Cuba: Rocking Havana
THEIR RADIO, THE YOUNG Cuban couple’s battered but precious portable Panasonic, is the most important thing in their lives. It’s their only link to the world of rock & roll, blue jeans and what amounts to a fairyland of freedom compared to the Marxist military state of Cuba. Fidel Castro Ruz may have outlawed rock & roll, but he can’t outlaw the radios that suck in the sounds of the music from the States.
I first saw Preston and Maruja, with their radio-cassette player, literally hiding behind a tree near the beach by the Hotel Marazul, where I was staying some thirty miles from Havana. I’d just had a strenuous encounter with a loyal young communist, an encounter that ended with him saying to me, in loose translation, “Live free or die, imperialist motherfucker whore!” He and I obviously had different ideas about what “living free” meant, and his riposte culminated a small debate about the respective roles of the U.S. and Cuba in the Vietnam-China conflict. Cuba’s position is amply demonstrated by the dozens of VIETNAM VINCERA (“Vietnam Will Win”) billboards dotting the lush, green countryside and by Fidel’s oft-quoted “We Must Be Ready for Anything” speech (his manifesto denouncing China and declaring Cuba’s solidarity with Vietnam).
I was in Cuba to attend the Havana Jam, a historic (and nonpolitical) three-night music festival of U.S. and Cuban musicians on March 2nd, 3rd and 4th. It was the first such event since before the Cuban Revolution, but my communist opponent was more interested in the global success of Marxism than in musical hands across the ocean. The Havana Jam was in fact an unofficial affair: CBS Records President Bruce Lundvall set up the concerts with the Cuban cultural ministry without the official sanction of either the Carter or Castro administration. The festival was of no great importance to the majority of Cubans, who did not even know about it. The young communist knew about the Jam since his family was well connected politically and thus entitled to tickets. The presence of such musicians as Weather Report, Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge, Billy Joel, the CBS Jazz All Stars, Stephen Stills and a like amount of leading Cuban groups meant little to him. Solidarity with the people of Vietnam was more important.
I had started walking back to the hotel, and halfway through the stand of tall pines that separated the beach from the hotel, I heard a “psst!” coming from behind a tree. “Psst! Señor, mister, monsieur? You are being avec with con los Americanos?”
We finally settled on French as the common language, and I established that I was un CBS Americain. Preston, Maruja and their Panasonic emerged from behind the tree. Initially, I wasn’t sure about them, especially after suddenly being immersed in a country that is part late-Fifties nightclub flash and flesh show, part banana republic inefficiency and poverty and part military stockade that seems permanently mobilized.
Cuba’s brand of communism is unique: I saw floor shows in Havana that far outstrip anything in Las Vegas or Paris, yet media censorship is total. I had to register with the foreign-affairs ministry, which stationed agents in the hotel to supervise American journalists. I was most curious about the state of life for young people in Cuba. Unfortunately, said Luis Llerandi, my foreign-affairs overseer at the hotel, such interviews would not be possible since I was in Cuba purely to see three concerts. Luis had just left the beach when Preston and Maruja approached, and I had no way of knowing if they were government agents or what.
It soon developed that they were regular kids, rock & roll fans. Preston’s words spilled out excitedly. Who was I, was I a famous rock star that perhaps he had heard on one of the radio stations from Miami? I am being journalist from Rolling Stone? Fantástico! Rolling Stone is being hottest item on Cuban black market, next to Levi’s, rock & roll records and American cigarettes.
Preston and Maruja, it turns out, a re both students at the University of Havana, but they’d rather be at, say, Ohio State or Miami U. They are not great fans of communism or Castro.
Preston looked nervously over his shoulder. “The police are watching the beach,” he said. I scoffed. He jumped nervously: “Oh, no. Remember what country you are in. We should not be seen talking to you. We could be arrested. We must go. You are getting for us maybe invitations [tickets] to see Billy Yo-el and Krisanrita?”
Can’t do, I said. The Cuban cultural ministry is handling the whole thing. Since the invitations were free, why hadn’t Preston and Maruja gotten a pair? Maruja spoke up: “The invitations went to the communists and the Russians. Young people could not get them. Tell Billy Yo-el and Krisanrita that the people that are being seeing them are not being the people who love them. Remember, this is being communist state.” I suddenly recalled that the charter flight that had brought the musicians and journalists down from New York City had been insured by CBS for $120 million.
Maruja looked at me pleadingly: “You are getting for us maybe copies of Rolling Stone?” Sure, I said, come on back to the hotel with me. They both recoiled. “No,” said Preston, “the police are there.” It turned out he was right.
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