CRISTÓVÃO LOURENÇO JERÔNIMO ANÍBAL MATTHÄUS was born in the Belgian Congo to a German ex-patriot father and a renowned Portuguese ballroom dancer mother, during times of insurrection and revolt. His father, a professional solider was killed in an ambush during the Katanga Province Riots, and his mother, accused of being a spy because of the political alliances she kept, went missing (believed to be executed in the following weeks of bloodshed.) Matthäus was sent to live with his maternal grandfather who ran an old palace movie theater in the Azores. It was there that he changed his name to “Dan Madigan” after the late great Richard Widmark’s character in the movie of the same name “Madigan”, which was his grandfather Sebastiano’s favorite film. (Actually the only English speaking movie in the film library) He liked the way the name “Madigan” sounded and made him “more American”. It was also in the Azores that he had his first introduction to the world of art, which he found in the dark and disturbing painting of martyred saints that adorned the desolate churches of the islands. It was also in the large and unkempt attic of the theater were “Madigan” first experimented with the art of collage by cutting up hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of now-rare European movie posters from the 30s and 40s’and plastering them all over the decaying building. (Now, those posters are worth thousands and thousands of dollars Madigan regretfully remembers).

At fourteen he left to see the world but didn’t get very far. He made his way to Spain where he boxed along the coast to earn enough money to travel, his pugilistic endeavors got him as far as North Africa, where he spent some time in Morocco learning the French fighting form of Bâton Français (French Stick Fighting) which didn’t do him any good after he was shot in the leg by a jealous and well-armed husband during an “amorous altercation” gone bad. Not wanting to hang around Morocco any longer and run into the angered cuckold spouse or his aim, Madigan took off before he was fully healed and left for Algeria where he almost caught gangrene from the bullet wound infection. While searching for the original manuscripts of the infamous British Occultist Aleister Crowley, Madigan passed out at the Bibliothèque nationale d'Algérie due to blood loss and was nursed back to health by the one of the librarians who was a priestess in the Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of the Temple of the East), the very same secretive organization Crowley founded in the beginning of the 20th century.  She taught him Algerian Mysticism and introduced him to the ancient Egyptian funerary works of Ankh-af-na-khonsu and opened him up to the Tantric art of “Maithuna”. After regaining his strength his strong wanderlust grabbed hold again and he went to sea on the German freighter “Das Totenschiff as a coal stoker, a job described by B. Traven as “living hell on water.”

After several years sailing the waterways of the world. Madigan found himself as a “Hawsepiper” on the ill-fated Peruvian cargo ship the “Belphegor”. Off the Strait of Magellan one night Madigan declares that Fate saved him, when he went topside to smoke a Cuban cigar, which he received for winning the crew’s annual arm wrestling competition. No sooner had he lit his prize than an explosion ripped through the engine room (the same place he had won the competition twenty minutes earlier). Madigan along with only a handful of his crewmates were able to get overboard before the ship sank.

 

Making their way to Tierra del Fugeo on a raft made up of floating debris, the survivors were picked up by the Japanese trawler “Matango”. Having lost everything at sea Madigan found himself without papers, identification or a passport. He decided that he would stay on dry land for a while. Through a “shady” acquaintance Madigan met up with a forger of considerable reputation in various nefarious circles and he managed to have a fake passport made, at the cost of fifty American dollars and the solid gold crucifix which was his mother’s which he wore around his neck the night the ship sank. (Losing that crucifix one act he truly regrets in his life).  It was there in the southern most part of South America that CRISTÓVÃO LOURENÇO JERÔNIMO ANÍBAL MATTHÄUS was formerly laid to rest and Dan Madigan was officially born. Madigan also renounced his Congolese citizenship, always blaming that country for the “murder” of his parents and with that forgoing any claim to his parent’s properties, titles or monies.

With a new identity and the papers to match, Madigan set out traveling north up the coast where he landed a the role of the strongman “Bollo el Fuerte” (Bollo the Strong) in the notorious “Los Hermanos Oscuros’ Circo de la Sangre y de los Rasgones” (The Dark Brothers’ Circus of Blood and Tears). Besides bending horseshoes and steel rods, Madigan (now Bollo) was painting the macabre banners that decorated the carnival mid-way. His unique and untrained talent for grotesque imagery led him to become popular underground celebrity in the “outlawed” art scene of the time. The strongman job lasted for two years until once again an “extra-marital entanglement” with the tattooed/fire-eating wife of the circus knife-thrower left Madigan with a nine-inch scar down his back and a bad taste for married women.

In a surreal encounter, Madigan found himself sleeping off a “two week bender” and spending a night in a Rio de Janeiro jail, where in the cell next to his filled with “streetwalkers” Madigan found a familiar face smiling back at him. Trying to place the extremely attractive woman it hit Madigan like a “lighting bolt”. She was one of his male crewmates that had escaped the sinking ship years earlier, transforming herself from an effeminate cabin boy to sultry lady of the evening and calling herself “Magdalena”. Her pimp bailed out Madigan and Magdalena got him a job as the doorman (bouncer) in the infamous “Preto Couro Convent Da Senhora Veludo” (Madam Velvet's Black Leather Convent) a notorious bordello catering to “the eclectic taste of an eccentric clientele”. This is were Madigan started painting murals in his spare by depicting “Dante’s Inferno” on the walls and ceilings throughout the entire sex-themed establishment. He worked his way up from doorman to running the entire business within a year but once again it was a jilted lover with a can of gasoline and a book of matches (not gunning for Madigan this time) that caused him to be on the move again. With his friend Magdalena lost in the fire, his place of employment burned to the ground, his murals nothing but ashes and nothing to show but second-degree burns on his body he set out North again and found himself in Mexico City.

 

It was here were Madigan fell in love not once but twice, with the world of lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) and with the murals of Mexican artists David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco. In the lucha ring Madigan donned a mask to become an “enmascarado” where he unleashed the evil persona Baron von Lüstmørd (and on occasions wrestling under the nom de guerra Baroñ Vón Bava). Teaming up with El Ángel Rojo (The Red Angel) they became a fearsome team known as “Los Hijos del Infierno”. At the same time Madigan (Lüstmørd) started painting murals in the dangerous barrios of the city. His urban depictions of a man-made Hell help exemplify his already fiendish in-ring personality. Eventually tag team partners turned to bitter rivals and Madigan (Lüstmørd) and Ángel engaged in a brutal “máscara contra mascara” match (Mask versus Mask match) called “Mala Sangre” (Bad Blood) were the loser is unmasked. Whether it was Fate once again showing up or bad luck turned sour, a tragedy occurred in the ring between the two combatants. After a fifty minute brutal blood bath, Madigan’s (Lüstmørd) hated but respected opponent El Ángel Rojo was rushed to the hospital were he lapsed into a coma of which he never recovered and Madigan (Lüstmørd) left the ring broken-hearted and with sixty three stitches across his head and the flames of his artistic passions and grappling skills were extinguished with the lose of his former comrade.  Not wanting to face a manslaughter charge Madigan (Lüstmørd) hung up his trademark blue mask and left the world of lucha and his love for painting behind and once again head North.

In the years since his tragic encounter in the ring Madigan has slowly started to rekindle his passion for creating and has once again started develop works of art.

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