The One You Feed - Joe Oestreich of Watershed

Episode Date: April 30, 2014

This week on The One You Feed we have Joe Oestreich.He is the author of the memoir, Hitless Wonder: A Life in Minor League Rock and Roll, which documents the twenty-five years he toured the country in a beat up Econoline as the bass player and co-singer for Columbus Ohio’s Watershed.His writing has appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Ninth Letter, Fourth Genre, and many other magazines. He's been awarded a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, honored by The Atlantic Monthly, and shortlisted in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007, The Best American Essays 2008 and 2009, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses 2010 and 2014. He is now teach creative writing at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC, where he is the nonfiction editor of Waccamaw.In This Interview Joe and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.Getting the work done.Making time for your art.Taking selfishness too far.Working hard.How working hard is sometimes you the only thing you can change.Not being attached to external success.The work has to be it's own reward.The frustration of not seeing the success you want.That there has never been a better time to get your work in front of people.The support from his father.Watershed's legendary manager Biggie.Optimism versus fear.Opening for the Insane Clown Posse.His upcoming book.Joe Oestreich LinksJoe Oestreich homepageWatershed homepageBuy Hitless WonderSome of our most popular interviews you might also enjoy:Mike Scott of the WaterboysRich RollTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whatever I decide to do, like Watershed or my writing career, it's never like I'm the coolest, hippest, must-read thing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly or whatever, you know? Luckily, I'm not burdened with that. Welcome to The One You Feed. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that

hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the show. Our guest today is Joe A. Strike, author of the memoir, Hitless Wonder, A Life in Minor League Rock and Roll, which documents the 25 years he toured the country in a beat-up EconoLine van as the bass player and co-singer for Columbus, Ohio's Watershed. His writing has appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and other magazines. He's been honored by Atlantic Monthly and shortlisted in the Best American Essays of 2008 and 2009,

and, as if that's enough, added on the Pushcard Prize Best of the Small Presses in 2014. His band Watershed retains a devoted cult following, and their latest record is called Brick and Mortar. And Eric, do you want to tell everybody why this interview is a little different and special than some of the others we've done? This was actually the first interview we recorded. Joe was kind enough to be our first guest. The other thing about it is that Joe is a great author. His book, Hitless Wonder, is really one of the most enjoyable reads about being in the music world that I've ever read. And he's been a good friend for a long time. So we're really excited to have him on. And let's check it out. Here's the interview. Hey, Joe, welcome to the show.

Hey, how you guys doing? We're doing great. We're really glad to have you. Thanks for doing this. Our podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the old parable where there's an old man who's talking with his grandson. And he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like hatred and greed and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks, and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start the podcast off by just asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in your work.

Well, to my great shame, I'd never heard that before. But I'm really glad you guys introduced it to me. And it really can apply to a lot of people in a lot of different ways, of course. To me, I think it's about getting the work done, especially something that might be considered like, you know, artwork, if I might be so pretentious as to use the word art to talk about anything that I've ever done. But the reason why I think that that's got to be the good wolf is because there are a lot of forces in life, not all evil forces either, good, well-meaning forces like your family, your wife, your kids, your job, the fact that you have to pay the rent, things like that, that kind of nudge you away from any sort of art making process

toward a money making process. And of course, this is a problem because time is finite. And so with only limited time, you've got to make some pretty tough decisions about And so with only limited time, you've got to make some pretty tough decisions about how you can get the work done and what it's going to cost you to get the work done. So for me, I think feeding the good wolf, and it's not like I spent a lot of time thinking about this until I agreed to do this podcast, but I asked myself, what does that mean to me? And the best thing that I can come up with is it means finding excuses and reasons to get the work done instead of the opposite. Because it's always very easy to find reasons to not get the work done. If you're looking for reasons to not do it, you will never run out of them. So I think you just kind of have to take the opposite stance and say, wait a minute, how

can I get this done? What can I do? Can I wake up a little earlier? Can I be a little selfish today? Can I set aside two hours to do whatever it is I need to do? But yeah, for me, it's about finding excuses and reasons to get the work done. That's great. I think we talked about that.

