City of Legends

According to various sources, including myself, my web hosting company (web.com), my publisher, my friend Dan McTaggart, the remaining judges for the TVC2008 who have not yet gotten their votes in to me (harrumph), Barnes & Noble, my parents, my sibs, the media, my sons, one of my ex wives and two or three inspirationally-gifted friends, the next three days of my life should unfold with some of the following milestones.

Tomorrow we will announce the winner of the TVC2008. Mass hysteria will abound as we announce the TVC2009.

peacat.com will vanish, by midnight tonight. If no one with greater claim to the name asks for it before the registration runs out next year, it will go back on the open market.

I will give three two-hour readings at Barnes & Noble in Morgantown, WV, Sunday (10-12, 1-3, 4-6) with the assistance of the amazing Dan McTaggart, who co-authored Psalms of the Monster River Cult with me. I don’t think they could handle the intensity of the Long Beach reads, so I am trying to strike a balance.

Michael Phelps will win two more Olympic Gold Medals.

I will add ten more pieces to williamfdevault.com. Someone will blast me for the lovely nudity that is interspersed with the other artwork on the site. I will feel bad that I am being criticized, but will soldier on.

I will hear from someone out of an unexpected quarter.

I will write something inexplicably charming.

I will announce sometime today…oops, already did, that some of the Fields of Arbol pieces appearing on Amomancer will find their way onto williamfdevault.com.

Some doucebag will leave a stupid (definition: willfully ignorant), presumptive and irrelevant comment on one of my blogs.

I will drive over 500 miles in the next three days. I will still be alive Monday morning.

I will have dinner with my family on Saturday, and visit with my Grandmother, who is 96…bearing down on 97 next month.

I will discover a fantastic new muse.

Subject to my imperial whim (and we all know how mercurial that can be) I am making the following changes over the next 10 days:

• The dissolution of peacat.com
• Completion of the first 100 elements of williamfdevault.com
• The gutting, then dissolution of my Random Drafts and Chapters blog
• There are a few cosmetic changes to be done, as well, as well as some behind the scenes changes that no one likely to be reading this note will ever need to be privy to.
• I will make available the entirety of all my CDs, including Evangelist, as free downloads via williamfdevault.com
• Plus, for those who attend my readings on the 17th of this month, there will be some dramatic news about my books, past and future.

That’s all I have to say for now. Thanks to the people from StumbledUpon who notched my new presentation of Soubrette at williamfdevault.com. Mucho attention, mucho gracias.

Not the poem, TRIUMPH, but the sense of victory I have and had enjoyed so much over the past months.  A part of me is still in shock, a part of me still writhes in pain, but a part of me is intent on locking in t mountaintop moments and feeding me the morsels and mould of those times.

I don’t claim to know anything about anything, I just feel that, I know that, as sure as God is in the rain, love is more than a transient state.  There is much I would do to heal the wounds, much I would do to make things right, much I would do to acknowledge that I have lived, not an illusion, but something so powerful that every atom of my existence is changed for all eternity.

I may feel this alone.  But I feel this.

And by this awareness, I am humbled and exalted.  I am broken and purified.  I understand a depth of emotion I had not known and probably a sane man should never touch.

I had a good working session with Tag yesterday.  One question came down to the name of the press.  I told him I was uncertain, as I had no indication, no sense, of how keeping the peacat name would be received and whether I would be doing more harm than good for and to people I honestly care about the feelings of.  His response?  (He’s getting cheeky in his old age.)  He told me that every time I work on a project to for or with the press I would be reminded of something, of someone, and I have to ask myself if that’s what I want for the rest of my life and legacy.

My answer, after a moment’s pause, was "Yes".

A look to the heavens, a gesture followed by my now familiar cry of defiance:

"If you want me dead, you have to come for me in person."

Now that is triumph.

Barring a specific request to not use the name by the one person who I would listen to on the topic (and not some asshole who thinks they are speaking for another, I can talk directly to God (the priesthood of the individual is a cornerstone of the Protestant faith, for those of you who didn’t stay awake in Sunday School), no human is too good for my countenance), which I would accept, without question or rancor, peacat press lives.

We have two projects in the hopper, I am awaiting manuscripts on both, including a very exciting combination short story and poetry collection from Dan McTaggart entitled Best Man in Albuquerque. 

I stayed up way too late last night, working on the final tracks to Evangelist. Every time I thought I had one finished, I’d suddenly get another idea, changing the instrumentation, the attitude, something about the piece in my mind. It’s a little insane right now. I feel like I’ve lit the fuse on the rocket but am having problems getting comfortable in the pilot’s seat. This will probably end up being one of those projects where I hate everything about it before I am done with it.

