The Televisionary Oracle

by Rob Brezsny

  I had rarely heard Rumbler be so wryly self-conscious. Back in the Televisionarium, he was usually such a creature—given instinctively to the feral poetry of the moment.

  “I have to say that I can see a bit of a family resemblance, though,” Jumbler said. “Which is not to say that I don’t believe your version of the truth, too. It is the Drivetime, after all. Whenever contradictory statements pop up here, you can be sure that both are accurate.”

  “And you are who?” Rumbler asked her. “I mean, I know who you are, but I want to hear your version of who you are.”

  “I’m Jesus the Hermaphrodite Clown, also known as the Wealthy Anarchist Burning Heaven to the Ground. Rapunzel might prefer to tell you I’m her teacher or servant or fool, but I like to think of myself as her sexfriend.”

  Jesus the Hermaphrodite Clown? What was that about, I wondered.

  But Rumbler looked delighted at this nonsense from Jumbler. I was glad, because I wanted them to get along. But I was nervous, too, because—well—shouldn’t they be jealous of each other? I didn’t want them to be, and since they lived in different dimensions maybe the usual laws of human nature didn’t apply.

  “Do you know Madame Blavatsky?” I asked him, trying to find a way to proceed. I gazed over at her. She was busy smoking her cigarette and devouring her popsicle, but she took a moment to give the thumbs-up signal to me with her cigarette hand.

  “I’m proud to say,” Rumbler replied, “that Madame Helena Blavatsky—who, I should note, suffers from the same indignity as I do, being imagined by you as a split-off aspect of your own psyche rather than an autonomous spirit with a life apart from you—Madame Blavatsky has called on me to help administer your next crash course at Drivetime University. Aren’t you going to eat your popsicle?”

  I was studying his face. Though it had not been so long since our last meeting, he looked older and stronger. He’d always been the embodiment of sensitivity, but now he emanated even more kindness than I remembered. A more mature, vigorous kindness.

  “Let’s go climb into the Drivetime University classroom, shall we?” he exhorted. “Come on, Jesus. You too. Madame Blavatsky, you want to sit in?”

  She shook her head and mumbled, “Maybe later.”

  Jumbler was contentedly licking her popsicle, seemingly empty of her usual restless initiative. If there was any jealousy flickering here between Rumbler and Jumbler, it was well-hidden.

  “You doing OK?” I asked Jumbler as we strolled.

  “I’m on a mysterious tantric jaunt into the Drivetime with the lyrical creature I’ve loved for millennia. Couldn’t get any better than this.”

  As we sat down inside the redwood husk, Rumbler arranged the three of us in a triangle with our legs splayed out, each person with a foot touching a foot of the other two.

  “First off, I want you to know that in order to expand my service to your mission, Rapunzel, I have been tending to my fellow men with a new intensity lately,” Rumbler announced when we were in place.

  “Men as in generic name for humanity?” I said, feigning dismay. “I thought you were free of sexist language, dear.”

  “Men as in literal guys. Dudes. Fathers and brothers and sons. Who, by the way, gave me a message to send to you.” Rumbler blew two kisses, first in the direction of my navel, then towards my face.

  “All the men in the world just kissed me?” I asked, holding my hand demurely to my face.

  “No, no, no—not all. Just the lesbian men and macho feminists. A very select group, unfortunately. By Madame Blavatsky’s calculations, it represents point zero two percent of all men.”

  “OK, Rumbler,” I said, exulting in the giddy sensation of feeling crisply logical in the midst of crazy fun. “Let me suspend my disbelief here for a moment and accept your implication that you have somehow been in communication with—how many would it be?—480,000 adult males all over the planet?

  “Overwhelming majority are in North America,” Rumbler noted.

  “So let me ask you: How did you get elected to be the representative of this elite group?”

  “You are so modest, Rapunzel,” he replied. “Of course I got elected because of my close association with the Queen Bee of Orgasmic Liberation. Because I was the first male-type creature to be benevolently infected by the Global Initiatrix of the Fuckissimus.”

  “Rapunzel’s mothers would no doubt be skeptical,” Jumbler broke in, “to hear that half a million men are having erotic fantasies about the high priestess of their Goddess cult.”

