City of Legends

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. 

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).
•  
• 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.
•  
• Muses?  Nightblooming Jasmine (of course), the Butterfly, Suede, The Selke, The Mad Gypsy herself and the older sister to my first real muse, Alabaster.
•  
• 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.

 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.

Let me see, who hasn’t yet weighed in on my personal life? Bill Clinton? Let me check my emails, he may be in there someplace.

I had a brief but intense chat with my bro, Larry Jaffe, this morning, he being the author of such books as "Unprotected Poetry" and the founder of Poets for Human Rights. When he gives me a heart-to-heart, you know he means it. He kept me sane, once…okay, twice, with good advice and the strength to lend me. I owe him, so I listen when he talks. Besides, he did the foreword of Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion. He was also reminding me about finalizing some details for the swing through the Sunshine State I am planning to make as part of the Evangelist tour.

Quick vote: How many of you think having my hair dyed tiger-stripe (brown and orange) would be kick-ass?

Chaos reigns, but that’s my sphere. I am writing, planning, executing, designing, redesigning, recording, editing, engineering and plotting my ass off. In my spare moments, I relax (I just got through watching the on-demand (available one week early) of the season finale of The Tudors on Showtime. (Hint: She gets her head cut off.))

I have a major proposal draft to finish today and tomorrow, and then I will sit by my phone, sad eyed, waiting for a sign from God. And just to work up a good sweat, I think I shall do some lawn work. Did a little yesterday and found a tick trying to make a meal out of me. Bad move on her part. Not in the mood to suffer such things well.

A friend called me last night to get caught up on things. I told him I could answer 99% of his questions in a paragraph. I paraphrase here:

"I am well, the kids are good, work is passable. Writing is good, the books and CDs are doing well and I am planning a massive, bone-cracking tour for later this year which will most likely end with either my death or my permanent relocation to Los Angeles or both. Fell in love, good for writing, bad for sanity, relationship seems to be in strange and alien territory, don’t ask. Grandma is getting out of the hospital, Dad and Mom are great and I should be finishing up a screenplay this weekend."

It felt like one of those Christmas letters people are so fond of putting out. I did an HTML version one year, I will have to see if I can find it.

Last night I stayed up way too late and laid down tracks for the Jezika™ collaboration (the ™ thing gets tedious) and for the revived Evangelist project. Made a wrong turn and allowed myself to connect with the material. Powered through. Larry, I owe you, man. When I see the damage done to so many people I care about, it makes me think you may be right. But I think it is a more of bad human judgment than anything else. Everyone wants to compromise, no one wants to be smart or do the right thing anymore. We want strawberries and steak in the blender. It rages me major.

Remind me sometime to tell you about John Henry and the 500 lb vibrator.

This is why I should have never let EJ go. Too many questions, too much administrivia and I can’t be seventeen places at once.

But, let’s answer a few emails I’ve gotten about TVC2008 …

• Yes, if you peel a single reading out of the middle of a podcast or a CD of mine, that’s fine. Short, long, I don’t care…although if someone blows me away with a full length video of Wordslinger from The Last Romantic Verb, they may be hard to beat. Unless you show me a very good take on Eros V. Not sure YouTube would let you post that one.
• Yes, the new works I am posting this weekend from Evangelist are fair game, as will be about a dozen specially made recordings of key works, to make sure that people who know and love some of the more classic works that I have not previously interpreted have a shot.
• Yes, the people who did The Panther on the Beach and Darfur videos are certainly welcome to compete.

Latest song stuck in my head: Cells by The Servant. Ttrust me, I am using some serious brain bandwidth for mood control. Maybe 20-30%. Larry Jaffe would smack me if I took anything, anyway, and I owe the man.

I hate it when a song gets stuck in my head. Oh, yeah, certain songs are nice:

• Mondo Bongo by Joe Strummer
• I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston

But for the past day or so, Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley has been my constant companion. A brutal, cynical song about love, it can crush one’s soul if you listen to the lyrics (I always listen to lyrics. I’m a poet, dammit). I have spent a great deal of mental energy today, forcing the beam off track on that one…and finally my internal soundtrack skipped to Everybody Hurts by REM. Hmm. Needs work.

But I employed my Jedi Mind Tricks in full array and finally, just moments ago, it finally slipped closer to the center of the universe with Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes.

Not exactly Whitney, but we’re making progress. I’d go on meds, but Larry Jaffe would have me taken out and shot.

The back cover text for "As such…" is as follows:

"As Such…" is about the kind of love that makes you feel as free as if you were standing on a cliff at the edge of the ocean with nothing but sky to touch you and only the wind and the smell of the surf from the sea about you. It documents a rare and remarkable love, a love that remembers you, glowing like an ember, from before the beginnings of time.
Candy Tothill
insidecandy.co.za

"an artful expression of passion – the words and how they’re arranged are so personal and passionate, you can’t help but feel a sense of verbally evoked voyeurism”
Michele Beschen, artisan/creator of b.original on diy network/hgtv
(www.couragetocreate.com)

"Please read between the lines. It will not disturb this poet that as you engulf his poetry and empower his thoughts that you read between the lines and feel the majesty of silent creativity that warms the fingers and mind on a cold night. William is almost a life-long friend and I still read him as a fan."
Larry Jaffe
Poet Laureate, Youth for Human Rights

……………..

There you are, there it is…thank you all for your contributions. The book itself will begin being available for purchase in about 48 hours, or less, then begin to seep into the mainstream distribution channels.

All praise to Candy, whom I love, respect and adore, and not just for her perfect ass. Good night, Candy. Knock ‘em dead today.

Rumour has it (and I hate spreading false rumours) that among the jacket blurbs to the new book "As such…" are from the legendary poet, social activist and spoken word artist Larry Jaffe (the poet laureate of Youth for Human Rights) and the equally impressive Michele Beschen, host of HG-TV’s "b.original" and "Courage to Create" who helped make a meme of the poet’s "A quote is just a tattoo on the tongue"..

Just a rumour.