José A. Buergo: A Different Kind of YouTube Pundit

Welcoming a “new” generation to the Internet.

In the good old days, keeping the parents up-to-date on the latest fashion trends involved little more than outraging them with Elvis’s hip-swaying, programming their universal remote controls, and making them watch marathons of Beverly Hills, 90210. The generation gap was frustrating, but not too difficult to jump.

And then Al Gore had the brilliant idea of inventing the Internet, and all of the sudden youth culture developed a new language much broader than the addition of a few adjectives like “groovy” or “tubular.” E-mail and instant messaging replaced the phone, Google and Wikipedia replaced books, and, of course, YouTube replaced television. What was once a somewhat complicated tool has now become the lens through which young people experience life itself. The Internet has transcended its purely functional significance to this generation; through it we understand life in a structure more organized than ever before. Don’t remember a state capital? Google it. Want to watch a movie with some friends? IM them and search Fandango’s movie listings. Liked that new Britney Spears song? iTunes is there. The Internet has all the facts we need.

More importantly, however, it has all the opinions we want (or don’t want) to hear.

This, of course, means that most of the opinions the 18-24 demographic encounters come from people young enough to understand the inner workings of the Internet. The generation before us, for the most part, is stuck on cable news and the occasional Drudge Report visit when they’re feeling adventurous. The generation before them still reads the New York Times.

The generation just now rising out of their dorms and into the workforce, however, is increasingly listening to the opinions of political blogs like DailyKos, watching their Daily Show and Colbert Report online, and skimming YouTube clips to get the feel of their collective generational values. This gives the Ron Paul dancing pizza as much clout as Al Franken, and means that anyone really can be a star if they’re compelling enough. Anyone, that is, that can comprehend the complexities of making YouTube clips. José A. Buergo is, in many ways, an intruder in this online peanut gallery party. At 78, after a lifetime of making people laugh with his comedy and think with his writing, as well as a stint as a photographer for the CIA that landed him ten years in Cuban political prison, Buergo is now an accomplished YouTube pundit.

He is the man behind 137 of the site’s videos and counting, ranging from jokes and songs to commentary as varied as Hillary Clinton support ads and speeches on the moral deprivation prevalent on Latin American TV. When discussing the latter, his tone is menacing, his drawling Cuban slang dripping with the disgust of one that has lived to see the world before Univisión and Reggaeton got to it.

Buergo is alarmingly honest in his videos. He informs his viewers that he is dying of cancer and diabetes. He bubbles with joy when advertising his preferred presidential candidate. He seethes with rage when he bashes soft-porn star and perennially controversial socialite Niurka Marcos, a sort of Hispanic poor man’s Paris Hilton. Unfortunately for American monolinguals, Buergo’s commentary is Spanish-only. Yet despite this, his YouTube channel has almost reached 10,000 hits, and Buergo keeps just as prolific as ever.

Buergo has somehow mastered the art of dual personality — he is the stereotypical elderly Cuban while simultaneously defying everything the culture of first-wave Cuban immigrants upholds. A native of Matanzas province, he is fluent in their vernacular and just as engrossed in the struggle for freedom as his contemporary compatriots. His most compelling videos are often pleas for his nation’s freedom — a freedom, he says, that Cuba has never experienced.

His desire for a “nationalist government without external intervention… a Cuba without Washington and without Moscow” bleeds quite colorfully through his anti-Castro rhetoric. And yet, while maintaining the core values, mannerisms, and fashions of the “Old Cuban” — a phrase much more deeply rooted in common culture than age (I myself became an Old Cuban at around the age of 18) — Buergo renounces the rest of the package. He is not a Republican (“If the Democrats nominate a dog to the presidency,” he assured us, “I would vote for it, if only to see it bark in the White House”) and is, in fact, a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton, the very same one married to the man who denied an 8-year-old Cuban boy the freedom his mother died to give him, the man who made a border out of a shore, forcing Cubans who did not touch ground to return to the daily misery of the Castro regime.

Buergo does not live in Miami or Union City. He makes his home in LA. He renounces the patron saints of the exile community, Gloria and Emilio Estefan. And, most fortunately for us, Buergo is fully computer literate. Unlike my grandparents, who fail to understand why I carry a television on my lap and press buttons on it like a madwoman every day, Buergo has broken the computer code and can not only access and send e-mail and look up information on sites, but is knowledgeable about webcam usage and uploading videos to a Flash format a la YouTube. This may sound like a small achievement to those of us who spend lifetimes watching the Flea Market Montgomery commercial in a loop, but for anyone born before Watergate, learning to use a computer is no small feat.

The Independent was fortunate enough to have a chat with Mr. Buergo this past week. Sitting down for an interview with a man so enigmatic and unpredictable can be daunting as the pre-phone call suspense exacerbates. Yet on the phone, Buergo is friendly and more ebullient than his years would make us expect him to be. He jumps from serious political points to jokes to tangos in the time it takes most of us to introduce ourselves. If anything, Buergo makes one thing clear: he has a lot to say.

Indy: Hi Mr. Buergo — thanks for talking with us. How did you decide to get into YouTube and the media in general, and how did your past shape this?

