Pheaturing Jake Tapper

 

Hi, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Monday and it's summer! How are you? When the HBO Max Twitter account tweeted an apology to any customers who may have received a confusing test email, they got ahead of any intern-related jokes by revealing it was, indeed, the intern's mishap. 

Hopefully "we're helping them through it" doesn't really mean "helping them through the door," or "helping them through never working again at HBO Max." Accidentally sending an email to people who weren't supposed to receive it instantly resonated with many people as you don't have to be an inexperienced intern to hit "reply all" when you really just wanted to gossip with your favorite co-worker about the meeting during the meeting. Hey, you'll get through it, HBO Max intern!

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, and Victoria's Secret is apparently waking up to the fact that emaciated supermodels in angel wings are no longer going to help them sell underwear. That's right, the company is ditching its "Angels" brand and launching a new campaign that will feature influential women of all shapes and sizes. Dubbed "the VBS collective," the seven women chosen to represent the NEW Victoria's Secret will include soccer star Megan Rapinoe, actor/entrepreneur Pryanka Chopra and plus-size model Paloma Elsesser. "This is a dramatic shift for our brand, and it's a shift that we embrace from our core," the company's CEO Martin Waters said in a statement, CNN reports. This "dramatic shift" comes after Victoria's Secret has faced years of criticism its failure to be inclusive in both marketing and product sizing, as well as for promoting a sexist and dated model of femininity. Some see the rebrand as a step in the right direction. While others have pointed out that the company is still failing to include trans people or fat people in its new campaign. One woman pointed out the REAL problem with Victoria's Secret which is that their bras don't fit, well, anyone? And of course, Stephen Colbert has the hottest take of all...

After Morgyn Arnold, an eighth grader with Down Syndrome, was removed from her cheerleading team's photos in her high school yearbook, her older sister Jordyn Poll decided to speak out. Morgyn, 14, had attended practice sessions, learned the routines, cheered at all the home games, and was officially "team captain," Jordyn told NBC News. So naturally, she was "devastated" to learn that she'd been left out of the cheerleading photo included in the school yearbook and other school and promotional materials. The Shoreline Junior High cheerleading team sat for two yearbook photos: one prominently included Morgyn, and the other, which made it in to the yearbook, did not. In a Facebook post, Poll wrote, "I hope that no one ever has to experience the heartbreak that comes when the person they love comes home from school devastated and shows them that they’re not in the picture with their team. I hope that no one ever has to explain why people deliberately choose to be exclusive. There were two photos: one with Morgyn and one without. A choice was made on which photo to submit, a choice made MULTIPLE times and a choice that excluded Morgyn EVERY. SINGLE. TIME."  After the incident made the news, Shoreline Junior High School issued a vague statement on Facebook in which they called the photo selection a "mistake," writing, "We are deeply saddened by the mistake that was made. We are continuing to look at what has occurred and why it occurred. Apologies have been made to the family and we sincerely apologize to others impacted by this error. We will continue to address it with the parents of the student. We will continue to look at our processes to ensure this does not happen again. Throughout all of this, Poll says her sister has remained positive, supported by her friends on the cheerleading team." "Morgyn could have chosen to be angry or upset, but instead she chose to be understanding, and forgiving," said Poll. "Those girls on the team are her friends, and they've been incredibly supportive through all of this." Poll said she and her family intend to meet with school administrators to discuss the situation and how to better "advocate for students with disabilities." She encouraged people to learn from this story and to make an effort to be more "inclusive" and "loving": I think the important thing here is that we focus more on loving one another and being more inclusive. We can all learn from Morgyn in how she handled this with such a positive attitude. ... We cannot continue to shame one another when mistakes are made. There is no place for shame in all of this. 

Criticisms have arisen from a controversial situation involving a mother accidentally shooting her own child after she panicked and shot at a puppy who had run out in front of her and her family while they were riding bikes. Twenty-four-year-old Angela Mia Vargas has now been charged with deadly conduct with a firearm, for shooting her 5-year-old son while aiming at Bruno, a 6-month-old boxer puppy who ran out in front of them in Houston, Texas. Bruno’s owner, wanting to stay off-camera and anonymous, explained to ABC 13 what happened. According to neighbors, Vargas was riding bikes with her son and husband when Bruno ran out. The owner followed him, telling the puppy to come back in the house. But as the dog roams about the street, multiple gunshots are heard followed by screams from the child’s family. The owner said, “I came out of my house because Bruno was barking and barking. I thought my brother was coming. So, I open the door just a little bit and he comes running out.” The 5-year-old boy was rushed to the hospital but thankfully did not sustain any life-threatening wounds. He was struck in the abdomen by one of three bullets that were fired from a small-caliber pistol, as told by Detective J. Hasley with the HPD Major Assaults and Family Violence Division. Bruno’s owner said, “She could have handled it differently. You know, she was there, her husband was there, I was there, nothing would have happened. Nothing bad like that.” He also explained how he has had nightmares since that day, saying, I was asleep and I had a dream hearing the little boy crying, and that’s what woke me up when I was sleeping yesterday.” Bruno was grazed by a bullet on one leg, but will also thankfully be fine. His owner was given a Class C misdemeanor citation for having a loose dog.

