Pheaturing Josh Pais

 

Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Wednesday. How are you doing? 'Tis the seasons to remind your co-workers that you're Jewish. Hahahaha! Listen up folks, here is what NOT to do this Christmas. This is such a dad move, so much so that I can’t stop laughing. It’s no secret that parents are always excited to partake in Elf on the Shelf during the holiday season. We know that children enjoy a Christmas tradition like this because it makes it seem like Santa is real and is on his way to their house from the North Pole. But it’s probably a good idea to keep your partner aware of the situation, otherwise, things can go south very very quickly. Apparently, Chelsea Hightower from Kansas found out the hard way when her husband accidentally cremated a family of elves inside their oven. The mom had placed the toys in the oven to take cute photos of them, joking that the trio needed to warm up after having been inside the fridge. But, that didn’t last long, after her husband Matt Hightower switched on the oven while she was out Christmas shopping. So, yes, this poor dad burned the elves to a crisp. Bye-bye elves, it was nice seeing you. After what one could imagine was a pretty horrid smell, Matt decided to call Chelsea to tell her the bad news. As expected, the mom had to share the pictures of the melting elves on social media to show the extent of the severe damage. 

The mom joked that they had to be taken to the Elfspital saying, “thank you, everyone, for the concerns of our elves Jingle, Bell, and Magic!” A hilarious mishap. Oh man, this is wonderful. I can only imagine how much the mom laughed whenever she heard her husband say that. I guess it’s true what they say, sometimes we can be very clueless. But let’s face it, it can happen to anyone. Luckily, the mom said that the family’s elves are expected to make a full recovery after several hours of shopping, reconstruction, and rest. Let’s be honest, we all know that this woman probably went to Target and bought some new elves because these were goners. Mom of the year! Taking a joke to another level, the mom also posted another picture of the elves with the caption, “To whomever this may help in this elf season BAKE COOKIES NOT ELVES! Parent lesson #48,573,728,485: don’t forget the elves were in the oven!!” Here’s your PSA to check the inside of your oven before you turn it on and heat up some leftover pasta.   

Another day another anti-masker ruining our day and making us roll our eyes. Apparently, an anti-masker used a megaphone inside a Costco store to criticize the use of any face-covering in tackling the coronavirus pandemic. The man, who remains unidentified, was on top of the clothing display at the store in Tustin, California. The man shouted “We have got to stand up for ourselves… It’s a beautiful day outside and what are we doing, covering up with our masks.” As the number of COVID-19 cases rises, several stores in California have made wearing face coverings mandatory. Since mid-November, Costco customers who aren’t able to wear face masks due to medical conditions must wear a face shield at the store. But no, this man decided to go against that to get some attention for himself and ignore the face mask policy. I feel for these Costco employees. During his rant, the man falsely suggested that the COVID-19 was no more of the public health than the common flu, and that covering your face does not help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The ignorant man could be heard saying, “if masks really work, why is this still a problem? Because the masks don’t do anything. It’s just the flu, we’ve already been exposed to, folks.” Mind you, this man was wearing a face mask below his chin, so he was just being dumb at this point. He also hit out previous predictions of how many people the coronavirus could actually kill. If I’m putting my two cents in here, I’m surprised this didn’t happen in Florida. The worst thing about this is that reactions to this anti-mask tirade were mixed! A few people decided to fist bump him while others did the appropriate thing, and called for him to quiet down. While both COVID-19 and the flu (influenza) are contagious respiratory illnesses, they are crossed by different viruses that can have several different effects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC stated that COVID is most like to spread quicker than influenza and that it can cause more serious illnesses in some, unlike the flu. According to the CDC, “the best way to prevent infection is to avoid being exposed to the virus.” Across the United States, almost 300,000 people are known to have died from the coronavirus. In comparison, an estimated 22,000 people died due to influenza in 2019, according to the CDC. But, they did note that the figure does vary each year. Two years ago, that number hit 61,000. Cases have been rising in the state of California, totaling 21,040 last week from 1,585,378 recorded COVID-19 cases, according to John Hopkins University. Globally, JHU stated there have been more than 1.6 million deaths.

