Alas! After much anticipation, it is finally here. The baby of my thoughts....I present to you "Fresh~iDea", the now current hub of my graphic design works.

Fresh iDea rose up during my "think-tank" period of tryin' to find a designer identity of which I could and would use as my design medium. I like the idea of fresh iDea as it is self explanatory and that is what i hope to bring to the table, consistently fresh ideas to make a difference within the advertising market. My original name for it tho was simply iDea but when I ran the 'iDea' across my girlfriend she added fresh and thus it became love's brain-child... 'Fresh...'.

For the future I hope to expand fresh (iDea) into other aspects of creativity, of which I will refrain from mentioning here, but all goes well you will be lauded with more 'fresh-ness' in the years to come.

Here's a link to my Fresh~iDea portfolio page, where you will see displays of some of my earliest to most recent works.
[link]

...Sigh...

As I boarded the bus this morning, no thanks to my carpool I had to take the bus... rite, so as I boarded the bus, yuh know the non-JUTC buses that basically do as dem feel.. yep, dem one deh, so I board this almost full/ready bus to hear most of the passengers having a delight, to my discovery, listening to a now prominent talk show over the radio. I found myself a seat where I sat in anticipation for the bus' departure. Not allowing, as I waited I frequently heard outburst from passengers seated behind me and further down, as I was seated up front. Minding my business and not responding to people and what-ever they have to 'chat-bout' I focused my attention out the window, occasionally listening to the talk show as it was hard-to-not-to as the passengers seemed to be enjoying the on-radio discussion.

TIE-ing
The show in question, is no doubt, Jamaica's own "MixUp and Blenda" talk show, the Raga Shanti show, I'm not sure what the name of the show is or if that's even the name, but that's the host. I'm never one for rumours or mix up and always thought that our less-educated Jamaican population is wasting their time with these crap and should find something better to do. Then, occasionally, I am forced to appreciate my Jamaican people for what/who they are and jus' enjoy their joy. So this morning i did just that, I unstuck my nose from in the air and now, more than occasionally, had a listen to the talkshow which now has just about everyone's attention. This mornings' topic; Tie-ing aka Obeah, witchcraft or any such things of the dark arts. So this mornings topic had the bus, mostly the women, up in great outburst of laughter and their various comments.

Shout Out!
This one caller had me occasionally smiling, laughing almost, as she told the talk show host of her experience with a relative who went thru such a Tie-ing ordeal and of herself, who also experienced said ordeal with her once common-law husband. What I found funny, as did most of the passengers, was not what she said in her story, tho the passengers enjoyed every bit of what she had to say, but what amused me most was how the show would stop, as to have a break-down/Bleep, then come back on, only to hear the host requesting that the caller not call any names as the censor would block it out hence the radio going blank. So the radio would go blank almost frequently, as this woman, the caller, would repeatedly utter someone's name in her story and the host, enjoying the story, would ask her to not call anyone's name. So I tried, I tried to snick my nose back up in the air, but the caller had to make me loose it. This came at the end of her story when she requested that she give a 'Shout out!' to her peeps. And so she began giving shout outs, no problem, the bleeping stopped for this section, but the host had asked her to not say 'her name' to this she obviously went unregistered. She completed her shout outs with the out burst of her name and where she hails from and I could not help but burst out in laughter, as was the entire bus, some laughing so hard their face was all wet and tears came from their eyes.

My conclusion to all this... I need a car!

A Light that shone so bright will definately be missed when extinguished.

Since I was in my early teens, Michael Jackson's music has been my inspiration, I learnt how to sing and dance listening to and watching Michael Jackson, He has become a part of my life like my own Brother, maybe the big brother I never had. Every design you see on my page were done with a Michael Jackson song pumping thru my ears, every time I walked a runway or did a photo shoot, the imagery of MJ was present in mind, when I used to sing, it was all under his inspiration.

When the news of Michael's death broke out it instantly reminded me of the time when I almost lost my brother, it was as if the feeling was happening over again. I heard the news in the middle of rehearsal for a fashion show the next day and when it broke out the entire room got dim, people's head limped, my heart sunk, I instantly closed my eyes and muttered a word of prayer cuz at that point we had only heard he suffered a cardiac arrest and was still alive, then less than 10 mins. later they said he was gone. Tears came to my eyes but they never came out. I instantly got this sense of hard-earned freedom, finally! no more rumours. But I was also hoping that this was a rumour, I got up and ran back to my hotel room to see if this is all true and lo on the tele it was on every channel. I wanted to cry, I felt like life was taken for granted and is now lost, I felt like there was no need to do the show the next day cuz my greatest inspiration was no longer among the living.

