Rod McKuen - Flight Plan


10th & 11th February, 2005		Rod in “The Best is Yet to Come” 11/6/04 Photo by Shira Greenburg ©2004 by Broadway.com. Used by Permission A Thought for Today Friendship isn’t a given it is a life-long commitment. A FLIGHT FROM6THE PAST 19 AUGUST 2003 ALOHA FROM MAUI Maui Sunset / Summer 2004 / Photo by Rod I wish I could tell you it’s just another day in Paradise but alas it’s another WORKING day in paradise. Mind you this is a helluva place to be at work and I’m having a wonderful time. Each day here opens up as beautiful as the last, warm, inviting, magical. This is my first time on the island of Maui and it definitely won’t be my last. Last week that big full moon and Mars were so close I’m sure they were making love. We had a feast of feathery falling stars three nights running. One of the more adventurous members of our cast, John Scoggins, hiked up to a volcano rim, built a bonfire and spent the night watching the meteors melt to earth. We are told the night was graced with a multitude of naked prancing and dancing. The Gods were no doubt pleased but alas Sascha Alexander the company’s resident documentarian went missing that night. SOULMATES The cast for SOULMATES is first rate and with the exception of Mary Jo Catlett (Sister Mary Theresa), James Milanase (Joe) and myself they are all from right here in the Hawaiian islands. What a joyful noise they make as soloists and in their ensemble work. The voices and cast are of every age and color and I’ve made new friends and friendships. Mary Jo plays the Nun we all wish we knew and she sings an hilarious self written number entitled “Nun of the Above.” It’s all about a bad lady gone good. James plays a rock and roll pop star trying to reconcile fame and faith. His transformation is a wonder to watch. Patricia Watson wrote the script and score and plays Joe’s counterpart Jessica. Patricia has been working on SOULMATES for over a dozen years and is still writing new songs and fine tuning others. As Father Jim I have three songs, a lot of ensemble work and a doxology. On Sunday I finished writing a new song, “September Comes Around,” that has been added to the score. I sing it near the end of the first act. Patricia and I wrote another number together that we duet on, “A Prayer for Peace.” And wait until you see me in my priestly robes. Ben, Rod & Tom in Maui. August 2003 TIME AND TIDE AND TOM Rehearsals under David Galligan’s direction are moving at a steady pace but it is still hard to believe we are two nights away from a full dress and a mere three from the first paid performance. For those of you planning to attend any or all of the shows this coming weekend I can promise you won’t be disappointed. My buddy Tom Truhe has spent the first week of my stay here as companion, driver and all around sounding board. Tom’s the best and one of the most totally giving friends I have. In the past eight days he has read three biographies, the local and international papers on a daily basis and is growing a bit stir crazy so is off to Honolulu for a few days in search of action, adventure or whatever, before returning for the weekend shows. Ben Macmillan arrives from the mainland today to spell him for week two. Ben is a writer, musician and an associate of Chuck Ashman who is now guiding my career. No doubt we’ll write a song or two together if time provides an opportunity, but the rehearsal schedule is getting hot and heavy now that opening night looms. Twelve hour days are not unusual and I have a ton of lines and lyrics to learn. I’m tanned but not tired. I go swimming every day but with no TV and only a few phone calls I feel out of the swim of normal life. This arrangement suits me fine. The first day I arrived I slept for seventeen hours. Maui onions and pineapples are part of every meal, the people are beautiful and gracious and a cat named Miss Kitty has adopted me so I get my daily feline fix. A lithe and lovely yellow gecko keeps me company until I turn off the lights at night and fall asleep with an episode or two from the 7th season of The X Files (courtesy of DVD.) Is this living or what? RM 8/18/2003 7:45PM Hawaii PST Happy Birthday Tom and many more to come. I’ll be back on the weekend with some ‘stuff.’ Sleep warm. RM 2/10/2005 12:34AM PST Click on the Stanyan House logo to buy Rod McKuen books, CD's and lots more Click on the heart logo to subscribe to the Rod McKuen mailing list Catch Rod McKuen live! Click on the links below for details of concerts and appearances. ROD McKUEN CONCERTS ROD McKUEN APPEARANCES



