THE DAILY TRAVESTY | Mulling It Over & Planet Waves
THE DAILY TRAVESTY for February 4, 2000
    Volume 1, Issue 24
 
The Travesty Online: www.angelfire.com/zine/dailytravesty
 
 
Q:  What did the Zen monk say at the hot dog stand?
A:  "Make me one with everything."
 
 
You might ask where this little publication is going, if we are running out of wind yet.   I am, at the moment, having to do some reevaluation of my purpose.   I think I can indefinitely put out interesting stuff as I've been doing, little bits of this and that-- there's so much of it out there.  Occasionally something is brought to my attention by a reader.  The problem is that this is not exactly satisfying, nor I am sure if it is even what you, the subscribers, would like to see. 
 
It may just take some time before we are comfortably settled into an identity that works.  It is a personality quirk of mine to often look ahead and worry when I could be focusing on what I've currently got going-- I'm always trying to think ten steps into the future.  On top of that I can be relentlessly impatient.  I would like to know exactly what something is and where it stands at all times-- when I don't know, I tend to get tense and nervous, which is absolutely the stupidest thing on earth to do because it only ends up sabotaging my effort.  Hey, at least I can recognize these things.  I would like to stop, take a deep breath and relax.  I would like to learn to trust and loosen my grip a little on the security and control bit.
 
Anyway, that's enough about me and it's probably more than you wanted to hear.  The point is, the TRAVESTY is still in the process of finding its nitch.  To speed things along, I might decide to send out a little survey asking you what you do and do not approve of-- what you want out of this e-zine, if anything, and what you don't want because you never read it when I print it and it irritates you.  I am very interested in your thoughts.
 
I think the most important thing I would like to drill into your brains is that this is YOUR publication.  Oh my god, that sounded so cliche.  Well fuck me.  I've been mulling over my mission, and I'm here to proclaim: SEND IN whatever you want.  Follow your urges.  You want to rant about how much your life sucks?  You want to rave about the last episode of Drew Carey?  You want to write a curt essay on the irony of patriarchy?  The destructiveness of matriarchy?  The death cult that is most forms of Christiantity?  The beauty of said Death Cults?  The mind-blowing freedom of your first E experience?  The idiocy of experimenting with illegal substances?  Got a kick out of the Salon/Gary Bauer controversy?  Think Bush is the man?  You want to tell me to go to hell?  Do it.  I would like to give you the freedom to turn this publication into whatever you want it to be.  I'm just the goddammed editor, after all.
 
Now enjoy your horoscope and have a smashingly good weekend.
 
PLANET WAVES By ERIC FRANCIS
For the week of February 4, 2000

My personal thanks to Gov. George Ryan of Illinois for banning the death penalty in his state after 13 people were freed from Death Row after it was proven they were innocent of any crime.  Most of those were freed by the efforts of journalism and law school students at North-Western University.  Please do what you can to end the racist and vicious death penalty in your state.  Thank you.  -ef

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ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Getting right to the point, you have nothing to be afraid of as long as the people you call your friends, and with whom you surround yourself, are really your friends. And I think they are, so your sense of apprehension about, something, I don't know what, is basically unjustified. Perhaps it's just your own energy that has you edgy. The line from U2, "You don't know if it's fear or desire," has a ring of truth for you now; but consider that following your desire directly implies change, and wee people are terrified of change. We claim to want progress, but we don't want change. Anyway, whatever you call it, this week's eclipse of the Sun portends only the most wholesome transitions.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
I think you have toyed with your professional potential for a long time, going in fits and starts, seeking for elusive goals that often seem to be out of your reach, or stopping before you arrive at a concrete destination. In recent years, despite a few moments of real motivation, a fog has come over the areas where you used to have the clearest view ahead, further obscuring your mission, lending a sense of futility and yet waxing your ideals to a high gloss. My take is you have a fear of really making your mark in the world, and my sense of why, no offense intended, is because yo' mama grossly underestimated your potential. Please don't make the same mistake.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Whether we study religion, psychology, or philosophy, we're confronted again and again with models of the self as a divided entity, and we stand at their mercy.  Cutting body from soul, mind from spirit, heart from mind, mind from ego, we use models of self in which so-called sub-personalities are empowered to seize control of our voice or go to war amongst "one another" -- and all of these ideas are models of division and separation. Yet they divide us less within ourselves and more among and between one another, affirming a world of separate interests and conflicting personal realities. From your particular perch on the universe, certain rare experiences now headed your way can show you what a thundering celebration is the unified truth of who you are.

