Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Monday! How are you? Congratulations on having your Christmas decorations up before I've taken my Halloween decorations down. Did you have a good Halloween? Next Halloween is on a Saturday, with a full moon and we set our clocks back that night. Halloween 2020 ain't messing around. Well, it's another day, another dispiriting development from inside Trump's White House. Halloween is a BIG day for kids... finally, adults encourage them to run around in costume and eat candy... so the White House recognizes it with celebratory events. Trump threw a party commemorating the spookiest holiday, but it's incited controversy (surprise!) thanks to one activity. Yahoo! News reports that children were told to help "Build the Wall" of paper bricks featuring their names. Yikes! Although many attendees were members of Trump's actual administration, some guests were not pleased. "Horrified. We were horrified," said one anonymous guest. Note to Trump: next year, stick to candy and costumes and leave the tricks to actual children.
In 2019, white people should know better than to wear someone else's culture as a costume... on Halloween or otherwise. It's not a complicated principle, but it keeps tripping us up for some reason. Could that reason be systemic racism? Probably! One commenter criticized Normani (whoever that is) for the opposite reason recently, claiming that as a black woman she shouldn't have dressed as Cher for Halloween. Here's a pic her...
Yeah, I know... it's nonsensical. But as luck would have it, Hailey Bieber spotted this comment and responded in true Baldwin fashion.
Okay, maybe she she didn't swear or scream (ALL CAPS) at any point, but I'm attributing that to her newfound Christianity. Sorry, Marta, but you got schooled. Mrs. Bieber got you in her cross hairs and delivered an education for the ages. Now that that's settled, let's focus on Normani SLAYING this interpretation of 1970s Cher glamour. Simply stunning.
If you know anything about Ryan Reynolds... besides him being Blake Lively's husband and the owner of Aviation Gin... then you know he loves trolling. Ryan's never made a friend he wouldn't lovingly mess with, and Robert Downey Jr. is no exception. The two stars are competing in a fantasy football league for charity and their rivalry came to a head yesterday on Instagram. The Iron Man actor taunted Ryan in a post, saying, "I’m not a smack talker. I’m not gonna say, Ryan eat my pigskin' or any of that stuff. Honestly, I’m praying for ya. I wish you the best of luck. We’ll see ya on the field my brother. We’re all in this together." So far, so good. But he signed off with "Eat me." In response, Ryan rose to the challenge... and took it literally. He had made and ate a cookie with Robert's face on it. It's not the first time Ryan's publicly trolled a friend, but it might be one of the most memorable ones.
Oh, Ryan. We excitedly anticipate the next time you take things too far for a good cause... especially if that cause is making fun of another famous actor.
Tomi Lahren, Fox News host/pumpkin spice latte full of knives, used Halloween to do what she does best: get people to pay attention to her by inciting controversy. Recently, her preferred form of attention-seeking seems to be feuding with Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. For Halloween, Lahren posted a photo of herself in a wig and AOC's signature glasses, holding the Communist manifesto. Tagging the Congresswoman, she wrote, "I decided to dress up as the person who scares me most. The Democratic Dimwit Darling, socialist-loving, freedom-hating, former bartender herself."
I'd point out the problems with Lahren's costume, but scores of other people on Twitter beat me to it. AOC fans are responding to Lahren taking cheap shots at the Congresswoman with shots of their own. Many people are criticizing Lahren's decision, like so many other members of the GOP, to drag ex-bartender AOC for the crime of having had a working class job. Pretty hypocritical for a member of the party that claims to represent "working Americans." And Lahren herself could stand to do some "work" herself. Although people are digging up evidence that she has, in fact, had a real job before. Others are pointing out that Lahren does have reason to be "scared" of the Congresswoman. While others think she chose AOC as a costume simply because she wanted to look "hot." Meanwhile, AOC dressed as Rosie the Riveter and spent Halloween fundraising in the community where she grew up in the Bronx. She didn't respond directly to Tomi's costume but she did retweet this reply addressing Tomi's dig at her for being a former bartender, "Being a working person in Congress makes me better at my job. I can’t tell you how many members don’t know what it’s like to be uninsured, or have to choose between rent and a prescription. GOP seem to think that being born with a fancy last name is a personal accomplishment." Classy, calm and correct. No wonder the GOP is scared of her.
