Welcome to SneezingCow.com

(This is a pinned post summarizing the SneezingCow basics…scroll down for newer posts.)

Mike’s two most recent books: Improbable Mentors & Happy Tangents and Forty Acres Deep. (Indie booksellers scroll down to lower left for wholesale info). All the other books (including Population 485) and CDs and DVDs and T-shirts and can koozies and whatnots.

The Voice Mail page. (This is the weekly podcast — for free samples, click on the episodes without the miniature padlocks.)

Mike’s ability to spin his 20+ books and wide range of life experiences into humorous and heartfelt live presentations have put him in great demand as a public speaker. In addition to his one-man theater shows, Mike has delivered entertaining keynote addresses at conferences for software companies, hospitals and health care organizations, fire and EMS providers, farming and agricultural groups, national and regional utility cooperatives, business and economic development entities, governmental agencies, mental health organizations, dental hygienists, faith-based organizations, logging conventions, book festivals, MFA programs, libraries, and countless others. If you’re interested in retaining Mike for your event, please contact his booking agent here.

The mailing list signup (explained very specifically). We hope you’ll consider joining; it’s old-fashioned but way more loyal than social media. It’s also the best and most direct way to know when Mike’s got something new or is performing near you.

Upcoming live events.

Announcing another new song, here’s what Mike had to say about “Waterbound”:

I was in an apartment far from home with a loved one facing a deep struggle. It was a vulnerable time. On the drive there I saw a figure pushing their belongings in a shopping cart. I was thinking of all those struggling alone. Of the fragility of all of us. I tried to convey both the darkness and the hope.

Here is a link to “Waterbound” on all the streaming and digital download platforms: https://ffm.to/waterbound. It’s a follow-up to the also recently-released “Sunday Morning Perfect”.

You can hear both songs live at the Long Beds shows in Mineral Point, WI on 2.13.26 and Eau Claire on 2.14.26.

From Mike:

To those of you who have bought tickets or are planning to attend the Long Beds show in Eau Claire on February 14–thank you! We’re especially grateful given that it’s Valentine’s Day, and you have a lot of options. To show our appreciation and acknowledge those in our community actively tending to the critical matters of the day, we’ll be donating 10% of our gate to Feed My People. Thank you for enabling us to do this. See you there. Some brand new songs, some favorites, some from the way-back machine, and in between, a story or two. TICKET LINK

It’s been a minute since the Long Beds shared any new material other than live on stage.

From Mike:

When I wrote this one I was thinking about how I value the precepts I was raised on, and yet often find myself skeptical of those who proclaim them most loudly. I also wanted to convey the deep love and respect I have for my mom and dad. I have always admired their quiet, abiding faith and example. That’s why I chose the stark simple image that accompanies the song: it’s the hymn book they gave me.

Here is a link to “Sunday Morning Perfect” on all the streaming and digital download platforms: https://ffm.to/sundaymorningperfect.

You can hear the song live at the Long Beds upcoming shows in Mineral Point, WI on 2.13.26 and Eau Claire on 2.14.26.

I am at best a reflective clown, and my social media reflects this. If I post something it is likely to be sincere, silly, or selling something. I am not apolitical. I call and write my representatives. When I think their judgement is particularly impaired, I have been known to meet with them face-to-face. When possible I put my money where my mind is. And should you really want to know what I think and where I stand, I’ve been working it out for some 25 books now. It ain’t chiseled in stone. More than once I’ve wished for an eraser. Sometimes family, friends, and neighbors I disagree with try to lend me theirs. Or they hand me a crayon of a color I was missing. I prefer to talk these things out with them rather than respond to some mouth athlete screeching in the distance or the comments. I am neither engineered nor equipped nor inclined to grapple with the grim issues of the day via meme, snark, or flame. Bumper sticker tribalism and punchline triumphalism are a bane on civil discourse and—eventually—civilization itself. Plus I ain’t built for it.

There is also this: Nobody asked me.

