The LOL Page

If I had a hammer

Has it ever occurred to you that maniacs are roused each time you put either a box of matches, a pressure washer, a can of WD-40, a screwdriver or a hammer in the hands of a Trini man?

Around the end of November, early December, men all over the country emerge from domestic slumber with tool belts heavy with the stuff.

Matches. Advice: If some madness overtakes you and you try burning an old mattress in your backyard, keep it away from the coconut tree and come up with a reasonable explanation for when the fire officers arrive, sirens at full blast, in front your house. Now, this would be sometime in the early 1980s – not too long after leaving a household headed by a community pyromaniac.

Lesson learnt, you become like one of those reformed meat eaters who cannot bear the sight or smell of even curry duck. Then, sometime later, the neighbour who knew the number for the fire brigade by heart, lights a pile of mango leaves and both the St Joseph Police and Tunapuna Fire Station are summoned.

Be alert. ‘Tis the season for waste inventory. The barrel is already in the backyard. Real experts need just a single match and half bottle of the rubbing alcohol that has so far kept the ‘rona away.

Pressure washers. I heard about a guy who hosted a “power washer lime” on Zoom the other day. ‘Tis the season when moss and mildew grow, it seems. I only heard about the lime. Not sure how between the noise and mist there could have been any meaningful communication except of the kind weed smokers experience each time the pipe is passed. A groan. A grunt. “Uh huh. Yeah.”

But I can imagine how it went … kinda. Peter, his chin well protected from COVID-19, in new boots. Just off from calling the Morning Brew about WASA. What sounds like swarms of giant bees in unbroken monotone tests the Bluetooth speakers. Hours later, a cold beer, and a call to the guy who paved the yard 10 years ago – such sloppy work because raw soil now peeks through the broken surface.

WD-40. I only found out that WD-40 was good for arthritis a few years ago. Now, I’m hearing it’s also effective for personal security. Before all this, I only knew it helped with creaky doors, ink and semen stains, greasy handwashing, removing stickers, crayons, permanent markers, stuck rings, dirty sinks, vinyl records, mildewed shoes, ants, cockroaches, snakes, and the neighbour’s cat.

Put a big can of this bad boy in a Trini man’s hands and there will not be a squeak for miles and miles. Get a case because a can lasts no more than one hour.

Screwdrivers. You ever realised that it’s possible for every single screw around the house (including the children’s toys) to be slack and in need of tightening? That your car doors, seats and lights require different types? That since Henry Phillips used the invention on his 1936 Cadillac there are now at least five different sizes that can be used on everything from your glasses to the oven?

The COVID-19 lockdown yielded some amazing new uses. For instance, did you know there are about a dozen screws around the frame of a wireless keyboard? And that if you used a flathead to prise open the end with the battery, the frame will crack, and you will end up using half as many screws to re-assemble it?

The lockdown also proved that if you use the wrong size screwdriver on a door hinge, you can end up having to replace the screw with a big, rusty nail. Which leads me to mention the greatest invention of all time: the hammer.

Hammers. Do you realise that the 1963 runaway hit ‘If I had a Hammer’ was first performed by a guy called Trini Lopez? “If I had a hammer/I'd hammer in the morning/I'd hammer in the evening/All over this land.”

If in 1962 we launched our national anthem, the following year one dedicated to all T&T men arrived. Hammers, even then, had been everywhere. Hammers in the morning. Hammers in the evening. Hammers with wooden, rubber and metal handles. Hammers for nails. David Rudder’s Hammer. MC Hammer. The Sound of Music? Oh, that’s music by Richard Rodgers and Oscar HAMMERSTEIN. No nail needed. I done.

(Oh wait. Who left that tin of paint there?)

*First published in the T&T Guardian on December 16, 2020

Peshenwengweng and the zessers

Contemporary pop culture is particularly unmerciful on those who blink slowly. In no time at all, the word “jackass” becomes a verb and “peshenwengweng” enters as onomatopoeic depiction of the sound bullets make - having up to that point missed their intended or collateral targets.

The use of “Gen C” (“C” being the coronavirus) to refer to children born after January 1 this year is also already picking up steam online and “LOLsob” is now shorthand for an experience that can make you laugh (out loud) and cry at the same time.

Some of us have become chronic LOLsobbers and may require medication, I must confess. It is a condition which accompanies the feeling that if you don’t laugh about something you would be inclined to cry.

I was even seeing where there is a word to describe that moment after having placed an Amazon order, you remember something else you needed to buy. It’s called “Amazheimer’s.” By now, we also know who is a “maskhole”. Saw lots of them at Curepe Junction last weekend, walking down the street. The “Covidiots”.

I was led to all this “kangkalang” (my late father, and not Keith Rowley, taught me that word many, many years ago) when considering current application of the word “zesser”.

It appears that “zessing” has itself been the subject of linguistic evolution. Slow blinkers like myself completely missed the moment when being a “zesser” turned from being cool (while at the same time being somewhat excessive in fashion and deportment) to be a mostly negative socio-cultural descriptor focused on ethnicity and class.

“What is the difference,” several Facebookers were asking on Sunday, “between a zesser party and a (regular) party (or fancy wedding or DDI lime)?” The responses did not vary widely and all focused on “who” participates and “where” such events occur despite the pandemic.

Even the police commissioner offered a definition of his own within the context of what he considers to be the role of the police in the face of what is unlawful and, not necessarily, what might be entirely “wrong” given the current context.

At that point, I am minded to consider the profound nature of the issues that application of the word has been forcing us to engage. I liken it to the euphemistic use of place names such as “Laventille”, “Caroni” and “Westmoorings” – almost as potent as openly racist use of the “N” and “C” words, Chinee, Veneez, Seereeyann, and “de wonpasent”, but nuanced to include factors such as social class, official rank and generational privilege.

“Zessing” is thus a fairly complex phenomenon combining concepts of ethnicity, geographic location, money and class. It also embraces legal principles associated with private, commercial and public ownership and occupancy. “Zessing” is not applicable, for instance, when an activity occurs on private property and involves people who are of the “knife and fork” variety from “Laventille”, “Caroni” or other areas.

Lawful congregating (whatever the numbers or level of risk) must also meet the standards of property ownership, money spent (“ka-ching ching”), aesthetics, cost of food served, and music played.

No better occasion than the height of a pandemic to unmask subterranean tensions, privilege and entitlement. Significantly, we have also been exposed to how such issues routinely resonate within official circles.

The early targeting of the Sauce Doubles outlet at Curepe and not the fast food franchises across the road. The removal of Fatboy doubles from the service station. The youngsters face down on the sand. Fishermen blocked at the beach. The needless and tedious legal lesson on private versus public spaces.

It all came down to the incomparable Dr Avery Hinds on Monday to unveil the dreaded equaliser. No politician. No business chamber. No trade union. No NGO. No lawyer. No police commissioner. Just a committed medical professional and the grim truth. It sounded more like a “waddap” than a “peshenwengweng” – finding its mark with great accuracy and impact.

Dr Hinds politely avoided the use of “jackass” as a verb, but he clearly suggested that “tout moun” was the phrase being qualified. Whether you zessed in Caroni or partied in Valsayn the virus couldn't care less. A message quite neatly packed in our collective pipe for smoking. A shot on target.