Ivanka Trump's latest public display of affection for her father has hundreds of people quoting Thomas Jefferson, which is more for American history education than anything Betsy DeVos has done (but it's still not as much as Lin-Manuel Miranda). The House of Representatives celebrated Halloween by scaring Donald Trump with the passage of a resolution formally authorizing the impeachment inquiry. Even though the White House itself released a memo of Trump pressing the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, they're continuing to pretend that that's a made up conspiracy theory. Ivanka, an adult woman with free will who chooses to be a part of this White House as it cages children, is leaning into the "fake news!" defense in her own special way. She posted a quote from Thomas Jefferson lamenting Washington's lies, with a cheeky shout out at dad.
The tweet inspired two distinct but equally effective types of mockery. On the one hand, Donald Trump is no Founding Father (he is neither eloquent nor does he hate monarchy). On the other hand, they do have some things in common (racism, rape).
So, instead of doing this blog thing maybe I should be listening to this album...
Actually, I wish I had this album for real! Come, come, come and make eyes at me down at the Old Bull and Bush. Da, da, da, da, da, come, come, drink some port wine with me... okay, I'll stop. So, on the Halloween entry I forgot tis how a pic... well, I had way too many anyway. So, I will show it here... the joke is Fred Gwynne wasn't the first actor to play Herman Munster. Someone else played him in the pilot...
Hahaha. So, a month ago or more at the Global Climate Strike there were signs that gave us hope for the future...
And some snarky ones as well...
So, if you know me you'll know my usual "costume" is a t-shirt, shorts, flip flops or Converse. But I'm thinking of changing up my look. How is this?
Think I'll look good dressed like that? Haha. If I had a TARDIS I would probably end up in Portugal with a large fish on my back like this poor bastard...
And I don't even like fish. If you're thinking of cheating on your loved one you might wanna think twice after seeing this...
Yup. So, you know I live in Florida, right? Well, there's stuff that happens in Florida that happens no where else in the Universe. So, once again here is the pheature...
The pageantry of Halloween costumes is usually a delight. Ghosts, zombies and now Donald Trump, are among the scary costume offerings that are popular during this All Hallow’s Eve. But politically... themed disguises in these charged times are not always crowd favorites. If you insist on masquerading as Donald Trump, well, best of luck to ya. Whether someone takes offense over choosing to be Trump or they take offense over what they consider mocking Trump, it’s a minefield unless you know the crowd. A man in Florida wore a Trump mask and got punched in the face by a teenager who had thoughts about the President. What they were, for or against, is unclear. The incident took place on Saturday at the Collier County Fairgrounds around 8:30 p.m. The struck man claimed he was standing in line for the Naples Haunted Gross House exhibit with his wife and step-daughter when the 14-year-old girl approached him, unprovoked, and jabbed him in the jaw. The girl’s friends recorded her clobbering him, and the Collier County school system said the video was allegedly posted on Instagram. According to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office incident report, the man alleged “she laughed and ran back to her place in line.” The man said he asked his slugger why she struck him and told her that he was “with my family here to have a good time.” He then found a worker on the fairgrounds and asked to report the incident to the police. The New York Post reported that the assailant was escorted from the fairgrounds and faces a misdemeanor charge of battery, pending an investigation. While any sort of violence should not be tolerated, some online tried to justify her actions. A campaign to release her began. Others found her allegedly unprovoked attack reprehensible. Divided we stand. Regardless of opinion, Florida’s reputation endures. The girl’s identity remains undisclosed as she is a minor.
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Okay, so, it's 2019, right? Well, there's this going lady who thinks it's still the 90s. I have no idea why, don't think too hard into it. Anyway, she is here and wants to tell us what she just bought. So, please welcome back to the Phile...
Me: Hey there, Emily, how are you?
Emily: Totally tubular, Jason!
Me: Great. So, what do you have to show us?
Emily: Look at this!
Me: Uhhh, yeah, it's a pen where you can pick different colors. I used to have one in school.
Emily: Sure you did! One kid in my class though they were so cool with their "iPhone" thing but I was like, so what, this pen has six colors!
Me: I'm happy for you. That it?
Emily: Yup! All right, I got to dip. See ya later.
Me: Emily Enistink, the girl who thinks its the 90s.
A helper on the farm.
