Cuba travel stories and cultural insights

I ain't doing nothing but talking shit. Y'all gotta like, you know, encourage me the whole way along. Ow. I ain't doing nothing but talking shit. Y'all gotta like, you know, encourage me the whole way along. Julio, vamos. Radio Havana, Cuba. Havana, Cuba. Well, good. Buenos días. Vengan todos ustedes, mis queridos radio oyentes. Hola, amigos. Presentamos este programa. White and Melody. Pero con sentimiento de la calle. In authentic Latin beat. For all of my people, Negroes and Latinos. And even the gringos. Pero si quieren saber un poco más de qué se trata, quédense unos minutos con nosotros. Y estamos en Havana, Cuba. Y estamos escuchando a Nestorio. Polish Radio. Ahí nada más eso vale. Everyone ready to go home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home Yeah, that's right. Yo, what the fuck, man? You're listening to the Nestorius Public Radio Show, as my man Don Lino just introduced it for us. That was live from El Malecón. Not live right now, but that was done live in El Malecón like a week ago in Havana, Cuba, man. That shit was, like, unbelievable. Yeah, it's Thursday night, 9 p.m., I think, a little bit after 9 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. We're chilling here at Skid Row Studios, with my man Jeremy Hansen, who's going to be our guest tonight. Hey, what's up, man? What's up, bro? A lot of people don't know who you are. Yeah. I mean, I always, I think I, you know, talk about you many times to a lot of people, maybe even mention your name. Maybe you were the board op a couple times, and we talked a couple times while we were doing Nestorius Public Radio, but you, this is your shit. I mean, you put Skid Row Studios together. Yeah, yeah, it's funny, man. I built the studio. And I'm still nervous to be on the mic. That's kind of weird, huh? No, I get it. I get it. But the purpose of, and the aim of Nestorius Public Radio is to make it seem like we're just chilling out. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And the reason you're my guest tonight is because we were supposed to go to Cuba together. Right. Like, what, like 14 days ago. Yeah. Because it was March 5th, and today's March 19th, so like about, what, March 14 days ago, something like that? Yeah, March 4th, we were going to take a red-eye. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I, you know, wow, what a fucking trip, dude. That was, I got to tell you, man, I had a hard time coming back, like, adjusting to fucking, like, life. Yeah. The next, like, today, what's today, Thursday? It's like Thursday, today, I got some semblance of, okay, I'm all right. You know what I'm saying? Did that happen to you? Yeah, well, I mean, it's a very different, well, I should say, I did go to Havana. You did last year, right? Yeah, we went, I went with my girlfriend in May. Of 2014? Yeah. Right. And so we went for about 10 days. 10 days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. But yeah, it's a shift, quite a shift, a culture shock. Wow. I mean, I can imagine what it's like for you. I mean, you don't speak Spanish. I don't speak Spanish, but. You understand a little bit? Yeah. Most motherfuckers talk fast. First of all, Cubans. Cuban Spanish is faster, yeah. Cuban Spanish. I have a friend of mine who's Dominican. I mean, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, they all talk fucking fast. But Cubans are like, they take the cake in fucking ice speed fucking Spanish. They're like. They sound like they're fucking talking underwater, like really fast. So, I mean, it's very, very hard to understand. I can imagine how it was for you, you know, not being able to understand. And you're not even speaking the language, right? Well, you know, living in Los Angeles, you hear Spanish constantly every day on the street. But it's different Spanish. But it's different. Mexican speak very slow. So, even though I don't know Spanish, I could recognize the difference when I heard Cubans speak. But, you know, as far as me not knowing Spanish, it wasn't a problem. Got it. I didn't have any issues, you know. The guy we were with took care of us. He knew English. I was with. So, the guy you were with. Manuel. Manuel. Manuel. He took care of us for a few days when we first got there. Yeah, good guy. Good guy. I mean, me and this dude connected. Like, we would go places and they would think he was my father. Yeah. Which is, dude, can I just say something? Tomorrow is my 50th fucking birthday. Happy birthday, man. Thank you. March fucking 20th, 50th birthday. This is my trip. My gift. You know what I mean? To go to Cuba. I've been wanting to go to Cuba for like at least 25 fucking years, okay? Yeah. And it was just like one of those things where, you know, there's the stigma. Like, you can't go to Cuba. If you go to Cuba, you can get arrested. All this bullshit. Yeah, you'll go straight to prison. Right, but it's all bullshit. I'm not saying it's bullshit that you won't get arrested, harassed, or go to prison. I think the whole thing is bullshit. Oh, I see. The embargo. It's just a bunch of fucking egotistical, prideful bullshit that happened in the 60s and somebody's cock wound up being a little bit bigger than the other one. And so, some people's feelings were hurt, i.e. the U.S. And they, you know, they held on to this fucking, you know, resentment or this grudge for fucking over 30-something years. You know what I mean? Yeah, it just, it didn't make a lot of sense. Makes no sense. I mean, how long has the embargo been in place? Well, it's been 63 years or something like that. Well, 64 to what? What is it now? Like 51 years, something like that, yeah? Yeah. Something like that. 62, I think, is when JFK signed the docs. Okay, got it, 62. That enacted the embargo. Right. That was when they came to a head, right? Cuban Missile Crisis and all that stuff. Yeah. Which, I don't know if you got a chance to go to El Hotel Nacional de Havana, Cuba. Yeah. Dude, that hotel is gorgeous. I spent many an evening. So much history there. Oh, my God. Plus, every day at 10 and at 3 p.m., there was a tour of the hotel. Oh, okay. There's so many fucking things you can do in Cuba that, like, for instance, Sunday night, every Sunday night at the Hotel Nacional at 8 p.m., there's this fucking salsa spectacular that you would probably have to pay about, like, fucking $80 to $90 somewhere. Yeah. Like, the Tropicana Cabaret or something. It's fucking free. You sit there. There's no drink minimum. You know, you get a bottle of whatever the fuck you drink. Free. Wow, that's great. Free. Yeah. I