_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Friday, December 21, 2012

The Apocalypse Will Not Be Televised

 

So, end of the world.

Again.

Seems pretty quiet here in Alaska, apocalypse day and all.

Anybody know what time this thing starts? The invitation just says 12/21/12.

Can we do it before 5PM Alaska Time? I’ve got a meeting at two and if it’s all the same to everybody I often fantasize about the world ending when I have to sit through a bunch of Power Point slides. If we wait until five, I’ll probably be comatose and miss the whole damned thing.

And seriously, I’d really, really hate to sleep through the destruction of the earth.

Again.

How many times is this now? How many times have we managed to survive the end of the world? The Apocalypse? The Rapture? The End of Days?

I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging or anything, but I figure I’ve managed make it through Armageddon at least fifty times by now. At first I thought surviving the end of the world made me seem like a real badass, but it turns out that pretty much everybody else survived too, so it’s really not that big of deal.

“I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world!”

That was Pat Robertson in 1980. Half the 700 Club wet themselves on the spot. Pat Robertson guaranteed us! End of 1982! Judgment Day! Judgment Day!

Of course, Pat was right. After all, the world’s bestest Christian wouldn’t bullshit us, right? Of course the world ended in 1982. You remember it, don’t you? Giant flaming Jesus spitting fire and thunderbolts, the earth cracking open, zombies, screaming babies falling from the sky like fat balloons full of chunky spaghetti sauce and exploding the sidewalks. Also Nazis.

I missed it. I had to work that day and by the time I got home, showered, and changed into my Rapture Duds, the whole thing was pretty much over.

1982 was a big year for apocalypses, the world actually ended three different times. Which was about average for that decade as it turns out, the world ended fifteen times during the 80’s – of course, I was living in Europe then and had to watch the various apocalypses via time delayed TV repeats on A-Farts (The Armed Forces Radio and Television System).  The 90’s kicked off with Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s nuclear war, twelve years of darkness, followed by, you guessed it, the end of the world. A year later the world ended again when Louis Farrakhan declared the First Gulf War to be the actual War of Armageddon, which as you know is the final war, followed by, yep, the end of the world.  In fact, the world ended something like twenty five times during the 90’s. For a while there it was ending once a week, which, to be truthful, started to get a little tedious. And of course, who could forget when Y2K struck and all the lights went out and robot cannibal zombies roamed the land thirsting for human brain tissue – or maybe that was the turn of the century New Years revelers in Times Square, it was kind of hard to tell the difference. Jerry Falwell and Ed Dobson welcomed Jesus’ return, twice, at the turn of the century. The End Times came and went and really who could forget the sight of all those saved souls suddenly flying naked up into the sky just like it says in the Bible:  and the faithful men floated serenely toward Heaven with their willies flapping in the holy breeze, and the lord smiled for the joke was upon them.  The first decade of the new century saw the world end fourteen more times. Nancy Leider’s alien brain implant warned us of a pending pole shift and impact by planet Nibiru in 2003 while in 2007 Pat Robertson once again stood next to angry bearded thunderbolt tossing Jesus and pointed out all the people he didn’t like. I had my first professional digital camera that year and got some really nice shots of Jesus smiting the sinners, to which I added some Lutz and uploaded to the LOLcats site. Good times, good times.  The second decade kicked off with Harold Camping and the jerky dance of the happy rapture monkeys, which was followed by the world being destroyed no less than four more times before we made it to 2012.

And here we are, finally, at the Mayan Apocalypse.

A week before Christmas and they schedule the End of the World?  Seriously? On a Friday? Who schedules the end of the world on a Friday? Monday, sure, fine, whatever, nobody would care, but Friday? WTF? And it’s the Holiday Season, Goddamnit. Cookies and fudge and presents and Christmas ham.  Two four day weekends back to back. And this is when we decide to end the world? Who ends the world in December? Do it on April 15th, and people would be thanking you, Americans anyway.  But now?

Whose dipshit idea was this anyway?

Probably the same pointy haired dickhead who schedules a two hour meeting at three-thirty on a Friday afternoon before a big weekend. 

What’s that you say?

The who?

It was the Mayans who scheduled this? Two thousand years ago? 

Oh, well, the Mayans. Sure. The Mayans. Well then, I guess that makes it ok. The Mayans. Because really, the Mayans.  A pre-Columbian Mesoamerican Paleolithic civilization living in the jungles of Central America, those Mayans.