Yep, the Phile will be back from Walt Disney World a week from this Friday. That pic of Pooh is a clue of who the guest will be. All right, so, there's this guy who claims he's the toughest man in the world. I really don't think he's that tough, but I won't tell him that. Anyway, I wondered if he had a job so I thought I would invite him back and ask him. Please welcome back to the Phile...
Me: Hey, Martin, welcome back to the Phile.
Martin Masculinity: If you say so.
Me: So, do you have a job? If so, what do you do?
Martin Masculinity: I work in a grocery store and sometimes help unload the delivery trucks and our delivery comes in on what we call cages, like a 6 foot cage on wheels and obviously one that's full of toilet paper will be really light and one filled with 2 liter bottles of juice are the heavy ones.
Me: Ahhh, okay. Is that fun?
Martin Masculinity: No. The lift that lowers them from the truck has that patterned metal floor and you have to pull the heavy cages hard to get them off.
Me: Ahhh. So, I doubt I'll be able to do that...
Martin Masculinity: There's this little man, who os like 5 foot and he doesn't have a lot of weight on him but he can pull these cages off just fine.
Me: That's good. And you? I bet it's easy for you, right?
Martin Masculinity: I'm like 6'2" and is always like to show how strong I am, so whenever the little guy is helping and I'm there I always insist I get the heavy cages and that he get the "little guy cages."
Me: Well, that's good I guess.
Martin Masculinity: Yup. I'm the toughest man there. I have to get back to work.
Me: Okay, have fun. Mastin Masculinity, the toughest man alive, kids.
The 108th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...
K.K. will be on the Phile in a few weeks. Now for some...
Phact 1: A reckless neurosurgeon in Texas killed and paralyzed several patients over 18 months in spite of many formal complaints of his malpractice by fellow neurosurgeons.
Phact 2: All life on Earth today is descended from the 4% of species that survived the Permian mass extinction, which occurred 248 million years ago.
Phact 3: Male victims of domestic violence who called the police for help were more likely to be arrested themselves, than have their female partner arrested
Phact 4: Facebook’s first annual Hacker Cup coding challenge was won by a Google programmer. He showed up at Facebook headquarters to collect his prize all while wearing his Google employee badge.
Phact 5: The song “Deep in the Heart of Texas" was banned by BBC during working hours on the grounds that “its infectious melody might cause wartime factory-hands to neglect their tools while they clapped in time with the song.”
This is so cool, guys! Today's guest is a Phile Alum whose most recent album "In the Blue Light" is available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify. Please welcome back to the Phile the one and only... Paul Simon!
Me: Wow! I never thought I'd have you on the Phile once, sir, let alone twice. How are you doing?
Paul: Good to be back, Jason. Thank you.
Me: So, since last time you were here you have released a new album called "In the Blue Light," which you redo some of the obscure songs from the back catalogue. How did you pick which songs to redo?
Paul: Different ways. A few suggestions like "Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy," my son Adrian said I should do that. "How the Heart Approaches What It Yearns," that was Edi said to do that. I wanted to do "The Teacher" again. I wanted to do "Darling Lorraine." "Pigs, Sheep and Wolves," that came from Wynton Marsalis. "Love" and "Questions From the Angels" I would give Bill Frissell about six songs and asked which of these would he feel like he would enjoy playing. He'll pick it and we'll just go and play. With the other players, like Sullivan Fortner who plays piano on "Some Folks Lives..." and "How the Heart Approaches...," I would say take the song and play it as he'll like to play it. I'll figure out how to sing it with his arrangement. Instead of him thinking about arranging it around my voice I'll think about arranging my voice around the piano.
Me: Paul, it sounds like you are having a lot of fun on this record. Am I right?
Paul: Yes, I'm glad it sounds like I'm having a lot of fun.
Me: For those that don't know, where did these songs come from?
Paul: Well, most of these songs are really were done quite a while ago. Three of them come from "You Are the One" album which was recorded in 2000, some of the songs are from the late 70s or early 80s.
Me: Why did you chose to redo these songs now, sir?
Paul: It was an interesting project that I could enjoy. I haven't written any new songs in several years. I don't know whether I'll write again or not.
Me: Why not? You're amazing songwriter!
