The Wednesday Pop Culture Rant extends a hearty invitation to join our new religion, The Church of Get the Hell Off Our Lawn. We will soon be decamping for Indiana to hoist the steeple and open a string of bridal boutique/oil change franchises. The central tenet of Off the Lawners is anything that annoys us is evil. So you and your fuchsia bridesmaid dresses can hit the road, and we think you’re Chevy is of the devil, so go find some 10w30 elsewhere. Thus far we’ve had 23 schisms and it’s only Wednesday of the first week. We make Lutherans look like Shakers. The Rant loves religious freedom as long as it’s our religion and our freedom; everyone else is on their own. We’re pretty sure Jesus said that in the Book of Selfies. Or maybe it was a Chick-fil-A. We’re a little sketchy on the Bible as Off the Lawners only read The Fountainhead and Oprah Magazine.
But let’s rant: In case you were wondering, one theory of how April Fool’s Day began is that when Pope Gregory changed the calendar for European Catholics, the celebration of New Year’s moved from April 1 to January 1. Those that refused to make the change were ridiculed by those that just got over their hangovers from January. Others hold that it was the April crowd dishing the scorn. But both sides could easily be wrong: nearly every culture across the centuries has celebrated a day of pranks, The Rant’s favorite being the Roman Empire holiday of Hilaria.
All this noodling around on the calendar reminds The Rant that the measuring of time is completely arbitrary. When people got their apocalyptic undies in a bunch over the coming of the year 2000, the Hebrew calendar was wishing everyone a happy 5760. As Einstein once noted, when you’re with the one you love for an hour and it seems like a minute, that’s all you need to know to understand the theory of relativity.
The real fools are those desperately trying to measure time and their worth by the number of likes, retweets, hits, and clicks per hour they accumulate. There exists only the exquisite now. The Rant suggests making the now count for something more than counting the nows you no longer possess. Otherwise, the joke’s on you.
