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ASK ROD |
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A few more answers to a few more
questions. If I haven’t gotten to yours yet I hope I will. I did loose about six
weeks of mail when the hard drive on my Mac crashed and burned a while back. If you think
your letter might have been lost, drop me another line.
ANGELS IN THE LOUNGE
Hello! Just wanted to thank you for all the wonderful music and poetry through the
years. I am especially enjoying the resurgence of the "lounge" sound. The CD
series you produced including "Exotic Embers, Forgotten Moons" is so much fun. I
have many of those artists on vinyl but when I make cassettes for my annual luau now, I
don't have to scratch the albums up anymore! And the song "To Love Is To Lie Down
With the Angels" is beautiful! I had it on one of my cassettes I was listening to
when I was giving birth to my daughter in September. I think she liked it a lot. Thanks
again. Lola
Dear Lola, Producing the six CD’s that make up "The Love Handle Lounge"
series was a kick. In addition to the disc you mentioned my own favorite titles include
"Safe Sax" [a great collection of sax music including a performance by Bill
Clinton- no kidding], "El Raunch Oh! Grande", "How Big Is Your Woofer"
and a collection for ice skating in your living room "Love Organs." "To
Love Is To Lie Down With The Angels" was written for Claudette Colbert and she speaks
it beautifully. The original manuscript was written on a shirt cardboard and is owned by a
friend Larry Baillie. Claudette’s rendition can be found on an instrumental album of
mine entitled "Music For Guardian Angels." Thanks for the compliment Lola, but
if it were my kid. . I’d have played Mozart. Rod
MAIL ORDER
You mention that you have a warehouse of merchandise but not the manpower, time or
resources to sell it. Are you interested in finding someone (a fan of yours in the
entertainment business) who might be in a situation to do so? Please contact me. Bill
Paddock, Tulsa
Dear Bill, Thanks for the offer, but Dwight Michaels got there first. He’s attempting
to resurrect the Stanyan Mail Order program with several initial offerings. Bill Learning
has very kindly created a downloadable listing of products and an order form. It will be
available on ASPTL later today or tomorrow. Rod.
Just printed the list to order. THANK YOU THANK YOU! Now, when do you start taking
requests? How about Alone, Black Eagle, Odyssey, McKuen Country, Balloon Concerto, and
every other album you've done!
Finding ASPTL has been wonderful, after years of asking for a new book at every store
in town, and hearing one of two responses, "Who?" "Isn't he dead?"
It's wonderful to know your alive, well, and back with all the folks who have loved you
and missed you! Thanks again and have a very blessed and happy Thanksgiving! Laura
Atkinson
Dear Laura, So far the Stanyan Mail Order is an experiment to gauge the demand for books
and records. If it’s successful, you can bet a lot more material will be offered.
Meanwhile, Psst, a little bird named Dwight told me that "The Concerto for Balloon
& Orchestra" coupled with "The Guitar & Cello Concertos" is now
available at Stanyan too. Bob Gentry is learning the part of the younger brother on
"The Black Eagle" and when he’s ready we’ll go into the studio and
record him for an upcoming CD of it. And, yes, it is true letters do arrive at my house
addressed to "The Estate of Rod McKuen." I fooled ‘em, didn’t I? All
the best, Rod.
YOU CAN’T WIN THEM ALL
I think I reasonably assumed this letter was meant for another Rod - Stewart, that is - so
I passed it along to him: RM
rod come to us in silence / your turtle-neck is so stripey / and you are
colour-coordinated with your hair / yeh yeh yeh yeh /and your watch oooh oooh oooh / rod
come to us in silence
(in a more upbeat kind of tone) /rod you are so hot / and we all love you / you have a
great bod / and your name is rod we love all your poetry and your photo in the red is
really hot and / rod you are so hot and we all love you we do. From: Emma Cull, All Saints
Anglican School
Dear Emma, my advice to you is not to let The Sisters see this in your copybook. Those
rulers coming down hard on knuckles tend to smart. Regards, The Other Rod
KICKING DEMONS & DEVILS IN THE HEAD
Dear Rod, Today was hard, as hard as stone for me. Just to let you know and thank you
for when all the world it seemed would not accept my feet yours indeed was surely a safe
and comforting place to land. Struggling Alcoholic.
