Essay #129 for Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar


	The Essay
Show #129 Mythology 101a
	David Gunn

According to alternative mythological reports, music did not spontaneously occur two trillion years BC in a tiny Greek hamlet named Klondike as originally rumored. Rather, it resulted from the following long and -- to me, anyway -- bewildering series of events. Aphrodite, the goddess of cosmetics, and Apollo, the god of moon rockets, were sitting in the godatorium one day discussing how to impose the Theory of Disputational Distortion upon the race of upstart free-will human beings, who had already given sentience a bad name by inventing the limerick. Into the room then floated Flora and Fauna, the twin goddesses of peat bogs, effectively snubbing the laws of gravity which had recently been imposed by Jupiter, the CEO of goddom ... or, the goddom CEO, as many of the undergods called him. Flora and Fauna brought word that Pluto, god of cartoon dogs, had banished Hermes, god of skin inflammations, to the nether region of Mount Olympus called Nikon, into which no light was permitted to shine. Hermes was to be forever exiled in that darkly foreboding place because he had sworn revenge on Mars, the god of chocolate bars, who had had his sister, Selena, the goddess of durum wheat, slain because she had spurned his lustful advances. Selena had been felled by a spear from Neptune, a really really big planet, during a heated handed antecedent of whiskers six draw, a game of mythological complexities. Hermes subsequently learned from Juno, amnesiac queen of the gypsies, that Mars had conspired with Neptune after Saturn and Mercury, the gods of passenger cars and rectal thermometers respectively, had refused to take part in snuffing Selena, because they both enjoyed the pleasures of chaffed lips. At once, Hermes had enlisted the help of Vulcan, god of heat-hardened rubber, who had been on the outs with Mars ever since his daughter, Freya, goddess of old, raveled clothing, had been swindled in a speculative land deal by Mars posing as Astarte, the goddess of light bulbs. At this point, Aphrodite interrupted Fauna and Flora to place a conference call to Venus, goddess of flytraps, and Kronos, god of the string quartet. She had sensed something fishy in the bit about Mars masquerading as another goddess. Although she knew he was a shenaniganer of the highest order, she also suspected that the perpetrator was really Adonis, the god of pederasty. But, the line was busy -- this was eons before call waiting, remember -- so at last Aphrodite rejoined the others to hear the end of the story. Apollo, meanwhile, had received a cryptic message from Athena, goddess hats and hosiery, that he was to meet Vulcan and Ronald, a god-intern, at the River Styx Motel at sundown, and to come alone. Apollo was immediately suspicious because on Mount Olympus, of course, the sun never set, a phenomenon that caused many on the Mount to suffer from sleep deprivation. So instead, Apollo sent his emissary, Amen-Ra, the god of good posture, out into the Styx. Anticipating foul play, Amen-Ra assembled his own entourage of Athamas, god of the haberdashery, and Judo, god of martial arts, who, even without Amen-Ra, made a formidable trio. Meanwhile, Cupid, god of valentines, had overheard everything and was sneaking off to file a story with a tabloid newspaper when he ran headlong into Jupiter, who demanded to know what was going on. Cupid at first pleaded ignorance, but after Jupiter had turned him into a heifer, a weeping stone, a willow tree, a kingfisher, a white bull, and finally a golden fleece, he finally spilled the beans ... which is extremely difficult for a fleece to do. As Cupid told of Mount Olympus' multiple conspiracies, Jupiter got madder and madder. In fact, when Harry, king of Hawaii, and David, son of Goliath, strolled innocently by, Jupiter impulsively turned them into a mail order fruit company. And when he at last grasped the vast web of intrigue that had been spun around him, his rage was so great that the heavens around him burst into equal parts of fire and nymphs.

Alas, this tale is so convoluted that it, too, has burst into two parts, the first of which has been seamlessly incorporated into the 129th episode of Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar, and the second, the part that will neatly tie everything together and make believers out of you, some of you, the "flambeau oriange" part, will follow a mere 168 hours hence at the grammatical onslaught of free-will Celsian Winter. And anyone who doesn't think so probably already talked to Kalvos.