Pheaturing Don McLean

 

Hey there, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Thursday. How are you? In case you're taking notes, we are down to just over two months before the end of the Phile. Okay, I am feeling lazy today so here are some quick stories for ya. Kensington Palace announced that Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge is self-isolating at (one of her) home(s) after coming into contact with someone who subsequently tested positive for COVID-19. Kate has received both her vaccines and is reportedly not experiencing any symptoms, but is following the rules of the land she will someday rule. The news brought out conspiracy theorists asking why Prince William isn't isolating himself if he and is wife are in the same household. Surely the Palace will find a way to blame this all on Meghan Markle, as she sits at home with her toddler and newborn halfway across the world.

"Law & Order" legend Mariska Hargitay was eager to get back to her house to host the after-party for a star-studded screening of the new Marvel movie Black Widow in the Hamptons when she slipped in the rain and broke her ankle. Page Six reports that an ambulance for Hargitay was called in front of the Regal UA East Hampton Cinema and guests, including Brooke Shields, rushed to help. The party went on without her, as guests including David Harbor, Drew Barrymore, Gayle King, and Ellen Pompeo schmoozed while she was getting her ankle wrapped at the hospital. Just six weeks ago, Hargitay was treated for a broken knee, a hairline fracture in her ankle, and a torn ligament. Now that she's seen Black Widow, hopefully she can take the rest of the summer to relax.

After four years as daytime TV's most consistent villain, Meghan McCain announced last week that she would be leaving "The View." The tabloids are reporting that the vibe backstage was exactly what you thought it was, and according to Page Six, the tipping point was when "she became so insufferable that even 'chill' Whoopi Goldberg could no longer take her." Sources told the tabloid that Goldberg, Ana Navarro, and Joy Behar expressed to new ABC News president Kim Godwin that they did not want to work with her anymore. "There have been so many well-documented issues, and [Meghan] has not made a good impression on new management," the source spilled. It's a tough competition, but the person who hates her the most is very clearly her hair stylist.

The rules of healthcare are simple. First: do no harm. Second: don't post "comedy skits" on TikTok about unplugging a patient's respirator to charge your cellphone. Nurse Kelly Morris of Winston-Salem, North Carolina made videos under the username @bubblegumkelz, and joked about giving patients too many pills, lying about vital signs, and not caring when they die. The videos went viral, and were reported to her employer and the local news station, WXII12. After her suspension, Morris made a GoFundMe titled, "TikTok got me fired, so feed my kids." It has raised $55 of the $50,000 goal.

With the Black Widow release nearing, the big boss of Marvel Kevin Feige seems to be not ruling out the possibility of the return of Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and if and when it happens, there is no definitive plan yet as Feige seems to be coy as regards the said topic. For what it is worth, at least, he is not closing doors on her MCU future. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter when Kevin Feige was asked about further contractual details that Marvel has with Scarlett Johansson, Black Widow, he said, “Maybe there will be more down the road’... [is the answer] comics have taught us. Anything could be the answer to that question.” With Black Widow supposedly opening the fourth phase of MCU had there been no delays due to the pandemic, many fans believe that such a placement would be odd if Natasha Romanoff would say goodbye just like that. Especially now that the storyline is passing through time itself, there could, at least a way or another, for her to be back. Looking at where Phase 4 is going, it is definitely going to be more complicated than the three previous phases with the Infinity Saga. Either way, Marvel Comics could even tell us how these characters could come back to life just like how they do it there. While there has been no confirmation as to Scarlett Johansson’s return in the MCU, Kevin Feige's not closing the doors on her gives the fans hope that she could be back.

If I had a TARDIS I would go to London in the 60s and become a Lamplighter for one day...

Buckingham palace and quite a bit of central London are still gaslit. I was thinking of getting a new tattoo but someone had the same idea I had...

Haha. Ever see those "panhandlers" on the side of the road? Some of them get very creative with their signs...

Keeping up with the youngins and their lingo is tough. Kids these days like to use "emoji," which use small pictures to communicate how they're feeling—kind of like hyroglyphics. When using emoji, it's easy to confuse laugh-crying for just regular-crying, and these boomers and old folks made the unfortunate mistake of using the wrong face at the wrongest possible times.

Hope Cannoli is okay. Hahahaha. 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 this bathroom for example...  

