Bailing Bucket is the blog and podcast that interprets Rhett Soveran’s life—written and performed for you on a somewhat daily basis.

History of the name

I have no memory of how I came across the idea of using “Bailing Bucket”. In 2007, I got a free domain name with my hosting package. I was blogging under a different handle at the time (which we don’t need to talk about) and didn’t need another domain, but since it was free I had to register something.

At first, I imagined bailingbucket.com as a Christian apologetics blog. I had hoped that perhaps I could save Christianity, but that never happened and I never saved Christianity (see Episode 1 of my podcast). That boat went down, more or less.

But as time went on and I retired my previous handle, I started to re-imagine what Bailing Bucket could be and at some point my thinking started to solidify around the idea that “Rhett is here to save you”. I loved this idea because of my initial intentions for the domain, but also because it (1) makes me like Jesus and (2) is entirely preposterous.

And I think a bailing bucket is a particularly stirring image, because a true bailing bucket is only going to help you if there is a small leak. If you’ve got a bigger problem, a bailing bucket isn’t going to do jackshit, so I approach the blog and podcast trying to decide whether or not I can save you (and me) or whether we’re all just going down with the ship.