Hey there, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Monday. So, Betsy DeVos said "only" 0.2% of kids are likely two die when they go back to school. That's 14,740 children.
If you didn't get them, there are arguably three errors. The first is "best selling" should be one word, "bestselling" or "best-selling," depending on who you ask. Even though the NY Times is "fake news," and the bestselling numbers were created by the RNC buying up copies, the grammar is wrong. The second is that "Democrat's" has the apostrophe in the wrong place. It should be "Democrats'," otherwise you're referring to only one Democrat. Lastly, a defense of the indefensible is logically impossible, but personally I'll give him a pass on this one. I assume he means they're trying to defend something that should be indefensible (to him). Did you get them without help? Some people are pointing out that DTJ punctuates his name incorrectly. As explained in a New Yorker article when you have a "Jr." in your name it's supposed to follow a comma, so technically it should be "Donald Trump, Jr." That is true.
Lisa Marie Presley’s son, Benjamin Keough, has died at the age of 27. Presley’s representative, Roger Widynowski, told the media that the mother is devastated about the death of Keough, who she shared with her ex-husband, musician Danny Keough. Widyowski stated, “She is completely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated but trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter Riley. She adored that boy. He was the love of her life.” Presley is also mom to 31-year-old actress Riley Keough, and 11-year-old twin daughters, Finley and Harper, whom she shared with ex-husband Michael Lockwood. According to TMZ, Keough, who is the grandson of the late Elvis Presley, died of an apparent suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Calabasas, California, A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had yet to make a statement of the incident. Presley’s most recent social media posts, which was in June 2019, features the singer with their four children, which included Benjamin. Back in 2012, Benjamin was featured in a music video for Presley’s rendition of his famous grandfather’s 1954 hit “I Love You Because” along with his siblings. The mother had previously told CMT that all of her children had a bit of Elvis Presley in them, but it was Benjamin who was the “spitting image” of the iconic singer. Presley was said to be so close to her son, that they even got matching tattoos for Mother Day in 2009. They each got a “Celtic eternity knot” which is said to represent “eternal love and connection.” If you or someone you know is considering suicide, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
Well, it looks like somebody is getting fired. A middle school in California initially thought it was printing a suicide prevention hotline on student ID badges to make their life easier. Little did they know, they actually used a number for a sex line! Yes, a SEX LINE. Shaking my head! These middle schoolers were probably confused and excited all at once. New Vista Middle School staff printed a list of helpful numbers on the back of student identification badges, which included a “24-hour Suicide Prevention Line,” a Crisis Text Line, a Tip Line, and a Teen Line. But, they quickly realized the error after a parent saw that the printed number was indeed a phone sex line. How this parent knew it was a sex line, well, you can use your imagination for that. But still, this is hilarious and so dumb at once. It is still not immediately clear how exactly the mix-up was made, but school administrators collected all ID cards from the students and printed new replacement cards. Lancaster School District superintendent also issued a letter apologizing for the mistake stating, “Late yesterday we were made aware that the middle school student ID cards have the wrong phone number listed for the Suicide Hotline. The phone numbers have two digits transposed and this is a mistake. The number listed on the card is actually a sex line.” But, let’s be real, these kids already saved that number to their phone. The damage is done, ladies and gets. Y’all screwed up and big time. Can you imagine a 14-year-old calling the sex hotline number and being greeting by explicit messages? Yikes.
They say that love conquers all, if you are meant to be then it’ll be. Well, a woman was more than determined to make it work with her boyfriend, so much so, that she went to the extreme. And by extreme I mean she posed as a sheriff to release him from jail. Yes, you just can’t fake true love. Thirty-year-old Maxine Feldstein from Arkansas pleaded guilty to several charges, including criminal impersonation and was sentenced to a whopping 30 years prison. But, half her sentence was suspended by the judge, because well, I’m guessing he saw the couple and felt a little sympathy for them and their young love. So technically, it’s just 15 now. According to court documents, in July 2018, Feldstein had posed as Ventura County Deputy “L. Kershaw” with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office at the Washington County Jail. She presented several forged documents to fool other officials at the jail into freeing her boyfriend, Nicholas Lowe. Lowe had reportedly told Feldstein to pose as a deputy from the sheriff’s office. Taking advantage of her love, Lowe was the one who reportedly told Feldstein to pose as a sheriff’s deputy and tell the jail staff that California was “having issues with overflowing and all low-priority extradition have been suspended.” Which I mean, if someone told me that I would totally agree with her. But then again, I have no background training and haven’t don’t know anything about becoming a cop. So, two days later, a real Ventura County deputy decided to call the jail and let them know he was on his way there to pick up Lowe himself. Which is when jail officials finally realized what was occurring. Safe to say the couple was eventually arrested a month later after the incident. During court, Feldstein also pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal impersonation, forgery, and third-degree escape. True love surely makes you do crazy things.
