Pheaturing Michael J. Fox

 

Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Monday. How are you? Let's start off with some trivial news about one of my favorite TV shows... It has been a while since we got any good news about the upcoming season of "Doctor Who." After all, the most recent update about the series confirmed that two companions will be leaving after the Holiday Special. Luckily, showrunner Chris Chibnall has just offered a hopeful update on the highly anticipated Season 13. Chibnall recently posted a new installment of his "Production Notes" column in Doctor Who Magazine (via Radio Times). In his post, he wrote about the difficult process of working on the new season of "Doctor Who" amidst COVID-19. “We are filming,” Chibnall wrote. “I don’t think anyone on any production team right now would claim the new processes are easy. Making any television drama has, in one fell swoop, become more demanding than it’s ever been. And that’s before you factor in the usual "Doctor Who" extras of monsters, stunts and Welsh weather.” Chibnall also shared how the production team continues to struggle with less-than-ideal filming weather. “The crew have just been through the most brutal week of weather out on location... as I write this on a Tuesday, I think they’re still soaking wet from the previous Friday. It has been, and will continue to be for many months ahead, a mammoth team effort.,” he wrote. Nevertheless, Chibnall did promise that the new season is worth the wait. “Luckily the rushes are thrilling. Mad, exciting, funny and scary. And look, there’s the Doctor. There’s the TARDIS in new places, new locations. Just seeing that lifts the soul. She’s on new adventures. She’s back saving people and worlds,” he wrote. I'm hoping that the cast and crew will manage to get things done despite the weather. With that in mind, I can't wait for the new season of "Doctor Who." 

Oh gosh, here we go again, Giuliani is back in the news for hilarious reasons. Rudy Giuliani, who was supposed to be President Donald Trump’s cybersecurity advisor, proved again that he basically has no idea what he was talking about. Through a Zoom call with Georgia legislators, Giuliani went off on another rant about election fraud, claiming that Democrats are covering it up with the aid of some Georgia Republican politicians. He then went on to say one of the most hilarious things I have heard from a politician, and if I’m completely honest, I’m still trying to figure out how he comes up with this mess. Giuliani stated that some people were “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine. It’s obvious to anyone who is a criminal investigator or prosecutor that they were engaged in surreptitious illegal activity.” Hahahahahahahahahahaha. I’m sorry, what? Is this man okay? Does he know what he is talking about? But wait, he then later claimed that prosecutors should search the poll and election workers homes for “evidence of USB ports, for evidence of voter fraud because they were obviously engaged in it.” “They look like they’re passing out dope, not just ballots.” Now, let me break this down for you because there is no way that anyone could be passing around USB PORTS. Why? Because a port is where you plug something, not something you carry around unless you’re basically carrying around your laptop or computer. So, this man was more likely referring to USB drives, which are used in some states to move voters from voting machines that should be kept away from the Internet. In case you were wondering, no, there has been no evidence that moving data from voting machines to several other computers via flash drives led to fraud. In fact, of the 50 lawsuits filed by Trump’s lawyers and the Trump administration, 35 have been dropped or dismissed. So yes, someone please check on this man because I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what he is talking about. I will say one thing though, these conspiracy theories are giving me life. Just let President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris enjoy their win.

If you pay for a Pornhub subscription, you will now have to make sure you’re not using a Visa or Mastercard as your form of payment. Look, whatever you do in your free time is your business, but you might want to make sure you do a deep dive into what you’re putting your money, especially your credit cards, into. Columnist Nicholas Kristof for the New York Times reported that Pornhub, one of the largest and most popular pornography platforms, actually included videos of child abuse and rape. He explained that he found out of all the consensual videos that do get uploaded to Pornhub, there were also videos of rape and child sexual abuse material, including underage girls who had been victims of assault and trafficking. Kristof wrote, “In each case, offenders were arrested for the assaults, but Pornhub escaped responsibility for sharing the videos and profiting from them,” explaining how the YouTube of porn was still profiting off the illegal content. This caused both credit card companies Visa and Mastercard to do a deep dive into their financial transactions with MindGeek, the adult website’s parent company. Mastercard said in a statement that their investigation, “confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site,” resulting in their termination of using its cards on the site. Visa also said, “We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend the processing of payments through the Visa network,” rounding towards the end of their investigation and also leaning towards the potential banning of use of its cards. Pornhub responded by saying that their site has made changes in preventing sexual exploitation, sexual assault, child pornography, illegal activity, and other illegal material. Pornhub’s platform history has been known to have potential illegal content, also including revenge porn, where people are uploading videos of sexual activity without the actual consent of any one person in the video. I could make jokes about how COVID and the coronavirus pandemic have given excuses as to why Pornhub could be processing payments more than it ever has before from American Express cards. But there is absolutely nothing funny about sexually exploiting anyone, much less, children who have gone through something traumatically life-altering. You know better, and you can do better.