  Ignoring Jumbler’s kibitz, Rumbler moved to a kneeling position and prostrated himself so that his forehead rested on his outspread hands a few inches from my crotch. “My fellow men also wanted me to convey the following request.”

  “Yes?” I said expectantly, glancing over at Jumbler. She seemed bemused. Her hands were stroking her inner thighs and she was sporting a grin.

  “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,” Rumbler said with a histrionic stage whisper. “Pull us all the way up to your menstrual hut, so that we can learn to menstruate too.”

  I cackled hard, the result of being both incredulous and entertained. “I see,” I finally managed to sputter. “You lesbian men and macho feminists are envious of how we women have cornered the market on the glamorous fun of bleeding out our genitals. And you’re overwhelmed with yearning for the right to feel bloated and crampy and crabby four days out of every month.”

  Jumbler’s shoulders were shaking with laughter. Brazenly, she reached over and applied a teasing spank to Rumbler’s upturned butt.

  “We men want to master the art of regular self-abduction,” Rumbler continued seriously, not acknowledging the humorous effect of his previous statement. “We want to learn how to die a lot of little deaths so we don’t have to get crushed by huge annihilations.”

  “Hey Rumbler, what’s in it for Rapunzel to let these guys climb up into her menstrual hut?” Jumbler blurted out mischievously. I was grateful, wanting to stall for time while I tried to digest what Rumbler was talking about. It certainly seemed connected to the tower and the long line of men in wedding dresses from our previous foray into the Drivetime.

  “Rapunzel can’t kill the bad apocalypse without us,” Rumbler told Jumbler quickly and calmly. “She can’t resurrect the good apocalypse without us.”

  “That’s not what my mommies told me,” I protested halfheartedly. “My mommies said the male of the species is a lost cause. A drain on our resources I shouldn’t bother with. According to them, I’m not even supposed to get married.”

  “Your mommies are wise and good and strong,” Rumbler said solemnly. “We bow to them with reverent devotion. But they don’t know everything.”

  “But neither do you, of course,” I shot back affectionately. “Why should I listen to your advice?”

  “Besides the fact that it was revealed to me by your eternal secretary, Madame Blavatsky, it also resonates with everything you know about yourself. All your instincts, for as long as you can remember, have told you to be inclusive, not separative. To embrace the contradictions, not reinforce their enmity. Preaching to the choir is not your destiny, Rapunzel. You need to expand your audience. A lot.”

  “Why haven’t you told me this before?”

  “Couldn’t meet you in the Drivetime till you kidnapped yourself. Them’s the rules. Couldn’t reveal the missing secrets till you rose up against the old ways and started making your own traditions.”

  “By the logic you’re espousing, Rumbler,” Jumbler interjected, “Rapunzel would try to translate the esoteric wisdom of the Pomegranate Grail into a New Age self-help book and tour the world making personal appearances. ‘High Priestess of Ancient Mystery School Reveals Ten Practical Ways for Both Women and Men to Make the Menstrual Mysteries Work for Greater Health, Wealth, and Happiness.’ ”

  “Not a bad idea, actually,” he replied.

  “Well then, I hope Drivetime University has a marketing division,” Jumbler retorted, “becau
se the education of our Supergirl here has probably not included much training in that area of human knowledge.”

  “Actually,” Rumbler said, “there is a marketing division of Drivetime University. A whole phalanx of marketing teachers awaits Rapunzel’s arrival.”

  “I can’t believe we’re talking about this,” Jumbler marveled. “It’s certainly a day for firsts. My first joint shamanic trip into the Drivetime. My first shamanic conversation ever about marketing.”

  “Has the dissident propaganda you’re preaching been approved by Madame Blavatsky?” I asked Rumbler, dubious. “Is this all an official part of my Drivetime University curriculum? Especially the part about adding men to the choir I preach to.”

  “My Damn Latchkey!” Rumbler shouted. “My Damn Latchkey!”

  As my eternal secretary puttered up to the doorway of the redwood husk on her oversized tricycle, she was wiping her mouth with the back of her arm.

  “You require my august presence?” she gurgled.

