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ARTHUR EMAIL BULLETIN No. 0059

“COMMAND PERFORMANCE”

The Arthur Magazine Email Bulletin

No. 0059

November 17, 02006

Website:

http://www.arthurmag.com

Comments:

editor@arthurmag.com

1. WHEN *ISN”T* MERCURY IN RETROGRADE IS WHAT I WANT TO KNOW.

2. NEW ISSUE OF ARTHUR ON ITS WAY TO *YOU*.

Getting it ready for you now… Erik Davis profiles JOANNA NEWSOM at serious length (12,000 words!), with exclusive photos of her geniushood by Eden Bakti… ALAN MOORE expounds on 25,000 years of pornography… a talk with CHUCK DUKOWSKI about the deeper issues surrounding all-ages shows… Kyp Malone of TV ON THE RADIO talks about military recruiters… New Herbalist Molly Frances on the roots of Christmas… Dave Reeves on GUNS… Douglas Rushkoff on ROBERT ANTON WILSON… Byron Coley & Thurston Moore on oodles of noodles… a full-page of PShaw… and a bunch of other unspeakable surprises… See the cover now at 

http://www.arthurmag.com

3. SATURDAY: JOHN LURIE MEETS HIS PUBLIC.

We are informed that John Lurie’s new art book, “Learn to Draw” (Koenig Press) will be making its US debut at the first annual Printed Matter NY Art Book Fair. The fair takes place at the old Dia Beacon Space at 548 West 22nd Street in New York City. We are further informed that JOHN LURIE HIMSELF will be signing copies of his book on Saturday, November 18 between 3-4PM.  Admission is FREE. Fun fact: Some of the images in this book were first published in the pages of Arthur magazine. 

Info:

www.strangeandbeautiful.com

www.nyartbookfair.com

4. SATURDAY: SHOPTALK & MORE WITH LIVING THEATER CO-FOUNDER JUDITH MALINA & HANON REZNIKOV. 

We are told that as part the “Coffee House Chronicles” series, Judith Malina and Hanon Reznikov will talk with all comers about The Living Theatre’s long odyssey on Saturday, November 18 from 3-5pm at LaMama ETC, 74 East 4th Street in New York City. Admission FREE. Fun fact: The Living Theater are the subject of the next Arthur/Bastet DVD, Ira Cohen’s “Paradise Now,” due next year. 

5. SUNDAY: FAIRLY INCREDIBLE FREE MUSIC NIGHT AT MOUNTAIN BAR. 

Sun Nov. 19

Arthur Presents an Ovrcast Production

* Psychic Paramount

* Residual Echoes

* Jack Rose

* Peter Walker

FREE

21 & up

Doors 8pm

Mountain Bar of Chinatown in Los Angeles

473 Gin Ling Way

Los Angeles, 90012

(213) 625-7500

6. LOTS OF FLASHY ARTHUR NIGHTS PIX UP AT THE OL’ ICE CREAM MAN SITE.

Nice nice NICE photos of Comets on Fire, Boris, Devendra Banhart, Fiery Furnaces, Be Your Own Pet, Sun Ra Arkestra, Tav Falco & Panther Burns, Living Sisters, OM, Bert Jansch, Espers, Six Organs of Admittance, White Magic, Heartless Bastards, Kyp Malone of Tv on the Radio, Howlin Hex and Ruthann Friedman performing at Arthur Nights. Yes a festival with this lineup actually happened, here’s some photographic evidence for the skeptics:  

http://www.icecreamman.com/projects/article_1385.shtml

7. FAIR WARNING.

We have under 90 copies left of the universally acclaimed Ira Cohen “Invasion of Thunderbolt” DVD we released in June. We only made 1000 and we honestly don’t know yet when we are going to be able to make more. Okay? Please don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Info:

http://www.arthurmag.com/store/dvds.php

8. IF YOU THOUGHT DEREK JENSEN WAS EXAGGERATING JUST A TAD IN HIS APOCALYPTIC INTERVIEW IN ARTHUR 23, PART 2

Check out “The Darkening Sea: Carbon Emissions and the Ocean” by one of America’s best journalists, Elizabeth Kolbert, in this week’s issue of The New Yorker.

