Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for Sunday. Happy first day of Hanukkah. On this first day of Hanukkah, I wanted you to know that I know it's the first day of Hanukkah. It is, right?
In a better, less exhausting world Ocasio-Cortez wouldn't have to deal with these older politicians badly trolling her. But since we live in hell, it's refreshing to see her put them back in their place. We are clinging to the energy and hope that Ocasio-Cortez and some of the other newly elected female politicians are bringing. We need progressive fighters in Congress.
The world of professional sports is one of the public areas that has progressed the least when it comes to gender politics. Not only are women fully left out of professionally playing some sports (football, major league baseball), their leagues are often underfunded and promoted... and male athletes often exclusively project their mentorship towards young boys. The bias towards boys in the world of sports starts early on in seemingly small ways... such as who the coolest sneakers are sold to. The 9-year-old basketball player and avid fan Riley Morrison was understandably disappointed when she realized her favorite NBA player Steph Curry's Under Armour Stephen Curry sneakers were only available for boys. So, rather than give up or be sad, Riley decided to pen a letter to Curry requesting the brand sell it in girls sizes as well. Her letter did a great job expressing her plight while also noting how much she loves Curry as an athlete, and that she knows he supports women and has two daughters. This expression of faith made the world of difference, because Curry penned a letter back that he posted to Twitter. Curry shared that he'd be working with Under Armour ASAP to get the shoes in girls sizes, and that he'd be sending her a special pair as a gift. He also hinted at a special upcoming launch for International Women's Day. Riley's dad soon wrote back, thanking Curry for the response and gift, and people on Twitter couldn't help but love the wholesome exchange. Hopefully this exchange inspires Riley to use her voice whenever she sees inequity, in the meantime she'll have some fresh kick.
It's the most wonderful time of the year, when you literally can't buy anything without having to listen to holiday songs blasting in the store. However, if you're doing your shopping in Cleveland, you probably won't be hearing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" because a radio station has officially banned it. The radio station Star 102 announced that they will not be playing the jingle this holiday season due to the problematic lyrics, which are especially apparent in the #metoo era. The song has been deemed a "date rape anthem" as it is essentially about a man not understanding the concept of no, and trying to convince a woman to stay with him even though she keeps protesting. Excuse me while I aggressively roll my eyes. Some of the "worst" lyrics include, "Say, what's in this drink?" and "I ought to say no, no, no. Mind if I move in closer?" Radio host Glenn Anderson made a statement about the contents of the song, noting how terrible they are. Somehow, I think we'll all survive without listening to this one song. "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Foghat exists, after all.
Y'all know the NRA? Of course you do. They dominate the conversation about gun control... or lack thereof... in the United States because, simply put, they oppose it. You won't be surprised to learn they have similarly conservative views on kneeling in silent protest during the National Anthem. NRATV tweeted about taking a knee on Friday, conflating support of the military with unequivocal support of the country itself. Hmmm. Interesting take! At least one veteran disagreed, vocally and publicly... and he wasn't alone. Steve Kiernan served in Iraq and took the NRA to task. Then the entire organization tucked its gun-wielding tail between its legs and slunk away, we assume. Firearms can't protect you from white-hot BURNS. Side note: I am so, so scared of firearms, fire, and most other things. I stay inside, where it's safe. Anyway, plenty of fellow veterans spoke up and responded to Steven's tweet. To see vets from all over the U.S. find each other in this thread and collectively criticize the NRA.. .I'll be honest: it brought a tear to my eye. I love this stupid, idiot country. Kudos, Steven, for your service to the United States and your fire tweets, two things that are equally important. Just joking.
For many, the holidays provide a season to be jolly. But for Melania Trump the holidays provide yet another time to express her general blood thirst for her enemies, and the general public her husband's administration is actively oppressing. If you were a fan of last year's terrifying White House Christmas decorations, then you'll be relieved to know that Melania has fittingly continued on her horror-themed decorating streak in 2018. A new video shows Melania wandering around to reveal the 2018 White House Christmas decorations as she inspects the ominous display dead-eyed. While some of the decorations are par for the course... snowy white lights and well ornamented trees, the video also displays an alarming hallway full of BLOOD RED TREES. Folks, this isn't satire, this is truly what bubbled out of Melania's soul in preparation for the holidays.
A LOT can be said about these trees. Firstly, they present us with a clear visual metaphor for the violence of the Trump administration. Secondly, the deathly tone confirms many of the whisper theories about Melania wanting desperately to escape her life. Or conversely, her silent love of murder. The video's brief shot of an ornament bearing Melania's anti-bullying phrase "Be Best" feels more like a quickly scrawled threat within the context of a blood red forest. In Melania's defense, I am glad she's found this outlet through which to express her blood thirst. It would be even more dangerous for the country if she decorated with beautiful, lush green Christmas trees and let her inner demons fester in silence.
