Steve Wildsmith

Back in November, we caught up with local boy Robb “Storm” Taylor, a Heritage High School grad (class of ‘85) who’s been working for the past several years on a documentary of Jesco White, the famous “dancing outlaw” of West Virginia.

First featured in a PBS documentary in 1991, White grew to — and into — something of a rural legend: a hard-living, hard-drinking backwoods hillbilly who carries on the tradition of mountain dancing, a mix of clog and tap that’s native to Appalachia. Taylor’s documentary — “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” — raised White’s profile even more, and after being featured at a number of prestigious film festivals around the country, it’s getting a proper screening here in East Tennessee.

(Click here to watch the trailer. Or you can click here to rent and watch it online.)

It’ll be shown on Friday, June 4, at “The Shed” at Smoky Mountain Harley Davidson, 1820 W. Lamar Alexander Parkway in Maryville. It’s a limited-seating event — only $100 tickets will be sold. Those cost $15; get them here.

Despite his various ventures, Taylor has remained a Blount County resident. While at UT, he was part-owner of The Underground, a dance club where he served as deejay. During that time, he befriended P.J. Clapp, a South-Doyle high graduate who would go on to stardom as Johnny Knoxville. From there, he did some traveling with and production work for the MTV show that Knoxville made famous — “Jackass.” He had an idea for his own program, and after returning to Maryville to work in real estate and development, his idea was turned into a program on the Turner South network. “Yokel” ran for a season before Fox acquired Turner South and slowly killed the network.

Johnny Knoxville serves as producer for the White documentary; in addition to that, Taylor has recently launched a new pop culture publication, One Eighty Magazine.

I ran into him Friday at “The Shed,” and he said The Whites will likely be making the trip down from West Virginia to attend the June 4 screening.

It sounds like the set-up for a righteous punchline — a comedian, a dancing hillbilly from West Virginia and a jack-of-all-trades from Blount County walk down the red carpet at a Los Angeles film premiere …

The thing is, it’s part of Robb “Storm” Taylor’s life — and now the Blount County native is taking his Hollywood connections and brushes with fame and turning it into a new publication that debuted last week under the title of One Eighty Magazine. It’s a free, monthly newspaper-style magazine that addresses various facets of popular culture that Taylor finds intriguing — and it’s all done out of his home on Sevierville Road.

“If something like Metro Pulse or The Daily Times are legitimate news sources — current, updated with what’s going on and what’s timely — I want to be the illegitimate news source,” Taylor told me this week. “I want it to be a true culture magazine — I don’t want to involve politics or religion, because then you’re going to segregate part of your audience and get slammed. I didn’t go to school for journalism, so I’m going to write about whatever’s cool — choppers or skateboarding or golf or tattooing or whatever.

“These are all things that people have an interest in. It was an idea that I tossed around for a month and put together in a month — so basically, it was a two-month process, just me and a designer. And for the first issue, I’m pretty happy with it. I’m thinking about making the next one lemon-scented so it’s better for lining kitty boxes around town.”

Irreverent, good-natured, funny — these are all traits that have made Taylor a local celebrity. Graduating from Heritage High School in 1985 and attending the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, his first enterprise was as part-owner of The Underground, a dance club where he served as deejay. During that time, he befriended P.J. Clapp, a South-Doyle high graduate who would go on to stardom as Johnny Knoxville.

From there, he did some traveling with and production work for the MTV show that Knoxville made famous — “Jackass.” He had an idea for his own program, and after returning to Maryville to work in real estate and development, his idea was turned into a program on the Turner South network. “Yokel” ran for a season before Fox acquired Turner South and slowly killed the network.

From there, Taylor hit up his old pal Knoxville to assist in making a documentary on Jesco White, the famous “dancing outlaw” of West Virginia. First featured in a PBS documentary in 1991, White grew to — and into — something of a rural legend: a hard-living, hard-drinking backwoods hillbilly who carries on the tradition of mountain dancing, a mix of clog and tap that’s native to Appalachia. Taylor’s documentary — “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” — raised White’s profile even more, and led to the aforementioned red carpet incident.

