spirit animals, parliament jokes and such..

This all started when we got a new roof on the house. My friend Brad said my crown chakra got upgraded. Actually, it all started in 1994 when I went to a little woo conference in Santa Fe and met Leslie.

I have a few things to confess. Rachel Maddow is my spirit animal. 

Let me back up. When I was a child, my father used to tell me what he called “Parliament Jokes” on the long car rides from school to home in Kingston. Jokes about the fools in government, all the political tribalism in post-Independence Jamaica in the 1960s. He would love how I have evolved the family tradition!

I’ve followed Rachel Maddow since before she was even on tv. She had a radio talk show on Air America back around 2008 and I used to listen in the car on the long rides back and forth to Marylhurst University. Her voice was so clear. Genius. I’ve followed her show on MSNBC for all the years she’s been there. I only wish she would bring back the cocktail moment she used to do at the end of the show on Fridays. Now she’s only on Mondays so I’m in withdrawal but we’re still using the #Maddow hashtag every day.

See, I’m one of a small group of Maddow followers who recognize she’s the smartest voice in political news on tv.  I dropped everything in 2012 to see her speak in person, well not everything because I was going to be in Palo Alto that weekend anyway when she spoke at Stanford to promote her book Blowout. This subculture on Twitter of which I (@LabrishJamaica) am a regular, we tweet throughout the show using GIFS to highlight important points. To give an example last week it was reported on the show that Trump was reading something. So I tweeted a GIF, an image clip from The Office of Steve Carell exclaiming “OH WOW!” and my comment was “Trump can read???”

Straight up evolved Parliament joke!!!

Another segment was some reporting on Trump’s involvement with the January 6th insurrection. I tweeted out “Trump is a conman criminal day 2,567,890” with one of my favorite GIFS – an image of Hawkeye Pierce from MASH holding the hand of a standing skeleton, filing its nails with a look of wry exasperation.  Straight up evolved Parliament joke 2022 edition!

Desmond would be proud. He’s cheering us on from his felucca in the Nile River still flying the Jamaica Flag.

Speaking of Jamaica. I would like to introduce Sebastian Maniscalco’s Sicilian grandfather to my Jamaican grandmother.

Hey, Sebastian, I see you. (Stealth shaman, you)

Genius.

I see what you’re doing out there making people collapse in laughter. Spreading joy.

I see you.

You don’t know me from Adam or Eve, and I’m kind of woo (I’m the woman in Whole Foods buying the Rao’s Sensitive Marinara tomato sauce and the lemon thyme gluten free lingini), but I’m here to tell you, you’re fucking killing it. TALK ABOUT A VOICE WE NEED!!

BRING IT!!!

You talked in your special on Netflix about your Sicilian grandfather with the leg that didn’t work right and nobody talked about it. My Jamaican grandmother had one leg shorter than the other so she walked like she was on a rocking horse. Nobody talked about it.

And wait till you hear about her mother, my great grandmother buried beside a collapsed wall in the 1907 big earthquake in Kingston. Only her arm was sticking out. Damn thieves came by and stole the wedding ring right off her finger…

I see you Sebastian.

You and your big-ass dharma out there spreading joy at a time we need it so bad.

I see you.

My husband was sleeping the other night so I texted him this message:

Exciting news! I got us tickets to Sebastian in San Jose October 1!

(p.s. I didn’t tell him I got the best most expensive tickets. It’ll be our secret.)

Talk about a spirit animal. Stealth shaman. Cleansing all that heavy dense energy. Releasing all that hucha. Spreading joy. Genius.