Jack's Blog

You spend some days mostly waiting for them to be over. I remember how serious my dad was when he told me to never wish my time away, and I think about this during mundane things like the DMV line. However, I always end up wishing I could fast forward an hour or three. There are days like that, then there are days like today, where I can not begin to recount it all. My thoughts run off like a list, and I continuously jump to the next thing, in fear that something might be lost in the mix.

Fifi is a remarkable woman who lives in Arroyo Narañjo, traditionally one of the poorest areas of Havana, and, due to her social works, has been on the cover of the NY Times, traveled around the world and helped countless impoverished people. Of the US, she says the people in Boston are too uptight and serious – she prefers San Francisco.

Through her leadership, the mothers of her town built over 300 apartments and 30 social buildings. When I say built, I mean they wielded the pick and the axe, they shoveled the dirt, and they drew the plans and sifted the concrete. One morning when they were sifting concrete, a drunk walked by and stared at these women, stunned. He asked them if they were going to make the buildings out of meringue.

Today she spoke to a group of civil rights workers from Kentucky. We call them the Blockade Runners, because they are publicly traveling to Cuba in protest of the travel ban. Here is an article about them from the Louisville Times:

article from luisville paper on blockade runners

They are a brave and intelligent group of people, and have made me think about how an individual would go about changing the blockade. One difficulty is that it is impossible to change something if you don’t know anything about it in the first place. Because of the lack of communication between the two countries, most of the knowledge of the other place is approximated, or simply wrong. This is why traveling, like they are doing, is so important. I am only afraid that the shortness of their trip will preclude them from understanding the complexities of Cuba, much of which Jack and I don’t understand after a month. But it is a good start.

We met two rappers from the community. Their songs are a hip-hop/Reagatton mix with Cuban flavor, and pretty damn good.

I like this picture of a mother carrying her daughter because it represents the road of life.

The past sits exhausted in the background, while the present carries the future, which looks at us, the Americans. A Cuban told me the future of the world is in the hands of the Americans, which I believe. The little girl looks to us, while the mother has turned her back and carries the future away. What are we going to do?

Abdul, another representative of the future, might have the binoculars upside-down, but he guards his house nevertheless.

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A Cuban artist is restoring a 1972 Volkswagen. He applied to the government to get a car, but they denied him because he has worked with too many foreign companies and visited the US too many times. So, he had to get an old car from an antique dealer, and pay the dealer, but the car is still titled in the dealer’s name, because it cannot legally be transfered. If, for example, he was able to get the governments go ahead, the process, would take months, maybe even a year.

A brand new, old classic car will cost between 3 and 5k but he hates the old cars here – to him they represent having no choice. They are obligatory, an of course break down constantly.

Buying a car here is not as easy as going to the dealer and applying for credit. Here is the process, for those in that lucky spot of having some cash to spend. For example, a foreign company pays you, a Cuban, $50,000 (an unheard of amount, but some Cubans have the skills to manage this) and you want to buy a car. First of all, if the job was paid in US dollars, which most are unless it’s a European company, they would take a 10% tax on the dollar. You now have 45,000. Then, due to the current exchange rate, another 10%, giving you, $40,500. Then you pay 15% to the union you belong to (i/e artists and writers), regardless of whether they got you the job, giving you 34,425.
Then you pay your tax for the job, which is 10%. (sounds low but imagine you’re making the average salary here - $24 per month) 30,982.50. The law says you can only buy a car that is half of your savings, so 15,491. BUT, the government charges 100% tax on the car. So…$7,745. Then, there is a $1000.00 fee. So, $6,745.00.

With $50,000 the most you could spend on a car is less than $7,000. You can afford a car in relatively good condition (meaning it only breaks down once a month) from the 1950s. Or you do like our friend did, and buy a “new” car, from 1972, German, and rebuild the entire thing. Rebuild means more here than in the USA, where you have qualified mechanics, endless parts, and clubs you can join to help. Here you will spend months waiting for an engine from Mexico, hoping it is decent. This car originally had two carburetors, but throughout the years it lost one, so the previous owners jury-rigged it to work with only one. Our friend wants it to be more powerful, so he and a mechanic are restoring it to dual carbs, but they must design the connecting part from scratch.

