Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
During the period he was down there, President Nixon made a deal with
the Mexican prisons that said, “If these Americans do try to smuggle drugs out,
they're yours. Screw with them as you will.”
Matz was in there for something like four or six years. And he felt
lucky!
There were people who had been in there much longer.
JERRY POYNTON
Marty always liked President Carter because Carter had gotten him out of the
Mexican prison. It was a prisoner exchange between Mexico and America.
JAMES RASIN
OnceMartyandBarbarawentbacktoChiangMai,Thailand,andtheycookedup
thisschemewheretheyboughtupabunchofBurmeselacqueredboxes,Burmese
puppets, etc. I remember he was waiting so expectantly for his shipment of
Burmese goodies. It finally arrived, and he took a machete—he was all screwed
uponsomething—andhestartedslashingthroughthepaperandthetape.Hehad
this beautiful, big lacquer box that held a scroll, and he scratched the thing right
downthefront.Hewassooutofhismind—hiseyeswouldbulgeoutandhe'dbe
frothing at the mouth. He was so exuberant! And they brought all these beetles
andspiderswiththem.Sothentheyhadallthisstuffintheirroom,andtheywere
going to try to sell it. It was another one of Marty's schemes, just like his opi-
um disaster. I think they ended up selling a few pieces, but I don't know what
happened to all that stuff.
Marty was notorious for having smuggling schemes collapse. He always
said, “I have the best bad timing. I always leave the scene right about when
everything's about to take off.”
Toward the end of his life, around 2001, Marty wanted to kill himself at the
Chelsea Hotel. He was very sick, and he did not tolerate pain well. He had heart
problems, and apparently leukemia. He just abused his body, and there were all
kinds of things going wrong. So he went to the doctor, and had been to the VA
Hospital. Hecouldn'tstandbeinginthehospital, couldn'tstandbeingpokedand
tested and needled. So he just checked himself out. That began this long journey
from place to place, while he was sick. In all that pain, he was not happy. I tried
to take him down to the hospital—he had been staying at lawyer Bobby Yarra's
apartment down on Grand Street—and get him to check himself in. But within a
half an hour waiting in the emergency room, he said “Screw this, man. I can't do
this.”
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