		Thursday 10 February Larry Adler o Peter Allen o Dame Judith Anderson o Bertolt Brecht o Cliff Burton o Lon Chaney, Jr. o Laura Dern o Jimmy Durante o Roberta Flack o Alan Hale, Sr. o Barbara Kolb o Charles Lamb o Harold Macmillan o Greg Norman o Boris Pasternak o Leontyne Price o Melinda Smith o Mark Spitz o George Stephanopoulos o Bill Tilden o Robert Wagner Friday 11 February Philip Anglim o Jennifer Aniston o Max Baer, Sr. o Brandy o Sheryl Crow o Thomas Alva Edison o King Farouk I of Egypt o Rudolph Firkusny o Bernard Fontenelle o Roy Fuller o Eva Gabor o Vicki Hoepf o Conrad Janis o Matt Lawrence o Tina Louise o Joseph Mankiewicz o Sergio Mendes o Larry Merchant o Kasimar Milevich o Leslie Nielsen o Bobby “Boris” Pickett o Mary Quant o Burt Reynolds o Kelly Rowland o Sidney Sheldon o Kim Stanley o Tom Truhe o Gene Vincent o Josh White

		Alas the fire wanes and waxes, not even smoke is everlasting. Women young or old need liberation from men’s conception of them. Each encounter that becomes a friendship turns into a lifeline. One can never have too many, only too many to take care of.

THE ATHLETES IN THE OLD SCHOOL ANNUAL		I. I sent you love in long misspelled letters remember and you never wrote back and that spring was hard because everybody else seemed to have somebody. And now and again people would tell me about you sometimes I would see you in the street or looking from a window or passing by in crowds. The hundred you's that populate this lonesome city. And I'd call after you your name catching in my throat. And there were others that year some taller some with yellow hair some whose memory still echoes down the corridor outside my room when I try to sleep. But it seldom worked. They were always too intense or too playful or too rehearsed or too anything. And there was always the war of remembering you. Or forgetting you while in some one elses arms. I do not remember you now. Not your eyes or what you said as you stood in the summer doorway and waved me out of your life. I go on forgetting you your hands your quick little mouth just as I've forgotten Hampton Skies the athletes in the old school annual and the songs we sang that summer. I don't remember you when the sun swings low and there is no one here to spend the night with me remembering is for people whose images have grown dim. You are not remembered. You are real. Though years have put you from me you are real. II. I was wrong to invade your little world of museums and kites and pigeons flying. I have deceived you. Not by meeting other stranger's eyes or knowing arms that were not yours but by pretending to be young at heart and invading your stuffed animal world. I should have stood aside when your kite came sailing down but I had to run and help. III. Leaves fall down now, brown and beautiful brittle to the touch. Lying on the ground or filling public fountains or swirling down the street. One year older and still I look. The park, by the river, on the street at every face, in every eye passing by in trains I see it in the subways and on the hills the same face sometimes walking a little bit ahead of me. And still I look growing older all the time opening my eyes in strange hotels last night's memory clouded mixed with all the other memories. Following neon after nine o'clock watching people, like a cat sometimes. I'm running out of tomorrows and arms to run to strange or familiar. It is as though my world now is made of yesterday's Sunday afternoons. old skies, snow on red brick pavements, and passers by remembered. The athletes in the old school annual. But, maybe tomorrow. - from the prose-poem & album "In Search of Eros, " 1961 / Revised 2001

Webmaster: Ken Blackie o Birthday research by Wade Alexander, coordinated by Melinda Smith
Poetry from the collection of Jay Hagan o Sound & Fury: Dr. Eric Yeager o Editor at Large: Bruce Bellingham

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