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If Cuba had a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade…
Once again I was not able to get myself out of bed at the crack of dawn, shuffle to the packed train, and join the mass of out-of-towners with their spawn in tow and witness the spectacle of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I’m not hating on the parade. My childhood memories are filled of being dragged out of bed to go to it (after staying up late having visited the balloon set up the night before). Really I just wanted to go because it meant a container of hot chocolate and perhaps a visit to a Greek diner for some scrambled eggs. And we didn’t go to the musical orgy on 34th street- we kept it real as a parade should be enjoyed: people passing you, you cheer hooray! and then you walk away.
That said I watched some of it on TV this morning, not with child wonder eyes but as an anthropologist. We all know this, but either this year’s new balloon additions drove the message home more or things are getting worse: it is a parade of raw Dinsey packaged consumerism! All I got from watching that parade was what movie is coming out soon (Smurfs, 2011), whose CD is coming out next (Andrea Bociello Christmas albums and a plug for the opening musical, White Christmas), what retro toys are making a comeback (Care Bears?!) and that Planter’s Peanuts (making a cameo in his Monopoly Man tux) is now being made with sea salt. The recipe Macy’s uses is the same witchcraft Disney utilizes to mesmerize our oh-too-innocent young seeds.
That said, I wondered what a Thanksgiving Day Parade might look like in Cuba:
If Cuba had a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… – continue reading …
Mission: Space
Wannabe Astronauts, Trekkies, and Nova-sympathizers, listen up: If you want the thrill of your life and don’t have millions of dollars or the balls for the real thing, Mission: Space should be your pilgrimage in life. It might very well be the closest thing you’ll have to a real space odyssey. A spiritually uplifting moment (to make up from the tears of joy shed on the Silver Golf Ball, to be blogged about soon) that I can only describe as a mind-f*ck if it wasn’t real and I didn’t really go to Mars. Mission: Space – continue reading …
Respect the Hustle
If Cuba ever sinks down the cheese path of commercialism, one souvenir to buy will be t-shirts that say, authoritatively, RESPECT THE HUSTLE. Even if an influx of resources suddenly cure the population from the hustle bug of survival, surely it should be commemorated and included in the museum of the revolution. Because if you can trick material objects into longevity like making a 1950 Cheverlot run in 2009 like it’s (sort of) new, if you can sell people fake steaks that are really fried mats or pizza with condom “cheese”, then your ability of hustling a fellow human being with simple words has gotta be good by default.
Hail the hustle in Cuba! Done with a straight face, intelligence and craft, you got to respect it. Recognize and ascertain whether you should accommodate the hustle. How much is it for you to loose this battle? Can you acquiesce without being cheated and everyone’s dignity maintained? If not say, “I respect the Hustle”, then walk away. If acquiescing you have a choice of either remaining a passive participant, or leaning close to the Hustler and whispering with a tilted head and squinted eye, “Asere. Don’t try to hustle me. I got you anyways.”
More to come on some specific hustles.
Hot Dogs of Havana
One curious site in Havana Vieja was the abundance of little hot dogs walking around. All types: the standard straight-up weiner (pictured), the spotted mutt- dogs that don’t look that they should be hot dogs but somehow are.
I have to say I had a moment when eating out and reading a menu. Listed was “perro caliente”… Within the context of a country of poor resources together with the images of all these little weiners walking around, my heart sank, until C-mixto explained that the translation works the same in Spanish as in English. A bunned, not fur, hot dog.
Pelvic Thrusting Your Message: Gozando en la Habana
No disrespect to Miami as I know there can be some political charge and subtext behind this song… “Celebrating in Havana, Crying in Miami.”
This Reggaeton beat is infectious and it becomes a pulse of the Havana night when you hear it on the Malecon while people celebrate. Poignant to hear this live, blasting with its back turned to the US interest section/Embassy, the mass audience facing the embassy singing towards it.
Havana Cabs
The Havana cabs are a diverse species. Just like other material objects in Cuba, cabs are a wedding of what’s available. You have your standard checkered yellow, George Jetson Cocotaxis, pedicabs held together with some clever salvage craft, and then these… the ones that defy time, science and embargoes… what makes Cuba feel oh so 1950s. More on taxis to come.
Havana Days: The 5 Senses
Note: The Havana entries are evolving reflections of Cuban odysseys. They should not be taken singularly… meaning they should not be taken as a generalized finality of experience. They should be viewed as a part of a continuum of experience, which includes reaction and ongoing reflection.
Arrival.
Sight
Rain. Shit and slime covered cobblestones. Oily green and brown pools of fetid water. Cracked crumbling roads, decaying buildings. Urban murals that are shrines to the orishas.
