wellRED podcast - #23 - Travel Bans, Pee Pee in The Mayo, and an Interview w/ Chuck Reece!

Episode Date: July 12, 2017

This weeks episode features an interview with a man who is truly doing the lord’s work down in Dixie; Chuck Reece!Chuck is the Editor in Chief of BitterSoutherner.com which has been the favorite publication of all three wellRED boys for quite sometime.You don’t have to read through too many of the articles on there before realizing that Chuck is an OG Liberal Redneck!From his time at the school paper at UGA, to working with Governor Zell Miller… all the way to writing funny songs about farm animals with The Drive by Truckers… Chuck is an extremely talented and interesting feller.I aint gonna give too much away so y’all just listen to the episode!Before that, the boys sit down in the greenroom at Cain’s Ballroom to discuss the recent California Travel ban while Corey’s momma sits in the back and shakes her head every time we say naughty words or fart.SUBSCRIBE. LEAVE A REVIEW. TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!! wellREDcomedy.com for tickets and our book...The Liberal Redneck Manifesto!

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junior fry and small soft drink. Third-party delivery pricing may be higher. So up, Well Redder's Cho here. Tour updates tomorrow night, Thursday, July 13th. Las Vegas, Nevada. Saturday, July 29th, and through the 30th, we're in Pasadena and Polyticon. August 25th through the 26th, Kansas City, Missouri, August 27th, St. Louis, Missouri, September 5th, Syracuse, New York, September 6th, Albany, New York, September 7th, Hartford, Connecticut, September 8, Boston, Massachusetts, September 14th through the 16th, we're in Lexington, Kentucky. You can get all those tickets at well-readcom, spelled just like the podcast, W-E-L-L-R-E-D, Comedy.com.

Thank you for downloading the podcast. Remember to subscribe so you get it automatically every week, and tell your friends. We really appreciate it. Ski. Well, well. Ski. Woo! One, two.

Is that, that's a vodka soda? Is that what you ordered? Yeah, what was I supposed to order? That's fine. Bicotonic. I mean, in fairness, I switch it up, so it's fine. But I was just saying... I thought I heard you say when time tonic was like nasty soda.

No. It's flavored soda. It's like lime. It's just straight up, you know. Yeah. And tonic is soda and citrusy. It would pee. Quineineine.

But it's like... gives like a citrusy flavor. You know the story? No, quinine. You know the story of tonic water? That's why it's called tonic water. Because nobody could say fucking quinine. No, they used it to treat malaria.

Y'all know this? No. So the Brits... I'm recording, by the way. The Brits, when they was, you know, busy subjugating world, right? Which lasted for a long time. Okay. And when they started going into countries where there was malaria,

that didn't hit for them. Of course not. Hard to win a war when you got malaria. And I don't know how it was discovered or whatever, but anyway, quino, which is the primary ingredient in tonic water, which wasn't called tonic water at the time, can be used to treat malaria. And also makes a mighty fine mixture for gin, don't you know? So it's interesting. Gin and tonics, that's how they came about because they really rather like the gin and also not dying of malaria. So they mixed the remedy and gin together, and they said, oh, this is quite nice.

And that made gin and tonic. But it was called tonic water because it was a tonic for the illness. Vodka tonic is one of your favorite drinks? Is your favorite drink? Yes. Your favorite drink, the IPA, did you know that the story is almost identical in terms of who and now? Actually, I did know that. Yeah.

Well, in case our fans, I guess I'll go ahead and tell it then. Or do you want to tell it since it's your drink? You know it better. I've only read it once, and it was at you actually were telling me about it. I went and read it's very interesting. I thought it was just so it would keep longer, though. Yes, but it's still about conquering. Colonialism.

Well, because they were sitting, so the Brits were sending their troops to conquer India and subjugate brown people, and they were killing at it. But they weren't paying. It's like, it's wild. It's as if, you know, being the shittiest country in the world has precedent. Anyway, they weren't paying their soldiers very well at all. Part of their quote-unquote payment was they would just give them beer. Like, like, they would count that. They would be like, instead of giving you, you, you know, 200 pounds.

a week or, you know, I don't know how their money works. They're all stupid. So they were comics. Well, buddy, we don't pay them shit now and don't allow them to have beer. No, they get beer on base. They do. Not on, not on, like, fucking, not on deployment. Not when they're at war, when it matters. I don't think that's true. I mean, I've got multiple buddies that were in. I believe you. It might be because they've been in Muslim countries or something. In fairness, I was based on my father-in-law talking about drinking over there, but. Oh, they did for years. He said, he was a higher-up and B, he never actually said it was allowed, now that I think about it.

He just was doing. I was about saying my buddy Thomas never said, yeah, we could. He'd be getting hammered. Right. No, dude, yeah, and they did drugs and all that shit. Yeah, of course. It was like... Well, anyway, let me finish this before I forget.

It's called IPA, India, Pellel. They increased the hops content in the beer, not because anyone liked it back then, but to make the beer last longer so that their payment to the soldiers, which was beer, would, you know, last on that long-ass voyage to India. Because, you know, fuck paying them more. Sure. Let's just make the beer stronger.

Sure. Which, I mean, you know, that's good. kind of a brilliant idea. Okay. You can be both terrible and brilliant. Let's not act like you can't. Absolutely. White people have.

That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That reminds us our whole history. That reminds me something I wanted to talk to y'all about. So the new alt-right, racist, you know, hide it in your politics thing is that we don't believe we being the alt-riders, I'm speaking. I'm real quick. The U.S. military does not allow troops to drink during a major deployment.

Okay. But again. It's, you know, Vietnam. No, well, it ended. They did for years and years, and at some point they ended that. They were like, you know what? We probably ought not be drunk. Yeah, but I thought they ought to be drunk.

I think they should. You know what would make war just a little bit worse for these almost slaves we've got fighting for us? Yeah. If we don't allow them to get drunk. Well, I was thinking it, I was thinking it on the, you know, probably a couple of them got drunk and had access to some things that you weren't not be drunk around and maybe fucked around with it.

Do you know what I'm saying? Does that make sense? Dude, of course it makes sense to not want your soldiers when they're like actively fighting to be hammered. Yeah. But still, they get leave and time off and shit. I think they should be able to get drunk during that time. Well, yeah, they should.

Hillers people gave the Nazis uppers and all the kinds of stuff. So much meth. So, yeah. And it's like, what was it? Norman? That one country took on the goddamn. damn world. Hey, dude, in fairness, we still do the loss.

Jet fighters get, like, jet fighters get, like, stay away. Jacked up Adderall, basically, like, high test atarol. A, the focus and B, the G's. You faint a lot when you're flying. Well, I mean, they'll justify. I mean, of course it works. It's like steroids work.

You know what I mean? Also meth hits. I'm saying that, to me, that logic ain't much different. Oh, I see what you mean. Like, if you want to win a goddamn war, meth them up. Well, I mean, but I could make it either way. Yeah, but I could say that the pilot. it's arguably like literally need it for what they're doing.

But then you go back to the soldiers and say, yeah, I mean, if you're going to gas a child, you need it. Right. Yeah, but I mean, there is a huge difference in, you know, being on meth and being drunk is in terms of like your competence. Because like, on that note, giving soldiers meth. Oh, yeah. Giving them beer is strictly to keep morale up and or keep their sadness numb. I think they actually also, but what you just said about, if you're going to gas a child, you need to be fucked up. I think that was like, and also an actual, like, program that they had.

The hit, Hiller? Yeah, that's what I was talking about. What were you talking about? I don't mean the meth. I'm talking about something else. Like, to, like, is that how we got wrong? I'm talking about to help them cope with that. Does burning, with gas?

Does burning juice to death get you down? How about it? I'm saying. I know I know. They really did that. But, uh, anyway, so I wanted to ask if y'all had even seen the, uh, I want to ask, Go ahead. Wait, what are you talking about?

Same thing? No, there was just something I wanted to talk about this week. Well, you were talking about white people being awesome at war, and I was thinking about this the other day, this can be real long, but it can be real quick. The new, it's not new, the all right thing. Like, I've been paying attention to it lately finally. Like Spencer and all those, you know, like the real deal Nazis.

And what they always say is, we want people separate because cultures shouldn't mingle. It never works when they mingle. They're always war, A. and B, we're not white supremacist. We just love European culture. Go ahead. How can you live in the United States of America and say it never works when cultures mingle?

I don't know. How can you be an insane person? No, but I'm saying, I'm saying, though, that's literally all this country is. I know, but I've heard him use that as an argument where he's like, well, yeah, that's when we got the race wars and that's why this, it's like, What about when we were the greatest country on earth for fucking, however. He's fucking wrong. I know. I'm yelling at you like.

You're not, that's so fucking stupid to me. Now, he's not really one of those. He's not really one of those greatest country. He's very much this country needs to change and go back. He's like we were the greatest country literally 100 years ago. Yeah. The second we got here and it was just us murdering Indians, we were the greatest. But the second we brought these motherfuckers in.

Even then it was multiple different cultures of white people. There's a second point that I make that I think is. But Europeans. I don't know. More right to talk about because the point you're talking about is just stupidity. Now, the next one is, too, but it's a lot, the skill level which they've dispelled it is higher. And this is their claim. We're not white supremacist.

We like European culture. We think it's superior. If you disagree with us, that's fine. But then they say, obviously, it is superior. Look at the world. Look at what we've done. And all that we were superior at is killing everybody. Right.

