Greetings, kids, how are you doing? Welcome to the Phile for a Monday. So guys, the president's former campaign chairman just plead guilty to crimes including Conspiracy Against The United States, and it sounds like a pretty big deal. Probably because it is. Paul Manafort, who was recently found guilty of eight felonies, entered a guilty plea in a D.C. court, staving off a new trial and likely igniting hell from Trump's Twitter fingers. Not only did Manafort plead guilty, he also entered an agreement to cooperate with Muellers Avengers of prosecutors, scoring a lighter sentence for spilling all the tea he knows. As summarized by Natasha Bertand in The Atlantic, here are a few things that Manafort will likely talk to special counsel Robert Mueller about.
Trump's lawyers have already had to fix their statement on the matter. They said, "The President did nothing wrong and Paul Manafort will tell the truth"... taking out the truth part because that is very much the problem. The truth just might implicate the president. The White House, on the other hand, is going with their tried-and-true strategy of straight-up lying. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that the crimes he's guilty of have nothing to do with Trump, but according to the indictment, Manafort did crimes throughout the campaign and the year 2017. Pundits and regular people on Twitter are celebrating this massive flip as the worst news for the Trump family/administration (what's the difference?) yet. The schadenfreude is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Despite his recent engagement, Justin Bieber hasn't been seen having fun in public in months. Don't get me wrong, it's not that he owes us a smile every time the paparazzi follow him around the streets of New York. It's completely understandable that he'd rather keep a low profile. It's just that I'm starting to miss the old, mischievous Bieber of a few years ago. Thankfully, Jimmy Fallon has coaxed some serious smiles and laughter out of the Biebs by getting him to join Fallon for a prance around Central Park in mullet wigs and goofy mustaches. The two pranksters twirled, bopped, and cha-cha'd around the park for what looks like hours. Heres a screen shot of those two knuckleheads...
There are children among us who outsmart adults, and I find them both inspiring and terrifying. Are they covertly planning a takeover?! When I reach my later years will squadrons of kids be roaming the streets as our overlords? Time will only tell, but it's undeniable that they are the future. With the true gumption of a future leader, 10-year-old Hannah-Marie Clayton decided to pen a letter to Kelloggs when she noticed a gender imbalance in the Coco Pops slogan. While the chocolate flavored cereal has long used the slogan "loved by kids, approved by mums," Clayton thought it made antiquated assumptions about moms while also completely erasing dads. Good point. Since Clayton's mom is frequently traveling for her work as an airline cabin crew leader, it's her dad that prepares breakfast. The slogan, while inane enough, enforces the idea that moms are always the ones home with children in the morning... which is increasingly less true. Also, Clayton noted that some kids don't have moms and the slogan could make them feel left out. The letter read, "I feel that quote is sexist, men are also able to make breakfast. My dad does it a lot for me because my mum works away a lot and is not always there for breakfast. I would recommend instead of putting 'mums,' put parents or carers. It would just mean a small change. In this world today we shouldn't just rely on women." Kelloggs was very receptive to Clayton's letter, and decided to change their slogan "loved by kids, approved by parents." "We have now changed the wording on our new Coco Pops packs to say 'approved by parents'," a Kelloggs spokesperson said. "We agree with Hannah-Marie, dads love to have Coco Pops too." Clayton is in pretty great company consider the fact that the beloved Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle also challenged sexist advertising as a young girl. I'm gonna go to the supermarket later and see what it says on the boxes over here.
