City of Legends

I just wrote a cute piece comparing the ebb and flow of my inspirational muses to the stock market, but decided it was insensitive to many, so I deleted it.

Just wanted to let you know, though, that we put some time in on it…pretty interesting stuff, just not for public consumption.  Check my archives when I am gone.

I was looking at my friends’ list on Facebook and realized I have an awful lot of people who have played roles of significance in my life on my list.  Present and past.  For instance:

• Relatives?  I have all four of my sibs, as well as the unofficial 5th DeVault brother.  6 neices and nephews.  My Mom.  My poetry bro, Larry Jaffee (founder of Poets for Human Rights as well as the writer of the foreword to my book Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion).
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• Book and CD  connections?  I three different editors for my books, including the stalwart Jan Innes.  I have the cover and inside illustration model for The Compleat Panther Cycles.  I have the cover model for my CD Nightblooming.
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• Muses?  Nightblooming Jasmine (of course), the Butterfly, Suede, The Selke, The Mad Gypsy herself and the older sister to my first real muse, Alabaster.
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• Various and Sundry?  My first girlfriend (from the 6th grade!), the person who has done more interviews with me than anyone else (Barb Holmes), my "Teal Protege" and various friends and inspirations responsible for dozens of my works and some significant good in my life, as well as assorted writers, editors, publishers and recording artists (even Billy Vera).  People I might otherwise not have regular contact with.  People hiding in plain sight (yes, some people are not who you might think they are, some don’t know I know who they really are).  People I have sat down to dinner with, read with and written about, as some have written of me, readers, lovers and critics.

I see there’s a lot of good to my Facebook friends.  I think I’ll keep them.  And collect more as people choose to enter into my lifestream.  I enjoy the process and the people I intersect with.

Today I slipped over to Facebook and found myself startled.

I startle easily, but I also startle well…think of old Tex Avery cartoons and you get the idea.

There, in the right column was a list of upcoming birthdays from my friends.

Okay, two of my friends have the same birthday, tomorrow, January 13. So? Not like that doesn’t happen. In fact, my older brother Robert? His firstborn, Crystal, was born on his birthday. Now that’s a neat trick. But, I digress.

The two friends are Janet Innes and Claiborne Schley-Walsh. Those of you who know me well would find that interesting, twice over. First ,because I did not know the birthdays of two of my closest and most beloved friends on the planet after all these years, but also because they occupy such similar roles in my life. Come to think of it, I think I met them both for the first time within a few months’ span.

Both live a good distance from me and I never get enough time to keep in touch with them. So far, not such a big deal, huh?

Now for the meat, part one: Jan Innes was editor for several of my books. "Claibie" organized the two Southern Poets Reading Tours I read with. Getting better huh?

Part two, anyone? I met them both through the AOL Writers Club, and both championed specific women I met through there as relationships for me: Jan kept me from walking away God knows how many times when "the Panther" was up to her roller coaster emotional roller coaster, and Claibie all but shoved me through the door in my getting closer with Karla Frances Sasser, the Mad Gypsy. Of course Claibie also placed two hands firmly on my back and applied pressure for me to take the possibility of a relationship with a much younger woman, Ann (who ended up being my second ex-wife). I don’t think Jan ever tried a second pass at matchmaking for me.

They are both fantastic ladies who I have nothing to say but glory and praise and I am delighted they are still in my sphere of contacts. My life is better for their having been in it.

Happy Birthday, Jan and Claibie…and here’s to the comet that must have passed over the world that most auspicious day!

I had to tell this anecdote before it grew cold in memory.

Or so I thought.

I shared it with the person it most involved and they had concerns about how they came off in it.  So I rewrote it.  Still not perfect…and I hate the notion that anything I might say could be construed as intentionally cruel or harmful to another person’s reputation.  If you have to be cruel to others to have your own way, you need to re-evaluate your life and your goals, as you are still a failed experiment.

So…no anecdote, at least not now.  I thought back to my memoir that I recently blasted to atoms.  A lot of stories in there that make me, and others, look like themselves, but not in the best lights.  The lesson isn’t supposed to be about people feeling bad about who they are or what they have done or been perceived as being, saying or doing, but rather that we are all human and everyone falls down…or is thrown down.

