The following is reprinted with the kind permission of my friend Nola Powers, who in any event is sailing at the moment in the Grenadines on a 45′ monohull manned by an all-male crew and couldn’t care less right now what anybody does with her work. It is based on a true story (“or sort of,” says Nola). It is strongly believed that the rap video in question is the one for Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin”, portions of which were filmed on location in Trinidad during Carnival 2000 (hence the outdated reference to “a $950 costume” – these days you can barely get a costume in a jouvay mud band for that price). The original version of “Stop the Carnival!” was published in The Ticket magazine.

STOP THE CARNIVAL!

This Lent I’ve given up vegetables and exercise. Some of my friends and associates think it’s contrary to the spirit of the season, but after a pre-Carnival dominated by denial, steamed foods and entanglements with weight machines and other instruments of torture, I think it’s the least I can do for myself. In short, my pre-Carnival is pretty much other people’s Lent, if with a slightly less noble goal—i.e. being able to squeeze into my costume on Carnival Monday.

But there was one Carnival a few years back when I didn’t have to worry about fitting into a costume. Up to two weeks before the event I’d been a regular at the gym and observing a dietary regime that would have given a hunger striker cause for concern. Then I get a call from this friend who works in the biz (that’s Hollywoodese for the film business, I think) asking me if I wanted to work on a rap video that was being filmed here over Carnival. Being both Trini to the bone and in possession of a $950 costume, I refused. Then she mentioned an obscene sum of money, plus the fact that they’d reimburse me for my costume. I was on eBay in seconds flat announcing the sale of one Carnival costume, which was snapped up within minutes by a drag queen from Abilene, Texas. And in the space of a pit stop at KFC to rebuild my depleted reserves of saturated fat, I went from mas’ player to a full-fledged member of the biz.

Well, maybe not so full-fledged. I soon learned that I’d been hired not for my way with celebrities but for the fact that I owned a car, which ended up transporting not major rap artists and recording label execs, but boxes of groceries and emergency supplies of masking tape and clothespins (which, as not many people know, they use a lot of in the biz). “Believe me, you don’t even want to meet those people,” my friend said. “They’re a bunch of arrogant, sexist so-and-so’s. You’re far better off in the, er, transport department.”

Carnival Tuesday morning arrived and I still hadn’t come within 100 feet of a rap star. Crawling bleary-eyed to the production office that morning, I’d run into several of my costumed pals, wending their way in jaunty fashion towards King George V Park. “How’s show biz?” they asked. In response I made the cross-armed gesture popularised by Run DMC circa 1989, which is about the most up-to-date piece of urban body language I know (I’d planned to bone up hanging out with rap stars), and which was appropriately ambiguous.
 
That afternoon, however, my big break finally arrived. Somebody handed me a walkie talkie and dispatched me to the Savannah to find the band Poison, whom the director had come up with the bright idea of filming a scene with. Arriving at the Grand Stand, however, about 80% of Poison had already crossed the stage. The 6,000-strong spandexed throng was pouring out on to the western end of the Savannah in jumbled mess, bikinis askew, headpieces discarded, any notion of staying in section long forgotten.

After fiddling with the buttons for about five minutes, I finally got the walkie to work. “We’ve missed Poison,” I yelled to the Assistant Director. “They’ve already crossed the stage!” I heard the AD relaying the news to the director, who cursed and grabbed the walkie. “Well then we’ll just have to get them to go across again!” he screamed. I almost dropped the handset laughing. “Did you hear what I said?” he yelled again. It took me a few moments to recollect myself. “Yes, I heard,” I shouted back, “But that can’t happen.” “And why the *%&# is that?” he yelled. “Because this is not your movie,” I replied calmly. “This is Carnival.”

Leaving the director spewing expletives on the other end, I switched off the walkie and caught a music truck down the road. And that was it for me and the biz.

My only regret is that I’d sold my costume, as the following year the band was charging $1250 for one that was practically identical.