We don’t believe the science and the scientists and the terabytes of data and the evidence of our own eyes when it comes to climate change, but some big rocks buried a Central American jungle by Stone Age people who have been dead for a thousand years, yeah, for that we’re going to sell all of our worldly goods and buy a one way ticket to the Alien Launch Pad on top of a mountain in France to await the coming of Jesus.

Right. The Mayans. Sure. 

Not only that, but a whole bunch of people are actually looking forward to it, looking forward to the supposed end of the world. 

Who does that?

These people, the doomsayers, the preppers and the prayers, will spend fortunes on guns and bunkers and crates of MREs (and seriously here, if I have to live on MREs again, I’ll end the world myself. But I digress) but they won’t lift a finger to help save the world or prevent the collapse of civilization.

And I’m not just talking about the silly New Age goofs who are even now standing naked and forlorn on top of a pile of rocks somewhere in the Yucatan jungle clutching their magic crystals with The Age of Aquarius playing on their iPods and staring hopefully at the sky, but supposedly normal people too. People like Pat Robertson and all the TV Christians who daily pray for The Rapture and the End of Days so that they can fly away to some cosmic orgy instead of actually working to make this world, this one right here, a better place.

They could help make this world a paradise, but for them it’s not Heaven if all the rest of us get to share it with them. 

I don’t understand these people, I really don’t.

 

I just can’t wrap my head around the absolutely degree of selfish assholery it takes to buy into this nonsense.

 

So far, this apocalypse is starting out pretty much like all the other ones I’ve been to. 

I admit that I was hoping for something more, I mean, come on. In addition to Jesus, the usual Running of the Damned Souls, and a potluck at the end of time, we’re getting hit by the giant planet Nibiru, and an asteroid named Eros, and a comet. The earth’s axis of rotation is due to reverse and there’s going to be a magnetic pole flip. We’ll have some big earthquakes accompanied by giant waves and a Justin Bieber concert. An alien invasion is scheduled for later this evening. And for the finale, the sun is going supernova.

It seems a little much, doesn’t it? Especially in this economy.

And you really have to wonder what they’re going to do next year to top it. I mean, come on, what beats a supernova?

Jesus riding a robot cannibal T-Rex towing a black hole?

Which, you know, on second thought, ain’t a half bad idea.

I’ll be in the bunker with Shopkat if you need me.

65 comments:

  1. Probably the "end of the world" prophecy that has had the most lasting impact on American culture was the one in 1844 that became known as "The Great Disappointment."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment

    The failed prophecy was a catalyst for several new religious faiths, to include the Seventh Day Adventists and the Baha'i.

    Every time there is a failed religious prophecy, new sects arise attempting to deal with the cognitive dissonance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. um that was mostly a SDA. Bahai's weren't predicting the end of anything but rather a beginning of some things that is are actually associated to that prophecy at all. (Unless you were an American Bahai and trying too hard to connect things.) Not even sure why that was brought up.
      But ya, imagine being SDA and standing on that hill and nothing happens.... That would suck.

      Delete
  2. And c'mon, with an asteroid named Eros of all things involved, you'd really expect one heckuva cosmic orgy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yep, that about covers it. Thanks again for a laugh that sent me dangerously close to peeing myself.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Don't forget the 70's, when many JWs dropped out of high school & college because of the end, because, well, why bother?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I missed some of these*; sure as hell glad you've been keeping track.

    ____________
    *On the other hand, I think I was there for a couple you neglected to mention. Oh, wait. That was the acid. Never mind.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sorry Chief, it is the 22nd in Japan and my Son says it is the same craphole it was on the 21st.

    ReplyDelete
  7. did you give mention to the ones who were going away in the spacecraft....oh no, that wasn't the end of the world that time. pity. Jim, is there a place on the planet not people by crazies that you know of?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Our sun can't super nova, its to small, but geebus will start hucking brimstone around 5:30 pm est.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I sometimes imagine that maybe the Rapture actually already happened, and all those people that are so sure they will be taken up, well, guess what? They're still here with the rest of us. It gives me a mental chuckle.
    -Martha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Martha, I think you have something there. Let's spread the news.

      Delete
    2. I figured the Rapture happened too, but what was really taken up were souls, so all those people who were included in THAT party are now zombies. That's my conspiracy theory and I'm sticking to it, and also watching my neighbors from behind my venetian blinds.

