29th & 30th December, 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

God rewards the dreamer with continued dreams.

FROM the¨BOOKS

ONE SEA IS NOT LIKE ANY OTHER

I am always being pulled by love
not only bed and bodies
but a city here,
        a red sail there.
A beach town
or some seaport city
always opens up her arms
in welcome to me.

I am now
the product of those
       many oceans
the sea is all I know
       for sure
but I know it well.

If the sea
did not make me
        by hand
it rubbed me, rolled me
out of darkness
       into light.
For I have seen
my past and future
on the white caps
dancing out beyond
a thousand shorelines.

I have recognized
       my face
swimming in the shallows,
my body blundering
through the gray-white foam.
My life has sailed
so far out past the tide
it's now beyond
my own far-reaching reach.

The sea makes something
out of nothing every day,
by the running in
and running back
of the tide alone.

And with the aid
of but a little sand
it polishes and hones
the bottom of the world
       twice daily.

One ocean for me
is not like any other
except to say
that each has given comfort
              when I need it,
love when there was none
              forthcoming
from another quarter,
peace if I stayed long enough
to wait for it or seek it out.

- from "The Sea Around Me." 1975, 1976

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Click on the links below for details of concerts and appearances.

ROD McKUEN CONCERTS

ROD McKUEN APPEARANCES

Saturday 29 December

Ed Autry o Tom Bradley o Pablo Casals o Ted Danson o Marianne Faithful o Peggy Gianville-Hicks o William Gladstone o Charles Goodyear o Jason Gould o Brian "Dexter" Holland o Andrew Johnson o Gelsey Kirkland o Jude Law o Viveca Lindfors o Billy Mitchell o Mary Tyler Moore o Madame de Pompadour o Paula Poundstone o Mala Powers o Inga Swenson o Jon Voight

Sunday 30 December

Suzy Bogguss o Joseph Bologna o Paul Bowles o Skeeter Davis o Bo Diddley o Heidi Fleiss o John Hartford o John Hillerman o Davey Jones o Dmitri Kabalevsky o Rudyard Kipling o Sandy Koufax o Matt Lauer o Eliza Little o Jack Lord o Mike Nesmith o Barbara Nichols o Bert Parks o Sheryl Lee Ralph o Del Shannon o Alfred E. Smith o Patti Smith o Noel Paul Stookey o Russ Tamblyn o Tracey Ullman o Jo Van Fleet o Meredith Viera o Fred Ward o Tiger Woods

The selfish cheat themselves.

The promise is the promise. We seldom have to hunt it down; it finds us by its own direction.

A PROMISE

When all the trees have been dismantled 
the decorations of their leaves set by 
birch to brown, maple to black 
roots pulled up and tumbled in a pile 
and when the sun has scurried 
up from darkness and back to darkness 
                              for the final time, 
with every ocean gone 
leaving only traces, a ring around its rim, 
then I will love you more than now. 

We will have gone beyond impossibles 
                         with no restraining rein 
and we will both come back again 
to this same place. 
I will love you better then and more. 
I will have learned from loving 
how to love. 

- from "Suspension Bridge," 1984