Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Wednesday. Happy New Year! How are you? Here's to becoming the best possible versions of ourselves in 2019 for the few are weeks. This year will probably be the last year that ends with "teen" for the rest of our lives. Let's start the year by talking about some people who 100% had the New Years's Eve than you. With schadenfreude being one of the few joys the world has to offer... and being one of the bases of this very blog... a video of two peoples' painfully awkward New Year's Eve is one of the best things from 2019 so far. Monday night on Dutch TV, a dude went in for a midnight kiss and was promptly swerved for all of the Netherlands (and the rest of the planet with Internet access) to enjoy. Let's break it down... he leaned in, his mouth was as open as her eyes. It's all happened in slow motion to her. There it is.
This is why we ASK FOR CONSENT first! Women usually drop hints when they want to be kissed, and it looked like this particular woman didn't. The only thing more uncomfortable than a rejected kiss is the debate afterwards.
Finally learning what it's like to have something exposed without his consent, a bootleg recording of admitted sexual harasser Louis CK's latest hour was leaked. After admitting to blocking doors and making female comedians watch him masturbate... and his manager threatening the women's careers if they dared to speak out... CK's comeback material isn't about what he learned after "listening" but rather about non-binary kids and survivors of school shootings. CK kvetched about the "kids these days" who have the audacity to speak out after being shot at in school. "They testify in front of Congress, these kids? What are they doing?" he told the crowd at Governor's Comedy Club in Levittown, Long Island. "You’re young, you should be crazy, you should be unhinged, not in a suit… you’re not interesting. Because you went to a high school where kids got shot? Why does that mean I have to listen to you? You didn’t got shot, you pushed some fat kid in the way, and now I’ve gotta listen to you talking?" The comedian known as CK (real name: Louis Székely) also complained about kids who want to be addressed by their chosen pronouns. "I’m so disappointed in the younger generation honestly because I’m 51 years old and I was 18 and in my 20s we were idiots. We were getting high doing mushrooms and shit. I was kind of excited to be in my 50s and see people in my 20s and be like these kids are crazy, these kids are nice… but they’re not! They’re just boring. Fucking telling me you shouldn’t say that. What are you an old lady? You should address me… as they/them because I identify as gender neutral. You should address me as there… because I’m a location… and the location is your mother’s cunt." CK then proceeded to claim that the reason "Asian guys have small dicks" is "'cause they're women," and there is no such thing as Asian men. I know that watching Crazy Rich Asians doesn’t cure racism but Louis CK clearly didn’t see that feature-length thirst trap. The "jokes" were sharply rebuked by everyone mentioned, starting with victims of the Parkland massacre. Non-binary comics are not impressed. People, both famous and non-famous, are dragging the "jokes" for complete lack of humor. The latest person to slam CK is his fellow comedian Pete Davidson, who joked about getting a tattoo that would be fatal for Louis. "I got a Harry Potter tattoo. Then the next day Alan Rickman, the guy who played Snape, died. Then I got a Willy Wonka tattoo. Next day... Gene Wilder dies. So I’m thinking of getting a tattoo of Louis CK," he joked. "That joke used to be about Aziz Ansari, but Aziz has been nice to me recently." Davidson also revealed that CK tried to have him fired for being way too chill (aka smoking a lot of weed). As writer Sady Doyle joked, it's not the first time CK tried to get another comedian fired. Now that's what I call coming full circle.
Has there ever been a human being on planet earth more accurately named than Donald Trump Jr.? The human grease ball, famous for saying he'd "love" to collude with Russia for dirt on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, is his own hype man on social media, sharing an article that calls his own Instagram "Bada$$."
The Extremely Online 41-year-old loves sharing memes about his dad in an attempt to make Trump Sr. love him at least half as much as he loves Ivanka. What the Donald Trumps have in common is that they both love Donald Trump. Don Jr.'s post about his own birthday was quickly roasted as "sad!" Seriously, what is with this referring to himself in third-person business? Who does he think he is, the Rock? The good news for Don Jr. is that nothing is more "bada$$" then a prison jumpsuit.
