Undaunted by the recent prediction of the apocalypse on Saturday, May 21st, 2011 by ‘fringe’ radio evangelist Harold Camping, members of TOOL (again, despite the impending doom!) continued to write new material for their next recording. Before continuing with a progress report (and special announcement), I would first like to personally give kudos to the guys for (unanimously!) not succumbing to all the media-driven fear surrounding Christ’s return during Oprah’s last days. But as for Mr. Camping and his crestfallen flock of gas-wasting puppet underlings, shame on all of you for frightening ‘the people down the street’, especially for scaring little girls and Scott Stapp half to death with your “end of the world” baloney! What the hell were you thinking! – you lethargic liver spot hoping to smuggle scrotal pearls into the promised land!.. Just like all those prophets of doom with their mothballed Raptures, we ‘the beer drinking public’ have a good mind to deal with Mr. Camping hickory stick fashion! If not taking turns kicking him with galoshes in his bony shin, then at least let’s give the gibbering skid-mark a black dunce cap and put him on the ducking stool! Jesus Christ on a unicycle, somebody slip some geriatric pharmaton in this chap’s Jell-O cake before terrified believers start committing suicide. What’s that you are saying: The old codger isn’t to blame. He’s just another poor misguided soul… Well, suppose the reports are true that he renewed his radio contract just days prior to his Judgement Day prediction (date)? Then would it be okay to dip his rectal suppositories in Tabasco sauce… as well as to verbally crucify all the idiots that he took (extorted?) money from?

And now what’s this latest prediction for world annihilation in October by this dawdling teratoid? Can’t you just see this flabbergasted fossil (still taking donations!) with a Bible and bottle of strawberry Ensure, re-calculating on his Panasonic 850 with quivering brittle brown-flecked fingers looking like some disgusting appetizer from the Claim-Jumper! False! Inaccurate! False! (At least those guys from “Jars of Clay” are still here. It would have sucked to climb out of the rubble and see just their cloths lying there). As most of us know, the actual date for the apocalypse is December 21, 2012. That’s December 21, scrotum-face! Even dead elephants know that! Haven’t you read Daniel Pinchbeck? Even a box of doorknobs knows that! The return of Quetzalcoatl, not a catastrophe you shale in your shoes shit for brains! (Note: Readers of this website will recall a trip to the Yucatan where Adam, after buying his guide a Coke, was personally shown the tell-tale Maya calendar stele at Coba.)

All right, moving forward. No matter how many new TOOL tunes are currently complete, I will personally guarantee that the new CD will be released on MAY 22, 2012 (or MAY 15, 2012). And unlike that old f**k rattling the shingles with his cauliflower and mini-Cheddars flatulence, my calculation is not based on some preposterous coded Biblical numerology. Instead, it comes from a credible source who, himself, obtained the information via trance-contact (which was written down on a scratch pad) from an interplanetary avatar (and sector commander) named ZEMKLA JR. from the city of Farlon on the planet Selo (in the Bernard’s Star System).

Thus having been contacted, SEMKLA JR. traveled to the earth in a vortex device (equipped with “anti-God controls”) that he called “an extra Gamma-traversing spheroid” (whose sighting was officially listed by a general at Luke Air Force Base as “a supersonic flight of Canadian geese.”) After first warning of the dangers of indole poisons (pork, spinach, bleached flour, etc.), and demonstrating the amazing power of a Temkla pencil, Zemkla (who resembled a “Missouri Mexican wearing what looked like an astral tennis outfit, and was accompanied by beautiful women who appeared like they just stepped out of a Greek painting”), revealed the all-important date, afterwards uttering “Ino Pazis Gnurum.” Go ahead and listen to the alzur agents if you want (wearing their black dunce caps), but I’ll bet anyone a crystal glass of Plobium and 100 green trading disks that the date is correct. Feel free to spread the word anyway you want: Billboards, posters, digital bus displays, or smoke signal apps on your iPhone…

In fact, braving Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio (who I’m sure would love to put any interplanetary avatar resembling a Missouri Mexican into a pink jumpsuit!), tomorrow I’m going to drive to the “BELL” portal in Sedona, Arizona with hopes of meeting ZEMKLA JR. for myself. I’m going to this extra trouble in order to double-check the calculation of the TOOL CD release date (but don’t ask me what color his socks were, if a Javelina Decimator leaves a mess behind, or how many bolts are in the vortex device!). If, like Mr. Camping, I’m “just a little off”, come MAY 23rd, I don’t want to have to hole up in some Motel 6 with mobs of angry ToolArmy members banging on the door.

POST SCRIPT: In a possible tangential and/or MIB encounter, shortly after finishing the newsletter, while eating at a local TACO BELL, I noticed an elderly fellow with a strange flashlight stuffed into his back pocket STANDING IN LINE. When it was HIS TURN TO ORDER, he told the woman at the counter that he was going to go outside a smoke a cigarette. He then asked what would be the latest time that he could return and order a “delicious bean burrito?” After leaving to smoke the cigarette (I assume), he returned and ordered FOR HIMSELF two bean burritos – one with NO ONIONS, the other with EXTRA ONIONS. He then turned to the person standing behind him and asked if he was a Mexican American? The reason he wanted to know (so he said) was that he wanted to learn the correct way to say “Hola”… Honestly. For a minute I thought he was going to say, “I BE ZEMKLA JR…”

HAPPY TRAILS