The other Jewish Elvis in Cajun country

Please do your best to make it through the whole thing:

On Sunday, Aug. 1, I rolled out of bed hungover (shocking), and commenced a 22 hour journey that landed me dazed in the golden, smoggy metropolis of Johannesburg. I realize I'm a bit tardy on this entry but between illness (mysterious rash), technical difficulties (E.D.) and work (hooking), it's been hard to get this motherfucker done.

Fresh off the plane with a three-day beard, bloodshot eyes and breath that smelled of stale airplane wine and morning, I hopped into the strange SUV/Van combo my dad had rented and headed directly to Kruger National Park, a wildlife refuge the size of New Jersey with animals that could kick the animals in Yellowstone's asses.

There we went on a self-guided safari with our cousins, waking up each day at dawn to navigate dirt roads through the bushveldt all day and paying homage to the Dark Continent's imperialist past at night, when we would pour large gin and tonics and sit in front of our overdone thatch-roofed huts, watching the sun set over the African wilderness while African workers hurried back and forth assisting obnoxious guests.

We even have a safari drinking game: a swig of Castle Lager (South Africa's not good signature beer) each time we see one of the "Big Five" (lion, leopard, elephant, water buffalo and rhino). Some days we'll see one of the Big Five every 10 minutes and other days we won't see one all day. Because we start our days in the park at 6 a.m., this can mean either a revoltingly long, sober day or a buzz by eight (also somewhat revolting).

After two days of the do-it-yourself tour we met up with some more cousins (judging by the number of cousins we have in South Africa my family either has a severe birth control problem or just likes to call people cousin) at a nearby private wildlife refuge that boasted a gym and spa because that's what I want to do while I'm in the pristine African wilderness, hit the fucking elliptical machine.

While it was certainly a little cushy for my liking, there were aspects that were refreshingly frightening, like riding in an open-top vehicle and getting 20 feet away from a lion guarding the baby elephant it had just killed. Also, my brother and I found lion tracks 30 feet from the door to our cabin. When we asked our guide about the tracks, he cheerfully told us about the hungry lions that were chasing water buffalo through the camp the night before (there was no fence around the camp to keep animals out so by the time you made it from your cabin to the bar you were more than ready for the tall drink awaiting you).

We had a great guide, named John, who, despite living under apartheid for the first 22 years of his life, knew eight languages and the name, life cycle and probably the sign of every fucking plant and animal in South Africa. He also kept pointing out different wasps, though he would always mispronounce "wasps" as "Wops," to which I think many W.A.S.P.S. might take offense.

Halfway through our trip through the bush, we got word that my 91-year-old grandmother, who lived in Johannesburg, had died suddenly. Obviously she had lived a long time and, in failing health for some time, she had expressed her wish to go sooner rather than later. She had been able to see my dad and two brothers just a couple days before she died and, by all accounts, she looked peaceful. It was still strange, especially hearing the news while on what suddenly seemed a very frivolous, drunken safari, especially since I hadn't yet seen her on the trip (in fact, I hadn't seen her in two years and had expressly gone on this trip to see her for what I figured might be the last time).

So we all gathered at the nearest orthodox synagogue, which happened to be Lubavitch (they're the people who claimed their rabbi was the messiah a few years ago until he died without the requisite peace on earth and raising of the dead). I'm still not clear why we let these nutjobs conduct my grandmother's funeral, but it certainly was not the time to complain. So we had the ceremony along with all of the usual feelings of mortality and the strange finality of the sound of the dirt I just shoveled hitting the simple pine box. It was especially weird to see Ouma, the black maid who took care of my grandma in her final years, in a sea of my Jewish relatives, bawling her eyes out during the funeral. I have no doubt she knew my grandma much better than I did. Less predicted was the anger I felt as the douche-bag rabbi who had never met my grandmother gave the canned eulogy he insisted on reading.

