Brutal South
36 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago -On struggles, schooling, and raw concrete in the dirty dirty south. A companion podcast to the Brutal South newsletter.
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Episodes
Wikifest 2022: Trashcan Contra
December 28, 2022 12:05 - 1 hour - 41.6 MBEvery December, my friend the sportswriter Michael Baumann joins me for a festive exchange of Wikipedia articles we gathered through the year. We’ve been exchanging them informally for well over a decade now, but in recent years we decided to make a podcast out of it. Mike covers baseball for FanGraphs.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @MichaelBaumann. If you’d like to follow along, here are Baumann’s picks: * Southern Victory * Corinne Diacre * Quebec Biker War * Goncharov * Lis...
Episode 31: Appalachian black metal
September 21, 2022 03:58 - 56 minutes - 77 MBMy guest is Aaron Carey of the West Virginia black metal band Nechochwen. Aaron is a true Appalachian hesher who's also trained as a classical guitarist, and he's been using his musical project to retell and reinterpret indigenous history in his part of the world. He learned growing up that he was descended from some prominent members of the Shawnee and Lenape tribes, and he frequently talks about the history of those tribes, both in his lyrics and also in what he describes as non-lyrical to...
30: Nehemiah Action (w/ Charleston Area Justice Ministry)
March 30, 2022 11:29 - 1 hourMy guests today are Amber Campbell-Moore and Dr. Matt Cressler with the Charleston Area Justice Ministry, a good, radically inclusive organization working for social and economic justice in Charleston, S.C., and the greater Charleston area. As we speak today, the ministry is gearing up for its biggest public-facing event of the year, the Nehemiah Action. Every year at the Nehemiah Action, members of religious communities bring their protests and demands to local politicians. It’s exciting, ...
Possum Island, the audiobook
January 05, 2022 12:45 - 7 minutesI have a new piece of short fiction out today in the Charleston City Paper Lit Issue. It’s called “Possum Island,” and you can read it online or pick up a paper if you’re in the area. I thought it would be fun to make an audio version, so that’s what I did. Enjoy! If you’re looking for more stuff to listen to, check out the Brutal South podcast on Apple or Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. If you’re a possum aficionado, you might enjoy this thinkpiece I wrote about possum memes last y...
29: The Lord God Bird is dead (w/ Matt Drury)
November 17, 2021 11:00 - 48 minutesWe're gathered here today to speak of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a tremendous beautiful bird that is gone forever ... or so some people think. Hey. Welcome to Episode 29 of the Brutal South Podcast. The ivory-billed woodpecker has been on my mind again since late September when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed moving it and 22 other species from the endangered species list forever, effectively declaring the bird extinct. It's been called the Lord God Bird, supposedly because o...
28: Long knives and haunted plantations (w/ Michael Smallwood)
October 30, 2021 11:00 - 1 hourMy guest on the pod is Michael Smallwood (@mikeluvsgushers), an actor, director, podcaster, and screenwriter from Charleston. He recently appeared in the biggest movie role of his career as the character Marcus in Halloween Kills, the latest installment of the Michael Myers saga. If you've seen it, you'll recognize him as the guy in the doctor costume from the first 20 or so minutes of the movie. He was great. I screamed when I saw him. Michael and I have crossed paths a few times over the ...
27: "Critical race theory" (w/ Davíd G. Martínez & AJ Davis)
October 20, 2021 04:15 - 1 hourWelcome back to the Brutal South podcast, Episode 27. I guess this was inevitable: We're going to talk about critical race theory, both as an actual framework for understanding the world and as a mostly unrelated buzzword that conservatives have been screeching about nonstop since this summer. It's been more than 3 months since I put out an episode, and customarily this is where I as a podcast host would apologize or make some retroactive announcement that this is actually season 2 or whate...
27: "Critical race theory" (w/ Davíd G. Martínez & AJ Davis)
October 20, 2021 04:15 - 1 hourWelcome back to the Brutal South podcast, Episode 27. I guess this was inevitable: We're going to talk about critical race theory, both as an actual framework for understanding the world and as a mostly unrelated buzzword that conservatives have been screeching about nonstop since this summer. It's been more than 3 months since I put out an episode, and customarily this is where I as a podcast host would apologize or make some retroactive announcement that this is actually season 2 or what...
Episode 26: Executing grace (w/ Shane Claiborne)
July 07, 2021 21:30 - 52 minutesMy guest is Shane Claiborne, a Christian activist fighting against war, gun violence, and the death penalty. I got to meet him recently at a death penalty abolitionists' meeting in Columbia, S.C., and he graciously set aside a little time to talk about the struggle to end state-enforced killing in my state and across the country. On a personal note, Shane's writing has meant the world to me. His first couple of books, The Irresistible Revolution and Jesus for President, helped me understand...
