Click the bird to return to 97 index
LSD Tabloid
------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 1997
Schmoozemagazine of Love's Supreme Desire XXX New Moon, June, 1997
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is LSD Tabloid, the monthly and then some callboard and events newsletter
of Love's Supreme Desire XXX, a radical faerie and friends' creative network.
Feel free to forward/distribute as you please as long as nobody makes any
money off of it. Entire contents copyright Bloobird/LSDxxx unless authorship
otherwise noted.
Tel-a-Fool events & info line /Fax: 415-333-9549, e-mail: bloobird@sirius.com
Thanks to David Kerlick, back issues of LSD Tabloid are available on the World
Wide Web at http://www.eskimo.com:80/~davidk/faeries/pubs.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Revolt of the Snail Mail
or, how to reach more radical faeries when the internet clearly isn't enough
I have realized lately that I'm not doing a very good job at distributing
the LSD Tabloid. There are several reasons for this. One, I'm a world-class
procrastinator and silly boy and tend to put off unpleasant things, like writing
addresses on envelopes, buying stamps with no money, and pasting the stamps
on the envelopes, and then it gets later and later and the unpleasant job
doesn't get done. This is something about myself I'd like to change. After
all, when I procrastinate, I'm not living up to my full potential and that's
self-defeating.
Two, when I used to mail the Tabloid, I never knew for sure if the person
at the other end was really all that interested in receiving it, because I
didn't get feedback through snail mail. I decided that I couldn't really afford,
nor did I want to waste the paper involved in sending the Tabloid through
the mail if the person didn't really want to receive it. I started making
my snail mail list smaller and smaller and switched to e-mail because it
is SO convenient. I'd love to be able to put the Tabloid in the hands of
anybody who wants to read it, but time and money limit my snail mail and other
distribution.
Unfortunately, now that I'm primarily doing this via e-mail, a very limited
number of people have access to this faerie resource. In a way, it's being
exclusive to internet-access faeries, and I really don't like that because
of the class issues implied in the question, "who owns computers?" The whole
purpose behind the existence of Love's Supreme Desire XXX is to help artists
and free spirits meet one another and see what beautiful fire of creativity
they can bring into the world, but a lot of artists and free spirits are working
class schmucks like myself and may not be connected to the World-Wide-Whatever.
So here's what I'd like to suggest. Any of you out there who are reading
this on the internet, if you think the Tabloid is of interest to your circles
or your friends, please consider printing copies of the Tabloid on your end
and giving/mailing them out. That way, I won't feel like I'm being elitist
here. This is actually a big concern to me. Or, if you know someone who would
like a snail mail subscription, all I ask is two .32 stamps for each issue
desired: Six issues? Twelve stamps and so on. Cheap, right? No problem.
I would also really appreciate donations. There are lots of things that
I would like to do with Love's Supreme Desire XXX that I can't afford because
I wash dishes for a living. I'd like to create a web page full of radical
faerie art, history and culture, print anthologies and 'zines, produce plays
and bad, exploitive cult films, more broadly distribute the LSD Tabloid, etc.,
etc. My mailing address is 634 Edna St., SF CA 94127. Please don't throw
eggs at my house. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate them. Thanks!
Love, Bloobird
"Family Values," my asshole! and the un-pretty death of Yanni
Bloobird
Just got off the phone with my sister, and so even though I hadn't asked,
now I know where my dad's head is at. Those of you who read this Tabloid regularly
know that I have had miserable relations with my father for most of my life
and that it has caused me deep sadness and depression in the past. You also
know that when I told him I seroconverted back in November, he was cruelly
dismissive and cold and this was the last straw for me. I finally told him
that I was moving on and would no longer try to make peace with him because
it was beyond the point. I told him these things on the back of a cheap postcard
of Liberace that I got in the Liberace museum in Las Vegas. Since I told
him off, my life has improved markedly and I'm glad I did it.
My sister just told me that my dad had told her that he was as willing to
sever the relationship as I, that he simply could not support my "lifestyle"
at all at this point and was unable to budge any more in my direction because
of his moral upbringing. As of this moment I know for sure that it is over
between us, barring unforeseen changes and acts of the Unknowable. My father
and I have separated, given up, disinherited each other, so to speak, though
I'm sure he already did that long ago and all I have to my name is about $3,000
in a lousy IRA account plus some change, but the important thing here that
I'm trying hard to make a laugh out of is that my father has abandoned me,
and I have abandoned him, and he abandoned me in the face of this life threatening
illness that I have in my body at this moment. My father abandoned me because
I am HIV-positive.
