Fallout from the country song I wrote in a parallel universe.

In one of the more conservative of my personal universes, I write and sing country songs. I am successful and controversial simultaneously. The moral climate of this universe hovers around rural America in the mid to late 40’s. Any un-conventional behavior, no matter how inconsequential, is deemed shocking to the masses, and is met with judgment and disgust, or titillation and adoration, depending upon with whom you speak.

I am the male Madonna of country music in an alternate reality. I am a divisive figure within this culture for my singin’, my git-tar playin’, and my songs. My last single, “Sideways Jesus,” is the latest offering in a string of what Newsweek has called “polarizing counter-culture entertainment from the ever-strengthening ‘New-Left.’” The song takes its title from the horizontal placement of a representation of Jesus-as-night-light in the protagonist’s kitchen, while he waits for his unfaithful mate to return. The apartment is dark, save for the glow of Jesus’ light in the next room. The protagonist wonders what he should do, what his savior floating sideways in the next room, would want him to do. Darkness crawls into dawn with no resolution, and no sign of his mate.

The controversy, articulated by President Richard Roberts (Son of former President Oral Roberts), is the word “sideways” and corresponding imagery when describing our Lord. “Any entertainment I might derive from the music is washed away by the blasphemous imagery of Our Savior, floating sideways, electric light emanating from his posterior, tied to the theme of infidelity. Light DOES NOT shine out of Christ’s bottom! This is not wholesome or suitable entertainment, and should not be condoned in our Christian society.” None of what Roberts objects to is actually written within the song, but has been collectively inferred (out of context; for distraction) by members of the majority party. The Right’s backlash concerning my and other songs and artists rising up from the Left regarding our choice of subject matter is frustrating to a growing segment of the population.

These people think the Right’s condemnations are displaced and irrelevant in comparison to other societal dysfunction(s), such as staggeringly high infanticide rates from women carrying unwanted fetuses not able to abort them, opting to kill their children after giving birth. This growing, but still disorganized block of people is concerned about skyrocketing rates of familial abuse and incest within the lowest economic segment of our population. Cancer, emphysema, and cirrhosis rage throughout the land, due to no industry regulation of tobacco and alcohol. Corporatism and false religions exert unlimited political power. It is a desperate time in a desperate universe.

Also, there is the ever-growing chasm between those who are abundantly wealthy, and those who are not. 47% of the population makes under $4000 a year, and 82% make under $6000. About 240 families within the entire country control 98% of the entire country’s wealth. The next highest income bracket is about $100,000 a year, occupied by celebrities and most politicians, myself included.

This is why I’m so threatening to the establishment in this experience. I am in opposition to them and I am extremely visible. I have no privacy. I am overexposed. Those who deem my views “dangerous” spit at me and threaten my life. The oligarchs fear my country music song stylings. A sideways Jesus threatens them and their lavish existence.

I find amusement sometimes, waiting tables, here, now, when the occasional person says they know me from somewhere, and is quite insistent about it. I smile and say; “Yeah that happens all the time. I have a familiar face.”