Never had I felt this way about someone I've only met on the television, usually people on the t.v are never real, simply because they portray a life we all can only dream of, but with MJ it was a life you wished him the best for, he had it all and nothing at all, I felt his pain, the accusations I never believed simply because I never saw it, I cannot accuse a man about something I never saw with my own eyes, 'specially when there's no evidence to back it up. I had sinned so many times in my life, I've fallen so short many a times, I was in no position to cast blame or point finger at another man, just the whisper of a prayer and God's justification is all I can offer.

My own little brother looks up to me, greatly, I am the eldest, fatherless, and the tele was my 'escape'... Bill Cosby was the best father figure I had and he came from the tele. Life is so fragile, a simple breath controls our next step. Michael Jackson was my big brother, he did what I could not, he was kind, caring, a good man, his personal demons were not mine and not mine to bear, I had my personal demons and had to bear them. I'm sure for some of us if we could afford it we would do the unmentionable, maybe worse. In our time of adolescence a lot of things that happen around us can shape what we may do in our adult life, its as if we are reduced to the little sponges we were as children, only in adolescence we can talk back and have a 60% mind of our own.

I listen to his music almost religiously, 'cept sundays, seriously. I envision this man and always strived to be as great as he was, now he's gone and honestly, I'm slowly picking up, life has to go on, we all are going to die someday, God is our only salvation, sinners and non-sinners alike (whoever they are).

These 3 men lived a life that was often questioned by people who never understood them, they all fell short of grace, not man's grace but God's, yet man felt the need to judge them, forgetting what he did yesterday or this morning and pointing fingers at them so he wouldn't have to focus on his own faults.

I dedicate this to 3 of the greatest men the world has ever seen, men who inspired the next generation, men who dared to go against the rules to make a difference. There's so much I can say, but I'll only say this much.

Elvis Presley, Bob Marley, James Brown and Michael Jackson... Thank you men, you've helped shaped a future that will forever be greatful to your works and will someday forget you for who you were and the mystery of the legends will live on. May God keep your souls safe till the day of reckoning. May the works of your hands and the meditation of your hearts be the only words the lord needs to hear. He had always loved you and still does, you were his own. God Bless You and see you when I see you.

RIP Michael Jackson 1958-2009

[link]

been itching to write a entry for quite a while now, jus' got a breather so i figure i could take a shot now. Where do I start... hmmm... lemme start from my birthday in May...that's where it all started...(fade to black)


MAY 23.09
[fade to white]
as per usual, birthdays were never 'the day' to feel like/attempt to celebrate, anyways, I never had the intention to so I don't need to tell bout the insignificance(s).

HUNGRY for CHOCOLATE?
Is there a Cash Pot number for chocolate? I never realized until I wrote it jus' now, how many times i ran into chocolate during the course of that day, most of it good, most of GREAT... ... ... back to earth, but I'll tell of the one occurrence where... OK lemme tell yuh. There I was, my girl and I chilling a bit after spending a long day together we decided to go out and see what the night life is like when I saw this man walking up to me with a bigg grin on his face, so I was wondering "Who dis bredda and why him stepping to me with a smile?", so dude came up and start chattin' as him walk to me, so I tried to hear what him saying, this dude is gonna be like "Somebody lef' dem box a chocolate pon dah car deh (that was at the Stoplight waiting on its green) and mi jus' tek it off, cuz it nuh luk like dem know seh it deh deh... finders keepers yuh zeemi!" so I was like "yeh (watever, stop talking to me now)". Shortly after I see these street-kids, the ones that sell whatever they can to make a buck, bustin' round the corner running like crazy tryin' to catch the car that has the chocolate box on top of it, by this time the light was green and the car was zooming away. So i turn to the man and seh to him that I think the chocolate belongs to those kids, he was like "hmm-mm" with a disappointing look on his face like him don't waan return it to them, so I stood there looking at him, with a look that says "Aren't you gonna give it back?" so he was like Ok, and copped 1 of the chocolates in his pockets and called to the kids who were now walking with their heads down and blaming each other for loosing the box of chocolate, so I was like "this bredda nuh easy!" so he returned the box and the kids ran off to sell what they got. ...

