I’m tired of talking about me. You talk about me, for a while.
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, Memoir
Aeons ago, during the 1st exile (right after my first divorce, when I was in Los Angeles), I was fixed up with a former opera singer on a date. It was just lunch. We had met socially at an event featuring my good friend David Demeter, who is a very successful drummer in the LA music scene, and a friend of a friend passed word that she wanted to see me socially.
We had a pleasant enough lunch, no major awkwardness, and even agreed to see each other the next weekend. Knowing she had a 10 year old child from a previous marriage, I even did the gallant thing to reassure her that I was not kid-phobic and told her that after the recital we were going to attend, we could all three go out to lunch. She seemed pleased.
A few days before the date I got word from one of the mutual friends that she (the opera singer) did have a criticism of me from our first date. She felt my "dating skills" were "primitive".
I was taken aback, having usually been accused of being too charming in conversation, and having been raised appropriately by my mother to be a gentleman. I asked for further clarification and was told they’d try and find out in what area I was failing the civilization test.
Word came back the next day that the issue was that I did not talk about myself enough on the first date. That I asked a lot of questions about her, but did not follow them up by offering up information about myself. I always had thought that people liked it when you didn’t start every sentence with "I" (of course, this being LA, that might be a little alien). I was truly flabbergasted and, although I went through with the date and even took her and her daughter to lunch afterwards, I let the potential relationship drop there.
The truth is, I am not aversive to telling people about myself, it just usually doesn’t occur to me unless asked (yes, just wait until Barb Holmes and I do the interview thing, you’ll get plenty). Maintaining a blog is a bit of a stretch for me, as most of what I am expected to write about is me; my day, my feelings, my poetry, my books and CDs and appearances. I find me…boring.
So, here’s a break. For you and me. I’m going to drop the topic of me for a bit and write about politics, religion, society, television, film, how to make grilled cheese sandwiches that don’t stick to the griddle, the theology of love, and all those other ten gazillion things that are not about me, per se.
We’ll see how long this lasts…and if you get bored and want to find out what I am up to, go over to Amomancer and read the poetry for the bread crumb clues to my heart and soul.
Tuesday, almost afternoon
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Evangelist, Journal, Poetry
Bad neck ache from sloppy posture during the Amomancer cleanup. But it was worth it. There are still a few small things to work out, including the possibility of going back and tagging every poem on the blog that has appeared in a book of mine with the name of the book. Whaddaya think?
I am offering Barbara Holmes to opportunity to preview the titular track from Evangelist before the interview. If she wants to listen to it, she would be only the second person aside from myself, to have heard it. I have already shared it with fellow blogger and writer Susan Sonnen, out of deference to her quick response to the previous tracks.
I have a much larger organizational task ahead of me regarding the tags on this blog. Whereas Amomancer had almost six hundred entries, this blog has almost four times as many. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I have considered bringing on a new E.J., but I am finding my emotional, visceral reaction to people who want to help me on a level with James Caan’s reaction at the end of Misery when a young woman describes herself as his biggest fan. I daily battle a jading stain, and it is difficult for me to admit that. Combine that with my after-effects of my illness (I am being lobbied to cancel the tour) and the only thing that is keeping me from a psychic meltdown of Tunguska proportions is some cunning cross-wiring that keeps me writing. I am keeping busy for the same reason a man who just lost his job climbs into a bottle and stays there, it is holding back the hordes of internal Hell.
And my demons can lick your demons any day of the week. In fact, they;d like to. Hmmm, maybe that’s what I need.
But while I vacillate between screaming madness, blood-curdling stomach cramps and dichotomous satyriasis, I write, slowly bleeding off some of the pressure…if the walls hold long enough…we’ll at least get some good poetry out of it.
ground rules for the interview
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, interview
To Barbara Holmes (Twist):
I am communicating with you the ground rules for the interview you are soon to conduct with me in public, here, so that you and the readers will know exactly what restrictions I have placed on the subject, content and context of our interview and what my expectations are.
I am of a mood to speak. I have allowed too many things to simmer, to boil, to burn, and consistent with my temperament, I have not spoken openly and plainly of them, out of a sometimes misguided loyalty to friends and people in general to not strike out unless absolutely necessary, even sometimes allowing slanders to go unchallenged.
