Dwight David Honeycutt knew his campaign was over before it really
began. “I had big plans,” he said in a recent interview. “But I drink a
little bit, and things got out of hand.”
Did it ever. In his campaign video turned web phenomenon, “Dwight David Honeycutt for Conway School Board,” the former star of a local children’s TV show admits to previous incarcerations, to stealing his granddaughter’s ADD medicine and to making out with a “dude.” And those are the tame bits. At press time, the video had nearly 111,000 views on YouTube and a 95% “funny” rating on the website Funny or Die.
Honeycutt said his nephew, Roland Honeycutt, Jr., who filmed and subsequently posted the video, is partly to blame for exposing his dark side, though he’s come around to an honesty-is-the-best policy way of thinking.
“It was a lesson to me. Politics is about putting your best side forward, but I got a lot of ugly sides, and I realized real quick that it’d be bullshit to hide ’em. My son-of-a-bitch nephew, Roland, I knew what he was doin’. Like I said, I drink a little, and pretty soon he was askin’ questions about my sex life and puttin’ a didgeridoo in my hand, and I went with it.
“I mean, a guy like me? I smoke a pack and a half a day, I got type-2 diabetes and a little heart disease. I decided then and there that I’d tell the truth about everything. What do I have to lose? How much time do I have left? I mean, fuck it. I did the right thing.”
Besides generating dozens of one-liners that fans quote with the same sort of glee with which they trade lines from “Anchorman” or “The Room” (“I’ve got the biggest dreams and the strongest hands in this god-damned state” is a favorite), the five-minute video’s attracted quite a bit of attention beyond web video portals. Roland took the film to the SXSW Film Festival, and Saturday, he’ll travel to the Nashville Film Festival. And last week, Rock Candy (arktimes.com/blogs/rockandy) debuted “Dwight David Honeycutt,” a campaign song of sorts (sample lyric: “Dwight David Honeycutt / he’ll be our money slut”) by 10-Horse Johnson, a Little Rock/LA-based group that’s had a lot of success on Sirius XM.
Meanwhile, Dwight David himself has been spending a lot of time on Facebook, where he’s fully embraced truth telling. In late March he updated his status with, “Dwight David Honeycutt sees Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s mouth moving, but all he can think about are them tit-tays. Who’s with me?”
On Friday, Dwight David makes his first public appearance with “Dwight David Honeycutt’s Sweet Tea Party” at Juanita’s. There’s no real campaign at this point, he said, but the people still want to hear from him.”
“The folks that have taken to the video, they want to know what I think about things — politics, whatever, so I guess I’ll tell ’em. And there’ll be some local bands and that kinda thing. And sweet tea.”
The musical line-up’s pretty stout. 10-Horse Johnson will make its Little Rock debut. And Ditto for Bigleg, who recorded the music for “DDH for CSB” and specializes in his own brand of twisted country (Dwight David says his favorite is called “Mule Tit”). Familiar names round out the bill. There’s recent Showcase winner Brother Andy & His Big Damn Mouth, Times’ entertainment guru JT Tarpley’s band Frown Pow’r and 607 (another past Showcase winner) and his brother Bobby.
“I was hoping to get some weird shit, too — fire-eaters and contortionists,” Dwight David said. “But you’d be surprised how few freaks there are in Central Arkansas. I mean, we got no shortage of fuck-ups, but none of them have gone pro yet.”
Visit Rock Candy for a longer interview with Dwight David Honeycutt.
“Dwight David Honeycutt’s Sweet Tea Party”
Friday, April 16
9 p.m., Juanita’s. $5