Real men guess what they look like. Choosing whether or not to change your last name after marriage is a personal and private decision, regardless of what your soon-to-be in-laws are whispering about in the group chat. While the smug war of passive aggression and snide remarks disguised as compliments at every family dinner are unfortunately a running theme in many in-law relationships, the choice to keep your own last name is none of their business. Weddings can sometimes make extended family members feel like it's suddenly their chance to air out all their grievances about everything from the centerpieces to the actual person you're choosing to marry, but demanding you display wedding gifts in your home is crossing a line. Sometimes it's just necessary to set a clear boundary with Aunt Marjorie. So, when a frustrated bride decided to consult the moral compass of the Phile about her mother-in-law's disapproval of her decision to donate some bridal shower gifts, I thought I would help to deem a verdict. 

"Am I wrong for donating passive aggressive bridal shower gifts? My fiancé and I are getting married this year, and I am not changing my name. We weren’t going to register because we already live together and have stuff. However, my in-laws wanted to throw me a shower and my future mother-in-law asked me to create a registry. My in-laws know I’m not changing my name because it came up at a family gathering recently. There was an “are you excited to be a ‘Jones’ soon?” I said I wasn’t changing my name, but that I was excited to be a part of their family. My in-laws are pretty conservative and they didn’t seem very pleased by my decision. At the shower, I got some gifts off the registry, but I also got quite a few items with stuff like “Jones Est. 2021” and our “new” monogram using the letter J. Stuff like a big wall clock, serving tray, etc. This stuff is not really our taste in general and also we will be the Smith-Jones Family, not the Jones Family. I smiled and thanked everyone regardless of the type of gift. My husband and I are planning to donate the non-registry items because of the reasons listed above, plus we don’t have a lot of extra space in our home. I’ll write nice thank-yous and won’t tell anyone we donated the gifts though. My mother-in-law came over today and while we were talking about the shower, she asked where we were going to hang the wall clock. I was honest and said we were going to donate it. She kept pressing for a reason why, so I gave the reasons. My mother-in-law said it would be really rude to donate people’s gifts and at a minimum, we needed to keep them and bring them out when those family members visit. She thinks that’s not a big ask, but I think that’s kind of exhausting and I never look around someone’s house to see if they’re using my gift! Plus, at best, the gifts are a misunderstanding that we won’t be the Jones Family, but more realistically, I think the gifts are passive aggressive because my in laws don’t approve of me keeping my name. Am I wrong if I donate these gifts?" Ughhhh you're not wrong, but you're not in a great spot here. Is your husband speaking up to his mom to tell her the situation? Really this should be him explaining it to her. Keep the clock but have it altered with the letters S and J for Smith-Jones. Regift it to mother-in-law for Christmas and say “I thought you could use this. I know how much you loved this clock, and how hard it is for you to remember our names.” You're being logical, kind, and graceful in a situation many people wouldn't even bother trying to keep appearances. Of course these were passive-aggressive, and perhaps mother-in-law wants them out so she can giggle over them with those people or so she can play pretend... who knows. You're doing great, and congrats. So, there you have it! You wouldn't be wrong at all to donate the passive aggressive gifts or the ones that weren't a good fit as you are under no obligation to display items in your home that you don't like. Good luck, everyone! If you have a problem you want my opinion on then email me at thepeverettphile@gmail.com. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, here is...

Top Phive Things Said On The Fourth Of July In 2021 

5. 4th of July plans? What am I, a fraternity?

4. July 4th: we won our freedom from the Red Coats. Now we have to win it again from the Red Hats. 

3. The 4th of July is just Halloween for people who want to be a flag. 

2. Last year’s 4th of July was spent alone eating BBQ from Winn-Dixie, drinking PBR, and watching NASCAR and honestly… I may do it again this year.

And the number one

1. Fireworks are cool but if I want to hear popping and crackling sounds loud enough to light up the night sky I just move my jaw around.

If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Haha. Okay, it's Thursday, you know what that means...

That's fucking disgusting... I apologize. Moving on, let's take a live look at Port Jeff, shall we?

Looks like an uneventful day there. Now for some sad news...

Donald Rumsfeld 

July 9th, 1932 — June 29th, 2021 

He had a ton of military awards, AND had to resign in disgrace. A well rounded career, I'd say. 

 

Ned Beatty 

July 6th, 1937 — June 13th, 2021 

That should put an end to all that squealing. 

F. Lee Bailey 

June 10th, 1933 — June 3rd, 2021 

He defended a ton of murderers, got busted for drunk driving, was disbarred in multiple states, but hey... at least he was only married four times. 

Gavin MacLeod 

February 28th, 1931 — May 29th, 2021 

Set sail. 

John Warner 

February 18th, 1927 — May 25th, 2021 

He was the 6th of Liz Taylor's 7 husbands. So, you know. Good job there.

The 153rd. book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...

I'm so excited, Seth will be on the Phile tomorrow. 

