Miami International Art Fair (Preview Day)

Yesterday I described the arrival of a damaged huge painting to Mayer Fine Art's focus booth at the MIA and how that cast a bad start to MIA for Norfolk's best art gallery.

I got up early today, drove to Rico Bakery (3401 Northwest 17th Avenue, Miami, FL 33142-5537 (305) 637-0707), where they make 2-3 dozen different Cuban pastelitos and a lot of really yummy baked food, and bought two dozen Cuban pastelitos (they give you a free one when you buy six), plus a generous breakfast sandwich (a fried egg with ham and cheese on a Cuban bread bun that is then put on that hot press that is also used to make the famous Cuban sandwich.

I drove to MIA and passed the food to some of our gallery neighbors (both of them are galleries from Bogota, Colombia) and to Frank and Helen from Philadelphia's hardworking Projects Gallery. By the way, Projects Gallery's Frank Hyder has one of the coolest installations that I've ever seen in any fair. It has everything that a good installation should have: cool, intelligent sculptural elements, sound and an intelligent sense (actually aura, not sense) of truly transforming a space (a whole booth in this case) into a distinctive work of art. I will do a video of this installation later this week.

About eleven or so, a nice Cuban guy with bright blue eyes (Proof that Anderson and Cameron Diaz are not the only ones) and with the unfortunate name of Fidel (for a Cuban in Miami anyway) shows up. He is the restorer with the task of fixing the damaged Alexey Terenin mega-painting.

I will blow the climax of the story by telling you that by the end of the day this guy will prove himself to be a magician as well.

It is seldom in my experience that I have seen an "expert" not only be an expert, but also an aficionado of his expertise and a true hero in this case. For my fellow galleristas: when you come to Miami, if you need any repair work, or stretching, or conservation, or framing, then Obrapia Fine Arts (1648 Southwest 8th Street
Miami, FL 33135-5220 (305) 646-6751) has my highest possible recommendation.

Fidel arrived, looked at the work and initially began to repair the two holes right on the spot. He did that easily and quickly, and after he was done, it was impossible to find them again. Because the painting had been laid flat during shipping (even though the crate was marked with giant letters with DO NOT LAY FLAT signs), the canvas had stretched and was wavy and bubbly and had several pressure marks. Sheila Giolitti needed it re-stretched, and it became clear that the only way to get it back to a taut canvas would be to un-frame it and re-tighten it. This is no easy task for a huge seven feet by seven feet work of art, and the decision was made to take the painting back to Obrapia's shop and work on it there.

Easily said, but that meant that Fidel would have to go and rent a truck, come back, pick up the painting from the Convention Center, take it to his shop, un-frame it, upgrade the stretcher bars, stretch it, re-frame it, drive it back to the Convention Center and hang it. And it was 3PM and the fair opens at 6PM.

Somehow this dude did it. At 5:30PM he was back with a beautifully taut painting, and not only had he fixed the tiny pricks, and not only had he re-stretched the saggy linen, and not only had he upgraded the stretcher bars and added a cross bar and four angle corners, but the amazing dude had also touched up the frame and eliminated all the nicks and bruises from it. And then he hung it.

And then he gave Mayer Fine Art the bill, and Sheila was shocked at how reasonable that bill was, and the amazing degree of professionalism and expertise and joy for the job shown by this talented conservator. And Obrapia Fine Arts got a well-earned tip on top of the bill from Mayer Fine Art. And not only that, but a lesson learned as well: from now on, MFA plans to ship all the large Terenin canvases to Obrapia ahead of the Miami fairs. They can stretch and frame it and deliver it to the fairs for a heck of a lot less than it would cost to frame it and then ship it to Miami and take a chance for damage during the shipping.

At 6PM the crowds started pouring in and we were essentially flooded with people and press. The food was hard to get at, as the food tables were surrounded by a mass of humanity, but we still had a good stock of pastelitos left.

First sale of the night was a gorgeous trompe l'oeil painting by Michael Fitts. It was sold to a French collector who paid in cash. He counted in French and kept making mistakes and giving us anywhere from 5-8 twenty dollar bills in what was supposed to be $100 counts (that's five $20 bills equals $100 for you folks in California). We all kept having to recount the money and after a while it was either a farce or I was beginning to suspect that this guy was doing it on purpose for some kind of a scam. Finally we got it under control, and we ended with a lot of Jacksons and Benjamins and he ended with a cool trompe l'oeil (on reclaimed metal) of paper airplanes.

All through the night I was being accosted over my Che Guevara video drawing. Even a member of the press warns me that I shouldn't have that piece in Miami. "Someone will take a hammer to it before the fair is over," he predicts. Once I explain the whole reverse meaning of the piece, he becomes more understanding. Later in the night he brings his wife over and I see her eyes rage with fury - he's the one having fun with her now. And he's the one that explains the work to her. At the end she congratulates me on a well-done piece.

At one point the video drawing is almost sold to a Venezuelan collector, but I begin to discuss the second video drawing that I'm now working on (Frida Kahlo) and he wants to see that one instead (once it is finished). I get his business card and kick myself.

MFA then sells an Erwin Timmers glass sculpture to a very well-known Florida art collector. Timmers will be pleased when he finds out who this collector is. The buyer tells me that he'll be flying to DC for the WPA Auction.

And just like that, the preview night is over at 10PM, and with all the drama of the damaged painting behind, we're now looking forward to the real opening (to the public) of the fair tomorrow.

New Worst Ever

I have this hobby of trying to read as many books as possible (all genres) dealing with Cuba. And I've just finished reading Stephen Hunter's Havana, a fictional account set in Havana in 1953.

