The Jagdeo rock and roll hit parade

Jul 24, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Ever heard about a rock and roll riot?  How about one not at 11 o’clock in the nocturnal hours when the blood is pumping and emotions reach a fever pitch, but one o’clock in the afternoon, when the sun starts to imitate the Leaning Tower of Pisa?  And if that is startling, here is the closer: it is on Thursday afternoons, when the Bharrat Jagdeo’s Rock and Roll Train is live on the air.  Whoever was expecting a brunch, got more than they wanted: a brush with danger, and to reinforce the point about who is in charge of the band, a bunch of horse droppings straight on their Air Jordans or Ferragamo loafers.  Thanks to the brightest, most glamorous, Guyanese singing, dancing, meandering political star, it is Thursday afternoon rock and roll mash for an hour or so.

It is sure as hell not Woodstock, but the air does get smoky.  It is less of Tony Williams and the Platters “Smoke gets in Your Eyes”, and more reminiscent of the smoke that Bob Marley and the Wailers and his Rasta friends made a part of their musical repertoire, and their historical legend handed down to generations.  If Thursday afternoon with Jagdeo is not Woodstock, or Central Park, then it sure can’t be the Royal Albert Hall or Madison Square Garden.  Those places call for a certain level of class, and nobody with any luminosity about them would associate anything that is associated with Bharrat Jagdeo of scaling that bar.  No matter how close to the ground it is lowered.  Freedom House is for mob frenzy, never had and never will have anything to do with what is considered classy.  Too bourgeois.  Reeking too much of capitalist luxuries and hedonisms.  Upscale for the PPP and Guyanese of such linkage is one of Jagdeo’s now copyrighted firefights.

A one-man firefight is what oil has gravitated to, with Jagdeo battling with his back to the wall and fighting to save the world.  So that no one walks away with any mistaken ideas, Jagdeo is fighting to save Exxon’s world from prying Guyanese minds.  In some ways, when Jagdeo has developed a full head of steam, I am sure that I hear echoes of the Mighty Sparrow’s ‘black up deh eye, bruise up deh face…’  With Jagdeo in charge of the show, his press conferences have become an acid rock version of rock around the clock and roll all over the floor.  If rocking around the clock is too much of Bill Haley and the Comets, then try rocking the house and bringing down the roof.  Those are Jagdeo’s preferences.  The media audience demands a simple song about oil from him, and that gets him going.  Jagdeo gyrates and does cartwheels across the floor like Mick Jagger of Rolling Stones fame, who could not dance a step to save his life, or for the next hit of cocaine to keep him going.

In all of this, Jagdeo somehow walks away with the good feeling that he has given his best rendition of that Swedish hitmaker group, Abba, and their super smash, “Dancing Queen.”  Some Guyanese either don’t have any eyesight, or they need a taste test to determine their hearing strength.  Being the irrepressible one around these parts, may I suggest to my brother Bharrat that whenever the next hard oil question about oil or the Wales gas-to-energy project comes up that he starts singing the Foxx siblings’ “Mockingbird”.  It is to reinforce to Guyanese how much he is playing with their minds, and taking them for a wild, downhill sleighride?  And in sun soaked, jagged edge, mud splattered Georgetown of all places.  For the slow in the head, there is no snow in Guyana, but when the conversation steers to oil, there is Jagdeo taking off on one of his regular around the world sleighrides.  To round off matters, he ensures that he walks with his own PPP-reared reindeers.

Nevertheless, Thursday afternoons at Freedom House with Bharrat Jagdeo in full flow is the place to be, and a delight to absorb.  It may not be an Evening at the Improv, but it will have to do. Neither is it Tony Orlando’s (Dawn) “What are you doing Sunday afternoon” since nobody is getting married in any park.  It is more appropriate to think along the lines of mudslinging, lip synching, and greasy pig wrestling by Jagdeo and it is all to protect the truths about oil (and Exxon) from seeing the light of day.  He shuffles, delivers an endless stream of piffles, and when a truly tough question is directed his way, he starts to sniffle.  Alistair Routledge didn’t provide him with an answer for that last one.  Since Jagdeo had received no script (music sheet) from Routledge, it is usually time for that William Bell chart buster “Bring the Curtain Down” to make its appearance.  Anyone from the media attending one of Jagdeo’s Thursday afternoon’s rock and roll jam sessions, or listening from a safe distance, had better be armoured in their full metal jacket.  It is heavy metal and heavy hitting.  Sometimes I can help wondering, if there is heavy drinking as the prelude.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, bunch, Guyanese, Leaning Tower of Pisa, reinforce

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