Unpacking a South: 'TrueSouth' in Jasper and 'Road Diary' with Springsteen's Working Journey

Hey everyone.

It does at Taking it down, which would be the TV podcast for the Alabama Take website and semi production company and venture capital office TVs all over the place.

But that's okay.

We can give you some general thoughts to begin so you can decide if that show or movie's for you and before you put your own eyes on it.

Then we'll draw a line in the sand for some spoilers and get into specific for those who have watched and want to hear what we think.

Hopefully bring you more enjoyment, more insight.

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Here we are.

Non spoiler section.

It's just me this week, Just your host, Blaine.

I'm not going to get into why that's the case.

You know, it's another week where if you have time, you have options.

We'll cover.

I'll cover one.

Why don't I say we.

It's just me so used to the other two guys being here.

I'll cover a few.

But some things I won't get to are what we did in the Shadows which is returned on FX and Hulu final season.

Sadly, it's a good show if you haven't watched it.

They are 2535 minute episodes at the most and about vampires living in a fictional documentary about vampires living in Long Island.

It's just very funny and interesting.

It's good.

I could also say some things about Agatha all along that could produce conversations with me.

With others.

It's on Disney plus.

I think it's gotten a little better these last two episodes.

In fact, this last episode did some things that I found quite intriguing and worth the 25 minutes I think it ran.

It was a very short episode, the most recent, but that's on Disney plus as well.

Maybe we could cover this new thriller that's on Apple tv.

Plus it's called before.

That's the name of it.

It they cast Billy Crystal as a child psychologist and apparently some odd things are happening to or around him with a.

With a client, with a patient.

If you're a fan of this podcast or you want to be a fan of this podcast, you should message us and guide us in a direction.

It's kind of hard since there's three of us to rope us all in on something, but we could listen, we could have a conversation.

I'd be amiss if I didn't bring up this week's episode of True South.

That's a show on the SEC network because first of all it's Southern based TV program, but more importantly, it's the most recent episode featured about one of our site's originators, one of our friends Caleb Johnson, as well as his dad, his home, and another close friend of the podcasting website, Lee Banes iii.

True south documents food and culture across the southeastern United States.

It kind of sounds cool to me, but I had never watched this.

It's hosted by the James Beard Award winning John T.

Edge.

He hosts and writes a lot of the episodes and it's also produced by author Wright Thompson, whom a lot of you may know from ESPN or maybe even just his writing, which has been on ESPN and various other sites.

He has a book out now too, a brand new book about the Emmett Till murder and it looks very well done.

I don't think that this is the kind of show you can even spoil, but just in case I will, you know, continue to do our thing where I won't talk about anything specific about any of these programs and movies just in case anyone's holding off on watching it or whatever.

I'll be general I'll leave room for specifics in the spoiler section.

I enjoyed this episode.

It offers an insight to not just the south, but what it would be like to live in a home and town where a particular breed of person is disappearing due to the culture, due to the economic culture.

The focal point of True south this episode was in Jasper.

Loosely.

Arley would be the specifics of where it is.

Truly enjoyable.

A moving one, I would say.

Bruce Springsteen, the E Street Band, Tom Zimney and the rest of their crew released a new documentary this weekend.

It's on Springsteen, the Street Band and their preparation as well as tour that comes after the tour preparation.

It's on Disney plus and Hulu.

I think it's intended for Hulu.

They kind of cross over now.

It's.

It's an odd thing, isn't it?

Zimney's the same director that Bruce has worked with for his documentary on the Promise and then filming his Broadway run for Netflix.

I think it was the same director he worked with for the thing he did for Apple tv.

Plus for Letter for you.

That most recent E Street album with a documentary.

Here is about the tour, though, especially when they all pick up the pieces after Covid and they hit the road.

You wonder where musical documentaries land in terms of do I have to see it?

You know, if you're a fan, you want to, but is there, is there anything that's being added to what I already know?

This one does.

It brings a little something new because it addresses where he is in this moment in time.

And I think it's worth watching if you're a fan.

If you're not a fan of Spring Scene, you're not going to watch it.

