{"id":17,"date":"2004-02-15T21:33:02","date_gmt":"2004-02-15T21:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cleek.lunarpages.com\/blogs\/?p=17"},"modified":"2004-02-15T21:33:02","modified_gmt":"2004-02-15T21:33:02","slug":"107689878239487794","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=17","title":{"rendered":"107689878239487794"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Buena vista, anti-social club<\/b><\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/nielsenhayden.com\/electrolite\/\">Electrolite<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/entertainment\/3464801.stm\">US blocks Cuban Grammy nominees<\/a>:<br \/>\n<uL>US authorities have refused to let five Cuban Grammy Awards nominees travel to Sunday&#8217;s ceremony in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>Musicians up for best tropical Latin album award &#8211; including veteran star Ibrahim Ferrer &#8211; have not got visas. <\/p>\n<p>Ferrer, 77, told press in the capital Havana: &#8220;I am not a terrorist. I couldn&#8217;t be one. I am a musician.&#8221; <\/uL><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allmusic.com\/cg\/amg.dll?p=amg&amp;uid=UIDCASS80402152105111204&amp;sql=Al9jxlfjejcqe\">Buena Vista Social Club<\/a> album, the only Latin music I own, is one of my all-time favorite records. It&#8217;s a collection of songs from legendary (pre-Castro) Cuban musicians that American musician Ry Cooder recorded in 1997. Footage of the recording sessions and Cooder&#8217;s trip in making the record were used in the wonderful film documentary of the same name.<\/p>\n<p>The album is terrific stuff. Even in their 60&#8217;s, 70&#8217;s and 80&#8217;s, these guys recorded songs with tremendous energy and soul. I don&#8217;t understand any of the lyrics, but the energy behind the words is unmistakable. And, even though listening to it sometimes makes me feel like I&#8217;m in a Mexican restaurant (such is the extent of my exposure to Latin music), I find myself wanting more &#8211; but not knowing where to begin. <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, these old musicians can&#8217;t come here because there&#8217;s a ridicuolous embargo against their country, Cuba, a country that&#8217;s no more communist than one of our largest trading partners, China, and no more repressive than China, Saudi Arabia or any other countries that we&#8217;re more than happy to trade with. <\/p>\n<p>How petty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Buena vista, anti-social club via Electrolite US blocks Cuban Grammy nominees: US authorities have refused to let five Cuban Grammy Awards nominees travel to Sunday&#8217;s ceremony in Los Angeles. Musicians up for best tropical Latin album award &#8211; including veteran star Ibrahim Ferrer &#8211; have not got visas. Ferrer, 77, told press in the capital [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}