Catch me on TV this Sunday

My TrueSouth moment, plus links of the week: Metallica in autumn, Marcel the shell, and RIP to a brilliant songwriter

That’s me as The Elephant on the poster for the TrueSouth episode (art by Taylor Rushing)

I mentioned about six months ago that I spent a couple of days in my hometown shooting an episode of TRUESOUTH, a brilliant series about food and culture in the South. That episode is airing this Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern on the SEC Network.

I haven’t seen the episode, and I don’t have a great idea what it’ll look like—they shot a ton of footage, so there’s no telling what the final shape will be. Every episode of the show goes to a place in the South and tells its story through a couple restaurants and a local who talks about the place. We talked a lot about my childhood in south Georgia, and how those experiences led to writing THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. It got pretty emotional along the way. I hope some of my deep love for my homeland comes through.

(The two restaurants, by the way, are Sistas Kitchen in Brunswick and Frosty’s Griddle & Shake on St. Simons. Both fantastic.)

The host of the show, John T. Edge, and the executive producer, Wright Thompson, are writers I’ve known and admired a long time. The production crew from Bluefoot Entertainment was a joy to work with (and to hang out with during a long boozy wrap party at Bennie’s Red Barn).

So set your DVRs or catch the episode when you get a chance (most episodes of the show get re-run on various ESPN networks, and the series is available on Hulu). If you do watch it, drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you think. I’m nervous and excited and eager to see what they came up with. And I’m sure it will be weird to see my face on the screen. Maybe we should go out and get a smaller TV.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. I wrote a little something about going into Twitter rehab, and heard from a lot of y’all about your struggles to do the same thing with various kinds of social media. Let’s hang in there together.

2. I also appeared as a guest on the fine Canadian podcast EAT MORE BARBECUE, which is a suggestion I will take to heart.

3. Really loved this Amanda Petrusich story on Metallica, 40 years down the road, and what those years do to a band that started out running on rage.

4. If you follow college football, a big story this week was Auburn’s hiring of Hugh Freeze as its head football coach, despite his place at the center of previous scandals—football and otherwise. Jason Kirk wrote a brilliant piece about the dual hypocrisies of evangelical religion and college football. And then he and his colleagues at the Shutdown Fullcast spent a good hour blasting the whole mess with their normal cocktail of humor and anger and truth. Although they do take some time in the intro to discuss the concept of Chainsaw Jesus.

5. DOG NEWS: While I work on my book, I’m devoting this slot to dog stories. This week: They put NBC News election guru (and master of the interactive screen) Steve Kornacki on the case at the National Dog Show. This was the result.
   

6. Our latest TV binge is LONGMIRE, the story of a Wyoming sheriff solving murders and trying to recover from the death of his wife. We’re about halfway into season 2 and deeply digging it.

7. We also watched MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON, a charming “documentary” about a tiny shell with a pair of shoes and one big eye and some deep thoughts about home and family. It took me a few scenes to get into this, but I was hooked by the end.

8. I don’t think I’ve ever shared a recipe in this newsletter, but we made the New York Times’ version of turkey tetrazzini and it was a fantastic use of our Thanksgiving leftovers.

9. Track of the Week is John Fullbright’s “Blameless,” which sounds like a Baptist hymn crossed with something from Jerry Lee Lewis’ country phase. Been playing this all week.
   

10. RIP the brilliant Christine McVie. Whenever I heard a Fleetwood Mac song I really loved, chances were that she wrote it. “Say You Love Me” is about as perfect as a pop song gets.
    

See y’all next week, everybody.