Here he comes: the totally marketed man. In racing-stripe sneaks and blue jeans and a plain white shirt, “Performance clothes by Rod McKuen Casuals.” (You mean somebody had to design that undress?) I’ve seen his face before: at the Shamrock Tavern after slo-pitch softball games. A weak, punk’s mouth; take his beard away, McKuen could pass for Richard Speck, another American folk hero. The voice, shot years ago by hard rock screaming, is a sixty-forty proposition. It sounds like those cheap kazoos we bought when we were young. Remember: to get one lousy vibration from the membrane you blew your brains out— brrrrpp. It’s a sung Bronx cheer. McKuen sells pain: those love ballads, women have to figure they cost him. He’s in throat pain: for them. But there aren’t all that many women here tonight. There aren’t all that many people. McKuen, who used to sell out the neighborhood when he walked his dog, hasn’t sold out half of Carnegie Hall. It’s the best tribute yet to New York’s taste. Maybe—light a candle—maybe Rod McKuen has had it.
McKuen is, God forgive us, “the best-selling poet of all time.” America has a lot to account for: that one’s right up there with Charles Bronson and nourishless cereals. A questionnaire in the program asks, “Too much poetry? Not enough poetry? ” Believe me, a couplet, a singlet, is too much. I’d show you just how intellectually flaccid McKuen can be by extensive quotations, but I’m scared to: McKuen would probably charge me. If he talks in his sleep some flunky is there copyrighting it. Let these electric phrases—from a single birth-defected poem—suffice. Listen. 1) “Tied up in knots.” 2) “Weep my guts out.” 3) “Red badge of courage.” If McKuen has a copyright on those zingers he can be counter-sued by the English language. McKuen’s poetry is an Auschwitz for words. This could come from “Alone” or “Moment to Moment.”
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