Rod McKuen - Flight Plan


SOME OF THE BEST 27 August 98		Photograph by Bob Gentry 8/5/99 A Thought for Today Duty is the stuff of human existence. I just received my copy of the CD "Beatsville." It's a blast. I like all the added tracks, especially those from "In Search of Eros." Last year you did a flight plan that contained RSVP. Could you print it again? Thanks Joe Lombard, Brooklyn New York RSVP Kranco is having a party at his pad on August Alley with genuine Imported beatniks from Los Angeles and everything. Bring your own refreshments as long as they wear leotards. It should be a gas. The last time he had a party it was raided and they carted off two policewomen making it in the back room. Get there early though because there won't be enough rollaway beds to go around. You might have to ball with someone you've already balled. Kranco knows everybody. Including Freda, who strips at the drop of a Benny and Raphia, the poet, who is not only an angry young man but a dirty old man as well. I like Kranco. He has wheels. He once told the proprietor of The Renaissance that he was Woody Guthrie and had him selling tickets for a folk song concert. Oh... and another time he sold tickets for a reincarnation party for James Dean and Dylan Thomas. The cat's not commercial or anything, it's just that... even that hole he lives in costs money. Sometimes he lends his pad to people to ball in and hides in the closet to watch... when he doesn't join in. Anyway... he's having a party and you're invited. If you've got any Leadbelly or Bird records you don't have to bring any wine. - RM from the album Beatsville, 1957 o First published in Flight Plan, 1998



		Gertrude Berg o Erik Bruhn o Lindsey Buckingham o Neve Campbell o Chubby Checker o Eddie Cochran o Pamela Hensley o Tommy Lee o Warner Oland o Emily Post o Steve Reich o Madlyn Rhue o Stevie Ray Vaughan o Gore Vidal o Jack Wagner o David Winfield o Thomas Wolfe

		Strength is not the fortress, but the bricks that build it. Just when the fountain of content gets going, it springs a leak. You get a lot more if you're willing to settle for a lot less. Ingratitude is shameful. It also prevents you from receiving presents from old sources.

FROM THE OBSERVATION DECK		The silence is crowing because the cock is silent. A gaggle of philosophers gather at the corner in unmarked cars. Later they will be arrested for reconnoitering. A Cheshire cat with false mustache and blinders on is directing traffic. Greeks caught gifting bears with retsina have been taken to an asylum in North Carolina. Last week's politicians are still carrying boxes of worn-out grudges. Goodwill Industries has refused to accept them as tax-free donation. Several dogs are meowing and with good reason. A television interviewer is inventing history by giving the shrubbery cue cards. He has interviewed a local Stop Sign and is setting up for Go. Yellow flashes and he becomes confused. He is fired for staging a crosswalk fight. A mail-order bride has reached the dead letter office and is opening her wedding presents. Hannibal is crossing an elephant with ice. He hopes to get a highball that remembers. The government of a capitalist country is being cheered by its people for doing good works. (Which one of the preceding statements is false ?) - from Suspension Bridge, 1984

Birthday research by Wade Alexander o Poetry from the collection of Jay Hagan

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