Right. My guy. You have no idea. We were at the PetSmart. The women were doing their talking talking talking thing. All about Elliott. I looked at him. He looked at me. I said I’m outa here, dude. And he said I’m trusting your lady to get me outa here too. We winked at each other. One long look between us, then I split. All it took.

Do cats love you? For real? Do they? They love me.

Even the toughest, meanest one.

My secret? No baby talk. Whatsoever. All man to man stuff.

Have you seen the club pix? I swear, he comes home every night with new notches on his belt.

P.S. Except for all the female stuff. Cause I’m thinking about Cassie, Penny, and Izzie too tonight. Sweet sweet girls.

We be sad about the girls. Tonight and every night.

So, yeah. Went to a doctor once or twice. Still got the scaaaar.

Okay. Let’s see. I was about to go on a business trip halfway round the world. Got an upper respiratory thing. My significant other at the time insisted I see a “Doctor.” I did. A lordly little fat boy who asked if I smoked and told me to stop before I got on a 747 to Hong Kong. Told him I would. He dismissed me with a wave of his hand.

Second time. Benjamin Reeve House in Greenwich, NJ. Tallest house around in colonial Jersey. Because he was a clockmaker. Grandfather clocks.

Where I was born. Where I’ll die most likely too. Greenwich NJ.

Hot day. I was trying to open windows. One got stuck. Got forceful. Put my hand through the glass.

Bad, nasty, open, gushing cut. Wrapped it in cloth. Girl coming home. Have to be there, you know. She said we have to call mommy. I said it’s no big deal. Then mommy got home and we raced to the emergency room because everybody but me thought it was a very big deal indeed. Hours later, I had my second encounter with doctors in 40 years. He did a nice job.

Satisfied? Still have the scar. It still hurts. What else do you want to know?

The Brownie Investiture

I would probably be worried about the Brownie thing, because Planned Parenthood has its hooks as deep into the Brownie thing as it does the Girl Scout thing. I would be worried if Anna weren’t so much like Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, who refused finally to play the game. Anna has been refusing to play the game for quite a while now.

What is she, six, seven? I’ve been watching her not playing the game for years. We used to trek up north to see her sing in a children’s church choir. But she, alone of all her compatriots, refused to sing. She’d just stand there, silent as a stone.

Then there was ballet. She just stood there, unwilling to participate.

And we have a picture my wife is trying valiantly to find of Anna standing obdurately in front of a soccer ball she is refusing to kick.

My wife, with grandmotherly pride, posted the picture up top of Anna joining the Brownies. Over my objections. Not a good message to send, I said. What with Planned Parenthood and all.

“Don’t be silly,” she told me. “Anna will quit in two weeks, tops. It’s all good.”

I’ll post the soccer pic unless my better half up and quits looking for it. But take it from me, it’s a hoot.

He’s a monster named Elliott. He doesn’t have paws. He has clubs. He can hammer any cat in the neighborhood. He shows up in the morning looking very happy with himself. Then he comes to sleep on top of me.

Because he fights to the death and loves his daddy. Purrrr.

Am I the only one who knows we absolutely MUST impeach this little America-hating, muslim motherf***er before another day goes by?

Warren Zevon is dead. He’s not the only one.

Maybe he’s better off. Maybe all us old white guys would be better off. But we have a way of keeping on keeping on. Why? When everyone else wants us to be so miserable. Because we just do. With all our mixed emotions.

If I’m not the only one, you’re not the only one either. Try to smile.

God’s own needle of love.

Three songs to make it clear.

Sweet Emotion.

Sweet Dreams.

Sweet Home Alabama.

God’s needle pokes you however it will. What you cannot deny. It is long, it strikes the heart, and we’re all waiting to receive it. Amen.

No good for anything. Not cutting steak or cheese or bread. Just for killing.

The way life is. Or death is. My granddad pulled it out of his trunk. I think he used it. I would have. In 1918.

What I absolutely do NOT have is my grandfather’s 1911 .45 caliber sidearm.

I have his old registration. Just not the gun.

