Pheaturing Beck

 

Rabbit. Hey, kids, how are you doing? Welcome to the Phile fo a Monday. It's February. Tampa Bay Bucs will win the Super Bowl. If you didn’t know, it’s not uncommon for states to turn the birthdays of former presidents into a significant holiday. In California, February 6th is former President Ronald Reagan’s birthday, where public schools recognize his accomplishments, and in Illinois, a Barack Obama Day was created back in 2017. Now, Ohio GOP lawmakers are advocating for June 14th to be named as President Donald J. Trump Day. Republican Reps. Jon Cross of Kenton and Reggie Stoltzfus of Paris Township rallied their House colleagues on Friday to cosponsor the bill in celebrating “one of the greatest presidents in American history.” The email request read, “Let’s show the 3,154,834 Ohio voters who cast their ballot to re-elect Donald J. Trump that we as a legislature recognize the accomplishments of his administration.” However, Ohio House Democrats disagree with the bill, saying that June 14th wouldn’t be the right day to commemorate the 45th President of the United States. Although it is the former president’s birthday, it’s actually a national holiday. June 14th is Flag Day, which commemorates when the U.S. adopted the American flag. Rep. Jeff Crossman, D-Pharma, said, “I don’t like the idea of changing an existing federal holiday that honors the flag. I think it’s disrespectful.” It’s interesting to see how important this is, especially since it’s seemingly an honor to be bestowed after death. Yet, according to the Columbus Dispatch, Georgia doesn’t have a President Jimmy Carter Day and Arkansas doesn’t have a President Bill Clinton Day. Look, I get that people want to honor whoever they voted for in the presidential election, but one thing is for sure: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris now reside in the White House, per the past Inauguration Day. There are more things for Congress, both House of Representatives and Senate, to be worrying about. They’ve already had to worry about the U.S. Capitol riots in Washington, D.C, Trump’s impeachment trial, the coronavirus pandemic, and more. There has been so much political drama, as always, with Trump’s possible reelection, issues with the electoral college, Pelosi’s laptop getting stolen during the riots, and all of President Biden’s new executive orders. And I wonder how Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, and his kids, Ivanka, Donald Jr., Barron, Tiffany, and Eric, feel about him getting his own holiday. Maybe he’ll even go back to "The Apprentice"? Nevertheless, I think we can worry about national holidays a little later.

Hiccups on the news will never get old, as you can find many hilarious compilations of things going wrong on live TV. Nevertheless, sometimes those hiccups, whether intentional or not, play in just too perfectly. And for MSNBC’s Brian Williams, that perfect hiccup was the supposed showing of an “exclusive video” of GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s meeting with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, turning out to be a clip from the movie Jerry Maguire. And of course the scene was a famous one. It was the one between Jerry Maguire, played by Tom Cruise, telling Dorothy Boyd, played by Renee Zellweger, “You complete me,” to which she responds, “You had me at hello.” "The 11th Hour with Brian Williams" Williams’ guests Baratunde Thurston and Bill Kristol could not hide their smiles when the clip ended. Williams quickly pointed out the mistake, saying, “Obviously we have rolled the wrong clip and we were sold a bill of goods here.” Thurston was able to choke out, “Brian, I am still recovering from the video clip.” But the Internet was not going to let this slip away. The clip took off on social media with many sharing the video across platforms. Williams added, “Someone of course is going to be in big trouble,” and also explained his point that, “you got the leader of the Republicans in the House going down to kiss the ring and God knows what else, meeting with a deposed former president in his under-decorated Florida home.” The criticisms had stemmed from the debate on whether to hold Trump’s impeachment trial for a second time, as McCarthy led the argument that the former president was responsible the U.S. Capitol riot. However, now that Democrat Joe Biden has entered the White House, his Trump meeting implied that his criticisms had softened, and that he intended to get back on Trump’s good side within the Republican party. Well, while the rest of the world is focused on the inauguration, the coronavirus pandemic, the NFL Super Bowl, or even the GameStop and Wall Street showdown with Robinhood, at least Brian Williams gave us a nice laugh.

