Neisha Smith must have sounded quite contrary, to some, singing a semi-pop song at a Carnival event. Singing calypso and soca are not her forte, “I don’t think I have a voice for that,” said the multi-styled singer. So, imagine her surprise when she was booked and paid too, for a performance at Powergen’s media lime a few weeks ago.

It was the first time that the TTEC senior accounts clerk received money for a gig in her 20 years of singing. Winning Best Female Vocalist backed up by the now defunct band “Rainforest” at the 2002 Anchorage Pop Rock Music Awards, too was a welcoming reward.
Singing at school, in the church choir and at weddings was a natural progression. “From age 13 I have been singing. I always liked it.” She never received any formal training but believed she was born with a gift. “The only time I doh sing is when I’m sleeping.” She’s thinking of taking some lessons on the keyboard, however. “I could strum a little thing on the guitar but not if my life depended on it,” she laughed as she leaned back in her swivel chair. But singing on the whole isn’t her first priority. Her son and only child, ten-year-old Daniel is. Neisha, 33, is a single parent and like many, has found a way to earn some extra cash by doing something she loves.

After it occurred to her that “I could make money off my voice” she ventured into the commerical light. She didn’t plan to follow in her mother’s (Susan Blanc) footsteps but she has found that her lifestyle very much mirrors that of her mother. Blanc also sings. “She is a boss (good) singer but doesn’t like crowds,” Neisha said. Like her son, Neisha grew up in a single parent household. She was the only child. Her father (Peter Blanc) died when she was two years old and the only memory she has of him is that of pictures she possesses.

There’s no telling, working an eight to four job on a full-time basis, caring for a household and raising her son are no easy tasks. She said: “It’s tough having to cope with working all day providing your son with the lifestyle you’re accustomed to. It’s finishing a job at 4 pm and picking up another — cooking, cleaning out, washing my own car, when it needs repairs taking it to the mechanic. “It has taught me a lot of things. It has taught me not to be taken advantage of… I have lots of family support, lots of cousins who would babysit. They’re very accommodating.” Though it’s time-consuming, she enjoys every moment spent with her son — sitting with him to do his homework, helping him get chores done and taking him to the movies. “I’m always having to tell him to move his towel. ‘Doh leave yuh clothes where yuh take it off.’ I’m trying to get him to clean the room. He’s doing well with making his bed,” Neisha added. “I tell him ‘it’s just you and me kid’. He’s seen me at my lowest and at my highest.” Neisha grew up in Westmoorings and later moved to Diego Martin where she now resides.

She’s a former student of St Joseph Convent, Port-of- Spain. At age 18, she secured her first job at TTEC, where her mom was an executive secretary. She moved from temporary clerk in the Payroll Department to permanent clerk in the Field Office, Billings Department and now, senior accounts clerk in the Budget Department. Looking back on her 15 years at TTEC she described it as “rewarding. The work is challenging and I like it. Staff  is like family and I feel very comfortable.” She enjoys teaming up with staff for “talent sharing”, a biennial concert event. She’s fond of singers Whitney Houston and Dionne Warwick, R&B, pop, jazz and alternative music. At last talent sharing she, together with two guys, lip-synced to a medley of songs including Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita”. Neisha also models for print, television and radio advertisements. It was another means of taking advantage of her natural beauty. “People always telling me ah have a pretty face so I took advantage of that. I sent my pictures to all the agencies… The money comes in handy to pay school fees and repairs to my car,” she said.

Trinidad-born US seaman, Sean Taitt, was injured in the 1999 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen and worked at the Pentagon when it was attacked on 9/11, yet is now hoping to join the US forces heading to Iraq.

Taitt, 34, is the son of Glenda Goddard and step-son of music arranger Pelham Goddard.  Having emigrated to the United States in 1989 he signed up with the US Armed Forces for a career which he vowed would be undaunted, even by one of the worst attacks on the United States military in peacetime. He joined the US Navy in 1989, and Taitt progressed, rotating in different jobs. “It takes a lot of hard work. After two years doors just started opening. As a West Indian you are no less of a man,” Taitt said. After that stint Taitt went to explosive ordnance disposal school for three years where he worked in supply logistics literally as a computer-based store-keeper.

