Friday, November 30, 2007

A prophet is not without honor

I have to be a good boy here, in this blog, for the next few weeks, as I am going to be including schools in my California swing and I don't need some student, teacher or parent misinterpreting anything I have written or said (or, for that matter, correctly interpreting some of the things I have said or written) and getting all up in arms about it.

I have some regrets shaping up from this tour, some key people I would have loved to sat down to lunch with at least once while in Los Angeles, San Diego, Salinas and San Francisco (the boy knows how to pack a week). But, all in all, a man who has lived a major portion of the last decade and a half of his life in some form or other of exile knows the cost of pariahship (if not previously a word, I make it so...such is the power of a poet).

It will be good to get back with people who respect the poetry and the poet. Three years in West Virginia and I was unable to get a single second in a classroom, despite honors from such groups as the Appalachian Education Initiative and ArtsMon. I leak that I am going to California for a week and my schedule books up fast. A prophet is not without honor...

And trust me, this will be my prophecy tour, my voice in the desert time. Time, not to die, but to embrace that which is best in my legacy and life.

There will be trials and temptations, joy and sorrow, satisfaction and rage, all packed into barely a week...but that is what is good int his life, not to be lost in the grey, tasteless fog that is mediocrity and the somnambulism of entropy.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

checking in

Sorry for the absence, I have just been busy over the holidays: Scheduling my readings during my California trip, writing, falling in love, editing, recording, the usual.

What? You want more details...

on what?

Heh heh.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

content within my illusions

Content within my illusions. The line has been rattling around my brain for the last little bit, announcing itself like an overloud party guest.

There is a school of thought, one I visit when the need and whim takes me, that says just about everything is illusion, built on perception and perspective, not reality.

How do I know that you, dear reader, actually exist? It is possible I receive many times more or many times less readers than my statistics say. It is possible that you are not whom I assume you to be, even when I am dealing with the specific.

It's been done before, to me and others. The Internet is rife and ripe with people wanting to come from a different reality than they really do. They change their face, their name, their age, even their gender, as they want to be something else, at least within the purpose of the moment. They lie about their motives.

I have always considered this ineffably sad.

But whenever I encounter deceit, am I bound to rip it apart and find the truth or should I be content within my illusions, even if I know somewhere that this person is not who he or she says they are, this situation may not hold up to scrutiny?

It is, on the surface, a simple choice. But, as the nature of reality itself may be subjective...do I get to choose what is real enough for my purposes?

Perhaps. Perhaps.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

A tranquil and purposeful day to all. May you acknowledge your blessings, as well as your ability to live up more to the principals and purposes you consider important. Embrace your loved ones today (some of us are unable to do so, completely) and give thanks.

Love, joy and peace to all.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Reverbnation

I have joined up with Reverbnation, which is an online space dedicated to the distribution and promotion of recording musicians, bands, etc.

Nice site...you don't have to join to drop by and listen to the handful of tracks I am parking there (it is free, though) but drop by sometime and spend a few moments meditating on the words and music.

http://www.reverbnation.com/williamfdevaultandthegodsoflove.

I have started out with my tracks "Taste", "Centaur" and "Darfur (Jesus Wept)".

All you need is love, you know...but a little poetry and music doesn't hurt the process.

Californicating with the law

I see where the Red Hot Chili Peppers are suing Showtime over the title of their series, "Californication", claiming they pretty much own that clever bit of wordplay.

Uh, guys, all due respect, but Memorial Junior High School in Minot, North Dakota, would like a few million dollars...as I recall them using that bit in an article in 1967 in their school newspaper, and copyright being what it is; fork it over, boys. (and it wasn't a new idea then, either)

C'mon people, get with the sanity. This is as stupid as Harlan Ellison extorting a screen credit on "The Terminator" because he invented time travel, or at least he seems to think so and Jim Cameron and the studio didn't have the cajones to laugh it off.

