THE LUCHA LIBRE SHOW

Photo by Larry Miller


On October 29th, Lorenzo posted this photo of the lucha libre event that they were planning to attend that night in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, Mexico, where they are vacationing.

I made this comment: “Doesn't this make you wonder - just what in the world is going on in our heads?!”

His light-hearted response: “Tom, it seems perfectly human to me.”

The next day he posted this flick:


Photo by Larry Miller

My rather sarcastic comment on this one was: “Human Beings just having a little fun. Is that a skull I see in the audience?”

That comment prompted the following Email to the Buffalo exchange:


Email to the Buffalo
11/01/2008 5:46 PM Lorenzo:

You sound a little disgusted in your comments on the lucha shots. I was surprised at how friendly the whole thing was. It was like watching a morality play where the cheaters win at first but good triumphs in the end. The crowd boos the bad guys and cheers the good. All the wrestlers play to the kids, posing with them after the matches and freely handing out autographs. A good bit of money is made selling tshirts, masks and photos.

There was one match that was very violent and hard to watch. It was the the next to the last. The good guys won and were presented with an award belt. Then two big bruisers jumped in the ring and announced they were taking away the award. They then proceeded to beat the holy shit out of the guy, who was slimmer than the rest and not masked. While it wasn't real violence, it was too effective for comfort to my gringo mind. They threw him out of the ring, beat him with chairs and finally carried him off bleeding from a scalp wound and hanging over the shoulder of one of the bullies. It seemed like stepping back into some ancient, violent, sacrificial rite. Now I wonder if they have one match like that on each bill.

Hope you and yours are well.

don lorenzo

11/01/2008 9:26 PM Buff:

Good descriptive. Sounds a bit like the bull fights and just might have come out of that tradition - the bull being the symbol of power - fear - evil. Usually the toreador wins with the sword, but everyone is really there to see the skinny guy in tights get gored. What I noticed first in the poster you put up was the skull, which is the graphics champion of this decade. Of course it has always been popular, but now it is being worshipped, and an essential sticker on any and all high springs "Off Road" pickup truck. The skull and the masks of the luchadores expressing evil, danger, fear, etc. is what made me pause to wonder what in the world is going on in our heads. Young boys go for it immediately, and the daddies encourage it. It's an obsession with fear and death. Of course the same claim could be made of any contact sport, especially American Football. But this lucha/skull/pickup truck stuff is a kind of symbolism that goes beyond any sport, even football. At the end of football games the players hug and kiss. Luchadores smack each other with folded chairs until there is enough blood to make the crowd happy. Of course what was called "Professional Wrestling" was big in our youth and a lot of people actually believed it was a sport. But now it has been ratcheted up a several notches to the level of what is called "Extreme Fighting", two guys fighting in a cage, no holds barred, knees and elbows, teeth and snot, while the smoky crowd sweats and cheers, hoping to see someone knocked cold, and maybe even a broken neck! A human cock fight. Are we itching to get back to the gladiators? Christians and lions? Thumbs up or down? The Taliban took it all to the supreme level with the public beheadings in the soccer fields. And they always drew a good sized crowd! You know, I always thought that if we are so intent on having Capital Punishment here in the good ol U.S. of A., the executions should be public and painful. Why fuck around? If the point is to deter crime, we might as well go all the way. The one and only way to sanctify barbarism is to drop the pretense, be out front about it, ritualize it like the Aztecs did. In our so highly "civilized" societies there would undoubtedly be a lot of support for open and public torture and execution, and the Christian extremist's would definitely be first in line! "Kill him!", they shouted about Obama while the "soccer mom" grinned and winked. As a people, we are like a great herd of animals just on the verge of stampede, chaos. Come to think of it, however, it just might be the lucha libre, and the secret executions by poisonous injection, and the NFL itself that holds us all together as a nation, a people, a civilization. How can I argue with that? Imagine the alternative!

Go 49ers! Fuck the Rams!

:)


11/02/2008 5:28 AM Lorenzo:

the executions should be publicand painful.
I have thought that for years and the coffins of our soldiers and pictures of the innocence we kill in war.

While it is dismaying to realize how barbaric we are as a species I don't think we are that way as a majority. Most of the people in Oaxaca weren't' at the lucha. Most people weren't yelling kill him at the rallies. I continue to think that more of us are nurturers than killers.

I do believe that the universe is evolving and that we are part of that. I don't know that we will reach the kind of perfection that you and I would both like to see, but I think we will help. Then again then nature doesn't seem to particular care about kindness or mercy to individuals.
Questions, questions and damn few answers.