Over the weekend Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to a comment from yet another establishment politician, except this time, it was from a woman in the Democrat camp (rather than one of the many GOP men who have come for you). While the Democrat Missouri senator Claire McCaskill didn't come for Ocasio-Cortez's neck like many have, her wording in a recent interview left a very bad taste in the 29-year-old congresswoman-elect's mouth. During an exit interview on Saturday, the CNN congressional correspondent Manu Raju asked McCaskill to clarify why her recent radio ad includes the claim she is "not one of those crazy Democrats." McCaskill cited protesters disturbing Trump staff at dinners, protesters who broke windows during Trump's inauguration and pretty much anyone who radically decries Trump outside the specter of civility. Unsurprisingly, Raju followed up to see whether McCaskill believes Ocasio-Cortez belongs in the "crazy Democrat" camp. Rather than directly saying yes or no, the Missouri senator responded by describing Ocasio-Cortez as "a bright and shiny new object who came out of nowhere and surprised people when she beat a very experienced congressman." The senator went on to add, "I'm not sure what she's done yet. I wish her well, I hope she hangs the moon." It wasn't long before Ocasio-Cortez posted on Twitter, expressing disappointment at being called a "thing" and calling out McCaskill for her choice to bend values in order to compromise with the Trump administration. McCaskill quickly chimed in to reiterate that she meant her well wishes towards Ocasio-Cortez, and had no ill intentions. It should also be noted that McCaskill did not in fact offer to support Trump's immigration policies (as suggested by Ocasio-Cortez).
So, 2018 is over and some of you might be glad. Not as much as Mark Zuckerberg, because it became impossible to pretend that Facebook isn't evil. Remember when Jesse Eisenberg played Lex Luthor as Mark Zuckerberg and we laughed but it turned out to be true? The Zuck spent 2018 issuing apology after apology that got more "angry" reactions than likes. The New York Times published MULTIPLE exposes about how the company failed to protect the 2016 election from Russian interference, while giving your data away to Cambridge Analytica, a sketchy firm behind populist anti-immigrant campaigns on both sides of the Atlantic (aka the Trump campaign and Brexit). Zuckerberg also testified before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees. While being grilled by Congress, he was roasted by the Internet for his lack of charisma on camera. The world also learned that he needed to use a booster seat, which is really quite sad. Facebook is now officially being sued by the D.C. Attorney General for the Cambridge Analytica scandal. On the bright side: if he still wants to run for president, getting sued makes him all the more presidential.
Well, I hope everyone is ready for three months of this bullshit...
Just a reminder that this how we are supposed to start dressing this month...
That's not to bad of an outfit. If I had a TARDIS I would probably end up in Paris in 1932 atop the Eiffel Tower as it's being painted...
That's pretty cool, right? Do you remember the "Sweet Valley Twins" books? Well, I'm not sure if my sister's read them but I wonder if they read this one if they did...
Hahahaha. Do you know what "mascaping" is? I don't think I do, but if it's like this than I don't know what to say...
I'd get the Union Jack instead if I did that. Haha. So, did you see the new McDonald's ad? No? I will show you here...
One hundred precent ivory. That's a good idea, right? So, do you like scary movies? I don't. There's a new scary movie on Netflix called Bird Box. When I first heard of that movie I thought it was about a British woman's vagina. Anyway, seeing this screenshot maybe it isn't that scary...
Hahaha. Some people are so dumb they made the entire Internet face palm in 2018 like this person who has apparently never seen the word, "Rhapsody."
Hahahaha. Last year was absolutely exhausting (remember the 2018 winter Olympics? That was in 2018!), and can #BeBest be summed up as a serious of Twitter clapbacks at the president, his party, their army of trolls. Here is one of the best ones...
