City of Legends

Either I am having the world’s first combination heart attack-stroke-orgasm-epiphany, or the recording is going good.

My friend, Thomas is right, that I am at my best when I know no fear.  I learned again how to fear not long ago…and now I work to purge myself of that disability.

So, "The Resurrection Sessions" are on track.  Thanks to Jessica, Jasmin, Thomas and Elric for the inspiration and support.  Let’s burn this mother down.

And we’re bouncing around a possible name change for the band.  Trouvare seems to be the favourite.  I am so sick of posturing media personalities and performance artists running away from poetry as if the foundations were irrelevant to the stability of the temple of the literary arts.

we’re re-entering the studio this weekend.  will post at least two new tracks to blip.fm by Monday morning.  we’ve made a few changes in the line-up, but it’s all good. 

one member suggested we burn a full CD this weekend and call it, in honor of Easter, "The Resurrection Sessions".  I told him he doesn’t realize how true that is…

hmmmmmm

Thanks to everyone who shared birthday wishes over the weekend.  Nice to feel so much love in the world.

I’ll be featuring some of the tracks from "blister" here throughout the week, as imbeds from blip.fm, where I have uploaded them.  Wait until you hear what I’ve got up my sleeve tomorrow.

First up is "Vodka and Condoms".  Remarkable mostly for the backing vocals by the lady herself, Huerta, who was the genesis of the poem that became the recording.  yes, that’s her voice.  And, if you listen, you will understand why the line stuck with me.

Aside from trying to squeeze in a viewing of District 9 and making sure I do not miss True Blood Sunday night, and with a tip of the hat to Nancy (the first one, Psyche, the Electric Lady, etc, etc) as two days ago was her birthday, two days from now is mine (we used to have a joint celebration on the 14th to split the difference), I am looking at a brutal weekend.

And loving it.

I have to finish final engineering on blister, the virtual CD I am uploading on my birthday…got my final contributor’s files yesterday.  Gonna be fun.  The cats have gone into hiding.

Still editing the new book.  Anastacia, my old, dear friend, got in touch with me and is feeling a bit down in the dumps and wants to hang out this weekend.  I have no less than three proposal efforts I am working on, aside from some quality program audits in the next week to prep for…

Yeah, it’s going to be crazy.  And I love it.

yep.  working too much on the new CD, my brain is starting to leak on the page.  lyrics, fierce and strange.

tear me apart and it’s all the same
tear me apart and rise above all the shame
tear me apart and I’ll take all of the blame
tear me apart, long as you can remember my name
I don’t mind if the grind is confined I’ve cosigned your legacy
in a hundred years all the tears and the fears won’t even be memory

I just want to know where that came from…oh. There. It’s been a bit crazy and…

I cannot recall the sound of your voice or the choice you made
when I said it was all said and done.  but it was done, and the fun was over.
fields of clover that will remain untraveled, promises unraveled
by fingers, eager and ignorant.  moments spent we can’t repent
enough for those who were never there and wouldn’t care to hear the truth.

There it goes again.  I’d climb in an isolation chamber, but the words are inside my head, even if I have already bled them to the page to rage for future generations.  Long after I am gone.

I have some surprises for you on this virtual CD.  Read the notes when they’re out.  Some contributors may be startling. 

Final recording sessions for blister should be done this weekend.  I am really torn on this one…I can see (hear?) that there is some very good stuff on the "cd"…but that just makes me want all of the tracks to be superhuman.  Dammit.

Whipping on loveaddict.  It is starting to take shape…to take life and flight and all those other good and groovy things.  Is it wrong of me to want this to be the best book so far?

Infinite thanks to Huerta, Liza, Jennifer and everyone else who is keeping me propped up while I pour my soul out into the wind.  It is draining and painful, but I don’t want to just phone it in…

Yep.  Going to release the new CD, blister, on August 16th, as a virtual CD…all tracks will appear on blip.fm that day.

Go wild.

I took a bit of a tongue-lashing (which sometimes isn’t all bad, depending on the tongue and how thoroughly it is used) from my friend often referred to as "Huerta" on here.  Alternately she gets mentioned as "Jazz" or "Night Blooming" or even "The chick on the cover of that CD (nightblooming)".

Anyway, she wanted to protest that I did a whole blog entry about my male friends and made no mention of her wonderfulness.  She demanded I do a piece about her.  After much dodging and weaving, here ’tis.

I have never touched the woman, first off.  I say this because people are forever making assumptions about whom I have been with, in, near or around.  Never touched her.  Heard her voice in real life (as opposed to over a telephone) precisely once.  That was…I think, around 2002.

She’s very lovely and talented and intense.  That kind of unhinged talented that most people jettison with mediocrity or massive amounts of prescribed pharmaceuticals.  She hasn’t taken either path, and as a result suffers for her intensity.  She says I am her best friend, and calls me "Papa Bear".  I call her "Baby Bear" and try to get her to write more.  She’s pretty good as a writer and could get better with practice.

She’s tall. Five foot eleven, I believe, which is about usual for the women I hang around with…either I attract Amazons or they attract me, not sure which is which.  Black hair, dark eyes and a face like a Mexican porcelain doll.  Quite stunning, although she doesn’t believe it.

