Director's Statement on Rockets Redglare!

Why make this film? Well I actually didn't think it was going to be a film like one you see in a theater with the name on the marquee and they sell 5 dollar buckets of popcorn, I thought it was a way to show my friend Rockets how many people loved him, how many people were willing to help him help himself . He used to come into a bar I worked at and spend my 12 hour shift with me at the end of the bar wisecracking and drinking for free. He was always quick with the comebacks and after 25 or 30 pint sized vodka and sodas thats not a small task. But sometimes the booze would take its toll usually after last call and one night his mask came off and he revealed to me some of why he was killing himself slowly and his tears flowed like rain and I decided that his story needed to be told. Many people told me he was a liar, amongst other things, but who hasn´t lied and stolen in their lives. I stole a lot of money from my litany of shit jobs throughout my life, so perhaps I was in good company. I spoke with Steve Buscemi about making the film and he agreed it was a good idea but warned me that it was probably gonna be the hardest thing I would ever try to do, well he was right, it was an understatement. Rockets was the most consumptive person I have ever met by far, he was attempting to fill a huge hole in his heart. He needed so much and took but not completely without apology, the last time I saw him aching and near death in his hospital bed he asked me as he had a hundreds of times before, "Luis could you....?" I just wanted to get away clean, without a favor just once..."get me a orange soda?" I said "come on man let me go just once I will be back" He said, "come on you would do it for Brando" That was pure Rockets, he could disarm you with humor quicker than Bruce Lee with a kick. I laughed, "No, I wouldn't do it for Brando but I will do it for you" In retrospect I think he knew he wouldn't make it and wanted to hang just a little while longer, I remember leaving and feeling like this was it he was gonna leave but I was incapable of accepting it, I called Steve later that day and he reminded me of the countless times Rockets had cheated death and I think we both needed to believe he would do it again. He went into intensive care, I was told by the calloused resident quack that he was gonna be OK and he was just there for observation, I asked them to please call me if anything got serious. Later I got a feeling and called the hospital and they said, "Oh? he passed away this morning, no one called you?"

 

Letter to The Minutemen

What seems to be the problem is the continuing failure of the American goverment to protect its own citizens, the Republicians and Democrats both are refusing to secure the border for what? Both parties are in a struggle to win the hearts and minds and VOTES of a rapidly growing Hispanic community. My government failed to protect me on the morning of Sept 11 2001, I emphasize government because both parties are guilty of putting their checkwriters before the will and needs of their people. Liberals can permit the mass murder of children in Waco Texas, send Elian Gonzalez back to a Cuban hellhole. (unless you have been there please believe me) Republicians see fit to spend like President Johnson and trample our civil liberties. My family came to the USA from Mexico, legally, and we have given much to this country. My grandfather was a Captain in the Merchant Marines and my Uncle was a highly decorated soldier in the Korean War. My father served in the Air Force during the same conflict.  After 911, I decided, as you have regarding the border, that the goverment has become unwilling or incapable of protecting our lives. If I was going to sneak into America in an attempt to commit a terroist act the Mexican border would be the easiest way. If the migrant labor force is truly needed, thats fine, legal entry is good for all involved, taxes are paid and fair wages are earned by all, a virtually open border fuels corruption on both sides of the border, I have been living here in Mexico for several years now, after 911 I wanted to leave New York City and I could not afford anything due to the skyrocketing price of real estate. I was attracted to the cheap homes in Mexico and I thought I might try a new life there. I quickly learned Mexico is one of the most bribe-fueled corrupt class-controlled illusions of democracy that the western world has to offer. The corruption reaches all levels as I learned when one of the police officers that came to my house here in México to ask for a bribe after I was robbed. Not what I was expecting, I figured the bribe pitch would follow the typical,"Where did they break in, who do you think could have done it? What did they steal?” line of questioning. This example aside,(I wont go into the locations of the numerous drug trafficing airports or the fact that Bill Clinton had anti-drug summit to talk about the drug war at the house of a known drug trafficker, what irony. I was told by the mother of a young man who was studying to enter a government subsidized school that, "Regardless of how he does on the entrance exam we don’t know anyone in the office, nor do we have the money to bribe them". Being stopped for a minor traffic violation or having a conversation with your girlfriend in your own vehicle (completely clothed, thank you) can result in fines, the police simply threaten to put your girl in the police car and drive her home with the lights and sirens on. They use the "catholic guilt culture" to the extreme in this case. What Mexican family wouldn’t pay 500 pesos not to have their daughter brought home in a squad car? (or what boyfriend wouldn’t pay the 500 pesos to have them leave you alone. When you fill up your car at Pemex you may pay for 10 liters and get 7 or 8 cause the pumps been rigged to dispense less than you pay for, once I even got some watery sludge and had to pay to have my filter changed and my injectors cleaned. Isolated incidents? NO. Corruption in this most Catholic of societies is as commonplace as seagulls over trash barges.  It exists from the bottom to the top although the top here reaps the lions share of selectively enforced laws weather they be criminal, environmental or labor. Those who understand there is no way up leave, as it is the best option to circumnavigate the blockades of classism and racism pervasive here. This option needs to be eliminated, the option of paying a coyote 2000 dollars to exit this nightmare needs to end. Why? Because the political establishment in Mexico has no real interest in reforming this society based on nepotism and class and skin color as long as the desperate have the option to flee instead of opting to fight for their rights. The upper and middle class have no interest of giving up their servants for 5 dollars a day or paying a living wage to the underclass of millions, much less educating them or providing health care when the option of having the US do it for them exists. In addition, the economic support Mexico receives with the illegal income sent back to Mexico is enormous.  We are in effect, by allowing those disillusioned with their country to enter ours, giving the entrenched powers of the elite in Mexico a free ticket to excess while others continue to subsist on "Cup o Noodles" and tortillas. When Capitalism is a private club in which only the privileged and connected are allowed entry do not be surprised when shifts to Socialism in Latin America become more common. Permitting the poor to leave Mexico only propagates the corrupt status quo, eliminate this option for the future of Mexico is at stake.