Sounds
Voices, singers, ping pong ball hit back and forth. Man coughing up his morning phlegm. Kids going to school. Motors. First edition ever 1980s home printer sound (prints with the sound of a laser gun on the paper with perforated sides). Rustling plants in wind by barred windows. Rain drops, metal clang of window chain knocking against the wood door shutters. I keep getting up to answer a wind ghost that isn’t there. The soft banal voice of the colleague, overridden by the cowbell, cantante, and piano… he’s been here for years but still his voice is overwhelmed by the music.
Smells
Raw sewage,vapors seeping from the stones of road into my room. Mildew walls and streets, dog shit. Never the smell of food.
Trapped with a group who speak a language of science, while all I do is dream the symbols of language. I care more about the movement of the potted plant behind my colleague than his instructions, more about the irony of the music drowning away his voice, and I cheer for it to overwhelm him.
Taste
Canned string beans, spam ham, morro, yucca… Eating is a means to satiate, not pleasure. One of the first food things to import if the embargo is lifted is Goya seasoning (or some simple pepper). Eating is enjoyable in someone’s home.
Touch
The least used sense for me in this trip. My memories of touch are only of hand sanitizers, to erase the memory of touch. Cuba, will you crumble if I touch you? Cuba answers: No, new arrival. I am stronger than the facade of my infrastructure. Touch me and learn.
Havana Days
What could possibly balance a trip to the material kingdom of Disney and glitz of Miami but an odyssey to socialist Havana? Stay tuned for some Havana news, if I’m able to write there; if not, there’ll surely be lots of stories to talk about when we get back.
Pilgrimage to the Silver Golf Ball
Thanks for the crickets, people. What happened to my petition to get me inside Disney World? Luckily Nova was strong willed enough to be able to drag C-mixto there. I was on a mission: 4.5 hours to hit the entire universe of Epcot, meet Mickey or Donald, eat cotton candy, and have a German beer and sausage. Here’s my Epcot adventure, minus some ride stories that deserve their own entry:
- Take public transportation to Disney World! For the cost of a NYC subway ride, we zoomed into Walt Disney Empire in 30 minutes with only 3 stops for only $2 freakin bucks. I don’t get Disney at the end of my subway ride back to Inwood.
- The estate of Walt Disney surrounding the actual Kingdom is set up like a military base. Endless highways with checkpoints, then a monorail system that takes you through a mysterious swamp ending God knows where. Sniper Mickey’s and Donalds, Disney character rejects and other strange things must lurk in those woods that escaped the demolition bullzoders and cement of Disney.
- Disney World uses geriatric labor and indentured immigrant labor to staff all those rides (and I mean global immigrant labor for each theme of its Epcot city). The bar maid in Germany’s Biergarten Restaurant had to be pushing at least 80.
- Speaking of the Biergarten, I was very happy with sausages and sauerkraut waving my frothy beer mug back and forth in the air to the sounds of cowbells, yodeling and the Ricola horn, until the crowd belted out in unison, “Hoi, hoi, hoi!”. Suddenly I felt a bit uneasy joining a blond haired, blue eyed crowd chanting in German in unison. I am very sorry I felt that way, but I suddenly felt the urge to leave.
- Disney scans your finger as you enter the park. When I asked why, they said “to avoid someone using your ticket”. I have some theories as to what other things they might be doing with your fingerprint…
- Be careful signing the liability form when you buy tickets. There is fine, fine print in there that pledges your first born child to Walt Disney. There is a reason why the robots on their rides look so real, why there is something demonic about “It’s a Small World”.
More on rides- but do any of you have Disney memories?
Grumpy McGrumpy Won’t Take Me to Disney World
I lied! I want Orlando bad! Someone tell C-mixto that he should share. I’ve traveled 1,074 miles and am stuck in the 3rd circle of Dante’s Inferno of Air Conditioning Hell (because I threw it there) attending work conferences while the sun is blazing a glorious 95 degrees with 100% humidity outside onto a pool that is screaming for me to come inside, in a hotel in Seaworld that is the splitting replica of the one Chevy Chase had a marital crisis in when taking his family to Walley World. Walley World! That’s where I am- a mecca for consumer happiness, entertainment and rides…
I want to see Mickey and buy some mouse ears! I want cotton candy and to see the demonic dolls sing in maddening cacophony, It’s a Small World After All, because still it rings in my ears 20 years later… Disney is a drug- a brainwashing homing device placed in all our American hearts, a surrogate parent that beacons you to return to it if you come too close. Start the petitions- we only have 1 day. Tell C-mixto to take me to Disney World!