25: Black swamp metal (w/ Eddie Newman)
June 09, 2021 10:00 - 1 hourQuick note in case you missed it: I’m trying to decide on a T-shirt design for Brutal South, and my friend CJ Bones came up with three metal-inspired logos to choose from. Click here to check them out and let me know which one you like the best. *** Brood X is upon us. I'm talking about a brood of cicadas that emerges mature from the earth just once every 17 years. They scream, they mate, and they die in a matter of weeks, leaving the next generation to arise from the earth in another 17 y...
24: Okra soup (w/ Amethyst Ganaway)
May 19, 2021 10:30 - 1 hourMy guest is Amethyst Ganaway, a chef and writer from North Charleston, South Carolina. Amethyst has been working in the restaurant industry for about 12 years, and during the past year she got deep into researching the history of food from our part of the country. She has published a few great pieces on what she's learned. The articles we'll be discussing are "Black Communities Have Always Used Food as Protest," from Food & Wine magazine; and a tribute to the late culinary giant Martha Lou...
23: Ghost in the machine (w/ Gardnsound)
April 21, 2021 21:00 - 58 minutesMy guest is Gardnsound, an Atlanta-based electronic music composer who is also one of my oldest and truest friends. I know him as Gardner. As long as I’ve known him, he has been a restless experimenter, from his classical training on the bass to his hard-partying dubstep phase to that time he wrote a song a day for an entire year. Along the way, he taught me a few things about music theory and kept the rhythm in a string band we started called The Camellias. We played shows at our neighbor...
22: Dress your baby in a union onesie (w/ The State News Guild)
April 02, 2021 05:40 - 46 minutesMy guests are Bristow Marchant (@BristowatHome) and David Travis Bland (@dtravisbland), reporters at The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C. They and their colleagues went public with the formation of The State News Guild this week, seeking voluntary union recognition from management. On this episode we talk organizing strategy, debunk some common myths about “right-to-work” laws, and obsess over their absolute banger of a union logo, courtesy of Dre Lopez. You can follow the guild at @thest...
21: Y’all are welcome (w/ Jim Conrad)
March 17, 2021 05:05 - 44 minutesMy guest is Pastor Jim Conrad of Towne View Baptist Church in Kennesaw, Georgia. His church was, until recently, one of the only Southern Baptist churches that openly accepted and affirmed lesbian, gay, and transgender people. His church has been in the news since February because the Southern Baptist Convention, or SBC, voted to remove his church and another from Louisville, Kentucky, for taking their stand. I read about the convention’s decision in a New York Times story by Ruth Graham la...
21: Y’all are welcome (w/ Jim Conrad)
March 17, 2021 05:05 - 44 minutesMy guest is Pastor Jim Conrad of Towne View Baptist Church in Kennesaw, Georgia. His church was, until recently, one of the only Southern Baptist churches that openly accepted and affirmed lesbian, gay, and transgender people. His church has been in the news since February because the Southern Baptist Convention, or SBC, voted to remove his church and another from Louisville, Kentucky, for taking their stand. I read about the convention’s decision in a New York Times story by Ruth Graham las...
20: Something out of nothing (w/ Shovels & Rope)
March 03, 2021 06:08 - 50 minutesMy guests on today’s podcast are Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent of the band Shovels & Rope. Most of the songs featured in this episode are from their latest album, Busted Jukebox Vol. 3, which you can buy at your local record store or download on Bandcamp. I was thinking back to 2012, when I interviewed them for a profile in the Charleston City Paper. They were hugely popular in Charleston at the time, and after years of relentless touring they were finally breaking into the national sc...
Episode 19: They can linger in our memory like ghosts
February 17, 2021 05:55 - 1 hourMy podcast guest is Chuck Johnson, a musician who composes meditative songs on the pedal steel guitar. Chuck grew up in North Carolina, where he heard pedal steel in the context of country music. After building a career playing fingerpicked acoustic guitar in the style of Elizabeth Cotten and John Fahey, he picked up the pedal steel and took it in a new direction, using its vocal quality and unlimited sustain to create mournful soundscapes. On his new album The Cinder Grove, Chuck recreate...
Episode 18: Raw concrete (feat. Kate Wagner)
January 13, 2021 11:00 - 1 hourMy guest is Kate Wagner (@mcmansionhell), architecture critic at The New Republic and proprietor of the McMansion Hell blog. Like me, Kate grew up in the South, and like me, she is a defender of brutalist architecture. Unlike me, Kate really knows what she's talking about. Brutalism is a style that grew out of 20th-century modernism, and it usually features hulking geometric forms and a lot of exposed, unfinished concrete. The British architects Alison and Peter Smithson coined the term, no...