We're only two episodes into "Loki" but it looks like the end is near. Director Kate Herron has just teased an interesting update on the series finale. Loki premiered in the second week of June but the crew were still working on the last few episodes of the show. Interestingly, Herron confirmed this in a tweet that also came with some good news. 

This is awesome news and also a sweet revelation about how Herron had worked on "Loki." Needless to say, I can't wait to see what Herron has in store for us in the final episode. But what can fans expect in the "Loki" series finale? Some fans are already worried that things won't work out too well for the God of Mischief. There are speculations that Loki might not survive by the end of the show. Unfortunately, this might mean that we won't get to see Tom Hiddleston as the Asgardian again in the future. People might have pessimistic thoughts about the series but we're hoping for the best for Loki. Perhaps things will work out for the God of Mischief once he proves his good deeds to TVA and the Time Keepers. We'll all be crossing our fingers for Loki.

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

Maybe not. If I had a TARDIS I would go to and try to meet President Lyndon B. Johnson at his Texas ranch but he'd be busy taking some people for a joyride in his car. 

But not just any car. Johnson, unbeknownst to guests who were first-timers to the ranch, had an Amphicar. Built in Germany from 1961 to 1968, the Amphicar is the only civilian amphibious passenger automobile ever to be mass produced. A total of 3,878 vehicles were produced in four colors: Beach White, Regatta Red, Fjord Green (Aqua), and Lagoon Blue... the color of President Johnson’s Amphicar. Johnson would get his guest and drive down a steep incline toward the lake on his ranch, pretend to lose control, and then yell, “The brakes don’t work! We’re going in! We’re going under!.” The car would splash into the lake, and as everyone else was screaming, Johnson would be doubled over laughing. I was thinking of getting a new tattoo but someone had the same idea I had...

One thing I love is when children draw. Can you imagine what it'll be like if what they drew was real?

Sometimes when I get bored I go to Twitter and look up certain words and one of those words is "Foghat." Here is a tweet I saw before...

Any stroll through a store would have you believe that "pink is for girls" and "blue is for boys" are the associated gender roles are the very backbone of our society. Products from nail clippers to hand lotion are assigned genders when last time I checked, inanimate objects don't have gender identities. Like for example these cartoon fetuses...

Being a bridesmaid can be overwhelming, costly and annoying. But you're still supposed to make every effort to do what the bride says. A mom recently emailed the Phile after she let her 14-year-old daughter wear flip-flops as a bridesmaid, even though the bride had requested heels. The bride never noticed at the time... but now she thinks her photos were ruined. The mom is now wondering if it was wrong to make an executive decision like this without consulting the bride. 

"My daughter, 14, was invited to be a bridesmaid in my niece’s wedding last minute [two weeks before the wedding]. Everyone was instructed to wear silver heels. My daughter has never worn heels but agreed to try for the wedding. The night before the wedding, my daughter goes to the wedding location (backyard of my aunt’s house, where we were staying) and tests her walking in heels. The aisle is a DIY job of brick done by aunt many years ago. Not stable or easy to walk on, especially in heels. My daughter starts freaking out because she can’t walk on it but I assure her she just needs to practice. The day of the wedding comes and she’s near panic attack and begs me to wear her flip flops, they are a basic pair of Old Navy flip flops but they are silver. I finally give in and say yeah it’s probably safest and will avoid her falling in front of everyone. Wedding goes on, all is good. Until the pictures come back and the bride realizes my daughter is in flip flops in the pics of her walking down the aisle (you can’t tell she’s wearing flip flops in the formal pics where she’s standing still because her dress covers them). She texts me demanding explanations but she didn’t like what I had to say. She’s clearly upset with us and I’m just wondering if I did something really wrong letting my daughter wear the flip flops Well, you should've asked the bride before letting her daughter wear the mother of all cheap flip flops down the aisle. When she realized she couldn't walk in them the bride should have been consulted. Flats would have been a perfectly fine replacement I'm sure. Flip flops not so much. Your daughter is 14. You should have been the prepared one just in case, she didn't know any better. Handle the situation the day before when it was first brought up. Acknowledge that you misjudged the situation and you made a mistake and you'll probably be fine. That being said, I think the bride has overreacted a teeny tiny bit. People only really care about what the married couple look like on the day of. She doesn’t have to print any photos where the flip flops are visible. For once, this isn't a case of a Bridezilla being entitled. It's a case of Old Navy flip flops being absolutely not okay to walk down the aisle. 

