The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

You wanna know what really racks me off? Pseudo-socialist opinionated squeaky Canadian comfortable sweater wearing assholes who can’t keep their snide pious comments to themselves. Heh heh heh. In this story, sweet revenge is had. Socialist policies and multiculturalism have their place in the big picture, but until you have a culture and hard history of your own, it’s best to keep your loud mouth shut about the affairs of the world.

A magic and wild civilisation has evolved just out of reach of the American marketing machine. Like a petri dish experiment gone right for a change, the people of Cuba have grown strong and interesting while much of Western culture slides into decadence and narcissism.

A simple recipe: lots and lots of African slaves, brutal Spanish colonial repression and bloodshed for 200 years, a dash of Chinese, spice with gorgeous colonial and art deco architecture, then isolate with only fifties technology for 60 years. Now open cautiously.

The bench where we sit drinking rum and smoking strong cigarettes is once again surrounded with bodies and bottles as the sky lights up and the pounding heat of the day returns. At my feet are shakers and butts and broken tambourines. By my side are dead batteries and a portable amplifier. On the next bench my personal guide, his slightly Chinese eyes looking sleepy.

The police have been watching all night and are tired, but satisfied. The fountain comes to life in Plaza Dolores in Santiago de Cuba, perhaps the most musical place in the world. For five nights, this bench has been the best spot in town for a dance, drink, and some very weird music. These bums I call my friends are perhaps the happiest bums on the planet. Their medical bills are well covered and the set of teeth on the bench opposite is expertly made.

Back home in London, the bums smell much worse and will steal your socks and have no rhythm. Cuba is safer, a thousand times more peaceful, and music rings out everywhere. My friends in Ska Cubana have sent me here and set me up in a good Casa Particular (B&B) and shown me a glimpse of the good life.

My first prostitute was Angelo. He wouldn’t admit he’s a jintero, but he’s a good one. Of course we didn’t exchange fleshy contact, but it was a healthy reciprocal arrangement whereby he lived off me for a couple days in return for his ‘friendship’ and local drinking knowledge. This practice of helping tourists is illegal in Cuba, as it often leads to marriage and emigration, but with my big hairy Cuban hombre there wasn’t a danger. The police watch the bars as we leave separately and walk 10 meters apart. It’s an art.

He took me to Casa de la Trova, where the crowd was up on the tables in the afternoon. Seventy-five-year-old toothless cigar hags blew me kisses through the bars on the window as I blew solos with an eleven-piece band. We went to club Artex to hear traditional Son de Santiago and the UNEAC to see wild ancient dance performances in the courtyard. He delivered plastic bags full of old, scarred and grime-covered 45s of the early mambo kings. They cost me dearly.

Then I met Wilfredo and fell in love again. He was my waiter under the stars. He took us by a smoke-belching 1951 Chevrolet to the cascades with Olga the buxom Estonian girl, a bucket of beer and freshly caught fish. The money I paid him went towards a pig (whom I met briefly), which was to be killed and eaten that New Years Eve (while I would be playing at The George Tavern in London). The simplest transactions, if they can’t be measured and taxed by governments, become illegal. Friends become hustlers and criminals in the guidebooks and police reports.

And they were always there watching. Different shirts for different policing duties. Dark blue shirts are there to protect the tourists. They are comforting. But there were others outside my Casa Particular who record my arrival and departure and weren’t so welcoming. It was after the first night that they arrived.

Men, women, children and homos (they hang out in the square too, bless them) were gathered around, contentedly listening to modern blues music at The Bench. Some were singing along. A paranoid street artist was painting the scene. A cool, quiet, very black brother called Walter was to my right playing percussion. On the left a tall, intense, Latin-looking dude was seriously getting down. The children were all given plastic dinosaurs and art supplies to keep them from grabbing the controls.

But suddenly, The Canadian Asshole lurches through the crowd and screams: “Hey man, take that shit out of here, these beautiful people don’t need your Western garbage coming in here and polluting their culture…”

Well, shit the bed, there was one helluva pregnant pause as everyone looked back and forth from me to the pious Canadian, and at the police who remained still and observant by the fountain, just conserving energy in the heat and amused by this development.

The moment was broken by the scary Latino to my left. He launched himself off the bench, fists in the air, and screamed vile abuse at the dumbfounded Canuck, who ducked and covered and was chased around the square. The Cuban returned, lit a smoke, and struggled in English to give a speech that went something like this:

“Mr Bluesman, you are our brother. You have come to Cuba to play for us this strange and wonderful music. We have never heard anything like it before. Nobody comes to Cuba to play music for the people in the street. From the bottom of my heart, I wish to thank you and welcome you and tell you that we will protect you and you can stay on this bench and play music and drink rum for as long as you want.”

The people were satisfied with his serious speech. I was especially pleased, and we all began another dance as the Canadian shouted from the other side of the fountain. The police rocked their heads to the rhythm that Walter laid down in the Afro Cubano style. Teenage tough guys grabbed the mic and rapped in Spanish. The bums were fighting over the tambourine. Angelo procured another bottle of rum and Cuba will never be the same, but always the same, as the doors swing open to let in the air and the riff-raff.

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