Landon Bryant, Comedian, Storyteller, Southern Insider

Landon 0:00

You're gonna be like, whoa, oh, so this is going on here. All right.

Robb 0:11

Welcome to another episode of Chewing the Fat. I'm your host, Big Robb. Thank you so much for tuning in, downloading the podcast. I certainly do appreciate that. Also want to shout out Mother Trucking Eats for writing a review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts. I certainly do appreciate that. It helps the show find more people to hear these beautiful, messy human stories. And calling in right now from Laurel, Mississippi, please welcome Landon Bryant. Landon. Hey, y'all. Hey. Thank you so much for being here. Um, if you don't know who Landon is, he is a uh comedian, a southern observer of uh culture in the South and things like that. And uh I found Landon through Instagram, through the posts he put on there, uh about just uh just observations of uh things that we do in the South and and the commonalities that we have and if they're the same other places. So uh thank you so much for being here. This is this is cool to really meet you for the first time uh doing this. So thank you.

Landon 1:14

Well, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. I just talked too much on the internet, so this is nice.

Robb 1:20

Well, this is oddly enough, we'll kind of be on the internet too, I guess. And you'll be talking, but you know, it's all good. Um, so uh Brandon, you're uh you're in uh I called you Brandon. It's Landon Bryant instead of like Brandon Lyant.

Landon 1:39

It's actually so appropriate that you did that because I've been called Brandon my entire life, like my entire life. So I don't even like it, doesn't phase.

Robb 1:45

Well, it it phases me because I want to make sure that I give you the respect that your mama gave you when she gave you that name, you know. Uh you're in Laurel, Mississippi. Is that home?

Landon 1:54

Is that uh I am I'm in Laurel, Mississippi, and I've lived here my whole life besides when I went off for college and I did go to a few different colleges, going on a little college tour. But I from here, raised here, been here. I do get to travel a lot, so I feel like I I get like best of both worlds. But yeah, Laurel, Mississippi, born and raised. You might, if you are not familiar with Laurel, Mississippi, and you're listening, you might know it from HGTV. There's a show called Hometown, and this is the hometown.

Robb 2:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's uh yeah, I guess that's brought a lot of uh spotlight on uh Laurel uh from that show uh with uh the Napiers uh being there.

Landon 2:32

It very much has. It very much has. And Laurel's always kind of had like famous people walking around it, but now there's people that know about it. So it's like it's very fascinating. We got Lean Teen Price, we got Mary Elizabeth Ellis from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And I my my favorite celebrity from here is Parker Posey. I'm so proud to be associated with her. She's the only celebrity I've been super weird to. Like I've I've met so many, and she's the only one that I've been like, I love you so much.

Robb 2:58

Like that's awesome. Yeah, we had I had uh talk to a uh fellow voice actor friend of mine that's actually up in Starkville, which um uh his name is uh Jake Phillips. Uh he goes by the cultured bumpkin. Um and he's got a podcast and does stuff with uh he was on a few episodes ago. But yeah, he's not not far from where y'all are, at least from what I could tell on the map.

Landon 3:22

I went to school in Starkville. I started my college in Starkville, started my illustrious college career there.

Robb 3:27

Yeah. Uh right up the road. So when you were growing up in uh Laurel, uh was observing that Southern culture. I mean, obviously, you know, when we grow up, we're we are childs of our our our environment. Uh and so I feel like there is a very natural part of the stories that you tell that you're like, this is lived. This is not, you know, yes, you observe, but you were living it as well. Um what what made you want to start telling those stories? Um sure. Yeah.

Landon 3:56

Well, uh, first of all, I think it has to be to to work on the internet, you have to be genuine and authentic. So I don't think I could talk about stuff I don't know about. Like I think I can only talk about things I've seen and know. And I just know here and I talk a lot and I enjoy talking. My family is quiet family, they're very quiet. My grandfather, though, is a talker. So my house was quiet, but my grandparents' house was not as quiet. And I definitely inherited the chatting skill from him. But I had so I've been married for 15 years and I've known her since second grade. So she's been there for all of the stories. And so literally, I'll be talking one day. This is how it all started. I was we were on our way home from school because we both worked at the same school. We were both public school teachers, and she looked at me and she was I was talking in her direction, and she was like, What if you told your stories to the internet? Which is like a nice southern lady way of saying, like, hush, like, please don't tell me this again. You know, like that's enough. I've heard it enough. And so I did. I just started talking to the internet, and it pretty quickly blew up into what it is now. And I'm I'm just so proud of that. I didn't mean I didn't set out to be like, I want to talk about where I'm from. I want to talk about the people that I love. That's that was not how it started. It literally was just me like talking to the internet, but then it quickly turned into people asking me things about stuff that I thought was like very regular. Like in one of the videos, I said might could, and I said fixing to. And people were like, What do you mean fixing to? And I was like, What do you mean? What do you mean, fixing to? Like, like, what do you mean? And so we started discussing those things, and then, you know, on the internet, they're like, Find your niche, find your niche. And I quickly realized I was like, okay, here's the niche. Turns out I do know about something, and it is definitely like the South, and people do want to talk about it. And so it kind of just keeps evolving. It it quickly turned into like, what can I talk to my grandparents about? You know, like today's world is so divided, generations are so divided, everything is so different. So when I choose topics, and when I choose what I'm talking about, it's like, what is something that I could go visit with my grandma about and it'd be the not a problem and not cause any like situations with anybody? Like, how can I honor them? What's something that I could talk about that like honors them and brings us all together? And and that's kind of what it's been for the past few years. I um it just has grown and grown, and it's it's really bizarre to me how it blew up so fast. And then the books came and now I do stand-up and I just love all of it. And I try to take every opportunity and do it as best I can for where I'm from.

