Rod McKuen - Flight Plan


5th & 6th 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 Nobody steals something original and winds up producing more than a carbon copy. FROM the¨BOOKS THE FIRST No matter when I start that first day’s walk along the tide’s white ragged edge, someone’s been ahead of me. I went at noon the first day, ten the next. Finally at sunrise I started out and on this very morning I was up before the sun guided by the whitecaps only luminous in the dimming starlight. When at last the light began to rim the far horizon I saw beside my own, new footprints in the Monday sand a larger imprint trailing on ahead of me. And beside the wide stride on this quiet beach the soft impression of a dog who must have trotted by his master’s side. I’ve but one more morning left to me before I trade Tres Vidas for the city, but if I have to start out down the beach at midnight or before I’m determined to confront the brown beach man who dares to think he loves my ocean more than me. And anyway, the ocean’s all that I have left. There won’t be anyone again, but there will always be sea water and sea things to wash the memories into one another. That’s a comfort not to be taken lightly, considering the sea is all I have. - from "Moment To Moment" 1973, 1975 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 5 November Bryan Adams o Mark Breland o Eugene Debs o Will Durant o Myron Floren o Art Garfunkel o Walter Gieseking o Jonathan Richard o Guy Greenwood (Radiohead) o Jon-Erik Hexum o Vivien Leigh o Javy Lopez o Mantovani o Joel McCrea o Peter Noone o Tatum O’Neal o Gram Parsons o Roy Rogers o Natalie Schaefer o Sam Shepard o Paul Simon o Elke Sommer o Ike Turner o Bill Walton Tuesday 6 November Ray Conniff o Brad Davis o Sally Field o Glenn Frey o Juanita Hall o Ethan Hawke o Walter Perry Johnson o James Jones o Gus Kahn o Lance Kerwin o Frances Lederer o James Naismith o Mike Nichols o Ignace Jan Paderewski o Kelly Rutherford o Jean Shrimpton o Maria Shriver o John Philip Sousa o Simon Wiesenthal

		The wicked are the first to decry other men’s vices. As a country we are too eager to forgive our politicians. Let’s be a little nicer to each other, everyone is fighting a hard battle.

DRIVING THROUGH DAVIS		I woke up listening where swallows had been known to sing and I heard nothing. The morning followed the sun not the sun the morning. And as the day slipped from out the last into the next nothing happened but the grey moving in to take the whiteness. I find any sleep that claims to be a sleep of reason unreasonable and fitful, yet each night I fall down in darkness all the same wondering what new land knows the sound of singing swallows. I wonder too at teachers who demand instead of teach. One man - a professor now ( a sort of poet once until his talent dried and died from lack of any nourishment or truth or understanding ) - makes a proper living out of damning me because the God that I believe in lets me damn no man. He wrote that I was fostering unrest. So I am. And so I am. Do not rest until you reach a pair of friendly arms. That's radical and wrong for him but right for those of us who love. And I say kill no man nor murder his ideas before they've had a chance to surface from his mind. Let men think and speak even that poor white-haired loser whose thoughts are lost on children he would chain and minds he'd not mind plundering it even that skill he could master. Let him help to foster masons at his school instead of militants with matches. Man has learned by building but even superman cannot see past a fire. The clergy who drum into their congregations litanies that have no bond with common speech have begun to worry me as well. Until my life began to move across the hill and down I was unaware that God was such a complicated man. He was never Latin for me nor Sanskrit till translation. I want a man that I can understand to govern me, for I need love and understanding too. And so I hope that God the friend and not the father will come banging on my door. Were I your preacher your teacher or your dad I'd ask that you hate no man, but yourself sometimes. That can be of use if only in putting on the brakes. Stumble if you need to but stumble on your own ground only. Consider any man that you can help your friend, and double friend that man so selfless as to offer help to you. I'll never be a proper teacher for I've learning yet ahead of me far beyond my years. But place my small brain in the feeble hands of some white-haired loser operating still without a learner's permit in the love of all mankind ? Not a chance. One day I'll make a pilgrimage to his dusty desk if only just to take him this year's calendar. Surely all men need to know what year it is they're living in. - from "Fields of Wonder," 1971

Webmaster: Ken Blackie • Birthday Research by Wade Alexander • Poems from the collection of Jay Hagan •
Sound & Fury Dr. Eric Yeager • Editor at Large: Bruce Bellingham • Emeritus: Melinda Smith

Want to comment on today's Flight Plan?

Send e-mail to Rod McKuen or post a message at the Rod McKuen Message Board

home page today's flight plan flight plan archives search this site site map