Venezuela Now Has Imported Blackouts / Ciro Diaz

This video is under two minutes long. Originally posted in 2012, we reposted it in 2014 given what was happening in Venezuela. It seems even more prescient now, in 2019, so here it is again.
The subtitles appear to have stopped working.  Here are the lyrics:

IMPORTED BLACKOUTS – An original song by Ciro Diaz

Ohhh…. Fucking up a little island is nothing
Anyone can fuck up a little island
With few natural resources it was easy, to drown it in misery
But Fidel Castro loves the hardest efforts
That’s why he made friends with Chavez
To see if he could fuck up Venezuela

It looked like it would be hard
Because every time they dug a hole
They found every imaginable mineral
And the oil never stopped gushing

Only a president truly idiotic
Would allow his plans to embrace
The foolish ideas of Fidel and Cuban counter-intelligence.
And just like that ten years later, the job seems to be completed

Venezuela now has blackouts, blackouts imported from Havana
Venezuela now has blackouts, our experience was useless to them
Venezuela now has blackouts, blackouts imported from Havana
Venezuela now has blackouts, if they don’t hurry they will be left with nothing.

Making a Movie in Cuba with Porno Para Ricardo / Lynn Cruz

Gorki Aguila and Porno Para Ricardo in a scene from “Corazon Azul” (Blue Heart)

Havana Times, Lynn Cruz, 17 August 2018 – Last Saturday, we filmed a new scene for the movie Corazon Azul (Blue Heart) by Miguel Coyula. This time, we went to the Playa neighborhood in the capital where Paja Recol is located, a recording studio and Gorki Aguila’s home, leader of punk-rock band, Porno para Ricardo.

It’s incredible how the fact that this band can’t play on the island has become second nature.

Like anyone else from this punk genre, he rips every taboo and social convention to shreds. Everything is game for these musicians. Sex, Fidel Castro, a State Security agent, an official or even the outrageous figure of a district representative, who in reality is actually a city mayor. continue reading

It’s best if he doesn’t talk about you, my friend used to say. To be honest, it was the first time I saw this band play live. They played the same part of the song “Tipo Normal” (Normal guy) chosen by Coyula for a scene in the movie, over and over again.

A boundless energy and Aguila’s special charisma, along with Renai Kayrus and Yimel Garcia, filled the room.  In my mind, one question kept going round and around: what’s going on in this country?

I still can’t understand how, in all this time, I’ve only known about their work via USB drives, when they are literally only a few minutes away from my house.

How is it possible that Cubans can’t see these three musicians play, who only rehearse because the Cuban government doesn’t let them play?

The country has been drained over time. Now, we are only left with wrong ways. There is no reason why these musicians continue to be confined to a room in an apartment.

Art doesn’t make sense if it can’t be shown. At this point, we will never know what this band could have been if they had enjoyed full freedom.

They are witty, intense and original. While talking to Gorki about their impact on me, he told me in his humble way: “If you only knew, people have told me this, that they like to see us play.”

Miguel Coyula filming Prono Para Ricardo for “Corazon Azul.”

He also told me that when they were allowed to play concerts, they were always thinking about their performance. One time, they showed a guitar at the beginning and told the audience: “This Soviet guitar needs to die”.

They gradually distanced themselves and ended up becoming radicalized. Having celebrated its 20th anniversary, this band carries the tragic sign of what it means to be ahead of your time.

To be honest, they are missionaries at the wrong time because Cuban reality was greatly marked by the disastrous ‘90s. And in 1998, Porno para Ricardo was founded.

That’s to say, that Gorki, Kayrus and Ciro Diaz Penedo (also a founder) were already in the future. They were singing from the past to a post-revolutionary Cuba.

Nobody on the island had ever dared to mock Fidel Castro before like they did. This is important because eliminating political humor was one of the first changes that Castro made to the press.

The Revolution had to be serious. Coyula’s movies have a special connection to this band. You can see this in his movies Memorias del Desarrollo (2010) and Nadie (2017).

Now, in Corazon Azul, they not only come together with the same energy, but Porno para Ricardois responsible for creating part of the movie’s soundtrack and they will also appear playing on a TV channel, created within the movie’s plot.

Slowly, Cuba’s truly underground and alternative world will come together like a puzzle. Prison, persecution, repression are all constants for the majority of artists in this universe that have an influence, not in the fringes of the city, but outside of the Museum of Cuban Socialism’s political establishment.

Note: This article, in English, is taken from The Havana Times

For October 1st*: A Golden Oldie… Because, Why Not?

