Page 2 of 3 |
May 21, 1999 CE - You know somebody’s in trouble when they base their apocalyptic theories on Marylin Agee’s calculations. So, Manuel Viloria* was pretty much starting with a deficit, right there. Odder still, Manny’s a Catholic. So, what he’s doing obsessing over a Born Again’s millennial musings is anyone’s guess. He’s gotten a tad defensive since his pined-for prophecy went poofers, and devotes several paragraphs to bitterly dissing anyone who might feel inclined to point his Doomsdud out to him. Still, he hasn’t turned into a complete Grumpy Guss. Helpful fella that he is, Manny offers a section on good, common-sense advice for those left behind after the Rapture, whenever the heck it hits. Things like, pray to God for protection and forgiveness and don’t let anyone embed a bar-code in your forehead.
I must remember to write that down... *Note: Recently, Manny got a case of the shy’s about the whole prophecy business and first seriously abbreviated his page. Then, took it down completely. What’s left is merely a cached Google ghost, “left behind” to haunt to web with its silliness forever. July 5, 1999 CE - Undaunted by their ‘98 letdown, the Subgenii boldly declared another prophecy for “XX-Day”. I guess it took them a little while to get over the shock of failure this time around...or maybe just a bit longer to sober up. In any case, they finally got their official excuses and evasions together (a collection well worth the wait, I must say!) and promptly unveiled a brand, spanking new “XXX-Day” for the year 2000...which, of course, failed as well. Just scroll down a bit for info on the exact Doomsdate, hotel and travel reservations, excuses, evasions, etc... August 11, 1999 CE...for starters - Well, I searched high and low, but I just couldn’t find a kitchen sink anywhere on the website of DoomMeister Thomas Chase. However, that particular household fixture is the only thing missing from Tommy’s mix ‘n match, toss and blend, puree and liquefy approach to apocalyptic panic pushing. According to him, just about every single thing in the world is a sign of the Antichrist. His Armageddon grab-bag simply bulges to bursting with astrological signs and portents, Bible babble, numerological nuttiness, geography-as-Rorschach-Test strangeness, loopy ravings about the Stock Market, the weather, plane crashes, Princess Di and every half-notable news item since 1914. He’s also keen on Shroud of Turin theories and pattern drafting from his very own, private version of the Julian calendar. Of course, he also used to have just oodles and oodles of stuff on that recent frenzy-fomenting fave, the Y2K bug. But, for some odd reason, all of that’s just up and...disappeared, mysterious-like from his pages. Now, why’d that be, I wonder? Probably his single favorite bit of Antichrist-ish reasoning is the stunning bit of news that...hang onto your hat...999 is 666 upside-down!!!!...Yes, I knew you’d be as overwhelmed as I. In fact, it was precisely this tidbit thrown together with the Y2K bug that gave Tommy one of his first Doomsdates; September 9, 1999. I guess it was a bug-a-boo deadline for catastrophists too impatient to wait for January 1, 2000 like everybody else. Tom is also rather stuck on 888 as a number of ominous import. I guess because 888 upside-down is...888. Still, Tommy doesn’t like to limit his End Times any more than he likes to limit his End Signs and 9-9-99 was just one in a series. First up on his Last Legs List was a killer comet or maybe nuclear war August 11-18 of ‘99. The fact that neither seems to have happened hasn’t provoked Tommy to excise or alter the prediction, either. Moving right along, he pegged Y2K disaster on December 31, (a day ahead, but Tom apparently wanted to get the jump on everybody) Y2K disaster again on January 1, 2000 and unspecified nastiness on April 12, May, July 16 and August. Something vaguely Satanesque got hinted about the Cassini probe on July 1, 2000, or possibly November 2004, nuclear war...no, a killer comet...no, nuclear war...no, a killer comet...no...oh, well, something big and icky in 2007, that Mayan calendar stuff in 2012 and whenever-the-heck the world population hits 66.6 billion. (One presumes when that last one fails, he’ll just switch it to 666 billion, or 6.66 trillion, or maybe 666 kadillion squillion gajillion, etc.) Tom also seems a tad unclear on the difference between real life and the movies (quelle surprise!) and has a tendency to confuse the two in endlessly entertaining ways. Darth Vader, in particular, seems to play a vitally important part in Tom’s cosmology. In all, a bit repetitious, but still a fun website. It links to yet another, which contains less of the same. September 10-11, 1999 CE - A Bonnie Gaunt devotee who goes only by the nick, “Hisday” had an amusing little website devoted to spouting all the standard package End Times delusions: new world order paranoia, satanic microchip implants, holy heifers, creationism, America-as-Devil’s-pawn hysteria, anti-Catholic rhetoric, yadda, yadda, yadda...The right-wing Christian fanatic’s equivalent of basic cable. Of course, as a Bonnie booster, little “Hisday” was a big fan of the Rosh Hashana Rapture prediction she’d been bandying about. “His” even went to the trouble of preparing an “End-Time Survival Guide” for all us sad and sorry suckers left Un-rapped by the close of the holiday weekend. Thoughtful, wasn’t it? Unfortunately, immediately after the Rosh Hashana Non-Event, the site, itself, got Raptured up into that Great “File Not Found” page in the sky. Only “His’s” little Usenet advert remains on Google as a testament to embarrassments past.
