12th & 13th July, 2010

Rod McKuen at the
Hollywood Autograph Show

Boots & Rod. Photographed by Edward, May 2010. ©2010 By Stanyan Music Group. All Rights Reserved

A Thought for Today

I'll try anything once, and anything that doesn't hurt more than once.

TO BEGIN WITH

In far away South Africa where this site squats thanks to friend and resident of ROSA Webmaster Ken Blackie the World Cup party has finally ended and more flights are leaving the country than taxiing in for landings. It’s early winter there as summer finally establishes a beachhead here in Southern California. On to today’s Flight Plan that has everything to do with seasons.

A WEEK TO GO

Daisies and some half-striped tulips have gone on living in the hotel bedroom for near half a week. I'll have new roses for you and lilacs trucked in from the country by the barrel load. Bring me cider, if you can, Chatsford honey, some magazines and books and the Pennsylvania chemistry your friend cooks up. I doubt we'll need it, but whatever's fair.

I cannot wait to cup your buttocks in my hands and move down through your legs to England's heaven. To try again what has been tried and done - to walk with you through sunlit London even in the absence of the sun. To lie with you a hundred different ways and with you ahead through all the summer days.

I had intended to describe your mouth to you while looking at it, but another week of waiting is too long a time.. Your mouth is velvet on the inside like the underside of violets, or the outside of your eyes.. Wet it tastes like nothing half so much as your own mouth. Dry it hungers to be wet.

Your breath sometimes at night is like a mist, a thin grey fog that warms my neck when you move near. You seldom wake me though I drown in perspiration, yours and mine. Unknowingly your mouth takes me off to foreign places when my own rides up against it. We are passengers on trains and sailing ships with no destination, in no hurry. Time and again one rides against the other, a tug of war of tongues so gentle that we might not be touching tongues at all.

- from Folio No. 7, Autumn 1975

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

ROD McKUEN CONCERTS

ROD McKUEN APPEARANCES

Monday 12 July

Milton Berle o George Washington Carver o Julias Ceasar o Van Cliburn o Bill Cosby o Ken Curtis o Kirsten Flagstad o R. Buckminster Fuller o Oscar Hammerstein II o Mel Harris o Mark Hatfield o Jean Hersholt o Max Jacob o Cheryl Ladd o Christine McVie o Amedeo Modigliani o Pablo Neruda o Vera Hruba Ralston o Richard Simmons o Henry David Thoreau o Josiah Wedgwood o Andrew Wyeth o Kristi Yamaguchi

Tuesday 13 July

Isaac Babel o Sidney Blacimer o James Brolin o Kenneth Clark o Pope Clement X o Didi Conn o Bob Crane o Cameron Crowe o Bosley Crowther o Father Flanagan o Harrison Ford o Robert Forester o Nathaniel Bedford Forrest o Dave Garroway o Alex Karras o Jack Kemp o Louise Mandrell o Cheech Marin o Erno Rubik o Haile Selassie o Patrick Stewart o Sidney Webb o Norma Zimmer

Summer is the punctuation mark for all seasons.

I’ve seen people drive into love without a learner’s permit. The result was nearly always an accident.

BRINGING IT FORWARD

- from Too Many Midnights, 1981