City of Legends

Delivered Elric to his new college at University of Hawaii at Hilo, Dante leaves for Old Dominion University in two days.

Still haven’t finished release of "Selected Poems and Passions"…don’t have the emotional stamina for it, with all else that’s going on.

Survived my birthday on the 16th…hundreds of well wishers, which still was not sufficient to overcome my funk for my Sunday Girl being out of touch.  I admit, wounding…but one embraces what one can and accepts the rest.

I have been writing, sporadically, but some good material.  I need to find a way to decouple my creative/emotional energies from the roller coaster ride of my lovelife…

My front license plate was stolen, right off my car, inconvenient.

Just staying busy, as best I can…feeling in a bit of a holding pattern.  Why is it that whenever I fall into the horse lattitudes that random women come out of the woodwork, seeking a position as new muse? 

Oddly enough, professionally and personally I am doing well…just feeling unmotivated to blog.

Elric and Dante both leave this month for college…I, personally, will be escorting Elric to the University of Hawaii at Hilo for orientation.  Poor kid, trapped for 4 years in paradise.

Dante is gearing up for Old Dominion University, he is majoring in Math with a minor in Physics.  He is giddy over getting into a true academic environment.

My relationship with the Sunday Girl remains strong, if complicated…in time I will tell you the tale and you will go "Huh?"

The delay in final release of the last book ( Selected Poems and Passions: 2004-2011 ) seem to be resolved, and it should ship in the next few weeks…

Dutch tech-musical-wizard Ophidian has permitted me to not only feature his great piece "Pegasus", which features my reading of "the philosophy of dreams" but also includes his newest work "the violence of indifference", which includes my reading of my poem "from out of the city" in my latest "from out of the city" (coincidentally) podcast.

You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple’s iTunes Music Store or through the Feedburner feed (click here, dummy).  Give a listen and let me know what’s your take.

Thanks again to the great Ophidian!

Note to Avid Fan:  The book progresses.  My editor assures me it is proceeding well and will be amazing.  I trust her.

Some news organizations are saying that the Nor-easter quasi-blizzard that is barrelling down on DC and Baltimore right now will be the "Snow Storm of the Century".  Okay.  Not anything I can do about it but make sure I am home, taking a nap, when it hits, the better to be well-rested when it is over for the digging out phase.

Two feet plus of snow is what they are calling for.  Big deal for DC, but I spent my childhood at Air Force bases along the Canadian border; Alaska, North Dakota, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Two feet of snow is chump change.

Communications may become unsteady for a day or two.  Might lose power and have to actually sleep under more than one blanket.  Might have to eat the dog.  Nah, first the dog food, then the cats, then the dog…isn’t that the correct order?  But supplies are laid in.

My first shipment of loveaddict showed up yesterday.  I have my nits to pick, but that won’t stop me from getting out the first rash of orders as soon as I can get to the post office.  Liza, the cover looks great - you’ll see.

If there is an honorary citizen of the City of Legends, it almost has to be Daniel S. McTaggart, the Mountain Poet I have collaborated with and read alongside of.  He has been a guest on my podcast show, I designed the cover for his 2007 book "Midnight Muse at the Convenience Store" and he is just a good guy and a capable poet.

His new book, "Diner Poems", has just come out ( ISBN# 978-0-578-04587-0 for those of you wishing to order from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble, etc.)  Dan loves his Americana, and an entire book of poems about diners?  Natural for him.  I was supposed to write a piece for the book about "Plato’s Cave", which is the inspiration for one of the poems in the book based on a discussion we had on that philosophical construct in a diner near Fairmont, West Virginia, but he decided to go pure with his material (I can’t blame him) and I promise I’ll do my best to drop the word here.

But here is a sample from the new book, entitled "Plato’s Cave on a Diner Napkin".

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.

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.

Love, romance, sex.  The high of raptured contact.  First kiss.  Parting kiss.  The discovered lie.  The damning truth.  The smell of brimstone.  The smell of jasmine and warm skin.  The spirituality of making love.  The necessity of pain.