was sitting there sipping espresso, smoking cigars, and drinking bubbly fucking Perrier or whatever the fuck it was. Pellegrino. Pellegrino. And there's a group, Los Van Van. They're very popular in Cuba and all over the world. And they broke up. For, like, a good portion of those singers. It's a huge band. They broke off, and they had their own bands, their own conjuntos. Yeah. Right? So one of the singers of Los Van Van has a show there every Sunday night. Pedrito, I forgot his last name. But fucking if you're in Havana, Cuba, dude, and it's Sunday night, 8 p.m., go to the Hotel Nacional, bam. It's amazing. From 8 to 11. The Hotel Nacional was also the meeting place of the five fans. The big mafia families. Right. The big mafia families. They all got together in Cuba under the guise of going to a Frank Sinatra concert. And, yeah, a lot of mafia history there. That was Charlie Lucky Luciano and the Jewish dude. What the fuck is his name? I can't think of his name. Fucking, I watched. It's in Boardwalk Empire. Those two dudes really were the guys who, because they fucked all the other families, and they got a couple of, it's a little complicated what happened there, but, yes, that's the place. Yeah. Also. That history is amazing. Also, that's the place that they started, I believe, a casino before they had Vegas. They have the roulette table there. Did you go into the hotel? Yeah. So they have Casa de Habanos. They have one in the hotel. Yeah, it's two levels. Yeah. That one in the Hotel Nacional. You get a chance to go to that one. But I went to the Partagus. I went to the original factory Partagus. The factory's closed. And you were there because I remember the pictures. You showed me. It's a VIP lounge in the back, and you get to fucking puff, drinking espresso. Yeah. The first thing we did when we got there was we bought two boxes of cigars. Right away. Right away. That's funny. Right fucking away. Actually, excuse me, excuse me. The first night, I got there Thursday. Well, let's back up a little bit. Back up. I want to know what it was like when you touched down in Havana. Because for me, that was really exhilarating. You know, like. I'm in Cuba. I was fried. You know the truth? Yeah, you were tired. I was fucking fried. Why didn't you sleep? Yeah, yeah. I got to the airport in LAX. It was around 9 o'clock. My flight left at 1130. I slept a little bit from LAX to Mexico City. I slept a little bit. It's only a two and a half hour flight. Yeah. So, and then it was weird because now I'm in Mexico. I'm supposed to meet my boy from New York. Right. And we have no method of communication. His flight was supposed to get there. I'm supposed to meet my boy from New York. 30 minutes before mine. And my flight actually landed around the, at the time his flight was supposed to land. So, I was literally like the first person to get off any, to come off the gate and deal with immigration there. Right. So, luckily I speak Spanish. I asked the guy and he says, well, it's actually quarter to five. So, that flight is probably the one just getting off right now. Anyway, lo and behold, I'm through and my man is coming through and he's, you know. Anyway. We get on the, we get on the Cubana Air, which I have to tell you, the most disgusting fucking plane I have ever been on in my fucking life. No lie. Cubana Airlines scared me a little bit, to be honest with you. There was nothing wrong with the airline. It was the fucking most disgusting. First of all, it was packed. So, I crashed out a little bit there. So, again, that flight is only like another two and a half, three hours. It's only a two, there's a two hour time difference. Right. Right. So, you're going from Mexico City, you lose an hour. Or. You're going from here to Mexico City, then you lose two hours. Right. Going to Cuba, because Cuba's on Eastern Standard Time right now. So, they give us this god awful shit fucking plop sandwich for breakfast. I took a bite. I threw it the fuck out. I hadn't eaten anything. So, that's the plane. I skeeve shit, man. I'm like, I don't want to touch nothing. So, when I'm on a plane, I wear long sleeve shirts, long pants. I don't want to touch shit. Because they're stuck in that tube, you know. Dude, it's disgusting. Yeah. I don't think that plane had been cleaned. And I don't mean like swept. I mean cleaned. Since fucking Fidel took over fucking Cuba. Yeah. Since the revolution. I swear to God. That plane was so fucking filthy. It looked like it had fucking Cuban cum stains on the fucking seats. It would crud. Anyway. I had been warned about Cubana Airlines. I land. The advantage of flying Aeromexico. Aeromexico is that you don't have to get out of the fucking. You don't have to leave the gate. You don't have to leave the terminal. Terminal, yeah. And then go to another terminal. It's a pain in the fucking ass. Yeah. You have to go out, pay a dollar. The equivalent of a US dollar to this red bus. They take you to terminal two. Then you. It's extra work, right? Yeah, yeah. So, when I land in Cuba, you know. I don't know what to expect. First of all, my man's bag is not coming out. They made him check his carry on. This like shoulder bag. Mm. And he was probably like. He's pissed off. Like, when you get to the gate. In the terminal with Air Cubana, it's a fucking zoo, bro. There's a bunch of people wrapping packages. Because they're trying to ship things from the US, Mexico, to Cuba. Because you can import stuff. Right. Exporting stuff out of Cuba is almost impossible. But people. That's how people make, you know, a living there. Right? So, they, you know. Which I'll get into later on. And if I don't get into it in this show. I'll definitely. I'm going to do a part two. And get into it. But let me put it this way. The Cuban government. Right? Is designed. Right? So that the only way the common person can survive. Is if they have some sort of black market operation. Right. The only way someone could live. When I say survive. I mean, yeah, they get paid fucking, you know, the equivalent of $20 a month. And that should cover their bare necessities. Maybe. Maybe. Right? Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. But the ration cards. I used to think ration cards meant you get these things automatically. You don't have to pay for them. Not true. You have to pay. Ration cards basically tell you that you. Right. Jeremy. You can only buy five pounds of rice for the month. And your card will be punched when you buy your five pounds of rice. Right. And then if you need to buy an extra three pounds, you can. But it'll be. It's considered a supplementary. And you have to pay a teeny bit extra. Different price. Now, mind you. Mind you. A five pound bag of rice. A five pound bag of rice could probably cost you 25 U.S. cents. Something like that. Right. So you can do the math. You're not going to fucking live like a king there. Right. But the government. The system. Is designed. So if you live in Cuba. You have to have some sort of hustle. You have to. And everyone has a hustle. Yeah. From changing fucking American dollars to kooks on the street. CUC. Cuban Universal. Yeah. You should explain that there's two different kinds of currency. There's two different types of currencies. There's two different types of currencies. But for the purpose of the traveler, the vacationer, you only have to concern yourself with one. And that's the kook. The CUC. Which is. I'll translate it to. Cuban Convertible Peso or something. Cuban Universal Currency. Yeah. There you go. Let's just call it that. Okay. The Cuban Peso. Which is what. It's the national currency. Which used to be what you could trade for a dollar. Right. For instance. Right now. A Cuban Peso. Twenty five Cuban Pesos. Will equal one dollar. Yeah. U.S. dollar. But you don't need to. You don't really need Cuban Pesos. Because you're not going to go anywhere. That you're going to buy anything with Cuban Pesos. For instance. You can go to a club. Like a dance club. And it's in Cuban Pesos. But that's for Cuban Nationals. So you need a Cuban ID to use Cuban Pesos. To get in there. For the lower price. Make sense? Yeah. We went to one place. Where we used Cuban Pesos. Where we just bought like some pizza off the street. Yeah. Yeah. You could do shit like that. But 90% of the places are going to. They have kook. C.U.C. And here's the fucked up thing. That nowhere on the internet. When I read to do preparation to go there. And I did a lot of preparation. Was that. A. It's fucking expensive. Okay. It's expensive. Now. With that said. You could. You could make your dollar go far. For instance. Manuel. Manuel. He would take. Just to these. Like we would take excursion. Day trips. Like. My man. I was in a van with this dude. In his car. For probably. You know. Get 14. 15 hours. Not straight. But. He was at our service. Yeah. Yeah. For that long. Yeah. You know what I mean? For 100 kook. Okay. But he. Not once did he say. Nah. I'm going home. Nah. He was there. 24. He was like. I'm yours for 24 hours. Whatever the fuck you need. Whatever you want to do. Whatever you need. You know what I mean? But $100. Dollars. Comes out to. 108. US dollars. Yeah. Because what. What you fail to realize is that the Cuban government. Gave. A hallucinatory value. To their fucking universal dollar. Of. A dollar eight. So right off the bat. When you go to Cuba. Your US dollar now is 92 cents. Right? To their dollar. Plus. The government charges you an extra 10%. For the conversion. So. Only US. Yeah. They don't do it. To anybody else. Yeah. Yeah. So now. You lose. About. You lose 18 cents. To the dollar. So let's. For. For our discussions. Sake. Your dollar. Is worth 82 cents. In Cuba. Right? Yeah. Give or take. You might get 86 cents. I think that might have changed. A little bit more. Recently. Because. No. I went to the exchange. The cook was on. Online with. With the dollar. When we went. Okay. Well. Well. Well. This is when it was initiated. And it fluctuated. Because when I went. They were giving us 86 cents. For a US dollar. Yeah. But here's the thing. You can get. Somebody. That. Takes US dollars. Ships them to the United States. Right? To. Buy electronics. For instance. To. Import into Cuba. Because that guy. He sells electronics. To like. Houses. That are. Casa Particulares. Houses. Independent houses. That are renting. To tourists. Right. So they want to have TVs. And all this stuff. So you can't get any of this stuff. In Cuba. You can't get it. The only way you can get any of that stuff. Is through a national owned store. They don't have national owned stores. It wasn't until like a couple of years ago. That Cuba. Initiated. National owned. Automobile. Stores. Where you could actually buy an automobile. Independent. You know what I mean? Independent. It's. It's a fucking crazy. Place. For instance. Their laws. For instance. And this is all prior to. Raul Castro. Fidel's brother. Right. Under Fidel's rule. It's illegal to do a million fucking things. Even exchanging dollars. Is illegal. Raul comes in. And he makes it a little bit more doable. Because he understands that. The only way you're going to. You're going to cross over. Into. You know. The socialist. Government. Into. Some sort of capitalistic. Viability. Because. Let's face it. Let me go back a little bit. If the Cuban. Cuban government. Right. Has made it so. That. In order for. The average Cuban. To live. Decently. Or to make a little extra. So that they can. Maybe go to a club. A club and dance. Is to have a hustle on the side. Right. That is to say. That. They are saying. That the only way. You can. You know. Have that little extra. Is to. Create your own. Capitalistic. Hustle. Yeah. That's what that is. That's what it is. So. Involving tourists. Involving tourists. Yeah. Involving tourists. Because. Because. That's capitalism. That's having something. That somebody wants. And you're selling it to them. At a profit. Right. Yeah. So I'm in this. I'm in this club. And. And. I. I was paying for somebody. But they. They were national. So. Their entrance was. 100. Coop. Which is the Cuban peso. 100. Coop. C-U-P. 100. C-U-P. C-U-P. C-U-P. C-U-P. C-U-P. Uh. Is the equivalent. Of four American dollars. Right. For me. A non-national. A non-Cuban citizen. It was 10. Kook. C-U-C. Which is the equivalent of like $10.80. Yeah. So there's a difference of $6.80. Which is a fucking lot. For. For your average Cuban. Right. So. In order for me to pay for this person. That I was bringing in. I needed to change. You know. A 5. Kook. Right. Into. to, you know, 100 Cuban pesos, which I should have got one kook back. It should have been four kook. The dude said, nah, nah, nah, it's five kook, and I can give you, you know, 100 Cuban pesos. He's making a whole kook, a whole dollar eight off of that transaction. When you look at that, that's a lot of money, right? Sure. On a $4, that's a lot. Do the percentage on that. That's almost 25 fucking percent. Yeah, and he's doing that all night. He's doing that all day, because this was the matinee. There are two shows that, this is called the Casa de la Musica de la Habana, which is one of the venues, and there