I was thinking, instead of doing this blog I should be listening to this record...
Ummm... maybe not. Sometimes times people got their asses saved by a total stranger. Not all humans are the worst. Like this man who wasn't going to leave his neighbor trapped in the snow...
Do you like dogs? I do, but some dogs could be such jerks.
Hey, he just wanted to taste it. If I had a TARDIS I would go to try and meet astronaut Vladimir Komarov in 1967 but knowing my luck it'll be after he fell from space...
Yeesh. Have you seen the movie Bohemian Rhapsody? I did and liked it but I wish they would have shown when Freddie Mercury was on "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire." You don't remember that? I'll prove it to you...
Hahahaha. I know, that's stupid. That's as stupid as...
I told you just now about the White House Christmas decorations, but there's one thing I didn't know... there was a Star Wars theme.
Nice. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York... by the way, let's take a live look at Port Jeff, shall we?
Looks nice, right? I wish I was there. Anyway, here is the...
Top Phive Reasons Why You Can't Win
5. If you put a woman on a pedestal and try to protect her from the rat race, you're a male chauvinist. 4. If you stay home and do the housework, you're a pansy.
3. If you work too hard, there is never any time for her. If you don't work enough, you're a good-for-nothing bum.
2. If you buy her flowers, you're after something. If you don't, you're not thoughtful.
And the number one reason why you can't win is...
1. If you're proud of your achievements, you're up on yourself. If you don't, you're not ambitious.
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. So, I heard from a local teacher who is having a bad time of it. She wanted to come on the Phile and tell us what is going on. So, here for the first time is...
Me: Hello, Ms. Laststraw, you're very pretty. How are you?
Ms. Laststraw: I had enough, Jason. No one gets it... The life of a teacher can be frustrating as hell. From dealing with parents to keeping kids in line, it's a super stressful, no to mention underpaid, occupation. That's why I wanted to come on to this blog and tell everyone that.
Me: I see. I get it. Is there anything that is bothering you lately?
Ms. Laststraw: I had a severe ear infection and temporarily lost my hearing for three days. Tried to push through it for the first day but realized that not being able to hear the thirty 9-year-olds in my class made teaching them pretty difficult. I took two days off and sent highly detailed plans to the supply who was covering me. This was the only time I took off for the whole year. I return to work to no less than ten complaints. Apparently my sick leave was "incredibly selfish" as having a different teacher for two days was "very confusing" for the poor darlings, who couldn't cope. The head teacher backed me up and told them to, respectfully, fuck off but that was very much the last straw. I'm bending over backwards working weekends and evenings for you and your kid but you can't afford me a little human decency? I'm out.
Me: Don't quit, Ms. Laststraw, I'm sure you'll be fine. I think you deserve a medal like all teachers.
Ms. Laststraw: Thanks, Jason.
Me: You're welcome. Ms. Laststraw, the teacher that wants to quit, kids.
Bananas are curved because they grow against the pull of gravity. They start off hanging downwards, but as they get bigger, they start trying to grow upwards to get more sun and end up having a curved shape.
June 12th, 1924 — November 30th, 2018
Read my lips: No new breaths.
If you thought Trump could get through the G20 summit in Argentina without embarrassing himself on a world stage, you must have forgotten who the president is. The Internet is ablaze with the news of Donald Trump confusing Argentinian President Marci by leaving him hanging on stage after a quick handshake, and then apparently muttering "get me out of here" as he wanders off. Is he... okay? Is Trump losing his mind or is he just acting like a child by bailing on an event because he simply doesn't feel like being there? It's truly a toss up, as both of those options are completely plausible. Either way, the moment was hilarious. The U.S. president just "bye Felicia'd" the president of Argentina, but not in a cool or sassy way. Just in an embarrassing, mildly concerning way. At the end of the day, what's truly important here is that Trump's hands looked really small as he waved to the crowd while walking off the stage.
Hahahaha. Hey, a magician friend wants to tell us how the show went this weekend. So, here once again is...
Me: Hey, David, how are you doing?
David: Okay, Jason. What a show it was.
Me: What happened?
David: I was performing at a wedding reception and a particular group of guests were not only super drunk but also incredibly high. They made for the easiest spectators ever, with a little careful audience management: genuine conversation... "Is this your card?" "Uhh... I don't remember." "Yes, it is." "Whoah! That's amazing! Wow!"
Me: Hahaha. Well done.
David: Yeah, I had the best magic audience imaginable.
Me: That's great. Good luck on your next show, David.
David: Thanks. I'm gonna do a trick with a tent and a bear suit this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.
Me: Terrific. David Coppafeel, the world's worst magician, kids.