CANCER (June 21-July 22)
On television, in books and in the movies (where we meet all our most vivid role models) we meet characters who undergo every kind of moral test, challenge, ordeal, experience, adventure and misadventure, save one: What fictional character can you think of who has ever become sexually free, or even dared to try? What real-life person can you think of who has given it a real try? Is it not a strange phenomenon that society (with extremely rare exceptions) skips over this one teensy little aspect of life? Well, I don't suggest you succumb to the temptation not to go for it now. Sure, it seems dangerous. Yes, people will say things. Yet most of what they will feel will be envy for you who dare to seek what we so often want, men and women alike, above all else.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)
There are certain things you will never know for sure. You must accept this fact, and live with it while we all travail in the long, long thread of time and the webs of space. But consciously living with the unknown, though daunting to some, is most often a great source of strength, intimacy and freedom, particularly in the realm of relationships, in which we have most of the poignant moments of life. For though there seems to be a great void of darkness at the core of another person's soul, it works a lot like the black hole at the core of the Milky Way galaxy, mysteriously binding together so much light with an unshakable, invisible strength. And you, my little Leo, are made in much the same way.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
My dear friend, cousin and Chironic Virgo chiropractor Angelo first drew the distinction between working hard and working smart for me. Though perhaps an old cliché, it says a lot about your current environment right now. Your life is arranged such that one clear thought can save you not just countless hours of labor, but serve to revolutionize and reinvent your whole process of work and activity, taking you to a vastly different level. I suggest you remain attached to no one activity, task or aspect of your work, but instead release everything to a moment of flux and potential. Stay close to the source of your activity: the original thought, inner impulse or most basic reason for what you are doing.

LIBRA (Sep. 23-Oct. 22)
Usually we are rewarded for stupidity. It was not always this way. In the era of the American pioneers, for example, the price of stupidity was death. Today, in conquered nature and denatured humanity, in the world of corporations and profits and the charade of business, the mere exercise of even dim wits is often viewed as a kind of predatory behavior, a threat to all those who do not dare dust off a brain cell or two and consider a real idea. But something tells me you are now in an unusual position to exercise creative radiance, sensitivity and bold authority in a few clean gestures. Yet unlike in the past, the question is not how far you can go. It is how far you will go.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
I suggest you consider the definitions, bounds and purposes of your so-called comfort zone. Taking emotional risks does not seem to be your forte lately, though truthfully, I am not sure when it was. Not that this stopped you from taking other kinds of risks, daunting risks, sexual risks, daring-the-devil risks; yet on this day I can tell you fancy, or I can tell you plain: Your safe zone is not safe. It is a little tempest of self-induced danger, or rather "danger." Outside what you think of as your safe or comfort zone, it's actually pretty fair weather, fair enough for a good adventure, surprising enough to keep life interesting, cosmic enough to salt the mundane to a nice flavor, and passionate enough to make emotional risks well worth it.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21)
You are standing on a mental fault line, kind of like the San Andreas. One of my theories about why the West Coast is so much more alive than the East Coast is because it's riddled with active cracks in the crust of the Earth. There is power and friction and danger in those fissures, splits and openings; there is the constant threat, or rather potential, of things being very different tomorrow than they are today, and so today is appreciated a lot more fully. In this zone, you have one very important choice: what to do with fear. I don't suggest you fall for the trap that fear is some kind of guard against negativity. It only attracts it, and makes it worse.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)
Here is a really cool trick you can learn this week in about half a snap of a finger: giving to yourself. That's another way of saying being, or rather, learning that you are your most lucrative resource. You will learn through experience. Some perplexing situation, stuck area of your life, financial difficulty or question of fundamental values in a relationship is likely to present itself (they always do) and you have the chance right now to look at yourself in a truly new way, turn the problem into an asset, and discover that there is a whole bunch more to you and in you than you might have realized. In a phrase, instability is an opportunity not to withhold from yourself.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 19-Feb. 18)
In a world where "reality" is largely dictated by economic forces, political powers and guns, the influence of ideas is often forgotten. Okay, we both know that most people think they're dumb, and most folks you meet on the street wouldn't know an idea from the pull-tab on a beer can. But that ain't your problem, and it sure ain't your problem now. Though I have not been an astrologer all the years of your life, I can assure you there have been few times when the gift of invention has burned brighter in your mind. You got yourself into whatever you are into, and with the strength of an idea, a gesture of thought, you will discover how much you can change when you change your mind.

PISCES (Feb. 19-Mar. 20)
That your whole life may feel like one utter and outrageous mystery right now is really something of an illusion. A mental poise of honoring the unknown would be a meaningful gesture of respect, but far more information is available than you are taking conscious note of, and it's but a matter of hours, or days at most, that a wide variety of rather astonishing layers of the truth -- and your truth -- unfold for you. In the midst of it all is an opening. It is usually best to consider openings in direct terms of whether we want to go through or not, rather than invest a lot of mental energy debating potentials and variables over which you have no control. Yet behold -- an opening, a way.

For the Faithful
Oh, it sure has been a gosh darned interesting few weeks leading up to Saturday's solar eclipse. For some, an edgy time, for others, an adventurous one, for others, a wild ride to hell and hopefully back. For many long generations, eclipses have terrified astrologers. They seemed to combine the worst elements of unpredictability, loss of control and the reality that once we make or experience a major change, it is very difficult to change it back. But we now know that if we want change, eclipses are among the most useful utilities in the astrological tool box, and now we are standing in the rush of a magnificent one in the sign Aquarius this coming Saturday, the first day of the Chinese Year of the White Dragon. So dig this astrological advice, and I strive to use well the one or two lines of text I have remaining: If you have not appreciated what this Year 2000 thing has had to offer so far, you now get a colossal chance to rewrite your fate, to redirect your destiny, and, most important, to change your mind.++

Planet Waves Online: www.PlanetWaves.net
E-mail eric@PlanetWaves.net Office Phone (914) 339-3339
 
DESPITE strong evidence to the contrary, persistent rumor has it that it was Mr. Momomoto's brother who swallowed Mr. Momomoto in the summer of '44.
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