Quick note before the show - after taking almost 4 years off to produce the Morse Code TV Pilot, I’m about to release some new music. So so excited about this. The first single is called Meet Me at the End of the World. Its about reaching for love at all costs. I texted our guest Tyler Merritt the track after our interview last week and, to quote the man: “The whole song is super melodic. Great lyrical imagery. Super solid song bro”. So, early reviews are promising! The single launch party and Korby full band show (!) is Saturday Feb 15 at the Five Spot in East Nashville at 6pm. My friends Abby Jane and Carl Anderson are joining me on the bill, and podcast alum Ryan Rado will be live painting. We’ll also be premiering the ridiculously ambitious music video we made for this new song of mine, directed by another MC podcast alum Mila Vilaplana. Ballroom dancing, a couple dozen costumed extras, a three-story tall LED lightwall made to look like a sunset in heaven, and a huge Viet Nam War protest set piece are some of the elements. We’re filming next week and I’ll be sharing behind the scenes clips and pics on my IG if you want to follow along. We’re announcing the show Tuesday but here is the early ticket link for my substackies. We are gonna sell out — don’t sleep on this :)

And now back to our featured presentation~ Happy Publication Week to Tyler Merritt!!

Tyler Merritt is an actor, musician, comedian, and activist behind The Tyler Merritt Project. Best known for his viral video “Before You Call the Cops” (seen now by more than 100 million people) and his bestselling debut I Take My Coffee Black, Jan 14th, 2025 just saw the publication of his second book, This Changes Everything: A Surprisingly Funny Story About Race, Cancer, Faith, and Other Things We Don’t Talk About. No less a pop culture icon than Jimmy Kimmel wrote the foreword for Coffee, but his new book (which as of two days ago is available everywhere) features a who’s who of admirers, reviewers and blurbers, including Trisha Yearwood, Joy Reid, Kristin Chenoweth, Heather Locklear, and about twenty more famous folks…Tyler is also a seasoned actor whose credits include Netflix's Outer Banks, the Disney series Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and A24’s upcoming feature film The Inspection. So, I don’t know how many threats that is, but it’s a lot.

Awhile back, I read I Take My Coffee Black, pretty much in one sitting. I loved it. Full of humor — both self-deprecating and barbed — pathos, and hilarious anecdotes, like the time he busted out an improvised rap to avoid being forced into a gang — there are no shortage of surprising revelations, praise in equal parts for rap icons and musical theater, and warm-hearted descriptions of big personalities (his force-of-nature mom comes to mind). The man’s personal voice is so buoyant it basically floats on the page.

Accordingly, this conversation was as wild a ride as the writing. Things got off to a rocky start (!) when Tyler reminded me he was still mad I didn’t book him for a role in Morse Code. But we hugged it out and jumped into a fast, substantive discussion, based in part on a few shared perspectives. For one, we are both children of the West. He’s from Nevada and I’m from Idaho. Having living here in the south for almost twenty years, I still retain much of the present-leaning-forward spirit of the west, and in reading Coffee, I felt Tyler had a similar perspective. The western half of America doesn’t care where you’re from. In that way it can be shallow and fatuous, but the south’s preoccupation with its past can be a real head-scratcher to someone not from here.

There was so much in this conversation — about Counting Crows, the Nashville music scene, George Floyd, Tyler’s mom, the segregation that still exists in Nashville, how in some ways its more pronounced than in other southern cities.

If you’re still reading this it’s probably because you know what a lovable, and loveably complicated person is Tyler Merritt. I hope you love this conversation and I hope it makes you buy his new book.

PS I’m including a special exchange not included in the public pod as an exclusive for my Patreons. Up now.

Last Week Redux. 10 minutes with Adam Ross

Listen to Author and Editor in Chief of the Sewanee Review Adam Ross talk about the experience of writing a novel, and the sympathetic characters of Playworld, in an excerpt from the conversation we shared last week.

Adam’s second novel Playworld is a mere week old, and continues its reign of praise and adulation on the literary circuit. Seems like everyone loves it, (including me).

As the Morse Code Podcast YouTube Channel nears 500 subscribers, we’re going to include a 10 min highlight from each episode, going forward. We’re working hard to build a community around creators and their important, life-giving, world-saving work.

You can thank us, encourage us, join us, by subscribing to to the MCP channel. Thank you and stay passionate.

~Korby

Get full access to The Morse Code with Korby Lenker at korby.substack.com/subscribe