VOTD 07/01/2025

 Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart: The Ring of Fire (Jim Records)

Purchased at the old Strip District flea market

Jimmy Swaggart just died. What, you mean he was still alive?

Yes, until just yesterday. Do I wish he was getting sodomized in Hell in perpetuity? No. It's a nice thought, but that would mean I would believe in such things. 

No, my fantasy is that in his final moments he looked up and said, "It was all bullshit! I'm nothing more than worm food now!" But I know that's just fantasy. He's dead and he doesn't know any better.

Jimmy was as conservative an evangelist as they came. You know, until he was caught coming out of a motel room with a prostitute. I don't necessarily approve of seeing a hooker, but I don't necessarily disapprove either.

I remember the image so well, Jimmy in front of his congregation with tears in his eyes: "I...HAVE...SINNED!" Yeah, no shit. 

I do enjoy my vinyl oddities, as I have referred to them here multiple times. Some time in the 1990s when there was a flea market in the Strip District, I came across a box of Jimmy Swaggart LPs for maybe $1 apiece. I should have probably bought more, but with his scandal having broken recently before, an LP raging against the evils of extramarital sex seemed like exactly the right one to buy. 

Jimmy rants and raves and falls into a rhythm, and who knows half of what he says in the moment? He somehow weaves from homosexuality and lesbianism to coolers full of beer to modern acid rock music to nuclear holocaust. What? Wha wha what?

This would seem like great sampling material. But Jimmy barely takes a breath, there's hardly a break anywhere. 

I can to some extent see how someone in a crowd get caught up in the rhythm of Jimmy's delivery. Any time I watch a cable/streaming documentary about some cult or cult-like organization, I wonder: could I be caught up in such things? I'd like to think I'm enough of a cynic that I'd never fall for such things. I have enough friends and a relationship and work that I'd never fall for Children of God or the Pentecostal Church or any such nonsense.

Am I fooling myself? It's occurred to me, is there a benignly cult-like quality to Sun Ra's band? I say that as a fan. It's just a question.