are two of them, where these local, you know, salsa bands go. And I was told, go to the matinee, which is from 5 to 9. Then the night show is from 11 to 3 a.m. So from 5 to 9, you go, and there's less prostitutes hitting on you, and there are more Cuban people there, because you get. You get to see the whole fucking thing, not just tourists. Yeah. You know? Yeah, you were telling me about this before you went. And the thing you want to do when you go to Cuba is, you want to have the Cuban experience. You don't want to have the fucking, you know, Holiday Inn experience. Yeah. You know what I mean? As much as possible. And depending on, you know, what your avenue of going into Cuba is, a lot of people from Europe go, they go into tours. They'll stay in the Hotel Nacional, and they have these huge tour buses. You've seen them. Yeah. They're all over the place. And those are operated by the government. So everything in Cuba is owned and run by the government. Everything. Right? So there is no private enterprise, right? I.E. capitalism. Until Raul came into place. Recently, yeah. Right. So when I say there is no private enterprise, legally that is, because prior to Raul, as I said, there was black market. You can get anything. You can do this from the beginning of time. I mean, I can't get into, like, pre-revolutionary Cuba to revolution. Everyone knows what a revolution was. the embargo from the embargo to 1999 or 1980, 89, 90, when the Soviet Union fell. These are different eras in Cuba. What they call the special period when the Soviets fell. The special period. Technically, you have the pre-revolutionary time in Cuba. Batista. Batista. You have the revolutionary time when Fidel Castro, Che, and those dudes fucking kicked Batista out and took over. Then you have the period from 1962, I believe you said, when Kennedy and Cuba come to a head, the U.S. and Cuba come to a head, and boom, no fucking economy is exchanged between the U.S. and Cuba. That forces Cuba to get... What does Cuba produce? Sugar, coffee, sugar and coffee, cigars, rum. And cigars. So, I mean, think about that. Just the fact that the government implemented the CUC, the Cuban Universal Currency, right? The convertible. They implemented this and they gave it a value of a dollar eight to a U.S. dollar. Just think about the preposterousness of this, right? In order for somebody to say that your dollar, my dollar is worth something, you have to have something that you're selling. Something that is worth something, right? Something that you export. Something that is valuable, that is made in your country. Something, right, that backs up your economy. Now, we just go back. Cuba has nothing that backs up its economy. Maybe at some point it did, but right now, its whole economy is supported by tourism. Tourism, yeah. That's what backs up the economy, is tourism. That's it. So you would think that they would actually make the fucking dollar or the euro, whatever the fuck, it is, but I guess the dollar, not really, because they don't give a fuck about the dollar, because U.S. Americans can't go there, but to give the value of that universal currency, a dollar rate is a little out there. It's incomprehensible, right? It should be 75 cents, right? You should get a little bit more to your dollar. You should have some sort of incentive to go there, right? Yeah. But that's not the case. Yeah, so just to go back to the dollar, after that period of what Cuba, what resources Cuba had with sugar, coffee, cigars, and stuff like that, those were the basic tenants of trade that they have with the Soviet Union, right? So the Soviet Union comes in, they're their allies, and they provide cars, and they provide jobs for Cubans, for Russia. The medical system in Cuba is spectacular, you know what I mean? I was talking to some people there that obviously everything is paid for. If you need a hip replacement, you don't have to pay a fucking penny out of it or shit like that. Education's free. Education's free, and there was a time when... Up to PhD level. Up to PhD level, right. But when you're a doctor, when you retire, they give you like nine kooks a month as a pension. Which is fucking ludicrous. I was talking to some dude. He said that his father was something, for ambassador of Cuba, and he traveled all over the place. He was a doctor, and he was a professor, and he taught, and I think that he got like fucking the equivalent of $19 a month of a pension for the rest of his life. Something like that. I mean, under socialism, it is, one of its goals is to create a classless society, so a doctor gets paid the same as a farmer. But that's not necessarily true. That's not necessarily true. You would think, that is, that is, the idea. And that is what you generally get a feel for what the goal was. I get that. I mean, I traveled up into the country, and those dudes up there, like you call them campesinos, right, country folk. Those dudes up there, they're like, yeah, gung-ho, 100% socialist, right, because at a point in time, they had dick when other people had everything. Now, they have a little, and so does everybody else. You know, everyone has a little, not a whole lot. You know what I mean? But where were we on the socialist thing? So, yeah, they gave opportunities. The medical field there is good. The doctors are good. But what I found out was also, for instance, people who work in tourism, right, I met someone whose mother works in some tourism departments. Obviously, that's a big deal. And they get paid a little extra. They get paid like a bonus. So, for instance, they'll get paid between 10 and 15 kook a month, right, which is the equivalent of, let's say, for argument's sake, $16, $17 US at the high end. Right. The mother was getting paid like an extra three, I think three or four kook a day. I wrote this shit down. Three or four kook a day, excuse me, a month, a little extra, and they had their lunch paid. So, so... What was the three or four kook a day for? Not a day. Not a day. It was a month, I believe. It was just part of being part of being... Like a little bonus? Like a bonus because they worked in that industry. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, for instance, I met this other guy. I don't know if you noticed when you were there, they had these guys, like when you park your car, they have these dudes that walk around and the guy who parks, if you're parking your car, you gotta, you know, park your car, when you get in your car to leave, you gotta throw them, you know, you gotta throw them a little something. Yeah, we did notice those guys. So these guys, right, these guys are retired dudes, right? So, for instance, I met this one guy, really nice guy. I met this, they're all fucking nice guys, man. The one thing I have to say about the Cuban people is that they're amazing, humble, beautiful, they don't complain, hard workers, and they'll never ask you for shit. They'll never ask you for a handout. You know what I'm saying? Very resourceful people. Very resourceful people, which is to say that... By necessity. By necessity. They have to be resourceful. Yeah, resourceful. Yeah, and therefore, that's why the black market, you have to find a hustle. How can I make ends meet without robbing people? Well, all those great cars that everybody loves to look at, you know, 57 Chevys and shit on the road have Toyota engines in them. Right. They make those things work. You know, so that's some ingenuity there. Yeah, ingenuity. They machine the chrome parts there. There are a lot of, you know, underground black market... Yeah, because Chevy's not sending them new car parts. You can't get those. Yeah. You can't get those. The windshield of those cars, if that fucking windshield goes, you're fucked. You can't get that windshield. I mean, unless somebody dedicates their, you know, their factory to making that, but I don't... I mean, you can't even get that shit in the U.S. Unless it's fucking, you know, somebody's has a, you know, jalopy dilapidated fucking 57, you know, Chevy, and they're selling it and you buy it for the windshield. Right? Yeah. So this guy Mario, you know, I was asking him, so how does this work? You know what I mean? You know, that you guys have a parking, you know, how do you do this? And he basically said, well, I'll ask him a couple of questions. I said, well, how do you get paid and all this other stuff? I asked him. He said, well, I'm retired. I make about, 12 to 15 kook a month. Now, again, that's, you know, 25 Cuban pesos to a dollar. It's close. In Cuban pesos as a pension to you and I, we'd be we wouldn't have excess fat on our stomach, okay? We'd be fucked. Right? You couldn't smoke a cigar. You couldn't do shit that we do. You barely eat the basic shit that you need, right? And that's it. What he says, this is extra. And now this is a licensed thing because they all have licenses, right? So it's licensed by the government, right? So this is where it's interesting. So these are independent enterprises that Raul, Fidel's brother, allowed to happen. So you see these stores now, they're independently owned. Some of them, some of them are fucking nice restaurants. Those restaurants have to be licensed by the government. So now they're not on the cuff. I mean, they're not, you know, underground or black market. They're above ground. They have to be licensed but they're independent. They're not owned by the government. Right. The owners hire the employees, whereas in state-run businesses, the government hires the employees, remember? For like 10 to 12 kook a month or whatever. Whatever that owner decides to give you a salary, that's up to the owner. You still have to pay Cuba, the government, 60% of your salary. So that's how it works, right? So you may make a little bit more money. In the case of Mario, the parking guy, he basically gets licensed and he says he has to pay between, I think he said 5 to 10 kook a month. Minimum. Like in America, if you have a TLC license, a taxi medallion, right? You don't own the medallion. You lease the taxi for 12 hours, right? From the garage, right? You have to pay whatever the fuck that is, $3,000 for that shift. Whether you make that money or not, that's on you. And then you gotta make that money back and then whatever you make over that is what you make. It's your profit, right. Until you can buy the medallion for like 200 grand or something. Nah, not in New York anymore. Try $2 million. Whoa, really? Yeah, it's ridiculous. Yeah, that whole medallion system is completely fucking... That's a whole other story. That's a whole other story. But this guy, he's licensed, so he's got a license to do what he's doing, which I'm not quite sure what the fuck he does other than he's probably looking out for the cars and no one fucks with them. I'm assuming that it's like parking security. Which is cool. I mean, think about it. So you throw him like a kook, half a kook or whatever the fuck, and he told me he makes about 10 to 20 kook a day. He can make up to 10 to 20 kook a day. That's a lot of fucking money. 10 to 20 kook a day. Let's say 10 kook a day. Right? 10 kook a day times, you know, 7. That's 70 fucking kooks a week. Right? And all you gotta do is pay the government 10 to 15 or let's say 20 kook a month. You know, you make that shit. So you're making a nice hunk of change to supplement... Yeah, because he converts that into Cuban pesos and then that goes a long way. Yeah, it goes a long way. And so, you know, unless you have something like that or unless you, for instance, you're that guy's wife, right? Or your daughter. Like, you're him. He's like 70-something. And your daughter works in a cruise ship outside of Cuba. For instance, Manuel's daughter, my driver, his daughter... I met his daughter, yeah. Right. She works for an Italian cruise line. So now, the Cuban government allows you to get a work visa. Right? So you can go actually and work on a cruise line. Right? And the salary that she'll get is negotiated between her and, excuse me, the Italian cruise line. Right? So let's say the salary is $1,000 a month, let's say. Right? All her expenses are paid. All her meals are paid for that month. She goes away for like, you know, five months. Right? She gets paid $1,000 a month. 