Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Friday. How are you? In Louisa, Virginia, a town west of Richmond, police have arrested a pair of “melon-heads” in the case of a convenience store robbery. And when I say “melon-heads,” I mean it literally. Look at this shit...
People have gotten awfully creative with what they use for face masks because of the coronavirus, and I guess this couldn’t have been a more appropriate time to get creative with choosing a face-covering to go rob a convenience store. And these two robbers were definitely thinking outside of the box, maybe a little too hard. Louisa Police Department was searching for two shoplifters who had robbed a local Sheetz convenience store. I don’t think anyone was expecting what they saw when the police department had posted pictures of the perps on their Facebook page. The Facebook post (now removed because of the overwhelming responses and police no longer needed information) was calling for help in identifying the two shoplifters who had covered their faces using watermelons. Yes, fully grown, ripe watermelons. These two people had completely carved out watermelons to put over their heads, even cutting out eye holes to see. Then, they drove a black Toyota Tacoma pickup truck to go rob the Virginia convenience store. The watermelon heads were eventually identified, and one suspect was arrested and charged. Twenty-year-old Justin M. Rogers was charged with committing larceny, underage possession of alcohol, and petit larceny of alcohol. Police have identified the second suspect, but have not released more information on that part of the case. Louisa Police Chief Tom Leary commented on the hilarious situation, saying, “I’m in my 46th year of law enforcement. I’ve seen a lot of strange things, this certainly ranks up there with some of the more unusual events for sure.” Well, Chief Leary, you can imagine how strange that looks to a commoner like me. And just a fair warning, if you ever feel so inclined for any reason to use a watermelon as a face mask against COVID-19, I highly suggest you stay away from that path. You might enter a life of crime.
Well, this is certainly a way to get someone’s attention. Turns out a nurse is going viral on social media after she was suspended from the hospital after she arrived at her shift in the all-male coronavirus patient wing with no clothes. Well, she technically did have some clothes on. She had a bra and her underwear, covered by a see-through personal protective equipment and a face mask. You know I'm gonna show a pic of this...
Bold fashion statement if you ask me. Maybe she was going for a swim after her shift? The unidentified Russian nurse told managers at Tula Regional Clinical Hospital that she was “too hot” to wear her clothes underneath the head to toe vinyl gown. The gown is what protects staff from contracting COVID-19. While there were reportedly “no complaints” (of course) from the male patients themselves, hospital chiefs decided to punish the nurse for “non-compliance with the requirement for medical clothing.” Which in all honesty, I get it, this unnamed nurse was almost naked in front of the whole hospital to see. Still, the nurse claimed she didn’t realize that her bikini was showing through the PPE. But, that obviously didn’t work out, and the regional health ministry indeed confirmed that disciplinary sanction was applied to the nurse of the infectious diseases department “who violated uniform requirements.” As to what exactly disciplinary measures they took, well they weren’t elaborate on that, but my guess is a two-week suspension. Who knows, really. The hospital administration had originally claimed that the woman, who is in her 20s, had been wearing lingerie, but then later clarified that the two-piece was possibly a “swimming suit.” As far as the health care worker involved, well she has yet to make any public statement on the incident. I don’t blame her, I would stay quiet if I was in that situation as well. I just hope this woman gets her job back. She’s really changing lives out here!
A Ukrainian man with what is hopefully soon to be a crazy ex-wife found himself going under the circular saw after said lunatic spouse affixed a “chastity nut” to his penis while he was sleeping. The 40-something man, whose name was not released, woke up in pain and realized something was terribly, horribly wrong when he saw the device on his penis, which was swelling. Unable to get the nut... nut, as in, what keeps a screw in place... off of his rapidly swelling member, the man was taken to the hospital. That hospital wasn’t able to do anything either, however. They didn’t have the tools required to get the device off. Apparently butter and a good, hard yank weren’t an option. With no options on hand, the hospital called a Cobra rescue crew who proceeded to use a band saw to saw the metal nut off the man’s penis in what had to be the worst however many minutes of his entire life. By far. Sparks were literally flying off the metal nut and doctors had to pour water on the man’s groin to cool it down. He should’ve just told the doctors to knock him and maybe don’t wake him up if they couldn’t save his penis. Local Ukranian news uploaded the video of the incident. Take a look at this screen shot if you feel like torturing yourself and adding to whatever the opposite of your spank bank is.
