Hey there, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Thursday. How are you? Alright 2020, what in the world is going on. It looks like there is more bad news for us after NASA has stated there is a literal asteroid the size of the Empire State Building heading our way. My, oh, my, I don’t even know where to begin. This is terrifying, truly is. As if we needed something else to worry about. NASA did state they are keeping a close eye on the massive asteroid, which is leading up to the weekend. It is estimated to be between 820 feet and 1,870 feet, which makes it taller than the Empire State Building at 1,453 feet. As far as how fast it’s traveling, well, it is at a speed of 11,200 miles per hour! Yikes, yikes, yikes. The good news here is that NASA scientists don’t necessarily expect it to actually collide with Earth, rather is should zoom past safely. They are keeping an eye on it just in case it does enter Earth’s atmosphere. The expectation (and well, hope) is that the space rocket will miss Earth by over 3-million miles when it flies past on Saturday, June 6th, 2020. This big asteroid, dubbed 163348 (2002 NN4) is the final of five expected to fly past Earth this week. NASA has classified it as an Aten asteroid, which is a space rock following a very wide orbit around the sun. It is expected to approach Earth at a distance of 13.25 Lunar distance of 0.034225 astronomical it’s from the sun, which is roughly 3.2 million miles away from Earth. So, despite its distance from our planet, NASA deems the asteroid a Near-Earth Object, as it usually deems all asteroids NEOs if they approached us within 1.3 astronomical units. According to NASA, NEO is a term which is used to describe asteroids and comets that have been “nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighborhood.” So, after this one hopefully misses us, the next asteroid expected to visit it is in 2024. Fun fact, the earth really hasn’t seen an asteroid of apocalyptic state since a massive space rock wiped out the poor dinosaur 66 million years ago. So, if all goes well, we are probably going to be fine. Still, you might want to knock on wood though, just in case.
Authorities have announced that all four police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd are now facing charges. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison increased charges against Derek Chauvin to a second-degree murder charge in Floyd’s murder. Benjamin Crump, Floyd’s family attorney, implored officials to hold all other officers accountable in powerful remarks at the side of Floyd’s killing. The incident has sparked several mass protests around the world over questions of police brutality and racial inequality. Attorney General Ellison did note his office will continue to investigate the situation and will upgrade the criminal charges to first-degree murder if there is enough evidence to support it. Floyd was a 46-year-old African-American man who was killed by officer Chauvin on Memorial Day. Chauvin, who is also charged with manslaughter, knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes. Chauvin, Tomas Lane, J.A. Keung, and Tou Thao were fired the day after the incident. An autopsy commissioned by Floyd’s family and the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office ruled Floyd’s death was a homicide. A medical examiner’s report listed “cardiopulmonary arrest” as the cause, while the family autopsy stated “asphyxiation from sustained pressure.”
A South Carolina woman who was having what could be politely described as “an incredibly adult night” ended up in handcuffs after her meth and heroin-fueled threesome took a hard left turn into attempted penis biting and basically full-on zombieism. Mondays. It happened on a Monday. Police responded to a 911 call from one of the two men involved in the threesome, who claimed the woman had attempted to bite his penis off. When police arrived at the apartment they found the woman bleeding and naked. Upon seeing the officers she came at them on all fours, attempting to attack. She was eventually subdued with a taser. The police then had to use Narcan, which is used to treat narcotic overdoses in emergency situations, to revive the woman. Police Chief Dennis Turner told the media that the body cam footage from the incident was one of the most disturbing confrontations he’s seen in his entire career as a police officer. He described it as “something you would see off of a horror movie.” So, basically, this woman was turned into an actual zombie. The equation meth plus heroin equals zombie sounds perfectly logical to me. The heroin gets you all sluggish and zoned out like a zombie, then the meth comes in and shoots you full of energy, but only renders your id operational, so you pursue only your most basic needs, such as TO FEED. Can you imagine how out of hand this situation had to have gotten for these two guys to call the police? There’s probably meth and heroin in the apartment, but the woman was so terrifying and ferocious that the two men were like, “Screw it. If we don’t call the cops right now she’s going to drink our blood and run off into the woods.” Having a devil’s threesome while doing meth and heroin: not even once. It’s like this woman never even took D.A.R.E. classes.