I did have his uniform as a captain of infantry. I had his gas mask from 1918. The eye goggles were blurry. Maybe they were back then too. The leather was rotted. It smelled like mould. But for a moment I could imagine needing it. And imagine knowing it was a cheesy fake of a preventive.

From the same trunk, I got a French carbine which had a single bolt action and which a once good friend borrowed for a week forever (the way he borrowed my civil war rifle and other things good friends borrow in perpetuity), and I had two bayonets, one German, one French, and one of them nearly as nasty as the trench knife. And to top it off there was a WWI German helmet with a point on top. Ever seen one of those or tried one on?

It was too small on me. I was twelve. WTF.

There was a whole war in that trunk. Made me bleed inside.

Right now I just wish I had a fast draw holster and a 12-shot clip with hollow point bullets. I feel like I need them somehow.

But I don’t.

However. Do you know what happens when a trench knife intersects your abdomen? Good. You don’t want to know.

I don’t have a hat because I was once a wannabe rockstar, but…

Serious post, actually. No, I’m not the guy in the picture. But I was once a high speed maniac on the roads of Southern New Jersey. Bad? Maybe. I had reflexes then I still have. Old as I am, I can catch a glass skidding off a counter before it hits the floor. Fact. Ask my wife. Excuse? No. But I always knew better than to speed through residential districts. It was only when I got on the open road and the country curves that I went to the limit, sometimes to 120 mph.

What was that all about? Discovery. Research. Finding the limits of machines and me. Forty maybe thirty years ago. Had a friend who was the same way. We chased each other everywhere at incredible speeds. Faster, faster, faster was our mantra. All gone. We got older.

He’s like me now. A little old lady on the highways. He prefers to let his wife drive him everywhere. And he yells at her when she even reaches the speed limit in residential areas.

I no longer exceed the speed limit. Ever. Not even on the Turnpike. My peripheral vision is still what it was when I was a maniac. But now it’s looking constantly for children darting unexpectedly off sidewalks, stranded cars, stupid people erupting from side streets, old guys and millennials on bicycles, every single lunkheaded woman and her children in a parking lot, and all the bad things that can happen with tractor trailers and overloaded pickup trucks on two lane thorofares.

The bad old me learned how to look, to see, to anticipate, to be prepared to crash myself if I made a bad decision. Now I don’t want to make a bad decision.

Women don’t ever seem to learn this rabid kind of caution. They speed on the turnpike, tailgate, run yellow lights, and hustle just a bit too much on residential streets because their intentions are good and mean no harm. They never learned just how quickly and bad a driving decision can go. Until it happens.

Women drivers make bad old lady drivers. For some reason they’re also always in a hurry. Real men are something else. They stopped being in a hurry a long time ago. Unless a woman is involved.

No. I’m not Lauda. But old as I am, if the need arose, I could still scald the highway the way I did in my twenties. Like riding a bicycle. I can still catch a glass falling off a table. and I can still chase a rat up his own ass on the open road. Just don’t do it unless there’s some need.

I’m your huckleberry.

You don’t start out looking for a duel to the death. You want to make peace, coexist, discuss, live. But the longer you go knowing you’re not going to survive the maelstrom, the less patience you have. You start to get reckless. Where I am.

I’ve been taking shots on the Internet for a dozen years. Not a problem. Usually easily handled by tactics like those shown above. Doesn’t matter if you’re sick, failing, sweating with the fever of disgust and misanthropy.

Now and again it gets serious. Still doesn’t matter if you’re sick, failing, sweating with the fever of disgust and misanthropy. Or even if you’re unexpectedly old. I’m still your Huckleberry.

“Poor soul, you were just too high strung… I’m afraid the strain was more than he could bear.”

Ten months of paradise.

We knew what was happening for several days. There’s been a vigil. Cassie was eating four cans of cat food a day and it wasn’t adding an ounce to her frame. Then she stopped eating altogether. No matter how many cans and flavors we gave her. Raebert went into a funk this morning.

Raebert’s been in a funk. He knows. He always knows everything.

