Negril Notes
Thoughts - Words - Images - Music - Loosely based on my travels to Negril Jamaica

Deep in the hoary depths of Negril Jamaica, lives a mysterious and fabled creature. A creature that has defied definite detection, yet the locals know well the curious scent and the slimy trail of this jumping Jamaican juggernaut.

Yes, it’s the Jamaican “Leaping” Slug.

The first whispered accounts of this mythic creature date back to the earliest Spanish explorers like Columbus, and Juan Valdez. After the Spanish came the Romanians, and then the Crusaders, and finally the Brits. They were all so busy raping the land for the Queen and Country that sightings were relegated to either a lack of sex, or of Vitamin C.

The first substantiated sighting came in 1791 when escaped Irish indentured servant Phinneas McBogan became the first white man to see the, and I quote, “Slimy Leaping Bastard.”

McBogan came to Negril fleeing his British oppressors. He befriended a small band of Jamaicans, and he drank their ceremonial mushroom tea. Later that night while wandering along the cliffs he wrote this in his journal:

“I was lying at the base of a fine palm tree. Suddenly the entire jungle began to dance a fecking jig. I had the feeling I was being watched, and then I saw it! From one grand leaf to another I watched this slimy bastard, like a bleedin’ tree frog, leaping with a mighty gusto. Brilliant!”

I came across this amazing account while excavating a humble Irish hovel high in the hills of Donegal, Ireland. You see, McBogan was my Great Great Grandfather’s next door neighbor’s daughter’s schoolmaster’s great great uncle twice removed. I became obsessed.

Many of my colleagues have been searching for more mainstream creatures like The Yeti, Bigfoot and Nessie, but since I was a boy I felt the need to be different. All my friends say I’m quite different, and I relish that clear compliment.

So, after years of careful study, I came to Negril to meet this amazing creature for myself. Limax Negrillius, as it is known to amateur crypto-gastropodologists like me, is not very different from his cousins the Spotted Leopard Slug or the GGGS (Great Grey Garden Slug). The Jamaican “Leaping” Slug is a beautiful grey color and feeds on tiny mites which inhabit banana and pimento leaves. Yes, he is a carnivore!

In my dozen or so trips to Negril, I have seen many beautiful slimy slugs, but the Leaping Slug eludes me. I promise to come back again and again, drink copious amounts of the magical mushroom tea, and I vow not to rest till I find, film and photograph my silent slippery nemesis.

Stay Tuned

Vinny

Negril.com is Negril’s Official website, and they will be publishing some of my articles and reviews. The first one is featured on today’s home page, and is a review of The Appleton Estates Rum Tour.

You can find the article here: Negril.com - http://www.negril.com

You can read the full article here: Appleton Estates Rum Tour

Thanks Negril.com! 

Vinny

This past weekend I updated the “Reviews Page” on this site. I’d been trying to come up with a format, a ratings system, a color scheme, yada, yada, yada… But it was just not getting done, so I decided to read over my notes, and to write the damn things once and for all.

From the early days of this blog, way back in 2004, people have been asking me to put my opinions on record. As I wrote them I posted them on the Negril.com Message Board. I was happy with people’s reactions. My opinions caused quite a stir, and engendered a lively, even rowdy conversation, with thousands of page views and hundreds of responses.

I like to be positive, and I’m pretty easy to please, so you may notice most of these reviews are raves. I just found it easier to start with the places I’ve stayed, and with some of my favorite restaurants. Moving forward I will expand the field, I promise honest opinions, and I will pull no punches.

So, click the Reviews button on the top of this page, any feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

Peace

Vinny

Fly Eagles Fly, on the road to … ?

2006 Divisional Playoff - New Orleans, LA - 1/13/07
Saints 27 - Eagles 24

What did I do the morning after? I watched Rocky, the original one. I needed a dose of pure Philly heart, beacuse in the final anaysis that what my Eagles showed me last night, and these past eight weeks.

The team started out hot this season, but we were all suspect as to how good the team really was. After a few heartbreaking losses the team, and even the town seemed to lose focus.

