City of Legends

"When a man lies, he murders some part of the world." - Merlin, Excalibur

I remember the first time I saw Excalibur, heard those words, delivered by Nicol Williamson in the crazed, dazed holy man tone he employed to give us a truly otherworldly Merlin.  They had an impact on me, on how I viewed the world.  And perhaps, as much as anything this side of God, affected my worldview and the dichotomies that drive my personality.

And perhaps, I am not alone in my thinking about this world and the nature of truth.  Perhaps the fact that even a fictional character can have words writ for him by someone who perceives this…this nature of truth…is encouraging.

No one is perfect, no one above screwing things up, even under the best of circumstances, even with the best intentions.  Most who know me as a person think of me as well-intended and often the victim of that.  Others, perhaps those who know me (I hope) a little less well, see me as selfish and self-absorbed (guilty as charged sometimes).  Lacking a truly objective place to stand, and not willing to take the word of people, who for woe or weal, might have their own agendae in my definition, I have to think about it…too much.

I do listen to my inner voice, that place within me from where I write.  It speaks clearly, if sometimes arcanely, of my thoughts and dreams and fantasies and prayers and goals, and the means I am willing to employ to get from A to B.  It is troubling when your own self is critical of you, and I try to listen and adapt my day-to-day existence to the epiphanies revealed or at least less concealed throught he world and images.  It’s part of the creative process.

It’s perfectly fine to see or hear or read something created by someone else and go "That’s It!" or even "That’s Me!", as we all need a little cultural framework and the vision of others to find our way around the darker corners and deeper tunnels of life.  I needed Rospo Pallenberg, the screen writer for Excalibur, in the case above.  I’ve needed the insights and ramblings of creative artists from David Bowie to Jack Kerouac, from Ani DiFranco to Lord Byron, from Dr. Emilio Lizardo to John Lennon to get a shortcut to revelation.  That’s what life is about as a social order sentient, not having to start at zero on everything.

I am fortunate enough to know things.  A lot of things.  Many things you wouldn’t guess that I know.  I know more about what goes on around me than most, often seeming to be tap dancing in a minefield…okay, actually tap dancing in a minefield…while people are convinced I am oblivious to the danger.  It’s not that I am that dense, just that hopeful, perhaps even that gullible (an ugly word, since when did trust in others become a character flaw?).

Yes, I will believe a convenient bit of praise for someone over a condemnation (although I am slow to believe praise for myself and my works).  Yes, I can be told almost anything by a pretty lady and believe it, and with a zealot’s fervor, until such time as I decide it is time to listen to the well meaning (and sometimes not so well meaning) friends, family, lovers and peers who have been trying to warn me about something I already pretty much know, but wanted to tap dance on the minefield anyway. 

I recall writing a poem to my friend Larry Jaffe, the poet, when he tried to warn me off of the Panther.  Okay, let’s not use so soft a word as warn.  He said that it would be kinder for him to get a gun and shoot me in the head than to let me continue my realtionship with the Panther.  His words got more brutal after that, and I recall sitting there, taking in every word and nodding, as I knew everything he was saying and was going to say because I already knew the truth.

But to lie is to murder some part of the world.  So many of us lie to get through the day, even if all alone.  We justify, rationalize and re-frame so many things, then lose track of what lie we told last. I knew someone who carried a small journal with them everywhere and recorded their lies (they called them "soap operas") so they could keep track of what they needed to stay consistent on.  Pretty sick, when you think of it.  But she was very beautiful (still is, last time I checked) and I overlooked it.

I remember a woman I was involved with who told me she was divorced.  Well, later she admitted the divorce wasn’t final.  Later still she confessed that she was still living with her husband, who did not know she wanted a divorce yet.  A variation on that has happened to me three times that I know of.  I had another woman tell me I must not even intimate that she and I had been intimate (we met originally online).  Turns out that was what she had all of her boyfriends swear to.  One opened his mouth, several suddenly started comparing notes.  I think it was handled very maturely by most, some did not take it well.  I was disappointed, but had to laugh.

I’m not into justifying my conduct.  God knows I have done some stupid, selfish things in this life.  But I find the ability of people to lie, even to themselves, strange and perversely amusing.  One would think that if lying is murdering part of the world, then lying to oneself could be thought of as a kind of suicide.  An old friend of mine once said he never understood suicide, as it was always a permanent fix to short-term problems.