Maybe one day I will again write that memoir.  When I have something interesting to say about love and life and poetry.  When I know the answers to a few of my more nagging questions about who or why or when.  Too many of those right now.

I left the tags on this one after pulling out the anecdote, to drive everyone crazy.

I was going to show solidarity today with an organization that has asked its members to pick a day and do a single-word blog post, but I got sidetracked. Maybe tomorrow.

I got a note today from an old friend, praising the tracks they had heard off of Evangelist, most notably Kitabu, and pre-supposing that the title cut to the CD was going to be an expression of anger or remorse.

Ha!

First off, I don’t have time for anger in my day…I get angry, when I must, for seconds at a time. You can blink and miss my anger (be thankful, it isn’t pretty). My view of the human emotional palette is that it contains three primary colours; love, rage and fear. Love has an outward vector, by its nature it is dynamic, as it generally means there must be some kind of flow outward to express it. Rage (or anger) and fear are different, you can bottle those up inside until they eat a hole in your intestines. I have enough forces acting against me in the universe, I try to keep those two (rage and fear) out of my life. They are disabling elements.

No, Evangelist is more an expression of how powerful love is and the aspects of love as they impact us. I speak of the futility of not loving or of loving for its own sake, but not with anger or fear. It’s an interesting cut.

I got slapped around a bit yesterday by the Mad Gypsy herself, Karla Frances Sasser, in the course of a wide-ranging discussion of our former involvement and why it didn’t hold. It was interesting to find out that she and I hold different definitions of what it was, and different perspectives on what went wrong. Then we discussed the empath’s role in finding disastrous liaisons. Empaths should not touch. Anything.

Evangelist.  It sets the tone and the bar.  Sort of my We Will Rock You.

Then I will daisy chain The Taste, Love Gods and Brisant Revelations.

Hmmm…that works, in a good way.  Yessssssss…I feel like Calvin, having just eaten the radioactive waste.  (Everyone who got that, give yourself a pat on the back).

Karla is making an evil cackling sound at the thought of providing Twist some questions for the interview.  Poodle Skirt is getting frisky, and I got my Skype headset out of mothballs.  And remembered one of my favourite lines from one of my more obscure poems Memory of a Blindman’s Illusion:

     "every woman dressed in red had slept with me before.
     and every woman dressed in black lay dying on the floor."

I also dropped a note to alt model Shye, who worked with me previously to dress up my old site, I am going to see if she will lend me her face and body (stop thinking that way, you have a dirty mind) to expand certain pages.

No, I did not get 100 links up yesterday.  Thanks for noticing.  To quote Wesley in Wanted:  What the fuck have you done lately? I may get that tattoo’d across my forehead.

I ran into the situation of how to have 100 links without unbalancing the page.  Will have to scratch my head a bit on that one.  Slept well, slept hard, have begun sleeping past 4 am (good sign).

Today:  Finish cleaning up loose ends, spend a few hours having anxiety attack over how good the Evangelist cut is going to be/not be.

Closing in on completing the tag indexing of Amomancer.  Starting from now and working back, there was an imbalance.  Starting at the back and moving forward, we are getting a more balanced picture of my catalog posted.

Someone wrote me about the use of Aubergine as a muse-tag, particularly on Amomancer.  Bite me.  This is to pave the way for the book Aubergine, which is to be the final words that began with As such…  Regrettable, but while stupid dogs stick around and bite when kicked, smart ones fold their tents and move on.  The last one out is not a quitter, they are an idealist, a romantic.  I can live with that legacy.  By the way, ahem, the apology was not for the relationship, it was for disbelieving an informed warning.  Don’t make assumptions when dealing with me.  You’ll be wrong more often than not.

And try not to read too much into the recent spate of KFS oriented poetry.  She’s a friend I was once romantically involved with, one of the most honorable and brave people I know, as well as being an excellent writer.  And, last time I checked, she had a boyfriend….who knows about us and our track record.  She has never re-invented herself, ever.  That’s class.  That’s integrity.

