Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 69 | Living The American Dream w/Duck Commander | Guest: Phil Robertson

Episode Date: April 6, 2019

Phil Robertson from Into the Woods with Phil joins Jeffy to discuss his American DREAM! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know, here on Chewing the Fat, I like to talk a little bit about from time to time living the American dream, living your American dream. And so when we find people that are living their American dream, we like to talk to him about it. And Phil Robertson, the duck commander guru, the man himself, I found him wandering around the building today, just blowing on his duck call. And I thought, all right, come on in, sit down, have a word. How are you, Phil? I'm doing well. Doing well. Nice to meet you, sir.

Thank you for coming on chewing the fat. You know, I found it fascinating as I was doing a little background on you, and I hadn't, I didn't realize that, you know, from where you started to from where you're at, to where you, where you've ended up today. And that is really amazing. I don't think people realize how difficult a lot of people had growing up, and yet they overcame that because it was just, that's what they did, right? I mean, you talk about living as a child with, you know, dirt floors and no bathrooms. And, you know, do you remember ever anything bad about that at all? Or was it all just that's the way it was? We were poor, but I never heard anyone say we were poor.

Listen, they would worm us one time a year. The children would get in a line, walk by your mother. She would give you a worm tablet. that she would observe you to make sure you took it and didn't throw it behind the stove. So we all got wormed. Let me listen to this. By the time you get into third or fourth grade, the worman stopped. We're good.

I never took another pill until I was in college and some tick bit men gave me rabbit fever at a summer job. So they gave me some pretty rude shots over the tick fever, tularemia, they call it. but you say you were raised in a culture, 50s, 60s, but you never even took so much as any tablet for anything. For anything. For anything, literally. So as life went on, I trusted in God, whatever I was doing, I earned a couple degrees from Louisiana Tech, got out of there,

and I said, Miss Kay, after I taught school for a while, I said, find me a place on the river. and I said, you see this duck call? I said, there's not but one of them. I made it. I said, I'll get the duck call off the ground. I'll fish the river selling buffalo and catfish until we get on their feet. I said, good times will come your way if you'll just stay with me.

Find me a place on the river. What do you think? She said, let's do it. Let's do it. So we did it. I trusted in God Almighty. I came to Noah, but 28. That's when I began to make plans.

What next? So now I have faith in Jesus. My sins are removed. I'm getting on my feet, get and start walking in the faith. Right. I trusted in God. I trusted in capitalism.

And I worked hard. And I looked up. And I have proven that an American with trust in God, capitalism and hard work. You can literally get to be rich and famous for sure, and you don't have to have a cell phone. I've never owned one,

and I've never turned on a computer in my 72 years. It can be done, dude. It can be done. That is amazing. All right, so at 28, you say at 28, that's when you found God. That's the first time I'd ever investigated Jesus. Okay. And you decided that you needed to start thinking about what's next.

What brought that on? After getting high, getting drunk and getting laid, not necessarily in that order, but pretty close. You say after about the first 28 years of your life, you look up, you've got a track record. Yeah, you do. And it ain't good. And you're looking back saying, whoa, well, you run your wife off the kids and all this, not another. And you start to reflect. and you say, you know what, something is wrong here.

Right. Where am I going wrong? Doesn't feel right. Doesn't feel right. This ain't good. So Ms. Kay, I took her advice, sat down and listened to some guy, and he shared Jesus with me. I'm stunned that removal of sin, peace of mind, and immortality is on the table. I'm like, whoa here.

Wait a minute. Right. immortality. And I'm looking at the resurrection of Jesus. I just never thought about it seriously enough, contemplated long enough to say, you know what? There's a lot involved in this.

So I thought, tell you what, after investigating Jesus, I could find nothing wrong with him. And I thought, what's required of me is just to love God and love my neighbor. I said, that's doable. So basically, I've been telling others about what I just told about myself for the last 44 years. So here I am drinking a cup of coffee with you.

Life's pretty good. Yeah, no kidding. Life is really good. There's been no profanity today, none. You say any fits of rage, none. You say any evil thoughts, zero. I don't know that I can go that far. Hey, I'm just telling you on my case.

