This Dr. Thirteen is going straight to hell.

Years ago when I had one of my first solo exhibits, I was very excited to present some crazy ass paintings and mixed media works. I was a young artist and full of life and I didn’t take stuff too seriously.

I could paint like a maniac but I wanted my ideas and dark humor to come through by using mixed media. I thought that everybody would get a kick out of the work, have a good chuckle and think the stuff was totally awesome…boy was I wrong.

Being of a fairly sound mind I thought that it was pretty obvious that my work was just taking the mickey out of antiquated ideas and beliefs and it would make people think about how ludicrous the pomp, circumstance and dogma of religion and the cult of celebrity is in the 20th century. I mean yeah there are lots of humanist principles and great teachings within religions but blind faith to the point of actual belief of all powerful deities and living with the fear of that as a means of conducting ones self is just kind of a bit ridiculous.

  Now I should qualify that as being kind of ridiculous to me…cause I gotta respect other peoples beliefs if they need them to be a decent human being. If they need that belief system not to be asshole jerks and evil fuckers then that works for me cause hey…it’s one way to keep the idiots in check.

  But…I really don’t understand how in the 20th century and now in the 21st century people don’t have a belief system based on science and things they have proof of and not on some crazy 2000 year old novel that there is no proof of and is accepted as fact by a fair amount of people. I mean there are some good principles in that novel as I said, but they are kinda like Aesop’s fables right? There is some stuff in there that provides a bit of wisdom and some life lessons but a lot of the novel is just downright scary and creepy and I really don’t understand how it is still accepted as truth and fact by anybody who can think. It reminds me of a T shirt my sister in law gave me that says…”Science is like magic…but real”. But hey…it’s one way to keep the idiots in check.

    So I took things and religious icons and celebrities that are seen as holy and just brought them back to my reality which is to say I mocked them I guess. Pretty smart funny stuff I thought. Some did not.

  So…I come into the gallery the next day after the opening and the gallery owner and my art rep rushes over to me and says…”You’ll never guess what happened today. A lady came in to look at the show and took a glance around and came up and started yelling at me. She said she was appalled that I would hang such blasphemous paintings and stormed out.”

I think perhaps she didn’t like the painting titled “The Resurrection” which is a sort of 50’s pulp fiction style painting of a woman screaming and recoiling in horror on the ground as Jesus floats towards her. Jesus is coming out of a cave (representing a sepulchre) and he is all like rotting green flesh and quite zombie looking in his tattered robes. Across the top of the painting in cutout 3D funky letters it says “The Resurrection”. Then across the bottom in 3D cutout funky letters, the classic horror movie tagline read “Nothing This Evil Ever Dies”.

  Now I grant you it is a striking image but it is pretty cool if you think about it. I mean…the dude is dead and interned in an unrefrigerated space for like 3 fucking days! Now that can’t be good for the complexion. Then he rises up like a zombie and floats out into the night. 

  Even today with all our pharmaceutical, cloney, pseudo electro animation of flesh…I don’t think that is scientifically possible and I am quite sure it wasn’t 2000 years ago when they didn’t even have an Aspirin to take for a headache and blood letting wasn’t even a thing yet! So I thought it was kind of amusing to actually look at the reported event in that novel and depict it from a literal view. I guess the lady did not.

  Or it could have been the large 3D box sign thing that depicted a praying Jesus looking up to the sky and at the top in 3D funky cutout letters with funky cool flames behind the letters it said “Jesus Wept” and then below that just above Jesus’ head, “DEAR GOD” flashed in red light up letters. At the bottom of the sign thing below Jesus’ praying form there were more funky painted flames and in 3D cutout letters it read “Send More Alien Babes”.

  Now this one was 5 feet high and 4 feet wide so I guess that was a bit imposing too…but it was god damn cool man…it was a bit difficult to change the light bulbs but still a cool piece. I was based on a lenticular (3D) postcard in Chinatown I found of a praying Jesus. So I was thinking…WTF would Jesus of all people be praying for? I mean he can have anything on earth being like the son of the god guy and all. Is he praying for a new pair of Birkenstocks? A vacation? A nice Chianti?...Then it hit me…what can’t he get here on earth that he desires?..and of course the answer is Alien Babes! So maybe the lady was mad because she didn’t have a thing for alien babes as most of us do…

  Maybe it was the mixed media piece “Best Dead Sellers” with portraits of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe and The Virgin Mary and Jesus with “Best Dead Sellers” in neon at the top? Maybe it was “St. Elvis,” the portrait of Elvis on black velvet with his stigmatic hand caressing his chin and the word “Best” in neon above his head?

Who knows? But whatever the case…she came in later in the day with a companion and looked around again and they stormed out and shouted “THIS DR. 13 IS GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL”.

  I was a bit worried for a moment at what I had done…and then I remembered…Oh yeah…Hell isn’t real.