Michael Perry's Voice Mail

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 236. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. Today I found myself drawn to revisit a piece I wrote about a song called “The Healing Day” by Bill Fay. It’s the piece from which the title of the book Peaceful Persistence came. And because the piece mentions sheep—and in particular my fathe...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 235. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. Let’s say there’s a person whose work altered the course of your life in the best possible way. Let’s say that person is a songwriter, and one day you are given the opportunity to perform one of that man’s songs for him and a couple thousand s...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 234. This one’s subscribers only free in honor of the “ OKAYEST HUNTER ” podcast. Click the player above to listen. In this episode I head down to the pole barn and dig out a goofball essay I wrote in 1992 about how I wasn’t the greatest hunter ever. I had forgotten I’d even written it, so as I read it, I’ll be rediscovering it in real ti...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 230. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. In this episode I answer a reader’s question about the etiquette of waving when you meet someone on a country road, and how that small civilized gesture heartens me on days when I need heartening. When driving, my preference is the one- or two...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 224. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. In this episode a thought about the magic of radio leads me back to revisit a time when I wrote about truckers and trucker radio. And I mention that the band and I are going to play a benefit for a unique local radio station. Join us if yer in...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 223. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. This one isn’t from any book, but it’s tied to a lot of books. It’s all about a little writing shack I had hidden on forty acres I used to own in the mostly middle-of-nowhere. And it’s got a lotta pictures, so: If the newsletter is truncated cl...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 217. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. In this episode I tell the unpublished story of how I came to be a New York Times bestselling author, what that really means, and why your kids are gonna giggle at you anyway. The band and I are playing in Minneapolis tonight , if you are in ra...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 211. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. Last week I climbed into a big ol’ tractor and helped my brother with the planting ( short video here ). I was in a troubled state of mind, and that tractor helped. It also brought back a flood of memories, many of which I revisited in the boo...

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 207. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. In today’s episode I share the story of heading down to Alabama to tell stories and sign books in roadhouses and meet a friend I’d never met before. It all began thanks to a tornado and a guy who used to live under a bridge. And although we didn’t read Hem...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 203. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. In today’s episode I’m fresh back from a side-trip to Los Angeles which got me somehow to thinking about my short-lived punk rock career and the most important lesson I ever learned about playing guitar. There is also a passing mention of prai...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 197. This one’s subscribers only. Click the player above to listen. Today I got to thinking—and then talking—about thank you cards and thank yous and how whether you mail it or you click it you can never say thank you enough. Although taking the time to use pen and paper and a stamp do add a special degree of sincerity to the act. And for...

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 196. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. In today’s episode, I introduce a good friend of mine, Mary Cutrufello . I’ve mentioned Mary before, usually when talking about my band the Long Beds (named after the truck in Truck ), but since we’re going to be doing some shows as a duo this year (The Mi...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 194. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. I recorded today’s episode after running the snow plow and just before stoking the wood stove in anticipation of the first good long run of subzero temperatures, which reminded me of a piece I wrote about the subtle ways deep winters push us o...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 189. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. In today’s episode the death of a childhood friend sent me back to the days of bikes with “sissy bars” and banana seats , and how the last time we saw each other it was for a funeral, but most of all how his memory is tied to the days when we...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 184. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. In today’s episode I talk about how a writer winds up with a band and how the writer’s wife has one very important rule about that and how being in a band has become one of my dearest joys, even as I know that my main job is still to write wor...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 177. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. In this episode I reveal why little ol’ agnostic me is a St. Jude fan, why I find poetry in words like supplication , how chance encounters and friendships echo long beyond the moment at hand, and how the simple gift of a journal led to words...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 176. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. Today I lighten things up with humorous marginalia courtesy of the late Jim Harrison (a friend of the late Jimmy Buffett). Story for another time, but Harrison’s essay collection Just Before Dark played a significant role in my getting a book...

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 171. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. In this episode I recount how my dear late friend Billy yanked my chain once when it needed yanking (as one’s best friends will), and why that incident wound up in my book about the French philosopher Montaigne. This week’s marginalia is drawn from Mark Tw...

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 168. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike . Click the player above to listen. I wrote this up as a fresh “Roughneck Grace” essay. Then I recorded it during a thunderstorm. The plan was to talk about turning back to books. Which I did. But I also invoked pigeons, ping-pong balls, and parkour. I then veered into a light consideration...

Howdy folks: Adding something new this week. This is still Michael Perry’s Voice Mail. Episode #164, to be specific. This episode is available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. In each episode, I’ll still be reading and reflecting on a passage from the past (today, a painfully relevant passage from Montaigne in Barn Boots ). But if you look down there belo...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 162. (Ignore Mike saying it’s episode #161, he’s off by one week, which is better than average, and we’re not gonna tell him for at least another week.) This episode is available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. NOTE: The Neil Gaiman story anchoring this episode originally appeared in a subscribe...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 157. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Soon to speak at a writer’s conference and then do a show with his band , Mike talks about how he came to have a band in the first place, how his first-ever show went, and how things have gone since. Also...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 153. This one’s available to paying subscribers and free subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike begins the day with a coffee whoopsie, which leads him back to his writing about the French philosopher Montaigne’s thoughts on absentmindedness. Mike also does his Dylan Thomas impressio...

Howdy folks: Grateful to say we’ve had a surge of new subscribers. So today’s episode is a general welcome from Mike, in which—drawing on the photo above and those below—he recounts just how unlikely it was that he’d wind up writing and performing for a living, and how his blue collar, working class, roughneck, whatever-you-wanna-call-it upbringing turned out to be perfect preparation for what is,...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 142. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike is missing his daughters and pondering the price of eggs. This moves him to revisit a piece from  Peaceful Persistence addressing both of those topics and including a reference to Lawry’s Seasoned Sa...