Bodacious Bonza Bottler Day 06-06-06 is an occasion for fetes, not threats. Don’t believe it? Check out the hellions, hell-billies and Mayor from Hell

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY - The signs are unmistakeable. Today is bound to be a helluva day. It is the sixth day of the sixth month of year six of this millennium and at 6:06 this morning, the temperature ranged from 60 to 66 degrees Fahrenheit in the New York Metro area.

I am all fired up because 06-06-06 is a Bodacious Bonza Bottler Day. If you are wondering, "What the H-E-double-hockey sticks is a Bonza Bottler Day?" read "Feedback on Lisa Tolliver On Air and Online: May 5 is Cinco de Mayo (an historical holiday) and this month's Bonza Bottler Day (a marketer's dream)" at Lisa Tolliver On Air and Online or "Cinco de Mayo and Bonza Bottler Day" at BlogCritics.org. Bonza Bottler Day was founded by Elaine Fremont, who died in a car accident in 1995. Her sister, Gail Berger - who is now the Bonza Bottler Day sponsor - explains that:

When the number of the year also coincides with the number of the day and month (July 7, 1997), there is reason to have a bigger celebration (more food, more friends and more decorations). We call this a Bodacious Bonza Bottler Day. Bodacious means "extraordinary, impressively great in size, or enormous." A baby born on a Bonza Bottler Day is known as a Bonza Bottler Baby which makes those birthday celebrations doubly special.

Days like 06-06-06 occur only once per century and, for better or worse, this Bodacious Bonza Bottler Day has particular significance. Heather Whipps explains the brouhaha in a May 25, 2006 LiveScience article entitled, "06/06/06: Another Date with Para-Science:"

The number 666 is used to refer to the beast in the Bible's Book of Revelations:

"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."

Purveyors of pop culture, such as the filmmakers responsible for making and marketing Omen (2006), a.k.a. Omen (666), have capitalized on the day, turning "evil into gold," as Tony Allen-Mills of the Sunday Times - Britain observed. In contrast, the advent of June 6, 2006 struck a note of dread in some people. For example, Allen-Mills reported in, "Mothers expect Damien on 6/6/06" (April 30, 2006, Sunday Times - Britain), that the prospect of giving birth on today sufficiently terrified some parents that they took pains to rush or delay their babies' arrivals to avoid "spawning devil children on Armageddon."

Not everyone is worried today, though. As Dan Nailen of the Salt Lake Tribune reports in "666 - for many, today's a devil of a good time:"

Theories on what the number means are numerous and contradictory in the collective mind of pop-culture enthusiasts, historians and theologians, and today's date - 6/6/06 - means different things to different people.

Nailen provides balanced coverage of the doomsday theories, assurances not to worry from Evangelical Christian Pastor Mark Hitchcock - an expert in Biblical prophecy, and additional examples of how various people and organizations are leveraging this hellacious marketing opportunity. The latter category includes Amy Adams and Jason Harris, owners of a Murray, Utah store called Redrum that specializes in horror- and serial killer-related items. The couple, Nailen wrote, "considered getting married last Halloween until they realized the 'once in a lifetime' chance to get married on 6/6/6."

Filmmakers, folks in Utah and Bonza Bottler Day followers are not the only ones who will celebrate today. As CNN.com and AP publicized in a June 3, 2006 article entitled, "Party in Hell Planned on 6-6-06," today is certainly going to be a hot time in Hell. Hell, Michigan, that is. Mayor from Hell, John Colone, and his fellow hellions or hell-billies - as residents are sometimes called in the unincorporated hamlet approximately 66 miles west of Detroit - will celebrate today with costume parties, sales of deeds to one square inch of Hell, gift shop items specially priced at $6.66 and newly erected Gates of Hell. In an interview with CBS-News this morning, Mayor Colone issued the following invitation: "Hope you have a hell of a good day and spend some time in Hell while you can enjoy it."

I would go to Hell today, without hesitation, if I could. In Michigan, I might even stay at the Dam Site Inn. But other paths could lead to Hell, Norway; Hell, Grand Cayman or Hell for Certain, Kentucky. Only today I'm giving out a scholarship at a high school awards ceremony and will celebrate with the lil' devils there. We'll surely have a wicked good time. Maybe another day I will go to Hell and back, descending from Paradise (a Michigan town a few hundred miles north of Hell) and reemerge to chill out at Paradise Island, Bahamas.###