If that's what culture is, I don't even know where to go with that. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, there's this thing out there. the all right world i've seen it from people who i like you know the people who think differently me but i still engage with them i've had the argument thrown to me by someone i won't say his or her name i'll tell you all later that look we are the superior culture look at the world and i'm like what what are you saying that we're superior because we won more that's well right he claims all things but i'm like well our music is the most disseminated because we won those wars right because

it came from our movies are the most disseminated because we won those wars yeah also there's plenty of evidence of like, I don't know, it's just like, okay, you know how you, I know that face. Your football team, your football team to win a championship. You got to be real good, but you also got to catch some breaks along the way. Absolutely. Uh-huh. For sure.

I think you can easily, guns, arms, and steel. You could easily argue that when it comes to like our cultural dominance or whatever and what I'm just as one example, like in the Middle East for you, and I'm going back a long time now, but there was a while where they were, like, they were the pinnacle of civilization for a long time and then they kind of you know destroyed themselves

with like as we are currently doing right and but I'm saying if they had that wasn't white people who did it the first time and if they hadn't done that then right they would be fucking where we are now we didn't have shit to do with that you're 100% right there's no merit to

their argument there's no way to know that but I'm saying even if they're right that like oh there's a reason that we are the dominant culture in the world. If that's true, if there's some inherent thing about the way we have conducted business, it is simply that we got better at war. If you think that makes us a superior culture, then you and I just have a fundamental disagreement about what the fuck culture is. But I will give them this. War does seem to be the West's goddamn culture.

I was going to say, replace culture with war. And I mean, yeah, you're not, that ain't wrong, but that's not a thing to be right about. That's not a thing to be like, well, look it. I mean, it is better than being wrong about it. Well, yeah, I heard that, but there's a time. I mean, you can be factually accurate and it still be a terrible thing. So just because that's the way it is, does not mean that that's good or that that's how it should be. Well, it's just unbelievable to me to hear someone be like, I mean, look at the Renaissance. See, we have the best painters.

And I'm like, all, well, first of all, plenty of painters come from the East and Middle East. Right. But second of all, that era that those painters came from, like, we were literally colonizing the places you're talking about other than the far east. Of course they weren't paying. They were fighting. Right. Anyway. No, I hear you.

No, yeah. No, I mean, war don't hit? I think we all agree on all of that. I wanted to ask if y'all, because I don't know how big of a story this really is because of how much it obviously appeals to me on a personal level for what will be obvious reasons. But did y'all hear about that, about California's travel ban? I think that's a pretty big story. And I actually haven't looked into it as much as I want. Actually, when I first saw that, I was like, huh, where can't Tray go to?

Okay, so let me go over it real quick. Basically, California instituted their own at the state level travel ban for certain American states that they say have homophobic legislation or homophobic policies in place. And we will get to that. Tennessee is one of them, right? Oh, fuck. But here's the thing, though, here's the thing. Because they can't just do that. Of course.

I can't just say that I, a Tennessean, can't come back in the fuck, they can't do that. Well, they could. So what, no, they can't. So what it is is. Yes, they could. They wouldn't fucking go well. I mean, Tray's going to take on. Trey's going to take on the guy at the day.

It will. Not, dude. The federal government would step in and they would be allowed to. Oh, my Lord. Trey would finally be persecuted. Listen to me. It ain't. It ain't.

Because of that, all they did was, as Drew said, it's a, it's a, it's a travel ban, but it's a travel ban of California state employees on state-funded travel. And they can do that, right? Yes, they can. I mean, they're employees, and they are banned from going to Tennessee and Texas and a few other states to on California taxpayer dollars because those states persecute people. Some of these states, Tennessee actually, I think, was the first one, like, five. This is like state. Now they want California people.

No, no, no, they don't. No, they don't. No, they don't want California people. Before we move on your problem with it, and we should, I have a question. How do you know that that's the only reason that they made it so specific is because they couldn't get away with more? How do you know that they didn't say we want to do this specific thing to make a point, but we would never disallow Tennesseans from coming to California or California's from going to Tennessee, even if we could? Okay, well, I feel like we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but like that,

even if that is what they did, it's still like, okay, so you're just making this like symbolic gesture, that kind of shit. And I was just about to say state,

state legislatures, it, it's just, to me, that's a waste of time. That's fucking stupid. Okay. Like,

and is pointless because it's so toothless and it's so narrow, but it gets, but now it gets people riled up. And so like Tennessee's state legislature, pass some bill that was like a response to that that was like,

basically a fucking bill. A do what now bill? Yes. I swear to God. That's pretty much all it is. It's just a bill in the fucking Tennessee state government that basically just says, uh, we don't want your hippie asses here in no way.

Mind your goddamn business, California. Don't tell us how to run our shit. We'll stay out of your shit. Fuck you. Go fuck yourself. Can I tell you something? I'm with Tennessee on that one.

So anyway, when that happened. This is the Donald Trump era of, of politics. Yeah. Dude, I know. That's what I'm saying. This is what identity politics has gotten us,

and I'm glad we brought this up because I wanted to talk about something. Go ahead. Based on what you just said. So when that happened, when Tennessee responded, I saw a tweet that was a link to Tennessee's response, again, in the form of an actual piece of legislation. And I retweeted that, and I said, as a Tennessean who now resides in California, I'm about half ashamed of both of y'all over this silly assuaded. ass bullshit.

How do y'all think that went? Pretty poorly. On my Twitter. About half and half. No. About full in, you're an asshole piece of shit. California is taking a stand for what's right that Tennessee deserves it. California is just whatever, doing what they should do, whatever.

And I didn't dive in, but God damn, I got so irritated because, like, okay, like I said, it's toothless, it's pointless to me, it's a waste of time. It is fucking silly and stupid. number one, number two, and I know this is what you were driving at when you asked that question earlier, but like, these same people, and I'm one of them, I agree with them on this. These same people are the ones that were like, thought Trump's travel ban, which was a whole other level of shit, obviously, but that it was supremely fucked up because it's like, look, not everybody from that fucking place is a terrorist or whatever. Like, they got shitty. Right. It's very hypocritical.

Maybe they're going to, right. their governments might do that, but not, that's, this is bullshit. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it persecutes the people, and it's not fair, and whatever else, and all liberals are on, and now that a liberal state is doing almost the exact same thing, and I'm, we are, I'm a Tennessee and I'm one of those, I'm like, I'm not, you know, I'm not a homophobic piece of shit, but I'm a Tennessee and like, so I shouldn't be able to travel there or whatever.

I know I still can't, well, they still could too, because the court stepped in and whatever. I'm saying at the symbolic level, when you're making the argument, to me, it's baldly hypocritical of these liberals. They're like, good for you, California, who also were like, this is fucking authoritarian, you know, discriminatory bullshit. And I don't see how they don't see it that way. And number two, this is this type of shit is the reason people fucking hate liberals in California. There is no counter argument to that. Well, so it's kind of like, just. But you don't necessarily have to care why people hate you.

But my devil's advocate, I think I agree with you. My devil's advocate, though, to the other way is like, if you are someone subjected to an ancient religious doctrine in these countries that Trump has banned from traveling here and you want to escape, you will have a hard time doing it because of the travel ban. You were going to anyway. That's terrible. If you are a gay person living in Tennessee and you feel like the legislature there because of some of the bills they passed in the last decade is, really backwards and you want to move to California, you still can. Yeah, and that happens in droves. So I think that's the best counter argument to what you're saying,

but you're saying at a symbolic level, because that's all this really is. You're basically saying to Tennessee, or you feel like certainly the media is painting it as California told Tennessee go fuck themselves. And I feel like that's what they were going for. And gay and not super media savvy in you're living in Tennessee, maybe you hear that and think, well, fuck, now I can't move to San Francisco,

which is my name. Or also, if you're, me in high school and some shit like people that aren't that aren't just awful and hate gay people or whatever this they see this kind of shit dude me today when it actually happened I saw it and then part of me was like well fuck you California like a little bit on another level if you personally on another level if you see that if you're a young person who's maybe gearing up to vote in your first election or maybe like trying you're interested in politics now because of how divisive this last election was you're looking at this going man we're fucking childish like

California is a child. They're no better than Donald Trump. We get on to Donald Trump for being a child all the time. That literally is just them going, well, we don't want you and you can't come here. And to me, it's the same thing that we, when we got some flactor, like, I can't believe you guys. Like last year, you're still playing in North Carolina after their H2 bathroom bill, you know, because Bruce Springsteen won't play it. And I'm like, that's good for him.

He can make that point. That's fine. But our argument was the people that are coming to our motherfucking shows ain't the people that were about that anyways. Well, people who feel isolated in North Carolina. Yeah, and the goddamn people had shit to do with it. I mean, yeah, they voted, but those motherfuckers ain't coming to our goddamn show. And the entire state of North Carolina is just fucking a bordered off piece of dirt that don't mean shit.

So for you to be like, yeah, the Muslims aren't defined by their fucking da-da-da-da. It's so goddamn hypocritical. And it's childish. And it's, yeah, it's the fucking reason that motherfucker-in-one. You just said is exactly how I feel about it, too. And I agree with everybody giving trade shit on Twitter. Go fuck yourself. All right.

