So long Kenny. See you a little further down the road.
Sail away with me to another world…
Next post: The Starbugs “Let me forget about today until tomorrow…”
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WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
Gerard Van der Leun
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
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Whuddaya know. Somewhere in the darkness, the gambler, he broke even.
Many years ago, at WE Fest, in Detroit Lakes, MN. I had my back to him, as I was security, see? But I overheard a guy ask him, “Do you ever get sick of singing, ‘You got to know when to hold up,’?”
Kenny’s reply: “Man, I am thrilled that anyone wants to hear me sing that enough to pay me.”
every hand’s a winner
And every hand’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for
is to die in your sleep
That’s been with me for thousands of dark nights. Thanks, Kenny.
For a long time, I assumed one or both of them wrote Islands in the Stream. Wrong! The Bee Gees wrote it. Cross-pollination at its finest.
Gordon Scott: great story. KR was a true gentleman artist.
Saw kenny in the 80’s
His opening act was the righteous brothers
Wonderful show
Late 80s at the Arena Theater in Houston. KR puts on a great show and as it is coming to a lose he reintroduces as a former rocker and breaks out with a very raw and classic ‘Condition’. About 1/3 of the audience jumped up and ran for the exits! The rest of us laughed our asses off.
Got to see one of his lat shows 2-3 years ago at Michael Berry’s Redneck Country Club. KR had lost some of his edge but the gratitude he expressed to that sell out crowd was exceptional. Still had a sense of humor and did a great job of telling stories of the past 60 years of doing what he enjoyed.
Kenny Rogers Roasters. Great chicken.
We Five.
RIP,Kenny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO1CqLpadAM
First Edition,Not We Five. Thank you,Tim. Great song,too.
I’ve been taking too many duhhh pills lately.