Dr. Jill Biden has received overwhelming support on social media after a Wall Street Journal op-ed was called sexist by many readers for urging the incoming first lady to drop the “Dr.” before her name. The op-ed, which was written by Joseph Epstein, was published on Friday referring to the former second lady as “Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo,” before sharing what he thought about her title. Biden currently holds a bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Delaware, and a master’s degree from West Chester University and Villanova University. Epstein wrote, “Any chance you might drop the ‘Dr.’ before your name?. ‘Dr. Jill Biden’ sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic. Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation with the unpromising title ‘Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs.’ A wise man once said that no one should call himself ‘Dr.’ unless he has delivered a child,” Epstein added. “Think about it, Dr. Jill, and forthwith drop the doc.” As expected, the article did receive significant backlash with several public figures calling out WSJ and Epstein’s rude kiddo comments coming to the defense of educator Dr. Biden. Vice president Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff tweeted about the incident, noting, “Dr. Biden earned her degrees through hard work and pure grit. She is an inspiration to me, to her students, and to Americans across this country. This story would never have been written about a man.” Rev. Dr. Bernice King, who is the daughter of late Martin Luther King Jr., also came to the defense, tweeting, “Dear @DrBiden: My father was a non-medical doctor. And his work benefited humanity greatly. Yours does, too. Both non-medical doctors whose work benefits humanity does not = a comparison of experiences, contributions, leadership and influence. Please don’t contrive reasons to be frustrated. There are enough legitimate reasons.” Not surprisingly enough, Hillary Clinton also had two cents to add, telling her Twitter users, “Her name is Dr. Jill Biden. Get used to it.” CNN liberal in house media pundit Brian Stelter also chimed in called the op-ed “sexist.” The WSJ’s opinion editor defended the piece, noting that several President-elect Joe Biden staffers and allies took to Twitter to label the piece “repugnant and sexist,” demanding an apology. Gigot wrote, “Why go to such lengths to highlight a single op-ed on a relatively minor issue? My guess is that the Biden team concluded it was a chance to use the big gun of identity politics to send a message to critics as it prepares to take power. There’s nothing like playing the race or gender card to stifle criticism. It’s the left’s version of Donald Trump’s ‘enemy of the people’ tweets.” Despite Gigot’s words, Dr. Jill Biden continued to receive support from the public, calling out Mr. Epstein’s misogynistic views. Former first lady Michelle Obama showed her support for soon to be first lady Jill Biden on Instagram, “She will be a terrific role model not just for young girls but for all of us, wearing her accomplishments with grace, good humor, and yes, pride. I’m thrilled that the world will see what I have come to know... a brilliant woman who has distinguished herself in her profession and with the life she lives every day, always seeking to lift others up, rather than tearing them.”

The celebrity-messaging app Cameo has produced many memorable clips, but Smokey Robinson’s awkward Hanukkah wishes to a childhood neighbor might just take the cake. In a recent video, the 80-year-old star of Motown reached out to Twitter user Jeff Jacobson’s mother to wish her a happy Hanukkah. Unfortunately, Robinson wasn’t completely sure how to pronounce the holiday, and so took a pretty big swing. The video of Robinson quickly went viral on Twitter. People loved how charmingly Robinson wished the Jacobson family a happy “cha-noo-ka” despite not knowing what that was. Many thought the video was even better than it might have been if Robinson had pronounced the holiday correctly. Smokey Robinson has only cemented his status as a legend with this video. There are several ways to spell Hanukah, so Robinson’s mistake is easy to understand. Robinson himself even reached out to Jacobson’s viral tweet to ask for a do-over! Don’t worry, Mr. Robinson, you remain a star in all of our hearts. Happy Hanukkah! 