I have never related to a story as much as I have with this one. Listen, when you’re hungry, you’re hungry. If you’re anything like me, you need snacks to survive the day or you get hangry. You know, that mixture between hungry and angry. HANGRY! It’s really the worst thing ever. That being said, do you remember when you were in school and suddenly got so so hungry that you couldn’t just wait to get home to get a snack? Well, what if I told you that a 9-year-old found the perfect solution to that. Yes, a little girl from Missouri came up with the perfect fix to end our hunger. What did she do? She decided to fill in an empty lip balm tube with slices of sharp cheddar cheese. GOLD. WINNER. Give her a Nobel prize! Turns out this little girl really thought she had gotten away with it, but her mom, who is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch quickly caught on. Valerie Schremp Hahn posted a photo of her daughter genius idea to Twitter, which has received quite an amount of praise for the fourth-graders witty creation. Apparently, Hahn’s daughter got the idea from YouTube. She found the video when she was bored and decided to shred some of the dad’s cheese and slice it up and put it inside the chapstick container. The idea behind the whole thing came from a compilation of back to school pranks where they sneak food into class. In the video, they actually used an empty glue stick container, but the girl couldn’t find a glue stick so the young inventor used the next best thing she could find. An old lip balm tube. During her standardized tests, she said she brought her two DIY “cheese stick chapstick tubes” and took a few licks and bites during her break. Which honestly, makes her a genius. The future is definitely female. Twitter thought so too, because well, admit it, you would have loved to do this when you were younger.

Things are still not looking good for the Hungarian right-wing, conservative Fidesz party after another one of their own was found at yet another event that would not only be deemed controversial in the eyes of their campaigns, but also the entire European Parliament. Jozsef Szajer, a conservative politician from Hungary, was found at a 25-man orgy in Brussels, despite the restrictions that have been put in place in efforts against the coronavirus pandemic. Szajer is a 59-year-old MEP (member of the European Parliament) who represented Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz ruling party. The Fidesz party stands to protect Christian family values, standing against liberal political culture that celebrates the LGBTQ communities and protecting the “illiberal” Christian political community. According to the Belgian media newspaper HLN, Belgian police discovered a sex party above a café near Grand Place in Brussel’s historical center with 25 men in attendance. The private party in Belgium was busted for breaking COVID restrictions and lockdown rules that had been placed throughout all of Europe. The public prosecutor’s office in Brussels explained that among those in attendance, they found drugs on those trying desperately to escape. Szajer offered to take an on-the-spot drug test to prove that the single ecstasy pill Brussels police found near him wasn’t his. Szajer then claimed diplomatic immunity since he didn’t have identification on his person at the time, and he was given an official verbal warning before getting escorted back to his home. Szajer resigned from his position as a politician, saying in a statement, “I deeply regret violating the COVID restrictions... it was irresponsible on my part. I am ready to pay the fine that occurs. With my resignation on Sunday, I drew the political and personal consequences. I apologize to my family, to my colleagues, to my voters. I ask them to evaluate my misstep against a background of 30 years of devoted and hard work. The misstep is strictly personal. I am the one who owns responsibility for it.” Two other unidentified diplomats were also in attendance of the Brussels sex party, but in not only breaching what the Fidesz political party stands for, but the party also violated the four-person gathering limit and the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew set in Belgium. And to make matters even worse for the Fidesz party, this isn’t the first recent scandal that’s been involved with their political community. Back in July, a Budapest court sentenced a Hungarian ambassador to a year’s worth prison sentence after finding that he possessed more than 19,000 sexually explicit images of minors. And in 2019, another Fidesz politician was found participating in an orgy on a yacht in the Adriatic Sea. But, it always be a “private matter” and “personal issue” for the Fidesz party to deal with. Szajer also has a wife and a daughter. Nevertheless, the Fidesz-KDNP delegation to the European Parliament stated a thank you to Szajer “for playing a crucial role in enabling Hungarian civic conservatism and Christian democracy to take their rightful place on the European political scene.” My biggest issue with this hilariously ironic situation is the lack of consistency. Everyone is entitled to what they believe in and to stand for it, but don’t be that guy who stands against LGBT communities only to be found in a party in the middle of a pandemic around 25 other naked men. Much less, represent a party that is known to also have similar scandals that go against everything you’re supposed to represent.

