37 years ago the ship I was on in the Navy pulled into Alexandria Egypt. I saw the pyramids, camels hauling stuff through the streets and what looked like a neighborhood of tenements. In these tenement I saw folks sitting on their front stoops with well worn hookahs. I'm not a tall person but I remember thinking these folks were slim compared to many of the big ol' Americans from the ship.
There were 5 of us that day when we turned into an alley of sorts to check out the little shops and ran into what I would describe as a hash den. There was a sort of bar on the right side and about 5 little tables surrounded by benches along the walls. There were 2 patrons sitting on the benches, one older gentleman behind the bar and one young man tending to their hookahs by lighting and filling the bowls with tobacco and hash. The young man saw us and ran out into the street and in decent English asked if we wanted to come in. It was pretty obvious what was going on and, hell yeah we wanted to come in.
Before pulling into Alexandria we were told what to expect, not to travel alone, agree on prices for anything before accepting it, don't talk badly about women and not to go into a hash den.
There were 5 of us. Me (average but stocky), 2 huge corn fed country boys and 2 average sized guys from Philly. When we entered we were treated like long lost cousins. 'Please sir, have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? A coke perhaps. Are you hungry?' I asked how much the cokes were and was told not to worry about the cost. I told the young man I needed to know how much they would cost and he grudgingly said a dollar. We all ordered cokes and the kid ran outside the little shop to get them. Within a few minutes the kid was back with the ice cold cokes and we each gave him a dollar. While the kid was out the guy behind the bar approached us and asked if we wanted to smoke. We all agreed and I asked how much. Again the response was not to worry about the cost and he even added how happy he was to have Americans in his shop. I told him we needed to agree on the price and again, with a slightly unhappy look on his face he said 5 dollars each. We paid the older gentleman and the young kid broke out 5 hookahs and set them up in front of each of us. He put the hard, black tobacco chunks on the bottom of the bowl and put quarter sized hunks of hash on top but left enough space between the hash and tobacco to allow the tobacco to catch fire and keep the hash smoking. None of us were strangers to getting high. Whenever a bowl would start to go out the kid was immediately there tending to it. The shit tasted great and I was surprised how smooth it was considering the tobacco chunks.
I lost track of time and space. I can't remember ever being that high. We were having a great time but something was nagging at me. Maybe it was a case of the paranoids. I noticed that the little shop was now filled with so many people you could barely see the walls. I motioned to my buddies to get their shit together and I could see I wasn't the only one who noticed the change. The kid also noticed us noticing and came over and asked if we wanted another coke or something to eat. I told the kid we had to go and one of the guys from Philly asked the kid where we could find some women. The kid looked up at him and said 'would you talk about your mother like that'? Now I was definitely ready to leave. As we stood up the older gentlemen worked his way over quickly and told us we owed him fifty dollars each. There were so many people in that little shop now that you could hardly move. I looked at my two corn fed buddies and realized that one of them was getting ready to freak. I told the older gentlemen to forget it we were leaving and he said 'you could get hurt talking like that'. That's when I had enough.....I told my buddies lets go. It felt like the crowds by the door tightened up. One of the country boys said 'let's just pay him'. That made me so angry that something clicked in my head....it was the thought that if someone steals in this country they chop their hands off....wonder what the penalty for hurting an American sailor is? With that thought I pushed myself to the front of my standing buddies and said loudly, 'Do what the fuck you want...I'm leaving'. At that I turned sideways, lowered my shoulder a tad and forcefully made my way toward the door. I could see that my buddies were right behind me doing the same. I pushed into a few folks on the way out and loudly exclaimed 'Excuse me'! and kept moving. When I got outside the door I turned and everyone was there with me.
I don't know if the place filled up like that because Americans were a novelty and the neighborhood wanted to check us out or if it was because the shop owner knew we didn't have a high enough tolerance and we'd pay the jacked up price once we got totaled. Regardless .... I lived 18 miles from NYC my whole life and had spent plenty of time in the city and wasn't going to be intimidated by bullshit like that.
But I did checked the 
I was totally into the Early Fat Possum and preordered Ass Pocket full of Whiskey. 
But I do like the transition/edit between Boogy Chillen and Poor Boy. Another reason to dislike certain digital file formats. The space between the tracks can be more abrupt and ruin the timing when listening to a full album. Not that I'm a huge audiophile. 
I liked them so much I answered to everybodys demands and created the '
