Michael Perry's Voice Mail

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 136. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. This is a fresh “Roughneck Grace” essay, never before printed nor recorded. In this one, Mike shares how he and his friend Evan wrote a new song they’ll be debuting at two live shows this week. A “scratch” vocal (in this case an unedited take recorded...

Howdy folks. We’ve had a rush of new subscribers. Welcome! I recorded this episode to show you around the place. Or talk you around, because as longtime subscribers know, this is more like a voice mail message than a newsletter. Subscription and sharing information are posted at the end of this email. Anyways. Click on the player above to hear what this is and isn’t. Relevant links and photos belo...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 129. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. This was supposed to be the monthly “ramble” episode. Then I remembered I had written a piece about Halloween in 2017. So I read that and also did a mini-ramble expanding on the essay and the photos below. I also reveal why—for me—thi...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 122. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike goes on an unscripted ramble about how unboxing a box of mouse-riddled hats and caps transported him to a heartwarming recollection of his mother and how she balanced want and need on the tip of...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 121. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike takes you inside the world of “clodhopper sportz,” most specifically the splattery happiness of apple golf. Today’s essay is from the book Roughneck Grace , available in print and ebook form here , a...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 112. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. This is also where Mike’s “Roughneck Grace” columns will show up in the future (see text of today’s coumn below). For an update on all that, and more information about what Voice Mail is going to be like going forward, please see this typ...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 105. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike reads a piece about a cat who maybe spent the night in a tavern and now produces efflux ! In the  Roughneck Reflection ,  he explains why the chicken coop is empty for the first time in 15 years, is...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 101. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike departs from reading a published essay to sharing an unpublished piece about his accidental, tangential, unplanned, sideways foray into writing for a living. In the  Roughneck Reflection ,  he says t...

Howdy folks ( been traveling and just now got a chance to post this ) : Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 96. This one’s subscribers only. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike acknowledges world events make it tough to do fluff, but also figures we still need fluff. Then he reads the piece that includes the Garth Brooks story. In the  Roughneck Refl...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 88. This one’s available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike reads the essay about the time he overdosed on pizza in a hotel room, decided to get fit in the course of a single day, and face-planted. In the  Roughneck Reflection ,  he explains the story of the p...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 81. This one’s free for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  They tell us a big blizzard is on the way, so Mike revisits a piece he wrote about being snowed in. He also revisits (albeit briefly) his tussle with the local highway commissioner, a historic (well, for M...

Howdy folks: Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 75. This one’s free for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike revisits a piece about the pigs, the cosmos, and Victoria’s Secret, then—EPISODE INTERRUPTED WHEN MIKE HITS HIS HEAD ON A BIG SET OF ANTLERS MID-RECORDING—reflects on the passage of time, whether or not h...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 66. This one’s free for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike revisits a selection from The Jesus Cow and then reveals the poet who inspired the scene…and how that trail leads back to a literary conference from the past and an Oprah book club pick in the present...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 62. This one’s free for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  When a reader sent Mike an old magazine profile from 2003, he was caught off-guard by his reaction while reading it. “A truckload of emotions,” Mike says, “low-key but deep.” After reflecting on the unexpe...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 51. This one’s free for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  How shy people hide in public, and why I wish you wouldn’t do play-by-play on my groceries. It’s Freudian and Scandinavian and some other things. In the  Roughneck Reflection  Mike discusses hiding in publ...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the first “Ask Mike” episode of Michael Perry’s Voice Mail . Plan is to do one or two of these a month in addition to Mike’s weekly “Roughneck Rewind” and “Roughneck Reflection.” Most “Ask Mike” episodes will go out as a thank you to paid subscribers , but we’re releasing this first one into the wild to help spread the word. Are you a subscriber with a question you’d like t...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 45. This one’s free for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  The one about the farmer who got kicked by a dead cow. In the  Roughneck Reflection  Mike reveals how his brother told him he’d been telling the story wrong for years, and how—even when we have no interest...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 40. This one’s free for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  A rooster, offering background commentary throughout because Mike forgot to close the window over the garage before he started recording this episode about truck troubles, truck happiness, and above all, t...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 35. This one’s free for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike explores the section about Harley’s khakis in The Jesus Cow as a metaphor for the ambivalent relationship between art and pitchforks. Or something like that. And then in the Roughneck Reflection Mike...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 30. This one’s free for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike thanks readers and listeners for their notes and emails. In fact, it was a reader who suggested this episode’s  “Roughneck Rewind,”  in which Mike revisits and reflects on an essay about mercy from th...

Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 26. This one’s free to all, and to all a good night. Click the player above to listen. Included in today’s installment:  Mike doesn’t mention it, but he knows he really oughta hook up the snowplow. In this episode’s  “Roughneck Rewind,”  Mike revisits and reflects on a piece he often shares this time of year, about how he went from Ch...

Came out of the woods this morning thinking about a passage in Visiting Tom that isn’t about Thanksgiving but invokes Thanksgiving. Whatever the state of your heart, mind, and table, thank you for being thoughtful and thankful. Mike P.S. Just in case you think I’m unceasingly reflective and morose, here’s my favorite Tom video ever . For subscription options, click on the button below (it says “Su...

A few words. Thank you,Mike This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelperry.substack.com/subscribe

One of my favorite Tom pictures. He just finished telling one of his stories, and he’s enjoying my reaction as much as he enjoyed telling it. Love this informal snapshot, and how much it conveys of what we miss these days—dropping in to eat a little something, shoot the breeze, pass some time. Howdy folks: Welcome to the Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 13. This one’s free to one and all. Click...

Art by Andrea Worthey Back before the pandemic I was having a bad day. Felt I was failing as a husband. Had a daughter in distress far from home and calling for comfort. Another daughter on the edge of change. I needed sunlight. I stepped outside into a beautiful summer afternoon. First thing I saw was an indigo bunting, dead in the grass. So I headed back into my little room above the garage and...