There’s something going on with the Moon.

It seems to be encroaching upon the world on a more regular basis. Perhaps it is left wanting, seeking the adoration and devotion it once received from the sweaty monkeys plotting to defoliate continents, exterminate fellow creatures and create banking empires the envy of the most ethically corrupt empires in sweaty monkey history, basking in its hunter’s-perfect light.

There was a time, not too long ago, when we sweaty monkeys raced to find a way to visit the Moon.  It was a daring era, when forward thinking and looking was fancied by all but only really understood by a despairingly small few.

It was a great contest between the two super powers that emerged from the Second World War, communism and capitalism. In one corner, the Soviet Union and in the other the United States of America; two sweaty monkeys stuck in perilous tubes with hysteria-inducing volumes of rocket fuel taped to the sides. Get thee to the Moon young flyers, get thee to the Moon.

JF Kennedy is fondly remembered for his love of the Moon, and desire to make America the first nation to get there, or damn it all, at least make a nice little film. He also loved Marilyn Monroe, which shows he was a ‘take what he wanted’ kind of guy.

Sure enough, while the communists were bashing crude rockets together with hammers made from the bones of Siberia, the Americans were dumping heaps of dough into NASA and before you can say ‘whoops we’ve had a few mishaps,” they made it to the Moon.

It wasn’t cheese after all. Nor was it suitable for a casino strip, car lots and spacious suburbs and condo developments, it was quickly learned, which is why NASA pretty much had to beg for cash after that time. What  was once the world’s greatest gateway to the stars, the bringer of space magic to us all, besides Gene Rodenberry, is now clinging to life – staring down the barrel of a $15 trillion deficit and knowing it shall sacrifice further.

So much time has passed since the greatness of the Moon landing and the message left behind by Neil Armstrong and his chums: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” It remains a stirring two sentences and it still seems too otherworldly to fit with our world.

Maybe it was a plea to those who may find it, arriving from a different direction: ‘We just stopped by for a look and a bit of a rock scrape and are toodling off back to Earth. We didn’t mean to mess anything up. Yours etc. human kind/Earth. Don’t worry, we won’t be back. Do you know how expensive it was to get here?”

Of course, it is unlikely that whomever or whatever may read that plaque, coming from ‘the other sides’ of the Moon, will be able to read ‘English’ circa 1969.

At any rate, the Moon had been visited and it was right at a time when human consciousness was evolving from the anachronistic vestiges of the 19^th Century into an era of hyper enlightenment, or so those on acid or those who were devoutly optimistic or those who wrote scripts for Star Trek believed.

So you have to think the Moon was ‘on top of the world,’ so to speak. It was a minor celebrity, like Michael Moore or Sarah Palin, and the requests for interviews were pouring in. A few more eclipses and a few more sweaty monkey studies on sweaty monkey behaviour later and the Moon was really hitting the red carpet, space geek speaking.

But then came deep space probes and cameras and roving-camera-visits to actual planets and soon the Moon became the poster beneath the poster star on the walls of NASA. Even the Soviets, now reverted back to the much-less-intimidating-hockey-team Russians because of all-the-losses-of-the-once-conquered-states, gave up on the Moon.

Canada built robotic arms and like a useful pet earned voyages into ‘space light’ to build what we are told is a space station. We sweaty monkeys have to believe that is what they are up. The ‘space’ countries are running the ‘station.’ Experiments are being conducted, apparently. Hmm. Perhaps they are. We have to trust that they are doing what they say they are doing.  Hmm.

What we do know, thanks to amazing spy technology, is that they aren’t doing diddly squat on the Moon. All the Moon has become is a depository for flags and plaques and the cause of extremely erratic behaviour by we sweaty monkeys. It’s also causing some havoc with our sweet sweaty monkey home – Earth.

Speaking from my own experience, I know the Moon is up to something. Once a month, thereabouts when the Moon is full, I grow fangs, fur, claws and become irrationally crazed. Setting it all off is the wonk that gets thrown into the terrestrial course of a given day.

That day was today.

It began with me taking a load of laundry into our basement, a dangerous place full of ankle-snapping traps thanks in part to our grandbaby Amara, but mostly because of her Mom who is allergic to picking things up or putting things away. Not prone to doing anything with wisdom at its core, I carried a massive stack of laundry downstairs. I didn’t see the tipped over basket at the bottom of the stairs and with a slight wicker crunch, I flumped forward into the wall cursing. Gaining my feet, I pushed forward over the minefield and entered the laundry room, where I walked into a large laundry basket and stumbled forward. My right toe smashed haltingly into an upended vacuum. Blood oozed from a wound beneath the toe nail and a blood curdling howl exploded from my throat and that was it – the Moon demon was free.

It barreled through the day, growling at hitches and glitches and snarling at a dead computer mouse. It raged at technology and harrumphed about society and questioned loudly and repeatedly the purpose behind silly things and trivialities.

And it was pondering the Moon and its powers later today when a friend posted on Facebook the following article: https://gawker.com/5827556/we-used-to-have-another-moon-until-our-moon-murdered-it.

I knew it. I knew there was something about the Moon.

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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