People in all fifty states and around the world are protest police brutality after the killing of George Floyd. Meghan McCain, token conservative on "The View," has chimed and offered her perspective from what was assumed to be her Manhattan penthouse. McCain lamented the destruction of property, claiming that her neighborhood "looks like a war zone," and cities are being left to "burn to the ground and be destroyed."
People in the comments accused her of being more disturbed by messy sidewalks than by murders. The most popular response came from Kristen Bartlett, the co-head writer of "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee," who lives in McCain's building. "Meghan, we live in the same building, and I just walked outside. It’s fine," Bartlett tweeted. Bartlett countered McCain's hysteria, saying that the neighborhood is "fine." The tweet has almost 900,000 likes. A day after the tweets went viral, McCain took back to Twitter to pre-empt an upcoming gossip column that will reveal that she wasn't even in Manhattan when she claimed that it was a war zone. She was simply echoing what she saw on TV and social media... and TV and social media never distort the truth.
And this...
McCain was compared to Amy Cooper, the white woman who called the cops on a black man bird-watching, claiming that he was threatening her life. Manhattan will be okay, and so will Meghan McCain.
Do you want to swim with adorable tiny otters at an animal preserve like her?
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, this is actually true. If you are looking for a fun and unforgettable experience that your whole family can enjoy, you need to visit the Barn Hill Preserve in Louisiana. Basically, you along with the whole family are guaranteed to have a fun and unforgettable day. You can go explore the unique preserve, which is full of exotic animals that you can actually interact with. Barn Hill Preserve is located in Ethel, Louisiana. If you have no clue where that is, it’s okay. It’s this tiny East Feliciana Parish village just outside of St. Francisville, north of Slaughter. Barn Hiss is intended to be an animal preserve for miles and kids of all ages. The preserve features a total of seven acres of a landscape full of exotic animals. All of the animals either come from zoos or are either surrendered by their owners. During your guided walking tour, you will have the opportunity to get close to some of the animals. You will be able to see everything from lynx, camels, kangaroos, eagle owls, and more. Yes, you read that right, you get to meet kangaroo Joey! You can even feed them, under the supervision of trained professionals, of course. There are also numerous amount of macaws that make the place look so much brighter. Let’s not forget about the sloth encounter. Did you know that there are less than 20 locations in the U.S. where you can actually interact with sloths? Yup. Barn Hill is one of these lucky 20 locations. But, here comes the best part of it all, and the cutest if you ask me. While it would be fun to see the other animals, this one tops the cake! One of the main attractions of the preserve is its Otter Swim! The once in a lifetime encounters are three hours long and include guided tours of the facility, followed by your swim with Asian small-clawed adorable otters. Just look at these little tiny otters just enjoying their time with humans. I just want to take one home with me, and keep it forever. Otter Swims and Encounter Tours are usually only offered on the weekends and require appointments, so be sure to schedule in advance. You must also be 16 and over to participate. For more information about Barn Hill Preserve, you can check out their Facebook page or their website! What are you waiting for! It’s otters we’re talking about here.
So, on Monday's entry with Ringo Starr I mentioned to him when he was on "Thomas the Tank Engine." I should have asked him what he thought of the episode where Optimus Prime kidnapped Thomas...
What a sad episode that was. Haha. When I saw this pic it reminded me of something...
Here is another creative measure that people business are taking to maintain social distancing out in the world.
You know what bugs me? Those lockdown protestor signs...
Hahahahahahaha. That should've been a Mindphuck. I was thinking of getting another tattoo but someone had the same idea I had...
I never had coronavirus, as far as I know. Trump was back across the street from the White House holding up another book...
