21st & 22nd October, 2004
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McKuen appearance details!
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Rod 4/16/04 Photo by Billy Iz
A Thought for Today
I don’t know about you, but for me four
years of being governed by fear is sufficient. Let's move on.
A NOTE ON ASK ROD
I didn’t get my Ask Rod Flight Plan off to Ken in time to be posted on
Monday so there will be an extra edition of it on Saturday and Sunday.
And, another new edition of it will be posted on Monday the 22nd.
A FLIGHT FROM6THE
PAST
5 October, 1998
POEMS FROM "Looking for a Friend"
My 27th book, "Looking For A Friend" was published in 1980. Having just
completed the elements trilogy "The Sea Around Me", "Coming Close To The
Earth" and "We Touch The Sky" I felt a certain freedom from nature and
wanted to set down some thoughts on friendship. The elements, time and
seasons, are apparent in nearly everything I write and there are plenty
of references to time and climate in "Looking For A Friend" but getting
into it was to mean a return to the more intimate style of writing that
had characterized my first poetry.
1980 would turn out to be a very crowded year for McKuen books, two more
volumes "The Power Bright & Shining" and a book of meditations, "An
Outstretched Hand" would be published later in the fall. I was spending
most of my time between tours at an apartment on the East Side of New
York City, which is about as far away from nature as you can get. My
mornings started with a walk cross-town and back and before I went to
bed I’d hike twenty blocks or so to take the night air and test the
temperature of the city. It was a happy time, if the writing process is
ever happy. It’s great to have written something and be finished with
it, but the process is seldom fun.
In the next month or so I thought I’d collect some of the poems from
"Looking For A Friend" here and talk about them. "Night Walker" is, what
else, a meditation on walking at night. Mind you that was twenty-four
years ago and I’m sure these instructions are sorely out of date.
Walking to be walking and going to no sure address isn’t something I
would recommend these days in middle night Manhattan. I was never
frightened in New York; it’s a lovely place. Big and warm and friendly
and though the natives are said to be fed up with the tourists,
according to this morning’s New York Times, I don’t believe it for a
minute. Besides I was never a tourist there, I was at home the minute I
laid eyes on it.
- RM 9/28/98, first published in Flight Plan 10/5/98
The days of the year are dwindling down and so are the hours and minutes
leading to Election Day. If you ordered an absentee ballot don’t forget
to fill it out and send it in this week.
Today the Stanyan family celebrates the birthday of our late friend
Helen Fujita. Sleep warm & join me on the weekend for a special edition
of Ask Rod.
RM 10/20/04 4:53 PM
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ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS
ROD
McKUEN APPEARANCES
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Thursday 21 October
Elvin Bishop o Georgia Brown o Samuel Taylor Coleridge o Carrie Fisher o Whitey Ford o Helen Reveles Valenzuela Fujita o Dizzy Gillespie o Peter Graves o Katsushuba Hokusai o Michael Landon o Manfred Mann o Jeremy Miller o Benjamin Netanyahu o Alfred Nobel o Brian Piccolo o Joyce Randolph o Bill Russell (baseball) o Ted Shawn o Judge Judy Sheindlin o Sir George Solti o Georg Ernst Stahl o Edmund Waller
Friday
22 October
Constance Bennett o Sarah Bernhardt o Brian Boitano o Patti Davis o Catherine Deneuve o Joan Fontaine o Annette Funicello o Jeff Goldblum o Zac Hanson o Curly Howard o Alan Ladd, Jr. o Timothy Leary o Doris Lessing o Jonathan Lipnicki o Franz Liszt o Christopher Lloyd o Dory Previn o Robert Rauschenberg o Tony Roberts o Shaggy o Leon Trotsky o N.C. Wyeth |
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To
love somebody truly, it is not necessary to be false to all other
relationships.
Friendship never wears a mask. It removes
the necessity for masquerading and false faces.
God never holds back.
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NIGHT WALKER |
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Go out of an
evening
allow yourself the pride
and punishment
of being jostled by the crowd.
You may begin your preparation
early
but do not leave the house
till half past ten or later.
Begin to think about
the night ahead
early in the day. Make a plan -
not too detailed, but one
that
set in motion
will give wheels and
turnstiles
to the night as well.
Concentration
during sunlight hours
should offer each of us
the luxury
of walking through the night
without a stumble or a lurch,
missing nothing catching everything
but allowing us the chance,
the privilege of being caught.
Streetlights do not hang like stars
they are strung like streetlights
but the shadows they invite and make
are wondrous all the same
hiding places if you’ll hide
finding places if you’re looking -
Go out of an evening just to walk.
Smile back, if smiled at.
Talk, speak up if you are spoken to.
If the street is new to you
inquire about the shops,
the weather. Say anything,
but something.
There can be no initiation without
the firm desire of the initiate.
Question if you’re curious
and listen even if the answers
seldom seem worth hearing.
Remember that the other walkers
have planned this evening too
and so you have a
kinship.
Go out alone and do not be
Afraid if you return alone.
Your life has nights
and evenings up ahead
in great abundance.
Even when you feel
that you have reached the end
or edge of life,
hold on.
Life itself will ultimately
take care of you.
While loneliness is part
and parcel of certain days
and certain weeks,
knowing that it is will help
to make you ready
when it comes.
Aloneness is quite different,
a privilege and a joy when
you have brushed against
too many shoulders or dying
light of dance hall disco
or the bright unyielding
sunlight of the beach.
Don’t forget
what you’ve always known
you are the captain of your ship
if not the master of your soul.
Your soul belongs to God,
if your ship goes drifting
he will guide it back.
Since every walk
however short
is still a voyage
you may chart the trip
even if the destination
is unknown.
Avoid all desperation
in the quiet of your room
or at the corner waiting for
the light to change.
Desperation is the enemy
of making lasting friends.
Do not be afraid of fog or cold
approaching mists or morning
coming.
Slow or fast.
Make way
for children running
down the block.
Leave your watch at home.
Go out of an evening unmindful
of the clock. Time travels too
and you will learn with little study
that time becomes a friend
finally and forever.
Do not ask the definition
of a friend. He / she is that one
without whose company
death and dying set in earlier,
and living is made more pleasurable.
That is not to say a friend
can make you live, only that living
for a friend or fancy is the ultimate,
the road away from self, the path
that leads from selfishness
to selflessness.
For if you don’t know where
It is you came from it’s hard
to ascertain just where you might be
heading - in life or down the block.
A friend can help you sort that out
and will.
For now, go out
of an evening.
You waiting ones
and you walkers of the night
I address my words and
worrying to you.
I am involved with you.
Your joys are mine and though
I may have sorrows of my own
I’ll take on yours,
but in moderation only.
I expect you to get on with it.
Remember I’m involved
if only silently. A friend I am
and will be.
Nightwalkers all need friends.
- from "Looking For A
Friend," 1980 with new material, 1998 |
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