Los Frikis

Summary

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Radiolab: "Los Frikis"

Date: September 12, 2025
Hosts: Lulu Miller, Latif Nasser | With: Jad Abumrad
Producer/Reporter: Luis Treyas
Collaborators: Radio Ambulante

Overview:

This episode of Radiolab revisits the astonishing true story of "Los Frikis," a subculture of young Cuban misfits and rock lovers in the late 1980s and '90s. Faced with political repression, scarcity, and oppression, some members of this punk and metal community found a shocking way to escape the limitations of Castro's Cuba: they intentionally injected themselves with HIV, seeking relative freedom inside government-run AIDS sanatoriums. Through interviews, archival audio, and narrative storytelling, Radiolab explores the powerful intersections of youth rebellion, music, state control, and the catastrophic consequences of desperate protest.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Cuba in Crisis (00:22–04:22)

• Context: The episode is framed against Cuba's recurring economic struggles, protests, and state repression both in the 1990s and as of 2025.
• Backdrop: After the Soviet Union's collapse, Cuba is plunged into shortages and hardship, mirroring contemporary unrest.
• Main Idea: The story is presented as a dark preamble to "the stuff you’ve been hearing in the news," centering on the unique response of one subculture to authoritarian restrictions.

2. Growing Up in Revolutionary Cuba (04:31–06:45)

• Vladimir Ceballos' Childhood:
  • Uniform media, mandatory revolutionary rituals (egg-throwing at churches), and the erasure of outside cultural influence.
  • Powerful anecdote:
    • Vladimir Ceballos [05:38]: "Because we didn’t believe in God. The government, they didn’t believe in God."
• First Encounter with Rock:
  • At 14, Vladimir watches Led Zeppelin's “Kashmir”—a life-changing moment.
  • Vladimir Ceballos [06:17]: "Because of that, you know, I was completely changed. Completely changed my life, let me tell you. Completely changed my life."

3. The Birth of "Los Frikis" (06:48–09:24)

• Who Are the Freakies:
  • Cuban youth/metalheads adopting the look and attitude of Western punks—dirty clothes, ripped jeans, long hair.
• State Hostility:
  • Crackdown intensifies as rock music is painted as an ideological threat.
  • Street-level repression:
    • Vladimir Ceballos [09:13]: "The government created a police presence...if the police found you and you had long hair, they’d beat us, kick us, send you away...to work cutting sugar cane."
• Punk & Metal as Rebellion:
  • Risk of social exclusion, violence, and forced labor simply for musical taste and appearance.

4. Papo Lavala: The Self-Destructive Protest (09:31–14:53)

• Papo’s Story:
  • Iconic, charismatic punk (likened to “the Kurt Cobain of the Freakies”), growing up in poverty and state neglect.
• Government HIV Crackdown:
  • After Cuban soldiers return from Angola with HIV, the state implements mass testing, forcibly isolating positive cases in sanatoriums.
  • Vladimir Ceballos [13:04]: "Give me your blood. Give me your blood. Give me your blood."
• Papo’s Decision:
  • In protest and desperation, Papo injects himself with HIV-positive blood to escape repression and gain ‘freedom’ in the sanatorium.
  • Vladimir Ceballos [13:59]: "I inject myself with HIV...And I look at him and said, man, do you know what you did? ... He said to me, I don’t care."
  • Vladimir Ceballos [14:35]: "But Papo knew...Death is a door. When you don’t have any more doors to open, death is a door."

5. The Sanatorium: A Paradoxical Freedom (17:24–22:21)

• Inside the Sanatorium:
  • Initially run as a military “gulag”, it evolves under the Ministry of Health into an unexpectedly free zone: vibrant, musical, even “idyllic.”
  • Rock music, punk bands, and a sense of community thrive—contrasts sharply with starvation and hardship outside.
  • Jad Abumrad [20:09]: "So it was like a prison, but it was also kind of a little bubble of freedom."
• New Social Power:
  • AIDS patients, ironically, gain status—they can travel, are left alone by police (who fear infection), and find solidarity.
  • Vladimir Ceballos [20:48]: "And they were afraid of that" (referring to police avoiding self-injectors with syringes).