On top of all of this, the whole deal is underground, since the government will not let him have a car. The title of the vehicle will stay in it’s previous owner’s name, even though he will have paid for it. That’s buying a car. Imagine what a house would be like. I’ve asked a few people, and they just say “whew,” their faces look like they are trying to explain quantum physics to a fourth grader.

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We passed by the Cine Yara, which was playing another friend’s documentary, El Proceso.

We were on the way to meet the only independent filmmaker in Cuba. He lives in the back of a duplex in Vedado with his wife, his cats, and his studio. We talked for hours, and he, a true director, told stories and held the conversation – fine by me because we learned a lot from him. His reel was more professional than many I’ve seen Stateside, and included quite a few commercials filmed in our neighborhood, Centro Habana, a dilapidated, ocean-front neighborhood full of hookers and hustlers. However, this is where you find authentic Cuba, the poverty and the beauty, the smiling, salsa dancing families with their windows wide open and they heels flying across the rugless floors.

Making movies in Cuba is difficult for foreigners to understand. The beauty we think of Cuba is restrictive to a filmmaker. There are no props, no camera rental places, and no locations that would be anything but dilapidated 1950’s. The locations are breathtaking, as are the cars, but your subject matter better by congruent. A foreign company asked our friend to shoot a rock video, which involved a rock band dropping from a helicopter onto a roof, being lit up, and rocking out. He laughed, because first of all there are no helicopters. The army has a few old Russian choppers, but that’s it. Second of all, there are no lights. And even if there were these things, as soon as the band landed on the roof, the entire building would collapse.

Oliver stone was recently fined by the US government years after he finished his film with Fidel, which I haven’t heard of it being played anywhere. The fine was just over $6,000, a paltry number for Stone, amounting to nothing more than getting his name in the papers again. He couldn’t have bought that much press for only 6k.

We’ve met only one person who has seen Oliver Stone’s film, which oddly played in the US Interest Section here. In his opinion, the film was a joke. Fidel fooled Stone, played him, as if Stone were a puppet filmmaker which Fidel was fingering. He said they interviewed dissidents in front of a crowd and in front of Fidel, and the dissidents of course said the predicted, “what we did was wrong – we should be punished to the full extreme of the law.” Fidel walked the streets with Stone and everyone came out so yell how much they loved him. Stone’s conclusions in the film where calculated by Fidel. The word he used was engañado, which means something like “played,” or “fooled.”

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A movie came on today with Peter Gallagher called something like Artificial Intelligence. The humorous part was that it opened on a building called the Center for Artificial Intelligence, the C.A.I. The Spanish translation was, Centro Intelegencia Artificial, which made for a funny acronym.

As a side note, if anyone travels to Cuba, look for doors with this symbol, which stands for Casa Particular and are rooms for rent. It looks kind of like an eyeball.

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Anyone who speaks Spanish might be able to understand the double entendre in today’s title. This joke was made by a Cuban, and that they joke is noteworthy in itself – signifying that the population is healthier than one might think, and perhaps when Fidel does die, the world here will not come to an end, as Americans predict. Things are certain to change, but don’t be surprised if the changes are smaller than you might expect.

Castro’s disappearance, now almost in it’s sixth month, is beginning to take on Howard Hughes proportions. He has passed up many opportune times to show himself, which could just be waving from a balcony. But nothing. The people don’t know what is going on, where he is, if he is alive or dead, in a coma, or cryogenically frozen. The reports I’ve read in US newspapers are even further off. Logically, one of the following must be true:

