Dept. of Hoopla Having One for Che by Lizzie Widdicombe
The fortieth anniversary of Che Guevara's death went by quietly last week unless you count a party at the Brecht Forum, in the West Village, where skirmish erupted between the organizers over mojito pricing. Colin Robinson, Brecht Forum board member and an editor at Scribner, found himself on th losing side of a philosophical rift. "I told them, 'When we sell the drinks, let' sell them at decent prices, so we break even,' " said Robinson, who, in 1995 published Che Guevara's "Motorcycle Diaries" and will publish Fidel Castro' dictated autobiography this December. "They said, 'But people can't affor decent prices!' So we ended up just giving away the mojitos for free and askin for donations.
The party—billed on the invitation as "The political event of the season! An evening of art, music, film, and revolution!"—was meant to attract a more age-diverse crowd than the typical weeknight at the Brecht Forum (upcoming: New Strategies for Today's Labor). "I think the spirit of young people connects to Che," Robinson said. "Even if it's just an image on a T-shirt." Guests ate cheese cubes and browsed among tchotchkes for sale. "These shirts are one-of-a-kind right now," said a representative from a political prisoners' group, pointing to a line of clothing called Panther S'port—athletic jerseys imprinted with the names of imprisoned Black Panthers ("Bobby Seale 66"). He thumbed through the Che offerings: a seventy-five-dollar sweatshirt with a Chanel-like interlocking "C" and "G," a Che polo shirt, and a thirty-five-dollar T-shirt that tweaked the Starbucks logo: "Careful, Che's message you're about to enjoy is extremely hot!" "The idea is to put more marketable things out there—things that people recognize—and to politicize them," he said.
A group from the newly revived Students for a Democratic Society was outside, smoking. "They have a lot of stuff that seems pretty nice," one said. "We go to everyone's events and they come to all of ours. Our organization's not hierarchical." He'd passed on the merchandise. "I already own a Che shirt."
At seven-thirty, the partygoers gathered in an auditorium to hear from the new guard of Che admirers, including Chesa Boudin, the twenty-seven-year-old son of Kathy Boudin, who was jailed after serving as an accomplice in the 1981 Brink's robbery. Boudin, a Rhodes scholar, author, and political consultant, had a neat, buzzed haircut and wore a pink lattice-patterned shirt and gray pants. He said that he had to make a 6:30 A.M. flight to Caracas ("I was in twenty-six countries last year"), and he spoke to the crowd about Che's legacy: "Most of us don't remember when he was killed. But all of us have seen Che Guevara T-shirts." Soon, the floor passed to Tariq Ali, the sixty-four-year-old Pakistani writer and activist, who spoke about a trip he made to Bolivia during the week that Che died there; he had been sent to find the French philosopher Régis Debray, who had been arrested and tortured by the Bolivian government for working with Che.
"One day, some troops picked me up and said, 'The general said you should show us your watch,' " Ali recalled. "They looked at the watch, and they arrested me and locked me up in a room. I said, 'What's going on?' And they said, 'Your watch was recognized. You're Che Guevara's bodyguard and your name is Pombo.' I said, 'How do you explain that I don't speak Spanish?' And one of them who spoke English said, 'I know you do speak Spanish.' " The crowd laughed. "I was young and foolhardy. I said, 'Look, I'll do a deal. If you torture me all night and as a result of your torture I speak Spanish, I'll be grateful to you for the rest of my life!' That really had them thinking." After a moment, he added, "Just so people won't forget: Che was not a very sentimental guy. He was a hardheaded revolutionary who killed when he had to kill."
An after-party was held up the street at Socialista, the Havana- inspired lounge whose investors include Harvey Weinstein and Sting. Drinks were provided by Christiania vodka—"ironically, the name of an anarchist encampment in Copenhagen," said Doug Henwood, the editor of the Left Business Observer, sipping a vodka-and-soda. Word got out among the club's patrons that they were part of a Che Guevara party. "Great," Malcolm Harris, a clothing designer and a former stylist for Madonna, said, as he ate dinner with several friends. "Great movie. Great T-shirt." Harris was wearing a T-shirt with a silk-screened image of Kate Moss on the front. He looked down at Moss's face. "This is the shirt for me," he said. "I don't know. Maybe she's our revolutionary."