9. WE LIKE TO MEET NEW PEOPLE. 

Won’t you join us at Little Joy in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles for another session of

The Echo Park Social(ist) & Pleasure Club

every Thursday night

9:55pm-close

at

Little Joy

1477 Sunset Blvd in Echo Park

FREE

21 & up

At recent EPSCs, this music was played for the enjoyment of all:

///Jay Babcock set – Nov 9\\\

Dominique Cravic & Les Primitifs du Futur feat. Robert Crumb – Fox Musette

Dominique Cravic & Les Primitifs du Futur feat. Robert Crumb – Portrait d’ un 78 tard

Tim Buckley – Move With Me

Selda – Meydan Sizindir

Tony Allen – Road Safety

Curtis Mayfield – Future Shock

Silver Apples – I Don’t Care What the People Say

Yo La Tengo – Nuclear War [Sun Ra cover/children’s choir version]

The Good The Bad and The Queen – History Song

Dirty Pretty Things – Bang Bang You’re Dead

Nick Oliveri & Mondo Generator – All the Way Down

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Fortunate Son

Sade – Why Can’t We Live Together

Mighty Baby – A Jug of Love

Ginger Baker [feat. Fela Kuti] – Tiwa (It’s Our Own)

Wind – track 1 off “Seasons” [’71]

///Richard Pleuger set- Nov 9\\\

The Mystic Tide – Mystery Ship

Xu Xu Fang – Seven Days

Truth And Janey – My Mind

German Oak – Raid Over Düsseldorf

Lucifer’s Friend – Ride In The Sky

The Mystic Tide – Frustration

J.A. Caesar

Mott The Hoople – Thunderbuck Ram

T. Rex – Calling All Destroyers

Truth And Janey – Under My Thumb

Dr. Feelgood – She Does It Right

Buffalo – Sunshine (Come My Way)

Metallica – Leper Messiah

Chrome – TV As Eyes

The Sonics – The Witch (Live ‘ 72)

Dr. Feelgood – Rollin’ and Tumblin’

Hawkwind – Motorhead

Francoise Hardy – Le Soir

Xu Xu Fang – Good Times

The Dovers – She’s Not Just Anybody

German Oak – Shadows Of War

///Peter Relic set – Nov 9\\\

mikey d and l.a. possee “coming in the house”

just ice “cold gettin dumb”

boogie down productions “jimmy”

ray cash feat. yummy “da bomb”

dj quik “pitch in on a party”

mystikal “shake ya azz”

tone loc “i got it going on”

twin hype “do it to tha crowd”

three 6 mafia “ridin spinners”

killer mike feat. whyte chocolate “for the no no”

epmd “so whatcha sayin”

nas “memory lane”

incredible bongo band “let there be drums”

bone thugs’n’harmony “teach the world”

///Aaron Aldoriso set – Nov 16\\\

phew – closed

pink floyd – see emily play

dead moon – dead moon night

spacemen 3 – rollercoaster

traffic sound – lux

galaxie 500 – another day

the beach boys – slip on through

john phillips – drum

the clean – anything can happen

wire – map ref 41N 93W

mayo thompson – dear betty baby

leigh stephens – another dose of life

thinking fellers union local 282 – cup of dreams

siouxsie and the banshees – happy house

the byrds – everybody’s been burned

the moles – wires

la dusseldorf – dusseldorf

gal costa – cinema olympia

the jesus and mary chain – never understand

judy henske and jerry yester – raider

bridget st. john – every day

royal trux – you’re gonna lose

yoko ono – don’t worry kyoko (mummy’s only looking for her hand in the snow)

the fall – eat y’self fitter

bobby charles – i must be in a good place now

lee hazlewood – my autumn’s done come

///Mark Frohman & Molly Frances set – Nov 16\\\

funkadelic  free your mind

weird war   AK-47

sly stone luv n haight

dr john I been hoodooed

tommy james  gotta get back to you

junior wells & buddy guy   snatch it back and hold it

the sonics  louie louie

the stooges   rubber legs

rock erikson  two-headed dog

glass candy   hang on to yourself

the cramps garbage man

lou reed  gimme some good times

Blue Oyster Cult  Transmaniacon

richard hell   down at the rock and roll club

patti smith  poppies

essential logic  bod’s message

burning spear  african postman

the clash  one more time dub version

culture  black starliner

the clash   version city

burning spear  columbus

rolling stones  heaven

alan vega  jukebox baby

the chromatics  the wanderer

paul mcartney and wings  nineteen hundred and eighty five

gogogo airheart  when the flesh hits

weird war  if you can’t beat em bite em

the clash  ghetto defendant / innoculated city

red krayola  duke of newcastle

sly stone  runnin away

chromatics in the city

john phillips   let it bleed, guinevere

10. APPEAL: FREE THE GANGSTER MACAQUE 15.

On January 11, 2006, The Daily Mirror of England reported that “A city police force is struggling to contain a marauding band of terrifying, glue-sniffing ‘gangster monkeys.’ Wild macaques have been stealing bags of glue from addicts, getting high and launching attacks in Phnom Penh, Cambodia…The crazed beasts have been biting people and stealing laundry…. Deputy governor of the city’s Daun Penh district Pich Socheata, said: ‘We have to remove the nasty creatures from the city. They grab glue bags from street kids, climb up into the trees and sniff it up.’ Officials have so far ‘detained’ 15 macaques.” 