Uh oh...
It is not official. The Washington football team announced just that they will change their team name and logo after 87 years of using it. The announcement comes just days after the team said that a “thorough review” of the name would be conducted. The name has long been denounced by Native American groups as an ethnic slur.
A new team name will be announced later.
Instead of doing this blog thing I should be listening to this album...
Maybe not. Who is that red head hot model though? Are you kids fans if the show "Game of Thrones"? If you watch it now they made a few changes to the show. Check this out...
Hahaha. So, there's some food items no one wants to buy even during a pandemic. No one wants tie broccoli pizza crust during a crisis apparently...
Free pizza! Damn it! And I could've met ole Ronnie D. Good news though, Trump finally wore a mask over the weekend.
Hahaha. And he seemed "busy" in the Oval Office...
That's so dumb. Hahaha. Apparently Trump is still endorsing Biden for some reason though...
You know, if I had a TARDIS I would probably end up meeting Maurice L. Lambert who'd be kissing his fiancee Violet Hilton in New York, July 5th, 1934.
Maurice and Violet were denied a marriage license by judges in 21 states because they considered it “immoral.” Daisy Hilton and Violet Hilton were a pair of English conjoined twins or Siamese Twins. They were exhibited in Europe as children, and toured the United States sideshow, vaudeville and American burlesque circuits in the 1920s and 1930s. Violet was the first to fall in love, but she was at first denied a lawful marriage. It was Daisy who pleaded with the public to allow her sister the happiness she sought; it was also just another moment of heartbreak in a life full of them. They’d vowed to one another that when it was time, they would go together. In 1969, the Hong Kong flu swept through Charlotte indiscriminately, taking one, briefly sparing another. Daisy passed first. Violet died between two and four days later.
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. You never really know who's looking after your kids. A parent is asking whether they overstepped when they hired a private investigator to check out their nanny because her name was apparently different from the one she'd given. The dad in question emailed the Phile asking whether his actions qualified as asshole behavior, because the nanny flipped when she figured out what he'd done.
"We have a nanny who comes to watch our 3-year-old and 1-year-old when our work schedules overlap or we have to go out together for whatever reason. She’s watching the kids between 10-20 hours a week." He recently went to pay her when he made an unsettling discovery. "Recently I came back and it was time to pay her, but she was in the middle of bathing the kids so she said, 'Can you just put it in my purse?' I said no problem. I went downstairs and found her purse but it was a little cluttered so I put it in her wallet in her purse so it would be easy to find and count. When I opened her wallet to put it inside, I couldn’t help but see her ID in the transparent front pocket, and it had her photo but her name was completely different from the one she had given us and we’d background checked when we had hired her." He was surprised because she's been so good with his children. "She’s been great, so I didn’t want to just fire her, but this meant she was either using a fake name with us or carrying a fake ID, so we had to see if she was trying to hide something relevant. She’s someone who spends prolonged time alone with our kids. And as great as she seems to us, our kids can’t really talk yet. So we can only know so much." He and his wife decided to hire an investigator. "My wife and I discussed it and decided to hire a private investigator to check into her, because whatever story she gave us if we confronted her, we’d then take steps to verify it any ways. So it was best not to give her the opportunity to hide anything or backtrack." The P.I. cracked the case successfully. "The P.I. discovered she had the ID to circumvent a bureaucratic rule about student living arrangements for the graduate school at her university (something like she wanted to stay on the undergraduate campus when she became a graduate student so used an undergrad friend’s name on her ID to register for housing.) Not a big deal." The nanny found out what they'd done. "Then, unfortunately, unbeknownst to us our 3-year-old overheard us talking about it and said something that tipped her off to the whole thing. We explained that we had become aware, looked into it, but it was all fine now. She was very upset, said it was none of our business why she would have two IDs, and it was a violation of her privacy to look into her life instead of just asking her. Now she’s even considering quitting." The parents still don't know if they've done anything wrong. "We feel awful, but are also weighing that with how awful we’d feel if we didn’t do due diligence and there was something serious to it. We’re conflicted now, because she has always been wonderful. Am I wrong for hiring the private investigator?" This one is contentious. You’re good for wanting to double check who’s around your child. She’s not wrong for feeling uncomfortable that you guys did that. You're okay for hiring the P.I., but the nanny has every right to feel violated. She watches your kids, you have the right to know what her deal is. Also, someone's gotta employ the private investigators, am I right? But, on the other hand, she has every right to be upset and feel like you invaded her privacy, because... you literally did. You literally hired someone to invade her privacy. Try giving her a raise to get her to stay, maybe? Or let her go and hire a P.I. for the next nanny from the jump. I think that the nanny has every right to leave if she wants. And that the parents probably should've given her a chance to explain before they went all Sherlock Holmes on her.