The [coma-andante] walking coma, wants me to work
El coma andante, quiere que yo trabaje

Paying me a miserable salary
Pagándome un salario miserable

The walking coma wants me to applaud
El coma andante quiere que yo lo aplauda

After he talks his delirious shit
después de hablar su mierda delirante

No walking coma
No coma andante,

Don’t you eat this dick, walking coma
no coma uste´ esa pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

If you want me to work give me some money
Si quiere que trabaje pasme un varo por delante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

You are a tyrant and there’s no one who can stand you
Usted es un tirano y no hay pueblo que lo aguante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Walking coma, you hold elections
El coma andante, hace unas elecciones

that you invented to stay in power
que las inventó el pa´ perpetuarse

Walking coma, you want me to go and vote
El coma andante quiere que vaya y vote

To keep fucking myself over
para el seguir jodiendome bastante

No walking coma
No coma andante,

Don’t you eat this dick, walking coma
no coma uste´ esa pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

If you want me to vote give me a boat so I can leave
Si quiere que yo vote ponga un barco pa´ pirarme

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

You and your brothers cantankerous old fools
Usted y sus hermanos puros viejos petulantes

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

No, no… No coma tanta pinga
No, no… coma andante

No, no… No coma tanta pinga
No, no… coma andante

*The birthday of Communist China (68 today) and a lot of other things and people.

An Interview of a Friend / Lilianne Ruiz

Lilianne Ruiz, 9 October 2015 — Oscar needs visibility to get them to stop bothering him in his work just because he is the person he is and because he defends his identity. Typical of those systems where they try to prevent any participation, initiative, voting, creativity. Imagine what kind of hell it is when those who are violent, idle, less intelligent, those who repress, restrict the freedom of the rest.

This interview with Oscar Casanella, my friend, is late appearing in other media and so I am publishing it in my blog.

Oscar Casanella Saint-Blancard has a degree in Biochemistry and is a researcher at the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology (INOR). He is also an adjunct professor of Immunology with the Faculty of Biology of the University of Havana, where he has taught without receiving wages since 2006. Despite all the services he offers to society, Casanella has been continually harassed by the political police from Thursday 5 December 2013, when he planned to throw a party to welcome home Ciro Javier Díaz Penedo, a graduate in Mathematics from the University of Havana and a musician in the punk rock band “Porno para Ricardo,” who has been his friend for twenty years and who was returning to Cuba. continue reading

In 2008 Casanella won a scholarship in bioinformatics at the Complutense University of Madrid for 2009 to 2011, and received training in bioinformatics at the Swiss Institute of this specialty in the city of Lausanne. He is currently studying the National Collaborative Curriculum PhD Program in Bioinformatics coordinated by the Virtual Center for Bioinformatics.

Ruiz: When did the harassment against you in your work start?

Casanellas: Both the Deputy Director of INOR, Lorenzo Anasagasti, as well as Pedro Angulo Wilfredo Fernandez Cabezas, both members of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), despite my reputation of 10 years of good work in the INOR, believed the lies of the political police officials that my friends and I were mercenaries, terrorists, annexationist [i.e. want Cuba to become part of the United States] and I continued to maintain friendly relations with Ciro and friends in the opposition that I had met through him. Anasagasti removed me from the post of Executive Secretary of the Forum of Science and Technology of INOR, and he has prevented me from participating in research projects with the centers of the Havana Scientific Center.

He also coerced my colleagues to give him copies of my legal documents, which contain the facts and items violated by the State Security and their collaborators and the letter sent by me to Raul Castro, with an attachment documenting the excellent opinions of me from my colleagues, my neighbors and my students at the University of Havana, claiming that all these documents are enemy propaganda.

 Ruiz: What is your work situation at the moment?

Casanellas: The most recent events are the constraints Anasagasti Angulo is putting on my colleagues. He demands that several laboratory chiefs at INOR’s research department block my access to them with the argument that there is a rule at the center that restricts access to the labs. However, he demands that this apply only to me, not to the rest of the employees who, although they don’t belong to a laboratory can freely enter any one of them, so I feel discriminated against.

I am one of the professors of the molecular biology module, a subject that is taught to doctors who are doing their specialty in oncology, and the person responsible for coordinating the instruction said something very sad to me–distressed and with tears in his eyes–that Anasagasti demanded that I not enter his laboratory, not even to work. This person is very psychologically unbalanced by all the pressure from Anasagasti and is thinking about asking to step down from INOR due to the ethical, professional and personal dilemma, because in addition to the working level we also have a strong friendship.

Anasagasti told another person that he preferred he not do a thesis on which I did the bio-statistic analysis. Despite the pressure, this person allowed and recognized my collaboration on his thesis.

