Blogging While Intoxicated: Apocalypse edition or It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel like shit
Is this considered a semi-formal or cocktail attire occasion?
By Alex Wukman
God what time is it? Fuck that what day is it? My head feels like the dance floor at South Beach and I smell like the bathroom at Numbers. Jesus Christ, I need a smoke. Will someone tell the guy outside mowing his lawn with a fucking jet engine to knock it the fuck off? Oh right, blogging. So last night I met a couple of friends, let’s borrow from the Sideshow Tramps and Warren Ellis and call them Lady Vodka and Dr. Whiskey, out for a drink. Like most of the times we go out for drinks, we wound up talking about the end of the world. What can I say; Vodka and Whiskey are two odd birds. The only difference between last night’s conversation and any other nights’ was the fact that was a little bit more urgency this time around, what with all that is supposed to happen this weekend. For those who aren’t keeping up with their end times prophecies, and if you aren’t shame on you, Harold Camping, an 89-year-old former civil engineer turned religious radio broadcaster, has predicted that the world will end at precisely 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, 2024.
Camping says he figured out the date based upon some obscure figures found in the Bible that only make sense to him; he took a verse from 2 Peter about how one day with the Lord is “as a thousand years and a thousand years is one day” put it into a black box and came up with the idea that 7,000 years after Noah’s flood the rapture would begin. Then he extrapolated the date of the flood from a verse in the book of Genesis that said the flood began on the 17th day of the second month of the Jewish calendar. However, Camping is a little unclear about what Jewish calendar he’s using.
The Hebrew Calendar has two separate years the Civil Year, which begins on 1 Tishrei and is usually in September or October, and the Ecclesiastical Year, which begins on 1 Nisan which usually falls in March or April. Camping decided to use the Ecclesiastical Year, because it is theorized that the Kingdom of Israel counted years using that method. However, the Kingdom Judah, which included Jerusalem and Hebron, counted years using the Civil Year.
Despite all of Camping’s “historical research” he still hasn’t explained why the beginning of the End of the World will happen in hour 12 of Fuse TV’s 14-hour Gaga-thon (which TV Guide describes as containing “Music, material and miscellany featuring flashy songstress Lady Gaga.”) If tomorrow wasn’t predicted to mark the start of the End Times I would say that a 14-hour-block of programming dedicated to Lady Gaga is surely a sign of the Apocalypse.
Now Vodka, Whiskey and I were trying to figure out the logistics of the impending apocalypse; the things that aren’t mentioned in any of the literature about the End of Days; for example: what to wear and what to bring to an Apocalypse party. Over at Culturemap, Society Editor Shelby Hodge has an etiquette guide to the Apocalypse and she advises wearing white and bringing manual can openers as host/hostess gifts. Lady Vodka and Dr. Whiskey disagreed with Ms. Hodge’s stylish, but practical, assessment of the situation. Vodka said we should load up on boas and bring our friends while Whiskey thinks basic black and pistols are acceptable attire for an End of the World soiree.
Needing another opinion I decided to ask a hipster who was deep in consultation with an old friend of his, Baron von Jager, what he thought would be appropriate for a Judgment Day dinner. He advised dropping some metal onto an Ipod and grabbing a Polaroid. After that suggestion I thought it best to let him continue catching up with the good Baron, after all who wants to have an entire discussion about the Best Metal songs for the End of the World. (Sidebar see Free Press Houston’s playlist: Best Metal Songs for the End of the World.)
After I realized that the Banh Mi I’d eaten for dinner had decided to disagree with me I quickly parted ways with Lady Vodka and Dr. Whiskey. Since they are two of the most popular people in Montrose they weren’t too upset at being left alone at a bar, although they made me promise to see them again on Saturday, which I already regret doing.