Ha! Many celebrities are using their platforms to speak out against the injustices, and others are really struggling to read the room. Ivanka Trump tweeted a bible quote after her daddy/boss tweeted "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
Hey, it's Thursday. You know what that means...
Ugh! I like boobs but this is bloody ridiculous. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York, here is...
Top Phive Things Said By People Who Are Tired Of Zoom Calls
5. Why do I feel compelled to wave at the end of Zoom calls? I have literally never walked out of a meeting room waving.
4. It's very simple, folks, you have synchronous meetings with your students via Zoom where they ask about the discussion forums on Moodle, which are used as fodder for quizzes on KaSneezul and virtual "digital-labs" on Boopus. From there you simply log into your Dongus Log, and...
3. Gonna update my CV to say "survived 1,000 Zoom calls that should've been an email" as part of my achievements in 2020.
2. Know what I'm more sick of than quarantine? Quarantine small talk. Can we all make a pact to be done with that? Life's weird. My dog will be in my Zoom call. Your kid will be in yours. We're all in pjs with unkempt hair.
And the number one thing said by someone who is tired of Zoom calls is...
1. I'm so sick of Zoom, I never want to see an episode of "The Brady Bunch" ever again.
If you spot the Mindphuck, I'll be surprised if you don't, I'll be surprised. Okay, here's a good story from...
Martin Folsom just graduated valedictorian of his high school class at Philip Randolph Career Academy in Jacksonville, Florida. However, his path to becoming the top of his class wasn’t at all easy. But this Florida teen refused to let any of that get in the way of his big dreams. And he’s definitely not done. Ever since he was a child, senior Martin Folsom and his mother Melva have had a lot of hardships. Fleeing her ex-husband, Melva and her son lived in different homeless shelters across five different states within a matter of two years. WJXT reported that her ex-husband is currently serving a 40-year prison sentence for murder after a drug deal went wrong. Nevertheless, finally settling in Jacksonville unfortunately still didn’t mean their rocky road would finally smoothen out. In Jacksonville, Folsom and his mother became homeless two more times, while he was in 9th and 11th grade. But that didn’t stop the homeless student from keeping his spot as class valedictorian. Not only was he the top student at Philip Randolph Career Academy for all four years of high school, but he was also the class president from freshman to senior year. Melva remembers the struggle of looking for places to live while continuing to encourage and teach her son to persevere through tough times. “Martin and I were in downtown McDonald’s and literally had nowhere to go. I was on the phone calling people, calling organizations, and by the grace of God, we got into a shelter that day.” She also explained to WJXT, “I just constantly kept pushing him to be better, and not necessarily to be No. 1, but to be better.” Folsom detailed to WJXT how he never lost motivation, “I never thought to myself, ‘I can’t do this anymore’ or ‘I’m done with this. It’s always been, ‘Well, it happened again and I’ve gotta keep myself up and keep moving forward. He also added, “At my school, there are a lot of other smart people there too. And if I let myself slip, they would take it from me in a second.” Folsom plans to get his college degree from Valdosta State University in Georgia, starting in the fall. His dream is to work for the FBI, and there’s no doubt that he can achieve his dreams. The valedictorian shared some encouraging words to remember for those who feel like all odds are preventing them from reaching their own goals, “Tell them to dream big,” he continues, “Think about something that you really want, and think about how good you’re gonna feel once you accomplish that.” Congrats. Martin.
AMNESIA
Condition that enables a woman who has gone through labor to have sex again.
The men who think spreading a deadly virus makes them more manly.
Okay, let's see what is going on live in Port Jeff, shall we?
Nothing too much it seems.