Robb 6:25

Yeah, yeah. So so the storytelling nature where you started, you said maybe started in your in your grandparents' house.

Landon 6:32

Oh, for sure. There people from the south, you know, people from the south are are storytellers. That's like what we have to do. If you're sitting on a porch shelling peas all afternoon, what you what you have to do is chat and talk with you. Exactly. Yes, exact, literally, exactly, exactly. And so that tradition is just very rich here. It's it's so rich that I don't think I don't think I even realized how rich the storytelling was as part of our culture here, because it was just regular to me. But everybody here is a storyteller, and we might not have like a lot going on, but what we can do is embellish a story.

Robb 7:07

Right.

Landon 7:08

And make it way more fun. Yeah, yeah.

Robb 7:11

No, I love it.

Landon 7:11

And we also can be nosy and be in everybody's business. So I grew up like on the porch. I grew up in the beauty shop, I grew up in the field, like literally in the cornfield, like in the red dirt, listening to them chat and talk. And I think it just naturally resulted into this. And like Sunday lunches were an opportunity for chatting and telling stories and making the table laugh. You know, that was the whole goal. Um, so storytelling is a rich part of being from a place like this. I think it's a very rich part of being from a small town and being from the south.

Robb 7:39

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Uh, and it's you know, there was such a connection with family that sometimes now, you know, as modern technology and having to have two jobs and this, that, and the other that we that we see in our everyday that is is a little lost. So you're you you are helping to kind of preserve that culture, you know. There's something about that Sunday meal at the table, you know.

Landon 8:11

Um and I didn't even realize it was that we were preserving it doing this. Like it that wasn't something that I set out to do, but now I realize how important it is. Like my son is 12, and I hear him saying, like, you guys instead of y'all and stuff. Where have you been? It's like, who is this? So I know it's important to to capture.

Robb 8:29

Yeah, yeah. I love that. I love that. When you were uh going to school and things like that, obviously, like you said, you weren't looking to be quote air quote internet famous or anything like that. What were you what were you interested in uh growing up?

Landon 8:42

Well, I have a lot of ADHD, and we'll definitely discuss that in the next realm. It's kind of defined like everything I've done. So I've never really when you have ADHD, you don't really think about the future like that. It's it's very in the moment, it's very in the in the this like I'm just getting through this moment. Yeah, you know, all it really, you really like look forward like that. So I've always enjoyed entertaining people. I've always enjoyed that. I've loved the stage for my whole life, whether it was like I grew up in the church, and so we I was like on the stage there, and then I got to branch out into theater, and I love the theater and I love that performance type of a thing. And then um, we were wedding singers for like 10 years before this goes on. We sang at everybody's wedding in Mississippi. I've sang the prayer so many times. And and so I just love the stage. I love entertaining, love performing. So it this is kind of like the best version of that. If I had had a dream of that, and I guess yeah, I would love to have done that the most. I would never have dreamed it would be like this. And getting to be on the stage like I do and getting the audience that I have is so ideal for me. I I really it's like a dream I didn't r fully realize.

Robb 9:47

I love that. I love that. And so when you were um going to school then, I I'm assuming because you're saying you did singing and stuff like that, you did do some stage or some drama. I mean, or what was the and you said you also taught. So, I mean, so what did you go to school for? What was the degree? Well, a lot of different things. Yeah, I was about to say because you said you moved school, so I assume that maybe that might have made you move around.

Landon 10:10

Move a lot of different things. Uh well, in high school, I was very much in show choir and like did so good competitions, and I was a tennis player and swimmer, so I was like very in the competitive realm. And then in college, so all my family, my family is very like I just have the best parents, and they had everything laid out for me so well, and like my schedule was so dictated, and I was like, come on from school, go to swim practice, sit down, do your homework, have dinner, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was just like very scheduled out. So then when I got to college to Mississippi State, uh Startville, where they were, I went to architecture school and uh it didn't work out, don't worry. And I immediately was like, wow, I have no concept of like how to structure a day. I've no, I've never studied a thing in my life. High school wasn't very difficult for me. I mean, I'm not gonna say I'm very smart because obviously like I don't do well in in college classes, but I just breathed through school. It was like no problem because I had all that structure. Um, so getting into college was really such a huge shock to go from a high performing, like top of your class type person to like literally failing classes. And I just had no concept of even what I was doing wrong or like even how to approach systematically studying for something. So college was really a shock for me. It was really a shock. And I tried architecture school, that didn't work out. And then I went to nursing school and that also didn't work out. And so I came home in the middle of college and was like, let's just go to work. And I worked in my local emergency room, which everybody should do that. If you think you know your town, you don't until you've spent a solid 24 hours in the ER. You're gonna be like, whoa, oh, so this is going on here. All right. But it was really good for me to work in the ER. And it's actually very good for ADHD because everything already was an emergency. So I already was in red alert level. It's a CPR down the hallway on a stretcher, it's like no different than getting dressed. Right. You know, I was already up there. Yeah. So that worked really well. But then I was like, I gotta get going, I gotta get back to school. So I went to the University of Southern Mississippi and they looked up my transcript somewhere immediately, like, something's up. Like, how do you have these? You have great scores on ACT, all these all these great scores, and then but then your grades don't reflect that. Let's get you tested for it. Stuff and it, I mean, like I blew that test up and they really quickly accommodated me and got me through school. And at that point, it was kind of like the situation where it was like, I've got to get out of school, like I've got to get a degree. What is the fastest route? What's the fastest route after all the things I've taken? And history was the fastest route that seemed attainable. I enjoy I've always enjoyed writing. And so I I fell in love with the history program there, like so quickly. Again, the ADHD, like you can entertain me and I'll be entertained. And so I I got my degree in history and I really loved it. I went to the the war for the Center for War and Society at USM. So it learned a lot about civil rights, learned a lot about like war and those kinds of things. And I it was great, it was a great thing for me. But then I finished school and I was like, I don't really want to pursue graduate school, so I'll go into teaching. So I got certified to be a teacher and took all the praxis and things like that to be a teacher. And I taught for almost 10 years, and I taught visual art in a public school in Laurel here. It's called uh it was Laurel Magnet School of the Arts. So it was a public school that used the arts to teach academics. And that was everything for me because I was the visual art teacher Monday through Thursday, and so I would teach four-year-olds through sixth graders, and it was it was great. And then Fridays, I would get assigned to a different grade every Friday, and whatever they learned that week in at whatever strugg subject they were struggling in. Me and the other arts teachers would cut, like they had a dance teacher and a music teacher. We would come in and teach their academic lesson using our art, and we had to meet the standards for both of those things. And there are lessons online that like you can cut stuff out and like glue stuff, but there's no lessons that truly meet the standards of visual art and the academics. So you have to come up with it every week, and it's very high level. It's the top school in the state, so they have really high expectations. So that creativity of blending algebra with art every week, or blending like English with art every week, that practicing that creativity week after week after week was so good for me. It was such a good practice for me. And I think it's why I can do what I do today because of that. So that was that was where we were. And then what it was one day we were headed home. My wife has a specialist degree, and she's very high up in education. I was like just a teacher. And so she was exhausted. And when we came home one day, she's I was talking at her and she was like, please talk to the internet, you know. And so so here we and here we are. And so it was a long, random journey, but I think all those random experiences are why I have stuff to say today and why I have I know a little bit about a lot of stuff, and so I can relate to a lot of people, and I also can relate to people who aren't successful at stuff. And if you have to pick up something and try again, and and so I just really relate to that. So I feel like it kind of makes me a little bit more universal than what I would have been had I just like succeeded straight through school. Yeah. You know, in a in a way.