1. He is dead. But, he has spoken to people on the phone. Chavez might be down to pretend, and perhaps his impersonator fooled the Chinese leader on the telephone. But the Panamanian president has spoken to him, and others. The photos of him show a sick, old man. Because he is shown like this makes me think they are not trying to cover something up. And what would they gain? Perhaps Raul knows he cannot rule without Fidel behind him, so he is faking it, but how long can this last? Could you really pull off Weekend at Bernies with the leader of a country?
2. He is alive, but the doctors will not let him out. But who could keep him in bed if he wanted to get up? And could he be too incapacitated to even wave from a balcony, or make a television appearance. Or a radio broadcast? Photo updates? This choice seems impossible.
3. He is alive, but truly too sick. He is really too sick to do anything, including waving at the crowd. This means he would have to be bedridden, on the brink of death, for six months. It’s a long time, but perhaps possible. A Spanish doctor recently came to check on him, and said he has necrotic intestines, but not cancer, like the US papers were reporting. When we report these sort of rumors, the Cubans translate it to threats, fueling the divide.
4. Political play. Albeit far-fetched, this is my own conspiracy theory: Castro wants his final move to be bridging the US and Cuba. He wants this because he knows the people here are suffering, that it will happen eventually, so why not make it his swan-song. Maybe he has softened a bit in his old age and brush with death. Fidel knows the US will never change with him in power, so he has transferred it to Raul, so if the US wants to change they have a small loophole. He did not appear at the non-aligned summit or the parade because these events bolster his anti-imperialist stance,. Raul has shown a softer face to the USA, even requesting to end the blockade. If this happens, Fidel will reappear, and hold a honorary position, making sure the Cubans and Americans interact without losing the vision of the revolution.

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Today we had Christmas dinner (They made chicken, yucca, rice and beans, etc.)
with Christina, Lazaro, Juan, and Theresa, and a friend from the country, whom they call “guajira,” which means “red-neck.”. Always a riot over there.

First we danced salsa. Or they danced, while Jack and I tried not to appear too foolish. Then we ate and ate and ate. After dinner we talked, and the conversation hit a few high points I’d like to revisit.

-First we talked about condoms, especially comparing Cuban condoms to better quality, foreign condoms, and how they never run out because all the foreigners bring so many. We discussed how foreign condoms sometimes come in flavers, and the “guajira” said if the condom were chocolate she would eat it instead.

Christina, who has a 33 year-old daughter, said she still uses condoms with her husband, who is 60. She looked at him and said, “I don’t know him! I don’t know where he’s been!” Poor Lazaro hid his red face behind his hand and at one point even fell off his chair.

-We discussed Juan, Christina’s grandson. His father apparently ran out on them and never sends anything, though he manages a fancy resort in the Dominican Republic. Christina reached behind her and pulled out a glossy brochure of the resort. Juan, entering his teen years, came in and she asked him who was his father. He said “nobody,” then put his arms around Lazaro, his grandfather.

-Eventually, as usual when we’re around, the conversation gravitaded towards Americans, whom they call Norteamericanos, or, imperialistas. Some things they said:

“Cuba is not dangerous like the USA, here you can walk on the streets and not get shot.”

“In Cuba, we spank our children when they get in trouble, in the USA, the parents call the police and have them thrown in jail.”

“In Cuba there are no drugs, unlike the USA where everyone is either a drug addict or a drug dealer.”

“Americans don’t learn history in school like Cubans do. In America, they don’t teach things like how much of America used to be part of Mexico.”

At first, this last statement angered me. I include it because it’s important to realize how many misconceptions Cubans have about us, and, as I learn every day, we have about them as well. This is not healthy on either side, especially for neighboring countries. It’s a sadness that reminds me of the elderly brother and sister whose forgotten offences as children effected a lifetime of silence towards one another. The lost time will never be recovered, but our Christmas dinner shows that, through interaction, healing is possible.

Merry Christmas to you all.

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After a hearty meal of pig and rum, we met with some of our filmmaker friends and went to the Cathedral for La Mesa del Gallo, which, unless I misunderstood, means the Mass of the Rooster. It is a midnight affair, but Cubans don’t appear to sleep.

Non-formal attire, shorts, and red dresses dominated this tropical church service, and the crowd murmered throughout, like they do in the movie theater. There are only two non-government organizations here – the Red Cross and the Catholic Church. The Cuban Cardinal is a much more powerful figure here than I would have imagined. His eminence was was bolstered by his nomination as a papel candidate after John Paul II passed.

How fascinating would a Cuban pope have been. He used to be a fiery figure, criticizing society and speaking out against the government, but today he simply asked for peace around the world. I suppose this is a common request for priests these days. The crowd, however, seemed a bit disappointed that there were not the usual fireworks, and by the end of his speech, most had moved on.

We returned home where our neighbors constantly shout, with the occasional slap, and their entertainment alternates between good ol’ Contra and any movie of the dinosaur vs the army genre. I began praying for peace myself.

