I'd been muse-less lo those many months once I closed up the rock shop, tore down the shingles and sent the bloodhounds packing.  Madame Muse made herself scarcer than a repentant banker.  I'd been calling her Ms. Muse, as in mademoiselle, which seems to have been the problem.

Fronting a rock band was loads of fun, and work, which made the fun more lavish, I suppose.  But the bleak future I painstakingly ignored caught up with and shut down my subconscious, with the resident muse handcuffed to the light fixtures.  That's my theory, anyway.  Am I getting too flowery here?  Walter will tell me.

There had been prophets shouting at me in the wilderness.  I once asked a local journalist if she'd mention my band in her column.  'What kind of music?'  Rock.  'How old are you?'  End of interview.  Rock musicians over, say, 21 are basically incredibly uncredible.  And she wasn't even a music writer.

Nor was there a shortage of plausible theories.  'Postpartum blues,' ventured Diane, who is very wise.  'I've heard some people get them when they release a book, an album - any kind of birthing,' she said.  My jaw dropped.  Could my recent undecaplets be the culprits?

This analysis brought to you by Listenerine, the wash that purges misconceptions from your tongue of tongues and brain of brains.  Art is above all genuine if it is to be.  My music is personal and honest, but I failed to factor in one essential detail.  The audience for bodacious rock bands is mostly inebriated youngsters who do not plan to spend Saturday night and their best friends with the likes of me, no matter the caliber of my music.  Young people are, well, young that way.

I just thought good music was good music.  Still do, but dillusion'll get you nowhere.

Back to Madame Muse and her disappearing act.  Ever since I've proudly claimed my own and Madam Muse's Madamness, we've been getting along just fine.  She wasn't exactly sulking (hard to do, shackled to the chandelier) but she had nothing to say to me until I came up with a better plan.  Which is presently emerging in the form of this web site and some other tantalizing tacticals.  The main thing is, she's B-A-C-K and I'm flying around happily crazily enthused about making things.  New things.  Never been born things.  Inventions.

It seems like a good idea to document escape from the deep dark underworld because once Madame M is blazing her chariot around the cabbage patch, she'll probably have other work for me in mind.

The necessary work... of art!

Next up: you.  Please reply, respond, extrapolate, whatever.  I like your candor.

Public domain painting Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix Liberty Leading the People