60% of that $1,000 a month has to be paid to Cuba directly. And then she gets the difference by the Italian cruise ship. So, again, that's just another example of how, you know, that's sort of like participating in some sort of a capitalistic thing. As opposed to you have to work for a government company, so to speak, or agency. In which case, everyone who works in there gets the same, like you said before. Right? So like, for instance, I think in 2004 at Texas is the cellular company that Cuba has. Right? So I had a cell phone in Cuba. I took my cell phone, I unlocked my cell phone, I took my SIM card out. Manuel was kind enough to give me his wife's SIM card, which is owned by CubaCell. Nobody owns those, and you can only get them if you're a resident of Cuba. I see. And so I get the CubaCell. Now I have access through GCM or whatever it's called. GSM. GSM. As opposed to CDMA. As opposed to CDMA. That's just another, what? They're just different protocols for cellular. That's where Jeremy comes in with fucking computer technical shit. Yeah. I'm familiar with CDMA, GSM or whatever. I mean, it was news to me. I had to do research. So then basically what you do is you buy a card from a CubaCell, and they sell them at the hotels and ship for 10 or 20 CUC, and you fucking put in a code, and now your phone has 10 or 20 CUCs worth. And you can call the US, or you can call within Cuba, or text within Cuba, and it's not that expensive. But to call the US, it's like $2 a minute or some shit like that. Yeah. So anyway, and all those people who work for at TEXA, I believe that's how you, it's an acronym for the cellular company that they have. They would all get paid like X amount of CUCs a month. You know what I mean? But so the advantage to working for a private company or private restaurant, or whatever, is again, that you could probably make a little bit more money. You know what I mean? But of that more money, you still have to pay 60% to the government. So with that said, it's kind of like that is a microcosm of fucking capitalism within the socialist government. So they're kind of fucked. It's just so weird. We went to a restaurant, and the waitress went over to Manuel, and he was asking her what they're going to do with this. they had this one dish, ropa vieja, which is shredded beef. And she said something to him, and I'm like, what is she talking about? And he said that they had roast beef, stewed beef, carne guisada. It's like roasted beef in a stew, which is un-fucking-believable. I didn't know, but it has to be on the hush, because it's against the law to kill a cow in Cuba. Unless you're the government, right? I didn't know that. Yeah. So let's say you're a farmer. You have cows. If you get caught killing a cow, you can go to jail. Right? If you're caught killing that cow to feed your own family, you can go to jail. That's wrong. Against the law. Completely against the law. I can see that. Completely against the law. Because that cow needs to go to the people, right? I guess. I couldn't find somebody to give me the fucking origin of this law, and the... It's just absurd. So, for instance, if you own a restaurant, and the authorities come into the restaurant, and you say you have, you know, $25 worth of beef, right? They want to see the receipt. Because, legally, you should have bought that $20 worth of beef from a government retailer, right? If you have anything in excess of beef of that $20 that you have a receipt for, they can close your shit down, and they can take you off to jail. Shit like that. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, there are these laws that are probably implemented like right around the time Fidel took over the country, and yet, right now, they're in this time warp, right? And, like, it's not completely socialist, obviously. You know what I mean? And yet, there's ebbs and flows of capitalism in there. Sure. You know what I mean? So, is this... And it's not... And it was just very interesting, you know? I mean... Well, our driver that we were with most of the time, Egon, somehow is able to run his own private business. It's his thing. Him and Manuel. Him and Manuel. And they also have to pay a minimum to the government per month. Well, yeah. And Egon was driving a... An Audi. An Audi, yes. And... And Homeboy was driving a Peugeot. They called it something else. Now, that Peugeot, he told me, he bought it used. And I think it had like 60,000 kilos on it already. Or some shit, maybe 20,000 kilos, kilometers. Yeah. Right? And the shit cost about 80,000 kook. Yeah. That fucking car. Not the Audi. Yeah. You know what I mean? It was like a four-passenger... He explained that to us. And cars... To purchase a car in Cuba... Yeah. In Cuba is like ridiculously expensive. Right. Right. And prior... And this is under the new thing because you can actually buy a car from an agency, a state-run agency, right? Yeah. Prior to that, you couldn't buy a car. For instance, you own that... They call them Almonds, the fucking old cars, like Almendras, the Buicks and those old 57. Yeah, yeah. They call them Almonds because they look all bubbly and shit. But let's say you owned one of those, right? You want to sell it to me? You can't, right? Let's say you own your house. You want to sell it to me? You can't. You couldn't do that prior to Raul. Those pieces of property have to be passed on to your offspring. If you had no offspring, it goes back to the state. Right. You know what I mean? I was talking to somebody about... Well, I took a cab one night, that same night that I was at the Malecón with Dolino playing the trumpet. It was like 4.5. It was like 4 o'clock in the morning. I didn't want to call Manuel and be like, yo, pick us up. You know what I mean? I said, fuck it. I'm going to take a cab. Because I met this one dude and he goes, my boy will take you wherever you want to go. I asked the guy how much and he said, whatever you want to give me. You know what I mean? He wasn't trying to hustle me. So I threw him a nice, you know, whatever. And it was one of these little fucking Russian jalopy cars. You know what I mean? But the guy was prideful, you know, for his job. Yeah. Prideful to be Cuban. He said, I'm a little bit afraid. I have him in an interview. I'm a little bit afraid of capitalism. I said, why? He said, because if you notice right now, there's no malice in Cuba. Everything is pretty, you know, pretty cool. Like, for instance, I mean, as you know, Cuba is pretty safe. Relatively speaking. It's relatively speaking for many reasons. You get caught doing some shit, you can get killed right off the bat. You're going to get punished. Yeah, you're going to get punished big time. Yeah. But also, there's no incentive. There's no incentive for somebody to steal something from somebody. By this I mean, let's say in America, right, you see a friend coming down the street with a Mercedes Benz, right? The first thing you want to know is how the fuck did he get a Mercedes Benz, right? Yeah. It's like, what is he doing to get a Mercedes Benz? He's 20-something years old, right? Chances are, he didn't get it by fucking working and, you know, like the old-fashioned way, right? Right. He either was given it to him or he got it in some fucking shysty way, right? Yeah. So now, you start thinking in those terms and you're like, how can I get that? And then greed and other shit happens and then crime starts to happen, right? I mean, think about it. The depression, the emotional depression, spiritual