Robb 15:02

I love that. I love that. I want to go back real quick and touch on uh you were talking about somebody looked at your transcripts and realized there was a disconnect somewhere. Yes. How important is that in like the educational system, instead of like passing people on, passing people on, I just go ahead and make them somebody else's problem, to have to find that teacher, to find that professor, or somebody that's gonna say, there's something here. How do we uncover that?

Landon 15:32

It's everything. It's literally everything. I I mean, there's like data. I went to three different schools and felt everything I was doing in every level in different areas. So it wasn't the subjects, it wasn't the concepts, it was literally the systematic, like the the way you do school and the way you study and that kind of stuff. I had no concept of it. So without them realizing that, I would have done done the same thing at Southern. I would have gotten in the first class and I do so good for like a week in school, like for two weeks in school. I'm like on it. I've got everything organized, I'm on top of it, and then something slips, and then every time by the middle or fourth, third quarter of the semester, I'm like, wait, I'm not gonna get out of this, you know, and that would have happened again. That would have happened again every time. But the Office of Disability Accommodations at Southern Mississippi was so incredible for doing that, and they helped me get the accommodations I needed and then get the therapies that you needed as well. Because you need accommodations, but you've also got to retrain the way your brain is thinking. It's never gonna be different, but there's things you can do, and without those things, I don't think I would have done so well. And I went from like literally failing everything to I graduated like a year and a half later with really well. Now, I didn't make it to my graduation because that sounded like a very long ceremony that I don't think I could have sat through. But I did graduate. You got the paper.

Robb 16:51

I got the paper. So that's what that's the important part anyway, right? Yeah. Right, exactly. Exactly. No, I I love that. And I love that um, like you said, it just it just sometimes it just takes that one person to to be like, you know, to to to care. And you know, um teachers are under a lot of pressure, professors under a lot of pressure, and sometimes it's hard when you're you know, you should have a class of 15 and you've got a class of 35. And so um, so yeah, so I I definitely think it's important and I think that um you know it it it's something I wish that was easier for the teachers to be able to have the the size classes so that they could identify that in more students. Because I mean that may have been something that like maybe you would you could have found that out in the first school instead of the third school. But exactly. But like you said, with all those experiences, you might not be well for the fact, you would not be the person you are now if you had not had those other experiences.

Landon 17:51

So exactly. But for other people, I would love for them to be able to get the help when they need it, because it does and we'll get to mental health in the second section, but for sure, there's there's um it peop we need people looking out for us for sure, for sure, for sure in academics.

Robb 18:05

Yeah. And that's kind of the you know, that kind of goes back to that um, you know, sitting on the porch with your grandparents type thing. You know, those people that that that care, that love, that share, that open up themselves to we're gonna talk and we're gonna tell some stories, we're gonna let you tell some stories, we're gonna hear what you have to say too, to find out uh those things. So I I exactly I absolutely love that. I absolutely love that. So so we're out of school, we're out of teaching, we're now talking to the internet. We are um what was that experience like for you? Because, you know, starting a podcast and you also have a podcast, you know, you sometimes you fall into the trap of trying to look at numbers and you try to chase numbers, which takes really takes your eye off of what your purpose is. You know, I started this per this podcast to talk to people to help make help them realize they're not alone because everybody, no matter what walk of life they are in, they all kind of have those same things. But when you start looking at those things, and it's human nature, it can get dis it can get, you know, it can get depressing, it can get like disheartening. So, what was that journey like for you when you first started, you know?