Phact 1. While the pointed white hood is a symbol of racism in the U.S., the same costume is used during Easter celebration in Spain. 

Phact 2. During the recording of Michael Jackson’s "Beat It," the sound of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar caused the monitor speaker in the control room to catch fire during the solo, causing one engineer to exclaim, “This must be REALLY good.” 

Phact 3. Product placement is illegal on Norwegian television. 

Phact 4. A few hundred years back, women in Turkey could legally divorce their husbands if he didn’t provide them with enough coffee. 

Phact 5. A hacker who, while serving five years for hacking, signed up for a prison IT class, and successfully hacked into the prison’s mainframe.

Today's guest is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his 1971 hit song "American Pie." His whole catalogue was just released digitally and available to download. Please welcome to the Phile... Don McLean.

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

Don: Thank you. It's great to be here. 

Me: So, where in America are you from? 

Don: New Rochelle, New York. 

Me: Congrats on having all your material released digitally recently. What do you think of this? 

Don: Oh, this is a big deal for me. 

Me: Why is that? 

Don: Because this is the new record store. It's the record store in the sky now. It used to be Virgin, it used to be Tower Records, it used to be whatever. Now that's all gone and now there's these record stores in the skies. Time Life is really doing a great job on this. In fact, I think they organized this blog interview with you so they're really promoting it. It's drawing millions and millions of listeners and people downloading tracks that they've never heard before and that makes me very happy. 

Me: There's 173 tracks, which is amazing. Do you consider yourself a prolific songwriter? 

Don: No, no I don't. A lot pf people who you never heard of say they wrote a thousand songs that nobody ever heard. I don't do that. If I have a project or if I have a really interesting idea that keeps haunting me I'll write s song but honestly to tell you the truth I don't know how I got where I got, I have no idea why I am talking about all this material. There is so much stuff out there on me. I mean there are hundred and hundreds of videos and hundreds of bits and pieces from television appearances and concerts and concert videos and I made thousands of appearances. I think is partly because of that I've always kept busy. I never stayed off the road for 50 years so I was always making TV appearances and doing interviews and then songs were occurring to me and boom... I'll make a live album somewhere or I'll go into the studio and start an album. If you add everything up there's probably 35 albums if you add the studio stuff, the live stuff, the complications and whatnot.

Me: So, when you write a new song how is it for you? 

Don: I really have to have a passion for it. As I get older that passion is less and less. 

Me: Haha. Why is that? 

Don: Because I've done so much who needs another Don McLean album. I say that to myself. There are plenty of them out there. I have to have a receptive company that would want to put it out. 

Me: What do you think about music today, Don? 

Don: There is very little that excites me about what I hear around. It seems that Hollywood is stuck in doing sequels and prequels and comic books and all kind of stuff and musicians, if you call them that, are making pretty much a kind of a rhythm track with a couple of stupid lyrics and a little chorus they say over and over again until I'm brain dead hearing it. Just nothing out there that turns me on that I think I want to pout something out there with that or that excites me. 

Me: When you come up with ideas do you write them down in a notebook or on your phone? 

Don: I used to sing into a tape recorder, one of those little tape recorders with a micro cassette. I'd just turn it on and just start singing the song. Melody and lyric then I would stop and listen to it and go on and sing some more. That's pretty much how I've done most of everything. I don't do melodies and put lyrics to them. One time I put a melody to a Shakespeare poem and I created the song out of that. 

Me: How often do you write? 

Don: I only write once in a while. I'm much more interested in what hobbies I may have and things I'm doing. I don't take any of this every seriously believe it or not and here I come known all over the world for these songs I've written and I'm not a serious guy in that way. 

Me: You had one record out in 2008 and then another in 2018 so you do take long breaks. What made you do the "Botanical Gardens" album after all those years? 

Don: BMG wanted to put it out and I was excited. But I wrote the album first. I had a couple songs and I sent them down to Nashville and my record producer Mike Seavers and his brother were ace guitar players and they put together a track on a song called "The Lucky Guy" and I said wow, I like that so that got me turned on. Then we had sessions with the band, in the studio and cut about five or six more songs and that was the record. 

Me: Didn't Fred Astaire cover one of your songs? 

Don: Yeah, he covered "Wonderful Baby" from "Homeless Brother." 

Me: How did that happen? It's odd Fred Astaire would cover one of your songs to me. 

Don: What happened was Fred Astaire hadn't been in the studio for probably 10 or 15 years maybe. He and Bing Crosby were elegantly retired. I don't know what they did but they had all the money in the world and they would make these casual TV appearances once in a while then would go back to doing pretty much what they wanting to do. Nothing hard, nothing strenuous. For some reason the two of them decided to go to London and record albums. One together with both of them and seperate album each. 

