On Saturday July 28 I decided I would start a blog. I don’t like the word. Its vulgar, crass and has an unrefined air to it. It sounds like something that belongs in a drain or a toilet. But I spent all saturday trying to set this thing up. I chose the name Nude Media becasue I hope to write articles and essays that talk about the language used in the media and I hope to try and uncover some of the techniques used in the media on a day to day basis to promote certain points of view. I also wanted a name that people would have no trouble remembering.
If you have come here looking for x-rated content, pornographic images or content . . . you will be disappointed. You WON’T find any of that stuff here, but that doesnt mean that you shouldn’t stay and have a read through some of the stuff here. You may learn something.
I hope to get other people writing here as well. Not that I dont enjoy the sound of my own voice or the look of my writing, but I just don’t know enough stuff all by myself to keep this interesting.
Back to Saturday. As I was setting up this blog space, unbeknown to me, one of my dearest and closest friends lay in his kitchen dying, possibly already dead from a life wrenching overdose of presrcription drugs and possbily other substances. As I was planning my written entry into a vastly public textual word, he was making his private departure from his own dark world of loneliness and despair. He would bury himself within the solitude of the next 24 hours or so, slumped against the pantry door where his wife, upon returning from an overseas trip, would discover him the next morning.
On Sunday afternoon, when I heard of his passing, I committed my thoughts to paper while they were still fresh in my mind. While I don’t want to upset anyone, I dont want to gloss over the tragedy that took our friend. I will post my thoughts here below as an opening to this collection of future writings and as a dedication to my dear friend John G.
I hope that John’s widow, his family and his friends will come and take the time to read this piece and to remember, and to take as much comfort and joy from the good memories as I do. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.
A Requiem Prayer for My Friend – JCG (15/12/69 – 28/07/07)
When William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950 he gave what would become regarded as one of the most significant acceptance speeches in the history of the award. In it he said that the problem of the human heart in conflict with itself was the only problem that could make for good writing, the only problem worth the agony and the sweat. He went on to say that the basest of all things is to be afraid and that knowing this should compel mankind to meditate upon the “old verities” of love, honour, pity, sacrifice and compassion. Sure enough, literatures and mythologies of all cultures stand upon the shoulders of characters whose relentless courage and fragility bring us closest to the interminably rough grain of these most human experiences that Faulkner referred to. They are larger than life heroes, characters who are almost superhuman in their quintessential humanness. In their heroism they represent everything we want to be – strong, confident, loyal; fair and just; leaders of people, loved and respected. But in them also runs the deep hard seam of tragedy that is an essential condition of their heroism and of their humanism. From Homer to Hemingway, these men and women who loom over history inevitably posses a tragically fatal flaw, a harmatia that eventually brings their epic lives to tragic ends. We should not despair. History has shown us often enough that without the grit and pain of that tragic loss, there can be no heroism, no salvation, no meaning . . . simply the quietly fading light at the end of days.
For any of us who ever knew John, there could never be any questioning the epic heroism or the deep tragedies of the man. In line with the greatest of epic traditions, he fought and fought and fought the battle with himself to the bitter end. And it wasn’t weakness that brought him to his knees in the end. It was fatigue and, I believe, a sense of selflessness, sacrifice and despair. Who knows what goes through a person’s mind in those last lonely few hours; when all of us at some point are asked to stand alone at the brink and to stare into the horror of the void at the end of life? Ultimately, I will believe that John did not simply endure but that he did prevail against the most formidable opponent he could ever face – himself. Above all things John fought to free not only himself, but the people he loved, from the monstrous disease that would eventually consume him. Was he courageous? Undoubtedly. Was he fearless? Of course. And was he afraid? Always. The heroism of his tragedy is that John knew intimately the essential nature of the human condition closer than any of us should ever dare to. He knew it and he lived it, stripped of all the emotional comfort and the psychological padding that the rest of us surround ourselves with in order to make our lives liveable. He did endure, and now, I should like to think that he prevails.
So, for a brief time in our lives . . . we had our champion. Powerful, fearless, unafraid; constantly vigilant, on the lookout, not for trouble but for injustice. Always there, prepared to answer the call – there, as he often said, to bully the bullies. We would tell our friends the stories of his exploits and adventures as if we were retelling the great stories of soldiers returning from the Trojan war, the conquests of ancient armies, the warriors of old Sparta, or as if we were singing the songs of Alexander’s victories across continents. This is how we remember John, and this is how he will pass into mythology, our mythology, as an epic and necessarily tragic hero. And I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty sure that the idea of being a mythological hero would be highly appealing to Johnny G!
Nevertheless, it is not John’s feats of physical excellence and superiority that will be my endearing memories of him. It is not those well-told tales of overcoming terrifying foes in impossible odds, in conflicts waged on the battlefields of nightclub doorsteps and bar-room dance floors. The legacy that I will take with me from John are the enduring memories of his indominitable spirit, his rapier wit (upon which many of us were often and routinely skewered), his formidable intellect, his undeniable charm; I will learn from his huge capacity for love, his loyalty and integrity as a friend, his compassion and his wisdom – his life’s search for a peaceful place.
I refuse to accept John’s death as an end of days and I will not see it as the last red glimmer in the dying evening of life. I can accept John’s death only as the beginning of endurance, and his fight which is now left up to us to continue, has become our privilege – he has helped us to endure and will help us to prevail, by lifting our hearts, and by reminding us of his courage, his honour, his hope; his pride and compassion, his pity and his sacrifice; his joys. I thank John for all he has done for me, and for all he will continue to do for me, and not a single day will pass when I won’t think of my friend with the greatest sadness and the greatest love. I would say to John now as he had often said to me, and probably to many of us, at the conclusion of lengthy late night phone calls, “Go well my friend, may the wind blow at your back . . . I love you my brother.”
Owen Chapman
Auckland
29/07/07
Posted by chapman 