Landon 19:14

Definitely, well, it's really scary. It's like so scary to leave anything that you have that's like I was in the system, I was in school, we had all the stuff going, you know, like you guaranteed paycheck, all the things. And I mean, I taught through COVID, so like we were in school, like we were in doing schools, and that was what I was gonna do for the rest of my life. So I wasn't like looking for a change. I wasn't like looking for a change at all. But so in in February or March of like 2022, I started posting. That was when that that happened to started posting, and by April, I had all four of the top publishing houses were like in my DMs. And I know it was so bizarre. And I was like, Well, I don't know what to do about this. Like, what how could I possibly know? How could I possibly know how to manage something like this? But fortunately, Erin Napier, um, the hometown host, host of hometown, I've been friends with her for most of my life. And I called her and was like, help, you know, I don't want to like help, help. And she did. And she got me in touch with her literary agent, which is just such a I'm so grateful to that because there's so many scams out there of agent scams, of manager scams, of literary scams. The publishing houses are not scamming by any means, but they're excuse me, it's all about this giant game, and so getting straight to a legitimate literary agent that knew what she was doing, that had been in the game, that was such a I mean, I skipped the line on so many things from that. I like really skipped the line. So that by we had already signed our contracts for the next school year because you have to sign them in February in Mississippi. So we had signed the contracts for the next school year, and if you break your contract, you can lose your teaching license. So it was kind of like very, a very scary decision. It was, and I they don't necessarily take it from you, it's like your district's discretion. Do they want to pursue that or not? And but by April or May, I like we knew the book deals were gonna come through. I knew that I the school that we worked at was so high performing, and and this was like until six o'clock in the afternoon type of school, because we directed the musicals, we did so much stuff, and those kids deserve that. They deserve that level of attention. So we were like, I don't know if I can do this and and that. I really don't know if I can do this and that. And it was really, really scary because it still wasn't guaranteed. And you know, book paychecks aren't like here's all your money. It's like overtime and it's not monthly, it's a paycheck here. Then like six months later, another paycheck. So the money was scary. It was like a scary thing to do. But we took the leap and our school district was very gracious. They did not take our licenses. And so that that worked out, and we came home and quickly got to work, building all this stuff, and it was the right decision, and it's just it's just grown from there. And first it was the videos, videos, videos. And I was very serious about the videos. I made everybody miserable around me about it. Because I was like, I I I decided, okay, if I want to do this, let's do it right. And I knew, like I understand algorithms. And I was like, this is like a puppy. We have to train it like it's like a dog and teach it what what we want it to do. So I showed up at the same time every day, between like four and seven. I was there every day, no matter what. And I had the similar background, the similar style of video, similar length. And that I think that's really like what did most of the blowing up was the consistency of that. And so I just dedicated to showing up while writing this book. And it it just blew up and blew up. And then we started getting other opportunities to go host things. And then my friend Heather Land, she's a comedian. She has a bit that's like, I ain't doing it, where she has this filter on her face and it's really funny. And she messaged me and she was like, You do stand up, right? Come do a show with me. And I was like, Yeah, what is teaching if not stand-up? What is what is Sunday lunch if not stand-up? Yeah, it's improv, you know. So I went and did it. I had no clue what I was doing. Backstage, she was like, All right, I'm gonna go look at this. I've been memorizing this for like three weeks. It's a new set. I was like, You memorized the set? Because I was just gonna go vibe, you know, like vibing on the stage. And so that's sort of like what I did. I sort of just like went and vibed and like had points to meet between. And now I understand comedy a lot more. I've like studied it so much more. That first set went really well though. Like it went really well, like just vibing. And so, and I fell in love with it. So I was like, let's do this, let's go so hardcore. So now I've I've been in the comedy circuit for a long time. I feel like a year or two now at this point. I've done so many shows and I learn something every time. And I've met so many good advisors, and like like Leanne Morgan has been so kind to me, giving me advice, and she told me to get on every stage you can. So I do. I get on every stage that I get invited to. And now that's a whole different world. And now there's other opportunities with like TV writing and other things coming in. And so I'm trying to navigate those, but I basically just try to make the like I don't know what I'm doing in any of these things. So I just try to like make the right decision every day and be like, if you like if you were like looking at yourself in a mirror one day, are you gonna like what you see based off of these decisions? So I try to make every decision, like I don't know anything about TV, but I'm gonna approach it with that same mentality. And I think that's how it's served me well so far. And so now I've got this whole career and I'm here talking to you. And I didn't mean to do any of it, but I'm just so glad that I did.

Robb 24:31

Yeah.

Landon 24:31

And it was calculated, you know, it's calculated, but it it's been it's been very fun. And I'm very grateful. Like I I feel like I owe the community so much because they've given me so much because this is a I have the I'm having the best time all the time. And it's really mind-blowing to me. I keep feeling like what's gonna happen, you know, like, but here we are.

Robb 24:53

Well, you know, yeah, I mean, you uh as all of us, we can only make the best decision that we can make at the time with uh with the information that we have available at that time.

Landon 25:01

Exactly.

Robb 25:02

You know, so and you know, and you if you know your heart, you know your gut. So your gut is really, you know, sometimes that's a really good uh, you know, bellwether of which direction you need to go is is what your gut telling you. And like you said, looking at yourself in the mirror and be like, okay, am I okay with this? You know, what legacy am I leaving behind by doing this thing? Is my 12-year-old child gonna be proud of Papa uh, you know, when when they're like, oh yeah, you know, because they, you know, as they say, fame fades, this, that, and the other. But if it's something that they're gonna be happy to be like, oh yeah, dad did this cool thing back in the 2020s and was like, it was amazing, and we got to do this, that, and the other, and it was so much fun, and you know, and whatever they take from that. I mean, that's that's like you said, you just do the best that you can with what the information you have.

Landon 25:54

So I saw that we can do.

