/ Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Translator: William Fitzhugh
In real time, it's illegible but the Cuban press has come to be very
creative if it is read with a five year lag time, "chabacaneria"[2],
luxury, lechery, lamentation, vice, consumption of toxicity, banality,
corny-ness, trinket shops, flamboyant attires, cheesy bargains, and an
ecetera half ethical and half ethnical. The self-titled "Cuban Youth
Daily"put forward its best effort in the beginning to frame the
coordinated condemnations of reggaeton, even if a bit late, with the
flow of time and money, and has attempted several baby steps towards
tolerance.
Why would the Cuban intellectual have to think or at least give some
weight to reggaeton? Why isn't it reggaeton that intrudes on the theory
chorus of the cultural realm? To think is to possess. We want to put all
phenomenon in the civil waistline of power. We can't stand to be stuck
outside the the flow of sense that, for its part, is a source of
capital. We know that we can legitimize or stigmatize a genre of music
that, while the more it goes along with a big mouth and sticks to
people, the more voiceless and vulnerable it seems facing the
Institution that is always a bit inquisitorial. for the moment we fool
along (we make ourselves the fools). It's still early to be passing
judgement and maybe it was our turn before for a good piece of cake.
Reggaeton as a form of linguistic violence has always captivated me as a
distortion of the Cuban norm (unconscious Cabrera infantilisms or
translated captions something like the movie La Naranja Mecánica[The
Mechanical Orange]). Any break-out or emptying of the language
fascinates me, even when it closes upon itself and doesn't blow up in
the face of the social consensus.
In terms of textual terrorism, the territorial reggaeton slang in truth
promised much more than it produced, but in Cuba this inefficacy far
from being a sin, at these heights already, should be a constitutional
preamble. We don't come to any libertarian limits. We cross the line,
yes, but only from a heavy conservatism, never out of fashion. Cuba as
commodity.
The strange family sagas of the first texts that I have a poor memory
of, with their twisted Oedipus-isms and certain common, criminal-esque
places, soon were dissolving in the friendly media of the caricature.
The themes ended before being completely explored, even before turning
out to be interesting for our most restless intellectuality (worthy
oxymoron).
There remain then the eternal twitches of Cubanity, the alpha macho
uprooted or predatory, the mean and voracious girl, the consuming at an
open bar (the CUC [3] as the measure of all things, the almighty buck as
the only real event to be remembered in anniversaries) complete
forgetting of those who died needlessly, hedonism before historicism, a
certain "sexual promiscuity" and a lot of "moral relativism" (that still
generates panic in the chorus line of our insular churches), and all the
other aesthetics that pass for icons, brand name clothing, tattoos,
glitzy jewelry, luxury cars, purebred pets, the mass orgy as a
substitute for the organization of the masses, in the end, a final
assault on all those delicate distractions that the ideological elite
hid for decades by the frugal instinct of self-conservation.
When it's allowed (with some possible exceptions) to be aired in
official media, reggaeton pays homage to the popularity they charge for
it under the table [4]; and pardon me those of you present here from the
left, this bad metaphor, the announcers and radio producers, among other
new actors of the Cuban post-socialism of the 21st century). The
Quinquenio de Oro of this class does not stain its fingers with the ink
of the "best pens of the Republic" as have been called its songwriters a
bit in the style of "the best minds of my generation" of Allen Ginsburg,
howled a lot but seldom criticized. More like attendance records and
prohibitive prices for their spectacular spectacles not like the cock
fighting rings but like vaudeville. No-one loses. Not even those who
lose their heads only to lose their clothes in public in a corporal
climax of the corporate show (there was even someone who involved their
skin in the first comandante-esque tattoo in five discursive decades of
the Revolution).
Precisely then, after the first putative death of Fidel, it was the
Cuban state that began to find itself outside the game, victimized
budgetarily, reggaeton-icized by an emerging industry much better than
its functionaries. Tickets were running somewhere between the corrupt
and the legal, between the clandestine disc burners and the video clips
of national television (contaminating the increasingly professional
artists and technicians) between the Makumba and Miami (it's only an
example) and the power doesn't know how to boycott this short cut direct
to the future, no, to the extreme future.
The little dogs, who knows if from the political police (it's only
another example), gave a hand to the ministerial marionettes. Here or
there in every six months there rises some brilliant conference that
rebukes reggaeton in the sacred name of the little people, that fascist
totalitarian defect of the disguised demagogue of pedagogy. When the
Premier of Culture himself appeared on the Mesa Redonda[5] of Cubavision
Internacional(which is our de facto Parliament before the world) a fake
head was chosen and it was so simple to deconstruct the remains of a
slang that was barely mumbling genital syllables.
Case closed, comical circus , semantical of semen cyclical:
chabacaneria,luxury, lust, lamentable, vice consumption of toxics,
banality, corny, trinket shop, flamboyant attire, cheesy bargains (put
on the hot underwear-uty, take down the wild par-uty, spit all-uty out
the mouth-uty because the dictator-uty is here to order you to stop-uty
[6]).
To the new class of non-consumers of Reggaeton, you're within your right
to defend the status quo of your governancead infinitum. For lack of
rash intellectual attempts, the transition in Cuba could have well been
able to slip into the background of the neighborhoodof the last
tam-tam[7]. A lesson is necessary in order to expose the lack of
solidarity of the trade (not even a single collection of signatures
against the censorship) and the shunning by steps of its most successful
leaders .
Now in the second stage of the rhetorical recruiting of Reggaeton as
state lever, for sure a mutual pact in terms of taxes and resolutions
against the delinquency of debt and infractions, ethical codes and
sanctions including even for reasons of grammar, symbolic management
salaries and permits in passports in order to allow departure from and
return to the country with money, more so the customary community
signboards, clearly, and perhaps these colloquiums or lectures where, to
legitimize or stigmatize this idiot son of the post-modernity that,
meanwhile the more lap dancing, bumping and grinding gets more
promiscuity to the people, the more mute and defenseless it leaves us in
the face of our own inquisition that's always a bit institutional. We
fool around for the moment (we make ourselves the fools ). It's never
too late to pass sentence and I believe it will be our turn before that
nice slice of cake.
Translator's notes:
[1] The word "bayu" in Cuban Spanish means a wild, orgiastic party.
Adding a syllable to the end of that word enables reggaeton to rhyme the
word bayu-ti with "dictadura" (dictatorship)which has the same syllable
added to it to make dicatu-ti
[2] "Chabacaneria": crass , loud , mannerisms of the street including
vulgar sexual talk.
[3] Cuba has two currencies. There is the traditional CUP (Cuban peso,
also known as "moneda nacional" or national money), and then there is
the coveted CUC – Cuban Convertible Peso, thevalue of which is tied 1:1
to the American dollar. CUC enables the holder to purchase goods at
government stores that sell goods from overseas, quality foods, luxury
items in addition to anything that CUP can buy as well as purchasing or
selling such items between private parties.
[4] the expression "under the table" in English is rendered as "by the
left" in Spanish which is why the writer apologizes for the use of the
metaphor.
[5] Mesa Redonda or Round Table is a nightly show on Cuban television
where prominent academics and members of the government discuss matters
of national and international importance.
[6] A satirical change of lyrics from a reggaeton song by Osmani Garcia
about the joys of oral sex. The song can be heard at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIsCs4g3maM.
[7] Drum circle or a drum of African origins.
Translated by: William Fitzhugh
February 25 2012
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