Tony Hendricks, Contributor
NATO has it wrong! Do you honestly think Osama bin hiding in a cave they bin bombing the crap out of for a month? They've got the wrong Tora Bora! Tora Bora is a theme bar where girls wearing leis, and not much else, serve exotic drinks in coconuts with a slice of pineapple and a cherry sitting under an umbrella, a straw twisting like I-95 in Miami, topped off with a Japanese Kamikaze plane crashed into the side of it to give it a Pearl Harbor flavour.
If I were the world's most wanted Muslim fundamentalist, I think that the best place to hide would be the last place anyone would look for me? A bar where women wear cloth covering their lips but not breasts let alone faces, serving you liquor would be good. Either there or a synagogue! And a synagogue isn't such a bad idea either. Osama has the beard already, a simple change of head-dress and bingo, or shalom as the case may be, and he might pass.
Don't panic, of course he's not hiding in a synagogue. Everyone knows the Koran and Torah are incompatible like NTSC and PAL now, even though originally they all came from the same Dead Sea Scroll.
But I have seen the light, my brothers and sisters, and it was red! It's in a city surrounded by dykes and folk of all sexual persuasions, inclinations and many in need of very little suggestion. I speak of the city of Amsterdam, and in particular the red light district there.
Last week I was doing shows there and what I saw has been a revelation; we should do this in Jamaica too! Holland and Jamaica are similar in many ways. Amsterdam has local and tourist prices too. In the cheap red light district white, black, brown and mixed Dutch girls attend to the locals. Of course they have to wear the traditional Netherlander clogs, but they come in handy if a customer gets out of hand, (or anywhere else). A clog upside the head will put you right. If you're too drunk they stick you round the back with a Gouda or Edam cheese. Drunks seldom know the difference. Unfortunately neither do we when we buy the cheese.
Tourists, on the other hand, (and many other parts), choose from a huge range of girls from all over Europe, Africa, Asia, Caribbean, South America and post-glasnost-Eastern-Europe, Uzbekistan, Kurdistan and Handstan. They come in all shapes, sizes and costumes. Long, tall, short, fat, pretty, ugly, pretty ugly, leather, school uniform, habit, rabbit, anything! But the presentation is incredible. As you walk alongside picturesque streets, the silent, ever-present canal by your side, a bicycle rattles on the cobblestones, a freshly lit spliff, rich with Lebanese hashish wafts its pungent odour through the doorway of a crowded bar where couples drink and chat the night away. In the window a mannequin stands in bra and panties only she's not a mannequin, she's real! Window after window has girls, more girls, other girls, another, a mother and more.
In the few blocks that make up the red light district in Amsterdam every other shop window has women offering their wares. Every one of them is medically checked, registered and taxed. No seedy, dangerous, unhygienic, back street hovels like prostitution is forced into in Jamaica where chances are equal you'll be killed by disease as a crack-starved assassin. No one denies prostitution in Jamaica. Even the most pious will admit it's the oldest profession, existing in all societies. So we should raise the standard of it in our country and save the poor girls, who chose the profession, from the ravages of disease, the pimps and the weather that prays on them.
Yes the weather. Prostitutes are like furniture; some are made for outside, some for inside. Some even look good with Christmas lights. You recognise the same ones year in year out like Santa Claudette, who comes once a year, is fat, has a white beard and yells: "Ho, ho, ho!" There's Christmas Carol who washes shepherds rocks by night and loves to sing: Oh Cum All Ye Faithful!
Holland hosts vast amounts of tourists who spend millions in hotels, bars, shops, and with girls in the red light district. We don't want to make it the main feature of our tourism but we should acknowledge that it already is a part, especially the gigolos and make the most of it. We could have our very own red, green, gold and black light district where people can meet in Ganja Bars on streets like Bamboo Avenue, Slam Street and Lovers Lane. Choose whine like St. Elizabeth Red, Ocho Rios, Blue Mountain White, Sparkling or Glistening Waters. Everything would take place in a controlled area with no crime like police or politicians. A very happy merry one to you all!
Tony Hendriks can be reread at www.JamaicanPaleface.com or e-mailed and roundly chastised via JamaicanPaleface@aol.com.
