Hey Everyone,

For those of you that i havent been in touch with for a long time (that´s most people...im famous for my great letter writing and lightning quick email replies) im going to fill you in quickly on what´s been happening with me then i´ll get into some stories.

I no longer live in Japan. For those of you who didnt know i ever lived in Japan...Im sorry for not having written for a while...! Anyway, ive been in cuba since July and will be here until the end of december (unless castro decides to imprison me for subversive thought).  I came to cuba to study the history of US involvement in pre revolutionary cuba and its long term effects on the neo realist school of art particular to cuba, paying special attention to the Batista years.  Well, actually, that´s not what im doing...although many of you probably have no trouble imagining me launching myself whole-heartedly into this exciting endevour.  Im actually here studying afrocuban dance.  And i intend on being the first high fivin´ white guy to do that (that´s the only reason why).

Oh, by the by, if your first language is not English or you dont understand something i write because it doesnt make sense, that probably means that i need to use spell check or that i told a joke.  There will also be some jokes that only people who have lived in japan will understand.  Ok, enough blabber.  Im going to share with you some selections (fit for public viewing...especially my mother) from my journal.

Thursday July 27

...Just missed the bus back to Matanzas and i couldnt buy a ticket for the next day because the ticket sales office was closed due to mass fumigation (massive cockroaches came a stumblin´ out before finally rolling over and dying).  People (cuban people) were calmly sitting in the hall outside the offices in a massive cloud of cockroach poison for a good hour breathing the fumigation dust like it was fresh mountain air! (Chemicals gooooooooood! Nature baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!)...and like any good cuban, they were smoking while inhaling the yellow poison dust.  Smoking! Of course! The chemical in the poison isnt damaging enough.  You´d think someone would get semi-brilliant idea to maybesit somewhere other than right in the center of the billowing yellow cloud of cockroach poison...but no.We´re just fine here thank your very much...do you have a light? 

That was the last straw for me and Havana. (originally i was going to stay the night and catch the bus in the morning). I asked a taxi driver how much it would be to Matanzas-he said 30US.  GET ME OUTTA HERE! He could have gotten away with more.  This from a guy who had just rationed his water all day to keep expenses down!

So, this guy isnt lisenced to carry tourists (taxis need a special lisence in cuba to carry tourists) so its a big risk for him, huge in fact?he could lose his car.  But, by his standards (the average monthly salary for a cuban worker is 15.00?20.00 US ?that´s not a typo) its a huge payoff.  Well, you gotta understand that cuba aint ´zactly like Canader when it comes to the police.  There are police stationed on roads every 10-15 blocks and every 3?5km on highways that could pull you over on a whim to check your paperwork.  There is a very real chance of getting caught. 

Well, we´re flying along  the freeway and the taxi driver´s plastic cup gets caught in the wind and flys out the window.  A cop on the side of the road sees it and pulls us over.  Driver JUMPS out of the car to personally give the cop his paperwork (we were in front of him so he couldnt see my white boy face).  One of the car´s blinkers (and im sure about 20 other things) isnt working and the cop starts to walk around the side of the car to make a fuller inspection and would have gotten a look at me the jig would be up.  Well, just  as the jaws music reaches its crescendo (im bracing for the inevitable, watching in the rear view mirror) a big truck drives by causing  a big gust of wind (the hand of god) to knock the policeman´s hat off his head and onto the road.  My driver makes a mad dive for the hat and comes sprinting back to the officer, hat in hand.  Officer says, thanks..you can go. Driver gets into the car, changes his soiled underwear, and away we go!...But not quite fading into the sunset yet...It was smoothe sailing through the back roads when, as we´re entering the city limits of Matanzas we see a police road block.  These are fairly regular in Cuba. They check vehicle registration, ID, and that you´ve had at least 2 shots of havana club rum before driving. Well,  sweet baby jesus and santa maria were smiling down on us that day cuz the cops on either side of the road had just begun inspecting 2 vehicles, leaving them too busy to check us.  We get the wave thru, and i am safely home in Matanzas, safe from the poisons of Havana.  The driver and i share a sigh of relief but also a smirk as we know we outsmarted ¨the man¨ (or in cuba, is is ¨the people¨?). we shake hands and contently go our respective ways...

Wow...that took me a long time to type...maybe i wont write as much as i planned!

