MAILING LIST

If you'd like to be added (we don't give it to anyone and only use it to announce events or new releases), email mike[at]sneezingcow.com.  Email and zip is fine, snail mail if you wish.  The zip helps us let you know when I'm coming to your area.

'Course, it was his recovery day, and he was going real slow.

Oh, and I was on a bicycle.

Had company yesterday - family - and it was nice.  Then wound up building a fire pit pretty much on a whim.  Then as long as I had the tractor running, I dragged a big dead oak tree out of the woods and we made a pile of firewood.  It is reflective of certain changes in my life that with spring not even hatched I am looking forward to burning that wood come January because it will remind me of last night, when my wife and two daughters helped with the stacking and we had a picnic lunch on the new grass while the robins sang their evening song.

In the meantime it's raining like sixty, there are turkeys in the yard, and I just had some roasted rice tea which is nice but a tad wan on the heels of a French-pressed mug of fresh ground coffee beans.  I should be more refined.

Cool thing about the rain, it's filling up our rainwater collection system.  I'll have to post some photos of that sometime.  Talked about cobbled together.  One part Menards, one part Farm & Fleet, and one part my scavenger pal Mills.  He's a shameless junk genius.

Tomorrow night (Friday), a new "End Insight" video segment is due to air on Wisconsin Public Televison's Here and Now.  It's about going to an auction.

Big ol' pile of mail and emails waiting.  Gonna buckle down.

Sunny, but dang it's windy.  My brothers were gonna roof a shed today, but my brother Jed told me when they put the first pallet of steel on the forklift, the wind peeled one sheet off and blew it off the stack, into the air, and dropped it right on top of the roof.  While this struck my brothers as a potentially labor-saving approach, they also figured results might be inconsistent and as flying sheets of steel are not conducive to an OSHA-approved work environment, they instead have retired to the shop to work on tractors.

I had called Jed to ask about broadcasting timothy seed by hand.  My brothers are very helpful and patient with me, but I reckon when he snapped the phone shut he and John had themselves a benevolent little chuckle.  I am the oldest brother, and there was this short span of time in the early 1970s when I acted like it, but those days are long gone.

Nice guys, but they never call me to ask about the construction of metaphor or the application of allegory.  

...five minutes have passed.  Had a nice chance to glass the bird, and it was fun to watch the chickens poke their heads out of the shrubbery to blink and scold.  A second vulture came in and made a few passes, and now the one on the corn crib has returned to the air.  The chickens are in the yard, back to scratch and peck. 

And so we did.  Took us a while.  The first kite insisted on nose-diving straight to earth every 20 seconds.  Then we finally got it pretty high in the air and the string snapped.  It floated beautifully down into the valley, where we ran to retrieve it from a leafless box elder.  Then after re-tying it I managed to grab the string while the kite was in flight and slice my finger - this after giving my daughter a stern lecture about why she had to wear gloves (mine were on the ground at my feet when this happened).  When the string broke a second time, we dug around in the shed and found another kite still in the original packaging.  I think it was a gift from a grandma.  This kite was profoundly over-engineered, with a whirly tail and two propellers.  It required quite a bit of assembly, but I gotta say it went better than expected and soon we had it in the air, whereupon almost immediately one of the propellers popped off, sending a key component off into 37 acres of dead grass somehwere.  So we just yanked the propellers and flew it that way.

And up it went, up, up, and away.  Amy had it airborne a good half hour.  My beautiful wife and little baby daughter joined us on the ridge, where it was windy but the sun still kept us warm.  Amy's face was lit up and she was doing little jazz dance moves from her weekly lessons as she fought the kite like it was a feisty northern pike.  When we finally reeled the kite in and Amy and I walked home along the ridge with the sun going lower and the wind moderating, she looked up with that happy-tired look and I thought about the two hours just flown by and what would have been gained at the desk, and man, was I glad I shirked my so-called duties and helped a little girl fly her first kite.  Lucky us, lucky me.

Hoping the sun will nudge the mercury some today, get that maple sap flowing.  We've been getting some, but so far not as much as last year.  It's still running clear, though.  I enjoy making the rounds to empty the pails each day with my daughter.  On cold mornings she pulls the miniature sap icicles from the taps and has herself a country-style popsicle.  Sapsicle, I guess.

Honestly.  If parenting required a license...

