Colin: (on cell phone) Hey, Bro, I still have my column and I’m thinking about what to write for Friday. What’s the big news back home?

Bro: You still in America? I thought you’d be home for New Year’s.

Colin: I came to this Godforsaken place on a jet plane and I’m trying to get out, but I want to go home through the back. Bah, there’s so much going on at the border. Thanks to Obama and Trump, it’s hard to get out of this sinful land without going through all their scrutiny. It’s like they don’t want me to leave.

Bro: You really think one of their guards would shoot you if they see you swimming to Mexico? That doesn’t make any sense. I think they want people like you to get out. Just go to the desk and tear up your travel documents. Tell them that you’re leaving and you are never coming back.

Colin: Bro, just tell me what’s going on back on turf. I really need to know what’s going on at home.

Bro: A lot of people are talking about a madabig wap in the jackpot. Brad’s took a hit with the 2020 that could break him and his underground partners. But that’s not the big news for me. I think Lisa and Caleb are the hot story. I read in a Rowland Parks article in the Amandala that they’re pushing for marriage now.

Colin: Wow! You serious? Lisa and Caleb push for gay rights, and now they’re getting marid?

Bro: What I said was…

Colin: Whoa, I got to drop this call. I see one of their cruel Gestapo agents coming my way (puts away cell phone). San av a hoo cut yu hayr, Lisa and Caleb tying the knot.

I bet if you took a poll, the overwhelming majority would say that this Caleb is sailing off course in his UNIBAM boat, and that a hundred percent of us are glad to hear that he is taking a wife because maybe, just maybe this will get him to start looking at the world through some sober lens. Everyone has to be wondering though, how Lisa fits into this plot.
If Lisa were compliant, that essential ingredient that makes good marriage material, a lot of men in this country would be looking at this Caleb with eyes that asked, “What has he got that we ain’t got?” If you can judge a book by its cover, he can’t be man enough for her. He’ll not carry her up the steps and across the threshold, and he’ll not fight off bad men to protect her, unless he has a pistol. He’s the poster boy for any artist who wants to draw male that is no brawn and all brain.

Wa, after her bold declaration that she is a non-compliant woman, all in Belize recognized her as not the stuff for real men. If you don’t know what real men are, they’re the kind of men who want to settle down. Belizean men decided, rightly, to steer clear. Now this latest is some eyebrow raiser and all bets say it won’t last.

Some have gone as far as saying that it’s simply a star thing, that ploy used by fading stars da foreign to keep themselves in the news. You are familiar with the Yahoo and other big US media, where in the midst of world news about critical elections, and outrageous violence, and all kinds of struggles, there is news about older women stars who look really good for their age, female stars who are walking around without brassiere, and ooh, no panty, and male stars who are considering the sex change.

If it is so it’s a first for Belize. Belizeans have been all kinds of things, but we have never been sacrilegious. Like in all countries, marriages fail in Belize, but Belizeans never enter the sacred contract for show, for frivolous cheap stabs at drawing attention.

You can bet that rice will not be thrown from church steps on this couple. This is not America where you can force the clergy to do what they don’t want to do. They’ll not find a priest here to bless this union, a church building available for rent to hold the friends and the few family members who might countenance the match, nor will they get a caliber organist like Jorge Ernesto Babb to play “Here comes the bride”.

Boy, this pair who were on the underworld mission to debunk the sacred teachings of Leviticus to keep human sanity and preserve their dignity … But let me not be too hard on them.

It’s 2020, and maybe to prove there is no absolutely bad thing under the sun, people are saying that if these two — a turncoat gay man and a sworn non-compliant woman, if these two can find love so strong they are heading to tie the knot, then there is hope for every washed-up bachelor and convinced spinster to take a leap toward marital bliss.

It’s 2020, and this decade I say, live and let live. If Dean Barrow can find nirvana in his New Year’s Day Address when Caye Caulker is out of water and light, there just might be a home behind a massive cement fence for a couple who at best are confused. But if it is the worst, if it is that they are out for some sadistic satisfaction from mocking our innocent, humble society, I and we will have to go back to our old intolerant selves and nix it.

A gift from RA Vellos

RA is my brother-in-law, and I have no complaint with how he has treated me over the years we have been family. I remember staying about a month with him and my sister, at their home, one time when I was in limbo. He made a speaker for me once, so that I could beat out my Chico Che and wicked Millie Jackson. I don’t go to his house that often, but whenever I go there I can drink from his stock, and I get a plate of food if I’m hungry.

All those things are great, but the best thing RA gave me was a lesson about drinking. Before I got this lesson I could never walk away from an unfinished drink. Before I got the lesson I drank with one purpose only: to get drunk. I had no respect for people who ate while they were drinking. People think I’m slow, but not always. People who eat when they are drinking are trying to stave off getting drunk.

I got my big lesson from RA while listening to him explain to a drinking partner about the efforts he makes to nurse his high. Some things I can’t figure out for myself. I know that a high is nice, glorious, and I know that being drunk is sometimes terrible, so why was I in the mad race to stupor?

I’ve had to deal with things in my life, and I know things about glum, but I also have a high spirit. I’m reclusive, because I keep my glum to myself and most people have difficulty with my exuberance. No, I don’t want to go there, so I’ll just say I don’t drink to drown my issues. I drink for the nice high, and I can’t explain my old race to stupor. Ah, after hearing RA lecture on the art of nursing a high, I became a lot more civilized drinker.

I still don’t go for food while I’m drinking, but after the edification the race to drunk definitely slowed.

GoB came thru with Krismos Cheer

I can’t let it go by without putting my signature for the government coming through with Krismos Cheer for 2019. It’s terrible that they think UDP children are worth twice what PUP children are worth, but all got, and for those who got less it knocks nothing to hell.