6. Contagion as Protest; Spreading Rumors and Risks (22:21–25:15)

• Desperation Spreads:
  • As conditions outside worsen—hunger, mass emigration, repression—many more follow Papo’s example, seeing the sanatorium as their only escape.
  • A movement takes shape: hundreds intentionally infect themselves, some convinced the state will find a cure.
  • Bob Arellano [25:15]: "There was even talk among some of the young people...that eventually Fidel and those guys will find a cure. We’re gonna live forever."

7. Tragic Consequences and Regret (25:54–28:29)

• Deaths Mount:
  • When the first deaths occur, the romanticism collapses: intense suffering, loss, and deep regret set in.
  • Vladimir Ceballos [26:00]: "He was the first. And when the second died and when the third died, everything stopped."
  • Luis Treyas [26:41]: "You definitely see the kids having deep regrets. You have one of them saying, I regret this. I regret it a million times."
• Papo’s Fate:
  • Remains defiant; adopts Christianity before dying from AIDS-related complications.
  • Finds solace in faith while challenging both state and religious dogma, wearing a Nirvana shirt in church.
  • Luis Treyas [28:10]: "But I’m like, this is my life."
  • Luis Treyas [28:30]: "A few months later...Papo started to bleed out from his mouth and eyes...and he died from that disease."

8. The Legacy: Did It Matter? (29:01–31:44)

• Reflecting on Impact:
  • The hosts and guests question whether the self-injector movement accomplished anything.
  • Luis Treyas [29:22]: "It must have. It must have."
  • Notable cultural shifts followed:
    • Castro unveils a statue of John Lennon.
    • Major rock concerts take place openly for the first time.
    • Small protests and uprisings (e.g., Maleconazo) signal growing civil disobedience.
  • Jad Abumrad [31:44]: "Yeah, it’s like...a thousand points of light. And this is the brightest point—or the darkest point, frankly."

9. 2025 Update: The Legacy Continues (32:39–33:41)

• Postscript from Luis Treyas:
  • Gerson (last of the self-injector punk rockers from the sanatorium) is still living in hardship, yet remains committed to punk and the memory of Papo.
  • Today’s Cuba, amid deepening crisis, has new waves of repression—yet the drive for subversive self-expression persists.
  • Gerson (relayed by Luis Treyas, 33:30): "Papo would be doing the same thing he did when he was alive. He would be finding a way to stay true to himself and keeping it metal."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Vladimir Ceballos [06:17]: "Because of that, you know, I was completely changed. Completely changed my life, let me tell you."
• Bob Arellano [10:04]: "He [Papo] tried to embody that...that kind of bullet to your brain that wakes you up."
• Vladimir Ceballos [13:59]: "I inject myself with HIV...And I look at him and said, man, do you know what you did?...He said to me, I don’t care."
• Luis Treyas [14:35]: "Death is a door. When you don’t have any more doors to open, death is a door."
• Bob Arellano [25:15]: "It went from 10 or 20 to 200 or more...like, that’s so cool. I’m gonna do it too."
• Luis Treyas [26:41]: "I regret this. I regret it a million times."
• Luis Treyas [29:22]: "It must have [made an impact]. It must have."
• Jad Abumrad [31:44]: "Yeah, it’s like this sort of a thousand points of light. And this is the brightest point—or the darkest point, frankly."
• Gerson (via Luis Treyas) [33:30]: "Papo would be doing the same thing he did when he was alive. He would be finding a way to stay true to himself and keeping it metal."

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Important Segments & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:22 | Context: Cuba’s economic and political crisis, premise for episode | | 04:31 | Vladimir’s childhood under the Castro regime | | 05:58 | The pivotal moment: discovering Led Zeppelin | | 06:59 | Explanation of "freakies" and their persecution | | 09:31 | Introduction of Papo, the movement’s punk icon | | 13:48 | Papo’s deliberate HIV infection as protest | | 17:24 | Life inside the sanatorium: “bubble of freedom” | | 20:19 | Social power and strange privileges of AIDS patients | | 22:15 | Spread of the movement, hundreds self-injecting | | 25:54 | The wave of deaths and ensuing regret | | 26:41 | Kids express remorse for infecting themselves | | 27:08 | Papo’s final days: Christian faith and defiance | | 29:22 | Did it matter? Discussion of legacy and impact | | 30:33 | Cultural moment: tribute concert for Freakies and Papo | | 32:39 | 2025 update: Gerson’s life, punk resilience amid current-day hardships |

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Podcast Tone & Style

• Language: Candid, conversational, and inquisitive, blending journalistic investigation with personal testimony.
• Sound Design: Rich archival audio, musical moments (e.g., “Kashmir,” Cuban punk tracks), and standout soundbites.
• Atmosphere: Haunting, poignant, occasionally raw—driven by empathy for both the suffering and bravado of its subjects.