      Delete
    3. Call your jeebus loving relatives and tell them all the true jeebus lovers in your town have been raptured without a trace. Then ask them why they're still here.

      Delete
    4. OK. All of you are too damned funny. Now kindly knock it off before I snort Guinness onto my keyboard yet again.

      Delete
  10. As commented, our boringly average type G2 luminosity class V star has insufficient mass to supernova. But I'll give the nuts a pass on this one because I'm pretty sure they all missed the SCIENCE classes on stellar evolution because, well, there's that evolution thing, that science thing, that whole studying and classes thing, and the reality thing.

    Dr. Phil

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They were home-schooled. "physics" involved carburetors and a demonstration of electricity which involved an ignition coil, a distributor lead and the instruction to "hold this". No idiot left behind.

      Delete
    2. Please refer to above comment from South Jersey Doc.

      Delete
  11. Wheeee! I've got the office to myself today, so I finally get to laugh as long and heartily as I wanna, for a comical Stonekettle! Good one.

    However, in keeping with the Tradition: In the paragraph starting "1982 was a big year...", about halfway in, it's JAMES Dobson (damn his twisted, hideous worldview), not ED Dobson. There were a couple of other typos but they're quite minor. Getting a worldclass asswipe's name wrong, though... like, whoa.

    Still giggling.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Edward G. Dobson, Irish immigrant and former fundamentalist head of the Moral Majority, executive director of a megachurch in Grand Rapids, MI. Former faculty member of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

      Stopped being a fundamentalist asshole after he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease. Ended up endorsing Obama.

      No relation to James Dobson.

      Delete
    2. I wish people would look before they leap on something like that. James Dobson is actually a fairly nice guy when you get a chance to talk to him a little. Ed Dobson? Holy crap.

      Delete
    3. James Dobson is actually a fairly nice guy when you...

      Well, sure, unless you happen to be gay. Right? Or anybody of color. Or a non-Christian. Or in need of an abortion. But other than that...

      Delete
    4. If you talk to him just as a person, he's okay. Honestly, I didn't have a problem in conversation with him. I didn't touch his policies because that wasn't the basis for coffee that day.

      Delete
    5. Well, I'll be dipped. Apologies, Jim. I had never heard of Edward Dobson; my mind automatically leaps (or twitches, belike) to pair "Dobson" with "James," especially in the context of bulgy-eyed fundamentalist pulpit pounders, of which Falwell was a first class example as well.

      Delete
    6. "If you talk to him just as a person, he's okay"

      And playwright Franz Liebkind always said, "the Fuhrer was a WONDERFUL dancer!"

      Delete
  12. They missed out on offering Kool-Aid this time, and I did buy some tanning lotion for the purported rise in temperature with the meteor thing. Here in Iowa, that would have been a welcome relief from the nasty windchill that came with the blizzard yesterday.

    I get the biggest kick, however, out of those who jumped on this bandwagon, forgetting that it wasn't the Mayans who "prophesied" the end of the world. It was the religious boobs in the past couple of centuries who did that. The Mayans just created a calendar to fill up what they had, went out for coffee and figured they had PUHLENTY of time for another calendar.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am glad to see that there is another person who thinks the Mayans just ran out of room on the rock. I am pretty sure that was the case as they seem so artistic and geometrical.

      Delete
    2. People need to turn the rock over and see the rest of the calendar there....

      Delete
  13. The End Times, as defined by the Coming of the Giant Flaming Jesus was actually June 14, 2012. http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100615/NEWS01/306150004/-Touchdown-Jesus-statue-Solid-Rock-Church-75-destroyed-by-lightning-fire

    That's what you get when your Savior is made of Styrofoam.

    Sadly(?) he has since been rebuilt.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Nobody is giving credit to those who prayed to Jesus, God, Allah, etc. and helped turn the tide of the apocalypse. Damned heathens.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Jim:

    You wrote -- "These people, the doomsayers, the preppers and the prayers, will spend fortunes on guns and bunkers and crates of MREs ..., but they won’t lift a finger to help save the world or prevent the collapse of civilization."

    "And I’m not just talking about the silly New Age goofs ..., but supposedly normal people too. People like Pat Robertson and all the TV Christians who daily pray for The Rapture and the End of Days so that they can fly away to some cosmic orgy instead of actually working to make this world, this one right here, a better place."