Robb 25:55

Yeah, yeah. I love that. I love that. Um, so some of the the uh subjects you talk about in your videos, I'm just going about talking about some of the video stuff because I know I've seen I've seen your tour schedule. You're out there all the time. I'm I'm I was surprised that you were in Laurel when you connected today. Uh because you were just in Charleston, which is about three hours from where we are not too long ago. Uh and then, like I said, you're you're actually planning on being here in the Augusta area in October, which will be great. Uh so hopefully I have a chance to come see you there. Um but the video stuff, it connects so much with me. And my I'm gonna tell you right now, my wife loves you. Uh shout out to Val. Um, matter of fact, I got your uh Christmas book for her. Uh for this past I think it was this past Christmas. I love that. The little autographed uh Christmas book. Uh I love that so much. Yeah, so so she just loves you. Um and and the things that you talk about. Let's talk about some of the stuff. Uh and it's funny, you just mentioned this on a on a not too long ago video, the word tump. Because because I had mentioned tump on a comment on one of your videos like probably a year ago or something, because we were talking about words you use and things like that. And um tump is one of my favorite southern words. Yeah. Uh, you know, if you don't know what tump means, uh to me, tump means something being knocked over or falling out. Like you can I agree, you can tump some flour into a bowl before you start to make bread, you know, but also if you knock a uh potted plant off the front porch, it tumped over into the yard.

Landon 27:35

Exactly.

Robb 27:35

And there's also I I have had cousins that were named Tomp, and it may have been because they were clumsy. I'm not sure.

Landon 27:42

Okay, wait. You're the first person that's that has had somebody named Tump. I knew a grandfather who was Tomp. That was his grandfather name was Tom. And I never I never knew anybody else named Tomp. So so interesting. Yeah, I love that.

Robb 27:55

He was clumsy, the cousin was clumsy, but I don't so I don't know if that's why they we called him Tump. Because he kept, you know, he he tumped out the back of a truck one day, you know, trying to get down. He tumped out the back of a truck somebody. I don't so I don't know. I don't know. But um I love that. Yeah.

Landon 28:10

Uh and and also uh uh showing a lot of people didn't know Tump though, so good on you for knowing Trump. I I and I I haven't figured that one out either. Normally I can look in the comments and kind of figure out where where Tump it where the thing lives, you know. Like people would be like, I'm from here, and I don't say that. Tump was kind of like very random all over the place, but yeah, it but it it wasn't like even people in my town didn't know Tump. But then people other places did. So Tump, I don't know how Tump got where it is. I I need to we need to investigate Tump somewhere and I will.

Robb 28:40

Yeah, I need a Tump investigation. So I'm here in uh central East Georgia in the Augusta area. So that's that's the area that I've grown up in all my life. The only other place I've lived is uh uh it's all been in the southeast, but I was in Birmingham for a few years working in radio there. Um, but yeah, it's it's all been in the southeast. But yeah, so so Tump was something that we said, you know, my grandparents said it, my mom said it, things like that. But my wife had never heard of Tump. So See? Yeah, it's it's so it's it's odd. I don't I don't know if that then maybe got brought down from where they had come from or whatever. I don't I don't know. But yeah, Tump's a good word.

Landon 29:21

Interested in the history of it all for sure.

Robb 29:24

Yeah. Matter of fact, matter of fact, my wife does get aggravated when I say tump sometimes.

Landon 29:29

No, it's good. It's so good.

Robb 29:31

And uh your allegiance to Dukes mayonnaise is admirable, and I appreciate that to the core of my heart. Um I've never seen you know something that's so polarizing as a favorite mayonnaise, but good grief, Dukes mayonnaise.

Landon 29:46

Is the if you want to go viral on the internet, say mayonnaise. Just mention mayonnaise, and they will be there. They will come out, and the Duke fans are prolific, so they will be there for sure. There'll be a lot of them, but mayonnaise get some going. You can mention mayonnaise, and that really that video is gonna be a hit, whatever it is. Yeah.

Robb 30:03

And I have a friend, my best friend Dale, he uh he loves Duke's mayonnaise, but some he's also talks about miracle whip, and I'm like, that's not mayonnaise.

Landon 30:10

You can you can't it's so controversial of him to say that. Wow, so bold and brave. I know. He's so brave. Just say that here.

Robb 30:18

I don't know. But he's like, he's like, but I don't put a he's like, I don't put miracle whip on a sandwich though. He's like, I'll use it in I was like, that's because it's salad dressing. It's not snan mayonnaise, it's it's salad dressing. You can put it in your potato salad or whatever, but you it you don't you don't although you really need to put dukes in potato salad too, but anyway.

Landon 30:36

I feel sorry for the miracle whip people that say it in the comments. There's always one or two that like act mentions miracle whip, and I'm like, oh no, bless their hearts. They're about to get eat eaten up.

Robb 30:45

Bless their hearts, for sure. Bless their hearts, you know, like they are about to get that that's the only eaten up that that miracle whip will ever get. Literally. Um, uh, with all that you got going on right now, uh, what is bringing you joy?

Landon 31:04

Oh wow. I well, my son brings you so much joy. I think he's the greatest thing. I love getting to watch him be who he is. He's different for me. He's like a different thing entirely, and he is is just beautiful and wonderful. And I love getting to watch him grow up. I just got to watch him be in a musical, and he sang the song out there from Hunchback in Notre Dame, devastating. Just devastating. I'm like weeping in the audience every night. So that, but what is bringing me joy is getting to meet all these people. I've really gotten to travel a lot more lately, and I've I'm I'm balancing work and home life in that way. But when I do get to go out, I get to meet everybody. And people, okay, when you you see numbers and stuff on your phone, you see usernames, you see, and I know that it's big, I know that it's a big audience, but it's very difficult when you just see it every day and it gradually got there, it's it's hard to process and it's hard to like understand that people are watching it. So when I'm out there in person and I meet people and they tell me things that like it's meant to them, or like that it reminds them of their mom, or like that they they now have something to talk to about their mom, or like that this is what that them and their grandmother share, or them and their daughter share, like that really brings me so much joy because I never thought I could impact people in that way. I didn't mean to impact people in that way. And seeing that people love where we're from, they love our culture, they love how we grew up, and we want to connect on it, and we're all kind of like looking for a way to connect on it and maybe not connect on the things that we don't love about where we're from, right? It it's turned into something much bigger than me. And that that just brings me so much joy and like satisfaction to see people connect to it. When there is a family that is like parents, their their mom and their grandmother and their daughter or their son. That if if y'all all four at my show and audience, then I'm that feels really good that families can come together, watch something together. They'll say that they like watch it in bed at night or something with each other. I don't know. That means so much to me. It brings me so much joy. Like I I can't believe it most of the time.