Right?

But there's a thematic element that goes hand in hand with what we were talking about with True south earlier.

Let's pause here just in case you don't want to be spoiled on either of those two things.

If you don't want to hear the specifics of either of those two things beyond what I've said already, here's the spoiler section coming up.

Just be warned, this is where you can pause, come back later, or skip to the one you've seen.

So, yeah, let's discuss some particulars of each of these pieces of television.

Be warned, you're now in spoiler territory.

I'll just go in the order that I brought them up.

You know, I really didn't know much about the series True south until Caleb messaged me this summer that he and his dad were going to be a part of their fifth episode.

I think it's the fifth episode.

It's their seventh season of the show, and I think their seasons have varied.

Sometimes I'll have five episodes, sometimes six or seven.

It's just not my tendency to watch shows on sports networks that aren't the sport or highlights, you know, something like that.

It's not like it would be on my radar.

It's not the kind of thing I would gravitate toward because I took it to Be a show about food.

More so.

And I can't explain this very eloquently, but I have always thought shows about food to be kind of weird.

I've always thought pictures on Instagram about of food, unless you're a restaurant to be weird.

Like, I know what food looks like.

I don't understand that.

It's just me.

It's not you, it's me.

Teresa.

A lot more about that.

A lot more about things than food.

It's about the culture and stories of the south.

And the title kind of gets it right.

It's one of the few entries into quote unquote, south productions that gets it right.

That shows you exactly what it is.

And a lot of people, if you're watching this up north or in Canada or England, you're going to recognize it.

You're going to say, no, that's just humanity.

Yeah, that's what it's like down here in the South.

I think the series shares a playlist of every episode on Spotify, if that interests any of you.

But this one uses Jasper as its focal points.

And there's something to Jasper, I'll admit.

I had spent a lot of time there, way more than usual these past couple of months though I'm not unaware of the town.

My dad was actually born there.

He had friends there.

It was not very far away from where I grew up.

Uses Jasper, but Caleb's from Arley, that's north of Jasper.

Small town.

One of the few towns I can say is smaller than where I'm from.

The other focus of it is Fathers and Sons.

That one runs deep.

It was a deep, profound episode for me personally, and it might be for you.

It ropes in coal mining, of course.

Food.

I don't know if any of you all have any familiarity with coal mining, especially the way that they used to do it.

Not strip mining like you might see from time to time.

Especially if you're anywhere in the south.

Well, let's just say Pennsylvania, Eastern United States through the South.

Right.

If you got familiarity with it, it might just be with that strip mining you see, that just creates ugly landscapes, sad looking landscapes, honestly.

But yeah, My grandfather lived in Jasper many years.

It's where my dad was born.

Because my grandfather worked in a coal mine and I recall my grandfather sleeping on about four or five pillows, very thin kind of pillows, but they were four or five stacked to combat black lung.

He was told to do that and he did it.

He even got black lung benefits.

I can remember that.

I don't know how I knew that.

But I knew it.

I heard it said, obviously, Caleb Johnson is really what I want to talk about.

In the episode, he and his dad, Ronnie, have conversations there with John T.

Edge.

It's a new world.

When Ronnie talks about going into the mines, we're talking 2,000ft deep.

And he talks about how he was never scared in there.

I can't fathom that I would be so claustrophobic.

I wouldn't be able to return after the first night of doing it.

If you got me down there at all, I don't think you get me down there.

But there's such a huge component of this conversation that this is what you do for your family, to live and to eat.

Plus coal mining in that manner that Ronnie did, it's something like from the 1700s.

It's a relic as scary, as haunting as any ghosts, and it haunts the area.

I think you feel it there.

I love the contextualization that Caleb brings on how, as kids, you don't.

You don't understand or even know what your parents do at work or care in many cases.

And you don't understand or know what your parents do for fun.

Who are they?

What do they do for you?

I do not understand that if I'm 9 or 10 years old or 11 or 12, I just didn't understand it.

I knew they worked, and I knew that work wasn't great or it was not something that they wanted to do necessarily all the time, but that's it.

