Pheaturing Phile Alum Fran Strine

Hey there, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Saturday. How are you? So, there are few individuals more intensely feared and targeted by alt-right trolls and aging white male GOP politicians than newly sworn in Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Fearful conservatives have been clamoring to take the millennial politician down, and their desperation has lead to some pretty doltish trolling tactics. Through it all, Ocasio-Cortez has taken things in stride... ignoring the unwarranted hatred when it suits her back, but also clapping back when necessary. The latest form of desperate trolling came in the form of an adorable video of Ocasio-Cortez dancing in college. The video shows her doing a choreographed dance in a promotional video, and it's very sweet and wholesome?! They can't even try to slut-shame her for grinding because there's nothing salacious about this video! Needless to say, the attempt at trolling backfired and only made people like Ocasio-Cortez more. In fact, to make things even better, Ocasio-Cortez made a short video responding to the attempted take down. Rather than actually engaging with the desperate attacks on her character, she made a tongue-in-cheek video of her dancing to "War" (what is it good for) with the caption, "I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous. Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too! Have a great weekend everyone!" This is truly the best way to respond to the absolute insanity of dredging up an adorable college dancing video as an insult attempt. The more the GOP comes for her, the more likable and relatable she becomes to the rest of us.
It's impossible to live through adulthood on this spinning dirt ball planet without finding yourself irrationally hangry (when hunger marries anger) at one point or another. To a truly hangry person, even the mere sight of a delicious sandwich that's not on their plate can incite a world of rage. But even so, most of us haven't violently threatened strangers and gotten ourselves arrested over our querulous lust for a bagel sandwich. That is, unless you're 24-year-old Edilberto Burgos who was arrested Thursday on charges of second-degree assault and second-degree menacing after he freaked out over a bagel. As can be seen in a viral video footage, at the beginning of December Burgos terrorized the deli worker Sanjay Patel, of Hi Mango Flushing Avenue Deli in Bushwick when he was told there would be a 5-10 minute wait for his bagel sandwich. Like a demon possessed child just denied some candy, Burgos' hanger immediately escalated when he started screaming and banging on the deli counter: "Make my cinnamon raisin toasted bagel with bacon, egg and cheese RIGHT NOW. Right fucking now! Make my shit right now!" The initially ridiculous interaction escalated to full-fledged violence when he started throwing objects at Patel, which led to bruises and swelling and a trip to Wyckoff Hospital. At the time of the altercation, Burgos fled the scene and jumped into a car. However, less than 24 hours later he was apprehended by the police. While there's certainly nothing funny about Patel being brutalized by a deeply disturbed man, people online couldn't help but notice how bonkers it is to go off this hard over a bagel. It should be noted that this man not only is prone to violence, but he ALSO orders breakfast sandwiches on cinnamon raisin bagels, which is an act of violence towards the institution of breakfast. Hopefully, Patel is able to feel a bit safer returning to work knowing that Burgos has been arrested, and the rest of us can feel assured that our hungry tantrums have never reached this level.
On Thursday, the 116th Congress was sworn in, and made history. The new Democratic House majority has a record-setting number of women, including the first two Native American women and first two Muslim women to serve. On the Senate side, 2% of United States senators are now named Tammy and 2% will be named Kyrsten. And 50% of all Senate Tammys and 50% of all Senate Kyrstens are LGBT. The openly bisexual Senator Kyrsten Sinema was sworn in by professional homophobe Vice President Mike Pence, and the experience was as devastating for him as it was exciting for her. Senator Sinema opted to be sworn in with her hand on the constitution, rather than the bible, which is the only book Pence has read. She also goofed about her lack of spouse, looking at the traditional Spouse Spot and joking, "Could we get a spouse? Just kidding. Just kidding." People across America feel seen, and are imagining that Mother Pence had an aneurysm.
Paul Ryan is sooo 2018. Nancy Pelosi is the new Speaker of the House. Action star Nancy Pelosi is here to kick ass and pass legislation. The new Congress has officially been sworn in, and you'd think President Trump would be excited to see a younger, hotter, more female Congress. Much to Trump's chagrin, however, the new House of Representatives has a firmly Democratic majority, and Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House, has officially been elected the second female Speaker of the House. Caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries kicked off the memification with what is presumably the first ever Naughty by Nature reference on the floor of the House of Representatives, declaring Democrats to be "down with NDP!" The new era is here.
So, I don't know how last year was for you but I bet it was better than Roseanne Barr's. Much like how Facebook's insidiousness became harder to ignore in 2018, it became impossible to pretend that Roseanne Barr is not not a total nut. Barr posted a racist tweet about former President Obama's senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, a black woman, calling her "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby." Yes, it's offensive beyond her total disregard for the laws of capitalization. ABC canceled her eponymous show, saying, "Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values." Rather than take responsibility for her own stupidity, Barr blamed her racism on having been on Ambien, which prompted a rebuke from the pharmaceutical company behind the drug. Big pharma... welcome to the resistance. The show must go on, however, and the Roseanne reboot rebooted as "The Conners," killing Roseanne off with a drug overdose. Let's hope it wasn't Ambien.
Some people are so dumb they made the entire Internet face palm in 2018. Check it out...

