Actor/singer Tyrese Gibson, Jamaica, and beach access

It had to happen. Finally! American actor and Rhythm & Blues singer Tyrese Gibson lashed out at the ongoing discrimination against Jamaicans who try to gain access to public beaches in the land of their birth – a problem that the Jamaican government does not want to fix, because it will hurt the wealthy and upper class.

In a social media post, 47-year-old Tyrese, a friend of Jamaica, said on the thorny issue:

“This is so dark, horrible, disgusting and disrespectful. I don’t care what anybody says … the great people of Jamaica are being blocked and stopped from enjoying their own natural beaches.

“People are saying that this feels like the Apartheid and the 50s, when evil and racist people in the US used to stop black people from swimming in pools and being able to swim at public beaches. What next are they going to put? White-only signs on the beaches? This is what happens when you let too many foreign (sic) move in and buy up your island with resort villas and private residences. There should always be a balance. Even on the private beaches in LA and Malibu, we still have the legal right to physically walk on the sands, even if it’s privately owned. 

“This is really devastating, especially after the hurricane that they just experienced…Praying for my beautiful souls and people of Jamaica….,” said Tyrese, who, apart from private visits, travelled to Jamaica as a member of the group Reach Out Worldwide to deliver disaster relief supplies, following the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Melissa last October.

Now, did things have to reach so far for a man like Tyrese to cry out? No. But the lack of effort by the Government to put things right forced his hand, which could have cruel consequences for an island and its tourism product, choked already by the rapid rise in the cost of airline tickets.

Jamaica is about pleasing the rich and already well off. My checks around the Caribbean have shown that beach access remains a right to all citizens. One of them, Barbados, has been at the forefront of protecting that right of its citizens for decades now. It was one of the sticking points that caused the lengthy delay in the expansion of a property bought by Sandals, where I used to stay near the capital, Bridgetown, years ago, as the hotel insisted on keeping access to the beach private. At the time, Wes Hall, the former West Indies cricketer, managed the property on behalf of Sandals. 

Years ago, my older brother invited me to visit a section of Robin’s Bay, a popular seacoast community in St Mary Central. When we got there, a place known popularly as First Beach was separated from the roadside with zinc and other materials. An entrance gate stood out prominently. The ‘capturer’, a friend of my brother, said that he had been given permission by the then St Mary Parish Council to turn that section of the beach into an exclusive zone, sell food and liquor. I refused to be denied access to a beach that I had been associated with from boyhood.

My brother decided to pay to enter. I opted not to, citing my right to get inside without paying, and even when he offered to pay for me, I declined. The capturer then came across and told me that I did not have to pay. I went in, and yes, the place was clean and fairly well kept, but the idea of others having to fork out money to enter was hard to digest, hence my shortened stay. 

Two weeks later, a storm stopped by for lunch, which left the entire place unrecognisable. Nothing else was ever erected there.   

‘Powerful’ ganja and a tennis star

Tennis star Aryna Sabalenka was left high and dry days ago, after she disclosed that the smell of ganja (or marijuana) had affected her during a third-round match of the US Open in New York.

Later, Sabalenka appealed to the fan or fans who had decided to introduce the smell of the holy weed to her, to refrain from “smoking around the tennis courts.” She said that while she had smelt weed before in New York, the latest culprit “smelt very strong”.

Unknown to the world number one and two-time defending champion, Belarusian Sabalenka, it might well have been one of the powerful strains of ganja that was of Jamaican origin. In fact, ganja is found only in Jamaica, not marijuana, which may be defined as a ‘first cousin’ that is grown outside of Jamaica’s shores, which explains why so many people from abroad always look forward to the real Jamaican flavour when they visit. 

I’m not sure if New York laws prohibit people from smoking derivatives of cannabis in public spaces, like Jamaica does, though the regulation remains largely ignored. But it was a howling statement by the smoker.

I could well imagine what caused the tennis champ to alter her service at times, for ganja is a powerful weapon against mankind. Growing up in St Mary, it was regular for members of the ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ clan to roll up ‘Cho-Cho’ (Chayote) leaves in paper and puff away, if only to satisfy some inquisitive minds.

But there was that time, for me at any rate, when one Rastafarian elder handed me a spliff that he had christened on the compound of Belfield All-Age School, then, now Belfield Primary. Three puffs were enough, and then it was virtually downhill for me – pushed away to the comfort of a home nearby with a waiting couch in the living room, which served as dreamland for the next five hours, until my mother questioned the length of that adventure and even asked if I had got a girl pregnant, and why I was sleeping for so long.