I'm fighting a very strong urge to not go there and deal with what I'm feeling
right now in this forum, but I don't know if I should listen to that voice
or ignore it. Part of me is thinking, "you write such funny stuff sometimes,
about your life, your friends, why do you always turn the opening monologue
of the LSD Tabloid into this maudlin display of sadness and woe? Your life
is not all sadness and woe, why not show them the fun stuff, the happy stuff,
the good stuff?" But then the other part of me is like, "no, that would be
white washing, denial and not the real McCoy. Sure, my life is full of fun
and silliness and joy, but it's also got a helluva lot of pathos in it as
well. Don't avoid talking about that just because you don't want people to
think you kvetch all the time." But I don't want to kvetch all the time. Is
this writing only "art" when I talk about the harsh stuff, the sad stuff,
the shit? Does it become fluff and filler when I talk about the good stuff?
But you know what, this really isn't about art, is it. I'm not sitting here
trying to "create good art." If you want good art, you shouldn't look for
it here because I don't know what the fuck good art is. What this LSD Tabloid
thing is about is a blue-collar schtub with idealistic aspirations exhibiting
his life for you almost out of a compulsion to do so, hoping to touch somebody
in some way, to inspire someone, to give my life purpose and meaning, to connect
with others. Am I being exhibitionistic? Yeah, sure, I wouldn't be surprised.
After all, I am a bit of an exhibitionist. Am I being self-indulgent? Well,
probably no more than any other person who writes about what they know, and
the only thing I really know is my life, so that's what I write about. If
I tried to call this art then someone else would come along and say, "No,
this is not art." And then I'd have to have a big long boring discussion with
them about what art "is," and shit, like I said, I don't know what art is.
Or rather, I think almost everything is art if you look at it a certain way.
We all have our opinions about what art is, and you know what they say about
opinions; they are like assholes and everybody has one.
I've done experimental theater and I thought maybe it was good art but shit,
half of the time I didn't honestly know what the fuck I was doing on stage
and neither did the audience but they thought it was good art, or seemed to
think so (unless they thought it was crap, and they may have been right).
My ego was boosted just a little bit and that made me think well, I guess
this is good art, and their egos were boosted just a little bit by having
gone to see some "good art" when they could've just stayed home (and probably
had a much better time) eating cheese curls and playing with the cat. I think
maybe the only way to create good art is to stop even thinking about creating
good art and just let the shit pour out of your brain onto the paper, or the
stage, or whatever. Because as soon as I get all hoity-toity and set out
to create good art then I usually create pretentious crap that bores the
shit out of people even if they say they liked it (as if that made it good
art). The only way to create good art is to pull out all the stops and not
care anymore, not have anything to lose, and certainly not to have an eye
on your career, your grant or the reactions of your friends, family, lover
or employer. You've just got to fucking be real with what you feel and let
it out. "But doesn't that make the art nothing more than therapy?" Hell yeah,
art is therapy, because it's like taking a great big healthy shit. You feel
great when it's over. "Yeah, but what does the audience think?" Oh God, I
don't know what the audience thinks, once I become overly-concerned about
that, it's all over. Trying to do "good art" kept me from creating anything
at all.
"Aren't you using your HIV status to boost your career as an artist/scenester
or whatever it is you call yourself?" I hear a lot of critics bitching about
tell-all autobiographies these days. They say it's the "Oprah-fication" of
literature (actually, I think I just made that word up). If someone is tired
of hearing about the emotions that come up when someone faces a life-threatening
disease or any other such heavy shit that we all inevitably face, then they
should question what it is they think that art is all about in the first place.
Besides, today's tell-all autobiographies become tomorrow's historical time
capsules so if you ask me, *everybody* should bare all about their lives.
We all have a unique perspective, a true story, a powerful testimony to share
with others stumbling along towards the grave in the present and in the future.
If HIV is what it took to get me off my ass and give some meaning to my life,
then you can sure as hell bet that I'm going to talk about it.
So anyway, how do I feel now that my father has decided that things are
just too messy and scandalous for him now and he'd rather check out? I feel
anger at him like I never have before, and I want to yell at him, "you fucking
coward! You hypocrite! You cheesy, tacky, selfish, greedy, oblivious, right-wing
neanderthal! You think you are stronger than me? You think God shines on you
more than me? You think you have more right to be here than I do? Who the
fuck do you think you are?" I want to take a glass of water like they do
in the movies and throw it in his face. I want to drive a car right through
his living room and park it in the kitchen. I want mildew and mushrooms and
mold to flourish in his bed at night. I want spiders to spin webs over him
and birds to drop shit on him as he walks along the lonely road. I want a
hundred other vile things that I don't really want to happen to him, but goddamn
it feels good to say them! What a coward, what a self-righteous, small-minded
hypocrite. "Family values," my asshole. I have more family values in my false
eyelashes than he has had his entire life. You wouldn't know it, by looking
at me, queer Radical Faerie HIV-positive art-fag, but it's true. I tried
for years to have a positive family relationship with him and he just ran
like a coward.
