thecages

I've arrived in Austin TX after a journey that nears 28 hours in total with just one narrow escape on the final connection between Washington and Austin.
Predictably the security at the airports was absurdly tight (I've had my shoes X-rayed) but in all the trip (I hesitate to call it a journey) was relatively uneventful.

I mentioned to a friend of mine that I've thought to name this visit to the US my Empire in Decline Tour (cool name for a rock show huh?) since I'm convinced that one of the defining aspects of this time (this zeit) is that we are witnessing the decline of the American empire[1][2].

He promptly phoned me on Saturday evening to tell me about Hurricane Ernesto making its way toward the Gulf of Mexico[3] as Morrisey sings:

Armageddon - come Armageddon!
Come, Armageddon! Come!

So here it is: Empire in Decline - part 1.

Yes, the cars are enormous and the soft drinks are bottomless.
That's about all I have at the moment as I fight to stay awake and so ward off the inevitable Jet-lag monster.

Tonite is(apparently) tex-mex at a strip-mall joint and Saturday is(hopefully) college football at the University of TX's 85000 seater stadium.


[1] The other two being the rise of Celebrity Culture and the Invincibility of Technology. More on these later.
[2] True, the decline of the West in general and America specifically has been around as an idea for decades. But somehow I think that historians will look back at George W. and say 'There! See right there, in his eyes. That's where it happened'.
[3] Which has since been downgraded to nothing more than a tropical storm. Austin isn't affected by hurricanes in the Gulf. I'm told that 'a hurricane means that we're going to get rain, so people are glad'.