Bob Marley

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         I am up to my neck with astrology books to read. In between I've managed to stress myself out over the current state of affairs. I just finished a book called, 'The Covert War Against Rock', and cried myself to sleep about it. I grew up listening to Bob Marley. It was the '70's and my father, then in his 50's turned me on to the rastaman. At any given time you could hear a variety of music blaring from the Allegro speakers in our front room but on most days it was 'Survival'. My brother came one year for Mardi Gras and had his face painted in reggae colors, he too, had gotten the Marley vibration. Our dog Zydeco was also known as Natasha Dreadalovna, we called her Natty Dread for short. When Marley died in 1981 of cancer, I just assumed it was lung cancer. I was twelve.
         Bob Marley did not die of lung cancer. Nesta, as his mother knew him, was murdered. The blood sucked out of him by the vampires he sang about. Bob Marley's lyrics have always hung around in my head like poetry. His pictures adorn my walls. I left New Orleans like a bat out of hell in an exodus of my own circa 1986. The Allegro speakers had long been stolen by our next door neighbors and my first love had broken my heart. In New Orleans, you 'catch' cancer and that alone was enough to send me searching for a new accent and a broader vocabulary. My father & mother were right behind me hitchhiking across country having left the records behind.
        Well, as it turns out, you do CATCH cancer. My mother caught it from years of being kicked in the gut and Bob Marley caught it from a pair of boots. My mother was misdiagnosed for years and by the time the doctors cut her open it was too late. Nesta's cancer went undiagnosed for years as he filled the airwaves with songs of freedom. He finally slowed down long enough to be treated. Tortured would be the more accurate term. His Nazi doctor let him die a slow death, his CIA mission carried out with a tainted needle that pierced through Marley's starved and twisted gut all the way to his spine.
         I read Alex Constantine's book in one sitting then cried for days. It exposes much of what has gone unpublished. I am not one to put anything past our government but the chapter on Bob Marley floored me. I'm crying now as I type. All Nesta ever did was speak the truth. And he did it so eloquently I keep playing his songs over in my head. "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery," he said, and they cut off his dreads and killed him dead.