HAVANA one Havana’s hotter discos wanting to know if any of us could give him the words to the Commodores “ Brick House.’’ He didn’t need us. We heard a Cuban doing the We arrived in Havana from Miami by charter. There is no direct scheduled service. Customs was surprisingly easy. We had to declare our money, and were cautioned to stay away from the black market. They never bothered to check anyone’s pockets or to confiscate the calculators, cassette tapes or the copies of Milton Friedman brought in by unregenerate capitalist readers. Accommodations were at the Hotel Nacional, jewel of the Malecon (formerly George Washington Avenue). One-time host to U.S. Presidents and Mafia Dons, it had fallen into eclipse with the construction of the Hilton (now the Havana Libre) and Capri during the Godfather- nurtured spasm of tourism in the 50’s. The hotel was shabby with The discos in Havana do not play Russian music. No — they play disco, soul, jazz, funk — tape recorded off the air from Miami radio stations, or on records — the hottest item to beat the strangling blockade imposed by the U.S. in the first years after the Revolution. I remember that teenager, a little too slick to be punk, decked out in blue jeans he must have copped off some other tourist, hanging out in front of tune later that week at the Club Rio. 1 went to Cuba with a group of about 40 students and professors from Princeton. Some Cuban academics had visited us, and extended an invitation to. come to Havana. I was excited. I had long wished to see Cuba, original “ free territory” of the Americas, home of Che and those Great Cigars. We arranged our trip through Interplanner (3120 N. 13 St., Arlington, Va. 22201), the semi-official travel agency. The deal was $600 for 8 days, including airfare from New York, hotel, food and a bunch of extras — pretty cheap for a week in the Caribbean to escape the cold March weather.
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