    This is another description of the "Fuck you, I've got mine!" philosophy that is becoming increasingly visible in our society. It is not self-interest, it is selfishness in the extreme. Some of these people think of themselves as "patriots." Not in my book.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed. I've taken to referring to such people as IGMs (I Got Mine), with, as you say, the implied prefix of "Fuck You".... Clarence Thomas is an excellent example, for one. John Boehner is another.

      ConnecticutYankee

      Delete
  16. "giant flaming Jesus" is my new cuss-phrase.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I suppose you are doubting the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse as well. You'll believe once your brains have been eaten.

    BTW, googling "also nazis" brings up your sight as the first four choices, at least from google.ca. This is a surprise to nobody.

    TimBo

    ReplyDelete
  18. The late, great Doug Adams put it this way:

    "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

    Apparently, this has happened 40-50 times and no one has noticed.

    - Wickersham's Conscience

    ReplyDelete
  19. Well, almost....
    http://marinasleeps.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/jesussauris2.png

    ReplyDelete
  20. "People like Pat Robertson and all the TV Christians who daily pray for The Rapture and the End of Days so that they can fly away to some cosmic orgy"... I'm not so easy. Some God told me to tattoo the collected works of R Crumb all over my body. Seemed like a reasonable request, but I told him to fuck off. And I wasn't struck down or nothin.

    Besides, they figured the Mayan calendar wrong. It was formulated in sidereal time. So the end of world actually occurred at precisely (Completed carving date + 2000 years - (((-4 minutes/day) * 365 days/year) * 2000 years) in minutes). And you all think Marines are dumb.

    And fuck Wayne Lapierre and Mike Huckabee. Today's assholes of the pockolips. Tommy D

    ReplyDelete
  21. Frankly, I figured that I would sleep through it. Never have been an early riser.
    M from MD

    ReplyDelete
  22. "and the faithful men floated serenely toward Heaven with their willies flapping in the holy breeze, and the lord smiled for the joke was upon them."

    I bet I can pencil this into my favorite book (Good Omens; Pratchett & Gaiman) somewhere.... because it sure sounds like it belongs there!

    Good Job!

    Karla

    ReplyDelete
  23. As I have aged I have learned not to do certain things, one of which is not to drink anything while I read this blog. The phrase..

    "(and seriously here, if I have to live on MREs again, I’ll end the world myself. But I digress)"

    made me remember a note on an LRP that said "may be eaten dry"

    Keep up the good work....

    TMB

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thanks for the great read Jim. I had to read it when I heard my husband bust out laughing Several times.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Did anybody consider the end of the Mayan calendar was simply the result of being tired of chiseling rock?

    ReplyDelete
  26. Ah, but only the Mayan apocalypse has happened. This ignores the important part of the event: The Awakening of Cthulhu.

    Time: Friday, December 21, 2012 at 11:30am - Sunday, December 23, 2012 at 11:30pm
    Location: 47°9′S 126°43′W

    This was how it was described:

    "The winter solstice of 2012 will occur at 11:11 UTC on December 21st 2012, the same day the Mayan Long Count Calender flips over or "ends" as some say. On that morning the sun will appear to rise into the area of the sky we refer to as the galactic center or nuclear bulge. It is the location of the super-massive black hole at the center of the rotation of the the Milky Way galaxy. The sun's position in the sky on this day will also be perceptively aligned with the "Dark Rift" (the dark band that to the eye seems to divide the bright band of the Milky Way galaxy). Additionally on this day, Jupiter and Saturn will be involved in an astrological formation known as a Yod (finger of God.) With the combination of all these celestial events, the "stars will be right" and Cthulhu will begin to awaken."

    So, you see, Cthulhu is only beginning to awaken. He is going to be yawning, rolling over and stretching, maybe causing an earthquake or two, but he isn't due to get up until Sunday. That's when things will start to get interesting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "He is going to be yawning, rolling over and stretching, maybe causing an earthquake or two, but he isn't due to get up until Sunday"

      . . . and probably farting and scratching his ass, as the legend is told. (Probably by his wife)

      Delete
  27. I'm not dead yet! No, Really!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Make some more pens when you're bunker-bound. You may wish to repopulate the world with writing instruments. I sure like the one that knittingbull got me, even though I'll soon be vaporized by lazer-wielding zombie badgers from outer space. It was a good ride, and an honor to read your scribblings. Harumph, I say!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I made 20 last weekend, and they all sold before I could finish them. I'm not complaining, but I just can't keep up at the moment - especially since the stupid family keeps demanding an equal share of my time. Can you imagine?