If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. So, my son and I were taking about how we used to watch "Sesame Street" when he was a kid... now the show is on HBO it's slightly different...

Bert pees in the bathtub and notices an alarming amount of blood. 

On military time...

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

Looks like a nice warm day there. 

Phact 1. Although an ostrich lays the largest egg, it is the smallest egg in relation to the size of the bird.  

Phact 2. There is a pill that makes you poop gold and it is soft for $275 

Phact 3. During the French Revolution, Leaders tried to replace Catholicism with a “Cult of Reason” where Truth, Liberty, and Reason were worshiped. 

Phact 4. All non-Africans are part Neanderthal, and you can get DNA testing to tell you how much Neanderthal you are as well as your ancestral lineage, and any potential genetic health problems. 

Phact 5. In 2001, when the IT department at the University of North Carolina decided to do a server audit, they realized that they could not find one of their best performing servers. They eventually resorted to following the physical cabling and they hit a wall, literally. For over 4 years, the server had been buried behind a wall during remodeling.

Today's guest is an American journalist, author, and cartoonist. He is the lead Washington anchor for CNN, and hosts the weekday television news show "The Lead with Jake Tapper" and co-hosts the Sunday morning public affairs program "State of the Union." His novel The Devil May Dance is the 152nd book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club. Please welcome to the Phile... Jake Tapper.

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

Jake: Good! How are you doing, Jason? 

Me: I'm good. Jake, your last novel, The Hellfire Club was a bestseller and it ends up getting optioned. Do you feel any pressure now writing this one? 

Jake: Well, I always feel pressure. I'm my own worst critic and toughest driver. I wanted this book to be better than the first. I wanted to keep improving and learn the lessons from the first one. And then this also was a world that I don't know as well.

Me: Why is that?

Jake: Because the first book took place in Washington, D.C., during the McCarthy era in the era of President Eisenhower. I'm obviously too young to have grown up with President Eisenhower, but I know Washington. 

Me: Where does this one take place? 

Jake: This one takes place in Hollywood during the Rat Pack era, and I don't know Hollywood as well…. I was a fan of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and the rest, but I was less familiar with who they really were. 

Me: What made you go that way? What made you skip toward the Kennedy era? 

Jake: Well, I love doing the historical fiction, but also I had heard this story, a real story... that Sinatra built out his Rancho Mirage estate... in expectation that John F. Kennedy would come and stay with him as president. He had a helipad built, a press room and all these accoutrements, and then Attorney General Robert Kennedy, President Kennedy's brother, was challenged internally at the justice department by somebody who said, "You know, you want to take on organized crime, you want to take on the mafia. Meanwhile, your brother, the president, is hanging out with Sinatra, who is friends with all these mobsters." And that's a real story. So when I heard that, I'm like, oh, perfect. That's what I'll have Charlie and Margaret... the heroes from my first book... that's what I'll have them go investigate in the second.

Me: There's something very alluring about that time…. Even now, Sinatra is red-blooded American purity, like the ultimate good American kid. At the same time, he's connected to the mafia. What is that like for you? 

Jake: Yeah, in the book, Charlie and Margaret are basically asked to find out how mobbed up is Sinatra really? Is he really in debt to these guys? Is he really part of their crew? Or is it just kind of an affectation? Hanging out with bad guys, but not really getting involved. The truth is Sinatra ran with some of these guys. I don't think he ever had anybody killed or anything even remotely involving that. But that said, he hung out with them, and these were horrible people. These were killers. And he went to Cuba in the 1940s and performed for them... this was before the Cuban Revolution. This really was part of his world. 

Me: Do you think he broke any laws? 

Jake: Again, I don't think there's necessarily any evidence that he broke any laws or anything, but he definitely hung out with some very awful monsters. 

Me: I should be clear for people listening that the book is not necessarily about Frank Sinatra, right?

