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The Love's Supreme Desire Tabloid

June 1998
Feel free to copy/distribute as long as the Tabloid is reproduced in its entirety and not deliberately misrepresented. Entire contents copyright Blue aka Bloobird unless authorship otherwise noted. Submissions of material always welcome. Internet subscriptions are free. To revoke your subscription, just say so. Most back issues available here. To read about the sweat lodge experience that ripped my brain open and changed my life forever in the Spring of 1995, see here.

Tabloid Tarot--- by Blue

The question in my mind is a general one: "What would be beneficial information to readers of the Tabloid at this time?" I use the visually beautiful Aleister Crowley Thoth deck, and an excellent text called "The Tarot Handbook: Practical applications of ancient visual symbols," by Angeles Arrien, Arcus Publishing Company, 1987. I am not an expert at reading cards but I enjoy trying. I hope the reading is of value to you.
The three cards spread for this issue are: PAST- 9 of Wands, PRESENT-Art/Temperance, FUTURE- The Hanged Man. According to the text, THE 9 OF WANDS card symbolizes strength on all levels, and seems to be saying that there is unlimited internal strength to call upon to manifest improvements in your life and the world. It suggests giving strength to that which is important and worthwhile to you, and so implies that a decision has been made (or should be made) about how to best direct one's energies for positive change.
THE ART/TEMPERANCE card deals with combining apparent opposites in order to create a third, more stable and harmonious element. The text gives the example of water and fire combining to create steam. The light and the dark within our nature need to be acknowledged, accepted, unified to whatever extent possible to create more harmony. Without going into further detail I can say that this spread seems to be talking directly to things I have been dealing with in several areas of my life. How to create balance from disharmony? How to break old patterns and/or recombine them into something powerful, positive, loving and new?
THE HANGED MAN deals with recognizing patterns that bind and have tripped you up repeatedly in the past. It is about letting go of the ego in order to become something new, reborn, as in turning your life upside down and looking at it in a new way, to see self-imposed structures which create the perception of limitation and entrapment. The card deals with making sacred and then sacrificing old patterns to make room for growth.

Come To The Park (Mayday/Beltaine 1998, Dolores Park, San Francisco)---by Blue

Come to the Park
we got green Mission sunshine
and a mime troupe without a single friggin' mime,
there's a Maypole with bright shiny ribbons wrapped all around,
and a rainbow of people eating free hot tasty food sitting lightly upon the ground
hippy dudes drumming with no shirts on or underwear
who can touch their asses with the dreads in their hair
come to the park
turn off that goddamn computer, guy
don't wanna hear no excuses there's a sun up in the sky
why sit there all alone in your tomb?
shake a tail feather bud, you're growing mushrooms
been raining like a mother so the flowers are high
so come to the park now 'fore I poke you in the eye
come to the park
look at that guy over there by the shitter
playing a birdsong on a flute painted all green with glitter
been talkin' to a guy who says he's from Venus
about the New York Mets and some guy's penis
lotsa faeries here spittin' death in the eye
twirling, drunk and laughing with the sky
so come to the park it's not rainin' no more desert's in bloom like never before biggest flower explosion in a generation charms the pants off a desert nation fancy houses are falling into the sea down by where the beach used to be
but come to the park see all the nice people play I recognize her from Summer of Love reunion day the sun shone like wildflowers that mad day too we all needed the warmth so badly it just had to
I saw a boomer crying then down by the circle with drums he had left that behind, decided flower children were bums thought the fool who said "Peace and Love" was a liar 'til he saw the shirtless boys and brilliant women dancing in the blue sunset, gold with fire
I don't know if this following poem sucks or not. I have a sneaking suspicion that it does, but still, it sums up some issues I have been going through lately and so it's worth that much, anyway. I read it last night at the Paradise Lounge open mic and the weirdest thing happened, I lost my confidence in the poem right before I went onstage and I almost didn't want to go up and read it but then decided it would be better to go up there than to chicken out, so to speak. Then when I started reading it I felt the way that Fred Flintstone felt when he got humiliated, you know how his body would get smaller and smaller until he almost disappeared? I felt my voice shrink to almost nothing inside my throat, my head was buzzing and I thought I might pass out. Boy, stage fright sure is a blast, and it is made all that much worse when at the last minute you decide that you don't like the poem that you have to read in front of a bunch of pierced and jaded South of Market strangers. I learned from that experience that I am not going to waste time trying to make my poems rhyme because they just end up sounding fake, phony and stupid when I read them onstage. I liked the conversational writing styles of last night's featured readers, the notorious Sparrow 13 Laughingwand, author of "Hell Soup" by Manic D Press, and also of the other featured reader, poetry mama Julia Vinograd, author of "Dead People Laughing," Zeitgeist Press, among other things. I used to think I had to make my poems rhyme but in reality it just ends up making them suck. It makes mine suck, anyway. I won't be reading this again when I am the featured reader along with Dancing Bear at Spasso Cafe in Berkeley this Thursday, May 28th. I'll be reading some of my prose for sure, because I have more confidence in that anyway. I'll probably read about the time I was waiting to catch a bus from LA to San Francisco in the Greyhound bus terminal, which I wrote about in the Tabloid long ago.
I'm real nervous now about the poetry reading on Thursday. I think it was a good thing that this freakout happened at Paradise Lounge though, it made me stop and think about what it is I'm doing (boy it sure is easy to bruise my ego!). It also led me into a darker realization later on in the course of the evening, when I saw a harsh reflection of a part of myself that I wish to heal and integrate into a higher state of being.

