[While the rest of the staff is busy duncecapping-and-kazooing its way through the usual July 4 activities, Phoenix rap critic Chris Faraone has left the country and is doing lots of drugs. We rejoin him at Montreal's Jazz Fest, already in progress.]

GZA's Liquid Swords: drunk, or just human?

I tell people that I “used to go to Montreal all the time,” but the truth is that I’ve only been there twice. I guess I’m just a tremendous bullshit artist. Either that and/or I lived so hard on those short trips that I felt like a frequent flyer.

My first adventure was freshman year in college, when, along with four friends, I was stopped by the border patrol.