01x04 - Episode 4

[bunniefuu]

We're going to be skinning today with a dorsal incision.

It's just like removing a body suit. You take your legs out first.

Oh. You poor guy.

He can't feel a thing.

You can see that the carcass is staying intact.

It doesn't smell much worse than, like, a wet dog or something in here.

And all that tail meat and bone comes right out.

You made it look so easy.

Bring the skin back together at the back.

You can tuck in a nice little crotch and nice little armpits.

My guy's going to be Abe Lincoln.

Yay.

Want to make another one that's Matthew Brady photographing Abe Lincoln?

(laughter)

I actually already made a little camera out of balsa wood. Yeah.

That's amazing.

I think maybe I'll give him a little cape and make him a magician.

I want mine to be, like, a little rocker guy, like, have some sass.

I'm just kind of looking for, like, a standard coffee table rat.

(laughing)

People always relate to bookshops in a romantic way.

As I grew up, that's all I really wanted to go to was bookshops.

I just always loved it. It's no different than someone who likes pizza.

I just loved books.

Just driving around, I would get excited whenever I'd see B-O-O, and then all of a sudden it's "Boots."

And, like, no.

I'm not really a boots kind of person.

I'm a bookseller. Brazenhead Books is my business, and I've been doing it for 35 years.

I don't want to be the guy that's always saying everything is better when everything is definitely worse now.

The city was better. It was more enjoyable.

People weren't stressed about money.

My life would not have happened in this time period.

(chatter)

Hey.

Okay, so what can I start doing?

I first heard about the eviction when my next door neighbor called me and said "There's an eviction notice on your door."

So it was like, ohh.

I mean, I know how this works.

So I knew the game was up. It wasn't like, "Oh, I can fix this."

This is the third incarnation of Brazenhead.

I've had this apartment for 37 years.

Before that, I was living here, and I'd had a shop down the block, which was Brazenhead II.

After seven years, they wanted to build a laundromat there, so they got rid of me for that reason.

I could not afford a space, so I was storing books here, selling books on the street.

You know, as the economy went, everything became more expensive except the price of books.

You know, I just thought, maybe there's no place for me.

I didn't want to sell online. That's repulsive to me.

And then I thought to do this.

So I thought I'll make a space where people could come to see my books.

I'll make it into a bookstore, but it'll be in an apartment.

And that was that.

The first Brazenhead was in Brooklyn in the late '70s.

I remember some kid coming into the shop.

He asked me for a job.

He was 15. I was 25.

Just a little boy whose mother had d*ed.

I could see he really liked the shop, but... it made no money. I couldn't really hire someone.

Then he said, "You know, you don't have to pay me with money. You can pay me with books."

He was super well read. I mean, he read the same kind of stuff I read.

Jonathan, he's the first Brazenhead person, like the way that people come here.

He's almost like the prototype because he attached himself immediately, just like people do.

(computer noises)

Hello.

Hey.

Hey.

Ohh.

Oh, my God, look at that.

Oh, yeah, I did this in honor of...

I can't tell if I'm looking at you or me.

Show me around. I want to see what's happening.

No more general nonfiction.

Everything's gone from the hallway.

Can you see the window?

Yeah.

I remember believing there was a window there.

Is it strange for you to see this place like this?

Yes and no. I mean, it's... It was written in the stars.

I mean, I... I remember in the 1970s talking about getting away with being in that apartment.

You know? I mean...

No, exactly.

It's the exact right time.

So you're okay.

Yeah.

But I look forward to doing nothing for a while.

I've been working and also celebrating because I've been having so many salons after I closed.

Yeah.

Which has been a little strange.

So now I think people think I'm not really closing.

They're telling me, "I'll see you in two weeks."

Now you're one of thos Going out of business..."

Yeah. And let me tell you it does work.

I could have had a successful business if I went out of business sooner.

(laughing)

The kids grow up. The shop... The shops have to mature.

It's a very pure thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

I miss you.

We're not sad.

We're not sad.

Bye now.

Bye-bye.

He really does look like you now.

Because he's never had a beard like that.

I taught the boy well.

Jonathan came up with that idea to invite writers here.

Everybody knew about it. Everybody was curious.

So that's the way the salons were born.

It was a secret by necessity.

I mean, when people first started coming and it was small groups, every night was a perfect night.

I first came to Brazenhead. Instantly I was like, "Oh, my God.

This is like from my dreams."

I love books, so coming into an apartment that was filled entirely floor to ceiling with books was just amazing to me.

It just felt very cool, like I had walked in on a little secret.

I think that's why so many people have gotten so emotional about the place.

It's a community forum. That was the hardest thing for me to tell all the people that I knew were going to be upset that the shop was closing.

It's like losing a loved one and now you have to go...

Now you have to go home and call people and tell them.

There should be an app for that.

