Tag United States

Photo essay originally published online at Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University
This photo essay is about Superbarrio Gomez and his journey in the construction of a “politics of the possible” (1) , an alternative political imaginary constituted via popular culture and the construction of a national and transnational social movement. Superbarrio makes evident the collapse between politics and performance; he forces us to think beyond the performance of politics in order to understand the politics of performance. Superbarrio belongs to both the majoritarian class and to the wrestling ring of popular culture, which makes his politics possible. Superbarrio’s practices of popular culture creates a political imaginary in which winning was possible in spite of corrupt referees. But Superbarrio makes evident how the wrestling ring teaches us about political culture as well as social mobilization. Superbarrio’s wrestling ring is a place of possibilities where corrupt landlords and politicians are unmasked .As long as Superbarrio keeps his mask, we all win. Superbarrio’s journey maps an alternative political imaginary that functioned at the local, national and transnational/hemispheric register. At the local level, Superbarrio, with the strength of Mexico City’s Neighborhood Assembly [Asamblea de Barrios] created a social movement that understood that to win one’s home, one had to win at the national level, the National Palace and la Casa de los Pinos [presidential house]. Superbarrio became the symbol to mobilize the political imaginary in which to vote, (against seven decades of perfect dictatorship) was the only option to own the Presidential house. In 1988, Superbarrio aligned forces with Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in the winning of the national vote and they won.
But against systemic corruption, to win was not enough and the social movement had to reach beyond the US/Mexican border. In order to do so, Superbarrio made his first US tour promoting the possibility of Mexicans, living on the US side of the border, to vote for Mexican president. After all, their income has contributed to the Mexican economy 13 thousand million dollars in economic gross. Superbarrio promoted a political imaginary in which voting– a fundamental right of citizenship– could be exercised across national borders. But this transnational campaign was the practice of a political vision that understood the rules of the game within the then nascent process of globalization and the privatization of the Nation-State. In 1994, NAFTA (North American Free-Trade Agreement) would become the national precedent. Knowing the dirty rules of what became a macro-economic political game, Superbarrio jumped out of the national arena to fight for the rights of workers transnationally; he ran for US president in 1996. Superbarrio’s strategy was to contextualize the concept of national citizenship (exercised in the voting of national citizens such as Latinos/as and Latin Americans living in the US with dual citizenship) into that of free trade, not of goods but of people. In his campaign he proposed “free citizenship”, a concept that assumes rights to decent housing and working conditions across nations for all, citizens and non-citizens, the workers of the hemisphere within and beyond the US territory. Superbarrio’s free citizenship becomes a model of global citizenship in which fair housing and fair working conditions function within the realm of human rights transnationally. He also proposed the voting rights of these transnational workers, their vote would count for Mexican as well as US president. Superbarrio’s US presidential campaign, and his premonitory “politics of the possible”, produce an alternative political, social and cultural imaginary. By implication, to believe in Superbarrio is to believe in a collective struggle that functions regionally and operates as a social movement across borders. To believe in Superbarrio is to believe in us as transnational social agents. Beneath the mask, we are all Superbarrio.
(1) I am borrowing this concept from Kumkum Sangari “The Politics of the Possible,” Cultural Critique 7 (Fall 1987: 157-186).