Anyway, I have a lot of things to do…more to do than I had on Friday…as new stuff comes in faster than I can juggle.  But that’s the way…uh huh uh huh…I like it…uh huh uh huh.

Working on a logo…and waiting for the last-minute video entries everyone is promising me…two weeks until deadline.

 The drive to see my parents (I am in to actually see my 95 year old Grandmother, who is in failing health) is always an interesting time, as it allows me buffered time to think out loud.  Usually I get a lot of thinking and writing and sonic experimentation on the 3-1/2 hour trip.

This morning was no exception.  It started as a ramble, dealing with lyrical issues on the new Evangelist CD, but then segued into an examination of my life over the last year.  A lot has happened, many events and elements I could not have foreseen.  Some gentle, some brutal.

All in all, I have come to a conclusion.  This is one of the best years of my life.  

I have reconnected with old friends I had no expectation of ever hearing from again.  I have taken public stands on the issues of the day, been recognized for these stands, and made connections with people who have the power to affect things.  I have loved openly and with abandon a woman who loved me in the same manner.  I have broken some bad habits, written some great poetry, recorded some interesting material to posterity, helped a few friends get elements of their lives in order, saved at least two lives (according to the individuals) and published a remarkable book.  I’ve learned new words and concepts, examined my own failings and picked splinters from my metaphorical ass.

There have been some downer days and strange pains, but when the scales are weighed, I have to say that if every year was as remarkable as this one, I would be the luckiest man alive.  Most people do not live as much and as well in an entire lifetime as I have lived this past year.

I thank all of you who have shared this voyage with me, from the most vocal of friends to the saddest stalkers.  From the constant to the mercurial, from the inspiring to the oppressive.  From those who will still be a part of my life next year and for years and decades to come, to those who have now passed back into the grey.  

I thank you all with profound and spiritual gratitude and wish only to say that, while I compiled a massive list of names to include here, I shall not.  Some secrets are best kept.  While I won’t lie to you, I will withhold that which would force others harm or pain.

I have some great ideas now to finish up those damn final tracks on Evangelist, and am looking forward to tomorrow with great hope, joy and peace.

I have no quarrel with any of you.  If you have with me, that is a measure of you, not me.  Being loved and respected is not a measure of a person, loving and respecting others is.

Namaste.

In the last 48 hours I have encountered more Ghosts of Christmas Pasts than I thought existed. Old friends (and a few not so friendlies) emerging from the ether to speak of things that they felt I needed to hear, or at least they needed to say. And it is all good.

I’m not going to pretend the past year has been anything short of a proving ground for some principles and philosophies. I’ve failed on a few, won on most of the rest and am still waiting the sound of falling shoes on a couple. All in all, a stellar year, and one I will remember fondly (believe it or not).

My dear Mother is prone to say that I am the sort of person who can fall in horse shit and get up smelling roses. She’s right. I may have my dark times, usually when I am in pain of a physical or spiritual nature, but I am pretty durable and amazingly optimistic. I perceive hate, fear and rage as venoms against me, even when I am their source, and thus I don’t let them stick around long. They do their damage, I heal and hope I learned something from the encounter that will reduce the likelihood or intensity of the next meeting.

You can condemn my methods, my talents and even my results, but that merely means you have issue with them. I won’t deny I’ve screwed a few things, a lot of things, up and badly. But on the whole, if you assemble in a room the 100 people who know me best and have seen me in my broadest spectrum, I am content I get an acquittal, and maybe even a round or two of applause for the effort.

The mere fact I am right now pondering the logistics of assembling such a group indicates how daft I can be. The second sign of daftness is that many people who think they know me best don’t have a clue. And there are some people who figured me out in the first thirty seconds I knew them whom I would love to see in that assembly.

I slept badly last night, my back is sore and my neck is stiff. Pollen is driving my sinuses bonkers right now. I pulled a muscle in my shoulder doing yard work and I’m still wearing yesterday’s socks (ugh). I have to deal with the possibility of canceling my tour, or at least scaling it back, due in no small part to an 89 cent burrito from Taco Bell that almost laid me out. It’s bad when you see strips of your own stomach lining. I felt like a starfish.