Episode 17: A free college manifesto
January 06, 2021 05:25 - 55 minutesHalfway through John Warner’s new book about higher education, it dawned on me that I was reading a manifesto. The book is called Sustainable. Resilient. Free. The Future of Public Higher Education (2020, Belt Publishing). It’s a sweeping diagnosis of what ails higher education in the United States, written from a place of deep frustration. John spent 20 years teaching in colleges and universities, including Clemson and the College of Charleston. He’s a talented educator and an incisive wr...
Episode 16: This bear kills fascists
December 23, 2020 13:00 - 1 hourMichael Baumann (@MichaelBaumann), staff writer for The Ringer, joins me for the second annual Wikipedia Holiday Special. Mike and I met at the University of South Carolina, and one of the ways we’ve stayed in touch since graduating is by sending each other articles we find on Wikipedia. You could say it’s our love language. If you’re following along at home, here are the Wikipedia pages we’re discussing today. Mine: * Quadro Tracker * Methods of divination * Attacus atlas * OK Soda ...
Episode 15: Cowboy like me
December 15, 2020 23:30 - 1 hourI convened this emergency podcast shortly after the release of Taylor Swift’s evermore, the out-of-nowhere follow-up to folklore. Joining me on the panel are my colleagues Michael Majchrowicz (@mjmajchrowicz) and Ari Pérez-Mejía. Subjects of interest for this episode include Myspace, parasocial relationships, Shakespeare, Cats, Zardulu the Mythmaker, eucatastrophe, Noah Baumbach divorce movies, depression, cognitive behavioral therapy, Sufjan Stevens, and Bravo reality TV. This is a public...
Charity, the audiobook (Part 1)
December 10, 2020 00:09 - 14 minutesI’m publishing a new piece of fiction today. The title is “Charity,” and I’m releasing it in three parts. You can read Part 1 via the Wednesday morning newsletter edition, or listen to the audio version here. Part 2, Part 3, and the full audio edition are available to paying subscribers only. Subscriptions are $5 a month and get you access to exclusive content and subscriber-only podcast episodes. To sign up, go to brutalsouth.substack.com/subscribe If you’re a paying subscriber, check yo...
Episode 14: Making it through December
December 02, 2020 05:21 - 47 minutesMy guest is the Rev. Dr. Jeremy Rutledge, the minister at Circular Congregational Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Jeremy and I have crossed paths several times over the years. He’s involved with social justice work in Charleston, we have a lot of friends in common, and I’m pretty sure I interviewed him a few times when I worked at the newspaper. I always loved talking with him, and recording this podcast was just an excuse to talk to him again — mostly about dad stuff, actually. I wa...
Episode 13: Landlord problems
November 14, 2020 13:00 - 49 minutesMy guest is Marvin Pendarvis, my state House representative here in South Carolina. He's about my age, one of a handful of millennials in the legislature, and he's been one of the loudest voices in the state capital on the issues of housing insecurity and evictions. I wanted to have him on the show because, 1, he's fighting an uphill battle that I think more people should know about, and 2, his hallmark issue is suddenly more important than ever. (And 3, he’s a new dad, so I wanted to talk...
Episode 12: Blast beats for the working class (preview)
November 09, 2020 14:00 - 7 minutesThis one’s a subscriber-only episode. Paying subscribers to the Brutal South newsletter get today’s full episode and access to all of the archives at brutalsouth.substack.com/archive. It’s $5 a month. Think about it. My guest is Ian Nix, lead vocalist and songwriter for the South Carolina metal band WVRM. If you follow heavy music, WVRM probably falls into genre labels like grindcore and death metal. If you don't follow heavy metal, well, it's extreme. It's guttural music played over blast...
Episode 11: Singing sparrows, snapping shrimp
November 07, 2020 13:01 - 50 minutesI wrote in the newsletter a few weeks ago about this thing I saw with my kids when we were camping in the South Carolina Upstate. It was long and yellow and it moved like a slug, but it was shaped like a snake and it had a flattened sort of hammer head. It was horrifying. When we got home I wrote in to Rudy Mancke, who is sort of a legendary naturalist with a show on South Carolina Public Radio, and he informed it was a land planarian, an invasive species that probably got here on plants imp...
Episode 10: Power to the nurses
September 30, 2020 10:00 - 35 minutesMy guest on this podcast episode is Kelley Tyler, a trauma nurse working in Asheville, North Carolina. On Sept. 17, Kelley and her fellow nurses at Mission Hospital won a tremendous victory for organized labor when they voted in a landslide to be represented by a union. It was the largest union victory at a nonunion hospital in the American South since 1975, and it was the first ever private-sector hospital union win in North Carolina history. I don't want to understate this: That union vi...