Imagine:
The fence from the U.S. to Mexico is recycled and settled in the Palestinian territories. The U.S./Mexican border becomes Wall-Mart Nation, where peso salaries purchase dollar products. Wall-Mart becomes the contact zone, the bridge where socialization takes place via consumption, and transculturation functions by way of gastronomic hybridity with post-national and post-natural products. The category of migrant and/or undocumented worker disappears, now replaced by the Wal-Mart migrant shopper. Wal-Mart becomes a brand citizenship. Mexican workers are from both sides of Wal-Mart as the U.S. becomes Mexico and the south of Mexico becomes the place where the corporate oligarchs live in their natural resorts of Puerto Vallarta, Cancun and Acapulco. Wal-Mart workers are mostly women; child labor laws have been dismantled, given the population’s gastronomic diet made of intense hormonal doses in super-size meals. Workers overdeveloped in size and Mexican mothers conspire by creating cilantro pills to sustain the IQ levels and cultural memory of their overgrown children. Workers sneak in the pills. Reports from the information guerrilla network attest that those who intervene against the Wal-Mart production line risk being devoured into the fast food menu. In the south, the formation of a Coca-Cola State becomes a preventive model against military occupation and tamales are assimilated into Wal-Mart’s production line. The Chinese, out of earthly space, transport their maquila sweat shops into outer space in Bangladeshi man-made space ships. Meanwhile, the electoral process experiences radical change, voting acquires a Wal-Mart redirecting points system; the more one purchases, the more points for the ruling BWW Party. In Wal-Mart World, former U.S. citizens and radicals vote a la the Mexican “si no?” vote against the ruling party even if it is not in favor of any candidate. Chiapas is yet to be conquered.

By Jack Williams
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 18, 2004
Richard Allen Pesta
As Captain Sticky, a caped cartoon character come to life, Richard Allen Pesta was hard to ignore. Massive in girth and flamboyant in personality and Superman-style costume, he proudly played the role of one of America’s wackiest watchdogs.
Based in San Diego, Mr. Pesta campaigned against everything from rental car rip-offs and sugar-coated cereal to abusive nursing homes, attracting widespread media attention in the 1970s and 1980s.
“I am America’s only practicing caped crusader,” he told the San Diego Tribune in 1984. “That is the role I desire to maintain for the rest of my life.”
Mr. Pesta’s fiancee, Lynne Shiloh, said this week that he died Dec. 12 of complications from heart bypass surgery at Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. He was 57.
The couple had been vacationing when Mr. Pesta became ill and underwent surgery. Although his chances of recovery were said to be favorable, he developed an embolism in his leg, Shiloh said.
By the late 1990s, Mr. Pesta had turned his focus from Captain Sticky enterprises to a career as a La Jolla-based entrepreneur specializing in environmentally friendly soil products.
The products, marketed under such labels as Organa and Am-Kel Farms, are sold at various nurseries and home and garden centers, Shiloh said.
At the peak of his Captain Sticky popularity, Mr. Pesta drove a bubble-topped Lincoln with flags and flashing lights that he called his Stickymobile. Wearing a gold cape, glittery matching boots and blue tights, he took his causes to Sacramento and to media outlets.
In 1977, he was credited with helping to launch statewide investigations into nursing homes, resulting in tighter regulations for long-term health care.
By the early 1990s, he was promoting the Real Man’s Midlife Crisis Tour of Thailand, offering what he called “drinking, debauchery and fun stuff.” The Thai government forced him to shut it down.
“He pretty much let that Captain Sticky identity go,” Shiloh said. “What he was doing on the side came to the forefront.”
Mr. Pesta was born in Pittsburgh and moved with his family to Escondido as a child. He graduated from high school in Redondo Beach.
“His dream was to alter the course of history,” Shiloh said. “He was a huge man with a huge heart filled with love for everyone.”
After battling a weight problem for much of his life, Mr. Pesta underwent surgery in the late 1990s.
“The good doctor pulled my stomach way back and filleted me,” he told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1998. “They took two five-gallon pails of fat from me.”
Mr. Pesta leaves no immediate family. He was cremated in Thailand, where his ashes were scattered at sea.
Jack Williams: (619) 542-4587; [email protected]
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/obituaries/20040218-9999-1m18pesta.html

By BRYAN ROBINSON
NEW YORK, Nov. 5, 2002 —
New York’s comic book alter-ego Gotham has its Dark Knight in Batman, but it turns out the real city has its own caped crusader. Lotharios everywhere, beware, because Terrifica, scarlet-costumed avenger and protector of women, is on the prowl on the city’s party scene.