Okay. She was fifteen. No big whoop, right? But in a way she was also one. A few years hiding under beds. Then the move here. Feral. She spent ten years in the rafters of the garage. Then she came down to my lap. Which she suddenly decided was her home. And where she died. This afternoon. Just about sunset.

She was in my lap, you see. My wife and I were squabbling about Mozart. I wanted Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A, 2nd movement. My wife wanted to know if I needed to suffer about Cassie more. I said, the way husbands sometimes do, “Do it!” She started the YouTube video and Cassie died immediately upon hearing the first chord. Won’t make any attempt to explain or justify. She just died.

Spare you her sad little face and wasted body. She was fifteen after all. And her brother was my best friend. Why did she glom onto me? Do brothers tell sisters what’s going on in human world? Stop it. Cassie loved me, and I loved her. Now she’s dead, a small wild cat who never knew where she belonged.

Never domesticated. Just like her brother and sister. She was a wild wild thing who just happened to like me.

You know. Seven pounds of dirt and nasty and I’ll scratch your eyes out if you ever lay a hand on me. But this is what she was listening to when she died in my arms.

And when he heard it playing just now, Raebert came running up to join me on the couch. What do all the animals seem to know about Mozart so many humans don’t?

God bless you, Cassie, my dear. I will miss you till the rainbow bridge greyhound folks talk about.

Ultimate Counterculture Victorian Poet

Algernon Charles Swinburne. He was gay, a sado-masochist, and a hurricane of poetic lyricism. Here is his beautiful combat with religious faith, a prayer we can only hope was answered.

A Litany

ἐν οὐρανῷ φαεννὰς
κρύψω παρ’ ὑμὶν αὐγὰς,
μίας πρὸ νυκτὸς ἑπτὰ νύκτας ἕξετε, κ.τ.λ.
Anth. Sac.

FIRST ANTIPHONE
All the bright lights of heaven
I will make dark over thee;
One night shall be as seven
That its skirts may cover thee;
I will send on thy strong men a sword,
On thy remnant a rod;
Ye shall know that I am the Lord,
Saith the Lord God.

SECOND ANTIPHONE
All the bright lights of heaven
Thou hast made dark over us;
One night has been as seven
That its skirt might cover us;
Thou hast sent on our strong men a sword,
On our remnant a rod;
We know that thou art the Lord,
O Lord our God.

THIRD ANTIPHONE
As the tresses and wings of the wind
Are scattered and shaken,
I will scatter all them that have sinned,
There shall none be taken;
As a sower that scattereth seed,
So will I scatter them;
As one breaketh and shattereth a reed,
I will break and shatter them.

FOURTH ANTIPHONE
As the wings and the locks of the wind
Are scattered and shaken,
Thou hast scattered all them that have sinned,
There was no man taken;
As a sower that scattereth seed,
So hast thou scattered us;
As one breaketh and shattereth a reed,
Thou hast broken and shattered us.

FIFTH ANTIPHONE
From all thy lovers that love thee
I God will sunder thee;
I will make darkness above thee,
And thick darkness under thee;
Before me goeth a light,
Behind me a sword;
Shall a remnant find grace in my sight?
I am the Lord.

SIXTH ANTIPHONE
From all our lovers that love us
Thou God didst sunder us;
Thou madest darkness above us,
And thick darkness under us;
Thou hast kindled thy wrath for a light,
And made ready thy sword;
Let a remnant find grace in thy sight,
We beseech thee, O Lord.

SEVENTH ANTIPHONE
Wilt thou bring fine gold for a payment
For sins on this wise?
For the glittering of raiment
And the shining of eyes,
For the painting of faces
And the sundering of trust,
For the sins of thine high places
And delight of thy lust?
For your high things ye shall have lowly,
Lamentation for song;
For, behold, I God am holy,
I the Lord am strong;
Ye shall seek me and shall not reach me
Till the wine-press be trod;
In that hour ye shall turn and beseech me,
Saith the Lord God.