A billboard that boldly states “NEW YORK IS DEAD. DON’T COME BACK.” now stands in surprisingly, Los Angeles. The black-and-white signage is less PSA and more ironic commentary, as its creators... two idealistic (or self-important) Williamsburg artists... declared proudly on "NBCNewYork." Check it out...

But what exactly makes this statement so controversial?  The “NEW YORK IS DEAD” message first appeared streaming overhead in Miami, Florida, as a mysterious banner attached to a plane. This Los Angeles location now sits on the bustling Sunset Boulevard and has become an object of national fascination. Both messages are the work of Graham Fortgang and Samara Bliss, two hipster artists representing the Brooklyn art collective, The Locker Room NYC. The phrase “New York is dead” gained attention... and notoriety... last year after Brooklynite venture capitalist James Altucher wrote that New York City would never bounce back from the economic crash and mass exodus, resulting from the rise of the coronavirus pandemic. New York legend Jerry Seinfeld then responded to the “putz” through a scathingly true-to-form op-ed in the New York Times, “So You Think New York is Dead.” He wrote, “Real, live, inspiring human energy exists when we coagulate together in crazy places like New York City.” Along with effectively roasting the “enervated, pastel-filled” life found in Florida, Seinfeld’s tirade effectively ended all conversations regarding the so-called death of New York. Until now. The placement of the billboards in Los Angeles and Miami is telling. The demographic who flies off to an expensive West Coast metropolis like L.A. or the hard-partying Florida beaches are likely the exact same folks for whom “people [are] in the streets making art, singing and dancing” as co-artist Samara Bliss described present-day NYC in her NBC interview. The billboard could have fittingly been placed in closer affluent getaways, like the Hamptons or Westchester County. The Locker Room No, New York is not dead. But many New Yorkers did die. Roughly 26,763 of them. By the second month of the pandemic, mobile morgues were popping up on public land to accommodate the vast overflow of bodies. Most of those who died were old, over 65, and low income. It was those communities that lacked, and still lack, the health care necessary to fight COVID-19. It was those impoverished communities that most essential workers came from. And those survivors continue to work, unprotected, as the projected NYC vaccine rollout flounders. Presumably, this is not the demographic that Fortgang and Bliss’s celebratory art caters to. Though they’re right that the “cultural flame” of New York continues to burn, the fight is not nearly over. Perhaps this is a pessimistic interpretation. The City of New York has announced plans to bring Fortgang and Bliss’s tongue-in-cheek "NEW YORK IS DEAD" campaign back to the city where the slogan will appear on subway ads and local billboards in an effort to “instill pride” for those who have stuck it out. Namely, those who didn’t have a choice. Personally, I think that within the confines of the five boroughs, the mission will prove ultimately meaningful. Shaming inauthentic posers are, after all, a natural New Yorker trait that even a global pandemic could never dampen.

You really have to be careful what you put out on the Internet, especially if you’re in politics. What you put out there will stay out there, no matter how hard you try to delete it and erase it from existence. And it looks like GOP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is learning that lesson the hard way. House Republican Greene, a proud supporter of former President Donald Trump, posted a video of her explicitly comparing members of Congress to people who suffer with Down’s syndrome, saying that they were, “retards without common sense.” Greene, a loud supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, made the offensive remarks on social media right before she was elected as a Representative for Georgia back in November, and now, the clip has resurfaced on Twitter during the coronavirus pandemic. She had also called Congress members who didn’t want to spend money associated with Mexican drug cartel boss “El Chapo,” on the U.S. border wall, “so stupid.” Scott Dworkin, the co-founder and executive director of the Democratic Coalition super PAC, shared the video, with the caption, “Here’s [a] video I found of Marjorie Taylor Greene calling electeds an awful slur used against those with learning disabilities. She then says ‘I’m not trying to talk down on people with Down’s syndrome. But that’s what these people are.'” CNN had actually caught Greene in action as she apparently was starting to remove old social media posts made back in 2018-2019, despite claims that she was liking posts about executing Congress Democrats, such as Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. And House Speaker Pelosi responded, explaining her concern that Republican leaders in the House were, “willing to overlook, ignore those statements,” made by Greene. Greene had actually made those claims three weeks after Congress was forced to take shelter from Trump and QAnon supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol back in early January. And now Democratic lawmakers are starting to discuss a House vote on whether they should remove Greene’s committee assignments or expel her completely. Greene explained on Twitter over the last week, however, “Over the years, I’ve had teams of people manage my pages. Many posts have been liked. Many posts have been shared. Some did not represent my views." 