Robb 33:06

Yeah, yeah. I and I it's kind of like the you know, boiling a frog. Like you said, when you you know, it started small and the temperature turned up, turned each. So you didn't realize the water was getting hotter. You didn't and I and I say that in a positive way as opposed to like the actual usual turn of phrase for boiling a frog. But yeah, uh it's you know, you're not hopping out the pot. You're you're able to see that that temperature when you go and you're standing in front of people, or you're going to a book signing, or you're going to this type of thing, and to see the you know, to see the impact that you've had, that's gotta be that's gotta feel good.

Landon 33:42

It does feel good. It feels when, especially when older people say that they feel respected and seen and like they feel loved, that's what more could I want to do with myself? That's more than I ever meant to do or set out to do.

Robb 33:58

Wow. Definitely different than uh being an architect for sure.

Landon 34:02

Yeah.

Robb 34:02

You've become an architect of joy, that's what you've become.

Landon 34:06

Exactly.

Robb 34:07

You know, I love that. I love that, and also I love what your son sang uh from Hunchback. That's probably one that is my favorite Disney musical, one of the most underrated that are out there. So good. And it just hit 30 years. It just hit 30-year uh anniversary, I think like this week or last week or something like that. So good. So that's that's really, really cool. Um, is so is that uh is that his passion is the performing thing?

Landon 34:34

He has he has a lot of passions. I don't know if it's his passion, he's just very good at it. His mom and I are both performers, so he didn't really have choice at being a good singer. And he's on stage, yeah. Well, he's got perfect pitch, so he like really has he's better than me at the stuff, so he's just really good at it. But he is a boy, he's like a full-on boy, he's like, he's like a little man. He loves to fish and he loves to hunt with his grandparents. So I've never killed anything in my life, you know. Like, so there's like uh he's different than I am, and I I just take a lot of joy watching him be who he is on his own and grow up. We're not cool to him at all right now, you know. He's in middle school, so nothing that we do is cool, but he's he's great, he's just the very best.

Robb 35:12

That's gotta be unfortunate with all of the like social proof that you're out there. It's like if he's got friends going, Did you see what your dad did?

Landon 35:20

Well, it's what will be wild is he will literally be like, I'm gonna be a YouTuber one day. And I'm like, it's literally what I do. You just want some help with it. No dad. Okay, and he's like, No, not the way you do it, you know, like I'm gonna do it the right way. So there's that. But I'm glad that when he if he does want to step into something like that one day, it will have the resources to do that. I don't really want to be in the public until he's older. I I feel weird about kids being on the internet. It it I I don't think it's weird if you just put your kid on the internet, but if if your kid is like the focus of the content, like if if your channel couldn't survive without the children, I think that's where it gets a little weird, but I don't really hold judgment for anybody. I just want to keep him, I want him to own his image in the future when he decides what he wants his image to be. Right now he's 12. He doesn't know what he wants to be out there on the internet. So we'll see. We'll see what happens with all that.

Robb 36:16

Yeah, just be a kid. Just be a kid. Just be a kid. Yeah, just be a kid. All right, Landon. This is the uh second segment of the show, is where we dive a little bit deeper into your mental health journey. I definitely believe the the more that we can tell these stories of things that we've gone through in those down days and how we've gotten through them, it helps everybody around. So for you, how do you keep the darkness at bay?

Landon 36:43

Well, I go to behavioral help. I go to behavioral health. I do that. I do I do get treatment for it because this is it's not something that I can I can handle on my own. I would love to be able to handle it on my own, but that didn't work out for me in life. So I've been receiving treatment since I was like 21. I'm almost 40 now, so it it just is a part of my it's just part of my life. It's just a part of my life. But I think awareness is such a big deal. I didn't know I had the situations. I knew I was different than everybody else. I knew I couldn't tolerate like like I never cared about baseball because I would be so bored by like two minutes in, just that type of the whole situation. But growing up in the 90s and 80s in Mississippi, that was not nobody was like you have ADHD unless you were the kid that was like bouncing out of the chair, right? Being a problem. And I've never been like a problem as far as behavior goes. So it just wasn't known. But when I finally got treated, it it really was very helpful. But then, but then one thing that it led to is a lot of anxiety. I've always had like a lot of anxiety, and it's because when you spend, and I I hate talking about this in a way that makes it sound like my childhood was awful because it was not at all. I had the best childhood of the best of bringing the best parents. But when you have ADHD, you mess things up. You're gonna leave everything, you're gonna lose everything. You uh I will not even register that something huge is happening tomorrow and not even think about it at all if it's not immediately in front of me. So growing up, obviously, I was always not in trouble. My parents were great, but I was always like, what did I, what did I do wrong? What did I leave? What did I miss? What did I drop? What did I not study for, especially when I got into college and meet and failed so harshly, so quickly. That was such a shock to my system. And now, even still to this day, I sort of don't believe I'm gonna be, I have to like really believe that I'm gonna do it correctly. Like I don't, I still have to remind myself, I have to trick myself into believing that I can I can do the thing. Because a lot of me, anytime I start a new activity or something, it's very easy to immediately lean into the anxiety of what am I gonna do wrong? And then when the thing is going on, it's like, what did I leave out? What did I forget? All that's still there. And that feel that feeling of like failure can really define you over time if you if you let it. And it I really let it for a long time. I I didn't believe myself, I didn't, I don't know, it just is a whole another level of like unpacking that you have to do from if you weren't weren't diagnosed for so long, because I wasn't diagnosed for so long until I was very much an adult. I was like 19 or 20, and all those years of not being treated and feeling very different than everybody else because of it, and wondering like how like what am I doing, what am I doing? I don't want to do anything, I don't want to be doing this wrong. You know, that feeling, it really will sit with you. So I I'm really unpacking that over time. It's also hard to just truthfully, it's and again, been doing this for a long time. When you grow up believing that ADHD is not even real, then it's hard to take it, even if you I logically understand how it works in my brain. I understand that it's memory processing, I understand like where it comes from, but it's still hard to internalize all that. So that stuff that I still unpack and it can cause you to be depressed, it can cause all those things. So it's just something that you have to really deal with. And earlier I mentioned like that mirror of like looking into yourself. Things got to a point in my early 20s where it was like really bad. And I was like really confused about like what am I doing here? Like, what's next? What can I do that's good? And basically, ultimately you're gonna end up like looking at yourself in a mirror, metaphorically or literally, and like, do you like what you see? Not in your physical appearance, but like, do you like what you've been doing? Do you like what you see? And so that moment was kind of where I had to be like, okay, I'm I want to like what I see, I want to like what I'm doing. So, what can I do to move forward and be the best I can be? And that's kind of how I try to treat everything, but you know, it's a journey, it's a constant, it's a constant journey. I'm always learning new things about myself. I'm constantly defiant. I want to not take my medicine all yeah. Every few months I'm like, I don't need this. And then go through that whole process again. So it's quite a journey for sure. Quite a journey.

