Because SLXS focuses only on Cape Town, I’m often asked various things relating to the city, the people, the food we eat, the drinks we drink, the supplements we take, the travelling we do and so on and so drunk.
One of the things I’m often asked about is Pinelands and why there are so many old people there, why the youngsters drink so much and why the hell is it a dry suburb? That’s right, you can’t buy booze in Pinelands, there is no liquor store. Which defeats the point of actually having a suburb in the first place.More on that in another article, which I have been meaning to write for months now.
One of the curious thing about Pinelands in Jan Smuts Drive that kind of goes along the outskirts of Pinelands. People ask me all the time, “Sean, what is the meaning behind Jan Smuts Drive? Who is Jan Smuts?”
Well my scholarly learners, Sean is here to delve deep into the history of Jan Smuts Drive. Contrary to popular belief, and credible sources, and Wikipedia, Jan Smuts was not in fact a person.
You see, way back in the 1600’s, a group of Spanish conquistadors arrived in Cape Town on a boat that was a strong as an ox. It was called Tittyarsenic, later shortened to “Titanic” It was the first ship to ever annihilate an iceberg, and actually melt the iceberg upon contact with the ships hull. Which was thanks to a new invention called a “Microwave oven” Microwave ovens were placed on the hull and when they came near an iceberg, the microwave ovens were turned on and they melted the iceberg.
So these Spanish conquistadors arrived in Cape Town but unfortunately for them, the soil close to the ocean was way too salty to successfully grow marijuana, otherwise known affectionately at the time as “Mary Jane” Mary Jane was the first women to ever smoke the marijuana, and after tripping balls for 89 consecutive hours, they decided to call the plant something that resembled her name. Because marijuana sounds like Mary Jane. One hundred years later stoners would discover that Mary Jane actually was the first person to smoke the plant, and they started calling marijuana by the name “Mary Jane”
Unfortunately for the stoners they did not trip balls like Mary Jane did because unbeknown to her, her dealer, Chingy Steel, had soaked her weed in petroleum, which is now called “petrol”
So the soil near to the sea was too salty and so they did soil tests, and the area now known as Pinelands was found to have the purest soil, perfect for growing weed that could then be rolled into the most delicious Jolly Rodger. The name Pinelands was given to the area because the outskirts were dominated by pine trees. These were there to hide the weed growingin the centre of these lands that were dominated by pine. A fence was erected and people were told that it was a pine tree growing project, and they could not enter because the pine trees needed quiet time to have sex, so they could reproduce.
And people never knew better, and believed the story of the pine trees, because it would be years until the Google application on the internet machine would be invented. In the days of the Spanish Conquistadors internet, they only had Microsoft Live Search, a product of such inferior quality that no results actually came up when searching, and it was then given the name “Macrohard Dead Search” in celebrity social circles. Brad and Angelina used Google in the old days, and so Google caught on amongst the worlds population, making it a fairly popular way to search for porn.
So anyway…eventually when Google took off they invented something called Google Earth, and they had people in space with 3 megapixel cameras taking photos of every square inch of earth. They managed to zoom in close enough because they had 3 times optical zoom and 4 times digital zoom on their cameras. When the photos of Pinelands came out, the police(Who the Spanish called the “Po- po”) raided the Mary Jane farm, cut and dried the herb, and got blazed out of their minds. Plumes of smoke were seen for days coming out of the “Pinelands” The Po-Po said they were burning the weed, but not inhaling it, and people believed them, because Justin Timberlake said so in his E! True Cape Town story, which was released in the 1600’s only days after the burning of the Pinelands.
After that the Po-Po kept close tabs on Pinelands, because its reputation was in ruins. They decided to stop making moonshine in Pinelands and also closed down Midmar Liquor store, Pinelands cheapest Liquor Store. It was declared a dry town, and no alcohol or drugs would be sold in the suburb. After all of this, Nostradamus predicted that in 2006, a Crystal Meth craze would sweep the suburb. Nostradamus was quite hip and happening and called it “Tik” As you all know, Nostradamus always predicts things correctly and so I’m taking a wild guess his Tik prediction came right.
But right after the banning of alcohol and drugs in Pinelands, the economy crashed. Pinelands main entertainment, namely drugs and alcohol, were gone and so the suburb was useless. All the young people moved out of the suburb and went to cool places like Llandudno and Camps Bay. All the old people were flown in from Delft with helicopters, and because they were old and rickety, they could not use drugs anymore, neither could they drink, so they found Pinelands to be the perfect habitat. Unfortunately overpopulation in Camps Bay and Llandudno started forcing young people back to Pinelands. Luckily for them most of the old population was killed off because they got crop rot. Crop rot affects mainly wheat and maize, but old people can get it too.
The young people started pouring back in, but it was still a drugless city. And the economy was therefore bad. Then some girls decided that they would make money by becoming “Ladies of the night” These girls were all over 18 and had finished school. The school was fairly close to the Rondebosch Common. Rondebosch Common was called Rondebosch “Common” because of the school near it.
So these girls started selling themselves for money on the outskirts of Pinelands, and because the guys were embarrassed that they were using them, they never took the girls back into Pinelands. Because it was embarrassing AND illegal. So they would drive them around the outskirts of Pinelands, and this led to wear in the natural vegetation surrounding Pinelands. This route around Pinelands was then called a “Drive” because it was caused by guys who would “drive” their Hummers around looking for chicks.
The name Jan Smuts was actually invented to make it sound more tame, because the real name was quite rough and did not portray Pinelands as a good tourist destination, especially for people flying Virgin Airways. You see, it was originally called “Young Sluts Drive” because of the young ladies of the night that would sit on the “drive” at night. Later at night they would sit on the drivers gear knob.
And so after many years of people the world over believing that Jan Smuts Drive was named after an Afrikaans driver, I have debunked the myth. It’s things like these that makes me more than just an editor. It makes me a teacher. An icon. A God walking amongst mere mortals.
No doubt the regular news channels will catch onto this story and claim that their journalists uncovered the real name of Jan Smuts Drive. But you read it here first and so you know who to believe.
Sean Lloyd
Editor
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