What one notices while watching The Rules of Engagement, an interminable documentary about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians' final days (an enterprise best undertaken when one is drunk) is that David Koresh is no Jim Jones. He may be able to stockpile weapons, but who in Texas can't say that? David Koresh strikes me as the one guy in high school that you can remember almost nothing about -- he is neither handsome nor homely, not particularly smart or stupid, and although he seemed to have a penchant for terrible tank tops, in all other ways he seems pretty normal. So, I asked myself, as I watched the ATF swarm the Branch Davidian compound, how has he convinced several people to hole up with him and die in, of all places, Waco? When asked, most of them spoke of the book of Revelation, the wildest book of the Bible, all those rivers of blood and whatnot.
Many things have been a revelation to me, particularly my first margarita made with blue curaçao. David Koresh, while having a wicked cool sense of humor even after being shot (there's a great monologue he performs while bleeding in front of a video camera about how he can't keep the ladies away because he is one foxy dude, the white man's version of back these hoes off me and let a player play!), was not a man I'd count on for information concerning the end times or any other revelations, biblical or secular. The bits of sermons he gives are uninspired drivel, but perhaps this is part of the appeal. In an age where it's all bells and whistles, the Branch Davidians were old school, right down to the scary homemade clothes. Even the film that involves all that death and guns and Texas is deathly dull. Even so, I felt myself warming to him by the end. Make no mistake -- I'm a Jim Jones girl. By the end, JJ had dismissed the Bible entirely, had a full-blown love affair with every painkiller under the sun, and was sleeping with lots of the women and men in his congregation. In other words, full-bore crazy. I like that in a cult leader. But I also liked David Koresh in the end, his unassuming ways, those houses full of AK-47s. He was, it seemed, an original g.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne." Bette Davis
Cocktail Hour
Drinking Scotch Suggestion: Dalwhinnie on the rocks
Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Friday!
10 comments:
Dear Michelle,
I forgot to leave this sonnet under your tree yesterday. I doesn't have a snake in it, but I thought you and yours would appreciate it anyway. It's by Donald Justice. Merry X-MAS.
The Wall
The wall surrounding them they never saw/The angels, often. Angels were as common/As birds or butterflies, but looked more human./As long as the wings were furled, they felt no awe./Beasts,too,were friendly.They could find no flaw/In all of Eden:this was the first omen./The second was the dream which woke the woman./She dreamed she saw the lion sharpen his claw./As for the fruit, it had no taste at all./They had been warned of what was bound to happen./They had been told of something called the world./They had been told and told about the wall./They saw it now;the gate was standing open./As they advanced, the giant wings unfurled.
Hey babycakes Michelle, could you please make me one of those Blue Cuckoo margaritas? Sounds delicious and well worth my coming off the wagon for, if I was ever on one, if you know what I mean.
I love that photo, Michelle. You could be the dark lady of the sonnets--boudoir version.
True, W.S. But there are times when I think she leaves too much to the imagination. This may be one of them. Not, mind you, that I'm complaining.
Praise the Lord. I think she's doing just fine and her drink recipes are marvelous. I've had them all, especially when I'm doing my makeup.
P.S. I thought David Koresh was a doll, too.
I have never seen this documentary. I like the photo, very cute! ;)
Cajun Q, FoxyLady
redwhiteblack
gotmyback
Koreshgivemethewillies
ATF2
ButyourockOMightyIsis
Shazammmmmmmm!
R2 C2!
Hey Michelle,
Those tank tops are commonly known as "wife beaters." I can't say much about religion except those that attend church regularly probably need to be there. The crackpot I work with goes to church two or three times a week.
O woman of words and stories, this blog I had ponder and wonder about for a few days. Both men in one way or the other led their ECCLESIA. TO THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
Koresh in a violent statement of reality to those who believe that Government has no right to say how a community of people should live.
Same as the polygamists spread throughout the country far from society as they can get or taking over small towns and filling them with thier morality.
Jim Jones just in the beginning wanted to be able practice his form of religious society free from American morality.
Not ncessarily a bad thing because when it comes to morality and morals we are about the most hypocritical people on earth.
"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
James 1:27 [KJV]
I don't know how one keeps oneself unspotted from the world but it seem to me the rest says commit yourself to the service of others is religion.
Ok in both Koresh and JJ's world fucking everything that walked over the age of 12 or so no matter the gender could be acceptable religious service. yet the question remains who is being served the one doing the fucking or the one getting fucked [mostly for the first time}?
I love discussions on what God wants from man? and even beter yet what man does to serve God desires because it's what God wants man to do to serve him.
Those two and a few others may have it right. "Here 5 year old child drink this and die so you can go home to God",
"Here you all there's no more virgins left that can take my dick size, so let's have a good old fashioned Texas gun fight with the heathen Government of a guy who got a blow job from an intern"
but then in Koresh' favorite book Revelations there is this;
20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their WORKS. [my caps]
so i am neither for nor against either; but i am for them not destined to be bearers of the light given up by Lucifer, to judged according to their works...sounds fair to me.
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