Roger Ebert's Dying Words

Roger Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. I used to watch and read his reviews of movies. Generally speaking, I agreed most of the time with his critiques. Sometime ago, I heard that Roger Ebert’s wife, Chaz, talked about Roger’s last words. He died of cancer in 2013.

“Life is but a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

— Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”

Clem Snide released an album called "Forever Just Beyond." The lead track on the album, “Roger Ebert,” is especially arresting. The late film critic's wife, Chaz, recalled Roger Ebert's final words in a letter to her, which served as the basis for the lyrics. As the song puts it:

Did you know these were Roger Ebert’s dying words?

It’s all an elaborate hoax

It’s all an elaborate hoax

There is a vastness that can’t be contained

Or described as a thought in the flesh of our brain

It’s everything, everywhere, future and past

Dissolving forever in an eternal flash.

It’s all an elaborate hoax

It’s all an elaborate hoax

Chaz Ebert wrote, "The one thing people might be surprised about—Roger said that he didn’t know if he could believe in God. He had his doubts. But toward the end, something really interesting happened. That week before Roger passed away, I would see him, and he would talk about having visited this other place. I thought he was hallucinating. I thought they were giving him too much medication. But the day before he passed away, he wrote me a note: “This is all an elaborate hoax.” I asked him, “What’s a hoax?” And he was talking about this world and this place. He said it was all an illusion. I thought he was just confused. But he was not confused. He wasn’t visiting heaven, not the way we think of heaven. He described it as a vastness that you can’t even imagine. It was a place where the past, present, and future were happening all at once."

“Circles, Squares, and Triangles,” 3.75” x 5” acrylic and charcoal on paper.

Existential Distress No. 1 and No. 2

“The neurotic opts out of life because he is having trouble maintaining his illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions.”

― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Existential Distress No. 2," 5" x 3.75" acrylic, charcoal, and oil (mixed media) on paper.

Walking, Making Art, and Writing: War Pigs

We are in winter now, for sure. We’re only about a week away from the winter solstice. The shortest, darkest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere). I’ve found myself painting every day and writing again. It’s a great way to spend my time. I listen to music on my walk and while I’m painting. It’s inspiring and seems to help me work through the ideas I want to explore. As I worked on these paintings and was writing about my military time, Black Sabbath popped up in my playlist. “War Pigs” (1970) started playing, and it was perfect. I made three paintings inspired by that song. I played it a few times.

Winter is a great time for both. Jeanne and I walk every day too, regardless of the weather. Remember the postal carriers' motto? “Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds.” It’s like that for our walks—we make it happen every day. The walks are important to me for several reasons. The obvious is the physical exercise (heath). But there is a huge mental benefit for me as well. I have time to think. I come up with ideas for either painting, photographing, or writing. It’s very important for me to distract myself (the walk) to be able to make room for the next idea, thought, paragraph, etc. to come to me.

My book has turned into an autobiography in a lot of ways, at least in the introduction. It’s swelled into many pages about my life’s experiences and how this obsession or preoccupation with existential dread and human behavior came to be. It’s been very revealing. I understand why people write biographies. It’s cathartic and really puts the puzzle pieces together in a person’s life.

Quinn in the desert in 1983, firing an M203 Grenade Launcher.

MY MILITARY TIME
I started writing about my military experience recently. I have mixed emotions about having served. On one hand, I’m very proud to have offered six years of my life for my country. On the other hand, I would have preferred not to have served in the infantry. I’ve never written about my military time. A lot of it wasn’t a great experience for me, although there were parts of it I needed as a young man in order to grow up and toughen up. I know a lot of people would disagree with me about some of the things I learned, or how I learned them, because 45 years ago, life and people were very different—it was very politically incorrect, if you will. It was the way it was, that’s all. It did force me to grow up and teach me to take responsibility for my actions. It also taught me that you can have a bond with another human being (a brother in battle) that transcends the superficiality of everyday life. That was important for me to understand. I learned a lot, but, as I said, in ways that wouldn’t be acceptable today.

I went to basic training (BT), where I received the Iron Mike Award, advanced individual training (AIT), and basic combat training (BCT) at Fort Benning, Georgia. I spent several months there. I served with the 24th Infantry Division - a (RDF) Rapid Deployment Force in Fort Stewart, Georgia. I served 3 years as an infantryman (11C) and 3 years as a combat photographer (84B). I was trained in 60mm, 82mm, and 120mm mortars, M16, M203, AK-47, 45 handgun, hand grenades, M72LAW, bayonet, and hand-to-hand combat. I attended Air Assault School in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne, trained, and received an EIB (Expert Infantry Badge). And then I served 3 years as a combat photographer with the 850th Signal Company.

4.2-inch (120mm) mortar being fired. A mortar crew consists of a gunner, an assistant gunner, and an ammunition man. I served in all positions. My last position was as a gunner.

THE PROJECTILE IN JEPP’S HEAD
Right now, I’m writing about a military buddy called “Jepp.” This event took place at about two or three in the morning. We always moved and operated at night. I was a gunner on an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) mortar crew; we were mechanized infantry. We were hauling down a dirt road at 25 or 30 miles per hour in a convoy with only one tiny red light to follow the APC in front of us. All of a sudden, the APC in front of me suddenly stopped. My driver pulled the brakes on, and we came within a couple of feet of the APC in front of us. I waited for a minute or two to see if they had just had to readjust and get going again or find out what happened. They didn’t move. I jumped down from my unit and went to see what was happening. Jepp was sitting in the 50-caliber machine gun position (gunner position), the same position I occupied on my APC, and he wasn’t moving or saying anything. I climbed up on the APC and immediately felt what I thought was oil or hydraulic fluid all over the side of the rig. I put my flashlight on it (red light), and it looked like oil. I said, “Jepp, what happened?” He didn’t answer. I used my flashlight and looked at his head. He had a large projectile protruding from his right eye. It was at least 3” inches in diameter. There was blood everywhere. I was covered in it. It took me a few seconds to process what I was looking at, and the oil, or hydraulic fluid, was Jepp’s blood. I wanted to get him in a better position, so I pulled him out of the gunner’s position onto the top of the APC. I didn’t touch the projectile; I called the Medevac helicopter, and they arrived in just a few minutes. I checked Jepp’s pulse, and he was still alive. They put him on a stretcher, and he was gone in an instant.

I was covered in his blood. I had no way to wash it off. We resumed our mission, and nothing else was said. All I could think about for the rest of the night was, “That could have been me. I could have been killed.” Death was always present in these kinds of situations. Terror management theory calls it “mortality salience.” Mortality salience is a psychological state where a person is aware of their own death and its inevitability. It's a state of conscious awareness associated with psychological terror. I had several experiences like this one.

I’m also writing about the suicides, murders, accidents, etc. that I had to photograph during my time with the Department of Defense. They were traumatizing in a lot of ways. They offered psychological evaluations (post-photographing dead bodies and horrific scenes), but I never took them up on those invitations. I’ve been exposed to death quite a bit in my life, and it’s only now that I’m connecting the dots through writing this book, making art, and taking walks every day. I can see so clearly how all of these life events are tied to Ernest Becker’s theories. There will be a lot more in my book.

“War Pig No. 2,” 8” x 11” Acrylic and Oil

An article about Rick Rubin’s book, which I like a lot (as you know): Rick Rubin: The Creative Act

Two Fish No. 3

I’m making a few paintings about fish (as you can see). I like the form and the symbol. As well as the variation you can get when painting these (as ideas for existential anxiety). Have you ever heard of ichthyophobia? The fear of fish—both dead and alive. The topic of fear interests me because it all relates to the fear of death.