This is possibly the worst ever book with a Cuban setting that I've ever read; Especially surprising coming from such a decent fiction writer.

I was also surprised to find that Newt Gingrich reviewed this book in Amazon about eight years ago. Newt writes:

Stephen Hunter has a great knack for country attitudes, good shooting, complex stories and politics.

In "Havana" Hunter captures a moment in time when Castro is just emerging (the Yankees having failed to offer him a $500 signing bonus) and Batista is back in power with the help of the American mob.

Just as in "Hot Springs" where Hunter resurrected the great pre-Las Vegas center of gambling and prostitution (matched in that era only by Youngstown), here he reminds us that Havana in the early 1950s was a city of power seekers, tourist pleasures and American and Cuban mobster domination and corruption.

He weaves together a brilliant Soviet agent, Earl Swagger (hated by the Soviet system for his individuality and protagonist of almost half Hunter's novels), the CIA, the American mob, Fidel Castro and the Cuban secret police into a wonderfully complex and constantly intriguing story.

His characterizations of a young Castro are worth the entire book: "Speshnev looked hard at him and, try as he could, only saw a familiar type, thrown up by revolutions and wars the world over. An opportunist with a lazy streak, and also a violent one... No vision beyond the self, but a willingness to use the vernacular of the struggle for his own private careerism." (p. 101)

"He does carry on don't he? He reminds me of a movie star. They get famous too young and they never recover. They always think they're important." Earl Swagger on young Fidel (p 319)

Whether for fun or learning or both, this is a worthwhile novel.

What Hunter blows in this shoot-em-up story is the background setting of the city itself, plus he takes spectacular license with Cuban history to bend the story to depict a somewhat idiotic young Castro.

Young Castro was a killer and a student mobster in the violent daily activities of Havana University and the city in general, but no one can ever or should ever accuse this murdering dictator of ever being dumb. Castro has the feral intelligence of power-seekers, and he's always had it, especially in the violent days preceding his failed attack on the Moncada Barracks.

Strangely enough, in this key part of the beginning of the Cuban Revolution is where Hunter really torques my pedantic side. In the real course of events, Castro (who is very nearsighted and requires thick glasses for distant vision), was driving one of the leading two cars carrying the rebels attacking the Moncada Army Barracks in Santiago de Cuba.

In the book, Hunter depicts Castro having to rush and drive his car onto the sidewalk to run down three unexpected soldiers - he kills two of them, grabs their machine guns and in a heroic display fights against hundreds of soldiers as the hapless rebels, pinned outside the barracks are mowed down by soldier fire. Eventually, the heroic guerrilla is pulled away from the melee by a Soviet agent in a most unlikely escape.

In reality, what happened was that the rebels had essentially the element of surprise, and were driving into the Moncada compound; however, the brilliant and fearless leader's vanity got the best of him, and he removed his thick, black glasses in order to appear more manly. Not being able to see squat, he quickly drove his car off the street and onto the sidewalk, effectively attracting the attention of the guards, who then sounded the alarm and proceeded to wipe out the attackers.

Fidel, and his brother Raul quickly hi-tailed it out of there - they were about the only attackers who got away - and many witnesses claim that the Castro brothers got the hell out of Dodge as soon as the bullets started flying, leaving their fellow rebels to die on the streets or to be captured and tortured later on by Batista's murderous henchmen.

Perhaps this could be an entertaining read for someone not familiar with the sense of what Havana truly was in the 1950s; a complex, international city where dozens of languages were heard on the streets, with a huge Chinatown and a significant European immigrant population, all that in addition to the casinos and the mobsters and the whorehouses and the brutal police depicted as a single dimension in this book.

But to a pedantic Virgo, it is an offense to the senses; sorry Newt.

Che: El Chacal de La Cabaña


A while back in the mail I got some preview tickets to the opening of the new Steven Soderbergh two-part epic about the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentinean blue blood guerrilla leader, starring Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro in the leading role (which has already earned him the coveted Best Actor award at the 2008 at the Cannes Film Festival).

Because I was away on vacation, I couldn't go, but I do plan to see this film, as I have been an avid Guevara follower nearly all my life. Here's a little known Guevara fact: His paternal grandparents, Roberto Guevara and Ana Lynch, were born in California!

"Che Guevara" by F. Lennox Campello. Charcoal c. 2003. 6 x 15 inches
My father fought alongside Guevara during the Cuban Revolution, and like most of those brave young men who fought against the Batista dictatorship (both in the mountains of Oriente province and the streets of Havana and Santiago de Cuba) he never expected the Cuban Revolution to institutionalize a worse dictatorship than Batista's bloody regime.

Che was a declared Communist all along, but Communists were rare in the ranks of the rebels.

In fact, to this day most people don't know that the official Cuban Communist Party was part of the Batista government while the Revolution was underway and even Guevara, a Communist all along, had harsh words for the Cuban Communists during the struggle. In 1958 he wrote that there were "mutual fears" between the rebels and the Party, and "fundamentally, the Party of the Workers has not perceived with sufficient clarity the role of the guerrilla."

After the revolution, Guevara further added that he "only knew of three Communists who had participated in combat." Besides himself and Raul Castro, one wonders who the third Communist was (Raul Castro's future wife, Vilma Espin was also a known Communist; however, she was one of the urban guerrillas working under Frank Pais, the anti-Batista leader in the streets of Cuba. Pais was strongly anti-Communist. Of interest, a persistent rumor blames Espin as the traitor responsible for Pais' death at the hands of the Batista police. Fidel Castro himself, always denied being a Communist, until sometime in the early 1960s.