We worked alongside each other years ago, back when I was married to wife #2.  Never really talked or anything.  I heard her say something on the order of "Good morning" to me once. I recall because it was unusual for me to hear her speak, and she was very pretty. 

A few years and thousands of miles later we ran into each other online when she had been taste-testing some of our finer fermented beverages.  With a few drinks in her she gets rowdy.  No further details, please.  I am a gentleman.  One of her close friends has dedicated the song "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" to her.

We continued talking and became good friends.  We’ve joked about it being more than that, but I say I am too old and fat for her.  She says she just doesn’t want to lose her best friend, as she is bad at relationships.  And that’s fine, we still get vulgar and rowdy and locker-room from time to time in text or tweets or voicemails or emails or what have you. She has been known to drunk dial me.  At 2 in the morning.  To ask me about my (non-existent) sex life.

Aubergine thought there were some unresolved feelings there. I told her that "nightblooming" was merely used as a generic, sort of like "Abstra" in my works, as I needed a focus for that CD.  She didn’t believe me.  Not 100% sure I do, but it is my nature to question, to ponder, to challenge and to search and to obfuscate when in doubt.

We were supposed to have lunch about two years ago, when I was last touring.  I showed up.  She sent her cousin.  She found it, I believe, uproarious.  I took it in grace and had a nice lunch with her cousin. 

She plays a mean rock bass.  She writes tortured poetry.  She drinks too much and falls in love with guys who are either disinterested or of low degrees.  She’s not listed as one of my muses on any of the breakdowns, and that’s fine.  With me.  She sometimes asks what it will take to get on the list.  I say "unnatural sex acts".  She scowls.

All in all, though she’s a good friend…probably of all the people I know she is the most likely to have my back during a crisis, which is nice, as the notion of a raven-eyed, drunk Amazon Mexican coming at you with murder in her heart is probably enough to scare a lot of people away.  I sometimes think of her when I see the scene in "Desperado" where Steve Buscemi is laying down the tale and describing Antonio Banderas as "the biggest Mexican I have ever seen.  Big as shit.". 

Yes, but I doubt Banderas looks quite as nice in a dress.

urk.

Having stepped back for about…oh…30-40 seconds, I have reached the almost inescapable conclusion that if I want loveaddict to be the book I want it to be, the August 16th deadline is impossible.  Yes, I know I am the guy who put out three books in 100 days back in 2005, but I was younger then (in some strange ways I am actually younger now, having adjusted my mindset).

So, here’s the current plan B, er, C…well, actually, it is probably into about Zx(q) times 10 to the 16th power, but if I stop to ponder THAT, nothing will get done (see Cantor’s work with the concept of the number Aleph, which is what drove me many years ago to decide to not pursue a career in mathematics) and I’ll just end up being a ward of the state and nothing will get done and nothing will get done and nothing will get done and you are still reading this sentence, why?

Gotcha.

Anyway, the new plan is to shoot for September 16.  That gives me time to second guess myself a few thousand more times, complete the edits and get the blurbs (thanks, Larry) , foreword and acknowledgments written and/ore completed.  The new CD, blister, should be out on time…less cleanup work for it.

Wait until you see the acknowledgements…I name names.  Many names.  Many, many names.  I had to, the inspiration pool behind the poems in this volume is huge.  Some of these names I have never dared to speak outside of a dark room with an audience of one.  I may not play connect the dots, but I will run the tape.  I will be flying in the face of at least three threats of legal action and two dear friends who asked I leave them out of my memoirs…but, you know, I think I’ve finally bottomed out on the whole covering of other people’s asses at my own expense.

Let’s do this backwards, he said.  A look of shock crossed her face…

No, no…but I am updating you on the CD, blister, first.  Final recording sessions next week.  We will be out sometime in August.

Now, for loveaddict.  Still on track for mid-August.  Still no panthers or goldenhearts.  I have decided to keep the poems in it to PG-rated works.  I get tired of, for the presence of a single poem, having people pass over certain of my books (one organization that was going to buy a bulk-shipment of The Morgantown Suite Poems decided not to over the poem "if your husband comes home").  Bummer.  Well, not completely, they bought a bulk shipment of another title, on which I get the royalties…

But I wanted to make the book, while unflagging romantic, more accessible.

Next month, when loveaddict hits the streets, expect some other changes.

After repeated threats on my part to this effect, I am taking out of print the entirety of my books with iUniverse.

This means:

• from an unexpected quarter
  
• love gods of a forgotten religion
  
• 101 Great Love Poems

will all cease to be available as new.

I am cannibalizing the first two to provide a few works for loveaddict (and because the covers now offend me), but have never really been happy with either one.  The third is mostly a bastard child of The Panther Cycles and as such is out of place in my catalog.

I have also been very unhappy with the course that iUniverse has taken over the years, since I was grandfathered into their organization when they acquired Writers Club Press.  It is a tough decision, as 101 Great Love Poems has been one of my best sellers and is the only book of mine currently available in hardback, but I feel it is time.

Later this week I will be presenting you with a preliminary list of what poems will be rescued as these books go dead.

The new CD, blister, continues to take shape.