THURSDAY 18TH & FRIDAY 19TH
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Rod on Maui, August 2003.
Photo by John Scoggins.
©2003 by Stanyan Entertainment.
A Thought for Today
Charity works, if you've got an extra dime or a dollar give it away. It always comes back ten fold.
PLEASE NOTE
From now on I’ll be writing one Flight Plan for Monday & Tuesday. Ken will
continue with his usual Wednesday feature “This One does it For Me” on
Wednesdays. I’ll do a new two-day Flight Plan for Thursday & Friday and
Ken and I will alternate weekends for our Saturday and Sunday feature.
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER
I always hate to see a season go, any season. Just when you start getting used to the possibilities of a certain time it turns over and becomes something else. That's what the calendar tells us anyway and if we go by clocks we might as well go by Julian.
El Nino didn't leave Southern California with much of a summer. Week long storms alternating with heat waves lasting three weeks at a time didn't do anything for the roses or tomatoes except make them smaller size. No time for a tan this year, flight plans instead. Have been trying all summer to get a week ahead without much luck. Then Ken wouldn't have to code and post them in the middle of the night.
Look for some changes in the Flight Plan. Wade pointed out to me that I haven't used any of the CD reviews I did in the eighties to keep my writing head together, so maybe one day a week will be saved for writing about music. Thought I might occasionally talk about how a particular song came about. This past weekend's "HELP! My Guru Died" got a lot of positive mail. So I might give Saturdays to Swami Salami and let him run with it. One thing for sure I have to learn to ease up a bit so I can concentrate on other projects. Any ideas out there? Have thought about changing the poetry, quotes and birthdays every day but leaving the opening prose up two days at a time. That would make life around here a lot easier. Edward says I have to get a day job [only the way he says it, it comes out "Show me the money!"] Another reason I'm glad the bills are his job not mine.
I will forever wonder how I got through 4 months of The Flight Plan without having access to Jay Hagan's database of my poetry.
Mail stacked up, E-mail backed up, and I stumble all over myself trying to get to both. You can ASK ROD, but for an answer? Well, don't give up just yet. I workin' on it, I am, I am. Gotta clean up my room and my office and my other office and my hard drive (s) and the boxes in the hall and the other boxes in the studio and the other boxes in the dinning room and the stuff all over the floor and tables in the den that hasn't even made it to boxes. Maybe if I'm extra good Edward will give me another room where I can build temporary (!) CD shelves.
Need to find someone who'll help me build a Mac database for my songs and another for an index to first lines of poems and songs. Come to think of it, I need to find someone. That end of my life is shot. Can't neglect it, or I'll forget how to do it. Though I'm told it all comes back.
Best time I had all summer? That's easy, recording a couple of new tracks with Chris Anderson & Brent Harding for the reissue of "Beatsville". That reminds me the new release date is set for October 22nd. Just in time for Halloween - had I known that before mastering I'd have managed to sneak "The Mummy" on there somewhere. Have discovered another singer - songwriter - musician, Bob Gentry, late of Michigan. I'd like to try some things with him.
End of summer and I'm reasonably happy and very healthy. Could lose a few pounds off my waist and firm up my tits, but that sounds like real work. Still at my age it's nice to let a few things slide. I earned each inch and shouldn't give any back. Too many friends died this year and God knows how many I lost through neglect as I stole more hours to work on A Safe Place To Land. Stanyan House site looms ahead, a big but exciting project.
Bye, Bye summer, all in all you've been OK. Back to thinking of cleaning up around here . . . bet I get around to actually doing it by spring.
-First Published
9/22/98.
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