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Conclusion

"Los Frikis" is a harrowing, deeply human look at youth rebellion under dictatorship, the cost and complexity of protest, and the dark ingenuity born of desperation. By exploring the history and aftershocks of a movement whose actions were as tragic as they were defiant, Radiolab spotlights both the indestructibility and the vulnerability of Cuban subcultures, and the ongoing struggle for freedom and self-expression in the face of overwhelming odds.

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Transcript

[Radiolab Sponsor Voice]

Radiolab is supported by AT&T. Few things feel better than knowing someone is in your corner. Like when your friend saves you a seat when you're running late. That's why ATT has connectivity you can depend on. Or they'll proactively make it right. That's the ATT guarantee. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details. AT&T connecting changes everything.

[Latif Nasser]

Radiolab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail], progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. I'm Latif Nasser, this is Radiolab. And today on the show, we have a story from our archives. It's about a group of kids growing up in Cuba in the 90s. And these kids who. Who had great taste in music, by the way, they decided to do something extreme. They decided to escape the system by any means necessary. We wanted to play it for you now in part because it's Hispanic Heritage Month, but also because of what's going on in Cuba now. In 2025, Cuba is facing a major economic crisis. There are power outages, food shortages, protests. The government is punishing dissent and public criticism. All of which is similar to. To the situation that was playing out in the 90s when our story begins, and that these kids were directly responding to. So we're going to play you this episode and then we have a quick update for you at the end. So here you are, Las Freakies.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, you're. Wait, you're listening.

[Luis Treyas]

Okay.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

All right. Okay. All right.

[Luis Treyas]

You're listening to Radiolab Radio Lab from wny. See?

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Rewind.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, I'm Jad Abumra. This is Radiolab. Robert's traveling today, so it's just me. And today we have a very different kind of story than we've ever done. It comes from a journalist and filmmaker named Luis Trayas. And an interesting thing kind of happened as we were reporting.

[Tim Howard]

This sounds pretty clear. Yeah, it's gotta be a landline.

[Jad Abumrad]

Luis. And one of our producers, Tim Howard, had called up this guy, Vladimir Ceballos, who is a filmmaker himself, Cuban guy, exile. And the interview happened to be just a few hours after Obama had made that big announcement.

[Bob Arellano]

Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba in the most significant changes in our policy in more than 50 years.

[Jad Abumrad]

That happened just before the interview.

[Tim Howard]

Hello, Is this Vladimir?

[Marcela]

Hey, we're recording.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Yes, it's Vladimir.

[Tim Howard]

Vladimir, how you doing? This is Tim in New York, and we also have Luis.

[Luis Treyas]

Hi, Vlad. It's Luis.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

How are you, Luis?

[Luis Treyas]

Good, good.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

About the news, no?

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah, Amazing news, right?

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Man, I was crying, man.

[Tim Howard]

Really?

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Yeah, I was crying, man. Yeah. First of all, you know, I've been here in the United States for 20 years, and I never, never think that I was going to see this day, you know, really.

[Bob Arellano]

We will begin to normalize relations between.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Our two countries, because it has been 50 years, 53 years since the United States, you know, brought the relationship with diplomatic relationship with Cuba, and nothing happened in Cuba. You know, everything is the same now. Everything is going to change.

[Jad Abumrad]

Today, a collaboration with a fantastic program, Radio Ambilante, Luis Trails comes to us from them. This is a story that predates the stuff you've been hearing in the news. In many ways, it's maybe a tiny, dark preamble to all of that stuff. It's a story about Cuba, the power of music, and a group of Cuban kids who decide to opt out.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

In.

[Jad Abumrad]

This crazy way that when Luis Treyas told us about it, we almost couldn't believe.

[Luis Treyas]

So the reason we called up Vladi is that we wanted to hear the backstory of all of this.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Well, I was born in Pina del Rio in 1964.

[Tim Howard]

Tell me about what it was like for you to be a kid.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

I was happy because in Cuba, we didn't have any information, we didn't have any communication with anybody outside Cuba. And everything that we received, it was the news that the government wanted to give to us.