Elon Musk, one of society’s most conspicuously wealthy individuals and the head of Tesla and SpaceX, faced backlash over a transphobic post on social media. Musk joins a list of high-profile celebrities like J.K. Rowling and John Cleese who decided to punch down by targeting transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming people. Musk shared a meme on social media slamming people who share their pronouns in their Twitter bios as well as claiming white male victimhood. At least that’s what some people think his point was. He used a visual of the American Revolutionary War with an illustrated Redcoat, smearing blood on himself with the words “I love to oppress” printed on his hat and a teacup with “TGI 688/6BB?” printed on it dangling from his pinky. Maybe he dislikes the British? Or tea?

Immediately, Musk received backlash for a number of reasons. One-the word “you” is actually a pronoun. And also, what does this meme even mean? Not to mention, Musk named his child something people will literally never be able to pronounce. SpaceX recently suffered a major loss to a prototype rocket when a test run of the rocket caused it to crash into its landing site and explode. While this is not necessarily bad news for SpaceX... as it provides some valuable data for adjustment... it does beg the question of why Musk is sharing this meme at all instead of doing literally anything else. The onslaught of celebrities revealing themselves as transphobes in 2020 is a little alarming. But the Internet is clearly capable of dealing with transphobic posts like Elon Musk’s... whether deliberate or tangential.

Instead of doing this blog thing I should be listening to this album...

Hahahaha. That's so stupid. That's as stupid as... 

If you're looking for a Christmas card to get someone how about this one?

Hahaha. You heard of Elf on the Shelf, right? But have you heard of...?

Hahahaha. That's pretty funny. Some NFL teams have changed their logos this season, like this one here...

I don't get it. Okay, here's a story from...

If something goes into the water in Florida you just leave it. It’s gone forever now. That’s the rule. Because if you do try to retrieve your lost item there’s a 100% chance that whatever pond or marsh or swamp or lake or river it fell into has a murderer’s row... literally... of demon beasts hungry for your blood laying in wait beneath the surface. A gator, a python, or a monitor lizard are probably lurking, ready for you to reach out for the Superman flatbill or something else on brand for you, the Floridian in question, that was dropped into the water on accident. Then, once your flip-flop or the Female Body Inspector badge you won from a Dave and Busters claw machine is just within reach, BAM, you’re getting pulled under by an apex predator. Even a Florida puddle probably has some skin melting bacteria floating in it. If your possessions touch any untreated water in Florida just abandon them. This infallible natural law held true for one Florida man, Richard Peel, 35, who was playing disc golf at Cliff Stephens Park in Clearwater, Florida when he was attacked while trying to retrieve his disc from a pond, according to the Clearwater Fire Department. The gator started to pull Peel in, but witnesses to the attack locked arms and rescued Peel from his Darwinian fate. According to the Florida Wildlife Commission, the gator was actually seen in the pond prior to Peel going in there. Peel weighed the possibility of being mauled by a giant alligator against losing a disc from his disc golf set and proceeded to go into the water to get the disc. This is the Florida version of a Midwesterner continuing to barbecue during a tornado warning. A second smaller alligator was also removed from the pond after it was deemed inevitable that people were going to keep wading into the pond to retrieve their eight dollars worth of plastic.

If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Okay, let's take a live look at Port Jefferson, shall we?

Looks like a nice day there but it's 26°F. It's supposed to snow up north within a few days by the way. Matter of fact, a friend of the Phile who is from New York has something to say about that. He's a singer, patriot and renaissance man. You know what time it is...

Dear idiots, the weather forecast shows a significant amount of snow across the New York area to run from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday late morning... don’t clear out the market shelves of milk, bread and eggs (you’re not going to survive the snowpocalypse by eating French toast). Top off your car with gas today... leave work early tomorrow (so you’re not stuck in traffic, during THE WORST BLIZZARD IN FIFTY YEARS)... don’t post pictures from behind the wheel of your car, showing you being stuck in blizzard traffic because you ignored the suggestion above this one... because you’re an idiot (becoming that person who causes an accident making even more traffic). Don’t spend all day posting pictures of the snow in your yard (we’ve got enough fucking snow of our own... no need to admire yours).   Stay off the roads during the storm you’ll just be in the way of emergency workers who want to get through THEIR shift without having to rescue your dumb ass from an accident or snowbank (just ‘cause you got a Jeep don’t make you Yukon Cornelius). Stay home, get drunk, put up your Charlie Brown Christmas tree and watch whatever cringeworthy holiday programming is on the Hallmark Channel. It’s just snow, people... you live in New York... happens every year about this time. Nothing to see here, people... move along! 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a fictional group of humanoid turtles who successfully fight crime as a team despite their very different Myers-Briggs scores. 

