Tony Hendriks, Contributor
THEY say there is no such thing as bad PR as long as they spell your name right. That seems to be the case even when they spell Jamaica y-a-r-d-i-e!
Never a day goes by without the international press mentioning the President's Click, Dudus or a planeload of mules. But is it really bad PR? The Queen still came to visit.
Jamaica got great PR the other day, more by association than by design, when the anorexic supermodel and 'Jamaicaphile' Kate Moss was shot half naked, lingerie hanging from her shoulders and a half full bottle of Appleton V/X by her side for an Evening Standard article on London Fashion Week. It wasn't an ad for Wray & Nephew, they probably couldn't have afforded her, but the world famous, amply anaesthetised waif shared stage and page with a bottle of the cask-aged amber rum. I'm sure that the image evoked enough vivid memories of fuzzy, warm and mellow Jamaican nights to cause several glitterati to pick up their mobiles, call the pilot and book the jet for a nip back to Jakes, The Caves or Strawberry Hill for a top up.
What's the difference between Kate Moss and a bottle of V/X? One has an hourglass figure and a waistline, the other is wasted with a line by the hour.
Shaggy gives us great free PR too. Every time he goes on stage during his current tour, the king of Yardie Style Pop prowls before a huge backdrop of a seascape with palm trees, reinforcing what fans already think; His Royal Shagginess is Jamaican. The likelihood that he was born in America or some satellite of Jamaica is not the point and who are we to disappoint the public. Any young girl watching his show thinks of nothing but Yardie Style Sex on the beach in Jamaica. We get good PR from Lennox too every time he gets a belt whether it's upside his head or round his waist, the champ has dreadlocks and is ours.
Of course, it would be better if people spoke of Jamaica in respectful tones instead of as Yardie Gangs but we only have ourselves to blame for that. No one else is going to persuade the world to think of jerk, escoveitch and brown stew cooking as Yardie Style Cuisine. If we don't do it who else is going to tell the world that our young technocrats currently learning cyber skills in universities across the globe are the first Yardie Style Computer Programmers soon to design burglar bars for all Windows?
Reggae is already known but if we want to hear references to Yardie Style Singers and DJs as they sit atop the charts then we have to blow our own trumpet, beat our own drum and bass and stop kissing brass because no one else is going to do it for us.
We've got to take the term Yardie Style and make it respectable. Instead of sitting back and taking flack for every mule on a plane we should start a new airline called Air Yardie. The British airlines who fly to Jamaica have seats less than 30 inches apart. Air Yardie seats would be at least 40 inches apart. Our wide body jets make room for our wide body people. While other airlines suffer from economy class syndrome where people suffer from a thrombosis on Air Yardie you won't get a blood clot! We could use that in our advertising.
"On Air Yardie you can stick your box over your head, cock up you foot up in the air, eat Ackee & Saltfish, Rice & Peas and belch. Drink hot beer, white rum and poop and when it comes to comfort you won't get a blood clot on Air Yardie!" Catchy isn't it?
We should also train Yardie Style Olympians. We don't have many world-class sprinters now because every time Jamaican athletes hear a gunshot they get flat. We should train our boys and girls to leap Yardie Style. As soon as the starter pulls his gun jump him. Steal his gun, shoot all the other runners and run off to a waiting getaway car. Otherwise change the starting pistol to the sound of a croaking lizard. Then they'd run! "On your marks. Get set. Croak!"
We should enter more people in the Winter Olympics too. The JDF should enter the sniper-on-a-ski event where you carry a rifle on your back, stop and shoot at the men and women ski jumping. Whenever they fall I figure someone has just shot them out of the air. Even if they ski downhill we could chase them in the bobsled. A good marksman always gets his prey. Jah love!
Tony Hendriks can be reread at www.JamaicanPaleface.com or e-mailed and roundly chastised via JamaicanPaleface@aol.com
