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Mutty Perkins boring, predictable and living in the 1940s
WIGNALL'S WORLD Mark Wignall
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Perkins
Jamaica has the enviable distinction of having one of the most vibrant and free media in the western world. Our two main television stations beam into our homes most of what the US produces in terms of the usual Hollywood fare, which includes movies, sitcoms, soap operas, sports, along with CNN and FOX, two of the giants in news production but sadly, mercenaries where it applies to their political and nationalistic zeal.
We have cable TV giving us everything from US prom night to predictable pornography and then, there is the terrible local cable programming which features poor production of mostly dancehall hype and the cacophony moving with it. Our radio stations give us excellent, perennial features such as Allan Magnus and Dorraine in the morning. Based on the number of years that programme has been running, I swear that Allan Magnus' age is more than the number of bars in the Kingston Metropolitan Area. Dorraine, of course, is 29 forever.
Irie FM broke the rules many years ago with local music and proved quite a few sceptics wrong. Radio Mona has added real diversity and intellectual flavour to information and entertainment. Hot 102 gives us Beverly Manley and Tony Abrahams in their well-connected network of resource personnel and the employment of high-powered journalism.
Hughes
For those on the graveyard shift, there is Hot Talk with Pearnel Charles and Babatunde. On this programme, Pearnel never sleeps, but really, we can't say the same for Babatunde. Antonnette Haughton takes Hot 102 day time talk radio to another level with her feisty approach, multiplicity and unpredictability of her accents and her constant recognition of, and appeals to, God.
Cliff Hughes has the media in his hands. From Impact on Sundays to his weekday, evening programme, Nationwide on Power 106, Cliff pretty much runs the news. He gets it first, reports it before the sharpest hawk in any area of the media and, I have had the distinction (call it honour even) of being asked by politicians to appeal to Cliff not to carry a bit of news because it would affect them strategically. Did I?
At 2:30 pm on Power 106 Tony Laing comes across as plain as day. With Tony there are no grey areas. He punches, jabs, hooks and when he does take a blow, he rarely ever complains.
And then of course, there is Wilmot 'Mutty' Perkins.
Existing somewhere in the 1940s where King George and England imposed their will on colonies on which the sun never set, Mutty Perkins, through his Power 106 radio programme, Perkins on Line, has been stoutly resisting the attempts of people like myself to drag him and his viewpoints into an understanding of the realities existing in the 21st century.
Anderson-Manley
Not that the 21st century has proven itself to be more gentle, civil and livable than the 1940s. In fact, in many aspects of life in the 1940s, a comparison with the present time can easily give one who is old enough the impression that we are now living in a time of coarseness, social decay and anarchy. But the painting can at times be larger than the canvas.
Wilmot Perkins very obviously does not move around the streets of the city and the island of Jamaica as he once did. I have formed this impression from listening to his lack of understanding and appreciation of some very simple social realities of urban living. Last week Friday, he had on his programme one of those voices which resonated with his every breath, guffaw and viewpoint.
The lady who called him was very much an 'uptown suburban' voice, solidly JLP, educated and into 'class awareness'. Perkins was on the subject of the NWC and the cutting off of water supplies. "You know ma'am, I believe that people would much rather pay their water bills than run the risk of having it disconnected." He then went on to make the comment that the real problem is that people cannot afford these bills because of lack of work, affordability and other problems.
Perkins needs to wake up now. There are entire communities of people in Jamaica who utilise 'tiefing' services from the utilities as a first resort. They have jobs, businesses, 'hustlings' and the first priority is, how do I steal some water? can I pay a NWC man a money to slow down the meter? can I get a JPS man to plant a bridge (to half of the house) inside the concrete, behind the meter?
Abrahams
If Perkins was really moving around this country he would have some idea of his influence and his responsibility in dealing with it. While I believe that his talk show has lost listenership over the last five years, there are still significant pockets of persons who listen to him, based on the longevity of his programme.
Another of the main problems besetting Perkins Online is the predictability of the presentation. A loyal listener need not ask 'I wonder what Mutty is coming with today?' No way.
Others call it negativity, but I disagree with them. In fact, I believe that the Perkins approach is that the positive should be taken for granted and the negative should be dealt with head on. But Perkins has allowed his programme to fall into the worse of the worst. Predictability.
'The man who plays by the rules gets shafted', 'Politics is about who gets what, where and how', 'The law is not a shackle'.
On any weekday in any 15-minute slot on his programme, Mutty is using either one of these quotes from Peter Phillips, Maxine Henry-Wilson and Prime Minister Patterson, all PNP persons. In beating up on Jamaica, Perkins adopts the approach that nothing less than orgasmic glee must be applied. 'You mean that was in the days of the wicked white people' he said last week, in one of his sarcastic attempts to compare the British colonial times to Patterson's stewardship. What Perkins was really revealing was his wish for a white steed, his body firmly mounted on it and some lesser beings far from being melanin-challenged feeling the sting of his whip.
