Flee Flee Flee

In 2012 the preacher for Live For God's Kingdom had biblically deciphered the mysteries of the Mayan Apocalypse. Scoot Reeve advised his flock to flee in St. Joseph, Michigan to Jerusalem as a safe refuge for true believers. His sermons of the Last of Days had reinforced the doomsday convictions of my old friend, the ex-model from Paris and she had written me a warning.

"The Beast is a new world order and I think has tied to the International Monetary Fund--which will prevent those faithful to Christ from buying or selling because they will not bow down to this satanic world's demand of receiving its mark of 666 upon their forehead and hand. The love of God in Christ and His Word are eternal."

Normally I responded to her apocalyptical fears with sardonic derision, however the next day a friend had spotted a car caravan of doomsayers in the West Village. The loudspeakers chanting out the date, May 21, 2011, the new and revised End of Times. The religious were chomping at the bit for Armageddon, so their beloved Jesus will transport them into the Rapture. They have no sense of humor, but the beauty of humanity is that we see the funny side of tragedy.

And according to some pundit, here's how the media will report the End.

USA Today: WE'RE DEAD

The Wall Street Journal: DOW JONES PLUMMETS AS WORLD ENDS

National Enquirer: O.J. AND NICOLE, TOGETHER AGAIN

Playboy: GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE

Microsoft Systems Journal: APPLE LOSES MARKET SHARE

Victoria's Secret Catalog: OUR FINAL SALE

Sports Illustrated: GAME OVER

Wired: THE LAST NEW THING

Rolling Stone: THE GRATEFUL DEAD REUNION TOUR

Readers Digest: 'BYE

Discover Magazine: HOW WILL THE EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT AFFECT THE WAY WE VIEW THE COSMOS?

TV Guide: DEATH AND DAMNATION: NIELSON RATINGS SOAR!

Lady's Home Journal: LOSE 10 LBS BY JUDGMENT DAY WITH OUR NEW "ARMAGEDDON" DIET!

America Online: SYSTEM TEMPORARILY DOWN. TRY CALLING BACK IN 15 MINUTES.

Inc. magazine: TEN WAYS YOU CAN PROFIT FROM THE APOCALYPSE

Bring it on and take all the Bible-Thumpers to wherever they want to go.

The sooner the better.

Just so you know 12/21/2012 passed with the slightest threat of human extinction.

The New Mayan Apocalypse - June 21, 2020

Back in 1988 I crossed the Yucatan Peninsula from Belize to the ancient ruins of Tikal or perhaps Yax Mutal by the original inhabitants. The Mayan city rose from the jungle in 200BC. Its temples and pyramids were unrivaled until Siyah K’ak' or 'the Fire Born' led Teotihuacan troops to overthrow the Mayan dynastic ruler with the assistance of the Tikal elite. The city flourished for centuries before the inhabitants fled to avoid the constant wars. Time ended for Tikal and other great cities returned to the jungle, however the Mayan were great astrological mathematicians and back in 2011 present-day doomsday declared that they deciphered the pyramid's arcane glyphs and discovered that the world was destined to end on December 21, 2012, the final day of the Thirteen Baktun cycle when the planet Niburu crashed into Earth.

December 21, 2012 was a Friday. Millions of Egyptian protested against legally-elected President Morsi, a freezing cold spell took its toll in the Ukraine, and Barack Obama replaced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with John Kerry, but Niburu was a no-show.

End of show and not the Earth?

Not so quick, because end-of-the-world proponents have calculated that the Gregorian Calendar was eight years off the mark and Niburu will destroy this planet on June 21, 2020.

Nine days from now.

Stumped by Mayan calculations no one has announced the exact hour of our doom and star-gazers across the globe peering into telescopes have yet to spot Niburu, but I have already seen The End on Broad Channel across from Rockaway and was happy to see the next day as I will be on June 22, 2020.

The Hour Of The 13th Baktun

A little more than three days remain until the end of the 12th Mayan Baktun, which began on August 11th, 3114 BC. Supposedly the Egyptians invented written language on that date. The rest of the Neolithic world was recovering from the ravages of the Great Ice Age. Agriculture wouldn't revive in Northern Africa for more than a hundred years about the same time as the foundation of Troy and Caral the first city in the Americas. Stonehenge had yet to be built by the Celts, but beer had existed since 9500 BC as the first stepping stone of civilization. Billions of people have lived since then. The supposed approach of doomsday on 12/21/12 had leadened the spirit of the world. A tenth of Americans are concerned whether they will survive the dawn. The mother of the Sandy Hook shooter was purportedly obsessed with the End of Times. The director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe has declared that the entire apocalyptical prophesy has been a hoax foisted on mankind by the media. According to him there is no planet Nibiru in this galaxy, planet alignments have no effect on the Earth, and a magnetic polar shift occurs every million years and if it happened now north becoming the south would take centuries to complete. So I guess I'll drink beer on December 22. Heck, I'm drinking beer on December 17 and I will on December 18 too. Happy Beermas.

