Schools closed, Tom Hanks, trouble in the big banks, no vaccine, quarantine, no more toilet paper seen. Travel ban, Weinstein, panic COVID-19, NBA, gone away, what else do I have to sayyyyy? We didn't start the fire... Haha. Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Wednesday. How are you? I hope to entertain you and give you something fun to read while you are staying inside. Man, this coronavirus pandemic, daylight savings time, Friday the 13th and a full moon all in the same week... who the hell is playing Jumanji? If you're not social distancing, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Unless your job requires you to be out... I promise you, that selfie with your friends licking each other's unwashed hands on a dance floor is not worth it. Now is the time to stay inside, prevent COVID-19 from spreading and do our part to save the lives of the elderly and the immunocompromised. The goal right now is to flatten the curve.
Speaking of strip clubs... These are unprecedented times and everyone is making due as best they can as we all try to live some semblance of normal lives. Though sports and social gatherings may be ruined for the foreseeable future, thankfully getting a face full of cans is still on the menu. New York-based strip club Die Happy Tonight (aka DHT), which is known for its wholesome, girl-next-door type strippers, is offering FREE virtual reality dances from their performers to help everyone stave off cabin fever. What's the link?! Diehappytonight.com/virtual-reality-access. The physical Die Happy Tonight club requires a paid membership to attend, so free dances coming from such an exclusive club are a fairly big deal. According to the club the virtual reality dances have been in the works for a while, but with everyone suddenly being locked in their homes, this seemed as good of time as any to implement their new digital dance platform. The virtual reality is 360 degrees and transplants the user into Die Happy Tonight’s VIP room, where they will be fully immersed in a strip club experience. The dances are available online, on mobile devices, and on VR headsets beginning Monday for anyone using password “livefree” when they sign up. This feels like an even more diminished version of being a tennis and pool only member at a country club but also, this strip club is for some of the most elite in New York. I’m never going to go to it. I don’t even live anywhere near it. Might as well see what all the fuss is about.
Social media influencers are probably the best evidence that exists to support the idea that humans deserve extinction so, naturally, one of the most obnoxious Influencers you could imagine just gave a metaphorical and performative middle finger to God in the midst of the most frightening pandemic since the Spanish Flu. Sentient attention black hole Ava Louise, who has 19,000 followers on TikTok and 165,000 followers on Instagram, posted an unfortunately successful attempt (that I am, admittedly, aiding with this story) at getting attention to her Twitter that featured her opening the toilet hole on her face and then licking an airplane toilet seat to prove how little she cared about the coronavirus. When asked why she licked the airplane toilet seat, Louise gave Business Insider a couple of serious gems. She was “tired of some bitch named corona getting more publicity than ME.” “It was iconic,” she added. “ALS bucket challenge could never… Period.” She added that “hot blondes” can recover from anything so there’s “no harm done.” “It’s not like the virus can kill me anyway because I don’t use Facebook.” This falls under the category of “so insane it might be fake.” The actual act of licking the toilet aside (which was definitely real), what she said about it afterward is a huge red flag. Most people as savvy as she is in terms of getting attention probably aren’t also that dumb. Maybe? Possibly. But be careful, Ava Louise. We are what we pretend to be. Eventually, you become the character you play and your entire life becomes a bit. So when your “bit” is licking what people’s legs sweat on as they push out some foul airport Chilis meal, you definitely might want to avoid letting that become who you are. But also, even if the quotes are fake, this dumbass still licked a toilet seat and told a huge audience that coronavirus is no big deal, so she’s really already become her bit, if she was ever anything else in the first place.
Poor Kate Middleton, the British media is calling her out. Am I petty for finding this fun? Probably. Is Kate petty for not being openly gracious to her sister-in-law Meghan? Definitely. Last week, Meghan and Harry had a family reunion in the U.K. for their farewell run of royal engagements. All eyes were on Meghan's glamorous wardrobe, and seeing how she'd interact with the Regina George of Kensington Palace, Kate Middleton. Photos from the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey and March 9th show Meghan smiling and waving at them, but the future king and queen seemed to give their counterparts the cold shoulder. Sunday, The Guardian published an editorial called "With Meghan and Harry, Kate reveals she is up to carrying out that vital royal duty… bearing a grudge against relatives," and it hilariously accuses her of being cold: ...blanking rarely-seen family members in a church, in public, isn’t the most civilised example from the Cambridges, future leaders of the family that, according to its own website, symbolically unifies the nation. Some viciously divorced civilians do better than this every week. Moreover, beaming impartially at friends and enemies is not even, unlike the Cambridges, a vital part of their day job. Royals are literally paid by taxpayers to smile and wave. If Will and Kate aren't up for the job, maybe they should pull a Meghan and Harry and bounce?