Paul Guadalupe Gonzales has to be among the worst matches in the history of online dating. Gonzales was recently arrested for dining and dashing on at least ten women at upscale restaurants around the Los Angeles area. The Dine-and-Dash Dater faces 10 counts of extortion, fraud, and petty theft and could face jail time. The 45-year-old would reportedly meet women online and ask them out on a date at an expensive restaurant. He’d then tell his dates to “order anything on the menu” while helping himself to steaks and downing glass after glass of expensive wine. One of his victims, Martha Barba, explained her date with Gonzales to the New York Daily News. “I didn’t want to go. He didn’t look like his pictures. I wasn’t attracted to him,” Barba said. But she went out with him anyway to be “nice.” “He kept saying, ‘I got you. Order whatever you want. It’s on me. Don’t worry about it’,” Barba said. “He ordered steak, wine, salad, just whatever you could order.” Then he got up to take a call and allegedly never came back, leaving Barba with a $120 bill. “I felt embarrassed and didn’t want to say anything... I felt humiliated,” Barba told the court. Another one of his victims, Yolanda Lora, told a similar story. “I remember he was talking really fast and eating really fast and then said his youngest son was calling him,” Lora said. Then he got up to take the call and never came back. “What kind of monster does this? I was so embarrassed. I’m not an insecure woman, but it made me feel very insecure,” she said. “I’m just glad he got caught. I don’t want any other women to have to go through that.” Gonzales has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces up 16 years in jail.
As "reported"on the Phile last Thursday, Herald Sun cartoonist Mark Knight has become the target of outrage for a picture he drew of tennis players Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. The cartoon features Williams acting like a huge cry baby and smashing her racket while Osaka asks the umpire, “Can you just let her win?” Knight has come under fire for depicting Williams with exaggerated African-American features and Osaka... who’s Japanese and Haitian... as a blonde. The cartoon was inspired by a U.S. Open match where Williams racked up three violations in the second set of her loss to Naomi Osaka. Williams got into an argument with Ramos, saying that she wouldn’t have been given the violations if she was a man. Knight claims the cartoon has nothing to do with race. He has since deleted his Twitter account after receiving death threats. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling took to Twitter to criticize Knight for his cartoon.
The tweet has received over 139,000 likes and 30,000 retweets. Rowling believes that a white male athlete wouldn’t have been criticized for such an outburst. This isn’t the first time Rowling has come to Williams' defense. In 2015, she hit back at a troll who insisted that Williams was only successful because she’s “built like a man.”
So, instead of doing this blog thing I should be listening to this record...
Actually, I bet that's a pretty funny record. You know, some people are sooo petty. Like this person for example...
Damn! That kinda thing happened once at my job. Do you remember the game "Connect 4"? Well, there's a new version out now...
Hahahaha. That's so stupid. That's as stupid as...
So, there are some protestors that really don't know how to protest...
Haha. If I had a TARDIS I would like to go back in time to the set of Return of the Jedi and find Carrie Fisher in her golden bikini. But... knowing my luck she'll be hugging Warwick Davis and giving him a lot of attention and ignore me.
Damn that kid. Hahaha. So, you know who would do a better job as president? A penguin. Look...
Last entry I mentioned Trump fist pumping on his way to a memorial service at the site of one of the plane crashes on 9/11. When he did that it kinda looked similar to when he and Putin met up...
Hahaha. Have you ever seen the TV show "The Great British Bake Off"? I haven't but I think I might... they're kinda "dirty" on the show...
Hahahahahaha. Haver you seen the new Adidas ad? If not, I have to here...
Okay, so, one of the best things about the Internet is you can look at porn anytime and for free. The problem about that though, if you're a blogger like me, someone might be reading your blog, will get bored and decide to go and look at porn. So, I came up with a greta idea... what about if I showed a porn pic here? But then I thought what about if you're at work or school and are reading the Phile. I don't want to get you in trouble. Then I came up with an ingenious idea. Check it out...
You're welcome. Haha. Okay, here's the pheature where You don't have to be British to laugh at this meme, but it will bloody well help.
Hahahahahahahaha. That should have been a Mindphuck.
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. I will say it's not the name of the movie. Alright, it's important to remember that we're all just little bumbling flesh bags struggling to get there (whatever that means).
Okay, so, there's a law firm here in Central Florida who like to come on to the Phile and kinda plug the firm and tell us what's going on. I really don't know why I have them here, but I do. Here's one of the lawyers who wants to check in with the Phile. Please welcome back to the Phile...