When the old ten tits get you down. There were some clapbacks at MAGA trolls that made the Internet great again in 2018.

Bullseye. If I had a TARDIS I would go to 1931 and try to meet Albert Einstein but knowing my luck I'll get to Berlin and won't be able to talk to him as Robert Williams Wood, Max Planck and Einstein would be in the front row of a session of the Physical Society in Berlin.

The lady in the third row is staring into my soul! Haha. So, how are your neighbors? I hope they are better than the person who made this sign...

How are your kids doing in school? I hope they are as creative as the kid that did this...

So, if the 116th Congress members looked were emojis it would look like this...

Hahahahaha! That's so brilliant. It was certainly a big day for Nancy Pecongresscongress Today Todaylosi...

Oh, CNN... hahaha. Now for...

Mike Pence breaking up gay marriage of refugee and U.S. citizen.

If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. So, there's this inventor that likes to come on to the Phile every now and then to tell us what are some of the inventions he's working on. So far that he told us has not been successful. Well, he has a few more thins he's been working on and thinks finally he is on to something. So, please welcome to the Phile once again...

Me: Hi, Mak, welcome back to the Phile. Happy New Year.

Mak: Happy New Year, Jason.

Me: So, what have you been working on?

Mak: Well, I know you interview a lot of musicians here so I thought I'd invent something for them. So, how about drum sticks for pianos?

Me: Uhhh... they would be piano sticks, and that's dumb.

Mak: True. How about bulletproof clay pigeons?

Me: Bulletproof clay pigeons?! What's the point?

Mak: They wouldn't get ruined.

Me: Ugh. Any more, Mak?

Mak: Yeah, I have one more... a wind powered fan.

Me: That might... work? Hmmm. That'a the best one out of the three... maybe.

Mak: Okay, I'm gonna back to my lab. I'll be back soon.

Me: Thanks, Mak. Mak Asterborus, the world's greatest inventor, so he says, kids.

Bob Einstein 
November 10th, 1942 — January 2nd, 2019
And for our first famous person who died of the year... a fake stuntman. AWESOME.

It's 2019, and you know what that means: 2020 has officially begun. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (and the #EndCorruptionNow hashtag) has announced her exploratory committee to explore whether she should run for president, and President Trump is looking forward to engaging with her on the issues. Haha just kidding, he's tweeting petty memes!

The Troll in Chief doesn't even make his own memes, and ripped this one from troll factory The Daily Caller. In what is a likely successful attempt to get the media to define Warren's candidacy not by her policies and vision for the working class, Trump is tweeting about the hullabaloo over Warren's wee bit of Native American ancestry, which he offered her one million dollars to charity if she were to prove. Well, she did, and the whole thing was hell for Native Americans, but Warren is moving on, and alas, Trump isn't. Senator Warren is not impressed.

We've only just begun.