EIGHTH ANTIPHONE
Not with fine gold for a payment,
But with coin of sighs,
But with rending of raiment
And with weeping of eyes,
But with shame of stricken faces
And with strewing of dust,
For the sin of stately places
And lordship of lust;
With voices of men made lowly,
Made empty of song,
O Lord God most holy,
O God most strong,
We reach out hands to reach thee
Ere the wine-press be trod;
We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee,
O Lord our God.

NINTH ANTIPHONE
In that hour thou shalt say to the night,
Come down and cover us;
To the cloud on thy left and thy right,
Be thou spread over us;
A snare shall be as thy mother,
And a curse thy bride;
Thou shalt put her away, and another
Shall lie by thy side.
Thou shalt neither rise up by day
Nor lie down by night;
Would God it were dark! thou shalt say;
Would God it were light!
And the sight of thine eyes shall be made
As the burning of fire;
And thy soul shall be sorely afraid
For thy soul’s desire.
Ye whom your lords loved well,
Putting silver and gold on you,
The inevitable hell
Shall surely take hold on you;
Your gold shall be for a token,
Your staff for a rod;
With the breaking of bands ye are broken,
Saith the Lord God.

TENTH ANTIPHONE
In our sorrow we said to the night,
Fall down and cover us;
To the darkness at left and at right,
Be thou shed over us;
We had breaking of spirit to mother
And cursing to bride;
And one was slain, and another
Stood up at our side.
We could not arise by day,
Nor lie down by night;
Thy sword was sharp in our way,
Thy word in our sight;
The delight of our eyelids was made
As the burning of fire;
And our souls became sorely afraid
For our soul’s desire.
We whom the world loved well,
Laying silver and gold on us,
The kingdom of death and of hell
Riseth up to take hold on us;
Our gold is turned to a token,
Our staff to a rod;
Yet shalte thou bind them up that were broken,
O Lord our God.

Read it out loud. Always the one true test of poetry. If it doesn’t flow off the tongue, it’s doggerel or Dreiser.

If you catch the rhythm, you can go to read (or shout) Faustine, Dolores, and The Garden of Proserpine.

P.S. God bless Cassie.

Keats

Shelley

Lord Byron

Coleridge

Swinburne

Rimbaud

Mallarme

Baudelaire

Eliot

Sassoon

Owen

Frost

e e cummings

Whitman

Of course these days, there’s so much more to say, so less artfully.

And why we have new voices to inspire us.

The Reigning Champion

We acquired Eloise literally by accident. We saw her on the side of what passes for a highway in our rural county, huddled up against a guardrail fence. Stopped the car, tried to approach her, and she scampered across the road into the path of an SUV that clipped her with a front tire. We scooped her up, bleeding and unhappy and tried to figure where to take her. It was a Sunday. How we found the vet we’ve been taking all the dogs and cats to ever since.

They patched her up. A pug as victim of an SUV isn’t supposed to be so lucky. But Eloise (yes, we named her for the imp of the Plaza Hotel) has always been lucky. No broken bones, a few scrapes and stitches and she was right as rain.

Obviously, we waited out the necessary time to claim her, paid the bill(!) and took her home. All of this exposition is by way of explaining that what we knew about pugs was zero. Greyhounds, deerhounds, terriers, shepherds, okay. Pugs? WTF.

We dutifully watched Animal Planet specials about pugs. We learned that the masters are the pugs and the pets are the ones who pay the bills. They get to do whatever they want, eat whatever they want, and generally rule the roost. We looked at one another. Surely not?

Well, not in our house anyway. Eloise learned her first word, which was No. We didn’t give her junk food, only the kibble the greyhounds got. Thought we were doing good. Took her to the vet a month after her accident and got a grave lecture from the senior medico about her weight. Too much, he said. At least two pounds overweight. He shook his head at us. We didn’t understand. Until we started seeing pictures like these.

Even the pug champions at Westminster look fat. Too many cupcakes and bacon sandwiches.

Eloise, however, is now eleven or twelve and energetic as a puppy, slim as Audrey Hepburn, and cuter than her namesake. The vet claims she has some arthritis, but you sure couldn’t prove it by us.