Who knows what's next?

Something's coming. I'm a totally open person.

I think I'm like the bookshop. Brazenhead c'est moi.

Man: When I was a kid, I thought I was a nobody.

I thought I was a reject.

I thought I didn't belong in this world.

And when I became an exótico wrestler, it's like, Wow, I'm home.

And then I start getting on my make-up, and ooh, I feel so pretty, so feminine, and my feminine side comes out.

I love the female part of me.

I love to shine.

That's why they call me the Liberace of lucha libre.

But once those doors open and they say "And now Cassandro, hen my man side comes out because I got to be a man in the ring.

I am an exótico luchador from Mexico, and I've been wrestling for 27 years.

An exótico is a flamboyant wrestler.

In our Mexican culture, lucha libre is the second biggest sport after soccer.

It's like a religion in Mexico.

It's the evil versus the good, the angels versus the devils.

Even if I'm getting b*at up, I love it.

You can be free and spread your wings and fly as... as high as you want.

Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh.

(speaking Spanish)

I can do red, or I can do white.

This is the man that makes me look good.

This is some of the stuff that he has made.

It's all about the bling-bling.

I thought I was too gay to use pink, but then he made me this one, and I was like "Yay." I love pink now.

Tú hiciste?

Do you know where I get my ideas from? Figure skating.

Way back in the day, exóticos couldn't come out, but they would play like the clowns of the circus.

(audience laughing)

And when I started wrestling, I said, "I don't want to be an exótico or nothing like that."

So I was Mr. Romano, one of the bad guys.

Once they put the mask on, it was like nobody knows me.

So it gave me a lot of, like, grr, power, man, like grr.

I didn't want people to know that I was a gay guy, but people started noticing and calling me names...

q*eer, gay, f*gg*t...

And I was like, "How can you tell?"

How can you tell?

Ooh la la.

And then the big opportunity came.

The big company in Ciudad Juárez needed an exótico, and they all went like...

I was like, "Don't look at me."

That was my coming out date.

And I went all out, for I decided if I'm going to make this a transition, I'm going to make it the whole 9 yards.

So now that's what attracts people. "What is he going to wear?"

There's a lot of really good exóticos out there, but what I've developed along my 27 years is to show the exóticos with respect and dignity.

So once I get in the ring, it's I want to show people why I'm in the ring.

It's because I'm a true wrestler.

But lucha libre is about getting hurt.

I've bought my teeth three times.

They've been like...

With chairs or kicks.

I have how many stitches up in my forehead? I don't know.

Lucha libre in Mexico is crazy.

What we do to our bodies is very damaging.

My first injury, I was paralyze 5 days from the waist down.

I twisted... I folded almost in half.

I've been hospitalized eight times for head concussions.

The doctors are like, "Why do you do all these crazy balcony jumps and crazy flights?" And I'm an adrenaline junkie.

But now, at 45 years old... my body is... is really broken.

I Have...

Had to make peace with the pain.

I teach a lot of newbies and professionals.

Heh ha!

A lot of them call me Mama Lucha.

This is where the stars are born, in this ring, and we play around, too, because it's not all about grr.

It's fun.

In my household, at the age of 6, the sexual abuse started.

And it was like, "Shut up. You don't say nothing.

I'll kick your butt. I'll... Your parents are not going to believe you."

I had three abusers by the age of 16.

At the age of 17, I met this man.

We go to his house. We eat pizza and stuff.

And then something happened. And I was put to sleep.

And when I woke up, two men were on top of me.

And that was the last time I was going to get abused.

I was this bitter, angry youngster, and I saw human beings as objects.

All my rage, all my resentment, I would take it out on everybody.

Wrestling has been one of my best medications because it's so aggressive. It's so macho.

It just helped me to get that courage out that I never thought I could have.

I thought I was this weak little gay guy that came with his shoulders like this.

And in lucha libre you've got to stand tall.

Oh, my gosh.

I just cut my hair yesterday, and I so regret it.

I have it, like, fluffy like Farrah Fawcett style.

And now I shaved it, and I cut it last night, and I'm like, "What did I do to my hair?"

My mom, she was very glamorous.

Time to do my nails.

She'd do her make-up every day.

She wore her sunglasses.

And she used to dress beautifully.

And... And... And that's where I got the...

My mom gave me that unconditional love.

Regardless of how I was living, she could relate to a lot of my story.

She went through a lot.

She was b*at up by my father, who was very abusive and alcoholic, and I saw her bleed a lot.

And life for me... And I saw it for her...

It was like we fall down, but then we get up, and then we fall down, and we get up.

But she wouldn't let me hit my bottom.

She was my rock.

When Mom started getting sick, it was very heartbreaking.

It's been a while, and it's still like yesterday.

When she passed away, that was the saddest day of my life.

I went into the deep, deep black hole.