Maybe I am just a masochist, but if emotional suicide is what is called for to resolve the conflicts between the man I am and the man I am trying to be, I’ll tough it out a bit longer.

Like Red Buttons‘ character in "The Poseidon Adventure" I have a hollow motive to my flurry of activity.  But that’s okay, for now.

With the CD done, I have to fill the open slot in the chaos of my projects with something, so I think I will do a new video.  Haven’t done one in a while.

My first, knee-jerk instinct is to do "TRUTH":

What do you think?  Can you think of a better track off any of my CDs for me to immerse myself in?

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.

Just a few thoughts, while I am in a clear headed state…

Those who indulge their creative impulses often find themselves becoming habituated, or even addicted, to the creative process.  The individual who must compel themselves to create don’t understand this.  Those who scream as the blood of dragons and angels bursts from their very pores without warning, they understand.  Damn inconvenient, messy, painful.  Those who give birth to creativity, be it painting or sculpture, poetry or prose, they pay their price in the pain and raw soul that must be allowed to exist for the creativity to truly flow.  Many give up and fade into the greyness, unable to cope with the maddening pain.

This creativity, this birthing, has two vectors:  The venting of stress and pressure from the individual, and the attempt to establish resonance with an audience.  An audience may be as small as one person, or as vast as all people.  It may just be between the creative soul and God.

By the way:  There is a God.  Omniscient, omnipotent, but not into the whole miracle-extravaganza some would expect.  It is difficult for God to stand back and watch people suffer, often by their own folly.  But it is necessary, that we may find our own way and prove our own substance.  If everyone who got it "right" prospered…everyone would run to that religion/denomination/sect, as those would be the people who never got sick, whose kids never died young, always had plenty of money and never fell down and skinned their knees.  It doesn’t work that way.

People have made millions off of God.  Ministers who have fleets of Mercedes while members of their "flocks" are fleeced and living paycheck to paycheck.  Massive church buildings with high-rise iconography.  If you find the truth, you don’t sell it, you give it away.  You don’t write a book about how others can find the truth, then get an agent.  I don’t recall once Jesus or His Apostles selling scrolls of "The Complete Guide to the 17 Principles That Will Make You a Better Person" and going out and buying a new chariot.  Those exalted in this life for their public spirituality are the ones who may be least trusted to have it right.  They are snake oil salesmen.  God isn’t mocked.  God is patient.

We all fall down, screw up, make mistakes and get it wrong from time to time.  If we can see beyond our own pride, our own egos, and admit when we messed up, we have a chance at moving forward.  If we bluster and make excuses, we still have it wrong.  I’ve said before that, at its root, evil is not powerful and grand.  Evil is error compounded by pride and cowardice.  Yes, an evil man may do great harm, but so might a stampeding herd of cattle, driven by fear and ignorance.

I believe in three things, unconditionally:  God, love and poetry.  I have loved and do love people unconditionally, some of whom I may not like a lot because of the way they treat me or others or their world view, but I can’t let that derail the love.  Yes, Ann, I would still take a bullet for a stranger.  This doesn’t make me nobler or more spiritual than anyone else, it just means I got lucky and found out something that maybe a lot of people haven’t been lucky enough to trip over.  It’s no virtue to win the lottery, I can’t claim virtue for having stumbled onto the truth.

But I do promise you this:  I’m not going to sell what truths I can put into words. 

By Monday morning, January 26, 2009, the new CD, TRUTH, will be out, as well as all tracks off of it available through www.williamfdevault.com for those of you too cheap (or wrecked by the economy) to buy it.

The picture is by and of my friend and muse, Ukrainian artist and photographer Mariya Andriychuk, who contributed so much to the development of this CD, and I am eternally grateful.  The CD is dedicated to her for her influence and help.

Dropped my darling daughter, Peri, and her husband (future Academy Award winning actor/director Brian Harris, you heard it here first) at Dulles Airport at 6 this morning.  So tired I feel like I have been tied to the ground.

Good, that gets me going.

We (my ex and I) gave them airfare in to see the Inaugural, for Christmas.  They are tired but pleased to have tasted a part of history, to have been "in the moment" as it unfurled.