Robb 40:52

Yeah. Uh and like you were saying, uh, you know, you had 19, 20 years of undiagnosed activity. You know, you you were a whole person by the time that you had figured out what was going on and the changes you have. That's a lot of unlearning that you also have to do. And also a lot of forgiveness you have to give yourself too. You know, and I think Which is hard. Yeah. I think that's probably one of the hardest things because you're like, I can't blame myself because I didn't know. I didn't, like you said, you do what you can with the information you have. A year before your diagnosis, you didn't have that information.

Landon 41:28

Heck I only was like just doing bad.

Robb 41:30

Yeah, yeah. Heck, heck, you know, a week before you had that diagnosis, you you didn't have that information. So you can only do the best you can with the information you have. And so being able to forgive yourself for not knowing, you know, because you want to hold yourself guilty for something, but you can't. You you you weren't guilty of anything other than doing the best that you could. You know. And then when you look and then when you look in the mirror, you're like, okay. I I think this best that I can do could be better. I need to figure out why I'm not liking my reflection.

Landon 42:04

Exactly. Literally, exactly. And like evaluate that. There's a teaching thing where you like assess, evaluate, implement all this thing. It's like a circle. And if you're a good teacher, you're constantly doing that circle. Like you're never like, this worked, let's move forward. Like, what worked good here? What worked bad here? What did that child get out of it? How could I differentiate it for them? It's the same thing with yourself. You you should constantly be like evaluating, like, was this the right choice? Should I make a different choice? Did this go well? Could it have gone better? And that's kind of how you could treat all your life, really. How I try to, like, just constantly evaluating, constantly, like, what could be better, what could I do better, and be as good as you can be.

Robb 42:44

Yeah.

Landon 42:45

And then there's the aspect of being from the south and doing all this. That's a whole different, whole different thing. There's like a masculinity culture here that I've never really been a big part of. So that's also made me feel like different than most people. And there's this like be the this attitude of like being strong man for your family. And that doesn't come with like emotions. It doesn't come with like exploring yourself really very much. And so that's another thing to work against. And I just hope that anybody listening to this knows that you deserve, no matter what type of man you are, you deserve to explore yourself as best you can, and you deserve to live the best life that you can by knowing yourself.

Robb 43:25

And some and like you said, sometimes that's hard because of this culture, you know, and and and yes, in the South and being a male and but also sometimes it's the whole just being American. You know what I mean? It's like there is there are these preconceived notions that maybe we put on ourselves because of something we read or we watched, or the like I said, the TV shows or the content that we, you know, that comes across our feed because of the algorithm or whatever that makes us feel like we should be a certain way. Needs you as you are. We don't need another Landon Bryant. We don't need another Rob Smith. We we just need the ones and we need you as you are. Exactly.

Landon 44:15

Uh not to get very metaphysical on us or anything, but I love science and I love I love physics and I just love this concept of like we're the universe looking at itself. Like we are what we're the things that can look around at the universe. Like we're the universe discovering itself. That's what we get to do. We're the only ones doing it right now that we can tell, you know, we don't know anybody else doing it. Right. So just us. And I think that's so beautiful. Like you are the a chance to be a perspective of the universe and be a way the universe can discover itself. So whatever you have specifically, what an opportunity. You get to show, you get to discover the universe in your way, and that's so valuable to me. I think that's beautiful. And so I hope everybody everybody lives their life that way because we do get that chance.

Robb 45:07

All right, Landon. This is time now for the third segment of the show. It's time now for the Fast Five. The Fast Five. It's time now for the Fast Five. Fast Five. Sorry, I'm still working on the theme song for this segment. It's great. It's very good. I feel like I need like at least a drum or guitar referee. It's very good. Fast Five is powered by Pod Dex. It's an app created by my friend Travis Brown. Uh if you go to chewingthefatbr.com slash pod decks, it'll take you to where you can download it on your favorite app store. Um, but it's five random questions, no wrong answers, just the first thing that comes to the top of your head. You ready for this, buddy? Great. All right, here we go. Question number one. If you could pick only one new lesson to teach a new person that's maybe doing some content, what would it be?