But here's the thing:  She picked up her plastic slider dealie, tromped back up the hill, and - weeping the whole time - slid down again.  I the Knothead caught her her safely and - marveling at the durability of tykes - took her inside for supper and to tell Mom. 

Above all, a quiet nod to Ed and Scott and all who serve.

(Captain Smiley and First Lieutenant Salau were climbing on behalf of the Wounded Warrior Project and Camp Patriot.)

I love the game of football.  Loved playing it (in large part for the sanctioned violence, which I still recall with unapologetic fondness), loved watching it.  Then about 2-3 years ago, the afternoon that Randy Moss rubbed his butt on the field goal post, I just got tired of it.  Didn’t storm off or write letters to the editor or anything, but just got weary with the idea that I should burn time watching petulant millionaires act like asses in a time of war.  Or something like that.  I never really polished it into a speech or anything.  And so I just quit watching.  But I absolutely got drawn back in by the run this year.  Only saw a handful of the games, but I truly enjoyed watching Favre in there.  I’m benevolently cynical about this stuff (if one can be such a thing) but he just struck me as a feller who has come to understand himself and his place, and became more likable in the process.  Sports are irrelevant.  Having said that, we have been very fortunate to have a guy that good in place for that long.  Perhaps I can put it best with an overwhelming understatement: He was fun to watch.

But yes.  From the governor right down to the guy at the end of the bar, everyone has released a statement, and the statement is: We Are Sad.

To get an idea of why even the least zealous among us love them Packers, try this excellent essay by Wisconsin writer Paula Sergi.  She says it better than I can, plus the essay contains the phrase, "I had a good feeling about the bra."

Since this video came out, there's been an auction.

Some housekeeping:

- Last year an editor and writer named Kurt Chandler came out to interview me for a magazine piece.  I wound up taking his car keys and driving him to his first Tubby Burger.  The article is out in Volume 121, Issue 4, of The Writer magazine.

- Despite the fact that my storm door is busted and my bathroom floor is banked like turn 4 at Talladega, Milwaukee Home & Fine Living has a little excerpt from Truck: A Love Story on their "In The Neighborhood" page.

Also, we had one for supper Tuesday.

Three songs in a row this morning that worked good for me:

"I Get Ideas" - Louis Armstrong
"I Don't Wanna Grow Up" - Tom Waits
"Live Forever" - Billy Joe Shaver

And now to render me pensive for the 80s, Siouxsie & The Banshees, "Kiss Them For Me."  Gosh.  Sigh.  England in the rain.

Here's the music.  Here's some live footage.  And here's Justin in the studios of 89.3 The Current performing a real stripped down version of "Flume."  Scroll down on this page for tour dates.

I met C. Dale at the 2003 Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont.  What a stretch of days that was.  In spite of (or perhaps because of) my non-academic background when it comes to writing, I cherish the opportunity to spend time in the company of writers who can articulate theory and technique.  You can have your fantasy baseball camp, this was my fantasy writing camp.  While I was an utter dud on the party front, I soaked up every reading and workshop possible, and reveled in day after day of powerful readings.  So it was a blast to check C. Dale's blog today and see this post.  Five years later, these are people I still follow and read.  Such a privilege to share the Bread Loaf experience with them, what fun to see all of those names.

But one thing: Michael Perry did not win the Katherine Bakeless Nason Fellowship in Nonfiction.  I've never been clear on the details.  I did receive a letter of congratulations for winning the fellowship, but literally moments before I was to deliver my reading I was informed that there had been a mixup and while I was a fellow, I was not the Katherine Bakeless Nason fellow.  This is confirmed by my absence from this page (2002 fellows are invited to the 2003 conference).

I am happy to report that I soldiered on, things are going fine, and Bread Loaf remains a fond memory (although I ain't gonna lie -- when I got back home and told the fellers down at the volunteer fire department that I had fumbled the Bakeless, there were bitter, bitter tears).  I wrote a few paragraphs about the experience for Truck: A Love Story.  My editor cut them out of the book, because it is her job to keep me from meandering aimlessly, but right now while she's not watching, here's the excised Bread Loaf bit:

And then, with production humming right along, I abandon the garden again, this time for Vermont , where I spend eleven days participating in the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference.  It was a rare delight for me, to be surrounded by poets and writers and constant talk of writing.  I just wallowed in it.  Went to every reading, went to workshops, did my best to steal tricks from the poets.  I have been rooming with the English novelist Naeem Murr, and we have become fast friends in no small part because he says things like “lashings of oily charm,” and “I would rather have my nipples sanded.”  Among other things, we went jogging where Robert Frost ambled.

