Quote:so what Trini style should this be categorised ?
[size=12pt]Up until today, there have always been three categories of Trini. Category 1 is the least common variant. These are Trinis of a kind and caring disposition, who only occasionally mock others, and always in an affectionate manner.
A category 2 Trini is much more common. Adept at tomfoolery and jackassery, these Trinis are skilled at mischief. But it is a mischief purely for the sake of mischief, lacking the political consciousness of a category 3 Trini.
A category 3 Trini is the strangest Trini, and differs from a category 2 Trini in only 2 respects: it channels its mischief toward political ends (usually the genocide of all Guyanese) and puts aside the Trini's natural fondness for sleep, rum and doubles in favor for a quest for personal mastery (master of a specific field, aesthetic pursuit, the physical body etc etc).
But Darren Bravo embodies a new blend of all 3 previous categories; he epitomizes a kind of half-assed politicism ("I hate my boss!"), half-assed personal mastery (a declining batting average), and half-assed mischief ("I didn't tweet it!"). In this respect, Bravo represents a very new - and dangerous - type of postmodern Trini.
If Bravo were a classic "mamaguy" (from Spanish "mamar gallo", "to make a monkey of"), he would have proudly dissed Cameron to his face. Witness how Denesh Ramdin, a classic category 2 Trini, simultaneously dissed King Viv and the Queen's English ("Talk Nah Viv"). This was proud, joyous Trini behaviour.
Conversely, if Bravo were a classic category 3 Trini, like Stokely Carmichael, the Trinidadian activist who practically started the black power movement in the United States (it took a Trini to teach black Americans how to annoy Uncle Sam), or Shivnarine Chanderpaul, a Trini (DNA testing confirms this) who achieved Zen mastery, he would have fashioned both his body and mind into serious tools.
But no, in seeking to be all Trinis, Bravo has flooded his veins with too much Trini. These are contradictiory qualities which no mortal Trini can sustain. And so Bravo types delicious crap, but can't maintain it for more than 140 characters. He bats sexy, but can't sustain it above a 30-something average. He disses his boss, but remains quintessentially bourgeois. In a sense, Bravo is a jackass of all trades, and a master of none. And this is a dangerous thing, because at the very least, a Trini should pride himself in the mastery of jackassery. For jackassery is always a revolutionary act, either when aimed at a wholly absurd cosmos - a universe whose malevolence and absurdities the Trini defiantly parrots back to the heavens - or when aimed at goofy idiots like Cameron. But Bravo refuses to take up this sacred mantle.
And so, in retrospect, the most Trini moment in West Indies cricket was not Lendl Simmons and his sex tape (in bedding Miss Ho, Lendll maintains the Trini tradition for cunning wordplay), or Sunil Narine's masterful transformation into a T20 opener (more Trini wordplay: Narine, named after Gavaskar, unleashed his secret T20 powers on Indian soil), or Phillip Simmon's genius ploy to get fired as WI coach after collecting his pay cheque, or Pollard and Dwayne Bravo's Indian walkout, or Ramdin's placard, or Darren's tweet, or the Lara mafia's attack on Shiv's record, or...well, we could go on and on with Trini examples, because Trinis always go on and on...
No, the greatest Trini act in recent times was Darren Sammy's dissing of Cameron in front of the whole world immediately after winning a second World Cup. That is true, righteous Trini behaviour.
Speaking of Trini behaviour, let me tell you about the time...[/size]
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