January 25, 2016

Episode 209 - How To Be Popular If You're a Guy

25 minutes

The answer to that question has to lie, somehow, in whatever explains

the popular success of Rodney Marvin ('Rod') McKuen.

Rod McKuen died a year ago, and did you know he sold 100 million records? No kidding. Rod McKuen sold 100 million records.

(He also sold 60 million books. But hey...) Here is a man who was universally dismissed, from day one of his earthly success, as being a "kitschy" Philistine and arch-sentimentalist. No critic had a word of praise for him. Ever, ever, ever. And that's been true right up to the present day.

And let the People say: He sold a hundred million records.

Here is a writer who when you actually take time to listen to his songs

wrote from a fetal position of complete understanding,.. of me and you.

Now let the People say: He sold a hundred million records.

Here is a man who, like Rudyard Kipling -- if it weren't for T.S. Eliot and George Orwell --

would have no friends in "high places" (at least after he died).

People loved his work. Critics hated it.

Therefore let the People say: He sold a hundred million records.

So listen up, guys:

If you want to be popular, then say what you think, say it deep, say it real, and speak it... from the earthed position of the earliest human child.

...more