Tennessee men Noah and Matt Colvin were immoral enough to buy out all of the life-saving supplies in rural areas... and then were stupid enough to give an interview to the frickin' New York Times about it. Colvin was an attempted pandemic profiteer, who according to the Times, "took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from 'little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods.'" Amazon and eBay pulled their accounts for price gouging, leaving the bros with nowhere to sell their stock. Luckily, the Tennessee Attorney General came up with a solution: seize them. Think twice next time you try to try to exploit a humanitarian crisis for personal gain.
If I had a TARDIS I would try and meet Charles Ebbets but I'll probably find him shooting his famous photograph, “Lunch atop a Skyscraper," while perching on the 69th floor of the GE building.
Yeesh. This is his famous photograph if you're wondering...
I don't really know what manscaping is but I think I want this done...
Hahaha. Do you like Hot Pockets? There's a brand new flavor that just came out...
That's funny. So, if you need help washing your hands try this...
That's Foghat's "Live Now Pay Later." Can't find toilet paper? Here's a tip...
So, as you know March Madness is not going on, but instead there's March Sadness. Here's the bracket...
Hahaha. Tensions run high during crises... especially sexual tension. Feeling lonely in the time of social distancing, people have taken to dating apps to entertain themselves during the coronavirus pandemic, and some aren't beating around the bush. Who knew having toilet paper was a turn on?
COVID-19 may be wiped out with 3rd degree burns. Did you see Izod is coming out with their own face masks?
You too can be trendy with an alligator on your mask. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York, here is...
Top Phive Things Overheard About The Coronavirus This Week
5. Let’s be honest, social distancing from a few certain people has been nice.
4. Saw someone wash his hands for 19 seconds... I made a citizens arrest.
3. Coronavirus pandemic diary Day 3: I’ve not had sex in 6 months.
2. Shout out to Gen X, the only generation who can keep our asses at home without being told, the motherfucking latchkey kids, the generation used to being neglected by fucking everyone. We’ll be the only ones left.
And the number one thing said about the coronavirus this week...
1. Before coronavirus I'd cough to cover a fart. Now I fart to cover a cough.
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know, kids. Okay, so, a lot of people (particularly young people) don't seem concerned at all about this virus. Over the weekend, many bars were still crowded across the United States. College students waited in line to celebrate an early St. Patrick's Day while others urged them to stay home and self-quarantine. With that said here is a new pheature called...
So, a friend of the Phile has something to say that he witnessed last night. He's a singer, patriot and renaissance man. You know what time it is...
Good morning, humans. Lot’s of heaviness weighing us down as of late. Myself included. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the latest developments yesterday morning. All my fellow New York Irish having nowhere to pub crawl, no parade, even St. Patrick’s Cathedral was empty except for a few priests saying mass. I began to feel quite morose over our predicament... over the safety and well being of my friends, family and loved ones. Concern over the economic security of those I know, as well as my own. I called my office and found there was a break in the action so I decided to head home to put my feet up with a cup of coffee and listen to some music. As I neared my exit on the parkway, I began to well up with tears in a rare moment of profound hopelessness. That wave that comes over you just before you begin to tremble and grind your teeth. I thought... what if this is only the beginning of a massive backslide into a big tub of shit stew? What if we are... truly fucked? Then something happened that made my heart swell with pride and an overall sense of certain hope. I turned onto my block and saw something amazing... something that could turn the darkest skies blue. I saw that for the entire length of the block that I live on... the neighbors had all put out American flags. Everywhere I looked, I saw a symbol that reminded me of who I am and who we all are. One Nation, Under God, Indivisible. I smiled and remembered something... I remembered that we’ll make it through this... that we always do... because that’s what we’re made of... the toughest substance known to mankind.... the American spirit.
You know I live in Florida, right? Well, a lot of stuff happens in Florida that happens nowhere else in the universe.
