May 21st, And I Feel Fine

I'm not changing my plans.

Rapture Dallas.

Growing up in dear old Texas, I heard "Jesus Is Coming!" warnings broadcast more often than tornado warnings. As REM from Athens, GA knows, millenialist obsession is part of growing up in the South. Down There, God is everywhere, and he's always pissed off about something or other. And he's always on his way back to give us all a whippin'. I read a Southern writer (whose name, alas, I can't recall) describe the Southern conception of God as "a mean old grand-daddy home from a three day drunk."


There are a lot of times these days when I think that all the obsessive cranks that I knew growing up -- the ones who spent all of their time writing elaborate exegeses of Atlas Shrugged, or who spent hours and hours drawing up concordances between Revelations, the Book of Daniel, Ezekiel, and the Fort Worth Star Telegram -- have completely taken over. What other people are calling "progress" I call rebuilding the same old prison, and making it escape-proof.