Cuba's Own Craigslist

Local papaer, Miami Times article Cuba's black market moves online with Revolico-com talks about the emerging internet marketplace in Havana. Taking the online classifieds concept pioneered by Craigslist to country with an onerous command economy, and very likely making it even more obsolete.

The article describes Mateo a home mechanics experience

One of his three kids, 23-year-old Manuel, wanted to join some friends on a trip to the north coast. For months, father and son tried to unload some expensive rims to raise money. Though Manuel thought they were worth 300 pesos — about $325 — no one was biting.

"Dad," Manuel finally said, "have you heard about Revolico?"

Revolico? In Cuban slang, it means "a mess." Mateo had no idea what his boy was talking about.

So Manuel took his father to the house of a friend, an engineer with spotty Internet access at home. They logged onto revolico.com and discovered a capitalist Valhalla. There was everything for sale: cars, tires, motorcycles, diapers, cell phones, laptops, massages, Chinese lessons.

Punk Rockers in Cuba Tell Fidel Castro And Regime Off

The Castro brothers' cruel regime is all about 50 years of centrally planned scarcity, repression, a cult of personality, mind-numbing groupthink.

Gorki Aguila knows all about it, he was jailed by the regime. Not a journalist or human rights activist, he leads punk rock band Porno Para Ricardo.

The music is loud and simple, the band can be pretty outrageous, and the lyrics are angry and full of obscenities. In other words just about everything great about punk rock.

This is real underground, the price is jail and ostracism, the band is not allowed to play openly. Gorki's lyrics aren't just about blaming the government for misery and alienation. Blame is right on Fidel in language not used in Cuba, where dissidents are forced to follow a very precarious line, and there is somewhat of a Stockholm syndrome towards the father figure. And that's what makes the anarchic spirit and irreverence sound downright refreshing.

This video for the song. "Coma Andante" "The Walking Coma" about Fidel.


Porno For Fidel, parodying a nursery rhyme some sycophant made for Fidel, LOL "millions of us ask God that he stops his heart" "The sooner he dies the better."



With subtitles this is a trailer from the documentary being produced about Cuba's underground music scene, with interviews with Gorki. He is a very well-spoken guy, sort of the mode of a Henry Rollins or Jello Biafra, except he really can go to jail for saying this stuff. .