Former Florida Democratic candidate for governor Andrew Gillum is named in a police report Friday saying he was “inebriated” and initially unresponsive in a hotel room where authorities found baggies of suspected crystal methamphetamine. Gillum, the former Tallahassee mayor who ran for governor in 2018, is not charged with any crime. The Miami Beach police report says Gillum was allowed to leave the hotel for home after he was checked out medically. Gillum, 40, said in a statement that he was in Miami Beach for a wedding and did not use illegal drugs. “While I had too much to drink, I want to be clear that I have never used methamphetamines,” Gillum said. “I apologize to the people of Florida for the distraction this has caused for our movement.” According to police, fire rescue crews were called to the Miami Beach hotel around 1 a.m. Friday regarding a suspected drug overdose. Police say Gillum and two other men were in the hotel room. “Mr. Gillum was unable to communicate due to his inebriated state,” the police report says. Police say one of the men came into the hotel room and found Gillum and Travis Dyson, 30, apparently under the influence of an “unknown substance.” Officials began chest compressions on Dyson and he was taken to a local hospital, where authorities say he is in stable condition. Gillum, meanwhile, had stable medical signs when authorities returned for a welfare check and was allowed to leave the hotel for home, the police report says. Gillum was the first black nominee in a major political party to run for governor in Florida. He lost narrowly to Republican Ron DeSantis in the 2018 election. Since then, Gillum has mounted an effort to register Democratic voters in Florida and frequently appears on cable news channels as a political commentator. In 2019, the Florida Commission on Ethics found probable cause that Gillum violated state ethics laws when he accepted gifts during out-of-town excursions with lobbyists and vendors and failed to report them. This included tickets to a performance of the musical Hamilton. A settlement of $5,000 was agreed to in that case.
Phact 1. Soil degradation and unsustainable growing techniques may cause the production of chocolate to decline dramatically within the next 20 years.
Phact 2. There are more fried chicken restaurants in South Korea than there are McDonald’s restaurants worldwide.
Phact 3. A woman in France received a rather substantial phone bill of 11,721,000,000,000,000€ (6,000 times the GDP of France itself). The phone company suggested she pay it off in multiple installments and only admitted their error after further pressing.
Phact 4. After being fined by NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle for wearing an Adidas headband because they were not an NFL sponsor, Jim McMahon wore a headband the following week with “Rozelle” written on it.
Phact 5. Most states allow security cameras in dressing rooms, some behind two-way mirrors.
I'm soooo excited about this. Today's pheatured guest is a Canadian actor, producer, comedian, musician, and filmmaker who was an original member of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players on "Saturday Night Live." His book The Caesar. 50 Years. 50 Stories. is the 116th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club. Please welcome to the Phile... Dan Aykroyd!
Me: Hello, Dan, welcome to the Phile. I'm a big fan. How are you?
Dan: I'm goin' to Louisiana, baby, behind the sun, I just found out my trouble's just begun. I'm goin' to New Orleans, get me a mojo hand, I'm goin' to New Orleans, get me a mojo hand, goin' to show all you women, show how to treat your man. Man, your dad and Savoy Brown and Foghat were the best, my friend.
Me: Thanks, Dan, that means a lot. Wow!! You still play the blues with the Blues Brothers, right?
Dan: Yeah, Jimmy Belushi, John's brother, still do the Blues Brothers. He's "Brother" Zee and I'm Elwood, we go out there and we still do it. It's a one and a half hour in my life I don't have to think about anything else but the music.
Me: You still like doing those shows then?
Dan: Yeah, it feels good. It gets the endorphins going.
Me: So, what is one of your favorite bands growing up, Dan?
Dan: The Downchild Blues Band who came together in 1969. They're just beautiful. That band had an incredible influence on my work and my career.
Me: Was John Belushi into the blues as well?
Dan: Johnny Belushi and I were in the 505 Queen Street club drinking a few illicit beers and listening to Downchild. He hadn't really heard them before, he came up to recruit for Lampoon from Second City and he listened to Downchild. He asked, "What's this?" "This is Downchild. A blues band. Johnny, you're from Chicago, you know all about the blues." He said, "Fuck that. I'm into have metal, I'm into Led Zeppelin, I'm into Grand Funk." I introduced him to the blues and by time he got back to New York for "SNL" he had 300 records there. With Paul Shaffer we researched what we were going to put on there first record and we did two Downchild songs.
Me: When was the idea to put the Blues Brothers together?
Dan: It was there, it was that night. Howard Shore was there. the famous music scorer and he said, "You guys should put a band together and call it the Blues Brothers." We went snap, and now 40 something later I still do it. We have 13 nightclubs that are based on the concept, we have two movies out there, ten records. It's an iconic thing people see when they see those two line drawings of the boys, its like General Electric or Harley, its iconic. People tattoo them.
Me: I'm wearing my Blues Brothers t-shirt right now in fact. So, you had Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper in the band. There was no intimidation about that?