Well, I agree with all those sentiments, including that last one wholeheartedly. unless it's me or you. But California's government, disallowing their own people to travel there, is actually more analogous to if our government said to some of these, for example, Sharia law countries,

we're going to impose tariffs because we don't like your policies. And so that's the part of me that's, like, waffling a little bit here. Like, the way it's been treated in the media, there's a travel ban. Like, that's, like, infuriating, all that. But if California is saying, we're literally refusing to do business with the state of Tennessee because of their policies, that feels analogous to us, you know, imposing tariffs and shutting down trade with the country because we don't agree with their policies. So if you're against that, are you against shutting down trade with a country that has a despotic ruler? well okay a i mean yeah i hear you but i again i go back to i i still stand by everything i

said because because at the end of the day that's not how this whole thing has been treated in the like california's fault or whatever is i don't i mean again probably is so but but be though like that in those countries the people that are going to going to be harmed by us not doing business with them or whatever are i mean in most of them i think this probably whatever you know i'm kind of just pulling this out of my ass but i'm saying based off how i understand the shit over there to work is going to be it's not like the good it's the fucking who's being heard by that right it's the corrupt upper crust motherfuckers that it's not like the common people or whatever well yeah no what you're displaying is called intellectual

consistency and i appreciate the shit out of it But I mean, it's worth talking about that. Right. Yeah. You know what you are, Trey? Right now, you're displaying being. It's a very bitter southerner. Very bitter southerner. That's right.

And speaking of which, let me tell you. That was fucking good. That was fantastic. Boy, what a fantastic segue. It's got to keep me around for some reason. We usually don't. It used to be my looks, but I got fat as fuck on this tour this year. We usually don't excel at Segways.

We're ruining it by. Let's stop in the middle of the segue. And admire it. Let's just, you know what else has that segues? California. What about their travel band? How about that, guys?

I went paddleboarding this week and my buddy Robert posted a picture of us shirtless by the river, you know, skewing it up. You look great. You're in jeans. I look great in my jeans. I look terrible shirt.

Anyway, I was just saying, I have gotten so fucking fat. No, what it is is all this was hitting because of that. Yeah. Now, if you hadn't been in a river, if you hadn't been in a river, it would have sucked. Right.

But because you were at a river in jeans, it wasn't to look good on the beach, but like, I look like a river rat. I look like a balloon there. Remember when Lodgeski posted that picture of him on the beach? In Africa, right?

In shorts and Timberlitz. Hilarious. No, he was in jeans. I'm pretty sure he was. Gene shorts. In Timberlands. Black shirt. And then he said,

and I quote, yo, fuck this beach. I'm in Africa. I'm trying to see a line. You know what? I don't want to correct you because that's so good,

but I have to correct you because I think it makes it better. He didn't say that. I said that as him when I sent you a caption of the picture. That does make it better. And in your memory, like, it was so perfect. You were like, all right, that's what Matt said, which is hilarious. Forever. There's a, there's some Italian phrase that, that, that translates to if it's not true, it should be. And Tim Wilson, the Italians hit. Tim Wilson used to say it all the time. He'd be telling a story and Sager, we'd be talking afterwards, and he would, he would say something. And he's like, I ain't never researched that, but, and then he would say the Italian

phrase, like, what that means is, if it ain't true, it should be. Being honest with you, I don't even know if that's true. I was about to say how ironic would it be if that wouldn't even the word. That's what is he goes. And, Ben, honestly, I don't even know that's true.

Yeah, so anyway, we've utterly just weren't your segue, but, I've earned it more than anybody really. That's fine. We are all three bitter southerners and anybody. That segues like my body.

It was beautiful and I ruined. And I kind of had something to do with it. Yeah. Yeah. And we all kind of had something to do with it. Man, that's perfect. What an analogy. Anyways, what are we talking about?

We are all three better southerners. Right. And we all three love the bitter southerner. And have loved it for a long time. I have loved it for a long time. Yes, way before we did this interview and everything. We are being hipsters about a hipster rag. That's what we're doing right now.

Is it a hipster rome? No, of course not. I said that to piss Chuck off. Of course it's not a hipster rag. So this week's interview. If it was, we wash a truck with it, God damn it. This week's interview is with Chuck. God damn it.

I'm about spit with it. Yeah. Chuck. Uh-huh. Chuck Reese. The editor-in-chief. I want to interrupt you so bad. I know you do.

I can tell. It's a thing. The editor-in-chief of the bigger... How perfect is his name is Chuck? I agree. That's what I was going to say. I was like, man, there's only so many names in the world that, like, fit a person every time. I've never met a Chuck that wasn't a fucking Chuck.

A Chuck. Tim Wilson used to have a bit about that. I guarantee you, the first time you ever saw someone naked, it was a place. Playboy magazine in the woods with a guy named Chuck. Jeff Blanksbick about dudes named Randy. Ladies named Brenda or Crystal. I don't want to go into it. People get mad on Twitter like they did it, Trey,

but they always are of a certain type. Two different types. Brendan and Crystal ain't the same, but they're always the same as each other. Anyways, Trey, what were you saying? Well, I mean, he's our friend. Of course he is. Youngs are the ones that are,

you can explain it just as well as I can. So anyway, we used to be big fans of this magazine. Not used to be. I know. But I mean, we used to be only. God, let him finish, Tray. We used to stop interrupting me. Jesus Christ, this is our whole podcast.

You get to do the videos by yourself, but this podcast is everybody. This belongs to all of us, man. Jesus. You're like a colonialist about the podcast. You come in, you give us alcohol. I was going to say he's like a colonialist like that's his favorite type of bread. And that insurance, he's going to be a pitched guy for them. He's going to be the dude selling that colonial insurance or whatever.

Like the diabetes dude And Tommy Lee Jones In like 9 10 years Because he'll look old as shit I'm Trey Crowder for colonial life Oh God that's fantastic I can call me right now Okay

Chuck Racyways He's the editor-in-chief of the bitter southern We were fans before we knew Chuck Before this tour I sent it to you And you had just discovered it And your dad had just like He discovered it around the same time

He was already a car can member I'm not mistaken It was that same article which was the 25 best southern albums of 2014, right? That's not the first thing I saw. The first thing I saw. My friend, Noor, who y'all met in L.A. Yeah, yeah.

Nor is a Muslim American who was born in Texas group in Tennessee. She actually introduced me to it, too, even though I didn't know her, because she, like, posted it on your wall or something. That's what it was. And I just randomly saw it. So, like, you didn't even send it to me. I just saw that. It was like, what is this?

I clicked on it. And when I went, it's this website, The Bitter Southerner, which obviously piqued my interest. I went to the about section on the website, and I read their mission statement, and I literally thought to myself, this right here, this is like if my worldview

was an online magazine, was a website, and I fell in love immediately, and I've loved it ever since. It's long-form southern journalism that is of the utmost quality, and it's real stories about the real South, not the fucking hacky bullshit

that so many people in the rest of the country are familiar with. Beautiful and dirty. It doesn't pull any punches. Ever, ever. It's so. But it doesn't shit on either. So fucking honest and good. And we cannot recommend it more.

We may have said this on the podcast, but just for context for anybody listening, it is like if the drive-by truckers was an online magazine. Well, in fact, that's exactly what you said about them pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. No, I felt, well, yes, I felt the same way about the bitter southern when I discovered it as I did about the truckers when I discovered them. Yeah.

Right. And Patterson Hood of the truckers is a friend of Chuck's and has been for years since before Chuck ever started the magazine. Jesus, Trey, will you wrap it up, man? I mean, we're trying to get through this podcast. Patterson wrote a really good article on a bitter southern there early on that kind of sums the whole thing up. Go back, check it out, go back, check it all out. Chuck is the editor-in-chief of it. He is a proud Southern man who doesn't fit the stereotypes.

He's very bitter. He's very, but he's a fucking artist, and he's fucking, he's got. and he's got a vision and he's pursuing it and I support the fuck out of him. And he came and hung out with us in Huntsville, Alabama. When we were down there for a weekend doing shows, we had met him before that, hung out with him a couple times. But he'd come down there and we did this interview with him. And it's one of my favorite interviews that we've ever done.

Me too. And if you go to the bitter souther. It's just, is it bitter southerner or the bitter southern? It's just bitter. It's just bitter. Just Google bitter. When this podcast comes out, if you go there right now, you'll see. a story

about us. And I'll be honest with you, that's one of those people ask us all the time, well, you know, name us some aha moments. Yeah.

And this is a new one. Like, this is the most recent one. Like, A, when Chuck said, I want, hey,

I'd like to do this. Like, fuck. And then when it was actually happening, when I looked over, when we were partying, and I looked over and Chuck was taking notes

in his phone, and I was like, oh, this is as close to rock and roll as I'll ever get. And then I was like, oh, fuck.

Yeah. I forgot Chuck was here. Yeah. You're the only one who didn't do that that weekend. I'm pretty sure. No, I'm fine. I can't wait for the point in my careers where I can tell. In 10 years, we'll tell the story.

Well, anyway. Anyway, enjoy this interview with Chuck Grace. He's the best. And thank you all for joining us. We'll see you next week. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Here we are.

We're in Huntsville, Alabama, at the Comedy. condo for stand-up live in Huntsville. We've done a whole weekend here. It's been fun. It's been a good time. If you've ever heard anything about comedy condos, there's legendary for being dens of filth, because comedians are disgusting,

broken human beings. But this one is pretty new, because the club itself has only been open for a few months. So this one's actually pretty nice. It's fine. It has not yet had the chance to be defiled utterly. It's real nice. It is not, yeah.