I would like to comment on President Fox's statement regarding what jobs Blacks or Mexicans will or will not do, take a look at your country Mr. President Fox and question what jobs you were willing to do or not do. Minutemen, you will be helping Mexico in the long run, there will be some who may try to peg you as racists and I cannot be in each and every individual heart to judge that, the illegals are breaking the law, and as they are returned tell them to ask their own politicians, why can´t you offer me a future in the land of my birth.
 
Luis Fernandez de la Reguera

 

An Open Letter to Michael Moore

Mr. Moore, why at this juncture of suffering in my hometown of New Orleans, do you choose to use it to further your agenda? Yes, you have one and are no better than President Bush, (whom I do not support) In fact, you are pimping deaths to further your agenda as did Bush after 911, why are you not bothering to mention that the political leadership in New Orleans knew that this tragedy was a probability for YEARS and chose to ignore it? The budget cuts of Bush have nothing to do with this. Inept leadership in Louisiana is to blame, as with your film F-911 (in which you omit Israel from the discussion, completely) you select your targets to fit a dismal liberal elitisism that has pushed our country to the Right. You are as much of the problem as you ignore facts to feed your bias. ie Oliver Stone's JFK. When you play republican and democrat you play in to the same hands that keep us in the state of fear you mentioned in the film. You quote Orwell, but fail to realize that you are part of the "controlled conflict" that keeps america divided and conquered. Nice try Mr. Moore but you are still a slave to your agenda. America saw your film and re-elected Bush, You failed, try the truth, it might set you free.

 

email to Bill

I dont know where this email is going but I know that I do have something to say to you after that phone call,  its hard to excell when people like us have to create our own career as well as say and do unsavory things in the process,  if I hadn´t had the luck of pimping the fear of the church against them I would be at my own Super 8 somewhere as well, I know you need to excell at something all the ingredients are there, listen man ,  no more talk of my money and your money and money, whats the difference if I am hanging out in a house that I paid for with a friend or without one, the alcohol isnt the enemy, its that fucking job, its that fucking environment, its that fucking caged awareness, its that rage without outlet, it the reality of how little we have progressed as a species as compared to something as stupid as a car, we are idiots we go to the moon and destroy the planet at the same time, we talk of the Genome Project and the possibility of living forever while girls die from poorly preformed ilegal abortions having read only the bible and watched soap operas their short dismal life.  Cars now have GPS and we still traffic in children as sex slaves. When the people who load up on bottled water and bleach at the supermarket can no longer eat sushi from polluted water connect the fucking dots it will be too late. They will cry in the inferno scream of the book of revelations and wag their ignorant pierced tongues and cry for god and throw salt over their shoulder. I dont know what I am supposed to say or if it even is worth it,   Should I get my little ranch as far as I can get from the desolation we have created as an aimless mad species of the most lowbrow and superficial kind? In 20 years I will be 60 and it will matter even less then, The rebellion tube is inserted with MTV grease in the ass and minds of the kids glued to their computers mainlining their Ipods and listening to the Punk bands masquerading as rebels while selling shoes for Vans on the "Warped Tour". I cannot escape the vacancy of the hopeless, the praying to anything they can fabricate. Give them anything to pray to, they have never been taught to stand on their feet and live more comfortably on their knees, the girls that marry well make fun of the whores, the whores make fun of the husbands of the girls who marry well. The husbands of the girls who marry well pay the whores who fuck better than the girl they married. I would have much rather had had it different, had a different brain as well, I owe it to trauma, trauma opened my eyes. Trauma showed me the lie, broke my ribs broke my heart and nose, I owe it all to the savagery of our species, my desire to hold up the mirror to the ugly stinking whores that we call models. Gentlemen of the Jury, I guarantee to you that Paris Hilton is a very average cocksucker, in spite of all the press she simply cannot preform, its a lie. The hate is a very heavy load I know I carry it and I am looking for a way to  use this fire to melt scrap iron into guns, confusion into understanding and some sort of peace, for me at least, the rest of the world is and is not my responsibility at the same time. 
 
ok I will stop, (for now)
 
Luis