[Luis Treyas]

He remembers listening to endless Fidel Castro speeches on the radio.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

I remember when I was a kid in elementary school, all the time they were teaching us that Russia was the big country in the world, the big economy, and everything that we would hope is to be like them.

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah, it was a given that he would get in line every year to get his toy.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

You know, I only got three toys.

[Jad Abumrad]

Every year because of rationing.

[Luis Treyas]

Exactly. And then every week, he and his folks would wake up, they would go to the nearest church to throw eggs.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

At the church building.

[Bob Arellano]

Throw eggs at the church?

[Jad Abumrad]

Why?

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Because we didn't believe in God. The government, they didn't believe in God.

[Luis Treyas]

You know, that's how you showed you were a good revolutionary. And Vladimir was just being a good boy. But when he turns 14, there comes a day when a friend takes him aside and shows him a video of Led Zeppelin.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

I remember that day. I remember, like, do you remember what.

[Tim Howard]

Led Zeppelin song it was?

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Kashimir.

[Tim Howard]

Kashmir.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Oh, yeah, yeah, Kashmir. It was my first time that I hear rock and roll music.

[Radiolab Sponsor Voice]

How did.

[Tim Howard]

How did it make you feel when you heard Cashmere?

[Luis Treyas]

Well.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Different, you know, you see Robert playing and you see Jimmy Page with those long hair and the move that they had and the thing that they say, it was really different. And because of that, you know, I was completely changed. Completely changed my life, let me tell you. Completely changed my life.

[Luis Treyas]

He's not sure why, but in that.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Moment, I went from a good example to freaky. I went to freaky. I went to freaky.

[Jad Abumrad]

What is freaky?

[Luis Treyas]

So freakies are what Cubans call the most extreme metal heads. Hard rock, punk rockers.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

We start wearing dirty clothes, clothes with holes, long hair. Problem was the Cuban radio station didn't put any rock music. I remember when I was 19 years old, 20 years old, my father gave me Russian radio and he was a good fm. We went to the roof of some friends because in those roof you can listen to the station from Florida. Oh, man. When we listen to Rolling Stone song Sympathy with the Devil, hello, baby. Hello, baby. Hello, baby. Man, Barry Melo. We were excited to listen Barry Melo. After that, I didn't like, you know. But in the beginning, everything that came from there in English was good, you know, because I don't know that kind of music. Give us another. Another door.

[Luis Treyas]

So laddie's walking around with ripped jeans, long hair, and that's fine. It's a normal youth rebellion. But then in the late 80s, everything changes. Mr. Gorbachev opened this gate.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Mr. Gorbachev teared down this wall. The wal walls went down.

[Tim Howard]

They are here in the thousands.

[Latif Nasser]

They are here in the tens of thousands.

[Luis Treyas]

And in reaction, the Castro government dug in.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Fidel says, socialismo, Socialism or death.

[Tim Howard]

His slogan is painted freshly all over Havana.

[Luis Treyas]

Socialism or death. Suddenly, music you listened to became very ideological. And if you listen to rock, you were listening to the enemy of the cub United States.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

The government created a police presence in every neighborhood, every five blocks.

[Luis Treyas]

And Vladimir says if the police found you and you had long hair, they'd.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Beat us, kick us, send you away.

[Luis Treyas]

To work cutting sugar cane in the cane fields.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

That's like that in school.

[Luis Treyas]

They'd often cut your hair against your will.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

He was abuse.

[Jad Abumrad]

And just to jump in, this is the point in the story where things take a very long, no other way to say it, a very punk rock turn. Because into this cultural war steps a guy named Papo.

[Geico Ad Voice]

Papo.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

We name Him. El Papo Lavala.

[J]

Papo Lavala.

[Bob Arellano]

You know, Papo the bullet. I really want to say that he tried to embody that. That kind of bullet to your brain that wake up.

[Luis Treyas]

That's Bob Arellano. He's a professor at Southern Oregon University. He went several times in the 90s to Cuba to interview Papo, who he.

[Bob Arellano]

Calls the Kurt Cobain of the Freakies. Yeah, he looked very intense. He was cocky and confident and just charismatic.

[Luis Treyas]

Super tall, skinny.

[J]

Yeah. He always wear American flat.

[Luis Treyas]

Oh, yeah?