Jake: Yeah. The Church of Scientology comes up, Congress comes up, and the mafia obviously comes up. This book takes place decades before #MeToo, but it does expose a lot of the abuse that women in the entertainment industry were experiencing at the time. 

Me: So how did you end up writing that into the major part of this novel? 

Jake: It's interesting. I'm glad you picked up on that, Jason. When I was researching the book, I found a very obscure book by a woman that had hung out with the Rat Pack and was abused by them in a way that could happen today with any number of celebrities or stars. And that got me thinking: how glamorous was it really? While this was all going on and I was writing this, we're in this #MeToo era where women are really standing up for themselves from a lot of hideous behavior by men in Hollywood... to this day, I mean 2021, not 1961. It got me thinking: I wonder what it was like for these women? 

Me: Tippi Hedren was on the Phile before talking about her treatment from Alfred Hitchcock during the filming of The Birds. In your book, you talk so well about the reality of it for her. How did you know about it?

Jake: I read her book. In addition to the fact that Hitchcock abused her there was a scene towards the end of The Birds, where Tippi Hedren walks into an attic that has been burst into by the birds (spoiler alert: the birds go crazy and tear up the town), and the way they filmed that was they threw all these birds at her in real life. They threw live birds at her, and she got hurt. And so I'm like, wow, that's kind of incredible. So I had to put that in the book. 

Me: It still feels like reporting in some ways, right?

Jake: Look, I'm a reporter at heart. I love the research and finding out these things and then bringing them to people. Normally, I do it in a non-fiction way, but through fiction, I can also tell some stories. I put sources at the end of the book just so that nerds like me who are wondering what's real, what's not real... if they haven't already made it to Google to figure it out... can skim the sources at the end and say, "Oh, wow. So Tippi Hedren really had birds thrown at her. That's incredible." 

Me: Is it true one of your hobbies is collecting posters of presidential candidates who've lost? 

Jake: Yes. I know exactly what you're wondering. 

Me: Trump-Pence: Make America Great Again, 2020. My next question was, did you get one of those yet? 

Jake: I did. I got two. I'm just waiting for my office to reopen so I can put them up. Maybe I'll put them right next to the, I don't know, George Wallace or maybe Hillary Clinton. I have a collection that goes back to the 19th century of losing candidates. 

Me: How did it feel when that one came in? 

Jake: Well, it was a difficult era to cover. There was such demonizing by President Trump... demonizing journalists, demonizing immigrants, demonizing people of color, demonizing Democrats, demonizing any Republican who didn't agree with them and any Republican who raised his or her voice. So there is a degree to which even if you remove his accomplishments from it... and there are accomplishments, no question about it. We could talk about Operation Warp Speed, we could talk about the Abraham Accords etc.... but just the poisonous atmosphere. There is less of that to deal with, and that is, I think, psychologically better for everybody. 

Me: Has your newsroom changed noticeably since? 

Jake: Well, it's hard to say because it's so empty... everybody's working from home. First of all, let me just say as an anchor, I did not get into this business to cover racist tweets. I got into the business to share stories from around the world. So I like having space and time to have a long piece from a reporter who went to Myanmar, or who went to Ethiopia, or went to Yemen. I mean, it's nice to be able to cover news and not have to worry about focusing on the poison. 

Me: One more question on your day job… you're Canadian and tweeted about Canada's vaccine rollout... What compelled you to do that? 

Jake: Well, first of all, we have a great reporter, Paula Newton, in Ottawa. But during the pandemic, I started paying more attention to ancestry.com. My mom is from Winnipeg, and I knew I had relatives in Canada. But I started exploring my family tree and I found a branch that I didn't even know existed. It's complicated. So I found these Canadian cousins, including this great musician named Nic Dyson. We started emailing and texting, and I started talking about visiting Winnipeg and seeing them. And I became aware that your vaccine program... usually in the United States, we look to Canada and think, "Man, they have their act together so much better than we do." This story was different because I have these elderly cousins in their 80s who still hadn't been vaccinated and didn't know when they were going to be able to. I asked Paula, "What's going on? How come my relatives can't get vaccinated?" It's a complicated story. But anyway, we had Paula do a story, and I made some errant comment that this was not the Trudeau government's finest hour or something along those lines. And boy, did I hear from people. So yes, I tweeted a little bit about it. 

Me: You heard from the Canadians, didn't you? 

Jake: Well, I put to rest any myth that Canadians are always polite. 

Me: Jake, thanks for coming on the Phile. I lover your work. Take care.

Jake: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much.

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Jake for a great interview. The Phile will be back on Thursday with Thom Yorke. Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye. 

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...