CLAUDIUS vs YASMINE: BLOW by BLOW

In an effort to combat the orchestrated propaganda campaign to embarrass the government, the Senate President and media giant Claudius Francis and the Consular General of the Martinique Mission, Yasmine Walcott, the FLOGG presents the unabridged transcript of the STRAIGHT UP interview on the very expensive mess that is the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

THE FULL DETAILED TRANSCRIPT

CLAUDIUS: Welcome Yasmin. I don’t want to soft-soap you, so I’m just going to get right into it. I’m hearing all kinds of things: visa fraud, racist firings, the zwagification of the entire mission and yet nothing done about Lucian crime in Laba. So I want to ask the question on everyone’s mind. Have you ever met Peter Foster?

YASMIN: Yes. But I was single at the time.

CLAUDIUS: So he showed no interest?

YASMIN: Not the slightest.

CLAUDIUS: Well, I guess, we have to stick to the boring stuff. What the hell is going on over there in the Lucian mission in Laba?

YASMIN: Well, Claudius, there’s this ring of corruption where some people in the ministry and immigration in St Lucia are selling Lucian visas to Haitians so they can use Luci as a back door to enter Laba and by extension, Europe.

CLAUDIUS: No way!

YASMIN: Yes way. I found out about it last year when I came in and I wasn’t about to tolerate it one bit, but the Prime Minister and my foreign affairs minister decided that they were going to go undercover and personally expose  the whole thing.

CLAUDIUS: No way!

YASMIN: Yes way. You should see them in their masks with their drawers over their pants trying to jump into the Fat-Mobile. It’s very cute. Kinda hot, actually. Anyway, they found out that some Lucian in a Haitian Christian-obeah church is working with a pastor to get to the victims to pay EC two grand five a pop for Lucian visas.

CLAUDIUS: And they pay? Eh bien, maybe we should have a Haitian mission instead of a Martinique mission. So about how long is that going on?

YASMIN: About four years, as far as I can tell. There was an admin assistant or something who was warned about it, given a slap on the wrist sometime last year.

CLAUDIUS: Weren’t you on the job last year?

YASMIN: Yes.

CLAUDIUS: So YOU gave her the slap on the wrist and allowed things to continue….

YASMIN: Correctomundo!

CLAUDIUS: That’s not a word.

YASMIN: Stick to the point.

CLAUDIUS: So you found out about it. The prime minister knows about it. The foreign minister knows about it. Someone was given a slap on the wrist. And now, they’re claiming there is some kind of new investigation.

YASMIN: Correct on every point. Except that Alva is the foreign AFFAIRS minister. He’s not the foreign minister. He’s not foreign. Not to us. So he cannot be the foreign minister. That makes no sense.

CLAUDIUS: That really gets on your nerves, eh?

YASMIN: You have no idea. The only thing worse is that LIME Directory where Nina Compton is the Culinary Ambassador TO St Lucia. Is that so? If she’s an ambassador to St Lucia, where the hell is she from? Canouan? The People’s Republic of Alva’s butt? I mean, really, people, y’all should have burnt that directory the minute you spotted the error. That thing is a national embarrassment.

CLAUDIUS: Speaking of national embarrassments, there is much consternation right now about slutty behavior by Lucian diplomats. But first off, I want you to explain to me what an ATM is because I thought it had something to do with banking.

YASMIN: An ATM is when a girl is doing anal with a guy and takes him straight out of her anus and puts him in her mouth. In the bigger context, I don’t think people’s personal lives should be under scrutiny. But at the same time, you can’t expect to be a slut or a drunk or a drug addict and then not expect that to negatively affect how other diplomats deal with your country. I think it’s important for foreigners to respect our diplomats on a personal level and I personally would never slut myself about in diplomat circles.

CLAUDIUS: For realz? Cos, dawg, I’m just being real with you, I heard you was a zwagging, ratty, easy, little jamet in diplomatic circles.

YASMIN: Well, you know, that’s different, because if that was true, I would have slept with all those people BEFORE I was a national diplomat, and actually would have been hired ON THAT BASIS. So what would be an embarrassment to anyone else is actually a plus for me. You see my point?

CLAUDIUS: I see your point.

YASMIN: In the past, Lucians diplomats in Martinique were all about cocktails and cockfights. I aim to change all that.

CLAUDIUS: By making it all about…cocks, tails and cock…? I don’t get it.

YASMIN: Like I said before, my alleged personal propensity for ending up in sexual situations is not a matter for the foreign affairs ministry or the personnel ministry or the prime minister. As long as I maintain my honor and integrity and nobody is talking about me like I’m some kind of dumb whore….

CLAUDIUS: Cough! Cough!

YASMIN: What? Are people talking about me?

CLAUDIUS: No, dread….I just…(ahem, cough, cough…)

YASMIN:  What are they saying?

CLAUDIUS: I don’t think they’re saying you’re a ‘ho’, per se. I think they’re concerned about the amount of time you spend gardening.

YASMIN: Gardening?  Oh…

CLAUDIUS: Tell me about the Lucian crime crisis in Martinique.