The people at Bread Loaf give you your own mailbox and on about day four when I opened mine and found a letter from Anneliese, I felt like a kid at camp, which of course I was.  I rushed home with the letter only to find Naeem in a rare state of discontent.  It seems he had become fixated with a framed vintage photo on our bookshelf depicting (as it said on the back of the print) the hanging of some Wild West outlaw named Black Ted, or Nasty Jack, or Utterly Negative Ned.  I had a look and agreed that the doomed man’s mug creeped me out as well and would impede our growth as artists.  Ultimately we decided that whatever trouble this fellow may have caused in his day, we didn’t want him harshing our vibe in the here and now, and so we turned him to the wall for the duration.  Then I read my letter from Anneliese and shared little bits with Naeem.  Honestly, all that was missing was bunk beds and marshmallow cocoa.  Later when I had a chance to call Anneliese, I found her a little over-stretched.  She was just finishing a state-mandated teaching test in the midst of preparing course material for her fall classes, interviewing babysitters for Amy, signing up for a teaching licensure course and providing care and feeding for a three-year-old.  All complicated by the fact that two nights ago Amy announced with a screech that monkeys were flying in her window.  Now she won’t go in her room alone.  Sometimes when I am off being a Writer in Love, I forget that Anneliese is a single working mom who might like a little help fighting the monkeys.

            There are two hiccups in my Bread Loaf experience, one coming when it is announced during the introduction of my reading that despite what it says in your program, Michael Perry did not win the Katherine Bakeless Prize for Literary Nonfiction (unsure how one responds in such a circumstance, I limited my comments to wondering aloud if this meant I had to surrender my parking space and special pen), and the second today, when – thanks to a delinquent taxi and despite the heroic motoring of a member of the Bread Loaf staff – I arrive at the airport in time to watch my flight home being pushed from the jetway.  In nearly any other circumstance I wouldn’t give a hoot, but I left the conference a day early because John and Barbara are being married tomorrow morning.  It winds up being a long afternoon.  Flying standby, I get the last seat on the last flight out of Burlington , Vermont .  I arrive in Detroit just in time to catch a standby seat on the last flight from Detroit to Minneapolis .  I manage a cellphone call while running the tunnel to make the flight, arrange for a friend to meet me, and wind up pulling into my driveway in New Auburn at the stroke of midnight .

So.  There y'go.  Thanks for a fun post, C. Dale.

It's a rodeo saying, I know, but somehow it just never struck me before, and the way it popped up twice in 24 hours just got my attention, I guess.

I ain't right about much, but I remember the very first time I heard a relatively unkown comedian named Larry the Cable Guy say, "Git'r done!" and I said, that boy's gonna be a millionaire.  With those two-and-a-half words, he tapped straight to the philosophical center of every busted-up-pickup-truck-drivin', volunteer-firefighterin' good-timin' buddy-o-pal I've ever run with, girls included.  Let'er buck! won't make you a million dollars - it doesn't have the equivalent universality - but it appeals to the roughneck existentialist in me.  As much as I like Git'r done! it does not adequately address the fact that even the most resolute combination of brute strength and optimism can get blasted straight to vapor with one swing of the ol' nail-studded reality bludgeon.  Whereas Let'er buck! manages to convey can do, damn the torpedoes, and give my love to mom all in one.  Grit and pluck with a grim fatalistic edge.  Things may go straight to grievous heck, but swing the gate open anyhow.

Let'er buck!

Yessir.

Regarding the tour, I'd like to say we're heaing out in a big ol' Silver Eagle, but it'll be the mighty Plymouth Voyageur, the one with the peeling paint chunks and windshield wipers you run with a standard light switch, like the one in your house.  On or off, no in-between, and if you want the wipers to lie flat, you gotta hit the switch at just the right time.

One of the Long Beds, a guy named Justin Vernon (he recorded, played on, and produced Headwinded), recently signed a deal with a record label for his beautiful album For Emma, Forever Ago.  I couldn't be prouder, but I'm waiting to tell more of the story until the album is officially released next month.  In the meantime, I posted a photo of Justin as a Long Bed on a much warmer day.  Mainly because I wanted to look at a photo of green leaves and water in a liquid state. 

