Everybody hurts

One of the greats covers one of my favorites, plus my weekly shareables: green bean casserole, a cat museum, and a new series from Michael Schur

🙏🏼

A couple of announcements this morning:

• Excited to reveal that I’ll be part of the Southern Voices Festival in Hoover, Alabama (just outside Birmingham) in February. I’m part of a conference featuring seven authors on Saturday, Feb. 22. That makes two festivals for me in February—I’m also doing the Savannah Book Festival earlier that month along with many other incredible authors. February is usually my least favorite month, but this one is shaping up to be great.

• Thrilled that DOGLAND made the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s list of the best books of 2024. There are so many amazing books on that list and I’m honored to be a part of it.

I would also be remiss if I neglected to tell you that my books, DOGLAND and THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM, would make excellent gifts for the holidays. Those links go to Park Road Books, my favorite bookstore, but you can also buy copies through YOUR favorite bookstore or online portal.

I should also mention that the paperback edition of DOGLAND is coming out in April and is now available for preorder … it will make a great gift for (checks April calendar) uh, Earth Day or somewhere thereabouts.

Al Green is one of the great singers this country has ever produced. If I could sing like any person on earth it would be him. He’s 78 years old now and he has led a complicated life—his Wikipedia page feels like a light switch being toggled on and off. It’s fair to say he has hurt and been hurt.

He doesn’t record that much anymore but over the past few years it appears he has set up a side quest to cover some of my favorite songs. A few years ago he did Freddy Fender’s “Before the Next Teardrop Falls.” Last year he put out his version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” And this week he released his take on R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.”

Listen to this version and it’s clear that “Everybody Hurts” is a classic R&B ballad that just happened to be written and performed by an alternative rock band. It feels like it would have been an absolute showstopper for Otis Redding in his prime. I wish there were some time machine we could turn back to 1967 where we could keep Otis off that plane to Wisconsin and somehow get him this song. But 2024 Al Green will have to do. And 2024 Al Green is still plenty damn good.

Al Green is officially the Rev. Al Green. I’m not sure that puts him closer to God than anybody else. But I do think him putting out this song this week, when so many of us are hurting … well, let’s just say he has an uncanny sense of timing. This song makes me want to go listen to more Al Green and more R.E.M. That’s one excellent way to heal.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My guest on this week’s SOUTHBOUND is Michael Kruse, who for my money is the best political writer in America. We talk a lot about his extraordinary story for POLITICO on two brothers who illustrate the great American divide… we also talk about Trump’s second term and the ethics of great storytelling.

2. My weekly for WFAE was about getting outside to clear your head of … well, everything.

3. We started watching my pal Michael Schur’s new show A MAN ON THE INSIDE, and we love it even though the two episodes we watched put us through an emotional wringer. Ted Danson stars as a widower who becomes an amateur detective when he infiltrates a retirement home to recover a stolen necklace. It’s VERY funny but also touches on a lot of the issues we’re having to confront with an aging parent. Beautiful and true. (Netflix)

4. Thoroughly entertaining: The Guardian’s look back at 50 years of streaking. Fantastic quotes and wonderful (though not TOO racy) photos. I had completely forgotten there was a streaker at the only Super Bowl I’ve attended (Panthers-Patriots, 2004). Maybe that’s because it was the same Super Bowl that featured Janet Jackson’s breast at halftime.

5. A great, cheap gift (or rainy-day project) perfect for Thanksgiving: Austin Kleon’s gratitude zines.

6. Loved this Slate piece on the 25 most important recipes of the last 100 years. Fact of the day: Green bean casserole is such a popular holiday dish that Campbell sells 50 percent of its cream of mushroom soup between November and January.

7. I cannot believe I didn’t know that North Carolina is home to the Museum of the House Cat until I saw this NYT story on the death of its creator.

8. As I mentioned last week, I’m over on Bluesky now, just dabbling a little bit, and this made me laugh:

   

   (FYI, for those of you who tried to click on that screenshot, it doesn’t look like you can embed Bluesky posts into Substack … at least not yet.)

9. I met David Wroblewski (author of the bestseller THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE) at the Opus and Olives event in St. Paul last month. His new book, FAMILIARIS, is 992 pages long. Friends, I do not normally even pick up a book that is 992 pages long, unless I have a door that needs to be stopped. But I reluctantly inform you that I am about 100 pages in and completely hooked. It’s an old-fashioned big sprawling American novel.

10. I couldn’t write something about “Everybody Hurts” without leaving the original here at the end … it’s not only a beautiful and moving piece of music, but one of the last great videos of MTV’s heyday. Man, do I miss the real MTV.
    

    
    

    Have a great week, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving.

—TT