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Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Monday... it's August. This month Godzilla will come out of the ocean and he'll be pissed. Man, blogger changed the format of the blog... who knows what it'll look like?
A man was filmed ripping a not small wasp nest full of wasps off an outer wall of a house, squeezing it in his hand, and then jamming it into his mouth like a handful of M&Ms and chomping down on it.
I don’t know where this happened, aside from, obviously “somewhere in America.” Probably Florida. Maybe Hell? Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that this happened. This happened. 
This man is an animal. A literal animal. This is something that a bear would do. A pissed off, hungry bear. It feels like maybe this guy should be shoveling meds into his mouth instead of wasps but then again I’m no doctor. I do not even want to fathom how much pain was felt while doing this. It had to be like squeezing a handful of needles, right? I am cringing and shivering just thinking about it. I mean, good God. I hope the world’s most extreme pest control expert shoveled a whole bunch of pain pills in his mouth before he did the same with a family of wasps. And then there’s the taste. Oh God, the taste. Wasps don’t make honey. So what does a big pile of dead bugs, insect eggs, dried papery wasp spit, and stingers taste like? It can’t be good! It’s a bunch of the grossest parts of nature... creepy-crawly stuff, secretion, gestation... all in one pile.
I mean this absolutely sincerely, I’d rather eat a log of human poop. Hands down. No questions asked. Poop wins a hundred times out of a hundred. I am #TeamEatPoop. If you are #TeamEatActiveWaspNest you are a psychopath and I don’t want you near me. This guy is pretty rad though I really appreciated this content.
An Australian grocery store owner who was extremely paranoid about the coronavirus and became so obsessed with germs decided that the best way to get rid of them was to burn the whole grocery store down. Yes, he set his own shop on fire to basically kill all the damn germs. Was this man high or insanely drunk? I don’t know, probably both. Because this is just pure, plain, dumb.
According to authorities, 57-year-old Edward Guy Mason, who co-owns the business in the town of Bruce Rock, lit three cardboard-filled shopping carts ablaze during a failed suicide attempt. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation stated that Mason eventually fled the inferno before he was ultimately arrested and confessed that he believed he was positive for COVID-19. So, all he was doing was “protecting shoppers” from the virus itself. When asked about the situation, Edward Mason stated, “Seeing different news reports and seeing how it could be transmitted and I thought, ‘We’re getting boxes coming out of the warehouses, boxes coming from China… I felt surely there could be germs on these cartons.” How much was the stunt? Well, it cost the man roughly $700,000 in damage. Yup, like I said, so dumb.
As expected, Mason pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawfully damaging a building by fire and faced a judge at a sentencing hearing. Judge John Prior heard that Mason was highly riddled with anxiety at the time he set the said blaze and that his mind had been playing tricks on him. His lawyer, Richard Lawson stated, “he decided he had to eradicate himself” and felt pressure to keep the shelves stocked.
Prior sentenced the man to a 16-month jail term but quickly suspended it, nothing that Mason had no past criminal record, and had received 17 character reference. So, at the end of the day, this man was ordered to just pay his co-owner for half of the damages. Because well, I’m sure the other owner was angry as ever. Mason spoke with reporters about his high-stress levels, saying he had become overrun with customers.
He noted, “I was running a business and just seeing my shelves stripped bare. It was very hard to deal with. People were driving 30 minutes from another town and they’d just come in and strip my shelves bare if their town was empty. That’s where all the conflict began, because my customers couldn’t understand why they couldn’t get their regular items.”
Yup, I guess the way to keep customers who don’t want to follow the safety guidelines by wearing face masks is by burning everything down. Totally. The best bet, hands down.
An ex-inmate claims that a corrections officer at a New Jersey prison has been sexually assaulting and harassing female prisoners by demanding sexual favors for necessities. The unnamed guard is allegedly forcing sexual favors upon the female prisoners in trade for everyday items, specifically toilet paper, as mentioned by former inmate, Marianne Brown.
The former inmate claims that in Clinton, New Jersey, at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, this specific guard, asked her, “What are you going to do for me?” when she requested more toilet paper during her 21-year sentence. She was serving at the state’s only women lockup for kidnapping.
Brown explained on the online public forum, Workgroup on Harassment, Sexual Assault and Misogyny in New Jersey Politics that after she was asked that, she “quickly caught on to what the prison staffer wanted from her,” continuing with, “Then, it hit me. You know what it meant. Are you going to give them oral sex?”
