Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 320. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode, hummingbirds and an evening with a poet drive me to consider the concept of aesthetics as they relate to the blue collar life.

Forward!
Mike

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Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 319. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode, a late-night gathering with friends leads to recollections of a music album that changed the course of my life, and leads me to read a piece I wrote about the artist in question.

Forward!
Mike

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Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 318. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

This episode was triggered by me seeing a photograph of me telling a story with my hands. That led me to go off on a riff about hands and talking and storytelling and a look I call “tippy-headed befuddled dude.” I hope you e…

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Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 317. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode I share how fixing my snowplow led me back to one of the most popular live humor excerpts from my book Truck: A Love Story, as well as a piece I used to perform at open mics when I was long-haired and much younger.

Thank you for listening. Scroll down for photos, marginalia, and subscription info.

Mike

MARGINALIA

(Annotations from books Mike is reading, or annotations related to the episode)

This little dude did the joystick trick.

Me welding with Dad’s farm truck in the background. A few years later I’d be using it to go on dates.

In time that old F-100 got a little worn out. Maybe because, as shown in the oddly deteriorated slide below, it was occasionally overworked.

The farm truck my dad got to replace the blue one. This is not a shot of it in the junkyard, this is a shot of it still in use. We got the most out of our vehicles.

Do you remember?

Regular listeners know I tend to read several books at once. I’m still a few pages from finishing Candide. I’m only about 1/8th through Steinbeck: A Life in Letters and expect to plow through that one intermittently over time. I’m underlining/circling/annotating far more of Steinbeck’s correspondence than I can share here, but having tussled now and then with editors over colloquial language now and then, I enjoyed this passage:

I’ve been looking forward to Midwestern Death Trip by Meaghan Garvey ever since I read a piece by her in County Highway and now the book has arrived.

I’ll say more when I’ve finished it, but so far I’m enjoying Garvey’s headlong pace, her attention to detail (and getting those details right) and it doesn’t hurt that she mentions Jim Harrison as one of her favorite writers. She also dives into the grittier sides of life in ways I am not built for. Bottom line? Anyone who still uses the phrase “tooling around” has my attention.

Midwestern Death Trip is available at BookShop.org or Amazon.

You can get Candide at BookShop.org or Amazon.

Steinbeck: A Life in Letters is available on Amazon and BookShop.org.

Those are affiliate links, we get a penny in the jar.

Mike’s books and recordings and miscellany are here.

His TikTok is here and his Instagram is here.

If you’d like to receive all episodes of Michael Perry’s Voice Mail (most recently paying subscribers get advance reads, advance news, and materials not shared on social media), click on the button below (it says “Subscribe Now” but you won’t actually be subscribed until you review your options and confirm):

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Above all, as ever: Thank you.

Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 316. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode I share why despite the fact that I am terrible at baseball I got a contract with the Milwaukee B…

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Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 315. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode I share the second half of the essay the first half of which I shared last week. I stayed up late to finish it. If indeed it is finished. You can let me know.

Thank you as always. I don’t take it for granted.

M…

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Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 314. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode I share a chunk of an essay in progress. It’s about honor. I haven’t figured out how to finish it yet. It features wild pigs and a general nicknamed “Mad Dog.”

Thank you as always. I don’t take it for granted.

…

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Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 313. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode I dip back in time to revisit the day my daughter asked me how much internet my manual typewriter used. That was all I needed to take off on a tangent. Photos of the typewriter and the typist included in the …

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Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 312. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode I get a little ahead of myself by revisiting an essay about spring bustin’ out when in fact spring is currently a bust. But that’ll change. I also share two stanzas of related poetry as a preview of an episod…

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Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 311. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode I recount the trip I took to see the big-screen debut of a project I worked on, and then I get trapped in an elevator.

The MARGINALIA section will return next episode. This time the space is …

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As a thank you for being paid subscribers, sharing the message above about the video below. It just went public this morning.

Also explaining why next episode might be delayed a day.

Thank you,
Back to writing,
Mike

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*Kinda their real names kinda not. But definitely my real brothers.

Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 310. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen (and be sure to watch the related video in the marginalia section below).

In this episode I acknowledge the ?spring? melt and revisit memories of my friend Ricky by reading and expanding on some passages from Coop.

Mike

MARGINALIA

(Annotations from books Mike is reading, or annotations related to the episode)

The uncropped photo of me with Ricky and my brothers:

As you can see it is melt season. Ricky and I both have tin shovels in our hand. We carved our own river. Even built our own bridge. The white truck was a Tonka tow truck:

What it looked like new (it appears we’d converted our to just a truck):

We’d make “fields” and till them. When the top bit of sand dried out and turned white, we’d skim it off and haul it away with our Farmall toys.

I almost missed it, but in the back there you can see our…well, I’m not sure what we called it, but as I recall you dumped sand in the top and it flowed down through a series of rockers.

Here’s the post I wrote in 2009 when I uncovered some forgotten details about Ricky’s graveside service (it included firecrackers).

