Writing Combats My Blues
Featured Writer at Flint & Steel
I know that ache in my body is the recurrence of my arthritis; I know that ache in my soul is the failure to write for a few days, maybe even one day. It’s so curious to me: for years I didn’t understand what writing could do for my mood, my psyche, and even though I understand now how important a daily writing ritual is, I fool myself into believing that skipping a day won’t matter.
Crazy.
So, among the many things I’m thankful for in my Medium community is the chance to write for new publications like Flint and Steel. And now this chance to be a featured writer and to tell the other writers and readers here more about who I am and what writing really does to ease my blues.
Sometimes, of course, I listen to famous blues singers like Muddy Waters while I write. Takes one to…
So, let’s go!
How did you discover Medium and how long have you been writing here?
I discovered Medium through a publication called Left Hooks that accepted a story I wrote about the sordid legacy of former Alabama governor George Wallace. They asked if I minded if they shared the story on Medium, and I asked,
“What’s Medium?”
That must have been in 2016, and so as I continued to write, I decided to join the blog world and what better way than to latch on to a platform that already had thousands of members. So my first article erupted from a beach house in Litchfield, SC, in the summer of 2017. Hitting that “publish” button, I thought then, was either a death trap or a suicide rap.
What are you reading, listening to and/or watching these days?
Currently, I’m reading three books. My early morning read is Susan Jonusas’ Hell’s Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, A Serial Killer Family On The American Frontier. I know, what a way to kick off a morning (accompanied by my dog Max, and a robust blend of coffee). Southeastern Kansas in the aftermath of the Civil War was no place to settle, I’ve learned.
I also just started Questlove’s Music Is History, in which the Roots’ musician focuses on the year 1971 in American cultural and music history, picking selected and sometimes obscure songs to help explain why music and history can be entwined in ways we don’t always see/understand at a first, or even second, swoop. This is a mid-day way to keep music in front of me since I listen and write so much about it.
For my before-bed reading, I’m on the verge of finishing Joan Didion’s first novel, Run River. While I prefer her essays to her fiction, that’s like saying I prefer Bowie’s true Glam period to his chic-er soul. Beauty is beauty.
As for watching, my wife and I are almost done with the new season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, one of our loves. We also finished and love HBO’s The Gilded Age and can’t wait for more. I’m looking forward to starting the new season of Barry, too, because Bill Hader is god.
Oh, and listening? I’m obsessed right now with Cigarettes After Sex, Against Me!, King Crimson, Kacey Musgraves, and ready for the new releases by Arcade Fire, Wilco, and the Black Keys. And then, there’s Joan Jett, WAR, and on and on.
What is around you while you write?
The coffee pot, Max, either my study table, or the kitchen table (both wooden and in various states of distress). From the kitchen table I can look out on the woods behind our house, and I often retreat to the screened-in porch with lights that I can turn on or down low, listening to the assorted birds who keep us company. And of course, I play whatever vinyl strikes me and helps the mood. In the Court of the Crimson King is a good one, but if I’m in the lower parts of me, definitely Wilco or Spoon…or Muddy.
What is your guilty pleasure(s)?
A few months ago, I might have said, being identified as a “Swiftie,” but I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to say how much I love Taylor’s songwriting. Sometimes if I’m reading a cheap mystery I might feel guilty, but only in the sense that there are so many “more elevated” books to read. My therapist is trying to get me to read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, so let the guilt continue. But I also watch replays of Alabama football games — only the ones they’ve won! My wife no longer finds this stunning. Roll Tide!
What must be in your fridge (and/or cupboards) at all times?
Oat Milk (extra creamy); cream cheese; salad greens; Cajun turkey or pastrami. COFFEE, granola, pasta.
If you could travel anywhere right now where would you go? (in the perfect bubble where money, covid, and the world is not an issue)
In order: The British Isles including Shetland and the Isle of Man; San Francisco; NYC.
Tell us about one of your Medium articles that you loved writing, that you are the most proud about?
Well, that’s like choosing between children. I have several loved stories linked at the top of my Medium page — about book banning, Pink Floyd, and family trips to K-Mart. And I do love the piece I wrote about Gary Puckett and the Union Gap — “The Creepiest Band Ever.” But I also love a story I wrote three or four years ago about my dog Max, “In the Summer We Go A-Roamin.” He got away one day, and for an hour, I thought he’d never come back. He did, happy as a dog in the woods can be, but I likely lost a few years of life in that process.
Tell us about your favorite Medium writers, ones you read on a regular basis.
Oh man. Here’s a good list: Jessica Lee McMillan, Paul Combs, David Acaster, Chris Zappa, Christopher Robin, Taylor Moran, Karla Clifton, Sarah Paris, Steven Hale, If Ever You’re Listening, Jeffrey Harvey, AB, Pierce McIntyre, Kevin Alexander. Most of these fine people write about music, too, though the personal stories they weave into their writing are what make me come back to them over and over.
And your favorite Medium publications to write for and why?
Aside from Flint and Steel, a new one I’m writing for is The Book Cafe, which lets me review both old and current books and feed my critical mind. I LOVE writing for my music pubs — The Riff, Songstories, Counter Arts, Rock n’Heavy, Pop Off, and Plethora of Pop. I can review classic albums, whittle down the books I’ll be using for my Rock and Soul Literature course in the fall, or flashback to a time when I first heard Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush, as a teenager in 1971. I stir my soul, refresh my mind through these great and generous pubs.
Where else can we find you outside of Medium?
At my local record store, or, if you’d like, in one of my three published essay collections — Secrets I’m Dying To Tell You; We Might As Well Eat: How To Survive Tornados, Alabama Football, and Your Southern Family; and Don’t Date Baptists and Other Warnings From My Alabama Mother. All are published by Redhawk Publications, and available at…Amazon.
Thank you Ellie Jacobson for being so warm and generous, and so thoughtful with these questions! My blues are soothed!