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Yeah, like a bandana.

[J]

He usually.

[Luis Treyas]

Those are two friends of Papos, Jesus Diaz and Luis Hernandez, who was also a bandmate of his. So Luis remembers the first time he met Papo, and it was on a night that a Communist Party meeting was.

[J]

Taking place right outside his house, outside the building. And when Papo is coming, he's coming in a bicycle and his head, a flat United States flat. And when he's coming on his head. Yeah, my father. My father going down.

[Luis Treyas]

Your father hid. Your father hid when he saw him coming with the American flag on his head. Yeah.

[J]

Are you crazy? Taking you flat out of your head. If Papo say, why? Why aren't everyone outside the building? Silence.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Papo was a weird guy.

[Luis Treyas]

You can see video of Papo because Vladimir shot a documentary in 1994 where he interviewed Papo and some of the other freaks. And in that documentary, Papo talks about growing up poor.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Father is an alcoholic mother abandoned.

[Luis Treyas]

By age 14. He's in the streets, and a few years later, he makes a decision that's really at the heart of this story, just to set it up so that you can understand the context.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

What happened was that in 1980 9th, I think, or 1990, somewhere around there.

[Luis Treyas]

The Cuban government is fighting in Angola. It's backing a leftist liberation movement, and it's kind of a proxy war with the United States. And in the late 80s, Cuban soldiers start coming back home.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

And some soldiers from the Cuban army that were in Africa, they came with hiv. HIV positive. And because of that, the government has all the people in Cuba tested with hiv.

[Luis Treyas]

If you belong to a high risk group, you were tested.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

They went to your place of work, they went to your apartment, they went to the school. They went to everybody.

[Luis Treyas]

Wow.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

I remember they went to my ward and they test everybody over there in the radio station. 50 people over there.

[Luis Treyas]

Wow.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Give me your blood. Give me your blood. Give me your blood. Give me your blood.

[Luis Treyas]

Vladi says they would come in, take your blood, and if they found that.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

You were positive, the police Came, put you in the police car, go straight to the sanatorium.

[Jad Abumrad]

They just locked you up.

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

And I remember. I remember one day I was talking.

[Luis Treyas]

To him, Papo and his wife.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Papo said, look, you know, I want to live free. Look, they're kicking me out, they're beating me out. They don't want me to live like a rocket here. They are doing a lot of things to me. I'm gonna do a lot of things to them. And he told me, look, I went to this rock concert in Via Clara.

[Luis Treyas]

Papa told him I met up with these other rockers, they were HIV positive. And I went and took a syringe, drew some blood from their arm, and I put the needle in my own.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Arm, and I inject myself with hiv. I inject myself with blood contaminated with hiv, you know. And I look at him and said, man, do you know what you did? Do you know what you're doing? You're gonna die, man. And he said to me, I don't care.

[Tim Howard]

That's crazy, though.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

It was crazy.

[Tim Howard]

He knew for sure that when he did that, that was a death sentence for him.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Yes, he knows.

[Luis Treyas]

Vladimir's not quite sure that the others that came after Papo really knew what they were doing.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

But Papo knew, remember, he says, socialims, socialismo muerte, or death. Death is a door. When you don't have any more doors to open, death is a door.

[Jad Abumrad]

Coming up. That door gets wider. Others walk through, and for at least a beat, they find something besides death. Something quite the oppos.

[Radiolab Sponsor Voice]

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[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad. This is Radiolab.

[Luis Treyas]

Yes, 1, 2, 1, 2. Mike check.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's Luis Trayes of Radio Milante. Let's go back to his story about Cuba and music in the late 80s and 90s. And so far, a dude has made a crazy decision, dude named Papo to inject himself with hiv. Would you call it a protest?

[Luis Treyas]

I think Papa would have called it a protest, but not the guys that came after.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is at a moment when there was a cultural war happening between the Castro government and anyone it deemed antisocial, which included kids with long hair who listen to rock. And it was also a moment where if you were found to be HIV positive in Cuba, you were forcibly quarantined.

[Luis Treyas]

So Papo injects himself and he gets sent to the sanitarium.

[Jad Abumrad]

And can you describe that place? Like, what did he find?

[Luis Treyas]

Well, he found a beautiful place in the middle of the Pina de Rio countryside.

[Jad Abumrad]

Really?

