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21st & 22nd September, 2006
Details of Rod at
The Luckman in November -
click here
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Photo by
Edward Habib McKuen. ©2006 by Stanyan Audio Video Archives
A Thought for Today
Don’t cooperate with fools. They can
usually handle the job better by themselves.
TO BEGIN WITH
Big, Big Congratulations to our man Bellingham! He has been honored with
a nomination for The Bay Area Publishers Award (Pubby) for his ongoing
work in The Marina Times and Northside. And why not, he continues to
write one of the most incisive and informative columns anywhere.
Today’s Flight From the Past was published eight years ago to the day
and re-reading it I am pretty sure you will remember what was going on
in America at that time. Looking back it is more than a little sobering
to realize just how long our leadership, both Democratic and Republican
has been in disarray if not completely broken.
A FLIGHT FROM6THE
PAST
21 SEPTEMBER, 1998
DRIP, DRIP, DRIP
Since I’ll probably have to compete with all the prime channels running
new wave director Kenneth Starr’s first video today, I thought of
titling this essay "20 Major Celebrities Caught In Hollywood Sex Raid."
Decided on truth in advertising and "Drip, Drip, Drip" says it all. The
GOP’s water torture machine is on full throttle, so that the drips are
more a deluge than steady drops.
I read last week’s Starr Report cover to cover and noted no mention of
Whitewater gate, File gate or Mail gate which means that it took 40
million dollars of our money to produce no smoking guns and no evidence
of high crimes and misdemeanors on the presidents part. What we are left
with is a bad piece of soft porn that tells more than any of us want to
know about the presidents alleged sex life, embarrass his family and the
nation and attempts to interrupt the good and thoughtful job the best
president we’ve had in my lifetime is doing for his country and
countrymen.
Today’s drip, drip, drip of the Starr/Republican follies includes
umpteen more pages of corroborating evidence and a four hour videotape
of President Clinton being grilled by a grand jury. "Titanic" it ain’t,
but with a dozen or more network and cable television outlets running it
unseen and uncut as a ‘legitimate news story’ you can bet the viewership
will leave anything playing against it at the post."
I am aware that many people don’t see this story the way I do and some
of you have written and told me so. I appreciate your letters and
E-mails, whether they agree or disagree with my point of view. I am
especially proud that not one was a hate letter or showed any
intolerance for my right to write and speak from my gut. But then, why
would I believe or expect anything else from any of you. I have always
been proud of my audience and never more than now. We live in a place
where the right to free speech is a given It’s a free country; well
maybe not as free as it was a few weeks ago. But despite the bigotry,
self-aggrandizement and bad sportsmanship that brings us to the level we
are today in politics the USA is still my choice of the place I want to
live and love and be in.
In 1980, when we were digging ourselves out of an awful mess, I wrote
the following:
"I refuse to apologize for my country. Though I can smell corruption and
there is some, in August I can smell the wheat and it is stronger. Our
gains in the most unusual of all countries still outnumber by leaps our
losses.
Because we are told the country is sick, even by a man elected to take
charge, does not mean we are... though with enough repetition the rumor
takes on proportions and the guise of fact. But as Americans we must
speak with one voice and say NO. No to even bigger government. No to
violence and mischief-makers. No to those we gave a nod to only
yesterday who by now have proven their inadequacy, inability, and lack
of responsibility as leaders of this nation.
The country has some headaches, but a probe for cancer would find the
lumps benign. This nation has no wound so deep that it cannot be covered
by a single strip of gauze, wrapped round and round it. And what if the
wounded have the power of healing too? I believe all people here are so
empowered. The rhyme is in the rowing of the boat - straight-ahead, not
veering except to take on passengers. Steady hands that circle sturdy
paddles propelling us forever forward.
I am alarmed at any arm not getting on with it, lifting its own weight
or writing words so fast they scorch the paper. I admit I’m dangerous.
Defile my country with ill attention or an ax and you slander me. I am
my country as I am myself. Though I may travel down a thousand shores
and wave at many thousand more, I intend to live and die on this my own
ground.
A nation great? The best. A power bright and shining? Beyond - far
beyond the edges or circumstances of the Earth.
Please do not misunderstand. I will complain as long as wrongs need
righting. But apologize? I am too busy trying to give back my share to
offer an apology of any kind for a country that doesn’t need one.
America is an idea. Born out of need, nurtured into something from
nothing - but everything; the hands and headaches and hearts of God’s
great handfuls needing freedom. Despite the years that pass or are
passing, the country is still in its first days. Youth affords
everything and the young see daylight first."
Drip, drip, drip and still no smoking gun. Should one appear it is still
my hope that those demeaning the country with their "get this president
at any price" and their desire to turn over two lawfully conducted
elections will shoot a few of their own toes off in the process.
Meanwhile, thanks for the soapbox. I have no intention of turning this
site into a political tract or anything but "a safe place to land." I
hope that before too long radio, television and your daily newspaper
will once again become a safe place for you and your kids to visit as
well.