Phact 1. When filming Blues Brothers with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, Carrie was often drunk and did so much drugs that even Belushi was warning her that she had a problem.
Phact 2. In 2010, Bank of America wrongfully foreclosed a couple, who sued and won a judgment for $2500 in legal expenses. When BOA didn’t pay the couple showed up at the bank with a moving company, a deputy, and a writ allowing them to start seizing furniture and cash.
Phact 3. In 2009 Irish police found they had more than fifty motoring offenses recorded for someone called Prawo Jadzy. It turned out that Prawo Jadzy means “driving license” in Polish.
Phact 4. The King of Norway is 73rd in line to the British throne.
Phact 5. Vin Diesel made a cameo appearance in Fast and Furious F: Tokyo Drift in exchange for the rights to the Riddick franchise.
You know what's never been recalled because of E. coli? Vodka. Today's guest is the founder of
Tito's Vodka. Please welcome to the Phile... Tito Beveridge.
Me: Hey, Tito, welcome to the Phile, sir. How are you doing?
Tito: I'm great, great to be on the Phile.
Me: Okay, so, I'm not a vodka drinker but I have to tell you a story. Last year in November I was having dinner at a hotel's restaurant in Miami with members of Foghat... my dad used to be in the band, he was Lonesome Dave. Anyway, Roger Earl, Foghat's drummer, asked the bartender for a drink with Tito's vodka and the bartender said they were out of Tito's. Roger said pretty out loud, "How could you be out of Tito's? It's an American vodka!" Then he started shouting, "Tito's! I want Tito's!" I never heard of Tito's before that. What was really funny was there was an advertising card on the table for Tito's. Haha. Anyway, here you are. So, where are you from, Tito? Texas somewhere, right?
Tito: That's a great story... love Foghat. Yeah, San Antonio, Texas.
Me: Before you started making vodka, Tito, what did you do?
Tito: I'm a geologist and geophysicist. I graduated college in 1984 just before the decline of the old business and I worked for an oil business, got laid off, had my own company and went broke. Then I was a data processor, then ran dynamite crews in Venuzeala and Columbia. I came back and had a drawing company and went broke. I went to Austin, worked for an environmental company then a mortgage company.
Me: Damn. That's a lot of odd stuff. So, how did you start making vodka?
Tito: I started making vodka for my friends for Christmas presents. I went legit and ultimately went all over Texas then up the mid-west, the east coast, the west coast, and now we're all over the place. Except for a restaurant in Miami it seems. Haha.
Me: Okay, but why vodka? No one just says, "I'm gonna make vodka for Christmas presents."
Tito: Haha. I was looking for a career change because I was selling mortgages for about a year. Rates went up a couple of points and just creamed my business. I thought okay, what now. I went home from a party and this guy on PBS was talking about a Ben Franklin list. Try to figure out what your passion is and what to do with your life. You take a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle, on one side you put what you want to do and on the other side you put what you're good at. I wrote the list and thought it'll be so much fun to be in the hospitality business. Either at a distillery or a liquor store or restaurant or hotel or resort, I said that's just perfect. I recommended it to anybody who is trying to figure out what to do with their life. Make a Ben Franklin list and write what you love to do and what you're good at.
Me: Before we moved to Florida from England my mum made us do a similar list, a pro and con list of why to stay in England and why to move to Florida. Florida won. It's a moot point as we were gonna move back to the states anyway. So, what is different with Tito's vodka compared to other vodka?
Tito: It's made from 100% corn, it's gluten free and its distilled six times.
Me: Yeah, I read that. Why six? Is that the "magic" number?
Tito: Well, I tried with five times and then six times... I had a bottle that had been distilled five times and a bottle that had been distilled six times. My friends all picked the six times, then six and seven and couldn't tell the difference and thought I was tricking them. So I just stopped on six.
Me: Is it weird to see something you created all over the place, Tito?
Tito: I'm so used to it now but it's really incredible to go out and actually see something that could be something of a figment of my imagination. Here are twenty years later the hot brand and I brought it from just an idea, working by myself in a one man distillery. People told me I'm crazy but I just stuck with it 'cause it's my passion. The last six or seven years it just started picking up steam. It's so incredible, it's so satisfying.
Me: Do you get to meet fans of your vodka?
Tito: Yeah, I enjoy going out and meeting people who enjoy the brand. I love hearing stories about it and stuff, like your Foghat story. It's just a pleasure.
Me: So, I just discovered not only do you make vodka but you wrote a play called This Side of the Dirt. What made you decide to write a play, Tito?