The best words. So, one of the best things about the Internet is the Phile and... porn. I would love to show you a porn pic here but I don't want you to get in trouble if you're at work. So, I came up with a solution...
You're welcome. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York, here is...
Top Phive Things About 2019 That Will Make You Feel Old
5. Guns N' Roses was formed 31 years ago.
4. Scooby-Doo made his first appearance 47 years ago.
3. The movie E.T. was released 34 years ago.
2. The first CDs were sold 34 years ago.
And the number one thing about 2019 that will make you feel old is...
1. Elvis died 39 years ago.
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Alright, it's time to talk football with my good friend Jeff...
Me: Hey, Jeff, how are you? Happy New Year! Can you believe it's 2019? How was your new years?
Jeff: Happy New Year's to you, Jason and of course your readers as well. I don't know about you, but I'm glad it's 2019... 2018 was not a good year. I had a pretty quiet New Year's Eve at home with the dog. How about you?
Me: I was out. So, you don't have any tattoos, right? Would you get something like this but with the Steelers?
Jeff: No, no tattoos on this guy. I've been a die hard Steeler fan since roughly 1985. But no, I wouldn't put their logo on my body!
Me: Well, a Los Angeles Rams fan has inked himself claiming his team will be Super Bowl 53 before the regular season has even ended. He jinxed it, right? Hahaha.
Jeff: Oh without a doubt he jinxed it. It takes one bad game and you're out at this point. And every team in the playoff has had that one bad game. So yeah, he's going to feel very foolish if they don't win it all.
Me: It’s not uncommon for a college or NFL fan to hate a team just as much as they love their own. With the 2018 NFL season coming to a close, someone decided to log all the animosity into a chart showing which team is hated most by each state based on geotagged tweets over the course of the year. Here is what that looks like...
Jeff: Um, Jason? While no one hates the Giants because they never win so it doesn't really matter, I think you're missing the Steeler logo right there! In fact the logo is there twice! Once in Ohio (two rivals) and one in Maryland (other rival).
Me: Oh, yeah, I'm an idiot. Ha. What NFL news do you have?
Jeff: News? You want news? The first Monday after the regular season is generally known as Black Monday. This is the day most coaches (unless you're in Green Bay) get fired. And Monday was no different! On Monday six different head coaches were fired. That doesn't included the Packers and Browns which had fired coaches during the regular season. The Jets, Bucs, Dolphins, the Cardinals, Bengals and Broncos are all looking for new coaches. Other than the coaching shuffle, the biggest news is of course the playoffs are set. Both the NFC and the AFC had one spot open going into the final week. The Ravens and the Eagles got those spots so now we know who will get a chance to raise the Lombardi trophy.
Me: Okay, so, Britain has taken over another team...
Me: What do you think?
Jeff: Speaking of the Jets, maybe they will redo their logo like that while they look for a new head coach this offseason!
Me: So, how did we do last week? You still kicking my ass?
Jeff: Yes, yes I am still kicking your ass. I ended the regular season strong with a 2-0 record and a Steeler win. You went 1-1 with a Giant loss. So I lead by 10 points going into the playoffs! And both our teams are out so we can't gain anything from them in the playoffs.
Me: Okay, so, it's wild card weekend... let's do the picks... I say Texans by 4 and Ravens by 3. What do you say?
Jeff: I'll pick the other playoff games. So I will go with the Bears by 4 and Seahawks by 2.
Me: Okay, cool. I will see you back here next Thursday, Jeff...
Jeff: Now before I go, I found the old sheets from the previous three years of this game. I'm not really sorry to tell you this but I've kicked your ass the last four years. Just in predictions (not including Steeler-Giant wins) I made 66 predictions correctly over the previous three years combined (not including this season). You made 57 correct picks. So I win! I win!
Me: Alright, alright! See you back here next Thursday. Happy 2019.
Jeff: Happy 2019, my friend!
An onion forces you to cry over its dead body.