  “My Damn Latchkey,” Rumbler said to her, “your ineffable ward here is wondering if I speak with your authority when I counsel her to upgrade her marketing skills and reach out to the masses. She’s particularly scoffing at my hint that she should invite some selected men to join her exclusive girls’ club.”

  “You do not have to physically fuck all the men,” Madame Blavatsky growled. “Spiritually you do, of course, in the Drivetime. But physically only a small fraction. What was the figure I worked out? Point zero two percent of point zero two percent. Not that many, really, as long as they are the right men. That should be good enough to infect the whole global gang of phallus-bearers.”

  I was apoplectic. “Fuck them?! What are you talking about?!”

  “It will certainly not be fucking in the patriarchal sense of the word,” Madame Blavatsky said blandly. “But the specifics about that will be revealed a little later. For now, think of your task as a kind of mass mercy-fucking. For the good of the planet.”

  “Shouldn’t I be at least a little concerned about what’s good for me?”

  “To the tiny little ego into which you have stuffed your vast primordial self, it sounds extreme. But remember, Queen Giggleshtupper, this is one of those decisions you yourself made while ensconced in the more eternal perspective, if you know what I mean. I am merely serving as your secretary. Reminding you of your agenda.”

  “I told you to remind me to turn myself into a kind of glorified sacred prostitute?” I laughed with disbelief. “I, the avatar of a mystery school that has only accepted women as members for millennia?”

  “There is no better way to set the healing infection in motion,” Madame Blavatsky said with curt certainty, taking a sip from a bottle of wine, “than to administer the tantric yoni juju directly to a few elite contagious agents among the beloved enemy. It will make the Drivetime aspect of your work far more effective. Besides, you will have plenty of time to get ready. The earliest possible launch date for you to become Global Initiatrix of the Fuckissimus would be five years from now.”

  “OK, Rumbler,” I said, setting my not-quite-finished popsicle down on a brown leaf, “time out.” I lifted his head up off the ground and looked him in the eyes. “I’ve come to enjoy Madame Blavatsky in the short time I’ve known her, but I don’t know how much I trust her. Your word, on the other hand, I swear by. So tell me. Are you and Blavatsky sincerely offering me a new dispensation about my life’s mission, or is this your idea of a prank?”

  “It’s a trade-off, Rapunzel,” he said. “The men will come to you to be filled up with the mysteries of menstruation, and you will exploit their openness in order to infect them with the Psychefunkapus meme. They get something and you get something. Remember what I said. You can’t kill the bad apocalypse without them. You can’t resurrect the good apocalypse without them.”

  “Just as long as you don’t try to tell us,” Jumbler fired in, “that she needs these men for personal reasons; that only a male can bring out the real woman in her. That kind of scripture tends to make me subject to projectile vomiting.”

  “You have my word,” said Rumbler. “I won’t say that. But I will say that she needs men in order to reach her full potential as an avatar. No way around it. The bad apocalypse will occur unless she infects the male of the species with the Psychefunkapus meme.”

  Jumbler stuck out her tongue and gave Rumbler a long, hard raspberry.

  “And tell me again what the Psychefunkapus meme is?” I asked.

  “Lust globally, fuck locally,” Rumbler said.

  “Meaning you should desire every halfway attractive person you encounter, but only make love to your committed partner?”

  “That’s one way to interpret it.”

  “What are the other ways?”

  “Get in the habit of cultivating a tender, appreciative lust for everyone. And I do mean everyone. Convince yourself with brilliantly rational arguments why it makes total sense to overflow with hot-blooded compassion for all of creation. And I do mean all of creation—the wetlands and the libraries and the hummingbirds and the highways. And then infuse that well-crafted, unconditional generosity into the love you give to any imperfectly beautiful consort you actually fuck.”

  “Sounds strenuous.”

  “At first it will be. After a while it will become second nature.”

  “Jumbler,” I said, placing my hand on hers, “I need your counsel. Speak freely, please.”

  “I’m afraid this is coming dangerously close to being just another in a long line of history’s famous megalomaniacal fantasies, my dear,” Jumbler said with a hint of an emotion I had not yet seen in her—disgust. “Not L. Ron Hubbard or Allah’s prophet Mohammed or Mao Zedong as the One True Way, but Rapunzel Blavatsky. Just because I love the way your mind works and share all your values, my dear, doesn’t mean I want you to be the resplendent saviour that everyone in the world needs to worship or even fuck in a non-patriarchal fashion, whatever that means. ‘Global Initiatrix’ is another term for ‘Fascist Uber-Guru’ if you ask me.”

