1 post tagged “disney”
People way smarter than I have gone broke waiting for Fidel Castro to die, or at least relinquish his half-century-long stranglehold on the last Communist bastion in this hemisphere. But hell, it's gotta happen eventually. I mean, he's certainly had the last laugh, and every succeeding laugh, for the better part of 40 years, ever since Jack Kennedy stood down and JFK Jr. didn't have the balls to engineer himself into the Presidency so he could go back in there and finish what his daddy couldn't. (Who says the current regime doesn't learn anything from history?)
But the guy is a hundred and thirteen years old, so it's gotta be soon. You'd think, right?
And when Castro goes, I can't help but think about a New New Disneyfied Havana, with big-legged ex-cheerleaders from Kansas & Puerto Rico handing out candy cigars at the airport that say [AYAYAY!] on them in cartoony purple letters just like they were leis in Hololulu, and scary-looking junkie migrants from Texas and the Yucatan, moonlighting as greeters at the Wal-Marti on the Malecon, and wearing fruit on their head like Carmen Miranda for the I Love Lucy dance demonstration (sponsored by Taco Bell®) which happens every fifteen minutes on the quarters at the Planet Tropicana Superstore & Theme Restaurant at night, kitchen closes at 10, 20% gratuity on groups of 8 or more.
The Havana Marlins will win the 2011 World Series with a string of free-agent signings under their new owner, Gloria Estefan, and manager Jose Canseco. And rum will become the new tequila, served in shittier and shittier incarnations in ever-more-candied concoctions (Party Bacardi & Sour Cream! Ronrico con Cinnamon! Si bueno!) to kids with no business dictating drink trends, and who won't even be able to keep this crap down between the front door of the frathouse and the driver's seat of their dad's Buick.
But on the other hand, it would mean that Perez Prado & Beny Moré would be heard by more people.
Cuba may be a hole right now, but you might want to go if you can, before El Jefe shuffles off. Also, there are some excellent novels about the way life was before Castro took over (like, just as a frex, Three Trapped Tigers). I can't recommend you read up on this stuff enough. That culture was unbelievably rich and vital, and it's only still around now in little pieces thanks to the backwardnesses of the Castro regime. When he goes, and every Latino millionaire in Palm Beach (and there are tons of them) goes back to open an ESPNZone or a Wendy's or whatever and grab some land in the old country, then the Cuba of literature and music will be gone, and all we'll have left is the burgeoning Buena Vista Social Club franchise and an extra half-dozen episodes of Girls Gone Wild to show for it.