Duchovy and company, don't give an inch.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Naked, Again. with a twist.

The recordings are finished, the engineering complete. I have but a few details to complete on the case design (nasty little control freak that I am) and I will be done with it: The new CD.

Originally called "Naked, Again" it has had a slight change in title, owing to a last minute decision:

NAKED, AGAIN:
The Goldenheart Cycles

That's right, boys and girls. This CD of "pure" reading is nothing more, nothing less and nothing else than my doing a very intense and heartfelt reading of the entirety of The Goldenheart Cycles. All of them. All 49 works. Including "Impalement", "Bare Feet on a Wooden Floor" and "Edward Bears His Soul".

I'lll have ordering information out later this week. Wow. What a weekend.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

I was talking about one of my sons with my ex the other day, and she expressed some frustration at him "not getting it" sometime when she was telling him something he needed to do or not do.

She compared it to how I sometimes get, acting like I am not listening or comprehending when she is telling me something she perceives as pretty straight forward. Then she said the words that dropped the linchpin into the assembly: "I know you're both smarter than that".

Click.

I actually was a little excited to realize she was right. My problem was not in perception of a given lightsource, but in too broad of a spectrum to evaluate. My Mother is fond of saying to me "I'm glad I am not as smart as you" (a put down for when I say something she considers trivial, irrelevant or over-thought). But it occurs to me that there is a downside to a ridiculously large and nimble brain-pan.

Too much perception.

A person says to me "You hurt my feelings" and I do not respond immediately, not because I cannot accept the notion that I have done or said something hurtful, but because I can think of so many things I have done and am trying to narrow it down to the one the person is most likely speaking of. My son, Elric, is the same way...he overloads on options and seems indecisive, which is a good label for it, but in a different way and from a different purpose than most would take.

Elric and I had a good conversation about it, at length, later. I told him that perceiving too many possibilities, while it makes you a great creative thinker, can put you outside of the mainstream of communication. People think you are not listening or responding to their words and action, when actually you are just seeking cues and clues to narrow your search to the specific issue being addressed.

Imagine someone comes up to me (or you) today and asks "Do you know what today is?"...the number of possible responses...including, but not limited to:

"Yes"
"Monday"
"November 19, 2007"
"The first day of the rest of my life"
"Three days before Thanksgiving"
"The anniversary of Brigit and my first kiss" (really, as well as at least five other anniversaries of personal relationships I will not reveal here)
I know of two friends are former friends whose birthdays are this week, as well, so maybe it is in reference to that.
"35 shopping days until Christmas"
"My favourite night of television" (About half my weekly allocation of TV time is take up by "Chuck" and "Heroes")
"The day the draft Business Development Plan is due for review"
"The 323rd day of the year (don't ask why I know this)"
The birthday of three of my favourite actresses (I read almanacs when I am bored), Jodie Foster, Meg Ryan and Allison Janney.

And that's without agenda and baggage that I might have with you, personally. So, you see, it is more of getting overloaded with possibilities for response, rather than having none.

I can't tell you how many times in my life a friend or lover has accused me of being insensitive because I didn't discern what their hinted-at issue was. It is frustrating, painful and unproductive.

So please, please, if you are going to confront me on an issue (or my son, for that matter) take nothing for granted and spell out your issue. You'll get a better answer and we'll all be happier.

A free copy of one of my books to the first commentor who explains the title of this entry (and, no, not the REM song, which was adapted from the original source).

Sunday, November 18, 2007

planning the trip

I am currently evaluating venues to visit whilst back in LA...HOB is always a good place to drop by, even if there's not a name act that night. So they'll be my fallback position.

A review of current venue lists/calendars shows acts I love from Squirrel Nut Zippers to Velvet Revolver...but I will keep an open mind, perhaps Billy Vera is playing a gig that week in the area...it isn't Los Angeles without Billy.