And that wasn’t the only time or the only guard accused. Brown also attested to how she witnessed not only male guards, but female guards as well, sexually assault her other fellow inmates. They would grope the female prisoners and also demand sexual favors for other necessities, “like sanitary pads or banned foodstuffs like bubble gum.”
Whenever any of the inmates filed complaints against the corrections officers, the papers were “ripped up” right in front of them. Brown explained that because of that, they “didn’t pursue a lot of things.” And she wasn’t the only inmate to come forward.
Former inmate, Alyssa Feldman, claimed another corrections officer sexually assaulted her during her small six-month sentence. She said, “He was king of that cottage,” explaining how he blackmailed her with threats to delay Feldman’s parole, if she didn’t go along with what he was demanding of her.
And another former inmate, Melissa Deandino, also said that before her release three years ago, she and others were, “physically, mentally, [and] sexually,” assaulted by the corrections officers in this New Jersey prison. She is now homeless and has post-traumatic stress disorder along with a fear of men.
These accusations have totaled to 7 staff members at the prison who have been charged for their association with the sex abuse claims. Two of them have pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison time. And although current inmates have said the arrests have helped, the sexual abuse has not been completely stopped. Some of the victims who spoke out, were sharing their stories for the first time ever.
According to the New York Post, NJ.com reported, “a U.S. Justice Department report gave state authorities until June to address the issues or face a potential federal civil rights lawsuit,” and a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman has declined to comment.
Deputy Warren Hobbs owes his life to a group of inmates that he was guarding at the Gwinnett County Jail in Lawrenceville, Georgia. In what could’ve been a disaster for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office, Mitchell Smalls, Walter Whitehead, and Terry Lovelace did the right thing, despite the opportunity that lay in front of them.
On Tuesday, the three inmates saw Deputy Warren Hobbs acting differently, then suddenly collapsing from a heart attack and cracking his head on the concrete floor. Mitchell Smalls explained the medical emergency to Fox News, “Kinda was like laying back in his chair and just started [making noises],” and that’s when he fell down and started bleeding out of his head.
The inmates then started causing a ruckus, making as much noise as they could since they were locked inside their holding cells, “I started hollering and screaming and banging on the door to try to alert everybody to wake up,” getting all 60 inmates in the jail to follow suit. The surveillance video shows “the windows shaking from the heavy poundings on the doors,” since the entire unit helped in making loud noise to wake the deputy up.
Terry Lovelace explained that he saw that the noise woke Deputy Hobbs up just enough to get up and press the control panel to open cell doors, saying, “He grabbed a hold of his desk and he was pulling himself up like this. It was sad because it didn’t look good at all but the man had fight in him to get up. As he came up I can make eye contact with him I’m like Deputy Hobbs, Deputy Hobbs, please.”
Deputy Hobbs opened the cell doors for Terry Lovelace’s and Walter Whitehead’s cells, in which they ran out. But instead of trying to escape, they ran to the deputy’s side with Lovelace using the deputy’s radio to call for help while Whitehead found the deputy desk phone. Help arrived only seconds later to take over, saving the deputy’s life.
The Georgia inmates explained that this act of kindness wasn’t about the technicalities of an “inmates saving a prison guard’s life.” They emphasized the fact that it went beyond the uniform, just people helping another person in trouble. Whitehead said, “It scared me. I don’t care if it’s a police officer or whoever it was. I will do whatever I can to save a man. I don’t want anyone to die.”
The relationship between the inmates and the sheriff’s deputy “looks beyond what uniform they’re wearing and relied on mutual respect,” resulting in Deputy Hobbs’ thankfulness for the inmates’ thinking. He’s now safely at home, still under medical care, but doing better than before.
The sheriff’s office commented on the incident in a Facebook post, “These inmates came to his aid because our deputy, like most law enforcement officers, treats people with the dignity they deserve. These inmates had no obligation whatsoever to render aid to a bleeding, vulnerable deputy, but they didn’t hesitate. Many people have strong opinions about law enforcement officers and criminals, but this incident clearly illustrates the potential goodness found in both.”
Look at this real ad...
Instead of doing this blog thing I should be listening to this album...
Ummm... maybe not. You know what makes me laugh? Kids pranking their parents with food puns...
Hahahahaha. That makes me laugh. So, I was thinking of getting a tattoo but someone had the same idea I had.