The McNabb went down, and in came Garcia. I was one of the loud voices wanting A.J. Feeley to lead the team, win or lose, through the rest of the season, and yeah, I was cheering when Garcia too a big hit in the Colts game, and booed when he came back in after only one play. To say the least I was in a negative frame of mind.

Then week after week the team really showed me something. They were out, they had no shot, but they managed to win. Garcia managed the offense well. Everyone began to remember his time with the 49ers, we started to remember his three Pro Bowls. The guy was a gamer, I ate a lot of crow.

Brian Westbrook began to take over the offense, but best of all he took over the locker room. He became a team leader both on, and off the field. He showed a lot of heart.

Guys like Brian Dawkins and Jeramiah Trotter did the same for the defense. The whole team began to believe. It took a few weeks but the town began to come along.

Andy Reid, the coach, didn’t change his outward demeanor, but he deferred to his Offensive Coordinator, who was Garcia’s coach back in San Francisco, to call the plays. He took a step back to take a step forward, and he led the team to a Cinderella season winning the last five games. He captured the NFC East title, the respect of the NFL, and the imagination of the city.

Entering the playoffs, we all talked a big game, but in our hear of hearts we feared The Saints. We remembered how well they had our number earlier in the season, and that they had only gotten better since.

But in true Philly form our team, ravaged by injuries, tired from a short week, fought like warriors that game. The showed a lot of heart, they left it all on the field, they battled to the end, but just couldn’t punch it through in those last fifteen minutes.

All things considered, it was a good season. It was fun to dream about the Superbowl for a couple of weeks.

And like most of the nation’s football fans, I’ll start thinking about or chances in ‘07.

Go Eagles!

Vinny

When I’m in Negril I try to travel light money-wise. I know me, the more I have, the more I’ll spend. Filling up also forces me to get off my butt, and to get out of the resort.

This particular money run took place on Wednesday, though it may have been Thursday, after paying for breakfast I was down to four hundred fifty dollars, Jamaican dollars, about six bucks US, so I needed some cash. I hopped into a route taxi and headed into town.

“You want me to wait for you. Bring you back?” the driver asked.

“Sure how much?” I knew this would cost me.

“500J” he came back.

“Three hundred,” I haggled. I’d paid the standard 50J into town, but I didn’t mind over paying as long as he knew, that I knew I was overpaying. His nod was all I needed, and we pulled into Sunshine Plaza where my preferred ATM at the NCB, was located.

I hopped out of the taxi as two armored cars aggressively pulled into the parking lot. Their deliberate actions got everyone’s attention. Everything paused.

The first red and black armored car parked directly in front of the bank, while its counterpart circled menacingly through the lot, the sun bouncing off its dark tinted windows, the name GUARDSMAN emblazoned on its side in tough bold letters. After two laps the second car pulled up to the first, parking nose to nose blocking the egress lane.

The armored cars looked just like they do in the US, but the reaction of the Jamaicans in the parking lot took me by surprise. The lot holds about fifty cars, and it was just more than half full, mostly taxis. You can say a lot about Jamaican taxi drivers, shrinking violets they are not, but they all seemed to pause. No one walked though the imaginary line the trucks made in the lot.

I was half expecting a muscle bound guy in a tight black t-shirt, with studded army boots and a snarling Pit Bull to jump out of the armored car.

Suddenly the passenger doors of both armored cars opened simultaneously, and out of each came a man wearing black trousers, red polo styled golf shirts, Guardsman baseball caps, and extremely large pump-action shotguns. They were holding them not like props, but like they were ready to shoot someone as they scanned the crowd. 

I felt like such a white bread tourist geek, as I stood agog at the scene before me. I’ve come to Jamaica so many times, I like to think I’ve passed beyond mere tourist. I’ve been on the back streets of Montego Bay, and Sav-La-Mar, up in the ganja fields, and even spent a few wild late nights at the now defunct Close Encounters. I thought I’d seen the “Real Jamaica” hustlers are always trying to sell, but I was experiencing something real here.

