Flight Plan

 

    2nd & 3rd September, 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boots & Rod. Photographed by Edward, May 2010. ©2010 By Stanyan Music Group. All Rights Reserved

A Thought for Today

September is the turning time; ask the man whose livelihood is apples or anyone who lives for love.

 

FOOTNOTES ON A LIFE IN PROGRESS

The two questions I’m asked most these days?

One: Did I survive being poisoned by a pair of eggs that weren’t recalled from my kitchen in time? Barely and the good news is I ate my first solid food today since the malady struck. I had a semi-delicious tomatoes sandwich.

Two: How am I coming along with my new iPad? The answer to that one is a little less positive. I’ve turned it on exactly twice since I stood in line at my local Apple store to buy it on the initial day of this models debut. (Yep I’m a Mac freak and always try to beat everyone to the punch when one of their new products is introduced so I always fall for that ‘own it the first day’ ballyhoo.) The problem, of course, is time. I haven’t had many free hours lately. The iPad’s learning curve doesn’t look too daunting and there are hundreds of new apps for it every week so once this Pandora’s Box is in operation there will be no looking back.

I’m a year or so behind the various deadlines set for the second and third Bear Family boxed sets, trying to complete a new book and a disc of new songs and most exciting to me of all the current projects is new CD shelves.

I know, I know I promised some time ago to stop or at least cut back on collecting CD’s and LP’s. And I’ve been pretty good about keeping that vow; in particular because I’m not as gainfully employed as I was at the height of my out of hand . . .must have this series and that boxed set days. And as I enter my dotage and my country slips deeper and deeper into a double dip recession do I often wish I had a stack or two of that other kind of CD (Certificates of Deposit) instead of what most people who have seen them consider jaw-dropping stacks of plastic, magnetic tape, vinyl and even shellac? I confess I sometimes do. But alas all the Drew Pinsky’s and rehab in the world can’t cure musical addiction. And I am an addict, a certified musical dope fiend hooked on everything from Bop to Bach and all the genres that fall between.

Today I defiantly needed to get out of the house so I spent most of the afternoon at what I consider the greatest music emporium in the world, Amoeba Music, a two story block-long den of iniquity for hooked on harmony boys and girls of every age, kind and stripe. First, second and third hand discs and records can be had for reasonable prices and they even carry all the newer stuff.

I swear I once saw LL Cool Jay browsing at Amoeba in what looked to me to be the Country & Western nook and lots of us peruse this one of a kind emporium in search of old LP’s or fresh imports from around the world. Truckers go there for 8-Tracks and they even have on hand a few piano rolls from what must have been the good old days.

I was in heaven today, feeling better than I have for a while and drifting from section to section wanting everything. I was proud of myself and Edward, who had tagged along to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself by having a dizzy spell or two in this my hog heaven, was astonished when I left the store with only three purchases. A four disc Jo Stafford English import I picked up for under twenty bucks, Brian Wilson’s Gershwin Reimagined and while checking out other favorite performers in the used LP section I couldn’t resist a near mint copy of Rod McKuen’s LP “Songs For A Lazy Afternoon.”

Rod McKuen: Songs For A Lazy Afternoon

As I said the LP was in near mint condition, especially since it was issued 54 years ago. This ‘Spectra-Sonic-Sound’ LP must have been owned all these years by someone who’s mono machine went on the fritz soon after it was bought or maybe he or she bought it for the very hot cover photograph of the 23-year-old Mr. McKuen. But I digress, all the time.

About the new shelves: I managed to find room for another 300 feet or so of space that will accommodate around 35,000 CD’s that have been sitting all over the house in boxes unfiled and thus mostly unplayed for the last several years –– and as fast as Chris, our carpenter whiz can build and install the shelves I’m filling them up (note to all the deadline makers). . . in my spare time.

And, oh yes Eric, come hell or high shelving this will hopefully be the week I start contributing to my new Facebook page and over the Labor Day weekend we can start sorting out which audio and video tracks we can start posting.

A final word about collecting. Never tried therapy or Yoga to bring a halt to it. But empty pockets sure helps. Eleven bucks for a used Rod McKuen album from the 1950’s, no matter what its condition, outrageous!

RM 9/2/2010 Previously unpublished

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notable birthdays

Thursday 2 September

Laurindo Almeida o Cleveland Amory o Romare Beardon o Terry Bradshaw o Marge Champion o Jimmy Connors o Allen Drury o Mark Harmon o Salma Hayek o Erin Hershey o Lennox Lewis o Christa McAuliffe o Martha Mitchell o Linda Purl o Keanu Reeves o Peter Ueberroth o Giovanni Verga

Friday 3 September

Edward van Beinum o Steve Boros o Eileen Brennan o Pauline Collins o Loren Eisley o Tompall Glaser o Wayne Green o Kitty Carlisle Hart o Anne Jackson o Al Jardine o Freddie King o Alan Ladd o Tom Landry o Alison Lurie o Memphis Slim o Irene Papas o Valerie Perrine o Ferdinand Porsche o Dixie Lee Ray o Charlie Sheen o Louis Henri Sullivan o Hank Thompson o Bob Ussery

Rod's random thoughts A sunset missed is gone but tomorrow's promise lingers.

Love is the answer. . . never mind the question.

Take the day off, you earned it.

August Asks For Little

I hold in wonderment
the wonders of the day;
the dalliance of daisies in the valley
       just below the hill,
the odor of the earth, my ardor
for you as you lie awake against it.

Above your citron–breasts
the nearly cloudless sky is treated
to that honey mouth I traverse often.

I have learned by heart your soft
                 and nearly alabaster belly.
I fall asleep against it
                     even when I am away.
Just now my head is upon it and my lips
Are parting to your skin.

As the afternoon glides on love’s weight
does not worry us, it conquers the minute,
                               compliments the hour.

August asks for little and is not
                                     easily impressed.
If a bright palanquin passed by with heaven
held aloft within it August would only nod.
This lazy month is slow to notice niceties
but it admires the bravery of love.

And now
the night is coupling with the body
                                     of the world
and we have moved from hillside
                                       to the fire.
For those who lie alone this night, a prayer,
that whomever you are waiting for
comes soon and brings along a pocketful
of stars to scatter in your wake on every
dusky eve like this that looms ahead.

Your love continues to sedate me. My arm
across your shoulder has united us as one.
Crows are crawling through the trees
to nests they made ten years ago.

August asks for little and does not
                                            participate.
Whether the wind comes wickedly or with
good intent is of little consequence
to its languid longitude and latitude,
but August lets us be ourselves.

Love is swarming over us
For singing hearts the fairytale
is never over.

-from Rusting In The Rain, 2003, 2004

 
    AND FINALLY

Happy Birthday shout outs to Terry Bradshaw, Marge Champion, Jimmy Connors, Wayne Greene and Mark Harmon.

Hope you’ll be back to spend part of your Labor Day weekend with me. Sleep warm.

RM Holmby Hills CA / 2:52AM PDST 2 September, 2010

Happy Landings - see you tomorrow
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