The best part about the funeral was right after. The Lubavitch, shattering stereotypes, filter funeral goers to a lobby and into a room with a cash register that sits below a large blue sign that reads "donations." We have no shame, but my people know how to make a buck anywhere.

After all of that dour bullshit was done, all of the extended Druzin clan got together for a few days and remembered my grandmother (without the help of the fun- and bacon-averse Orthodox), which was the good that came out of a sad situation. And, of course, getting together with the cousins in South Africa means lots of drinking -and this wasn't just regular drinking, Bryce (my little brother, for those who haven't met him) and I took it upon ourselves to be alcohol ambassadors to no less than the greatest country in the world.

Drinking in the Fortess City of Jo'burg adds a whole new dimension to getting hammered - avoiding a violent, drunken death. Driving around the city, it's hard not to notice the large cement walls topped with barbed wire fences and signs reading "Armed Security Response" that constitute the "Welcome" signs in front of nearly every home.

This is all, of course, a response to the rampant crime Johannesburg is rightly famous for and it makes a night of drinking that much more exciting. Red light after 10 O'clock with your drunk and stoned friend driving? Treat it like a stop sign and make it a rolling stop while you're at it. Better that than shot in a carjacking. Police pull you over? Better have you're bribe money to avoid a night in jail in the worst part of the city (a neighborhood that makes South Central look like Mayberry).

That's what 10 beer buzz is for, softening the edges of a sometimes frightening city. And South Africans know drinking. In fact, the country was practically founded on it. In fact, I suspect the Boer War actually started when a British and an Afrikaaner officer got into an argument after a night of drinking. However it started, the Boer War was clearly a battle between two of the leading problem-drinking cultures in the world and there's really no shame in the Boers losing the war since they so clearly won the boozing war.

There really is no occasion in South Africa that isn't fair game for a drink, be it enjoying nature, watching sports, playing sports, driving, breakfast...anyway most events are toasted with Castle Lager, a glorious pisswater of a beer brewed by the Afrikaaners for more than 100 years and truly the signature beer my homeland.

It says on the back of the can that Castle is "brewed for friendship" and where better than South Africa to prove that nothing cuts across racial lines like booze.

While drinking in a land just 10 years removed from apartheid Bryce and I went out drinking with a Jew, a black and an Afrikaaner and we got on spectacularly, especially after the eight round of 6 Rand (God bless the exchange rate, that's $1 U.S.) drinks at the Tokyo Bar, which is about 8,000 miles from Tokyo and had exactly zero Japanese patrons or employees.

The rest of the nights was spent mostly drinking with our 20-something cousins. My cousins from Texas, the Israelsons joined us and, while my dislike for most things Texas is well-chronicled, I must say the Druzin-Israelson team did well to show the South Africans that America can hold its own at the bar (a special shout out to Carla, the only woman I've ever seen drink scotch all night with no visible ill effects).

For our last night in Johannesburg, Bryce and I joined a few of these cousins to get drinks at Moyo, a traditional African restaurant. A woman in the restaurant painted our faces in what she claimed were traditional Zulu warrior patterns as I sipped on my traditional Zulu double martini. Thus prepared for battle, I managed to defeat both an untamed pack of South African Camels and four more angry martinis Hell-bent on my destruction.

Tired and hungover, I felt much the same as I did when I began my journey. On the plane, I couldn't help but hear the guy next to me awkwardly talking to other passengers and I was convinced he was, at the very least, high functioning autistic. I was close, he was a missionary. I knew things were going to be bad when he turned to me with his earphones on and a big smile on his face and, pointing at his TV, said, "It's a good movie, have you seen it? It's called 'Miracle.'"

This fat, goofy white guy then proceeded to tell me that, after five days in South Africa, he knew the "real situation" in South Africa. Clearly the ANC had been keeping the Afrikaaner down, affirmative action excluding them from jobs and government positions. I stared at him for a second, ordered a glass of wine and turned back to my magazine, hoping against hope they would serve me enough wine to drown out my neighbor.