What began as a plan to defy the embargo by sending pianos over in spite of the blockade, became a tax-deductible project when the Department of Commerce unexpectedly licensed the shipments. Final approval was given by their Office of Missile and Nuclear Technology, with the sole condition that the pianos not be used for "torture or human rights abuse."
Oddly, the Treasury Department does not see eye to eye with Commerce. Occasionally their Office of Foreign Assets Control threatens to fine me and jail me for visiting the project venue and for tuning private Cubans' pianos. In April 1996 they gave me thirty days to explain why I shouldn't be fined $10,000 for tuning pianos in Havana. When they didn't like the explanation they offered me a hearing. When the hearing didn't materialize I told them I was going back to Cuba, and they raised the stakes to $1.3 million in fines against me and my corporate headquarters: the Underwater Piano Shop in Berkeley. I arrived in Cuba last Halloween, disguised as a 1935 Tonk upright - costume by Hal Carlstad of Berkeley - and they FAXed me in Havana to say the trip was fine with them. This April they offered to settle the whole thing for $3,500. I told them they should pay me that amount for long hours of work in the interest of improving Cuban-American relations, but they have not written back.
