“Farther Find Me Now,” by the Coal Men, from their album Kids with Songs.
I am told this song was featured on the “Bitter Tears” episode of Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch.
What I mean when I say saudade.
Home of Michael Perry – Author, Humorist, Singer/Songwriter, Amateur Pig Farmer
Archive for September, 2009
Even A Blind Pig…
I’ve mentioned several times that this year’s pigs are frustratingly finicky. But we found something they gobble: acorns! I threw a shovelful in the pen and it was like someone spilled the bridge mix.
Special thanks to Calder and Julian, who delivered our first batch. And thanks to a certain bass player who supplied the wheelbarrowful you see in the photos.
Big Top Chautauqua
Oats Notes
We planted oats on a long-fallow patch this spring. The neighbor was kind enough to plow the sod, then I tilled it and used a simple shoulder-slung broadcaster to spread the seeds. Didn’t have a cultipacker so I settled for dragging the whole works with a bedspring hooked behind an ATV. The oats came up great, and it was a pleasure to gaze at them all summer, especially when they began to head out – such a soothing color, that milky green. They’re golden now, and yesterday I started harvesting them.
Too Many Tomatoes
Must be that time of year. I’ve received a number of emails asking me how to make the roast tomatoes I describe in Truck: A Love Story. It was tomatoes, fresh thyme, fresh marjoram, olive oil, sea salt, fresh ground pepper, slow roasting, and as much garlic as you like. Separate the stock and the pulp. Eat the garlic while standing at the stove. The actual recipe can be found on page 92 of Tom Collichio’s Think Like a Chef, worth buying for the photographs alone.
Truth be told, the Collichio technique, while lovely and all (the garlic…roasted in the husk…I digress), is relatively time-consuming. This year we’ve dealt with the tomato overload by making “Tomato Glut Sauce” from a recipe in Joan Gussow’s This Organic Life. You can get through a monstrous bunch of tomatoes with this one, and the sauce is fine, fine.
Alfredo Narciso
Came across an old friend via the usual Brownian FaceGoogle mish-mash. I remember when Alfredo was Al, and we were doing a play at the local coffee shop. I’m still going to the same coffee shop, but Al has been in NYC for a while now, and making his way just fine. Neat to see.
His website says he can play guitar, too, and it’s true. Long before I could even do a D-chord, long before the Long Beds, Al would come to my house in New Auburn and play Steve Earle songs while I tried to sing along.
Good on ya, Al. Break a dang leg.
Jaggernaughty-Jiggity
Been listening to my new Jaggernauts album. We Control the Horizontal. Mmm, feisty and really ups my tempo at the keyboard.
Early favorite is Track 3, “N-Ski in A.” Politeness compels me to inform you that the lyrics are not the sort of thing you’d play for the tots nor aloud at work. Triplicate F-bomb. But listen and you’ll know why folks show up to hear Noel and the ‘Nauts. Tight, rocking, poppy, and loud.
Extra credit for lyrics mentioning Shawtown and Big Eddy Springs.
And finally someone has addressed the musical implications of Zombie Robot Ninja Pirates.
An Even Better Term
I call myself a freelance writer. Meaning that I love the art and dance and music and ineffable joys of words written and spoken, but ultimately I am a self-employed fellow taking/generating work where I can find it. So when I read this obituary, I enjoyed this quote:
“I’ve always wanted to be what I have become, a journeyman writer,” he told The Guardian of London in 1994.
I also liked this bit:
He was the founder and life president of the Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant Apostrophe, a fictional organization dedicated to combating false plurals like tomato’s and road signs like the one he spotted near Sevenoaks, with letters three feet high that read BUSE’S ONLY.
Words and Phrases That Creep Me Out
For reasons I can neither explain nor defend, the following words and phrases creep me out.
scrumptious
pick your brain
munching
There will be more.
P.S. The word poop used to creep me out, then there became kids in the house and my distaste became irrelevant.
P.P.S. I do still wish people wouldn’t tell me they are “pooped” or “pooped out” (my own beloved grandmother did so regularly, it’s not personal) because the inside of my head operates first and foremost in the visual realm…
Question of the Day
Why do our ducks (some brown domestic breed) dig holes in the ground beside the water tub using their bills? The holes are about the diameter of a pop can and can be up to six inches deep. They fill with water and the ducks swish and rattle their bills within. Is this the equivalent of duck tooth-brushing?
I have spent a full 15 seconds Googling the subject and found nothing.
The Clodhopper Monologues
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After we played a benefit show in Mike’s hometown of New Auburn, a sweet lady told us we sounded, “Just like Gordon Lightfoot…only zippier!” We figured that was about perfect.