All was calm on a brisk 40-degree Saturday evening around Bar 4 in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. The only things stirring were the breeze-driven mocha-colored leaves skipping and scratching across the concrete and the light traffic along Seventh Avenue.
But skidding leaves soon gave way to the deliberate clacking of red heels. It was a little early for Terrifica to start patrolling; it was only 8:30, and the social scene was hours away from awakening. However, with her red cape, matching leotard and skirt with red boots, she managed to open the eyes of a few onlookers and elicit a whisper or two as she strode into Bar 4.
For the past seven years Terrifica has been patrolling New York’s party and bar scene, looking out for women who have had a little too much to drink and are in danger of being taken advantage of by men. She says she has saved several women from both themselves and predators who would prey upon their weaknesses  both from alcohol and a misguided notion that they have to go out drinking to find a companion.
“I protect the single girl living in the big city,” says Terrifica, sporting blond Brunhild wig with a golden mask and a matching Valkyrie bra. “I do this because women are weak. They are easily manipulated, and they need to be protected from themselves and most certainly from men and their ill intentions toward them.”
Terrifica does not claim to have superhuman powers or to be from a planet like Krypton. By day, she is Sarah, a 30-year-old single woman who works for a computer consulting company. (Sarah prefers not to reveal her last name so that she can protect her anonymity and still lead some degree of a normal life.)
To some, Terrifica may not seem all that imposing  she does not have the bulging muscles of your typical superhero. But she has a superhuman sense of purpose and belief in herself. Terrifica unfailingly refers to her non-costumed alter-ego, Sarah, as if she were another person. The heroine refuses to answer any questions about Sarah while she is working as Terrifica, saying “You are talking to Terrifica, not Sarah.”
Sipping a Shirley Temple, Terrifica’s voice is strong and forceful. Her brown eyes pierce through Bar 4’s red lights as she talks about her mission.
“My inspiration is the need people have in the city to be protected from themselves. That is my inspiration,” the heroine says. “I have to act in the most extreme situations. I’m on the front lines, in the danger zone, in the wee hours of the night. There’s nothing happening here right now; it’s way early. But if I come back here at 2:30, 3 o’clock in the morning, there are people drunk, making out with other people, going home with other people. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re drunk.
“To feel like you have to go to a bar, to put yourself out there, feeling like you have worth only when you’re married, engaged, or have a boyfriend, that’s weakness,” Terrifica says. “People are happiest when they’re alone and living their solitary lives.”
To Serve and Protect the Single Girl Living in the City
However, Terrifica’s mission is really twofold: she seems driven by both a need to protect all women and her alter-ego, a single girl living in the city. According to Sarah, Terrifica was spawned by a combination of heartbreak and her need deal with her own feelings of vulnerability.
Before moving to New York from Pittsburgh seven years ago, Sarah was heartbroken when she and her boyfriend broke up. Terrifica, Sarah says, was created out of her need to deal with her own anxiety of being a single woman suddenly living in a new city.
“I was living in New York, 23, feeling sort of vulnerable. I created Terrifica I guess to deal with my feelings of vulnerability being young and single in New York City,” Sarah says. “I had a couple of run-ins with men that really shocked me, left me feeling confused and really hurt. & To come from a small city where I knew everyone to a bigger city where I did not was quite overwhelming and scary.”
However, at some point, Terrifica became more than Sarah’s personal therapeutic tool. Her purpose grew to include the protection of all women from the men who would manipulate them  emotionally and sexually.
“The reason why Batman was dark was because he kept seeing his demon [the murder of his parents and his need to avenge them] every time he did what he did,” Sarah says. “I guess that is essentially the same thing with me. I experience the same hurt and pain over and over again [as Terrifica].”
Patrolling a Potentially Dangerous World With No Superpowers
Terrifica did not want to reveal how often she patrols or how she decides where she is going to go out on duty. However, different nights have different party scenes.