Last year I had planned to teach a course on bio-informatics for researchers and interested workers from INOR and for students from the Biology Faculty at the University of Havana. I obtained authorization from my immediate boss, a classroom was reserved with the teaching department, but Anasagasti didn’t give me authorization. I asked him for a response regarding this negative and he told me, “Oscar, get it into your head that I am going to do everything possible so that you will not have a future in this institution, and I am going to make every step you try to take difficult.”

That is, for the deputy director, his work as a collaborator with State Security — applying the psychological war against me, which has as a secondary effect of a war against my colleagues as well — is more important than researching cancer, teaching and improving the medical and non-medical work of the INOR.

Ruiz: Have you heard anything about the deputy director doing the same thing to other workers?

Casanellas: Yes, Anasagasti showed up with the State Security agents “Victor” and “Mario” on a Sunday last August at the home of Dr. Carlos Vazquez, chief of peripheral tumors at INOR to intimidate him because of his friendship with Manual Cuesta Morua, leader of the Social-Democratic Progressive Arc Party.

Ruiz: Do the conditions at INOR guarantee the best development for the research projects?

Casanellas: I can tell you that many supplies and materials are arranged for personally by the workers. They aren’t provided by the institution. For example, INOR does not provide us with water of the quality required to carry out the experiments. Personally, I have had to go to the  Center of Molecular Immunology in my own car with my own gasoline to look for several gallons of water for INOR research labs, as this center does have the necessary equipment for the purification process.

Years ago we transported cell lines on public buses between INOR and the Scientific Center. The funny part of the story is that in a crowded bus people opened a space around us as a result of my spilling some liquid nitrogen at 196 degrees below zero, which instantly evaporated. People said we were terrorists who were transporting acid.

Imagine that I am doing a PhD in bioinformatics and INOR won’t give me internet access. The chiefs have it. Internet access can already be considered a human right. But here this tool is prioritized for the political cadres, not for the researchers. So I consider myself an off-line bio-informatics specialist.

We recently had the opportunity to publish an article on brain metastases in the World Journal of Oncology Research. The magazine editors ask authors of the selected articles for around $200 USD for the right to publish. When I discussed it with my work colleagues they thought I was crazy, that INOR would never give that amount.

Thanks to my sister, who lives abroad, who paid this amount, we could publish and now INOR’s name appears in an international scientific journal. Everywhere in the world there are institutions that pay the publications who publish their researchers in magazines. In addition, outside of Cuba institutions pay for their workers to have access to scientific journals. We have to ask for help from friends abroad who work in research centers who download items of interest to us and email to them.

Ruiz: Any other anecdotes?

Casanellas: On Tuesday, December 30, 2014 at 11:40 am, I was kidnapped in the INOR by agents from State Security and the PNR (People’s Revolutionary Police). Several members of the INOR leadership left their offices to let the agents use them as they were trying to interrogate me because I had invited several friends to Tania Bruguera’s performance in the Plaza of the Revolution, which for us would have recovered a little of the character of the Civic Plaza [its former name] with the completion of performance.

After an hour, the directors of INOR allowed my kidnapping during work hours and without a warrant. Three police cars took me along with my wife, Eleanne Triff Delgado and my cousin Walter Saint-Blancard Valdes to Tarara. Later after another hour of uncertainty they took us to the Guanabo Police Unit.

I was interrogated by several political police agents, among them agents Victor and Mario, until 9:20 PM. Agent Mario sent us off telling us to be careful because it was night, and the end of the year and there were a lot of accidents.

On the return trip my wife, my cousin and I felt that my cousin’s car, which had also been taken on this journey, had a sound in one of the tires that hadn’t been there before the trip to the PNR Station. When we got to my house we checked it and realized that the bolts that hold the wheel on were making the noise because they were loose.

Venezuela Now Has Imported Blackouts / Ciro Javier Díaz Penedo

This video is under two minutes long.
We have re-posted it given what’s going on in Venezuela. The subtitles appear to have stopped working. Here are the lyrics in English:

IMPORTED BLACKOUTS – An original song by Ciro Diaz

Ohhh…. Fucking up a little island is nothing
Anyone can fuck up a little island
With few natural resources it was easy, to drown it in misery
But Fidel Castro loves the hardest efforts
That’s why he made friends with Chavez
To see if he could fuck up Venezuela

It looked like it would be hard
Because every time they dug a hole
They found every imaginable mineral
And the oil never stopped gushing

Only a president truly idiotic
Would allow his plans to embrace
The foolish ideas of Fidel and Cuban counter-intelligence.
And just like that ten years later, the job seems to be completed

Venezuela now has blackouts, blackouts imported from Havana
Venezuela now has blackouts, our experience was useless to them
Venezuela now has blackouts, blackouts imported from Havana
Venezuela now has blackouts, if they don’t hurry they will be left with nothing.