Actually, when Eric and I first started talking about this podcast, productivity came up for me as a big part of it. I mean, people who do a lot in their lives are obviously feeding the good wolf somehow, because if you don't, you know, things just crumble usually rather quickly. It's kind of like losing weight and gaining weight. It's really very easy to gain it because it's fun and decadent and we like pizza and beer and it's a son of a bitch to lose it. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I think it's just, I guess sometimes you have to be selfish and it doesn't seem like the selfish part of you would be the good wolf. It seems like that

would be the bad wolf because we've been taught that since we were little kids, don't be selfish. But I think sometimes you have to be selfish in the name of personal fulfillment, in the name of the fact that there's just simply a limited time on earth. And so in order to get something done, sometimes you have to say, I'm going to hold this art making process or whatever as precious and I'm going to set it aside. And if I have to be selfish in order to get it done, that's what I'll do. take that to such an extreme that they lose so many things that are potentially positive in their life in the name of getting the work done. You know, whether, whether it be they get divorced or they never see their kids or whatever. And I certainly don't want to be that level of selfish. I want to find some sort of balance in my life. And I think I'm lucky enough that I found it. That was one of the things in the book that really fascinated me.

I read it when it came out. I loved it. It was really interesting. A, it was very well written. And B, it's interesting to read the book of someone that grew up in the same place that you did and had a lot of the early experiences. But one of the things I was struck by is that, you know, sort of the theme running through that book was sort of, you know, you fighting for the band and trying to balance that with your wife's desire to do other things. And I do think that is, you know, you talk about, you know, feeding the good wolf to get your art done. And sometimes that's selfish. And, and one of the things that's interesting, though, is that for those of us that feel that need to make something, when we don't do a real asshole, and it's not any better.

And so I think I'm doing what the people around me want. It always backfires on me. Right. in the short term, you can sometimes make the people around you very happy by ignoring the art making process or the good wolf and just kind of playing along with what's easy. But in the long run, I think you're totally right. I think that ultimately you become so unfulfilled or frustrated because you've got this thing that you need to get out and it's kind of blocked that you become such a jerk that at some point the people around you say okay i'm sorry get out of here go do that thing that you need to do absolutely

always sort of amazed me about about watershed and and reading your book really sort of, you know, drives it home again is a sort of how hard you guys really did work, and sort of how you continue to do it, even, you know, over some pretty dramatic ups and downs. And so I'd kind of be interested in what do you think made that work for you guys that you were able to a you know work so hard and be so focused and then sustain it over a period of time i think the work part was it was something that we could do you know nobody in our band is ever going to sing like harold to chester or willie phoenix or you know pick your favorite singer. We're never going to sing like that. We're never going to be the best musicians in the world. We're never going to

be punk rock enough to be the Ramones in order to get away with being less than perfect musicians and singers or whatever. So we sort of recognized our limitations from an early age and said, well, one of the things we can do is work really hard, like book a bunch of gigs, practice all the time, try to get better, try to write better songs, go on the road. And then that's all well and good. I think we kind of got that down at an early age. But a lot of bands get that down and still they break up. So I think one of the real, I guess, lucky happenstances about our band was simply the way that we were formed. And that is Colin, our guitar player. You know, when we were kids, young kids, like seventh and eighth grade, this kid Colin had vision, man. I mean, he started putting this band together before any of us knew how to play instruments. And I mean that literally in every case except for him. He knew how to play guitar, kind of. But other than

that, he just started recruiting people and he recruited his friends. And his whole thing, I can't believe he was like wise enough to to think of this or stumble upon this at such a young age but his theory was if we're friends first we can carve a band we can make a band out of friends you know we were going to hang out together anyway so it's like we might as well hang out together in a bar with our guitars trying to play songs write songs etc etc etc so i think that's what kept us going you know to a reasonable um a length of time you know the 10 or the 15 years or whatever normal people consider to be a long period of time but at this point we're at like 25 years. We're at an exceedingly long period of time now. And so I don't think I can easily write it all off on knowing our limitations, so trying to work hard,

