"Free Will Astrology" is to Sydney Omarr's daily horoscope column what James Joyce is to Danielle Steele. Now in its third decade, with over nine million readers in 120 publications, this well-crafted weekly compendium of poetry, anecdotes, aphorisms, and wit is a literate "love letter" to the 12 sun signs that has no precedents.

Rob's latest work, The Televisionary Oracle, is a docufiction memoir detailing the kidnap and eventual initiation of Rockstar into the Menstrual Temple of the Funky Grail -- an ancient mystery school pre-dating Sumer -- resulting in his new stature as a macho feminist male lesbian. It is Brezsny's second book. Images Are Dangerous, Rob's first book, is a gem of poetry and experimental prose, hatched way back in 1985.

Before The Televisionary Oracle, Brezsny's last three enduring artistic artifacts were music albums, one as a solo artist (1986) and two with the "Jungian beatnik funk" band World Entertainment War (WEW). WEW was nominated in 1991 for a "Bammie," California's version of the Grammies, and benefited from the managerial wizardry of one of rock's top impresarios, Bill Graham. Brezsny also released an album in 1983 with Tao Chemical, a band that opened shows for author William S. Burroughs, made three command performances at the Soledad penitentiary, and once performed for 71 consecutive hours.

"Astrology was right up there with rock & roll as far as being responsible for saving my life, because part of my soul had started to shrivel," he says. "When I was in high school, it was the Dionysian spirit of rock & roll and the mythological language of astrology that really gave me something to hold on to. They were institutions, not just some product of my imagination, and that gave me the idea that there were other traditions in this world that could sustain and could nourish."

"I don't want to sound too megalomaniacal," he continues modestly, "but I am one of the few so-called lesbian men that has been chosen to receive this initiation." [Into the Menstrual Temple of the Funky Grail]

And just what is a lesbian man?

"Well, many things," he chuckles. "It means embodying feminism as a man without becoming a wimp. It means holding the masculine sacred, but in such a way that the feminine is glorified and enhanced. It means being a macho feminist. It means promoting the feminine archetype and the redemption of the feminine mysteries which have been so degraded, promoting and working on that with a masculine, aggressive, style."

"I regard the New Age with the same attitude as I do astrology," he says. "I have gotten a lot out of it, and I feel a need to debunk it, to call attention to its excesses and superficialities. At the same time, I've obviously been nurtured by a lot of what's been called New Age. That's my running joke with life, to treat everything as if it's about 70 percent worthy of belief and about 30 percent worthy of total skepticism, and to borrow from them all. There are no idols."

Brezsny's political career shouldn't go unmentioned, either. In 1988 he ran for city council in Santa Cruz, CA. In his manifesto, The Yellow Book, he promised to seek solutions to the homeless problem in his lucid dreams, impose yuppie immigration quotas, and stage holy mudwrestling rituals between liberals and conservatives as a way to settle disagreements. He financed his campaign with 25-cent-a-paper-plate breakfasts in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. A groundswell of last-minute support made him worry that he might actually win, whereupon he took out a newspaper ad listing reasons why people probably shouldn't vote for him.

Among Brezsny's other performance art extravaganzas is his "Reverse Panhandling" show. At least once a year he enjoys standing at the exit ramp of a major highway holding a handful of five-dollar bills and a cardboard sign that reads "I need to give; I love to help; please take my money." To date, he has in this manner distributed $935 to rich and poor motorists alike.

He is also a vigorous proponent of the idea of PRONOIA (Robert Anton Wilson's initial idea?). The opposite of "paranoia," PRONOIA suggests that the whole world is conspiring to shower one with blessings. An antidote to the apocalyptic fascination with sex and death that the media has held for the last 40 years, pronoia wonders why standard mental health texts list over 300 symptoms for mental ILL health but nary a one for GOOD mental health. We take health and happiness as boring granteds while focusing our attentions obsessively on nihilism.

Brezsny's tongue-in-cheek campaign for the Cabinet-level post of Fool Czar unfolded in 2000. Akin to Barry McCaffrey's former role as US Drug Czar, the Fool Czar position would have allowed Brezsny to introduce more levity and more national holidays. Among his proposals were:

· All Americans will wash their own brains once a year, whether they need it or not.

· The word "asshole" will be a term of endearment, not abuse.

· Members of Congress will be required to have once-a-week sessions with Jungian therapists.

· All television anchors will cry every time they report a tragedy on their nightly news shows.

· The average length of an act of heterosexual intercourse in America-which is now an appalling four minutes-will be required by law to be a minimum of 22 minutes.

· Live childbirth will be broadcast regularly on prime time.

· An Affirmative Action program which will make celebrities of a majority of all Americans within five years.

· All lawyers will receive mandatory heart transplants.

· Institute April Fool's Day once a month.

· To combat the growing threat from "entertainment criminals," I will launch a campaign against a previously unacknowledged form of terrorism: The genocide of the imagination.

· Cities strapped for funds will create a 900-number option for the 911 emergency line. Wealthy users will pay $1,000 per minute for the privilege of having their calls answered first and fastest. Poorer users may get slower response, but at least the service will remain operational-thanks to the 900-number subsidies.