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

I bet it's funny actually. Have you heard about the new hit Netflix show "The Queen's Gambit"? I thought it was about a Chess player but apparently it's not...

I was totally wrong. Hahahaha. If you need a card to get your husband or boyfriend how about this one?

So, I saw this pic the other day and it reminded me of something...

And then it hit me. 

Hahahaha. Did you know I was supposed to be in Back to the Future but they replaced me with today's guest Michael J. Fox? I have proof...

Hahaha. So, you heard about Elf on the Shelf? But did you hear about...?

Ever see those panhandlers? Some of them get very creative...

Sometimes when I get bored I look up words on Twitter to see what people are saying. One of the words I look up is "Foghat." I recently found this tweet...

Here's another NFL team that changed their logo this season...

Hahahaha. Vegans have a reputation of being overbearing because of a vocal minority. But even the most vocal vegan doesn’t justify an irrational hatred of for all vegans. One mother is dealing with the repercussions of her husband’s irrational hatred. Uncertain her response was appropriate, she turned to the Phile for feedback.

"Am I wrong for refusing to cook meat when my husband broke our (lonely) daughter’s only friendship because he hates vegans? My husband is from the south and let me just say this, he hates vegans. His family is a stereotypical country one and they get ridiculously mad when they see Beyond Meat etc… adverts on the TV. They’re practically vegan phobic and hate any menu which says suitable for vegetarians or vegans etc… This never really bothered me and I thought it was funny because I ate meat and I didn’t think it was a big deal. My daughter (now 6) was born allergic to a lot of things, like eggs and is also intolerant to lactose and grass, pollen etc… She rarely got to go to birthday parties because we couldn’t let her eat anything there. When she was a baby my husband ate an egg sandwich and kissed her and she broke out in hives and we had to take her to the doctor. All new foods were tried under medical supervision. While she can eat meat, she can’t eat any fun meat like nuggets because of egg contact. One of the kids she recently met with is our new neighbor who is around four houses away. They are completely vegan and their son doesn’t eat anything they don’t. So at his birthday she could eat the actual cake and not a muffin I’d sent. It cheered her up and they had play dates... even when we weren’t supposed to. I was glad she made a friend. His parents hadn’t called for a while and didn’t pick up our calls. When I saw his dad while I was out I was like ‘hey what’s wrong‘ and he was really hostile, telling me to never talk to him or his wife again and that he’d pray for my daughter.' I thought that was crossing the line. He pulled his phone out and showed me a very rude text from my husband. I didn’t believe his story that my husband started a fight, but when I asked my husband about it he was proud that Shelia wasn’t hanging out with hippies. I remembered the vegan hate and I was like until he apologized to that family and they agreed to let their kid play with ours, I’d never cook meat again. He said I needed to get over it and do my job, but I am cooking... just not what he would like. Jason, am I wrong?" You’re not wrong but it’s worrying that your husband has put his own rage, stupidity and fragile masculinity ahead of his own daughter’s serious dietary restrictions. I almost want to say you're for staying with someone so nasty. Your husband literally ruined your daughter’s one friendship over something insanely petty, and your only way of dealing with that is not cooking him meat? That sounds like an insane underreaction to me.” Except for your daughter and the neighbors how many perfectly nice people, minding their own business, did your husband insult before this, with you chuckling at his side? And if he’s been an ass like this all along, are you really so surprised that his actions, ignorance, and bullying have finally hit close to home? Sounds to me like you both need to grow up and learn some tolerance. It is unfortunate that your neighbors and two children got caught up in your obvious and blatant disregard for the feelings and personal choices of other people. Time to take a good, long look at your own part in this. You excused his hate for vegans and his behavior until it personally impacted you. I wonder what else you excuse because it hasn’t personally impacted you. I hope I have given you the validation you wanted. If you have a problem you want me to have an opinion on then email me at thepeverettphile@gmail.com. Good luck, everyone. 

