Buzzkill is My Name

By Pedro Pablo Morejon

HAVANA TIMES – I spoke to my best friend and barber because I needed to reserve a spot for Saturday. He asked me not to be late. He wanted to take his daughter to the celebrations in the afternoon.

That’s when I realized that the so-called popular celebrations in my town are held around this time, an event that has always turned my stomach. Thousands of people, not only from the area, but from neighboring towns and places invade everywhere with shouting, foul language, horse-driven carts, alcohol, “music” and trash.

A cheap party to let an uneducated people thirsty for entertainment let loose with their trashy behavior. Bread and circus, like in ancient Rome.

I’m sorry, but that’s what it is, year after year. It goes on well into the night. The blasting speakers can be heard anywhere in the town, at 1 AM, 2 AM, 3 AM, 4 AM or 5 AM.

Not even those of us who live at the entrance to the town, which is the most peaceful, can get away from it.  The same thing happens every year. The directionless, purposeless youth head home at this time making sure you hear and feel their drunkenness and poor vocabulary. Heated disagreements with insults sometimes. Neighbors can barely sleep.

This caricature of a popular celebration makes me sick, as it’s more sociable trash than a celebration.

I left to get my hair cut and I had to walk through the town center where the main crowd was, as you’d expect. I managed to get through that commotion, not without patience mind you.

I returned after getting the hair cut and the crowd was much larger this time. The loud music boomed in my ears, the duel meaning music was a catchy tune by Osmani Garcia and Lenier, which had been on repeat for a year I discovered.

Pizza at night.

Pizza in the day.

I’ll make pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza…”  the chorus went.

I can’t say it didn’t make me laugh, but at the same time I thought about how many kids were listening to that “music hit”. Meanwhile, people were only having fun or suffering, and some were dancing to the beat of the tune.

At home, my neighbor brought up the subject. The subject was the “celebration”. “If only a huge downpour comes tonight and everything ends,” I told her with a smirk.

The afternoon passed by, it began to get dark and I immediately heard a soft sound on the roof, a drizzle that broke out into a great downpour in a moment. I smiled and thought: “I speak the forbidden language.”

So, I slept that night like a baby, without “popular celebrations.” Yes, I know, I’m a kind of left-hand thread, a buzzkill.

Read more from Pedro Morejon’s diary here