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A Modest LGBT Proposal

Saturday, 27 June, 2020 Filed in: TGIF

THE SENATE in Trinidad & Tobago on Wednesday voted against LGBT people being included in the Government’s Domestic Violence Bill. Independent Senator Hazel Thompson-Ahye proposed an extension allowing same-sex couples to apply for protection orders but, with only three (needless to say, Independent) votes in favour, with all Government senators voting against and with all those Opposition senators not opposing but abstaining, the homos & the lesbos, and all ships in-between, were sunk before the start.

Political parties in Trinidad know they need Pentecostal support to win elections, and Pentecostals claim a divine right to bigotry. It is, accordingly, far wiser to lose a handful of queer lives than a multitude of Born Again Christian votes.

The Opposition, God bless ‘em, would do the same thing, were they in government, and the Government, in opposition, would also have abstained, because the Pentecostals don’t mind so much if you don’t yourself pelt a righteous stone at the adulterers and abominations, once you don’t lift a finger to prevent good Christians from doing God’s finest work.

Chupidee & Chupider

Saturday, 20 June, 2020 Filed in: TGIF

62 with a bullet

Saturday, 13 June, 2020 Filed in: TGIF

LAST WEEK TUESDAY (2 June) was my birthday and all I’ve got to show for myself after six decades of this cosmic joke called life is the same receding hairline, expanding waistline, infrequent byline and recurring firetrucking punch line: ten times before today, in “birthday” columns, I’ve repeated the same hairline/ waistline/ byline joke I first made when I was 30 with a Bullet.

After turning 30 “in the papers” in 1988, I decided to limit birthday columns to five-year intervals and “significant” birthdays but, when I turned 55 in 2013, I realised every firetrucking birthday had become hugely significant: every one I celebrate increases the chances that I won’t be here for the next one. No Pires male has lived past the age of 62 in five generations; I’m watching my elder brother, who turns 63 on 26 June, like a canary in the family coal mine.

But surely I’ve learned something from it all? Or at least can pretend to have? Here, then are 62 pieces of indisputable wisdom, one gleaned from each year I’ve managed to defy both Death and the odds. Following these commandments probably won’t get you to Heaven; but you’ll certainly have a Hell of a time. Some of the ones in-between may change but the first and last have remained the same for 32 years now.

Wearing the Full Stupidity of God

Saturday, 6 June, 2020 Filed in: TGIF

EVEN WHILE the peaceful protestors he’d ordered to be teargassed and dragged out of Lafayette Square on Monday were still gasping for breath, Fat Nixon’s blessed Evangelical supporters were cheering him on from the sidelines. “God give him strength!” called out one Mrs Horbowys in Tallahassee, Florida. “He’s doing a Jericho walk!”

In Jewish mythology, the ancient Israelites conquered the city of Jericho by following God’s orders to march around its walls seven times and then blowing their trumpets, which pleased God so much, he threw down the walls of the city.

In the instant case, however, the man doing the walking holds the position of the commander-in-chief of all American armed forces, and had deployed American military might against his own citizens, causing them to fall — and choke and bleed — so that he could stroll through the cleared square (being careful not to ruin his shoes by stepping in any pools of blood) and hold a bible, sometimes upside-down, as a prop in a role he was playing — hopelessly amateurishly — of strongman.

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