Dan: Well, the thing is we would have no Blues Brothers if it wasn't for Steve and Duck, they legitimized us.
Me: How did you get them to be a part of the Blues Brothers?
Dan: They came and said, "These guys, they aren't the greatest vocalists, musicians or singers but they're good front men and they are funny. They are like Wynonie Harris or Cab Calloway, they have that old feel of front men and they can out in front of a band and make people laugh and equip themselves okay to the music that in a way it works." They said, "They're paying tribute, they are paying tribute to the veterans." Steve and Duck knew we were paying respect to the old music. That's why they came on board.
Me: Didn't you guys play the "SNL" after parties as well?
Dan: We used to have a bar and we'd have people in there. We had Bowie in there and ZZ Top, I remember Francis Ford Coppola standing bar one night. All kinds of people came to those parties. Then at 10 in the morning with me pulling the armor over the windows and limousines leaving and I would stumble home and the next week we'd begin. Those were golden times.
Me: Do you feel that you're a musician who reluctantly has to act?
Dan: Well, as Blues Brothers we were like we have to play a musician. So we had to learn something about music and so we took vocal lessons and dance and took harmonica lessons and dancing lessons. We applied our disciplines and skills as actors to it I think.
Me: Do you think some of the greatest performers are actors?
Dan: Yeah, like Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra and Johnny Ray.
Me: You're a big Tragically Hip fan, right? A friend back at work years and years ago introduced me to them. Or maybe that was Widespread Panic. Anyway, of course my favorite Canadian band though is Barenaked Ladies.
Dan: Yeah, I introduced the Hip to the class of 1995 on "SNL." The audience was so excited, they couldn't let me speak there because they knew who the Hip was, they were so excited that and anticipating that was just so beautiful.
Me: Weren't you responsible for bringing the Tragically Hip to "SNL"?
Dan: Yes, I lobbied Lorne heavily to do it, they didn't have much of a presence on airwaves down in the United States, they had a live presence. They played in a lot of bars and a lot of clubs. Every Canadian would come out and see them, they were selling records, some records in the states but I wanted to get them more exposure. I think it helped. It would've been nice to have Good come back and visit that show again.
Me: Gord Downie, the bands lead singer passed away in 2017. Do you think they will ever tour with a new singer?
Dan: Yeah, my advice to the boys. really I don't know, like with Queen, and Foghat and AC/DC when a little time goes past they could find an artist out there who grew up with Gord Downie who can equip themselves with passion, heart and fire to that music and they should find an artist like that. Who could say, "I relevantly take upon me, at least part of the mantel of Gord Downie and go on the road and keep that music alive." There's an artist out there who loves Gord, just like they love your dad. Now they are out on the road, and Zeppelin, John Bonham's son took over, so it is possible. I know of the Hip came to town, backing someone saying, "This is the individual we think can keep the flame and the passion of Gord love, his vision and his poetry, his dancing and devoted..." Wouldn't you go see that show?
Me: Maybe. I never did get to see the Tragically Hip with Gord, but wish I did. But I underhand your point.
Dan: It's valid, the music will never die.
Me: Did you ever see them in Kingston, back home?
Dan: Yeah, I would go home and the played at the RMC at the backside of the hill one beautiful night there, one summer night. They came back for a charity and I saw them there then. I saw them play twice in Kingston.
Me: Were they excited to meet you?
Dan: Well, back then, yeah. I was just as excited to meet them. We have a long friendship now. Johnny and I are great friends.
Me: I think it's cool that you were as excited to meet them as they were to meet you. That's crazy, right?
Dan: Well, I held them in great reverence, man. They're just brilliant, spectacular guitar players, a great guitar band, an incredible backbone drummer and a real poet. I might say a real intellectual at the writing and lyrics and the rest of the band.
Me: Okay, I have to mention Ghostbusters, Dan. You're gonna be in the new one, do you have fond memories of the original?
Dan: Yeah, it still holds up, that picture. Billy's amazing, the greatest comedy leading man in history. I'm here to talk about the Caesar and my book though.
Me: Yeah, we're getting to that. But you had such an amazing career though, sir, and it'll suck if I didn't get to mention some of it.
Dan: We can go on and talk about a lot of things. Doctor Stanley Freeman died last year. You know who he was, right?
Me: I have no idea.
Dan: He was the foremost researcher on Rosweel, and the Canadian expect on UFOlogy.
Me: The study of UFO's?
Dan: Yeah.
