From our perspective, there could be no greater disrespect to a person's memory than to arbitrarily miss a loved one's funeral especially not for work concerns. Even supervisors know better, I recall in 2001 when my grandmother passed away, my trini boss gave me the week off, paid leave without batting an eye. Yet when my grandfather passed in 2011, my American boss gave me one heck of a hard time just getting the time off, not to mention called the house on a few occasions while I was home, and even made some disparaging comments when I returned, something in the spirit of "people die everyday."

Trinbagonians also don't seem to distinguish between close family or extended family, friends or enemies when it comes to death. How many times have you sat at a funeral only to hear somebody say "man I couldn't stand his ass when he was alive but R.I.P. breds."

Or

"ey look miss Ethel dead.....who's miss Ethel? De ole lady in de big house who leggo de dog on we when we was climbing up she mango tree? She dead? Doh make joke, when is de funeral? Monday? I calling off work"

Whether there is a blood association or a simple friendship that went back decades, we as a people drop everything to be there for a person in death.

If I accomplish nothing else in this life, I at least hope that at the end of time, that you my esteemed friends, family and colleagues do me one final honour by RAMMING OUT MY FUNERAL. I am so serious, make sure my funeral RAM!! When the time comes, I doh want to see an empty pew or I'm coming back to haunt all who eh show up.

I'm just saying.

DTJ

Fried Green Tomatoes

 ......................ever been to Whistle Stop, Alabama? How about Juliette, Georgia? 

No?

..........that's what I figured.

One of these places is a real town, the other, a work of fiction but interestingly enough both towns are one and the same. If any of you had ever seen the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes." you'd recognize Whistle Stop as the homely little country town where the story was based. Of course Whistle Stop doesn't exist, well not in the way you'd expect anyway. In real life, Whistle Stop is actually a small town south of Atlanta, Georgia called Juliette.

Presumably Juliette wasn't much of anything, but a small town lost to time, until sometime in 1991 when movie producers came scouting for somewhere to film their movie; the rest is history. I'm not into chick flicks, but having been to the place, I couldn't help but watch the movie, if not for the novelty of saying "I'd been there."

Juliette is one of those small towns that I thoroughly enjoy visiting, steeped in history but relevant and alive even today. Fiddling around the little antique and craft stores that lined the main street, I started to get a sense of what the place must have been like back in the twenties. The little candle shop may have been a bank or a saloon, the little antique shop on the right, a blacksmiths maybe, who knows.

The focal point of the movie was a little place called the Whistle Stop Cafe, brainchild of the main characters Ruth and Idgie. The cafe itself still operates today in exactly the same format as it was in the movie, and still pumping out plates of those fried green tomatoes.

The Whistle Stop Cafe

I also had the pleasure of sampling a plate of country fried steak with creamed corn paired with a hefty slice of cornbread. Dessert was a slice of warm pecan pie topped with vanilla ice cream and a dusting of cinnamon.....basically heaven on a plate. Even if you weren't interested in the movie, I'd recommend you seriously consider the 75 mile drive down there just for this.

But seriously though, don't leave the Cafe without trying at least a slice of their fried green tomatoes, you'll regret it if you do.

better than sex.............

Where Smokey Lonesome stayed....seriously, watch the flick

There really isn't much to the place honestly but it's a nice spot to visit if you happen to be out camping at the nearby Lake Juliette. I'm not into antiques but practically all the stores in town sells them but there is also a shop selling hand-made scented candles as well as another store selling honey (watch the movie to understand the honey reference). 

Located nearby is the Jarrell Plantation, a Civil War era plantation with most of it's buildings and original machinery still intact. I'll definitely be returning in a couple weeks to check the place out......and possibly snag some more of dem damn tomatoes while I'm passing through. 

Until then.....peace.

DTJ

The Whistle Stop Cafe

443 McCrackin Street

Juliette, GA 31046

478-992-8886

Hours: Open Monday - Sunday 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Atlanta Childrens Carnival

A few of you have been asking for details on the Atlanta Childrens Carnival parade which will be taking place this coming weekend:

                                             Atlanta Childrens Carnival

                                             Saturday 18th, May 2013 - 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

                                             Salem Park

                                             5290 Salem Road

                                             Lithonia, GA 30038

                                                                       

SYNOPSIS: I had a look at the flyer for this event and I am at a loss for words. Whom is this event designed for exactly? The line-up of performers has me entirely confused.....the Femme Fatale Dance Crew? Really? Were Iwer George or Patrice Roberts too busy? Am I to assume that the organizers couldn't find an artiste even remotely associated with Caribbean culture? 

I'll probably end up just taking my youngster to the main parade anyway to be honest, attend this if  you want something safe to take your children to but apart from the costumes, I wouldn't expect a very caribbean-centric experience............I hope I'm wrong.