May 16, 2011

Oh, by the way— the world’s going to end next Saturday, so circle May 21st on your calendar and kiss your sorry ass goodbye.

Actually, according to the Christian radio host and Biblical numbers-cruncher Harold Camping, it’s more precise to say the world will only begin to end on Saturday, since that’s the day Jesus “You Know It Ain’t Easy” Christ will descend from the heavens, scoop up all the Christian hardliners, and leave everyone else - including, let’s be honest here, you and me - to await a series of earthquakes that will decimate the planet five months later, on Oct. 21st.

Circle that date, too.

The only reason I’m even slightly inclined to believe this is because the Indians currently look like they have a chance to still be playing baseball on Oct. 21st. So, if it seems like they’re finally about to win the damned thing a couple days beforehand, I strongly suggest you start gathering up your Vienna Sausages and bottled water, and maybe even some Twinkies. End times will definitely be nigh.

In case you’re wondering why you’re about to join the eternal damnation club, here’s Camping’s difficult to refute line of reasoning behind May 21st being the day of Rapture (not to be confused with the Blondie song “Rapture,” which only signified the beginning of the end of Blondie):

* According to Camping, the number five equals "atonement,” the number ten equals "completeness,” and the number seventeen equals "heaven.” I, however, have always assumed the number five equals five, the number ten equals ten, and the number seventeen equals banana splits.

* Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 A.D. Surely, the irony of this happening on April Fools Day didn’t escape him. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.

* If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not a lunar year), the result is 722,449. Whatever you do, don’t screw up and multiply by a lunar year! People are always doing that.

* The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days…and who among us can’t get behind that?

* 51 added to 722,449 is 722,500. Again, agreed.

* (5 × 10 × 17) squared or (atonement × completeness × heaven) squared also equals 722,500. Thus, Camping concludes that 5 × 10 × 17 is telling us a "story from the time Christ made payment for our sins until we're completely saved."

Then again, it might just be telling us 850.

                                                ***

Needless to say, nobody’s taking any of this very seriously...except, of course, for those people who are taking it very seriously. For example, there’s Robert Fitzpatrick, a retired Mass Transit Authority worker here in New York who “The Daily News” reports has spent his entire life’s savings on billboards and bus stop posters pointing out that, very soon, you and I, as opposed to Robert Fitzpatrick, are gonna be fucked in a big way.

That's a pretty shitty thing to drop 140 grand on during the final week of your earthly existence, if you ask me. Has this guy never heard of coke and hookers? Or even just hookers?

                                                ***

Anyway, since we all have less than a week before watching perhaps the most obnoxious people in our neighborhoods ascend to heaven, I’ve decided to hip you to a couple tracks that suggest maybe those of us who are left behind deserve to be annihilated by a series of earthquakes, that a painful apocalypse is the only logical conclusion to our desperate, pathetic little narrative.

1978’s “Life in the Foodchain” is pretty much the only album you’ll ever need from Tonio K (i.e. Steve Kirkorian; the stage name is a Kafka reference, and that says a lot), but it features a handful of the most viciously sarcastic tunes in rock & roll history. There’s no doubt Warren Zevon had one of the worst attitudes in commercial rock back in the 1970s. But this guy practically peers into the abyss while holding a Mai Tai. I mean, anyone who can write the following interpersonal relationship lyric…

Well, I may not be as mellow
As for instance Jackson Browne
But “Fountain of Sorrow” my ass, motherfucker
I hope you wind up in the ground

…is bound to be trouble when he starts pondering the greater fucked-uppedness that connects us all as human beings. If you don’t have the proper mindset, Tonio K is laughing at you, not with you. And that makes him all the more entertaining if you do have the proper mindset.

                                                ***

Take, for instance, the album’s title track, which covers the whole “circle of life” concept with far more 1950s rock & roll gusto, and about 130% less romanticism, than a similarly themed tune that made everybody cry into their cherry Slurpees at the beginning of “The Lion King.”