No Coma Tanta Pinga Coma Andante / Porno Para Ricardo, Gorki Aguila

Gorki Aguila
The musician Gorki Aguila detained at the 6th Police Station in Havana at 2:00 in the morning this Sunday.

Site manager’s note: While we wait for more news about Gorki’s arrest, we post this video version of one of Porno Para Ricardo’s “signature” songs — with lyrics in Spanish and English below. The original music video is here.

The [coma-andante] walking coma, wants me to work
El coma andante, quiere que yo trabaje

Paying me a miserable salary
Pagándome un salario miserable

The walking coma wants me to applaud
El coma andante quiere que yo lo aplauda

After he talks his delirious shit
después de hablar su mierda delirante

No walking coma
No coma andante,

Don’t you eat this dick, walking coma
no coma uste´ esa pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

If you want me to work give me some money
Si quiere que trabaje pasme un varo por delante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

You are a tyrant and there’s no one who can stand you
Usted es un tirano y no hay pueblo que lo aguante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Walking coma, you hold elections
El coma andante, hace unas elecciones

that you invented to stay in power
que las inventó el pa´ perpetuarse

Walking coma, you want me to go and vote
El coma andante quiere que vaya y vote

To keep fucking myself over
para el seguir jodiendome bastante

No walking coma
No coma andante,

Don’t you eat this dick, walking coma
no coma uste´ esa pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

If you want me to vote give me a boat so I can leave
Si quiere que yo vote ponga un barco pa´ pirarme

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

You and your brothers cantankerous old fools
Usted y sus hermanos puros viejos petulantes

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

No, no… No coma tanta pinga
No, no… coma andante

No, no… No coma tanta pinga
No, no… coma andante

The Commander (El comandante) – Video and Lyrics / Gorki Aguila, Ciro Diaz and Porno Para Ricardo

The [coma-andante] walking coma, wants me to work
El coma andante, quiere que yo trabaje

Paying me a miserable salary
Pagándome un salario miserable

The walking coma wants me to applaud
El coma andante quiere que yo lo aplauda

After he talks his delirious shit
después de hablar su mierda delirante

No walking coma
No coma andante,

Don’t you eat this dick, walking coma
no coma uste´ esa pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

If you want me to work give me some money
Si quiere que trabaje pasme un varo por delante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

You are a tyrant and there’s no one who can stand you
Usted es un tirano y no hay pueblo que lo aguante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Walking coma, you hold elections
El coma andante, hace unas elecciones

that you invented to stay in power
que las inventó el pa´ perpetuarse

Walking coma, you want me to go and vote
El coma andante quiere que vaya y vote

To keep fucking myself over
para el seguir jodiendome bastante

No walking coma
No coma andante,

Don’t you eat this dick, walking coma
no coma uste´ esa pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

If you want me to vote give me a boat so I can leave
Si quiere que yo vote ponga un barco pa´ pirarme

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

You and your brothers cantankerous old fools
Usted y sus hermanos puros viejos petulantes

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

No, no… No coma tanta pinga
No, no… coma andante

No, no… No coma tanta pinga
No, no… coma andante

Site manager’s note: Overwhelming public demand has led to our posting this video from several years ago.

Campaign for Another Cuba: Video #Cuba

This video is less than 4 minutes long.

Arrests and Disappearances / El Ciro – Ciro Javier Díaz Penedo

Last night I received a call from a neighbor informing me that people had seen Danilo Maldonado (El Sexto) in a police car.

Also today, early in the morning, Ismael de Diego left his house to go the corner and disappeared; at home his girlfriend was waiting for him for breakfast and he never returned.

All our phones are blocked.

Down with Communism, down with Raul.

27 March 2012

Venezuela Now Has Imported Blackouts / Ciro Javier Diaz Penedo

This video is under two minutes long. The subtitles appear to have stopped working.  Here are the lyrics:

IMPORTED BLACKOUTS – An original song by Ciro Diaz

Ohhh…. Fucking up a little island is nothing
Anyone can fuck up a little island
With few natural resources it was easy, to drown it in misery
But Fidel Castro loves the hardest efforts
That’s why he made friends with Chavez
To see if he could fuck up Venezuela

It looked like it would be hard
Because every time they dug a hole
They found every imaginable mineral
And the oil never stopped gushing

Only a president truly idiotic
Would allow his plans to embrace
The foolish ideas of Fidel and Cuban counter-intelligence.
And just like that ten years later, the job seems to be completed

Venezuela now has blackouts, blackouts imported from Havana
Venezuela now has blackouts, our experience was useless to them
Venezuela now has blackouts, blackouts imported from Havana
Venezuela now has blackouts, if they don’t hurry they will be left with nothing.