Humans spend the first 18 (or more) years of their lives getting caught up to speed about what the other humans have been doing for the past few thousand years.

The 142nd book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...

Cathy Goldsmith who helped put this book together and worked for Dr. Seuss will be on the Phile on Monday. 

Phact 1. When Steven Spielberg was to be awarded his honorary doctorate from USC’s Cinematic Arts school, he agreed to accept only if it was personally signed by the admissions officer who rejected him for an average “C” grade when he applied there as an aspiring film student. 

Phact 2. After a Soviet doctor in Antarctica had to remove his own appendix, all Australian doctors must have theirs removed before allowed to stay there. 

Phact 3. After WWI, the Australian military started “The Great Emu War” where they tried to cull emus with machine guns, but finally the emus mostly won. 

Phact 4. Kim Jong-Il’s personal sushi chef escaped from North Korea in 2001 by telling him that he wanted to buy a sea urchin to cook for him. He subsequently wrote a memoir about his experiences with Kim Jong-Il. 

Phact 5. In Laguna, Brazil, bottlenose dolphins actively herd fish towards local fishermen and then signal with tail slaps for the fishermen to throw their nets. This collaboration between man and dolphins has been occurring since at least 1847. 

Today's pheatured guest is an American actor and acting coach. He has appeared in Hollywood films including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (in which he was both in the costume and was the voice) as Raphael. You didn't think I did a few Turtles references for nothing, did you? Haha. Please welcome to the Phile... Josh Pais.

Me: Hello, Josh, welcome to the Phile. How are you? 

Josh: Good. My pleasure. 

Me: Before we talk about you I have to ask about your dad. He worked with Albert Einstein? Is that true? 

Josh: Yeah, that's absolutely true. 

Me: That's cool. Did he ever tell you stories about that? 

Josh: He talked about it a lot. 

Me: Did you learn anything from this? I'm sure you did. 

Josh: Actually his work with Einstein, my dad being a theoretical physicist really impacted me in many different ways in terms of my acting actually. 

Me: Can you tell us any stories that your dad might've told you about working with Einstein? 

Josh: There are so many stories but one story that really stuck with me was my dad telling me the last my dad saw Einstein he went to visit him and he was ill at that time, Einstein was in bed. They worked together for 11 years and my dad came and knocked on the door and Einstein was scribbling away doing calculations and he came in and my dad sat down next to him and they had a conversation. More chit chat than anything super profound and this story made such an impression on my dad and made an impression on me as a result. So then my dad walked to the door and turned around to say good-bye one last time to him and Einstein was back at work scribbling and calculating. There's something just really beautiful about that. Just his passion and to understand the physical world that we live in. In terms of having a theoretical physicist as a father that impacted me as an actor as a kid. 

Me: How did that impact you? 

Josh: I remember him telling me as I was sitting at this small table, "You see this small table?" I was like, "Yeah." "You see your knee?" "Yeah." He said they are both made out of atoms. "The smallest part of that table and the smallest part of your knee are the same thing and they're atoms. Your body is made out of atoms." When I started auditioning after going to acting school I had so much nervousness when I would audition it would just screw me up. I recalled that conversation with my dad and started to look at nervousness and body sensation in terms of atoms, in terms of movement in my body. If I just felt the energetic movement of nervousness as opposed to calling it nervousness and then associated it with something bad I actually just felt the atomic vibration in s sense it became creative fuel opposed to something I had to manage or get over. I also teach something called Committed Impulse which just started out as an actor training and a lot of it starts with that premise about anybody that needs to create or put their ass on the line to the next level they are going to feel more in their body. I basically teach people to increase their tolerance or all of themselves and not just create creative invisibility basically. 

Me: Where are you from, John? 