Guevara was a very courageous and even reckless fighter (as opposed to Castro, who spent most of the war secluded in the relative safety of the Sierra Maestra mountains). But Che was also the grim executioner of the Cuban Revolution, a fact that he never hid and even bragged about, but which most Guevara admirers conveniently ignore.

It was Guevara who executed deserters and captured Batista soldiers and henchmen during the struggle; and it was Guevara who signed many of the tens of thousands of execution orders after the Revolution, when Cuba was bathed in blood by avenging firing squads.

See some of the documented Cubans executed by Guevara (including over a dozen shot by Che himself) here or if you have the guts, you can see an actual firing squad in action (broadcast over Cuban TV in 1959).


Because of that, Guevara is known to Cubans as "El Chacal de La Cabaña."

"El Chacal de La Cabaña" translates to the "Jackal of La Cabaña," although it is usually translated as the "Butcher of La Cabaña."

La Cabaña is an 18th century fortress complex located on the elevated eastern side of the harbor entrance to Havana, and the location for many of the thousands of firing squad executions which took place after January 1, 1959. Shot were former members of Batista's police, army and air force, informants, traitors, and counter-revolutionaries.

The best known story about this period (which I heard related in a Spanish language radio show in Florida last week) relates to how a Cuban mother went to see Che to beg for her son's life. The son was 17 years old, and was on the firing squad list, to be executed within a week. If Guevara pardoned her son, the mother begged, she would ensure that he never said or did anything against the Revolution.

Che's response was to order the immediate execution of the boy, while the mother was still in his office. His logic: now that the boy was shot, his mother would no longer have to anguish over his fate.

On the other hand, Che's courage as a guerrilla leader and his dedication to his caused are well documented and never challenged and cost him his life.

While Fidel Castro tightened his grip on the Cuban people and replaced the Batista dictatorship with the Castro dictatorship, Guevara put his life at risk fighting in guerrilla wars in Africa and Latin America, until he was caught in the highlands of the Bolivian mountains in 1967 and executed on the spot. Just as he would have done had the situation been reversed.

It is this glowing side of Che's complex character that Che's admirers and apologists always focus upon, and I am looking forward to seeing if this film addresses both the spectacularly courageous side of this iconic figure, as well as his war crimes and dark side of a man with little compassion and remorse.

I am also curious as to how the film handles Guevara's departure from Cuba. "Che", claims Dariel Alarcon Ramirez, who joined the rebels in 1956 and then went with Guevara to Bolivia, "left Cuba after being accused of being a Trotskist and a Maoist.... and because of the problems he had with the Cuban government, specifically Fidel and Raul Castro."

Once I see the film, I will tell you my thoughts on it. Meanwhile below are the lyrics (translated from the Spanish) from Olafresca's song titled "El Chacal."

They forced us to hold you
In historic prominence
They promoted your bravery
To the whole world after your death

Here your face remained
On t-shirts and posters
They don’t say all of the truths
Of the Jackal of the Cabaña

Your hand gripped so tight
That to history it sends
An image from Santa Clara
Where power seduced you

And now your face is in fashion
On t-shirts and posters
They don’t say all of the truths
Of the Jackal of the Cabaña

Aristidio followed you
Til the day he tired (of the lie)
When he told you he was leaving
With a 32. you silenced him

Here your face remains…
And even if you clean the t-shirt to its guts
It doesn’t wash the blood from the hands
Of the Jackal of Cabaña

Of the Cabaña you where the warden
You sent thousands to the death squads
But you preferred to play the warrior
You yourself dismissing the innocent

Now, there is your face
The women you made widows find it strange
How can he be everywhere we look
The Jackal of the Cabaña

A hero to some to others a criminal
Your face is known and your idealistic cause
But the path of violence will never win
Your passion consumed you and you became (the Jackal)

Here your face remains
On t-shirts and posters
They don’t say all of the truths
Of the Jackal of the Cabaña

History has already proven
That you don’t win peace with bullets
In any time or situation
What we need is compassion

Raul Castro is just as bad (if not worse)

The man being tied to a tree by Fidel Castro is a Cuban peasant from the Sierra Maestra. He refused to give his crops to the Cuban revolutionaries, and was "condemned" to execution for refusing. The man covering his eyes is Raul Castro.

Here he is being executed. The man firing the rifle is Raul Castro

The aftermath of the execution - all duly recorded by the camera. The man standing in the background by the collapsed victim is Fidel Castro. The man to the left of Raul Castro is Che Guevara.

And before anyone starts justifying or explaining - this execution (one of many) was well documented by the Castros in the official history of the Revolution - they didn't "back away" from the murder, but used it as an example to those unwilling to cooperate with the regime.

The ultimate toilet paper?

At least for Cubans!

Finally you can now make your Cuban or Cuban-American's dreams come true! Cuba's brutal dictator and for over 50 years the suffocater [[Verb] To stifle; to destroy; to extinguish; as, to suffocate] of the Cuban people, deserves to be in the mierda tanks of history.

Full roll of toilet paper with Fidel Castro's face on every sheet. Ideal for parties, reunions or for plain personal pleasure. Order more than one. The ideal gift for your Cuban friend.

Send me some... por favor!

The mass murderer Guevara makes an appearance in DC this Saturday

The below mixed media work depicting the mass-murdering racist psychopath known as Ernesto Guevara de La Serna Lynch will be one of the works showcase starting this Saturday at the American University Art Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, DC.

This piece will be part of Home-Land - Exploring the American Myth, an exhibition curated by Michael Quituisaca and Alexandra Schuman which will have an opening (yep! A real opening) on Saturday June 11, 2022 from 6-9PM.

