While Treasury seems to want to come down hard on felony tuning, they no longer answer questions about it.ī.S. The Treasury Department stopped talking to the press entirely after the initial flurry of calls when spokesman Darren McKinney said, "Even two-bit piano tuners are subject to the law." The Christian Science Monitor, Radio BBC, Canadian public radio and the CBS Evening News tried to make sense of this prosecution. laws on Cuba were in for some heavy ridicule. Pursuant to 515.702 of the Regulations, you are hereby notified that FAC intends to issue a claim against you for a monetary penalty in the amount of $10,000. You donated piano supplies, valued in the thousands of dollars, and services to Cuba's Museo Nacional de la Musica.Īdditionally, you earned income derived from Cuban nationals by providing piano-rebuilding services. In 1994, you traveled to Cuba, where you worked as a piano tuner. That act, coupled with bunch of postcards from Havana's Jose Marti Airport, earned me a notice of an imminent fine for tuning with the enemy:
In March, I turned myself in to the Office of Foreign Assets Control by mailing them a Cuban dollar and a receipt from the Burgui, a fast-food joint in Miramar. But by the time the 600th challenger returned to the states without a single prosecution, the Clinton administration's response became clear: silence.Īfter my latest trip, I wanted to put a piano enema to the Clinton administration (something strong to unclog a blockage caused by an unhealthy diet of Miami campaign donations). Global Exchange hoped that waves of citizens openly ignoring the threat of 10-year sentences and six-digit fines would force the issue of the travel ban into the courts where it would surely be ruled unconstitutional. I practically commuted to Havana over the next couple of years, and the supplies ended up filling a 40-foot container that arrived in Havana last December. I told the museum's director I'd be back some day and bring a few supplies with me. It took me about one week in Havana to fall in love with the place, and then we had to go home.
The director let me tune and regulate the piano, a beautiful old Steinway grand, in their small concert hall. While other travel challengers planned trips to day-care centers and hospitals, I collared our hotel's pianist and made a date to fix up his 1915 Wurlitzer upright.
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