It will feel eerie without key friends around...many have moved away (you hear me, Larry?) and others have dropped off the radar (Dave? Dave? Dave?). Most of my old girlfriends are now married or vanished into the shadows. Sad.

There is a lot of speculation as to exactly what my real motives are for the visit, aside from seeing my daughter. Let's just say there is a multiplicity of motives, including the desire to "recover the scent".

I put my life aside many, many years ago, to take care of a friend who was in trouble, and that consumed my career, my fortune and my life for some time. Perhaps this is my Roy Hobbs visitation, looking to see if my lost years can be recaptured.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Friday afternoon

Getting revved up for the weekend...much to get accomplished.

A good lunch (I was able to convince the nice lady at the Safeway deli to fix me a large portion of chicken livers, which I consumed with a bottle of Perrier...okay, the nutrition isn't perfect, but my body was craving it) and some quiet time seems to be doing me a universe of good.

Sales have been lackluster the last month or two on my books and CDs...probably my lack of touring, promotion, advertising and no recent book to serve as lightning rod.

Sigh. I hate pimping my works. I'm a writer. I write. Let those vainglorious middle-men who always seem to be getting more than their proper share do the buckchasing.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

in perspective

The sheer magnitude of my commitments, professionally, creatively and socially, over the next three weeks or so, is staggering.

And I am amped up.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

the winds of an old rage

(singing) All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.

Now you know that's a lie, I tend to pack the night before or mere hours before a trip, but the concept is sound.

I have made my plane and rental car reservations for my vacation trip back home to Lala Land.

It's starting to feel real. Amazingly so. I leave on the morning of the 8th and touch down around noon, PST. I will get to hang a bit with the daughter and her spousal unit, then make my proper meditations to the sand dragons before turning north for a drive through the almond groves of the high desert on my way to Paso Robles and Salinas (the former is the site of James Dean's car crash, the other the home town of John Steinbeck). I may squeeze in San Jose or Frisco, depending on who is around.

I will touch the sea as the sun slips beneath it. I will listen to the wind in the brush of the high desert. I will feel the hot dry winds of the Morongo Valley. I will taste heaven. I will eat at Roscoe's.

In unrelated news items: My nephew, Robert Dennis DeVault II, occasionally referred to as R2-D2 by myself, was married this morning. I have no other details and am a little wounded by the lack of advance warning, but I'll survive.

And Nightblooming's dog had puppies yesterday: I know, big whoop to you, but she loves that tiny monster.

off to the side for the moment

Song stuck in my head:

"Just a Song Before I Go" by Crosby, Stills & Nash

I understand this song and am familiar with and appreciative of the history of its composition by Graham Nash: Composed in 15 minutes on a dare from the driver who was taking him to the airport to go on tour.

Sweet, sad and very, very resonant.

Monday, November 12, 2007

12

A few years back I announced a book project, one that has never seen the light of day. It was called "12" and I teased my regular readers with sweet nothings about the meaning behind the title and the content of the book.

The truth: The title was a binding metaphor, linking the Twelve Labours of Hercules to twelve major emotional and spiritual upheavals in my own life; from the death of a friend to my divorces, my estrangement from my daughter, and my own occasional follies resulting, more often than not, from trusting someone or something at face value while seeking validation for this role I took on (or was born into) as a poet, as the Amomancer.

I had not revealed that at the time, and hope my readers from back then will accept this tidbit in the spirit in which it is offered: As an indication that the project is not dead (nosferatu).

Now we get into layers of metaphor and allegory. Time will reveal much, as shall I.

You think that is something? Wait until you hear the story behind the novel I ghost wrote. But that is for another day.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

precognizant itinerary

In a perfect world, when I go on vacation next month, it would be to several cities and countries (you know who you are), but reality is a harsh mistress (and I prefer my mistresses soft and yielding).

As it is, my likely itinerary is to travel to Los Angeles on the 7th of December, spend time on Friday and Saturday and perhaps even Sunday with my daughter, Peri, and her husband, Brian. Then, probably Sunday or Monday, make a pilgrimage to the high desert to wander in the wilderness and reconnect.