All that to say after this post it’s back to the reflective clown. But sitting here marooned in a blizzard far from home I want to get down these imperfect but insistent thoughts: You need not have a concealed carry permit to understand your rights in that regard—but I have one. You need not possess a nursing license to understand the incalculable cost of losing a good nurse—but I have one. You don’t have to be a weird kid who made his own Gadsden flag for his treehouse to know that demanding the government never touch your rights but cheer when they trample another’s is a cuckold’s compromise—but that’s the conclusion that weird kid came to. You don’t need to serve 30-plus years as a law-enforcement-adjacent volunteer to know theirs is an essential and dangerous gig in which we citizens depend on (and have a right to expect) well-trained, ethical individuals committed to protection and service—but it’s my privilege to say I have. And finally, you don’t need to have immediate and beloved immigrant friends and family members to understand the random actions and unconstitutional infringements they are being subject to and threatened by—but I do have them and in fact saw them at Christmas and was just on the phone with one of them and will stand for them.

I’m in over my head. Just like the rough notes above, I require regular revision and reconsideration. The timeline will now return to sincere, silly, or selling. But off the “socials,” out here in real life, for mi familia, the work—and the love—will not stop.

The comments are turned off. We have more important work to do.

Some of our neighbors are doing good work here.

Michael Perry’s Voice Mail

A note from Mike:

Unless I slip and fall and break my larynx, I’m about to record the 300th episode of Michael Perry’s Voice Mail. We fired the first episode into the atmosphere on July 31, 2020, and have been putting one out pretty much once a week ever since. What is it, exactly? A mini-podcast? An email? A photo album? An audio essay? I know when I first conceived of it, I named it Voice Mail because I wanted it to come through like a call a friend left on your answering machine (the pioneer version of voice mail). Informal and relatively brief (10-15 minutes, give or take some either way), yet still worth your time. I wanted some of it to be polished, and I wanted some of it to be off the cuff. I wanted to include some behind-the-scenes stuff that gets at the day-to-day of what life as a self-employed writer/yapper/whatever-this-might-be is like. And I also wanted it–for lack of a more artful term–to be “value-added.” That is, sharing material that doesn’t appear in my books or on our other social media platforms. Sometimes that’s a peek at early drafts of a book or an essay in progress. Sometimes that’s a phone recording of a new song that’s still in the “figuring it out” stage. Sometimes it’s me digging into a box in the pole barn and revisiting a poem or a magazine piece or a pizza commercial I wrote back when I was still “Michael Ryan.” Over time we’ve also added what I call the “Marginalia” section, where we drop annotated excerpts from books I’m reading, or photos related to the audio or the essay, or just random moments of goofiness or peace.

At the end of the day, I’m a writer. No matter what form it takes, none of it happens if I don’t sit down alone and practice that craft. The Voice Mail project grows from that, and I hope serves to both uplift and expand the experience of the folks who subscribe and listen. Each week when I sit down to the microphone I imagine we’re at the kitchen table or cafe counter together, visiting.

Links to all the free episodes below, but first an example of recent Marginalia:

“Michael Perry’s Voice Mail” is subscription-based but once a month or so there is a free episode. For ease of access we have collected all the free episodes to date in one spot. Please click on any or all of the links below to listen to any and all of the free episodes. If you enjoy the episodes and would like to listen to the paid episodes for a month free on us, please send an email to [email protected].

#300; #296; #293; #291; #285; #280; #275; #271; #269; #265a; #263; #262; #258; #253; #250; #245; #243; #242; #236; #235; #234; #230; #224; #223; #217; #212; #207; #203; #197; #196; #194; #189; #184; #177; #176; #171; #168; #164; #162; #157; #153; #150; #142; #136; #132; #129; #122; #121; #112; #105; #101; #96; #88; #81; #75; #66; #62; #51; #47; #45; #40; #35; #30; #26; #22; Forward; #13; #7; #6; #3; #2; Thank You for Subscribing; #1.