From the Top: Brief Transmissions from Tent Show Radio

by Michael Perry

Overview

“Bottom line is, I’m the kind of guy who’s happy to go to the opera, but I should like to be allowed to wear steel-toed boots with my evening suit. I like to read Harper’s with a chaser of Varmint Hunter Magazine. Maybe that’s why I enjoy a good show under canvas. Here we sit, brain-deep in arts and culture, but we’re also just people hanging out in a tent, some of us wearing boots, a few of us wearing Birkenstocks, but best of all we’re breathing free fresh air filled with music.”

From Scandihoovian Spanglish to snickering chickens, New York Times bestselling author and humorist Michael Perry navigates a wide range of topics in this collection of brief essays drawn from his weekly appearances on the nationally syndicated Tent Show Radio program. Fatherhood, dumpster therapy, dangerous wedding rings, Christmas trees, used cars, why you should have bacon in your stock portfolio, loggers in clogs—whatever the subject, Perry has a rare ability to touch both the funny bone and the heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870206801
Publisher:	Wisconsin Historical Society
Publication date:	11/25/2013
Edition description:	1
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Michael Perry is the author of numerous books including Population: 485 and the New York Times bestseller Visiting Tom. His live humor recordings include Never Stand Behind a Sneezing Cow and The Clodhopper Monologues. He lives in rural Wisconsin with his wife and daughters and is privileged to serve as a first responder with the local fire department. He can be found online at www.sneezingcow.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

A Fine Place to Start

Victoria's Secret and the Cosmos 3

Teetotal 5

Here We Go Again 8

Re-decaffeinated 11

The Big Thankful 13

Avulsion Aversion 16

Logger Clogs 18

Ring On, Ring Off 20

Walking Nowhere 22

Cheaters 25

Gozzled 27

No Limited 29

The Road 31

Priorities 33

Reasonableness 35

Past Tents, Present Tents

First Time 41

Taking the Air 44

Sweaty Cheese and Injured Cereal 47

A World Away 49

Flying above the Canvas 52

Black Dog 55

Canvas Rain 58

The Inner Circle

Song for My Daughters 63

Pet of the Week 66

Dumpster Date 68

Chicken Coop Campout 70

Typhoid Mary 73

That Cat 75

Used Car Shopping 78

Firewood Friend 80

Tough Granny 82

The White Pine 85

Christmas Tree Kids 87

Neverending New Year 90

A Sense of Pitch

Happy Mourning Music 95

Coolsville 95

Steve Earle, Life Coach 101

Advice from a Grammy Winner 104

Guitar Girls 106

Blues for Amateurs 108

Lock Up the Chickens

Asparagus 113

Unfarmer 115

Haute Pig Feed 117

Skunk War 120

E-I-IPO 123

Cock-a-Doodle-Ego 126

Snow Plow Trouble 128

Really Free-Range Chicken 131

Pathfinding 133

Friends and Neighbors

The Cutting Edge 139

Friendly Fencing 142

Truck Talk 145

John Deere Funeral 148

Ambulance Karma 150

Tom and Arlene in Love 153

In the Wake of the Wake 155

Acknowledgments 159