From there I will possibly travel to the Salinas area. Or not. There is frail purpose luring me there and the cost-benefits analysis hinges on my telling some people I'd be there. So, as a matter of honor, I must go...but it will probably be a brief stop over, at most.

Then later in the week I will return to LA to visit some of my old haunts and see if I can get together with old friends, the returning to the East Coast probably on the 15th or 16th. Perhaps see my daughter again. We are not as close as we once were and I can;t seem to find the right actions or words to repair the damage.

But at least she isn't denying she ever heard of me.

Could things happen to screw all that up? Oh yeah. Man plans, God laughs and I adapt.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

musical medicine bag

Okay, I am a junkie.

Musically.

I keep a long list of songs in my iTunes, and when I need to manipulate my moods, I select that which is necessary ("It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary," asks Colonel Kurtz...) and use it to pull myself, sometimes violently, into the mental state I want to be in. Thank God my eyes are going before my hearing.

This morning I slipped on the headphone and brought up iTunes...scanning for what I needed, what I wanted. And there, down a ways in the list, was the right drug, the right alchemy for my mind's veins" "A Mighty Love" by The Spinners.

Within minutes it was like I had been given ECT (something I was once offered under circumstances too bizarre to adequately explain. Again, thank you, Larry) and was jolted out of a valley. That song, I am certain, effects normal people the same way, so uplifting, visionary and powerful.

Forgive me if there are typos this morning...the cat has taken this occasion to decide to demand attention by walking back and forth across the keyboard.

Anyway, I love The Spinners (I have even forgiven them for "Rubber Band Man") and find that there are three or four of their songs in my musical medicine bag. Thanks guys.

Now, back to work.

Friday, November 09, 2007

the one work, an answer

I'm going to answer a question I have gently side-stepped in many interviews over the years, taking the polite and diplomatic route, treating my works like the children they are to me, showing no favouritism.

I am often asked what is my best, most memorable, more important work.

That's a tough question for a poet with my catalog to respond to, as I can give reasons for a hundred to be considered each, in their own season and reason, the one most important work. But I decided to ask myself the question. What poem has had the most impact on your life?

That's an easy question to answer. It is an older work, often obscured by the popularity to its generational sibling "Monument", "I should have been immortal" and "The Unicorns".

It is "My Electric Lady". As with most births, there was nothing outwardly auspicious about it. I hammered it out on Psyche's typewriter in her study on South High Street in Morgantown, West Virginia, when I was 18 and did not yet understand where the spirit, the muse, the creative force came from.

It flowed in one draft, no editing, no clever assimilation of random nodes into a single entity. The "Electric Lady" of the title was Psyche, my first real love and perhaps the one that will haunt me all my days. The source of the image: She had a shirt, deep blue, with the tracing of a light blue Japanese lady with a parasol on the front. We had nicknamed the shirt the "Electric Lady" shirt, as it looked like the woman was glowing with neon-blue energies.

One evening, as Psyche (her real name was and is Nancy, but it is simpler to keep the totem-muse consistent) was studying, I sat down at the typewriter, as I would often do, and tapped out a poem.

At the time I could not tell you where it came from. It seemed to tell a story, but a story I did not think I was writing. It was perhaps the first work I can recall that came without conscious action on my part, from the preconscious.

When I was through, she and I read it and she became very upset. It foretold a parting of the ways, where I would have to choose between her and my place as a poet. It seemed ludicrous and terrible to comprehend.

Four years later she told me I would have to give up poetry to keep her. And the poem was fulfilled. Whether she was consciously or preconsciously fulfilling the prophecy, or whether my preconscious knew, just knew, that someday the choice would be given to me, I knew the choice was not a choice at all.

And a few weeks later, as I visited her at central Missouri State University, where she had already met the man who would eventually take my place in her life, a man of undivided loyalties, the final lines came to pass.

