Episode #224: Trucker Radio

You know the gig is real when you see the poster in the coffee shop bathroom.

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 the area!

Oh, and a clarification: In today’s episode I mention 1997 and 2007 in a way that might be confusing. The main piece was written in 1997…the 2007 reference pertains to an explanatory addendum in Off Main Street. Either way, time flies like a brakeless truck down Wolf Creek Pass.

Thank you,
Mike

It was one of my all-time favorite T-shirts. So much so that I had my author photos taken in it. And wore it on my first date with my wife. Photo by J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Road King sent me all over the place.

Our cat wants to be on the radio. Trucker or otherwise. And would like you to just back off. Don’t tell him it’s not a radio studio, just a podcast pod.

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Info on the WHYS concert including the Long Beds.

WHYS website.

Dave Nemo talking about trucker songs.

Long Beds trucking song.

Long Haul Paul’s music.

Interview I did with Long Haul Paul (slung some guitar).

The source of this episode’s marginalia is the same book as last week, which I found thanks to a listener/reader recommendation: First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process, available from BookShop.org and Amazon. (Law requires me to let you know we catch a little commission if you order through those links. Are we good, law?)

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MARGINALIA

I keep dipping into First We Read, Then We Write. It’s one of those you can read that way. A chapter when time allows.

Unlike Emerson above, I’ve never been good at keeping journals. Partly because I’m not that disciplined, and partly because when I did keep journals and went back to read them, they rendered me profoundly maudlin. I do keep reams and reams of jotted oddments, and physical object and pictures that trigger my memories and sprout stories. But there is also a chuckle for me in the above passage, as after 30 years of freelancing, I deeply appreciate the “cash value of an idea.”

My finest mentors were those who told me what didn’t work.

I often wish I was more organized. More disciplined in my approach. But it’s those tangents that yield up the rich stuff…