“If your hair is purple, you wear a lot of Goth jewelry, and you prefer the ring of gunshots in the club rather than the beat of kettle drums, this vacation is not the spot for you.” –Stefon, Club Kid, Saturday Night Live
This sweet retreat has 5-6-7 or, at least, these many story lines. One about a hunky black athlete (Thomas Q. Jones) and an aging starlet (Melanie Liburd) who eats like a piglet. One about a girl (Herizen Guardiola) who doesn’t want to exchange the plush grass of an island beneath her bare feet for an Ivy League education growing in the middle of the pissy concrete jungle of New York.
There are even drugs—but don’t you for one second blame the black guy with the skinny dreads hanging like moss from the weeping willows. On this island, there’s even a pastor who’s lost his faith—like we all have. And his wife (Erica Tazel) gets infected by that mysterious flu called pregnancy, like we all do.
There were at least these many pretty lines that Queens long to hear like “You are a man who could not be ignored” and “When you go away, you’ll always have a home to return to.” Honey, on Isle du Soleil, Stefon says, you won’t just be squatting the mosquitoes away. Because the sting’s in your eye, you’ll be fanning away hot tears, honey.
“It’s good, with nine o’s!”
“This island has everything. There’s some gross sweet potato wine; some ferocious mama-and-baby crab bisque; engagement rings made of four leaf clovers; a tree that’s a bridge back to slavery (when the island was a plantation and men were men); oh, and lots and lotsa tea, maybe even rind tea from watermelon rinds.” –Stefon, Club Kid, Saturday Night Live
But if you prefer juice…at first squint, there’s some juicy interracial man on man love. But when you open your eyes wide like they ‘sposed to be, you’ll see it’s just a B…B…B…W. Shhh, just a big bald? black woman. (Sidebar, she’s quite handsome, though.)
On Isle du Soleil, while tattoos are allowed, there won’t be any Bud for you. It’s more like “This blood’s for you.” Whether it was the Holy Spirit or the Pastor’s wet and slobbery soliloquy about feeling forsaken, one or the other nearly ran all of the demons out of me. And my shirt!!! Bravo, A. Russell Andrews! I gotta healing! He gotta healing! She gotta healing!
Starring Lorraine Toussaint (“Orange Is The New Black”), Thomas Q. Jones, and Aisha Hinds, “Runaway Island” is so sweet and pure and free of stereotypes like me, this one really gets your glucose going. For a 1700s Gullah Sea Island resort, it’s a little too safe for the likes of me but, for the likes of you, this little getaway is Psalms 91 safe for you and the entire family! Watch for reruns on TV One.
Was Runaway Island “goooooooood with nine o’s!” for you?
