Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge of driftwood along the beach, wanting! They derive from a slow and powerful root that we can’t see. Stop the words now. Open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirits fly in and out.
I smoke two cartons of unfiltered cigs and down a bottle of American rye whiskey as a warm up, generally. Then swallow beach sand and general aggregate to get some texture in the voice, followed by a stick of butter to smooth it all out. This works for me, but may not be for everyone.
I've always been fascinated by the Gold Coast. The homes themselves are spectacular, unlike anything you'll see other than in Newport, Bar Harbor or Palm Beach. It's a very special area that, because of local demographics, is not going to survive much longer.
I grew up doing sitcoms and theater and even playing with the Beach Boys, where you're programmed to perform, your body gets into a rhythm and you know it has to perform.
Yet however comforting and peaceful beach-combing is, it ends up like the sea, as disturbing as it is reassuring. In dark moments I believe that walking on a beach at low tide is to be looking for death, or at least anticipating it. You will only find the dead, the spilled and the cast-off. Things torn free of their life or their place.
. . . every once in a while it seems like the cosmos part and something great plops into your lap, that's how it was with "Hotel California". . a leased beach house in Malibu. . . all the doors wide open on a spectacular July day probably in 1975. . . soaking wet. . . thinking the world is a wonderful place to be. . . with an acoustic 12 string. . . those chords just oozed out.
I want to build you a house with my bare hands and carry you over the threshold. I want too cook for you every evening and bring you tea in bed in the mornings. I want to read with you in front of an open fire, sipping a glass of wine. I want to drive you to the beach and lie next to you in the sun. I may not be a man of means, bit I want to take care of you as best I can.
Think about it: it is easy to see God's beauty in a glorious sunset or in ocean waves crashing on a beach. But can you find the holiness in a struggle for life?
My dad loved Scotland, so we would pile into his caravan and head for the Highlands, to Fort William and Loch Ness. It was such an adventure - my siblings and I were allowed to roam and explore the local beaches. We loved the freedom of those trips.
I don't like doing action movies. They're not that interesting. . . it's fun to do the physical element but the really fun stuff, like running into exploding buildings, they won't let you do. There's too much money riding on you not getting hurt. But yes, there's something exhilarating in just sitting on a beach with somebody having a real conversation. There's something exhilarating about being open and honest.
WE two boys together clinging, One the other never leaving, Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making, Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching, Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving. No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening, Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing, Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing, Fulfilling our foray.
To watch an American on a beach or crowding into a subway, or buying a theater ticket, or sitting at home with his radio on, tells you something about one aspect of the American character: the capacity to withstand a great deal of outside interference, so to speak; a willing acceptance of frenzy which though it's never self-conscious, amounts o a willingness to let other people have and assert their own lively, and even offensive, character. They are a tough race in this.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap navigates the tidal slosh of seas breaking on legendary beaches; in faith we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.
The first thing I did when I was forty years old, I put handcuffs on and I jumped off Alcatraz prison and swam to San Francisco handcuffed. That made national publicity. Then, there were three or four years where I would do more difficult feats. Another birthday I towed a thousand pound boat across the Golden Gate. On my 65th Birthday I towed 65 boats a mile and a half in Tokyo. On my 70th Birthday I towed 70 boats with 70 people in it with my feet and hands tied a mile and a half in Long Beach. . . . My next Birthday I will be 93. I'm gonna tow my wife across the bathtub.
When I see old photos of me on the beach I don't look too bad. . . but it's hard trying to breathe in for such a long time when I spot the photographers!
One of the most positive things about America is just like what we're all doing here today. We're standing on Jensen Beach, we're watching a beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic. It's all because of men and women who were willing to make a sacrifice so that we can enjoy these freedoms.
Most of us, I suppose, are a little nervous of the sea. No matter what its smiles may be, we doubt its friendship.
To complain about critics in a business is like a sailor complaining about the waves. Go back to the beach if you don't like it.
If I want to get a taste of beach culture, I'll fire up my season 2 DVD of 'Beverly Hills, 90210. '