Paul: It's not a question of why not, it's a question of whether I'm compelled to write. I could write a good song. At this point I know enough about songwriting. I won't write a bad song. But that's not the same as saying I really feel like writing a song that I express something that I have on my mind musically or lyrically. I have nothing really knew to say that I think would be appropriate for a song format. Most of the stuff I'm thinking about I don't think needs to be expressed in a song.
Me: Does it feel different revisiting the older songs than revisiting the newer songs?
Paul: No, not essentially. Because the songs that I picked, they don't particularly have a date attached to them. The songs that are dated I'm not doing them.
Me: On the final tour did you do any of these songs live?
Paul: Well, I wasn't doing these songs either except I had put "One Man's Ceiling..." into the live show a few years ago. Otherwise I really haven't done any of these songs except maybe once or twice. They've been either too difficult to do live or well... usually it's that. I've made some attempt but it hasn't been satisfying and having made them any better than they have been made in the studio. So I didn't do them live. They go away and they're replaced by sort of a large catalogue of known songs that people want to hear and people want me to play, especially if I'm playing in larger places. I feel like people are entitled to hear the hits. So these songs are relatively obscure. Most of them are either ballads or mid-tempos so those are tougher to slip into a show that ends towards rhythm, tunes and famous ballads.
Me: I read that there was an extra verse of "The Boxer" that wasn't recorded. Is that true and did you think of putting that on this record?
Paul: No, I didn't do that but I did record a real nice version of "Sound of Silence" which I didn't put on the record, but I have it.
Me: Really? What didn't you add to it?
Paul: I didn't add to it, I'm just singing the way I've been singing it for the last eight or ten years. It's completely different from the recording, the original recording for sure. Maybe some other ones, and I thought maybe I should document that and yMusic is playing with me, so that's the accompaniment with my acoustic guitar.
Me: Why didn't you put it on this album, Paul?
Paul: Because all of the songs that are on the album they're much more obscure than "The Sound of Silence" which is one of my most well known songs.
Me: I like the original version of "Can't Run But" from the new album. It sounds so different from the original version off the "The Rhythm of the Saints" album. What do you think the main difference is?
Paul: It's a bit faster than the one that we did. Again it's not a song I played much because the arrangement is complex. I didn't have Uakti to play it. When Bryce Dessner did his arrangement for yMusic it's exciting. Really, the arrangement is better than the song. I did it with them a year or so ago. I did about ten songs with yMusic when he played a festival in Eau Clair, Wisconsin. So that was one of the ones that worked with an audience.
Me: So, when you did these songs for the new album did you listen to the original versions first?
Paul: No, I didn't listen to the original versions. I remembered them, I didn't need to listen to them. What happened was the arrangement was dictated by the choice of musicians. If I was going to work with Bill Frissell, I gave Bill Frissell a choice of songs, he picked a couple, we went into the studio together and made a new version of the song. I didn't listen to the older ones. If it was "Can't Run But," well, I'm not sure exactly how that worked because the music chose Bryce and he listened to the original and then rewrote an arrangement based on the original. That's so interesting to me, that's really like world music at it's best. The original was Uakti as a group, from Brazil and Bryce is living over in France now and he's American and is a composer of classical music and a rock and roll band member. So we're combining cultured and it comes out to be a very, very interesting hybrid. Each one if these things is it's own individual case, if it works it's great, if it doesn't work then... I have a couple of songs that I thought didn't work and I didn't use them.
Me: So, I listened to the original versions as well as the new versions to compare and I noticed some of the lyrics are different, such as in the song "Love." Why the change and what do you want people to take from the updates?
Paul: Some of the songs, like in the case of that particular one, I just thought it was a better of saying pretty much the same thing. But I prefer the other choice. I guess I never was totally comfortable with "we're not important, we should be grateful." The other one is indisputable, we're just here for a nano second and then we're gone. So that's just an exchange that's not really affecting the meaning of the song but at the end of the song "Love" I do change the words and change the meaning. The same is true at the end of "The Teacher," which I thought originally didn't explain what my point was and left it with an ironic explanation that you had to infer the meaning. It wasn't clear and so to make it clear I don't follow gurus blindly, don't do this because they have a tendency to be egomaniacal and that is dangerous to me and everyone else. That wasn't really clear the first time when I ended the teacher.
Me: You added a really long sentence, Paul... I wanna quote it... "The teacher is buried under rubble stone and the wind reads his words at last, deeper and deeper the dreamer of love, sleeps on a quilt of stars." That's quite a line to add, Paul, don't you think?
