PW: Y2K: I recall it was mostly a concern with how computer programs would go haywire because they were programmed to understand years in two rather than four digits. But on reflection, that seems silly and incomplete. What do you think Y2K was really all about?
DMT: Looking back, I think it’s the absurdity that resonates. If the average New Year’s Eve is a lot of build up for nothing, then Y2K had to be 10X nothing. From the perspective of a teenager in the Bible belt south, my Y2K experience was more about apocalyptic angst and Rapture panic than the grid shutting down. Preachers were talking about the end times, the second coming, and spiritual preparedness. Fatalist teenager that I was, it was hard not to reflect on my own mortality and a life not-yet-lived. Of course, now I can find some humor in the whole mess. I mean, that’s quite a leap from computer program oversight all the way to the apocalypse, but when you’re in the moment, you see signs of it everywhere.