A 7-year-old and his 4-year-old brother are upstairs in their bedroom. The 7-year-old is explaining that it is high time that the two of them begin swearing. When his little brother responds enthusiastically, the 7-year old says, "When we go downstairs for breakfast this morning, I'll say 'hell' and you say 'ass'." The 4-year-old happily agrees. As the two boys are seating themselves at the breakfast table, their mother walks in and asks her older son what he would like to eat for breakfast. The 7-year-old replies, "Aw hell, mom, I'll just have some Cheerios." The surprised mother reacts quickly. WHACK! The boy runs upstairs, bawling and rubbing his behind. With a sterner note in her voice, the mother then asks the younger son, "And what would YOU like for breakfast?" "I don't know," the 4-year-old blubbers, "but you can bet your ASS it's not gonna be Cheerios!"

The 91st book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...

Gary will be the guest on the Phile in a few weeks. I'm scared. Hahaha.

Today's guest is a Phile Alum who is a director and writer, known for the documentary Hired Gun. He is currently working on his next project Who you gonna call? Please welcome back to the Phile... Fran Strine.

Me: Hey, Fran, welcome back to the Phile. How are you, sir?

Fran: I'm good, man.

Me: So, so, you are working on a new documentary film about Phile Alum Ray Parker Jr. Have you been a fan of Ray for a long time?

Fran: Yeah, I discovered early enough Ray Parker Jr. early on in my early childhood a song called "The Other Woman." I liked it because of the distorted guitar. I though okay, this is cool.

Me: You're a rocker kinda guy so were you into any more rock music then?

Fran: Yeah, later I was into Alice Cooper, Kiss, Judas Priest, that's where my love of more of the heavy music came to be.

Me: When did you decide to do photography for music opposed to playing music yourself?

Fran: It was by accident. I never set out to be a photographer or filmmaker or anything, In fact I used to take my camera into concerts just to sneak pictures for memory. After a few years friends would tell me I have a great eye, I'm taking a lot if iconic images and after a few years I started shopping my portfolio around and started getting gigs. The next thing I know I ended up on a tour which I badly wanted to get on because I never toured before. I got on one called Tattoo the Earth in early 2000 and that's kinda what jump started my career.

Me: What was it like being on tour taking photos, Fran? That sounds like such a fun job.

Fran: Well, Tattoo the Earth was an all day festival. The first band would go on at 11 a.m. and my job was to take pictures of all that stuff, plus the activities going on around the festival. It was also a concert and an art festival. Now when I jumped on the Staind tour which I was on for about eight years my job was to go wherever the artist was. I rode Aaron Lewis' bus half the time, the band's bus the other half, because they rode separately. I went to any press opportunities they had, signings, just kinda shadowed those guys with a camera. Just capturing images or film, they kept it and they either created webisodes with it. They all caught on pretty early on the social media angle when record sales started declining.

Me: You also did pretty much the same with Nickleback. How did you go from one band to another? 

Fran: It was all word of mouth. If I could get along with the artists and they had trust in me and I'm not gonna expose anything weird. A lot of is trust and of course my ability. It was funny, I remember touring with Staind and the our ended in Oklahoma and the next day was Seether who in Oklahoma was starting their tour. I was hired by Seether to start that leg of the tour and I was gone for another ten weeks and then it was either Nickleback or back with Staind, we ended up in Tampa and then I went straight to Europe with one of those guys.

Me: People take the piss out of Nickleback and I never hear anybody say anything about Staind. What was the difference working with both bands?

Fran: Well, it was an easy transition. Everybody was cool that I worked with, I don't like to work with people that aren't cool.

Me: When you were on tour seeing every show were there any bands that you thought, man, not this song again?

Fran: Haha. Yeah, there were a couple but I don't want to name any names. Just like anything else, when I'm editing a film or whatever it all becomes white noise after a while unless it's a really cool song that I like and enjoy. Most times when I touring with these guys I do about 150 shows a year. They get burnt on it but know they have to deliver when they're performing live.

Me: You grew up in Atlanta but now live in northern California... why did you move out there? Was it because of a woman? Hahahaha.

Fran: I shot a commercial out there for the tourism board and absolutely fell in love with it. I did date a girl here for awhile, several years ago, and I would come to visit. I thought one day I'm gonna live there and at the time I had the means, I packed up and moved out there and never looked back. 

Me: I'm sure you explained this before when you were here, but I have to ask you... where were you when you got the idea for Hired Gun?

Fran: I was sitting in an airport in Singapore and that was when I was getting weary and tired from touring and I was looking for way out.