and friendship. At this point, I think it's something else. Stubbornness, the fact that it's just what we do, and so we don't even really think about it it's just what we do maybe it's the fact that um we honestly believe that our best song is still out there to be written that's really interesting because actually today i was thinking about that as i was um you know thinking about this interview. And I thought about, you know, when you guys got, you know, when you guys got dropped back in the day, and then I thought about the songs that have been written since then. And, you know, I would say they're some of the best ones, you know, even the most recent record. And that's exactly, you know, what I was thinking was,

if you had, if anybody gives up, and then that doesn't get done. And if the belief is that it's about the work itself and the joy that you get from the work itself, not necessarily the extrinsic reward from that, which is another topic I want to cover a little bit later, then obviously carrying on is important. Yeah, that was one of the real lessons that we learned when we were pretty young and we started going out on the road at age 20. We dropped out of school and bought a used van and started playing shows all over the country for very few people and very little money.

What we learned was that the show has to be its own reward. The act of playing, the fun you have in getting there and hanging out with your buddies and having a drink at the bar or whatever. Because if you play for those extrinsic things like money, fame or whatever, you'll always be disappointed. It will never be enough. Even if you get a little bit of what normal people call success, financial success or whatever, critical success, it's never enough. So we learned the hard way because we didn't have any choice. We're, you know, we're playing for, you know, decent crowds in Columbus, but, you know, that's 10% of our shows or less. The huge vast majority of our shows were played in front of people who

didn't care, wanted to hate us, and very few of even those people. So we learned pretty quickly that we needed to find something within ourselves that would make it worth it, that'd make it worth it to drive 500 miles to Milwaukee on a Tuesday night to play for 15 bucks. Now, don't get me wrong. We did want to sign a big record deal at that time. I guess it's just because we saw our heroes and they all had big record deals and they were all playing arenas and stuff like that. So we wanted to be like Springsteen or whatever. We just did. And it's not all that cool to admit, but that's just kind of the way we saw musical success then. You know, we don't see that anymore. Now we see that all the way to the floor.

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You know, learning the lesson that the reward is the reward. you know, learning the lesson that the reward is the reward. And yet, I think the challenge for a lot of people is that even though we know that maybe deep down in our better moments, it's really easy to get lost in the lure of external success, again, whether that be money, whether that be critical acclaim, whether that be – and the thing I liked about in the book is you sort of are – you're describing that battle. You're sort of describing that yourself back to that when everything in our culture and a lot of default things sort of pull you away from, hey, it's the work that's important into, hey, it's the success that's important? to relearn over and over again, you get plenty of opportunities to relearn it. Because at least in our career, we didn't rocket to instant success. You know what I mean?

It's always been a struggle. So we've learned that lesson over and over and over again. But I will confess that there were times when I was, you know, early 30s perhaps, where I started to see our friends who played the straight route, you know early 30s perhaps where i started to see our friends who played the the straight route you know that went straight from college into a cubicle or whatever i started to see them having all of these covet the material things that they had. But the crisis was coming from the fact that I wasn't that happy where I was. You know, it's one of those things where, okay, if I don't have the McMansion and can't afford the vacation and don't have a nice car or whatever, that's fine. But shouldn't I at least be really, really happy while I don't

have the McMansion and all of that sort of thing. And for a long time, I wasn't. And I think it's just because, man, frustration, you've got, you've got this material, whatever it is, and you just want to get it into the world so badly. And somehow the world didn't seem to want it. And I eventually got to a place where I was like, well, it doesn't matter what the world wants. It's just going to happen. Do you feel like you've had more success in your writing career than you have in your music career? Or is it too early to know? It's probably too early to know. But I guess the one thing I've learned about myself is that I'm never going to be like in baseball.