But I am resolute and working hard to finish the CD and get myself in the best shape I can for touring. I am working hard on my emotional hygiene, as that will be more important than anything in my making it to and through the Evangelist Tour. I am asking a lot from myself. More than ever before.

I pondered taking a lover, but Karla, of all people, smacked me upside the head and reminded me that without the spiritual aspect, it would do me more damage than good. Of course, she’s gotten some more recently than me, says one side of me, looking to shout her down.

I got cute yesterday and made "flair" on FaceBook of all my CD and book covers, sans one which I withheld out of respect for the feelings of a few people who would not hesitate to butcher me in public if they thought it would ease their personal pain. You should, if on FaceBook, swing by and get some…and sign up as my friend, I can always use more friends, even if you haven’t yet passed the test (no one has, so don’t sweat it, I just sleep with one eye open and am tougher than I look).

My son, Elric, is helping me with the music for the final tracks for the Evangelist CD. That is exciting, in many, many ways. And, if you haven’t been over on Amomancer in a while, or don’t like the tone of the malediction poems, wait a few days and strap in…there’s something coming up that will melt the icecaps and dry up Iowa. At the same time.

The heat persists. I am slowly regaining my strength (the pain is pretty overwhelming, though) and decided to drag my sorry ass to the nearest computer to check in with all and wade through my email.

I found out the following, in short order:

• Some individual wanted to apologize to me for having been mislead as to a quotation from me (someone else had told them that they were the originator). Not sure what the quote was, but if they think that’s the only case of plagiarism of my work I have been apprised of, I have news for them. Nonetheless, very classy to apologize.
• I can get a much larger penis by trusting my credit card number to someone who uses stolen email addresses to advertise their drugs and who can’t even spell my name right.
• The lady in the poodle skirt has a very, very dirty mind. This is a good thing.
• Despite a semester of Russian in college, I can’t read Russian advertisements for porn sites.
• Selkes, by their very nature, are slippery.
• Karla still likes the Braves.
• Banks I have never even heard of insist on asking me to go to a third party site and enter my account number for them, along with my password, Mother’s maiden name and zip code.
• Some childhood friend has bought into the Obama = deep cover agent for Muslim extremists conspiracy theory.
• I typo’d "sewer" in an online interview.
• Viagra has hundreds of different official sites, all of which write me under different stolen email addresses.

So, all in all, I was (for the most part) better off staying in bed and moaning.

I am getting stronger and will fill everyone in on the upside of my trip as strength allows.

If you were sitting in my family room right now, watching me dance at the keyboard, you’d probably figure out pretty quickly that, despite the fact I am wearing my earbuds, I am listening to Morris Day and the Time performing Jungle Love.  The moves are obvious.

But I am not here to talk about my sublimely masterful footwork.  Nope.  I am just here to say good evening and lay out the schedule as I see it over the next few weeks or so.

I am postponing a final decision on the tracks for Evangelist for two weeks.  This will hem in the production schedule, but it’s my work so I get final say.

No new book until next Spring, if then (we all know how I suck at keeping those promises), tentatively entitled Return of the Ronin.  Of course, I like the title so much I might steal it for a CD.  We shall see.

I am going to spend next week in California.  It was supposed to be this early in the year or solo, but I have ample offers for company and I will not be bored.  I will not be reading in California.  Under my own name.  In any place you’d think to look for me.  Ha!

Thanks to the lovely lady in the poodle skirt for helping me get my head on straight, and I would be remiss if I did not credit the amazing Karla Sasser for her updates form the City Streets Music Festival in Birmingham for helping me keep balanced.

Please, be thinking of the people in Iowa, battling the floods, and those who will continue to be displaced and challenged by our own folly in neglecting the climate until practically too late.  The truth is the Hell on Earth we have manifested in foreign lands seems to be coming home to roost. 

I may be taking on a new crew of proteges.  More on this, perhaps, later.  I am tired and have a busy few days ahead of me.

The boys, with their mother’s help, gave me a nice Father’s Day dinner.