I like it a lot. Yeah, it's great. Corey was telling us, Trey, you said you had known about this. It's like a thing in the comedy world? This is like a... It's lore.

Right, and it is lore. I have definitely heard of... I've heard tale of such, which Corey said, I got some sweet tea out of the fridge that had been here already. And Corey was like, don't drink that the fuck you doing.

And I was like, it's tea, it's fine. And he was like, well, not if there's a comic spit or piss in it or whatever. Because the, the lore is that in comedy condos,

comedians will just spit, come and stuff. Yeah. The mayonnaise and whatever the whole time. And like, I have heard that. Really? Okay, so. I definitely think it's largely exaggerated, but it is a thing. Well, so.

Why is that going to be our thing? Here's the, we're the worst. Like, the NBA's thing, it's like, they, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And they fuck, like, groupies in different cities. Uh-huh. Ours is, we come in stuff. We come in mayonnaise.

Maneh jars. Yeah. I always just assumed it was similar to the lore of never send your food back at a restaurant, you know, because they'll rub your toast on their ball sack or whatever. It's been in all kinds of movies, even the movie Waiting, which otherwise hit the nail on the head. But I've worked in a few restaurants in my time. And I'm not saying that shit don't ever happen, but it hardly ever actually happens. Yeah, I've worked in three restaurants and I've never heard of that.

I've never seen it. Yeah. All the restaurants I worked in or have been around, I never saw it. I saw one dude spit in a Coke once. Never once. I just assumed the whole comics, whatever shit at the condo was basically the same. Now, I was front of a house. Did you ever work back a house?

It might be different in the kitchen. Well, I mean, no, I was front of the house, but, like, I mean, you're back there all the time. Right, but you don't know if they, like, you know, sneak around the corner. I don't know. I don't. For the record, I think. You don't think those back of house guys would put that much effort in anything? Yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot of reasons. I just, I don't, if it was happening, we, somebody would have known about it or whatever. For the record, I also think that it's similar with comics doing this. Because, hey, I've stayed in condos with lots of different comedians. I've never fucking seen it happen. I've never heard a comedian tell me they did it. But when you start hearing shit and you see all the documentaries,

it's just in my mind. So now when I just look in the fridge, I'm just like, what if? What if that was the one? But I mean, Colin Jost was here last. He don't look like the I'm going to come. You know what I'm saying? Joe's like coming at man-A-old. Like if Tracy Morgan stayed-

Yeah, but his opener was Mike Racine, he may have. That's what I said. Right. Like if Tracy Morgan had stayed in this condo, he might have accidentally came into mayonnaise. So I don't fucking. Mike broke on the wall of stand-up live. Mike, Donkey Dong.

He may have come in something. Right. He definitely came in something. He might also left it here. If Gene stayed here, there's a reason Gene ain't on the road, though. True. But I'm just saying there's people like that.

Okay, so we're being terribly rude right now. We're very excited about our guests this week. This guy is a journalist. He's the editor-in-chief of the bitter Southerner, which is an online magazine. Founder. Founder and editor-in-chief. And longtime journalist.

President Klein. Yeah, everything. Of this online publication, if it's online, can you say publication or is that an oxymoron? No, it's a, it's a, No, not at all. Okay. So I wouldn't, I didn't sure how that.

When one publishes, you're just putting words out there that people can do. All right. Yeah, you dumb piece of shit. So anyway, Chuck Rich. So we publish on bathroom walls all the time. Hey, Chuck. How you doing? I'm great.

Thanks for joining us. So the Bitter Southerner, we're going to talk a whole lot about this. But we've been spreading the gospel of the Bitter Southerner, I think, ever since we found it, which was what. What, 2015? Best of Lent? Well, right. Right before that, my friend Norr had sent me, she's from Tennessee. It was 2014.

That sounds right. She sent me an article. And she said, you have to check this. She was calling it a magazine. She's like, you've got to check this magazine out. And I was blown away by the writing. And then soon thereafter, we were sharing the list back and forth. And that particular list, especially, I've always enjoyed your end of year list,

that specific one. I think I've loved every single album on it. The list was the 25 best southern hour. We do it every December, and we spend way too much time on it. Not possible. Spend too much time on music. So I saw that. I read that.

I dug it. Then I looked into the bitter southerner, the rest of the site. I read the about page, like, the mission statement or whatever. And as I was reading it, it was, and I've told you this, we've talked about this before. But as I was reading it, I had this similar feeling that I've had a few times in my life. For example, the first time I heard the drive-by truckers, also the first time I watched the Academy Award-winning short film, The Accountant by Ray McKinnon.

And it was like this feeling of this is exactly, like, this is, everything that I'm about is encapsulated in this thing. Whether with the truckers, it was music, with the short film, it was, you know, film, whatever. And then with this, it was, you know, literature or however you want to put it. And basically, I was telling people, I was, I immediately started sending it to a bunch of my friends and stuff. And I was like, if my worldview was a website, it would be this. This is exactly what it would be. And I just loved it and have ever since.

And then every time we meet people, other than... Southerners who are you know artists or writers comedians whatever they almost always know about the bitter Southerner like it gets brought up and they're like you guys don't read the bitter Southerner yeah of course absolutely so I don't know I just couldn't be more about it and appreciative of what it is having said all that why don't you tell us a little bit about what it is and also why you did it and I know that that that answer to that question could probably take up to the rest of the day, depending on how much detail we got into it. But yeah. Well, probably the easiest way to explain it is my first job in journalism after I got out of college was with a magazine called Ad Week that covered the advertising business. And this was back in 1984.

You went to college at UGA, University of Georgia, right? Right. You're from Ella J Georgia, Georgia. Okay. 84 year I was born, a great year. That's, that's, I find myself a lot hanging out with people these days who were born about the time I got at college. It's weird. But, it's a good life, I would imagine, though.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, but now, they had me covering the media business, which meant that I got to see. all the television pilots, even like the ones that at the time, just three networks, you know, didn't even wind up putting on the air. They would show them to the media reporters. Every time one of the big publishing companies would propose putting out a new magazine,

I'd see prototypes of it and that kind of thing. And the thing that I noticed was that every time you were looking at a show that was set in the South, or you were looking at a magazine that purported to cover the South as a region, you only got two basic stereotypes of what Southerners were like. You know, when I talk about this, you know, I've been asked to talk at several different groups about, about really this question about how we started it. And usually what I do is I put up a slide of,

these beautiful, affluent people having a very proper party in the backyard of somebody's house. Debutante balls. Yeah, but with modern clothing. Right. You know, and. There was that show about that family in Charleston that did real estate. Yes. I never saw it.

I just saw an ad for it. And I was like, this is the most ridiculous. No one is like this. And if they are, fuck those people to do it. Yeah. I mean, that was a reality show, right? I can't remember the name of it. but I watched about half of one episode.

Yeah, all the time. Really hard time keeping my supper down. Yeah. Terrible. But, you know, and the other stereotype has been around for years when I was a little kid, and even before, it was expressed in things like the Beverly Hillbillies.

Yeah, yeah. You know, and then going on up to, I guess, the most recent big hit version of that stereotype would be Duck Dynasty. A honey bobo. Honey Boobee. More extreme example. So you only you only ever got

two versions of South, you know, and I was, that pissed me off. I mean, and I guess I stayed pissed off about it for 30 years, you know.

And the bitter Southerner is a publication that was created to try to show people the South as it is. not through one of those typical stereotypical lenses. And that means a couple things. It means that we cover a lot of things

that other places wouldn't cover. And the other thing is that we... A basic truth about any human relationship is that if one side has bad things they've done in the process of it, you know, you can't talk about what's good about it until you deal with what's bad about it. So one thing that we always did, you know, we just sort of made a promise to ourselves in the beginning that, you know,

we didn't want to publish, we wanted to publish stories, we didn't want to publish lectures, you know, but what we wanted to do was, you know, if the subject matter of a story butted up against some of the more difficult parts of the South's past, which is stuff that you guys talk about all the time on stage, you know, then we dig into the ugly part too. Right.

To see, you know, just because people got to acknowledge it. And that's both kind of how it started and sort of what the guiding principle. has been since we did it, you know, and we've been doing it for four years now. First year, we got through 12 months with out paying anyone a dime or bringing in a dime. You know, we were able to do one long-form feature story about the South every Tuesday for 52 weeks, and just based on photographers and writers around the South wanting to be part of the project, which was wild.

that's beautiful do you I want to I have awesome yeah I have questions you know that you told me last night yeah right yeah yeah it was it was a wonderful thing man and we well you know there's a there's a question I want to ask so I don't forget it but I do want to get back to that also in a little bit but you're talking about you made a promise to yourself to be honest about the ugliness or whatever too and not try to gloss over it and that's also been a like sort of a mission statement of ours too and writing our book or everything that we do, we just try to be honest about, like not shy away from the bad shit, but also make a point to celebrate the good shit too.

Exactly. Do you ever in doing, even when you, even though you try to approach it that way, have you, or the publication as a whole, have you gotten much backlash in the form of like people accusing you of being like apologist or anything like that, like, for? the South. I ask because we, I get that a lot, or I have gotten that a lot, like people acting like,

like I said, like I'm being more of an apologist than I think I am because I don't think that I've ever, I don't think that I've ever acted like all the like, you know, shitty, backward, racist, homophobic, idiot assholes like don't exist. All of, my whole point has only ever been

that they don't represent the entire region. They don't represent me and not everybody from here is like that. But, yeah, those people are real, you know. So that always kind of annoys me. Have y'all ever gotten any of that kind of thing? Like you're... You know, I'm sitting here trying to remember anybody accusing us of being apologists for the South.