[Luis Treyas]

It's full of palm trees, very green, very lush, farm animals roaming in.

[Jad Abumrad]

And you went there?

[Luis Treyas]

Yes, yes, I was there. I was there. And there are still farm animals over there. Actually, they would Roam in as a couple of cows and chickens. It's like kind of an idyllic place. So I went there to visit the last two rockers that still remain in the place. Gerson Govea and his wife Johandra. And they're kind of like the keepers.

[Geico Ad Voice]

Of all that went down in there, the memories.

[Luis Treyas]

So I spent a couple of days with them, and they. They walked me around, and it's full of, like, these little housing units.

[Jad Abumrad]

And you're saying this place was idyllic even back then?

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah. Gerson and Johanda are walking me through it, and they're like, okay, so we would be walking around here 10 years ago, Nirvana would be coming out of here, Metallica would be coming out of the next house.

[Jad Abumrad]

No kidding.

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah. So it was like Headbanger's Ball in Pinar de Rio, you know?

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, but why? I mean, how come they were able to have that freedom in the sanatorium but not outside?

[Luis Treyas]

Initially, the sanitarium system was under the military, and it was more of a gulag. But in the late 80s, early 90s, the sanitariums went from the military being in charge to the Ministry of Health and Medicine. And these were, by all accounts, very progressive doctors, very concerned about their patients. They gave them all the food and medicine they needed, and they were like, you want to rock out? Go ahead.

[Jad Abumrad]

So it was like a prison, but it was also kind of a little bubble of freedom.

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah. And strangely enough, they soon found out that they even had power.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

No police over there.

[Luis Treyas]

A power they didn't have before. Vladi told me this story. The patients inside the sanitarium could go out every 21 days for a day trip. And some of the freakies would go out and just by flashing their ID cards that said they were AIDS patients, police would leave them alone.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

I remember on two or three occasions that the police came after them, and one of them has a syringe.

[Tim Howard]

A syringe?

[Vladimir Ceballos]

A syringe full of blood.

[Luis Treyas]

And Vladdy says the guy took out the blood and waved it at the.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Police and said, you want to come to me? Come in, Came to me. And they were afraid of that.

[Luis Treyas]

And so word began to spread about what life was like inside the sanitarium. And you have to keep in mind that outside Cuba was falling apart.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Hard economic times in Cuba. The government today tightened bread rationing and raised egg prices. It blamed delays in Soviet shipments to Cuba.

[Luis Treyas]

Almost overnight after the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba was left without the massive subsidies it used to get. That meant long lines for bread Short tempers.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

We were. We were suffering.

[Luis Treyas]

Vladimir Ceballos, who never actually lived inside the sanitarium, he says that people outside were going hungry.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

And he himself, I was waiting, like, £100, £98.

[Tim Howard]

Oh, my God.

[Luis Treyas]

And as things just kept getting worse, you see like a hungry, sunburned, dehydrated.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

50,000 people leave Cuba.

[Tim Howard]

They managed to escape on a raft and make it to the Florida Keys. These days, more Cuban than ever are taking the risk.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

It was the big crisis, you know, in the Clinton era.

[Luis Treyas]

But if you were in the sanatorium, you were fine.

[Bob Arellano]

Yeah, just being able to get milk and an egg and beans.

[Luis Treyas]

Bob Arellano says that that was a big motivation for a lot of kids.

[Bob Arellano]

Yes, I'm not gonna be harassed. Yes, I'm free, and yes, I also get meals.

[Luis Treyas]

And it went from being a couple of self injectors, a couple of dozen self injectors, to being hundreds.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Wow.

[Jad Abumrad]

And did the government know that this was happening?

[Luis Treyas]

Well, there's this Swedish documentary from the time. It's called Socialismo Muerte. And in it there's this bishop of Havana, his last name is Cespes. And he says that he met some of the kids that were injecting themselves with aids. And that at a state dinner, he approached Fidel. He told him, these kids, they're injecting themselves. And Fidel couldn't believe it.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

And then after that, in the pharmacy, they don't sell syringe anymore. They put a law that if you didn't inject themselves with hiv, you're going to spend eight years in prison.

[Luis Treyas]

But it didn't matter.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

It was like a movement. It was like a movie.