  “Please, Jesus,” Rumbler said to Jumbler with a hint of defensiveness. “It’s poetic license. We’re playing with caricatures. We’re making fun of ourselves. Of course we’re not proposing that Rapunzel purge all her competitors and rule the mass imagination alone. But neither do we want to repress all thoughts about the danger of that fantasy taking root in the back of her lovely mind. That would surely make us fall prey to the poison we want to avoid.”

  “Yes, I understand that principle well,” Jumbler admitted. “It’s the heart of the tantric teaching. Whatever darkness you ignore will always sneak up from behind and bite you in the ass eventually.”

  “Rapunzel is not the Great Exception,” Madame Blavatsky croaked as she rocked her tricycle backwards and forwards and scooped what looked like deep-fried shrimp out of her bowl.

  “Exactly,” said Rumbler. “She’s merely the Great Example, a role model who shows how it’s done. I call her the avatar, but everyone who lusts globally and fucks locally is a potential avatar, too. The goal is six billion masters of Psychefunkapus.”

  “But she must still be a charismatic superstar,” Madame Blavatsky added. “That is the only way she will get enough recruits for Twenty-Two Weeks of World Orgasm.”

  She pedaled her tricycle in a half-circle so she was facing away from us. “Hop on, Queen Sexlaugher,” she called over her shoulder. “Let me take you back to your kidnap of the airwaves. Come on—you too, girlfriend. You too, Rumbler.”

  I climbed aboard the step on the back of the tricycle and held on to Madame Blavatsky’s shoulders. Jumbler was able to squeeze on, clutching my waist. Rumbler jumped up on the handlebars, barely keeping his butt from sinking down into the food in Madame Blavatsky’s basket. We took off with difficulty, but soon picked up speed.

  Peddling furiously, Madame Blavatsky took us out a door and into the woods. She proceeded down a narrow paved road that cut a swath through strange buildings. There wa
s not a single rectangular shape among them—ziggurats, tepees, domes, and pyramids predominated—and they appeared to be made out of giant rubies and amethysts and topazes and emeralds. Next to each front door, which was lozenge-shaped, was a neon sign. “The Eater of Cruelty” read one. Others said “Feminist Orgy Network,” “Center for Tantric Janitorism,” “Telepathics Anonymous,” and “Drivetime University Presents: How a Global Network of Menstrual Huts Can Stave Off Apocalypse.”

  After a few minutes of traveling down this road, we began to hear the hubbub of a large crowd. Soon we came into view of a huge structure that towered over the landscape. It was a stadium. Madame Blavatsky wheeled us inside through tall double doors.

  The place was packed with a sea of people, most of whom were wearing only the skimpiest clothes. It was shocking to see so much flesh all at once.

  At the opposite end of the stadium was the biggest Televisionary Oracle of them all—maybe a hundred feet square. Dominating the screen was a person who looked like me, only about ten years older: same as last time. Dressed in a green and black tweed kimono and sporting the same pimple on her forehead, The Other Rapunzel was in a television news room with several large video cameras on gurneys and numerous TV monitors. There was also a black altar surmounted by a huge bird’s nest, around which a number of lingerie-clad women were kneeling. With a huge, translucent squirt gun, The Other Rapunzel was shooting streams of thick red juice into their mouths.

  Madame Blavatsky shooed us off her tricycle and dismounted herself, bidding us to climb a dais and sit down next to her on a circular rug with a mandala design.

  “I love all of you,” The Other Rapunzel thundered in a voice that felt like an earthquake. “You know that, right? In fact, I love you more than I love you. And that’s why, unlike every other journalist, scientist, politician, priest, celebrity, or teacher you’ve had to deal with all your life, I’m going to confess my biases upfront. I’ll tell you that my body feels pretty strange right now—sort of like a dizzy sow stuffed with junk food.

  “It’s the first day of my period, you see. I’m three sizes too big for my body. The only thing that’s keeping me from biting the heads off small animals are four tablets of Advil and two bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.