“Thursday nights are good nights for college students,” she says. “Thursdays and Friday night are good nights for the after-work crowd down in Wall Street. Saturdays are good nights for the East-West Village where you have people coming in from the other boroughs.”
Despite her persistence and dedication, a costume can be a hindrance to a passionate crime fighter like Terrifica. After all, how many real-life Batmen and Spider-Men does the average person encounter every day? Terrifica’s costume could attract gawkers, a degree of ridicule and distract from the seriousness of her task, but she says that’s a tactical choice.
“I have undercover clothes that I wear so that I can blend in,” says Terrifica. “I wear this costume to bring attention to myself. Imagine yourself the perpetrator, one of the evil men in the world, and then you see a woman in a leotard and she’s beautiful. You’re going to stop focusing attention on the woman you’re trying to seduce and going to try to get Terrifica to pay attention to you. So, it’s a diversion tactic.”
Still, Terrifica acknowledges that her vigilantism puts herself at risk. She admits that she has found herself in situations that involved physical run-ins with people who did not appreciate her interference. Her sobriety and wits have remained her greatest assets in those situations.
“I really only have my utility belt. I’m not superstrong. I’m from this Earth,” she says. “I know I have to be very cautious. But the difference is I’m sober. And drunk people who are hostile are still drunk people. I have a degree of control, and my mission and purpose can usually get me out of dangerous situations.”
However, Terrifica does carry pepper spray in her utility belt, which also includes a cell phone, lipstick, a camera to take pictures of alleged male predators, a logging book, Terrifica fortune cards and  last but not least  Smarties candies.
Why Smarties?
“They taste good,” Terrifica says. “I need energy. What I do is very difficult. I need to stay awake long hours, driving around. Sugar helps.”
Struggling to Get a Message Across
For the most part, Terrifica says, the women she has saved have appreciated her help. But she hopes to never save the same woman twice.
“That would just be sad,” she says. “I get to know some of the women I save and talk to them. & It would just be sad if I would run into some of them again. There is a message I’m trying to get across where I would hope to never need to see them again.”
Not everyone is a fan of hers. Some bartenders may hate her heroics, she says, because she potentially drives away their business. However, she conceded that she has some power over bartenders.
“Bartenders tend to be men, and they tend to be attracted to me,” she says. “Most men are. That’s part of my power.”
A Fantastic Nemesis
Terrifica has also become somewhat of a nemesis to one alleged Casanova in particular: A man who likes to dress in velvet and prefers to be called “Fantastico.” He says that over the years, Terrifica has thwarted his attempts on numerous occasions to get to know women a little better.
“Well, I guess I first met her about seven years ago … most recently last week in Carroll Gardens [Brooklyn],” Fantastico says. “I was with this woman and she was very lonely, seemed very desperate for attention. We were having a very lovely time, sharing a drink and suddenly I turn around see her [Terrifica] in this ridiculous red cape. She practically drags the woman away.”
Fantastico, who says he does not have a day job, says he likes to indulge in the finer, pleasurable things in life and that he likes to bring out the pleasure in people. He is convinced that Terrifica is a miserable, lonely woman who does not want anyone else to be happy.
“She seems to have an obsession with me,” Fantastico says. “She seems to have it in for men. I’m convinced she is loveless and would love to have the rest of the city as loveless and miserable as she is.”
Fantastico says that Terrifica has never really addressed him directly during their encounters. She has only lectured the alleged would-be female victims about being manipulated and taken advantage of.
“She’s just been very cold, very distant,” Fantastico says. “But I’m sure if she did address me  her being a pretty attractive woman in her leotard  if she did hear me out, maybe she would change her attitude.”
But while Terrifica has never addressed Fantastico directly, her alter-ego Sarah has. Sarah says she was seduced by Fantastico years ago.
However, Fantastico does not even remember Sarah and has no idea that she is Terrifica. He does remember Terrifica, though.
“While I don’t know a Sarah, I do know Terrifica. She does exist, and we have crossed paths from time to time,” he says.