Senior citizen discounts should just round dollar amounts down so we don’t have to wait in line behind them while they dig for change.
This Ian fella has a lot to learn. Okay, let's take a live look at Port Jeff, shall we?
Looks like another nice day in Port Jeff. All right, now from the home office in Port Jeff here is...
Top Phive Ways To Describe Movie's In The Most Boring Ways
5. Visitors do not respect the guest list at a Christmas party in an L.A. office building, and one executive's husband is not happy about it.
4. Man turns off alarm clock 3,176 times.
3. These two kids have to walk a few hundred miles in order to properly dispose of a piece of jewelry.
2. Guy finds a ring and his nephew returns it to the factory.
And the number one way to describe a movie in the most boring way is...
1. Some rich dude buys an island and puts old lizards on it.
The 131st book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...
Max will be on the Phile on Wednesday. Speaking of books... my first novel is officially available to purchase on Amazon!!! Check this out...
You can purchase it here...
amazon.com/dp/B08CPNPLMD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=blaphaus&qid=1594474142&sr=8-1. Buy it!!! Okay, let's laugh...
The 87-year-old said, "Well, I eat Italian bread every day. It keeps your energy level high and you'll have great stamina with the ladies." So, on the way home, the 80-year-old stops at the bakery. As he was looking around, the lady asked if he needed any help. He said, "Do you have any Italian bread?" She said, "Yes, there's a whole shelf of it. Would you like some?" He said, "I want 5 loaves." She said, "My goodness, 5 loaves... don't you think by the time you get to the 5th it'll be hard?" He replied, "Holy shit... does everybody in the world know about this Italian bread but ME?!"
Today's guest is a Spanish actor, film producer and director. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a Cannes Best Actor Award and nominations for a Tony Award, an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. For the 2019 film Pain and Glory, he earned the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, and received nominations for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. He also appeared in the Spy Kids series and provided the voice of Puss in Boots in the Shrek franchise as well as its spin-off film Puss in Boots. Please welcome to the Phile... Antonio Banderas!
Me: Hello, Antonio, welcome to the Phile. How are you?
Antonio: I am well, Jason. I heard this was a fun website.
Me: I guess you can call it fun. It's fun for me. I have to mention that last year I interviewed your mother-in-law... Tippi Hedren. Did you know that?
Antonio: EX-mother-in-law. Melanie Griffith and I were divorced in 2014.
Me: Oh, shit. I didn't know. Sorry. Anyway, I interviewed your ex-mother-in-law. Haha. Moving on... So, tell the readers what Pain and Glory is about.
Antonio: For the first time in years, I have reunited with Pedro Almodóvar for our eighth film together, Pain and Glory. It's about a film director in his physical decline who feels that he has no reason to live without his art. The character is loosely based on Almodóvar himself.
Me: Was it hard to play this role?
Antonio: Well, I had to "kill" Antonio Banderas.
Me: What does that mean?
Antonio: Metaphorically. What happened is I have an image that is in the mind for people for certain characters I have created. Hollywood has a tendency to label actors so I have been playing a number of characters for a number of years.
Me: What kind of characters?
Antonio: Heroic characters like Zorro, Desperado and Miguel Bain... characters like that with physicality to it and romantic characters and this was a completely different turf for me. It comes also in the perfect moment. We actors are fueled for our personal life.
Me: What's the change in your life because of the divorce?
Antonio: No. I had a heart attack a few years ago.
Me: Oh, man, I'm so sorry.
Antonio: Don't be. It was one of the best things to happen to me. It was an opening eye experience for me to understand me better. The things that I thought were important to me were not practically disappeared. so my family, my daughter, my friends, my vocation, not my professional life but my vocation being acting telling stories to people and sharing stories to people, reflect about life and laugh about it, getting very emotional with it became very important. Suddenly the movie came to me at that particular moment.
Me: So, what happened with the heart attack?
