"Carlos Santana smiled vacantly and gave me the peace sign," recalls a young Cuban American named Henry Gomez about a run-in with the hip guitarist in San Francisco. Henry was wearing his homemade "Che's Dead- Get Over It" T-shirt when he passed the famed guitarist as he sat in a cafe. Santana immediately noticed the shirt and walked over.
"'Che may be dead to you,' he said in a classic hippy-dippy drawl," says Henry. "'But he lives in our hearts... Che is all about love and compassion.'"
"'Che murdered hundreds,' I said. 'It's fully documented. He urged the opposite of love. Hate as a factor of struggle. We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm. Hate as...'" But Santana wasn't listening as Henry Gomez quoted Che Guevara. "Che fought for blacks, women, and Native Americans," Carlos drawled. "Before the Cuban Revolution, women weren't allowed to enter the casinos."
Now Henry Gomez himself stared vacantly. "Where do you begin with this kind of space cadet drivel?" He laughs. "In 1958 Cuba had more female college graduates per capita than the United States. And Cuban women went into any casino they desired. If not many did, it's not because they were barred."
But let's give Che credit. He indeed opened some Cuban establishments to women- political prisons and the execution wall.
Santana was also ignorant of Che's famous racism, of his disparaging comments on blacks and Mexicans. "Like a fool," recalls Henry, "I went on, trying to explain a few things to Carlos Santana, who was still annoyed with my T-shirt."
"You're getting hung up on the facts, man," Santana slurred at one point. "We're only free when we free our hearts."
"Santana had a point," says Henry, nodding. "I was definitely 'hung up on facts.' So here I'm giving him facts- and he's rebutting with flower-power slogans. I should have known better."
I was born Naftali Lazewnik on January 27, 1987 in Israel, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and sharing a birth date with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A dual citizen of both the U.S. and Israel, I tossed a huge metal barrel down a hill at age 8, and later found out that it almost landed on a little girl.
I moved to Baltimore, MD, at age 10, and spent most of the following 2 years reading Garfield and Calvin & Hobbes comic books and rapping about pimping my prostitute wife.
I moved back to Israel in 1999 at age 12, to live with my old man. We headed out to West Bloomfield, MI, a year later.
I graduated from West Bloomfield High School and bummed around for 2 years before stumbling into Oakland Community College.
I go by the aliases Ali, Lee, Rucka, Rucka Rucka Ali, Black People (or BP for short), Ruck, and Rucka Ruck.
I enjoy talking, playing guitar, complaining, arguing, playing keyboards, rapping, and learning about the world.