Paul: Well, thank you. It's better, it says it more clearly than the first time.
Me: What about the changes in the song "Some Folks Lives..."?
Paul: The same thing is true. I thought was a really interesting song but the last verse didn't really pay off correctly. It kind of reiterated what I said in the first verse. There was no new information so the song didn't feel like it was "peaking." So I went to change it just to make sure it had some more intensity and to have a point. Simply by removing, I said this for years, the ear goes to the irritant. Simply by removing the thing I don't like and replacing it whether with silence or something that's an improvement is quite an improvement because one I'm losing something I don't like and replacing it with something that is better. If I'm lucky enough maybe I'll replace it with something that is significantly better, in which case the song takes a significant jump. That's what I relied to do on about four of these songs. Some of the others I would change a line or two. Either it just felt better to sing it or made it fresher or I thought it was funnier.
Me: This is rare I think for a musical artist to redo their songs, and change their lyrics. Do you agree?
Paul: I think most artists if they were given the chance would go back over their work. They do. They go out on the road and they play the song and they may have spent a day or a week working on a song in the studio and they'll finally get a take where they'll say that's good, let's keep that one. Then they go out on the road and play the song for six weeks and they'll sing it completely differently. Playing is differently is probably better, so I think most artists given the opportunity could go back over their work and say they could have done this line better, and if offered the opportunity they'll change it. Of course the other thing is maybe they don't make it better, maybe they'll make it worse.
Me: Haha. True. My favorite band changes their songs all the time, which is cool. Last time you were here you were in the middle of your last and final tour. I wanna say you announced it here on the Phile, but I know you didn't. Haha. How did you know this was the time for your farewell tour?
Paul: I just know. It's one of the funny things. I don't want to playing past the time when I could be performing at peak, or near peak. Since I'm basically playing a repertoire of about thirty or thirty-five songs, some of the ones, the older ones, even though I've changed the arrangements constantly over the years at a certain point I arrive at a point where I say, well, that's just as good as that arrangement should be. To change it would make it worse. So I'm playing the same music all the time and at a certain point, even though it's what audiences want, it takes its toll on musicians. I'd become like a Paul Simon cover band. So nobody wants to do that. Not the people that I play with anyway and I don't want to do that. Of course, first of all, I could always change my mind and say I was wrong, I have to go back because I miss it. I don't think that's going to happen. The other way is to announce it and focus myself on what it means to sum up a career or to sum up a a certain group of songs and say this is the final way that I'm presetting this song. This is the way it's evolved after all the years and I'm satisfied with this... this version. The other thing is I realized time keeps moving and these things are inevitable and to the small degree that we could control them, I think it's worth controlling it. I could have an element of grace to a conclusion and I think that's a privilege.
Me: So, is it weird that you stopped performing?
Paul: I don't think I've stopped performing, I'm just stopped touring. I'll play some shows in a year, not really as many as I would have, but some. Instead of playing them in arenas I'll play them in an opera house and give the money to the causes that I'm interested in, that I think need the money and need attention. Do some good in that way, change the repertoire like I did with this album, and play songs that I haven't played before, with musicians that I haven't played with. I certainly could imagine doing music with yMusic again. The same goes with Bill Frissell, Sullivan Fortner or any of those people.
Me: Yay! You heard it here first, kids. Hahaha. No more arena shows though, right? Glad you're not stopping playing completely.
Paul: Yeah, I do think it's okay to not do "You Can Call Me Al" at the end of an arena show, even though I enjoy doing it. But, you know... It's been thirty years. You know, that's enough. I just say, that's it, that's it, that's enough. I don't want to play until I'm just sick of it.
Me: Sooooo... last time you were here someone in your camp said do not mention Art to you. Haha. I will say it's crazy that you played arenas and Art Garfunkel played at a small theatre in Homestead, Florida. It's crazy how your two careers went two separate ways. I'm rolling the dice,,, when was the last time you spoke to him?
Paul: I haven't talked to him in about nine years now.
Me: Okay, cool. Paul, sir, thanks for being on the Phile again, this was so cool. Please come back on again soon.
Paul: It was good to be back here, Jason, I enjoyed it. Thank you.
That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Paul Simon for coming back on the Phile. The Phile will be back on Friday with Sarah McLachlan. 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
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