In this context, I'm not precisely sure what constitutes "Trump Derangement Syndrome." Outside the context of his tweet Trump Derangement Syndrome sounds like a diagnosis for Trump's lack of connection with reality. However, in his festive New Years tweet it acts as an indictment on all of us who dare critique his reign of terror. Needless to say, Trump's use of all caps and shout out to his "haters" brought on his first dragging of 2019. It should be noted, this all caps manifesto wasn't Trump's first New Years message. On New Years eve he posted a passive aggressive video to usher in 2019. He said, "While I’m at the White House working, you’re out there partying tonight. But I don’t blame you. Enjoy yourselves. We’re going to have a great year. Have a really, really happy new year." While his New Years eve video didn't contain the raw, caps-infused passion of his New Years day tweet, it still inspired equal engagement from his "haters." Happy New Year! If we're going to deal with the dark depression of having Trump as president for another year, we might as well make fun of him.
The 91st book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...
Yup. Hahaha. Gary will be the guest on the Phile in a few weeks. So, there's this nun who was on the Phile recently and said something rude about writing the word "fuck." She wanted to come back and say something else. So once again here is...
Me: Hello, Sister, what do you have to say today?
Sister Xtian: Did you know guys will literally stick their tongue in your ass but think a date is too intimate?
Me: Ummm, not my ass, no. Sorry.
Sister Xtian: Oh. Well, I'm done with men anyway... oh, look, a penis! Gotta go!
Me: Hmph! Sister Xtian, the nun who doesn't give a damn. That was reaaaalllllyyyy stupid.
Phact 1. White chocolate isn’t technically chocolate, as it contains no cocoa solids or cocoa liquor. –
Phact 2. The water used on the Rivendell set was brought in and contained chlorine. The entire water system had to be water-proof so that the chlorinated water would not leak into the ground and contaminate natural water. After shooting was finished, the water used was collected back.
Phact 3. Whirlpool is the only major appliance company to have gotten a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which benchmarks policies related to LGBT equality, for over ten years.
Phact 4. On February 15th, 1969, a woman named Vickie Jones was arrested for impersonating Aretha Franklin in concert. Jones’ impersonation was so convincing that nobody in the audience asked for a refund.
Phact 5. Scientists at Brown University are developing a robot cat that may one day help cure loneliness among senior citizens. It doesn’t need food, exercise, or a litter box, but it can purr on demand and remind them when it’s time to take their meds.
Today's pheatured guest is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash. His latest album "Here If You Listen" is available on iTunes,Amazon and Spotify. Please welcome to the Phile... David Crosby.
Me: Hello, David, welcome to the Phile, sir. How are you?
David: I'm good.
Me: David, where are you originally from?
David: I was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and raised in Santa Barbara.
Me: Cool. So, I like the new album "Here If You Listen," sir. How did this album and come about?
David: I like it too, man. I'll tell you how it happened... I met Michael League, that's the beginning of that story. I was completely impressed by his stuff he was writing for Snarky Puppy. He's a really good composer and the music's fun and he was good at it so I liked him a lot. He got me to sing on their "Family Dinner" record which is a benefit record that they do. Through that I met all those guys and I met Becca Stevens and Michelle Willis who are INCREDIBLY talented. I mean brilliant writers, brilliant singers, really good instrumentalists, really freaking good. I was going to do a solo record and I asked Mike to produce it. I said, "Do you think they might sing on some stuff?" It turned out there was a real chemistry there. Down in the studio together it was brilliant. It's the first Lighthouse record. It's still a ME record with them on it. When we got done with it I said, "This was good and you know it's good. I want to do this more but I want it to be an 'us' record. I want you guys to sing lead to, I want us to write the whole thing together." So we went into Mike League's studio in Brooklyn and we had two songs, "Your Own Ride" which I wrote to my kid and Michelle's "Janet." Two killer songs but they were the only ones we had. We went in the studio and eight days later the four of us had written the whole record. I never had an experience like that. I worked with some pretty talented people, very talented people and I had good chemistries with them. And man, I'd never seen anything like this. It's a really good record, there's no cheeseball in there. We actually nailed it and we did it incredibly easy and incredibly fast.