Its 7:13 am here and I can hear the comparse band playing in the distance. They have been marching around our little barrio since early last evening dressed as werewolves, skeletons, bishops (a favorite) and a few guys dressed as hot looking girls. They would stop and shoot mescal in your mouth from bota bags.

I guess all we can really do is be what we want to see.

love
lorenzo


11/04/2008 8:38 AM Buff:

I don’t disagree with: “I don't think we are that way as a majority.” I guess what irks me the most is the pandering to ignorance as a capitalistic strategy, which gives ignorant attitudes social status. If it makes a buck, it’s OK – the one and only morality judgment that we, as a collective society, make. All of this confused me as a kid – the Church and elders teaching one way, the society living in another. Eventually, I threw them all over and went to sea in my own leaky boat. I’ve never been a functional part of society since.
Yes, “I do believe that the universe is evolving and that we are part of that.” And, no, “nature doesn’t much care about kindness or mercy”. In the evolutionary perspective we’re all OK, living out our natural potentials and tendencies. And the peace and stillness of the natural world is a great solace that some of us have found. When I maintain my evolutionary perspective, all this pandering to violence washes over me, but the images are just so strong and graphic! I must say, at times they cause me physical pain – a shudder of excruciating empathy. I wish it wasn’t so, and that I could find the humor in Lucha Libre and Extreme Fighting and all the off-shoot “gear” that comes with those “sports”. I wish I could ignore the children being enrolled by the parents in such “entertainment”, not really dissimilar from the children we once saw in the KKK robes and masks. But I am effected by this pandering to the base instincts; my sensibilities are assaulted. I wish it wasn’t so, and I accept this as my personal issue without meaning to assign these feelings to anyone else. And I do not feel, nor do I want to imply, that going to a lucha libre match is wrong or even disrespectable. It’s the kids, it’s the images, it’s the capitalistic pandering that turns my head and makes me shudder. There is a higher way, we all know that, and perhaps we are just following the path to that place. I hope so.

Go Niners! Fuck the Rams!

:)

11/04/2008 1:43 PM Lorenzo:

And I do not feel, nor do I want to imply, that going to a lucha libre match is wrong or even disrespectable.

I didn't feel that you expressed that. I wasn't personally peeved. Obviously, I guess, the place of evil and violence in the world is difficult for me to understand, a constant question, but I can see I am less sensitive to it than you. Most likely from the defenses I have built up over the years. One of those defenses is the "well that's how humans are".

love
larry

11/05/2008 11:06 AM Buff:

The defenses we erect to protect ourselves from the inevitable assaults on our person and our sensibilities by the social world are natural, helpful and good. They enable us to function in a society that is littered with customs and habits that run against our own personal truth. None of us can fit neatly into any society and we all must compromise and protect ourselves. My rant on this subject is, as usual, impractical and inflated by my preachy nature. Yet, I never approach the pulpit without having at least attempted to restrain myself, for we must choose carefully our battles and skirmishes. I took this one up because your photo of the lucha poster reminded me of how prevalent violence has become in our games and other forms of entertainment, and also what a huge part of our lives entertainment itself has become. I may be remembering this inaccurately, and correct me if I am, but I don’t remember anywhere near this level of violence worship in my teen years, the fifties. Entertainment was “Fibber McGee and Molly” or “I Love a Mystery” on the wireless, or Lucile Ball on the flickering black and white TV, or a cruise down K Street in Sacramento. The advent of transistor electronics and then the internet have brought us finally to the place of total entertainment, so total that it has become essential, at least for many of us, the youth especially. And the “thrill” of brushing elbows with danger and evil underpins a large part of this “entertainment”. Most of us accept this, or just haven’t noticed. My kids’ generation accumulate and use the communication and entertainment devises without question, assuming that it has always been so. And the violence that has been carefully interwoven into this fabric is accepted without question. I think it needs to be noticed and questioned, and I don’t mean legislated. I am feeling the need to nudge against some of this and to encourage my kids to take notice of how they are being marketed, setup and sold by the capitalists. The extreme thrill rides and parks, skulls and crossbones, the low grade language in the music, the me-first and fuck you attitudes, the high springs pickup trucks and all the other macho posturing have become so familiar we hardly notice them. The Ad Man has infiltrated the fabric of our social manners to create a continuing market he can control and cash in on. That is what offends me the most, and I feel a need to resist at least a little.

I know that I will never change the attitudes my youngest children (Erick and Brigitte) have been brought up in. They believe I am out of step with modern society, and I guess they are right. But I will and do confront them with these feelings when I feel the need to do so. They politely tolerate me while ignoring everything I say.

And so did I.

:)