Not Sleeping with One-Night Stands, Rum, and Gay Reggae

SEX - WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU MA'AM

"To all my niggas who know what I mean, when you fuck a bitch good and she don't wanna leave. I go through this all the time, bitch act like she don't see the exit sign." 

-Shyne "Get Out."

That song was my jam in middle school. I am fascinated by Shyne. Taking the fall and doing time for Diddy, living in Jerusalem as an Orthodox Jew, and now I guess he's back in Belize. One of the first questions I want to know is: "Shyne, did your bedroom really have an exit sign?"

My bedroom does not have an exit sign, but my bedspread is a giant image of Bowie's face and reads "WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU MA'AM" making it quite clear that one-night stands are not welcome to spend the night. My sheets are just as sexual, yet slightly more welcoming, beautifully patterned with mermaids performing cunnilingus underwater. They are made by Vice Merchants and are available here. I have the Pearl Divers Virgin Islands set. They are the most exciting thing to happen to my bed since the first time another woman made me come. A peaceful night's sleep is crawling into 300-thread-count sheets adorned with beautiful mermaid pussies after sliding 10mg of Ambien down your throat. And that can't happen with a stranger next to me.

An insomniac to begin with; I can't sleep next to someone I don't truly care about. In college I dated this kid and would wait till he fell asleep then sneak out and run back to my own dorm. Whereas with my current partner, our first date was on a Friday night and I didn't leave his apartment until late Sunday, and only because my phone was dead and the Facebook messages began creeping in asking if that guy I met online murdered me since friends hadn't heard from me in three days. I know it's harsh, but from being both the victim and perpetrator of hitting and splitting, the truth is if someone peaces out minutes after orgasm, they're just not that into you. You like someone, you stay. You stay for the morning sex and go to work in the same clothes as the day before or a borrowed T-shirt.

So, say it's been two months and you just need to get laid. You find a 22-year-old willing to let you fuck her in the ass on the first night but there's no way in hell you're taking her out to brunch the next morning. How does one politely dine and dash? Well, how about some goddamn honesty up in this bitch? What if the world Liar Liar'ed us all, and we had to just say, "I am sure you are a really good person, but I don't sleep well next to strangers, and I think we both know this was a one-time thing. Great ass, by the way. Take care." I for one think the world would be a better place.

DRUGS - RUM

Islanders feel about rum the way the British feel about tea; Americans just don't understand. Some bartenders don't even know know shit about rum. Once I ordered a Gosling's on the rocks, and the bartender replies:

"What?" - Bartender

"The rum. It's the bottle with the seal on it." - Sophie (Gosling's logo is a seal. I fucking loves seals. I sleep with two stuffed seals, and if you ever want to fuck me you have to be OK with that.)

"Uh… all these bottles are already opened. None of them still have a seal on it." - Bartender

"No, the bottle with AN ACTUAL SEAL, THE MARINE MAMMAL." -Sophie

Idiot.

Most of my New York friends associate rum with giant pink, flaming 2000-calorie umbrella drinks, or high school memories of drinking too much raspberry-flavored Bacardi.

Rum is so much more than that. I enjoy dark rum on the rocks, although I should not be allowed to have it very often, because I'll play all my favorite reggae songs while speaking in a horrendous Caribbean accent pretending to give Beenie Man a speech explaining that while I enjoy his music, its sometimes-homophobic content offends, and that men can, in fact, make love to a fellow. Sim Simma!

As a Virgin Islander I must recommend Cruzan Rum, my favorites are Cruzan Single Barrel, or if you're looking for something slightly sweeter, Cruzan Black Strap. Always go dark if you're having it straight, light rums are better for mixed drinks. And for fuck's sake never drink a flavored variety unless you're 14. A Scotch drinker who I converted prefers the Haitian rum Barbancourt, as it is smokier and less carmel-like than the Virgin Island rum.

Vodka is for anorexic WASPs. Gin tastes like Christmas trees and not in a good way. Tequila makes you fuck your best friend's brother in the back of a car. Whiskey… OK, whiskey, you're cool. All I am saying is give rum a chance.

ROCK 'N' ROLL - REG-GAY

One of my favorite modern-day reggae songs is "I Wanna Be Loved" by Buju Banton. I put it on and do my hippie dance. Now, I have adamantly defended the reggae genre from haters the same way I did above with rum. However, as I also touch upon in the drugs section of this column, I do have one major problem with the genre: it can be extremely homophobic. Both Beenie Man and Buju Banton have songs with horrifyingly homophobic lyrics. Banton's 1998 single "Boom Bye Bye" contains lyrics that allegedly support the murder of gays. Yet in "I Wanna Be Loved" Buju Banton sings:

"I wanna be loved, not for who you think I am, not what you want me to be, could you love me for me? Buju, do you realize how contradictary your lyrics are? "Real love, with no strings attached…" OK, that just sounds like a Grindr ad.

Clearly I'm not the only one who noticed, since now there's this Rastatroll Battyboy Soundsystem mixtape thing that is either childish meta-rasta-homophobia or childish takin'-the-piss in the form of playing the penis game over every reggae track you've ever heard. I pray to Jah it's the latter, because on first listen I had a very solid giggle. Don't judge, let's see you try to keep a straight face:

"I don't want to wait in vain for your.. PENIS!"

"Have you ever wanted to have sex with… BUJU BANTON?" 

"Got to stay true to myself… I'm gay. No seriously, I like boys."

There's even a deep cut from Half Baked:

"I love weed. I love it. But not as much as I love GAY CRAZY SEX!"

Har har! But what we need is some real gay-pride reggae or at least a Macklemore for the reggae community. I'd cry dolphin tears of joy harder than the first time I heard Bowie's "Heroes" if I heard that.

Alright I'm going to finish my glass of rum and go have some sex now in my pretty mermaid sheets. Listen to "Out of di Closet and Into di Dancehall" here and let me know if you think it's just a jokey mixtape or if we need to whoop these muddaskunts' ass.

@TheBowieCat