14th
& 15th August, 2008
New concerts announced!
Click HERE for details.
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Photo by Jay Hagan,
7/12/08 Burbank, CA
A Thought for Today
Hardware in a life is unavoidable, but
it’s the software that makes a life worth living.

TIME OUT
Back in the studio for a couple more days and the sessions are really
going well. I’ll be back over the weekend with a new edition of Ask Rod.
Meanwhile here are today’s birthdays, a few maxims and my Mid-August
poem from Watch For the Wind.
RM 8/14/2008
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Catch Rod McKuen live!
Click on the links below for details of
concerts and appearances.
ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS
ROD
McKUEN APPEARANCES
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Thursday, 14 August
Russell Baker o
Halle Berry o
Bricktop o
Kevin Cadogan o
Lynne Cheney o
David Crosby o
Steve Dietz o
Tom Eyen o
John Galsworthy o
Alice Ghostley o
Buddy Greco o
Dana Ivey o
Earvin "Magic" Johnson o
Richard von Krafft-Ebing o
Arthur Laffer o
Gary Larson o
Steve Martin o
Nehemiah Persoff o
Georges Pretre o
Frederic Raphael o
Susan Saint James o
Jorga Sheldon o
Connie Smith o
Danielle Steele o
Claude Vernet o
Lina Wertmuller o
Wim Wenders o
Cobina Wright, Jr.
Friday,
15 August
Ben Afleck o
Bill Baird o
Ethel Barrymore o
Thomas Hart Benton o
Robert Bolt o
Napoleon Bonaparte o
Lillian Carter o
Julia Child o
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor o
Mike Connors o
Abby Dalton o
Linda Ellerbee o
Edna Ferber o
Lucas Foss o
Huntz Hall o
Signe Hasso o
Wendy Hiller o
Lawrence of Arabia o
Oscar Peterson o
Princess Anne of England o
Rose Marie o
Janice Rule o
Denise Scali o
Sir Walter Scott o
J.J. Shubert o
Sylvie Vartan o
Jimmy Webb o
Hugo Winterhalter |
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What is normal without abnormal as a go by? 
Love is better being done than talked about.

The ability to forgive saves wear and tear
on the memory.

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MID AUGUST |
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August has been
halved.
The warm part done
the cooling just now starting.
If Indian Summer is to be reality
it will congregate at noon
and disappear by five -
barring any miracle
or as yet a plan set out
but not disclosed.
I light the balcony
with candles
just before the sun takes leave
sit outside sweatered
in short pants
the phonograph pipes out
long, lean lines
of nearly bare baroque.
Crickets count out counterpoint
as though rehearsed and listening.
It seems at times
as though each thing
that moves
upon the earth
or underneath the sky
is trying to communicate,
say something that needs saying.
For now the crickets
seem to dance to music
inaudible, but there.
These ancient dancers
set the cats
competing for attention.
Distracted by the day’s end,
caught up in the night’s beginning
I ignore their coaxing
for a snuggle or a scratch,
a chase, a nuzzle or a rub
until they turn to one another
for games too intricate
for so-called human beings.
Quite right,
since something tells us
we are being left out
of something going on
or going, going, gone.
On this late summer evening
we should be about
the manufacture
of thoughts
or lack of same.
The cats are making
abstract mischief
while I get up
to turn the record over.
- from Watch For The Wind, 1983 |
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