[Luis Treyas]

And all of a sudden you have all these bands forming across the island in different sanitariums. In the biggest one of them all in Santiago de la Vega, Los Cocos, which is like a half hour, 45 minutes south of Havana, you have the first group that gets formed. It's called Vellache, which translates to hiv. But then in the center of the island, in this town called Santa Clara, you had the Cuban punk band Escoria. And Escoria translates as scum, right?

[Bob Arellano]

Escoria.

[Luis Treyas]

And according to Bob, if you look back to the 80s, the people who.

[Bob Arellano]

Were fleeing Cuba, the balseros, the rafters, one of the responses of the Cuban government were billboards that said, que vaya la escoria, que se vayan. Let the scum leave. So to call yourself Escoria, to call yourself scum, that is punk rock.

[Jad Abumrad]

And with these Bands big outside the sanatorium too.

[Luis Treyas]

Escoria is. I mean, you can't talk about Cuban punk without. I mean, Escoria is like.

[Jad Abumrad]

So their tapes got out or something?

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah, totally.

[Jad Abumrad]

And what happens next? I mean, these bands are forming. Kids are self injecting. Does it just keep growing and growing?

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah. There's tape of Herson and Joandra saying that it got to be so fashionable that kids started to think that in order to be a fan freaky, you had to have aids. Like, really? Yeah. No, there was staple of Uanda saying, which is. And the kids were saying that if you really wanted to be a rocker in that time, you had to have AIDS.

[Bob Arellano]

It's like the fact that it went from 10 or 20 to 200 or more was obviously like this kind of just joiner phenomenon of like, that's so cool. I'm gonna do it too. There was even talk among some of the young people I met of thinking that eventually Fidel and those guys will find a cure.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

We're gonna find a cure for this.

[Bob Arellano]

Cuba with one of the best health care systems in the Western hemisphere.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

We're gonna live forever. But everything start to change when the first of them die.

[Luis Treyas]

According to Vladi, the first kid that died in Pina de Rio was a guy named Manuel. We don't know his last name or his age.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

He was the first. And when the second died and when the third died, everything stopped.

[Luis Treyas]

At one point in Vladi's documentary, which was made in 1994, Papo says that in two years, about 18 people died.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

And they start seeing how you died, because you don't die like a normal person who had a heart attack or anything. No, you transform yourself.

[Luis Treyas]

A lot of them went blind, then they went insane. They started getting opportunistic diseases. You know how AIDS works.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Seeing that they start thinking about what they did.

[Jad Abumrad]

Did kids start saying they wish they hadn't done this?

[Luis Treyas]

Well, when you see Vladi's documentary and that Swedish documentary, Socialismo Muerte with, which was made in 1995, you definitely see the kids having deep regrets. You have one of them saying, I regret this. I regret it a million times. How about Papo?

[Bob Arellano]

Well, I don't. I never heard Papo ever question that he had done it.

[Luis Treyas]

And in that Swedish documentary, there's a scene towards the end where you see Papu and he's clearly sick. He's real thin, his face is swollen. And we see him stepping into an evangelical church. He's wearing a Nirvana T shirt, but he's Become a fervent Christian, really. He's found this community of evangelical Christians that accepts AIDS patients. And he's still taunting the government because he says he's still a rocker and that he thinks that Christ is the perfect communist. If more communists were like the Christians, that would be perfect. It's interesting, though, because in that last video, we also see him taking English classes. Thank you.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Good morning.

[Luis Treyas]

How are you?

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Oh, fine.

[Luis Treyas]

And he's saying, like, you know, the other patients in the sanitarium, they're, like, sick like me. They won't go out at night. They won't rock out till the early morning. But I'm like, this is my life.

[Jad Abumrad]

So he was sort of defiant to the end.

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah. And a few months later, according to Gerson, Papo started to bleed out from his mouth and eyes. He had a parasite in his brain. He became violent, and he died from that disease.

[Jad Abumrad]

Part of me wonders, like, is this strong and fierce, or is it just dumb and sad and maybe fierce also? Like, I can't figure out how to feel about this.

[Luis Treyas]

Yeah, well, I think it can be all those things, right? It was dumb and stupid and immature, and it was also nihilistic and anarchic.

[Jad Abumrad]

And do you think in the end it had any impact?

[Luis Treyas]

Well, that's. That's hard to say. It must have. It must have.