“What? You mean he doesn’t remember me?” Sarah asks, stunned. “You see, that’s why Terrifica exists, that’s why she’s needed.”
Fantastico insisted Terrifica has only been an occasional annoyance to him and that he doesn’t lose any sleep at night knowing she’s out there. “Trust me,” he says. “I have no problem doing what I do.”
A Heroines Advice for Self-Protection
Terrifica knows she can’t be everywhere. She prefers to work alone but would not mind if other people donned a costume to help protect others. However, she does have advice to help women help themselves.
“The most important thing is that you do not need another person to give you love,” Terrifica says. “And you should not feel that someone who promises love actually loves you, ever. People throw around the term ‘love’ to manipulate, to get sexual satisfaction. And you should only exist to satisfy yourself, not sexually but holistically. Do not be meek enough to believe the myths society has imposed on us to basically control you.
“And don’t get drunk in bars.”
Terrifica says she ultimately would like to be able to set up a hotline to help women when they feel like they need advice. It would enable her to more easily spread her message of self-protection and empowerment.
She would also like to have someday have the equivalent of Batman’s bat signal. Perhaps, it could be called the “Terrific signal.”
“It is my dream to have a ‘T’ signal going up to the clouds so that I know when I would be needed,” Terrifica says.
The End of the Road for Terrifica?
Terrifica says she will continue carrying on her mission as long as there are still women getting drunk in bars, going home with men they barely know and feeling badly in the morning, wondering whether the men will ever call.
However, there are signs that Sarah is wearying of donning the red leotard.
“I’m sure Terrifica would tell you that she is always successful,” she says. “But that is not always the case. Dressing in a red leotard, hanging out at bars drinking Shirley Temples is not exciting. It can get pretty dull. & There are nights when not much happens.
“I would love to be able to be at the point psychologically where I don’t feel like I have to dress like a superhero to feel safe and empowered in New York City,” Sarah says. “It’s hard to say under what circumstances [I would stop] with my not looking so hot in a leotard anymore. I had set [age] 30 as the magic number and I’m still doing it. And I’ll be 31 soon.”
Well, at least one person believes Terrifica/Sarah still looks good in a leotard. As Terrifica left Bar 4, a little girl in a knit white cap and matching jacket saw the heroine and immediately stopped, looked up and smiled.
“You look pretty,” the child said with a toothy grin.
“Thank you,” said Terrifica, as she allowed herself to smile. “Be safe now.”
Terrifica’s smile soon faded away as her thoughts turned to the night ahead. “I have to go home now & to my headquarters & to prepare. I have to make some calls and find out where some of the party scenes are tonight.”
And with that, Terrifica turned away, red cape lazily flowing behind her. No one else on Seventh Avenue stopped to stare at her.
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=91072&page=1

MEXICO CITY (CNN) — He’s faster than a speeding turtle, able to leap small speed bumps in a single bound. Look, up in the sky … Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Superbarrio — a flabby caped crusader in cherry red tights who traverses the streets of Mexico City, defending the lower class.
A high school dropout with a humble upbringing, Superbarrio has become one of Mexico City’s greatest folk heroes. For the past 10 years, he has stood as the champion of the working class, the poor and the homeless.
Superbarrio roams Mexico City
“I opened my eyes and found myself as you see me with a voice telling me, ‘You are Superbarrio,'” he said, explaining that his name means super-neighborhood. “I can’t stop a plane or a train single-handed, but I can keep a family from being evicted.”
His true identity remains a mystery, masked behind his quirky outfit. By day, he’s a street vendor, but at any time he can squeeze into the flashy tights to fend off evil. Little else is known about the masked man, fitting of a true superhero.

His role is primarily symbolic as the protector of low-income neighborhoods. But on behalf of squatters and labor unions, Superbarrio leads protest rallies, files petitions and challenges court decisions. Rumors also have circulated that he attempted to run for the president of the United States to better protect Mexican workers.
