My Dad, who was a bit of a card, had a particular routine, a mini-act, you might say that he’d perform — without requests —any time he happened to be near a piano keyboard. He knew part of one song, didn’t know the words but after he’d finish, he’d look up and say: “And then I wrote…” Then he’d wait for applause. For a long time…
The title of this Substack, my 520th, is dedicated to him. He passed a few years back but I think he’d get a kick out of seeing the titles that his oldest son has written so far…
One of the continuing delights of having a Substack is, just about every day, I’ll get an email message or two that reads “New Free Subscriber to John’s Substack via Substack App.”
Today, for example, Prachi Hota, a filmmaker, a classical dancer and a story strategist, signed on with us here at Nogo’s Substack! Welcome, Prachi! I don’t write much about dancing but I do plenty of stories (some are true) and occasionally write about movies so I welcome you and hope you find some fun things to read.
I’m very grateful to see the number of my subscribers continue to grow. I know not every Substacker is so fortunate. And since I continue to add new subscribers, sort of hopping on the Nogo train after we left the station, there may be some things you’d be interested in from back in January or the previous August or whenever. Feel free to prowl around the site.
From time to time, I’ve tried to resurrect some of those previous posts that I think my readers might have missed. I’ll revive them as Notes so you get a chance to see what we talked about that particular day.
It also occurred to me that since the numbers have grown pretty rapidly (THANKS, friends!) that there may be new readers who didn’t catch me writing about some of my books, talking about an upcoming book signing or radio appearance. So I thought I’d offer a little READERS’ GUIDE TO NOGO this evening in the event one of these titles catches your eye.
The oldest of these is Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography 1961-2022, 3rd Edition. This is a comprehensive book on all things Dylan that I began with McFarland and Co. in 1995. What’s funny about this is I never did get around to writing the book I initially proposed. I wasn’t all that keen on the rock criticism around those days, talking about Bob Dylan and his music, so I wrote and suggested selecting 10 representative Dylan songs and writing a book about them. They wrote back right away (!) and said, “Well, we like that idea but how about doing a comprehensive book on Dylan first?” I said ok and wrote it. In 2008 when Dylan’s “Time Out Of Mind” album won the Grammy for album of the year, my publisher said, “Let’s update it.” So I did. Then, when Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022, again I got the call, “Let’s do Volume 3.” And right around then, Dylan, at 79, had his first No. 1 hit, “Murder Most Foul.” I’d like to think I helped but my book wasn’t out yet.
Next up is Last Time Out, Big League Farewells of Baseball’s Greats which originally came out in 2005. Kind of a neat story about this one. The great writer John Updike visited Florida State some years ago and he had written a glorious account of Ted Williams’ final game with the Boston Red Sox, leaving with a dramatic home run in his final at bat. Though Updike had written dozens of novels and essays, I asked him exclusively about the Ted Williams’ piece. And on the way home, I got to wondering how some of baseball’s other great players bowed out. Did anybody else leave with a HR? I called a guy I had just met at the Baseball Hall of Fame on a vacation trip, asked if he thought a book about the final game of all these greats is a good idea. “That’s a fantastic idea,” he said. “Call this lady in Indiana and she’ll give you a book deal.” I did and she did. Then, in 2021, I happened to call my publisher about another matter and he said, “Hey, it’s time to update your book. David Ortiz, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivers, Chipper Jones and other have retired. Let’s expand it. In the meantime, my son had played three years at Florida State, signed with the Oakland Athletics, ended up with the St. Cardinals and made his major-league debut at first base for the Cardinals in Chicago on August 16, 2020. Since all the 43 chapters in the book were about these players’ final games, I suggested John’s first game ought to be Chapter 44. And so it was in Last Time Out, 2nd edition.
After getting out of the newspaper business and becoming a high school English teacher at a struggling African-American high school in Gadsden County for a dozen years, one of my proudest achievements was sharing Mark Twain’s remarkable “Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn” with my classes. We had to tread carefully, of course, because of the “N” word, which we discussed for two days before we even began the book. But for several students, the book was transformative. I knew that when one African-American student wrote me: “Mr. Nogo: Huck is the brother I never had.” My “Teaching Huckleberry Finn” which came out in 2018, is filled with so many wonderful stories, and Twain pieces we used in class. A book I had to write.
What a thrill! The Mark Twain house in Hartford had my book.
“Nashua: How Ronald Reagan led us to Donald Trump” is my eyewitness account of a week in February of 1980 where my newspaper, the Nashua Telegraph, thought it was a grand idea to sponsor a one-on-one debate between Republican Presidential candidates Ronald Reagan and George Bush. The idea of a small town newspaper meddling in national politics was a bad one, the debate was an utter disaster and Reagan’s last-minute Hollywood stunt gave the Republican Party — in my view — the blueprint for how to handle these campaign debates that Donald Trump followed to the letter. Incidentally, the slogan “Make America Great Again” he actually swiped from a Ronald Reagan speech to the AFL-CIO on the very day he got shot. Really.
“Diamond Duels” is my latest book which came out in March. It’s an inside baseball look at some of the games greatest pitcher-hitter matchups. John was playing in the Dominican Republic and his team’s pitching coach was an 80-year-old former major leaguer named Phil Regan. He and John had a golf date and I told John I’d look up some stuff about Regan’s career so he’d have some ammunition if, say, Regan was lining up a putt and John could ask, “What happened in that 1958 game with the Yankees where you gave up four home runs?” In doing the research, I found out that Cardinals’ great Stan Musial had faced Braves’ Hall of Famer Warren Spahn 356 lifetime at bats. That’s almost a whole season against a single pitcher. So I started digging and found some amazing stories. This book has gotten a great response so far. I was a presenter at the national SABR (Society of American Baseball Research) this summer in Dallas and appeared on national MLB Radio, the show “Remember When” with Ed Randall and Kevin Kennedy. I think it’s a fun read with all sorts of information about players you know and love that I bet you didn’t know.
Neil Young is the topic for my next book, modeled on the successful Bob Dylan comprehensive volumes I did for McFarland. I write about all his albums, movies, his book and his amazing website, Neil Young Archives. Right now, I’ve written 107, 879 words on it with a little more to go. It’ll be out sometime in 2026.
If you’re interested in picking up any of these books, “Diamond Duels” and “Last Time Out” and “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography” are available at Barnes & Noble. “Diamond Duels” and “Last Time Out” are also available at Books A Million, Midtown Reader and The Bookshelf in Thomasville, Georgia.
Hope you don’t mind me sharing a little bit about these books of mine. They didn’t make me rich but they sure did make me proud.
Thanks, friends.
You’ve got a lot be proud of John,…..I’m proud of you, and so would ‘the Buck’. I also miss him !!!
John, you’re by far the most prolific, and entertaining, Substacker that I know.