And I don't remember that at all. I think part of that has to do with the fact that, you know, what y'all do happens in a lot shorter time frame than what we do. You're cramming so much information into a 35 minutes set. You know, that it's, you're throwing a lot of ideas at people and you can't ever tell which way they're going to react. You know, when we're doing that story, we'll just, you know, we sort of try to lay out the narrative arc so everybody can understand it and they sort of know where we stand. What we more often get accused of is

we get accused by the very people that we both make fun of sometimes you know people who just hold on to that lost cause myth and won't let it go you know just dig their claws into it like they're

the cat in that dumb ass hang in their poster yeah it's like they accuse you of what yeah you said you get accused by them of what you know you pinko calm you bastard or whatever you know even though we're never overt about

politics you know we went back not long ago and looked at our, at the people who've unsubscribed from our email list because we send, we've got a pretty big list now of, you know, that goes out every Tuesday and Friday to our readers. Anybody can sign up for it they want to. I encourage you to go to bittersoutherner.com right now and sign up so you can see what

we're publishing. But, you know, sometimes people unsubscribe and we give them a chance to write a note about wine. You know, and we figured up about 8% of them are because I was liking you guys until you published that story about those people who helped bring the flag down in South Carolina. And now I realize what you really are and you need to blah, blah, blah. Go fuck yourself and die. There's some version of that. Yeah.

And that's only about 8%. Usually it's people going like, I'm just getting too much email, you know. Right. And sometimes it's people being really sweet. Like we were going through them and we found this one guy who wrote, I'm unsubscribing from this email address because this was my grandmother's email address. And she died three weeks ago. But I did want y'all to know how much she loved the stories you told.

Yeah. And that's the interesting about it. You know, that's the interesting thing about it to us is that, you know, because we, you know, the way we put it was we celebrate what's worth celebrating. and then we point out what isn't worth celebrating. Right. You know, and that's literally the mission statement of our book. Like literally when we sat down to write our book, and it's in the intro too,

it was, this is about celebrating what's worth celebrating and, you know, pointing out what's not. Well, you know, and I think that, you know, people who think a little more progressively about things. And I mean that across the big spectrum Because, you know, when I say progressive I don't mean like Portland Burista progressive You know, I mean There are more people with different levels of thought

About different issues in the South Than anybody recognizes But a lot of times those people feel like they're alone And I think, you know, We were talking about this last night after y'all show I think that what y'all do helps people, Southerners like that, feel less alone. And I know that what we do does the same thing

because people write us and tell us. Like the most, if you look at most of the emails we get after people just discover the website, they're one of two versions of the same thing. They're somebody who has moved out of the South to someplace like Los Angeles where you are. Uh-huh. And they say,

whenever I talk to my friends out here about where I'm from, and it sounds like I love where I'm from, and I'm glad to be from there, they think I'm full of shit, and then I show them y'all's website. Yeah. And then the other one is the obverse of that is people who've moved into the South,

fallen in love with it, made a life here, but their friends back home in Boston or wherever can't figure out why they would want to live in such a vast wasteland of fucking ignorance. And my other favorite thing is lack of culture. People from New York want to act like there's no culture in the South. And I'm like, everything you have here except punk and rap you stole from us. So shut the fuck up. And we did a pretty good job of taking over both of those.

Oh, our rap's the best rap, baby. Yeah. You know. And God knows there's tons of great punk rock that came out of the same. south. It's interesting what you... I believe you, but other than Lee Baines, I don't really dabble in much punch.

Well, I, you come to my house one day and we'll get out the records and I'll school you. God damn, that'd be great. So you talked, you said earlier, 52 weeks, 52 stories, all just from people that just wanted to be involved, Southern writers and photographers. How did, how did you go about finding them, uh, like, uh, signing off on, the particular stories and all that, like when you first started. Did you send out like a call to action type deal? How did you find them or how did they find you?

Like, how the hell did that work? Well, we had worked on it for a year. Without ever putting anything out before we published anything. Okay. But when we started, we only had six weeks worth of stories in the camp. You know, and our attitude, you know, at that point, It's just, the whole thing was just a project, you know. And the truth is it had gotten started with nothing more than the intention of being a blog about cocktails.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I remember you tell me that. I forgot that. But what happened to us was when we were, we were like, we're going to do a blog about cocktails in the South, you know. But the thing came from the same place. me and Stacy, my wife, had been to New Orleans for Halloween week in 2010. We spent a lot of time talking those old bartenders down there and sort of getting fascinated with how they worked and how good they were at their work.

And I came home, and there's this publication called Drinks International. It's sort of like the global trade magazine of the bar business. And every year they get a bunch of people together, cocktail experts, you know, supposedly. And they make this ranked list of the 50 best bars in the world. And so about a week after I get home from New Orleans, which is the home of the Sazirac, the hurricane. Hand grenade.

And there's interesting stories, even buying drinks like that. I'm sure. You know, we got home and I saw this list came out. And I was like, I was looking through it thinking, oh I bet I'm going to find one of those bars we were in in New Orleans in here and there wasn't a single bar in the American South on it and I was like okay this is just buddy I'm furious right now well you know to me it was it was a little tiny expression of that bigger

thing I talked about that it always bothered me right you know so I just went to a buddy at work you know because I worked at the time I ran the riding side of a design firm you know in Atlanta and I went to one of my designer buddies, and I was like, I got this idea, would you design it for me? And he said, yeah, and then we sat around one day and started trying to come up with names, and we were looking at ingredients and cocktails, you know, and the standard formula is spirits, sweetener, bitters.

And we were like, the sweet southerner, the spirited southerner, the bitter southerner. whoa and like the minute we had that name we were like okay it can't just be a cocktail block right we're awesome we just captured everything about who we are that the name made the name almost like created or like helped to create what it ended up being like you know well it's wild just like the power of words I guess well Dave you know what would happen was like me and my designer buddy Dave Whitling who's still one of my partners in this business Dave and I would meet at the Octane coffee shop across from Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta and just have talks trying to figure out what the hell we were trying to invent.

We didn't know. I mean, and, you know, we both had worked in communication long enough to know that it's really helpful if you're going to communicate something to somebody to be real clear about the purpose you're setting out. Right. You know, otherwise you're just kind of throwing a lot of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Right. And Dave looked at me one day and said, you remember that Trucker song, the Southern thing, on Southern rock opera? And I was like, yes.

The duality of the Southern thing. That is what we're about. And so we began pursuing that. Like what kind of stories would illustrate that? You know, and the first, you know, I'd say the first four weeks, two of the stories were about bartenders because we'd already prepared those, you know. And we all, and we still do this. Like, we challenge bartenders around the South to make a cocktail called the Bitter Southerner,

and we just number them, you know, number eight. rates coming out in a couple of weeks. It's got lemon curd in it. Oh, I bet it has. Bourbon and lemon curd and other stuff. But anyway, you know, so we had a couple of those. Patterson Hood was an old friend of mine.

I've known him since right before, right after he moved to Athens and before he started the truckers. How did y'all meet? Well, my cousin Greg, Reese, who still lives in Athens, I had a band that even now,

they're still sort of a band and play every couple of years called Redneck Grace Deluxe. They're like, they were sort of a jokey country band, you know, with song titles like, don't let another penis come between us.

And I went over to see Greg's band play one night in, or went to see Greg play. Actually, I went to see my cousin Greg, And this will matter to Truckers fans with Greg Smalley, who is the subject of Patterson's song, The Living Bubba, the fellow who can't die now because he's got another show to do. Well, my cousin Greg Reese and Greg Smalley for a while had this duo act called Small Grease. And so I went to see Small Greece at the hi-hat, which was a club that was in Athens. and Patterson had gotten a job as a sound man there,

and so that's how I met it. You know, Greg was like, well, this is my cousin Chuck, and we started talking about music and just became buddy. So I called him, and we'd been out of touch for a while. I hadn't talked to him in probably three or four years. And I told him what I was doing, and I said,

would you mind right in? an essay about the whole duality of the southern thing idea, where it came from originally with you and how you've seen the South evolve. He's like, oh, I don't know if I want to get back into that, you know. But I eventually talked to him into doing it, and that was the third, the second or third piece we published. And it's awesome, by the way, that piece in particular. Oh, he did a great job on it.

And I will say when he first sent it to me, it had four different endings on it. And I had to tell him to pick one. But that was really the only editing I did on it. Did he want you to pick one of them for him? And you just wouldn't. No, no. No, no. Writers don't do that.

Unless they're really flummocked. Why did he put four in it that? Well, he didn't know he'd put four. Yeah, I understand. You know, he'd sort of, you know, he'd sort of, you know, I've seen this happen a lot of stories. I've done it myself. You get to the end and you write, that's the end.

Oh, no, it's not. Write some more. You know, and you wind up with a mess that you have to clean up before you get the real ending. But, you know, he did that. And I had, I also had knowledge that there was something, every journalist about my age, you know, I was 52 when we started it. I'm glad you brought this up.

