City of Legends

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.

I was only recently made aware of the fact that two of my muses, Selke and Nightblooming, have the same birthday.  Curious.  I mean, what are the odds?

For her birthday, I gave Nightblooming flowers, candy and the volume she requested, the autographed copy of "INVOCATO" that had boomeranged (I suspect it will suffer a grisley fate, but what was I supposed to do with it?  Install it in a museum?).

For Selke’s birthday?  Ah, that would be telling.

Okay, time for our semi-annual ritual of rumour control. 

Very simple. 

I am not currently engaged, about to get engaged, secretly married to or anything else.  I am still ronin and that’s the current battle plan.

There are women I enjoy the company of, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson:  Even the best intentioned people don’t always know what they want.  That includes me, and the vast majority of women I have known in this life (I extrapolate that most fit the mold).

Yes, I have good friends and those who inspire me.  My most excellent friend Jazz (whom you may also know as nightblooming or Huerta), from whose playful work with the English language I take the word in the title you scratched your head at.  We have known each other for almost a decade, and she has even been the cover of one of my CDs.  We’ve flirted, and I have even used her as a muse in absentia of a primary one being in my life.  And make no mistake, I do find her adorable, and intriguing, she’s a very terrific woman (and tall, she’s sort of a Hispanic version of Brigit).  If the mothership returned tonight and said I could only take one with me, she’d probably be the first number I call…she just probably wouldn’t answer, being out in a mosh pit somewhere.  I’m not kidding.  She’s an accomplished rock bassist and writes some seriously demented poetry. 

There’s Liza, whose photography sometimes shows up here, on williamfdevault.com and the Amomancer blog.  Charming, brilliant, talented and sexy as only a Brazilian fireball can be.  The realities of geography and the chronography makes it extremely unlikely that I will ever fill a role in her life other than a counseling uncle, but I do adore her.  Much the same for Mariya, again a long-distance flirtation with many poetic works sparked by her fearless artistic photography.  But, last time I checked, she had a boyfriend and contrary to the mythology, if a woman tells me (not if the man tells me, as people don’t own people) that she is in a relationship, she is off limits.

For now I am left to my adorisimz (the word Jazz coined for our style of mock fighting with compliments), my memories and several decades of genetically ordained indestructibility.  By the time Shelley was my age he had been decomposing for almost three decades.  Urgh.

Besides, who knows what will be coming at me from an unexpected quarter (gratuitous book plug).  My first serious relationship came out of a chance meeting at an airport that ended with me falling down an escalator.  My first wife, I met while I was engaged to another (the one I fell down the escalator over).  My second wife, I met on an airplane and was dating only women at the time.  And these aren’t the weirdest cases.  I accept the fact that the thunderbolt chooses its own time and place to strike.  I just grit my teeth and hope I don’t disintegrate in the firestorm.

My phone could literally ring right now with a new opportunity or someone of my past yearnings, re-entering the orbit of my life.  When the jolt comes, expect me to seize on with both hands, my toes, teeth and eyelashes, and to write of what it does to me, for good or for ill.  I will welcome such an adventure with open arms and seek to carry it with me the remainder of my days, being faithful and monogamous, and maybe taking my time to give her a book cover.  I’ve put 4-1/2 women on book covers (the Panther, the Leopard, nightblooming, the Goldenheart and Aubergine (looking around) I don’t see any of them hanging around.  Jazz suggests, rather snarkily, that maybe I attract women who are seeking immortality, but not the immortalizer.  Hrm.

So to recap:  Not involved with anyone right now.  The poetic works you are seeing springing anew are being inspired my memories and speculations and the occasional sense of awe at the writings or artwork of someone I feel resonance with.  In the last few years there’s been a few near-misses, and one resounding long-distance collision (is that even possible?), but right now, in my soul of souls, I am in solitude, romantically, and it is not a bad place to be.   I am learning to accept and respect the role of the ronin, the integrity of who I am.

It is uncomplicated. No illusions, no doubts, no trust issues.  I used to get up at ridiculous hours of the morning or stay up half the night to be a human alarm clock or comfort food to the passion du jour.  Now I am more self-contained, more self-aware.  I have found some answers I did not think were knowable.  I have written things I would have not been able to a decade ago.

