Atlanta – Even before the Internet, Southern women were the best at getting out crucial information.
You know she dyes her hair.
I saw her at the Piggly Wiggly, honey, and there was nothing but wine in her cart.
That convertible’s leased.
Gossip could spread like kudzu so long as you added three magic words to take out the sting: Bless her heart.
Now, two Atlanta women with molasses in their voices and sharp nails inside their white gloves have found a way to blend beauty-parlor banter and high-tech skill. The result is “True Gritz,” a Southern-style variety show they broadcast on the Internet at truegritz.com.
“Voted No. 1 by our mommas,” is the motto Grayson Hurst Daughters and Jen Gordon have adopted for the show, which has aired two episodes so far. On the show, Daughters and Gordon adopt the personas of Pauline Ashley-Wilkes and Sas Gordon-Walker. They talk politics and culture like steel magnolias dishing over Moon Pies and RC Colas.
“Not only did the South give the world the gift of ‘W,’ but we also managed to cook up Miss Cynthia McKinney,” Sas says in the first episode. “I just think her mother failed to put her in time-out as a child.” On a future episode, the ladies will talk about conservative author Ann Coulter.
“What an anorexic she is,” Pauline says.
“She needs some fried chicken” Sas agrees.
Gordon and Daughters met a few years ago at their children’s play group. They carry on off- set even more than when they’re in character. They’re not doing all that much acting, really. They’re being themselves, just more so.
“Every time I drive past the spot where Peggy Mitchell, bless her heart, was mowed down by a taxi driver, I cross myself,” said Daughters, referring to the “Gone With the Wind” novelist by her familiar name.
Daughters grew up in South Carolina, down a dirt road from a man who said his bottle tree caught evil spirits. She remembers riding in her grandfather’s van – there were lawn chairs set up in the back, so you had to hold on when he hit the brakes – to deliver daffodils to kinfolk.
Gordon grew up in metro Atlanta and recalls her grandfather – “Shorty” – telling stories and making friends with strangers. She figures she inherited his gift of conversation. “I’m one of those people who could sit and run their mouth all day,” she said.
Their studio is on the second level of Gordon’s home, a renovated bungalow where a cardboard Elvis greets visitors and peaches ripen on the kitchen windowsill. Their production equipment is basically a digital camera and a computer. Their costumes consist mainly of lipstick and thrift-store wigs.
“There’s a story behind this wig cap,” Gordon said as she got into costume recently. “We went to the Junkman’s Daughter – I think I’d had a couple of gin and tonics – and the wig man – his name’s Chris – he said this wig cap was one-fifty. I said, ‘That’s crazy!’ Then my friend said, ‘Jen, I think he meant a dollar-fifty.”‘
Their website, up for about a month, receives about 1,000 unique visitors a week.
