MONDAY 22nd & TUESDAY 23rd
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Photograph by Donna Marie
Bergeniao 11/11/2003
A Thought for Today
Let's get real. Don't expect too much
from holiday celebrations and you'll never be disappointed. By the same
token if your mood is somewhat grim don't let it ruin someone else's
holiday.
.ASK
ROD
A HEADS UP
THE SLIGHTLY BEFORE CHRISTMAS AFTER CHRISTMAS SALE. Here’s a heads up on a
sale that begins on Tuesday at the Stanyan Store. The store is offering
three of my spoken words albums Listen to the Warm, In search of Eros &
Beatsville for the single price of $30.00. And, they have some other
“stuff” on sale too. For more info check out
stanyanhouse.com on Tuesday
morning.
GILBERT BECAUD
Dearest Rod; My heart is with you over reading about
Gilbert Bécaud's leaving us. God bless him. I do have a question however.
The pictures of Gilbert you shared on your column spanned many years and
he seemed to be wearing the same polka-dotted tie. Do you know why?
September Morn is one of my all time favorites. What a song! Love, Sharon
Dear Sharon, Gilbert Becaud or as his beloved French public called him
“Monsieur 100,000 volts" left us two years ago this week and I am so
pleased that Ken decided to run my obituary of him again over the weekend.
Throughout a long and distinguished career as a composer and performer
Becaud’s trademark was his blue and white polka dot tie. The tie was as
much a part of him as sneakers are to a certain other performer I know.
Once when Edward and I were staying with him in the South of France and we
were getting ready to go out for the evening, he opened his dressing room
closet to reveal no less than 200 polka dot ties. All exactly alike (dark
blue with white polka dots) hanging from a solid wall of built in tie
racks.
September Morn is a beautiful Becaud melody, made even more stunning by
Neil Diamond’s lyric. Of the many songs I wrote with Gilbert it would be
hard to single out a favorite. Certainly Where Would I Be and The
Importance of the Rose would be somewhere near the top of the list.
Edward’s favorite is “I’ll Say Goodbye.”
Many of the songs I wrote with Gilbert were done while I was an artist
with RCA and so they will be featured on McKuen: The RCA Years, the six CD
set due out next year from Bear Family. Included among them are several
unreleased versions of The Girls of the Summer, done as a duet with Glenn
Yarbrough. As Ever, Rod
“TOUCHED THE FACE OF GOD”
Dear Rod: We are a group of once Old & Bold Pilots
all of whom hold the Distinguished Flying Cross. We have an association
and I am President of Chapter 15. Coachella Valley Desert Fliers
I am in desperate need to find the complete poem but even the library in
Palm Springs, CA can't find it. They referred me to your web site and
there is only a ref to it. Can you help a bunch of old Navy & Army Air
Corps people locate this poem. I once had a copy of it but time has taken
its toll and I can't find my shoes in the morning much less something I
had in my hands 50 years ago. Lee Stanley
Dear Lee, I seem to receive a lot of mail regarding your quote; probably
because I am the author of the book “We Touch the Sky” and I wrote the
lyrics for the album “The Sky” (Anita Kerr composed the beautiful music.)
I did not write “High Flight, ” nor did speechwriter Peggy Noonan who
paraphrased it for a memorable speech by President RR. This prose-poem
authored by Major John Gillespie Magee has gained mythological status.
Here it is:
High Flight - by Major John Gillespie Magee
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies of laughter-silvered wings
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds--and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
For a more in depth assessment of this work, check out the following link
www.rodmckuen.com/flights/260799.htm
Thanks for writing Lee and all my best to you, your family and fellow
airmen for this season & long beyond. Warmly, Rod
PS: One of your shoes is under the bed & the other one over there near the
door.
BOOKPLATES
I have 6 (six) of your earliest books, that I
treasure and still frequently read. I would like to send bookplates for
Rod to sign, so that I may place them in his books. I have seen the
web-site that says he would sign them, but I can not seem to find the
address to send them to.
I would appreciate it if you could e-mail me that address.