We invite all the other pug owners out there to join in this year’s competition for the title of World’s Fittest Pug. It belongs to Eloise by default for now, but we’d love to see more of these guys live longer and zestier lives.

Style matters too.

Politicians like this dipshit have always used soldiers like pawns in a horribly played game of chess. Casualties? Millions.

Charge of the Light Brigade

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

1.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

2.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

3.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

4.
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

5.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

6.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

When can their glory fade? When leaders discard their legacy and memory like a styrofoam cup.

Behold. Evil incarnate. Her name is Sacchetti. Her pasta devours men’s souls.

I just ordered an order of this. Who knows what will become of my mortal soul but I was seduced by the bikini panties, er, the beautiful menu description.

Tuscan. Sacchetti pasta served in a butter and parmigiano sauce with broccoli florets and chicken breast strips.

Sounded exquisite to a guy whose last meal was a politically incorrect hotdog. But belatedly I looked up sacchetti pasta. Realizing way too late that it’s a demonic cult with no good outcomes.

Forget the psychology myth called pareidolia. Can you see all those evil little buggers glaring at you from the plate? Forget gremlins. We’re talking gargoyles here.

No, it’s not an accident. Look at this one.

Demons, evil gnomes, and a fleet of bright red vagina dentatas. Scareeee.

Prefer closeups? Don’t.

The monstrous gnome entity that will eat your soul.

What awaits. The Ninth Circle of Hell.

Disgusting and horrifying.

On the other hand, I could swear she winked at me.

Bon appetit. See you on the other side. I hope.

So what are you doing with YOUR Tuesday afternoon. It is Tuesday, right?

There is No Security. I am and will always be Instapunk. Before I was Harry.

I have been playing around with Facebook for a few months now. In which time I have learned a lot about the social network phenomenon.

I spent ten years in the blog universe, which was a lot like Fight Club, bruising battles in the comment sections, no quarter asked or given. Lots of insults, bad language, idiots, and the occasional bright light that makes it all worthwhile. But the world changes on a dime these days. And so it has once again.

The Facebook universe is not centered as blogs were on ideas. It’s all about me, me, me, and the poses I can assume to make me look smart, important, or more attractive than I actually am. So there are lots of reposts of the posts of others, which endow me with a noblesse and erudition I’ve done nothing to prove.

That’s why I’ve adventured into the realm of comment threads, which look similar to blog comment threads but are markedly different.

Number One rule of FB comment threads. Do not take issue with the leading comment offered by the poster. No matter how logical your disagreement, how witty, how charitable, how polite, all disagreement with the poster and his or her “friends” will immediately be construed as personal and a signal of the absolute evil your disagreement represents. Fail to go away when the poster and his friends give you warning of your transgression, and the name callers appear at once to characterize your evil, stupid, idiot lifestyle, and threaten you as if you were on the doorstep with a shotgun.

I used plenty of bad language at Instapunk. See for yourself. Had plenty of bad language used on me.

http://www.instapunk.com/archives/IPLArchive.php3

Never in ten years banned but two. But what I find at Facebook is ever so much more offensive than what I’ve experienced in blogging. (With many notable exceptions by the way.) Nothing bruising about FB comments. Just lots and lots of fancied bruises by people who never learned to defend themselves with words. These are people who don’t know the difference between disagreement and ad hominem assaults which are to be countered immediately by nuclear means or inferences that there’s something about you which no good person could ever countenance.

Facebook is a world of thin-skinned narcissists, poseurs, and preening fakers. One who declares himself a poet and isn’t. One who declares himself a cultural critic and shows no sign of having noticed anything prior to his recent date of birth. One who declares his political acuity and has never studied history prior to the 21st century. To oppose such people instantly inspires them to accuse the skeptic of everything wrong with themselves. Everything is personal, and you are every wrong name in the book. Everything they say in their rants is self revelation. And none of them has anything remotely resembling a sense of humor. The ultimate victory of political correctness. Even the self-appointed “Defenders of the Faith” can’t recognize a joke without an attached emoticon.