He related how he then decided to sign up for the USS Cole, a fateful decision. “I told them to put me on any ship leaving. They had just commissioned that ship, very close to my hometown in Maryland.”  He said he spent a year visiting the ship in port to get accustomed to the crew, before joining it in 1998 to patrol the Gulf.  “They smuggle a lot of diesel oil to be converted into fuel oil. I did that for six months. I always liked risk and would volunteer for every task force, including the In-Port Emergency Team, Rescue and Assistance and the At Sea Emergency Team.” He praised the US Navy training programme, which would later be truly put to the test under the most dire circumstances. “In addition to your duties there is continuous training, from Sunday to Sunday. Much of it is based on survivability, including blind-folded drills. It was a very strict 24-hour regime. The power you have, you have to live with. Would you send into a fire your best friend on the end of a hose-nozzle, to save the rest of the ship, if you knew he would not be coming back out? A similar thing happened on the USS Cole. In fact after that attack a lot of guys retired and one guy committed suicide. When you are out there all we have to sustain ourselves are memories of our families.” 

When his ship was patrolling the Gulf as part of the US Sixth Fleet, crew had heard rumours from the Fifth Fleet that a terrorist attack might be imminent.  One fateful morning, he related, he had offered to do a deck-watch recalling: “But my friend said ‘No, you take the next watch’.  I went below to process bills for things like fuel and potable water. My boss, a female lieutenant- commander, came below to join me. Then the explosion struck! He only remembers the effects of the explosion like smoke making him unconscious, recalling: “I went ‘blind’, like going to sleep. I didn’t feel a thing; I was knocked out.” He later found out that from the time the Lt-Cdr entered his door, she had been blown backward. Then he woke, recounting: “When I came to at first I thought I had just overslept. It was pitch black and I was lying on my back facing upwards. It was just darkness but hot. My work space was under the waterline and flooded out, although this helped cool it down a bit.” He was suffering a damaged leg, multiple fractures of his ribs and damaged lungs plus a two-inch scar above his left eye. “It took about three hours to get me out. I was going into shock. I was in water and fuel. I didn’t realise I’d been hurt. They had been calling me but I had not responded. I was in a tattered uniform and my face was bleeding. “I had been in the proximity of the blast. The power of the blast goes right through you, like radiation, creating a light pocket of blood around your heart like a blister which is what kills you. They finally rescued me. There were injuries all round, panic and chaos. The heat of the explosion had melted metal which had wrapped around people – I had got off easily.”

He said that many senior members of the ship’s emergency teams had been injured and had to now rely on their juniors. “That showed that our training is paramount.” Perhaps as horrific as the actual explosion was trying to survive its aftermath. “They had to keep me conscious, to keep spitting out the blood from my lungs, to stop suffocating. One kid, Greg Wibberly they were trying to wake but he was damaged to the point of unconsciousness. If they couldn’t wake you within a certain time they would put you in a helo (helicopter) tower on the flight deck. The bodies piled up.” Some 17 seamen died and 39 were injured, all including Taitt being awarded the Purple Heart medal. “Our ship had lost all power; It was unprepared. They took us off the ship. They took people to donate blood, while some stayed to fight the fire. Our dog-tags told our blood-type. I was one of the last to be taken off the ship. They surveyed our injuries but didn’t have sufficient paramedics. A French aircraft flew us out of Yemen to Germany, a 17-hour flight, to get medical care.”

 In Yemen the wounded had received dressings and minimal painkillers, just enough to stabilise them to fly. Taitt said two other Trinidad-born seamen were also abroad the USS Cole — Sean Sylvester who was not injured and Johann Gokool who eventually had to have his left lower leg amputated. Taitt praised Gokool saying: “He’s got more heart than I, and decided to amputate his leg. He decided that being an amputee would involve less surgery and he would be able to run faster, than if he had a fused leg.” Taitt too nearly suffered ill-effects from the long delay in getting to Germany for hospitalisation. He suffered an episode akin to a minor heart attack whereby his fractured ribs could not support his lungs. “I was suffocating as blood was getting into my lungs. It feels like a cold and you have to cough. I couldn’t even talk. I just thought ‘I may not be making it this time’. “On the plane I refused to lie down in the Stokes Basket because I knew from previously that blood collects if you lie down. You lie down and they strap you in. “It was very painful but when you see all the other people, with crushed arms and legs, stomach blown out, one guy’s thigh-bone cracked and coming through his back who had more burns than me, you don’t think about your own pain.”