You told me this yesterday, and it blew my mind. because it was so powerful. It's like every every journalist who's been working that long has at least one story in a closet somewhere about, and it's something they've always wanted to write in a certain way,

but whatever publication they happened to be working with at the time, wouldn't let them do it the way they wanted to tell it. You know, and I was just like, I'm going to make this place the home for lost stories. Because I know people will be motivated to finally get to write something the way they wanted to. You know, and like the biggest example of that was a guy named Wendell Brock,

who later wound up winning a James Beard Foundation journalism award for something he wrote for us. But the first story he wrote for us was about a woman named Marie Rudasil, who was Truman Capote's aunt. the woman was actually the basis of a character and Harper Lee's to kill a mockingbird She was She was the aunt That the character Dill

Which was based on Truman Capote Came to stay with every summer In Alabama And Marie was Fairly famous for her fruitcakes And Had wound up in the 90s she published a book called,

I can't remember what it was called, but she went on Jay Leno. And she was just such a cranky old Southern woman who didn't give it down what she said that he kept having her on as a guest and she got sort of famous. You know, so the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which is where Wendell worked at the time,

sent him down to the Tampa area where she lived to do a story about the fruitcake lady. Well, he gets down there and he finds this woman who's like old homophobic, highly resentful of Truman, but deeply in love with him at the same time. And just, you know, her finances and life are falling apart. And he was just like, I've got a much bigger story. but the paper just wanted the story about the fruitcake lady and ain't she cute. So he held on to it.

And he wrote it for us. And it was especially brilliant because, you know, like Wendell had grown up in circumstances very much like the one Truman Capote had grown up in. And like Truman, Wendell was gay. and so this story wound up being a story about a crazy Southern character, icons of Southern literature, fruit cake, and what's like to lose everything that you love, you know? Oh shit. And it's a brilliant story, and it was called sweet as sugar, root as hell.

Oh, no. And I'm playing off her last name, Routacill. And, uh, because she was sweet as sugar. and rude as hell. And, you know, after we published that one, you know, like stuff just came coming in. And then I had writers starting to pitch me stories, and then we would ask me, what do you pay? And I'd be like, well, we ain't got no money.

And they'd be like, well, I want to write this one real bad. And you'll let me. So we'll do it. And because Dave had done such a brilliant job designing the thing and making it look beautiful, you know, the bitter southerners always been way down prettier on the outside

than it is on the inside, you know, I mean, you don't want to see how the sausage gets made sometimes, but it's, you know, David done such a good job

with the design that photographers knew that their work would be presented in a, in the best way possible, I guess is what to say it. And so we had a lot of people

just come out of the bushes, you know, and want to do it. And then, you know, we were getting toward the end of the first year, having not known that in the beginning that we would go beyond a month or two. And Dave and I were both like, okay, you know, a photographer who usually gets a $10,000 day rate, shoot something for you for free.

One time, that's great. And if everything's going well, you'll even feel okay asking the second time. but it just it's like when we got to the point where we were having to ask people for the third time to put in a lot of hard work for nothing it just didn't feel right so we just wrote a story at the end of the first year and said we want to do a membership drive we set up a way on the website to where people could pledge different amounts you know we just I mean we stole a whole model from public radio and we wound up with enough money in the bank to, you know, keep going for a while.

And three months after that, opened the general store part of the site where we sell t-shirts. Like the ones, two of you were wearing on stage last night. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. I found one of mine was in my bag, too. I wish we'd have made it three for three. Which one is the one you have?

The one that is just the outline of the geographic south. I love that shirt. That's awesome shirt. We call that the South Without Borders. shirt. But, you know, we, you know, and so right now we are a journalistic enterprise that is supported, unlike older publications, we're supported only a little bit by advertising. Our, but our two biggest revenue streams are the annual membership drives. And we, these days, we leave the memberships available and ask people every week, you know, if you're not a member,

please join up. You know, I mean, you can start as little as $25 for a year, you know, which to use the old public radio trick is about five lattes at Starbucks. Right. Right. And the members, so the memberships and then what we sell in the store are really the primary sources of revenue. And I want to go ahead and say to our listeners, I mean, we did it. I'm pretty sure I talked to y'all and y'all did it.

I'm a member. I pay every month. Yeah, yeah. And those shirts that we're talking about, if I'm not mistaken, our manager bought us those as a gift. She did. Nat,

thank you for those. Very sweet. So we are supporters and fans. So if you're out there listening, this isn't just us interviewing something. We believe in this damn magazine because of everything you're saying right now. How's it?

That means a lot to me. How's it going? Better than ever. On that end, I mean. Better than ever. I know how the content's going. It's fucking great. But I'm in on that end,

the business end. Well, we brought in a fourth partner. last year. You know, the problem all along is that the bitter Southerner was started by four people and none of them was a business person. Yeah.

We know how that goes. We know how that goes. I figured y'all, but, you know, we're getting there, but God damn. But you know, I'm sure what a difference it made in your life when you got the right, you know, management booking and that kind of stuff. Well, Trey has an MBA, so he understands business. But I also think. We didn't even have that.

Right. But I also think. think there's also there's industry experience that's you can have a you know you can have a nice baseline of business but like you're talking about ads versus other revenue right that's it's a different world thing it's like i i had an MBA but then the job i got was in a federal contracting i could it's a super boring subject but i can tell you i could tell you all kinds of shit about that i understand that well and also understand like negotiations and stuff like that but when it comes to us and our business it's like

you know, routing and door versus guarantee percentages and all this type of stuff that just like, I don't, you know, that's different every goddamn week to college for it. I'd still don't know shit about that. So yes, when we got the people on board who do understand it, well, I mean, hell, I mean, we probably couldn't. I mean, we'd find a way, but it definitely makes it infinitely easier for us having those people that just know what they're doing. And, you know, the folks who came into partner with us have helped us really in so many ways,

but mostly on like infrastructure stuff. Right. You know, like we have actual budgets for all the different pieces of the business now. You know, when we look at a certain month of the year, we know how much money is budgeted to buy inventory for the store for that year. for that month and how much gross revenue we need to make to cover it. You know, same thing with getting content stories, stuff like that. You know, and, you know, for the first three years of it, I mean, I was the guy who ran QuickBooks.

You know, I was a bookkeeper too. And, you know, it's only really been the last six, seven months where I, I have to be. I've actually gotten to spend most of my time as editor-in-chief of the bitter Southerner being the editor-in-chief of the bitter-southerner instead of going out and chasing investment money or, you know, trying to work in areas where I didn't really have a lot of expertise. How's that feel? It's like, rather heavenly, you know. I mean, I still haven't had a vacation in four years. I mean, my vacations are when I go to do stories like this. I see, say, I've been hanging out with you all weekend.

You're doing okay. I feel like, no, I mean, my head's in the right place, that's for sure. I don't feel like I'm any more or less, you know, messed up as a human being than I was when I started. Well, I have a question, I guess, sort of related to that then. You already mentioned, I'm not revealing anything here that you got out of college in 84. you've done ad work, PR work, and journalism.

Was something like this your dream? Or did you just start this blog and then it grew from there? I don't know what it is I'm trying to say. How did I get here? How did you get here, but more than deeper than that, how does it feel?

We were talking earlier about the moment we discovered the bitter southerner being like a real watershed moment for us. You know, Trey was saying like the first time he heard Drive by Truckers, it was like the first time I heard Sturgle Simpson singing about drugs in that country accent.

There's like moments that you have like that. Now this late in your life, you are that for people. Well, here's what. I mean, it's a long path. I went in journalism because that's what I wanted to do. What happened to me was, you know, the reason I got that job at Adweek was, I had done an internship with their competitor

advertising age in New York in the summer of 82, which made me literally the only person graduating from the University of Georgia School of Journalism that year with actual experience in writing about advertising. And AdWeek had an opening in their Atlanta Bureau, and it was the only job ever in my life where I got it on the spot that you know like I went in for the interview and they're like you're hired nice uh and I made 13,000 dollars a year that was in 1983 and after a year with them

they moved me to New York I just did that for the first time this year too it's nice it is it yeah 13,000 year every little bit of hell yeah but you know what's I went out what what was happening to me was I got, first I got a little bit tired of living in New York and Georgia Trend, which was a business magazine in Atlanta, offered me a job. I came home in 1989 and I was just getting real tired of writing about business. I was, it just wasn't the subject that I'd really always wanted to write about. And I was having a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do. not whether to stay in journalism or not

but how to try to wind up writing about something else but I had it was it was all that was all real sort of fuzzy and uncertain in my mind and in the 1990 governor's race in Georgia the magazine sent me to spend a week with on the trail with the Democratic candidate and a week on the trail with the Republican candidate

with the I idea that in an on in the January 91 issue inauguration month the cover story would be about the one who won you know and monthly magazines run on a long lead time you know you're you're preparing stories you know three four five six months in advance and uh so i did that the democrat a guy named sell miller who grew up in the mountains of north georgia one and uh about five months after he was inaugurated, I was at Georgia Tren at my desk, still having not figured out what I wanted to

do, and the phone rang, and somebody said, will you hold for the governor? And I went, yeah. And he gets on the phone, and first thing out of his mouth was, how did you like come work for me? And I went doing what?

And he said, come have breakfast with me in the morning and we'll talk about it. And he had just decided, evidently based on that story I'd written that his press secretary who had been with him through the campaign was leaving and he thought I should be the replacement and I'd never had any intention to go into politics. I'd always been fascinated with it but and wouldn't have minded covering it but I never had any intention to go in it and then he offers me this job at a time when I'm uncertain about what I wanted to do. next and I know it can't hurt my resume and I also know it was paying 50% more than I was making at the magazine. Oh, hell yeah.