To love me just the way I am---by Blue

Go away, I need my space no, no, please come closer can you see how much I need you? can you see how much I love you?
I guess it's hard to tell I'm such a loner, but well then again I'm not, typical libra thing to say I'm the kind of loner who needs people desperately
All this looking and wanting and wanting and needing an answer or two goes away when I turn my monkey mind off and lay on the ground with my heart open listening to you
A child of the 80's, I used to think stupid as this sounds, on a subconscious level I know I used to think I had to be some sort of celebrity to have value if you're not a celebrity you're pretty much invisible, living a life of terrible drudgery
But my life is ordinary now so goddamn ordinary it would have pained me but I am happy without those attachments they just got in my way anyhow
it's weird not having any ambition except to be true to what has meaning but what has meaning one day is just ego gratification the next
Maybe someday I'll find my niche but then maybe I already have How do you know when you've found it? What does it feel like to know where you are?
What if by giving up all ambition all attachment to what people perceive all those gifts you were unable to see reveal themselves at last before you?
I kept thinking I needed to make it big to prove I'm not a loser or a slacker by far but then one day you told me "I love you just the way you are"
A child of the 80's, I used to think stupid as this sounds, on a subconscious level I know I used to think I had to be a pure spiritual being, must reject all materialism to show I wasn't a child of the 80's, to show I wasn't a child of my materialistic father
But I am a child of the Earth and the Earth is not pure The only pure thing is death, because there's nothing else there life is ugly and beautiful and ordinary and fabulous, full of pain and pleasure Death is pure and awaits me one day but I am terribly alive and I will never be pure
What was I trying to prove? And who was I trying to prove it to? My father of course, who was unable to see, myself of course, who consequently never let me be me
But on the other side of that ego desire, Still I know I'm here to do something, right? I know we're all here to do something full of fire and I want to do it before the dimming of the lights
What if I am here to just be? Yeah, if it were only that easy I don't want to be the King of Siam but you can't buy bread with bits of "I am"
I've finally made some peace with work and money and all that stuff I used to hate I'd like to but I can't turn the world into a garden of free delights overnight So I choose to be one of the ordinary people lifting the weight I can do that and still have time to write
How could I write about a world I only see from my window, avoiding everyday strife? I want to be among the crowds, swimming in the water of ordinary life no man is an island and life as an island is as boring as fuck tried that for a while but I didn't have good luck
I don't need to be special anymore never was, or always was; we all are I don't need to have the answers anymore It's enough for me just to write down the questions
All these stops and starts, these questions that torment and inspire will never have answers, there will always be happy and sad and peace and desire death is pure and awaits me one day but I am terribly alive and I will never be pure and still you say, and I say it now to myself and to you, "I love you just the way you are"

Just How Am I?---response to Blue's "To love me just the way I am"--- by Louise Ripley