Love, etc., 

Arthur Peace Macaques

Bushwick * Fairmount/Brewery Town * Atwater Village 

The Golden Arches, inverted

Street Food With Ambition in Berlin

By GISELA WILLIAMS

Published: November 12, 2006
New York Times

NEW YORKERS have hot dog stands, Parisians have crêperies, but street food in Berlin is all about imbisse — a word that encompasses everything from sidewalk stalls that sell currywurst (sliced sausage smothered with curry powder and ketchup) to holes in the wall that serve Turkish döner kebabs (thick pita sandwiches stuffed with shaved meat, salad and yogurt sauce).

They’re great if you’re in a rush or need to save some beer money (the price rarely exceeds 3 euros, or less than $4 at $1.28 to the euro), but don’t expect a culinary revelation. The taste usually ranges from salty to saltier.

But lately, Berlin’s fast-food scene has gone foodie. Imbisse (the singular form of the word is imbiss) with an epicurean twist are popping up all over this city, Western Europe’s most affordable capital, bringing fancy fast food to the masses.

One of the best is the W Imbiss (Kastanienallee 49; 49-30-48-49-26-57; http://www.agentur103.de) on the stylish edge of Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, whose logo resembles the golden arches turned upside down. If you’re lucky, Gordon W., as its Canadian chef and owner calls himself, will be in the tiny open kitchen, wearing his signature fez and manning the tandoor.

Four euros will get you a delicious and filling nan-bread pizza, topped with fresh ingredients like pesto, fresh arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts. Six and a half euros buys one of the popular rice bowls, piled high with marinated tandoori salmon, leafy greens and Japanese-style dressing. Besides being cheap, everything is made to order, so expect long waits — though no one in this tiki-inspired joint seems to mind.

Nearby is WKD Lebensmittel in Mitte (Rochstrasse 2; 49-30-2759-6130), a small storefront that sells fresh produce, organic cheeses and German wines. A chalkboard lists the daily specials, many of them typical of southern Germany like roasted pork (7.50 euros) and liver dumpling soup (3.50 euros). Setting the casual vibe is Gerhard Wick, one of the three owners, who can often be found socializing with his über-trendy customers on the simple wooden tables.

“It’s definitely not a restaurant,” Mr. Wick said, preferring to describe his year-old space as part mini-grocery store, part imbiss. He went on to explain that the ingredients came directly from regional producers, allowing him to sell slow food at near fast-food prices.

That’s also partly true at the FoodBall (Neue Schönhauser Strasse 11; 49-30-24-62-88-92), a new food stand inside the Camper shoe store, also in Mitte. As the name suggests, everything is shaped like a soccer ball, whether it’s the savory organic rice balls stuffed with wild mushrooms, chickpeas or free-range chicken, or the dessert balls made from dates or carob. For a playful lunch, order its version of a Happy Meal: a trio of rice balls and a choice of coffee or tea (6.99 euros).

Like Berlin itself, imbisse are absorbing new cultural flavors. A few blocks away is Dolores (Rosa Luxemburg Strasse 7; 49-30-28-09-95-97; http://www.dolores-online.de), a colorful and modern spot that serves made-to-order burritos and quesadillas, starting at 3.55 euros. When it opened, it was Berlin’s first burrito imbiss, and at lunchtime it’s packed with a young crowd.

The German owners, Philipp Krahé and Grischa Coenen, lived and worked in London before opening Dolores two years ago. “It’s been much more of a success than we thought,” Mr. Krahé said. “All we knew, when we opened, is that there is a large American community that lives in Berlin, and we were counting on them as customers.”

Being around the corner from a McDonald’s, one of the few in Mitte, doesn’t give him concern. “Sometimes they take so long to make a Filet-O-Fish,” Mr. Krahé said. “Our burritos only take a minute.”

"Jesus Malverde" – from Sam Quinones' 'Tales From Another Mexico'

Every third night Florentino Ventura can be found sleeping outdoors, guarding the large blue shrine that honors the belief in a lawless man.
His faith keeps him there.

The summer when Florentino was 23, he was working as an oyster diver in Mazatlan. One day he became tangled in his rope underwater. He wrestled with the cord and began to drown. Then suddenly the face of the bandit Jesus Malverde appeared to him. Florentino finally freed himself. He rose to the surface and came immediately to Malverde’s shrine to give thanks. From the way Florentino describes it, the experience led to the kind of spiritual catharsis that makes people change their lives. Florentino changed his. He’d been on track for what would have been at least a minor political career. He had been a PRI youth leader and won a scholarship to study political science in Mexico City. He was taking a break from studying law when the diving accident happened. But he gave it all up and, now 36, he’s been here ever since. “The Mexican political system is useless. It was false, pure lies,” he says. Florentino found more truth in Malverde.