They used to call it the bonus baby like the hot commodity the buzzworthy thing like i'm always going to be a grinder it seems to me and whatever i decide to do it's always the kind of like people stumble into whatever i do and they're like that's pretty good but watershed or my writing career it's never like i'm the coolest hippest must read thing on the cover of entertainment weekly or whatever you know so luckily i'm not burdened with that It also seems in the writing world, there's less all or nothing. The music business for, I think it's changed a little bit as the internet's gone on, but certainly in the days where you guys were coming up, it really was all or nothing. You either got on a major label and you made it big or you floundered.

And I think looking at a writing career, there's a lot of different avenues to sort of be in between. You know, you don't have to hit the home run to be successful. Yeah, I think a lot of the same advances in technology that made it so that you could kind of have a middle class in the music industry, the leveling of the distribution channels, and so forth, so that there are a lot of bands that have niche crowds. So they might only have 15,000 fans and I say only, but they might have 15,000 fans, but they can find those 15,000 fans because of the internet and social media,

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. A lot of those same advances have made it so that the publishing industry can have something like a middle-class too. You can find your audience. If you need to, you can publish the book yourself. Everybody's pretty much got to promote their books themselves. Even the people on big giant publishing houses have to do that these days. So yeah, I think in terms of

the ability to get your art in whatever medium you're working in, in front of people, I think this is like a golden age. You know what I mean? Maybe not financially, but again, as we've said, that can't be the goal anyway. If the goal is to get your work out to people, there's never been a better time on earth than right now. One of the other things in reading the book that hit me and sort of gets to, I think, the support that we need in order to sort of continue on was some of the stories about your father. You know, one of the lines was all the other parents and all the expectations they seem to have for their kids.

And you said that, you know, knowing your own happiness is the only expectation your father's ever had. And you've just got other stories about his sort of really, you know, seems legendary support. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about him and the role he's played. Yeah, I mean, he was a huge supporter right from the beginning when we were fourth, I guess, eighth grade or whatever. He bought my first bass and it's a $150 court bass from Williams Music in Worthington, Ohio. And from that moment forward, he really just fostered my interest in it. Now, I guess I didn't really need fostering.

But during the low times, I needed somebody to say, no, keep going. Keep going. It's OK. His only fear was that I wouldn't take it seriously enough. And I always wondered, maybe there were times 30, 25 years into our career where he's like, okay, I didn't mean to take it that seriously. But I have two kids now. And so I try to think about what did I learn from my dad as a parent that I can maybe translate to my kids?

And, you know, there are a couple of things that don't necessarily apply to music, like giving a shit. That helps, I think, when you're a father, giving a shit, showing up, being there. But I think what my dad gave to me was unconditional support, just really support. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Every now and then that support was a little bit financial, never huge amounts. But I remember my dad cut Watershed a check for like a thousand bucks one time, which seemed like a huge amount to us, don't get me wrong. And we paid him back. It took us like a year, but we paid him back. And I just remember thinking, this is so generous. This is so great.

And he's just like, a money problem is not a problem. And we didn't come from rich families, but we were lucky that we had that kind of support, emotional support, financial support from the very beginning. And then the support of people like Biggie, who, you know, he's the road manager, been with us from the very beginning. And think about it. He doesn't even play on stage or write any of the songs.

What the heck is he still doing with the band? I think, I didn't know this before I wrote the book, but I think now he sees, and it's undeniably true, he sees what he does as an art. And it is undeniably an art. The support, the flyer making, the getting us there in the van, the heroic driving. I mean, there is an artisticness to what he does. And so that fulfills something that he needs. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your

cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too?

Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really?

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no, really.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign. Jason bobblehead. It's called really, no, really. And you can find it on the I heart radio app on Apple podcasts or

wherever you get your podcasts. Back to your dad for a second, because there were several things. There was one line you said that really was, you were describing being in a bar, and, you know, it sounds like there were some watershed people there. We're not talking about a sold-out stadium. And your dad sort of looks over it and, you know, smiling and says, you know, look at this thing you've built. And he clearly has that sense that it's not about the external success. And I just, I found that really a touching line that, you know, to see your father sort of seeing it in the beauty for what it really is. Yeah. He is an amazing guy. And I don't know where that comes from.

