[Jandek] Malachi Ritscher

[Colin Frangos]

Thanks for posting this.

Michael Zerang is a drummer in Chicago who used to play with Ken 
Vandermark a lot (as well as being involved in a bazillion other 
interesting projects) - I assume that was the person you were having 
trouble identifying.

I knew Malachi, and for a while we were pretty good friends. We hadn't 
been very in much contact in the 5 or so years before his death (I 
moved), but I'm comfortable saying that his death is more complicated 
than this story portrays it as being. As much as he hated the war, there 
were a lot of other things in his life that were factors in his deciding 
to commit suicide.

He wasn't a bhuddhist monk, and his motives didn't have that kind of 
purity, no matter how much he might have liked to hope so. I don't think 
that is a knock on him, I think it's part of who he was, and I happen to 
like who he was. Reality is complex, and there's a lot that's important 
to understand in anyone's motives. This is why I have an issue with 
Jennifer Diaz and her championing of his death as an act of protest. Her 
stated reason for this (and she's a journalism grad student) is that "if 
it bleeds, it leads." Aside from the fact that this is generally 
considered a negative approach to journalism (see Fox News), I think it 
does a great disservice by oversimplifying. Malachi wasn't a cause. He 
might well have wanted to be one (it's an appealing idea and he was very 
idealistic), but I sincerely hope that he doesn't become one. His story 
is far more interesting in the whole - a good sentence is more than the 
exclamation point at the end.

Regardless. I think it's an important story, and worth discussing, 
whatever your perspective. I would love to see a more complete picture 
of Malachi emerge some day.


Mister Born (to you) wrote:
> I don't remember who brought up the Malachi Ritscher story here.
>
> Apparently there was a documentary on AlJazeera-English.  I just
> watched it.  Sad story.
>
> On the "music" front, It includes quite a bit of footage of the guy
> who puts out the Okkadisk stuff and footage of Dave Rempis, a
> moderately well know sax from Chicago.  I don't know the other guy.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skec0CJPJZQ
>
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