Florentino Ventura is one of thousands of people who believe the bandit Jesus Malverde – “the Angel of the Poor,” “The Generous Bandit” — works miracles in their lives. And all year long they come to his shrine here in Culiacan, capital of the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa, to ask Malverde for favors and thank him for those he’s granted. They leave behind photos and plaques with grateful inscriptions: “Thank you Malverde for saving me from drugs,” writes Isaias Valencia Miranda, from Agua Zarca Sinaloa; “Thank you Malverde for not having to lose my arm and leg,” reads the dedication on a photo of a man in sunglasses identifying himself as Lorenzo Salazar, from Guadalajara. There are plaques from the Guicho Rios family from Mexicali; the Leon family from Stockton; the Chaidez family from North Hollywood, and many more from the great Mexican diaspora in Los Angeles.

“Dear holy and miraculous Malverde,” reads one letter to the bandit left at the shrine. “I’m writing this letter so that you’ll help me with a problem I have with some friends I had, so that they won’t look for me any more. Make them forget the problems we had. Make them please leave my parents and my sister and me in peace. This is what I ask of you, Malverde, that you do this favor. I promise that when I go to Sinaloa I’ll go visit you and I’ll bring you what I can because I live in Los Angeles, California. Malverde. Your son, Angel Cortez. Sept 15, 1992.”

Sinaloa is one of those places in Mexico where justice isn’t blind and the lawless aren’t always the bad guys. Having the government as an enemy can improve a reputation. So maybe, then, it’s not such a stretch to understand how thousands of people could come to believe that Jesus Malverde, a renegade supposedly long dead, performs miracles in their lives.

Nor, for that reason, is it hard to understand how over the past two decades, Jesus Malverde has also become what he’s now best known as: “The Narco Saint,” the patron saint for the region’s many drug smugglers. Mexican drug smuggling began in Sinaloa. Here smugglers are folk heroes and a “narcoculture” has existed for some time. Faith in Malverde was always strongest among Sinaloa’s poor and highland residents, the classes from which Mexico’s drug traffickers emerged. As the narcos went from the hills to the front pages, they took Malverde with them. He is now the religious side to that narcoculture. Smugglers come ask Malverde for protection before sending a load north. If the trip goes well, they return to pay the shrine’s house band to serenade the bandit, or place a plaque thanking Malverde for “lighting the way”; increasingly plaques include the code words “From Sinaloa to California.”

The story of Jesus Malverde takes place during the reign of dictator Porfirio Diaz (1877-1911). The Porfiriato, as the era is known, was a time when big business, especially foreign-owned big business, was encouraged above all else. Diaz saw himself as the rest of the world saw him: as Mexico’s modernizer. Yet progress passed by millions of Mexicans, who remained as impoverished as ever. As the century turned, the country fermented with the social anarchy that would explode in the Mexican Revolution. The hills and back roads of Mexico were alive with banditry, some of whom would become folk heroes to the country’s poor.

The legend is that Jesus Malverde was one of these, a bandit who rode the hills near Culiacan. They say Malverde robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. A Mexican Robin Hood. It must have been true, for they say the government hung him and left him to rot in a tree. That was on May 3, 1909. Every year on that day there’s a great party at Malverde’s shrine.

Two movies and one play exist dealing with Malverde’s life. But historians have found no evidence he ever existed; a likelier prospect is that Malverde’s an amalgam of two bandits — Heraclio Bernal from Southern Sinaloa and Felipe Bachomo, from the north part of the state. “If he lived, faith in him is a remarkable thing,” says Sergio Lopez, a dramatist from Culiacan, who has also researched and written about Malverde. “If he never lived, it’s even more remarkable because people have created this thing to achieve the justice that is denied them.”

What does exist is a rich and fluid body of lore about Malverde’s life. Supposedly, his Christian name was Jesus Juarez Mazo, born sometime in 1870 near the town of Mocorito. In some versions he was a tailor. Others have him as a construction worker, or a railroad hand, who built the tracks that were just then extending through northern Mexico and that brought with them the opportunities that made some men wealthy and other men bandits.

Some say Malverde began a life of crime after his parents died of hunger. Some versions say he was finally betrayed by a friend, who cut off his feet and dragged him through the hills to the police to collect a 10,000 peso reward. Others have him betrayed and shot to death. His betrayer dies three days later, and the governor who wanted him, Francisco Canedo, dies 33 days later, from a cold contracted after going out at night without slippers.

Lopez believes Canedo may have invented the Malverde legend himself to keep the state’s hacienda owners thinking twice before indulging in the more extreme abuses of their peons. But there’s also a story that the governor challenged Malverde to rob him. Malverde, as a construction worker, slipped into the mansion, stole the governor’s sword and wrote on a wall, “Jesus M. was here.”