My God. As soon as this guy’s penis is fully healed... he’s still recovering in the hospital... he needs to treat himself to a vacation, both to get as far away as possible from his penis murdering wife and also to, just, reset. Start over. Get some much-needed perspective on life. To calm down. He’s earned. Conversely, the wife should be sent to Siberia.
Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli have agreed to a plea deal in connection with their involvement in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal. The actress, known for her work on "Full House" and the Hallmark Channel, is expected to be sentenced to serve two months in prison. The actress will also be forced to pay $150,000 fine and two years of supervised release with 100 hours of community service. The fashion designer, on the other hand will be sentenced to serve five months in prison with a $150,000 fine and two years of supervised release with 250 hours of community service. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Massachusetts, the couple will enter their guilty pleas on conspiracy charges via video conference. There is a provision in the plea agreement to wait 90 days after the federal judge imposes their sentence before they are both sent to prison. Through a press release, United States Attorney Andrew E. Lellings noted, “We will continue to pursue accountability for undermining the integrity of college admissions.” The couple are the 23rd and 24th parents to plead guilty to the case, which was announced back last year. Giannulli and Loughlin were accused of paying $500,000 to get both their daughters into the University of Southern California as rowers. The girls were not athletes, but their application photos showed them on rowing machines. The investigation was quickly dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues” with 50 suspects charged. Authorities found wealthy parents who cheated several college applications and entrance exams to get their children into U.S. elite schools. Several cases involved parents bribing coaches who falsified student-athletes’ histories. One of the cases involved a real athlete’s photo which was manipulated to look like one of the students. Several other parents paid for stand-ins to take entrance exams. The scandal took place between 2011 and 2018 and was spearheaded by William “Rick” Singer who pleaded guilty and helped the FBI investigate the other parents. Singer set up the system where parents would pay cheating services and bribes. According to prosecutors, Singer was sentenced to three years of supervised release by the court in exchange for his lengthy plea deal. Actress Felicity Huffman, known for her work on "Desperate Housewives," also pleaded guilty to her role in the conspiracy, serving nearly two weeks in prison.
Johnson & Johnson has announced it will stop selling talc-based baby powder in the United States and Canada. The company stated the demand for the product had fallen in the wake of what they are calling “misinformation” about the product safety amid a barrel of its legal challenges. The company faces more than 19,000 lawsuits from consumers and their survivors, which claim it’s talc-products cause cancer due to asbestos contamination, which is a known carcinogen. Many of these cases are still pending before a district judge in New Jersey. Through a statement, the company attributed the decline “in large part to changes in consumer habits and fueled by misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising.” On Tuesday, the company noted that despite the lawsuits, they are confident in the safety of all of their products. Speaking with CNBC, J&J stated, “Decades of scientific studies by medical experts around the world support the safety of our product. We will continue to vigorously defend the product, its safety, and the unfounded allegations against it and the company in the courtroom.” Johnson’s Baby Powder represents nearly 0.5% of the company’s total U.S. sales in the consumer unit. The company relaunched its iconic namesake baby product line back in 2018 and J&J’s baby care unit. All those companies have been tested for decades, but the brand has fallen out of touch with consumers, especially young moms, who throughout the years have since opted for more natural products from start-up brands. Last year, the company recalled around 33,000 bottles of Baby Powder in the United States after the Food and Drug Administration stated they found trace amounts of asbestos from a bottle of that was purchased online. J&J came back saying it indeed tested their Johnson’s Baby Powders and found no signs of asbestos contamination. The company will still sell its less popular cornstarch-based baby powder around the world.
High school kids are once again being creative with their year book quotes...
Haha. Do you like Dr. Fauci? Do you like candles? Then if so you might want to get this...
I definitely want it. Haha. Since the COVID-19 mess movie theaters are getting creative with their marquee signs...
Signs that I don't like are those protester signs...
Sometimes panhandlers have witty signs that they hold...
Haha. I wonder how many people gave him a dollar because of that. I was thinking of getting another tattoo but someone had the same idea as I did...
Damn them. Hahaha. At Walt Disney World Disney Springs reopened on Wednesday and already people are getting into trouble...
Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York here is...
5. Lori Loughlin is truly Aunt Becky... and two months in prison ain't shit for what she did; a dime bad of weed gets folks in the hood ten times more than that.