My Electric Lady

dance for me, my electric lady.
sing a song that gently soothes my soul.
tomorrow I must leave your world again, my love...
as I strive to reach this endless journey's goal.

I once gave up my poor and mortal birthright,
so that I might touch the sky and see true things.
my love, I'm not so sure I would have started,
if I could have seen the pain this voyage brings.

once again, my electric lady,
touch me and bring forth my too-rare smile.
for the moment I am just another mortal-
and a little love will last me quite a while.

if we had only met before the present,
and what is gone had made me what I am,
a love would be that all who live might envy-
but I cannot come back this way again.

for the final time, my electric lady...
give me all that I may take within my vow.
tomorrow is my child and a gift to the stars-
and the night is just my brother here and now.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

This work, both in the manner of its writing, and the breaking apart of my person to be what I believe I was supposed to be, by nature or nurture, truly was the most important work.

Without the tapping into the preconscious, 95-99% of my later works would have never come to pass.

Without the pain of that parting, which still is like a knife in my soul, I would have never grown out and beyond my shell of experience and there would have never been a Valkyrie, a Leopard, a Panther, Brigit, a Southern Siren, a Mad Gypsy, Nightblooming, The Wisp, Arachne, a Goldenheart (who was, in part, an echo for a return to the moments before that poem entered the world).

I would have been, perhaps, happy and loving and loved. But I would not be who I am today. I would have never fathered the three wonderful children I now know. I would've never found my home in Venice, or friends of the brilliance and joy I have had.

Perhaps I would have been a greater writer, or perhaps at least a better person, but I know of no one with a richer legacy of poetry and I am content that I have thrown myself on my fair share of spiritual hand grenades long the path, trying to help others (perhaps even out a sense of unworthiness I am trying to transcend, rooted in my loss of Psyche).

In any case, there's my answer. There's the poem. Next question?

over-extended, part XXXVIII

I realize I am behind the curve on a zillion small (and some not-so-small) projects, not so much out of sloth as over-commitment.

So, I sat down this morning and made a list of what I need to accomplish over this weekend. It actually got a little depressing, but in a humourous manner.

Let's see what I can do on a list that includes:

Final edits Psalms of the Monster River Cult

Final engineering and packaging and release Naked Again

Finish putting together that box of DVDs for my nephew, Josh, who is serving in Iraq.

Yardwork. Lotsa yardwork.

Four chapters on any of my novels, ideally The Prince of Love or Mather's Milk. If Prince of Love, update the screenplay.

Block out 2-4 hours to just free-associate write...I have been shortchanging the creative side.

Advance the plans for my California vacation in December.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

even as Henry relented

One of my favourite actors of all time, if not my absolute favourite, is Peter O'Toole. From "Lawrence of Arabia" to "The Stunt Man" to "The Lion in Winter" he has always managed to impress me with his presence.

I had a Henry Planagenet moment a bit ago, I called it that because it reminded me of the scene in "The Lion in Winter" where he disowns his sons for all their conniving and plotting (O'Toole played it so brilliantly in the movie).

I was reading my poem "Latticework":

a soft and blushing surrender,
given in kind and loving thought.
sweet as the smell of a rose's first bloom
taken to the heighths of the latticework
of your heart. warm and exotic, crying out
for a kiss and a brave hand to accept
her lost control and hold her
safely to him as she gives over her love
in an opening of the fragrant petals
of her passionate charms.

...and it suddenly hit me how many times I have been so disappointed in love. Has there ever been a woman who lived up to what my friend, the poet Larry Jaffe, calls my "level of love"? I don't know. Certainly I have not always been the best apostle of the faith, and perhaps my desire to find someone who loves as a poet loves is hypocrisy of a hot degree.

Perhaps.

But I found myself seething with anger (not hatred, that is a bastard emotion) at all of those who spoke the words but never lived them, who wanted the immortality, the passion, even the money (when I still had it) but never the man. The poetry but not the poet.

