25 things about me:

1. I’ve done hard time at Angola for jacking-up a bank in Panther Burn, MS and fleeing in a stolen crop-duster, only to be apprehended on Frenchman St. in New Orleans while trying to blend in with a parade of Carmen Miranda drag queens. I think it was the busted watermelon on my head that gave me away.
Not really, but I did get caught stealing candy from the store when I was 4 and my mom made me take it back and apologize to the owner and it was really scary.

2. Weirdest celebrity sighting: In 2006, while waiting to buy some beer and an avocado at a small jungle store in Costa Rica, I found myself in line behind Tom Green of the infamous “Tom Green Show” on MTV. This is a guy who once pretended to hump a dead moose on TV and was allegedly married to Drew Barrymore for a few months. His movie “Freddy Got Fingered” is considered one of the worst films ever made. I said “Hi” and he nodded.

3. I have a pathological aversion to the taste of mint. Seriously. Panic, hyperventilation; I’m a real drama queen if I accidentally bite into a mint chocolate.

4. The three happiest days of my life: 1.) My wedding day, 2.) the Jake Leg Stompers’ first gig at the Station Inn, 3.) The opening of my first major exhibit at Cheekwood

5. I think every Pop group that had a hit song on the radio between Jan.1980 and Dec. 1986 should be sent to Guantanamo Bay and be tortured by having to listen to their own music until they confess their crimes against musical decency. This doesn’t include most of college radio by the way, but Duran Duran never gets to leave no matter how much they beg.

6. My high school years can be summed up with the following joke: “What’s the last thing said by a dead redneck? Hey ya’ll, watch ‘iss”

7. Bars I’ve been thrown out of: 1.) the Gold Rush on Elliston Place in Nashville. 2.) Main St. in Murfreesboro (twice in one night). Both times were because of a friend I was with. He’s now a tenured professor of Anthropology in New York and leading expert on Mayan culture.

8. Some things I’ve photographed: 1.) The Music City Miracle 2.) Tyra Banks’ first year as a runway model in NYC 3.) Dyson’s goal-line stretch in Super Bowl XXXIV 4.) John Lee Hooker on his couch in Redwood City, CA. 5.) 5 presidents 6.) B.B. King standing on R.R. Tracks in Indianola, MS 7.) Cock fights in Indonesia 8.) Bluegrass legend Jimmy Martin standing beside his own tombstone 9.) Street riots in Philadelphia during the Republican convention 10.) The Fisk Jubilee Singers with 19th Century wet-plate camera.

9. Guitarist I’d like to be: Django Rhinehart. Harmonica player I’d like to be: Peg Leg Sam. Singer I’d like to be: Billie Holiday, but I’ll settle for Dave Van Ronk.

10. Embarrassing secret: The Wizard of Oz makes me cry.

11. My grandfather was a carpenter named Cave Moss. His father was Columbus Washington Moss. His grandfather, Fletch, was wounded at Shiloh in the Civil War and his brother cut the bullet out of his leg. My grandfathers’ brother Thurman served time in Federal Prison for bootlegging. He died the day he was supposed to be released.

I used to sit in my grandfather’s lap and listen to the pocket watch that he kept in the bib of his Duck Head overalls. His eyes twinkled when he laughed, which was often.

12. My grandmother, Mary Alice Beard, ate lard, biscuits, and dumplings for most of her life. She died at age 101. It eventually killed her.

13. On the night before my last day of high school, me and Scott B. climbed about 50 feet up a radio tower at school and hung a bed-sheet banner that read “Senior’s Last Day, Class of ’84,” starting a yearly tradition that lasted until they finally dismantled the radio tower. See item #6

14. Things that saved my life growing up: 1.) Music 2.) My Mom and my sister 3.) Gary Herbison 4.) Sheer, dumb luck

15. Favorite foods: 1.) Raw Ahi tuna 2.) Crème Brulee from K. Pauls of New Orleans 3.) Jamaica-curried Opakapaka from the 5 palms, Kihei, Maui 4.) Greasy turnip greens 5.) Cornbread in Sweet Milk 6.) My mother’s English Trifle 6.) My sister’s baked meringue cookies 7.) Roast Beef and fried green tomatoes from Arnolds in Nashville 8.) Day old banana puddin’ 9.) Unagi with eel sauce 10.) Blue raspberry cool pops

16. If I could go back in time, I would be: 1.) H.C. Speir 2.) Honeyboy Edwards 3.) Alan Lomax 4.) Carlo Ponti 5.) Dead by now

17. Records that got me through some hard times: 1.) Pink Floyd “The Wall” 2.) Neil Young’s “On the Beach” and “Tonight’s the Night” 2.) Tom Waits “Heart of Saturday Night” 3.) Bob Dylan “Highway 61 Revisited” 4.)Vince Guaraldi “A Charlie Brown Christmas” 5.) Mozart “Requiem” 6.) John Lennon “Plastic Ono Band” 7.) Billie Holiday-Columbia Recordings 8.) Ray Charles “Cryin’ Time” 9.) Ahmad Jamal “But Not for Me” 10.) George Harrison “All Things Must Pass”

18. I am one hell of a procrastinator. I probably wouldn’t get around to taking the next breath if it wasn’t automatic. (Yes, this is the part where my friends get to give me hell for not getting a book published.)

19. I’m also psychic. I know what you’re up to. You better cut it out or I’m going to tell.

20. I never remotely considered doing anything creative for a living (much less devoting my life to it) until I took a photography class at MTSU in my sophomore year. Being exposed (pardon the pun) to artists like Garry Winnogrand, Emmett Gowin, Robert Frank and so many others changed the course and quality of my life. Thanks to Jim Norton and the MTSU photo school for giving me the self-confidence to pursue a career in photography.

21. Similarly, I never knew I was capable of standing in front of a large group of people and singing, to take that kind of personal risk, until the Jake Leg Stompers. I love those guys more than they’ll ever know.

22. I got a late start in music. Even though I was drawn to it from birth, my Dad only allowed me to be in band one year of middle school because he was convinced it would make me a geek, or worse, gay. He wanted me to play football. Dad died from a diabetic infection that started because of a bad motorcycle wreck. His father wouldn’t let him have a motorcycle growing up. And so it goes.

23. The one event that had the biggest impact on my life was my parent’s nasty divorce and the subsequent involvement of the church (If you grew up in Centerville, you know it wasn’t pretty). Those events made me an independent thinker and for that I am grateful. Exile has a way of focusing the mind.

24. I hate the feeling of walking barefoot with dirty feet on a slick, concrete carport and/or picking up a newspaper or piece of Styrofoam with dried dirt on my fingers.

25. I’m not really a neurotic, middle-aged, bald, redneck from Hickman Co. I’m actually from the planet Tralfamadore and I’ve been sent here to prepare a way for the others with Jug Band music as our primary weapon of distraction. The others will arrive soon to eat your brains. Mmmm, brains.