Me: How many people did you interview for the movie altogether?

Fran: It took a long time, man, I think we interviewed about sixty people. We had to work around their schedules, because these are working musicians. When I felt we had enough to tell the story we stopped interviewing and went and cut the film. 

Me: Now the movie has been out for awhile on Blu-ray and on Netflix who do people seem to gravitate to the most? I'm thinking Liberty DeVitto...

Fran: Actually it's Rudy Sarzo. I don't care what kinda music the guy played or even if he did play music, he's just an awesome person. He's one of the most grounded people I ever met. He's just grateful for everything he has and I think that's why I got a lot of responses and people just fell in love with that guy. Forget who he played with, he's just a great person and he's an incredible musician.

Me: Library has been on the Phile years ago, and I'm trying to get him again. So, how did you chose who to get? Did you have a wish list? And was that asshole from Filter really on it? Hahaha.

Fran: There was no criteria really. They had to be a musician and a hired guy I wanted to talk to them. I heard people say I don't know these people are in reviews or whatnot and I was like well, I made the movie so you would know who they are. That's the whole point of the movie.

Me: is there anyone you really wanted to get who was the hardest to get?

Fran: Yeah, that was Steve Lukather. Why would he just give the story away, he's probably the most renowned session guitar player ever. I emailed him about four times and he was like, "Man, you seem like a cool dude but I'm sort of saving the story for a Toto book and a possible documentary." But then I got an email from him right at the very end because he say Kenny Aaronoff, Jay Graydon, Ray Parker Jr., and Dave Foster and those were all like his life long friends. They all knew each other since they were teenagers. He was like, "Damn it, now I have to do your movie, man. All my buddies are in your film, when can you get down here?" So I went and spent a few hours with him and his story was just jaw dropping. What a cool dude.

Me: Okay, so, I have been doing interviews on the Phile now for just over ten years... I cringe when I look at my early interviews... I didn't know what to ask... I was like that Chris Farley character on "SNL" when he "interviewed" Paul McCartney. Now all these years later a long time reader of the Phile could probably tell you I'm getting better at this. You were a new interviewer when you started interviewing people for the film, what was that like for you?

Fran: I never felt nervous. I have done documentaries in the past, mostly of making of album type documentaries of the CD's when you buy them, back when they sold CD's. So, I have done interviews before so I don't get star struck. I was a little freaked out when I met Alice Cooper because of my childhood thing that brought me into the music. I don't really interview, it's more like a discussion. It's like having a cup of coffee with somebody. That's my style I guess. Also it helps that I worked in the studio environment and the touring environment for so many years so I know their lingo, I know were to direct them. It just worked out, I felt so lucky.

Me: What was the longest interview you did for it?

Fran: I think the longest was Liberty because I had a week in Brooklyn at his place. I knew that was gonna be a big story because Billy Joel is such big artist and there were so many elements to that story that I needed to get.

Me: Okay, how much footage did you film altogether?

Fran: About 200 hours. I think we did everybody for about three hours.

Me: Alright, so, when I interview someone I do the research a few days or right before the actual interview. That's one person or band at a time. You had sooo many people do to reach on, Fran, did you do it all at once or one after another?

Fran: I did a lot of research before I interviewed a person, no matter how big and small they were. I'll do a week or two on somebody with search and get everything I want in so I knew everything about them, they they probably forgot about themselves.

Me: Damn. Okay, so, with all these people in the film how does Ray Parker Jr. get to be the "star" of your next documentary? By the way, he was just on the Phile recently thanks to you.

Fran: Ray's story fascinated me the most. Most people just think of him as the Ghostbusters guy, right? Little do they know his whole body of work that is just up there with Steve Lukather. I told you this before Steve Lukather told me to my face at a screening at Ray's house, Dude, Ray Parker Jr. is the greatest guitar player that has ever walked the planet. It was a story too big for the Hired Gun film.

Me: When did you realize his movie was gonna be a Hired Gun spin-off?