I would send them on to you complete with a stamped self-addressed
envelope for their return. A very long time fan. Peter Pellegrino
Dear Peter, You can send them to me at BOX G, Beverly Hills, CA 90213. It
is always wise to send bookplates rather than the actual books; if
bookplates get lost in the mail they can be replaced. Thanks a lot for
asking. Warmly, Rod
AND THEN I DIDN’T WRITE . . .
Salutations and Holiday Greetings Sir!
I have been enjoying your work since before I could read. Mother read to
me and I knew my favorite poems for their page numbers. My favorite album
I called my "apple record," a Beatles 45, I learned later. You and other
incomparable artists of my parents’ generation were early catalyst to my
own creativity and exploration of art, music and poetry. Your work forever
changed meaning for me, although my experiences reading and listening
changed as my life experiences did.
At 19 I moved from the hills of West Virginia to Southern CA and some of
your work, like that in Seasons In The Sun, and the song itself, changed
with me.
Recently I recalled one of my favorites that I knew at one time only for
its page number and now that is even gone. I have done a search online and
in my own collection of your work and can't find it anywhere. I wondered
if you could point me in the right direction. The fragments I can recall:
"Each time the phone rings- I jump, hoping it's you...The wrong numbers
and free dance lessons might be funny if they weren't so sad...Is there
someone else now? Someone who knows you don't like beans or casseroles in
general... that you flip through magazines from back to front..." etc.
Can you help? I can't say enough about the inspiration you've been at
different times throughout my life, spanning a whole quarter century now!
Best wishes to you, Jenny Finamore, Torrance, CA
Dear Jenny, A belated welcome to California. Thanks for writing and I’m
delighted to be in the company of the other artists that gave you and your
mother inspiration.
While the fragment you sent me sounds as if it might have been paraphrased
from some of my work, it isn’t mine. Alas I have no clue as to who might
have written it.
Still I’m for anything that inspires others to write and think. While I
can’t be of any help on this one perhaps it might ignite a spark of
recognition by one of the readers of this Flight Plan. If so, I’ll let you
know.
Again thanks for the nice letter and greetings for a warm holiday season.
Cheers, Rod
GONE WITH THE COWBOYS
I had an old 8 track with" Gone With the Cowboys "
Is the song on a CD and what is the title? God Bless, Diane
Dear Diane, Gone with the Cowboys first appeared in 1970 on my Warner
Bros. album New Ballads. That track will appear on a new collection coming
out in the spring on Sanctuary Records. It will be released in Great
Britain first but stanyanhouse.com
will have copies in the US at the same time.
If your turntable still works you can also find it on Rock Hudson’s “Rock
Gently” LP available at Stanyan House. All the best, Rod
A LETTER FROM OZ
Dear Rod, Many years ago we met in Melbourne,
Australia, at a concert. I send you my very best wishes - I am interested
to read your web site. Alison McDermott.
Dear Alison, Thanks for remembering me and I hope you like A Safe Place to
Land. We are all working on another site you can see at
stanyanhouse.com. By we I mean
Billy Iz, Tom Hagan, Prince Midas and myself with the hope that I can
entice the Safe Place to Land team Ken, Jay, Melissa and Eric as well as
Bellingham to contribute to the editorial content at Stanyan House.
So far the Stanyan House has three rooms open, The Store, Chat Room & The
Stanyan Bar and Grill. By April we want to have The Library, Sites We
Like, The Guest Room, The Edith Head (you figure out what that is), The
PlayRoom and Rod’s Room open and in full swing.
OZ audiences have always been terrific & I hope I get the chance to tour
your country again. All my best & cheers for the season. Rod
ALMOST THE FINAL WORD
We owe Rocky for the following
FEAR NOT FOR BEHOLD I BRING YOU GLAD TIDINGS
"There are no knowns. There are things we know that
we know. There are known unknowns - that is to say, there are things that
we now know we don't know but there are also unknown unknowns. There are
things we do not know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we
pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically
what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the
known unknowns. And each year we discover a few more of those unknown
unknowns." - Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense.
Sleep warm and I’ll meet you back here Wednesday with some Christmas Eve
thoughts.
RM 12/22/2003 1:35 AM PST.
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