And finally, here’s the video in remembrance of Ricky. Credit to Andy Moore and Wendy Woodard and Wisconsin Public Television.

Regarding actual book marginalia, my reading continues to be omnivorous (or whatever you call it when you hippety-hop from one book to another). But after years of thinking I oughta, I’ve started this one:

And made a few more notes in this one:

Intent of my scribble: Write a book about a truck, sneak some existentialism (or poetry, or…) in there.

As a prolific author who has never drawn a check from a university, I owe a significant debt to a wide range of academics. I have my reservations, but jeepers, Kierky—TAPEWORMS?

You can get The Existentialist’s Survival Guide at BookShop.org or Amazon.

You can get Candide at BookShop.org or Amazon.

Those are affiliate links, we get a penny in the jar.

All of my prolixity is here.

We respect budgets (both financial and time) but if you’d like to receive all episodes of Michael Perry’s Voice Mail (last episode’s paying subscribers got advance news about an exciting new project involving Population 485), click on the button below (it says “Subscribe Now” but you won’t actually be subscribed until you review your options and confirm):

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You can share this episode with a friend:

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Above all, as ever: Thank you.

Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 308. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In today’s episode I report back from the Tucson Festival of Books (including a famous person sighting), update four projects I can’t talk about (yet), read about existentialism in a sauna, and pro…

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Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 307. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In today’s episode I reflect on the effect of John Steinbeck’s writing on my own, in particular teasing out a thread of thought on a passage from Travels With Charley.

Also, in the marginalia section below, a…

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Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 306. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In today’s episode I talk about why it ain’t spring and why the stairs are soggy, but mostly I revisit the day my photographer friends John Shimon and Julie Lindema…

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Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 305. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player above to listen.

In today’s episode I begin by comparing Alabama pine trees to Wisconsin pine trees and then get sidetracked by Georgia pine trees and old sem…

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Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 304. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen.

In today’s episode I return to a piece I wrote about my daughter and the music of Lightnin’ Hopkins.

Thank you for listening,
Mike

MARGINALIA

(Annotations from books Mike is reading, or annotations related to the episode)

Here’s the version of “Shaggy Dad” my daughter danced to:

The following exerpts are from a much longer and excellent piece from Sonic Cocktails.

The stories of Lightnin’s chord changes are profuse and legend. The late singer/songwriter Eric Taylor (who once bought me a ticket to his own show in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, because I drove three hours to get there and forgot my wallet) used to play bass for Lightnin’ and claimed he had a “tell” in which he’d stomp his foot slightly differently before a chord change…so Taylor spent the entire gig staring intently at Lightnin’s boot heel. Whenever Taylor told the tale, he quoted Hopkins as saying, “Lightnin’ change when Lightnin’ want to change. You just gotta be there when I get there.” I imagine my own band members nodding along (my guitar player has famously said I keep excellent time “but it’s never divisible by four”).

Below, my elder daughter right around the time I wrote today’s essay:

In 2013, I was asked to write the liner notes for the Blind Boys of Alabama album I’ll Find A Way. My daughter, by then a teenager as tall as I, accompanied me to one of the recording sessions, a profoundly moving experience I wrote about in the book Roughneck Grace and spoke about in Episode #145 (paid subscription required). Then we attended the album release concert together in St. Paul.

Been continuing to read the paper versions of Devouring Time, the new Jim Harrison biography, and continue to dip in and out of The Power of Myth, but I’m on the road and traveling light this trip so starting this one on my Kindle:

I read it way back in the mid-1990s when I was trying to figure out how to make it as a writer from the middle of nowhere with no connections. I’m reading it again now towards a piece I’m working on about folks you’d never guess were inspirational to me—the punk singer Henry Rollins among them. Later I would detour from a magazine assignment to see him perform spoken word in Seattle, one more step on my path to taking my books from the page to the stage.

I’ve barely dipped into it yet, but already made these three highlights:

My most recent book didn’t include Henry Rollins, but it coulda.

Devouring Time is available from BookShop.org and Amazon.

The Power of Myth is available at BookShop.org and Amazon.

Get in the Van is available at BookShop.org and Amazon.

Those are affiliate links, we get a penny in the jar.

To keep up to date between episodes, follow Mike on Instagram. His daughter also finally got him set up on TikTok.

The Sneezing Cow webstore has all of Mike’s books, recordings, T-shirts, and merchandise (including the bestselling koozie).

If you’d like to receive all episodes of Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, click on the button below (it says “Subscribe Now” but you won’t actually be subscribed until you review your options and confirm):

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Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy were in Uncle Tupelo together, not Son Volt. Farrar went on to found Son Volt, Tweedy went on to found Wilco.

I am pleased to report that not only was this listener correct, he was much more pol…

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A CORRECTION, THANKS TO A POLITE LISTENER: Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy were in Uncle Tupelo together, not Son Volt. Farrar went on to found Son Volt, Tweedy went on to found Wilco.

Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 302. This one’s paid subscribers-only. Click the player …

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