If you spot the Mindphuck let me know... and this is not photoshopped. Okay, let's take a live look at Port Jefferson, New York, shall we? 

Looks like it's training there. Yuck! 

ATM

Money wall

That's crazy, right? 

Phact 1. When North and South Dakota were admitted to the U.S., President Harrison asked the Secretary of State to shuffle the documents so no one would know which was admitted first.

Phact 2. The observable universe is far too small to contain an ordinary digital representation of Graham’s number, assuming that each digit occupies one Planck volume. 

Phact 3. BMW i8 only has three cylinders. 

Phact 4. Bizzy Bone, of Bone Thugs and Harmony, was one of the first few abducted children in America that was rescued due to the efforts of John Walsh and "America’s Most Wanted."

Phact 5. The first approximation for the speed of light was made in 1671 when the eclipse of Io on Jupiter happened 17 minutes later than expected. 

This is so freakin'' cool! Today's guest is a retired Canadian-American actor, author, film producer and activist, with a film and television career spanning from the 1970s. He starred in the Back to the Future trilogy in which he portrayed Marty McFly. On television, he played Alex P. Keaton on the American sitcom "Family Ties" and Mike Flaherty on the ABC sitcom "Spin City." He has won five Primetime Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, a Grammy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. How latest book No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality is the 141st book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club. Please welcome to the Phile... Michael J. Fox!

Me: Wow, Michael, welcome to the Phile. How are you? 

Michael: I am well, how are you? 

Me: I'm great. So, new memoir No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality is the 141st book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club. Tell the readers what the book is about. 

Michael: A large part of it is what I went through in the year 2018, which was a rough year for me. 

Me: Why was that? What happened in 2018? 

Michael: It was a lousy year. In the start of the book I start out with New Years going into 2018, I was in a resort in Turks and Caicos and I happened to run into Keith Richards and I realized that Keith Richards looked better than I felt. That was in the beginning of the year. Then unfortunately my father-in-law passed away early in the year and I was showing all these physical pains that I was beginning to understood was not Parkinson's related even though I was having difficulty walking due to Parkinson's. But I was having additional problems because my legs were getting numb because it turned out I had a tumor on my spine. A benign tumor but a tumor on my spine. I went to a lot of doctors and surgeons and consulted about it and most were hesitant to touch it. They said it could paralyze me but they didn't want to touch it because it could be worse short turn. I eventually found a doctor in Johns Hopkins in Baltimore who was willing to do it. He was qualified and came heavily recommended. He operated on me and I spent much of '18 learning how to walk again. 

Me: That's crazy, Michael. How did you feel after that? 

Michael: Literally people say that "I had to learn to walk again," and I think sometimes they mean they had to get a balanced stride or get an evenness with their pace. I had to literally learn to pick up my foot, put it in front of the other foot, and then transfer my balance over the other foot. It was quite painstaking. I'm going to give you a shorthand answer but if you want to go into detail after if you care to or we can just talk about football. Or hockey. Anyway, so I had the surgery and it was quite intensive and quite habilitating and I had to learn how to walk again and had to deal with aides and people going around me all the time and suffocating loss of privacy. So I got through that and by late summer I was moving independently and of course I rushed that and said leave me alone, give me some space. I squandered it by going too fast down a hallway and turning into the kitchen, slipping on a tile and crushing my arm. I had to get my arm rebuilt. That was the point where I went "I'm out of the freakin' lemonade business. I can't put a shiny face on this. This sucks, and who am I to tell people to be optimistic?" People have a lot worse than this to deal with, and I have a broken arm and a bad back and Parkinson's and I'm whining and squealing and complaining. So what good has optimism done me? And that began a kind of a semi-quasi journey to find my way back to being an optimistic person. 

Me: Holy shit. So, Michael, why did you want to write it all down and write this book? 

