Pheaturing Martin Fry From ABC

 

Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Friday. How are you? I can't believe it's April already. It's Good Friday. I hope you have a better Good Friday than Jesus did. Man, this is a crazy story... Smugglers were caught on camera dropping two young children from the top of a 14-foot high border fence that separates Mexico and the United States. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection released a video of two people bringing the kids to the border barrier on the Mexico side. A person is seen scaling the fence and dropping the child onto the U.S. side. After both children land on the ground, the person atop the fence climbs back down to the Mexico side before two people are seen running away. The video shows that the smugglers were under cover of night, but a border agent captured the incident on a cell phone camera using night vision technology. Other border agents were then alerted of the incident and were directed to the remote location near Santa Teresa, New Mexico. There they rescued the two migrant children, a 3-year-old girl, and a 5-year-old girl. The unaccompanied children are from Ecuador and were both alert when agents found them. Border Patrol agents rendered aid to the children before they took them to the Santa Teresa Border Patrol Station for medical evaluation. The young girls were then transported to a local hospital “for precautionary reasons and further evaluation.” Luckily, both Ecuadoran children were medically cleared and are currently in CBP custody pending placement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez releases statement of incident noting, “I’m appalled by the way these smugglers viciously dropped innocent children from a 14-foot border barrier last night. If not for the vigilance of our agents using mobile technology, these two tender-aged siblings would have been exposed to the harsh elements of the desert environment for hours.” She added, “We are currently working with our law enforcement partners in Mexico and attempting to identify these ruthless human smugglers so as to hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law.” According to statistics that were released last month by CBP, the U.S. has had a surge in migrants arriving at the southern border in recent months. The number of children and families attempting to cross the border has increased more than 100% between January and February. The number of children trying to cross the border alone jumped by 61% to over 9400, which is the highest monthly total since the spring of 2019. From March 14th to March 21st, the number of unaccompanied migrant children who have been in CBP custody for more than 240 hours increased heavily from 185 to 823, according to data obtained by ABC News. After three days, CBP is legally obligated to transfer the children to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement. There they oversee shelters specifically licensed to house young migrants. Since taking office, President Joe Biden and the Biden administration have reversed several of the controversial immigration policies that Donald Trump put in place, including the practice of immediately expelling unaccompanied teenagers and children.  

An Emmy-winning production designer who was known to be a hoarder has been found dead under a pile of garbage in her New York City home. Evelyn Sakash, 66, was found Tuesday lying on her kitchen floor buried under garbage, a police spokesperson said. Sakash was found by her sister, who had hired a cleaning crew to clear out the woman’s home in the College Point section of Queens and look for her, police said. The sister and the cleaners found Sakash around 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, they said. Sakash was a production designer who had worked on films including Mermaids, released in 1990, and 2014’s Still Alice, according to her IMDB page. She won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003 for "Between the Lions." A police missing person report said Sakash was last seen alive on Sept. 30th, 2020. The city medical examiner’s office will determine her cause of death. 

A seven-year-old boy from upstate New York has been charged with rape, according to several news outlets. The Watertown Daily Times reported that the boy, who has not been named, was charged by New York State Police with third-degree rape. The charges, which were given on March 23rd, stems from an incident that was reported on Thanksgiving last year. No further details have been released about the incident or about the age of the alleged victim. It is also not clear what the relationship of the suspect and the victim was to one another but police stated that the case will now be handed over to Family Court. A Queen’s attorney who handles youth defense cases slammed the police, saying the charges were absurd. Attorney Anthony Martone stated, “Instinctually, it shouldn’t happen to a 7-year-old. I don’t think you could even realize what you’re doing at 7 years old, so I think it’s absurd to charge a 7-year-old boy with rape. They’d have to prove he actually physically committed this act, which to me, it almost seems to be an impossibility.” Under current New York City state law, minors age 7 and over can be arrested and prosecuted as juvenile delinquents. Several lawmakers are now trying to pass a bill through Albany in order to increase the minimum age of 12, following a string of controversial arrests of children. Back in February, a video surfaced of a 9-year-old black girl being pepper-sprayed by NYPD Cops, where she was heard saying “please don’t do this to me” and “it burns.” The video of the incident, which took place on January 29th, shows the girl in handcuffs in the back of the police car crying as a cop told her, “You did it to yourself.” As expected the incident sparked a heavy uproar and renewed calls to raise the minimum wage of criminal prosecution in New York. Public defender groups who are calling for the change also focused on a 2015 incident where a 10-year-old boy from the Bronx was arrested by NYPD after his two-year-old sister had suffered burns when he placed her on a radiator. The boy was also handcuffed and taken to the police precinct where he was interrogated by police alone.