We were working with the guitar for one particularly upbeat piece (which I shall not name at this time) when I realized we needed a good bass line. So we turned what we working with on the guitar into a bass line. Better. But now, the drums sounded wrong. Too fast, too shaky. Maybe slow them down a bit and…hold it. Now we have a problem with the tone of the vocals. Sheesh. This reminds me of why I gave up painting. I would tweak things until they were a mess. Maybe I just need to timebox the process and deal with it.

A name for the publishing house is driving me nuts. The original name, peacat, is off the table as far as I am concerned. I could use it, but that would be disrespectful and a little odd. As such… will have to go down through history as the one publication of that imprint. An amazing book, if now a bit….ironic.

McTaggart wants Monster River Press. No. Too regional (we dubbed the Monongahela River the Monster River for our collaboration Psalms of the Monster River Cult.

City of Legends Press is in play, but too self-referential. Likewise any variation on my name or various sobriquets. I will give myself until mid-July to work it out, I have authors waiting on me and I am so fucking tired of waiting on other people. Patience was the last virtue I learned and the first one I lose, it is not in my nature to wait, I pace a hole in the rug.

I am going to see my Grandmother this weekend, and I have an invite to a party. I know why I was invited, and although there is a part of me that always knows I am cunning enough to dodge flagrant temptation, for at least three good reasons I don’t even want to see me have to. So we shall see if my curiosity and arrogance beat out my virtue and common sense.

Place your bets.

If you take the time to wander over to www.peacat.com you will find yourself able now to access the 21-minute "raw" file at one stage of the evolution of the CD Evangelist. This is a single-take reading of more than a dozen poems, with some minor percussion thrown in to fill the back wall of it.

It is very raw, unfiltered and unpolished, but represents me speaking from the soul. Thanks to those who en couer raged me to put it out there, even as the project itself is in limbo.

A particular tip of the hat to Susan Sonnen, who prodded me mightily on this one.

I am dancing like the hurricane.

On the morning of May 19th, 2008 (yes, even in Johannesburg) a link will go up, most likely at Peacat.com, although I reserve my right to change my mind about that. I’ll make sure to let everyone here know.

It will be to download the rough one-file of the original Evangelist CD, still under heavy rework. I promise Susan Sonnen I would slip her a copy, then decided that was gutless of me.

What you will hear is the raw take of the recording session for the original concept for Evangelist, with just a little percussion thrown in to smooth it out. It is very raw, with pops and hisses and the occasional side comment. It is as naked as you get (listen to my voice, see where it stretches and collapses).

I just think I need to get some of these 18.4 gazillion projects I have accumulated off of my plate before I am smothered. This one did not require collaboration.

So about 6 am edt, just before noon Jo’burg, it should be out there…approximately 21 minutes long, 15 poems, including "I will take no pretender", "I stand for you", "I will dream of you till morning" and "pain to peace" as well as "Evangelist".

No denying, it’s archival raw material. I was actually quite ambivalent about releasing it, it can be rather embarrassing, even humiliating, to let people in that close to the center of my soul, but the Long Beach read reminded me that, to quote, "the well of life is love without fear".

Dedicated, of course, to the amazing Candy.

I hate conundrums, those lousy vinegar in the mouth moments that make you crazy because you don’t have enough information to figure out the right path. I’ve never found it easy to just shoot from the hip, because I’ve seen too many wounded people in this life.

I have a CD to deliver today, Evangelist. I’m sitting here, listening to the tracks, and I can’t deliver it. Conundrum. Oh, I could finish the packaging, upload the downloads over on peacat.com and let er rip. But the truth is,, even though my name is on the title to it, peacat is a site for a partnership. And, although I know she has seen the cover on this site, and I know she is aware of the project and my plans, I can’t be the kind of person who presumes that just because she didn’t say "no", a woman meant "yes". To assume the intentions of someone who may be unable to make their wishes known or unable to render a binding decision, that is rape, on whatever level you deliver it.

So, the CD stays with me. The cover stays with me. And the tracks, as they are, may find their way into a podcast or as separate offerings here, but I am not going to play by the rules of the rude. I’m better than that. When Candy is able to express her position and opinion, I will honor it, as more than a passing acquaintance and a business person who respects the wishes of others. I considered making the CD an upload from elsewhere, or even just putting it straight to market, with an all-black cover, but decided that would be a cop-out.

Kairos over kronos is a big thing with me. The right time over mere clock time (Candy calls it African time, and it drives me nuts because it stretches hours into days and weeks, and I like getting things done). I walked into, by invitation, a complicated universe, and despite my doubts and misgivings, I will not allow it to make me into less than what I am, for pure expediencies’ sake.

So I am hitting this shuttlecock over the net. If it gets hit back, great. If not, ah well, she inherits everything I have written or recorded in the last few months anyway, one day, if she is smart, so it is still just a timing issue.

Happy Mothers’ Day, everyone. Did I ever mention that I have been to the church in Grafton, West Virginia, where Mothers’ Day was started?

Yep.