Michael: I was making notes all the way through for some reason. I think as a creative person I was thinking what am I going to do now to an extent. The guitar I don't play that well anymore, I don't play that well anyway but I play it especially badly now. I used to draw, but I don't draw as much anymore. It's too difficult and it looks like I'm going to break the Richter scale. I don't do other things that I did. So I began writing and I enjoy writing and I took notes and it started to turn shitty so I kept on taking notes and things kept on turning shitty and it was quite interesting. I took all these notes, and I said, there's a story here to tell. For some reason I thought of telling it, I don't know why we do these things. I didn't necessarily think, "oh, there's an audience for this' or whatever." I just thought, "I'm compelled to put this down." 

Me: Did it help you? Was it therapeutic? 

Michael: I don't know it it helped, but it just captured that moment in time. I thought at that time I think I felt okay, how did I feel? I felt this way. That moment I felt this way, now I don't feel that way, what happened between there and now? How did I get there? Because this is a better place I am in now. Or this is the worst place I am in now. What decisions did I make that got me there? Life is full of choice and circumstance. 

Me: You talk about your family a lot in the book, Michael. What's the word that comes to mind when you think of your family? 

Michael: Ummm. What's the word? Celebration. 

Me: Why celebration? 

Michael: I think we all recognize being with each other and understanding each other and giving to each other and taking from each other as a celebratory act. It's just something to note and be glad for. 

Me: As opposed to? 

Michael: As opposed to being a burden in frustration. We somehow are locked into a zone. 

Me: You have been married to Tracy Pollan for a long time, Michael. What's the secret? 

Michael: Somebody asked Tracy the secret of a 30-year marriage and she said, "The benefit of the doubt." But it's really true. I could perceive a slight in something you said, or I can say, "Nah, you wouldn't have meant that," Or I may say, "I didn't mean that," but I get the benefit of the doubt going in. I get to explain that later. It's the same with my kids. I mean I could grumble at them, but I never did that. I would say, "Hey, how are you doing? Glad to see you coming through the door." It's just that kind of family. And I always put a gloss on it, but I don't remember having loud, angry words with any of my children, and I don't treat my wife that way. We talk like we like each other. And that's the key to it. We recognize there are other people in other situations. 

Me: So, Tracy has been a big part of your mental and physical recovery? 

Michael: Yeah, she helps me by not making a big deal out of it. I just want to point out I get bored of it. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want a lot from her. I want her to recognize it, learn how I feel, feel bad for me but don't express it. 

Me: Hmmm. Does she do anything that annoys you? 

Michael: There's general thing that people do that annoy me. That is I'll be walking and I trip and I stumble and they say "be careful." And I'll say "you think I'm not being careful?" They say, "watch that." It's too late, I already fell! If they are going to warn me, warn me before I go. It drives me nuts and my wife is the biggest perpetrator of it. But that's the worse I can say about her. For 29 years she's dealt with this and she put up with it and understood it. And realized that she didn't instantly switch into a caregiver mode, she was just with me with it all the way. And has dealt with it as I have dealt with it. It's now just a condition of our marriage. 

Me: How are you children with it all? 

Michael: There's no alternate dad besides me and everything. "This is the way a normal dad would do it," or "this is the way our dad does it." They just watch the way I did it and dealt with it. I might flatter myself when I say they have a certain acceptance of reality and realistic to work with that and carry on with their lives. 

Me: What do you mean by that? 

Michael: I think with optimism and gratitude and other concepts they have more feelings and believe certain concepts but when it comes to acceptance, acceptance is a huge thing. To accept things doesn't mean to ever change them. If they're negative or if they're hurtful. But we have to acknowledge them first. We have to accept them and then we can make space around them. With Parkinson's it took it took much space of my life but there are other areas of my life where I was able to thrive. I could use it as a motivator or I could ignore it altogether and go on with my life. So I encouraged my kids to do that with their lives. If they see someone who is unpleasant to them or is hurtful to them or is changing the way they want to do things or the way they think what is right, accept it, understand it and then go forward. Only let it take up the room that it takes out. If they don't do that than it's just this enormous blob of anxiety that will seek in every crevice of their life. 

Me: Did that philosophy help you when you quit drinking, Michael? 

