John’s Big Head Eccentric Outsider Art Blog

Musing on Morphine
by John D’Agostino, Eccentric Outsider Artist, aka John Dog
Hostipal Bed, USA

I woke up today around 7:30 am.  First time that I slept through the morning call to prayer in a long time.  I wouldn’t be missed at the cami, the reason being that I never go being the good atheist that I am.  It’s quarter to nine and I’ve had my breakfast of beans, eggs, and toast.  I washed this back with a mug of Russian coffee with a bit of hazelnut cream in it.  I did what I had to in the bathroom. Squeezed the pimple that appeared on my nose over night then stood on the balcony to see who has up and about this bright Manavgat morning.

Two things have been running through my head in the last 24 hours plaguing my waking hours and my sleep.  The first being, what would I sing at karaoke tonight and the second of no less importance have been ponderings about the recent wave of bombings in Turkey.  But, before I go to karaoke tonight I ought to finish the sculpture that I am working on.  It’s a little piece, the figure of a man made from found objects; a block of wood, pieces of a worn out mop handle, an old paint brush, a  bolt, and a few other bits of this and that.  It’s painted red, white, and blue.  The bolt protrudes disproportionately large from the lower torso and is painted purple, something resembling a whopper of a throbbing erection. I need to find a small cylinder to add to the sculpture.  I’ll paint it to look like an oil drum.  Someplace on the base of the piece I’ll scribble the title, "Bush got a Purple Knob".

Mick Jaeger asks three questions in his song, "Sister Morphine". One is, "How long have I been lying here?", then "What am I doing in this place?" and the other, "Why does the doctor have no face?"  I’ve been practicing the words to this song although it is not on the karaoke playlist.  They have "Honky Tonk Woman", maybe I’ll do that.

I think of "the scream of the ambulance sounding in my ears."  I think of the bombings this week and one that happened about two months ago in the town where I live.  I was there at the waterfall and saw it, out for a small Sunday picnic with an international assortment of friends. I saw the explosion.  I saw the blood.  I saw a child laid out on the concrete.  There was a large woman in white.  She lay there not moving as someone beat on her chest, gave her mouth to mouth, and her dress just became more and more red.  I felt sick to my stomach, others did too. Luckily we were across the narrow river and none of us where hurt. There would be no bar-b-que today.  I was driving so I made the decision to pack it in and head home.  We all got pretty drunk that night.  It was no gas canister as reported by the press.

Although, I am an atheist, I am no nihilist.  I have Buddhist tendencies and am warm to the lovey-dovey aspects of Christianity. "Why does the doctor have no face?", "How long have I been lying here?" I wonder which of these is the more important question.  The first question confronts issues of reality and illusion. The second is temporal and physical, it searches for information on a present state of being in time and space.  There was no gas canister, there were no weapons of mass destruction, the Chinese will soon take over the world. The press, television perpetuates the hallucinations that the powers at be desire us to believe.  "Well, it just goes to show that things are not what they seem."

Religion, nationalism, political idealism has not brought peace even in this modern "enlightened" world.  Maybe one should give nihilism a closer examination. Ethical nihilism, the rejection of customary beliefs, morality, and religion, if practiced could take fuel from the fires of those inciting terrorism be it, fanaticalism, nationalistic, or the "state terrorism" of the west and Israel.  Of course I am not advocating political nihilism in the sense that some in Russian expounded in 1860. Revolutionary reform such as this promoted terrorism and destruction of all social, political, and economic institutions.  In the end we meet the new boss and he’s same as the old boss.

I am lucky or unlucky to be from that generation of Americans that have learned to "duck and cover".  The "big one" could have fallen anytime and we practiced these survival techniques.  In Turkey we practiced the same thing in the Istanbul school where I taught for five years.  The big one was not the A-bomb though, but an earthquake we hoped to survive if it hit near the heart of the city.  I feel at home in Turkey maybe because we share the same sense of fatalism. It is pointless to live in fear.  Generally, when death occurs, when sh*t happens, we mourn and move on.  The family still needs to be fed and our bellies filled.  People still live were earthquakes strike. Hey, "What am I doing hear?" 

Fatalism and the passivity that it spawns has it’s flaws. It disempowers the individual from the little strength each of us common folk have.  It weakens our resolve to try to effect change in a world which has long been a ball of confusion.  And things ain’t got any better since the words to that song were written either. So what’s a poor boy (or girl) to do?  This is a question all must ask, no matter what political, social, or economic clan you belong to, religion you practice, or country you reside in.

There is only one answer.  All with any sense of reason knows the answer- promote peace.  Vote the war mongers out of office, follow religious and political leaders who are moderate in their views and who work towards change without the killing, refuse to support violence as a solution.  Do we really want to live in a world where terrorism and pre-emptive attacks are common place, as they are today. 

If you and I do not take this task to heart and try to do what we can promote peace, mutual respect, and work towards a just global society that mutually benefits all it’s members, there is little chance to live in a world without fear. Guns and bombs kill people, but fear kills our soul.

Consequentially, although we may survive a bombing across the river, across an ocean, or across a continent, (I’ll be taking some liberties with Jaeger’s lyrics here), "You know and I know that in the morning we’ll be dead."

This entry was posted on Monday, September 4th, 2006 at 2:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.