Themes.  Themes to be covered in loveaddict, my next book (you’ve seen the cover in my last entry).  What was originally to be a volume of all new poetry, exploring the nature of love and why we are drawn to it, has evolved.  I am not giving details.  I want to surprise you, to please you like an unexpected kiss or a bundle of roses.  I will tell you that the book is a confession, and the titular character is me.  Not a confession of some great evil or crime, but of how my mind and soul work and how I have sought to fill the need for love and to love in my life.

I am still editing at this time, but we are probably looking at around 160-175 works.  Many published previously, elsewhere, in various literary and poetry journals (I don’t keep track of my publication credits, which I find in the ghetto of academic poets is considered a worse sin than plagiarism.  Fuck ‘em.  This is not a game to keep score in, this is my religion, not a dilettante’s hobby).  Many of the poems are new, so new you can smell the afterbirth.  Some are refractions of the past, distillations of the present and visions of an uncertain, but hopeful, future.

There are reflections of the catalog of my muses, from Alabaster to Aubergine.  From the Mad Gypsy to Brigit.  Valkyrie and Goldenheart.  The cats are present, Panther and Leopard, but only there because the Radiant Tiger found virtue in them, spoke of them, and chose to make the words public.  There are new muses, or at least ones you have never met before. 

Soon after the book comes out, I will be removing selected selected earlier volumes of my works from circulation.  Some of my older volumes contain works that, in the filter of time, I have judged disposable.  Just as I have decided certain people are.

The blurbology for this one will be interesting.  I haven’t decided yet who to approach.  Maybe Larry Jaffe?  Some new people.  Som non-writerly types, even.  Many were startled when "Artisan and domestic diva" Michele Beschen, the host of B. Original, blurbed As such…

I do wish to thank the lovely and talented Liza Lorraine for her contribution to this book, in the form of the cover photo.  It is stunning.  If one poem in this volume speaks to one person the passion and evocation of emotion that her photo does to me, I will be pleased.

Now. back to the editing. 

Some exciting news from Daniel S. McTaggart (Dan the Man).  Seems a national magazine for convenience store insiders has picked up some of his poems from his book "Midnight Muse in the Convenience Store" for reprint.  Proud of him, I am (plus, it doesn’t hurt that I wrote the foreword and designed the cover for the book, so it’s all free publicity for me..).

Dude, you rock.  I’ll fill the rest of you in with the details (like the magazine name) when he gets them to me.

Okay, after what seems like almost a constant 24 hours in the studio (I promised mania, didn’t I?) I am relaxing by listening to music, right now Rod Stewart’s "Every Picture Tells a Story" (Damn you, Huerta/Jazz/Nightblooming, whatever your name is…).

I can confirm two completed tracks for the CD "blister"…"The Goad" and "into the grey".  We are working on others, including a rather rambunctious gospel-flavoured throwdown, but that’s all I will say right now.  I will say no more.

Ah, you know me better than that?  True.

Unlike the rather overwrought "Evangelist" and earnest "Truth", we’re going for something with a little more sense of fun with "blister".  And I think we are achieving it.

Hey, fellow poets, don’t forget Guerrilla Poetry Day on July 5th.

sorry for posting so late, but got busy (unbelievably busy) and yet, have some news to report.  I have been hammering down on the next book, loveaddict, and the next CD, blister.

As a kindness, here’s a link to a lyric from blister, entitled "into the grey".  Enjoi.

I’m getting feedback from all my old friends who have the couer rage to tell me who I should be involved with.  Let me just say that self-nominations are not out of the question, but use common sense.  I have enough husbands and ex-husbands mad at me over the years.

Huerta has suggested I need to get involved with a "young and dumb hottie", preferably of Asian origin (I couldn’t help but think of "Shanghai Lil" from Rod Stewart’s "Every Picture Tells a Story") with the priviso she needs to be someone who can get me into media-worthy mischief.  I think some people are missing that aspect of my life…but before I tip my hat and hand…

Back to the recording sessions.