Michael: Yeah, I applied it to dealing with Parkinson's which is acceptance, and understanding there would be change and I had to live with that change and deal with it and understand it and manage it. 

Me: Optimism is a big thing for you, Michael, in this interview I think and in the book. Why is "optimism" so important? 

Michael: I had to get to it like it was a real thing. Optimism is a choice, we chose to be optimistic. I'm just trying to figure out why I'm just so freaking optimistic when evedthigb sucks right now. I have this feeling at the base of it that's who I am. When I wrote that I couldn't reach my phone with a broken arm I was just ripping into myself what a jerk I've been, not taking care of myself and taking for granted all the care, time and energy of all these people that helped me get well and I was ridiculous and careless and hurt myself. Who am I to tell people to be optimistic, who am I to tell people to cheer up? Again I had three circumstances that the misery index is nothing compared to people who lose children or get cancer, or lose their homes or lose their countries or lose their franchise. But it was enough to make me miserable and again who was I to tell people to cheer up? 

Me: I get that, I always try to be optimistic but it's hard, right? 

Michael: I had a hard time trying to explain to the editor and to the publisher with this book because they said, "What happens?" And I said, "I don't know what happens because it hasn't happened yet. It's always evolving, it's always happening, but I arrived at a place where I kind of went through it and I said, "my body is a mess." A part of me is still trying to figure all this stuff out. I looked at how I was reacting, what I was doing with my time. During his darkest months I found myself spending long hours watching "crappy television," much of which existed before I was born and that had nothing to do with me. I just realized I'm a part of that circle because someday my kids will be watching me when I'm long gone, and I'm survived only by my reruns. And that made me think about mortality, in a kind of an odd way, in a funny way. I thought of how I used to move and I found optimism in the fact I was still find ways to express myself physically and I'm still alive. 

Me: Do you ever watch reruns of "Family Ties" or "Spin City" or the Back to the Future movies or anything else you have done? 

Michael: You mean when I was younger and healthier? And could express myself in a more dynamic way? I just change channels looking for the ball game. I don't spend much time on it. I once called up Lonnie Ali, Muhammad's wife and I said, "Did Ali ever see himself on television or film and see the old footage of himself in the old Cassius Clay days and a little later, when he was dynamic and expressive and poetic and a physical wonder?" He was an amazing being to watch and do his stuff. She said, "Yes, he does," And I said, "How does he feel about it?" She said, "He loves it, he watched it for hours." And I thought, "Well that's cool. He accepts and realizes it's great to have been that. It's great to have done that." So I took something from that. Then I started to get into the people in my life and how much they were with me throughout all this. And then separate myself from my personal experience and look at their experience with me and what they've done for me. And then my father-in-law, I thought about him and about the gratitude he always expressed, and I just came to a place where I said, "That's just who I am. And it's just the way I respond to things regardless of this gauntlet I went through." 

Me: Do you think you were optimistic because you're famous and because your foundation? Does that make sense? 

Michael: That's it. That's the point I reached. I was sitting with my phone, against the wall, holding a sand of gravel with my arm and just thinking how am I going to push on from this? I have no happiness left. How am I going to make lemonade out of these lemons? I'm out of the lemonade business. I thought about that, and I thought about how I was going to put that in the book. The way I put it in the book was, "Had I offered optimism as a panacea? Had I commodified hope? Had I been so glib about my positive experiences that it had been counter-productive or not sincere?" But I came to a place where I realized that that gave me more than I gave it. The Foundation that I've done and the people that are involved in it weight the way its grown is purely research driven and patience is the key to everything we do. What are the most care bases, therapy bases, treatment bases and we get patient contribution and trails. People that sign up for a spinal tap just to find bio-markers that will let us diagnose the disease before it happens. When someone signs up for a spinal tap I have to feel good about that. When I find myself looking at my phone and I'm on the floor looking at myself I could have been pissed off with myself or said that's to for me. I didn't say poor me, I said asshole me. I could have taken any number of attitudes about it. But the bottom line is it's the way I take in the world around me. 

Me: Hmmm. Okay. So, who inspires you on a dark day? 