So I took it. And so I worked in politics for about three years and then the Coca-Cola company wound up hiring me to do, you know, corporate type communication. And I really, you know, I made good money in that. And I stayed in corporate communication and was just sort of, you know, you know, used to joke that my career path was totally accidental. But it wasn't until I decided to start this cocktail blog that I really allowed myself to remember the one thing that I'd always wanted to scratch at if I could start something.

And the one thing I can say about working at the bitter Southerner, it's hard. it's hard on the people who work in it it's hard on our families every single person who does any amount of work for us is what i guarantee down to you is working way harder than their pay would indicate they should be right and but one thing i know for me is that this is the only work i've ever done period where uh i'll just sit there at my desk sometimes and go, you know, just recognize that I'm grateful because I really feel like I'm doing what I was put here to do. How old are you? What? How old are you? 56. At 53, three, three, two is when we started it.

You found the job that made you feel that way. Yeah. That's all. It's never too late, kids. God damn. It pays. Yeah. It pays about what I was making at the magazine before the governor hired me.

That's like my paycheck. So I'm making about what I was making 28 years ago. And I'm working three times as hard. You know, but somebody's got to do it. And I sure have fun doing it. Sure. So fucking awesome. And I have a question that I'm interested in.

That's sort of a follow up, like we just alluded to, you know, the bitter southern was a signpost for us like discovering it did you have those growing up in the south did you have bands or writers or anything like that that you sort of were like oh shit because you come from LJ that's a very small town yeah well I mean yeah I my biggest music was the thing that first let me figure out that there was a wider world right you know and a lot of that happened like The first band, I got, you know, it was a sad occasion, but I got to write about this. You know, the first band I ever fell in love was with the Almond brothers. Yeah.

You know, because they were from the South, you know, and they were from Georgia, you know. They lived in Macon. My dad was working for the Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company, which was headquartered in Macon, you know. So, like, I got to go to Macon every now and then. You know, and I'll be like, it's where the almond brothers live, you know? And, like, when I was a teenager, I remember going to visit Dwayne's grave, where, like, as we speak, they're laying Greg to rest. Yeah, that's today. And, you know, we, so I was real into them, but I also had a buddy who was, three, four years old.

than me and turned me on to tons of different great music, you know. And we started getting into like the punk rock stuff when it came out of, because he had just accidentally sort of wandered into the first Ramon show in Atlanta. And when he was down there and he came back, you know, with their first record and he's like, you're never going to believe this shit, you know. You know, like, I had a little, I had a little. job working at the L.J. record shop. Willie's L.J. record shop.

And I went, you know, I ordered, I started ordering records I was reading about. Like I ordered Clash's first album, and I ordered O.S. Costello stuff. And, you know, so there was a lot of musical change going on. Then I go to college in 79, and in Athens. And I get to town about a month after. the B-52s, who were from Athens, got signed by Warner Brothers and moved to New York. Right.

And so I was in Athens at a time when really the Athens music scene, as people know it now, was being born. You know, it was when R.E.M. got started, bands like Pylon and Love Tractor, you know, and it was like this gang of kids that I hung out with. and covered for the red and black the student newspaper you know were changing American pop music and getting their picture

in the Washington Post and in national magazines and stuff like that so I you know I came out of my experience in Athens with like a really broad sense that you could you know you could do something different with the South

like R.m. in particular you know it's like they're so good Yeah, they were a wonderful band, and what was wild was, you know, their second album cover was painted by Howard Finster, who was the legendary folk artist who lives in Somerville, Georgia, about, you know, 150 miles east of where we are. I know where some of us were bands from. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, and like I remember, you know, we go up there to visit Howard. in college, you know, like, you know, he'd tell the story of how he got started painting

these crazy paintings he did. He used to make little pull toys for kids in his community, you know, out of wood, and he'd paint him with tractor enamel. And, you know, he'd tell the story the same way every time. It'd be like, you know, and I dip my finger down in that paint, and I look down at my finger and a face come in it. and a face said hired paint sacred art. God damn.

That is Somerville, Georgia, gypsy shit, if I ever hired it in my life. That's awesome. Well, but here was the wild thing about it. It was like, here was a guy who was an old Baptist preacher, who talked like every old Baptist preacher I had been made to listen to as a child, still believing exactly what he believed, but expressing him his belief in this wildly artistic way, therefore attracting people like these...

The front man of R.E.m. Weirdos, you know, from Athens. Yeah. He wanted to hang out with him. And it was like, man, that was real important for me in terms of the way I look at the South. because it's like those basic things that are sometimes at the core of the things that you rail against and that you guys rail against and that we rail against are somehow connected and part of a circle

with all the weird stuff too. Like it was the first time I realized that deep south fire and brimstone religion could actually somehow oddly coexist and be symbiotic with rock and roll. And it was like, that was a big discovery because it was like, you know, it was the first time it really like hit me full in the face, that the place where you live is more complex than you understand. Right. You know. Yeah, well, on that note, I have a question, and I don't even know, I hope I just get there over the course of this diatribe.

I'm about to go on because I don't. don't know exactly how to even put it in words, but it has to do with the duality of the Southern thing, and you just talked about it's more complex than you realize, and it's this thing that a lot of people we run into don't understand about, like, we talk about our, you know, mammals and papas a lot and whatever about how, like, we love them so much, but they have, you know, some pretty shitty ideas, and that's weird to people we meet in, like, San Francisco or whatever, you know, at times where it's like, you know, you know, The idea of like, yeah, they think some shitty things, but, you know, I still love the hell out of them or whatever.

Like, for example, my grandpa, who passed away in 2004, my dad's dad, I've told the story in the book and on the podcast before, but basically he, one time this white kid and black kid and slanted got into a big fist fight in the middle of town on a Friday night and it was a big deal or because of white kid got the shit beat out of him. And so the next day, my grandpa asked me what had happened. And I said, well, I think, I think, you know, Kyle called Ryan a nigger or whatever. And my grandpa goes, like, without any sense of, like, irony or whatever at all, he goes, well, what the hell do you want him to call him Chinese? You know, like, he just, like, he thought that was just, you know what I mean? Like, that's just what you called black people in his head. And he never thought twice about it. And that's, like, that's awful, you know.

But on the other hand, my grandpa. had two sons. My dad and my uncle Tim, my uncle Tim is gay. And my whole life growing up, my uncle Tim and his long time partner Mike were, they were together at every Thanksgiving, every Christmas and every,

and to hell with that. Just all the time. Just like family dinners and stuff. They were always there. You know what I mean? Like my grandpa very much so loved and continued to support his gay son, but also obviously.

had these like old outdated racist tendencies and everything and it's like it's hard for me to even reconcile the complexity of that like you know what i mean it's like it's not as black and white that whole dichotomy as people try to make it out to be you know and i don't know how to talk to people about it who don't have that kind of thing you know what i mean like on one end i don't feel like i should have to defend loving my grandpa or whatever no you know what i mean Of course not. But on the other hand, it's like, I don't want to come off as just being totally okay with the whole N-word story. You know what I mean?

Sure. Like, and I don't know what, like, what do you think about that? That's a big question. No, I know. I know. That's what I'm saying. I'm not even sure it was a question, but I know what you're trying to get at, which is just the ability to coexist with what can seem like moral opposite. Right.

Well, going back to that moment with R.E.M. going to see Howard. Michael stops gay. Presumably, that painter, if he was a Baptist preacher from that era, thought that was a sin. Thought what was the sin? Being gay or acting upon gay acts. Well, you know, here's the thing. Maybe I'm wrong. I never talked.

I know I never talked, nor did I ever hear of anyone talking. to Howard about the issue of sexuality. Sure. And I don't want to cast upon him that he felt that way. What I was really more wondering about is on the other hand, R.E.M. Or you or anyone going to see this old preacher, you probably had assumptions about it. Well, it just, yeah, but it was. It didn't matter.

It was kind of weird because it was like both sides were in a place where they were willing to suspend the assumptions. Right. You know, it was like, I'm this way. that way, but that's not what we're doing right here. We're doing this. It was like, we're here because you're painting all this wild stuff and making these wild sculptures

and we want to look at them. He's glad we're there because somebody wants to look at work that he takes pride in and he would preach to us as he did to everyone else who came up there, but he didn't really seem to give a damn how you took it. And that's how

like you talk about your grandpa, you know, could so freely and without consciousness use the N word in a casual conversation but be completely loving and supporting of a son who's gay

you know it's like you know family's important everywhere but it seems like it's in southern culture somehow there's like an inbred fierce loyalty to family that

Trump's those bad impulses sometimes. Right. At the same time, you have to recognize that kids who come out as gay or transgender in the South, thousands of them every year are kicked out of their homes. Sure.

Right. We did a story back at the end of the year about organizations in four different cities that have been working with kids like that. It was so good. Helping them find home. over a long time. I mean, I guess here's the thing.

It's like, I'm just old enough now. And in 20 years, you'll be old enough to see that, like, things do change. I grew up hearing that word all the time. Yeah. You know, dropped casually just as a descriptor the way someone would use black. No, I know. That's why I was going to say, like, for the record, like, my grandpa, like, we had, we have, yeah, a black community in Salina.

And so that, you know, if any of the people from that community would come around to our, my grandpa's business or whatever, just been, he, he wasn't like overtly outwardly, you know, racist in that way. Like, they're not welcome here. They totally were. And he'd have, you know, shake their hand, have a conversation. Everything was fine. He didn't act like, you know what I mean? Like, he wasn't burning crosses and that kind of shit. He wasn't, like, actively racist, but still yet, like you said.

