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THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY

BC PIRES

SO THERE it is: another Independence Day honours list and I’m not on it! You’d think that, after 34 years in the gig, they’d have run a little Hummingbird Medal (Plastic) for Y’Boy for his contributions in the sphere of mocking firetruckery! Look, I think I going New York and make it on Broadway, yes!
Of course I’m joking.
Firstly, I don’t want an award; I don’t need any encouragement to keep jamming them on a Friday.
I don’t even understand what makes people want one. I remain perplexed, especially after watching One Hand Don’t Clap on the big screen at the TT Film Festival last Saturday, that the great Lord Kitchener, the man who put most of the musicality in our music, whose work was itself a national award, except he gave it to us – I can’t think why he would die hoping for a Trinity Cross; and the fact that, knowing he wanted it, “they” didn’t give it to him left a distaste in my mouth far too powerful to be overcome by rinsing it with a Chaconia Medal Bronze or bay rum.
Secondly, as long as national awards are given out by governments, I knew from day one I’d never get one; the PNM or UNC giving
me an award would be like cows hiring a butcher.
Too besides, as we say, I would only want the Trinity Cross. The fact that it was replaced to appease religious sensitivities makes the new award less of an Order of the Republic of TT and more of a Reflection of the Chaos of TT, where either all gods or none must get their public holiday or their devotees will bu’n tyre in the road.
Nevertheless, some folks were particularly deserving of their small bligh this year.
Prof Gordon Rohlehr, our most readable academic, should have got the gold version of his Chaconia medal, for his searing, soaring essay on David Rudder’s Hoosay alone; and you can drink a rum with him in the bargain. Marina Salandy-Brown, who started both the TT Film Festival and the Bocas Literary Festival, also got the silver; perhaps they’re waiting for her to start a music festival before grudgingly forking out the gold. And the awards for Gabrielle Hosein and Gia Gaspard-Taylor for development of women were overdue; but I guess women are expected to wait.
But how the firetruck do you give Machel Montano anything other than the Trinity Cross (or Reflection of the Chaos of TT)? Could
anyone contribute more to soca than Machel? It’s a big firetruck for the man who wrote Big Truck. How did someone in authority look at Machel and then look at the list of awards and look past the top one? It’s like giving Brian Lara a plaque after the 400 or 501.
If Machel Montano is deserving of an award (and if there is nothing in his character or history to prevent making it, which clearly there isn’t, or he would have been blanked entirely), how do you observe his level and give a medal so far below it? It’s moments like these that make me yearn for an onomatopoeic word for steups.
But all this slagging off of this year’s actual awards makes me feel to correct them in my imagination. Here are my Independence Day honours.
Trinity BC Cross, Crescent, Om, Bell Etc: For everyone who inhales carbon monoxide and withstands dancehall at ear-splitting decibel levels for one-three hours on either side of their working day and still puts in a full shift.
BChaconia Medal: For every homeless person wandering our city streets who began as a hard-luck and has been allowed to descend to a mental case.
Humming BC Medal: For every suffering artist trying to make their film, song, story or music, the only thing other than ganja and prescription drugs that stops the society from im- or exploding.
Public Service Medal of Merit: For every clerk who shuts the window in your face when you finally reach it after an hour in a queue. To maintain the standards to which we are accustomed.
Medal for the Development of Women: To me, of course; for all the selfless work I’ve done in the sphere for so many years.

BC Pires received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Putting Up with Pomposity. Read the full version of this column on Saturday at www.BCPires.com
The post The BC Honours appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.