Me: Hello, Bill, welcome back to the Phile. How are you?
Bill Buggerz: I'm freakin' good, Jason. How are you?
Me: Not bad I guess. So, what is the latest case you were on? Anything worth mentioning?
Bill Buggerz: Yeah, I had this client who was a principal at a local elementary school. She is in her mid 70s (at least). She can't retire because she is going through a divorce and would have to give her spouse a portion of her retirement.
Me: Okay? So... what is she gonna do?
Bill Buggerz: Nothing. I told her to NEVER retire so he gets nothing ever! Hahahahaha.
Me: Ummm... then she was no longer your client, right?
Bill Buggerz: Ummm... no. Fuck, man, I screwed up.
Me: Haha. Oh, well, it happens. Anything else you wanna say?
Bill Buggerz: Sure. A dentist in a court trial was orally examined and re-examined by the defense lawyer ruthlessly, to extract the truth.
Me: Ugh. Bill Buggerz from the law form Suetha, Buggerz & Wynn, everybody.
The perfect length of time to be on vacation is eight days. Your health and wellness levels rise rapidly while on vacation, but they peak on the 8th day and return to baseline within you first week back no matter how long you're gone. Because lengthier vacations don't seem to be make a difference, experts say the key to improved overall satisfaction is to take more vacations, not longer ones.
And...
Jesus Christ. Does Trump not believe that 3,000 Puerto Ricans died because he needs to see the long form death certificates? Is deatherism the new birtherism? These tweets are not only delusional rantings of a paranoid madman, but disrespectful to the people of Puerto Rico that the administration left to die. The people Trump accused of inflating the death count are denouncing the tweets... while Republicans are pretending not to have seen them. Here's what the mayor of San Juan, who Trump attacked at the beginning of the crisis, has to say...
While Trump almost exclusively has Bad Tweets, pundits declare this callous disregard for the dead and shrugging off his responsibility to the well-being of American citizens to be among the worst. To help the people still suffering in Puerto Rico: 1. Understand that the deaths are not fake news AND 2. Read how you can help out here: ajc.com/news/national/puerto-rico-still-needs-help-list-volunteer-opportunities-charities/VEq25CB895CTBXZW0TtiIK/
The 87th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...
Ben will be the guest on the few in a few weeks.
Phact 1. Cockroaches can make group decisions. During a study when fifty cockroaches were presented with three shelters that could only house forty of them, they split evenly into two groups and left one shelter empty.
Phact 2. Soviet Navy once deployed dolphins that were armed with syringes loaded with carbon dioxide. Those Soviet dolphins also were trained to attach mines onto ships and were sometimes parachuted out of choppers.
Phact 3. Men and women’s clothes are buttoned on opposite sides because in back in the day in high society, men generally dressed themselves whereas women were dressed by servants. Reversing the buttons on women’s clothes made the job faster and easier.
Phact 4. McDonald’s restaurants on Canada’s east coast have a seasonal McLobster sandwich.
Phact 5. Obesity has created a market for over-sized caskets and families are forced to buy two plots to accommodate them.
Me: Hey, Dave, welcome to the Phile. How are you doing?
Dave: Fantastic. You?
Me: I'm okay. I love the EP, "Last of the West Side Cowboys," Dave. What can you tell my readers about it who haven't heard it?
Dave: The songs are all stories that weave together to make some cool images.
Me: I downloaded the EP from iTunes and really, really like it. How was it putting this EP together?
Dave: Well, I have a band so knocked around for about eight months writing the songs, then I took it to the process arranging them, changing them, moving them around and then there's the studio. It's such pretty standard stuff.
Me: I love the band, Dave, it's very authentic rock and roll. How would you describe your music?
Dave: Authentic works for me.
Me: So, who are the "west side cowboys"?
Dave: They're from western Pennsylvania. It's an interesting story if you Google it.
Me: Okay. So, who are your influences, Dave?
Dave: Springteen, Tom Petty, early 80s bands like the Replacements, the Smithereens.