Aside from some basic human decency issues of not revealing actual names of certain people in my past due to vow I have made to them or damage it might do to their relationships or careers, or to keep certain key confidences, expressed and unexpressed, out of a general sense of decorum, I will answer openly, directly, even brutally, any question you have the insight, balls and desire to ask.
I encourage my readers to contact you directly, or through here, to suggest questions and contexts.
Better than anyone who has ever interviewed me in the past (I count 6 interviews you have done with me over the past 13 years), you know me, my history and my works, you knew me before there was a Panther, you were my editor for my humour column at AOL’s legendary Writers Club, we have broken bread together, mourned mutual friends, and had you call me on my BS in interesting times. I look forward to an interview that leaves me feeling sodomized, purified and with a clear conscience that I have spoken the truth as it is known and has been revealed to me.
Yours,
William F. DeVault
Mohammed’s Radio
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Evangelist Tour, Poetry, Thoughts about Life
I don’t know why I "get" Warren Zevon, but I do and always have. The late, twisted composer of some of the most truly bizarre rock songs in history always speaks to me. From Werewolves of London to Lawyers, Guns and Money, the Z has a special place in my heart and consciousness.
And one of his best songs, in terms of stirring me, is Mohammed’s Radio…a song that has passed into the distance in no small part because of Western paranoia over Moslem extremism. Well, Jihad them if they can’t take a joke.
I downloaded both Linda Ronstadt’s brilliant cover of it this evening from iTunes, as well as the Z’s live rendition. And they strangely calmed me. I think Warren Zevon’s self-destructive cycle speaks to me like Bob Fosse’s Joe Gideon avatar, played by Roy Scheider in All That Jazz. I think people expect creative artists to be a bit unbalanced. Sorry, folks, move along…nothing to see here except when the peacock is in bloom. Aside from a tendency to blunder into really, really drama-laden relationships, I’m as boring as life gets.
I’m lucky. I am in good health. I still command a decent price in the marketplace. I have three beautiful, healthy children and friends who would have my back if Hell came for me. I tend to lone wolf it a bit too much, am somewhat gullible and take horrific risks when someone calls for Superman, but that’s not as bad as some traits I could have, I guess.
I have decided that when I do my interview with Barbara Holmes later this month to give her a listen to the full package of the CD Evangelist, so she can write her impressions. After her and the gentleman who has already asked to interview me for his online zine, I’m packing it in for interviews. Everything I have worth saying I’ll say in my poetry and songs.
Jan Innes once said I don’t write poetry, I live it. Might as well take it all the way, you know? This world of mumbling mediocrity needs a little more elegance and eloquence, and maybe I can’t save the world, but I can inspire one or two more voices downrange…you never know. Too many people wrapped up in their self deceit and self-defeat. The violence and venom of this world are not the disease, they are the symptoms.
We are the disease.
We need to learn to laugh at the absurdity of it all (as Warren Zevon did, when the pain of life wasn’t killing him by driving him to excess). Judge me for who and what I am and have done, but my poetry has never lied to me, ripped me off or tried to do anything other than make life a little lighter, brighter, clearer and dearer for me and for others.
That’s the message, coming into focus, I plan to take on the road.
Guess what just came on my iTunes? Requiem For Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs & Orchestra. From 2001: A Space Odyssey. The sound of the monolith.
Spooky.
ahem…major effing announcement here
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Brigit, Dan McTaggart, Mari Laureano, Media, The Compleat Panther Cycles, The Panther
I am now, without further huzzah or fanfare,
going to blow your mind.
I have just placed here for FREE DOWNLOAD, the entire contents and covers of
THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES in pdf format at archive.org.
If you buy the book in stores, Amazon.com, through the publisher or even through the City of Legends Bookstore, it will run you between twenty five and forty dollars, weigh in at over three pounds and make a hole in your bookshelf every time you pull it out to read again.
Here, it is free.
Happy National Poetry Month.
You owe me one, now.
Special thanks to Dan McTaggart, Barbara Holmes and Brigit for their forewords. To Mari Laureano for the stunning rear cover text. To Jillian Ann for being the woman whose beauty captured the essence of the mythology of the Panther that I spun from a real woman, filtered through my own longings.
It was one hell of a trip, writing, then revisiting to edit, assemble and annotate.
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