I know where his amazingness comes from, but that sort of optimistic, look at this thing you built. When other people would look at the very same scene and see 15 people nursing beers in a bar and think, this is a dismal show. My dad sees, look at that thing you built. And in a lot of ways, I think Colin sees the world through that same filter. It seems awfully simple to just say that

it's optimism or seeing the silver lining or something like that. It goes deeper than that. seeing the silver lining or something like that. It goes deeper than that. I think it's more like a faith that things are good and things will work out. I think the people, and this has been me sometimes, who see the scene and see the 15 people and say, this is dismal. That I think comes from fear. Fear that like things are going bad. and this is evidence that things are going bad. Whereas my dad and I think Colin to a large degree see that same scene and see this confirmation that things are fundamentally good in the world and in what you're doing. Where that sort of inner strength comes from to see the world is fundamentally good and what you're doing is fundamentally right. I don't add them up

Don't add them up No matter what I do, it ain't enough I make little mistakes, don't add them up No matter what I do, it ain't enough Just little mistakes, don't add them up One of the themes that we've talked about and really comes up again and again in your book is the idea of really sticking with it and grinding things out. One of the most po up again and again in your book is the idea of, of really

sticking with it and grinding things out. One of the most poignant examples of that in the book. And, and one that the first time I heard it, I laughed and refused to believe it was true, which is I'm sure a reaction you get often is about your day's opening for the insane clown posse. And, and there's a line in there where, you know, the where the guy's sitting there in his killer clown makeup saying, our fans hate you. And Colin laughs and Colin says, hate never stopped us. But I just find the whole thing, A, a funny story if you could talk about it. But at the same time, this is right around the time that your first drummer, Herb, leaves the band. And you're sort of chronicling how he's reacting to the very

same things that you and Colin are. And his reaction is not the same. So this was about two years after we got dropped from Epic. And so we were scraping really hard, not only to keep the band together, but hopefully to get another record deal. And this guy, Frank Aversa, who really was a great guy who came along at the right time, he produced the Spin Doctors song, Two Princes. So he had some money. He had a really nice studio.

He liked the band. And just when we needed him, when Epic said, no, you guys are washed up at age 25 or whatever this guy frank aversa said come up and make a record in my barn so we made this record star vehicle and we're like wow you know the stars are aligned for us you know we're writing better songs than we ever have made our best record we got to do it for free with this really good producer watershed's back baby and then about six months after that album came out, a guy who would run sound for us when we were on Epic

was running front of house for Insane Clown Posse. And a couple of their opening bands dropped off the bill because it's a thankless gig, playing in front of 5,000 juggalos who just throw Faygo at you, give you the finger, and then crawl into their mom's minivan. But he's like, dude, Insane Clown Posse needs an opener.

And we jumped at the opportunity. Now, part of it is because we're like, this is going to be hilarious, right? Insane Clown Posse? We sound like Chief Trick and they're white serial killing clowns from Detroit. This is just going to be hilarious. But the other part of it, and it seems so ridiculous now looking back on it, but at the time this was legit. We actually thought this was a break. We thought this was going to lead to a record deal. We even kind of hoped that the Insane Clown Posse would sign us to their record company, Psychopathic Records.

And so this is the downside of Colin's optimism. I mean, we're sitting in the van on the way to one of these gigs and he's like, oh man, this is going to be big. This is going to be big. We're going to be on Psychopathic Records. Violin Jay loves us. These juggalos are going to love us. What a fantastic break this is. And we found out at show one that it was not a fantastic break. And I talk about this in the

book, but the very first show was in Scranton. We're in the dressing room getting ready to go out there and we're putting on like our little power pop skinny ties and our suits. And we hear the crowd and it's a big crowd, probably three or four thousand people. we hear the crowd and it's a big crowd probably three or four thousand people we hear the crowd like watershed watershed watershed and we look at each other we're like dudes this is awesome they know us right like i think they know us i think we might have gotten some airplay in scranton right like they're Watershed fans in the audience. And then we open the door and we can hear that they're really saying, Watershed sucks. Watershed sucks. We hadn't even played a note yet. And these juggalos are booing us off the stage already. That was pretty

much the high point of the tour. From there, it just got worse. I mean, we played okay, I guess, but it didn't matter, of course. I mean, we played okay, I guess, but it didn't matter, of course. I mean, we were the one thing standing in between these kids and the Insane Clown Posse, and these kids weren't having it. It's a bad spot to be. You don't want to be between anybody and their Insane Clown Posse. They really should just have a DJ before that. Of course. Playing Insane Clown Posse.

