Long Walk to Freedom Highlights

20190317_010332 Born in the year of ‘TilShiloh, Buju Banton’s first album released after his conversion to the Rastafari faith, Buju is the reggae legend whose success story my generation has had the honour of witnessing. Us younger folks didn’t grow up under the likes of Bob Marley and Dennis Brown. We grew up instead knowing that life’s Not an Easy Road and learning how to walk like a Champion. Another ghetto youth who showed us that hard work and dedication to one’s craft can elevate one from poverty, Jamaicans everywhere felt disappointed when we heard the news of Buju’s USA DEA charges for conspiracy to distribute and possess cocaine in 2009, especially given that we crooned the lyrics to Driver three years prior. Seven years, nine months and sixteen days later Jamaica was ready to forgive its Prodigal Son, even if his opening act hadn’t been on bended knee…

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Bailey

Dogs ❤

The Byronic Man

When I found Bailey at the pound, he was so malnourished that the Humane Society mis-identified him as a hound dog – just a depressed pile of bones and droopy skin. He could only walk about 15 feet at a time before he’d need to stop and rest for a moment.

Then, as we fed him and exercised him he grew. And grew. I went from being able to pick him up and put him in the back of the car to, well, having to just swear at him helplessly if he didn’t feel like getting in. This was 12 years ago. He’d eventually get to about 150 pounds, almost no fat. His dog bed was a twin mattress.

He was never an easy dog. Not even the rosiest of glasses could paint that image. He was protective and bad with strangers and would shed baffling amounts. More than once…

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Talkin’ Funny: Louisiana Style

KEN WHEATON

“Mais, yall come see my new tricycle, cher!”

I must have been 17 years old before I ever uttered the phrase “come here.” And I did so only to make myself understood to what I thought was a somewhat dense Northerner, a Long Islander who couldn’t understand basic English.

In my part of the world, in South Louisiana, for some reason or other, we never said, “come here.” Instead, we said, “come see.” Always and forever, with no confusions or misunderstanding.

Yet the very first time I said “come see” in Southampton, New York, in the fall of 1991, the response was — well, I don’t have to tell anyone who wasn’t raised in Louisiana what the response was.

Me: “Come see.”
Friend: “See what?”
Me: “What?”
Friend: “Come see what?”
Me: Pause. Thinking. “Uh. Come here?”

And thus I switched from “come see” to “come here.”

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Don’t Cry for Messi, Argentina

BEACON MAGAZINE

by Shayda Abazari (new addition to the Beacon staff)
graphic by Savannah Tate

My Dearest Argentina,

Guess who?! It’s your favorite national fútbol team captain! Okay, so maybe not favorite. We may or may not have lost the final match of a little tournament known as the 2014 FIFA World Cup to Germany on Sunday, but it’s not as bad as it sounds, I promise! Let me explain.

In my defense (no pun intended), the whole “losing the World Cup” thing was really just a misunderstanding. See, I figured since our team had done so well in the semi-finals using our infallible strategy of not letting the ball touch the net until the start of the penalty kicks, why bother to change our ways for the final? When I pointed this out to Coach Sabella, he was totally on board, and, by the looks of the first 113 minutes…

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