depression that you can't have something that somebody else has, even that could lead to drug addiction, alcoholism, and then, you know, you want to fucking stick somebody up. I'm assuming that's what, you know, he was saying. But that is what a class-based society causes, is those types of things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those types of emotions and that have and have-nots kind of mentality. Yeah. Yeah. And that is something that I think Cubans should be thinking about, you know? Yeah. Because that is going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's going to happen right away, 100%. It's not going to be overnight. No, it's not going to be overnight. First of all, they're not ready, dude. They're not, like Manuel was telling me, they don't have the infrastructure to have like 50,000 Americans. Yeah. They don't have the infrastructure to have like 50,000 Americans just fucking shoot out there. Well, I had heard that they're already thinking, there's already foreign companies that are going to come in to renovate the airports because the airports can't handle the onslaught of tourism. No, they can't. There's actually two airports nearby Havana. There's Jose Marti and then there's Varadero, which is, if you want to fucking go to Cuba, the way to do it is to fly into Varadero, which is a beach community. You chill there for a couple of days. Then you fucking drive down to Havana. And you do the city thing. Yeah. You get the beach thing out of the way. So cigars, because we're coming at the final stretch of our show and we could talk. Man, that went quick. I know. I know. We barely scratched the surface. I know. I know. Well, this is how it is on the end of motherfucking P and the R. You start talking shit and then you know. Yeah, I'm on the mic now and I see how it is for the hosts, man. Time flies by. Right, time flies. Yeah. You know, when you're talking about juicy fucking, you know. We found the 24-hour fucking joint. Yeah. They sold hamburgers. Dude, it was exciting. It was a lot of excitement. You know what I mean? It was time well spent, I got to tell you. Yeah. There. So we went to Alejandro Robina's farm. Yeah. And I met Ivan, the tour guide there. Ivan, yeah. Yep. And he showed us around and all that stuff. And what I found was interesting is that tobacco farms were particulares. They were always particulares, meaning whenever you go to a tobacco farm, you're always going to find a tobacco farm. Yeah. And I was like, man, this is a good idea. I'm going to go to a tobacco farm. I'm going to go to a tobacco farm. I'm going to go to a tobacco farm. I'm going to go to a tobacco farm. And what I found was interesting is that tobacco farms were particulares. They were always particulares, meaning whenever you see casa particular, restaurante particular, that means it's privately owned, right? Okay. It's particularly owned as opposed to state owned, right? Yeah. So the tobacco farms were always owned independently. I didn't know that. Yeah. And so what the government does is they buy all of the tobacco from the farmer. Right. Of course, not at a highly lucrative amount of money. Right. At a decent amount of money so that he can continue his crop. Right. And of course, I'm sure if you have the best crops, the best of the best, you probably have get a little bit more like the Robina farm does. Right. Where the Robina farm produces probably some of the best tobacco in Cuba and it goes to all of the factories that are state run, Partagas factory, Cohiba factory, all those- Robina's known for- For their wrappers. Right. And they grow the best wrappers in Cuba, capo or wrapper. That's what they're known for. Got it. Yeah. Got it. Well, I'll tell you, man- Did you meet Hiroshi? No, no, no, no, no. I met Carlito. I met Carlito's Hiroshi's father. Oh, okay. So Carlito is the manager at Casa de Habana Robina on 18th and 5th or 16th and 5th. That was the- Yeah. That was the manager. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was the first one that we went to, Manuel, my friend Eddie and I, we went to eat something and then we wanted to smoke a cigar. We bought like four cigars there. Sat down, had some espresso, sparked up, had a Partagas number four. My man, we bought two Bolivars, Robustos, two Partagas number fours. And so we had some cigars like Primo shit right off the bat. Right? Yeah. But I also bought some just in case. I didn't want to get all fiended out and shit. The next day we went to the Partagas factory. The factory, but the factory is closed, the main store there. And we bought two boxes. Nice. And dude, it was just unbelievable. I have the Monte Cristo Regatta open that I was telling you about. Yeah. Yeah. And I bought some H. Upman's, little small ones. They were perfect for breakfast. Aceh Oopman. Aceh Oopman. Yeah. Aceh Oopman. Yeah. Aceh Oopman. Dude, dude, the thing is that Manuel wasn't very savvy with cigars. Yeah. So I know a lot about cigars. Yeah. Whereas Egon, he knows a hell of a lot about cigars. Right. Yeah. Right? You're all driver. So let me wrap up the cigar tobacco thing. So for instance, Carlos Robaina, who happens to be Alejandro Robaina, the fucking godfather of tobacco who owned that farm that we just talked about. Carlos Robaina is the son and is also the father of Hiroshi Robaina, who is now running the fucking farm and the operation. Carlos is the manager at that farm. And he owns that Casa de Habana. The Casa de Habanas. The Casa de Habanas. So you would think that he owns that Casa de Habana and he makes profit. Negative. Right. All those cigars- Those are state owned. All those cigars are made, manufactured, and owned and counted for by the state. That house, that store is owned, run, and operated by the state. He couldn't give me a cigar if he wanted. He couldn't say, hey man, here, have this. They're all counted for. Right? Right. And he just paid a salary for being the manager there by the state. It was just a fucking trip. But then they all have their own house rollers. And they got the- At the farms, you mean? No, at the La Casa de Habanas. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't see one. They got a house roller and then those guys are usually giving out cigars. