The last time we had a global pandemic? And everyone was freaked out about Swine Flu? I decided my bachelor party to myself was driving up the PCH instead of flying home to get married. And as research for the last screenplay I'd ever write, I did the Left Behind books as audiobooks. So. Me, open road, Dodge Stealth, Nicolae Carpathia. I think I made it five or six books in.

Granted those were the "grown up" books, which still came across as a shitty hybrid of GI Joe and Charlie's Angels vs. Count Chocula. I was actually surprised by the lack of spirituality in the books; every now and then there'd be an aside like "Bob died because he was a sinner" but otherwise it was Face and Murdoch and BA having an adventure while stating that they felt bad because if they were good Christians they wouldn't have to have these adventures. It's like Milton's Paradise Lost; he spends so long painting up Hell as this terrible place (if what you really want is boredom and security) that it ends up sounding pretty bitchin'.

One thing I guess the kid's stories didn't pick up (or the author of this article didn't remember) is how stunningly anti-semitic they were. I mean, Count Chocula drifts around like a sinister Liberace but godDAMN there was a lot of action in Israel where a whole bunch of yarmulke-sporting chumps couldn't do much but riot and thank their lucky stars that JesusForce was there to search for the white cow or whatever.