“That was insane,” said Taylor, who’s working on a distribution deal to take the documentary to home video, in addition with negotiating with Viacom — MTV’s parent company — for a network airing. He also continues to shop it around at film festivals around the country.

“At the LA Film Festival, Mike Judge (creator of “Beavis and Butt-head” and “King of the Hill”) came over to the hotel, and we were hanging out with Johnny Knoxville,” Taylor said. “We had some beers, but when we realized we were late for the red carpet (premiere), we were all freaking out. Jesco didn’t want to waste a 12-pack, so he asked me to carry his beer down the red carpet. I didn’t realize he put an open container of Miller Lite in there, so here I am walking down the red carpet, dripping beer.”

Not everyone, however, felt that the documentary is an accomplishment — at a question-and-answer session at an independent film festival in Memphis, one audience member expressed shock and dismay at certain scenes in the documentary and asked why the audience members seemed to find it funny.

“The reality is that some things are so harsh and absurd that you have to laugh at it,” Taylor said. “We didn’t set out to throw our opinions out there or judge these people; it’s a documentary, so we show them for who they are. People either get it or don’t; there’s no real broad in-between. I happen to get it and like it.

“When you do mess with culture, you’ve got to go in with your guard up, because you’re going to be hit. This guy kept going on and on, but after a while, the audience was defending us — turning around and yelling at this guy, and because of the hype, they gave us another screening at that festival.”

White, he added, makes for a much more fascinating celebrity than the folks with whom he’s rubbed shoulders in Hollywood. That’s one reason he’s pitching a Jesco White reality/variety show — a “weird, anything-goes, low-budget kind of thing,” he said. It’s also one of the reasons he’s content to remain right here in Blount County, away from the trappings of Hollywood and the faux sincerity that rings hollow.

But he doesn’t mind making a phone call once in a while, calling in a few favors for the sake of whatever project upon which he happens to be working. Right now, it’s One Eighty Magazine — and while he only has a single issue under his belt, he’s already planning for what the next several will contain.

“The celebrity lifestyle is cool, but it’s not for me,” he said. “I’ve had the good fortune of meeting some celebrities in the past few years, but they’re not paying my light bill, so they were never really on the top of my priority list. But with this, maybe I can get them to help me do something.

“We’ve got some pretty good interviews coming up (including one with John Basedow, the square-jawed purveyor of the “Fitness Made Simple” video series). We’re breaking it down into three categories — Celebrity, Under-the-Radar and ‘Shaking the Common Hand.’ This past issue was a little too male-heavy, but we hope to change that, too — our food critic is female, and we’re going to do a perfume test for an upcoming issue.”

Check out Storm’s shout-out on the “Jackass World” website, as well as the Facebook page for One Eighty Magazine.

How cool is this??? I wish I’d had a teacher like this when I was in high school. I received this e-mail last night from Lea McMahan, formerly of Blount County and a Heritage High alum. It’s too cool not to share.

Hi. My name is Lea McMahan and I’m a theater teacher at Farragut High School.  I grew up in Blount County (Wildwood) and graduated from Heritage High School in ‘86.

Would you please print one of the photos I’ve attached for publicity purposes?  My students and I have worked so hard on this project & we would love to have an audience to view it!

Most awesome, Leah. Congrats! I hope you handed out Max Brooks’ “World War Z” as assigned reading!

In other “local folks do good” news, got an e-mail from Blount County boy Rob “Storm Taylor, whom some of you may know from his days as a Knoxville deejay and from TV. (He hosted “Yokel,” which aired on Turner South for a season or so.) Lately, he’s been hard at work on a new film, producing “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia.” It’s a documentary being made under the MTV banner about “Dancing Outlaw” Jesco White, and it seems to be going places, Storm told us — he’s taking it to the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, taking place at the end of the month, and he’s got a sweet 9 p.m. slot on Saturday, April 25, to show it. Congrats, Storm!