The image is appropriately ripped off from a Commie photographer and reinterpreted in the context of the truth about this mass murderer.  Embedded in his forehead, a small screen plays hundreds of the versions of the Korda photograph which have been used to produce millions of T-Shirts worn by clueless people all over the world.

My goal is to try to change the way that people who do not know about the real Che Guevara perceive him. Would you wear a T-Shirt with this man's face on it? Only if it says "MURDERER" written across it.

The quotes are all from Guevara's own words - note what he says about black people, Mexicans and gays...

Comunista comemierda.

In addition to my work, the curators also selected Sobia Ahmad, Elizabeth Casqueiro, Ric Garcia, Claudia "Aziza" Gibson-Hunter, Julia Kwon, Khánh H. Lê, and Helen Zughaib for the exhibition.

This is Che
Charcoal, conte and embedded electronics on paper
24 x 20 inches

This is Che (Detail)

This is Che (Detail)

This is Che (Detail)

These other works of mine are also included in the show:

Desi, Lucy and Fidel
2012, Charcoal and conte drawing, electronic components
Courtesy of the Steven and Sasha Pieczenik Collection

Ave Marylinas
2012 Charcoal and conte drawing with electronic components
Courtesy of the Krensky Collection

AVE FRIDA II
2011, Charcoal and conte drawing, electronic components and video loop
Courtesy of the Roberta (Birdie) Rovner Pieczenik Collection

There will be an opening - yep a real opening! The opening reception takes place from 6 to 9 p.m., June. 11, 2022 at the museum.

See ya there!

Fun art


This is an early view on a potential masterpiece... art can be fun sometimes, right?

In the developing drawing, Ricky has just returned home a little early and finds Lucy in a compromising situation with fellow Oriente Cuban Fidel Castro.

Lucy... you got some 'splaining to do!

Last Supper for Dictators

As I've discussed before, about a decade ago I did a huge pen and ink drawing entitled "Last Supper for Dictators".

The piece was exhibited at one of my solos at the old Fraser Gallery in Georgetown, and subsequently sold to a New York collector via Sotheby's auction.

It depicted a last supper scene with the principals being Latin American dictators. Che Guevara was The Christ, Fidel Castro was Judas Iscariot, Evita Peron was The Magdalene, etc.

For 2012, once I resolve the electric and wattage issues associated with having 13 LCD screens all in one circuit, I am going to revisit that theme again, and this time the video (or Powerpoint) component of the drawing will amplify the presence of the dictators.

The original drawing from a few years back focused on Latin American dictators, and this second version will do the same; however, it will be slightly updated historically, as version one had some historic dictators in the piece, such as Haiti's Papa Duvalier, the Perons from Argentina, Fulgencio Batista from Cuba, etc.

The selection process is now open, and once again I plan to have Che Guevara as The Christ (he's a natural for it) and Fidel Castro as The Judas (also a natural for it, since it was Castro who had a hand in Guevara's betrayal in the Highlands of Bolivia).

Who else will make the tableau? Perhaps Hugo Chavez from Venezuela? The issue in "modernizing" the imagery is that Democracy - other than in Cuba and Venezuela - seems to have finally taken root in Latin America, and modern dictators are not as abundant as they once were.

Maybe I'll have to expand the search to include the entire world and add that new weird little fat guy from North Korea, and behind the scenes' dictators like Russia's Putin.

Any ideas?

The curious case of Tania Bruguera, the UN and the Cuban dictatorship

As you know, DC Art News has been following the saga of well-known artist Tania Bruguera and the bloody Cuban dictatorship.

Bruguera, a New York-based Cuban artist, and easily one of the best-known artists on the planet, was temporarily arrested on December 30, 2014 for organizing a free speech performance entitled #YoTambienExijo -- pursuant to the Obama-Castro deal. She had her passport confiscated and has not been allowed to leave the island.

The Washington Post wrote about this in an editorial:

...Tania Bruguera planned a simple event for Tuesday: She would set up a microphone in Havana’s Revolution Square and invite anyone who wished to step up and talk about the country’s future. Dozens of dissidents planned to participate under the slogan “I also demand” — which might be taken as an allusion to their exclusion from the secret normalization negotiations conducted by the Obama administration and the regime of Fidel and Raúl Castro. 

That the deal announced Dec. 17 by President Obama did not include any protections for Cuba’s pro-democracy activists quickly became obvious. Security forces detained Ms. Bruguera as well as several dozen other activists. The free-speech performance never took place. “I spoke to Tania Bruguera and let her know part of her performance was done,” tweeted Yoani Sánchez, an independent journalist whose husband, Reinaldo Escobar, was one of those detained. “Censorship was revealed.” 

The incident should have been an embarrassment to Mr. Obama, who said that he decided to restore normal relations with Cuba in order to “do more to support the Cuban people and promote our values.” But the administration shrugged off the crackdown. On Wednesday, the State Department issued a statement saying it was “deeply concerned,” the same words it uses to describe human rights violations in China, Vietnam and other countries where the United States has no leverage and plans no action. Talks on the opening of embassies will go forward.

Tania Bruguera, photo by Yali Romagonza.
Courtesy of Studio Bruguera

As most of you know, the Havana Biennial is currently underway, and collectors, arts aficionados, curators, many DC-area artists, and the art cabal has descended en masse upon The Castro Brothers' Workers Paradise.

Tania Bruguera was arrested again a couple of days ago as she approached the Museum of Fine Arts to attend an exhibit for the Havana Art Biennial. No one seems to know what the charges (if any) are... but then again, this is Cuba.