Me: I like the opening track "Glory," which has everyone's talents on display so to speak. How did that song come about?
David: "Glory" is me on guitar, and Michelle on Rhodes and Becca on guitar and Michael on bass. It starts out with Michael on guitar.
Me: I have to show this pic of you and the band...
Me: When you met Michael what did you think of his playing and everything?
Michael: Michael plays lead guitar, he also plays keyboards, he plays every goddamn thing. He's kind of a pain in the ass. He lied about it. I said, "Do you play guitar?" He said, "Nah, not really." He plays better than me. I said, "Do you write songs?" He said, "No, not really." We wrote three songs in three days. The first time I tried writing with Michael three songs in three days. Three really good songs in three days, never had that happen before either. So, anyway I said let's do a record together, a group record and this is the result.
Me: I read that you have different tunings on your guitars than other people. Why is that?
David: It came from piano jazz players. Jazz piano players play big dense chords, they're like tone clusters. They're wonderful and I couldn't do it in regular tuning on the guitar, I'm not good enough. If I have really, really big hands and I was really, really good at it I could play that stuff on the guitar but it's insanely difficult. But if it's in the tuning a lot of that stuff comes for free. I have to invent all new chords each time. That really puts a lot of people off. I see similarities between tuning relations. I see all kinds of repeating patterns. There are ways that chords develop in tunings, well if that works, this is probably going to work. I got a lot of that. I have many, many years of that to help me through it. I had some great teachers, man. Joni Mitchell... nobody done more with tunings than that woman. Nobody, man, She's brilliant at it. She doesn't even know all her tunings. Joel Bernstein knows all of her tunings. When she wants to figure out how to do a song that she wrote twenty years ago she calls Joel and he tells her.
Me: Do you have to keep tuning the guitar all the time or do you have a number of guitars all with different tunings?
David: At least five but it's gotten up as high as seven. I have a couple of racks on the wall, good ones, beautiful racks that hold the guitar. I have stands for several more and what it is when I have different tunings I don't retune them because the guitar wants to go back to the last one. If I brought that B-string up a whole tone it wants to go back. So I keep them in these various tunings so I can go from one to the next without having to go through a half hour without the guitar settling down to the new tuning.
Me: Do you play guitar often when you're home?
David: I do. I fool around, I smoke a joint and I take the guitar and I fool around. That's one of the best things about pot... that's one of the only things it's really good for, is getting hung up. I do get hung up fooling with the guitar. I have guitars that sound spec-freaking-tacular and when I am stoned and I play the guitar and it sounds that good I get hung up and an hour later I'm still fooling around. That's how I get good. I don't get new stuff and I don't get facility on the guitar without putting in ten thousand hours.
Me: I love the lyrics on the album, David, for example on "Vagrants of Venice." Why Venice?
David: It's a crazy vision I had on Venice. I've been to Venice, have you been there?
Me: Venice Beach, yes, Venice, Italy no. Haha.
David: There's a big plaza, with these platforms, stacks of wooden platforms about three feet high, about twenty feet long and about ten feet wide. Stacks of them. That's what they put down when the plaza goes underwater. So if you want to see Venice, go soon. I had this vision, it's a hundred years from now and it's all underwater. Things are sticking out, the dome and the spires and the tallest buildings. There are people left over, loud people, living in the remains of Venice. Fishing out of the windows of the Doge's Palace. I thought that was a great image and it was stuck in my head and I told it to Becca. That's what happened, that's what Becca did.
Me: When you write by yourself, not with the Lighthouse band, how do you write by yourself?