The Internet is basically that kid in high school that immaturely made a big deal about sexual innuendos and euphemisms that would come up in everyday conversations about growing up. For example, someone sees a dildo in a video, and the entire online community comes together to steal a laugh. And for Yvette Amos, that’s exactly what happened. Since the coronavirus pandemic sent everyone into lockdown, it’s not a shock anymore to see interviews be conducted over Zoom calls. All kinds of hilarious bloopers have been caught on camera since then, such as young children interrupting a serious meeting, realizing a mirror is reflecting the fact that you’re wearing your boxers with a dress shirt, and other awkward moments that everyone has to be merciful about because hey, we’re all suffering. Amos is the recent victim of accidentally revealing too much in her household when a sex toy was seen on her bookshelf during her appearance on BBC Wales. She went on BBC Wales News to talk about how the pandemic has affected employment, but many could not listen because they could not look past the pink dildo in the corner of the screen’s view, sitting so erectly on the first shelf of her bookcase.

Social media went into hysterics over the “explicit item,” with the comments more hilarious than you could imagine. Probably the funniest comment was by Twitter user @Tweet_Dec who said, “Was that on the 6″-Cock News?” Maybe no one cared to give that high school kid the attention he wanted from unnecessarily calling attention to stupid jokes, but that’s what the Internet is for. These kinds of videos are MADE for laughter and to share with others so that they can laugh as well. It doesn’t hurt to spread a little joy now, does it?

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

Hahahaha. That's for you, Rich. You know what makes me laugh? When people reenact old photos of themselves, like this one for instance...

Hahahaha. If I had a TARDIS I would go back and see one of New York Central’s Mercury engines in Chicago in 1936. 

Interestingly, there’s a plain old steam locomotive underneath the streamlining... it’s just a shroud, for design purposes. Most of the engines at that time did not have a frontal window for the engineer to see through. Like I suppose happened in this machine too, the engineer would "pop out" his head through a side window located on the rear of the machine. This was both practical and necessary at the time, as the front-end of the machine will be reserved to put the coal and generate the heat necessary for the train to move on. I still think it's fucking cool. Have you seen the new Playskool Trump toy that just came out? Check this out...

Haha. It made me laugh. Here's another dumb thing that happened in 2021 so far...

Boomers are fixing America. Okay, so, Valentine's Day is around the corner so here's a card you might want to pick up for someone...

The Internet is both the ultimate place to spread lies, and to bust them. What a lot of liars don't realize is that the Google people use to find photos to pretend are their own is the very same Google as the one that can reverse image search and reveal the picture's true origin. Don't lie... or at the very least, make your lies less easily debunkable. Like for example... the person who stole a photo for a fake QAnon breakup story.

Everyone has fun little tidbits of trivia about themselves. If you find out one of those factoids is wrong, and you know the other person genuinely believes it, is it your job to tell them? Does that obligation change if this is a fact they share with others? A Phile reader found himself caught in that conundrum, so he asked the me...