Tito: My marketing director Nicole Portwood, had a theater in Austin. I went to a play and I was just blown away. It was better than half the stuff I've sene in New York, how was possible? She said there was all these great actors in Austin. A lot of them have been working out in L.A. and New York, they started having kids and they didn't want to raise their kids there so they came back to Texas and moved to Austin. So, there's a plethora of talent there. She said I was a creative guy... I write songs and I paint, she said, "Why don't you write a play? We'll just get the actors to read it." I was like cool, and can invite some friends and have some cocktails and she was like yeah. It started out as that simple idea. I was recording it on voice notes on my phone went I was going to work, or if I thought of something funny, just record it. I had thirty different voice notes and I would kinda fill them in, renumber them, A,B,C them and stuff, then I sat down after a few days and wrote it all out and it turned out to be a really funny play.
Me: When you were writing it what were you thinking?
Tito: My whole thought was if I had somebody sitting in a chair and didn't have a big budget to fly people for "Spider-Man" and stuff. Everybody is just A.D.D. these days with phones and stuff I had to write something entertaining and keep them engaged. I basically thought what are all the things that could happen to a normal person, the most emotionally charged things that could happen in a normal persons life. Then I just had all these characters go through all that stuff and it ended up being pretty funny.
Me: Did you do any acting yourself, Tito?
Tito: Yeah, I was one of the Jets in a high school version of The West Side Story. I was the one turning the wrong way during the dance moves. It was not my forte I assure you. It was a lot of fun. Basically I dated a girl in high school who went to a different high school and all my buddies dated girls that went to our high school. All the girls joined the senior play and talk to my buddies and said they weren't going to see them for several weeks if they don't join the play. All my buddies joined the last second, and I went up and sang "Hello Dolly," and got a part as a Jet.
Me: So, you would rather write a play than be in it?
Tito: Yeah, I did not have the bug. I do enjoy the whole play writing. The thing is really interesting to get to make people say what you want them to say and stuff. Think what you want the to say and stuff, take these castor characters that I grew up with and bring them to life. I invited a bunch of my friends from San Antonio, they came up and watched it. They came up to me afterwards thinking every character was their mom, dad, or their brother or their sister. I think I pegged it.
Me: Okay, so, the play was made into a film. I have the poster to show...
Tito: Well, I understood the play thing because I do public speaking and it's just me up there in front of an audience of several hundred people. I think that's what I relate to on the play thing, but this movie thing I don't understand it at all. I don't know if it's disagenerrous or fabricated, it's shot out of order and cut together and stuff. My brain doesn't work like that, but I talked to Ty and said, "Look, man, can't we just get some iPhones and record the play in a house and then it'll be like a movie?" He was like, "Man, you just don't have any idea." Ty never directed a play before but he directed bunch of movies before and he was like, "So, now you're getting into my territory. You have to get the lighting right, you have to get the sound right, or else it's just not worth doing it." I gave him an ultra low budget and at first I was going to give him three days to film the play and he was like, "Dude, some films take like two years to make. At least I need sixty days." Well, we negotiated to the point and he got seven days out of me. So, we shot the whole feature in seven days.
Me: Where was it filmed?
Tito: It was cool, we got this really great house, Mrs. Jane Sibley's house in Austin, she is a 93-year-old who ran the symphony for fifty years. She has this most eclectic school house, and she let us use her house, it was the perfect place for it. Once the word got out we were trying to do a full feature movie all of a sudden Richard Linklater's assistant director shows up and said, "I heard you're trying to film a feature film in seven days, I don't think it's possible but I like to be a part of it." He came on and the next thing I knew some of Taratino's cameraman showed up and said, "We're here, we know you're trying to film a film in seven days, we don't think it's possible but we love to be a part of it." All these people showed up at the last minute. We got it done and it really turned out to be a cool, fun project.
Me: Well? Did you like the film?
Tito: At first I didn't. just because I like theater so much better. But then as we kept dialing it in, keep cutting on it and stuff, parts that were dragging we kept shortening it up and shortening it up, then finally of a sudden I was like wow, it's there. It's like carving something out of marble or ice or something. We kept chipping away then all of a sudden we were like wow. At first I didn't care for it at all but now I'm real proud of it.
Me: The film was put into film festival, What was that like?
Tito: You can imagine it's pretty bizarre to go from a lonely vodka maker to sitting there with my own show at a film festival. Getting up in front of people and talking about it and showing my film at a film festival was great.
Me: So, now what are you gonna do with the movie?
Tito: It's available on Amazon Prime to see right now, maybe Netflix soon.
Me: Cool. Tito, best of luck to you, I am gonna try some of your vodka soon. Thanks so much for being on the Phile, sir. Please come back soon.
Tito: Thanks, Jason, I will. Tell Foghat I said hello.
Me: I will. Take care.
That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Tito Beveridge for a cool interview. Okay, this is fucking cool... the Phile will be back on Thursday with Neil Patrick Harris! Yup. How cool is that? 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
No comments:
Post a Comment