Chicago Improv Scene Supporter's Suicide

A man who set himself on fire off a Chicago expressway exit during Friday rush hour has been ID'd as Malachi Ritscher, and much of his motivation has been attributed to the fact he was deeply disturbed by the Iraq War and the government's overall foreign policies. Ritscher, who was in his 50's, was an avid supporter of Chicago's free music scene, ran this website and documented many live gigs around town through the years. He also played music off and on, including activity in Santiago Durango's post-Big Black outfit Arsenal. His suicide note was posted here, and according to Peter Margasak, he sent his belongings and instructions ahead to Bruno Johnson, head of the local improv label Okka Disk. From his final webpost:

The upcoming elections are not a solution - our two party system is a failure of democracy. Our government has lost its way since our founders tried to build a structure which allowed people to practice their own beliefs, as far as it did not negatively affect others. In this regard, the separation of church and state needs to be reviewed. This is a large part of the way that the world has gone wrong, the endless defining and dividing of things, micro-sub-categorization, sectarianism. The direction we need is a process of unification, integrating all people into a world body, respecting each individual. Business and industry have more power than ever before, and individuals have less. Clearly, the function of government is to protect the individual, from hardship and disease, from zealots, from the exploitation, from monopoly, even from itself. Our leaders are not wise persons with integrity and vision - they are actors reading from teleprompters, whose highest goal is to stir up the mob. Our country slaughters Arabs, abandons New Orleaneans, and ignores the dieing environment. Our economy is a house of cards, as hollow and fragile as our reputation around the world. We as a nation face the abyss of our own design.

Comments

[jamillah james]

Brian, thanks for posting this here, as the news is not being spread widely outside of Chicago. I knew Malachi when I lived in Chicago through my work with DIY spaces, and this loss is tremendous and profoundly disturbing.

[Woody]

Thanks for posting this Brian... I actually just ran into Malachi in NYC a few weeks ago at the Brotzmann/Bennink show (of course with his recording gear in tow).

Lots of folks are posting rememberances of Malachi on Peter Margasak's blog (that is linked above) as well as the Chi-improv list

[steve]

I think that this man's noble gesture is worthy of nothing less than a pithy blog comment!