I knew that, um...

(sniffle) that I needed to get strength or something because... she was not here to save me no more.

It went ugly, and I used hardcore dr*gs to numb my feelings.

It was all about that little kid... in my head, man.

You're a reject. You don't deserve to be alive.

You're nobody. You're never going to accomplish nothing.

The puto, the sissy, the q*eer.

At 21, I was coming up for the world title.

So we went out.

I got... pff... crazy drunk and high, and when we went home, I started cutting my wrists.

I started cutting my wrists on both arms.

My other exótico friend found me there, and... it was a week away from the championship match.

It was January 28, 1991.

I went through hell and back for that match.

And I lost the world title.

But I won it in 1992.

It was like the phoenix rises one more time.

And I started like, "All right, you're good."

(laughing)

My father and my relationship started getting better.

I came to the realization that I had to forgive him.

There's a lot of people that tell me "How can you do that?"

It hurts. I don't forget.

But it's part of my past.

(speaking Spanish)

Where I'm wrestling today is a place where I took my first lucha libre lesson, and it's the place where Cassandro was born.

So it's like something big. It's like a full circle.

Hola, Cassandro.

I've wrestled many places, but there's always, like, nothing like home.

There's nothing like home.

Gracias.

Now in lucha libre, they're like, "Hey, Cassandro!"

That was not normal for me because if you kissed me, you wanted something from me.

I see men different today now.

All my wrestler friends, they gave me the courage that I could do this and that I belong in this world.

You know, coming from that little kid, that more shy and being abused, to being somebody in the ring...

It's like I do a catwalk, and I'm like, "Look at me now.

Look at me now." And once you do that catwalk, it's like...

And that's the beautiful part of it because, when I'm wrestling, I'll tell myself "I'll take care of you, little kid.

Nobody's going to hurt us. Nobody's going to abuse us.

We're good now. We're free."

Announcer: Ca-ssandro!

And then I get to shine.

Gloria Gaynor: ♪ I, I will survive ♪
♪ Oh, as long as I know how to love ♪
♪ I know I'll feel alive ♪

Cassandro! Cassandro!

♪ ...I've got all my love to give ♪
♪ I'll survive ♪
♪ I will survive ♪
♪ Hey-hey ♪

I'm in my fifth decade of life, but I have only just learned how to drive.

And despite having been anti-car and ostentatiously pro-bike for all those years, I have to admit that I love being in the driver's seat.

The rush of freedom and possibility, and sense of autonomy is overwhelming.

You get in, and you go.

This, in turn, made me realize what I had only intuited before...

That g*ns, for many Americans, are a sort of secondary symbolic car.

Another powerful symbol of autonomy and independence.

The attachment to them that so many Americans show, unique among the civilized peoples of the world, and at a cost so grave that the rest of that world often turns away appalled, is nonetheless understandable to anyone who comes late to driving.

To have potentially lethal power within your grasp is an immensely empowering drug.

But cars are not, or not only, symbols of autonomy.

They are in every sense vehicles of it.

g*ns, however, have an almost entirely symbolic function.

No lives are saved, and no intruders are repelled.

The dense and hysterical mythology of g*n buff has been refuted again and again.

The few useful social functions that g*ns do have in hunting or in k*lling varmints, as a country man, like my father, has to, can be preserved even with tight regulations, as in Canada, yet meaningful restrictions on g*ns seem beyond our grasp.

The NRA assures us anew, after each m*ssacre in school, theater, or office, any limit would curb only our freedom, not the senseless k*lling.

If you limit the American public's access to semi-a*t*matic technology, you limit their ability to survive.

Imagine we lived in a city where children are dying of a ravaging infection.

The good news is that its cause is well understood and its cure, an antibiotic, easily at hand.

(police radio chatter)

The bad news is that our city council has been taken over by a faith healing cult that believes the infections come from evil and will go to any lengths to keep the antibiotics from the kids.

We will filibuster any legislation.

We do live in such a city.

More than 2,500 children and teens die annually from g*n v*olence in the United States.

The overwhelming majority of those children would be saved with effective g*n control.

We know this is so... (siren blares ecause in societies that have effective g*n control, like Scotland, Australia, and Canada, children almost never die of g*nshots.

Let's worry tomorrow about the problem of evil.

Let's worry more about making sure that when evil appears in a first grade classroom it is armed with a penknife instead of a semi-a*t*matic w*apon.

To make that happen may be hard, but there's no doubt or ambiguity about what needs to be done, nor that, if it is done, it will work.

One would have to believe that Americans are somehow uniquely evil or depraved to think that the same medicine that works on the rest of the planet won't work here.

Making cars safe was difficult.

So was limiting and then effectively banning cigarettes from public places.

At some point, we will become a g*n-safe and then finally a g*n-sane society.

It's closer than you think.