Third time’s a charm.

Show favorite Mishka Shubaly returns to the podcast today for round 3 to chat about addiction, sobriety, rock ‘n roll, ultrarunning, relationships, writing, creativity and his fantastic new Kindle Single, Beat The Devil.

But mostly we talk about chasing dreams.  The inherent force, value & gestalt of a dream.  How much you are willing to sacrifice in pursuit of a dream, even when it constantly deludes and eludes you, undermining, derailing and even destroying other important aspects of your life.  How to know whether the dream you seek is the right dream.  And when — and if — it ever makes sense to abandon a dream that persistently fails to materialize.

Mishka and I have a shorthand.  A large percentage of our friendship has taken place on microphone, but there is a palpable sense that we have always been friends.  And that’s because — although our life experiences are very different — our mental & emotional points of reference share powerful common turf.  Indeed, Mishka is my brother-from-another-mother; and once again it comes through undeniably in this exchange.

Our bond aside, I feel an imperative to share his palpable creative voice.  A master of humility, self-deprecation, frailty and fear, his evocative prose is a dagger into the heart we all share — our common condition as human.  It’s an important voice, worthy of notice and praise.  An opinion I harbor not in isolation, but one shared by the literati, including a top editor at The Atlantic who goes so far as to say Mishka is “the voice of our generation”.  That phrase gets bandied about all too commonly, but in Mishka’s case it’s truth.  With 4 consecutive Amazon #1 bestsellers ( Shipwrecked, The Long Run, Are You Lonesome Tonight?  and  Bachelor Number One ) he is a true master of the short narrative.  Now he’s back at it.   Beat The Devil– his newest offering — just hit #1 in Amazon’s Kindle Singles category yesterday.

A deep dive into the downtown New York rock ‘n roll club scene, Beat The Devil is Mishka’s first-hand account of battling his ul...