There endeth that initial foray into an experiment with the herb until years later when, I being a conscious adult, followed my friend to his coffee farm way up in the Blue Mountains. He had a hut that stored all first aid material for his coffee pickers, and in one bottle was what I thought was a nice concoction – ganja soaked in brandy – which was said to be the best remedy for the flu that I was suffering from. Swallowing half of a small tea cup made me wonder whether or not the fire brigade should not be called to put out the inferno in my gut.

Behold, five minutes before our departure to home in Barbican, St Andrew, I swear that I was speaking with the angels and murmuring Glory Hallelujah.

A firm grip on my hand by my friend 90 minutes later, made me realise that I had reached home, depriving me of a view from the mountain range that I had hitherto looked forward to. The challenge of making it to the bedroom upstairs was real, and the rails came under intense pressure. Falling onto the bed and feeling the entire place moving like a merry-go-round raised questions about my achieving half of the three score and 10 years that interpreters of Psalm 90 verse 10 of the King James Version of the Bible often emphasise in terms of longevity. That was the final straw. If ganja use was good, it had to be for external purposes only, I reckoned.

So, I can understand what Sabalenka was going through in her distant encounter with pot. I can bet that henceforth at the US Open, there will be clear-nosed individuals appointed to serve as ganja hawks, who will squeak at any semblance of a sniff and proceed to put the perpetrators far away from civilisation.

Branson’s fury on airline ticket costs

Virgin Airlines Group founder Sir Richard Branson stated something last Saturday that was most profound. He said that airline ticket prices were going up because of “foolish leaders starting wars,” referring specifically to the conflict in the Middle East, started by the United States and Israel, against Iran.

Sir Richard said that the badly affected production and transportation of oil in the region had resulted in higher prices of jet fuel for aircraft and petrol for vehicles, derivatives of oil, which essentially had to be passed on to travellers.

Many have seen the war as unnecessary, except US President Donald Trump, its creator, but people continue to be hurt by it. 

Sir Richard told the BBC: “The Iran conflict was completely unnecessary. There was a nuclear agreement between Iran and the rest of the world that had been negotiated by President Obama and a lot of European people.

“It was working, so there was no need to rip it up… And this war has just resulted in much higher oil prices all over the world. And inflation has been one of the consequences.”

Is there anyone in the world who still does not think that the second coming of Donald Trump as US President was not the ultimate mistake?

Jamaica Kingsmen and their silly decisions

For starters, the owners of the Caribbean Professional League franchise team, Jamaica Kingsmen, should rather have named it Jamaica Brethren, if only to get rid of the meaning of Kingsmen being loyal servants, supporters, or worshippers of a king.

That aside, I am left to wonder if there are any thinkers within the leadership of the franchise.

The results that the Kingsmen have achieved up to now – four wins out of nine – are disappointing. And it is so simple to determine why that is so.

The Kingsmen, a new franchise now filling the gap after Jamaica’s seven-year absence from hosting CPL matches, are not as strong, player-for-player, in terms of quality, as other franchises to have emerged from Jamaica. 

Early in the show, one of the Kingsmen’s wicketkeepers from Pakistan was performing as if he was immersed in kindergarten cricket, by putting down ‘close your eyes and take’ chances.

Early in the proceedings too, allrounder Andre Russell was batting too low down the order – at six, seven and eight, instead of three – the same position that he held while leading his Los Angeles franchise to victory in the USA league held just before the 2026 CPL started. Injury to Russell has made the situation worse.

For Kirk McKenzie, the most intermittent player around, so many people thought that finally, he had turned that never-ending corner with a blistering, only half-century knock of 69 at Sabina Park, only for him to flop in subsequent matches, adding to previous failures. Yet, for a youth who cannot bat, he is immune to being dropped.

West Indies player Keacy Carty has also been a flop, and he too has been spared the drop.

But the biggest injustice ever done to a player, while describing it as developing him, is the constant use of teenager Vitel Lawes, a success at youth cricket, who made a promising start in a One-Day series against New Zealand, but, predictably, flopped in the CPL by being not tight enough, and as a result conceding more runs than he should have, while taking a handful of wickets in nine matches.

It was clear from the start that Lawes was not fit for T20 cricket. He lacked control and was way off with his line and length. Lawes has conceded 277 runs from nine matches with a haul of eight wickets and an economy rate of 10.25. It also meant that for every wicket that he took, it cost him 36 runs, roughly. That’s not good in T20 cricket.

Those in charge are only destroying him slowly, and I don’t know what it will take for them to come to their senses and spare this youngster’s neck from the cricket hangman’s noose.  

HG Helps is a veteran journalist