Update

1. I'm not dead yet, despite what Mike Dropkin wishes (quote from an email received from Mike on 5/8/08: "Joe Papp is a evil, scheming, piece of sh*t. I hope to f*ck he kills himself. I encourage him strongly to do so.").

2. The Outside Magazine article was published in the June issue, which has yet to hit newsstands, though it was delivered to subscribers this past week. I haven't seen the article yet, though I suspect that it could misrepresent the reality of my situation, given what I consider to be the devious behavior of the freelancer who wrote the piece took.

3. Stupid comments that are laced with profanity and generally foul won't be published as part of the post they were directed towards. Rather, someone will cut and paste them into the Madhouse.

For Everyone with a Broken Cuban Heart

Will it Mend?

You're a complicated man, Joe

Joe-thanks for inviting me to guest blog.

I like you better since you've come clean, but you've paid too heavy a price for your recklessness. It comes as a surprise to everyone who has been in your shoes how long it can take to sort it all out. These are the baby steps in overcoming being your own worst enemy. My more recent heroes are ordinary people who don't want for anything, and I think this is something worth achieving.

Please take care of yourself. You deserve to be happy and it will come.

Thanks Joe....

Our friend Joe has a good way to go about things.
Instead of addressing ugly rumors and giving gossip fodder to people, he just sent a quick message inviting me -for which I am humbled- to write a guest post in his blog. And of course, his concise message proves that he's doing well, as wished.

Most of you know a lot of the life of Joe.
Said like this, "the life of Joe" it sounds like the story of a man who does something extraordinary, without having ever wanted it. And it's exactly like that.

Joe, a man with ups and downs like all of us, takes turns, rides in sharp straight lines, climbs hills, speeds, tumbles, falls, and rises up back again.

For a man, to rise back up is much more important than to fall.
The fall is an easy fact, just leave gravity to take its course, and hell, you will fall. Now, to go against all odds and rise and shine, even when a tyranny tries to steal your loves ones from you, that's just a labor of courage.

I've been following Joe's adventures for a good three or four years, and I am just one more of the people who supported him on his quest for freedom. Joe -who is as American as apple pie, rock'n roll, and checkered cabs- made himself also Cuban by choice and adoption, as many of us became American.

And going back to the title of this guest post, thanks Joe, for fighting for the freedom of Cuba.

Why There Has Been No Successful Revolution to Overthrow Castro in 49 Years

Appears at Review of Cuban-American Blogs, by Manuel A.Tellechea.

"Why hasn't there been a revolution in Cuba to topple Fidel Castro? That question is often posed in defense of the Cuban dictator as if the absence of such a revolution argued against the need for one or represented a silent — very silent — referendum on Castro's continuation in power. Of course, there have been many foiled revolutions against the Castro regime over the last 49 years, more, in fact, than we know or will know until the mass graves are excavated and the witnesses can at last break their silence.

In the early years of the regime it was more difficult to conceal popular uprisings: the anti-Castro rebels in the Escambray Mountains, who waged a real revolution as opposed to Castro's operetta revolution in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, were too numerous and successful over too protracted a time to be ignored, and were not, ultimately, defeated by Castro but abandoned by the the Americans, as the freedom fighters of the Brigade 2506 had been abandoned before them. The fact remains, however, that all these attempts to topple Castro, known and unknown, great and small, have failed. Putting aside for the moment U.S. duplicity as a factor, why has no revolution succeeded in toppling a regime which only the greatest disdain for the Cuban people could suppose is acceptable to them or worthy of them?..."

Full Post - http://reviewofcuban-americanblogs.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-there-has-been-no-successful.html

Thanks, reviewofcuban-americanblogs

Thanks to MaT for writing about what he describes as my "Cuban Odyssey" at his brilliant blog, "Review of Cuban-American Blogs". Definitely check it out.