I lay upon the floor with my heart open Well, open just a crack I wouldn't want the winds of truth to blow too cold upon it A child of the '60's but not really, I learned too soon what came of opening up too much. I lie here listening to you, Well, I say that, but actually I am listening only to the sound of my own heartbeat Trying to figure out what you mean when you say you love me Just the way I am When I do not know myself Have no idea Who I am. Go away, I need my space No, no, please come closer I used to laugh, A child of the '60's but not really, When they went out to find themselves, in their twenties Now I go at fifty one. Go away, I need my space No, no, please come closer Stay stop wait don't go Wait and be my friend While I find out who I am

Letters from Linda

I've decided to include these letters in which Tabloid subscriber Linda Eklof Read, a medical professional and a teacher, and I talk about why I may have dreamt about Madonna three times (my friend Geri told me he has dreamt about Madonna, too. I know there are web pages out there devoted to Madonna dreams. It's an interesting phenomenon). Later on we talk about my vision experience in New Mexico, in which I chose death three times as an offering for global peace in some sort of mysterious trial. Linda pointed something out to me which shook me up: it's easy to chose death, but it's much harder to choose LIFE. To quote Annie Lennox from her album, Diva, "Dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death." A little over one year after I had this vision experience in New Mexico, in which I chose death, I discovered that I was HIV+. Now I'm in a weird limbo between living and dying. I've been very Zen about whether I live or whether I die, trying to accept whatever comes along. But that's being a bit of a chump, now that I think about it. It's being way too passive and irresponsible. I don't want my life to go downhill from here, I want it to get better. And if I want it to get better, honey, I've gotta work. Exercise, good food, meditation, all that good stuff in addition to the medications. Because attitude is extremely important. I'm not going to be wishy-washy about it, I want to LIVE. And that goes for my aspirations as an artist, too. Do I want to be a good writer, or don't I? If I don't, then I should quit right now and stop wasting everybody's time. If I do want to be a good writer, then I've gotta WORK at it.
LINDA: ... So, I would ask, what does Madonna represent to you.....I would ask Madonna, "why are you in my dream?"
BLUE: What does Madonna mean to me? Good question. Now that I think of it, she represents goddess energy, literally the Madonna. Above my bed we have a huge cloth with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and a statue of her in the living room. On my little altar next to the bed I have a statue of Q'uan Yin (the goddess of compassion). I guess what I'm really saying about all of this is that over the past year or so I have definitely been integrating female/goddess energy into my life. Getting along better with my mother and my sisters, my female friends, my feminine side (as well as my masculine side). On a more plain level, I do think of Madonna as a bit of a hero. She's very inspiring to me. She seems like someone who is fully manifesting herself warts and all as an artist. I think she's also in my dream because my ego has been hanging on to the idea of being famous, or getting recognized for what I do, even though on a deeper level I know that's all bullshit and I honestly wouldn't really want to be famous. I mean, I have often said to friends, "God, wouldn't you hate to be Madonna-famous?" Seems like it would be such a huge burden living up to everyone's expectations and all of that. But the flipside of that is that I may have been letting my fear of that sort of fame keep me from working at becoming good at what I want to do, and I guess now I'm realizing, "It's true I don't want to become Madonna famous, but I do want to do things which touch people, and I do want to do good, relevant work. Sometimes a lot of recognition may come with that." Just realizing that I shouldn't squash my creativity just because I wouldn't want to be famous; ie I shouldn't run away from my gifts because I'm too "pure" for the rat race or any crap like that. It's more important to put the work out there than to be self-righteous about rejecting what may come along with any such success. But at the same time I'm always totally giving my life over to my heart and my spiritual path, I mean that is definitely what's most important to me, and I'm always trying to just let go and follow, be directed where I'm supposed to go, etc... but I get frustrated when I don't know which way to go, I like to get reinforcement or encouragement for what I do. Like when you said you were going to read my poem ("It's a gift, you'll see") to your class, that thrilled me not because of "career" so much as, damn, I'm glad somebody thinks my work is worth the effort, has value to the universal human heart. I think Madonna in my dreams is all about me coming to terms with how to use my creative talents in the world in a good way.
LINDA: >Fierce Angels..................seems you decided to die during that experience, wonder if you are ready to live? Dying is okay, pretty easy, a glorious return to Allness. Living is the adventure, high impact, lots of stuff to experience and figure out......and so many illusions........lies........limited ways of being........all waiting to be found out and let go of........and on the other side of letting go........joy, the pure joy of being alive, in a body, playing on earth. Sounds like you are remembering you came for the JOY, not the lies, illusions, limits............
BLUE: very insightful. I think of that experience more of like the tower card in the Tarot, I had to let certain parts die before I could live, that sort of thing. Today I was thinking, oh God, people who read that poem will think I have a martyr complex! I hope I don't, I mean that's not very alive, and I do want to live, but at the same time I'm trying to be very accepting of whatever may happen. I pray these days that I will live until the day I accomplish whatever it is I came here to accomplish, and then I'll feel ready to go. I mean, yeah I want to live but I'm not attached to a certain number of years or anything like that. Maybe I should be. I certainly want to have enough time to do whatever it is I came here to do, and anything beyond that is gravy I suppose...
BLUE: I just wanted to thank you for writing this to me. Since I wrote you back yesterday I've been thinking how right you were to say that "dying is easy, now do you want to live?" You're right, I do need to decide clearly, "I want to live," and make efforts to live; exercise, eating right, good mental attitude and lots of emotional support. This morning I've been surfing the web and checking out support groups and reading the accounts of an HIV+ guy on the web and feeling inspired to really make efforts in an alive direction, not just passively wait for "whatever happens," which has been my attitude up to now. Maybe that's overstating it, I don't mean to give you the impression I have just been lying around waiting to die, but I have been less than active in terms of taking really good, proactive care of my health. A few days ago I prayed, "If you want me to leave now I will, but if you want me to hang around, please give me the inspiration and strength I need to put up a fight in my own defense." I was just feeling that I was giving the whole thing over to Great Spirit, and whatever happened would be fine with me. I still feel that way, but I think spirit is encouraging me to put up a fight, and that's the message I needed to hear. If spirit gave me the message to give up resistance, let go, and prepare to die, I would've done that (although my health is nowhere NEAR that level of crisis, still I think about things in those terms all the time). But it feels to me now that spirit is saying, "go out there and live life and put up a fight." Now I'm feeling like I've strongly made the decision, I want to live a healthy bountiful life until the day I die. I'm not going to give up or be overly Zen about this because it really is a matter of life and death. I have to WANT to live before my body/spirit can mount a strong defense! Anyway, thanks for your letter which put a fire under my lazy butt. Have a good day, Blue
Thanks again, Linda!