"Bloobird, I don't like this new tone of yours." "You used to be new-agey
inspirational like Yanni but now you sound like Henry Rollins or one of those
other rant queens. I thought you talked about being loving and full of forgiveness
all the time but now you seem so angry and unforgiving. You talked about being
so peaceful but now you sound really, well, agitated and I'm not real comfortable
with that. You are not inspiring me."
Please excuse that bit of internal dialogue. Writing out my internal dialogue
helps me keep writing, because when I write my internal doubts and fears out
for the world to see, I take away the power of these voices which used to
keep me from writing at all.
You can't be peaceful until you work through the anger. You can't say you
forgive until you really feel it, otherwise it's bullshit. I don't feel forgiveness
right now, I feel anger. Besides, my father has not asked me to forgive him
so who can I forgive? Myself? OK, I forgive myself.
"It's now a week or so after you heard from your sister. How do you feel
now?"
I'm not as angry at my dad any more. I've had dreams about my father over
the past few nights. I think this represents a process of letting go. Maybe
we have both been having these dreams. In one, my father was putting a necklace
around my neck. What does that mean? I don't know. I took it to mean that
the spirit which is my father, with whom perhaps I have shared numerous tumultuous
lives, was saying a final goodbye to me as if we have finally worked through
our karma together and can move on to the next thing before us. I think it
means that he now has a new respect for me because I told him off and finally
moved on as an adult. I took it to mean that there is a certain amount of
love there buried under all the shit, love perhaps my father is unable to
show me, love that I am not able to see in his actions. After all, he's not
very good at expressing his emotions (except anger), but maybe that's a generational
thing, or a guy thing, in large part.
Men have never been trained to show their emotions and to be vulnerable,
at least not until recently, so things ARE improving. Before I started writing
this tonight (it's 5:31 am, so now it's morning), I had a dream in which characters
from "Leave it to Beaver" were staring at this guy in a really cold way just
because he looked slightly different than they. In the dream I turned to
my hubby Dan and said, "God, I sure am glad I wasn't my around in the 1950's.
People looked at anyone different like they were a piece of shit, or a commie,
or worse. At least nowadays you can be pretty much whoever the hell you want
to be and people have the common sense to mind their own business, and most
people groove on it, they like new things, unique things, diversity." In
the dream I said, "See? Some things ARE improving." Of course it's not this
way for everyone everywhere, but the general tone of the times is that we
all have something to share, to learn from each other. The 1990's are definitely
better than the 1950's, especially for queers, but I can't speak for women,
blacks or other minority groups, so I won't go there. The 1980's sort-of
felt like the "Revenge of the Fifties" to me, like a backlash in favor of
the 50's, with Ron and Nancy and apple-pie and Rambo in the white house,
so I'm glad we're here, only a few years away from the year 2000. To quote
a line from one of my favorite movies, Troma's "Vegas in Space," I'll just
add, "It's a sleek new world for today's modern woman."
Getting back to my father situation and how I feel about it now, I had another
dream where my father was giving me $700 (as "good luck" money or "get lost"
money, I don't know). When I woke up it seemed to be so real that I wondered
about the $700, like how I would spend it, why had he given it to me, but
then I remembered it was only a dream. What does that mean? I think it means
that there actually is some love there that it may be too late to acknowledge
in the waking world, because too much damage has been done and it's time for
both of us to move on. I'm not angry at him anymore, really. That's pretty
much past now. I do think he's being a coward, a sucker for conformity, a
rube even for not opening his eyes and looking at the real world, but hey,
I'm not perfect, either, and I'm old enough to know that one for sure. I'm
not saying that to cut myself down but to be honest. I used to try to be perfect,
but it's not possible in this world. I don't think we're supposed to be perfect,
we're here to stumble around like fools trying to figure it out, bumping
into the furniture, pissing down our legs trying to hit the toilet. I'm no
better or worse than he, and so it goes...
8/5/91 Union Square, SF
Haia Ted Berk
We are part of the fundamental line that runs across the earth and thru
the earth existing even in water. It is the vibrational artery of multi-existence!
And we absorb it thru our feet and it shoots up to our crown chakra at a billion
feet a second making brilliant and omnipresent the root of our soul and of
our sex organs and of future merging with past and colorizing the present
to a fluorescent rainbow of dream to which we evolve now!
Apology demanded of Brigham Young University for harassment of gay people
Rocky/Connell O'Donovan
I have issued a formal challenge to the BYU administration to acknowledge
the atrocities it has committed over the years against Queer people, publicly
apologize for them, and offer monetary reparations to its victims of electric
shock and vomiting aversion "therapies." Here is a brief list of SOME anti-Gay
activities and policies that the BYU administration has enacted since the
late 1960s:
1. Wiretapping of dormitories of students suspected of
homosexual activity.