Malverde’s first miracle, according to one version, was returning a woman’s lost cow. Eligio Gonzalez, whose work to keep faith in the bandit alive has earned him the nickname “The Apostle of Malverde,” tells still another story. “The rural police shot him in the leg with a bow and arrow,” Gonzalez says. “He was dying of gangrene. He told his friend, ´Before I die, compadre, take me in to get the reward.’ His friend brought him in dead and got the reward. They hung Malverde from a mesquite tree as a warning to the people. “His first miracle was for a friend who lost some mules loaded with gold and silver,” is the way Gonzalez tells it. “He asked the bones of Malverde, which were still hanging from the tree, to find his mules again. He found them. So he put Malverde’s bones in the box and went to the cemetery where the governor is buried. He bribed the guard to let him bury Malverde there. He buried him like contraband. No one knows where.”

Malverde’s shrine stands near the railroad tracks on the west side of Culiacan, well-known to just about everybody in town. Nearby are Malverde Clutch & Breaks, Malverde Lumber and two Denny’s-like cafeterias: Coco’s Malverde and Chic’s Malverde. Outside the shrine people sell trinkets, candles, and pictures. Inside the shrine are two concrete busts of the man. Malverde, supposedly a poor man from the hills, turns out to look a lot like a matinee idol — dark eyes, sleek mustache, jet-black hair, resolute jaw. Near the main busts are stands of pendants, baseball hats, tapes with corridos to the bandit, countless picture cases with photographs of the bandit and a prayer to him in thanks, and rows of plaster busts wrapped in plastic. To one side sits Dona Tere, rocking the day away. She is a cheerful, plump woman, made up with bright red lipstick. She, too, has her tale of faith. Eight years ago, doctors diagnosed Dona Tere with cancer. She decided not to take medicine. “I said, ´Malverde, they say you do miracles. I’m going to ask you for a miracle. I don’t believe in you. I know I’m going to die.'” Dona Tere’s still around. “I have four Malverdes in my house,” she says. “One in the kitchen. One in the dining room. One going up the stairs and one in the bedroom. I bless myself every time I’m at the foot of the stairs.” Last time they operated on her, Dona Tere paid for two hours of music to be played to Malverde. “Rich, poor, sick, not sick — everyone comes here,” she says. “When they come here and pay for music to be played people here say it must have gone well for them on their trip (sending drugs to the U.S.). I don’t know. It’s their own private business. I don’t ask. But I’ll tell you. More people come here than go to church. If you go to church asking for food, the priest will give you advice, but if you come here asking for food, you’ll get food.”

There was a time not so long ago when the Malverde shrine was a funky thing, awash in the artifacts of Mexican working-class life. You’d see piles of baby pictures and faded out-of-focus Polaroids of men in cowboy hats, and poorly spelled thank-you notes in twisted handwriting. There’d be slats of cardboard warping under the weight of pasted plastic flowers and photo collages of extended families. One man had left a baggie of hair, thanking Malverde for allowing him to survive a term in San Quentin. There were artificial limbs, and corn cobs and a lot of photocopies of recently obtained passports. Fishermen would leave large jars containing enormous shrimp in formaldehyde — thanks for a successful catch. Gonzalez remembers two different men — one left a pistol, the other an AK-47 rifle. But that’s been changing lately. Families have built glass enclosures – essentially, shrines within a shrine. Malverde has gone a little more high-class. There isn’t as much room any more for all those piles of homemade thank-yous and photo collages.

Still, faith in Malverde remains above all a private affair. There is no ceremony here. A constant stream of people arrive, place a candle near one of the busts, sit for a while, bless themselves, touch Malverde’s head, and leave. Some are poor. Others arrive in shiny trucks and cars, looking very middle class. Jesus Gastelo, a rugged, aging farmer, enters in sandals and a shirt buttoned halfway up his plump torso. In his arms is his newborn son, Sergio, now 13 days old. Gastelo lights a candle. “I’m really old,” he says. “How old do you think I am?” Gastelo is 64, once widowed, and he’s just fathered his eighth child, this with his new wife, a woman of 31. A lot to thank Malverde for. “I’ve believed in Malverde since I was a little boy,” he says, dropping his index finger to his knees, as an indication of how tall he was at the time that faith began.