3. Now that Loughlin plead guilty and we've put the college admissions scandal behind us, I'd like to clear the air and point out that I got into Nassau Community College the old fashioned way, by not studying in hifi school.
2. Dear Aunt Becky, see you in two months, we will miss you! Love, your nieces and nephews.
And the number one thing said about Lori Loughlin's guilty plea in the college admissions scandal is...
1. I wonder if Lori Loughlin will ask her for house arrest given the coronavirus. Maybe she pulled to the perfect Karen heist after all.
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Okay, you know I live in Florida, right? Well, there's stuff that happens in this state that happens no where else...
A Florida man was arrested and charged with three counts of indecent exposure in public and two counts of committing a lewd act for two separate incidents in which he masturbated while driving and showed off his “skills” to unsuspecting and uninterested women. Thirty-two-year-old Justin Mosser was driving his gray Mazda down Highway 60 in Polk County, Florida when he got the attention of a woman driving next to him. When the woman looked over she saw that Mosser was naked from the waist down and masturbating. The woman reported the incident, the car, and what the assailant looked like. Not satiated with this cruise and crank, Mosser set out for more. On Highway 27 Mosser again took out his extra stick shift but this time, unbeknownst to him, it was for an undercover female police officer. Mosser was later pulled over by Polk County Sheriff’s deputies and arrested. After his arrest, Mosser readily admitted that he behaves this way often... according to him because his junk gets hot and he needs to air it out. Mosser admitted to masturbating in front of women in front of driving about four or five times prior to the two incidents he was arrested for. According to authorities, Mosser has previously been arrested for burglary, grand theft, criminal mischief, giving a false name to a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest, DUI, leaving the scene of an accident, and driving while license suspended/revoked. I bet driving with the window down and no pants on does feel pretty nice if I’m being totally honest. If I owned a mile-long driveway I might even be inclined to try it. Maybe on a golf cart? But, you know, you’ve got to do that in a private place. You certainly can’t go waving your stuff at people. God bless Florida.
Ashley Tisdale literally had a record called "Don't Touch (The Zoom Song)."
Okay, let's see what's going on in Port Jeff, shall we?
The ferry is there! It's either coming in or leaving. Maybe if I remember I'll check again in a bit. Wait, I think it's leaving. Nice. It's going to Bridgeport, Connecticut. I loved that ferry.
Railing
Upstairs fence
When Sweden is playing Denmark, it is SWE-DEN. The remaining letters, not used, is DEN-MARK. This also applies to Poland vs. Andorra, Bhutan vs. Tanzania, Cyprus vs. Russia and Persia vs. Siam.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to hold up federal funds for two election battleground states that are trying to make it easier and safer to vote during the coronavirus pandemic. He backed away from that threat but stuck with his unsupported claim that widespread voting by mail promotes “a lot of illegality.” The president targeted Michigan with an inaccurate tweet on its voting plans and also went after Nevada in the latest... and the most confused... episode in his campaign against mail-in voting. As states have shifted to remote voting, following health officials recommendations on safety, Trump has denigrated the practice and sought to limit access. He has said repeatedly, without evidence, that mailed ballots allow widespread fraud and has worried publicly that wide availability could lead so many people to vote that Republicans would lose in November. His GOP allies, meanwhile, have fought changes to voting in court and opposed funding to expand mail-in voting in Congress. Wednesday marked the first time Trump has tried to use federal aid money to beat it back. Trump began by going after Michigan, misstating Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s announcement that she would send applications for absentee ballots to every voter in the state. Though Republican secretaries of state have taken this step elsewhere, Trump pounced on the move in a state key to his reelection hopes. “Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. That brought strong criticism from Democrats in Michigan and elsewhere, pointing out that the state was sending applications, not actual ballots, an error the president corrected in a subsequent tweet six hours later. He stuck with the rest of his tweet, “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” Trump later tweeted a similar threat to pull back funds from Nevada, which has sent ballots to voters for its June 9th state primary. A federal judge recently cleared Nevada’s decision to mail ballots, which were sent by the Republican secretary of state. It was not clear exactly what funds Trump was referencing, but the states are paying for the voting changes with federal aid intended to support elections during the pandemic. By Wednesday evening, Trump told reporters he had spoken with Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and did not think funding would have to be cut. “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary,” he said, adding that he stood by his opposition to mail voting. “Voting