A new lawsuit alleges that Jeffrey Epstein raped and sexually abused a woman, and then threatened to feed to alligators, as well as have her 8-year-old son deported if she shared what he had done to her with anyone. The woman, known as Jane Doe, said that Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell abused and raped her for months in 2008 at his Palm Beach Florida mansion. According to the lawsuit she was 26-years-old at the time but was told to tell people that she was 17. The suit stated that Epstein used his reputation as a billionaire in order to sexually traffic women to other powerful people, including one person who was identified to the woman as a local judge. He then ensured her silence by saying he had connections with ICE and the FBI. The lawsuit was filed on March 22nd and was reported by Julie Brown in the Miami Herald. It named Richard the Kahn and Darren K. Indyke as the defendants. The two men are in charge of managing the state which has now paid out tens of millions of dollars to accusers. Justice Department prosecutors in the U.S. Virgin Islands have also indicted Kahn and Indyke, alleging that they also participated in the sex trafficking scheme. Epstein first pleaded guilty to sex crimes in Florida State court back in 2008 and spent one year in jail under supervised release. Federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York charged him again in 2019 for other sex trafficking crimes, but he died by suicide in jail ahead of his trial. Prosecutors arrested Maxwell last year alleging that she also participated and his sex trafficking scheme and lied about it in a disposition. This week prosecutors filed a superseding indictment against her saying that her sex trafficking work lasted longer and involved more victims than it was alleged. According to the new lawsuit, Maxwell recruiter the young woman for a purported job interview at Epstein’s Palm Beach Home in 2008. while there, Epstein allegedly raped her and force her to accept $200 in compensation. The lawsuit states that when the accuser said she would call the police, Maxwell appeared to call the police from her cell. The lawsuit states, “Shortly thereafter, two individuals, who claimed to be police officers, arrived and threatened to arrest Plaintiff and charge her with prostitution. They also threatened to take her young son away, and have Plaintiff and/or her son deported.” Immediately afterward, both Maxwell and Epstein drove the woman and her son to a “large body of water that was infested with alligators” to threaten her. The lawsuit continued, “Epstein then ushered the Plaintiff to the body of water and told her in explicit detail that, as had happened to other girls in the past, she would end up in this body of water and be devoured by the alligators, should she ever reveal what Epstein had done to her.” It also noted that the woman was worried that Epstein would follow through on the threat until she learned that he had passed away. With Maxwell’s assistance, they then forced a woman to submit to rape and sexual assault from other men for the next five months. In May 2008, the lawsuit claims that the sex offender then forced the rape victim to submit to “unwanted and unnecessary vaginal surgery for the ostensible purpose of tightening her vagina and creating the false impression that she was a virgin for a ‘high profile’ client.” Unfortunately, according to court documents, the procedure was botched leaving the accuser disabled and mutilated. Epstein allegedly also tricked users to hide some of his secrets. Back in April 2008 ahead of his plea deal for a separate sex crime he “compelled Plaintiff to keep in her house a locked box with property that Epstein purportedly owned” before Maxwell picked it up from her a month later. The lawsuit noted that Epstein forced the woman to hold onto wires, burner phones, and other electronic devices for safekeeping that Epstein was hiding from law enforcement authorities. 