Cloaking himself in religion for the second day in a row, President Donald Trump sought to seize the moral authority to justify his hard line against demonstrators protesting the killing of another black man in police custody and at the same time mobilize his religious conservative base. Trump signed an executive order on international religious freedom on Tuesday and traveled to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine, where he and the First Lady laid a ceremonial wreath and observed “a moment of remembrance.” A day earlier, he had held up a Bible and posed for photos in front of a historic church across from the White House that had suffered fire damage from protesters. He strode through Lafayette Park to the church after authorities forcefully broke up peaceful protests there. Trump’s religious outreach marked his latest efforts in a series of overtures to mobilize conservative voters of faith, particularly the white evangelical Christians who are among his most loyal supporters. The furious, politically charged response to his gestures from less pro-Trump faith leaders, however, suggested his efforts to lock in one part of his base could backfire by turning off other religious voters. Tuesday’s shrine visit was originally set as a venue for Trump to sign the religious freedom order, which he ended up signing during a private event in the Oval Office. But his tweets made clear what was on his mind as he spent much of the morning urging Republicans to vote in primaries on Tuesday that he vowed would “lead to big victories on November 3rd.” “SILENT MAJORITY!” he tweeted. Trump has turned to religion as he seeks to project strength and quell violent protests that have spread across the nation in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But religious leaders across denominations accused Trump of trying to coopt religion in an attempt to project leadership at a time of deep national strife. The Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, said that she was “outraged” by Trump’s Monday visit to St. John’s Church and noted that Trump didn’t pray while visiting the landmark, which has been visited by sitting presidents since the early 19th century. The church sustained minor fire damage during protests Sunday night. The Rev. Gini Gerbasi, the rector at a church in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood, said she was “deeply shaken” after having been forcefully cleared from the Lafayette Square area Monday evening. She urged Trump to live by the Bible’s words “instead of carrying them around as a prop.” The use of “weapons of war” to help the president “show his supporters that he’s religious,” Gerbasi told the Associated Press, defied further comment. “I can’t even go there. The layers of irony and hypocrisy and sacrilege are already thick.” As for Tuesday’s trip to the Catholic shrine, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington’s Catholic diocese said he found it “baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated.” Trump on Wednesday morning brushed off the critics, insisting that his visit had been well-received. “Most religious leaders loved it,” Trump said during an interview on Fox News Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show,” adding, “It’s only the other side that didn’t like it.” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday defended Trump’s visit to St. John’s as a powerful symbol to those who set the church ablaze, telling Fox News Channel, “We don’t look into other people’s hearts and souls and discern and judge what their faith is, why the president felt compelled to walk there, why he held that Bible up.” Trump’s campaign framed his visit to St. John’s as “a powerful statement that God will always prevail by standing before the burned church, Bible in hand,” in the words of spokeswoman Sarah Matthews. Budde challenged that narrative as she aligned with the goals of peaceful protesters, saying in an interview that “if the president was trying to capitalize on religious outrage because the church was burned, I think the real outrage was the death of George Floyd.” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a Christian conservative ally of the president, lauded Trump’s visit for “sending a message that he’s not going to be intimidated, that our government is not in hiding.” Perkins said the only thing he would have done differently, had he been shepherding the church visit, would be to ask a multiracial group of pastors to offer prayer for the nation during the crisis. The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, a Latino evangelical pastor who has advised Trump, said any president holding up the Bible is a “powerful image.” Rodriguez dismissed the idea that Trump’s recent forays into religious symbolism were “a dog whistle or a clarion call” to a religious base that, as he put it, is already firmly by the president’s side. “Is he somehow shaky with the white evangelical community?” Rodriguez said of Trump. But just months before November’s presidential election, polls show Trump struggling in key swing states, with some evidence of waning enthusiasm among some of his most loyal supporters, including white evangelical Christians. Polling from the public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit, found a double-digit decline in Trump’s support among white evangelicals and Catholics from March to April, a sign that Trump could be struggling to consolidate his appeal with a demographic he desperately needs to win. Robert P. Jones, CEO of the institute, also cited data showing white evangelical voters are shrinking as a share of the U.S. population, meaning Trump “needs to overperform” among his core religious supporters to win in November.
The 127th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...
Ms. Marion will be on the Phile on Monday. Okay, wanna laugh?