is an honor. It shouldn’t be something where they send you a pile of stuff and you send it back.” Trump himself has requested an absentee ballot to vote in Florida. Trump’s tweets and statements came the day before he is slated to visit Michigan to tour Ford’s ventilator assembly plant in Ypsilanti. The state is one of three Rust Belt states that helped deliver his 2016 victory. In recent months, it has become a national hot spot for the coronavirus and watched its economy collapse, both factors contributing to what T rump’s advisers see as a shift toward Democrats. The president’s comments appeared to reflect growing GOP concerns that Democrats’ swift embrace of mail-in voting will give them an edge in November. Some key Democratic areas have moved to make it easier for voters to request ballots, while Republican areas have not. And even though Trump’s campaign encourages absentee voting, along with several state Republican Party officials, GOP voters, like Trump, have expressed growing skepticism. Democrats noted Trump seems more concerned about mail-in voting in battleground states and has not threatened Republican-dominated states that are doing the same thing as Michigan. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, an ally of the president, noted Wednesday he’s concerned about Trump’s threats even though his administration approved mailing absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in the state. “I can’t imagine that the president is going to withhold funding in any way to West Virginia; that’s not going to happen,” Justice told reporters. On Monday, before Trump’s Twitter threat, the Republican National Committee sought to clarify its position on vote by mail, arguing that the party opposes mailing ballots to every voter, as Nevada has done, but does not oppose mailing applications, as Michigan did. “I don’t really have an issue with absentee requests forms being sent to voters,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said. On Wednesday, Trump’s threats scrambled that distinction. Republicans’ claims that mailing ballots to all voters creates widespread fraud is not backed up by evidence from the five states that use this method. None has had significant voter fraud cases. The White House referred questions about the president’s tweets to Trump’s reelection campaign. Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh asserted “there is no statutory authority for the secretary of state in Michigan to send absentee ballot applications to all voters”... an argument some Michigan Republicans have also made. Murtaugh did not address whether Republican secretaries of state elsewhere were similarly constrained. The GOP-controlled U.S. Senate has so far stopped Democrats from mandating expanded mail and early voting as part of coronavirus relief bills, arguing that states should make decisions on their own election systems. The battle has largely moved to the courts, with Democrats filing at least 17 lawsuits to force states to expand their programs. Hours after Trump tweeted Wednesday, he sent another message to Michigan. The state is grappling with severe flooding in one county after two dams failed, forcing thousands to evacuate. Three hours after threatening to hold up federal funding to the state, Trump tweeted, “My team is closely monitoring the flooding in Central Michigan... Stay SAFE and listen to local officials. Our brave First Responders are once again stepping up to serve their fellow citizens, THANK YOU!”
There's a man named Ralph that goes into a bar, looking very depressed. A friend approaches him and asks, "Why the long face, Ralph?" "Oh, I'm just bored. I know every person in the entire world now, and there's just nothing left to challenge me." His friend says, "No, you can't know everyone. Do you know Paul McCartney?" He says, "Sure, Paul's an old friend of mine. Here, I'll show you." He took out his phone, dials a number. His friend overhears a British accent, "Hey Ralph, how ya doing?" He talks for a while, but when Ralph hangs up, his friend is not really sure that it was Paul McCartney on the other end of the line, so he asks him if he knows the president. Ralph says, "Sure, we go way back." This time he lets him listen in as he calls a private number. It sounds like the president on the other end of the line, and they go into a big discussion of the current economic scene, and Ralph offers a few suggestions. Drawing the conversation to a close, Ralph wishes him well and hangs up. His friend is a little dumbfounded at this point. "Well, there must be someone that you don't know." He goes over a few more people in his mind, and thinks, 'He can't possibly know the Pope. After all, he's a Protestant.' But Ralph claims to know him, so to convince himself otherwise, his friend decides to fly both himself and Ralph to the Vatican to get positive proof of Ralph's conviction. So they arrive at the Vatican, and Ralph suggests that his friend wait out in St. Peter's Square until Ralph has cleared things with the Pope. He's standing in the courtyard, when who walks out onto the balcony of the private residence, arm in arm with the Pope, but Ralph. Ralph looks down, sees that his friend has apparently passed out, and runs down to see what can be done for him. "What happened to you? Couldn't you accept the fact that I really do know the Pope?" "No, I'd begun to accept that possibility. But what really took my breath away was some stranger standing next to me who said, 'Who's that guy standing there with Ralph?'"