Having pondered the elements in my previous post about making decisions to have fun, I wish to announce, unilaterally, the following 4 action items:

1. The CD, Evangelist, will launch online this weekend, as a free download of the entirety as well as individual tracks, and will be available for purchase through the Peacat.com store, which will carry all of my books and CDs. The cover will be based on the stained glass picture shown in an earlier posting.
2. The official Evangelist Tour, which will bring together elements of several of my books and CDs, will launch the first week of September, 2008. This gives a window for the previously-planned vacation, during which I may accept one or two read dates, but that will be decided later, dependent on the company I keep.
3. In order to facilitate a later move elsewhere (Gee, I wonder where?), in order to pursue my bliss and my financial intensification, I will be moving back to California no later than December 1, 2008. Sooner, if practical.
4. I will, over time, move my main poetry files completely to williamfdevault.com, so as to make it my "static" poetry site.

This is a start, addressing some immediate and necessary changes. Now I must go outside and dance naked in the rain, moonlight isn’t available.

Love is the good news. And I am the Evangelist.

Sigh. Another beautiful post lost because we haven’t yet worked out the incompatibility with my MSIE. A shame.

This post, as I may reconstruct it, is about my multitasking schedule, hence the name. Having lost one testicle to gangrene at age 13, and having the other one on a chain around someone’s neck 8,000 miles from here, the number I can keep in the air at once is limited. I am pretty bad about doing ten things at once, twenty on a bad day. But, rather than bore you all with everything I up to my eyeballs in on a professional or personal level (its scary when I write it all down) I will give you the stuff that my readers seem to crave.

TVC2008: I am not going to be very active with the video contest until June. I will let the viral nature of the web do its work.

The Evangelist CD: It will be finished this weekend if I have to drive myself into the ground to do it. Still praying for a miracle on the cover, and the re-recording sessions are emotionally brutal, as I am trying to capture, to sound, what I have captured to the page: Integrity. Will put up downloadable content this weekend to either peacat.com or williamfdevault.com, depending on negotiations.

The Evangelist Tour: I’ve told everyone to hold on, as the actual scheduling revolves around a trip I was planning to take about the same time. Once I know the status of that I can push forward. Until them I am just collecting venues, locales and local contacts. It looks like I may be doing as many as 8-10 reads in Los Angeles.

Website changes and fixes: Out of my control, talk to the webmaster.

As such…: Fantastic book, now available at amazon.com, at other shops soon, or throught he publisher.

Next book: Tentative title Gantlet. I can say no more.

Novels and screenplays: Installing formatting software for screenplays and working in spare hours to complete novels.

Personal life: No one who knows jack is talking, so if you hear something, it is conjecture or wishful thinking.

Website merge: Am considering this to bring things more into focus, or may build fused domain. Will discuss this with my webmaster somewhere down the road.

Love: It may not be all you need, but it is a damn good start.

if silence is golden, I’m the richest man I know.
if silence is violence, I’m beat from head to toe.

Those two random lines came to me this morning. Maybe I shall make something of them.

I woke sore and tired. I worked too late last night and wrenched a shoulder muscle working out. Say what you will, my determination to be on the best shape of my life has not flagged (anyone know any good exercises for internal systems?)

I will be launching the official video contest page later today. And I will be sweetening the prize, as well as establishing honorable mention prizes. If I can get word from my partner (ahem) I would/should like to use the services of peacat.com for part of the contest, we have grossly underutilized that resource. Failing that I may press williamfdevault.com into duty.

Finished the last primary vocals. Wow. Exhausting. Good exhausted I am.

I did get a note from an interested party to the contest who wanted to know if hardcore videos would be acceptable. Let me just say that if YouTube allows it and it is germane to the work interpreted, I’ll allow it. This is going to get very weird. And if we get enough response, we may start doing this annually.

Music for today? Hurt by Johnny Cash, by way of Trent Reznor.

Note 1:

Here is a link to where you can download or listen to The Well of Life is Love Without Fear, from Evangelist. It is the rough track, without final engineering polish, but it is the piece that opens the CD and sets the stage. The voice is me, filtered through a feminizing filter.

Note 2:

Tired. To the bone and beyond. (defiantly) Is that the best you’ve got? I am not stronger than you, just more motivated.

Note 3:

The person in Jo’burg who has meticulously gone through Candy’s site looking up everything I wrote or commented, then to every page in my site looking up everything Candy wrote or commented is starting to give me the creeps (and they seem to miss the comments we may have placed without logging in). They don’t seem to be staying long enough to read everything…maybe they are printing it off or looking for a particular citation? They could ask, I’d help them. Of course, so many people are acting bizarre of late. I guess this is God’s way of readying me for my return to LA?

Note 4:

I am in the market for temporary Word Press consultant to help me fix a few things.

Note 5:

Iron Man is quite entertaining, I went to it with Dan McTaggart yesterday and we had a blast. Stay until the end of the credits.