With this retablo, I thank the Virgin of the Charity who helped me to collect some money for the maracas without which I couldn’t have worked in the “Windmill” cabaret in Tijuana.

I thank Saint Margaret because I could finally wear my beautiful yellow bathing cap, and Trevor liked it a lot.

Thanks to Saint Jude I found a wonderful cream that I can smuggle from Mexico that cured the horrible seborrheic dermatitis on my face and scalp. I don’t have to worry now about these unsightly and embarrassing flares that kept men away from me. Thank you.

I thank the Lord for finding an inexpensive suit that fits me like a glove and looks tailor made, at the thrift store last Wednesday.

I thank the Virgin of Sorrows, because since I have been appointed the Cardinal of Puebla, the children that I visit in the hospital don’t cry like crazy anymore when they see me coming to give them the blessing.

I pray to my sweet Jesus to help me fulfill my dream of triumphing as a bullfighter an NYC’s Carnegie Hall.

I thank Saint Ignatius of Loyola who helped me to acquire a new fumigator to kill all those damned beetles eating my entire harvest of candle tree fruits.

Aguascalientes, May 1972

I thank the Virgin Mary because, after being abducted for three years, the aliens brought me back home and I made a lot of good friends in outer space.

I thank Saint Liberata. When I was performing at the Plaza in Tabasco, the bull Fanfarron got me badly. But I was lucky—I got only one leg amputated and one eye removed. I’m recovering quite quickly so I could back to bullfighting as soon as possible.

I dedicate this retablo to the Christ of the Cross for my family hasn’t yet found out that I’d been fired from my job in the Bank of Fomento because of a theft of quite a lot of thousands pesos. Now we are passing our time watching the super 8 mm films and remembering much happier times when we didn’t lack anything.

Pioquinto Martinez had a very strong pain in the intestines. He spent 12 days in bed. He could eat, he couldn’t sleep, and no remedy would help him. He prayed to the image of the Holy Virgin of Anxieties, and she miraculously gave him back appetite and sleep.

I thank the Virgin of Immaculate Conception because thanks to her I could practice a Wurlitzer piano at our parish and a piece I composed was chosen among 250 girls for the musical background of the radio commercial of a famous detergent.

I thank Neil Armstrong because when he was walking on the Moon I was performing my unusual jaw-balancing act in the Arizona desert.