Via Facebook, her sister (who lives in Spain I believe), reported that Bruguera began reading 100-hours of Hannah Arendt’s seminal book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, on May 22 - apparently that's part of her "crime."

But there's more.

In Havana, four dozen members of The Ladies in White were arrested as they attended Sunday Mass. Also arrested were many of their male supporters, including democracy leaders Antonio Rodiles, Angel Moya and independent journalist Juan Gonzalez Febles. The Cuban dictators are particularly terrified of this group of women, whose "protests" generally consist of: (dress in a white dress on Sundays, (b) attend Sunday Mass, (c) march in unison while holding flowers to the cemetery and (d) get abused, beaten and arrested on the way there; repeat next Sunday.

Band leader Gorki Aguila was grabbed by undercover police outside the museum for the simple reason that he was displaying a photo of graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado and the word “freedom.” That's a no, no in the Workers' Paradise.

Graffitist Danilo Maldonado was arrested in December for "tagging" several pigs with the names "Castro" and "Raul." The names refer to the Castro brothers(Raul and Fidel Castro), suffocaters of the poor island prison. Where Maldonado was able to find pigs in food-poor Cuba will always be a mystery. I suspected the pigs were also snatched and ended up being served later that night in the homes of the undercover police bosses.

In Santiago de Cuba, capital of the Oriente province (the original province), over 80 activists of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU) were beaten and arrested, including some who had been released under the Obama-Castro December 17th deal, namely Diango and Bianko Vargas Martin, and Ernesto Tamayo Guerra.

Dozens of others were arrested in the interior provinces, including Raul Borges, father of political prisoner Ernesto Borges, and youth activists from the Cuban Reflection Movement.

Meanwhile, the US State Department and the Obama administration march forward...

“I don’t want to sound too Pollyannaish . . . but I do think we’re closer than we have been,” the official said. “I think my [Cuban] counterparts are coming up here with a desire to get this done.” The negotiating session will be held at the State Department. 

“I wouldn’t be even remotely optimistic if I did not feel that we were making progress,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under rules imposed by the State Department.

Unfortunately I am resigned to see our administration march forward, no matter what the Cuban dictatorship does to its abused citizens - after all the bottom line here is business.

But where is the United Nations on these issues? Where are the Cuban people's Latin American brothers and sisters? Where is Cuba's madre patria, Spain? Where's is the European Union?

Makes my head hurt.

Stay strong Tania; stay strong Ladies in White... each little "crack" in the dictators' bloody boots helps. 

An open letter to Senator Bernie Sanders from an American of Cuban ancestry

Havana street, 1950s

Senator Bernie Sanders,

There's a grossly erroneous perception, driven home by Hollywood movies and the narrative of the left worldwide, that pre-Castro Cuba was ripe for the Castro brothers due to the extreme poverty in the island, corruption, backwardness, disease, illiteracy, etc.

Nothing could be further away from the truth.

Senator Sanders'... your well documented admiration for the Cuban Revolution, cemented this last weekend by your comments during the 60 Minutes interview, is the most recent incarnation of the American left's fascination and support for the bloody regime which has brutalized Cuba for decades.

Senator Sanders: To whoever fed you the line about literacy in Cuba before Castro: In 1956, the United Nations literacy report noted Cuba had the second highest level of literacy in Latin America and higher than several countries in Europe.  Fidel Castro did not lift Cuba from the darkness of not knowing how to read and write.

Cuba was the most likely, and also ironically and tragically, the least likely of all Latin American nations to fall under the clutches of Communism. In 1953 Fidel Castro wrote (In History Will Absolve Me):

"Once upon a time there was a Republic. It had its constitution, its laws, its civil rights, its President, a Congress, and law courts. Everyone could assemble, associate, speak and write with complete freedom. Public opinion was respected and heeded and all problems of common interest were freely discussed. There were political parties, radio and television debates and forums and public meetings. The whole nation pulsated with enthusiasm."

Then he, and his brother, erased that Republic, brutalized it, and replaced it with a Communist dictatorship.

Cuba was not a backwards island nation in 1959....

