bierkergaard

The morning after the aforementioned rowdy and loud party at the Blue Mountain Guesthouse and Cafe (see last week's blog post), I was sitting out on the cafe porch, drinking coffee, and a reggae song was playing on the sound system.  I took a video/audio recording of it because it seemed to restore the proper Jamaica vibe over the environs, replacing the specter of the sappy 80's pop music from the night before party. Be gone! Now that I have two iPhones, thanks to AT&T no longer offering a discounted new replacement, I downloaded the Shazam app on my older phone to use it to identify the song on my new iPhone. I brought my old iPhone to  Jamaica as a back-up in case my new iPhone was stolen, damaged, or etc. I also used the old phone to take pics when walking on steep paths and out in the wild and sweating a torrent.   I was chagrined to find out that the song playing was by a Jamaican musician Mavodo (who genre is a combo of Rap and Rasta, plus auto-tuned...

The second to last day I was in Jamaica, a bunch of 16 white people party animals crashed where I was lodging in Jamaica. I tried to discern who they were...not U.S. citizens (thankfully) but from what I could tell ex-Pats from various European countries (some obviously Germans/Dutch by their gutterality) and caucasian natives from the Jamaican lowlands. For about 5 hours, the mountain peace was disturbed by excessive drink, saccharin 80's Pop music blasting, and bawdy jokes. English was the lingua franca. BTW, I am going to be on a Jamaica jag for a while. Great experiences crack us open with ideas and reflections. I wondered why any group of people would travel over 3,000-4,000 feet up to party their brains out when any hovel would do, with dangerous ride to boot down the treacherous road to Kingston. It wasn't a case of sour grapes of me wanting to join the party. The older I get, the more I go for quality in relationships and conversation, not quantity. I am not loo...