July 31 Snapshot of Cuban Culture

I was sitting down, waiting for my lunch at ¨El Gordo¨ family run restuarant thinking how cuban culture has alot of negative qualities  (i was having a bad day, in my journal i listed quite a few which i will not repeat here)....well, in the middle of this train of thought, the 30 something year old guy next to me asks the 120 year old woman folding the toilet paper into napkins for the take out boxes if he can help her.  I realized 3(?) things at that moment.  1. No familly run restaurant in North American culture would find a way to include the great great grandmother into the workforce.  Instead of condemning her to a corner or old age home she was given a task that makes her feel like a human who can contribute to the family in some small way, not just a burden. (Marx: “to each accordian to their needs, from each accordian to their abilities)=eliminate alienation.  2.  How many customers in a western family restaurant would offer to help moses´ grandmother fold toilet paper (four squares for each box, she explained).  I hate to say it but it was so sweet/cute when Lucy (by the way, am i effectively conveying that this lady was O to the L to the D?) explained to the gentleman the intricacies of her task ¨It´s not eazy, you have to break off 4 squares, and the division is  not very clearly marked. When you fold, then you have to push hard so it stays folded¨ (she then demostrates to make sure the instructions were understood).

So there i was, thinking i had been wrong in passing such harsh judgement on cuban culture. Fast forward to 630pm.  I go swimming at the local beach.  I get out of the water and “tada”! my flip flops are gone! Im not talking about nice flip’flops, maybe worth 2 dollars....who does that “$%&? ...so i walk back barefoot and realize that in cuba, there is nary a square meter without broken glass. What does that tell you about a culture? In theory, “the people” own cuba; there is in theory (and mostly in practice) no private property (not even flip flops it seems).  This is the downside of cuban culture (and most latin american cultures) is that people jus´ dont give a $・%&.  I hate tosay it, but today was the last straw and i have been hearby converted to an advocate of (limited?) private ownership....

I think Marx was right, Communism can only work in a rich industrialised country.

Aug 2 Wednesday “My Own Dance Studio”

Well, today I officially opened my first studio in Matanzas, Cuba...uh...sort of...Yesterday I went to see Barbara about using a room in what i thought was an abandoned building (it turns out it is a high school)...The building caretaker said we had our choice of two “rooms”.  One room was the first dojo ever built in Cuba. Apparently the Japanese got here before the Spanish cuz that dojo was O to the L to the D...wick-a-boo  wick-wick-a-boo (that´s me scratching on my turntable?i´m a rapper!)(that´s for you ameenah!).  All that remained were some of the main floor boards and dog and or goat shit.  There was no working electrical outlet in the room, we were informed. 

The other option was the open-air foyer of the “deserted” building (which i should mention, looked like it had served as the Batista military´s last hold out against Che and Castro´s revolutionary forces?as do most buildings in Cuba).  The main benefit of this area was an electrical outlet (need to play music to dance for those of you who dont know) and airflow (which is nice to have when its 34degrees and humid).  The main drawback was that this was an assembly point for neighbours and local teens to come hang out or pass thru as they went to urinate in the dojo...mean pass thru as a short cut to their houses.  Im pretty self conciouse (sp?) about people watching me learn something totally new, especially when Im a gringo in cuba learning afrocuban dance while afro cubans stroll by to watch the spectacle.  Now I know what cubans must feel like when they come (in droves)  to canada to study square dancing, and all us yokals are oogling them poor cubans struggling with the intricacies of our national dance (i´ll never criticize another do-si-do)....but i digress.

While contemplating my limited options it noticed a baricaded door to a room-like structure. I looking in through the shutters and identified the room as “the room formerly known as ´lecture hall´”.  We wrestled the door open.  There were piles of sketetons of former chairs twisted into various abstract shapes (two legs make a great clave I discovered, but the less rust the better for sound quality).  In the bottom corner of the room was Picasso´s sculpture of a piano!  I ´d unwittingly stumbled on Castro´s hidden art collection! Closer inspection revealed that it was actually the remains of a dismembered piano which somebody had beaten the crap out of (out of which somebody had beaten the crap?).  If it had been a computer I would have been entirely sympathetic, but a pianer? Maybe classical music just wasnt revolutionary enough, or something...

Eduardo(my ballet/cabaret teacher) excitedly pointed out that there was an electrical outlet!  I looked to where he was pointing and saw only 2 bare wires hanging out of the wall. “Donde?” (that means “whatchew takin´ bout Willace” in spanish) I ask.  Right there! He says as though only a fool or blind man couldnt see that 2 wires dangling from a wall=an electrical outlet “Uh, entiendo” I reply (that mean “you crazier than a bed bug in a matress shop” in spanish).  I couldnt help but wonder how many cuban kids per year get electrocuted...remind me to google that. Wow! And parents in North America are paranoid about our “inny” version of the electrical socket.  I´d love to see some latte-sipping couple step outside Varadero with their kids. 