Fran: Well, its not really a spin-off, it's its own thing. But he just got back from Japan the night before so he was a little jet-lagged and he neglected to tell a lot of the story. When we were doing the Hired Gun campaign, doing film festivals, screening for the Grammy nomination we would accompany me and travel. We became fast friends and I learnt lot more of the story. I was like, "My God, man, he's a movie in itself." He came from Detroit, grew up in the race riots of '57, and would get the beat down by the cops. When he came home from school he wanted to find a way out. He picked up the guitar when he was about twelve years out and became good enough to tour with the Spinners when he was thirteen. He came back everyone was like who's this kid touring with the Spinners, and soon after that Marvin Gaye had him play on all his records. He talked about this in his interview here I am sure.

Me: How did you approach Ray about how own documentary?

Fran: We were on a sixteen hour flight to Australia to do a screening of Hired Gun and we were just chit chatting and I said, "Man, we have to do a movie on your story. People love Hired Gun, they're gonna really love this." There's so many moving parts, so many cameos, one thing is we are gonna do rerecord of some of his biggest hits.

Me: Cool. So, how do you start to do a documentary on him, Fran? I would think this would be harder to do than Hired Gun.

Fran: Well, lucky for me he has kept a lot of archival footage his parents kept for him like photos and video. There's tons of stuff like him playing "Superstition" with Stevie Wonder on "Sesame Street." We just follow his journey, there's stuff not even to do with music. At one point the song "Ghostbusters" became bigger than the movie. The movie studio was kinda freaked out about it. Ray owns that song himself, the publishing, the master and so on, They didn't like that and tried to take it away from him. He was like no way, man, this is my song. They should of negotiated that earlier, because nobody bought soundtracks back then. He was the first one to have a song break out on a soundtrack.

Me: Okay, so, who are some of the people you are gonna interview for this film?

Fran: Of course the guy who discovered him, Clive Davis, Stevie Wonder, Ivan Reitman, lots of cool fascinating people.

Me: So, you are doing crowd funding for this film, right? Where at?

Fran: Indiegogo. Right now I do have a slate of products that are funded but I cannot get to them til late summer, early fall, just because the way things work. In the meantime I wanna get this thing going. I wanna jump start it so I can start it sooner than later and get it picked up because I know it will. So, we're asking for some financing on Indiegogo, and if people do a search on Who you gonna call? there are some really good perks on there. From signed guitars, signed photos, Ray will even sing the theme to "Ghostbusters" for your voice mail, signed DVD's, posters, there's something on there for everybody.

Me: One thing I forgot to ask you last time you were here was the musicians jamming in Hired Gun. Was that your idea or their idea?

Fran: That was my idea. Look, I was not only the director but I was the full time producer on that thing. Producing that segment almost killed me. Everyone of the guys said yes that were in town, the ones that said no had a gig or sessions they were doing. I think we had nineteen musicians there, there's a lot of footage that's not in the film. Other people that were there that we couldn't squeeze in. It was right after NAMM which was fortunate for us which was in Los Angeles. It was a beast of an undertaking. The producer that engineered the music that day was Johnny Kay and he lives in Chicago. He owed me a favor and I called upon him. I helped him get a producer with Megadeth and he did two records with those guys. Three years later I called him on it and told him I want to do an all-star jam at East West Studios in Los Angeles and I need an engineer, producer and mixer. He came in and killed it, man, under so much pressure. All those musicians interchanging, we had two drum kits, and all those logistics were crazy.

Me: Okay, so, what are she of the other projects you are working on?

Fran: I can't really discuss what they are but I will say one of them involves the band Queen and it's pretty epic. The other ones are musicentric but I'm kinda under a N.D.A. but they are some pretty in-line hitters.

Me: If you can make a documentary on anybody who would it be?

Fran: Hmmm... Judas Priest. I met Rob Halford briefly as a fan back in 1990 other than that I've only seen him in concert every time they came through town.

Me: Okay, tell the readers where they can pledge to this Ray Parker Jr. film, Fran.

Fran: Sure. Indiegogo.com/projects/who-you-gonna-call--3#/.

Me: Nice. Fran, please come back on the Phile soon. Good luck with your other projects. Talk to you soon.

Fran: Always, Jason, thanks again.

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Fran Strine for another great interview. The Phile will be back on Monday with Chris White from the Zombies. Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye.

I don't want you, cook my bread, I don't want you, make my bed, I don't want your money too, I just want to make love to you. - Willie Dixon