That’s as idiotic as packing coffee for a trip to Java.
We went to JA a buncha times in the 90s, and only once did we get smoke that could be called mediocre. We got it in Steer Town, and the tale of its purchase was far better than itself, esp the part with the swooping bats. It was still better than the commonly avail Mexican press back in Detroit. It didn’t taste great and was very cough-y, so much so it strangled our friend Mikey the head groom, a ahem highly experienced smoker. After a solid two mins of coughing, he somehow managed to choke out this wisdom: “Steer Town weed na strahng [strong] weed, mon!” XD
We were up in the hills above St Anns Bay one afternoon when our friend and driver Bamis realized we weren’t holding. He stopped when he spotted an older gentleman with a big machete (locally pronounced mosh-ETTE), who was hacking away at the gigantic roadside impatiens shrubs which perpetually threaten to engulf JA’s roads. Bamis inquired about ganja, and he asked us to wait a bit. When he returned a few mins later, we paid him a little more than what he asked, which turned out to be the equiv of 50¢ US! for two spliffs rolled in those blanket-sized Rizlas, a bud big enough to build two more o’ the same, and four papers (in case we fucked up twice). That stuff was divine. It smelled and tasted heavenly, and enthusiastically emphasized the fact that marijuana is an hallucinogen. I found myself thinking about 30,000 things simultaneously, when the Burning Spear song we were listening to suddenly managed to make itself noticed. It was a beautiful, heavy duty lyric which he was repeating ad infinitum.
I later realized The Spear’d repeated it so many times b/c it took such repetition to penetrate the trips brought on by kind Jamaican herb.
Pfui! Detroiters aren’t rude (other than the assholes who treat retail employees poorly)! We simply shred to bits everyone who’s phony or has an undeserved inflated sense of self…most particularly the know-nothings from elsewhere who say nasty things about our city. Detroiters are empathic - we understand suffering. A young guy downtown shouted at my elderly mom on a chilly day, “Girl, you get that jacket zipped up! It’s too damn cold for you to be goin’ around like that!” XD
When we visited Boston in '69, cute little 3-y-o MerelyGifted, her cute young hip mommy, and mom’s cute hip friend Kathy were enchanted by the immaculately clean (such a change from the then-aptly nicknamed Filthydelphia!) and ancient city, but were rudely rebuffed by its denizens. When we’d stop and politely ask passersby for directions, they looked at us like we were A Disease and walked on without a word! Kathy drove a cute little late model Mustang, so her car didn’t put off the fuckers. They were just fuckers.
My then-BF and I experienced the exact same thing when asking for directions in salt lake city. Our rickety old van might’ve had summat to do with it, but we were polite AF and young and cute ourselves, but man, just more fuckers.
ETA: I didn’t notice any particular rudeness in Cleveland, nor in the depressed AF part of Toledo, OH where a friend from Cleveland once had a gig. Clevelanders do, however, have an unpleasant penchant for picking on Detroit, despite our never having had our river catch fire. I don’t even bother slamming them with their burning river, I slam them with a rat instead. I tell the entire story in which my then-BF and I saw the biggest rat we’d seen in our lives, in the Flats in Cleveland. I’d lived in Detroit for most of my life, and saw some mighty big rats in this neighborhood (only 2 mi N of the Detroit River). I just pointed and laughed at it. My then-BF didn’t talk about where he grew up in Philly, let alone re: rats there, but when he screamed like a little girl and jumped behind me, it was obvs he’d never seen one that big, either. I pointed and laughed at him, too, and my laugh muscles almost killed me to death.
Clevelanders immediately STFU about Detroit when I tell that story.