This weekend face me like a firing squad, although largely sanctioned by myself through my various commitments.  I have to finish working on Elric’s door (bought him a new bedroom door for Christmas), get the damn tracks out to the web from TRUTH, finish prep for my trip and get some work done a couple of other creative projects.

I plan to sleep the sleep of the dead tonight, to shake off the weariness, then attack it all at once tomorrow morning.  Anticipate either Armageddon or the full set of tracks from TRUTH to be available at the Listening Room at www.williamfdevault.com sometime tomorrow.

Stopping only for a soda run, to play with the hyperactive Great Pyrenees that shares my bedroom, and to fill out the interview question answers for WhoHub, I have made massive strides towards the finish line of the new CD (TRUTH).

Vampyr came out very nice, with a rich darkness that layers well on the romantic and erotic subtext.

Faith Healer is needing a slight tweak, but I walked away from it when I lost the forest for the trees, and am finishing up "…Fields of Arbol".

I also found a nugget that I had bumped from a previous CD to add to the mix.

Don’t be surprised if I open the doors for a few selected readers tomorrow on all tracks, as a preview…or maybe all of you, just for fun.

I am awaiting Mariya’s approval on the cover.  It is, after all, her face and body and photographic artistry.  It’s nice her skills and talents complement mine.

As you all well know, this is subject to random change. What can I say? I am mercurial, fickle and given to flights of ADD and….ooooh, shiny! Where was I? Ah, yes, the tracks.

(They’re Shooting Monks in) Burma: Protest piece about the violence in Myanmar.

TRUTH: You’ve heard it here. A slam against the geopolitical.

Panther on the Beach: The villanelle that seems to have a life of its own.

Zoloti Vorota: Literally "Golden Gate", a long form built around several poems inspired by the photography of my friend and muse, Mariya Andriychuk.

Vampyr: An erotic piece inspired by Liza Lorraine.

Laying in the Fields of Arbol: A long compilation of many works in the recent collection of works inspired by my beautiful and creative friends.

Faith Healer: The musical and poetic fusion that draws the venom from the wounds.

Yes, you are counting only 7 tracks, that may be all. I might add something more, but both Zoloti Vorota and Laying in the Fields of Arbol are long form, multi-poem compositions.

I have a half dozen tracks I am working on right now for my CD TRUTH, and think, maybe, I have stumbled and fallen into sunshine in my search for the showstopper number.

It is the recitation and musical adaptation of the poem "faith healer", which you can read over at the Amomancer blog by clocking on the title.

The poem has a complex history and weaves romanticism, eroticism and mysticism into a single piece, predicating the notion that intimacy can be a powerful healing force (which explains why I am, over the last few years, slowly falling apart. Ha!). It takes elements of my life and experience stretching back decades, and even contemporary (my history with women who are survivors of abuse plays into my sense of affection as an healing agent).

But, in any case, we shall see if it finishes as well as it seems to be. I need to do some added voice on it and my throat is still putting up a fight.

I am nearing completion of the TRUTH CD and have not yet found that one piece that blows me away, not in the same manner that "Right Set of Lips" or "Wordslinger" do. Knowing me it will come to me out of nowhere and I won’t know it until I’m run over by it.

Despite the fact that my voice is still a bit gravelly from the flu, I’m getting by. The raggedness of my voice just makes for an interesting attitude to my readings and recitations as I lay down the tracks.

Since I am planning to use one of Mariya’s images for the cover, I am going to submit several mock-ups to her and let her pick. That will be interesting, as I have not ceded control to another person in any aspect of my creative life since Aubergine. Time to start trusting people again.

Perhaps I shall do a work based around the theme of trust…the higher you fly the harder you fall but you’re still better off than those who didn’t fly at all…? Trite but if I get intimate to the topic…

I had a nice talk with Liza last night, she always leaves me more intrigued than when the conversation began. I like complicated women, always have, makes me feel like I am having to work hard for what I find. I like the sense of accomplishment. She asked me to tell her a secret. I did. Some real quid pro quo.

I said I would, or might, share the titular track from my next CD, TRUTH, with you here.

So, here it  is.

TRUTH

And yes, I am working of several possible cover designs for the CD, featuring the photography of Mariya Andriychuk, if I can just get her to keep some clothes on long enough…or not.  Maybe it is time I really put out some naked reads.