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Great rock artists have always been able to take a beautiful melody, passionate lyrics, and big guitars and drums to create something really special.

Dear Friends,

Are you a little sad about tax season? I know I am.

"Sad?" you say, "Well, how did you do? Did you get all your 1099s to your accountant? How can you expect your accountant to do their job if you don't get them all your 1099s?"

Look -- it's not about that. Of course I sent them all my 1099s. I'm meticulous in my paperwork. If I ever have to trade in this life for a Bartleby-style desk job where I push papers around, I will thrive in that capacity. The problem is I sent them all in and the accountant then said: "Well, you owe (exploding head emoji) to the federal government."

I like an accountant that uses emojis. I don't find anything disjunctive or incompatible in that. Look, we're obviously not going to sit here and bitch at infinite length about my tax burden. I'm not Grover Norquist. I'm just saying, if you're feeling a little queasy I understand.

"What is all this bureaucratic grunting?" you might be asking. "I don't remember subscribing to anything like this."

Fair enough. Let's turn the page as Detroit's Bob Seger once so sagely advised. And yet, we'll still need to do a LITTLE more shopkeeping before we can officially start this fresh edition of Please Take My Advice. Please read and heed the following carefully.

Please Take My Advice uses only the ingredients on hand. If it was not previously in the pantry it is not in Please Take My Advice. Please Take My Advice has no “working agreement” or “relationship of special consideration” to the Coast Guard. Any claims to this effect will have been made in error, and will be considered libelous. One does not “choose their own adventure” with Please Take My Advice. For safety reasons your route will be heavily circumscribed. Do not ask Please Take My Advice for advice. Please send any and all complaints to Bar/None Records, Hoboken, New Jersey.  

Finally -- that’s over. Man, I tell you, there is no chill quite like the cold hand of the regulator on your shoulder when you're just trying to get a newsletter started. Let’s bust out of Squaresville and get rolling.

Hey Beth, long time, no see. What’s your deal?

What’s my deal? What’s YOUR deal, brother? You got something you want to say to me??

No! You’ve taken it all wrong. I just meant: you haven’t done a newsletter in a while and I wondered if everything was okay.

Everything’s fine, bruh. A little on edge about my taxes. Just ask your questions. 

Ohhhhkay.  I will stick to my questions. Yikes. So there is a brand new Library of America Charles Portis anthology? Thoughts?

Well, sure I have thoughts. What a wonderful honor conferred upon my favorite novelist. I even wrote about it in the Washington Post. 

Oh, you did, did you? Excerpt?

Fine. Get a load of this.

“In one sense, a Library of America edition of Portis’s work is a kind of surprise ending. It’s tempting to point out the disjunction between the author’s fundamental outsider stance and his postmortem embrace by the institutional intelligentsia. With great subversiveness, Portis consistently abjured America’s postwar fetishes for progress, social mobility and affluence. He absorbed the growing cosmopolitan world with a shrug and a smirk. The DNA of both small-c conservatism and New Deal-era egalitarianism is a regular feature of his work, and arguably its major theme is a rejection of modern hierarchies of wealth and stature.

Well, I’m convinced. Can you provide a link?

Here you go. 

Parsimonious, but thank you. And on the topic of Lucinda Williams’ new memoir you have what to say? 

Just this.

This is an article you wrote in the Wall Street Journal?

Yeah, bruh. Check the byline. Lucinda Williams rules fucking all.

You’re being surly: why?

I’m not aware of being anything other than on my game and on my grind. Got a problem with that, Jack? 

No problem at all. And I heard you were in the studio putting the finishing touches on the new Paranoid Style LP which I am told is going to be called…The Interrogator?

No comment at this time.

Are you playing Twangfest in St. Louis opening for the Waco Brothers? 

This I can confirm. So excited to be playing the 25th anniversary of Twangfest this coming June! We’ll be middling Saturday for the awesome openers Town Cars and headliners the Waco Brothers. Other acts on different nights include James McMurty, Robbie Fulks, Amy LaVere & Will Sexton and a heaping cavalcade of premium talent. As Lou Reed once memorably threatened: we’re going to have a real good time together. Grab tickets here while they endure.

Elizabeth, let's touch briefly on the world of sport. Did you enjoy the Masters?

Always! We certainly had a worthy winner in Jon Rahm, and avoided the worrying charge of the LIV crowd. The Brooks Koepka enigma grows steadily stranger. It is a short list of truly elite professional athletes who seem to visibly lose interest in the middle of a high profile event that isn’t going well. After playing brilliantly for three rounds, and holding a two shot lead, his body language during the final round was amazing. He looked bored, he looked sad, he looked like a hostage. To me, it was America at its best.  I wish Bradley Cooper would play him in the biopic right this minute. I WILL WRITE THE SCRIPT FOR FREE!

Elizabeth Nelson, you have been on your grind. Do you have anything to say to the readers of Please Take My Advice about your continuingly fruitless efforts to stitch together even slightly appropriate boundaries with your aging family members? 

No comment at this time. 

Love,

Elizabeth