I haven’t used bad language in Facebook comments. But I have an inner clock that tells me with startling accuracy how quickly some millennial will run out of intellectual steam and start attacking me with obscenities.

But this isn’t just about millennials. It’s about people of all ages. Facebook is the woodwork the rest of the people crawled out of. They want approval. Of their faces, families, fatuities, food, and faux personae.

Maybe I won’t make more comments, hurt more feelings, deflate more inflated egos. But maybe I will.

For I am Instapunk, regardless of the terrain. Real life or video game version of reality, I am Instapunk. Which I, incidentally, can prove into the millions of words. As I said. No Security.

Well, it’s a choice don’t you know. If you don’t like that message, here’s the alternative.

Here endeth the lesson.

P.S. And I forgot. They always always always have to have the last word. As if that could make them somehow smart. Ignore them.

Surprise. I win.

This could have been a long and amusing story. But we’re both in bad moods today, so it won’t be long or engaging. It’s going to be..

The Case of the Hotdog Who Got Out of Line

The name that’s been changed in this case belonged to a hotdog. Not a hit and run victim but one bitten in half and left to suffer. Hotdogs. They come in all sizes and you can bedrape them with all kinds of condiments, from foul on down. But when does it become too much to take?

The dog is born free, then has the right to choose.

What one dog thought anyway. How does the justice system make a determination?

Got a sub today. We split it twice. I was still hungry. The wife said eat the rest of the hotdogs we ordered yesterday. They were foot longs. Mine had fried onions and sauce. Hers has mustard, relish and raw onion. No, I told her. You put funny stuff on yours. You could scrape it off, she said. (Wife interrupts) I said no such thing.

Designed to let the husband resume the narrative. It always works.

We went looking. Why we called you, sir. We think the dog was insulted by talk of being scraped off and replaced with fried onions and some mysterious sauce. And there was also talk of sliding a multi-condiment-flavor ring up his whole length, to make sure he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anymore. Unspeakable cruelty. Can you help us, Sergeant?

We, or should I say the LAPD, got her on multiple charges of transcondimentalphobia. Additional charges involved barbecue sauce, peppers, tobasco, Dijon, and three felony counts of ketchup, sauerkraut, and chili. All applied by the defendant in front of hundreds of witnesses at Atlanta Braves baseball games. She was tried and convicted in a Los Angeles Kangaroo Court and will serve a life sentence or three years, whichever is shorter.

Jurors interviewed after the fact didn’t care the evidence didn’t place her at the scene of the crime. As one of them put it, “wherever she is, that’s the scene of the crime.”

I think this case is closed.

Thank you, ma’am.

Everyone please join us in the fight against TCDP. Otherwise an innocent millionairess could spend the rest of her life in prison. If the Hebrew Nationals don’t get her first.

Hands from God — and the ring from my Masonic grandfather, who was a mason in the truest sense.

You get this Ring, you know what happens? Everybody in the U.K. thinks you know everything about everything. Because the Scottish Freemasons have been in charge of everything since the Templars wigged out.

All true. I have this ring from my incredibly high ranking Masonic grandfather. His most important bequest to me. Result? I know everything about the most occult mysteries in history. I know what happened to the Templars and what they did with their treasures. I know what’s hidden in Rosslyn Chapel. I know where and what the Holy Grail is. I know all about the Shroud of Turin. I know all about what’s buried at Oak Island. And Snake Island. I even know who killed the Kennedys and why. The Ring gives me this knowledge. I’m just not allowed to ask or to tell.

But I’m a little hard up cash-wise right now. You know what that’s like, right?

Right?

Afraid of the Blood Moon? Be very afraid of Mars. But lest you be frightened, he can be killed. Or at least put out of sorts by his mother. She was a killer.

From The Iliad.

Odd. The mother of Ares (aka Mars) was Aphrodite. She was a ferocious mother of Paris. Not much of Ares. Paris was pretty. Ares was a thug. Just saying.

“But the moment Ares, bane of the living, glimpsed Diomedes, he left vast Periphas where he had killed him, and headed straight for the horse-tamer. When they were at close quarters, Ares thrust with his bronze spear over the reins and yoke, at Diomedes, eager to strike him dead: but bright-eyed Athene caught the spear in her hand, and drove it above the chariot to spend its force in the air.