Back then, faith in Malverde didn’t get the press it gets today. It centered around a pile of stones and pebbles, which is now about 50 yards away and across two streets. “It was just a pile of rocks and stones, like a grave,” says Gastelo. “It was where they say he was hung.” Believers will tell you the reason there are so many of them is that Malverde answers faith like Jesus Gastelo’s. But there are other reasons. One of them is Eligio Gonzalez, a 50-year-old jack-of-all-trades who wears his “Apostle of Malverde” tag with pride. The other is a bright idea the state had in the late 1970s. Government officials decreed they would build new state offices where people congregated to pay tribute to Malverde. Opposition to the idea was fierce. Newspaper columnists opined over the idea. “The protest lasted two years,” says Gastelo. Finally, state officials were forced to provide land where the shrine now stands. They say all of Culiacan turned out for the demolition of the pile of stones and pebbles. They say, too, that stones began to jump like popcorn and that the bulldozer operator had to get drunk to have the guts to roll over it; they say the machine broke down when it touched the grave. Finally, though, the job got done. The massive state government building now sits over Malverde’s original tomb. The tomb itself was moved across the street from the shrine, at the corner of Insurgentes and 16 de Septiembre streets. Researchers say it was during these years that the media christened Malverde as The Narcosaint. In the late 1970s, Sinaloa was embroiled in the great military strike against the region’s drug smugglers that was known as Operation Condor, during which the army went through the hills attacking drug smugglers and innocent ranchers with equal vigor; the state lost an estimated 2,000 hamlets and villages during those years as people abandoned homes, land and livestock and streamed from the hills to the cities. “The press, sharing the same view as the authorities, or perhaps so as not to be left behind when the graft was being handed out, added their two cents,” says Luis Astorga, a researcher of the narcoculture who lived in Culiacan during this time. “They labeled Malverde as the ´Narcosaint.’ The drug smugglers, due to their social origin, had inherited the belief in Malverde. But the media gave it a kind of yellow slant. They were really the ones who made Malverde into the drug smuggler’s saint, forgetting how old the belief in him really was.”

Today the pile of pebbles signifying Malverde’s tomb now shares a vacant lot with Tianguis Malverde – Malverde Market — a consignment car lot where Victor Manuel Parra and Marco Antonio Osuna will try to sell your used vehicle in exchange for a commission for themselves. The pebbles sit in the middle of the lot, surrounded by weeds and Suburbans, Nissan pickups, Monte Carlos and dented Volkswagens. Atop the pile is an iron cross, a weather-beaten bust of Malverde, now for some reason encased in a rusty bird cage. Like many parts of Sinaloan life, the car-mart depends largely on drug money. In the fall, marijuana growers are tending their crop and about to harvest. So sales at the lot are slow, this being October. The men say they are biding their time until December and January, when the growers will have sent their loads north and have money to burn. So they have more than enough time to talk about Malverde and the tomb of stones they work around every day. “He’d rob from the rich and give to the poor. This is where they say he was hung,” says Parra. “(The owner) wanted to build on this site, but he couldn’t get rid of it. The soul of Malverde wouldn’t permit it. They brought in machinery, but the machines broke down.”

The truth, it turns out, is more mundane. Jose Carlos Aguilar, the lot’s owner, says he wants to build a high-rise hotel or office building on the sight, but hasn’t been able to find funding or a suitable partner. Still, if he did build on the site, Aguilar says he’d leave aside a corner of the building, or maybe a section of the hotel lobby, for the bandit’s tomb. “You can’t be inflaming people’s sensibilities,” he says.

The building dispute with the state government may have distressed many of Malverde’s believers. But the faith emerged from it energized and publicized. Eligio Gonzalez has built and added to the new shrine. Now it has what it lacked before: a true focal point. Gonzalez is protective of the faith’s image. “All this stuff about the narcosaint, they say it, but he’s for people from all walks of life,” he says. Gonzalez is a small man with leathery skin and sandals. He says the outlaw Malverde cured him of gunshot wounds in 1973. But he punctuates his speech with the words “God first,” so no one gets the wrong idea. “If it weren’t for God, Malverde couldn’t do anything,” he says.

He spends his days driving through outlying villages selling newspapers and Pepsi-Cola. Pepsi-Cola, in turns out, is a stalwart Malverde sponsor. Local distributors often give Gonzalez discounts so he can sell the soda at concerts and dances and keep the profits for Malverde. Once, during a large encampment of campesinos outside the state building that lasted two months, he sold 4,000 cases of Pepsi. Not surprisingly, Coke products are scarce at the shrine. With the money Gonzalez feeds his family and the leftovers go to Malverde. Money taken in donations and sales at the shrine go to help with burials – more than 9,500 so far — wheelchairs for the crippled and cots for the poor. Nor was faith in Malverde hurt when Gonzalez recently won a raffle recently — a Volkswagen Golf car was the prize — which he promptly sold. Proceeds, he says, went to buy more cots, coffins and blankets for poor families. (He’s said to have won the national lottery 12 times.)

Gonzalez is a controversial figure in Culiacan. Local reporters wonder slyly what else he might be doing with the money. There have been reports that Gonzalez hasn’t shared royalties from cassettes sold at the shrine with a crippled man who wrote ballads to Malverde. But if this is the case, Gonzalez doesn’t seem to be getting rich. He has no phone and his clothes are humble.

“Thanks to God and Malverde there’s something for everyone,” he says. “Not much, but something. Little by little we’ve built this. Before it was just tiny. People have put in a lot of faith. If there’s no faith, there’s no miracles.”

"Everyone who pays taxes has blood on their hands." – Malachi Ritscher, whose self-immolation suicide last Friday was his final public protest against American war in Iraq.