Ok, now its time to start production of the cheezy early 80s dance movie.  Eduardo and I begin  pulling the piles of  chair bones apart and moving them to the back of the room to  clear a “stage”.  We scoop up (actually chopsticked up with handy dandy anarchist chair legs) the slow-dried human/dog/goat feces from the floor and flick it outside the partially open shutters.

OH! I forgot! If this is a cheezy early 80s dance movie we need a sound track for the cleaning scene.  Loverboy style 80s rock give maximum cheeze.  However we might even be able to make  respectable movie if we use some cuban Son in the background. (have them sing in english if you want it to be cheezy, and in japanese if you just want it to be weird).

We elected to leave Picassos´s masterpiece in the corner of the stage as an inspirational tribute to the spirit of performances past.  And its too heavy and dirty to  bother with, besides, we had managed to clear enough room for 3 jettees, assemblee and a tour en l´air!(what more do you need?) Next we got a broom and gave the floor  a quick sweep (Ok, in the movie , we´ll make the dance floor like new, but this is real life and this is ME!) 

Before we fade the music out dont forget to intersperse the cleaning scene with lots of shots of me and Eduardo in tight acid wash jeans, drenched in sweat, and muscles glistening.

Finally, all the chair parts and all feces (human and otherwise)had been cleared from the stage.  It was now 10am and the temperature was beginning to rise and we started to wish that we had cleared the feces from the rest of the lecture hall, not just the stage.  It became apparent that people in the area did in fact “give a shit” (some people 2) about their former lecture hall.  Ok, enough about shit...But really, it doesnt matter how old you are?for men anyway?bathroom humour is ALWAYS funny!!!

Ok, back to the story (im realizing that i say OK alot)...where was I?oh yeah, we had a stage, atmosphere(!), a clave (2chair legs), and a very OUTlet. Hmm...something was missing. Oh...i dont have a stereo, i gave it to someone in japan.  So i went and bought  a little cd player for about 55USD.  Overpriced, but my only option. 

By the by,a little cultural fact: cubans dont believe in waiting in line. Nope. Whoever can manage to push to the front when the doorman says 2 more people can go in, irrespective of previous linear configurations, the first ones to manhandle the others and barge into the front, get to go in first.  (For those unfamiliar with the communist system, you have to line up outside a store to buy anything?only a few people are allowed in at a time). 6 people charged infront of me and Eduardo (despite being what most civilized peoples would consider the front of the line) b4 I had to bust out my wrestling skills and maintain my rightful position...

OK, that´s it for journal entries.  I was going to write more but i just realized that this is one long ass message and if i write anymore, most of you will never want to recieve another mail from me again.  Now, I expect each of you to keep a journal over the next few weeks and send me selections.  Yeah right, like i want to get 100 people sending me emails that say: woke up, went to work, ate lunch, worked more, watched tv, got drunk, watched more tv, went to bed.  Get creative. Why dont you tell me what you would do if YOU were in cuba.  How would you feel? What do you notice about cuban culture? What are the differences? What sorts of positive experiences will you take away with you? (by the way, for my japanese friends, this is called sarcasm...you dont have to write about coming to cuba!)

Just a few notes for everyone on some of the dances im studying.  The afro cuban dances are interpretations of different afrocuban (Yoruba) dieties. One of my favourites is Chango.  Chango is the god of thunder, lightning, and the drum.  Chango is usually danced to AC/DC´s “Thunderstruck”.  Another of my favorites is Oggun who is the god of metal.  Anything from Metallica can be used for this dance.  Elegua is the god of “the paths” or destiny, and is usally danced to Destiny´s Child.  Well, i cant think of anymore bad jokes so, i´ll have to stop here.

I miss all of you and hope you are all doing well.  I dont have regular internet access so please be even more patient that usual with my extend-a-mix reply times....

Ami

Ps.  Im going to try to control my use of parentheses next time.  It might be hard: those of you who knew my grandmother will know that its genetic.  Sometimes her entire letters began in parentheses.  E.g. (Dear Ami)          (January 16 (Tuesday))  ((Do you remember that you were born on a Tuesday)(I do!))