So I'm rocking along here thinking, you know, life. Life's good. So you've written two or three books already, and you're doing the rounds now on your latest book, The Thief of America's Soul. And really, as I was looking through it, and I was starting to read some things, that theft has been happening for quite some time. It didn't just happen overnight. That's correct. The The Thft of America's Soul. When you go down the list in your book about the lie and the truth, it really makes you realize that it was a process that they've been slowly just kind of sneaking around the back door, just taking as much as they could when they could.

And it's amazing. And all empires go down the same road. You know, if you look back, you start back in history. a lot of these texts, this text, Romans 128, the Apostle Paul is writing to the Roman Empire. It's been 2,000 years. So you think, I wonder if anything that a writer said 2,000 years ago way before cell phones and computers. You know, I wonder if it would be pertinent today. Here's the read, Romans 128 and following.

since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. God gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done. Now, I wonder what they're up to. Now, listen to this list. It sounds like the Democratic Party. He starts down this list. They become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.

They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful. They invent ways to do an evil. They disobey their parents, and he ends that section up by saying they are senseless. If you took a human being and you say, what kind of human being is it who is senseless? Yeah, no kidding. It's just nonsense coming out of them. You're like, well, look, senseless, faithless, no God, see, no Jesus, heartless, they slaughter their own children. They shoot up churches, synagogue.

You're like, what are they doing? It almost seems senseless. It almost seems senseless. And you try to talk to them. They're coming up with stuff like we will be able to control. the thermostat on planet Earth. I'm like, you're going to do what? They're telling us how long we have left 12 years and we're gone unless something

has done about the temperature. I'm like, are you serious? They're serious. Yes, they are. They are darn serious. The scary part is that's a lie, but they believe it. They believe the lie. So lawlessness, everyone who sins, 1 John 3, verse 4, breaks the law.

In fact, sin is lawlessness. So what we have here in America, we've had it with all the other empires. Now the Roman Empire is a pile of rubble. Here we all are in America saying, what are we doing? It's scary. What's the title of the TV show here on The Blaze? Yeah, in the woods with Phil. In the woods with Phil, okay.

I'm giving him just a broad view of one man, his life and times, what he's doing, his thinking, and a worldview through a spiritual lens. I'm just including God in your worldview. If he's there, and I'm just telling him how it is, appreciating the woods out there and what we do all the time. Well, you know, it's so important because really, You were given an opportunity through a television show to have a platform. And, you know, for sure, for many years, you were, you know, like you said, when you were 28, you know, you and your wife, you know, she sat you down and said, you know, it's time to take a look at ourselves and what we're doing. Yep.

And you were living a life and it was important. And then to you and you were living your own American dream. And then you were given a larger platform by doing a television show that, you know, it was either good or bad. at or however you look at it. But I mean, it came along and it gave you a platform to reach many more people. That's what happened. And that's exactly what happened. And, you know, you take advantage of that platform by trying to explain to people, hey,

you know, maybe we start doing things a little different. You know, they came down and pitched the show, A&E. They're out of New York. They had seen some of our DVDs and videos on duck hunting. Well, they watched us. and they said to me, somebody in the back stood up and said, Bob, I know this is a crazy idea,

and it's way out there. But this seems to be a functional family. Why don't we try showing a functional family? What? And they were like, do you think you found one? He says, I think I found a functional family who we might make a TV series on.

Well, that's what inspired them to come all the way down to the riverbank they gave us their spill on what they'd like to do. I held up my Bible, and I said, is this part of it? Would this be in or out? These days, I have to ask. Yeah, no kidding. Whatever y'all do is fine with us.

We just want to fend y'all. So they leave, said, think about it. And my kids, four sons and their wives, they said, Dad, what about it? I said, I don't think a bunch of redneck shooting ducks will work. I said, however, I said, what if the Almighty has a hand in this? Right. What if God is giving us a platform like you mentioned?

Yes. I said, what if he's behind it? I said, if that's the case, I said, boys, it'll probably go ballistic. To this day, look, they've come to my little place on the river back down there. I do have a gate now with security and all that. but you say they've come by the thousands, and I've baptized them by the thousands. They just keep coming.

