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To celebrate a family event featuring

A Jamaican menu and three

News stories of 2016,

We invited Lord

Intruder to

Keep us  smiling

Through the uncertainties

Of the coming year on our fragile, fractious Earth.

May peace and love undergird the human family in 2025.

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Christmas Jamboree

Words and Video Below

It was a Christmas Jamboree, Took place in a Ladysmith locality

Repeat

Family from Vancouver and de Island, come together for a celebration,

It was the season for Peace on Earth, And for the great expansion of girth

So we’re singin’

(Chorus)

Eat de oxtail, and goat curry, Fill yu plate and do not worry

Drink yu sorrel but let’s not quarrel

At our Christmas jamboree.

2.

Well Uncle Sam gave us a shock, Selecting a Donald to lead de flock

Repeat

President Elect going to drain de swamp, But on his mouth they should have put a clamp

If we had to choose without de Russian ‘luck’, di Donald we’d select is di Disney Duck

But we’re singin’

Eat de oxtail, and goat curry, Fill yu plate and do not worry

Drink yu sorrel but let’s not quarrel

At our Christmas jamboree.

3.

Oh Canada I do lament, From division and discord we’re not exempt,

Repeat

Rachel want send Alberta crude, To Pacific Coast in a toothpaste tube

Trudeau says to that we are not averse, But others say di pipeline will be our curse.

And we’re singin’

Eat de oxtail, and goat curry, Fill yu plate and do not worry

Drink yu sorrel but let’s not quarrel

At our Christmas jamboree.

4.

Toronto Blue Jays break our heart, By telling us from Edwin we have to part

Repeat

How can Blue Jay fans exist, Without Bradda Edwin on di Blue Jays list?

We go to Cleveland on a Greyhound bus, Get Edwin and him parrot on di bus wid us

So we’re singin’

Eat de oxtail, and goat curry, Fill yu plate and do not worry

Drink yu sorrel but let’s not quarrel

At our Christmas jamboree.

5.

(reprise verse #1)

It was a Christmas Jamboree, Took place in a Ladysmith locality

Repeat

Family from Vancouver and de Island. Come together for a celebration,

It was the season for Peace on Earth

And for the great expansion of girth…

So we’re singin’

Eat de oxtail, and goat curry, Fill yu plate and do not worry

Drink yu sorrel but let’s not quarrel

At our Christmas jamboree.

***

Gallery: Participants to the Christmas Jamboree,

Short History of 2016:

The more things change the more

They stay the same…

Pipe lines, Blue Jays and the Inevitable Freak of History,

Donald J. Trumpstein.

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Use full screen

*

Videography by Deanne and Rob

 Gallery:

Lord Avmercy and the Miserichordes

Perform Christmas Jamboree in front of a packed house (!?)

In Ladysmith, British Columbia

December 29, 2016

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Post Scriptum:

Short History of 2016:

The more things change the more

They stay the same…

Pipe lines, Blue Jays and the Inevitable Freak of History,

Donald J. Trumpstein.

***

A Brief Reflection

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The above ditty borrows the template of Lord Intruder to celebrate a family get together. Lord Intruder’s calypso tune has stayed present in one of the most cherished recesses of the blogger’s brain. The tune has surfaced periodically over the last 65 years as a kind of refresher of my fantasy as a lad of 14 years old to be a singer.  

The blogger owes a debt of gratitude for his “Jamboree”, to Lord Intruder for the repeated use of his engaging melody to express a measure of joy and provide a gesture of social solidarity on 4 occasions in the last 30 years. On one occasion 25 years ago, his melody was the template to a “Girvan Jamboree” which took place in a ‘Kitchener locality’. Talk about cosmic convergences!: here we had a family reunion of some of the Caribbean descendants of a nineteenth century emigre to Jamaica from Scotland at cousin Lisbeth’s Kitchener (Ontario, Canada) family home. Lord Kitchener, decorated British Military hero had given his name to Lord Kitchener (Kitch) the most famous Trinidadian calypsonian of the 1940s through the 1970s. We had in our midst 25 years ago, our cherished Norman, diplomat, statesman and tireless lifelong promoter of Caribbean integration. At that party, Norman was an enthusiastic participant in writing the lyrics to our rendition of “Girvan Jamboree”. Norman and his family would later take up residence in Trinidad and Tobago. Norman was, of course the “Caribbean Man”,  an ideal towards which, in my recollection, the region has aspired since at least the 1950s when Lord Intruder and the other Trinidadian “Lords” put calypso on the world music stage.

Words for the 2016 Christmas Jamboree were provided by the Jamaican born blogger who was smitten by the Trinidadian “Lords”  of the 1950s,  Lord Kitchener, Lord Woodbine, Lord Beginner, Lord Invader and the aforementioned Lord Intruder. The blogger harboured a secret desire to be Trinidadian and to express joie de vivre as it is expressed at Carnival in Port of Spain. For this performance the blogger ducked into a wall closet, removed his calypso shirt from its hanger, dusted off the cobwebs and was instantaneously transformed as Lord Avmercy into the Trinidadian calypsonian fraternity. He was aided enthusiastically by the Miserichordes, a motley collection of people whom he loves.

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