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I went to the Melia Cohiba Hotel and that's when I met Doña Juanita and she was rolling, she's been rolling for 40 years, which I have- Yeah, you showed me pictures. I have a cigar, dude. I smoked one of those yesterday. It was, you know what? If I had to do it again, I would have bought 25 of those cigars at $3 a fucking pop. The custom rolls. Yes, because I could get a Monte Cristo from our secret source. I looked online and they even have the open regatta ones. Yeah, yeah. They have them. Yeah. So I would have done that. They're fucking sweet. Yeah. So, yeah. So I'm assuming that there's something going on. Yeah. So outside of Casa de Habana at the Melia Cohiba Hotel, there was the rollers, she was rolling them and they were $3. I'm assuming that maybe she gets to keep a little money from that. I don't know. It's just a little situation that- Or maybe she works on tips or something. Yeah. Well, we threw her a couple of tips. Everyone there is working on tips. I mean, really. They're not getting paid any money and if you do go to Cuba, even though it's expensive and you're fucking getting fucked on the kook for your dollar, you have to bring a little extra. Let me just say this and then we're going to get the fuck out of here, which I should have said right off the beginning. All right? So the day before I'm leaving to Cuba, Tuesday, a couple of things. I came down to get a converter from you and a money belt. We went down to Skid Row. There was how many fucking homeless people down here? It was like 200. I was like, dude. Yeah. I was on edge, dude. Yeah. Walking around there. It's an eye opener. I didn't see that in Cuba, not once. Here's the other thing. Yeah. I was in the valley. Everyone was like, fuck this. Everyone was like, fuck this. Everyone was like, fuck this. Everyone was like, fuck this. Everyone was like, fuck this. Everyone was like fuck this. Everyone was like fuck this. Everyone was like fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck cashier's computers are down and they can't take credit cards 99 of the people on that line did not have cash yeah they all fucking dependent on a credit card and i'm like she said next everyone's looking at me like crazy so i cut the line i got cash i paid for it and then this is a precursor for me going to cuba right because as an american no one takes credit cards there so if you go to cuba you better you better um plan right for on the safe side to have 150 to 200 a day right 150 i would say about 150 just to have in your pocket in addition to paying for your hotel and your fucking transportation then you're fucking you know then you don't feel like you're having a heart attack you know what i mean yeah because there's no fucking atms you can't get no money so they they weren't accepting credit cards yet negative okay but this is because i had heard a rumor march 1st they were going to start no no it's going to happen but all that stuff takes place dude because u.s banks have to you know do all the fucking international paperwork and the conversion contracts and all the other bullshit it's not that simple yeah this is what i found out in the midst of all this i told my boy look at the rate we're going we're gonna need like another 500 man because i don't want to be fucking i don't want to be like i can't spend no money let's say i want to buy another box of cigars or whatever whatever whatever right yeah so i emailed his mom i said we need a thousand kooks and which you know it's a thousand kooks i was going to split it five and five and the next day she western unions it now here's the here's the brilliant thing about western union western union gave us 97 cents to the dollar okay so it's almost like dollar for dollar dollar for kook 97 cents so in the future what i would do is i'd bring a couple of hundred dollars cash with me but i'd wire myself money in advance and then i'll just go to the western union there with my passport and get the money in kook then you don't have to fuck around with canadian money to exchange it which is what we did right what you did you you you buy canadian dollars here because you get a little bit more canadian for your u.s dollar and when you change it back it kind of comes out to even yeah you know but the canadian dollar started going down and it's going down and it became a whole clusterfuck you know what i mean so western union that makes sense western union western union is the way to go anyway um um the last thing i'll say is getting cigars out of cuba cuba allows you 50 cigars two boxes export if you go on into mexico mexico allows only 25 cigars one box anything in excess of 25 cigars they charge you a tax per cigar okay now when you go to the u.s the u.s only allows up to 100 u.s dollars worth of tobacco and alcohol right it's very expensive it's very expensive it's very expensive it's very expensive it's very expensive it's very complicated how does the u.s know they don't know the value they don't know but the u.s can easily say to you that box of monte cristos is worth 250 not a hundred dollars and unless you have a receipt right that says that you paid a hundred dollars for it it ain't gonna fly and none of those casa de la habanas are gonna give you a receipt that says a hundred dollars they can't right by the state it's illegal for them if they do that they can get in trouble right the best you could do is you go to cuba one year and you get a receipt and you get a receipt and you get a receipt from them you come back to the states you photocopy that shit you fudge it you in other words make replicate a couple of those in blank then when you go back you can have those blanks and fill it in for a hundred bucks but i shipped my cigars from mexico city in the terminal that's what i did yeah but you didn't have more than 25 cigars no when you come into mexico or anywhere in mexico they ask you and they fucking open up your bags and shit randomly i guess but they want to know how much cigars and how many fucking uh bottles of liquor you have and they have if you have anything over 25 cigars they're gonna fucking charge you and i think it's a dollar a cigar or some shit like that that they charge you yeah you know anyway i think we kind of went over a little bit but i'm with jeremy i'm uh i i turned into the the guy uh that uh goes over time and jenny's like oh man he went over time jenny come on was it interesting it was a good show was it interesting it was a good show but it's 1008 all right all right all right you know what you know what jenny jeremy all the motherfucking lovely people i met out there i love you people man my heart is broken that i'm not there it's me it's me it's me it's me i ain't doing nothing but talking shit y'all gotta like you know encourage me the whole way long ow i ain't doing nothing but talking shit y'all gotta like you know encourage me the whole way long