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While we wait for our two days of free meals, Jack cooked up some good ol’ rice and beans. Yummy!

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Next to the local store that sells Coca-Cola (I’m not sure how that capitolist juggernaught slipped around the embargo laws) a bicycle taxi splashed through the street puddles from today’s rain. The driver’s jurryrigged stereo and was bumping the club version of “California Dreaming.” It was a brief cinematic moment, broken when a jinetero tried to sell me a cigar. Endless tourists ensure that Havana’s hustlers don’t need many tricks. “What’s your name,” “Where are you from,” “Cuban Cigar,” “Do you have a lighter,” “What time is it,” are the gamut of openers. Entertain them and you’ll have a friend for the next few blocks or the next few nights.

The population is poor, and tourists who encourage the hustlers, whether they mean to or not, are incouraging the whole lifestyle. Like the children selling chicle in Mexico, where every cent they make goes to a chicle pimp who keeps the kids looking starved and sick, don’t give them money. It’s sad, but supporting it ensures the next generation will be holding out chicle in their grimy hands.

In Cuba, a low level grifter can make more money in a few hours than a doctor makes in a month. These things, especially the endless jineterism, charge me with the anger that gets worse with each one. “No, I don’t want your fake cigars and you are destroying your country and I might just report you to the police!” I didn’t say that, but we aren’t even halfway through yet.

The song’s lines, “I’d be safe at home, if I was in LA,” reminded me of my own home, Hollywood, the Pit, a dangerous place, where people fleece you whichever way you turn. A new crop of wide-eyed innocents shows up every day with their uncle’s savings in their pockets, only to fall into the thousands upon thousands of scams, pushers, and hornswogglers. The higher up on the hill you move, the cleverer they get. During one of my first weeks there, a man in an elevator said, “In LA, if you’re not scamming someone, you’re getting scammed.” Thinking about this makes these hustlers in Havana look a bit less scary. They are so easy to spot, and what’s the most they will get, a buck or two, maybe ten or twenty if you let them attach themselves to you for the evening? In LA, hustlers are more sophisticated, with greater consequence. Both open with the same lines, “Where are you from,” and, “My friend!” Hustlers are always your best friends, and hookers always love you, but I’ll take the Habana jinetero over the LA movie agent any day.

(Ps. In case any Hollywood agents are reading this, I meant those other guys, you know, the ones we hate)

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We saw kids playing baseball with a bottlecap and an umbrella today. I wish I had a Louisville Slugger to give them for Christmas. I don’t know what Cuban Christmas situation is yet, but they do have something called Noche Buena, the night before Christmas, and a Cuban family has kindly invited us to join them for pig and rum.

Mabel, our salsa teacher, cooked for us. She made black beans and rice, as well as a yucca dish that has sause made of garlic, oil, and orange. Que rico, as a Cuban would say, especially since we have been eating rice and beans for days. She says she loves Texas because of what she has seen in the movies, so we let her try out the hat. Yeehaw!

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(No, Andrew, we did not finally kill off that Chavez character for the sake of the film. We just put him in a coma. That way he's easier to resurrect when we can’t think of another storyline.)

News from the Captain:

Captain Chavez succesfully got the Saltwater Cowboy off the desert island and into a marina on the coast of Belize, where it will be easier to repair. He is returning to Houston with a bag full of boat parts for Christmas and New Years, then will continue as planned. Alright!

If you see him in the USA, be kind – he’s been alone on a desert island for weeks, eating fish and drinking straight rum, the poor guy.

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The only important news today is that I have to retract my statement about ABBA being banned. Last night, they had a two-hour television special which played every ABBA song, ever. I guess they showed us.

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As we wait, we can do nothing but wander around La Havana, because wandering is free. We walked to the capitol, patterned after the US capitol and perhaps more grand, to take revolutionary photos. What do you think? Jack might have me beat but I’ll never tell him!

Here was the view:

Then we went to the park to interview a beardless Abe Lincoln. He claimed he didn’t have his beard because it was too revolutionary, which made us feel bad for taking the photos, but he is honest Abe, popular even here in Havana, so we defer to him.

Then we saw a super sweet Thunderbird.

