Here's No. 700, friends!

So much to say, I reckon...thanks!

So let me pause and nod as I begin Substack Post #700, which is unfolding before you right now. Seven hundred! Wow! That’s a lot of posts, isn’t it? Seven hundred posts in 804 days! Where did they all come from? What did I stumble into, sitting on my couch in Tallahassee back in May of 2024 when I first cranked up Nogo’s Substack? Did I really think I had something to offer?

Well, yeah, I did. Reading that sentence sounds somewhat egotistical, I suppose, but you’re not putting words down just for the hell of it, are you? You do want some sort of connection, right? Isn’t that the point? You’re trying to get a reader to whip through your ideas on a particular topic, maybe to agree, to disagree, to react. Hey, what do you think about this? Here’s what I think…

Here it is, friends, Substack Nogo post #700!

What are you going to write about? Writing? Music? Literature? Politics? History? Sports? Movies? Writers? How about “G” - all of the above? And just who do you think wants to read what you think about all these things? Good question. I didn’t know. Not really.

I was pretty sure, based on my long newspaper career, I could write pieces that people would like to read. They always had, anyhow. And now, with Substack, I had the freedom and the motivation - not exactly sure where that came from - to speak up about all these things I’d read or thought about or responded to. I was free. And felt it.

Best of all, I didn’t have to run it by some editor, some gatekeeper who’d ask me stuff like “Why did you use that word?” Or “I don’t get what you’re saying here.” Or “Why are you writing about this?” I know that sounds bad, like what I was writing was too high brow or too complicated or something for them to get the point but looking back, that is how it felt most of the time.

I wanted to tell them, “Look, I’m not writing for YOU. I don’t really care what you think.” And I didn’t. But, of course, I never said that. Not out loud. Should you be writing to impress your editor? Nobody ever told me that. Maybe they should have. I never thought that way. I’ve never asked other writers that question. Ever. Would they have laughed if I had? Are you writing to please an editor or your readers?

Maybe I’m too naive about this but there is an imagined direct connection between the words you put down and how you imagine your reader is going to receive them. Why would you want anybody to get in the middle of that?

Once I got rolling on Substack, geez, there were some days I’d write two posts. I hadn’t written on a regular basis - that is, daily - for over a decade so maybe there was a backlog there, I’m not sure. All of a sudden, I’m writing about short stories I taught, remembering my first day of school, loving record stores, offering my famous “Asteroid Theory Of Hitting,” reviews of a new book by Bob Dylan, talking to Jake LaMotta on the phone, all these little bursts of prose that just seemed to keep pouring out of the ends of my fingers every damn day. It was fun. Yeah, that’s right. FUN.

You know, that’s something, that, now as I sit and think about it, almost every editor I ever had to deal with NEVER brought fun to the page. Even if there was something funny there. For them, it was work. Or maybe they knew they’d have to deal with a writer who was going to question every single change they wanted to - or did - make. Maybe that’s why we clashed. Yeah, you’re assigned to make sure what I wrote is OK. But remember, it’s not YOUR name on this story. Can you make my story/column better? If not, LEAVE IT ALONE. You know the old dog/fire hydrant thing. NO! Not here. Not with my stuff. Sorry, but that’s how I felt.

On Substack, it’s all on me. If I screw up, leave a word out or something, hey, I’ll get over it.

So, looking back, how did I do? Here I am, 26 months in with 975 subscribers, thanks in part to my friend, Karl Erik Andersen and his wonderful “Expecting Rain” website who’ve helped share some of my posts. There are some regular readers, who are kind enough to drop a note every so often. And there are newbies (Welcome!) who continue to sign up daily. (11 in the last four days. Hi folks!)

What does that mean? I’d like to think that this unpredictable array of topics that I’m bringing up five or six times each week are interesting, worth reading, spending a few minutes with, something to think about.

A while back, I heard from a reader who had bought and was talking about my Bob Dylan book. It couldn’t have been nicer or more considerate. “You are like, in my living room drinking a beer and just speaking to me in a very relatable way,” he wrote.

I guess it’s voice. The impression I get is there’s a constant voice in these words. My writing is conversational. That’s what I hear all the time. I don’t know that I ever knew enough to try for that, it just happened. So when I read: “Voice happens when the distance between the writer’s mind and the page gets thin enough that the reader can hear the thinking as it happens,” well, that sounded like something worth shooting for.

After 700 posts, I figured, now was a good time to see what our friends at A-I thought of all these words, 900,000 or so, the equivalent of 10 non-fiction titles on a wide-ranging assortment of topics. How would A-I describe what I’ve laid on the 492,000 readers who’ve wandered through NogoLand over the past couple years?

Here goes: “The strongest thing is this: you don’t really sound derivative. The voice feels accumulated rather than manufactured. A few traits that seem distinctly yours:

• the conversational setup that suddenly deepens,

• the willingness to admit uncertainty midstream,

• the layering of cultural memory with personal memory,

• the newspaper columnist cadence,

• and especially the way humor protects sentiment without erasing it.

That last quality matters. A lot of memoirists become unbearably solemn once they begin discussing “what it all means.” You usually undercut yourself just enough to stay human. Which is probably why the Substack form fits you so naturally. Your pieces feel discovered in the act of writing rather than over-engineered beforehand. Readers trust that kind of voice.”

Good thing you haven’t heard me sing. Hey, thank you, everybody.

THE THOUSAND-VIEW CLUB (For new readers: 2026 posts that drew 1,000 views)

Elvis’ Pay Stub: July 17 Tom Petty songs ain’t easy: July 16 Neil and Daryl’s new film: June 29

Bob’s Basement Tapes: June 12 What if Dylan played Woodstock: May 24 Bob Dylan’s 85th birthday: May 23

Paul Westerberg’s last hit: May 7 Dylan in Dothan: April 24 The Spanish Inquisition: April 22

U2’s The Edge: April 10 Led Zep: Genius Dumb: April 2 Bruce, Bruce and more Bruce: March 29

Bob, Bruce end tour: March 23 Where Elvis started: March 18 Me and Elvis: March 13

George Martin’s mistake: March 6 Born To Run - Then what? March 3 The Faces: March 2

U2’s new EP: February 18 Dylan’s decisions: February 18 Good news on Elvis: February 12

Rockin’ Dylan on stage: February 1 Song Sung Blue ain’t kidding: January 27 Bob, The Band, Big Pink: January 21

My record collection: January 18

HERE’S TO THE NEXT 700

My wife, Liz, was kind enough to get this shot of the author with all his books - thus far. Since this picture was taken, I’ve written a book on Neil Young that will be out sometime in 2027, it looks like and I’m at work on a book on Bruce Springsteen. As you can see, I’ve written three editions of “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography 1961-2022”, two books on baseball: “Diamond Duels” a deep dive into the game’s historic matchups and “Last Time Out,” my two-edition collection of stories about the final games of some of baseball’s greatest players as well as my son, John’s first MLB game with the St. Louis Cardinals. Since 2024, I’ve also contributed 35 columns to the Hartford Courant in addition to these 700 Substack posts. Good thing these words are free, right? Thanks for stopping by.