B'ak'tun Tsunami

Doomologists have pinpointed the end-date of the Mayan's 5,125-year-long cycle as 13.0.0.0.0 or December 21, 2012 without predicting the cause of Armageddon. Various options for the B'ak'tun have been offered by opposing camps. Fundamentalists are hoping for the Second Coming of the Messiah and survivalists are arming up for collapse of the New World Order, while New Ages search the cosmos for an errant asteroid or black hole. The apocalypse was supposed to start May 21 and culminate with a cataclysm on 12/21/12.

Last evening I had a dream in which I was staying on the 8th floor of a Honolulu high-rise. The waves surging into Waikiki grew larger and larger, until a surfer duck-dived under the crest of a monster tsunami. The wave crashed into the condo and water splashed against the terrace windows.

I looked out the window.

An even bigger wave surged towards the submerged beach and I backed away from the window in time to escape the wave shattering the glass. The sea was only two stories below our floor. Another wave was coming and it was huge.

I woke up with a start and looked around my room.

Dreams about tidal waves are often the result of life's overwhelming pressures and our tendency to not dealing with our problems. I have to admit that I don't have everything under control, however not everything in the world is about me and I got out of bed to look out the window. It was still dark and no wave rose over the skyline of Brooklyn, but I don't really have to worry about a tsunami.

Fort Greene is only 104 feet above sea level and the doric column of the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument adds about 149 feet of elevation. This added height would provide sufficient elevation to survive a tidal wave of epic proportions, but I would only be one of hundreds of Brooklynites seeking refuge from certain doom.

A jug of moonshine is under my kitchen sink.

It was a good back-up plan for doomsday and I went back to sleep content that the world was not ending today.

Ka xi'ik teech utsil, which is Mayan for good luck.

We'll be needing in the months to come.

High Ground

12-21-12 is nine days away and doomsday believers hoping to survive the predicted end of days are flocking to Mount Rtanj in Carpathian range, which supposedly has a 'special energy according to the late Arthur C Clark. A French town in the Pyrenees has also been targeted by cultists and the village authorities of Bugarach has warned travelers to Pic de Bugarach that the mountain will be closed on 12-21-12. A Turkish town has joined the hysteria for a safe place to ride out the end of the Mayan calendar thanks to the legend of Jesus' mom ascending to heaven from its mountain. I don't have the money to reach any of these havens, so I'll sit out the apocalypse at the Fort Greene Observatory. I most definitely will have a beer in my hand.

Pluto Pluto

The Mayan star-gazers studied the Xibalba be or Black Road or Milky Way from the tops of pyramids and predicted the end of the 26,000 year cycle on 12-21-12 and modern day astronomers of the apocalypse have suggested that the grand alignment of the planets will mercilessly annihilate the population of the Earth. Of course this line-up of the celestial orbs only worked due to the downgrading of Pluto to a smaller galactic orb. I reject the rejection of Pluto as a planet. Doom is avoided by acceptance of the old way of the solar system. I am a man of tradition.

Countdown To Doom Minus 18

December 21, 2012 or 12-21-12 will mark the end-date of a 5125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Positive New Agers are expecting a transition to the new era of enlightenment, while the fundamentalist are predicting a doomsday collision with an unseen planet called Nibiru drawn to our Earth by the Grand Planet Alignment. This gloomy forecast was based on Mayan scholar Michael Coe writing in his 1966 book THE MAYA, "there is a suggestion ... that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the 13th [b'ak'tun]. Thus ... our present universe be annihilated in December 2012, when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion." Annihilation? Only 18 days away? NASA and none of the other space agencies have announced impending doom, although that silence may be keeping with the classic line in disaster movie by the leader of the Free World, "We don't want the people to panic." Panic. The world is in a throes of a major economic depression. Wars are fought across the globe. Weather patterns are shifting to challenge the coastal populations with floods and the interiors with drought. But those in control of the world are afraid of panic. If we are not panicking now, we never will, then again I favor the renewal of the world spirit rather than a planet-ending calamity. Peace will rule the world.