I have not lost faith in love, in romance, in faith itself.  Don’t worry about me.  I’m just getting started.

I have an old friend in Los Angeles, name of Phil Brown. He’s a journeyman guitarist who played with several bands…some of them predating my puberty. But he’s an interesting fellow.

A few years back, when he was pushing a solo comeback, he put out an album called "Sex Sells". It didn’t do so well, but he was right.

So, to let you all know, I am making a few minor changes around here. No, not going all-nude all the time. Not even semi-nude part of the time. But I do know the value of a beautiful woman or two.

So, I have modified the Entrecard "cards" that are used by that service to help me trade connections with fellow bloggers. In place of my sad face, you will see the cover of my last CD, "Nightblooming" featuring the…er…face…of Jaz, the musician and poetic protege of mine, plugging this blog. By the way, I have approached her about her laying down the music to a single for the next CD. Her style of old school thrash rock would play interesting counterpoint to Jezika™ and her trance synthesizers.

The Amomancer blog will be fronted by the cover of my book "As such…" featuring…aw, you all know who that is, so let’s not be coy.

Who knows, maybe readership will climb (actually, since I made the change this morning, Amomancer has had a surge in viewership! It currently leads this blog in hits for today!)

As we crank up the PR machine on the new CDs (and I want everyone to say something nice about the cover, posted a few entries below…if enough of you say nice things maybe we can get the model to submit to an interview) I thought I’d say a few words about the tracks, to sort of set the frame.

Enchante.
This is a strange one, very much a song rather than a poem with musical accompaniment. Written to the lady, I knew when we first recorded it that it would stand out.

the taste.
When I mentioned this piece the first time to a muse, she laughed and said it was probably something obscene (judging from the title). Actually, it is based on my poem "the taste of remembrance" which is decidedly not erotic, but about memories of someone you love becoming synonymous with the very concept of memory.

Centaur.
I recorded this piece several months ago and then it just plain never made it onto the previous CDs, which is a shame, because it has a very nice flow to it. It crossbreeds several of my favourite themes to become a plea for a constant love and an admission of a need for companionship.

Slitoris.
Okay, I can be a sick and deranged soul when the spirit is upon me. This very arch work dovetails nicely with "Cut Me" and has to deal, as does that piece, with a darker element in my sexuality.

Cut Me
See "slitoris" above. The music behind this piece plays out like something from an old gothic horror movie.

Rivers of Resurrection
A melange of several works, very ethereal, very magical.

sleep
There’s a comfort and a menace to this work, I still find it a little creepy. See if you agree when you hear it.

I want the fire
You can hear on this one where my voice wasn’t sure if I needed to just read it, or sing. I compromised and the resultant timbre of my voice seems to be communicating a puzzled urgency, a certain resolve in the face of a lost path.

Bright and Deadly
My, we are dark on this CD, aren’t we. Monster guitar and some no-nonsense vocals seek a truce.

Mantichore
Originally this was an instrumental (unique to my CDs)…but during a listening session, the words came and the words cannot be refused.

Wailing Wall
I don’t know what happened here to make this what it is. It’s like when the microphone came on the Robert Plant within me made a run for it.

Horizon
I like this. Very gentle, very fluid.

Skyscraper Ambition
Okay, let me explain this one. There’s this woman. She’s very tall…

32fps2
This may very well end up being the last piece on the CD, because of the way it ends, both structurally and thematically.

Golden Apples
Se "Skyscraper Ambition", above.

Burning in this chosen sphere
In the beginning was the word, and the word was hot. Or, as the lady herself says, "strong". There is a masculinity to the sexuality in this piece that seemed like a great balance of lust and dreams.

So that’s my meander on the tracks…I hope you enjoy "Amomancer: nightblooming" when it comes out on the 24th.

Some people have asked me the hidden meaning in the name…well, there’s this flower that blooms at night and I would lay awake in Venice Beach and inhale the beauty. Flash forward a few years and there’s this woman that blooms at night…