Me: This fits into eveything, Dan. The next question I was going to ask you about Ghostbusters wasn't about Ghostbusters. Your dad wrote a well regarded book about the history of ghosts, your grandfather was a telephone engineer who explored contacted the dead though radio technology, your great grandfather was a spiritualist himself, ghosts are your family's business. You mentioned an UGOlogist. What got you guys going on the supernatural? Do you have any idea?
Dan: My great grandfather was a dentist in Kingston and at the turn of the century, from the 1840s to the turn of the century in America there was a search for a new religion, some religions have failed in Upstate New York. Protestantism had gone through there, Mormonism had gone and people were looking for something to believe in. There was the Fox Sisters from Hydesville, New York produce a spirit. And basically they communicated with the spirit and it rapped and moved tables and they finally did an excavated of the basement in their little cabin in Hydesville, New York and found a body and identified it as somebody who had been murdered and buried in the basement. My grandfather was the investigator in Kingston, if the Fox sisters came through town with their act or a medium or a seer or a psychic or a precipitated painter, that's where a painter sits about five feet from the canvas and waved his or her fingers and an image appears on the canvas without any visible paint. He was the guy who would bust the hoax. He would say, "That one is not genuine." Or "he's a genuine medium." He kept journals of all his experiences. So this is like my great grandfather, then his son was a software engineer and my dad passed it on to me.
Me: And you did Ghostbusters...
Dan: I based it off his research all lying around the house. Instead in the summer in the summer cottage it wasn't National Geographic or Life magazines it was The American Psychic Research Journal or Fake Magazine. So I was reading all of these and I basically read an article about quantum physics and parapsychology in the farmhouse one afternoon I decided I'm going to do an old school ghost comedy like Bowery Boys, Abbott and Costello and I'm going to marry all of the technology and all the vernacular of all the research that has been done in the paranormal world to that comedy concept. That's basically where the idea came from.
Me: Has your belief in the supernatural ever been challenged?
Dan: Well, I've gone to places where they told me that there's quite an active presence and nothing has appeared. But no, with the supernatural, the invisible world, the paranormal are very much at work in our world. Very much now you'll see media is dependent a lot on this content. I love this T&E channel, Travel & Entertainment where they go to haunted hospitals, haunted asylums, haunted prisons, haunted hotels, and haunted structures. They do a great job because they have real research on who these apparitions might've bee, who is materializing. My dad's book, A History of Ghosts is the definitive piece on mediumship and ectoplasm materialized and apparitions. You should interview him. My dad is there in Kingston at 98-years-old and his book sold quite well when it first came out. Okay, can we talk about my book and the Caesar?
Me: Hahaha. Sure. So, you love the Caesar, right?
Dan: Yeah, it's a distinctively Canadian thing. It's funny, in the states nobody knows about it.
Me: So, what is it?
Dan: It was invented by a guy named Walter Chell in Alberta, and he had the vongole sauce pot pasta as an inspiration with clam juice in there. The only way to make it, a Caesar, is with clamato juice, then they married it up with the Newfoundland product the Crystal Head. The skull has this beautiful clean fluid in it, that's why the clamato mixes so well with the Caesar because there's no adjective in the Crystal Head, it's just beautiful vodka from Newfoundland, peaches and cream corn from Chatham, Ontario with no glycosides, no terpins, no sugar so if someone is a bartender or a bar chef at home and want to make a drink they're going to add all kinds of stuff anyway why not start with a blank canvas and that's Crystal Head.
Me: Okay. I'm guessing the Caesar is like a Bloody Mary, which sounds... never mind. I won't say.
Dan: Maybe.
Me: So, what are the ingredients to make a Caesar?
Dan: Of course a really clean vodka, Motts clamato as necessary, Motts clamato rimmer, they make some very great rimmers, Worcestershire sauce, a celery stick, some kind of food in there to stir it around.
Me: Nah. I'll pass. Hahaha. So, what are the three influential people go into making "Dan Aykroyd."
Dan: Well, that's easy.. My dad Peter, my mom Lorraine and my brother Peter Jr. We battled through years and decades together, formed each others characters. My brother was always so supportive of my comedy and vice-versa. And my dad said, "Just go out and follow your dream." My dad and mom supported me in whatever I ever did when I left university. My mom was disappointed but my dad knew this was the thing to do so they formed me.
Me: That's nice. Dan, thanks for being on the Phile. Please come back again, sir.
Dan: I will. Thank you, Jason.
That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to my guests Laird Jim and of course Dan Aykroyd. The Phile will be back tomorrow, the first day of spring with the one and only Sheryl Crow! Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let alligators and snakes bite you. Stay the fuck inside. 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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