Do you like the TV show "Antiques Roadshow"? I think they are getting lazy with their descriptions...
Hahahahaha. So, I love "The Walking Dead" but I don't know about the new villain on it this upcoming season...
Move over, Negan. That's so funny. When somebody complains about their engagement ring, it's usually safe to assume that they're superficial snobs (or, you know, ethical about blood diamonds).
An engaged woman asked the Phile if she's wrong to not want to wear the ring that her fiancé had previously given his ex. And, important: it was a ring the fiancé bought, not a family heirloom.
"My now fiancé was engaged a couple years before we got together, and they broke up and she gave the ring back.
We’ve been together a few years and a few days ago, he proposed and I was super excited. The ring looked kinda familiar and when I asked him where it was from, he said it was the ring he gave to ex fiancé. I immediately took it off and was like 'I don’t want a ring you bought for someone else, it wasn’t meant for me.' He got upset and said it didn’t matter, because it’s not hers anymore it’s mine. My family and friends are split in saying I’m wrong and I’m justified." She feels guilty about the money, but would like to wear an engagement ring that was chosen specifically for her. "I don’t want him to spend a whole other thousand dollars on a ring for me, but I want a ring that was meant for me, not for someone else.
Jason, am I wrong?" I side firmly with the woman. You are completely justified. And I would rethink this guy if I were you. Recycling is important, but maybe something as important as an engagement ring shouldn't be reused?
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York here is...
Top Phive Things Said About Marriage Last Week
5. My husband popped in from work and surprised me. After whispering a sexy suggestion to him he whispered back, "I was just in the area and I really gotta poop."
4. Indoor parkour but it's just my wife and I going to change the thermostat on each other. Forever.
3. In case you're wondering how well I've maintained my looks my husband asked what fancy place I was going to because I put a cardigan on. Over my pajamas.
2. I don't know what's so hard for men to understand. I'm fine means I'm fine and I'm fine mean you have two mines to vacate the premises.
And the number one ting said about marriage last week is...
1. Sometimes I hide condiments from my husband by moving them three inches to the left.
Looks like a nice day there as usual. Now for some sad news...
Herman Cain
December 13th, 1945 — July 30th, 2020
Crazy. He was completely healthy at a rally in Tulsa last month, and now he's dead of Covid. Hard to imagine.
The 133rd book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...
Debbie Harry will be on the Phile next Wednesday.
A mother took her little boy to church.
While in church the little boy said, "Mommy, I have to pee."
The mother said to the little boy, "It's not appropriate to say the word 'pee' in church. So, from now on whenever you have to 'pee' just tell me that you have to 'whisper'."
The following Sunday, the little boy went to church with his father and during the service said to his father, "Daddy, I have to whisper."
The father looked at him and said, "Okay, why don't you whisper in my ear."
Today's guest is an American voice actor. He is the current voice of the Warner Bros. cartoon character Porky Pig, who can be seen on the new HBO Max series "Looney Tunes Cartoons." Please welcome to the Phile... Bob Bergen.
Me: Hello, Bob, welcome to the Phile. How are you?
Bob: I'm doing good, buddy, how are you doing?
Me: I'm great. So, how often does someone ask you to do Porky Pig's voice?
Bob: Everyday if someone asks I'm happy to do the Pig anytime some wants. I prefer to do it for money but I don't mind doing to for anybody else.
Me: That's cool. So, did you always want to do voice acting?
Bob: Yes, as a matter of fact I told my parents when I was little I wanted to be "Porky Pig."
Me: Ha. How old were you then and why Porky Pig?
Bob: I was just 5. I was just a 5-year-old kid who watched cartoons and there was this character that I connected with for some bizarre reason that I connected with. I told my parents I wanted to be Porky Pig when I grew up.
Me: What was it that connected you to Porky?
Bob: I just found his personality and his character and the comedy in his ad-libs when he would stutter. For some reason when I was 5-years-old I related to it. I just thought he was funny and interesting. I don't know, it's an odd thing for a 5-year-old but some kids want to be a lawyer, some kids want to be a fireman, I wanted to be a stuttering pig.
Me: Hahaha. So, what was your parents response when you told them that?
Bob: Well, my mom said I can't be Porky Pig... I'm Jewish. I don't think she understood what I really wanted and I didn't understand what she was saying because we were the kind of the Jewish family that had a menorah next to the Christmas tree. We were more "fish" than "Jew."
Me: Where did you grow up, Bob?