In all of last week, I listened on and off to his programme because some persons asked me to listen and comment. From 10:00 am to 10:30 am on average, Perkins depressed me, made my blue skies grey and assaulted his listeners' ears with every plague, flood, hurricane and corruption under the sun. For all of last week, the man indulged himself in an orgy of defeatism and an almost 'desirable hate' for the country of his birth.
In his other role of fifth deputy leader of the JLP with special appointment from Paddington Terrace, Highway 2000 is a mess, an unneeded behemoth, P J Patterson's only success is '************et it', and the glory days of this country were in the 1980s under the stewardship of the very statist Eddie Seaga.
Certainly, I believe a man need not be a rabid nationalist to love his country, but for Perkins - a man of clout and influence - to be constantly on this 'hate Jamaica campaign' indicates to me not just that the free press is alive in Jamaica, but that there are some of us in the media who have not drawn away from ourselves sufficiently to really see ourselves.
When Tivoli Gardens was surrounded by the security forces in 2001 and I spent six hours inside there amid the non-stop gunfire and explosions of RPGs, the first person I made contact with was Mutty Perkins. 'Have you seen any guns?' was the question I was asked by Perkins, an annoyingly naïve man.
Last year, Chupski visited family in the Bronx. One day she and her sister were window shopping and she pointed out to her the mounds of garbage and potholed roads, resembling sections of Spanish Town Road. Another Jamaican, a woman passing nearby overheard her and said, 'Yes mi dear, this is what wi leave wi nice country and come to.'
I have spoken with numerous individuals who have travelled all the continents and they have constantly told me that Jamaica is second to none. Sure, there is the all pressing problem of crime - violent crime - but somehow Perkins, as part of the mix called Jamaica, seems to believe that he can escape some responsibility for our current state of affairs.
I am present here and I must take some blame too, because if there are remnants of civility left here (there is a lot) I am certain that I would want to claim that it was my little input and that of others which led to it.
This country has possibilities. We have bright people here, professionals. The real problem is, we have leeches, in the political parties and in the general population. The bloodsuckers in the political jungle want us to worship them as they steal from us. The parasites in the general population did not educate themselves but they want the Government to provide jobs for them. Mutty's solution is his mantra, 'It's a political problem ma'am'. He may just be right there, but he is predictable and headed fast to being considered boring.
Wignall in one of his balanced, lucid moments.
WIGNALL'S WORLD Mark Wignall
Sunday, June 27, 2004
PerkinsJamaica has the enviable distinction of having one of the most vibrant and free media in the western world. Our two main television stations beam into our homes most of what the US produces in terms of the usual Hollywood fare, which includes movies, sitcoms, soap operas, sports, along with CNN and FOX, two of the giants in news production but sadly, mercenaries where it applies to their political and nationalistic zeal.
We have cable TV giving us everything from US prom night to predictable pornography and then, there is the terrible local cable programming which features poor production of mostly dancehall hype and the cacophony moving with it. Our radio stations give us excellent, perennial features such as Allan Magnus and Dorraine in the morning. Based on the number of years that programme has been running, I swear that Allan Magnus' age is more than the number of bars in the Kingston Metropolitan Area. Dorraine, of course, is 29 forever.
Irie FM broke the rules many years ago with local music and proved quite a few sceptics wrong. Radio Mona has added real diversity and intellectual flavour to information and entertainment. Hot 102 gives us Beverly Manley and Tony Abrahams in their well-connected network of resource personnel and the employment of high-powered journalism.
HughesFor those on the graveyard shift, there is Hot Talk with Pearnel Charles and Babatunde. On this programme, Pearnel never sleeps, but really, we can't say the same for Babatunde. Antonnette Haughton takes Hot 102 day time talk radio to another level with her feisty approach, multiplicity and unpredictability of her accents and her constant recognition of, and appeals to, God.
Cliff Hughes has the media in his hands. From Impact on Sundays to his weekday, evening programme, Nationwide on Power 106, Cliff pretty much runs the news. He gets it first, reports it before the sharpest hawk in any area of the media and, I have had the distinction (call it honour even) of being asked by politicians to appeal to Cliff not to carry a bit of news because it would affect them strategically. Did I?
At 2:30 pm on Power 106 Tony Laing comes across as plain as day. With Tony there are no grey areas. He punches, jabs, hooks and when he does take a blow, he rarely ever complains.
And then of course, there is Wilmot 'Mutty' Perkins.
Existing somewhere in the 1940s where King George and England imposed their will on colonies on which the sun never set, Mutty Perkins, through his Power 106 radio programme, Perkins on Line, has been stoutly resisting the attempts of people like myself to drag him and his viewpoints into an understanding of the realities existing in the 21st century.