• In 1829, Cuba was the first nation of Latin America, and also before several European nations, to use steam ships.
• In 1837, Cuba became the third nation in the world, after England and the US, to build a railroad. It also had the causal effect of creating a significant Chinese immigration to the island.
• The first doctor to use anesthesia in medical operations in Latin America (and also before Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and many other European nations) was a Cuban. It was ether and the year was 1847.
• In 1860, in the city of Cardenas, two clinics started the world’s first health insurance projects. Known then as Mutual Benefit Organizations, these MBO's were the precursors of what are known today in the US as Health Maintenance Organizations or HMO's. Membership in one of Cardenas's MBO's gave its members access to all of the then available medical treatments that the clinics offered. As the medical systems and clinics developed, most Cuban hospitals and clinics provided free healthcare to the poor.
• The first Latin American to play professional baseball in the US (and the “father of Cuban baseball) was the Cuban, Esteban Bellan in 1871.
• The very first demonstration on planet Earth of an industry powered entirely by electricity was in done in Havana in 1877.
• In 1881, a Cuban epidemiologist, Dr. Carlos Finlay, was the first to discover the transmitting agent of yellow fever, the mosquito Aedes Aegypti, which now also happens to carry zika. Dr. Finlay studied medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in the US.
• The first system of electric lighting in all of Latin America, and also before a dozen European countries was installed in Cuba in 1889.
• The first streetcar in Latin America (and before six European nations) began operation in Havana in 1900.
• In 1900, before at any other country of Latin America, the first automobile arrived in Cuba. By 1959, there were more Cadillacs in Havana than in New York City.
• The first Latin American woman to drive a car was the Cuban writer Renee Mendez Cape in 1900.
• The first Latin American Olympic champion was a Cuban. The gold medal was won by the fencer Ramon Fonst Segundo, in 1900 (he also won a silver in that Olympiad). In 1904 Fonts won three gold medals in fencing!
• The first Ibero-American nation to abolish bullfights was Cuba in 1901.
• In 1902, when Cuba finally broke away from Spain, the island had been the source of between 50%-75% of the entire Spanish Gross National Product.
• The first city on the planet to have a direct dialing telephone system was Havana in 1906. The second city in the world to have a direct dial telephone system was Santiago de Cuba, the capital of the Oriente province. All through the first half of the century, Cuba had more telephones per capita than any Latin American country except Argentina and Uruguay.
• In 1907, the first x-ray medical department in Latin America (and before nearly every European nation) was established in Havana.
• On the 17th of May, 1913 the first international aerial flight in Latin America was achieved by the Cuban pilots, Agustin Parla and Domingo Rosillo del Toro. The flight was between Cuba and Bone Key, Florida and lasted 2 hours and 40 minutes.
• Cuba, in 1918, was the first country of Latin America to grant divorces to married couples.
• The first Latin American (and the first person born outside of Europe) to win the world championship of chess was the Cuban master, Jose Raul Capablanca. He’s considered one of the greatest players of all time and was world champion form 1921-1927. He only lost 35 matches in his lifetime.
• In 1922 Cuba was the second nation in the world to have a commercial radio station, and the first nation in the world to broadcast a music concert. By 1928 Cuba had 61 radio transmitters, 43 of them in Havana, giving the nation the fourth place of the world, only surpassed by the US, Canada and the Soviet Union.
• In 1935 the concept of the radio novel and radio series was created by the Cuban Felix B. Caignet. That was the seminal birth of the telenovela as well!
• In 1935, the first black man to play professional baseball in the then segregated Major Leagues (and 12 years before Jackie Robinson) was the Cuban player Roberto Estalella. Cuban professional baseball had never been segregated.
• In 1937 Cuba was the first nation in Latin America (and before most European countries) to establish a legal work day of 8 hours. It also established a minimum wage!
• In 1940 Cuba became the first country of Latin America (and also before many European nations) to elect politicians by universal suffrage and absolute majority.
• Also in 1940, when 70% of the Cuban population was white, Cuban voters elected a black Cuban as President (Fulgencio Batista). Batista was the first (and so far only) black  President elected in Latin America.
• In 1940, Cuba was the first nation in Latin America (and before several European nations) to recognize and authorize the right to vote for women, the equality of rights between sexes and races, and the right of women to work.
• In 1942, the Cuban musical director Ernesto Lecuona became the first Latin American musical director to receive a nomination for an Oscar.
• The second country in the world with a commercial television station was Cuba in 1950. Throughout the decade, Cubans had more TV sets per capita than any other Latin American country, and more than Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal.
• Also in 1950, Damaso Perez Prado’s mambo piece Patricia was the number one record for 15 consecutive weeks in the Hit Parade list.
• In 1951, Desi Arnaz became the leading producer in American television. He also pioneered the concept of a third camera in television programming.
• In 1951, the Hotel Riviera became the first hotel in the world with central air conditioning
• A year later, in 1952, the first all-concrete apartment buildings in the world were built in Havana.
• In 1953, about 57% of the Cuban population was urban and more than 50% of the population lived in cities with more than 25,000 inhabitants, 33% lived in four cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants.
• In 1953, one-sixth of the population lived in Havana, making it the third-largest capital in the world in relation to the total number of the nation's inhabitants (after London and Vienna).
• In 1954 Cubans had the third highest meat consumption per capita in Latin America (after Argentina and Uruguay) and higher than most European countries.
• In 1955, Cuba had the second lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America, 33.4 per thousand born and the third lowest in the world. It ranked ahead of France, Belgium, West Germany, Japan, Austria, Italy, and Spain.
• In 1955, life expectancy in the US was 66.7 years. Life expectancy in Cuba was among the highest in the world at 63 years of age; compared to 52 in other Latin American countries, 43 in Asia, and 37 in Africa.
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• In 1956, according to a U.S. Department of Commerce analysis, Cuba was "the most heavily capitalized country in Latin America" and its "network of railways and highways blanket the country."
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• In 1957, a United Nations report noted that Cuba had the third largest number of doctors per capita (one for each 957 inhabitants) in Latin America, and more doctors per capita than Britain, Holland and Italy.
• The same UN report also noted that  Cuba had the number one percentage of electric access to houses in Latin America (and higher than Portugal, Spain, Greece, Ireland, and all of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union), and second in Latin America, after Uruguay, in per capita daily caloric consumption (2870 calories per person). This was also higher than all Eastern European nations and three Western European nations.
• In 1957 Havana became the second city on the planet to have a 3D movie theater and a multiscreen theater (the Cinema Radio Center).
• In 1957 Cuba had more television stations (23) than any other country in Latin America, way ahead of much larger countries such as Mexico (12 television stations) and Venezuela (10).
• In 1957 Cuba was first in Latin America, and ranked eighth in the world in number of radio stations (160), ahead of countries such as Austria (83 radio stations), United Kingdom (62), and France (50).
• In 1958 Cuba was the second country in the world to broadcast television in color. The US, of course, was the first.
• In 1958, Cuba was the first country in Latin America, and the third country in the world with the most cars per capita (one for every 38 inhabitants).
• Cuba was also first in Latin America and third in the world with the most electric home appliances per capita.
• In 1958 Cuba was the first country in Latin America and third in the world (after the US and England) with the most kilometers of railway lines per square kilometer and the second in the total number of radio receivers.
• In 1958 Cuba had 58 daily newspapers of all political hues. There were 18 daily newspapers in Havana alone. Bohemia magazine, with a circulation of 250,000, was the largest Spanish language weekly magazine in the world.
• People wanted to immigrate to Cuba – not escape from Cuba! Despite drastic immigration curbs set in place in the 1930s, when European immigrants almost matched the number of natural born Cubans, during the entire decade of the 1950's, Cuba was second in Latin America in the number of immigrants per capita.
• In 1958, and in spite of its small size, and small number of people (6.5 million inhabitants in 1958), Cuba ranked as the 29th largest economy in the world, ahead of several European nations.
• In 1959, Havana ranked as the number one city in the world with movie theatres (358). New York and Paris were second and third, respectively.
• By 1959 Cuba had a large middle class comprising about a third of the population and 23% of the working class was classified as “skilled.”
• In 1959, Cuba's gold reserves were third in Latin America, behind only Venezuela and Brazil.
• Cuba had the third-highest per capita income in Latin America, exceeded only by Argentina and Venezuela (around $550 a year). It was also higher than Italy, Japan, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal and every single Eastern European nation in the Soviet bloc.