Also on September 10-11, 1999 CE - Back on August 28th, 1999 rattlin’ Rapture-rooter Jason Hommel could no longer keep his delusions to himself and spammed about half of Usenet to announce that the Big Christian Suck-Up would be a “go” on the upcoming Rosh Hashana holiday. His reasoning (for those generous enough in spirit to wish to call it that) had something to do with gold and cubes and cubits and gematria and Jerusalem and Y2K and the number 5760 (which was the current year in the Hebrew calendar) and Dustin Hoffman in “Rainman”. Reading his wildly convoluted, tortuously pointless mathematical contortions as he tried to weave prophecy out of puffery was a true hoot. As still are his obsessions with the fiduciary purity of gold, the magical healing powers of cayenne pepper and a Satanic capstone-of-the-Beast for the Giza pyramid. UPDATE: To his credit, in the wake of the Rosh Hashana fizzle-out, Jason actually provided an apology on his page for being such an idiot. Points given for that! Of course, he then went into a long, melodramatic bout of self-flagellation, insisting that he deserved death (the formal Biblical punishment) for his false prophetical ninnyhood and waxed lyrical over his good fortune in evading punishment via the forgiveness of Christ. Points deducted. In truth, Jay-bo’s good fortune rests in living in a modern age, under secular laws, where the only punishment for being a kook is the knowledge that you’ve made an ass of yourself in public...Oh, and seeing your site listed here. Naturally enough, smacky’s ravings have joined the legions of other e-failures to go mysteriously missing post-bust. October 10, 1999 - April 22, 2003 CE - A Bible Code bubblehead going by the painfully wishful sobriquet, “theprophet” played word puzzles with the Book Of Daniel to back up his notion that the End would be coming up any ol’ day now. Of course, part of this brilliant theory hinged on the Third Temple being whipped together and modern Jews going collectively cuckoo enough to re-institute ritual animal sacrifice in it by Oct. 10, ‘99. He also theorized a while back that the Third Temple would be built by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...until Benny was voted out of office, that is. Well, darned if theproph didn’t suddenly and conveniently find “lost” and “election” in the same Bible passage to explain this little gaffe away! I’m still waiting for brand new coded caveats to explain away the Rapture-free October 11. December 6, 1999 CE - Wasn’t it amazing back on the 6th, when Jupiter exploded to become the second sun in our solar system? What do you mean, you don’t remember that? Why, according to “The Cutting Edge Ministries”, we should be sunning ourselves in the new star’s Luciferian rays, even as I write! It was all a nefarious plot by the Illuminati, don’cha know? A clever ploy to make way for the Antichrist and the wicked New World Order that lurk under every bush. Of course, NASA was in on it, too, having supplied the plutonium-packed Galileo probe that they would deliberately crash into the giant gas ball...As opposed to the not-so-deliberate Sunday driving they’ve been doing with all their other probes, lately. (Note: I've been convincingly exhorted by dedicated reader and fellow fancier of quality ‘Net Kookery, Mr. Christian Roll, to include a link to The Cutting Edge’s home page. The place is such an endless treasure trove of conspiratorial weirdage, after all, that it would be a shame not to get the full tour.) Summer-ish, 2000 CE - According to the typically uncredentialed “Pastor Harry” of “Escape 666”, (newly re-titled “SatansRapture.com” for rather hilarious legal reasons and which he keeps referring to as an organization, although no trace of any member besides himself could be seen) Nostradamus had not been proved wrong, after all! Nuh-uh! No way! Harry has a Nosey fixation bordering on forbidden love that moved him to give the ol’ French fry a whole extra year of wiggle room to squirm in. When even that failed, Hal...well, he just snapped like an old bra strap, poor thing. Consider his explanations: It seems Nosey’s nailing of 1999 and seven months was based on “olden” calendar calculations...Though which “olden” calendar Harry neglects to say. Oh, true, they may be have been off by our planet’s reckoning. But, rest assured, they were bang on sched on his! He also decided that part of Nosey’s prophecy involves Jesus (or possibly the Antichrist, it varies) landing on Earth in a UFO, the breakout of WW III and the impact of a Doomsday Asteroid...in no particular order. Suffice to say, sometime between his new-minted doomsdates of 2006 - 2012 we're all going to get prophetically bitch-slapped good and hard. Survivors, he assures the reader, will then be treated to the mass anti-gravity Christian display scheduled for some point early in the festivities. Best to book your tickets for the show, now! Now, about that title change. Back sometime in 2001, Harry's old page was nabbed in a hostile takeover by a fellow with a September 11 fixation and every trace of its original weirdness (save the title) is was either wiped or mercilessly skewered. It’s been quite a little cat fight be’twixt the two ever since and both devote a fair bit of spitting space to the bicker-fest. Off-topic, but amusing for pure pettiness’ sake. July 2, 2000 CE - Yes, once again, it was time for the end of the world courtesy of our friends at the Church Of The SubGenius, as they officially declared the date for XXX-Day! This time around, they were hoping the event would be an even more festive affair than usual with the exciting new doctrinal addition of Porn Queens to the Apocalypse. One can only imagine this extra was tossed in to make up in some measure for the appalling washout that was Y2K. And happily, the honorable Rev. Ivan Stang took the time to write up what is doubtless on everyone’s minds regarding that giant non-athon. Reports from the recent Devival are already online to help the faithful through this time of crisis and ease the pain of whiling away the endless, otherwise pink hours. And, need I even mention, the date’s already been set for a shiny new 4XD-Day? Just scroll down a bit for the details... July 7, 2000 CE - Satanic UFO maven Robert Hallman’s second choice for Rapture reel-in. September 6, 2000 CE - Danny Millar went at it again. This time, he figured out that the date for the last round-up would be this one. He worked it out by setting his Endtimer by the “first abomination”. Which, by Danny’s lights, was the public unveiling of poor, hapless Dolly the sheep. Being an Evangelical, you’d think he’d like sheep. But, it seems the whole clone thing just rattled his mutton-run no end. He also seemed to think that modern day Jews practice animal sacrifice, since he fretted deeply over the Antichrist forbidding it. A worry that’s roughly 2000 years out-of-date. But reality and Dan don’t seem to be terribly close traveling companions. September 29, 2000 CE - LOVETHEJEW was, more accurately, LOVETHE Messianic JEW, which is pretty much a Christian with a Judaica chatchkis fetish. Anyways, stuck as the poor dear was on forcibly shoving the two traditions together in all things, he went the typical Rosh Hashanah Rapture route. Though, instead of trying to justify the date with graphs and charts and creative Bible Math, his reasoning ran more along the lines of, “It must be the right date, ‘cuz, like, it’s really cool and I want it to be!” And, of course, we all know that reality is completely and utterly dependent on what we wish for. ...Or maybe not...Seems LTJ’s site has up and taken a post Rosh-hour powder since the strangely Rapture-less holiday came and went. And now, I simply cannot shake the image of poor, page-purging Lovey sitting Savior-less by the apocalyptic wishing well, balefully crooning “Someday My Prince of Peace Will Come...”