A blonde was playing Trivial Pursuit one night. When it was her turn, she rolled the dice and she landed on "Science & Nature." Her question was if you are in a vacuum and someone calls your name, can you hear it? She thought for some time and then asked, "Is it on or off?"
Me: Neil, welcome to the Phile. How are you, sir?
Neil: Thank you.
Me: So, congrats on your new documentary. I love the way you say in it, "it's not good, it's great." Can you explain the difference to me? Haha.
Neil: I don't know what to say. Good and great are two different things.
Me: So, what's the difference?
Neil: "Good" is what somebody is what somebody thinks is good. "Great" is something that makes us feel great.
Me: That's cool. That should be on a t-shirt. So, what do you think of music today?
Neil: They already have enough perfect records. Everything is making a perfect record so the last thing the word needs is something good. They need something great.
Me: So, what is the documentary about? Can you tell the readers?
Neil: Simply the film follows me and my band Crazy Horse in the making of our new album "Colorado."
Me: Okay, so, what made you decide to do the documentary Mountaintop?
Neil: So people like you know what it was. So other people could see it. First of all it's the way people for years. Now that everything's been completely made perfect and plasticized and everybody is worried what wire they're using, what kind of covering it has on it, that has nothing to do with anything. Use the best equipment we can and make the best music we can and get out of there. It's not a way of life.
Me: There's a lot of tension in this documentary, why was that important?
Neil: Why isn't it important? It's what the documentary is about. It's about making the music. It's the story of the music.
Me: Is that tension important on making things great?
Neil: It is for me. Listen, everybody has to know what they're doing in there. They're not doing anything else. If we're playing a song, we should really play the song once and you should be done. If we're running it down for the engineers, get a new engineer. They should already know how to do it. We can't take time. It's not a way of life making a recording.
Me: What's the importance of the first take and the pursuit of perfection in the recording process?
Neil: Usually take one's the best one if we're ready. If we're not ready, then we shouldn't have been there. Everybody should know the song and the changes. They should know the melody. They should know what the song is about before they go in the studio. We should never be running it down or practicing it. We should have the roadies play the instruments so that everybody knows it works. Then the musicians go in and play. They play it once and they're done. If they want to play it 100 times to get it perfect, that's fine. That's somebody else's record.
Me: I love the "Colorado" album, Neil. On the song "Help Me Lose My Mind" is a great song. What is it about? I love the lyrics.
Neil: It's about the environment, it's about the world that we're living in right now. This is what everyone is thinking about right now, but obviously not new to me.
Me: Is there something new what you wanted to say about the environment this time?
Neil: Well it's the same thing I've been saying for a long time because it's so obvious. There's not much to say about the environment other than we better do something and we better take care of ourselves. But before you can start to see the damage, some people really need to have it come up and hit them in the face.
Me: Okay, so, I have been dying to ask you this question... what do you think of Trump? Hahahaha.
Neil: The whole America took a huge hit. They elected the worst or the better of two evils. It doesn't matter. The only good party in America is the Green Party. The rest of it is just a bunch of shit. Who voted for Trump? Who's thinking? Nobody is thinking. Look around, cannot anybody tell. What about the climate? Is that a joke?
Me: Do you think people worry about their jobs?
Neil: They should worry about their jobs. That's right. They should worry about their jobs. Good idea. That's the whole thing, they worry about jobs and putting food on the table but in a much bigger way! They won't be any food. They won't have a table. They'll be people coming up fro the equator trying to live in your house.
Me: Can you explain what you mean?
Neil: It's getting to the point where you close your eyes and look forward 15 years, it's a disaster. That's what we're giving our kids. That's what we're giving our grandchildren. People are worried about how the economy is in America. It's just like they got their head stuck in the tar sands. They just can't see what's going on. I'm not saying that they're wrong. I just totally disagree with it. I think that they're narrow-minded. They're only looking at their own benefit. They're not looking ahead for their children or their grandchildren. When I say that they get pissed off, but the fact is that's what they're doing and it is their grandchildren and they're doing it.
Me: So, what do you do as an artist? You're still singing these songs so it is trying to tell people who are not seeing things your way?