Bob: I grew up in the Midwest so the odds of me either being able to do this character living in the city where these cartoons are produced and having the opportunity to get an audition at the right time were pretty much against me.
Me: Were you walking around the house and school talking like Porky Pig and everything?
Bob: As best as I could. My voice hadn't changed, I was a 5-year-old kid so my teacher would ask me a question and my teacher liked Porky Pig and I would get into a lot of trouble. I would watch the corner of their mouths as they started to laugh and I was like I got them. Again I was just a kid being obnoxious at school so at that point it was really just a pipe dream.
Me: How often did you get beat up by the other kids by being Porky Pig? Hahaha.
Bob: Well, I never got beat up because I was pretty much the class clown and I would also imitate teachers. L:et me put it this way, I never got beaten up by doing voices, I know how to work it.
Me: Besides Porky were their other characters that you loved as a kid?
Bob: Oh, yeah. I loved all the Hanna-Barbera characters... Yogi Bear, Snagglepuss, Huckleberry Hound, I used to love Speed Racer, I used to love Popeye. All the Looney Tunes.... I was a typical kid who would be up at 6 a.m., pour out Cap'n Crunch and watch TV.
Me: Isn't it sad that kids don't have that like we did back when we were kids?
Bob: Unless they buy an SUV that has a video and monitor, kids get it nowadays. It's easy but back then cartoons had a certain time. The sad thing is that kids don't have Saturday Morning Cartoons anymore. They got networks for them and they got DVDs but they don't have Saturday morning where they can get up and watch "The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show."
Me: So, I heard you interviewed Mel Blanc once. How did that happen?
Bob: Well, I moved to L.A. with my parents when I was 14. We didn't move there so I could so Porky Pig but my dad took a job there so I thought well, if I'm going to live in the city where the cartoons are done I should call the guy doing them and say, "Hey, listen, I've seen you on TV, you're getting up there in age, I don't know if anybody offered you a chance to retire but I'll be happy too." I looked in the phone book and couldn't find his number. First thing, I didn't understand the concept of unlisted numbers. But my dad told me that L.A. was a very big area and there's a different phone book for every few blocks. He traveled the entire L.A. county and I had a stack of white page phone books from Malibu to Pasadena and I called every Blanc in the book. I couldn't find him so I thought I wonder was his wife's name, maybe it's listed under his wife's name and it was Estelle. I found an "E Blanc" in the Pacific Palisades phonebook and I taped the conversation, it was him and the rest is history. He was very generous and he asked me how old I was and I said 14 and he said it was really hard to get into the business. I kind of ignored that statement, I just went ahead and asked him a different question because I didn't want to know if it was hard to get into the business, I just wanted to do it.
Me: How did you record it?
Bob: I had signs up all over the house saying, "I'm Talking To Mel Blanc, Don't Hang Up The Phone." I was doing a very crude recording. I had a tape recorder in the kitchen, the receiver on the tape recorder and I was in my parents bedroom on the extension. My mom saw the signs but still wondered what the phone was doing there and hung it up. So God bless mom.
Me: Oh, man. So, did you ever meet him?
Bob: Well, what happened was I listened to the tape for two weeks and then the tape broke and I threw it away. My mom retrieved it and called me up and said she found this tape in my dresser draw that said "phone call with Mel Blanc." I took it to a buddy who was able to edit it back together and I lost a big portion of the conversation because the tape broke. But during the course of the conversation I asked Mel Blanc if he was still working and he mentioned the name of the studio he was working at at that point but he didn't say the day and the time, he just said the name. When I finished talking to him I called the studio pretending to be his assistant to see if I can get what time and day he was going to be there.I said, "Hi, I'm calling for Mel Blanc. I'm just calling to conform how appointment for Thursday at 9." They said, "We got him on the books for Wednesday at 11." "Oh, you know what, I'm looking at the wrong day on the calendar, I'm so sorry." So I told my mom I'm skipping school and she's going to take me and watch him work. She said cool and when we got to the studio I told the receptionist we were the guests of Mel Blanc and she knew he was there, so she figured we were really his guests so she showed us the room he was in. I walked into the studio and told his producer we were friends of his receptionist and they just let me sit and watch him work.
Me: That's bloody amazing! You're one lucky guy, Bob.
Bob: Or a stalker.
Me: Haha. So, were you Porky Pig in Space Jam?
