Rod McKuen - Flight Plan


17th & 18th November, 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 Optimism is the forehead of beauty. FROM the¨BOOKS AN EVENT OF SOME IMPORTANCE I started up the hill and there they were. One of them was hardly twenty, the other maybe more. They were still. Dead I knew. I slowed but didn’t stop. A cop was waving traffic past. No ambulance had yet arrived but two police cars kept a guard on the coroner’s new dibs. One bike was halfway up a wall the front wheel still spinning. The other, folded over like a half-left sandwich, grew like sculpture in the middle of the road and blossomed with the red of one of them. I didn’t know which one. Looking back from further up the hill I saw one cop strike up some flares. Still no sirens in the distance. Traffic now crawled up behind me slowly till we hit Mulholland and the other side. Down below was Christmas as it always is. Searchlights. Perhaps a used-car lot was opening or another shop with shiny motorcycles. The evening paper in the driveway once again. I picked it up before I parked the car. Inside I sat down with a cup of coffee and wrote a poem on what it’s like to miss a falling star. Perhaps I should have made a wish on one of many searchlights, biting at the clouds. More dependable than stars in California. - from "In Someone’s Shadow", 1969 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



		Saturday 17 November Mischa Auer o Peter Cook o Danny DeVito o Daisy Fuentes o Rock Hudson o Lauren Hutton o Hershey Kay o Gordon Lightfoot o Sir. Charles MacKerras o Dean Paul Martin o Bob Mathias o Lorne Michaels o Myra Montezuma o Bebe Rebozo o RuPaul o Martin Scorsese o Tom Seaver o Lee Strasberg Sunday 18 November Hank Ballard o Imogene Coca o Dorothy Collins o Louis Daguerre o Linda Evans o George Gallup o David Hemmings o Jim Mennick o Johnny Mercer o Mickey Mouse o Kevin Nealon o Eugene Ormandy o Graham Parker o Jameson Parker o Sinbad o Susan Sullivan o Brenda Vaccaro

		Be grateful for your dreams. The grave holds only sleep. To write it out is to let it go. Never fear life or death, only mere existence.

BEACH DIARY		Beach Diary, 2 With the stars all stringing out and strung and the moon half hung and hanging, hunger starts somewhere within my belly. It will not be gone with bowls of guacamole, as it didn’t go with friends and family commiserating on my loss. I elected to come down to this house and to this beach knowing that I couldn’t leave all memory, fact or fiction in an overcoat at home. Soon the crickets will stop adding, counting, summing up. The heavy air will set all things to sleeping and the steady rhythm of this well-loved, well-known ocean will conspire to keep us there. That battle won, another day makes ready to arrive, another night to follow. More defeats or maybe victories wait ahead. I will have to meet and battle each alone, but the victory party isn’t worth the having if the celebration’s done in solitary. Beach Diary, 3 Was there rehearsal, a time of trying out how many starts and stops occurred before the balls fell into place and boisterous breakwater turned to gentle surf ? Awhile back. But how far back and when ? These questions done and finally answered I hope they’ll not be asked again. Words once written on a page and published cannot be taken back - or altered though each of us invents a way to prove we’re moving ahead if not beyond. Strangers catch us running then bring us to a stop, demanding to know what a certain sentence or a long line meant. They speak aloud a favorite poem heard or read and then remembered to the line break. And that feels good or doesn’t depending on the friend you’re with and trying to impress. Like the dirty foam that caps the whitecaps collecting grime and all the smaller things that float, critics have their place but only if they set about redefining and reviewing not your life or life-style but what they call your work, otherwise critics should be sneezed at especially if you have a cold. The best of them are guardians not guards. The difference is a subtle one. A guardian protects, advises and reports. A guard is posted to keep out or not let in. Always listen and evaluate the guardian’s instructions. Beware and be wary of the guards. Not even dogs who walk beside them are approachable and friendly. - from "Looking for a Friend", 1980

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