Top fives of 2022: My stuff

Happy New Year, everybody! Last week I sent you the lists of my favorite movies, TV, books, music and stories from last year. After that I took a couple of days off to celebrate the national holiday. I think my blood pressure has returned to somewhere near normal levels.

One last list today: The work I’m most proud of from 2022.

In one sense, this is like an iceberg: most of the work I did last year was on my dog book, which I’m still finishing up. That won’t be out in the world until down the road somewhere. But I’m grateful to WFAE for giving me a chance to do a podcast and a place to do commentaries. And I’m honored that so many of you have subscribed to this Substack. We’re coming up on a year of this newsletter soon! It’s been a real blessing to me. Thank you so much for reading.

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The most meaningful thing I was a part of, work-wise, was the episode of the TV show TrueSouth that featured me and my Georgia homeland. The episode is not currently online, although if you DVR “TrueSouth Brunswick” you should be able to record a re-run. (Here’s a little preview I did before it came out.) Host John T. Edge, producer Wright Thompson, and the crew at Bluefoot Entertainment did an incredible job of framing my story about food and beauty and survival. TrueSouth is exactly the kind of TV I’d make if I made TV—it shines a light on the South from the inside out. You can find the first four seasons on Hulu. Every minute is worth your time.

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The essay I did on Herschel Walker is one I really didn’t want to write. He was the closest I’ve ever had to an athletic hero, the best player on the team I cared about the most, a legend in my favorite sport. But then he linked up with Donald Trump and ran for the Senate and nearly all that goodwill washed away. I’m glad he lost and I hope he finds a different path in life and a part of me still roots for him.

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I’m not sure anybody in America is a better conversation than Tressie McMillan Cottom. She’s smarter than anybody funnier, funnier than anybody smarter, and everything she says is veined with gold. When we talked for SouthBound in August, the conversation ranged from her Southern accent to her hilarious mother (“the Vivian”) to the concept of whiteness to the death of her daughter. There’s so much here for everyone.

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For a couple of years now I’ve been trying to get liftoff on a series of essays about the songs that move me the most. It’s at the top of my list for things to resurrect in 2023. I managed to write exactly one of these last year—a piece on Etta James’ cover of the Eagles’ “Take It To the Limit.” I’ve got three more of these in the pipeline for the next weeks and months. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy writing them. And now I need to go back and listen to this Etta James track again.

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The most Southern conversation I had this year was with Casey Parks, author of the great semi-memoir DIARY OF A MISFIT. (I say “semi-memoir” because it starts out being about someone else but turns out being just as much about Casey.) Casey lives in Portland now because it’s a hell of a lot easier for her as a gay woman to live there instead of her hometown in Louisiana. But she still deeply misses the South—the food, the dancing, the way people say “hey” when they pass you on the street. If there’s one grand theme to my podcast, it’s how much so many of us are drawn to the South despite its terrible flaws. Casey gets deep into that duality.

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Once more: If you’re a subscriber to this newsletter, THANK YOU for your support, whether it’s with your time, attention or money. If you’re here for the first time, welcome aboard, and I hope you stick around. Here’s how: