Last evening was the opening of an art festival called Kingston On the Edge. Dubbed an ‘urban art festival,’ it kicked off at Redbones Cafe, a cool little club/restaurant almost hidden near the business district. I’d been there once before for a movie screening and loved the open-air feel, the twinkling lights and the enticing smells from the kitchen. We arrived early, thinking we could get in free, but alas, this was not the case. We paid anyway (about $11.00) since we knew the bands would be good. And they were. After getting a seat and looking at the artwork, we were first treated to a spoken word performance from an artist named Inansi (I imagine this is a take-off from the famed child’s icon Anansi). She performed a poem about the current state of Jamaican culture, about greed and hope. After this performance, Addis Pablo (the son of a famed Rastafarian performer Augustus Pablo) performed with a band of seven other Rastafarians (four drummers, a bassist and guitarist I think). They were mellow and soothing and inspiring and definitely very relaxed. Then Suzanne Couch performed. She is a reggae/jazz singer who makes it a family affair, as her husband and daughter were on stage with her. It was a great night and Redbones was packed by the time I left.

Before we entered, however, I got to hear a rant that puts all rants to shame. I think the Jamaicans do ranting the best. We were in the parking lot and a shiny black luxury car pulled up to the gate. There was no more room in the lot but the driver simply did not accept this reality. After telling the guard there was no way he was parking on the street, he peeled away, apparently angry. Then the two guards embarked on a 15-minute rant about how rich people think they are different, how they don’t care about rules, how they are not going to make special arrangements. As one guard put it: Bill Clinton don’t think he gotta wait in line at KFC like everybody else. In fact, there were parking spaces but sometimes I guess people just don’t want to accommodate. In any case, it was an awesome rant that I won’t soon forget.