What happened next? ... Days went by, sure lots of excitement occured, but i'll share the highlights.

Caribbean Fashion Week 2009...
Wait! Before CFW, on my birthday, the same day, I got casted to perform in the Caribbean Classic Golf Invitational, where all the Hollywood celebs and A-listers come down to chill and wat-not, I'm jus' working for the big break so pray for me and wish a brother well, the ain't easy but its one road worth walking.

So CFW... preparation for CFW started, it was proving to be a very busy month (June) and I was now in demand to make appearances wherever and photo-shoots and my body was fighting to keep up, not to mention my eyelids. So photo-shoots and fittings and getting kicked out of Hotels... O yeah, I won't name "the hotel" but we got kicked out of a local Hotel, who jus' recently opened and according to intelligence received, it was racial profiling, not spending my money there in the near or far future. Where the heck do you not want to have too many black people in a Hotel, its not the Million Black March! We got kicked out none-the-less and it turned out to be a fun-day, never let the bad get us down, we changing Hotel this time around. CFW... right, hope i don't have anymore tales to deter from what I'm saying . So prep for CFW was under-tow and it was proving to be strenuous, Early rise, arrive at Hotel, wait on Designers, rehearsals, traveling, photoshoots... getting fired!

FIRED!
Yeah, I got fired, my boss, who I'm really tryin' not to call an asshole, fired me! What made it worse and would make me mad is the fact that I had informed him and we had a discussion as to how to make my busy schedule work with getting designs done and we had an agreement/arrangement and it was working, cuz Hey! I was doing the work and making the efforts, I was extremely exhausted but i came in EARLY and got the work done. As was agreed, cuz I'd be out in the afternoons to tend to the prep for the shows. So some crap started to happen @ work round-about the time preps started, but I ignored 'em and focused on work, that's what I'm hired for. My assholes of co-workers were trying in every-strength to 'sabotage' me, never-mind them, I worked. They even made me miss work, you don't even want to know how they did it, but they managed to get it done, I never freaked, not my fault and I jus' chilled. next day boss called me up on "strikes" citing his '3-Strikes' protocol. So i was like OK, so I was by now on 'strike 2' don't know how I got there but that was where I was, I was too preoccupied in the membrane to make a fuss about it. Now Strike 3 came in the form of boss goin' back on our agreement and expecting me to be at the office when its now narrowing down to show-time and things were now tight. Now, don't get misunderstood, I'm a very committed employee, and he has attested to it repeatedly, he's always praising my attitude towards work and ability to get it done effectively and efficiently, never got to my head cuz when I win you a big-dollar deal all I get is a money-grin and and stagnant paycheck, never complained (tho I did request an increase, LOL, whole other story). So Showtime is now in the air, designers and producers are now frantically pulling and making changes and the air was filled with excitement, and I was loft in the bed making Zs. Something happened and I got held up, so I respectfully called the office to let 'boss' know what was happening... and it went like this
"Me: Hello?
Boss: Yes...
Me: Listen, sumting has happened and I jus' wanted you to know I'm running late but I'll be in ASAP...
Boss: tell mi sumt'n, wat happen to yuh yesterday? Where yuh disappeared to?
Me: Uhh... We had an agreement, i come in early, get out my work and I could leave...
Boss: Umm... but, mi nuh understand sumt'n..
Me: I came to you before I left and you looked right thru me and walked away tho I was beckoning your attention.
Boss: but I thought the understanding was... mi nuh understand this!
Me: we sat and talked about this and i sent you an Email outlining the the event and how I would be affected and we discussed a method to make it work.
Boss: listen, this is strike 3 yah man, so if yuh want you can come in and we have a 'rap-up-discussion'
Me: OK... bye."

The prep went on and I was out of a job. What do I do now, no worries I thought, I was exhausted anyways, plus I got another show in less than 2 weeks. So i jammed.

SHOW TIME
it was now show time and we were all backstage fitting and changing to brave the stage of bright and flashing lights. So there I was, having a cup of tea to help brave the cold when my cell rings, looked at it and it was 'Boss' at 7PM in the night.
"Boss: Umm... Mr. Swaby, yuh find a new job man
Me: Hello?!
Boss: Listen, we need to have a talk enuh, I had a chat with my 'management team' and I was advised not to make any rash decision I may regret...
Me: Hello?!
Boss:.. yuh know I've never brought you up on anything, you were always a good worker and I respect that
Me: Hello?! listen, I busy right now, I'll talk to you tomorrow!
Boss: OK, we'll talk tomorrow. [Click!]"

