Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

I'm going to Jamaica. Anybody been. Don't care about ganja. Any stories/tips etc

I went a few years ago ... I dunno it was extra fun, but I was repeatedly warned not to go outside the resort.
I was not murdered or robbed - well, I was robbed actually - from my room at the resort. Sooo... um keep your money in something locked and tucked away?
The beaches are fantastic.
The driving is crazy - or at least my cab driver drove like a madman.

my brother and his wife went there on their honeymoon. i don't know -- they had a lot of sex and drank a lot of rum -- can't tell you much else about it -- they came back looking like lobsters and very happy. here's one tip in general, if your wife is going, carry her luggage.

my brother made an ass out of himself because he made his new wife carry their luggage at some point and got called out on it -- that story gets told a lot around the holidays.

let's see that's it -- the hubby had been in belgium getting his ass kicked the day before their wedding; that was more exciting and overall a better story. it gets more memory time in my brain than the jamaica stories. sorry to offer little information, but that's what i think of jamaica, a place where newlyweds go to do it and get drunk.

i can't imagine going for some other reason.

so have fun and come back with good stories -- i'm interested to hear one that's not a honeymooner version.

I've heard quite a bit about the "don't leave the compound" stuff. We're going as a family unit and the selling tag for this place is it has a nanny on site. We won't be going too far from her (or him) is my guess. Jamaica wasn't my choice, beaches are great fun for about half a day and that's it. It's all about the kids though. They had a blast in Florida last year.

I'm off to practice holding in my beer gut.......

I certainly wouldn't recommend taking kids off - but I'm sure they'll have fun on the beaches and the pool.

I personally could spend an enternity on the beach just doing absolutely nothing ... or sleeping under an umbrella.

Hmm. Yeah I guess I wouldn't be sneaking out to get any reggae records then if you might get mugged. Somewhat coincidentally, I just finished reading the section of Simon Reynolds' book on post punk that has to do with the 2-Tone bands like the Specials, Madness, the (English) Beat, & Selecter. I really had no idea just how much some of these folks borrowed and paid tribute to 60's Jamaican musicians. I mean not that they didn't do their own thing with it, but still, I just didn't know where those roots were really coming from. I didn't even realize there was such a thing as "Ska" prior to these bands! The whole 2-Tone movement really gets ignored and brushed aside now in the current post-punk craze/nostalgia. It doesn't seem to have the same element of hipness as Gang of Four, Joy Division etc. which I think is a real shame.

people always try to explain ska, i don't think it can be done. i've never seen / read a really great explanation of ska, never.

this is not about ska though, but it is oddly about music and jamaica, but not jamaican music . . . at all.

there is this thing on television right now some kind of documentary. i saw it this morning.

it's ryan adams in jamaica. it's i don't know . . . interesting. and a little weird. he's jamming in a jamaica way with these folks and i'm like this is not working, ryan, you need to either be in nashville or new york, jamaica doesn't work for you. then the next scene or two later he has this red patch of skin where his ripped jeans allowed him to get burned, i was like see, ryan, jamaica is not for you.

but it made me think of your trip.

anyway, oh, ryan adams, jamaica me crazy!

i've never been to jamaica (been to dominica, antigua, guadeloupe, puerto rice though) but everybody who's been there recommends this funny book, which i found very likeable:

one people, by guy kennaway

"... delightful novel brilliantly evokes the unique culture of jamaica and in particular the village of angel beach, a small, tight-knit community where everybody has a say in everything, no dispute is too petty, no relationsip inconsequential and there's no such thing as a secret..."

have a great time and for god's sake, don't let yourself be confined to the compound. life's too short to spend it in prison.

Try Rule of the Bone by Russell banks. The main character ends up in jamaica at some point. One of my favourite books.

Prison. You have no idea. Full line up is......

Me
The Mrs and my two kids
Sister in law and her kid
Sister in law
Mother in law

Hardly the Pax crew is it.

I'm going to be about a hundred miles from Kingston so no road trip there then.

sounds pretty ironic. once again, you are going for the o. henry award here, or perhaps saki?

one would expect a male who makes a reference to prison to be going somewhere with all males, but perhaps it is really more like verbal irony -- sarcasm?

then there is the situational irony, i mean one would expect a male who posts on a website with almost all males, one or two crazy mostly disrespected females here and there, to be going with all males on vacation, ironically, though he is going with his son and all females, who are probably quite sane.

onward to things totally unrelated to tommy and his trip . . . no segue, fuck it.

i think there is just some shiftiness to non-french males, they are not forthright, french males are like WOMEN! WOMEN! you are a beautiful woman, i love you and want to kiss you, i will stare you down in the street you are so beautiful, can i be your guide of the city?? do you like flowers . . . other males are shifty-eyed or agressive or rude or meek -- other males should take lessons from the french. males in new orleans are very similar to the french males -- they are like yo! women!! i mean i got hit on by a cop last time i was down there, and he was on duty . . . he was like what are you doing after this, i was like calling my husband, wink, get outta here. actually i think i could make the entire lot of you, with the exception of pixie blush discussing what some new orleans males have said to me, i mean the pick up lines are well, something else, especially when you're like, no i'm married, my husband's been gone for a couple of months . . .

but here, the cops are like ma'am, miss, all the while not looking you in the eye, miss, um i'm sorry, but oh, i see ma'am, did you know you were umm, speeding . . .

i swear this country and it's inhabitants are too british. it's like they colonized and we never gave up their values, of course, we no longer have the accents, but i mean the manners, come on!

and that is the biggest complaint about the american male, the lack of eye contact, it's like breasts, feet, eyes, breast, feet, somewhere out there beyond your right shoulder, somewhere out there beyond your left shoulder, their own feet.

and general inability to be direct and articulate about certain things is something else as well.

i used to get on the hubby about this all the time, i was like, look, if you want to look at that girl look at her, and if you want to talk about the merits of julia roberts go for it, but do not try to be sly and go, oh, that girl she reminds me of you or julia roberts . . . i mean come on, how many of you do this . . . it is transparent.

by the way, i think you all can have lots of fun.

you're going with at least five chicks to jamaica . . . that is not prison . . . that is fun.

and if you don't really want to go to jamaica . . . where do you want to go? if you could go anywhere with your kids and wife, where would you go?

(ps what happened to the non-mrs. tommy males . . . are they really a family a praying mantis women . . .do they bite the heads off the males after mating and you managed to somehow keep yours because you produced en-er-ee --)

and this is really sweet and good:

"It's all about the kids though."

i mean i wish more parents were like that . . . but i just get the impression that you do not feel like this is fun.

and yes, i know it is not sex, drugs, and rock n roll fun. i mean i chaperoned a girl to new orleans . . . that is my favorite city, well, one of them, and i could not do anything other than jazzland, a walking tour of the french market, eat, and worst of all shop -- which is really pretty painful to me, and completely agonizing was being surrounded by women who constantly complained about how rude folks are in new orleans as they click clacked along in their matching tangerine mules and plastic bangles, which was incredibly annoying and bite my tongue worthy, but i thought i've already had fun here it is her turn now, said nothing and had a decent time.

This is what it looks like. Report to follow when I finish doing the laundry. Hello to all. McC thanks for the call I didn't want to keep you talking at those prices. Hope you didn't think I was rude.

http://www.tracycambron.com/Jamaica06.htm

Gee your kids are growing up... last time I saw them they were babies. And they look like hellions. Good luck with that.