Antonio: I had a heart attack in the morning but in the afternoon and evening they implanted in me three stents in my coronary artery. So I was in night at the hospital in the observation room and there was this woman who came in who was an older nurse and she made a more than usual question to me.
Me: What's that?
Antonio: She said to me, "So, do you believe in popular culture?" I said, "Yeah. Why?" She said, "Why do you think people say 'I love you with all my heart'? And they don't say 'I love you with all of my brain'? I said, "I don't know. You're going to explain it to me, right." She said suddenly, "This is an organ that sends oxygen to the whole body but it's a warehouse of feelings. Not many people don't believe that. The doctors don't believe that. But you will because you're going to get really sad now. For two or three months you're going to be really sad." I remember asking her am I going to be depressed. She said, "Depressed, no. Depressed is a medical condition. You're going to be sad but after that you're going to become stronger."
Me: Was she right? Were you sad for a while?
Antonio: Yes. But you know, what's interesting, Pedro detected that. When I started rehearsal with him he said there was something different in me since I had this cardiac event. "I want you to use that in the movie. I want that in the character."
Me: He wanted you to channel it?
Antonio: Yes, in a way, yes, I could do. I could channel this into a character. So I knew exactly what he was talking about.
Me: So, let me get this straight, you were playing him, the director of the film. When did you first realize this film was based on Pedro?
Antonio: He called me before he sent me the script. He said something like, "Antonio, you're going to find out when you read the material it's filled with references with things that you know. We lived those experiences together." So in the beginning my reaction was a reaction of happiness of my friend and the director of someone I adored trusted me to play him.
Me: Do you think that's the deepest trust someone can give somebody?
Antonio: Yeah. I guess. At least in this profession.
Me: Did you have a second reaction?
Antonio: Yeah, panic. Because it was, oh my God, I'm not going to be able to just pull it off. I am playing the guy who is directing me. So that's weird. It's weird enough to play characters that are alive. And I did. I play Picasso, but not one that directed me. At the same time something very interesting happened with this particular movie also that I could use. The fact in a way that I started to create this character not knowing about this nine years ago.
Me: Why is that?
Antonio: Because when I did The Skin I Lived In after 22 years we didn't work together so I came to him in those rehearsals and said to him, "Hey, look, there are things that I have learned in America. I'm a different actor now, I have all these new tools." he said okay, okay, and we started rehearsals. After a week of rehearsing he said to me, "Ah, man, I can't use those tools that you learned in America. They maybe very useful for you in America for the American directors and the American movies but they're not good for me. Where are you?" It was like shocking in a way. But then when I watched the movie for the first time I was like oh my God, this guy has the ability to bring out a character in me I didn't know I had inside. So my reflection of my relationship with him and with the movies and directors I said I have to trust more. I have to be more confident with my director. So when he called me for this movie I took all of those medals, all of those tools I was using and I presented myself in front of him like a plain soldier.
Me: How long have you known Pedro Almodóvar, Antonio? A long time, right?
Antonio: Since 1980.
Me: What do you remember about back then?
Antonio: We were trying to destroy everything that was monolithic in Spain at that time. I think that's the word. We were coming out of a dictatorship, Franco just died. Pedro Almodóvar came not only to change the history of motion pictures in Spain with a revolutionary way of warring which was completely different to the way we had at the time, but to shake the morality of the country. I remember in 1985 I was in a movie called Law of Desire and for the first time in Spain and pretty much in the world actually in serious movies it was presented a homosexual relationship between two guys and explicit on the screen. Everybody was just pulling their hair out. Now I thought in the same movie my character killed somebody. It was okay, killing someone on screen was always permitted. Violence on screen is always okay, but people of the same sex kiss that created a big convulsion in reality of people. That shake very much the whole entire country at that time and it helped people understand other ways people live.
Me: What were you like back there in the 80s?
Antonio: I was kind of naive, shy young actor with a lot with a lot of dreams. I came to Madrid to be an actor and I would have been happy to be with a spear in the opera theater in the background.
Me: Did you feel that you fit in with Madrid at that time?
Antonio: It was very difficult at the beginning. I had no money. In the first year I changed where I was living nine times.
Me: Really? Why?
Antonio: Because I had no money and they threw me out. It was house of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend he had a sofa and it had a spring in the middle and that spring was out for six months. When I went to a bed that didn't have the spring still I expect it. I still thought it was there.
Me: When you left Spain to go to America to be an actor what did Pedro think?