"Would I be wrong if I told my wife a song isn’t about her? My wife had a short and casual relationship with a musician. There’s a song written by him that has her name in it. Its like her own personal theme. Every time she makes a friend, it’s her go-to ice-breaker. Our daughter is young and we even play it as a little lullaby for her. Anyway, the song isn’t extremely popular unless you’re into his band’s music, I would say, but it’s popular enough if you’re into them. I listen to some of their music, and I got recommended a YouTube video where the guy talked about the meaning of the song. I clicked into it to see if he would actually mention her. Turns out the song is about someone completely different (and his story actually makes more sense). Would I be wrong if I told her it wasn’t about her? I kind of feel like if I don’t, I’m lying by omission. But it’s such a cute thing she has, and I don’t want to ruin it for her. I feel mortified at the idea that some of the people she’s told might have looked it up after and thought she was lying. Then again, the real meaning isn’t on Genius Lyrics yet, so I don’t know. Honestly, I love the song and I’d be happy to take it to the grave, but I’m afraid of how many people might think she’s a liar, and I know she’d feel so humiliated if she knew. I hope she can still keep it in her life as ‘her song’ knowing the meaning, but I’d just feel so guilty if I told her and now she’s lost something she loves. That’s where I’m stuck." Ha. It's best to just let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak. I don’t see that it would serve any purpose other than to make her less happy. I wouldn’t think of it as lying by omission. I’d fall on the side of calling it ‘tact.’ She’ll find it on her own one day, you don’t have to burst her bubble. Let it be. You would be the wrong if you told your wife. I wanna know what song it is and what band though. If you have a problem you'd like my advice on email me at thepeverettphile@gmail.com. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York, here is...

Top Phive Things Said By Parents In January 2021

5. My kid thought that "swearing in" meant Joe Biden was going to stand at a podium on Wednesday and reel off all the curse words he knows. He's understandably a little disappointed now. 

4. Yesterday I overheard my 2-year-old son saying, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" and my 5-year-old son replying, "trust me" and I have never moved from one room to another so quickly in my life. 

3. Whenever I get discouraged and want to quit something, I remember the words of my then 3-year-old after she puked carrots all over the living room floor, "I'm gonna need more carrots."

2. I just made my daughter a grilled cheese and her response was "this is perfect, I bet you can't do it twice" so yes, she know how to play the game.

And the number one thing said by a parent in January 2021 was...

1. I couldn't decide if I wanted bangs or not so I cut bangs for my daughter and she looks awful. Dodged a bullet there. 

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

Whoa! Holy shit! I did not expect that at all! Wow! Look at all that snow! There's even snow on the camera I think. That is bloody crazy! The street hasn't even been plowed yet. It's still snowing right now. Hahahaha. I love it! Okay, here's another story from...

Two planes with banners insulting former President Donald Trump for his time in the White House were flown over his Florida home. One of the planes had a banner reading “Trump Worst President Ever.” Trailing behind it, another one stated, “Trump You Pathetic Loser Go Back To Moscow.” Daniel Uhlfelder, a lawyer, was the one who published the photos of the banners on social media, which are now going viral. The two airplanes were observed in the vicinity of the Mar-A-Lago Resort in which the former president is now calling his home. It is still not known who is behind the plane stunt, but it’s clear that they are not a fan of Trump or anything he stands for. The former U.S. president’s return to Florida after his time at the White House has had several mixed responses from residents, with some worrying about having a very polarizing figure sitting around the area which could affect them. Richard J. Steinberg, who is the real estate broker who works in Palm Beach and New York spoke to news outlets about the situation, stating, “Nobody that I’ve spoken to is looking forward to him coming back to Palm Beach. Quite honestly, I think that whether you’re a Trump supporter or not, I don’t think that there are many people that in good conscience can justify what happened on January 6th, and I think that most... most... people hold him at least partially responsible.” But, although there are several people worried about the Republican’s return, there were a lot of Trump supporters coming out to welcome the former president back into the state and his new home. Several people lined up the streets leading up to Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort with signs that read “Best President Ever” and “Welcome Home.” Trump decided to fly home as soon as his time in the White House came to a close, despite the tradition that the outgoing President of the United States attends his successor’s inauguration ceremony. Although Trump decided not to attend, Mike Pence was in attendance as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn into office at the Capitol in Washington, DC. Prior to boarding the Air Force One and making his way back to Florida, Donald Trump addressed a crowd of news reporters and supporters making comments about America and the coronavirus pandemic. Trump stated, “We have the greatest country in the world, we have the greatest economy in the world, and as bad as the pandemic was […] we did something that is really considered a medical miracle.”

