I must be getting old.
Lately I’ve been taking to these Anthony Bourdain shows on CNN where our hero visits the most exotic corners of the world, Fiji, Hong Kong, Brazil and tries out their most exotic cuisine, savoring all those various delicacies which we get to enjoy vicariously on the other side of the TV screen.
So imagine the rush I got when I heard that Bourdain was coming to visit Jamaica.
What delightful foods would he reveal and what spots would he choose?
But this episode was something totally different.
Quite a deviation from his usual pieces, Bourdain spent most of his time in Port Antonio and Oracabessa and produced an uncharacteristic episode.
Yes, there was the usual food but this time he didn't focus on that at all…..He spent most of his time talking to people about the direction in which he thinks Jamaica is being run.
Why did Bourdain spend so much time showing us how he was hosted at Trident? (the sole guest), The castle, the strange party, the strange dinner with powerful white men and their silent Jamaican born wives.
The interview with Chris Blackwell, the James Bond references, Carl Bradshaw and the fishermen on James Bond Beach being told to shut up in front of the cameras.
Bourdain shows us the two halves of Jamaica, the stark polar chasm of economics , wealth and power that defines us between the few who have and the vast majority who have not.
As usual it takes an outsider to show us whats wrong.
He shows us how we are losing access to our beaches, that those few mega rich people are gobbling up all the beachfront properties and closing off our access to even view the vistas in our own homeland.
It took me a third viewing of this episode to appreciate why Bourdain decided to craft the show in this manner instead of his usual treatment.
He sums it up in the last few seconds of the show when he said its really the bad guys who will end up being able to enjoy these vistas, being able to lie in a hammock and plot the takeover of the world. He’s clearly referring to the government and the few big men who control Jamaica.
Bourdain has done us all a favor.
Remember it wasn't Jamaicans who ended the Ponzi schemes that debilitated and impoverished thousands of us here, it was the Americans.
Were it not for the good old USA, several criminal elements would still rule their various domains over here.
So even though Bourdain didn't expose our cuisine too much this time around, I suspect he has done us a bigger favor by showing us whats really wrong with our Paradise.
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