And then came 1959 and the Castro Brothers’ Workers’ Paradise… Since 1959, over one million Cubans have escaped from the island, and tens of thousands have died attempting the escape.

You lost Florida this weekend.

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

                                                          Sir Winston Churchill

Very respectfully,

Florencio Lennox Campello

An American of Cuban Ancestry

The Ultimate Toilet Paper

At least for Cubans!

Finally you can now make your Cuban or Cuban-American's dreams come true! Cuba's brutal dictator and for over 50 years the suffocater [[Verb] To stifle; to destroy; to extinguish; as, to suffocate] of the Cuban people, deserves to be in the mierda tanks of history.

Full roll of toilet paper with Fidel Castro's face on every sheet. Ideal for parties, reunions or for plain personal pleasure. Order more than one. The ideal gift for your Cuban friend.

Send me some... por favor!

US Rep. Ros-Lehtinen on the SI

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (and who is a Cuban-American), made the following statement on the Smithsonian Institution’s upcoming trips to Cuba under a so-called People-to-People Cultural Exchange Program:

“The Smithsonian's 10-day trips to Cuba will amount to little more than a tropical vacation. Americans participating in these trips will not see the brutal reality of the Castro dictatorship. They will not be visiting run down hospitals where sick Cubans have to bring their own bed sheets and medications, nor will they have the opportunity to sit in a court room where peaceful pro-democracy advocates are sentenced because due process and a real judicial system are non-existent.

The nature of the Smithsonian's upcoming trips to Cuba becomes clear merely by looking at the ad promoting it. The ad fails to mention that Cuba is a state-sponsor of terrorism or that Castro's thugs repeatedly and routinely beat and harass the innocent Ladies in White while they peacefully march down a street. It does not mention that an American citizen is being held hostage by the regime simply for seeking to lift the veil of censorship that the dictatorship imposes on the Cuban people.

Americans will not be able to interact with a typical Cuban family as they conduct their daily desperate search for food, stop by a dormant newspaper's office that no longer operates because there is no freedom of the press, or visit the ever-growing prisons where countless political prisoners languish in their cells for exercising freedom of expression. These are the real cultural experiences in Cuba. Instead, these tourists will experience a false depiction of Cuba through a biased and censored 'tour' of the island.

It is deeply disappointing that the Smithsonian Institute, primarily funded by American taxpayers, is facilitating access to U.S. dollars, which enables the Castro regime to make a hefty profit. The trips not only illustrate a blatant disregard for human rights conditions on the island by an entity that receives U.S. government funding, but provide the deplorable Havana tyranny a sense of legitimacy.

Why is this US Rep. doing this? Not that you'd ever see this on American television, which for some reason focused a lot of time and effort on the uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria... but chooses to ignore the ever-growing uprising, led by Cuban women, going on 90 miles south of Florida.

Witness this (Via):

This week, female pro-democracy leaders took to the streets of the central Cuban town of Santa Clara to demand the release of their colleague, Ivonne Malleza, who remains imprisoned without charges since November 30th.

As a result, they too were arrested, albeit for short term.

Here's the disturbing testimony of their arrest:

Idania Yánez Contreras described her time behind the bars as "horrible." According to the dissident, in her cell "the guards, under the orders of State Security, were screaming obscenities at us" and even threatened with raping the women. Yanez denounced that one of the obscene threats she has not been able to forget was that "they began to tell me 'I am going to sleep with Idania because she has the largest ass.'" She added that the guards were "raffling" the women amongst themselves, choosing which one they would rape.

Meanwhile, Damaris Moya also suffered verbal and physical attacks. "I was treated horrible under the orders of Captains Andro, Yuniel Monteagudo and another by the last name Gil," denounced the co-president of the Central Opposition Coalition, adding that the initial violence occurred in front of her young son who is only 13 months old. "He was desperately screaming in the arms of his grandmother while the agents were applying martial arts immobilization locks on me. And that’s how they dragged me to the police vehicle and later to the detention center." In the case of her husband, Yanoisi, he was beaten and "choked and he now has his face swollen... they also punched him on the stomach and in the testicles."