Malachi Ritscher’s apparent suicide
by Peter Margasak on November 7th – 4:06 p.m.
CHICAGO READER

On Saturday the Sun-Times ran a small item about a man who had set himself on fire during rush hour Friday morning near the Ohio Street exit on the Kennedy.

His identity has still not been officially determined, but members of the local jazz and improvised music community say they are certain it was Malachi Ritscher, a longtime supporter of the scene.

Bruno Johnson, who owns the free-jazz label Okka Disk, received a package yesterday from Ritscher that included a will, keys to his home, and instructions about what should be done with his belongings. Johnson, a former Chicagoan who now lives in Milwaukee, began making calls.

Police are still awaiting the results of dental tests, but Johnson says an officer told one of Ritscher’s sisters that all evidence pointed to the body being his; his car was found nearby and he hadn’t shown up for work since Thursday.

Buried on Ritscher’s web site Chicago Rash Audio Potential, a compendium of invaluable show postings, artwork, and photography, are a suicide note [see below] and an obituary.

Both indicate that he was deeply troubled by the war in Iraq and pinpoint it as a motive for suicide (no method is specified), though there are indications that he may have had other issues as well. “He had a son, from whom he was estranged (at the son’s request), and two grandchildren,” reads the obit. “He had many acquaintances, but few friends; and wrote his own obituary, because no one else really knew him.”

Ritscher was a familiar face at antiwar protests, and he was arrested more than once for his involvement, including this time this past May.

A note found at the scene of the immolation reportedly read “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”

Although Ritscher, who was in his early 50s, had played music off and on over the years, he was best known for his devotion to documenting other people’s shows. Several nights a week for at least the last decade he could be found at places like the Empty Bottle, the Velvet Lounge, and the Hungry Brain; by his own count he recorded more than 2,000 concerts. Over the years he invested more money in equipment and as his skills improved, many of his recordings went to be used on commerical releases–by Paul Rutherford, Gold Sparkle Band, Isotope 217, Irene Schweizer, and Ken Vandermark among others. Ritscher was fiercely modest about these pursuits–I once tried to do a piece on him for the Reader but he declined, saying he didn’t want publicity.
…

Photos courtesy of Joeff Davis

Click here for more information from the Chicago Reader blog.

From Malachi Ritscher’s website:

mission statement

My actions should be self-explanatory, and since in our self-obsessed culture words seldom match the deed, writing a mission statement would seem questionable. So judge me by my actions. Maybe some will be scared enough to wake from their walking dream state – am I therefore a martyr or terrorist? I would prefer to be thought of as a ‘spiritual warrior’. Our so-called leaders are the real terrorists in the world today, responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden.

I have had a wonderful life, both full and full of wonder. I have experienced love and the joy and heartache of raising a child. I have jumped out of an airplane, and escaped a burning building. I have spent the night in jail, and dropped acid during the sixties. I have been privileged to have met many supremely talented musicians and writers, most of whom were extremely generous and gracious. Even during the hard times, I felt charmed. Even the difficult lessons have been like blessed gifts. When I hear about our young men and women who are sent off to war in the name of God and Country, and who give up their lives for no rational cause at all, my heart is crushed. What has happened to my country? we have become worse than the imagined enemy – killing civilians and calling it ‘collateral damage’, torturing and trampling human rights inside and outside our own borders, violating our own Constitution whenever it seems convenient, lying and stealing right and left, more concerned with sports on television and ring-tones on cell-phones than the future of the world…. half the population is taking medication because they cannot face the daily stress of living in the richest nation in the world.

I too love God and Country, and feel called upon to serve. I can only hope my sacrifice is worth more than those brave lives thrown away when we attacked an Arab nation under the deception of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. Our interference completely destroyed that country, and destabilized the entire region. Everyone who pays taxes has blood on their hands.

I have had one previous opportunity to serve my country in a meaningful way – at 8:05 one morning in 2002 I passed Donald Rumsfeld on Delaware Avenue and I was acutely aware that slashing his throat would spare the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people. I had a knife clenched in my hand, and there were no bodyguards visible; to my deep shame I hesitated, and the moment was past.

The violent turmoil initiated by the United States military invasion of Iraq will beget future centuries of slaughter, if the human race lasts that long. First we spit on the United Nations, then we expect them to clean up our mess. Our elected representatives are supposed to find diplomatic and benevolent solutions to these situations. Anyone can lash out and retaliate, that is not leadership or vision. Where is the wisdom and honor of the people we delegate our trust to?

To the rest of the world we are cowards – demanding Iraq to disarm, and after they comply, we attack with remote-control high-tech video-game weapons. And then lie about our reasons for invading. We the people bear complete responsibility for all that will follow, and it won’t be pretty.

