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SOMETHING FOR
SATURDAY Click
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A Thought for Today
If you kill a friendship by thought or
deed resolve not to die with your weapon in your hand.
Autumn’s reach extends into
the garden, but selectively – Hosta tips are browning and early tomato
plants have lost the good fight and surrendered to the early frost. Spider
snares stretch everywhere; the final silken traps laid out to grab a few
more tasty snacks to fill the winter larder. Our Lady of the Legs, having
covered all the bases with her web weaving, doesn’t even lurk to see what
hapless bug or bee she’s netted. Busy business enough checking out the
snares ala Dr. Pepper at two and ten and four.
If the lengthy arms of fall have reached out to me I haven’t noticed.
These are busy times and much goes on while I’m at work. Even half a day
off last Sunday to check out the fruit and veggies at the street market
skewed and screwed my schedule. All that walking's good for the appetite
particularly when the luxe awaiting is Eggs Benedict and heaps of
hash-browns. But starting the week off late is still a bad beginning.
Monday was a headache figuratively and for real. The persistent throb I’ve
had in my cranium hasn’t gotten any better but trouping off to the doctor
is comfort my clock cannot accommodate. It probably wasn’t such a bright
idea to push my quarterly physical ahead a week but it gave me a long,
nearly uninterrupted day at the laptop while test pressings played in the
background. The Christmas discs have finally gone to bed and now what
remains is proofing jackets and booklets.
On to the preparation of New Ballads and The Beautiful Strangers for their
digital bath and beautification. After 5 years at RCA these albums marked
my transition to Warner Bros. and became my second and third platinum
records for the label. I’m going back to the multi-tracks for mastering.
The sound is excellent.
The combined albums contain 27 songs and I’d like to add 2 additional
tracks that were recorded for the albums but not included on the original
LP’s. Alas that would push the total time to nearly 80 minutes and even a
78-minute disc pushes the limit of what a commercial CD’s can
realistically hold so it probably won’t work.
It’s Saturday morning (just
before 3:AM). I spent Friday afternoon at the first rehearsal for the
Jerry Herman “Tap Your Troubles Away” show next month. I had planned to
come home last night and finish this diary for today’s Flight Plan but one
thing led to another and when I got back I started the never ending but
badly needed job of cleaning up my room . . .and, I’ve run out of time. So
this ends up being a very little something for Saturday.
Sleep warm and join me tomorrow for Sunday’s ‘Some of the Best’
RM 10/13/2001 Previously
unpublished.
Details of Rod's next
appearance can be obtained by following the link below.
"Tap
Your Troubles Away" - the music of Jerry Herman
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Karen Akers o
Lenny Bruce o
Chris Carter o
Lacy J. Dalton o
Loraine Day o
Art Garfunkel o
Frank Gilroy o
Cliff Gorman o
Sammy Hagar o
Herblock o
Nancy Kerrigan o
Lily Langtry o
Yves Montand o
Nana Mouskouri o
Marie Osmond o
Molly Pitcher o
Kelly Preston o
Jerry Rice o
Irene Rich o
Nipsey Russell o
Paul Simon o
Art Tatum o
Margaret Thatcher o
Pamela Tiffin o
Burt Tillstrom o
Robert Walker o
Cornel Wilde o
Demond Wilson And a very special
Happy Birthday to Anita Kerr. |
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Sorrow is proof of life.
Don’t compete. You’re lesser than no man and
none are better. All creatures, beings, people are unalike. How can you
compete, win or lose a race, with someone other than yourself? Being you
is hard enough, but someone other? Never.
To widen your life without deepening it is
to weaken it.
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SACRAMENT |
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I like my body
lying next to yours.
My leg against your leg and over it
the muscle quivering to touch
the luxury of thighs that open onto thighs.
I like our sighs together and I like
my body lying next to yours at night
and every morning.
I wear you
coming next to you
as I would a clean cotton shirt
soft to the touch you are and tingling.
And everything you touch
is but a punctuation to yourself.
I love the loss of vagrancy inside your arms
your fingers swarming on my back
like bees attacking single flower.
The light from out your eyelids coming.
The puzzled humming in my ear
as you nod yes not having heard
the question that I asked.
Your hair unmasked for what it is -
a tangled web of craziness
is like a whim not taken up.
So too your mouth is glowing, fair,
runs hot and cold and in no pattern.
I like our elbows, noses, knees
interrupting rhythms that should be truer.
Your breasts are skillful, genius each,
priceless in a bed world
whose currency is chance.
I love the ample of you
and the lean
the part of you expecting flesh
and rising up to meet it.
The symmetry of you is what I love
odd angles too
those energy-propelling sighs
and little cries from you.
The ivory underside of you
the tanned and glowing legs and arms.
I love the wind of you
as much as the unwinding.
The kindness of your inner ear
is more than I can bear to speak about.
All honey to the heart,
all pasture to the eyes
the size of you is one great breath
taken in, held, not expelled, not ever.
Ingenious are your ankles, calves, hips
Stepping-stones to that great wonder
on ahead.
What I love most in all the world
is my own body next to yours.
It is a vanity, a wonderful conceit.
-from “Suspension Bridge,” 1984 |
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