Neil: No, I'm just expressing myself. I'm saying that I feel and saying what I think. I really don't care about people listening to it now. As I do about getting it right. I get down there sing the song, get the feeling out, and go to the next song after that. I go to the next song.
Me: So, you have up online archives from the past 50 years or so. That's so freaking cool. What's it like looking back at your career like that?
Neil: Well, I'm looking forward to the next things that I'm going to put in it. We're searching through all kinds of stuff that we have... from unreleased Crazy Horse to unreleased Pearl Jam. It's just an amazing amount of stuff. I was going pretty fast for a while I was cruising along in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I made more records than I could put out and more films than I could put out. I didn't even have a chance to finish some of them. Now that's what I'm doing as I'm going through those projects that were roughed in and deciding while rough is good enough for those, you've got the feeling. Sometimes I have to do some kind of work to technically make them better. There's just so much to do that is in the future, compared to listening to what's there. I'm just creating all of this so that it's a cohesive record of what we all accomplished together.
Me: How do you balance out in your shows 50 years worth of songs, with your new stuff and you older stuff?
Neil: Well, I just wait until I feel like playing an old song and I just pick one and do it. I don't have a list of old songs I have to do.
Me: There's bands out there that don't do that at all.
Neil: What? Their old songs?
Me: Yeah, or they do them but they don't sound anything like what they used to sound like.
Neil: Well, good for that. Why should it sound like it used to sound? How long ago was it? You already have the record of it. Why not do it like they feel it today? I don't understand doing what they already did when they already made a record of it.
Me: When you play "Cinnamon Girl" does it still sound like "Cinnamon Girl"?
Neil: Maybe next time it won't. It just depends. It's not something I focus on. I'm more focused on the last songs that I wrote and the new record that I made or things that I feel like playing just because we were talking about it on the bus. It's a real thing. It's whatever I feel like doing. That's what I like to do. Sometimes people go to my shows and I know that they want me to play "Heart of Gold" and "Old Man." I even had an offer to do a tour of the whole "Harvest" album. Someone offered me a bunch of money to do that. But I can't do that.
Me: Why can't you?
Neil: All those guys are dead. They're gone. I can't do that. All I can do is miss those guys while I'm doing it. Or if I'm playing Promise of the Real there's a lot of those songs I could do but it doesn't sound like them, it sounds like us. That's cool. Crazy Horse can't do those songs, it doesn't fit. When I do the songs I do with Crazy Horse it's because I feel like playing them and we play them.
Me: I can't imagine someone coming up to you and saying they want you to play all of "Harvest."
Neil: I can make a fortune doing that but I also would have sold my soul and I'm done so I might as well go to bed.
Me: I guess it's nostalgia. Nostalgia is a dangerous thing, right?
Neil: It's okay if that's what you want. Nostalgia makes some people think good.
Me: So, I interviewed David Crosby here on the Phile twice. What do you think of him?
Neil: Next question please.
Me: Ummmm... okay. So, a lot of people I'm sure look up to you as an artist and a musician. Do you have any advice for a young artist?
Neil: Be true to yourself. Just do what you want to do. The last thing you want to do is please anybody else. Just forget about the pleasing everybody. It's the most useless pastime you could ever have. Doesn't make any difference to anything. It's a waste of time.
Me: That makes sense, Neil. I know you have to go, thanks so much for being on the Phile. I hope it was fun and I hope you'll come back again soon.
Neil: Your father was a great artist and played really good blues guitar. Do you play an instrument, Jason?
Me: I play kazoo.
Neil: Good answer. That's a really good answer. Keep playing the kazoo, that's what I say. Have you released any music?
Me: Yeah, I had two music projects out but my latest is a music project called Null & Void and I play kazoo on two songs.
Neil: That's a good start, but it's not for me.
Me: What was is it like being on stage with Crazy Horse after all these years?