The pandemic has shut down many industries including Hollywood. This is why most of the movies coming out only provided measly returns. However, Warner Bros.’ Godzilla vs. Kong was able to rise above the challenges, opening with the biggest single-day gross at the domestic box office, ever since COVID-19 began. This makes Godzilla vs. Kong having a strong opening at the domestic box office. The Hollywood Reporter reported that the latest movie in the Monsterverse franchise grossed $9.6 million in North America. These numbers are the biggest single-day return at the domestic box office ever since the pandemic interrupted the movie industry. This means that Godzilla vs. Kong is set to exceed box office expectations. It may gross around $30- $40 million in its five-day debut in the U.S. and Canada. Godzilla vs. Kong was released in over 3,000 theaters in North America. This has broken the pandemic-era record which was previously set by another WB movie, Tenet, in 2,810 locations. Nonetheless, while more than 90 percent of U.S. theaters are operating, most of them have limited capacity. Some of the Los Angeles theaters only have 25 percent capacity. Before the film’s domestic launch, Godzilla vs. Kong also had the biggest pandemic era in the international box office debut, garnering $123.1 million, with $69.2 million coming from China. Part of the total came from $12.4 million from 891 IMAX theaters in 40 markets. This again makes the film the largest IMAX opening weekend gross since December 2019.

Okay, so, if you're If you're looking for a graphic design job, you may want to contact whoever employed the people responsible for this following design fail. They are most likely hiring. 

Fast food restaurants don't need to work very hard to promote their products, especially in the U.S.A. We'll gladly pull off the highway for a Whopper or a McMuffin at just the sight of that iconic crown or some golden arches. But that doesn't stop the people who work at these franchises from often getting creative with the message boards outside restaurants. And it's always a bonus when the food you were already craving comes with a free side of laughs.

Ummmm. That should be a Mindphuck. You know what makes me chuckle? When people reenact their childhood pics like this one...

Haha. When I get bored I like to go on Twitter and look up certain words. One of those words is "Foghat" and this is a tweet I recently saw...

I have to ask Roger Earl from Foghat about him one day. Haha. Dating an Influencer is all fun and games until they start lying about your relationship for social media clout. One woman has asked if she was wrong for exposing her boyfriend's lies online... and possibly messing up his following count. The woman emailed me to ask if she was wrong in the situation. She says her boyfriend has a decent following.

"My boyfriend downloaded TikTok a while ago and developed a decent following, nothing close to Charli or anything but around 80k followers which is pretty impressive. Most of his videos are 'thirst trap' type videos (basically him just being hot on camera lol), which I am totally fine with. However for the past month, he's been trying to push out more content because he wants to hit 100k followers before his birthday in April. He's gone from spending 2-3 hours filming per day to close to 6 hours (filming, editing, etc). He's still in school and I work during the day, so the time he spends filming is now cutting into the time we used to spend together. I brought it up with him two weeks ago and he said he'd try to make time for me but hasn't yet. We haven't spent any time together at all this week, and last week he was an hour late to our date (which I had to leave work early to get to) because he was filming stuff. Two days ago, he posted a 'day in the life' TikTok. He filmed his 'daily routine' which was pretty accurate, but he also included a clip of us cuddling with text over it that said '4:00-8:00, spending time with my girlfriend.' I was a little bit hurt by it. The clip he used was over 2 months old, and I honestly can't remember the last time he spent more than half an hour with me, let alone 4 hours. In response, I dueted the video and greenscreened screenshots of his texts from when he ditched me to film, pushed dates back by hours, cancelled plans, etc. I admit, it was petty, but I was upset that he was essentially using our relationship for clout and 'boyfriend points' with his followers but hasn't been putting any effort into the relationship IRL. My video blew up and his comments are filled with angry comments telling him off for being neglectful, using me for clout, etc. He's lost a chunk of followers as well. He's really upset with me, he said I had no reason to sabotage his TikTok account like that, and if I was upset with him, I should have just talked to him. He's begging me to post a follow up video saying the screenshots were fake and vouch for him being a good boyfriend, but I'm refusing. I do feel bad because he is pretty dedicated to his account, and I feel guilty for being the reason he's losing followers, but at the same time I feel like what I did was justified. Was I wrong? Just want to clarify that other than this, he's been very good to me and we've had no other major issues in the 2 years we've been together." I agree that while he was being a butthead, two wrongs don't necessarily make a right. He lied for clout and the truth exposed him, he needs to earn back the followers whose trust he violated, it’s not you’re job to lie AGAIN for more clout. I think he might need a break from TikTok. He is a douche, and you did the equivalent of throwing all of his stuff out of the second floor window, with him and the whole neighborhood watching. You really went for the nuclear option there. I feel like you can't make stuff public like that if you don't intend to break up, because no one who sees that is ever going to respect your relationship again, and that's going to take its toll on both of you. You didn’t communicate, you didn’t try and compromise on anything, you instead leaked private messages, basically ruined a side gig, and showed the entire world the problems in your relationship. If you really thought you could work through your issues before this, you can’t now. Whether or not you were right, this doesn't sound like a relationship that's destined for success. Sorry. If you have a problem you want my advice on then email me at thepeverettphile@gmail.com. 