When he was flown to the US for more intense medical treatment in Virginia it was discovered that his injuries were more extensive. “The chief surgeon said to me ‘You are strong lad.  I’ve been doing lectures on your type of injuries and I haven’t had a survivor in 70 years, going back to World War Two. I’m glad you’ll live to be my first ‘live’ subject’.” He suffered haemotobia, a blood pocket around the heart, and a damaged leg.  Taitt remembered the chief surgeon telling him: “I don’t know if you are going to make it, because you have blood sitting in your chest that is going nowhere.” Taitt had objected to chest-surgery so the chief surgeon instead treated the haemotobia by a defibrillator to clear the chest. He was transferred to Bethesda National Navy Medical Centre and then to a US Army hospital which had more experience treating leg injuries. “I had looked at my leg and threw up. My leg was the size of my arm, and with the burns and scars. I couldn’t even move it. It was a whole different experience – terrible! “The basic stuff  you take for granted I couldn’t do. Learning to walk again took six months of intensive therapy and care, including electric-shock therapy on my leg which had become stiff. I had 47 staples in my leg. Generally after minor surgery it takes six months to walk, but for me it would be two years. My rehabilitation was very painful. I decided not to be handicapped. Two years later I am now able to run, walk, jump and wine.”

After his rehabilitation he was offered a job at the Pentagon in 2001, and was there when 9/11 took place and the commanding officer of the USS Cole was there too. He marvelled at having survived not one but two terrorist attacks. Despite some international protests against US policy on Iraq, Taitt had no qualms about being part of the US military build-up in the Gulf, although adding: “Hopefully it will not come to war.” He is currently a statistical analyst at the Pentagon, a job where he helps plan the lives and careers of other servicemen.  Looking forward he said: “The earliest I could go to Iraq is June 2004, but I would have to train someone to do my job at the Pentagon to relieve me. I have  four tours, 12 to 15 years, left in the service. It’s a great opportunity”.

Miss Cleo wants to talk. After years of rumours, a federal probe that shut down the wildly successful phone line she made famous and a lifetime supply of gaudy turbans, TV’s queen of clairvoyants is ready to tell her side of the story. Almost. First, Cleo needed to know the reporter’s birth date, a lawyer for the tarot-reading TV pitchwoman explained. It was nothing personal, he added, she asks everybody.

A few days later the mystic herself called back with the news from the other world. Through psychic analysis, Cleo had divined that the reporter had “lived four lives” and appeared to be “loyal and honest.” Still, she had decided not to talk just now. “Mercury is in retrograde,” she explained in her familiar Carib-bean-like lilt. And besides, her ancestors had advised against it. They might also have offered some more practical advice. Last June, Cleo, 40, whose real name is Yoree Dell Harris, invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination when she was deposed in a Florida state civil suit against her and Access Resource Services, the parent company of the phone lines she pitched on TV from 2000 to 2002. In a separate federal case alleging false advertising and deceptive billing, the owners of ARS agreed to cancel a staggering $500 million in debt racked up by millions of consumers cheated by the hot line. According to the Federal Trade Commission, callers expecting a free tarot reading were routinely directed to a second number that billed their accounts, sometimes for hundreds of dollars per call. In some cases the company billed people who had never called at all, then aggressively tried to collect the alleged debt.