An older man had met a younger woman, but unfortunately he was unable to last very long before he would orgasm during sex. A caring man, he was concerned that he was disappointing his new lover, so he called his doctor for advice. The doc told him that masturbating before sex, often helped men last longer during the act. The man decided, "What the hell, I'll try it." He spent the rest of the day thinking about where to do it. He couldn't do it in his office. He thought about the toilets or restroom, but that was too open. He considered an alleyway, but figured that was too unsafe. Finally, he realized his solution. On his way home, he pulled his truck over on the side of the highway. He got out and crawled underneath as if he was examining the truck. Satisfied with the privacy, he undid his pants and started to masturbate. He closed his eyes and thought of his lover. As he grew closer to orgasm, he felt a quick tug at the bottom of his pants. Not wanting to lose his mental fantasy or the orgasm, he kept his eyes shut and replied, "WHAT?!?!?" in a stern voice. He heard, "This is the police. What the hell are you doing?" The man replied, "I'm checking out the rear axle, it's noisy, could be busted." The cop says, "Well, you better check your brakes too, because your truck rolled away, down the hill 5 minutes ago." 

The 145th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...

Tom Morello will be on the Phile in a few weeks. 

Today's guest is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his experimental and lo-fi style, and became known for creating musical collages of wide-ranging genres. He has musically encompassed folk, funk, soul, hip hop, electronic, alternative rock, country, and psychedelia. His latest album "Hyperspace" is available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify. Please welcome to the Phile... Beck.

Me: Hello, Beck, how are you doing? Welcome to the Phile. 

Beck: Thank you. It's good to be here. 

Me: So, my dad was a musician and your dad was as well, right? 

Beck: Yeah, my father was an arranger, composer and conductor and my mom was a visual artist and my grandfather was a pivotal figure in the Fluxus art movement. 

Me: So, you worked with Pharrell on your latest album "Hyperspace." What was he like to work with? 

Beck: He's great. He's a life-force. One of these people who are sitting at the center of music. Whatever is happening in popular music across the entire world that everybody is listening to there's few sort of nexus points, sort of feet places where like JFK airport, Grand Central Station of music. He's the conductor and master of that. He's the pilot. so its very unusual being in the presence or this kind of energy that's happening of somebody who's working on a lot of music and helping shape the culture of music. I'm very much off in my own kind of working things out, a bit isolated so being with him is like being connected to where music is and going. 

Me: Okay, but what is he like as a person? 

Beck: As a person I find him very positive, he's very decisive, infectious, and he also works very quickly. So its all happening in real time. 

Me: Do you write your songs before you go into the studio? 

Beck: I do it all in the studio. That's the way I worked for years, it's not typical for a rock artist to write the songs then go in it to work to out. Whereas we use the studio as a canvas and its sort of an action painting. It's happening while I am doing it. 

Me: Do you think that's the best way to do it? 

Beck: Not that its the best way to do it, but I think my time is when I book time for a studio that's the only time I'm playing music. I don't have time to pick up a guitar usually. 

Me: Beck, I have to ask you about this pic of you and the late great John Lee Hooker. I will show it here...

Me: What's going on here? 

Beck: Ha. He was kind of annoyed with me, you can see it in the picture. 

Me: Hahahaha. Why was he annoyed at you? 

Beck: Because I was talking to him. Yeah, anyway. I interrupted him is all I will say. 

Me: Hahahaha. That's funny. I love the song "Uneventful Days" from the new album, Beck. What can you say about it? 

Beck: There's only very specific words. If I say too much or too little it ruins it. It has to just enough. 

Me: Okay. So, do you save a lot of your ideas with voice memos or something? 