Landon 45:59

Be yourself. Be yourself and be consistent. Be yourself and be consistent. I know that's true. Okay, wait. Be consistently yourself.

Robb 46:10

I love that. I love that. Question number two. What do you want your legacy to be?

Landon 46:21

I want people to know that they were loved and that I appreciate them for who they are and that their individuality is great and that they are here for a purpose, and I'm so glad to be here with them.

Robb 46:32

I love that. I love that. Question number three. What desires keep tugging at your heart?

Landon 46:42

Ooh, I have a desire to love people and like to love on people and for people to be happy and well. I really, really do. I I I think we're all remarkable. And I really desire for all of us to get along and love on each other.

Robb 46:59

I love that. I love that. All the hugs for all the necks.

Landon 47:02

Yes, exactly.

Robb 47:04

All y'all's. All y'all's hugs for all y'all's necks. All right, question number four. If someone left you a cottage somewhere in the countryside and they're will, where would you want the cottage to be located?

Landon 47:18

The mountains, the Appalachian Mountains, somewhere along the Blue Ridge or the Appalachians. Something about that place like calls to me and you're closer to it. Yeah.

Robb 47:27

Blue Ridge is one of my favorite places.

Landon 47:29

It is stunning, and something about it feels like home. I don't know if we're like from there or like our ancestors crawled out of those mountains at some point, but it just feels like home and it's a beautiful place. And I love, I love, I love the mountains.

Robb 47:42

That's great. That's great. Yep. Same here. And question number five. What do you geek out about?

Landon 47:52

Uh well, so many things. I can geek out about so many things, but I really love anything history. Like I love history so much. And I also kind of I geek out about travel. I love traveling. And lately, and I just really call it my number. You can call me a nerd if you want to, but I kind of love I geek out about trains. Really? I love trains. I love trains. Uh, and I know that's like such an autistic stereotype, and I've not been diagnosed with autism. But like I have not, but but I do love trains in a very serious way. I like to know I know too much about them and I know about different engines. And uh I love there's nothing better than traveling on a train with a roomette, like a bed in the room, you know. That is it right there. And it's it's just a little bit more expensive than flights, but you don't have to fly. And you get three meals and you get to sleep, and you're gonna get there, not in a rush, but you'll get there eventually. So trains, I can gig out about trains.

Robb 48:47

Sometimes, sometimes it's cheaper than flight, though. So I will say that you you're lucky because y'all have an Amtrak station that comes through Laurel.

Landon 48:55

And it goes all the way to New York. I'm actually next month going from Laurel to New York and back, and I'm so excited about it.

Robb 49:00

That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, our line, we have an East Coast line that comes up this this way, but to like get to Laurel, I have to go two and a half hours up to Atlanta, which if I were to do it by train, I'd have to go over to Columbia and then go up to like I think I think like uh Kentucky and then come back down through to get down over to Laurel Place.

Landon 49:22

That's very silly. That's like very silly. Yeah, we need more trains, y'all. Please give us more trains. Please.

Robb 49:28

Yeah. No, that's that's awesome. And the and and there's a there's a beautiful the Blue Ridge uh railway up in the house. I wanted to do that. It's nice. And um the um in Chattanooga, they have a uh a train with like Pullman car, and you can do dinner and stuff on that. And it's so yeah.

Landon 49:47

And you can also stay in a train in Chattanooga, in the Chattanooga choo-choo.

Robb 49:51

Oh, yeah.

Landon 49:51

It's a hotel that's the trains. It's like old trains.

Robb 49:54

Oh my gosh, I love that.

Landon 49:55

I just was there.

Robb 49:56

There is a and it's funny that you talk about trains. Gosh, we got on a on a weird tangent. But like there's a train that comes to Augusta that is a bunch of pullman cars and sta that you can stay in if you're here for the Masters week. So that's so smart. If you're here for tournament week, they like have that set up and you can you can like you know stay in the train.

Landon 50:15

That's so smart. I actually did an ad for this. I'm sorry to get off topic again, but I did an ad for the masters, and I was like, do I get to come? And they were like, No. I was like, okay.

Robb 50:23

You do not. No, you don't enter the lottery just like everybody else. No, that's awesome. Well, that's our fast five landon and and that's our show. Thank you so much for being here, buddy.

Landon 50:34

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I've had a great time.

Robb 50:36

Yeah, this was awesome. If folks want to keep up with you and everything you got going on, what's the best way they can do that?

Landon 50:41

You'll see me as Landon Talks all over the internet, Instagram, TikTok, uh, Facebook. Um, Landon talks a lot on YouTube. I felt really clever about that because I was gonna talk more. I wish I had just done Landon Talks, but Landon Talks a lot. And then you can find my book, Bless Your Heart, Affiliate God to All Things Southern, everywhere books are sold. It was the night before Christmas, y'all. It's a Christmas book. It's exactly what you think it is. And it um it's out as well. And next year, I have How to Speak Southern, which is a dictionary, and it comes out next year. And I also have a calendar, a calendar, a daily calendar based off of Bless Your Heart that comes out in August with Andrew Smith Mill. It's gonna be exciting as well. So you'll find me all over the place. I'll I'll sneak up somewhere.

Robb 51:21

That's awesome. That's awesome. I'll make sure I put all those uh links in the show notes for this. And uh again, thank you so much for being here. I I love you and I love everything you're doing, and I love your heart, and I wish you nothing but continued success in everything you got coming up.

Landon 51:36

Thank you so much. Tell your wife I said hello.

Robb 51:38

I will do that, I will do that. And if you would like to support this podcast, I'd appreciate it if you bought me a coffee at chewingthefatbr.com. But until next time, I look forward to the chance we have to sit a spell and chew the fat.