10-31-95---by Ben Ohman

you put the poet to paper reasoning rhymes to cute the end pluck the wife to abuse to show sympathy every year later, age baths, falling to undercome women loving women, the bird under the car wheel Don Marquis in importance man just smacks his personal feelings, problems non-political search out a zine and destroy the big try

By My Lyricist---by Ben Ohman

dead in times of trust, always talking in gold the permanence of my statue going dust with cold stand in final papers, uncollected mouths stinging satirical clues, finding form with now dedications building reluctant ink, cousin q's and o's uncared final verse is first within me, the music in me scared
Ben Ohmart has had 100s of stories and poems in 'zines and journals, and had 4 plays produced last year. His lyrics will be on 2 CDs this year, 1 a gothic album, the other a rock album. He's currently writing films, with hopes of having one done in Malaysia soon, and is also trying to break into the prison of television. He's white, 26, single and loves British comedy. He lives in Boalsburg, PA, right next to PSU, and enjoys watching rabbits eat his garbage.
Shameless self-promotion: I just got my contributor's copy of the 25th issue of Gay Comics, which is the 18th anniversary issue. It's a big, beautiful 80 page "super spectacular" collection of work by 71 cartoonists, and I'm thrilled to be part of it. Check out your local queer book store and ask for it; my cartoon, called "Sex is... Overrated?" appears on page 37. Many thanks to my friend Robert Triptow, who was editor of Gay Comics for a while and accepted one of my strips which was published in Gay Comix (the old spelling) number 13.
Time is not money. Time is art.

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"Oh, lighten up, willya?" ---Bozo the Clown to Franz Kafka over jelly donuts at the Chilli-Mart