Today's guest is a Phile Alum and is an American rock, R&B and soul guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer best known as half of the rock and soul duo, Hall & Oates. His memoir Change of Seasons is the 125th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club. Please welcome back to the Phile... John Oates.
Me: Hello, John, welcome back to the Phile. How are you doing?
John: I'm good, Jason. Good to be back.
Me: So, your book Change of Seasons is the 125th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club. I know it came out a few years ago, but why did you decide then to release a book?
John: Well, the book came about in a very unusual way. I had been doing a series of interviews with a guy named Chris Epting and every time I'd do an interview he dug depends into my life and he seemed to have a good handle on who I was a person and as a musician. Eventually my story began to unfold in the course of the interviews and he said to me, "Man, you should write a book one day and if you ever want do it I'd like to help you." That's how it started.
Me: I want to write a book about working at Disney for thirty plus years but it's hard to remember everything. Do you have a good memory, John?
John: I had a series of journals that I kept that I written by hand through the entire decade of the 70s and made copies of them for Chris so he could take a look at them. That kind of kick started the project and from there we went into the memory banks and Chris is a great researcher and he has an experience and published a number of books himself, so he kind of asked me through the process. Out collaboration was really good and I'm really happy how we worked together.
Me: I think it's funny you were in a band with Frank Stallone. What was that like?
John: Frank was good, man, He's still playing and singing to this day.
Me: What kinda band were you guys in together?
John: It was a folk rock band, kind of a Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape kind of thing.
Me: When was this?
John: Late 60s and Frank was a real good singer.
Me: So, when did you start to first focus on music?
John: After an amazing trip to Europe I have to say. In the back of my mind I never considered I'd do anything else. I didn't know what I was going to do and I didn't know how I was going to do it.
Me: Okay, so, when did you first meet Daryl Hall?
John: I had first met Daryl in the 60s but we knew each other and were hanging around but we weren't working together at all. It wasn't until I got back from Europe and had basically no where to go and ended up at his house that's when we started working together. So really it was a fortuitous situation and this trip that happened and the circumstances. We can't plan on certain things like that.
Me: Did both of you like the same type of music?
John: Yes and no. We had both similarities with our love of R&B, doo-wop and things like that but Daryl had a classical background that I didn't have and I had a folk and blues background which he didn't have. So we kind of combined all that together.
Me: So, I have to mention the song "Sara Smile" which was your first hit I think. I love that song. Who was Sara?
John: It was some girl that I met in the Village, she was a wacky chick and we met and we were going to get together on New Years Eve and she never showed up. So I just wrote "she's fine" because if she wasn't coming that night she wasn't coming at all. That's kind of where it came from.
Me: So, this summer you were supposed to tour with Squeeze and I was going to see you guys in August in Tampa but then this whole COVID-19 shit happened. Anyway, how do you guys decide who you're going to play with?
John: They reach out to us and we reach out to them, or any combination thereof. We try to work with people we like obviously and work with people we know or who we had a previous musical relationship with. That's kind of how it always worked. We toured with so many people over the years. Just over the last 15 years... Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, the Average White Band, Major Hawthorne, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Tears For Fears, Train, on and on and on. Just people we dig and people we think would make a great musical evening for the audience.
Me: You guys had so many hits, how difficult is it for you guys to arrange a play lost for a show?
John: Well, it's not very difficult for us because we know the songs people want to hear. You know, the big hits. As we play this big arenas that we have been playing now it really comes down to people want to hear the big hits and that's just kind of how it is. We have over 400 songs that we have written in our career and obviously we can't play them all, we can only play a small percentage of them, so we just focus on the hits.
Me: So, no obscure tracks you play?
John: We always add a little surprise here and there. We do some rare album tracks and pick out a song or two, so yeah.
Me: So, you took part in the "We Are the World" song. What was that like?
John: We were told we were going to do a song together that Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie had written. It was an amazing experience to be in a room altogether. I don't think they could ever pull something like that off again.
Me: Why do you think that is?
John: Because in those days, you got to remember, there wasn't a lot of award shows. It wasn't anything like it is now where there is a n award show or something like that every other week. So everyone who was in the world of pop music at that time was in L.A. for the American Music Awards, so it was easy to assemble everybody, which what made it unique. I had Bob Dylan standing behind me and I had Ray Charles standing in front of me. So it was crazy and just pretty incredible.