Dear SA, Hang in there. The struggle to overcome any addiction is worth it. You are never
alone. All of us have our demons. I’m printing your letter because it’s
important for everyone to know that courage is a daily investment. Write again and let me
know how you’re doing. Love, Rod
Rod, thanks for drawing attention to clinical depression, I’ve been years
overcoming mine. Glad you made it too. Ben
Dear Ben, I did. But not without the help of people like yourself who spoke about it
openly and convinced me my troubles weren’t unique. Thanks again, like I said to SA,
none of us are demon free. Nice to be out of the dark and riding the merry-go-round again,
isn’t it? Rod
I Know What You Did Last Summer Part XXII
Today in 1750 tea and crumpets with little dabs of that nice marmalade are served as
London’s Westminster Bridge is officially opened. There was a tea party to end all
tea parties in Boston Harbor on this day in 1792. Thirty to 60 men boarded three merchant
ships and threw their tea chests over the side making the harbor a teapot. Later cucumber
and watercress sandwiches were served. In 1849 Fyodor Dostoeysky receives a death sentence
for engaging in ‘socialist activities.’ Later it is commuted to four years hard
labor in Siberia. In other words, he still got the death sentence. Still in Russia, today
in 1920 the Russian Counter-Revolution ended. In
1944 American Forces in the Ardennce Forest in Belgium are taken by surprise by a powerful
German attack. This final onslaught by Germany before their defeat is christened "The
Battle of the Bulge". Today in 1948 former State Department official Alger Hiss is
indicted for perjury after denying he passed on government secrets to journalist turned
Communist spy, Whitiker Chambers. Later Pumpkin Pie was served. In 1958 Tucson Arizona has
6 inches of snow. In 1960 film actor Clark Gable died.
On this date in 1973 The American Psychiatric Association reverses its traditional stance
and declares that homosexuality in not a mental illness. Twenty five years later, Matthew
Shepard, a young gay man who wasn’t even born when the association made its ruling,
is tied to a fence and hammered to death by two campus crazies, "because he was
queer." As family and friends grieve at Mr. Shepard’s funeral "an
unidentified Kansas woman" stands in front of the church with a sign reading
"Fags Doom Nations, Matt Is In Hell." For many people in this country, Hell is
close enough to touch.
This day down the years was an exceptional one for the birth of great musicians,
including, Eddie Condon, W.C. Handy, Paul Hindemith and Lawrence Tibbett. Yesterday was
the birthday of one of my all time favorite pianists, Cuban born Jorge Bolet. Today’s
poem is a reflection on the great Bolet playing the great Rachmaninoff.
- RM 11/15/98 |
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Lisa Bonet o
Oksana Baiul o Eddie Condon o Francis Danby o Clu Gulager o W. C. Handy o Paul Hindemith o Mary Margaret McBride o Fibber McGee (James
Jordan) o Burgess Meredith o Joanna Petttet o Guy Stockwell o Lawrence Tibbett |
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Discretion only
requires a lowering of the eyes.
Friendship is a seed once sown that’s better cultivated
in the practice.
Time is a runner, and not with good intentions.
The guarantee for finding sanity again is finding love again
and giving over to the new beloved that one facet of yourself that you held back the last
time. |
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A MESSAGE TO THE CONTRACTOR CONCERNING
JORG BOLET’S REINVENTION OF RACHMANINOFF |
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Tear down the walls, but please
do not attack the grass.
Leave ivy to its own imagination
even as you pull the creeper from
the eaves and side boards.
And as you stand and swing
that newly sharpened scythe
cutting down our lives above the root
can you remember when our kisses came
like information,
so new and so inventive we could only
wonder at the ones next coming,
marvel as they did and wonder on ?
It was, I think, July.
(But love remembered
always seems to wear a summer dress.)
We had been to hear
Bolet invent Rachmaninoff,
the Third Concerto with its complicated thirds.
Words were springing from his fingers
falling on us like a blossom drift
and you were not so sleepy anymore.
I had died and gone to heaven
in the second movement.
You went ahead at the cadenza.
You never met me but went on ahead,
your transport was the music same as mine
but different destinations are the dreamer’s rule
not exception when Bolet is playing Liszt
or that so difficult Sergei.
I beg you now to spare the grass.
Cart off the bricks and boards and clutter
but leave the clover to the clover.
And leave us trembling still and trapped
inside the looking glass, Bolet as buddy.
I ask that you not muddy up
that
backyard place,
that slice of once green paradise
now going brown.
To forget is to ever chance remembering.
- from Suspension Bridge, 1984 |
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