YASMIN: Oh my God, Claudius, this thing is a public relations nightmare. Some people try to play it down as though, ‘Well, most Lucians are law-abiding and only 10% of the Martinique prison population is Lucian.’ But dread, to me that’s a disaster. It feels like every time you hear about crime in Laba, a Luci is involved. We’re like the Jamaicans, or the Nigerians of Laba. Even the Haitians, who are poorer and lived a much harder life, have no bad reputation for gangsterism like us. Some people might want to sweep that under the rug. But not me. Not Alva Baptiste. And certainly not Dr Kenny Anthony, who by the way, I might like to have sex with, if I was some kind of adulterous whore, but never will because, ladies and gentlemen, Dr Kenny Anthony is a man who would never cheat on his wife. And if he did, he certainly wouldn’t do it with a diplomat or a senator, but with a good country girl, just like Compton would.

CLAUDIUS: TMI, yo. TMI.

YASMIN: I thought we wuz trying to keep it real, you know what I’m saying, dog?

CLAUDIUS: For real, dog.

YASMIN: So like, instead of just trying to cover up, I think we need Lucians in St Lucia to know more about what Lucians in Laba are doing. We need more media coverage of Lucian crime in Laba for us to start to get real. And I’m going to facilitate that, providing as much information as I can. We need to highlight the good too. But I think it’s important, at this time, to emphasize the bad, so we can see how Lucians really look to people watching French evening news. It’s a horror story. Never something good.

CLAUDIUS: So I guess you’re always up and down in the courts and the prisons over there, gathering data, so we can analyze the situation in a serious, social scientific way?

YASMIN: Huh?

CLAUDIUS: You does check on the Lucian prisoners and their cases?

YASMIN: Who me? Boy, you mad! You want me to go among these people? They don’t even wear deodorant. They could be contagious. I don’t want to catch what they have. I always say, if a lady must smell like a filthy man, she should at least have the decency to smell like a filthy, rich, white man.

CLAUDIUS: So who’s checking on that Lucian crime situation?

YASMIN: Send Chazi. All he have doing is bringing a bunch of artists back and forth to win regional contests on international television. Oh and the damned architects and cultural whatever. What a waste. Crime is a cultural problem anyway. Send Shazi. All these criminals are all Roots Tafarian vegetable heads, just like him, anyway. Maybe if he does a good job, I’ll stop lobbying to get him fired.

CLAUDIUS: For real?

YASMIN: No. Come on, man. What kind of person do you think I am? I’ll never stop wanting Chazi fired. Take a freaking joke. Geez!

CLAUDIUS: What’s up with that janitor you fired? Is she really too fat, black and ugly to be around your children?

YASMIN: She fat, black and ugly for true. But that allegation of racism is spurious. Let us remember that not only are the words black and ugly usually synonymous in a non-racist way, but – and this is important – I would never fire someone for being grotesquely repulsive or naturally inferior to me. I am NOT the kind of person to take advantage of the eugenically challenged. To understand my situation in all of this people really have to try to be understanding and take everything out of context. If they just keep putting things in context all the time, that's just prejudicial against me. So really, I am the victim of racism here.

CLAUDIUS: Not to mention that you, yourself are black.

YASMIN: Not really. I read this book a long time ago that said ethnicity is a choice. So I made the right choice, if you know what I mean. And I encourage every lighter skinned person of color to do the same.

CLAUDIUS: Well, it would be remiss of me not to mention that you are putting on some weight.

YASMIN: Now you’re just being mean because you can’t pass for mixed. It must be frustrating to be a black man with no one spreading stories about the magnificence of your penis….

CLAUDIUS: That was below the belt.

YASMIN: Do you really think I’m getting fat?

CLAUDIUS: You’re multi-lingual.

YASMIN: I am.

CLAUDIUS: On your resume it says you speak several languages fluently including English, French and Moon Martian.

YASMIN: That is correct.

CLAUDIUS: How is your kweyol?

YASMIN: My what?

CLAUDIUS: Your kweyol?

YASMIN: What’s that?

CLAUDIUS: Are you concerned about the lawsuit that the fat, black Lawrencia woman is bringing against you?

YASMIN: Not at all. She's suing the government. If she wins, I don't lose anything. VAT will pay for dat.

CLAUDIUS: Well, that’s all the time we have for today. Thank you for joining us. Yasmin, thanks for being here. I look forward to our next encounter.

YASMIN: Let’s do it. Any time you ready, I ready.

CLAUDIUS: For real? No, wait, what are we talking about doing?

YASMIN: I don’t know. Whatever.

CLAUDIUS: So, like…ok…cool…I need to stop to get some prophyl….

YASMIN: You’re not going to be needing no ’doms, dude.

CLAUDIUS: Gulp.

YASMIN: I’m going to eat you alive…

CLAUDIUS: Mommy…

And that was what actually happened in the interview between Claudius and Yasmin. Honest. Frank. Brutal.

What…?

What’s that you say? That’s not how it happened? Claudius really did soft-soap Yasmin and help her dodge any meaningful questions from callers…?

Essiay…

What show was I watching on HTS that Friday morning?

Richard Frederick is right, after all. It seems I’m smoking crack for true.