Beck: I do, I have a lot of voice memos. My biggest problem as an artist is having time to follow through and execute all the ideas. I get these questions that last few years like am I going to run out of ideas. "Are you still going to make music after all these years?" "Do you find that you struggle to come up with things?" There's no way I would have enough time to pursue every avenue. I feel like if my music was a city I only hung out in two or three neighborhoods. I need to get to the other side of town before the lights go out. 

Me: I like when you play slide guitar, Beck. Not many people in modern music play slide, am I right? 

Beck: Yeah, it's weird, right? I rarely do it because it's such second nature to me that I sort of take it for granted. I think it was long over due to have some life guitar in a song. 

Me: So, do you think you got your musical abilities from being around music? I was around music my while life and it didn't work for me. Haha. 

Beck: It wasn't really like that at all. My dad was a musician but we didn't sit around playing songs. I've tried to do this with my kids and its worked in fifths and starts but hadn't really taken fully. I kind of get what I can but the family and friends of connecting and playing music together is a sign of health. 

Me: So, when you wrote your earlier hits was it like how you write songs now? 

Beck: I'll say my early stuff was just here's an idea, put it down. Now I feel I have more time and I will try different things. "Where It's At" was a keyboard riff that I had for years and felt I wanted to do something with that. 

Me: So, you do a lot of rapping I think... are you into that kinda music? 

Beck: I listened to a lot of rap growing up. That was the new music of the time. That was the newest emerging form of music was rap. I liked lyrics and words so I like the idea of like what happens when I take poetry and rap together. There's a lot of styles obviously, it's gotten a lot of evolution so I felt what I was doing was outside of any of that so I don't really define it as rap but it's definitely celebrating aspects of it. 

Me: So, tell me about your grandfather, Beck, what was he like?

Beck: He was a good storyteller. He was one of those guys who could sit around the bar in a suit as a kid in the 40s so he had this whole lingo of New York in the 1940s. He also had been around a lot of the avant-garde arts scene. Warhol, the 60s, the 70s punk scene, sort of the zelig of different eras. I can't imitate it but it sort of was a cross between one of those Tom Waites soliloquy's. Somewhere like that and Jack Nicholson in the early 70s. 

Me: Give me something he would say if you remember. 

Beck: He would say we were going to "boogie down to..." he would never say "we were going to," he would say "boogie down."   

Me: Hahaha. So, your music is all over the book, who was your biggest influence? 

Beck: I'd say there's a handful of people who have been really influential for me. Prince is up there for sure. Bowie of course. These are the people who were at the height of their powers when I was a small child. It was getting to watch their creativity happen and their new songs showing up on TV. Their songs are great and still hold up but hearing at that point when I'm forming my neurological pathways in my brain and I'm coming of age that music comes a part of my personality almost. 

Me: You got a Grammy from Prince as well. What was that like? 

Beck: Being at the Grammys alone is a lot, then winning the award is almost too much. And then Prince. I saw a picture of myself when that was happening and I look like I was imploding. 

Me: Did you get to talk to him? 

Beck: I tried to. It was one of those things where I'm halfway through a sentence and I look and he's vanished. We were walking off stage together and just wanted to tell him how much it meant to me that he was there. 

Me: What did you think when he "vanished"? 

Beck: I thought that I'd gone on stage and given him a big bear hug and that somehow I transgressed some sort of boundary. I felt badly about it and then when he passed a year later I looked for the photo and I found of course when I was hugging him and he has this gigantic grin on his face. That just touched me so much. I said that's better than  any award, just having that moment and that he was happy to receive that meant a lot to me. 

Me: That's cool. Beck, it was great talking to you. Take care. 

Beck: Thanks.

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Beck for the interview. The Phile will be back tomorrow with actress Dakota Johnson. Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye. Kiss your brain!

Give me some rope, tie me to dream, give me the hope to run out of steam, somebody said it could be here. We could be roped up, tied up, dead in a year. I can't count the reasons I should stay. One by one they all just fade away...