He says his mission is simply to protect the right of ordinary people.

Superbarrio, meanwhile, continues to stroll the streets of Mexico City seeking to uphold justice and defend the weak.
Correspondent Chris Kline contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9707/19/mexico.superhero/

Orignally Posted: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/supergay-outs-macho-mexicans-1273193.html
Who is that masked man – in the spandex pants? Phil Davison on a new folk hero
Phil Davison
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a professional wrestler? No, it’s Supergay, caped crusader for homosexual rights in macho Mexico.
Dressed in black spandex with a pink-sequinned cape, black mask and rainbow symbol, the country’s latest colourful folk hero stepped out of an underground comic book and appeared as large as life in the capital last week.
“It is time to come out of the closet. I am a symbol all gays and lesbians can identify with,” he said as he and two fellow rights campaigners, Superbarrio and Superecologist, symbolically “closed down” the Mexico City headquarters of the strongly Catholic and conservative National Action Party (PAN). The country’s fourth caped avenger, Superanimal – who fights for animal rights – was indisposed.
From as far back as the Aztecs, on through the days of Spanish colonial rape, Mexicans have traditionally hidden behind masks in more ways than one. In the cases of Superbarrio, Superecologist and Superanimal, the outfits are a publicity-grabbing gimmick. But in a country where men still wear cowboy boots, often tote pistols and prefer their wives to stick to making tortillas, Supergay’s mask may serve the strictly functional purpose of saving him from being beaten up. Some locals immediately branded him Supermaricon (Superpoof).
Superbarrio, formerly an all-in wrestler, was the first caped and pot- bellied crusader for the oppressed. He emerged when the government was slow to rebuild poor barrios in the wake of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. So popular did he become that he has twice been cloned – three men now take turns to wear the costume. Superecologist and Superanimal followed over the last few years. Then along came the slimline Supergay, pronounced by some as in English, by others as in Spanish, when it sounds like Superguy.
“We symbolically sealed off the PAN building because of the party’s gay- bashing policies,” says Rafael Cruz, spokesman for Mexico’s Circle of Gay Culture organisation. “They forced the cancellation of a meeting in Guadalajara of the International Lesbian and Gays’ Association and continue to block individual rights.”
In the face of Mexico’s long-standing machismo, where borracheras (drunken binges) and la casa chica (“the second home,” or mistress) are what make a man a man, Mexico’s gays and lesbians are emerging only slowly.
“Homophobia still permeates Mexican society. Repression is total,” says Mr Cruz. “Five years ago, maybe 300 people took part in our annual Gay Rights March. “Last year, we got 2,500. But that was a group phenomenon. Individually, almost everyone is still in the closet. And we have a saying in Mexico: ‘El closet mata’ (The closet kills).
“Some gay groups think that, behind the macho facade, 10 per cent of Mexico’s 90 million people may be gay or lesbian, but who knows? Among politicians, entertainers et cetera, there are strong rumours as to who is gay. But no one has come out. Everybody knows that Juanga [popular singer Juan Gabriel] is gay, but he’s never said so.”
“You can’t hold hands or kiss here. The police extort money from us even if we stroll together in Alameda Park,” says Supergay, a 26-year-old computer engineer and graduate of the University of Mexico. His character began as a comic book hero in a free gay newsletter distributed by the Circle of Gay Culture.
“The only places we can really show our sexual orientation are the gay or lesbian bars but the authorities shut some down or blocked entertainment shows claiming they were ‘dens of prostitution’.” Gay men in the capital frequent bars such as el Taller (the Workshop), or Tom’s, favoured by “the black leather set”. Lesbians hang out in Enigma or El Gab, named after its owner, Gabriela.
“Gay transvestites have been murdered and the cases were never cleared up,” says Supergay. “Earlier this month, the owner of a gay bar, Bar 14, was horribly murdered. Someone bored a hole through him with a drill.”