Phil Robertson and the cast of Duck Dynasty (A&E) are on a mission to bring manhood back to America. Does that mean men have to drive trucks, blow up beaver dams, and never shave again? Hear what Phil has to say. Read Phil’s new book Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as Duck Commander (Howard Books/Simon and Schuster, 2013). Follow him on Twitter @PhilRobertsonDC.
Alex Crain: Hey Phil. I got to tell you, my 10-year-old son, Benjamin, he's a huge fan of the show and he loves stuff like when you guys took Sy's old truck out to a field and blew it up. But we haven't seen much of that kind of stuff lately, so I was wondering, did the producers tell you, you have to stop doing explosions or are we going to see that in future episodes? Can you tell us about that?
Phil Robertson: They come up with little storylines about a lot of different things, about things that's happened in the past and all that. But the storylines, they'll say, "What do y'all think about this? Has this ever happened?" And we'll give them some storylines. So some of the stuff we've blown up through the years down in the woods, it just sort of morphed into that. I just hope that when your son, when whiskers start coming forth from his face, I hope there's not too much of a battle. If he tells you, "Dad, I'm going to beat you like the duck man, I'm never shaving again," then you and mom are going to have to probably sit down with him and explain to him maybe some of the shortfalls of that.
Most of the time when it comes to blowing up the things we use to just stick to like beaver dams because the beavers cause us so much trouble when we're trying to drain our water out to keep our timber alive. Those beavers dam up things and it'll kill the timber, so basically that's what we're down to. But in the redneck world, if you want to get rid of something, you just blow it up to smithereens and you're done with it. But now these days you understand they got these high paid, pyrotechnic guys that come down and actually do that kind of thing, so I wouldn't recommend anybody, especially in this world with a stash of dynamite somewhere. So we don't have explosives on the premises, that's for sure. But most of that stuff, Alex, is just TV stuff.
Alex Crain: Hey, Phil, really important question here. Beards are really popular these days and you and your family may have something to do with that. So can you just give us some tips on beards?
Phil Robertson: The first tip is, and it's sort of a profound thing, but I'm actually not growing a beard, it's doing that on its own, see. So the Almighty made females, no beards, and he made males who have beards. An old Greek warrior said one time, "Two kinds of people do not have beards, women and youth." He said, "I am neither." Therefore, a man, the Almighty gave us whiskers. I don't think he gave us the whiskers, the second point is to be scraped off daily. It just is not logical. So therefore I said, "Well, it was the Almighty who gave me the whiskers and I think it was a great idea. They're cool in the summer, they're warm in the winter, they will tickle your wife's neck." So what can I say? It's just a win-win deal, whiskers are in.
Alex Crain: They certainly are.
Phil Robertson: If you bring manhood back to America, anyway, from what I see, too many nerdy geeks running around. It's okay to get on, play on computers, but you might as well be looking over a big set of whiskers while you're doing it. Let everybody know you are man. M-A-N. Hey, fear God and shoot ducks, man. You can't beat it.
(Article first published May 2, 2013)