Michael: My kids. Then just people like... I keep telling this story, I should do the service of learning this guys name because it seems rude to talk about it without crediting him for who he is or what his identity is. On my birthday a few years ago and I turned on ESPN and they were showing the new documentaries they did. This high school football coach, championship level, great football coach made his team dedicated to him, they loved him, listened to him, did his bidding and it was just a sensational relationship with his team, he had been born with no arms and no legs. He was in a chair and somehow he was able to overcome this and learn about football and to be really efficient and an excellent successful coach. I was just blown away by this guy, and then one thing happened to this guy, he showed up one day to a team meeting and he was just smashed, his face was smashed, his nose was smashed, he had cuts on his forehead and his chin and he broken some teeth. What happened was he pitched forward and fell out of his chair and of course he had no arms and legs to break the fall, he broke the fall with his face. He showed up and gave a brief explanation and they went on and told them what the game plan was for that day. It was my birthday, and I'm not going to get a better gift all day. 

Me: I have to look up his name. What did you learn from that? 

Michael: He had to deal with it. That reaction that he had, he obviously suffered and felt pain about this and I'm sure he had moments where he said, "what the hell? Why?" But he carried on, he realized what he was conveying to those kids was real. It wasn't a bullshit thing that when it went bad for him he could just throw it away and say I disown that, I'm not going to respond to that anymore because look what happened to me and how can I tell people? He believed it and he conveyed it, and he communicated. To extent my trials are ridiculous compared to what he endured. 

Me: You do understand you are "him" to a lot of people? 

Michael: I can't go there. That's the thing, I just do what I do, I just wrote a book. I don't have anything descriptive. I don't have anything to tell anybody that they can't find somewhere else. I could just relay my experience and for some reason I just feel compelled to do that. I've done it in the past, and people have responded to it in a way that they get something from it or they enjoy out or even of I just make them laugh. That's great to, for me to communicate it, and to fulfill my identity that's a part of it. 

Me: I think your book is going to help a lot of people, don't you think? 

Michael: A friend of mine said to me, "What is this book going to be like?" And I said, "It's going to be cranky. I'm going to whine and bitch and moan and squeal." 

Me: Hahaha. Why do you think that is? 

Michael: Because I felt that way doing this. I felt why, this sucks, they don't understand, all that stuff. It was always something though that I can learn my way through. 

Me: Okay, so, when you think back to all the movies and TV shows you have done what are you proudest of? 

Michael: Like I said I don't linger on it a lot. Not just for the reason that I've been there and was there at the time. Back to the Future fans come up to me and say, "It's the 13th of October, when Doc found the cheese on the plate or whatever." It's so involved. I was doing two jobs at the time, I was barely there. I was just thinking I hope it turns out. 

Me: You have to be proud of something you did, Michael. And don't say Teen Wolf. Haha. 

Michael: I think I am the most proud of, the thing I always see in my eyes that I was enjoying it, that I could tell was involved and I cared whether it was good or bad or indifferent, but I showed up and did the best I could. In the book I talk about the last couple of acting experiences that I had. I don't mean to make a big fuss about it, but I don't know if it was my best work and I don't know if I want to do that again but I like when I see myself and knowing I was there and I was involved. 

Me: So, how did you come up with the title for this book? 

Michael: It all comes down to mortality. When I'm trying to figure all this stuff out I go well, yeah, and then I die. That's the thing. And then I die. It occurred to me when I came up with the title for the book which I knew having "future" in it is an eye-catcher. But I thought of the idea of the future, and it occurred to me the future is the last thing we run out of. We run out of everything, we run out of breath, the last thing we run out of is the future, It comes to a point there's no more future. Until then there's something in the future we have to be optimistic about. Something to look forward to, it may change the circumstance or it may not, but it will run out so enjoy it while we have it. 

Me: Do you ever think about death? 

Michael: Not to get too personal about it, but when I do financial planning I come to the fact that I'm going to need extended care at some point then I won't be around as the rest of my family. I think about that. That's what I do as an adult human being. At some point I'll hit the exit, but until then I'll enjoy the ride. 

Me: That's very true, Michael, thanks so much for being on the Phile, Take care, and I hope you'll come back again next year. 

Michael: Thank you, I appreciate it.

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Michael J. Fox for a very cool interview. The Phile will be back tomorrow with Tina Sinatra. 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