Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, November 20, 2017, 12:45 p.m. On Saturday night, something occurred that I had never seen before in my hometown. Maybe it’s because I’m not often out driving on Saturday nights. I had been at Presbyterian College all day. I brought a pot of chili to the tailgate party before PC ended …
Tag: Monte Dutton
Playing Music Through the Years
It all started with a book, my last non-fiction to date. As I traveled around the country, writing about NASCAR, I started doing interviews with favorite musicians on the side. Robert Earl Keen in Newberry, S.C.; Tom Russell in Berkeley, Calif.; Pat Green in New Braunfels, Texas; James McMurtry, and Slaid Cleaves in Austin, Texas; …
Say It Ain’t So, Hose
Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, November 13, 2017, 11:12 a.m. And you know the sun's settin' fast And just like they say nothing good ever lasts Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye but hold on to your lover 'Cause your heart's bound to die Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to …
Up with Furman
Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, November 12, 2017, 10:29 a.m. It’s not often I feel the joy I felt Saturday. Waylon Jennings once sang that, down in Alabama, “they call me the man of joy.” He wasn’t singing about me. Writing breeds satisfaction, not joy. Life is a struggle as I write and write and write, …
The Glory of the Past and the Unremitting Legacy
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, November 4, 2017, 2:38 p.m. Since noon, I’ve been keeping tabs on Auburn-Texas A&M, Kansas State-Texas Tech, Syracuse-Florida State, Western Kentucky-Vanderbilt, Florida-Missouri, Massachusetts-Mississippi State, and several others that don’t occur to me now. That’s just on television. Via Twitter, I’ve been keeping tabs on Presbyterian-Monmouth, Chattanooga-Wofford, and Western Carolina-The Citadel. The …
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This Too Will Pass … Or It Won’t
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, October 26, 2017, 11:03 a.m. It was 100 degrees in Los Angeles for the first game of the World Series. The president is Donald Trump. A hurricane hit Ireland. Puerto Rico is still an American wasteland a month after Maria. I thought, oddly, about an old pop song. Take a letter, …
No Master Plan
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, October 18, 2017, 9:45 a.m. The process of writing what will be my eighth novel, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, has been unique, not because I’ve tried some original new method, or suddenly awakened with some master plan that had earlier eluded me. It wasn’t a master plan. It was a rapidly …
The Car Won’t Start
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, October 11, 2017, 11:22 a.m. “My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.” – Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman), Blazing Saddles. Today my mind is more of an intravenous placebo drip, and any cascading rivulets are probably a result of coffee and …
Las Vegas from Back Here
Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, October 2, 2017, 12:48 p.m. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a large-scale music festival. Thanks to friends in Texas, I’ve been to lots of small-scale music festivals, but, mostly, I’ve watched favorite musicians, barely known to most of my friends, at auditoriums, converted movie theaters, and the …
Not the Best of Evenings for the Home Team
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, September 30, 2017, 11:02 a.m. The football perspective is different for the coach, the player, the writer, the fan in the stands, and the one following the game on social media. Duh. One tries to be mindful. For instance, the writer is in danger of missing the beauty of the forest …
Nightrider's Lament 