You would not want to read what I wrote in that moment, in its own way as toxic as anything fo the missing cycle of the panther, the 8th. But it felt good to clean it out of me, to acknowledge my disappointment and my hurt and rage.

Then to forgive and move on, even as Henry relented. Of course, history tells us that, in the end, Henry was finally betrayed and torn down by those he forgave.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

fragment

Is there nothing real amidst canyons of glass...

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

weighing in on waterboarding

What do we gain if we win battles and wars and yet lose our virtue, or moral compass and the very values we claim to represent?

I have been hearing a lot of bilge from writers and politicans in the past few weeks about waterboarding, the form of torture where you place a subject (euphemism for a living, braething man or woman) in a position to experience the wonderful joy of the sensation of suffocating to death by drowning.

I have heard from those who believe it to be a fair and righteous way to interrogate prisoners.

I agree we live in a  difficult and complicated world where there are those who seek harm to us, but to give up our identity as humane, compassionate and spiritual people in order to preserve the expediency of this life?  You could, by the same logic, defend armed robbery as a means of making a living or rape as a means of passing on your genes.

When the ends justify the means the virtue is lost.  War is not a virtue.  Killing is not a virtue.  Expedience is not a virtue.  I will not get into a debate on specific cases, though.  

Evil in the name of good may play well on television and in films, but if all you want is a good dramatic story and not the preservation of the Constitution or moral limits expressly outlined in most world religions, including Christianity, I feel sorry for you, and sorry for those who may be swayed.

The first century Christians did not engage their opressors in battle.  They had not yet been tainted by the politics of expediency, the perversion of the faith in the name of principles we forfeit if we engage in conduct at odds with them.  As I have said before, God is not an American.

Waterboarding is torture.  Don't lie to make it worse.  The hypocrisy of our leaders on this topic is odious and insulting.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

The City gets a facelift

With the aid of the gifted Igor Jovic I have updated the front page of the City of Legends.

Now for the substantive renovations.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

as the curtain parts

The recent antics of an acquaintance brought to mind one of my favourite passages from The Bible, as stated by the Apostle Paul in his 1st letter to the Corinthians:

"When I was a child, 
I spake as a child, 
I understood as a child, 
I thought as a child: 
but when I became a man, 
I put away childish things."

Of course, I reserve the right to take these childish things out to play with from time to time.  I just don't forget that I am a man, most of the time.

The rap on me when I was young was that I was too serious.  But to those I pulled out of harm's way, intervening (sometimes unwelcome) to the rescue, most have come around to respecting the role I have played.  For everyone who takes umbrage at a thought or a word or a deed I have committed or failed to enact, I can just say I have tried hard and there are people alive today to credit me with their lives, their safety, their sanity.

Have I failed, more oft than I would like to have?  Of course.  But I am only mortal, and despite my doctor's words that it will take kryptonite to kill me, I am far from infallible or indestructible.

But.  I am content I have done, on the whole, great and purposeful things.

Now, for Act III to begin.  The lights dim and the curtains part.

November 1, 1973

One of the most vivid days in my life is anniversaried today. Ironic, after a fashion, that I should be, for only the third time in my life, not celebrating it appropriately.

But in my heart, I remember it all with stained-glass clarity and a charity to those for whom indifference and even hatred is possible when love falters, for in the altar of my soul, it lingers, forever.

For I believe. And grieve. And never leave a place without regrets.

And those who would believe less of me only do so because they cannot perceive the light as bright as they have spawned, and that is sad to me. So sad.

The dream of the three panthers was fulfilled. The Nosteratu's dream remains. The riddle of the three ribbons in the desert persists. And I am well, as well as any man adrift on a limitless sea with no horizon but hope. Hope as broad as the heavens at night on a sea of perfect calm and promise.

Copyright © William F. DeVault | All Rights Reserved