“Life in the Foodchain”

Well, your mother was there to protect you
Your papa was there to provide
So how in the world did the excellent baby
Wind up in this hotel so broken inside
You lie on your bed in the midnight darkly
Listening to every sound
Watching the shadows for anything moving
And hoping they don’t come around

‘cause it’s the dog eat dog
And it’s the cat and mouse
It’s a watch your step
And cross yourself
And get back in the house
And it’s the do or die
It’s push and shove
Because everybody is hungry
And there isn’t quite enough

(chorus)
That’s right we’re talking about the good life
In the foodchain
Love among the ruins
I guess that you’ve finally come to accept that
There’s nothing you can do about
It’s kind of like carving a turkey
Kind of like mowing the lawn
Everything gets to this certain dimension
Winds up a on a customers plate and then gone

‘cause that dog eat dog
And it’s the cat and mouse
You know it’s cut the cake
And grab a plate
And hope it goes around
I said it’s the do or die
It’s down to push and shove
That’s because everybody is hungry
And there just isn’t quite enough
(repeat, with occasional rabid growling, until point is made)

Man, would I have loved to have seen them rate that thing on “American Bandstand— “Well, Dick, it’s got a good beat, it’s easy to dance to, and I think I’ve actually shit my pants over the sudden realization that we’re all screwed.”

“That’s great, Jeff. Thanks for playing our game. And now a word from Clearasil.”

                                                ***

The other major knee-slapper on “Life in the Foodchain” is an actual attempt by Tonio to start a new dance craze— “The Funky Western Civilization.” There’s no reason why kids shouldn’t have been getting down to it when I was in high school, either, aside from references to crucifying Jesus and blowing Kennedy’s brains out, and a guitar solo that sounds like a giant electric chicken.

Oh, yeah— there’s also a spoken-word monologue from Joan of Arc. She happily joins Tonio in rubbing your nose in it, too.

“The Funky Western Civilization”

Come on everybody

Get on your feet

Get with the beat

There's a brand new dance craze
Sweeping the nation
It's called the Funky Western Civilization


Well, there's a riot in the courthouse
There's a fire in the street

There's a sinner bein' trampled
By a thousand pious feet

There's a baby every minute
Bein' born without a chance

Now don't that make you want to jump right up and start to dance?



Let's do the funky

The Funky Western Civilization

It's really spunky

It's just like summertime vacation

You just grab your partner by the hair

Throw her down and leave her there



Well, they put Jesus on a cross
They put a hole in JFK

They put Hitler in the driver's seat
And looked the other way

Now they've got poison in the water
And the whole world in a trance

But just because we're hypnotized
That don't mean we can't dance



We've got the funky

The Funky Western Civilization

It's oh so very spunky

It's just like summertime vacation

You just drag your partner through the dirt

put him in a world of hurt



Yes, you get down
Good God you get funky

Get western
(own up to it boys and girls)

And if you try real hard
Maybe you can even get, you know
Kinda civilized



Joan of Arc monologue: “Mesdames et messieurs, bon soir. This is Joan of Arc. Tonio has asked me to personally deliver a rather special message. He say he just cannot get enough of my 15th-century wisdom. He say he loves it when I talk with him like this. And after many a Saturday night of doing the Funky Western Civilization together, I know for a fact he agrees with me when I say
(in French): You can bullshit the baker and get the buns.
 You can back out of every deal except one!”



This is the funky

The Funky Western Civilization

It's oh, so very spunky

It's just like summertime vacation

All's you gotta do is find some little kid somewhere

And throw him way up in the air


Yes it's a funky

A Funky Western Civilization

And it may seem kinda skunky, you know

But it's hitting every nation
All across the universe

That's 'cause all's you gotta do is
Grab your partner by the hair

Throw her down and leave her there
(repeat again until point is made, this time without growling)

That appearance by Joan of Arc was quite a coup at the time. Everybody else just landed Linda Ronstadt as a guest artist.

Download: “Life in the Foodchain” by Tonio K. Album: “Life in the Foodchain” (1978.) You should probably grab the tracks, “American Love Affair” and “H-A-T-R-E-D,” too, if you know what’s good for you. Happy apocalypse now.

Paul Tatara