Me: What was Ray Charles like?
John: He wasn't taking any shit, he wanted to do it and he wanted to get it done and he wanted to make sure everything stayed on track.
Me: So, what was Live Aid like? I still remember to this day watching the whole thing on TV live with my parents when I lived in England, and I have it on DVD.
John: It was incredible. It was in Philadelphia which is our home town. It was probably the biggest rock festivals that ever been, it was televised around the world. First time a concert or rock festival had been televised around the world so it was a very heavy hitting moment.
Me: One of my favorite Hall and Oates songs is "Maneater." But that long saxophone solo... hahahahaha. What's the story behind that song?
John: It's a long story but there was a girl who was incredibly beautiful, she came into a restaurant where I was hanging out with some friends. She sat down at the table and captivated everyone with her beauty but also had a foul mouth and swore like a sailor and it was this incredible beauty with this incredible vulgarity that really got me inspired. But really the song ended up when Daryl and I got together and finished the lyrics, the verses it was really about New York City. It was a metaphor for the go-go 80s of New York City. Maneater was New York City itself. It could chew you up and spit you out, rather than a woman.
Me: I think the first song of yours that I remember was "I Can't Go For That." That song could be just a Daryl Hall song, you know. It's pretty much just him and keyboards. What can you say about that one?
John: That was Daryl's idea. After a session was over he just walked out in the studio and he had this idea in his head. He hit the drum machine which is the beat you hear and just started to groove on the keyboard. Basically that's the whole song right there. I play a little guitar part, Charlie played a little sax part, we put background vocals on it and that's the end of it. There was no band involved or anything like that. It was done in a very organic way.
Me: I love the song "Diddy Doo Wop (I Hear the Voices)" from "Voices." Is that a true story behind that song?
John: Yeah, that was based on the headline of a newspaper of a guy who was chopping people up on the subway with a machete. We just said wow, what can possibly be in someone's head that would make them do something like that? We thought maybe he had a doo-wop song in his head and he couldn't get rid of it and it drove him insane. That was just a crazy song fantasy that we decided to give it a try.
Me: Wow. How often does headlines or stuff like that influence you guys with songs?
John: It can happen in any way, man. We never know how that's going to work. When I'm a songwriter what I do is I try to be open to the world around me and songwriters pick up things in different ways. So that's kind of how that works.
Me: I am trying to write songs for my next musical project, but getting writers block. Do you ever get writers block?
John: When I get a writers block I don't usually get a writers block because I ignore it and I just move on and do something else. I don't just sit there and obsess about it like " oh my God, I've got a writers block, I just can't write." I just forget it, I go for a drive or go for a hike or do something else. Writers block had never been a problem for me.
Me: One thing I didn't know about you is you're a big tennis payer. I don't know a lot about tennis, but my friend Rich does, and taught tennis. I lived by Wimbledon and still don't know much about it. How big into tennis were you?
John: I lived by Mats Wilander, and became pretty close friends with him in the late 80s. I used to go to tennis tournaments with him and helped him build his studio in his house and hung out with him.
Me: Ha! That's pretty big. Didn't you play tennis with John McEnroe?
John: Yeah, right before the U.S. Open Mac would have all his buddies come over and they would practice and train together. One day I went over there just to hang out, I had my tennis racket and Mac was on the court loosening up and there was no one else out there and he asked me if I wanted to hit some balls with him. I was like hell yeah. So while the other guys were inside eating lunch or whatever John McEnroe and I just played tennis together, just messing around, it was just the two if us. It was crazy. Of course I couldn't hit a ball with him but I did my best. He's a cool guy, we hung out a lot.
Me: So he wasn't acting like a prick?
John: Oh, he was, he was doing his John McEnroe thing. If he hit a shot that he didn't think was good, although he was playing against an amateur like me, it still bugged him. But you know that's the essence of prefection, that's the drive that made him a champion.
Me: Okay, if you say so. John, thanks for being back on the Phile. Please come back soon and I hope to see Hall and Oates on tour with Squeeze. Stay well.
John: Thanks, Jason, you too. Take care.
That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to John Oates for a fun interview. The Phile will be back on Tuesday with singer Brittany Howard. Spread the word, not the turd... or virus. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye. Have a safe Memorial Day weekend...
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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