The same official - Yuniel Monteagudo - was also responsible for the brutality against Antunez, even while he was detained in the back seat of a police vehicle. "That official told one of the Rapid Response agents: ‘punish him during the entire trip,'" explained Antunez, "and then they started to punch me the entire way. While he was hitting me he was saying 'piece of shit [N-word], scream 'Fidel Lives.'" The dissident responded with the contrary. "I started to scream 'Down with Fidel,'" amid even more blows, "and that’s how the entire trip was until we reached the police unit of Santa Clara." The blows against Garcia Antunez resulted in numerous swellings on his head, and he is currently suffering from dizziness and lack of vision in his left eye, where he was also hit.

However, the dissident affirmed that although 2012 began with lots of violence against the peaceful Resistance, something positive was that during one of the marches in demand for freedom of those who were detained on that morning, "neighbors of Santa Clara were also fed up with the violence and joined the protest…they would scream 'abusers,' 'hunger and misery' and some of these citizens were even arrested." Antunez, like Idania Yanez and Damaris Moya also affirmed that they would not give in or give up in the face of the terror that the Cuban dictatorship tries to impose on its people. "Despite the beatings," assures Antunez, "I feel satisfied and convinced that now, more than ever, we are witnessing the final days of the tyranny." The dissident classified 2012 as a year of "importance" for the Cuban Resistance.

Damaris Moya also sent out a direct message to dictator Raul Castro. "If the supposed measures which Castro was enforcing are just to massacre us, well then we will be massacred because we are going to continue with our marches demanding food for the people, demanding justice and always out on the street." Idania Yanez echoed this same attitude: "Here we are, and we are going to continue with our actions."

Notice how the N-word was used against one of the Afro-Cubans while he was being beaten... another example of the mostly ignored racist nature of Castro's Workers Paradise.

For what it's worth, I've got a feeling that 2012 is the end of the reign of the longest-lasting dictatorship in the world, and in that end, it will be courageous Cuban women who will drive a stake through the heart of the Castro vampires and their enforcers.

A gift to the woke mafia: Che Guevara

Dear members of the "woke" police and/or mafia...

If you wear, or have ever worn a Che Guevara T-Shirt (unless it is like the one on the left) then you are wearing or have worn the image of a man whose racist writing and actions and beliefs are full of negative, racist remarks about Mexicans and Blacks, and Native Americans. 

This man was a killing psychopath whose image has been re-invented over the decades so that in the past he's been viewed by a large, ignorant segment of the planet's population as some sort of positive icon - he was not.

By the way, "Comemierda" is an almost unique Cuban insult...

Wanna read some of the things this comemierda has written or said?

"The black is indolent and lazy, and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized, and intelligent."

                        -- Che Guevara 

"The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations."  -- Che Guevara

"Mexicans are a band of illiterate Indians" -- Che Guevara

In an interview given to the London Daily Worker in 1962, Che Guevara said that "if the nuclear missiles had remained we would have used them against the very heart of America, including New York City... we will march the path of victory, even if it costs millions of atomic victims... we keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm."

And this line after the Cuban Revolution in 1959: "We're going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing."

“I don’t need proof to execute a man,” said Che during an interview published in a Cuban newspaper in 1959, “I only need proof that it is necessary to execute him.”

Che Guevara (like Fidel Castro) was sadistically anti-gay. He referred to gay people as "sexual perverts" and also helped to establish the first Cuban concentration camp in Guanahacabibes in 1960 - a camp for gay men. This brutal camp was the first of many that the Communists established in Cuba - with forced hard labor, and the first which focused on gay men. From the Nazis, Guevara also adapted the motto from Auschwitz, “Work sets you free,” changing it in Guanahacabibes to “Work will make you men.” 

Inform yourself - then hunt anyone and everyone who has ever worn a Che Guevara T-shirt or had a Che Guevara poster in their college room and out them and cancel them! 

You want the image of a real Cuban hero for your T-Shirt? How about Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet?

And the idiot of the week is...

Read it and weep...

(CNN) -- Jennifer Lopez sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" on Saturday to a leader who has been characterized as one of the most repressive in the world.

"We wish you the very, very, happiest birthday," Lopez said to Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, and then she sang to him at a huge celebration at a resort in the central Asian country.

Details here. Who is next on the agenda for Jennie from the Bronx? Maybe Fidel Castro? That nut from North Korea? Tsk, tsk...

Another Experiment: Frida After Frida

As I've discussed and reflected on this site many times, over the last year or so I have been experimenting with the marriage of technology and drawing. In the first trials, I have begun to embed a video player into drawings and use that technology to expand my interest in narrative art.

In preparation for the recent Aqua Art Fair in Miami during Art Basel Week, I also began to experiment with tiny LCD screens and software that would allow a Powerpoint-like presentation.


Here we see a shot of my studio with the first stage of a drawing of Frida Kahlo. I envisioned a Kahlo portrait that (like the Kahlo portrait with a small portrait of Diego Rivera on her forehead) that would amplify her obsession (and mine) with her own image.


And thus, here is the drawing - prior to the addition of the electronic component.


And here is the 1.5 inch LCD screen and the motherboard with rechargeable lithium battery.


Here is the drawing with the window cut into her forehead.


And here's a detail showing the embedded electronic component playing a continuous loop of all of Kahlo's self portraits.

This piece is now in the De La Torre Collection in Miami Beach. The Aqua Art Fair was a spectacular success for these new pieces.

What's next?

About a decade ago I did a huge drawing entitled "Last Supper for Dictators." The piece was exhibited at one of my solos at the old Fraser Gallery in Georgetown, and subsequently sold to a New York collector via Sotheby's auction. It depicted a last supper scene with the principals being Latin American dictators. Che Guevara was The Christ, Fidel Castro was Judas Iscariot, Evita Peron was The Magdalene, etc.

I am going to revisit that theme again, and this time the video or Powerpoint component will amplify the presence of the dictators.