[Jad Abumrad]

Here's how Luis puts it. Not even five years after Papo died, things did start to shift in Cuba. Make of it what you will, but December 8, 2000, Castro unveils the statue of John Lennon. That same year, Bob Arellano and a bunch of rock musicians, including Will Oldham, David Paho, they're given permission to play a bunch of rock shows in Cuba out in the open. And at one of those shows in Pinar del Rio.

[Bob Arellano]

I announced, listen, we're going to send out this next number to Papo La Bala and the Freakis.

[Luis Treyas]

Necklift and she's buying a st.

[Bob Arellano]

And everyone sang along.

[Jad Abumrad]

Now, it would be impossible to draw any kind of cause and effect and say one thing led to another. That would be ridiculous. But Luis says that back when the Freakies were streaming into the sanatorium, Cuba.

[Luis Treyas]

Wasn'T changing back then. It started to change precisely because of a hundred gestures, big and small.

[Jad Abumrad]

He says, around Cuba at that moment, there are all of these tiny, mostly silent protests taking hold.

[Luis Treyas]

And then you have the maleconazo, which was like the first serious civil disobedience that Castro had in 94, where just a mob in Havana rose up because they were so tired of the power outages. They were angry at their poor living conditions. They were leaving the city in rafts by the thousands, by the hundreds. Castro literally had to come down to the Cuban Malecon, the beautiful seaside road that circles around Havana, and he literally had to talk the mob down.

[Jad Abumrad]

So at this moment, you know, late.

[Luis Treyas]

80S, early 90s, there's this breeding ground of discontent all over Cuba. And I think the Self Injector movement is the best crystallization we have of that.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, it's like this sort of a thousand points of light. And this is the brightest point.

[Luis Treyas]

Right.

[Jad Abumrad]

Or the darkest point, frankly.

[Luis Treyas]

Right, exactly. Macho Morning.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, so it's Latif here again now, the reporter who reported this story back in 2015, Luis Treas has an update for you from now 2025. So here it is.

[Geico Ad Voice]

Since the story first ran, Bob Arellano has continued traveling to Cuba to work with Vladimir Ceballos on a documentary about the Self Injector movement and the Cuban rock scene. I've stayed in touch with Gerson. He's the self injected punk rocker I visited in the abandoned sanatorium. He's still living there along with his partner Joandra. He tells me that with Cuba's deep political and economic crisis, it's hard to be in a punk band. His town has 18 hour blackouts and even plugging in a guitar is tough. But Gerson says he still thinks about Papo Lavala. He says that in today's Cuba, Papo would be doing the same thing he did when he was alive. He would be finding a way to stay true to himself and keeping it metal.

[Latif Nasser]

Huge thank you to Luis. He now works as senior editor on the embedded podcast that's NPR's home for deeply reported narrative series. And thank you to Radio Ambulante. We were so, so excited to collaborate with them back in 2015. And thank you to Daniel Alarcon for making that collaboration possible. Radio Ambulante's new season, which is its 15th season, launches on September 30th. If you don't know them, check it out. Radioambulante.org they tell these incredible stories from around the Spanish speaking world in Spanish. Back in 2015, they also created a Spanish version, a Spanish language version of this story, which goes kind of in a different direction. It goes way more in depth into Luis's visit to Cuba and the story of Gerson and Yohandra, the last two remaining self infected Freakies. Thank you to Vladimir Ceballos and Bob Arellano for the use of their documentaries and to Ali O Dai and the Cuban punk bands HIV and Escoria for their original music in this episode. I'm Latif Nasser. Thank you for listening.

[Marcela]

Hi, I'm Marcela and I'm from Quezaltenango, Guatemala. And here are the staff credits. Credit Lab was created by dad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Niama Sambandan, Matt Kilty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sarah Carey, Sarah Sandak, Anissa Vitz, Arianne Wack Tuck Walters, Molly Webster, Jessica Young, with help from Rebecca Rand. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Ana Pujol Mazzini and Natalie Middleton. Hi, this is Les calling from Utah. Leadership support for Radiolabs science programming is provided by the Simons foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolabs is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

[Luis Treyas]

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[Luis Treyas]

Sign what? The app.

[Vladimir Ceballos]

Yeah, sure.

[Radiolab Sponsor Voice]

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[Vladimir Ceballos]

Anything to help, I suppose.

[Latif Nasser]

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[Luis Treyas]

I don't. Welcome to McDonald's.

[Radiolab Sponsor Voice]

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