That was the extent I didn't understand that they were doing these things for me as much as they were doing it, you know, to put food in their own mouths.

There's this scene where Caleb and Ronnie talk about how Ronnie would unpack his leftovers.

The next morning, Caleb would be getting ready to go to school and he would have extra food.

It's an insightful moment to how scary this sort of job was or could be.

It's exquisite choice, too, to have Lee Bangs on there.

Lee Bangs III makes tremendously great music, and it's not just because he's Caleb's confidant and obvious choice to be on the show, but Lee centers his art on the working man.

I've joked here that this is the TV podcast for the Working man.

And I wish I could make that, you know, true or more so.

It's.

I said it in passing as a joke in one episode, but Lee does it with.

With dignity.

Any frames working like Ronnie would do in the light that everyone needs to see, which is why there may be a Familiarity to people from outside of the south watching this, as far as I relate to that person, you know, I have a father who went to work and it was not great.

But if you've never thought about work in terms of there are men and women who work hard ass jobs to get you your lights on when you get home, when you flip that switch and you just have this guarantee it's going to work and you know, you don't doubt it, you just flip the switch.

You don't think about it.

There are men and women behind that.

Someone built that chair that's holding you off the dirt ground.

Maybe you did, but many other cases, someone built that.

And that's what this show, this episode spotlights so well.

And we saw it in Covid.

I think we recognized this during the pandemic, but how soon we've forgotten.

And even then we were.

We saw it, we recognized it, but we weren't doing anything about our recognition.

It ain't the politicians or the billionaires keeping us going.

When the shit hits the fan, when you go inside your house and you flip that switch on the lights, right, that ain't a politician.

That's not Elon Musk that's doing that shit.

That's the Ronnie Johnson's of the world.

And I don't want to stretch this too thin, but there are connections in this episode to religion and work.

Maybe it's kind of a.

It's a little bit of a subtext that, that politicians who don't need the religion anywhere near as much as.

As much, you know, they take advantage of that kind of shit daily on like a.

A person who's.

Who's working and needs mental and spiritual support, emotional support beyond friendships and beyond guarantees of money because they're going 2,000ft deep into the mind.

Now that's not explicit.

I just kind of.

I kind of went with that myself.

When Elise song God's a Working man was played live on the show, he played it acoustic and what a nice take on the song.

Powerful stuff.

Touching episode.

Overall, that may be the case for all of them.

Seeing a recognition of what fathers and parents in general do for families from the kids, like seeing the recognition from Caleb, which he's had, you know, I'm not saying that this was the moment that he had this recognition.

I'm sure the recognition is what brought him to agree to do the episode right.

But just seeing that is just profound and it's a lasting experience.

This show gives you that in 25 minutes or less.

I would love to See more if not all of the footage of Ronnie recounting tales from the coal mines and life around Arley.

They go to the local it's convenience store basically, but they also have a kind of a built in restaurant that serves breakfast for people coming and going from the the mines and going to work.

That that folds in nicely.

They do incorporate the food there a little in True south episode and the episode really did maybe weep.

There's a moment where Ronnie says all I've ever done is work and if you had a parent that did that and a lot of us did, it'll shake you a little in a good way.

My dad worked 37 years at 3M in Ewing, Alabama and not the sexiest of jobs one would imagine.

The chemicals there are probably not too inviting to the human body.

And I think my dad did a stretch of work 100 straight days and many of those days were 12 hour shifts.

As Caleb points out in this episode, that's what got me to have housing and food when I was in college at the University of Alabama.

My grandfather would say he would always want something better for his kids and that's the case.

That's the idea that many of us have heard too growing up is that we parents wanted the next generation to have it better.

Good episode of Television only takes up 25 minutes of your time.

Hey, shout out to Jamie Barrier in the Pine Hill Haints who deservedly got some Spence on this episode too.

Speaking of music moving from one show with some solid music from from Lee Banes III and Fine Hill Haints and others, let's go to a musical documentary about life, particularly Bruce Springsteen's life in this large famous touring band and how that began and morphed into the tour they did post Covid with the movie Road Diaries.