It is strange that most if not all of this destruction is instigated by people who claim to believe in God, or Allah. Many sane people turn away from religion, faced with the insanity of the ‘true believers’. There is a lot of confusion: many people think that God is like Santa Claus, rewarding good little girls with presents and punishing bad little boys with lumps of coal; actually God functions more like the Easter Bunny, hiding surprises in plain sight. God does not choose the Lottery numbers, God does not make the weather, God does not endorse military actions by the self-righteous, God does not sit on a cloud listening to your prayers for prosperity. God does not smite anybody. If God watches the sparrow fall, you notice that it continues to drop, even to its death. Face the truth folks, God doesn’t care, that’s not what God is or does. If the human race drives itself to extinction, God will be there for another couple million years, ‘watching’ as a new species rises and falls to replace us. It is time to let go of primitive and magical beliefs, and enter the age of personal responsibility. Not telling others what is right for them, but making our own choices, and accepting consequences.

“Who would Jesus bomb?” This question is primarily addressing a Christian audience, but the same issues face the Muslims and the Jews: God’s message is tolerance and love, not self-righteousness and hatred. Please consider “Thou shalt not kill” and “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”. Not a lot of ambiguity there.

What is God? God is the force of life – the spark of creation. We each carry it within us, we share it with each other. Whether we are conscious of the life-force is a choice we make, every minute of every day. If you choose to ignore it, nothing will happen – you are just ‘less conscious’. Maybe you are less happy (maybe not). Maybe you grow able to tap into the universal force, and increase the creativity in the universe. Love is anti-entropy. Please notice that ‘conscious’ and ‘conscience’ are related concepts.

Why God – what is the value? Whether committee consensus of a benevolent power that works through humans, or giant fungus under Oregon, the value of opening up to the concept of God is in coming to the realization that we are not alone, establishing a connection to the universe, the experience of finding completion. As individuals we may exist alone, but we are all alone together as a people. Faith is the answer to fear. Fear opposes love. To manipulate through fear is a betrayal of trust.

What does God want? No big mystery – simply that we try to help each other. We decide to make God-like decisions, rescuing falling sparrows, or putting the poor things out of their misery. Tolerance, giving, acceptance, forgiveness.

If this sounds a lot like pop psychology, that is my exact goal. Never underestimate the value of a pep-talk and a pat on the ass. That is basically all we give to our brave soldiers heading over to Iraq, and more than they receive when they return. I want to state these ideas in their simplest form, reducing all complexity, because each of us has to find our own answers anyway. Start from here…

I am amazed how many people think they know me, even people who I have never talked with. Many people will think that I should not be able to choose the time and manner of my own death. My position is that I only get one death, I want it to be a good one. Wouldn’t it be better to stand for something or make a statement, rather than a fiery collision with some drunk driver? Are not smokers choosing death by lung cancer? Where is the dignity there? Are not the people the people who disregard the environment killing themselves and future generations? Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country. I will not participate in your charade – my conscience will not allow me to be a part of your crusade. There might be some who say “it’s a coward’s way out” – that opinion is so idiotic that it requires no response. From my point of view, I am opening a new door.

What is one more life thrown away in this sad and useless national tragedy? If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country. I was alive when John F. Kennedy instilled hope into a generation, and I was a sorry witness to the final crushing of hope by Dick Cheney’s puppet, himself a pawn of the real rulers, the financial plunderers and looters who profit from every calamity; following the template of Reagan’s idiocracy.

The upcoming elections are not a solution – our two party system is a failure of democracy. Our government has lost its way since our founders tried to build a structure which allowed people to practice their own beliefs, as far as it did not negatively affect others. In this regard, the separation of church and state needs to be reviewed. This is a large part of the way that the world has gone wrong, the endless defining and dividing of things, micro-sub-categorization, sectarianism. The direction we need is a process of unification, integrating all people into a world body, respecting each individual. Business and industry have more power than ever before, and individuals have less. Clearly, the function of government is to protect the individual, from hardship and disease, from zealots, from the exploitation, from monopoly, even from itself. Our leaders are not wise persons with integrity and vision – they are actors reading from teleprompters, whose highest goal is to stir up the mob. Our country slaughters Arabs, abandons New Orleaneans, and ignores the dieing environment. Our economy is a house of cards, as hollow and fragile as our reputation around the world. We as a nation face the abyss of our own design.

A coalition system which includes a Green Party would be an obvious better approach than our winner-take-all system. Direct electronic debate and balloting would be an improvement over our non-representative congress. Consider that the French people actually have a voice, because they are willing to riot when the government doesn’t listen to them.

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government… ” – Abraham Lincoln

With regard to those few who crossed my path carrying the extreme and unnecessary weight of animosity: they seemed by their efforts to be punishing themselves. As they acted out the misery of their lives it is now difficult to feel anything other than pity for them.

Without fear I go now to God – your future is what you will choose today.