Most retirees tend to take up nice, healthy hobbies in their By never bothers to pop up again to make excuses when his prophetic fantasias flop, and this was no exception. Instead, he just disappears for a while, then resurfaces later to make another, much like the one before. More recently, sometime comic and Afrocentric bubblebonnet Dick Gregory illustrated what high standards he holds by giving ol’ By a hilarious new forum to foam in right here. Enjoy, enjoy! Sometime between 2000 - 2007 CE - A coy little creature is Shawn Astels. Even though everything on his “Last Day’s Prophecy: Countdown To Armageddon” site is geared toward fomenting the maximum amount of hysteria over a circa. 2000 Tribulation and subsequent Doomsday, he keeps insisting that he’s made no such suggestions at all. Not one! No! Certainly not!...Me thinks the loony doth protest too much. In fact, Shawn’s pages simply drip with every right wing pop paranoia in the book, from mind controlling bio-chips of the Beast to New World Order terrors. (and Y2K catastrophes until the due date turned into a punchline) And he doles out wild misinformation by the non-metric ton about everything from government agencies to social programs to technological advances to (naturally) any and all non-Christian religious groups. Like many others of his ilk, Shawn likes to think of himself as a poor, benighted soldier of Christ, under attack from the forces of Satan who assault him from all quarters. He’s even included a section on his site for “Hate Mail” to show how unfairly he’s treated by the evil unbelievers. What becomes immediately obvious, though, is that the angry missives he posts are not responses to his site, but to his many rude and obnoxious spams of non-religious newsgroups and even total stranger’s private email boxes. My advice for those who want to peruse his place is to bustle on over there right quick before enough complaints to his ISP get him tossed off the ’net...an event far more likely to come before his Doomsday does. It was really dull. The general gist was this: BANDS used the BoD to try to prove his pet theory that sinful, icky, no-good America would get whacked via God’s Will by the end of the Clinton administration. (Of course, there is something to be said about the election of George “Icky-Boo-On-Those-Eeevil-doers!” Bush...but I digress.) Somewhere tucked in amongst the endless Daniel quotes were a few whiney little claims of divine drop-by’s and other delusions. That they were neither funny, nor interesting nor numerous enough to justify the slog-through must have eventually sunk into the cranium of even the site’s owner, since it finally vanished in a puff of apathy. April 7, 2001 CE - Philip B. Brown is a plain, brown-wrapper, hum-drum fanatic with a plain, brown-wrapper, hum-drum prophecy. His website drones on and on so tediously, you almost find yourself wishing the End really would come, if only to perk things up. In brief, he predicted that the Great Tribulation would start when the two witnesses described in Revelation started to prophesy in Jerusalem, got their butts kicked by the Antichrist and then got slapped back to life again after about three days of lying around like so much desert roadkill. The world would be amazed (not least by the duo’s intense fragrance) and Christ would make his big, splashy entrance to rule as Herr Fuhrer for the next thousand years. Ta-da.
July 5, 2001 CE - Yes, those fun-loving apocalypse fans of the Church of the Subgenius came back, again! This time touting a sparkling, new 4XD-Day* which they were certain would be the one to get the faithful off this rock and put the pinks where they belong for good and all! Last time I poked my head in for a look-see ‘round his ‘net digs, I noticed B.B. had received a challenge to his Last Adam status. Competition has reared its addled head in the form of an 18 year old anonymous Guestbook surfer (you know how important these prophets’ credentials are) and the heat may be on to see who’s really in Last place! Update: Sadly, if predictibly, Adam’s page has recently gone to that “Big Ben” in the sky...or ‘net, leaving naught behind but fond and fuzzy memories. Here’s hoping the page disappeared due to a dose of the right meds and not to a lack of web access that tends to accompany a box-under-the-freeway-overpass lifestyle. April 14, 2002 CE one half-second before midnight, Isreali time - Speaking of right wing wackos, let me introduce Mike Keller, owner of “2002 Doomsgate”, a virtual bottomless pit of paranoia, delusion and psyche-shriveling enmity. Simply put, Mikey hates everybody. And he simply couldn’t wait for the Lord to put on his smiting face and get to the business of massacring them all. To give you an idea of what I mean by “all”, I should note that Mikey proudly claims membership in the John Birch Society and that his website nestles cozily in the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Ring”, a non-humorously titled collective, with sites that include Neo-Nazis and the KKK. Mikey hasn’t missed a beat as far as Far Reich raving goes, from Y2K hysteria (giggle, snort) to New World Order ofal to fear of Satanic conspiracies under every rock to equations of the UN and the