Rod McKuen - Flight Plan


15th & 16th October, 2007		Rod at Dos Vidas. Photo by Thomas Kist from the 2006 Arjan Vlakveld film “Rod McKuen: A Man Alone” for Netherlands Public Television. Photo ©2006, 2007 by Stanyan Audio Video Archives. All Rights Reserved. A Thought for Today Adversity tells us who our friends are. FROM the¨BOOKS THIRD AVENUE At long last... the rain is over and a little wind is blowing across Third Avenue and whoever lives above me has stopped pacing around. I never knew much about Third Avenue before. Only that there was once an overhead electric train that gave an element of mystery and too many taxis and more young men procuring on the street than women. And on every block...at least one old lady or old man leaning bored out of a third story window. I never knew too much about Third but now I live here...above a delicatessen up the street from P.J. Clark's. And every night about this time New York is a summer festival of drunks and cabbies and pretty girls and bums and assorted night people. A big giant meat rack running through New York like a great acne running over a young boy's face. Lots of little adventures going on. Me ? Oh... I've had New York type adventures. When I first came here I thought it was groovy to ride subways... only I never got anyplace. One time I met a girl feeding birds in the park. She was a real pretty girl. Yeah...I'll bet you think my first purchase when I came to town was a copy of Qor a subway schedule or the In and Out book. Uh-uh... I bought a book of crossword puzzles and a portable radio and tried to get to the beach. Only... it's sorta complicated. One time I went to this bar in dungarees and when I finished my first beer the waiter put another one in front of me. He kept buying and I kept on drinking till he told if I left...so would a lot of his customers who'd been eyeing me. I took a look at some of the customers and got the hell out of there. Boy... sometimes it really gets hot in New York. You gotta sleep without sheets and drink lots of water and keep you mind off the girls in the doorways. Tomorrow I'm going to join a gym and start taking guitar lessons and try to find somebody. I wonder what's going on back home? Sometimes I miss California. Only... there's always something happening on Third Avenue. I live here now... this is home. - from the album "The Yellow Unicorn," 1959. 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



		Monday 15 October Jere Burns o Richard Carpenter o Ina Claire o Jane Darwell o Sarah Ferguson o Michael Foucault o John Kenneth Galbraith o Peter Haskell o Lee Iacocca o Tito Jackson o Emeril Lagasse o Linda Lavin o Mervyn LeRoy o Penny Marshall o Barry McGuire o Kenny Miller o Kyletta Miller o Friedrich Nietzsche o Jim Palmer o Jean Peters o Mario Puzo o Jose Quintero o Arthur Schlesinger o Robert "PapaSco" Scofield o C.P. Snow o John Sullivan o Roscoe Tanner o Robert Trout o Virgil o P.G. Wodehouse Tuesday 16 October Max Bygraves o Chuck Colson o Linda Darnell o William O. Douglas o Flea o Gunter Grass o Jeremy Jackson o Bert Kaempfert o Angela Lansbury o John Loudon o Kellie Martin o Eugene O’Neill o Alice Pearce o Tim Robbins o C.P. Snow o Suzanne Somers o Morgan Stevens o Noah Webster o Oscar Wilde

		Each of us is special because of our differences, not despite them. I do no expect loyalty from my friends, I assume it. Suffering has so many avenues we never trod the same one twice.

NIGHT MISCHIEF		A young man standing in the rain outside that so familiar window known to me because I've lived across the street from it too many years, too long. Known to me because it is unlike any other window, and what stays or sits or struts behind / beyond it is familiar if not known to me. My domain is not my own not because it isn't shared although it isn't but because it isn't shared by her. I should have moved the day I saw her gliding up the stairs alone or later every time I saw someone coming, going beneath her balcony, down those stairs, or moving round the corner on the sidewalk or the street overtipping taxi drivers as they found the right house and dropped their passengers four feet from the door. Good woman you do me damage. Angels could not force such sense of loss upon me whatever their conspiracy. Just now the door is answered and the young man steps inside. Outside the rain still falls and not uncomfortably. Long ago I should have moved away or else I should have walked across the street myself smiled and told her how she was an interruption in my life because she lived there just the other side of it. Without the chance for real rejection she rejected me. Without a no she let me know. - from "Looking For A Friend", 1980

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