THE FIRST TWO CONCERTS |
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Christmas 2000, photo by Bob Gentry ©2000 Stanyan Entertainment
A Thought for Today
While dropping off an unwrapped children's toy at your local fire station this week, don't forget to take along some cookies, a box of fruit or a bag of popcorn for the brave men and women who risk their lives daily in this volatile season of Christmas Tree and short circuit fires. By the way, just to make their lives a little easier, have you placed your tree in a pan of water? Finally, for your own safety, don't forget to turn of the lights on the tree when you go to bed & while you're out shopping or partying.
I take great pleasure in announcing the first two concerts of 2001, and . . . they won't happen in the fall as expected but in the spring on the second weekend of March. Best of all they happen pretty near America's heartland which gives everyone equal access. Tickets go sale almost immediately. Here are the details.
Saturday, March 10, 2001 ~ 8:30 PM Paramount Arts Centre
8 East Galena Blvd. Aurora, IL (Chicago Suburb)
Ticket info: Prices: $22.50 On Sale January 6, 2001
Phone orders: 608-266-9055 / Mail orders: Paramount Arts Centre Box Office, 23 Blvd., Aurora, IL 60506
Sunday, March 11, 2001 ~ 7:30 PM Madison Civic Center
211 State Street Madison, WI 53703
Ticket info: Prices: $35.00 & 30.00 On Sale 12/26/00 26
Phone orders: 608-266-9055
TicketMaster On Line: www.ticketmaster.com
Mail orders: to Madison Civic Center, 211 State Street, Madison, WI 53703. (Mail orders have a $5.00 per order service fee. Amex, Visa, MasterCard accepted.)
A MEDITATION ON THE WINTER SOLSTICE
In winter we return home again to whatever. Cold comfort. Warmth of friends. Strangeness. Death. We hibernate like bears. Seek private places to stay private in. Ward off cold. Christmas for the Children. Loneliness for others.
There is a purity to winter. A calmness. The young are left alone because their elders dwell on loss and limits. This time excuses for reassessing involve the new year. Maybe the purity of winter has more to with snow than stuff of stronger substance.
Finally mid-February brings the old and young together and a valentine is more than just a blood-red heart.
I turned some corner one day, I don't know when, and found myself coming into the winter of my years. It was not an altogether unhappy surprise. But a surprise. Did I really make it this far?
The warm California days of this particular winter reflect my own good feeling about growing older. Of course I wish I ran as fast as I did twenty years ago and I could do without the aches that arc across my body as I awaken in the a.m.'s to start the run toward the p.m.'s, but age has given me an added purpose. I am aware that sooner and not later, the springs and winters that I need to finish all the work I've set before me will stop before that work is near completion.
Will I finally be able to prioritize the unknown hours I have left, especially since I have no clue as to just how many lie ahead and what their quality will be? I can only hope that age has given me the wisdom to begin to firmly say a "no" to frivolous requests and favors that take me from my work and not assign procrastination's maybe or later to the dubious and doubtful.
Will I be wise enough to risk hurt feelings in favor of those time consuming deeds that interrupt and hurt my work?
Gossip will be the first to go and meaningless signatures attached to photographs and books and records when I'm not looking into the eyes of those presenting them for scrawls should follow. What's an autograph if it's signed on assembly line?
What a radical departure for a man who used to spend as much time backstage signing as he did on stage singing. But energy's a fickle mistress it thuds to weariness just when it should be on the rise and I owe first rate work to those who care about my work. The energy should go to that and not to scribbles in a stack of books.
The risks to such a stance? Many will not understand and decide to sooth their own pride with the simple admonition that "He's changed, he no longer cares about 'us'." Indeed I have changed (gotten older) and because I care more than ever about those who have sustained me through the years I've finally decided that work completed is more important than niceties and appearances. There is no time for a filled up plate of both. Even to my closest friends I am not known for half measures.
I hope that some will understand as they too prioritize. This is a start, but only a start. It may lead to dismissal and many backs turned, but, if so, it will be a productive obscurity.
Adapted, with new material, from "Rod McKuen's Book of Days and a
Month of Sundays," 1981
Sleep warm and I'll be back tomorrow.
RM 12/20/2000 Previously unpublished
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