At home we continue waiting, unable to do anything but watch out neighbors dance the night away. Loud salsa and club music pumps out of their house on a Sunday night and with paper-thin walls the whole block rocks, yet no one complains. The father twirls the mother and then their two daughters to the music. They pause to eat home-made pizza, then resume dancing. One gets the feeling that if a child grows in Cuba without learning to Salsa, the whole country has failed. Will Jack and I ever learn? I guess you’ll have to watch Cowboy in Cuba to find out!

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The general feeling on the streets of Havana is that Castro is down for the count. No one will say exactly this, but if you form the question like, “when Castro returns, do you think [insert question]?,” They scoff, as if him returning is an unspoken, yet obviously far-fetched idea. They might come out and say this, but only in a comfortable situation. When pressed, they might say something like, “who knows, we will see.”

Raul extended an olive branch on December 2nd to open new talks with the US. His wording was one of those political buzz phrases that don’t sound like much, but carry a great deal of weight to people who understand them. Residents say things like, “Never before, in 50 years, has Castro said this, and now Raul is saying it.” There is something afoot. I personally feel that the Castro brothers have a plan, and that Fidel is not down for the count, but because of past history, has decided to lay low for a while. He must know that someone needs to solve this Cuba/US stale-mate – just walking the streets of Havana will tell you that – and he must recognize it would be an absolving swan song. Of course, he could be an anti-impirielista to the bone, and sick in bed with cancer and hatred, but Raul’s speech says differently. Two telling moves are that he didn’t show up to the Non-Aligned Summit, a gathering of the who’s who of US antagonists, and did not make a birthday appearance, allowing instead a slightly new guard, granted it’s his brother and fellow revolutionary, to make the offer.

The US State Department immediately rejected it.

Today a group of US congressmen arrive in Havana, though they said the timing of the visit has nothing to do with Raul’s gesture, and was planned beforehand.

Ed McWilliams, blogging live, Havana, Cuba.

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Here is what we make Cuban coffee out of:

Cubans even have a unique way of speaking. Here are some Cubanisms:

Barbero – “cool,” or killer.
Fiana – police cruiser
Jintinero – tout, hustler
La lucha – the daily struggle (lit. “the fight.” When you ask people how they are they say, “luchando”)
Pollito – pretty girl
Por la izquierda – the black market
Que es la mecanica – what’s the process here (v. imp. since the process is always loco)
Tortillera – lesbian, dyke
Yuma – someone from the US

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Good news today! We found the following in a big supermercado called Epoca:

This is the brand of rice our dad founded. It’s the only kind they carry. Again, through the misadventures we find another sign we are on the right track.

The host family informed me that a number of US congressmen are coming to meet Raul. It would sure be nice to have CNN, or even Fox News at this point. If anyone knows about this, please drop me an email.

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People have a strange opinion about Americans here, that we are all vegitarians and non-smokers – basically, they think we’re squares. They are surprised when we eat animal, then bust out our Cuban cigars.

We went to Rolo’s film today, El Proceso, which was very interesting and well done. He had great access to many places, and somehow shot quite a bit in the States. The story is about five Cubans who were arrested in the USA.

They were infiltrating orginizations in Miami thought to be behind terrorism that has occurred in Cuba. The US arrested them for being terrorists, then tried them in Miami, where the Cubans claim they will not get a fair trial. The five are still in jail there. In light of the post 9/11 era, and the belief that countries have rights to use spies in other countries for national security, it’s an interesting twist on the system. Could you imagine if the US sent them to Guantanemo with other POWS?

Hopefully, the film gets out to more Americans, because it was something I knew nothing about, and a very strange case in a very strange time of the world.

Rolando, who in one of those bizzare coincidences has a sister living the Woodlands – a suburb of Houston – invited us to sit with the filmmakers during the screening, and said our opinion was very important to him because we are Americans.

One of the producers is from San Fransisco, and she thought our project was fascinating. She introduced us to three women who were there for the film. One was a professor of architecture at the University of Havana, and she said our project is very important, for reasons we will explain in our film. We, of course, agreed with her.

