¡Ay, Jorge!

Try as he might (and he does!), Jorge is unable to engage Rita in anything regarding homosexuality (as listeners' requests for a so-called "Gay Episode" have doubled in recent weeks ... re: LGBTQ+ equity, inclusion, and Rita's perspectives therein). The conversation then turns toward the future, and the role of technology in bringing about improvements and/or the end of humanity as we now know it. Rita counts the microwave and the internet as the biggest or most impactful technological developments during her lifetime before going on to lament her grandkids' dependence on mobile devices (to say nothing of their posture:)). Will technology saved us? Can it? Listen as Rita speaks to those questions, and then some -- all the while fending off repeated interruptions, as Jorge can't help himself from mentioning Law and Order SVU's Christopher Meloni's recent, gluteal, um, viri .. virality! Maybe this is the "Gay Episode" after all? You'll have to decide for yourself!

Speaking of decisions, this episode's "Who Would You Make a Baby With?" segments pits tech titans Jeff Bezos against Elon Musk. Apple iOS versus Android? Maybe, but, either way, Rita's choice may surprise you.

This episode features Rita recounting her own Cuban exile experience against the larger backdrop of the United States' twisted, contradictory, arbitrary and oft-cruel immigration policy. Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song never rang so true. Neither has Cypress Hill's Insane in the Membrane for that matter! The picture you see here is of my namesake's press conference, upon docking in Newport News after sailing a Cuban freighter from Havana and requesting political asylum. He was granted asylum by then-Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, on the condition that the ship and its sugar cargo be returned to Castro's Cuba. Aside 1: My namesake is the thin guy in the light colored suit, hair slicked back, hands between his legs. Aside 2: there's an inordinate, disturbing number of weird looking ears in that pic! What's up with that? In any case, Miami has been something of an immigration epicenter; from at least 3 waves of Cuban exiles through several waves of natural disaster- and political turmoil-related exiles, one can start to see patterns of preference, power and privilege. Listen and learn why!

This week's "Who Would You Make a Baby With?" is all about right-wing, murderous strongmen! Rita is forced to choose between notorious Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet or Spain's ultra-Nationalist, possibly fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Listen as she wrestles with history and her conscience in making her choice!

OK. So this episode has only a little to do with either. But, hey, that is Eartha Kitt and my mom in the pic, so there's that. And more (including what Eartha said to Rita about the necklace in the pic, re: The Shah of Iran). File this episode under "Stuff You Never Knew Your Mom Did When You Were a Kid." Turns out my mom was a theatre critic AND an advice columnist in the late 1970's through the late '80's. Listen as she recounts her days studying acting (?!) back in Cuba - until the day Castro's revolutionaries started setting off bombs around Havana - and the formation of Cuban arts, culture and social clubs in Miami during the 1970's. Rita tosses out names like Zev Buffman, Burt Bacharach as if they were her pals while recounting her time as a critic and columnist in a Miami that sounds as lively then as it purports to be now. 

This week's "Who Would You Make a Baby With?" segment features TV stars of 1960's and 70's pitted against NCIS' Mark Harmon! Come swoon with Rita:)

By the end of January, 1959, Fidel Castro's revolutionary forces had taken over most of Havana's businesses, nationalizing private companies, stores, banks, etc., in the name of the revolution, on behalf of the Cuban people. My mom was working at a bank as the Director's executive assistant. When the takeover happened, Castro's first Finance Minister ordered that she be transferred to another department, doing so after learning of her Irish, British and Spanish roots, telling her she was "Cuban by accident!" 

Although born in Havana, Rita never felt particularly Cuban. She was fluent in English early in her life, sure, but it took the force or impact of the Cuban revolution, and her subsequent exile to Miami, for her to (finally?) feel as if she was, indeed, Cuban. Listen as Rita recounts how her grandparents met -- an Irishman (and former British soldier in Burma, the cop in Chicago) and the daughter of a British man and his Spaniard wife -- and how this merging of anglos influenced her identity before arriving in the U.S. And, of course, what happened after realizing that she would never be returning to Cuba. Things get a bit heavy, so this week's "Who Would You Make a Baby With?" segment came in just in time to go out with a bit of levity. This Episode's choice: Cuban national hero José Martî (aged 30, in his philosopher-poet prime) OR #MeToo Movement-ravaged opera superstar, 80 year-old Plåcido Domingo. Listen!

My mom moved to Miami in 1962. She had landed at NYC's LaGuardia Airport 3 years prior and lived in NYC and then Naples, FL, before settling and living in Miami for the next 34 years.  Who knew how much would or could change in that time; how many waves of immigrants -- Cuban, Nicaraguan, Colombian, Haitian, et al - how much cocaine and power and blood would flow through the streets of a city now poised to become a haven for Wall Streeters and fintech start-ups (joining the Trumps and their ilk).

Listen as Rita recounts her journey, my father- and godfather's start as merchant marines, and some CIA black ops alongside Miami's transformation from sleepy snow bird town to full-blown tropical metropolis. AND, of course, as she makes a difficult choice between young John F. Kennedy (who may or may not have an STD) or a young, beardless Fidel Castro (insistent upon wearing a baseball uniform while engaging in, um, 'the act') in this week's "Who would you make a baby with?"  segment. Enjoy!

Featured Cuban Cowboys' Song: Rococo People "Miami came of age along with me. City of my birth shaken from its sleep by my loud-ass Cuban family; by waves of exiliados and refugees whose flotillas bloodied the vanilla of a place so close to my mami's island home that Havana got itself a front row seat to a wannabe version of  The Fall of Rome, OUR wannabe version of The Fall of Rome."

My Cuban mom voted for Biden. Given how the rest of the Cuban-American vote went and generally goes, her vote was no small matter. Listen as she talks about her decision, growing up in Cuba, and living in Miami for 37 years. Toward the end of the episode, I ask her "Who would you make a baby with?," forcing her to choose between "A fully sober Nikita Khrushchev, who insists on holding the shoe he infamously used to bang on a table during a 1960 UN General Assembly meeting and/or a clean-shaven, possibly pre-revolutionary Che Guevara." She explains her choice with aplomb and wit. You may as well know: every episode in Season 1 will end with such a (terrible-hilarious) choice.