David: I used to do long hand. The truth is I didn't used to write them down. I don't have original copies of "Guinevere" or "I Almost Cut My Hair," or any of those. I didn't even bother. But then once we got computers I would write down any scrap. Now this is an important thing... I was talking to Joni one day and she and I lived together for about a year. I was talking to her and I said something and she said, "Write that down." I said, "What?" She said, "Write that down." I said, "Why?" She said, "Because it was good. You say things, you toss off stuff... write it fucking down or it didn't happen." Bling! Write it down or it didn't happen. So now I write it all down. If I get four words in a row that I like on anything, anywhere I go back to the computer and I collect them. I've got files of scraps. Hundreds of them. And what happens is I'm goofing around, taking the afternoon off, I get on the computer and I go ahhh... the line that would go with that and I'd go bang, I'm off and running, It's like getting the label off something, you get the corner up and you peel it. I do work at writing. I do it almost every day, because I don't think it comes for free and I don't assume that God is going to come and drop it fully formed in my lap and say, "Here, little darling."
Me: Do you edit and revise as you write? I do that when I write this blog.
David: I do. One of the big things about the computer because it's so easy to take it out, put it back in, move it down here, move it up there, I can edit so much better on the computer than I can in my own hand on paper. Scrapping things out all the time on paper. On the computer it's easy. Makes me a better editor of my own stuff. It aided me having to work harder on applying craft to the thing after I get the inspiration. Fine, I'm really grateful. Then I try and hone it. I try to work on it 'cause I see these people around me do it and it works for them. That's what Bob Dylan does. That's when Joni did. I'm just going to try and be as good as them if I can. I'm not ever going to be as good as either one of them. It think it's good to to work at it, not take it for granted.
Me: You mentioned the song "Your Own Ride," and said it's written to your son, is that right?
David: Yes. I wrote to my son Django about ten years ago and I had it sitting there. I would go back and forth about it, I'd think it's just too corny or this is just to close to the bone, I can't let people see this, I'm talking to my son here. I was not sure about it. I felt it was truthful and it was good but I was kind of embarrassed by it. Then I showed it to Bill Laurance from Snarky Puppy, who is a really good piano player. If you haven't heard him listen to his shit, it speaks for itself.
Me: Do you have some kind of ritual when you write, David?
David: Yes. After dinner, and we always have dinner and a family together, I go back to the bedroom and build a fire. I have a fireplace in the bedroom and I love building fires, I'm really good at it. Notice I'm pretty modest about it, but I am really good at it. I get it going and I vape. I get high and then I take the guitar off the wall, which ever one comes to hand, which ever one I'm currently madly in love with and I play and see what happens. Any time I get a scrap of lyric at any time, then or any other time, I record it so I don't lose it and then work with it. But I fool around on the guitar every night.
Me: You vape?! Why vape and not smoke a joint?
David: Yeah, I vaporize weed in a little vaporizer because it's better for you than smoking it. Do you smoke, Jason?
Me: I haven't smoked pot since summer of 1996. Haha. So, my dad used to wake up in the middle of the night and write lyrics and sometimes I'd be falling asleep and I get an idea for this stupid blog. That ever happen to you?
David: Yeah. At half a sleep place, over and over many times. What will happen is I'll be just packing out and that's when lyrics will come. There's this science fiction author who is a friend of mine named William Gibson who is the top of the line first class author, and I said, "Does that happen to you guys?" He said, "Yeah, absolutely that happens. That's why we keep a pad and pencil by the bed." It happens to me all the time. We call it 'the elves take over the workshop.' What happens is your busy mind, this one that's talking to you is going to sleep. And other levels of your head get a shot of the steering wheel for a second. There's lyrics that are fully put together where I didn't do the tab A to slot B kind of construction process. The whole thing is... plink! "Shadow Captain," I'm a hundred miles of the coast of California, I'm asleep in my bunk, sailing south. I wake up and on a legal pad I wrote the whole song word for word exactly the way you heard it. Exactly! Finished. "Shadowy captain of a charcoal ship, trying to give the light the slip." Who the fuck put it together?! I never thought any of that before! Not consciously, but I think there are other levels of my head that are nibbling away at stuff in there. I don't know how else to explain it. Bing! Fully formed to existence. I think some part of my head is working on that stuff all the time. I think that's a very interesting question about that half asleep place, I think it happens to a lot of people.