Me: Did you ever meet him? 

Don: I went to visit him while he was there and met him at the hotel and he appeared in his blazer and an open shirt with an ascot and a sash around his waist instead of a belt and Gucci loafers and grey slacks and he was a beautiful thing. I see him dance, it makes me cry. This is a human being doing something that is so damn beautiful and that's what I miss, people doing beautiful things that just makes me cry. Not ugly things or loud things, or grossly over done things which is show business now. 

Me: Didn't you have a song about Superman? I was looking on iTunes years ago for songs about superheroes for whatever reason and I vaguely saw you had a song. 

Don: Yes, "Superman's Ghost" from the album "And I Love You So." 

Me: What is the song about? 

Don: The Superman story is a very American story because Americans are super men and America is a super country. So here's this guy who gets shot and he didn't commit suicide, George Reeves. He was stuck in this role of Superman. Faster than a speeding bullet and he'd be standing there in his suit and the bullets would be bouncing off him. Well, when he would make public appearances he would appear in a Superman suit and a kid brought a real gun to try to see if the bullets would bounce off. Ha ha ha ha. They were jumping out of windows and killing themselves and all kinds of stuff was happening from this show when we were kids growing up. So I thought that was something to write about. 

Me: Okay, so, I have to talk about "American Pie." How did that song come about? 

Don: When I saw American pie and came up with that I thought oh my God, that is it. That inspired me to write the song. I came up with it, I don't know how I did it but there it was. 

Me: "American Pie" starts out with a piano, Don, was that intentional? 

Don: I was in love with the piano. Ed Freeman knew more damn piano players than you could shake a stick at. We have Chuck Lovall who plays with the Stones, he's on a bunch off my records. 

Me: So, did Chuck play piano on that song? 

Don: No, that was Paul Griffin. He saved the "American Pie" track. 

Me: How so? 

Don: We've gotten the opening, Ed was very good with these things. He found this wonderful piano player and had this glorious opening piano thing. It's so musical. I would sing to that, then me on the guitar, signing the lyric. Then bop, the drum hits and we're into the rock and roll middle of that song which smokes. And it was Paul Griffin's piano that drives that whole thing and my acoustic guitar that drove him.  

Me: Why? Because the song is so long? Hahahahaha. 

Don: No, because I spent two weeks arguing with these guys telling them they weren't doing it right. Everybody was looking at me like I was crazy causes they were all big shots. They were all session musicians and who is this guy telling us we're not doing it right. Once Paul came in and started playing that stride gospel piano which is so exciting that's what we poured into that song, it's the gospel feeling that's into that song courtesy of Paul Griffin. 

Me: Was it a challenge got write an 8 minute song? My dad's biggest hit, "Slow Ride," was also 8 minutes long. 

Don: We worked backwards from the record. Without the record, without the hit, we wouldn't be talking about the song! It would've been another song that laid there on an album that nobody heard. So that's the key. 

Me: Do you think you've been compared to Bob Dylan? He came out the same time as you did just about. 

Don: Everyone was trying to copy Bob Dylan. he had an enormous affect on everybody in groups and how they sing and young people and songwriting and all that. I went the other way. I was trying to write songs with diction, melody, vibrato, complete opposite. 

Me: Why is that? 

Don: Because trying to do anything close what he would do is just not me. So I always did what was right for me and took it all the way. 

Me: Okay, so, I have to ask you about the Beatles, what you thought of them, Don. 

Don: The Beatles were a big influence on me. 

Me: How so? 

Don: By the diversity in things they did. They never stuck to one sound and that's me. The Sergeant Pepper album and the cover cast a spell on me and everyone else. The cover ion it got me start to make collages and I made two of them. One was a western collage and half that is the cover of "The Western Album." It's twice as big, that's only half if it that's in the cover. The idea of fun imagery was also in my mind doing "American Pie" from the cover of that album. I knew some very good artists and one of them was Thomas B. Allen and he did work for me on the "Solo" album. He did the inside cover which I wanted to be the cover, it should've been, but it ended up being the inside. 

Me: Don, thanks so much being on the Phile. Can you believe "American Pie" is 50 years old? 

Don: Yes, and I have most of my hair and can all the songs in the same keys and man, I'm doing good. 

Me: That's good. Thanks so much for being on the Phile, Don, kicking off July. 

Don: Thanks for all the good questions. Take care, Jason.

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Don for a great interview. The Phile will be back tomorrow with Seth Rogen. 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...