If you read this article, you'll see why I like Justin so much, why I hope he does well, and you'll see how he dresses when it's cold.

Just across the street at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library, Bill Nolte has a show.  Nolte owns Eau Claire landmark The Joynt.  That's him in the first line of Chapter 13 in Truck: A Love Story: "There is a man in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, who owns a bar where he will sell you no light beer."

There's more local art here.

A friend in New Zealand sent this link.

Coincidentally, the magazine article is about climbing Mt. Rainier.  Not Everest, but tall enough for a Wisconsin boy.

This solved nothing.  He still chased my sister.  At some point he was cured by the stewpot.

Knuckles

As I have described previously, we recently adopted a rooster named Knuckles.  Turns out Knuckles is a himbo*.  He cuts a mighty wide swath with the ladies (and to be fair, egg production has never been better since he arrived) (yes, I know hens lay eggs sans rooster, I'm just sayin'...) and struts with his feathery chest stuck out, but the minute I step into the coop he turns into a complete ninny, cluckety-clucking and flip-flapping.  I wouldn't mind, but he flusters the hens.  They used to be cool when I came in the coop, but now Knuckles gets them all worked up.  If he'd peck me, I'd have some respect for him, but this whole Nervous Norvus business brings out the worst in me.  I have taken to catching him and hypnotizing him in a corner while I do the chores, although by the time the feathers settle he's usually awake again, tut-tut-tutting and skittering around like the whiny kid at recess.  I admit last night I placed him in the steel garbage can where we store laying mash until I had finished replenishing the feed and water and collected the eggs.  He kept clucking, but with the lid in place it was like he had muted his trumpet.

Because I can hear what you are thinking, I should point out that he behaved this way long before I began putting him to sleep or stuffing him in a trash can. 

Anyway, when I finish the chores and Knuckles re-awakens (or I free him from the garbage can), we have this little standoff.  Knuckles clucks and huffs and re-fluffs his feathers, then stretches his neck and lets loose a mighty crow.  I crow right back, which makes him blink.  Then he crows.  Then I crow.  And so it goes.  Until eventually I have to go put the eggs in the fridge.  And as I walk across the yard, I can hear him in there, in his 8-by-10 palace with his harem, cock-a-doodle-doo'ing, and I can stuff him in the garbage can all I want, but at the end of the day, Knuckles wins, Knuckles is King.

P.S. I am not alone in my rooster battles.  Thanks to Liz for her entertaining essay.  Have you considered the latest in rooster-proof clothing?

*I'm sure the word "lucks" in that definition is a typo for "looks", but "lucks" describes Knuckles' situation (six hens, baby) perfectly!

The rooster is a borderline worthless showboater and he and I have our own little war.  Another story for another time.  Egos are involved.

I'm reminded to say thanks because this morning I was pecking away at the email stack and I ran across some photos sent to me after an event in Madison, Wisconsin, where a group of people shared their time and some neat gifts with me.

Irma on a cup!      Hot truck pix! 

  Truck Guys    Truck t-shirt

Back in the real world, I've begun to post 2008 speaking/music engagements.

"Latest News" 2007 archived here.

"Latest News" 2006 archived here.

"Latest News" 2005 archived here.

"Latest News" 8/14/1999 thru 12/09/2004 archived here.

THE NEXT BOOK - Working on a new book about growing up as a farm boy and a member of an obscure fundamentalist Christian sect.

MAGAZINES - It's gotten tough to keep track of these, so I'll just do my best to mention when pieces are published.

MUSIC - Mike has put together an album with his band The Long Beds.  Now available here.

POPULATION 485 - The new "P.S." edition of the  Population 485 paperback should be available in most stores -- if it's not on the shelves, they can certainly order it.  Also available right now from this site.

ESSAY COLLECTION - Off Main Street, a collection of Mike's essays, is available now.  You can find more information about the book here, and you can order the book here.

POPULATION 485 ON AUDIO - An audiobook version of  Population 485 (read by Mike) including selections from Off Main Street used to be available.  You can find more information about CD version of the audiobook here, and you can still download it but the CD version isn't available for now.

"Latest News" 2007 archived here.

"Latest News" 2006 archived here.

"Latest News" 2005 archived here.

"Latest News" 8/14/1999 thru 12/09/2004 archived here.