-9/20/98. Quoted material from "The Power Bright & Shining", 1980
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Thursday 21 September
Leonard Cohen o Darva Conger o Dave Coulier o David James Elliott o Fannie Flagg o Liam Gallagher o Andrei Gavrilov o Henry Gibson o Edward Gosse o Larry Hagman o Faith Hill o Gustav Holst o Hamilton Jordan o
Stephen King o Ricki Lake o Joseph Mazzello o Rob Morrow o Bill Murray o Alfonso Ribeiro o Savonarola o David Silveria o Melvin Van Pebbles o H.
G. Wells
Friday
22 September
Rosh Hashanah begins at Sundown
American Indian Day, USA
Scott Baio o Shari Belafonte-Harper o Andrea Bocelli o Debby Boone o Nick Cave o Lord Chesterfield o Michael Faraday o Tom Felton o Richard
C. Hottelet o John Houseman o Bonnie Hunt o Joni James o
Joan Jett o Ingemar Johansson o Tommy Lasorda o Alice Meynell o Paul Muni o Catherine Oxenburg o Martha Scott o Eric Stoltz o Erich Von Stroheim o Henryk Szeryng
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Sally forth, you can always hurry back.
I am unprepared in thought or action when a
door I thought I’d helped to open closes as I look the other way.
We cannot be sustained by dreams alone.
Strength is in the deed, weakness in our unwillingness to attempt to
perform it.
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OUT OF THE DARKNESS
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Out of
oppression into freedom.
Out of constraint into expansion.
Out of the reading of history
into the making of history.
Out of iron shackles into producing iron.
Out of the man at the foot of the thinker
emerges the thinker himself.
Out of the bonds of forced religion
into the makings of new religions.
Out of the land cordoned off by the King
into the free and open country.
Out of weakness confirmed by labor
into strength produced by labor.
Out of the darkness into light.
Out of the rigid handed-down law
into the making of laws that are workable.
Out of the woods that has no clearing
into the clearing of woods.
Out from under the ruling class
into the class that rules itself.
Out of generations of sorrow
into generations of joy.
Out of poverty into pride.
Out of slavery into self-ownership.
Out of the scourge of being victim
into the role of benevolent victor.
Out of the galley and into the gallery.
Out of the twilight, free in the midnight.
Out of the mothers who mourned for their sons
now come the women at morning’s first sunlight.
Out of the fathers who died in the struggle
now come the struggling founding fathers.
Out of the lands where sons played on cobblestones
into the country where sons turn the earth.
Out of the breath of daughters who died
in the bed of the serf, at the hand of pestilence,
a new generation of daughters with pride.
Out of the neighborhood bent with hunger
onto the block with belly full.
Out of the dungeon into the daylight.
Out of the need to gorge, into the need to give.
Out of the mineshaft into the air.
Away from the path that persecutes patriots
onto the highway that patriots paved.
Free from restraints of knowing yourself
finding how much of yourself you can know.
Released from the shackles of building for others
learning the craft of building for you.
No more apples from the barrel’s black bottom
only the fruit from the green apple tree.
The demons dreamed up by the weak and afraid
give way to the dreamer controlling his dream
setting in motion his wide-awake visions
molding the axle to turn every wheel.
Out of the way of the sword and the shield.
Out of the well and into the water.
So came the foreigner, soon to be friend.
So came the misused, soon to be unified.
So came the lovers to beget generations.
So came the ill, soon to be well.
So came the indolent, to work for themselves.
So came the convicts, soon unchained.
So came the pilgrims, soon to be pioneers.
So came the builders, to carve a new country.
So came the hungry, to fill up their bellies.
So came the ignorant, soon to be learning.
So came the believer, allowed his beliefs.
So came the thinkers, to study freedom.
So came the leaderless, soon to be leaders.
So came the few, soon to be many.
Speeches delivered, started the history.
Songs were passed round, till they were anthems.
Spread was the word that became fair law.
Swingers of axes cleared out the underbrush.
Soil was turned over for field and for garden.
Sown were seeds, healthily harvested.
Smiles were fence posts before there were fences.
Sailors in on tides of tomorrow.
Sorrow was turned into joy by the neighbor.
Silence was broken by the splitting of rails.
Still in its infancy the nation was growing.
Soon men of principle drafted a paper,
providing the land with its first constitution,
stamped by the seal of brotherhood’s hands.
And pilgrim’s pride and father’s pride
pride of the mother made the child proud.
More than the word was the will and wonder
as each set of eyes set a goal for itself.
As each one prayed to his own God privately,
man and his family stretched out and grew.
He dug up the valleys and planted the corn,
sliced off the mountaintops and dug out coal,
loaded the flatcars that rolled to the cities
and damned up the waterways till there was power,
stretched out the cable and strung up the lights.
Pride was the tool that powered our progress,
need the dividing point sectioned the land.
Love the explainer, settling arguments.
The land of giants was ground out of greatness,
and built on a firmer foundation of rock.
Each pioneer’s progress and each of his setbacks,
each war and peace and each war again,
people not born, those knocked down by death
those who came here to find life and living,
those whom we captured and those we set free,
those who died defending the nation
and those we defended who couldn’t be saved.
All of us still in Whitman’s old cradle
endlessly rocking, endlessly rocking
still in the morning of life as we know it,
still looking up to the forehead of freedom
above and beyond our forefather’s knee.
This is the country, this is the place
all men of wisdom, worry and want
look to for freedom and freedom they see.
-from "The Power Bright & Shining," 1980
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