Happy Birthday to ME!

Exactly nine years ago I nearly got shafted by a big Blackman in Jamaica. For my 40^th birthday I decided to spend two weeks in dreadlock paradise and spent 14 days completely wasted on local grass and Bolivian cocaine. Whilst I had heard that drugs were easily available, being a proper Boy Scout, I thought I better ‘Be prepared’ and became the first idiotic tourist to actually import dope into Jamaica!

I realised that my fears had been totally ungrounded as between the airport terminal and the bus, that was to take me to my run down dump of a hotel on the Negril beach, I scored for 10 US bucks enough grass to keep a troop of baboons permanently stoned for a month.

At the hotel, now semi-wasted after a couple of joints during a pit stop in the three hour bus ride over roads of Congolese type quality (i.e. full of giant water filled holes surrounded by loads of Black people doing fuck all but laugh as the vehicle, full of petrified whiteys, plunged in up to its axels), I was fleeced for 5 bucks by the hotel porter. He promised to fix my bed, which for some reason was sagging in the middle all the way to the floor, and noticing my jet-lagged state offered me a little wake up powder for a 100 US.

Wham – that sorted me out, pure Columbian, greyish in colour with crystals to match the beauty of snowflakes!

The hotel was occupied by a curious mixture of all inclusive tourists from Germany and, of all places, Manchester. The World Cup football was on at the time and much to my delight the pool side bar had a television showing almost every game. I soon had a routine - wake up trashed, a quick line of good old pick me up sniffed up my nostrils and wander down to the bar with a paranoiac grin and my bug eyes well hidden behind mirror glasses. At 11 the first match would be shown and much to the bemusement of the other vacationers I supported Germany, England and every country from Africa.

Lashings of beer replaced any food I needed and the 1pm match would end at the same time as the heavens opened up for the afternoon shower and that was my cue to head for my room. There I would drag out my portable sterio of CD walkman and battery powered mini speakers and set them up in the hallway come balcony. As the rain lashed down, on went Bob Marley and to the sounds of
‘excuse me while I light my Splif,
ahh God how I need a lift’
etc etc, I would puff on an extra strong Marley whilst chucking several captain Morgan 71% proof rum and coke down my throat to slow down my heart which had been pumping blood around my body faster than an F1 race car since I got up. By 7 pm I was in lah lah land but certainly wasn’t going to waste my time sleeping, so after some more of the South American jungle magic up the nose, I was ready for anything. That includes Karaoke down at one of the beach bars.

With my new friends (all Germans, as I understood them better than the Mancurian riff-raff, whose conversational skills consisted of, ‘beer, beer, look at me chick again, I ficken glass ya!’), we went on the piss and I came second with a brilliant redemption of REM’s ‘Loosing My Religion’. By that time I had lost everything, including the plot, never mind religion. I was complimented on my superb ability to match the smoky type redemption of the original. That was because my vocal chords had been systematically been burnt by large quantities of home grown for the last week. The winner was a local Jamaican girl who picked up the 100 dollar prize. However I was informed by one tourist that she won all the time and was employed by the pub…Aaah, all is fair in love and whores, which there were plenty off on the beach, being pimped by there ‘brothers’. Even blasted out my skul, I kept away from that nonsense.

Sadly, my local drug dealer, the ‘porter’, was given the sack after turning up for work one morning ranting like some demented loon. Prior to that happening, I did manage to get a hammer and some nails and repair my bed, but now I was bit stuck for more Columbian smelling salts. The beach is riddled with dodgy dreadlocks offering everything from their mothers to heroin, but at my next transaction I was given baking powder mixed with salt. Cleverly, against the advice of my latest ‘best friend’, to check its purity in public, I did and promptly howled my head off! I didn’t give a monkey and waved the bag of junk around whilst proclaiming loudly that I had been knocked by ‘this mother-fucker’. A hundred hurried apologies and ‘a terrible mix up’ – yeah right, like the Coke is stashed in a tin next to the baking powder in every Jamaican kitchen, and within a couple of minutes was given the real McCoy.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and looking seriously tanned and at least 5kg lighter (Coke is great if you want to loose weight, you simply can’t be arsed to eat), I arrived at Munich airport. Much to my amusement, quite a few of my fellow passengers were dragged off to be given an A1 search job and peeping through the window, I had a good laugh watching peoples’ shampoo and suncream bottles get squirted all over the place.

Me – this Boy Scout was far to clever to risk bringing anything back. A crying shame really as I landed up giving a massive handful of own grown away to the bloke in the hotel room next door.

And now I am off to get wasted...catch ya laters....