      I promise that I will make more this weekend. And some bowls.

      Delete
  29. I guess I should crack that 1969 Oban in the pantry; no sense saving it now. (passes around the bottle to everyone). To Scotland!!

    ReplyDelete
  30. This is the first apocalypse that I haven't slept through. It hasn't been more interesting than the others.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I was at Staples, and all the 18-month "long" calendars end on June 30th, 2014! Oh, no!

    And why does one stockpile food & ammo for the end of the world? End of civilization, yeah. But the whole world gone blooey? Seems a waste of valuable time.

    Bruce

    ReplyDelete
  32. I especially treasure the thought of the startled faces on the ultra-holier-than-anyone when they realize that the Rapture happened and they're left!!!

    Cool!!

    SW WA Exile

    ReplyDelete
  33. Well, here we are in the afterlife! Sweeeet!

    Wait - something's horribly wrong! I'm still ugly and my back hurts!

    NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  34. I just got here, so I haven't read the other comments yet.

    Jesus Jim, I just got myself recomposed after the, "floated serenely toward heaven with their willies flapping in the holy breeze" when the "a Justin Bieber concert" hit.

    I may have to have my funny bone removed. Just kidding, Never! You really are one very funny, entertaining fuc.... fellow. Thanks for the gut-busting giggles.

    ReplyDelete
  35. One point: Mayan people still exist today, just we haven't heard much from them lately as it's remarkably hard to point, laugh, and deny that their ancestors ever predicted an apocalypse, all at the same time.

    ReplyDelete
  36. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Also, I blame Google Chrome's automatic signon messing with Blogger if I just posted twice, no way can I type that fast on an iPhone...

    ReplyDelete
  38. Seems that people keep forgetting to carry the Jesus when "calculating" the End Of The World As We Know It™.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I remember long years ago seeing a movie narrated by the great Orson Welles about "Nostradamus!" (emphasis added)
    Careful analysis of the "quatrains" had the beginning of the end of the world? starting in about 1984 (with a lot of stock footage of floods, tornadoes ect...) followed by the actual battle of Armageddon (in the desert at Megido?)in like 1990?...but
    In 1999? a great leader would emerge (after the nuclear destruction of the entire planet?) and we would have 60 years of peace...again ignoring the fact that almost the entire population of the world was supposed to have been wiped out...
    and then Orson intoned, Nostradamus made no more predictions...the end.
    Except yesterday on the History Channel, I heard someone mention that there is a newly discovered book from old Nostro!!..which kind of puts the end between 12/21/2012....and maybe 2014.
    As Charlie Brown would say "Rats!"






    ReplyDelete
  40. edit after research. The movie was called "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow"..about which Welles later stated:
    "Perhaps Welles' most public detraction from the subject matter of the film occurred during a guest appearance on an early 1980s episode of The Merv Griffin Show; "One might as well make predictions based on random passages from the phone book".

    ReplyDelete
  41. Some of these I had not heard of, but I thought of another to add to the list. Remember when there were rumours that the Large Hadron Collider was going to spawn black holes that would engulf the earth? Thanks for the laughs.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I dislike Facebook intensely (although it's like a train wreck..); but I seriously wish I could "like" some of the comments...

    Happy second day after the EOTW.

    ReplyDelete
  43. As it turns out, the leading Mayan expert works at UT, where I work, this is a short article about what was really going on with that calendar. I know, spoilsport.
    http://www.utexas.edu/know/2012/12/17/maya-scholar-debunks-world-ending-myth/

    ReplyDelete
  44. Well, butter my ass and call me a biscuit! I'll be sure to countdown all the apocalypses since 1985 the next time someone asks me what I've done with my life...

    ReplyDelete
  45. HEY now. I AM a silly New Age goof.

    ...and I celebrated the end of the world by having a bunch of friends come over, barbecuing, getting drunk, and playing Apples To Apples. Then announcing with glee, "Yay! The Doctor saved us!" at 12:01. As is right and proper.

    ReplyDelete

Comments on this blog are moderated. Each will be reviewed before being allowed to post. This may take a while. I don't allow personal attacks, trolling, or obnoxious stupidity. If you post anonymously and hide behind an IP blocker, I'm a lot more likely to consider you a troll. Be sure to read the commenting rules before you start typing. Really.