Otis Brown's Podcast

What is live music anymore? Does an autotuned, canned music high wire stage show even count? I don't really have an opinion on whether it does or does not, but I know for sure one performer one guitar and an audience still matters, no matter what the kids are calling it nowadays and there's still a lot of it to go around.

In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I discuss Jason Isbel, Greg Brown, Ryne Doughty, Samantha Crain, Freakwater and some other poets with guitars who continue to hold my attention. 

Keywords:
Jason Isbel "Tupelo" 
Greg Brown 
Ryne Doughty Spring Done Sprung
Samantha Crain "Elk City"
Freakwater Old Paint 
Adam Carroll "Ricebirds" 
Townes Van Zandt "Lungs" 
Jerry Jeff Walker
John Prine
Sussurrus 

Pardon the bad puns--I can't help myself. In this week's podcast, I ask why de-oculation is solely the domain of the Greeks, the Bible, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, A. B. Longstreet, Davy Crockett, Cormac McCarthy, the TV show Deadwood--oh wait, everyone is obsessed with blindness in art! In an iteration that seems Biblical, but is unique to the American "Old Southwest," taking out your adversary's eyeball in a brutal hand-to-hand no-holds-barred fight called the Rough and Tumble is a favorite literary subject and rural pastime. I explore all of it and more in "The Eyes Have It," this week on OBP. 

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Thanks (and, seriously, take care of your eyesight)   

This week's Otis Brown Podcast takes its title from Peter Case's great "The Open Road Song." I seem to be obsessed with singing this song lately. I've also been thinking about what constitutes "professional dress" for me and how this period of isolation may be changing that. Though I'm in a position to flout expectations of professional dress in my workplace, I fully-realize that not everyone has or wants that option, so I also want to use the podcast description to promote "Dress for Success," a really wonderful organization that has been helping economically disadvantaged women pull themselves out of poverty by providing them with the necessary professional attire they need to get and keep the career jobs they have trained for and deserve. If you would like to explore the organization or make a donation, you can find them online at www.dressforsuccess.org.

Thanks!
Be well friends.

Keywords:
Peter Case "The Open Road Song"
Smoke (1995)
Repo Man (1984)
Cormac McCarthy, Suttree (1979) 
Emmylou Harris     
John Randolph Neal
John Scopes
"Scopes Monkey Trial" 
Clarence Darrow 
William Jennings Bryan 
H.L. Mencken 
Ralph Waldo Emerson "Self-Reliance" 

In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the culture of dueling in America and add some thoughts on Hamilton and Jackson--two of America's most famous duelists.


Key Words:
Dueling
Alexander Hamilton
Andrew Jackson
Mark Twain
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
William Faulkner
Absalom, Absalom!
Thomas McGuane
The Sporting Club
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Hamilton: An American Musical 

In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the monkeys who explored South American 40 million years ago. If we all came from the same place--however you imagine that--how did we get to where we went? The answer, of course, is that we went by boat. In Monkey Armada: I dwell in possibility, I follow Emily Dickenson, from whom I borrowed the podcast's subtitle, over the horizon of reason and into the possibility that the urge to voyage by boat co-evolved along with language as the oldest of primate traits.