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

Looks like a cold day there but the ferry is coming in. I'll show a closer look...

That's so cool. Now for a story from...

This is now the second spring break of the coronavirus pandemic. Last March was trickier, as restrictions arose while many spring breakers were already out on trips. But this year, vacation destinations were ready to diffuse spring break crowds. You’d think that the year-long, painful pandemic would have been enough to deter large gatherings. But on a Saturday night in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, police officers were called in to forcefully break up partying. And the footage is scary. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Miami chose to flout the heavy restrictions that most of the country imposed. So it’s no surprise, really, that college students would flock to the already wild spring break destination. The descent of maskless stampedes, though, proved too much... even for the willfully stubborn South Florida town. After a rowdy Friday night, an 8 p.m. curfew was announced by city officials on Saturday; the crackdown was swift. Once 8 p.m. rolled around on Saturday night, law enforcement arrived at the city’s famed entertainment district... in riot gear... to break up the seemingly unruly crowds. The cops used pepper spray, pepper balls, and other forceful tactics which were documented on social media. Following the messy stand-off, Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Clements told local news, “Quite frankly, I am concerned that the behavior is getting more for us to be able to handle.” But after a tense year full of coronavirus anxiety and reckonings over police brutality, the move by Miami Beach police is being criticized. After all, Florida Governor Ron Desantis has openly boasted that the state’s lack of COVID precautions. And as videos show, many of the spring breakers attacked by the police were black. Stephen Hunter Johnson, chairman of Miami-Dade’s Black Affairs Advisory Board decried the excessive force, saying, “It’s the same group of kids that are in [Texas’] South Padre Island right now, except those kids happen to be white.” Operating under a state of emergency, the curfew in the entertainment district... which includes Ocean Drive... was extended. The Miami city manager has the power to continue extending the curfew week by week. What the rest of this tourist season will look like in Miami remains to be seen.

The 148th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...

Marie Kondo will be on the Phile on Tuesday. I know I said Monday in the last entry but Monday I'm getting my first vaccine shot for COVID. 

Popcorn kernels

Popcorn eggs

Today's guest is is an English singer, songwriter, composer, musician, and record producer. His music career spans more than 40 years. He came to prominence in the early 1980s as co-founder and lead singer of the pop band ABC, which released six singles that entered the Top 20 charts in the United Kingdom during the 1980s, including "Tears Are Not Enough," "Poison Arrow," "The Look of Love," "All of My Heart," "That Was Then but This Is Now" and "When Smokey Sings." He is the only member who has been with ABC throughout its entire history and is currently its only official member. Please welcome to the Phile... Martin Fry.

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

Martin: I'm good. Thanks for inviting me and inviting me along to the party. 

Me: I love the album "Lexicon of Love," which I have on vinyl. My dad was a big fan of ABC, and me too. 

Martin: Thank you, Jason. 

Me: So, in the 80s I bet you didn't know those songs from that album would be much cultural touchstones, am I right? 