José Buergo: I’ve carried art within me since I was five years old. When my mom worked as a maid, I would take a broom and sing tango songs into it, particularly “Puerto Nuevo” by Charlo. [Buergo sings a tango with an Argentine accent]… I am the son of a maid and was never wealthy. Cuban currency was worth more than the dollar before Fidel, but some of us were still poor. I was condemned to 20 years in prison. I served 10. I was working with the CIA via the Italian embassy, taking pictures of different [Soviet] weapons situated in different places. I am a professional host and composer — a multifaceted host, if you will. I have written songs; I sent one, “Regresaremos” [“We Will Return”] to [Cuban salsa singer] Albita and Emilio Estefan did not let her use it, so she left the company.

Emilio is a [one-man] mob; he controls everything in the music world. There are two artists that have done very much for Cuba, and Estefan isn’t one of them: Willy Chirino and Olga Guillot. Willy gave Brothers to the Rescue the airplane that they were in when Castro shot them down. Cubans should use the Internet more politically, but many are too afraid to show their faces. Lately I have been making videos with cartoons on camera and uploading them, because I am elderly, I don’t have green eyes or thick lips. I’m not Ricky Martin. [laughs.] There are offensive people on the Internet, as they are everywhere, that criticize me for being old, and those offenses really do affect me sometimes.

In Miami, you have these radio stations that are purely political organizations from within. [Cuban founding father] Antonio Maceo once said, “Freedom is conquered on the blade of a machete.” I say it is not conquered on the blade of the tongue. So-and-So’s Cuban liberation organization and So-and-So’s radio show have done nothing for the Cuban liberation cause… I do not sympathize with the freeloaders at Marti TV and Radio living off of American taxpayers’ dollars.

I: I see you’re supporting Hillary Clinton, a rare position for a man of your demographic. How do you reconcile being Cuban with being a Democrat?

JB: If Hillary wins, we’ll have two presidents in office for the price of one… Yes, most Cubans tend to be Republicans. When you ask them why, they say, “because of the John F. Kennedy’s treasonous behavior towards the Bay of Pigs invaders,” because Kennedy and Khrushchev spoke. I don’t believe the so-called “treason” is enough of a motive for Cubans to be Republicans because it was many Cubans themselves who were the first to run away and not defend their country. On September 28, 1965, [the Revolution] was celebrating what was called the first anniversary of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. Fidel Castro said in his speech, [Buergo imitates Castro’s voice perfectly] “whoever wants to leave, leave.” The next day, Lyndon Johnson responded, “and the U.S. will receive them.” Send me the prisoners. In the Mariel [boat lift] case, Carter said the same thing. Cubans have forgotten about that. The only Republican president with morals and courage was Ronald Reagan, who liberated Germany, broke the wall…but Cubans forget.

Poor fool who thinks the United States is going to liberate Cuba… the U.S. doesn’t care about Cuba because it has no petroleum, nothing to offer. Even though I was judged by Fidel, I believe that we should end the embargo in order to give the people something to eat at least. [By the way], January 3 was the first anniversary of Fidel’s death. They are using a double.

I: What do you think should be the United States’ policy towards Cuba?

JB: We are in a different stage in history [than during the Bay of Pigs invasion]. We have men like Dr. Orlando Bosh Dávila, who left his work in health care to fight for Cuba. He was accused with Luis Posada Carriles. Athletes are leaving the country on planes. They wanted to kill Fidel in Panama. If the U.S. gave them an opportunity to fight for Cuba, Cuba itself will be freed by the Cubans within the territory. Those that are here don’t matter; they are exiles.

I: Onto a completely different matter: pop culture. Do you have a favorite TV show?

JB: There is a show on Univisión on Sunday which is about the circus… The Best Circus Artists or something like that. The circus is contrast and originality, because in it are buried all the facets of art. Despite this, it is a spectacle for adults and children.

I: You are very vocal against Univisión stars like Niurka Marcos. How do you feel about gossip shows like El Gordo y La Flaca [The Fat Man and the Thin Girl]?

JB: El Gordo y la Flaca… Well, Lily [Estefan, hostess of the show] is only on TV because of her last name and her uncle, Emilio. Raul De Molina [“El Gordo,” host of the show] is the son of someone that was in my jail. You will never hear him talk about Cuba. They have both forgotten Cuba, while the Mexicans and other groups don’t waste a single opportunity to praise their countries. They don’t talk about a single Cuban star nor of anything beautiful about our country. I don’t even think they want people to know that they are Cuban. As for Niurka, she is sincerely… well, Martí once said that “a woman should not be touched, not even with the petal of a rose.” I will touch her with my words. It is a national disgrace that she is Cuban, although television in general nowadays is a complete moral free-for-all. Everything is sex, sex and sex. The other day I saw a program called Women… I don’t even know what it’s called. They’re all in love with the gardener. None of them ever leave the bed. Everything is gossip, protected by the First Amendment of our Constitution. No matter how great of a dancer she was in Cuba, her fame is due to one man, Juan Osorio. He made her.

I: Any final words for us?

JB: Wherever I go, I have my Cuban flag on my lapel. As Vincente Aguilera once said, “I have naught if not my country,” and it was Jose Marti who said “I lived in the monster and know its entrails.” I want for my country a nationalist government, without intervention from the exterior — without Washington and without Moscow.

Frances Martel ’09 (fmartel@fas) is proud to be part of the YouTube generation.