City of Legends

My new boots showed up. I know, big whoop. But for me that’s important, as my boots are what own my outfit. I special ordered these, will wear them today to make sure they fit right (so far, so good) and then will pack them away for the tour. I am particularly impressed with the arch…as much time as I spend standing and pacing during a read, boots with little or no arch are an invitation to pain. I am happy.

I also think I have found the jacket I want for the ensemble. I can’t talk about it without giving away a lot, but trust me…it will work.

I have solved the logistic problem on the broadsides for the tour, and have reached out to Jerry, the very talented guitarist with Sugarcamp, to see if he’d like to jam with me on August 17th. I have also invited Jazz to join me onstage in LA. If I can hook the DareDevil hisself, Dave Demeter, for one or more of the West Coast gigs, I will be most pleased. Dave has worked with me before and there are few more talented percussionists on the planet. He’s played with the big boys.

I’m looking into a headset microphone for the tour…I’m better with a microphone than I used to be, but I still hate to lose the use of a gesturing hand, and I will not be tethered to the proximity of a standing microphone, even a good parabolic. Not enough mobility, we’re getting testosteronal in the staging. I have some answers to give to some questions I have asked and been asked and I intend to give them loud.

I’ve been picking up some nice feedback over at AuthorsDen since I returned over the weekend. Maybe it is a good thing I remained. I’ve only posted three poems and "As such…", but getting a fair number of hits.

My Grandmother is resting comfortably and I have communicated the best wishes of my friends to her.

Well, on April 22nd, I have to put up or shut up. Not the first time, not the last, I am sure.

It’s just a reading, actually a book signing, not my most important, but it is likely to get attention on several fronts.

Commercially, Barnes and Noble will be taking my temperature to see how well the small stack of books they provide sells. Best result, they sell out during my first hour. Worst result, nothing moves, nothing sells, and I bite a passer-by.

Okay, the latter is unlikely. But I think back to some of my more notable fulcrumed appearances. Here’s my five most memorable, in no particular order.

The Southern Poets Reading Tour (I), The Fairhope Arts Center, Fairhope, Alabama, Summer of 1997. Loki was right, I’d been flat all weekend, and I was supposed to be the big dog. So, I drop my reading list, put on my shades and did a set only of poems I could recite from the heart. As they were almost all about my relationship with Psyche, I cried through the read, then left the building. Ann followed and had to bring me back into the room, where poet after poet who followed me was changing reading lists and doing their most intimate works. It became a massive, public, catharsis session. I wrote my poem "Breathe" in one of the Leopard Cycles, about the incident.

The AOL Writers Club Party, The Algonquin Hotel, New York City, September of 1995. Having helped plan and execute this intimate gathering of poets and authors, when I was called upon to read to a room of peers, I chose works from the first six "Panther Cycles" (that’s all there were back then). It’s the only public reading I ever did with the Panther herself in the room, and the stress of being conscious of her presence in a room where, theoretically, no one knew about "us" yet, was intense.

A Catholic Girls’ High School in California, April, 2003. Just months before abandoning my beloved Golden State, I was invited to speak at this school. I called the place Kevin Smith’s Greatest Nightmare (or his wet dream). Several hundred well-groomed, upper middle class Catholic high school girls, all in their uniforms, most with attitude. I was actually intimidated. Yeah, I know, that’s funny. I recall particularly, not so much darkly, the one girl in the front row whose blouse was probably unbuttoned one more button than permitted, who seemed to be trying to channel Sharon Stone in ‘Basic Instinct’ with a smirk as she slouched in her seat, her knees apart, through most of the read. If I was but twenty years younger and willing to do jail time, I might have thought more about her. As it was, I had a good audience, and I got to see how well my material played to a young, estrogen-laced audience, which has always supposed to be a key demographic for the "Romantic Poet of the Internet".

The coffeehouse at Drummond Chapel United Methodist Church, Morgantown, West Virginia, sometime in 1974. I don’t recall the exact date, but it was my first "real" reading. After enduring a couple of rounds of polite applause from an audience that obviously was not listening to what I was reading, I gave them a tongue lashing for their hypocrisy. Thus was a reputation born.

The sports bar reading, Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, late 1978. My friend Dave Demeter, whose band was playing that night, set me up to be the act between musical sets. It takes a certain amount of confidence to be reading my poetry between musical sets in a place where most of the people are half into their third beer, watching a hockey game. It toughened me. I got applause, sold a few books, and fulfilled my quest to stop reading in poetry venues. Plus, it was the first place I ever performed "TRIUMPH". I don’t recall the exact name of the bar, alas.

So, aside from a few "private" readings, these are the ones that really stand out to me. If I had to pick a sixth, it would be the reading at The Blue Moose in Morgantown, during my 2002 tour. I sold a ton of books that night and met some guy named Dan McTaggart, plus it was the first time in decades that I had done a public reading in West Virginia.