US with the Whore of Babylon. His site covers all the bilious bases at an apropos third grade reading comprehension level. In keeping with his equal-opportunity hatred, Mikey favored an equal opportunity apocalypse, citing nukes, earthquakes, polar shifts, invading foreign armies, bio-warfare and assorted showy God-ish type disasters to bump off the global heathen population. The only thing he seems to have missed is the recent mad fad for Satanic UFOs...Well, maybe not the only thing. Reality seemed to have escaped lil’ Mikey’s list of possibilities for Springtime 2002 and darned if that wasn’t what moseyed on in and messed with his plans something fierce. Of course, since he hasn’t been back to update his site since mid-2000, (clearly the victim of an Evul Libberul Konspeerusy!) it’s anyone’s guess what Mikey thinks of his prophetic pooperoo or whether he’s ever going to pop up again with a fresh batch o’ dooms and dates for the hordes he hates. June 21, 2002 CE - One of my fave ‘Net Kooks, Klaus Wagner, now has a spiritual twin! The anonymous loon (who recently “unmasked” himself in my Guestbook as “Mordred Pendragon”) behind this mess of a site (which starts with a long list of URLs that all lead to the top of the exact...same...bogglingly...endless...page) is just obsessed with the Windsor clan. Though his Beasty Boy affections seem to lean more toward Prince Will, than Queen Liz. In fact, he’s quite certain that the young heir is the reincarnation of King Arthur...as well as being the Antichrist. Which is cool, ‘cause I can respect a Satanic spawn who’s into multi-tasking. Of course, before he can come to power, a few little details need to be cleared out of the way. The first being the entire continental US. A Doomsday comet scheduled for the summer break was Morry’s menu selection. From there he predicted Russia invading Israel, the rest of the royal clan getting whacked and the New World Order doing its whole evil bid'ness thang before bringing his show to a close with the standard-issue Jesus vs. Antichrist: Armageddon Super-Smackdown...All references to which mysteriously disappeared from his site, poof! like magic! after his doomdate came and went with his targets still stubbornly hale, hearty and intact. No excuses, no explanations. Instead, the reader is now greeted with a shiny and oblivious new start date of 2006. A comfy span, when you think about it. Close enough for that “imminent” feel. Yet, giving four leg-stretching years of buffer space for his delusions to roam wild and free. July 5, 2002 CE at 7:00AM EST - Well, okay, so 4XD-Day didn’t exactly pan out as planned. But, not to worry! Those perky apocalyptic pep-squadders of the Church of The Subgenius are back once again with a poppin’ fresh date for honest-to-Bob Rupture. Miss the 5XDay Devival and be left to perish with the rest of the pinks! It’s your choice! Update: Well, okay, so 5XDay turned out to have a lot in common with 4XD-Day, after all. The Bob-ists must’ve taken it pretty hard, too, since I haven’t even been able to find any of the usual excuses and evasions. A true loss, since theirs are always top quality, mint condition, with high collector’s value. Still, there’s always... July 5, 2003 CE at 7:00AM EST - ...X-Day: 666 to look forward to!...Unless, of course, you’re a pink! Bwahahahahahah!!! ...cough... cough... wheeze... August, 2003 - 2013 CE - Well, I got yer good news and yer bad news. The bad news is, the New World Order is going to plunge the planet into apocalyptic darkness between 2003 and 2013. The good news is, the whole darn Universe is just a big hologram, anyway. So, it really won’t matter! At least not to the wünderwiggy webmaster of “The New Physics”, a hypergraphic headcase who goes by the unwittingly apt appellation, “Zeropoint”. Decidedly a gourmand apocalypticist, Zero simply devours every crackpot rumor, paranoia and superstition he can find, with sweet, pickled relish. From crop circle crockery to infinite energy motors, secret government flying saucers to Satanic ETs, the Philadelphia Experiment to...polar shifts!...if there’s a nutty morsel lil’ Z. won’t swallow, it hasn’t been half-baked, yet. His own special New World Order comes with a side of Grays. Baby-chomping ones, that is. Kept in kiddy menu selections by the US military. They’re assisted by a race of shape-shifting reptilian aliens who walk amongst us even now, passing as our friends, our neighbors, our telemarketers. Naturally, they’ll destroy the global economy, enslave the world pop, kill millions, unleash an army of Nazis, (hiding, as I write, in the frosty depths of the Antarctic tundra!) plant Satanic bar codes in the foreheads of poor, hapless pawns, (well, obviously!) and, led by the Antichrist, Prince Phillip, (Not William? Morry will be so upset!) try to kill Jesus with a “scalar” laser gun in outer space! The fiends!
The site goes on...and on and on. Much like Morry Pendragon, above, Zero has never learned to say “when” to a page. So, the world might well come to an end before his dithery scribblings do. But, as his grasp of vocabulary and the rules of grammar are as tenuous as his grasp on reality, the results are loads of fun and worth the very, very, very long scroll.
|