Martin: Cultural touchstones? That's a bit ominous, Jas. What did Andy Warhol say, you can be famous for 15 minutes. Jas, 1982 was a long time ago. But it is a great honour to still sing "When Smokey Sings" or "The Night They Murdered Love" or "The Look of Love," "All of My Heart, "Poison Arrow." 

Me: Your sound ABC had, was that the sound you wanted when you first started out? 

Martin: Yeah, "The Lexicon of Love" came out in '82, that was our first album. We had a hit with "Tears Are Not Enough," that had gotten into the Top 20. Then we had met Trevor Horn and recorded the rest of the album and that's when I met Anne Dudley. 

Me: So, what music did you grow up listening to? 

Martin: I grew up on listening to the Clash and the Sex Pistols, I used to see all those bands growing up. 

Me: Ha! I expected you to say David Bowie and Roxy Music. 

Martin: I loved Bowie and Roxy Music. But the bands I started to go see live first of all was Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Prefects, Subway Sect, Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, they were all punk bands from my generation. 

Me: So, when you came to getting a band together you didn't want to be in a punk band? 

Martin: When it came to forming a band the whole punk thing that wave had gone, it has crashed on the shore. Amongst my generation was Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Depeche Mode and all those guys. Dexy's, Human League, everyone seemed to have a vision of pop music being more sophisticated. With us we always envisioned those songs to be a film noir really. There's a lot of influencers from "The Lexicon of Love" from Sinatra to Jerry Lewis, through to Bryan Ferry, Noel Coward. Likewise with the audio of it we wanted to make a record that sounded very old fashioned and very modern at the same time. 

Me: Was ABC your first band? 

Martin: I was in a band called Vice Versa with Stephen Singleton and Mark White and that was kind of electronic, synthesizers, growing up in Sheffield that was inevitable. So our background was from electronics I suppose. But we wanted to give the music a heart and that's why we were interested with working with a real drummer, David Palmer we met in Chesterfield, he's a brilliant drummer and use an orchestration. It was kind of a radical idea for a group from Sheffield, we wanted to take it as far as we possibly could. 

Me: So, do you still enjoy songwriting? 

Martin: Yeah, very much so. There are two ways of doing songwriting, I can go Brill Building, meet other guys and collaborator with them and finish the song by 4 o'clock in the afternoon which is a great way of working but at the same time I'm not always inspired obviously. By Tuesday afternoon I might not be inspired. I might be inspired by Thursday afternoon. Writing songs now I realised the best songs I co-written or written have always been very personal. I have to stumble across the stuff that is my unique voice, my unique sort of view of the world. It's worth waiting for those moments and then the adventure begins. 

Me: Do you sit and play an instrument when you write? 

Martin: No, I sit on a plane or something or walking down the street. That's the beautiful thing about the iPhone. I was listening to a Taylor Swift album where she put a couple of her voice notes on the album. I thought that was great. Those are the demos these days. 

Me: Yeah, I wrote my two novels with an iPhone. I love the song "Poison Arrow," Martin. What can you say about that song? 

Martin: It was written like a mini-opera. On West Street in Sheffield in the other rehearsal rooms there was Cabaret Voltaire and the Human Lague. Sometimes I would see Joe Elliott and Def Leppard and countless other bands and like everybody I wanted to be totally different. So with "Poison Arrow" I guess most of it was admiration for Quincy Jones and "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" and all those great productions from Michael Jackson in that period. But also to make a record that was very emotional and hysterical. 

Me: Were you into American music back then? Over here they were doing some different kinda stuff. 

Martin: American music sounded like it had a space in the back of it. A lot of British stuff was more full, it's pretty much how they arranged the sound. 

Me: "The Look of Love" is a great song as well. It has great lyrics. How do you come up with such great lyrics? 

Martin: The first line is the hardest line to write, drawing people in. I can cop out and put a chorus there. "The Look of Love" is probably our most popular song over the years. I love it when drill guys or hip hop guys go, "Yeah, yeah, it's a hip hop tune." That's 35 years on but it's great when people say that. One of the funniest things I ever heard about that song was I was in a rehearsal room and some guy comes up and asked me if I was fucking real. I asked what he meant and he said, "Yippie aiy yippee yaye? Are you fucking real?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm fucking real." 

