Soca hangover

Slowly ramping up to regular bloggy activity again, having missed all the politrix excitement (Daddy Yankee's McCain endorsement, the tiro-por-la-culata Tina Fey VP pick, Gustav's still-damaging near-miss, etc.).

Went to the West Indian Parade yesterday, and to J'Ouvert in the wee hours for what I confess is the first time ever, with some excellent company: Wayne, Boima and Joe.

Wayne was disappointed in the lacking Jamaican representation, as was I. Jamaicans may win Olympic medals by the barrelful, but Trinis owned Brooklyn's version of carnival (despite t-shirts boasting that Jamaicans, Bajans, Grenadians, and so on, did).

To my mind, the Haitian contingents were the liveliest -- not just because Wyclef seemed to emerge from the crowd to jump atop some studio-apartment-sized speakers. The fast-fast compa, fortified with more blips and loops than a robot conversation, got all my mid-section Hispaniola solidarity going.

The Grenadian contingent was surprisingly large, both at J'Ouvert and the parade. There seemed to be thousands of red-yellow-green flags waving. Amazing, considering that only 7,205 Grenadians immigrated to New York between 1990 and 2000, and they don't even crack the top 40 immigrant groups to the city.

In the merch front, all the Obama stuff was really quite heartening (as Joe commented, "he's clearly got the foreign vote sewn up.")

[pan-Caribbean wristbands pix by moi] (I'm having technical difficulties posting photos)