To this day, they're still coming. They said, Mr. Robinson, we don't know you. I'll have people vet them because it's a wicked girl. Of course, I know. And they'll say things like, we want you to marry us because we're shacked up and we know it's not right. We want you to marry us.

I'm not a licensed preacher, but I get one down there so that we can marry them. and they said, we want you to baptize us. Marry us and baptize us. That's what the request is over and over. So we take them down, marry them in my living room. You're now husband and wife. Get after it now.

It's legal. And look, then I take them down the river and baptize them and they go back to Indiana, wherever they're from. And we keep in contact with each other. That is amazing. That's what's going on. And so really, that's what it was. You were, you know, it was meant to be for a larger platform.

Meant to be. And that's one of the reasons that, you know, you've been such a successful author with the latest book, The Thief of America's Soul. And one of the reasons why you are, you know, one of the big spokespeople of the Blaze TV. Let's talk a little football. You know, I was fascinated that you were actually that you were playing football and that you decided that, you know, you were pretty good. You started at quarterback at Louisiana Tech. You're pretty good. and that, but you knew after, you know, after a few years, two or three years that, you know,

I'd rather be hunt. And that you just kind of walked away from it, right? It wasn't for you. I walked away from it. I was the first stringer and Bradshaw, Terry Bradshaw, was the second stringer. Boy, he's terrible. And I sat down with him and I said, listen, I said, I've weighed this, Bradshaw. I said, I could play one more year and you would still be second string, right?

He said, that's right. I said, I'm stepping out. That means you're stepping up. I said, look, I have two choices. Either I can chase ducks or I can have a livelihood that involves large, violent men chasing me. I said, Bradshaw, I'm looking at the downside of what you're attempting to do that I'm having serious problems with. I said, I think I'm going out and I'll be chasing. and ducks and I said good luck to you he was like stunned he said you're going to do this he's

man I don't know what to say I said do your best and I hope you make it in the pros well 40 years went by I lost track of him and he comes up somebody hugs me in the airport over in L-AX airport I turn around it's him he said Robison you did well I said Bradshaw you've done pretty well yourself son he said do you want to hear my injury list I said I Being chased by those big violent men? I said, I forgot to tell you, large men chasing you is really not the problem when they catch you. There's the problem. He said, well, look what they did to him.

And I mean, he went down his injury, Liz. They broke it. So anyway, he's still to this day been pretty beat up. Yeah, it happens. So it was a good call on my part. Yeah, no kidding. At some point, you have to realize that that beating up has to stop. It's a tough game.

Yeah, real tough. In other words, the fun was leaving at farming. and it was getting some business like that I thought, you know, I'd just rather be out in the woods chasing ducks. When did it click? When did it click? I found it fascinating about the duck call, all right? So when did it click to you that, you know, I know you told Seth talked earlier about showing your wife and saying,

you know, this is the only one and I made it, but and I think we can sell these. But when did it really click to yourself that you made something and you went? You know, I think this will work. What made that click on you? I was a sticker for precise. sounds that they make, ducks. You have whistlers, you have ones that make little guttural sounds, you have wood ducks, they make a little squealing sound. Teal have a little peep in their sound. Mallard hands, you know, they have a rise and fall in the notes. Mallard Drake's more like

kind of like a hum. Well, I went to work on what ducks sound like. You got to remember it's like playing music by ear. I had heard so many of them. I've been chasing ducks since I was about 10, 11 years old, and I listened to their sounds. My job was to go in. I said, I think I can beat what's on the market by being more precise. I think I can build some devices that will sound just like them. So I went off on a big wing and a prayer there, and I just zoned it down.

All I ever said from start to finish was mine sounds the closest to the duck. So I would build these devices, some of them whistle, some of them peep and all that. Wood ducks, well, up in that time, they didn't even have wood duck calls, gadwall calls, teal calls, penthouse. I built all them. I built just an array of all of them, just about all the ducks.

Right. So, and I guess people just, my first year in sales, like I say in the book was $8,000 gross sales. It ended up just out the roof, you know, a million five, and it was unbelievable. And this happened without a cell phone or a computer. Without a cell phone or computer? So you can pull it off. Yeah, well, by the way, but you use Twitter and Instagram and Facebook.

