Bobiesingh yuh see yuh name deh ?

There is no explanation needed here other than not seeing your name written in chalk on the expel board. In many rural bars across Trinidad and Tobago, misbehaving patrons will be barred from entering the bar if their names are listed

A blackboard in a decrepit building, San Fernando,Trinidad.

Dilapidated Nelson Street

This building shows it all, between progress and neglect. In the heart of the Capital, Port of Spain, Trinidad, the dilapidated building is situated on Nelson Street and once had pride as a Bar. The wall signs surrounding the lower structure are painted with great care. From the left to right, Carib, Malta, Coca Cola and Royal Stout.

The signage has stood up over years of neglect.

No Obscene Languge

In most Bars across Trinidad and Tobago, yet the rule is often broken by their customers.

In the study of etymology, the word Fock is a Swedish dialect meaning (Totee) which means penis in Trinidad and Tobago. The origins of Fuck is derived from the Germanic language.

Lost dreams to family obligations

She says it with great sadness that her true calling was to paint. Then, obligation stepped in a put a stop to it. Yet, in this quaint bar near Chaguanas, Trinidad, West Indies, two oils paintings are part of the All Fours rooms # 3 and # 2 respectively. They show a Trinidad that once was with the depictions of cattle and Tapia houses set over fifty years ago. The artist is unknown but he was once part of bar’s beginning.

That was then, this is now, and with the family obligation to carry on the bar, to served the regular drunks and combat the bandits at night, she allows a small part of her dream. Behind the heavy curtains and towards the wall, two dusty scenic landscapes are painted of a place that seems quite foreign, but rendered in a childlike matter.

A proprietor of a bar in Chaguanas, Trinidad, West Indies. To the left, the bar’s regular customers having a drink, bright and early on a Sunday. Oils, painted on wood.

Tapia is a mud dwelling with a thatched roof

Martins at School Street Carenage

A old bus as a Bar, Martins near School Street, Carenage

Since Eric Willians, sometime in the 1960s, Martins has been in operation. The owner, a quaint hostess describes the place as a tourist attraction but not as one of the more popular bars from Carenage. It is of cause a converted bus with red seats that run along the side. The large port windows are burglar-proof in the shape of hearts and wrought iron chairs covered with red upholstery are set along black tables. Christmas lights loop from post to post, and the interior of bus is decorated with an assortment of newspaper clippings and pinups of popular local celebrities.

Today, the bar has its regular customers just after a laborious day of construction. Three middle aged men sit and discuss about owning a piece of land, and about its importance. Money could done, but land remain for generations. They speak about education, and fondly of Eric Willians, the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago still believing he is alive somewhere.

Whores in paradise ?

Chinee man does lick down man to find it

Behind this black door with the lettering clearly marked in English, "The Management Has The (Rights) To Refuse Admission”, you asked yourself, refused? And why a metal door with a peep window? What really goes on inside.

"Caribbean isle Restaurant and Bar" is located in Woodbrook, Port of Spain. If you pass late at night on Wrighson road, you may see a few cars parked in front the entrance, and oddly enough, groups of Chinese seamen who linger in front and who are determined to utter the their best English through the small port window to the bar bouncer, the keeper of the gate. Caribbean Isle is quite a stretch to walk from the wharf in the heart of the capital, yet these men get to urge to find themselves there. Then you say to yourself, "Dem looking for a bull".

Many years ago, thebookmann ventured into this quaint and quite ordinary bar, men sat cordially at their tables and caually chatted with a female guest or two. Yet there seemed to be an unwritten rule of other pleasurable items on the menu other than the taste of a beastly cold Guinness.

Local sex antidotes: To get a woman horny, let her drink a hot Guinness.

By my rules

This is Liz and Lincoln's mini mart located in Aranguez, Trinidad and Tobago. Liz and Lincoln have strict rules laided out for their customers by a permit painted in a decorative script. Around the curb where the building is located, a hand painted posting reads; No Liming (loitering) No smoking (we are speaking of weed here) and No sitting which may be directed to vagrants who may just want to rest or sleep on the pavement close by.

The mart has an unusual wall painting of a relief stone wall. Generally, the stones are varnished once they are set in the concrete, but the artist has reproduced the facade (two-dimensionally) in a lime green palette. The lion is the emblem of the store which may indicate that both Liz and Lincoln are Rastafarians. See another Rastafarian wall painting in the same vicinity as thebookmann's header -thebookmann

Maneater and Punch Girls

Lisa Brice's interpretation of a wall painting from a Bar in Grande Riviere, Trinidad

Grande Riviere is a quaint village at the eastern tip of Trinidad, West Indies, and something very special happens each year on its sandy beach.

From the ocean, they ascend to the surface like pre-historic creatures with their large flappers to penetrate and propel them unto the sand to find a place to nest. And guided to these shores by instinct and the luminance of the moonlight. She has returned as her ancestors before her have done for millions of years to her place of birth. And here on this small rim of beach her duties begin. Digging and weak by the strain of laying her eggs she is at the risk of been attacked by the knifes of poachers. For those spared from pots of soup, fresh repetitive sand impression like large tire tracks work their way towards the sea, soon erased by the tumble of waves that creeps up to the surf…….The leatherback turtle.

Within the boundaries of Grande Riviere there are the odd shops and recreational bars that cater and entertain the local folk and foreign visitors. To enter such an establishment, visitors must abide by the rules of proper etiquette. Clearly placed on the walls are painted signs that read; “No Obscene Language,” or “No Bare-Backs.” But accompanying these "strict restrictions" there are a few un-strict wall drawings that aid to arouse or break the will of men. Drawings taken from the front pages of the local tabloid called the “Punch.” Scantly newsprint pin-ups, ‘Punch-Girls” as they are called, posing "Womanly" with their bosoms exposed and matching in full roundness to their plumpish figures. And here, at Guy’s Bar, a finer captivating curved shaped specimens are painted on the elongated wooden panel against the white decorative blocks. A series of playful “Nice-ness,” to lure and tantalize the “All Fours” card-playing patrons inside with immeasurable fantasies.

A series of playful “Nice-ness,” painted on boards But do all Grande Riviere men behold women in the same way? Across the street to the second bar, here is no less of a pleasurable tale. This is an execution from an emotional juncture. As though dictated from a psychiatric bench belonging to the bar owner, a large wall is dedicated to a life-size painting of a woman that translates visions of discontented. This is a tale of entrapment, of a black spider (the owner himself) and a widow poised with her back towards her audience in spectacle of her next menacing move। Leaning into her silky web she reveals the male misfortunes ahead and arguably, her face is disfigured by the wicked pre-meditated motives to tangle and castrate, the mislaid, the unknowing and ultimately to suck-dry at a man’s worth and vitally। “This is what women do to men,” says the owner behind the bar। A commissioned work that displays a drawing skewed to misalign proportions। What secrets are locked behind this congealed stare, this broad spotted panty wearer and ice-pick holding man-eater? - thebookmann .........................................................................................................................................................................

Adele's Man eater

One of the underlying issues of the bar is the availability or promise of the possible in the drawings of the nubile, sexy young women on the walls followed by the contrast of the ‘spider woman.’ It is as if to say, here young men, women are a joy, but understand that there is another path as well. We live in a macho society but ultimately men all know that ‘"woman is boss." - Adele