Of course. And I remember when I was a kid and I saw whatever King Cobra opened up for Kiss and it was the same thing. Like you just, you can't really open up for a band like that. A band that's going to commit to being kabuki monsters or serial killing clowns.

You just can't. They're very tender people. Is there a video from these days at all? Does any exist? I haven't seen it. I hope it does. That would be great. I hope it does. But the best show on that tour was in Louisville.

And the day before the Louisville show, we were in Milwaukee, and I broke one of Colin's guitars. I just knocked it off the guitar stand, and the neck snapped in half. So he was down to one guitar. And he's like, if i break a string tonight in louisville the concert is over i'm not gonna sit there and change strings in front of 5 000 juggalos like ding ding ding ding and so we get out there and we play our first song and it's really fast this fast version of this song called wallflower child and we play our second song called star vehicle and these kids are just about to like start the middle fingers

flying i mean the first song was confusion second song was more confusion but now they're just turning into rage and right then calm breaks a string and says thank you good night and the middle fingers were coming up and all of a sudden they just the crowd goes like they loved it it was two songs maybe two and a half songs and we got a great response from the crowd that night huge i probably thought that was pretty cool they did they did because these kids don't really understand live rock and roll i think i wrote about this in the book but there's a moment where some juggalo comes up to Colin. It was actually in Milwaukee, I remember. And he's like, I know you guys were lip syncing. I know you were. And Colin's like, dude, if we were lip syncing, do you think it would sound that shitty? You know, kids just don't understand how the rock and roll

works, I guess. It's hysterical. Now that lip syncing is the norm, they probably wouldn't be saying that. Right. There was a moment in every show where you could tell, and the moment is the first 30 seconds of the first song, where you could tell that the kids were pretty impressed by Herb actually playing drums, like big, muscular Herb, beating the crap out of these drums. But that only lasted about 30 seconds.

And then they turned on us. So are there any plans for Watershed currently? Yeah, we're talking about making another record in the spring. I know I've got a bunch of songs right now and I think calling those two. And so, yeah, the plan I think is to get together probably May. Too premature? Or do you want to tell us a little bit about the book you're working on now? Yeah, and now's actually a good time.

Yeah, I'm writing a book about this incident that happened in the town where I live now, Conway, South Carolina, in 1989, where the high school football coach at Conway High School benched a senior returning starter, a quarterback, who happened to be black, in favor of a junior who was the son of an assistant coach who was a white kid, completely untested. The black kid the year before had led the team to an 8-4 record. And talk around town was that Conway High School was finally going to win

their first state championship in football, big football town, but finally the big championship was going to happen. But then when the coach benched the black guy in favor of the white guy, 31 of the 37 black kids on the team walked away from the team in protest. And that started this big racial incident that divided the town along racial lines. And in a lot of ways, that hasn't really healed. Almost 25 years later, people still talk about the boycott and everybody has still got a story. The team that year only won one game. It was the last game of the season and they carried the coach off on their shoulders and chanted, Chuck Jordan, coach of the year. That coach, that coach is still the coach of Conway High School right now. And the white quarterback that he elevated is now the coach

of Myrtle Beach High School, and that's Conway's biggest rival. Anyway, in addition to being, I think, a really fantastic story, it's been really refreshing to write about something other than myself. Well, Joe, I think that's all I've got. Thanks so much for coming on the show. We appreciate it. I look forward to reading the new book and hearing the new watershed. And maybe we'll see you in the spring up here.

Thanks, guys. A lot of fun. See you guys. Bye. You can find out more about Joe A. Strike, including how to spell his last name properly at one you feed.net slash Joe. Oh.