Me: You have a few other releases on iTunes, which I like. Did you always record and play this type of music?
Dave: Well, yeah, pretty much the same stuff. It feels like I've always been doing it I don't think about it too much, I don't have any plans. I'm not making career moves here, thinking what would sell, what would people want to hear. How can I fit in this niche? I write about what I see and it comes out the way it comes out. I don't think I'll be doing myself a service thinking about doing more than that.
Me: Fair point. So, you're from New York, right?
Dave: I live in New York now, I grew up in Pennsylvania.
Me: Ahhhh. What part of Pennsylvania are you from, Dave? My son lives with his mom up there... not far from Harrisburg.
Dave: Nice. Allentown.
Me: Do you do a lot of shows up there in New York and Pennsylvania?
Dave: Yeah, yeah, New York and Pennsylvania. I grew up in Pennsylvania, I still have fans there and some of my band members live there so I play around there.
Me: What is the music scene like in New York City nowadays?
Dave: I don't know. I don't think there is a music scene in New York City. Frankly there's clubs to play but they're not curated, there's no clubs that have a certain type of music. In the old days people would go to CBGBs or something if you liked punk music, you would go there and you wouldn't have to know who was playing there. These days, the clubs in New York, they shuttle people in and out every hour. A different crowd comes in to watch their friends and then they leave and then a new band comes in and they watch their friends. So, you probably got more a scene in Orlando than we have here.
Me: Maybe. There are a lot of jazz clubs there though, right?
Dave: Yeah, it's great of I was a jazz musician. That's the way it is there.
Me: Do you think it's hard to stand out in New York? If you guys were based here in Orlando I think you guys would have a big following.
Dave: I think these days the game is cutting through the clutter, there's a whole lot of it. Yes, it's very difficult to stand out here. Look, the things that stand out in other places don't stand out here. For an example, if you have purple hair and walk down the street no one is gonna look at you and think that's something special and weird. It's just like in the greater music business... these days it's so democratic. Anybody that has a Mac can go and make an album, and put it on iTunes and Spotify. That's the good news, but also the bad news because that means anybody that has a Mac can make an album, which means there are a lot of bad albums made.
Me: Yeah, like that shitty band Strawberry Blondes Forever. Ha. Just kidding. There's so much new music coming out, I get new music sent to me a lot and there's so many new bands. What's the biggest difference with the music business now than when it was back in the day?
Dave: Well, we would listen to a record from start to finish and it would tell a story, the way the artist wanted to tell a story. These days people don't listen like that. They listen to one song, or they put it on some shuffle thing and it's shuffled up anyway.
Me: That's a good point, Dave. Do you find a lot of people get into your music because it's like a throw back to Springsteen and Tom Petty?
Dave: Well, there's those that will seek it out and we are very glad for them. They got to work hard to do that these days, but hopefully it's worth it. There's certainly a lot of very bad music out there. Rock and roll music, real roots... people who are trying to tell a real a story are few and far between. It's hard to find it.
Me: I love that one of your songs has a saxophone solo, Dave. That's rare, right, for songs nowadays to have a sax solo?
Dave: Yeah. Look, we just do what we do. That's how it comes out.
Me: Hmmm... so, do you think you'll be coming down here to Florida?
Dave: Maybe if we hook up with someone. That's the thing these days, so much of it is artists buying on to tours. If you want to open up for someone you have to pay to do it. So, finding that audience, finding that real grassroots audience is not easy. We have to start with a home base and then we'll spin it. That's the best way to do it.
Me: Yeah, first you have to have a great release and then be on the Phile, so you're half way there. Haha. Dave, thanks for being on the Phile, sir.
Dave: Thanks, Jason. I appreciate it. Take care.
Me: You too, Dave. Come back on the Phile again soon.
That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Dave Goddess for being on the Phile. The Phile will be back on Thursday with director Bo Burnham. Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye.
Not if it pleases me. No, you can't stop me, not if it pleases me. - Graham Parker
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