Neil: Well, Ralph doesn't like me to look at him. He says don't look at me while I'm playing. He doesn't want to be bothered. He wants to just play. He doesn't want to be distracted by some old fart looking at him. He just wants to play. He's in the groove. That's the thing about Crazy Horse, they're all like me. We all feel the same way about playing music. So when you see us playing in the studio you notice we don't have any headphones.
Me: When you met Crazy Horse was it like these guys finally got you? Understood you?
Neil: No. We were all doing it together. We started like that. We just had a good time.
Me: So what was it like with Buffalo Springfield?
Neil: I think everything I played I overdubbed my vocal. We did all the tracks, and then we sing the songs, then we did third and we analyzed this and we did that. I was just so tired of that shit. Then I got to my first album I overdubbed everything on the album. Every instrument we did, everything we did, the whole thing. I got finished with that and I said I never want to do that again in my life. I hope I got it out of my system. Then we did "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" which we all played, I sang some of and myself live. Then the next records after that I don't know what it was. It was "After the Gold Rush" or something. I was singing live all the time and there was no headphones. So "After the Gold Rush" headphones were gone and we never looked back.
Me: So, do you think it worked out for you?
Neil: Yeah, it worked for me.
Me: You mentioned "Harvest" so I have to ask you about that album. What was it like making that album?
Neil: I was about six feet way from Buttery so I can hear his hi-hat. And I sat in a particular place he could see my right hand. We did it that way. It was like human to human. That's why we're together on the record, that's why it sounds like it does. It's not because of some brilliant engineer used the right wires and balanced everything. That has nothing to do with it. The engineer is like a caretaker at a dog pound or something. He just has to make sure everything lives.
Me: The engineer in the documentary film is pretty great. He seems to get you.
Neil: Yeah, he's my partner. He's my co-producer. We work with it. Everybody we work with is good, they all understand what we're doing. Some are not as used to doing it as others but they understand that it is we're trying to do.
Me: Did he get it right away? Was there a bit of a crash course?
Neil: No, he walked right in there and I think Briggs told him if he didn't get it right he was going to be in a station wagon heading to the airport. We saved a lot of time on that record "Ragged Glory." There wasn't a lot of pussyfooting around out there. We were in the middle of the woods.
Me: I feel there's a lot of pressure in the studio with you, am I right?
Neil: There is no pressure. There really isn't. It's a perfect situation. We're in there. Everybody is doing the same thing, we got ll this great equipment, we got the best instruments in the world, we have great recording equipment, nice place to be, no distractions, and songs. When we do the songs once that should be it. It should be done because that was the first take in optimal circumstances. I don't want to have to fix it, I don't want to change guitar chords. Maybe I'll drop a word somewhere or something like that. I don't like to do that but every once in a while I have to. I could point them out to you on records and you'll go fuck, that's right.
Me: So, there's still things you could go back and fix?
Neil: Here's the deal, I do it and I get the vibe and I hear the song and I feel the song and I see the pictures in my mind that I thought of when I was writing the song. No amount of fixing is going to change that. Or no amount of unfixing is going to change that. The thing is I have to let that be and fix it or not fix it. But if that vibe is there that's the only thing that matters. I can't get that vibe on a perfect record but it wouldn't feel like that. So that's the way I do it because that's what I like to do. I'm not saying anybody should do that.
Me: What's the saying? If you make the same mistake call it jazz?
Neil: Yeah, ever hear this one... if you're thinking you're stinking?
Me: No. That's funny though.
Neil: Okay, remember that one.
Me: Neil, thanks for being on the Phile. This was so much fun. Stay well, and please come back again soon.
Neil: Have a good time and keep writing and good luck with your blog.
Wow! I have no idea what to say about that interview. I kinda had a feeling it would go that way. Haha. Thanks to Neil Young for a great interview. The Phile will be back tomorrow with actor Edward Norton. Spread the word, not the turd... or virus. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye. Mask it or casket.
I don't want you, cook my bread, I don't want you, make my bed, I don't want your money too, I just want to make love to you. - Willie Dixon