The shotgun guys must have given a sign to their armored security counterparts, the back doors opened, and a team of three emerged from each car. First was a manager type with a white shirt and tie, and two uniformed guards, their hands on holstered semi-automatic pistols. One team went into the Hi-Lo supermarket, while the other went into the ATM booth. One shotgun guy followed each team stopping to guard the respective doors.

A collective sigh seemed to come over the crowd. The people in the parking lot stayed in the parking lot, and as shoppers came out of the store, they waited, not wanting to cross the line. I was already closer to the ATM than my cab so I walked up and stood near the ATM as if I was the next in line.

The shotgun guy looked me over, “Morning,” he said his finger still looped within the trigger guard, “Just a few more minutes.”

“Take your time,” I said with a nervous smile. “I’m on vacation, I have all day.” I immediately thought I was talking too much.

Minutes went by. I looked over to my taxi. The driver was looking impatient sitting on the hood of the car. I shrugged in a “Hey what can I do?” gesture knowing me his tip was increasing with each passing minute. I turned back to the guy with the big gun and saw I was now second in line.

In front of me was a fidgety white guy, dressed in all-inclusive chic, starched Hawaiian shirt, khaki slacks, dock-siders and a Yankees cap.

“Hey Pal, the line forms behind me,” I said as un-aggressively as I could.

“What the hell is going on here? I need to get some cash!” He almost shouted to me and the large man with the large gun.

“Just a few more minutes sir,” the guard said firmly.

“Yeah Skippy, right after I’m done,” I said getting annoyed, buoyed by the idea the guy with the shotgun was now my buddy.

“This is bullshit! What, do you people think you can just waste my time! Bullshit!” This guy was nuts, here he was, ranting at an armed no nonsense guy, not to mention pissing me off.

Worst of all he was a fellow American, from his accent I figured Connecticut or Upstate New York, I wish he would have stayed there. I’m proud to be an American, but this ugly American looked so very ugly from this vantage point. I looked at the faces of the Jamaicans across the way, they seemed amused. I wondered if they differentiate between him and me.

For a moment I wondered what the shotgun guy would do if I slapped the shit out of Skippy, you know, for America, but before I could find out Skippy stormed off.

“Fucking Americans,” I muttered eliciting a smile from the big guy with the gun.

A couple of minutes later a knock came from inside the ATM booth and the big guy with the gun moved about ten feet closer to the armored car.

The Manager Guy came out flanked by the other two guards, one holding his pistol and the other carrying bags of what I assumed was money.

“Go right a head sir,” the Manager Guy said to me while holding the door open. “Would you like us to wait for you to finish?”

“No, I’m fine.” I responded wondering if he thought I was the yelling asshole ugly American Guy.

I made eye contact with the big guy with the gun, “Thanks,” I said. He nodded in reply.

I went in and withdrew 15,000J, it sounds like a lot more than it is, and by the time I got out the armored cars were starting their motors. 

I headed back to The Blue Cave Castle to meet up with my friends for lunch. I paid the driver his 500J.

Vinny

The answer comes back, “they have to be.”

I always notice this same building, next to the train tracks, abandoned, a five story walk up close to the “bad” part of town. Just past the Temple Train Station heading into Center City, a block from a beautiful gold domed church, or maybe its a mosque. A well built brick structure, old, but not ancient. Wood framed broken windows, flat roof intact, no apparent fire damage, standing like a bored centurion at the edge of blighted North Philly.

I noticed how I always ask the same curious question, “Why do the windows have to be broken?”

Why not, “Why are the windows broken?” or even, “Who broke them windows?”

I wonder if the question stems from residual institutional racism, abandoned broken windowed buildings are usually on the wrong side of the tracks.” I pondered that for a moment.

Maybe it was some self window breaking guilt. I was raised Catholic, guilt is a part of the doctrine (I even feel guilty writing that).

I grew up in rural suburban New Jersey, as a kid my friends and I would break windows in abandoned houses, we never asked why. Did those windows have to be broken? I guess so. They just had to be, and it fell upon us to break them, though usually by the time we discovered the house the windows were already broken.

Someone should board them up.

Vinny