Apocalypse Now

I have never claimed to have the ability to see into the future and predict events before they unfold. I leave that sort of work to the professionals like Nostradamus, that creepy little boy in The Shining, and Patricia Arquette. All three of these prognosticators used different methods or had different powers that enabled them to make accurate predictions about the future. Take little Danny as an example: using something called the "shine," Danny successfully predicted that his already-insane father would try to murder both he and his mother with an axe while trapped in a haunted snowbound hotel for the winter. Danny’s ability differs from Arquette’s ability in that Arquette sees both the future and the past in her dreams and can communicate with ghosts. Danny sees ghosts in his visions but really only likes to communicate with Tony (an uncredited role played brilliantly by Danny’s finger) and Scatman Crothers. Finally, Nostradamus used his considerable powers of obscurity, equivocation, and ambiguity to make nearly everything he wrote come true in hindsight.

My abilities are something more akin to the Magic 8-Ball, Ouija board, or La Toya Jackson. Regardless of my semi-professional status in the hallowed circles of the occult, I’ve received a message that can only be explained as a sign. But not just your ordinary everyday run-of-the-mill sign: this sign most certainly foretells of the coming apocalypse. How do I know? Well, using the spiritual medium known as "HBO," I've just learned that every time we elect a black president, the world faces annihilation, either from aliens, an asteroid, or Earth crust displacement brought on by massive solar flare-related neutrinos. Of course there are other signs that have happened or are currently happening that fit specific descriptions of the apocalypse as written in the Bible (don't ask me where). Let's take a closer look at three of the most popular:

"And there shall cometh a girl, young, magical, and nonsensical, that shall sing and dance and sometimes rhyme, as a witness unto all nations; there will be fun, then shall the end come."

Everyone on this planet has been witness to the meteoric rise of the galaxy's newest pop star: Rebecca Black and her wonderfully introspective and sometimes informative YouTube music video called "Friday." Reviews have been all-together negative--until now. After watching her video for the nineteenth time, I'm beginning to see its subtle yet brilliant nuances, and I now find myself profoundly moved. My heart swells as if I'm listening to the Beatles, Zeppelin, or Sir Mix-A-Lot. Look at this lyric: "Yesterday was Thursday / Today is Friday / We so excited." Not only does Black correctly list the days of the week, but, in that final verse, demonstrates an almost Wittgensteinian grasp of the language game. But you'd be a fool to assume that Black's ability to correctly list the days of the week is limited to just Thursday and Friday. Check this out: "Tomorrow is Saturday / And Sunday comes afterwards / I don't want this weekend to end." With that last lyric--as well as with her perfectly auto-tuned voice--Black firmly grabs hold of your emotions and, with calendar-like accuracy, elevates this musical journey to a place describable only by Rod Serling.

But, unfortunately, Black isn't pop music's version of James Joyce after all. It turns out that her only role was that of performer and not creator. The actual creative force behind this modern-day aural Ulysses is Clarence Jay and Patrice Wilson of L.A.'s Ark Studios. This revelation redirects some of the Internet's vitriol away from Black's supposed lack of song writing expertise and performance style, and onto more meaningful and constructive forms of criticism like, how she looks, how she dances, and why is she still alive. But the most important and relevant thing to note about "Friday" is that the word "fun" is used 666 times...

"And the creatures of the sea, and the creatures of the air shall perish for no reason that thou careth to heareth about; for the mind hath grown darketh and sloth-like and reason shall be no moreth."

We've all heard the news reports: hundreds of blackbirds found dead in Arkansas; thousands of dead fish wash ashore in Canada; millions of crab die in England; billions of sardines found dead in California; trillions of dead... Well, you get the idea. Science has definitive answers for all of these events (bacterial infections, severe weather, toxic algae, etc.) but science isn't any fun (unless you're a scientist) so let's throw the principle of parsimony out the window and come up with an answer that does work: these mass die-offs are all signs of the apocalypse.

CNN's Anderson Cooper is just as troubled by the aflockalypse as are all of those jobless 40 year-old conspiracy theorists that still live in their parents' basements. Instead of turning to the Internet for answers, Cooper used the considerable powers at his disposal (none of which include critical thinking) and consulted once-teen television sensation and current religious expert Kirk Cameron. Obviously Cooper believes that Cameron has expert-level knowledge of the apocalypse because he recently starred in the Christian-themed Left Behind film series. When asked by Cooper what might have caused the simultaneous deaths of hundreds of birds, Cameron suggested that, because the majority of birds were very tiny, perhaps they all suffered from a severe bout of growing pains.

"The youth of the world shall go bat-shit crazy."

We all know that kids are crazy, but this level of crazy is certainly ushering in the apocalypse. The current epicenter of crazy is located in a lovely little town called Vernal in the pretty great state of Utah. According to the Deseret News, on December 4, 2010, "three teens engaged in individual lewd acts at the back of a bus returning from a wrestling tournament ... [the teens] then wiped bodily fluids on their teammates." For reasons that I can only imagine, such as the reporter didn't want the apocalypse to come any quicker than it already is and/or doesn't want his temple recommend revoked (this is the Deseret News, after all), neither "lewd acts" nor "bodily fluids" are described in the article. We may never know what exactly happened on that fateful night, but we do know that the bus' surveillance cameras probably prevented mere forcible sexual abuse allegations from becoming a full-blown Deliverance situation--banjo included.

Another incident that is surely helping to speed up the apocalypse also happened in Utah, but this time in Sky View High School of Smithfield. Six members of the football team pulled a teammate out of the shower and taped him to a towel rack with equipment tape. They also placed tape on his genitals (I presume because they couldn't find his clothes) and then pushed his homecoming date in to humiliate him (I presume because they thought the dance was starting). But even more socially developed societies, like those of West Newbury, Massachusets, have issues with youth running amok. At Pentucket Regional High School's summer football camp, several upperclassmen held down an attending sophomore and tried to sodomize him with a peeled banana, then proceeded to take turns "tea bagging" him, which, as I understand it, means to "forcibly propagate a Tea Party style of rhetoric."

Given the information that we've just examined, the apocalypse may be only a few days away--or one week, tops. And, to make matters worse, there are other events happening around the world that definitely confirm the impending apocalypse, such as the release of Sammy Hagar's autobiography and rumors of a second David Lee Roth book. I suggest getting your bucket list together, and fast. But please make sure your list doesn't include anything that will cause the apocalypse to arrive any sooner--I still have one item remaining on my bucket list. I hear there's a vacancy in the Utah legislature...



From left: Milk; Sandwich; Danny; Tony.