No earthly kings in sight

With respect the hopefully peaceful “No Kings” protests planned in the U.S. of A. today:

Of course we have a king, and it’s my joy to honor Him.

Still Circling

Mary and I had a lovely weekend in Wisconsin Dells, where the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band played Saturday night. The NGDB has been on an “All the Good Times Farewell Tour” since last year, so this may have been our last chance to catch the show — although the band will mark its 60^th anniversary in the summer of 2026, so it might be more appropriate to close out then, Lord willing.

I have been a fan since their very first single in 1966, “Buy For Me the Rain,” and I have slowly been becoming more fervent about it over the years. I’ve now attended around eight of their concerts, by far the most I’ve followed any musician.

I have to say I was thrilled at how good they still sound. The older members may show some ever-so-slight signs you might expect from musicians in their seventies, but they keep improving as a cohesive unit, kind of the opposite of what you’d expect from a band after six decades.

Most of the NGDB concerts I’ve seen have been in the last 20 years, and this latest iteration puts on an even better live show than 20 years ago, when they had five members who had contributed to their best recordings.

This latest six-member ensemble is a force to be reckoned with. Depending on how long they extend their farewell, maybe we’ll have a chance to experience them again one of these days.

If you have any interest in Americana, country or bluegrass music, you owe it to yourself to go see the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band when they swing by your neighborhood.

See the World! It’s all connected

Today would be a good day to get a feel for my “See the World! Podcast,” in which I’m reading my upcoming book, See the World!, a chapter at a time.

The reason I say it would be a good day for that: It’s the shortest chapter, so you’ll be in and out in a little over a minute. I’ll even let you read along:

It’s all connected

I want to write more stories.
I want to learn more stories.
I want to write more songs.
I want to learn more songs.
I want to write more books.
I want to read more books.

Like almost all of the book, the thought began life as a blog post. Back on Jan. 12, I wanted to make the point — and I’m pretty sure I did — that if you want to write stories, you should learn other people’s stories and study how they wrote them. Same with songs: If you want to be a songwriter, you should examine other people’s songs and techniques. And if you want to write books, you should read books so you know what a book is.

The podcast is my way of encouraging you to buy the book, of course. My hope is after a few podcast episodes, you’ll want to read ahead. The recording also does double-duty, because eventually I’ll assemble the chapters into an audiobook that will also be out there on the market so you can hear it all at once, without the repetitive intro and outro to each chapter.

See the World! will be available in print-on-demand paperback or ebook starting a week from today, June 10, 2025. My intention, if you’ll pardon me for doing so, is to give you these little tastes of the book every day over this next week, again, to encourage you to pre-order it so it makes a little bit of a splash next Tuesday and booksellers say, “Oh! People are buying this book. This might be a good new one to put on our shelves.”

And so here is Episode 14, the shortest episode of the See the World! Podcast: