Pheaturing Dave Grohl From Foo Fighters

 

Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Thursday. How are you doing? I understand that waiting for your dose of the coronavirus vaccine can feel unbearable… but this is not a DIY situation! Johnny T. Stine, a man from Seattle, Washington, has been arrested for peddling a self-made vaccination. Stine is an entrepreneur and microbiologist... two professional fields that should never overlap. Apparently, Stine created the vaccine himself and administered it to others. In early March of 2020... mere days into an international panic over the coronavirus pandemic... Johnny T. Stine posted on his personal Facebook page, boasting that he’d quickly created an effective COVID-19 vaccine. Stine eventually spoke to the Pacific Northwest NPR affiliate KUOW and said that “he had downloaded the virus’s genome sequences from a Chinese database to create his ‘vaccine.’ Doing so ‘literally took half a day to design.’ ” Stine says he physically created vaccine using equipment purchased on eBay for about $5,000. He also remarked on the failure of the slow rollout, saying, “Tons of people with my degree and background, they’re using their degrees to tell you to walk six feet apart and wash your hands… I’m making a goddamn vaccine.” If you ask me, his whole attitude sounds very Elon Musk. Press surrounding Stine’s offbeat vaccine spiked after Stine conducted a public conversation over social media with Farhad Ghatan, the Mayor of Friday Harbor, a town in Washington’s San Juan Island. From the messages, it seemed that Stine had been invited to administer the vaccine for $400. Attorney General Bob Ferguson then sent Stine a cease-and-desist letter warning of possible lawsuits over “false or unsupported claims.” Of course, Stine’s homemade concoction was never approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It took nearly a year for large-scale COVID-19 vaccination efforts from major companies like Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca to be thoroughly tested through clinical trials. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has only recently been okayed for use in the United States. But that did not stop Stine from taking the vaccine himself and administering it to 30 other people... including his own underage son. On January 21th, 2021, Johnny T. Stine was arrested by law enforcement, working with undercover agents from the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigation. Speaking to them unwittingly, Stine agreed to cross Washington state lines to Oregon and California in order to vaccinate some of the agents’ family members. He was arrested officially on a federal misdemeanor charge: introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. Stine currently faces up to one year in prison and is being fined $30,000 for noncompliance. With Stine being held on federal charges, hopefully, a larger public health disaster was averted. As of January 21st, at least one person that Stine had injected with his “vaccine” had been hospitalized for COVID-19. 

An Ohio lawmaker has proposed that a State Park be renamed in honor of the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. Ohio State Rep. Mike Loychik stated that he wants to rename Mosquito Lake State Park in Trumbull County to Donald J. Trump State Park. Loychik, who is a Republican, released a statement, saying that the legislation is meant to honor the dedication and commitment that the 45th President of the United States “bestowed upon the great people of Trumbull County.” He continued, “I witnessed the unprecedented and astounding support that former President Donald Trump received from constituents across the 63rd District and on Mosquito Lake State Park. This enthusiasm for our former president was also historic throughout the state of Ohio last November as he pushed for initiatives and policies that were very well-received with my constituency and the state. I will soon be introducing this bill to recognize the triumphs Trump brought over the last four years to this great nation and the Buckeye state.” Back in February, two Ohio lawmakers proposed a bill that would declare June 14th as “President Donald J. Trump Day” while lawmakers in Florida proposed a bill to rename one of the state’s major highways after Trump himself. Earlier this year, House Democrats introduced a bill that would “prohibit the use of federal funds for the r commemoration of certain former presidents and for other purposes.” In other words, the bill would prohibit federal funds from being used to, “create or display any symbol, monument, or statue commemorating any former President that has been twice impeached by the House of Representatives on or before the date of enactment of this Act or has been convicted of a State or Federal crime relating to actions taken in an official capacity as President of the United States on Federal public land, including any highway, park, subway, Federal building, military installation, street, or other Federal property.” The proposed bill, named the “No Glory for Hate Act,” also prohibits the use of federal funds to redesignate, designate, or name any federal building or land after or in commemoration of any former president that has been impeached twice by the House of Representatives. Federal financial system also can not be provided to “a State, political subdivision thereof, or entity” that is looking to name any land, structure, building, insulation, or other property in commemoration of any former president that was impeached twice by the house. According to the bill text, “any former President that has been twice impeached by the House of Representatives is also not be allowed to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Trump is the only former president to have been impeached by the House twice, and in both occasions, he was acquitted in the Senate.

Meghan McCain is now under fire on social media for saying that Kamala Harris is to blame for vaccine hesitancy. On Tuesday’s episode of ABC’s "The View," the co-hosts discuss the White House’s vaccination push in which Meghan McCain implied that Vice President Kamala Harris was contributing to the indecisiveness that is surrounding getting the vaccine. McCain showed a clip of Harris being interviewed on CNN last year where she stated that if there was a vaccine available before the election she wouldn’t trust it due to the fact that it had been created and promoted under the Trump Administration. McCain stated, “She’s expressing skepticism about the vaccine under the Trump administration. A lot of Republicans I know are expressing skepticism about the vaccine under the Biden administration. Which is why this has been so dangerous that this has become so politicized. Both sides are equally responsible for this. But the media really lauded her at the time when she said that she didn’t get nearly enough pushback.” However, McCain’s clip leaves at the part where the Vice-President explains that she doesn’t trust former President Donald Trump due to him telling people to inject bleach, but Harris would trust medical experts such as Dr. Fauci if he thought the COVID-19 vaccine was safe. President Joe Biden also previously voiced his trust in Dr. Fauci and supported the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines when they were approved for the first time back in November while Trump was still in office. The co-host went on to point out that types of Republicans are contrarian by nature, she continued, “we are built from my very fabric up to question authority and question big government. And when big government is saying you have to do X, Y and Z, we’re going to question it. I’m going to question it.” Despite the fact that McCain had stated that she trusted doctors and would have gotten the vaccine on air if it was possible, she doubled down on her complaint about the messaging of the vaccine rollout. She blameed the issues very unapologetically on Dr. Fauci. She noted, “I know I’m going to get eviscerated for saying this. But I don’t 100% trust him, I don’t think that he is an unbiased actor in any of this and he is a government official... I’m one of those people who feel that way about him.”

When John Oliver comes for you, he does the research. And humiliates you... in excruciating detail... on national television. The host of HBO’s "Last Week Tonight" spent the majority of Sunday night’s show lambasting conservative commentator Tucker Carlson in a full-on, fiery character attack that sprawled from an obscenely privileged childhood to “failing upwards” into his current position at Fox News. Most clearly, Oliver delineated Carlson’s popular “white supremacist talking points,” which are a central aspect of "Tucker Carlson Tonight." This is not the first time... and it will not be the last... that Tucker Carlson is accused of being a white supremacist. Normally, the Fox News host responds to the charges with an inflated sense of false indignation. His favorite defense? “What is white supremacy?” He doesn’t even know! “What is white nationalism?” He wonders aloud, trolling as if decisively confounded on-air. Off the bat, Oliver called Carlson “a conspiracy theorist, a misogynist, an Islamophobe, a troll, and one of the most dangerous [things] is that he is the most prominent vessel in America for white supremacist talking points.” And Oliver wasted no time outlining, precisely and hilariously, what exactly a white nationalist is... using Carlson’s own words. Along the way, there were some excellently deployed personal insults, including “performatively outraged wedge salad,” “TV dinner princeling,” and simply, a “terrible person.” The takeaway, essentially, is that Carlson utilizes outraged deniability to continue vindicating a show that thrives on white supremacist rhetoric. And now Oliver has shattered that defense. In one particularly illuminating bit, Oliver analyzed a dated clip of Carlson reviewing Republican Pat Buchanan’s behavior on C-Span. A young Carlson pointed out, carefully, how Buchanan deflected criticism by claiming to be “outside the tiny cabal that controls American politics.” In Carlson’s critique, Buchanan overdid it at times. Of course, by 2021, overdoing it would come to be part of Carlson’s, and Trump‘s, and so many other far-right figure’s branding: the idea that being (consistently) offensive necessarily implies “speaking truth to power.” In another salient section, former white supremacist Derek Black, the son of the founder of the popular Neo-Nazi forum StormFront, explained how his family watches Carlson’s shows twice. First, for enjoyment. And the second time, for tips on how to best deliver racist messaging. “It is interesting who gets to be ‘American citizens who came to their own conclusions’ and who gets to be ‘criminal mobs who destroy what the rest of us have built.’ It does seem like the dividing line for Tucker on that question is ‘how easily can you sunburn?’” So far, Carlson has not responded to the "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" segment. But something tells me that when he does, he will be sputtering, furious, and donning an ill-fitting bow tie.

On Monday, CNN Tonight’s Don Lemon went on ABC’s "The View" to discuss the process of addressing racism in America, which led to him saying that it was time to “present the true identity of Jesus,” as a “black or brown person.” The CNN anchor’s discussion with the co-hosts of "The View," Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Meghan McCain, covered how former President Donald Trump exposed the weaknesses in America, the Catholic Church’s recent announcement on their stance on same-sex unions, and how people should respond in discovering their own racial biases and homophobia. The news anchor, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had explained what Americans can do next in helping to eliminate racism throughout the next generations, saying, “People ask me all the time, especially young mothers, young white mothers, they say what can I do? How can I fix this after George Floyd? I don’t have the vocabulary to teach my kids. What can I do? I thought about that and offered some advice. That’s what the book is about. It’s one of the reasons I wrote the book. We have to start, as I said earlier in the show, we have to teach the true history of this country, the history that African-Americans brought to this country.” “We have to start being realistic about God and the Bible,” he added. “If you are a person of faith in this country, and we know America is built on faith and religious freedom, a good way of starting is to present the true identity of Jesus. That is a black or brown person, rather than someone who looks like a white hippy from Sweden or Norway. We should start with that and put that in your home, either a black Jesus or brown Jesus. Jesus looked more like a Muslim or someone who is dark, rather than a blonde-looking carpenter.” “When your children ask you who is this, say this is Jesus. Jesus does not look like the popular depiction we have in our churches and our homes, and we see all over the media. That is a good place to start,” he continued, adding, “That’s a good place that your kids will ask questions, and then you can go from there, and then we can... then we can come to a true reality about what America really is and then try to figure out how we fix this issue of racism in the country. It is a spell that must be broken.” Lemon has worked for Fox News in St. Louis and Chicago and was also a correspondent for NBC News in Philadelphia and Chicago. He has won an Emmy Award for a business feature on Craigslist real estate listings and also the Edward R. Murrow Award for his coverage of the capture of the D.C. sniper. He was also named one of the Pride50 “trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance, and dignity for all queer people,” by the LGBTQ rights movement Queerty. I like Don. 

Do you know what makes me laugh? When people reenact photos from their childhood, like this one...

Hahahaha. If I had a TARDIS I would go and wait in line to go buy tickets for the premiere of Return of the Jedi on May 25th, 1983. 

Over the weekend I got a little sun, but nothing like this guy...

I would have "Foghat" written on my body instead. If you're looking for a graphic design job, you may want to contact whoever employed the people responsible for this design fail. They are most likely hiring.

Hahahaha. Remember, you don't matter. Worry. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York, here is...

Top Phive Ways People Are Going To Spend Their Stimulus Check

5. At Red Lobster: Uhh, let me get the whale.

4. At SeaWorld: How much for their freedom?

3. At Victoria's Secret: Tell me. 

2. At Chipotle: Guacamole please.

And the number one way people are going to spend their stimulus check is...

1. At Bed, Bath & Beyond: I'll have the Beyond. 

Roger Mudd 

February 9th, 1928 — March 9th, 2021 

His name is... well, you know.

Okay, let's take a live look at Port Jeff, shall we?

Looks like a rainy overcast day there. Hey, it's Thursday! You know what that means?

Ack! That's fucking gross. 

If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. 

The 147th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...

Natalie will be on the Phile tomorrow. 

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain was the leader of there grunge band Nirvana until April 5th, 1994 when he died from an overdose of shotgun. 

Today's guest is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was the drummer for rock band Nirvana and founded the band Foo Fighters, for whom he is the singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter. The Foo Fighters latest album "Medicine at Midnight" is available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify. Please welcome to the Phile from Foo Fighters the great... Dave Grohl!

Me: Hey, Dave, this is one the biggest thrill's for me to have you on the Phile. 

Dave: Hi, Jason, I'm glad. 

Me: I love the video of you being backstage at an award show or something and you mention Foghat. They asked you what your best road trip song was and you said "Slow Ride" by Foghat and they asked you why and you said, "Because it's fucking Foghat, dude." I love that. My son REALLY loves it. 

Dave: Ha! It's true, man, your dad was one of the best front men ever. Foghat rocks!!!! 

Me: You recently released Foo Fighter's 10th album "Medicine at Midnight," and now can't tour because of the pandemic. How are you dealing with that? 

Dave: You know, I'm okay. 

Me: Really? You don't wish you could be on the road? 

Dave: I've been on the road since I was 18-years-old. So that's 34 years? It's been a long time. I started touring when I was 18, I left school, I jumped in a van with my friends and I was fortunate enough to see the world through the windshield of a Dodge van. That was my ticket to life. Ever since then I've been circling the planet over and over and over again. My music takes me to these beautiful places and I meet some amazing people and have incredible experiences. Over time that becomes my cycle of life. It's like another trip around the sun. Okay, cool, another album, okay cool, another tour. To have it all just stop was useful in some ways. 

Me: Like how? 

Dave: Because I don't want that to define me so I get to the point where I'm like sort of left on my own. Who am I? What do I do? Why am I here? Without sounding like some crazy existential trip, I was like okay, I'm a hyperactive creative spazz so what do I do. Like am I just gonna make five lasagnas a day? Am I going to start writing short stories from my life? Am I gonna start writing more music? It sort of twists me up and makes me rethink a lot of why I'm here and what I'm doing. 

Me: Where did you get with that? 

Dave: My lasagna is awesome, come on. I mean so many lasagnas that I got to the point I've got a bowl in the A's that'll blow your mind. But first of all I have three children, they've all grown up in my world of going away for two weeks and coming home for two weeks and going away for two weeks and then coming with me on the road for two months and things like that. So it was a welcome change for the family to really connect. But the most frustrating [art was not letting people have the music that we had made. We finished the record before the world just had locked down. So we were ready to go out on the road, we had designed this album to be stadium album, to be a festival album, to be one of those things where tens of thousands of people sing along. And everything stopped and I thought okay, that's not the only reason we make music. We make music so people can hear it, and escape and find some joy and happiness for whatever it is. That's when this light went off in my head and I thought this touring thing is kinda like a phantom limb, its still sort of itchy but that's not the only reason we do what we do. 

Me: When you went in to do the record did you think this was our tenth record, let's do something special? 

Dave: Usually, for the last 25 years we would go into the studio and make an album and think okay, if this is our last album we've got to make it good. We don't walk into the studio like we're the Foo Fighters, and we're gonna make a gigantic huge fucking record. It doesn't really work like that. It's best to walk into the studio like it's a new band. 

Me: Really? Why is that? 

Dave: Because a lot of ways we have to start again every time we make an album. This time was a little bit different because I wanted to use the last 25 years as some sort of reference, of not what to do. 

Me: Hahaha. Like what? 

Dave: There is something to the idea of longevity... how does that, how do we keep that? How do we work that? And basically its all about pleasing myself, surprising myself and maybe doing something I weren't aware I could do. So I looked at all this old music and I was like okay, we've done the loud noisy punk rock stuff, we've done the heavy dissonance screaming, we've also done this gentle beautiful acoustic orchestrated music and kind of everything in between. Then like bubble gum, three and a half minute mid-tempo pop rock songs, but the one thing that we hadn't done was really focus on some kind of groove, some sort of boogie, some sort of I hate to say it we wanted to make a dance album, we wanted to make an album that would want to make you dance. That happening 25 years into our career to me meant something. It was like, okay, this is not the gold watch, this isn't the soundtrack to our retirement. Like the party starts now. And as embarrassing as my kids are when they see me dancing in the living room, like I don't care. I don't care who's watching anymore. I'm gonna dance the way I dance so that was kinda this record to me. 

Me: Hahahaha. I love the song from the album "Shame Shame," Dave. Like you said you are just making the music you wanna make, right? 

Dave: Well, that song was a real turning point in the recording process, like during those sessions. We had demoed these songs, these instrumentals and we sort of hand picked them, this one might work, this one might work, this one might work, but we never really know until we all get in there and start doing it together. Thee were a few songs that we recorded that just sounded too much which we shelved, like we scrapped them. If something sounded too familiar we would kind of put it on the sideline. 

Me: Really? Why is that? 

Dave: Because we wanted to find that feeling, that excitement of discovery of doing something that we hadn't done before. So that song in particular was maybe like a few weeks into the recording process and it happened really quickly. It happened with the basic idea that was just a simple drum beat and then with this finger snapping foot thing going over it. 

Me: Ha. Is that because you're a drummer as well? 

Dave: First of all, I'm a wannabe tap dancer, okay, that's one of my life goals is to become a tap dancer. 

Me: Hahahaha. I think you would be pretty good at it. 

Dave: Who knows? I could do the tap part, I don't know about the dancing. But by the end of the day we had recorded that song and it was a clear diversion from anything we had done before. That's when I got really excited. 

Me: Because it was something new? 

Dave: Because I thought we were CAPABLE of change. We're capable of progress and that to me means oh my God, we still have a pulse. Okay, yes, let's turn the wheel in that direction, let's go go go go, keep going, keep going! It was inspiring, first fall we didn't record the record in a laboratory-esque studio in Hollywood. We found this funky old house and we basically built the studio inside the house. So the drums are in the living room, I did vocals in the upstairs bathroom, someone's making chili in the kitchen while someone's eating on the front porch. The experience of it was really exciting but the idea was to push forward instead of just remain in the same place fo another 25 years. 

Me: You have written a shit load of anthem like songs that have been successful. I would think there was pressure to do the same thing again, right? 

Dave: The funny thing is there is pressure but no obligation. So there is this consideration for the listener but no responsibility really. So it's kind of this funny balance where its like I write a song I want you to sing along with me. I do. I'm extending my hand to the listener saying come on, let's do this together. Of course that applies to the live thing. Let me tell you, when we go out and play a show where there's 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 thousand people and everyone joins in unison and sings along to "My Hero" or "Best Of You," whatever it is, that is such a powerful moment, that can only be found, its hard to find in life, where so many people with so many differences can join in unison for 3 minutes or 3 hours. Of course I take that in consideration when I'm writing songs. If I write a lyric where I would think would sort of not only engage but would connect with the listener emotionally I'm gonna keep that. 

Me: That is so true, Dave. Music is very important. 

Dave: I think that's one of music's most powerful abilities is to able to like I'm connecting with people I might not ever meet. And we're singing this song together live and I can see their faces, we might not touch each other but we do in this way with this song. That to me it's so powerful and it really is not only a miracle of music, it sounds really cheesy but it's also like maybe my life's greatest award to be able to do that with the fucking world. 

Me: I wished I asked my dad this question when he was alive, Dave, but how does it feel when tens of thousands of people are singing along to your music? 

Dave: It's insane! It's crazy! Its like this crazy cathartic primal scream therapy kind of thing where everyone's just going AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! together. Its like an army but there's no war. It's amazing, it's beautiful, it's incredible. There was a time when I broke my leg once like five or six years ago but I didn't want to stop touring. So I had this chair built that looked like a throne, like a rock and roll laser throne, it was insane. So every night they would literally carry me, put me on the throne, curtain comes up and I'm sitting there conducting a stadium fo this chair. It was hard not to feel like Julius Caesar, there were times where I was like be careful, okay. Like go back to the hotel, order a pizza and go to sleep. But ultimately it is that connection that I do take into consideration but I don't necessarily consider it an obligation. I don't consider it a responsibility. But I do wish of course that I'm able to connect with a listener in a way that we both could share a song. 

Me: That's so cool. The Foo Fighters played at Biden's inauguration TV special and it was so fucking cool. You dedicated the performance to teachers including your mom. How did it feel to do that? 

Dave: You have to understand that sometimes it seems so surreal that I feel like I'm standing besides myself and watching it happen. I've actually written a little bit about how its like my life flashing before my eyes as its happening. So its strange and its hard for me to connect like all of those dots. 

Me: What do you mean? 

Dave: There is a lot full circle going on there. I grew up outside Washington D.C., my father was a Republican speech writer. He was involved in politics, I spent time on Capitol Hill, so putting all those things together with the first lady, Dr. Jill Biden being a teacher, my mother being a public school teacher fo 35 years, retired now. All of these things kinda connected together, then this performance of a song that I wrote 18 yeas ago, that's not a political song at all. 

Me: What is the song "Times Like These" about and why did you chose that song to sing at the inauguration? 

Dave: It's just a song about hitting some crossroads in a life where we feel that we need some sort of rebirth, some restart, but we have hope. I've always thought that when someone dear to me, someone close to me passes away I have to start life all over again. So I have to do everything in life all over again. My first cup of coffee since I lost that person, my first trip to the grocery store since I've lost it and so on and so on. It's basically what that song is about. About learning to love again, learning to live again and things like that. 

Me: Why do you think the Foo Fighters were asked to perform there? 

Dave: I think the reason we were asked to perform was because of in America we need that. So its a rebuilding in a hopeful way. I think that's why they requested that we play that song. And it was an honor. 

Me: The Foo Fighters never stuck me as a political band. Are you? 

Dave: Well, I can assure you that we all vote. 

Me: Hahaha. You know what I mean, right? 

Dave: It's funny because I think there's a few sides to the political conversation, one of them is like logistical or specific, the other is just emotional. So I consider us a bit more on the emotional side of politics, farther than be specific about people or issues or things. I'd rather focus on my compassion, focus on understanding. Empathy, things like that, where I feel like listen, man, the world isn't as big as we think it is. Take it from me, I've circled it a couple of hundred times, I've been around this planet a lot and I'll have you know that the world gets smaller and smaller and smaller every day and so we have to cooperate with each other in order to take care of it and ourselves. So I usually land on the side of compassion and understanding and cooperation and collaboration, things like that. So, yeah, there are references to these things in a lot of Foo Fighter songs that I've never really come out and said guess what, guess who this one's about, guess what. When asked I consider it, not like my civic duty, not to be involved or included or whatever but I do consider it important if I feel the need to be there. So sometimes we do. 

Me: Okay, so, I saw Nirvana in concert a few months before Kurt Cobain died, as if someone would've told me then if I thought the drummer in that band would be the lead singer one day in one of the biggest rock bands out there I would not have believed it. What is you take on that? Do you ever reflect on it? 

Dave: Only when I do interviews. 

Me: Hahaha. You're welcome. 

Dave: No, I think that every musician begins in the same place. It starts from the same place which is some sort of connection to music or an artist or a song. Then once an instruments placed in our hands that becomes our life love and our life challenge. All we want to do is figure this out, I will never figure this out. But I spend my life tying to figure it out. So that desire to write and to perform it comes from that place. It still comes from that place every time I pick up an instrument. It's no different, it might be 40 years later, but that is like instinct or some sort of like internal desire just to do it. Well, along the way if we're lucky people listen and it becomes, it changes. Like did I think this band would still be here like 25 years later after it started with a demo tape I did in six days, that is the first record? No, of course not. It was like every time we made a record it was because we felt like that kid with an instrument in their lap at like 10 or 11-years-old. Then we make another record and we look at each other like do you want to do it again. Yeah, all right, let's do it again. The reason that we do is because of that feeling. Like the bells and whistles, oh my God, keep them coming, I love it, its great. I'm not that guy that says I hate being a successful musician. It's fucking awesome! I'm sure into it. But it's not the only reason why I do it. I can say the same thing for someone like Paul McCartney, jamming with Paul McCartney, I can see the 10-yea-old kid in his eyes when he sits down at a drum set or play an instrument. Its still there and I think that is the battery, that's the fuel, that's the engine that keeps musicians just doing it forever. Like am I going to be up on stage screaming "Best of You" when I'm 75-yeas-old? I don't know, but I'll still be playing music, I know that. 

Me: That's cool. Okay, so what were you like when Nirvana ended? 

Dave: I just shut off all the music. I turned off all the radio and put the instruments away and just sitting behind a dum set felt too painful. There was trauma there and then I realized that music was the thing that always saved my life so maybe it will do it again. So the Foo Fighters represent a lot more to me than just a band and songs and t-shirts and stadiums and stuff, it really does represent some sort of continuation of life. I was 25-years-old when Nirvana ended. I was not done and I wanted to live. It's been going though something like that it does make me wake every day and be thankful and grateful that I have the option to survive. So that really was the beginning of the Foo Fighters. It was like oh, man, I don't care if we're jumping in a shitty old van again and we're playing clubs to hold like 200 people, I just want to play, I want to live, I want to be with my guys, be with my fellas, and just run around screaming at people into a microphone. That makes me feel alive, that's what the band represents. Still. 

Me: Dave, this has been one of my favorite interviews ever. I'm glad I got to interview you before the Phile ends in the fall. Thank you, sir. 

Dave: Thanks, Jason, you're welcome.

Well, that about does it for this entry. Thanks to Dave Grohl for a cool interview. The Phile will be back tomorrow with Natalie Portman. 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...