Anderson-ManleyNot that the 21st century has proven itself to be more gentle, civil and livable than the 1940s. In fact, in many aspects of life in the 1940s, a comparison with the present time can easily give one who is old enough the impression that we are now living in a time of coarseness, social decay and anarchy. But the painting can at times be larger than the canvas.
Wilmot Perkins very obviously does not move around the streets of the city and the island of Jamaica as he once did. I have formed this impression from listening to his lack of understanding and appreciation of some very simple social realities of urban living. Last week Friday, he had on his programme one of those voices which resonated with his every breath, guffaw and viewpoint.
The lady who called him was very much an 'uptown suburban' voice, solidly JLP, educated and into 'class awareness'. Perkins was on the subject of the NWC and the cutting off of water supplies. "You know ma'am, I believe that people would much rather pay their water bills than run the risk of having it disconnected." He then went on to make the comment that the real problem is that people cannot afford these bills because of lack of work, affordability and other problems.
Perkins needs to wake up now. There are entire communities of people in Jamaica who utilise 'tiefing' services from the utilities as a first resort. They have jobs, businesses, 'hustlings' and the first priority is, how do I steal some water? can I pay a NWC man a money to slow down the meter? can I get a JPS man to plant a bridge (to half of the house) inside the concrete, behind the meter?
AbrahamsIf Perkins was really moving around this country he would have some idea of his influence and his responsibility in dealing with it. While I believe that his talk show has lost listenership over the last five years, there are still significant pockets of persons who listen to him, based on the longevity of his programme.
Another of the main problems besetting Perkins Online is the predictability of the presentation. A loyal listener need not ask 'I wonder what Mutty is coming with today?' No way.
Others call it negativity, but I disagree with them. In fact, I believe that the Perkins approach is that the positive should be taken for granted and the negative should be dealt with head on. But Perkins has allowed his programme to fall into the worse of the worst. Predictability.
'The man who plays by the rules gets shafted', 'Politics is about who gets what, where and how', 'The law is not a shackle'.
On any weekday in any 15-minute slot on his programme, Mutty is using either one of these quotes from Peter Phillips, Maxine Henry-Wilson and Prime Minister Patterson, all PNP persons. In beating up on Jamaica, Perkins adopts the approach that nothing less than orgasmic glee must be applied. 'You mean that was in the days of the wicked white people' he said last week, in one of his sarcastic attempts to compare the British colonial times to Patterson's stewardship. What Perkins was really revealing was his wish for a white steed, his body firmly mounted on it and some lesser beings far from being melanin-challenged feeling the sting of his whip.
In all of last week, I listened on and off to his programme because some persons asked me to listen and comment. From 10:00 am to 10:30 am on average, Perkins depressed me, made my blue skies grey and assaulted his listeners' ears with every plague, flood, hurricane and corruption under the sun. For all of last week, the man indulged himself in an orgy of defeatism and an almost 'desirable hate' for the country of his birth.
In his other role of fifth deputy leader of the JLP with special appointment from Paddington Terrace, Highway 2000 is a mess, an unneeded behemoth, P J Patterson's only success is '************et it', and the glory days of this country were in the 1980s under the stewardship of the very statist Eddie Seaga.
Certainly, I believe a man need not be a rabid nationalist to love his country, but for Perkins - a man of clout and influence - to be constantly on this 'hate Jamaica campaign' indicates to me not just that the free press is alive in Jamaica, but that there are some of us in the media who have not drawn away from ourselves sufficiently to really see ourselves.
When Tivoli Gardens was surrounded by the security forces in 2001 and I spent six hours inside there amid the non-stop gunfire and explosions of RPGs, the first person I made contact with was Mutty Perkins. 'Have you seen any guns?' was the question I was asked by Perkins, an annoyingly naïve man.
Last year, Chupski visited family in the Bronx. One day she and her sister were window shopping and she pointed out to her the mounds of garbage and potholed roads, resembling sections of Spanish Town Road. Another Jamaican, a woman passing nearby overheard her and said, 'Yes mi dear, this is what wi leave wi nice country and come to.'
I have spoken with numerous individuals who have travelled all the continents and they have constantly told me that Jamaica is second to none. Sure, there is the all pressing problem of crime - violent crime - but somehow Perkins, as part of the mix called Jamaica, seems to believe that he can escape some responsibility for our current state of affairs.
I am present here and I must take some blame too, because if there are remnants of civility left here (there is a lot) I am certain that I would want to claim that it was my little input and that of others which led to it.
This country has possibilities. We have bright people here, professionals. The real problem is, we have leeches, in the political parties and in the general population. The bloodsuckers in the political jungle want us to worship them as they steal from us. The parasites in the general population did not educate themselves but they want the Government to provide jobs for them. Mutty's solution is his mantra, 'It's a political problem ma'am'. He may just be right there, but he is predictable and headed fast to being considered boring.
Wignall in one of his balanced, lucid moments.
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