Me: Hahaha. were those ad-libbed in the song? 

Martin: Yeah, I think they came out of playing it live. We used to play it live. I wanted to ramp it up at the end, like "Poison Arrow," it was a mini opera, so it peaked right at the final beat. That was definitely part of the thinking. The yippie yaye was just ecstasy, the singers demoted by that point of the song. It's almost like I climbed the top of the mountain and there I was streaking into the distance. It probably would have come through a couple of run throughs of just ad-libs and things. I feel good about that tune, singing in the studio. 

Me: As well you should. When I write lyrics I love to rhyme. You're really good at it, Martin. Does it come easy to you? 

Martin: I guess it comes naturally. For years I was trying to get the word "umbrella" into a song. I was kind of mortified when Rihanna came out with her song. 

Me: Ummm... Martin, you have a line that goes "when the postman don't call on Valentine's Day, that umbrella don't work on a rainy day." 

Martin: You're right, Jason. I've already done it in '82. I've forgotten. 

Me: I'm here to help. Hahaha. Are you always looking for rhymes?

Martin: Rhymes, yeah, I'm always looking for rhymes. I've got a bag of rhymes. Could I write a song about a unicorn? I suppose I could. There's always new words in the publics consciousness. 

Me: I love the song "When Smokey Sings." What is the origin of that song? 

Martin: I had Hodgkin's disease. We put out "How to Be a Zillionaire" and it was flying in the United States, then I had cancer so I had to have radiotherapy and then chemotherapy so everything stopped. 

Me: Man, oh, man. Was that tough? 

Martin: Yeah, it was really tough. But sitting around at home I was playing music and I realised how much I valued music in a period when I was just frustrated. I was sitting around waiting for treatment and stuff. So "When Smokey Sings" is about that feeling I get out music can take me to a place away from any kind of concerns I have, any pain, any worries, and that's where the song came out. I love Motown, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Four Tops and Smokey Robinson. Well, my cousin had a club called Smokey's as well that had nothing to do with the tune. 

Me: So, when the album "Alphabet City" came out you were better health wise? 

Martin: Yeah, I got my health back and was lucky enough to make a record. 

Me: I love that album. So, did you ever meet Smokey? 

Martin: The first week we went out to promote it we go to a Dutch TV show and they said, "Come on, down the corridor here." The dressing next to us Smokey Robinson was in there. So I had to knock on the door and say, "Hello, Mr. Robinson, here's a seven inch vinyl of the record." Me and Mark White when in there, we wrote the song together. So about five weeks later we were in Los Angeles doing a TV show and the record had been a hit and his record and "When Smokey Sings" were both in the Top 10 in the states. He said, "Thank you very much." He came over and gave Mark and myself a hand written letter just saying he was touched and moved. 

Me: So, a few years ago you had "The Lexicon of Love II." Why and what was that like? 

Martin: I didn't want to put a vanity record out. I kind of went home and watched "The Walking Dead" on Netflix and thought these days there are many different versions of the same idea. I felt that it was time to do it. To make an album called "The Lexicon of Love II" I had to show up with the songs definitely. I didn't want to destroy the legacy, I wanted to enhance it. That's what "The Lexicon of Love II" is all about. I have to say it was like climbing a mountain, I'm not fool, I didn't want to make a record that people would hate it. People have very strong memories but I thought I'd love to hear "Ziggy Stardust II" or "Dare II" or for me "There's a Riot Going On II" but I never will, so the idea of going back with the characters and seeing how they were 35 years later it was kind of like a good idea to make the record. 

Me: Martin, this is an interview my dad would have loved. Thanks for being on the Phile. I love your music. 

Martin: It was my pleasure. Thank you very much. Cheers.

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Martin Fry for a cool interview. The Phile will be back on Tuesday with Marie Kondo. Spread the words, 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...