I have to say, the politics between Cuba and the US are just plain stupid!

T went to Havana this weekend, to play this little Blues Festival that our friend Miguel, who lives there, has spent 2 years trying to organize. There was no money in doing it, but it meant 5 days in Havana, which is cool, and Miguel had worked so hard and he was so excited, so off T went on Wednesday night.

He got back last night and when I picked him up at the airport, I asked him how it had gone. His answer was "weird". "Weird" meaning that some idiot beaurocrat from the Cuban government decided to cancel it at the very last moment.

Seems some freind of Miguels (a Cuban) who works in the Office of American Interest there (kind of like an embassy, except the US can't have an actual embassy since they have no actual foreign relations with Cuba). The guy teaches Spanish to American employees. He was all excited about the show so he wrote up an article for the little employee news letter about how cool the whole thing was going to be. Apparently some Cuban government guy saw that and got scared that it would be a place where too many Cubans and Americans might "mingle" (Blues is seen as American music by many Cubans - they totally don't get it that it was originally slave music, it's music of the oppressed not the oppressors) and decided that they had to cancel the show for the good of the country.

They decided this round about the time of the sound check that afternoon. T and Miguel and the other musicians showed up that afternoon and there were government guys there. They took Miguel and the theatre manager off into some room. T didn't know what the hell was going on. They were eventually asked to get their things and leave the building.

They had people coming from all over the country to see this festival, the first official Blues music in Cuba. Miguel does a radio show, so he'd been able to publicize it quite well. He ended up spending the evening standing out front telling people what had happened and turning them away. T says they were all so disappointed. Miguel spent the rest if the weekend worrying abou whether or not he might be arrested and if he would still have a job on Monday. Turned out he was okay, but what a shame.

I feel so sorry for Miguel. He was so excited to be doing this. It was his dream. He talked and talked about it two years ago when we were there. He emailed T all the time. And some dumb-ass government drone called it all off.

The posturing between Fidel and the American government is just sooo stupid. The comunist threat is long gone. The only reason why Bush has taken a harder line and stepped up the pressure is because he got support in Florida from all those wealthy ex-pat Cubans. They act like two stupid boys on the playgound, drawing their lines in the sand. I just can't believe how dumb the whole thing is. And Fidel is an old man. He's going to die soon. If the American government was a little smarter and treated the country a little more favourably, there would like be a way better chance of better diplomatic relations when someone else takes over.

And it's such a cool and beautiful place and it's just such a shame that so few Americans will ever get to see it.

Well. That's my rant for today. Back to work now.