Sixty-three Going on Fourteen

A lot of love 

This is the eighth episode in the Reggae on the River, 2016, Chronicles, a vapid exercise in verbal flatulence, on the part of the delusional author. This scintillating account will leave yawning for more. Er, correction, yearning, that was “yearning” for more. 

Sixty-three Going on Fourteen

There must be something in the water, sorry Coleman Hell, to explain why I keep tripping over my tongue as of late. I’ve wracked my brain for some other explanation that makes any sense whatsoever, for how I could look right into the face of a former student I was immediately able to identify, and call her by the wrong name.

OK, granted I have only seen her once or twice in the past fifteen years, give or take a minute or two, but that should not make any difference at all, unless there actually is something in the water. Hell, even if I had managed to come up with a “Suzy” or a “Sally,” I could still have saved face, but no, I called her by her sister’s name. Arrrrrgggghhh!

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“Dakota,” she gently corrected me, and I felt as though I were 63 going on fourteen. I was back in eighth grade again, trying to figure out after the fact, why my tongue goes out for a quick bong rip, every time I have to connect a face right in front of me, with a name.

The correct name, I should amend that to read. After all. if it were just any name, I would’t be feeling like such an idiot.

The best I could do was mumble something semi-coherent about at least now having a topic to write about in the morning. In adding that I found it healthy to poke fun at myself, I couldn’t help but note that I got a lot of practice.

Thursday night Reggae on the River rocked. If I said it once, I prattled on about it a half-dozen more times to make sure I had gotten my message across: It does not matter who is on stage here on the Eel River, the music is going to stir one’s soul. 

In my inaugural ROTR a year ago, I made no bones about the fact that I came to see Stephen Marley. I went so far as to assert that he-and he only-was the one single artist on the planet that could entice me to venture out into the Great Unknown.

It did not hurt last year’s cause to also be able to take in Stick Figure, Alborosie, Collie Budz, and many others. This year’s lineup, by contrast, has only two artists with whom I am familiar, and one of them presents special problems in trying to enjoy his talent, due to his controversial music.

It mattered not Thursday night, as I had suspected it wouldn’t. From Jah Sun to New Kingston (!) to Protoje wrapping up the show, the bowl filled with revelers, was hotter than the bowl of Sour OG/Sour Band I was nursing, its cherry glowing merrily in my glass SF Giants pipe.

Night life

In point of fact, there is nothing “controversial” about this artist’s music, because violence advocated against any person or group, is simply unacceptable. This particular artist, being of Jamaican extraction, dislikes gay and lesbian folks.

He is what we call in the vernacular, a hater.

No, the controversy does not lie with his music, it stems from this particular artist being invited to perform at the iconic ROTR in the first place. Are you out of your fire-trucking mind?

I might have thought that NorCal, generally considered a conscientious global community, had an enlightened enough mentality to be more selective in creating a lineup-much more selective. With the wealth of talented artists available, why invite a man who has a well-established track record of spewing hatred and bigotry?

There is too much love at ROTR to accommodate a platform of hatred. It's like trying to put a round peg into a square hole. It's like trying to fire up a doobster, after it gets dropped into the water.

The only possible value that I can see emerging from this situation, is that people are continuously striving to recognize when something is patently not right, and doing something about it. 

If it is “not right,” then it must be wrong; and if it’s wrong, then it’s up to us to correct it.

Tomorrow: Much respect