The second was an abuela who is famous here in Cuba. She lives in a barrio on the periphery of Havana – a place not even Cubans want to visit. It makes the ghettos of the US look posh; buildings are falling down, many of them don’t even have roofs. Hungry, sick people fight the daily struggle to get what they need to live. She gathered more than 80 mothers and together they learned how to build and fix things, then began putting up buildings themselves, some as high as five stories. She won an international humanitarian award, voted on by 50 countries, and went on an international speaking tour. That’s how you change the world from your home, right there.

Her daughter, the third woman, is a tall, striking black girl with curly red hair who teaches dance. She is going to teach us salsa, if we in turn teach her English. All in a good day’s work.

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The Cuban family we know gave us presents: rice, sugar, bananas, coffee, cigars, recipis for beans, etc. Street bread which is much better than store bread. Jack displays the box of cigars they gave us (in a store you have to pay $700.00 or so for this same box. For us, however, gratis).

I am sure you’d rather pictures of girls, but I’ll give you pictures of cars.

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It rained most of the day so we were not able to do much. We did fid a bar that the Spanish poet Garcia Lorca used to hang in, and happened to fit us very well. Can you guess why?

Then we went home and cooked beans…

...and did some thinking.

We showed Lazaro Google Earth, and he was amazed, telling us the story of a model in Hawaii who was photographed sunbathing in her birthday suit. He made excellent vocal sound effects of the satallite camera zooming in. Then, Dancing Queen by ABBA came on the computer. Lazaro heard it, thought it, and when we told him it was Abba he knew them, and told us that ABBA is banned here. Prohibido.

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Here is a poster for the film festival.

We ran into The Advocado at a salsa place called Casa De la Musica. Unfortunately, it was Regeaton night. MORE DADDY YANKEE! AH!. I’ve actually started to like it – I wonder if the Stockholm Syndrome applies to music.

It turns out The Advocado’s real name is Lothario. Hmmm. He gave us the low down on the romance situation, which I will refrain from discussing. Let’s just say Cuban girls are beautiful in a poor land. A gorgeous girl next to us gave a new meaning to hip shaking. She was with a guy and, while he was gone, I leaned over and asked if he was her novio. She said “mas o menos,” which means more or less, but Cubans drop the s’s on their words so it comes out “mao menoh.”

Watch Scarface again – Pacino was dead on with his accent.

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For the anniversary of John Lennon’s death, we went to a park where there is a statue of him and they play music in tribute. I wasn’t sure why they have a statue of John Lennon in Vedado, Havana, other than perhaps the sculptor made a mistake when they told him to make a statue of Lenin, as in V.I. Cheers to him.

When we arrived, Lennon was occupied. It seems even as statues they Beatles still get the ladies. I took a paparazi style photo.

Jack and John.

Then we walked to Meyer-Lansky's Riviera Casino, where the gambling days are long gone, but they do have a historical wall.

We have many pictures of our dad here, and apparently this is where he first met the bearded one.

Some of the old actors who partied here (sorry about the blurriness, in case you can’t read, they are Ginger Rogers, Stewart Granger, Williams Holden, George Raft, Cesar Romero, and Rocky Marciano, because casinos and heavyweight champs go together. {note: William Holden is too cool to be singular}).

And some of the new ones!?

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Cuba is rich in everything except money
– Jack. A truer statement has not been spoken.

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This week has been one to find our way around, establish contacts, and do a bit of location scouting. Havana is a lively town, but because we are basically confined to our host family’s place, we cannot party down.

A view from our window:

Currency is interesting here, in a country where the average salary is in the neighborhood of $24 dollars per month, and tourists routinely drop $4 for Mojitoes at the Bodeguita and $6 for daquiries at the Floridita – imagine as a waiter every drink you serve is ¼ of your monthly salary.

The biggest quirk is the duel currency. They have pesos for Cubans, and Cuban Convertables (cuc) for foreigners. Paying in pesos gets you a fifth or better of the convertible rate. Getting pesos is not easy for tourists, but if one can, and can pose as a local, they can pay something like 10 cents for a taxi ride costing tourists 5 Euros.

Cubans are such amazing salsa dancers that the only way for us to learn is to take lessons from this giant whose exaggerated limbs are easier to follow:

In our apartment we sit, drink rum, and watch propaganda TV. Most of the shows are educations, but we did watch a baseball game, which was odd due to the lack of commercials. They also play movies like the Shaggy Dog, and TV shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Dagessi High, and Bugs Bunny. In each case the bottom right corner was blocked, probably the channel logo from which it was recorded.

