Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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6 UCW FEBRUARY 27-MARCH 5, 2019 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Don't mess with Diana by PITT DICKEY OPINION People of Earth, how are you? Yoko Ono once posed that question, but no one answered. Let's take a shot at the same issue. Earthlings seem to be in the midst of a passel of super moons. Every time you turn around, there is a new super moon. We used to have regular moons. With social media, every time the lights go out, we seem to get a super moon. In January we had the Super Wolf Blood Moon. In mid-February we had the Super Snow Moon. On March 21, we will get to enjoy the Rosie O'Donnell Super Moon to celebrate Rosie's 57th birthday. All this reminds me of Andy Williams singing "Moon River." If one thinks of Andy Williams, who can forget his one-time girlfriend Claudine Lon- get? In 1976, Claudine shot her then- boyfriend Olympic skier Spider Sabich. However, I digress. All the super moons put me in mind of the mythological Diana, who was the goddess of the moon and the hunt. Let us pose the musical question: If Diana were around today, what would she think of the multitude of super moons? To answer this question, it is helpful to get forensic background information about Diana. Let us proceed. Diana was the daughter of Jupiter and his baby mama, Latona. Jupiter was the King of the Gods. Diana's brother, Apollo, got a concert hall named for him. Diana came from the upper 1 percent of the gods. She had a very low tax rate, in keeping with her high station. Diana was the Ivanka Trump of goddesses. One thing about Diana — she did not like surprises. Ponder what happened to Actaeon, who was out hunting with his buddies one day on the first day of deer season. It was noon on a sweltering day. Actaeon and pals had been out hunting with dogs all morning and were pretty tuckered out from their adventures. Acty (as his friends called him) told his buddies to sit in the shade and have some brewskis to recover for more hunting that afternoon. e boys did not have to be asked twice. Pretty soon, everyone was getting sloshed. Acty was count- ing carbs, so he passed on drinking. He wandered off into the woods to take a look-see, leaving his buds behind with the Carling Black Labels. Unknown to Acty, he was in the same forest in which Diana had a cave where she would hang with her posse, the nymphs. Diana was in the process of skinny-dipping in the cool pond outside the cave when Acty blundered into the sacred circle. e nymphs shrieked, "Man in the hall!" ey tried to shield Diana's nekkid body from the prying eyes of Acty by standing in front of Diana. However, nymphs are short, and Diana is tall. e height disparity allowed Acty to get a full gander at Diana in her birthday suit. Diana was not amused by Acty's ogling. She tried to reach for her bow and arrow to skewer him, but it was out of reach. Instead, she scooped up a handful of pond water and threw it in Acty's face. She yelled at him, "Now go and tell if you can, that you have seen Diana naked!" is wasn't ordinary pond water. It was the Perrier of magic pond water. When the water hit Acty, he started to grow antlers. His neck got lon- ger. His hands and feet turned into hooves, and his skin became covered with brown fur. As Gomer would say, "Surprise, surprise!" Acty turned into a deer. He freaked out and started run- ning through the forest trying to cipher what to do next. He ended up by a lake to take a drink. He looked at his reflection and realized he had morphed into a deer. He tried to speak but encountered word retrieval problems, discovering he couldn't talk. All he could make were deer noises. ings quickly got worse. Who let the dogs out? About this time, his dogs caught wind of Acty and started chasing him. Acty took off running over hills and dales, not appreciating the irony that he had just been doing the same thing to Bambi's mother a few hours earlier. Acty's alpha dog was Melampus. Melampus was the first canine to catch Acty and put the chomp on him. e other dogs caught up and pulled Acty down to a gruesome but chewy death. Acty's buddies kept whooping and hollering for Acty to come watch the fun, not realizing that Acty was be- ing turned into dog chow by his very own dogs Oh, the humanity. Meanwhile, back at the pond, Diana was icily satisfied with Acty's painful demise. You did not mess with Diana. As Tony Soprano once said, "Re- venge is a dish best served with cold cuts." If Diana had been a character in the movie "Porky's," none of the teenage boys who spied on the girls' shower room would have made it home for supper. ey would have all been turned into venison stew in the school lunch room. So, what have we learned today? Respect women's space. In the #MeToo era, there are a lot of Dianas out there who won't put up with men's mess. Ending up as deer sausage is not a happy outcome. Ask Har- vey Weinstein, Les Moonves, R. Kelly, Steve Wynn or Charlie Rose. When the water hit Acty, he started to grow antlers. Credit: Diana and Actaeon (1523-24) Fresco, Rocca Sanvitale, Fontanellato PITT DICKEY, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910-484-6200. WCLN 105.7 UNIVERSAL TRUTH. AUTHENTICALLY LOCAL. what faith sounds like