Miss Cleo-who claims her first mystical experience was when a deceased uncle visited her in her sleep at age 14, was personally charged with deceptive trade practices by the state of Florida. But she was dropped from the suit last November when ARS settled out of court. She insists she did nothing wrong. “All this was done without any input from me,” she said of allegations during her brief conversation with the international People magazine published March 3. “The only thing I did was go to the studio and take live calls. Outside of that I had no control, my dear.” Except, perhaps, of her own image. Just who is Miss Cleo,and where did she get that accent? In interviews and legal depositions she had routinely refused to discuss certain details of her past. A bio once posted on the ARS Web site calls her “a Shango shaman” who was “born in the Trelawyn section of Jamaica.” Her birth certificate, however, shows that Youree (a Leo) was actually born in a Los Angeles hospital to David Harris, 37, a Texan, and Alisa Teresa Hopis, 36, of California, on August 12, 1962. And former classmates at the Southern California school that Harris attended as a boarder in the 1970s recall an all-American, gregarious student who spent much of her time snapping photos for the year-book. “That persona is so totally not her,” says Elizabeth Salazar, 41, who was a year ahead of Harris at the preppy all-girl Ramona Convent Secondary School in Alhambra, California.

Harris enrolled at the University of Southern California in 1980 but left after taking only four classes. Actors who worked with her more than a decade later at a city-run theatre in Seattle recall Harris, who by then had a daughter and went by the name Ree Perris,as a creative playwright and director but also somewhat elusive. “She owed people money,” says Darcell Hubbard, 44, who directed one of the three plays Harris produced at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Centre in 1996 and 1997. Hubbard says some of the teenage theatre ushers were given $200 cheques that promptly bounced when Harris skipped town after telling some of her colleagues that she had sickle cell anemia and others that she suffered from bone cancer. (Harris and her lawyer declined to respond). In 1996, for a collection of her monologues titled For Women Only, Harris played the role of a turban-wearing Jamaican who sold trinkets at a market. Little did her co-workers know they were witnessing the creation of a character she would ride to national fame. “She always talked to me in that voice,” says composer Derrick Brown, 27, who recalls Harris practising her accent on stage and off, “and I thought, `Boy, she’s a weirdo’.” She was still using the accent when she moved to Florida in 1998 and began working as a tarot-reading psychic for a so-called “bookstore” — a telemarketing centre to which calls are routed from different numbers around the country. While working a special event at a mall in Pompano, Fla, she was approached by a production assistant from Access Resources Services and accepted an offer to appear in an ad in 2000.

 “That first commercial, I looked like a hag,” she told Miami radio station Y-100 earlier this year. “It was done on purpose. They wanted to look like I was in my garage.” Harris claims she was paid $1,750 for the three-day shoot, the first of many that would bring her into living rooms nationwide. While she insists her telephone readings were always fair and sincere, the FTC charged that ARS hired random people who read from scripts designed to keep callers on the line as long as possible. “Some of the people who worked with me came from the Salvation Army,” Barbara Melit, who worked for an ARS-affiliated bookstore, told the Florida attorney general in 2000. After an initial three-minute grace period that operators burned up by asking unnecessary questions, callers were routinely left on hold,sometimes while operators used the bathroom,with the clock ticking at $4.99 a minute. The psychics, who often cleared only 15 cents a minute, were threatened with losing their jobs if they let callers hang up after less than 20 minutes, Melit said.

One victim, Tallahassee lobbyist Sean Stafford, received a notice from a collection agency for two calls totalling $139 that he never made. “I’m not in need of psychic help,” says Stafford, 32, whose phone was in fact disconnected at the time of the alleged calls. “I think people like Miss Cleo are preying on the poor and elderly.” Department-store clerk Harvey Weinshenker, 62, of Jacksonville, Fla was contacted by a bill collector in 2001 about two psychic hot-line charges totalling $558 — a surprise, says Weinshenker, given that he hasn’t had a phone since 1987. “I called them when I got the bill, they insulted me,” he says. Harris says she was forced into seclusion after she was named in the suit filed by the State of Florida on February 14 last year. Lampooned on late-night TV, she says she rarely ventured out of the house in Aventura, Florida where she home-schools her teenage daughter. She claims to have spoken up many times to her employers about the way they were running the hot line. “We have been witness to a New Age witch-hunt,” says Harris’s Fort Lauderdale attorney. (ARS settled the suits with no admission of wrongdoing; its owners did not respond to People’s calls.) These days, Harris told Miami’s Y-100 radio, she depends on private clients who pay up to $100 for psychic readings, and the support of taxi-drivers, gas station attendants, and ordinary people who recognise her wherever she goes. “You know what?” she says, her Jamaican accent singing. “They give mad love.”