THE SHOW WAS GR8 FUN.

SHOW TIME (DAY 2)
So I was at home waiting on my ride to come pick me up to take me to the Hotel when i saw the 'work car' pull up at my gate, waiting and asking me if I'm not goin' to work.
"Car: Yuh nah gah work?
Me: NO!
Car: Wah mek?
Me: I got fired yesterday!
Car: Wah! Weh yuh mean yuh get fired?
Me: Yeh, dude fired me yesterday, so I not coming anywhere, besides I'm waiting on a ride to come get me now, so if him want me to come in, him affi go call mi.
Car: Alright, do yuh ting.
Me: kool."

20 minutes later I arrived at the Hotel where designers where fitting and in my first fit my cell rang...
"Boss: Yes, umm... look, mi have couple projects weh mi want you to work exclusively on and what went down yesterday should not have happened, and mi jus' waan mi have a sit-down and see how bes' wi can work this out...
Me: Listen, i'll come in for a bit as soon as I'm done here, cuz i want to finish that project which I'd started, so when i get there we talk.
Boss: (with a smile in his voice) kool."

Fitted, went to the office, saw him, nodded, he nod back, went to my desk, finished my design, send to print, job done. Did some drafts for new project. Ride came and was waiting to take me to the venue, have to leave, we'll talk Monday. Alright. Bye.

Today is Wednesday and we still haven't exchanged a word, and quite frankly I don't want to, I am understanding and reasonable, but a boss, who turns back on his word and is man I will never look to lead me or any team I'm on.

Anyone got a job opening? LOL

jus' kiddin'. I'm good for now. But the past couple weeks has been an interesting one and the month ain't done yet, so now I'm prepping for next weeks show. hope I make the final cut. Hard work, but someones' gotta do it.

Thanks for reading. I'm tired, I wanna go home

Bless!

... LOL, Ok, so you might be wonderin' bout that title. Well, its pretty easy to explain, I find it rather funny when I evaluate it myself.

It must've been about 50+ times that I've refreshed my deviant homepage for the day, why? I've done couple designs, but 1 in particular that i'm real excited about [link] so I kept refreshin' hopin' that my "### Messages" status would advance, so i could see who's commented and/or ed my work. I've even deliberately not responded to the few comments I've gotten so I could keep count of the new hits that come in. Well, my fingers have gotten so used to the refresh combination that they jus' do it once I hit my page, without me doin' it deliberately. So people, my designer frens, why aren't we helpin' each other out no more or as often as we used to, where are the oh-so-many critiques and "iLike"-comments that used to be so many that 1 gets excited in anticipation to see what the fellow deviant has written about 1's recent piece or to see who's so respects and Big-ups can be distributed.

MAN WAAN DEM STRIPES ENUH (give me my props*)

Man waan dem stripes enuh, Is it that things have gotten so busy that we have no time to pat a brother on the shoulder? Is it the recent TAXup that has us so distracted wonderin' if people gon' block the route that we take to get home? Or has the Eco-Recess really gotten beneath our skull that we find it difficult to focus on the DREAM, not the competition. and I explain, times hard, tings ruff, so wi cyann badda wid any minor distractions, we have to get that paper, its all about the paper, was that our mindset when we started this game? Was it all about money, or was it for the love of expression, and gettin' a fat bread at the end of the day?

Things will always be ruff and times will get hard as long as we continue to put our trust in the hands of man. The Gov-a-ment (Government*) don't give crap bout poor people or those who struggle, promises are made to be broken, and they always will be. The only being who makes promises and keep 'em is the Ultimate being, the Almighty God. So cast your worries and fears aside, lift your head up, live your life, spend wisely, borrow what you can afford, my advice, don't borrow at all! Save! 10% of income can help in the long-run. SMILE. LAUGH. HAVE FUN, no matter what any1 waan seh (may say*).

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This has been a Public Service Announcement paid for and brought to you by 'Dre Swaby. Have a Good-day - AND GIVE ME MI PROPS/FLOPS!

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*for my non-patwa (non-patois) speaking deviants.