I want to keep going as I have, to travel, read, perform, write, and enjoy my family. I've promised myself only this: no more Laundromats, no more two-shows-a-night, and no more deadlines. I'll work at my own pace.

Elvis was the only man from Northeast Mississippi who could shake his hips and still be loved by rednecks, cops, and hippies.

And I wound up in New Orleans for all those years and it was a great place, really a catalyst creatively.

Whether it's a letter, song lyrics, part of a novel, or instructions on how to fix a kitchen sink, it's writing. You keep your craft honed, you acquire the discipline to finish things. You turn into a self-taskmaster.

The right combination of guilt and machismo has sent many a fool out into the jungle when he should have stayed home.

We're weird roman candles burning bright at both ends. At the end of the road's where this story begins. Where the green of the gulf meets the blue of the sea. What makes it all happen is still a mystery to me. But those crazy days and those crazy ways, we never want to undo. We'll be together, now and forever.

Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years to late. Cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder, I'm an over forty victim of fate.