The N-word was just a cat. That's just what you called them. You know, like in his mind, it was just that was it. People get, with each successive generation, people get used to things that would have frightened hell out of them before. Yeah. You know, it's like I went up to L.A.J. They asked me to speak at the Gilmer County Arts Council about two or three months ago.

So I went up there for that. And I got up there a little early. I wanted to go check out the offices of the L.A. Times Courier, which is where I started. I started writing when I was 15, you know, see what was going on in there. I parked next to the office of the Times Courier. And, you know, as I'm parking, there's an interracial couple getting out of their car and getting their baby out of the car seat and putting them in the stroller and about to walk up

River Street in L.A. And then, you know, when I got on the sidewalk from the parking lot, I saw a lesbian couple walking up the street holding hands. And, you know, Gilmer County is still, LJ is still a very conservative place, but these things that would have caused

not just alarm in somebody's head, but action on that. Uh-huh. Right. They would have called somebody about it. They would have called somebody about it. Now it's accepted. Right.

You know, I'm sure there are people up there who still don't like it. Mm-hmm. But there are also a lot of people up there who don't give a damn. Yeah. You know.

and yeah they still hate it but they're not going to have the support maybe they would have 40 years ago in making an outward you know call to the hey you know fuck you da da da da da da they're not going to get that the law ain't going to be on their side is what i mean it just moves slowly forward you know right that's what i think about that it's just i don't see how you don't see it in short periods of time it's hard for me to believe anyone living in l o j could have hate in their heart because that's such a pretty area well good scenery does mellow the innards it's so pretty man we always me and my friend chris who went to uGA anytime i'd go visit him and it was out of the way to go from where i live through el jay but you did it every time because that's just the best way to get there it's so it's pretty little town i mean i i had to make an adjustment you know in atlanta about 10 years ago 15 years ago when people you know when atlantans my generation started you know building her buying cabins up there, you know, for weekend places, you know. Like the first time I was ever in a conversation with somebody and, and I was just like,

oh, where are you doing this weekend? Oh, we're going up to our place in LJ. I was like, why? I worked my ass off to get out of there, you know? Right, right. But, you know, it's pretty. It's so pretty. I see that now, you know.

And, like, you know, my, both my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandparents were, you know, you know, they lived in some of the prettiest country in that county, you know. My grandpa Bird Smith was born and raised way back up in the holler on Turnip Town Creek, you know, and that's one of the prettiest places up there, you know, and the Reese's were in this sort of rolling hill pasture land

and a part of the south side of the county called Pleasant Valley. And, you know, it's just, It's a beautiful spot up there. I don't have too many relatives up there anymore, though, because I was an only child, and I was born 21 years after my folks married, and my dad was the 11th of 12 kids,

which meant that, like, when I was a little dude, I had first cousins who were in their 50s and 60. Right. Right. Wow. So I don't have too many close relatives up there anymore. usually sadly when I go to LJ these days it's for funeral that's sort of a thing I think too I just became a great uncle and it just has to do with like kids being born so many years apart and all you know what I mean like my my wife

was an aunt at six yeah because of age differences or whatever and then that niece you know she's 23 now she has a kid now so I'm a great uncle and he's my wife's a great aunt so I think that's like a southern thing too yeah so we're going to wrap up soon, but what's the future hold for the better Southerner? Do you think what are your goals? What do you want to do with it? Where is it going to go? What can we expect?

Well, I feel like we're at a place now where we can be a good bit more purposeful than we've been on particular topics. You know, for the longest time, you know, for a year and a half, we were nothing but that Tuesday story. which makes for a really odd looking Google Analytics report. You know, it looks like a roller coaster with one hill in it, you know. And then we started the folklore project because we were just getting all these essays from readers who just,

that was one of the weird things about the bitter southerner. They were like, started sending you stuff. We didn't ask for them. Right. And I got the first one that literally the first week we published. people just felt like these folks would want to hear my story and after a year or the similarities in what you do and what we do is is insane it is and and and and and and and there's a

lot of other folks like that out there and so you know after a year we started publishing one of those essays on Thursday but now we've got columns that run on music drinking food one we called hustle, which is about entrepreneurship and, you know, innovation and stuff like that. And we've got one called Southern schooling that's about public education. A couple of good old boys who are now education professors, you know, are writing it, and people are really responding to it well. And, you know, we are making a real effort to bring different. voices on different topics.

And, you know, it's like you would think that I write the music column because I'm the music nerd and I started the publication. Well, I write every other music column. The person who writes the other one is Dr. Joyselin Wilson, who is literally a professor of hip-hop at Virginia Tech. And we'll soon next semester, she's be taking a new job at Georgia Tech. in their digital media program. No, she is coming down here?

Yeah. Well, we got to make her. Oh, man. Y'all would love Dr. Joyce. So, you know, we started this music column with the idea that, you know, I'm going to write about the stuff I know. She's going to write about the stuff she knows. And then every now and then we're going to write together about what we're learning from each other, you know. And what we're doing is trying specifically to get to learn by,

poking at the racial divide, but just through music. You know, we're doing that a little bit in the food column, too. You know, we've got a guy named El Casimu Harris from New Orleans right in the food column. You know, and he wrote this thing last week about how he missed the chance to get his mama's recipes. And what that left him with and didn't leave him with afterwards, you know. And it helps people see the commonality between, I mean, it's like the line that you use in the show, Trey, about, you know, when you look at black people with no money and white people with no money in the assumption, they're supposed to be against each other, but they have so ridiculously much in common, you know. And I just feel like the more that we expose that, you know, we're never going to write one story that makes, you know, every. redneck idiot change their ways.

That's not how the world works. You know, it's, you know, doing something like this is like chipping away to big rock. You know, it disappears very slowly and over a long period of time, you know.

And then you still got fucking gravel. Yeah. And you still got gravel. Yeah. And, you know, I think what we got to do is like, we got to expand into more media.

You know, I want to see us start doing audio programming. Yeah. We took a run at video programming for a while and then basically just ran out of money to keep doing it, you know. But we got some great, man, the South is full of talented young documentary filmmakers. You know, and we see a lot of great stuff. But I think it's just part of, I think what we have to do is just kind of keep our eye on the same ball that's always done. You know, and what we try to do is have like really simple ways of filtering an idea through what we want the bitter Southerner to be. You know, like, and I always, the two simple ones that I use are okra, the vegetable, and Booker T and the MGs, the band.

you know, because both of those things represent what the South can be when we're at our best. You know, Booker T and the MGs were formed in 1960, four young kids from Memphis, Georgia, two of Memphis, Tennessee, excuse me, two of them black, to them white, couldn't walk down the street together, couldn't go the four-away cafe together, get something neat. but they were the house band at Stacks Records. Right. So, you know, literally, like the world has been shaking its ass to the grooves they made for almost 60 years, you know.

So you look for things like that. And you remember that when you write about Okra, you always got to acknowledge that, it's not a native North American plant. It was brought here from the African continent as a cheap food source for slaves. You know, and the interesting thing about Okra, all right, let me ask you all right. Let me ask you a question. What dish in southern food most exemplifies all the different cultures that have been part of it?

well i mean i feel like you that i feel like you asked that question for a reason having brought up okra but i'm gonna say uh well i'm i'll tell you this you ate it yesterday i say it's got to be gumbo or jumbo yeah yeah gumbo well in new orleans has the most cultures historically correct exactly but that you know gum a gumbo is taking whatever you got right and putting it in the pot to make a stew. But the one thing you've got to have if you're going to make real gumbo is okra.

Because okra is the thing that provides that sort of delicious mucilaginous goo. It brings the whole stew together. And these guys will tell you

I'm a big fan of goo. There you go. Huge. I am too. And you know, but the thing about it is is like if when you eat your gumbo

you will take them moment to remember that the thing that makes this dish so beautiful is an undeserved gift. And from our region's original sin. And we made it into something beautiful. And that to me is like the summary of the South is taking things that were one used for ill purposes or were somehow, you know, morally wrong in their origin and taking those things and processing them and turning them into beauty. That's what Southerners are better at than anybody else.

Chuck, you should have wrote our book, man. God damn it. We just went up south. They have to end on that. You gave me chills with that. Yeah, you just went upside my head with fucking okra. Yeah, there's no, I can't think of a better way to end it. So we're going to end it there.

But all I can say is... I want to ask them about the redneck underground, but you're right. We've got to get out of here. Thank you. Thank you for doing this, Chuck. We really appreciate it. And also keep fighting a good fight. And I can promise you that as long as the weird-ass industry that we are in allows us to continue to exist as a comedic entity that we'll always have your back.

You'll always have our support anytime you need it. And everybody else, go to the bitter southern and check it out. It's absolutely worthwhile. Bye a shirt. By a shirt. Become a card carrying member. Be a member. And also share their shit.

That helps a lot. We're awful active on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. It's at Bitter South, right? On Twitter, it's at Bitter South. It's Facebook.com slash Bitter Southerner, and it's at Bitter Southerner on Instagram. Cool. All right. So go check that out.

Thank you very much, Chuck. Y'all are at us next time. Ski! Thank you all for listening to the West. Red Show, we'd love to stick around longer, but we got to go. Tune in next week if you got nothing to do. Thank you, God. Bless you, good night and skew. Progressive protects more than just your home and car.

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