Josh: New York City, in the East Village. It was a very tumultuous neighborhood and other kids' father's were bus drivers, school teachers or drug dealers, all things that a kid could comprehend. Then my dad would scribble these enormous calculations on big black boards. 

Me: Okay, I vaguely remember seeing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie in the theaters. I didn't know much about them except they were a comic book first and cartoon series. Did you know about them before or what did you think when you first heard the title of the film? 

Josh: Well, my agent called me and said, "I have an appointment for you for this movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to play the lead turtle." I was like "Can you say that again?" I had never heard of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. At that time it was just comic books that were out which were very dark and kind of cults and they weren't mainstream. But they had certainly a strong cult following. It had not crossed my path and just the words it took me a while to just kind of see the words and I was like what is happening. So that was my first reaction and my agent said just go in on it. 

Me: Did you know martial arts before hand? 

Josh: I was trained in some martial arts as I used to get mugged a lot as a kid. I think I was 13 when I started to do martial arts. Once I started doing that nobody started to mess with me again. I didn't have to use it but I think it just gave me an awareness. Prior to that I was probably energetically inviting people to mug me, so that shifted a lot. 

Me: So, what was the audition like? 

Josh: I did a couple of kicks in the air. I created in the auction a sense that this was a real New York guy like where I grew up and a lot of those guys were, especially the smaller guys, they would walk in a way that they were trying to make themselves look bigger. They would move their arms in a way like they were pushing through space. It almost reminded me that how could I create this guy, this turtle. Turtles move that way too, their arms go out to the side pulling themselves forward. There was something similar to some of these guys that I grew up with so I was just playing with the physicality of that. How this guys moves and what he's trying to prove and work through. 

Me: Whose idea was it to give Raphael that accent? 

Josh: That was my choice and I think it was so connected to what I was doing physically that they just felt that I had to do the voice. I think the other guys could've done the voice but anyway it didn't turn out that way. I'm really happy that I got to do the voice because it just allowed me to be that creature as much as I possibly could. 

Me: In the cartoon I think they had surfer accents but your version didn't. Do you like that it's different? 

Josh: Yeah, its different but I guess they're all different from one another. I think he's more different than the other three. I feel like he's got more working through more stuff than the others are. 

Me: I have to show a pic of you in the suit... 

Me: Did you do the stunts in that suit as well or did you have a stunt double? 

Josh: Well, we trained for about three and a half months before filming in Brooklyn. Then we train for at least three weeks while we were in North Carolina where were shooting. So we did a lot of martial arts training and for me using the sai. So the super impressive stuff I didn't do but I did do a lot. Going in and out of the fights that was me and it was not an incredibly flying through the air kind of thing. They also didn't want me to get injured but I did as much as I could. The stunt guys were obviously phenomenal. 

Me: Jim Henson's Creature Shop made the suits for the Turtles I think. What was it like going there? 

Josh: Well, I was still like what's happening. Once I got the offer they said they were flying me to London and I went to Jim Henson's Creature Shop and that was a magical place. There were all these creatures of different levels of completion. This was pre-CGI so they had all these robotics. I remember they had a wolf that they were working on for another project. They had all these robotics inside the wolf suit to make the lip to go up and do the gnarl. So it was just amazing. It was cutting edge technology for it's time. They were just pushing the envelope. It was just magical to see that. 

Me: So, what was it like when you got the suit? 