Bob: Yeah, but every time there's a major something or other they make me audition for it. Which is fine, I just audition. But when Space Jam popped up they made me do Shakespeare. They made everybody do Shakespeare because they figured anybody could say "that's all, folks" or "I tawt I saw a puddy cat" but if I could do Hamlet, stay in character and tell the story as the character then we got it. As an actor I thought that was fun and clever challenge.
Me: And you were in the movie Gremlins? What did you do in that film?
Bob: With Gremlins that was actually one of my very first jobs. It was really cool job. That was done in post-production, when we do voices for film we actually watch the film and create the characters while watching the movie. They filmed everything, and it was me and Jim Cummings, and Fred Newman, there was a whole bunch of people. I was my first big gig, a Steven Spielberg movie which was kind of cool.
Me: That's cool. I had Jim Cummings on the Phile last November. Did you know Jim then?
Bob: No, Jim Cummings and I, it was one of our first jobs.
Me: Was it fun doing it and what kinda voices were you doing?
Bob: For the most part I did the drop stuff, Gremlins multiplying in swimming pools, the bar scene, a Gremlin on the ceiling fan, I did a Gremlin exploding in a microwave. It was a really fun job, it was a vocally stressful job. It was a few days but all day, and Joe Dante was directing, Steven Spielberg was producing, it was amazing. I heard rumors they are going to do a remake and if they're reading this I'd like a job.
Me: Hahahaha. So, my dad was asked to write a song for the movie Total Recall which wasn't used, but he did record a song for it. You were in that movie, right?
Bob: There's a scene in Total Recall where the customs department was on Mars and this big chubby lady comes in to have her passport signed and the guy asks her if she has anything to declare and she starts to freak out and Arnold kind of comes out of her face... the guy that played the customs officer was Austrian and he sounded just like Arnold Schwarzenegger so they thought it would give the joke away of the guy asked "do you have anything to declare?" in the Austrian accent. So I dubbed his voice, it's my voice coming out of his face, which is odd, hearing my voice come out of someone else's face. But it's pretty common ion most motion pictures that someone is revoiced. By the way, I would love to hear the song your dad did for the movie.
Me: Maybe it'll get released one day. Okay, so, back to Porky. When you finally got the part how did you feel?
Bob: Well, I had a million auditions. I had a call back and a call back and a call back. My last audition was for Chuck Jones who didn't like me, he thought I was too young. I went to shake his hand but I was shaking because I was so nervous and he said, "Why are you so nervous?" And I said, "Because I'm about to do Porky Pig for Chuck Jones. It's like doing Jesus for God." He just thought I was too young. I was in my 20s and he said I was too young to understand the complexities of this character, So my first job was "Tiny Toons" and I was lucky, I just bought my first house and my mom was at the house waiting for a delivery and she was the one who got the call from my agent that I booked Porky Pig, so it was really kind of cool that she was the one that got to take that phone call.
Me: Man, I have tears in my eyes. That's great.
Bob: Then my parents took me out to celebrate for dinner that night and I ordered pork chops because I thought that was appropriate.
Me: Hahahaha. Did Chuck Jones ever come around and see you again?
Bob: Nope, after that I never met him again but I think honestly Warner Bros. had him at that last audition as a respect thing than a decision thing. He didn't really have any say obviously in the decision. He did a series of his own shorts after I was cast as Porky Pig and he hired Frank Gorshin to do the Looney Toon characters. We can't please everybody. I'd like to say Chuck Jones liked me but he didn't.
Me: By the way, what was Mel Blanc recording when you saw him record?
Bob: An Ice Capades show with the Looney Tunes.
Me: So, I only saw a few episodes of "Tiny Toons," I was more of an "Animaniacs" fan, but Porky Pig was on that show?
Bob: It's funny, "Tiny Toons" was all original characters but they had the original Looney Toons on the show in the event that "Tiny Toons" wasn't successful they could always make it "The Bugs Bunny Show." But "Tiny Toons" was a really brilliant, well written, well produced show. The Looney Tunes if anything were supporting characters and they weren't needed. The Tiny Toons characters held their own.
Me: So what was the first thing you did that was just Looney Tunes?
Bob: That was Space Jam.
Me: Of course. Bob, thanks so much for being on the Phile. I hope this was fun and I hope you will come back again soon.
Bob: Thanks, Jason, it was fun!
That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Bob Bergen for a cool interview. The Phile will be back on Wednesday with actor Nick Offerman. Spread the word, not the turd... or virus. 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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