I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Now, if I may, let me ruin it for you.
There’s a new trendy hot spot inthe West Village in NYC. A nice little rustic place where you can spend $16 on their signature drink – vodka, fresh citrus and spiced syrup – named the same as the establishment: “Socialista”
HANGING on a wall of Socialista, a new West Village lounge fashioned after a rustic Cuban bar, is a striking black-and-white snapshot. Taken in Cuba in 1959, it shows a relaxed Fidel Castro sitting next to a fresh-faced Lauren Bacall.
Guess who’s one of the investors?
Why, none other than Mr. Human Rights himself, Sting.
Hat tip: a bunch of people.
Raul lo dijo no vamos a mover un apice, son Los Estados Unidos los que tienen que cambiar no nosotros, la nueva administracion debe sentarse con nosotros y negociar y si no lo hacen estamos dispuestos a la confrontacion por 50 años mas si es necesario…
Mas claro no puede estar…
The more languages you deal in on a daily basis, the more confusing it gets. I read, re-read, over and over the headling “in english”. Come (as in ‘come here please’ Cacas. Come Cacas??? It finally set in Come (in spanish, come mierda).
Oh, that’s rich.
I think I’m going to have to “upper-deck” them.
A million bucks to the first person to state what an “upper-deck” is.
OK, not a million bucks – I don’t even have a prize but, when you figure out what it is – well, you’ll get a laugh out of it. I don’t even know if I’ve got the cojones to actually do it. LOL
-Anatasio
It is quite like Cuba of today. Only the elite or chosen can get the benefits. The sheer hypocrisy of this bar shows how out of touch the elite left are with what they claim they believe.
Do you mean throw a fill-in-the-blank at them from the upper-deck of the place?
Gee, imagine that. It’s so very predictable, I mean curious. But let’s try to be “liberal” about this. Here are some potential explanations:
-Sting is just being fashionably “moderate.” You know, like the Estefans with Santana.
-Sting wants to give a lesson in “tolerance” by refusing to “demonize” murderous dictators (if they’re leftist, naturally), because murderous tyrants are people too, and all they really need is, uh, “understanding.”
-This is really a practical joke perpetrated by Michael Moore to piss us off.
The biggest mistery to me is the ongoing fascination with the subject… Those who are involved or even so ridiculous as to endorse such establisment should all be shipped to Cuba and experience it… And by so I mean with zero commodities or benefits…
Si tanto les agrada la idea de lo que ellos piensan que es socialismo, porque no irse a la isla y vivir como viven millones de personas, rodeados de la nada…
Ni hablar… Hasta las cuantas…
Sorry guys, after finding out last week that Sting was a supporter of Mumia Abu Jamal, the Philly cop killer, not only will I not listen to his music anymore (I never bought his stuff so he doesn’t get my money anyway), I also seriously doubt he will do anything to help the prisoners of conscience in Cuba in spite of BUCL’s efforts. The restaurant was just the final nail in the coffin for me.
Claudia
At best, The Police will not perform in Cuba. If they do play there, you can bet they will let themselves be used by the regime rather than doing anything against it. They will definitely condemn the embargo, call for “dialogue” and so forth. These people are far too deep in the entertainment industry establishment to do anything to buck the standard party line, which boils down to left is good (or at least permissible) and right is bad.
George,
Nope – let’s just say an “upper-deck” involves doing something rather nasty in the water tank of a toilet bowl. I’ll go no further, as it’s lunch time right now. LOL It was something from college . . . sigh . . .
-Anatasio
Useful toddyists, all of ’em.
“Socialista” = Social List (as in exclusive guest list).
Babalusians, this is just a case of NYC imitating Boston. For many years now, there’s been a bar called People’s Republik in Cambridge, MA, located off Harvard Square. Pictures here: http://wbztv.cityvoter.com/Details.aspx?business=12007
It could be the owner is just poking fun at Cambridge’s nickname, the People’s Republic of Cambridge, but it seems more than that, an embracing of socialist chic. It’s at best a chicken and egg question.
I can’t tell you what the place is like. During my 12 years living in Boston, I never ventured once inside, instead I tried not to throw up every time I passed by.
-jl
The saddest thing here is not the involvement of Sting, who’s simply typical of his kind, but rather that there could be a market in a free society for anything that uses someone like Fidel Castro as a selling point. It’s way too late in the game for anybody to claim ignorance on the subject, except willful ignorance.