Josh: They brought me into a room and their were two looped ropes hanging from the ceiling which I put my arms in and they gave me a super thin body suit and they stated doing the entire back of my body. We were like just chit chatting and three guys were doing it from the Creature Shop, these really playful Englishmen. They're drinking tea and it's all fun and games and they do the whole back of my body. As they put it on the plaster started to warm up. Then they started doing the front of my body from feet up to my pelvis, then they started doing my chest and I was like wait a minute, I was becoming completely sealed up and it was hardening. Finally they do my head and there's two straws coming out of my nostrils so I'm completely sealed up in plaster except for my nostrils. I never experienced claustrophobia before but it was just I couldn't move. I could hear talking and kind of laughing because I was going "hmmmm hmmmm." Like okay, let's finish up. They had to let everything harden and I could hear them trough this muffled sound kind of laughing. I've done yoga since I was 6-years-old and I was like panicking is not going to help me. I can't go there so I just literally imagined this castle, I don't know where it came from, just walking through this castle and seeing all the details of the castle. Just going, walking through this castle and it got me through the time of it. Then they started cracking it open and I was just so grateful. I later found out they kept all of us in there longer than they needed to because they wanted to see how we would handle it. Because they knew what we were going to go through, it was going to be incredibly intense. That was like a test that none of us knew we were taking. That was what the experience was like. Then they put the two halves of the molds that they made my body together and they filled that up with some sort of plaster then they cracked that open after that dried. So they basically created my body in this plaster mold in plaster form, and then they built the costume on to that so that it will fit me exactly. 

Me: So, I told the story many of times of how I met Jim Henson when I worked in custodial at Epcot. He asked me to help him move a trash can and then after filming he said I can put it back. Did you ever meet Jim Henson while you were over there? 

Josh: Yeah, we went bowling, we all hung out. We were doing a lot of night shoots and sometimes we would start really late so we would just do stuff. We would go bowling at 7 or 8 o'clock at night for a couple of hours when we were awake and then start filming. We'll be up all night. 

Me: What was he like to you, Josh? 

Josh: He was so humble. He was just in it to make things. He was just real creative, there was no sign of ego, it wasn't about that for him. It was like what can we do, how can we make that or what about this. He was just like a magical, creative person. 

Me: He passed away just a month after the movie came out I think, right? 

Josh: Yeah, and I'm just so glad I got to spend that little bit of time with him. 

Me: What was it like wearing that mask? 

Josh: Well, first of all the whole costume weighed about 70 pounds. They would suit us up from our feet all the way up to the head. The shell would go on, the torso pieces would go on and then the head would go on. They would have to sort of crunch it over our heads and then it would sort of snap down, the they would start gluing it, the flaps on the head underneath the shell. I would remember I would smell that glue like I know I was being sealed in. I could see through a tiny slit under the eye. It was incredibly limited vision and there were a lot of times on close ups where they had to seal that up so we were working blind. Because me and the other guys we had just trained so much together that in a sense we had to connectively work together because we couldn't see each other. There were times that we banged into each other but I have a sense that when we had to work blind or with very limited vision that in sense required us to access these other senses and in a sense I think that came through into the film. 

Me: Do you think it helped or hindered you? 

Josh: It really forced us to do that and I think that's one of the reasons that people connected so much to these characters because we did our best. We were so challenged, it almost challenged us to work so deeply that I think our characters came through the costumes. 

Me: How come you didn't come back for the sequel or anything else after that? 

Josh: Well, I had made a mental note to myself because I had seen and started to meet some of the other actors who had been doing things with the Creature Shop for a while and I could see that was a whole career path of playing these kind of creatures that are in costume. I just knew that I was going to commit fully to this first one but it wasn't something I wanted to make for my career path. 

Me: Did they talk to you about doing the sequel? 

Josh: Yeah, but by the time they were talking to me about doing the second one I was recurring on "Law & Order" at that time. That just felt more of the trajectory I was supposed to take. I'm glad I did the first one but I didn't want to go down that path. The other three guys did go down that path and that's awesome. No judgement, it just wasn't the direction I wanted to go. 

Me: So, you're in the Joker movie, right? 

Josh: Yeah, I was super psyched. 

Me: What was it like working with Joaquin? He's a method actor, right? 

Josh: I would say so. I will say that he fully goes there. Whatever techniques and approaches he uses I don't know the exact definition of it but I will say he commutes fully and he just raises the bar of commitment saying we're doing this and we're going as deeply as we can. 

Me: That's cool. Josh, thanks so much for being on the Phile. 

Josh: You're so welcome. 

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to my guests Laird Jim and of course Josh Pais. The Phile will be back tomorrow with one of my favorite actors... Christopher Walken! I'm so excited! Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye. Kiss your brain. 

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