“Now, Diomedes, of the loud war-cry, drove his bronze-spear at Ares, and Pallas Athene drove it home into the lower belly, where he wore a defensive apron. There the thrust landed, tearing the flesh, and Diomedes wrenched it free again. Then brazen Ares bellowed as loud as ten thousand warriors shout in battle, when they meet in the war-god’s shadow. The Greeks and Trojans trembled with fear at insatiable Ares’ cry.

“Like the dark column that whirls from the cloud when a tornado forms in heated air, so brazen Ares seemed to Diomedes, as he sped through the sky to high heaven. Swiftly he reached the gods’ home on steep Olympus, and sat down at Zeus’ side, in anguish. Ares showed Zeus the divine ichor flowing from the wound, and spoke in a plaintive voice: ‘Father Zeus, does it not stir your indignation to see all this violence? We gods always suffer cruelly at each other’s hands when we show mortals favour. We are all at odds with you because you cursed the world with that mad daughter of yours who is ever bent on lawlessness. The rest of us Olympians obey you and bow to you, but you say and do nothing to stop her antics, you condone them rather, simply because this girl who wreaks havoc is yours.

“Now she spurs on foolhardy Diomedes to vent his anger on us immortals. First in a close encounter he wounded Aphrodite on the wrist then he ran at me like a very demon. Quick on my feet, I sprang away, or I would have suffered there for ages among the grisly dead, or been crippled by his spear-blows.

“Zeus, the Cloud-gatherer, turned on him angrily: ‘Don’t come here to whine, you backslider. Strife, conflict, and war are all you care for, so much so that I loathe you more than all the other Olympians. You share your mother Hera’s intolerable, headstrong spirit; she too will scarcely obey my word. I suspect she prompted this and caused your wound. Yet as my offspring I’ll not let you suffer, since it was to me she bore you, though if any other god had fathered so violent a son, you’d have been ranked below the sons of Uranus, long ago.’

“So saying, he ordered Paeon to heal him, by spreading soothing ointment on the wound, for Ares was no mortal. He healed the fierce god as swiftly as fig-juice thickens milk that curdles when stirred. Then Hebe bathed him, and dressed him in fine clothes, and he sat down again by Zeus’ side, in all his former glory.

“Meanwhile Hera of Argos and Alalcomenean Athene returned to great Zeus’ palace, having forced Ares, bane of the living, to end his murderous progress.”

I guess we already had this Pope Imperator this weekend. What if the thing we’re not afraid of is the blood moon but the Bringer of War, a far harsher red thing in the sky?

Yeah. Well, in that case, we might have to deal with something far more sinister. There was a Trinity in the New Testament. Who’s to say the Antichrist isn’t also a Trinity?

The Pope, the President, and the Persian Caliph.

Some of us had it sussed out long long ago.

Because we are always the ones who win in the end, even in Greek mythology.

The blood of Ares. We call that armed for life.

Once in a blood moon we can do this. A Mars Event might be something different.

Talking about what? This weekend we saw all of the football teams we follow win. This is a good omen. All the red teams won, distinct sign of the blood moon: Ohio State, Harvard, Rutgers, and (blessedly) 3-0 Temple had a bye week.btw, just TAKE THIS LINK, which is about more than Harvard and Ohio State. It’s about the huge fun of the Mars Event.

Fate is destiny. Or vice versa. Something like karma. Cornell beat Ohio State the two times they played. Not this weekend. You’d have to be Harvard, Ohio State or Temple to understand that. I went to Cornell for a bit. Doesn’t count in this algorithm.

Obviously it’s time for a Roman Imperial March.

Unless it’s time for a different kind of March altogether.

And a chorale to make it all stick.

Sorry. Red won yesterday. Harvard. Ohio State, and Temple at rest. Hear the drum.

Life is getting worse on all of us, but we can still count on the verities, right?

Whoever said we can’t make it better? Or should we?