2. Creating the student "Honor Code" as a means to have
students anonymously inform on each other when campus regulations regarding
sexuality were broken.
3. Students could receive college credit for posing as
a Gay decoy by enrolling in Justice Administration 299R.
4. Entraping students and faculty in Gay cruising areas
on- and off-campus.
5. Forcing bishops to break the secrecy of the confessional
if the confession dealt with homosexuality.
6. Creating extensive student spy networks.
7. Using campus security officers to make massive, public
interrogations and arrests of suspected homosexuals (such as male ballet and
drama students at the Harris Fine Arts Center).
8. Maintaining extensive "security files" on students
suspected of homosexual activity.
9. Outing Queers to their ecclesiastical leaders and family
members.
10. Placing holds on the transcripts of Gay students,
preventing them from transferring to any other university.
11. Browbeating and/or blackmailing Gay students into
giving away the names of other Gay people to campus security or the University
Standards office.
12. Using electric shock and vomiting aversion therapies
on Gay people.
13. Using other types of therapies (such as hypnotherapy)
in destructive ways.
14. Using pornographic photos and films in aversive therapies
to stimulate and arouse the subjects of these torturous experiments.
15. Allegedly destroying, altering, and falsifying case
files on homosexual students who were receiving counseling services from the
BYU Comprehensive Clinic in the early 1990s in order to gain reaccreditation
from the American Psychological Association.
If you feel moved to join me in calling for this official apology from BYU,
please contact BYU president Merrill Bateman at and/or the director of BYU's
Public Relations, Brent Harker at . Thank you for your interest and assistance
in this project. Please pass this on to anyone or group whom you think might
be interested. Blessed Be! Connell O'Donovan
Projects, plugs, and upcoming stuff like that there
* Cherotic Revolutionary: from the current FACT SHEET
5: "When Frank Moore isn't organizing performances and workshops about tribal
sex magic, he's producing this zine full of photographs, poetry, stories,
psychedelia, and rants. Nice printing makes these photos really stand out.
We get some tranquil nudes from Eric Boutilier-Brown, erotic nudes from Tony
Ryan, and some playful nudes from blind photographer Flo Fox. I enjoyed all
the poems -- some erotic, some angry, some revealing -- especially Frank's
poem about open mike events. Also a page each from HR Giger and T.R. Miller.
ORDERING INFORMATION: Frank Moore, Inter-Relations, P.O. Box 11445, Berkeley,
CA 94712. Price: $5. Accepting submissions for future 'zines.
* Writing circle: I'd like to start a supportive circle
for aspiring writers and/or cartoonists, wherein we would regularly meet to
read/share/discuss each others' work and perhaps collaborate on creating a
publication. The main strength I think we could get from this group is encouragement
and motivation to write on a regular basis. Since none of us would be professionals
or critics per se, we will all be learning from one another or in any case
enjoying one another's company and moral support. Bloobird at 415-585-8273.
* Drawing circle: I'd like to propose a life drawing circle
in which we take turns being the model. This could also be a photography circle,
sculpture circle, whatever, but the essential thing is that it would be a
fun, supportive, spontaneous environment to encourage the blossoming of our
talents. Bloobird at 415-585-8273.
* LSD Tabloid volume 1 collection: The LSD Tabloid started
in January, 1996 and I've written at least one issue every month since then
except for November, when I was freaking out about my HIV seroconversion.
I've rambled on about lots of stuff, personal, political, artistic, serious,
silly, funny, sad, good bits I'd write again as well as crap that embarasses
me. Now they're all assembled into a collection together with new stuff like
my cartoons, poetry (such as it is) and photography. Makes for pleasant diversion
on the toilet. To order, please send $5 to Bloobird, LSDxxx, 634 Edna St.,
SF CA 94127.
* LSDxxx zine #2 nearly ready: It's almost finished. Really.
Oh God, WHEN WILL IT BE FINISHED? If you would like to list something in the
space above, call Tel-a-Fool at 415-333-9549 or e-mail bloobird@sirius.com.
Links and URLs are welcome!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time is not money. Time is art.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Oh, lighten up, willya?" Bozo the Clown to Franz Kafka over jelly donuts
at the Chilly-Mart.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check out LSD Tabloid at http://www.eskimo.com:80/~davidk/faeries/pubs.htm
Read my sweat lodge vision at http://www.well.com/user/bobby/SC/bloobrd.html
Discover the Gay Kens of San Francisco at www.sirius.com/~fishpaw/ Haia the
Venusian and his dreams: see http://www.links.net/vita/sf/haia/) Visit the
Frank Moore's shaman's cave at http://www.eroplay.com