I’ll leave you with something sweet:

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The Havana International Film Festival kicked off today. It is headquartered at the Nacional Hotel, Havana’s flagship hotel, est. 1930.

We had tea there and witnessed a Cuban bride taking photos.

Later we began to call our connections. We met with Jose and Ricardo (names have been changed to protect the innocent) in Vedado, a famous neighborhood in Havana with the Riviera Hotel, built by the Casino gangster Meyer-Lansky and a place our dad spent a bit of time. They are talented Cuban experimental filmmakers. Their admission to the festival was censored, due to some political element the festival claimed it had, but they deny there are political elements. They are going to bring it over to show us, and thankfully help with anything we need.

Ricardo asked if we have shooting permits, which of course we don’t. On top of that we are American. Sometimes they don’t shoot with permits either, but said if they get questioned they can just call people to confirm that they are filmmakers. I asked what would happen if/when we get busted and they said, “first the police will take you into a room. Sort of a jail, but not really a jail because you are not Cuban. Then they will interrogate you, and try to determine if you work for the CIA. Then, after they establish that you are not with the CIA or any press, they will maybe give the camera back, maybe not. Then they will take you to the airport, and drop you off, telling you to buy a ticket to another country.”

Or,

We could get assaulted. Someone or a group of people will see our camera, and assault us with a large knife or a machete. We will have to give them the camera, because it is either the camera or our lives – an obvious choice. They will sell our camera (costing around $6,000) to the black market for maybe $200.00, because they will not know what they have and $200 is a fortune for a Cuban. They will of course contact some filmmakers around to try to sell the camera, like Ricardo and Jose. Ricardo joked that perhaps he would buy the camera and not tell us about it.

When we told them what equipment we were shooting on, they said we were definitely the first people to shoot in Cuba with this type of technology. Stay tuned.

Posted by Ed McWilliams at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Jack and I hit the ground running our first full day in Havana, Cuba.

We woke in the apartment, which we are lucky to have, and turned on the telvision which has only one channel. The parade had begun, yet it was only eight in the morning. Raul Castro spoke.

People say he is not a good public speaker, but he had a commanding voice, though he did pause often, perhaps because his pages blew in the wind.

The question of the day was if Fidel would make an appearance on this, his 80th birthday celebration. If he did, we would be there with the camera.

Thousands of Cubans wore revolutionary red and waved miniature flags, chanting things like, “Fidel si, Yankee no…Fidel si, Yankee no!” Jack and I picked up flags from the ground, waved them to the beat, and turned down the main road to the Plaza de La Revolucion. Somehow, we ended up IN THE PARADE!

We paraded past all the Cuban bigshots and their guests, including Raul Castro, and I believe Gabriel Garcia Marquez, though I’m not certain. News crews such as Fox and AP were on the sidelines, watching us as we beat our flags and shouted “Viva!” with the sea of Cuban comrades.

Unfortunately, no Fidel sighting, which means he must not feel well enough even to put in just a quick, Michael Jackson style appearance. Was this 80th birthday celebration more of a farewell, a strategic segway from Castro? One cannot yet be sure.

Afterwards, to celebrate our good luck marching in the parade, Jack and I went to the Bodeguita de Medio, famous for mojitos. It is full of tourists, so you can’t have a peaceful mojito like they did in Hemingway’s time (plus they are about four dollars a pop), but since they did invent the damn thing it will stay on my list.

This bartender claims to have made 500,000 mojitos in the last 15 years, and I believe him.

Jack and I enjoy his creations:

Posted by Ed McWilliams at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Our host family informs me Fidel’s birthday parade starts at 6 am, and right now it is after 2 am, so we’ll see if we can wake up after a stressful Cuban customs experience. Fidel is rumored to be making an appearance, but of course nobody knows. Hopefully the cameras don’t get us into trouble.

Havana is beautiful, the decrepit buildings and proud architecture, the old cars. Of course it was dark when we arrived, but the street lights are plentiful, as are the people walking in the streets and talking.

Posted by Ed McWilliams at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)