Tripwolf Blog

New York City, USA

I left Kingston as soon as possible after narrowly surviving the biggest shake down attempt of my life at Anchor Studios.  In the five days since my arrival in the Jamaican capital, I had used the guesthouse as my home base; conversing, interviewing, playing my guitar and waiting for appointments that I hoped would provide information. It was here that I met Selaissie, a Rastafarian from Robin’s Bay who was down in the city escorting a lady friend to the airport for her flight home.  Our rooms were stifling and cell-like, so we spent the afternoon of his departure hanging out together—me resting after my trip in from Puerto Rico, and him waiting for the hotel staff to enforce their 12:00 checkout policy.  As we got to know each other, Selaissie began to tell me his story.

He grew up poor on the streets of Kingston, never knowing his father, but had managed to escape, and now lived a quiet life out in the countryside.  He told me about his place up in St. Mary Province, that he had built with his own hands, and it sounded perfect to my weary nerves: no electricity, no traffic, no tourists.  According to his descriptions, there was just ocean, peaceful green landscapes and the occasional thunderstorm.   He invited me up as soon as my business in town was finished, and I told him I would be there before the weekend.

I had been traveling for five weeks when I met Selaissie, and during that entire time, this documentary project dominated the course of my thinking, almost like a mantra.  “The project,” as I repeated to myself hundreds of times, was all that mattered.  Even when pondering the most mundane details or errands, I would habitually ask myself which option would yield the greater benefit for my endeavor (white shirt or brown shirt; still camera or camcorder; both?).  I can’t say why my negative experience with the Kingston musicians finally made me see the folly in this line of reasoning, but somewhere along the line, the project had become like a mirage. Every time somebody asked me what I was doing down in the Caribbean, I would give a different answer.  Usually it was something about “research for a documentary on the region’s culture and history,” but the words were now ringing hollow.

The one common theme I had encountered during my island-hopping journey through one of the world’s richest musical melting pots was homogenization, and it bothered the hell out of me.  Each stop on my tour left me with a stronger certainty that the region’s soul was slowly eroding into a sea of overproduced, heavy beats and misogynistic lyrics. By this point, I didn’t know if I was more concerned with the past or the present, and didn’t know if I was still interested in making a documentary or just telling an as-yet-unknown story.  When I woke up the next morning, instinct was telling me to get out of town, so I made one last stop at the Edna Manley library to pick up a DVD copy that Derrick Johnston had promised me, and then set out with all my gear for Robin’s Bay.

Life at Selaissie’s place wasn’t easy; since he was technically a squatter, who moved onto land that nobody wanted and built himself a life up from the soil, there wasn’t much in the way of amenities.  He lived on a steep, rocky hillside overlooking the coast, and his walkways were thick with sharp stones and tree roots that wreaked havoc on my sandaled feet.  There was no electricity or bathrooms, and all the water we drank had to be carried in from town.  The stilted guest cottage where I slept had a roof and a wooden floor, but only one wall—and no bed. Selaissie gave me some blankets and a thin pillow, which was all the bedding he could spare, and apologized for the sparse accommodations.  He had invited me in earnest, and seemed genuinely glad to have some company up in his retreat, but was unprepared for my visit.  It was now clear that when we said “See you soon” back in Kingston he never expected to see me again.  But I was right where I wanted to be, so I brushed aside his concerns  and headed towards his orchard to find some palm leaves for a mattress.  As I trod up through the rich, grainy brown soil, Selaissie called after me “Use banana instead!  And dry ones are better…less insects, mon!”

In spite of all this, there were many advantages to my Robin’s Bay detour: the guest cottage provided me with stunning views of the Caribbean, and I got to fall asleep each night listening to a melody of crashing surf, gentle breezes and the low steady noises of a forest in motion around me.  Breakfasts consisted of fresh mangoes and bananas picked off the ground, while lunch and dinner came from the sea.  In the spaces between our meals, I largely kept to myself while Selaissie tended to his chores.  During the long hours of solitude, I had time to reflect on all that had happened since I left New York.  My adventure was nearing its end, and it had been nothing at all like what I anticipated.  Flying into the Caribbean with no plan, only a ticket in and a ticket out, I experienced a run of luck that could make any cynic believe in the powers of fate, yet also felt strangely unfulfilled.

There were no great answers, no “Aha!” moments that came, just a vague sense of accomplishment and the hope that I would somehow be able to do it all again.  By the time I left Selaissie’s for Montego Bay and my flight back to New York, I had made peace with these anxious sensations.  The story I found did not turn out to be the happy, never-ending musical party fable that I hoped it might be, but it was a story worth telling, because it made me understand how universal the power of music is.  Pursuing this story allowed me to experience first-hand how, regardless of our color, wealth or nationality, music connects us to our past, enlivens our present, and provides the rhythm for us as we march ahead to our common future.