That movie's on Hulu primarily, but you can also watch it through Disney plus directed by Tom Zimney.

If you're a Springsteen fan, you know what I talked about.

You know what this is.

It premiered this weekend.

You know where does Bruce rank for you personally as an artist of import.

And it's funny that's I thought that because while I'm a huge Dylan fan, I am a huge Dylan fan for many reasons.

Musically, you know what his sort of this mystique to to him.

But with Springsteen he was just kind of there.

He was just kind of on tv.

No mystery to that really.

I mean he didn't expose him his whole life to the world and everything he did, but he kind of just counted on him being on TV on MTV in the 80s.

You knew from glory days or born in the USA or even those.

That solo album, the Tunnel of Love stuff and even into the 90s, the local, you know, local hero.

He was just going to be there.

He was on Unplugged.

No, no, he was on Unplugged.

He just did it electrically.

He just.

I don't think he agreed to the unplugged ness of it.

Yeah, he know.

He just.

His life was almost felt like an open book.

It wasn't.

He didn't shy away from being.

Being on.

On TV or making videos.

Springsteen gets into some sad losses of Danny and Clarence and his band.

They've been a band for 40 years with the same people.

If you go to work for 40 years and you love your job, you love it, and you really like the people because you were able to kind of put this job together.

40 years, same people, and then you lose two.

It's got to have a punch on you.

It's got to change you.

I did think a few times during this documentary, lord, this band's too big.

Not just the E Street.

I'm talking about the horn section.

I'm Talking about the four backup singers.

In the 70s 80s.

The E Street Band didn't.

Didn't have that.

I don't know if they need it.

Especially in Born to Run, the horn section playing that melody.

I don't know.

I get a big chuckle watching this alone.

There's a scene later in the movie with the guitar tech, and he mentions all these guitars, the cameras moving through guitar cases full of 20 to 30 guitars.

But when they started one guitar, I mean, that's it.

What Springsteen does with his set list performances, Eyes of the E Street Band hitting some of the same marks every show, standing in the same spot, doing the same little thing.

He relies heavily on a teleprompter these days, apparently.

That could all easily come off as cheesy.

And to me, there are bits of it that do.

But yet overall, hardly, somehow he.

He's able to do all these things, but make them emotional, make them have genuine emotion behind them.

That's both interesting and moving.

And it does show the previous tour where he went into the crowd, grabbed up signs with song titles in them, played those songs.

That's kind of my favorite sort of show.

Not necessarily where the artist is going into the crowd and grabbing signs, but just where the set list changes every night.

That's probably better for a artist who, who's hitting some smaller circuits or maybe just some clubs especially.

But Theaters even springs these playing arenas and even I guess stadiums, right?

In this, in this documentary I showed this size that springs he's doing.

You're probably Only catching 1, 1 performance if you're lucky.

So sticking to one set, that's the move, you know, you don't feel let down.

You don't feel like you missed anything.

This documentary does a nice little move where it structures the runtime and focuses on one song at a time as a vehicle to tell the story that the documentary is about.

And it ends up being about if you didn't notice this earlier.

Age.

Age is the backbone of this movie.

If it's not apparent in the first few minutes, the man himself crystallizes it in the end.

I am curious though.

I've been more acutely aware of my and everyone's mortality these last several months for various reasons.

Is that occurring to everyone?

Is it just me?

Is that a me thing of just aging or is that a post pandemic climate change world we're living in?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I would be interested in having that conversation with you guys.

So talk to us.

No Adam, no Donovan.

Hey, do this, do this.

And I'm dead serious.

If you've made it this far, do this.

Message me, text me if you have my number or hit me up on social media.

Do you.

Is this.

Are these solo episodes worth your time?

Do you like them?

Just me giving my thoughts, me conversing with myself.

It happens.

It happens all the time.

Is this okay?

Do you like it?

I'm not gonna ask if you prefer it, but if I can't get the band together, is it okay if I play a acoustic song by myself?

That's what I'm asking you.

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