Episode 9: Good news for people who love local news
September 16, 2020 04:01 - 44 minutesToday on the podcast I've got two guests, Lucas Smolcic Larson and Stephen Fastenau. They're both reporters at the Beaufort Gazette and Hilton Head Island Packet, two newspapers in the South Carolina Lowcountry that share a newsroom. Just last week more than 80% of the reporters, photographers, and producers down there signed cards authorizing union representation by the NewsGuild labor union, which is affiliated with the Communication Workers of America. I don't know how to express how hap...
Episode 8: Lord Mammon
August 12, 2020 10:00 - 28 minutesHe’s a frumpy old fart wearing too much bronzer, scowling into the middle distance. He sports a gold lamé robe and wears a gold crown with an ass’s ears. Someone told him this outfit would make him look handsome, or happy, or dignified, but it only took him one glimpse in the mirror to realize they were full of it. Nevermind the dead worshippers falling from his lap; nevermind the skulls on the back of his throne: Lord Mammon looks like hot garbage. He looks like he never sleeps. In Christ...
Episode 7: Listen to the teachers
August 05, 2020 05:00 - 49 minutesIt’s been almost 5 months since my daughters went to preschool, and they’ve started getting nostalgic. One of them told me today about a time when a kid hit her with a bike on the playground. I had never heard that before. They’ve both started vividly describing the flavors of popsicles they used to eat in the cafeteria. I got conned into making paper snowflakes this morning because they remembered making winter crafts one time. It’s August. We live in South Carolina, a state that has done...
Episode 6: Ain't no laws
June 29, 2020 16:00 - 31 minutesMy guest this week is Dave Infante, a reporter in Charleston, South Carolina, who recently wrote a piece for Mel Magazine about the curious intersection of White Claw drinking culture and the right-wing militant boogaloo movement. If that sounds bewildering and niche, then strap in. You might want to hear more from Dave after listening to this episode, in which case I recommend you sign up for Dave's newsletter at fingers.substack.com. This is a condensed version of Episode 6. Paying sub...
Episode 5: White picket geofence
June 17, 2020 09:30 - 1 hourWelcome to Episode 5 of the Brutal South Podcast. My guest this week is Dr. James N. Gilmore, assistant professor of media and technology studies at Clemson University. I met Jimmy at the University of South Carolina in the freshman Honors College dorm, which was an old building full of lovable weirdos. He had a film criticism blog going at the time that I really loved, and when I became an editor at the Daily Gamecock student newspaper, I convinced him to start writing reviews for us. I co...
Episode 4: The patina of politeness
June 04, 2020 09:30 - 55 minutesThis week’s podcast episode is a very Charleston episode. Sorry, not sorry. While the police killing of George Floyd has set off protests and uprisings across the globe, we are seeing activism take root differently in different communities. In Charleston, South Carolina, it’s dredging up some recent history of police abuse and white supremacist terrorism. My guest this week is Mika Gadsden, founder of the Charleston Activist Network. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @mikagads...
Episode 3: You might be a racist
May 13, 2020 13:16 - 44 minutesFor the third episode of the Brutal South Podcast, my guest is the man behind the popular Twitter account @YesYoureRacist. Twitter, for the uninitiated, is an open-air insane asylum where celebrities, world leaders, and everyday people log on to air their grievances. Logan Smith is a political communications worker from North Carolina who has been dunking on racists on the website since 2012. Themes for this episode include white fragility, ongoing beefs between North and South Carolina, a...
Episode 2: Psychedelic empathy
April 22, 2020 10:00 - 49 minutesOne bright morning in May 1953, Aldous Huxley dissolved four-tenths of a gram of mescaline in a glass of water, drank it, and waited to see what happened. It wasn’t idle curiosity that drove the author of Brave New World to try the psychedelic alkaloid of the peyote cactus. Late in life, he had questions that remained unanswered. Chief among them were questions about perception, self-knowledge, and human connection. “We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in...
Episode 1: How to buy books during a pandemic
April 08, 2020 13:57 - 37 minutesI’m broadly skeptical about consumer activism. The first time I set foot in a Whole Foods, I saw a laminated sign beside the coffee grinder indicating that the machine might have been contaminated by non-organic coffee and that eco-conscious consumers might want to grind their beans at home. My eyes rolled all the way back in their sockets. I just wanted to go back to Food Lion. Whole Foods is, of course, a union-busting grocery chain owned by Amazon, a monopolistic company helmed by rich...