Roy Blount Jr. is the dean of American humorists and a modern day renaissance man. He is a reporter, an author, an actor, a lecturer, a rock’n’roll musician, an artist, an NPR panelist, a frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion, and the epitome of a Southern gentleman. He has published some 22 nonfiction books and currently writes a monthly column for Guns and Garden Magazine, a publication to which I subscribe. Time Magazine said of Mr. Blount Jr. that he is in the “tradition of the great curmudgeons like H.L. Mencken and W.C. Fields.” Playboy called him “our next Mark Twain.” Garrison Keillor wrote that “Blount can be literate, uncouth, and soulful all in one sentence.”

Like all the people he has been compared to, Mr. Blount Jr. has a wonderful command of the English language. His descriptive prose can transport you to the very place he is writing about. You feel the heat and humidity of the Mississippi Delta and smell the human gumbo of New Orleans. When he writes about a person or event, you feel as if you know that person or attended that event. His humor can be subtle, biting, or self deprecating, depending on the point he wishes to make. These are qualities I wish I possessed.

Mr. Blount Jr. can insult a person without being insulting. While political correctness demands that someone be described as “mentally challenged,” RB Jr. might say in that charming Southern way that the person is “special.” I’m more apt to say they’re a fucking retard. How to be profane without using profanity? I’m sure Roy Blount Jr. knows how.

I’m working on it.