Antonio: He said it felt like a mother who had lost his son. We got a career already in Spain and won some international awards in Berlin, Cannes and Venice and stuff like that and suddenly I received this offer to do a film called The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. It put me in an opportunity to offer me a new adventure in a different country with a different language that I didn't speak at the time.
Me: You didn't speak English back then?
Antonio: No, not at all.
Me: So, how old were you then?
Antonio: I was in my 30s. I was 31 when I learned English.
Me: Don't get offended by this but because you learnt English so late is that why you retained your accent? My accent by the way is a mutt of British, southern American and Long Island. Haha. Did your accent ever hold you back?
Antonio: Well, it was an advantage and a handicap at the same time. I got offered a number of characters when I was living in Hollywood, I couldn't get the full range of character so I had to play with different cards than anybody. It's like a racing lane, I have a ball attached to my feet because I only have these opportunities in front of me. I can't play an American lawyer, or an American astronaut, those things were not for me. I have a specific range of characters offered to me so that was kind of a handicap.
Me: So, what was the advantage?
Antonio: Well, when I went to America I didn't speak the language so who was going to tell me that many years after I was going to be used only for my voice. To play an animation character that was named Puss in Boots. It become very famous around the world because the way that I speak. With this profession things happen like that which is strange and weird.
Me: Where are you living now, Antonio?
Antonio: I feel like I'm in a place I have to be. I went back to Europe, I live in London now so I'm doing more European projects. Doesn't mean I abandoned Hollywood but I come there for things I'm very interested in. That has been since this "potato" was sick.
Me: Haha. Did that cardiac arrest change you? I had heart problems but nothing as bad as you had.
Antonio: Well, I'm getting older too, I'm going to be 60 in August and that changes me.
Me: Ha. I know how that feels. Okay, so you said Pedro said, "it was like a mother had lost her son" when you went to America. Does he feel like a father figure to you?
Antonio: Sometimes, yes. More like a brother in a way. But he has always been a friend, a dear friend. Our friendship actually has a very specific universe. Pedro is a very, very private person. Very. So the friendship with him has boundaries. I never tried to pass those boundaries until now.
Me: So, was this film about him a way of learning about him?
Antonio: Yes. When I saw the script I saw things in the script I never didn't know, I learned those things for the first time when I read the script.
Me: Like what kinda things? Can you say?
Antonio: I didn't know that he has to come to terms with his mother. I met his mother, he used to put his mother in movies. She was in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and some other movies he did. He adored her, worshipped her, but I didn't know he wanted to say to his mother "I'm sorry, mother, for not being the son you wanted me to be." He makes a question to me when I was reading the script the question came... what are we? Are we the things that we have done and said or are we the things that we want to say? Or the things we wanted to do but never did?
Me: What do you think?
Antonio: I think it's a compendium of all of those things. And I think Pedro filled that circle, closed that circle that was left open with many issues in his life. The relationship with actors and his mother and the relationship with boyfriends.
Me: Having a heart attack and making this film did it make you reconsider people you wish you had spoken to?
Antonio: Probably. Yeah. I learned things that were said to me at a point actually they pass me like this. There was an agent and unfortunately he died, I worked with him only two years and he was a legendary agent with the best of actors in Hollywood. He said to me, "Do you know what the most important word in Hollywood, Antonio? The most important word is 'no.' You have to learn to say 'no.' Those who say 'no' are winners. The ones who say 'yes' all the time become cheap and the people don't want them. You have to say that word, my friend." At the time, we feel because as actors we have temporary work, we feel when we finish a movie no-one is going to call us again, we think everything is going to finish. But I'm in a point now where I don't care. I'm fine.
Me: Do you feel regret for that time on your life? I mean, you did make those Spy Kids movie. Hahahaha.
Antonio: No, no regrets, no complaints.
Me: Why is that?
Antonio: Because I am here and I am very satisfied with who I am now. If I changed something I did in the past I may not be here talking to you.
Me: Thanks. Okay, so, in Pain and Glory your character believes if he cannot make movies he has no reason to live. Not to be dark or morbid but after you went through your heart attack can you relate to that?
Antonio: Totally. I wouldn't understand a life without art. Could you understand anybody who is reading this a life without music? Without looking at paintings? Without looking at movies? Life without music what is that? I can just make a map of my life with music. It's like food, we need art to live. We need art because it's a reflection of ourselves. It's a way to share experiences and emotions and laughter.
Me: That's very true. Antonio, this was so cool to have you on the Phile, Please come back on the Phile again and take care.
Antonio: Thank you, Jason.
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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