They say, so what's it like? How do you function without a cell phone on our computer? I said, very peacefully. I bet. I said, I'm just not hearing a lot of stuff. most people would hear, I said, I just observed everyone else and I thought, give me a break. I said, that's just too much, too much. Now, in the end, it became, you know, it's too much for you, but now it certainly has certainly

helped with your platform. I'm on the internet and I've never clicked on to the internet, which is pretty unusual. You say, well, in the world, did you get on the internet? I said, some guys, my son and my nephew came to me. they said, my oldest son said, Dad, you need to talk more. And I said, do what? I said, well, how do you figure out and do that? He said, I said, get me on the Internet somehow, if that's what you're talking about.

So they came back to me, and they mentioned CRTV. You could be on, and you can get the gospel preached. You can tell people about your life. You can say how you clean fish, you know, how you hunt ducks. You'll just be telling them about your life. I thought, they pay you to do that? He said, oh, yeah, pretty big bucks. I thought, well, let's go with it then.

So that's how I got there. I have a little film crew that comes down. I said, if you got anything on your mind, I said, fire that camera up here. Let me show you something. And they'll get down there, and maybe get up some Bible texts. A lot of times they'll say,

you got anything about duck blinds, maybe we can talk about us? Yeah, let's take a ride. We'll go down and get in the boat and take off, see, look at what, means to flood and not be affected. You know, you just, you run from it. You get your stuff back up the hill.

Huh. So I'll show them what you're doing a flood. Instead of getting flooded out, how you get around stuff. You back up a little bit. Oh, yeah. You've moved your house to, I don't know, maybe another property length of the way from the river. I said, we've got 1,200-something makers here. I said, there's about eight of it out of the water.

Somebody says, where are you? I said, I'm on the 8 acres. Thank you. I learned that long. I mean, that's amazing. When you say that, it seems so simple, but it doesn't seem simple to a lot of people. People think, you know, big rains come. They think you're never going to flood.

It's kind of a given that when it rains a lot, it always floods. And when it doesn't rain any, there's a drought. Neither one of them are good. But I'm just saying it happens. It does happen. It's the world we live in. So I'm at least prepared when big rain start, oh, we are monitoring the situation. Right now where I just left from in Louisiana to get over here in the Texas.

I notice there's a lot of water around here too. Yes, there is. But I just noticed in Louisiana, the river I live on is 20 feet above normal. Wow. So you just think about that. You're like, it's out in my yard out there. It's just right out there. I mean, I watched, I witnessed that happen every year at my grandparents' house.

And my grandpa was like, it comes up like that every year. It's amazing. there you go That's why the house is here That's right You learn to roll with it But you do respect it Because you can't stop it

No you can't Can't stop it No you can't You just have to be prepared If you live in a place And you see high watermarks On the trees out there in the yard As soon as I walked down there

I looked at where we now live I asked that woman to see if she had lied to me Because I looked at the watermarks first I said This place here I said, let me ask you something. You're a real estate lady. I said, does it flood in here?

She said, Mr. Robinson, I'm not going to lie to you. It floods a lot in here. I said, we don't want it unless it floods. She said, you're going to love this place. So out in my yard, that floods all the time, but I'm up on a hill just high enough up. So we learn to live with it. Absolutely. All right.

I know you got to go, and I appreciate your stopping by. It was very nice talking to you. I appreciate it. Hey, gosh darn it. I was going to have him blow the duck call again. You saw the video. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, Jeffie, JFR, Facebook, Jeff Fisher Radio,

Instagram, Jeff Fisher Radio. You saw the video I posted earlier today with Phil out in the hallway and he was blowing the duck call for me. He did do some duck calls for us in the interview, which was, you know, nice of him, but without the duck call. And I should have pulled it out then. Wait, that doesn't sound.

right. Anyway, thanks for a listening to the Saturday chewing the fat. Remember to subscribe, rate and review. If you're listening and you enjoy the podcast, subscribe. If you're listening and you didn't enjoy the podcast, subscribe. And then you can rate and review it. If you rate and review it, 20 stars, best podcast ever, that would be great. If you didn't like the podcast and you're subscribing, and then you go ahead and just rate and review it. 20 stars, best podcast ever, just your way of getting back at me. me.