Me: You have two songs with year titles on the new album... "1974," and "1967." What is special about those two years?
David: They are real demoes. One of them is the only time in my whole life that we had a tape machine running when I wrote the song, when I came up with the melody. I had a guitar and that tuning and I was fulling around and making changes and you can hear me find the melody there on the tape. It's the actual inception point of the song and I never did anything with it. I played it for these guys and they said, "Let's extend it til now, make it a time machine. There isn't any reason, you sound found then, you sound fine now... do it." People seem to find them fascinating, both of them.
Me: That's crazy, that those two songs were written back then and done like that. I don't think I know anybody else you has done that.
David: Really? It's a flashback thing, but it started from real. It is like a time machine and Michael is a daring motherfucker. League isn't afraid of anything and he heard those and said, "Oh, hell yes. We can do that." He's like me, there are no rules.
Me: I think it's pretty seamless the way it's done, don't you think?
David: That has to do with the way how good of a producer Michael is and how good Becca and Michelle are. Jason, we have to scream to get up there. We had to punch it to get up there. They have pure tone, man, and they could do anything with it although they are completely different they can sound like they were born in the same womb. They just have crazy pipes and I let them loose and I don't think people had the smarts to let them do that before. I give myself credit on that. I saw them for what they were and I said hop to it. I just sat down on the couch in the back and said, "Do you need me to sing?" They have insanely good chemistry.
Me: Okay, I have to ask you about Crosby, Stills & Nash. When you parted ways from them what was that like?
David: When I left CSN I felt like I was jumping off a cliff. I don't put myself out in the world if I got that. I couldn't stay there, I was thoroughly unhappy and we didn't like each other with no new music and it was spoiling my fun for music, which is my life. So I did what I thought I had to do... I left. Jumping off a cliff is a pretty good image, I was scared. This band, this Lighthouse band, is like growing wings half way down.
Me: You're in another band so to speak as well... Sky Trails. How are the two things different, David?
David: You know, both of the bands I'm in are wonderful but completely different. But with Lighthouse, there's a very special chemistry. I don't know how long it will go or of we'd even get to do another one but I know it when I see it, it's a real deal.
Me: Do you still like to write topical songs, David?
David: Yeah, "Capitol" from the "Sky Trails" album is one. I feel really good about that one because I love taking a swing at our shit head governments whenever I can. I don't like out to be awkward to stupid, if I'm gonna punch them I want to hit them real hard right in the fucking nose.
Me: So, what can you tell us about Sky Trails?
David: That band, the Sky Trails band, is a joy, man, and a different deal because my son James, who is an insanely fucking good musician. That's how lucky I am, I have two groups of musicians that will work with me, that are that fucking good. I have to paddle faster just to keep up with these kids, man, are you fucking kidding. Michelle's in both of the bands because I just love singing with her. She's just spectacularly good. That whole Sky Trails band is an entire whole universe of people who are the same way. They've given their whole life to it. These are people who are not there for the stardom, who are not there to make a million dollars. They're not trying to be a pop star, they are musicians and they are spending their life on it. That's their whole deal. And they want to play the best music they possibly can. That's my people.
Me: So, who are your influences, David?
David: I've listened to all the people who are really good. I've had the best teachers in the world. Both Paul's, and Randy Newman, James Taylor. I had a first hand real close look at Joni Mitchell. I think in the long run everybody will probably agree she's probably the best. My God, what a fucking list of people, man. These are all my friends. It's daunting to be in a world where they're that good and I'm trying to hold my own. That was really daunting with Joni I think. "Honey, I wrote a new song, listen to this!" And she sit down and sing me three other ones that were better.
Me: You mentioned "Guinevere" earlier... that's one of your biggest hits. What's the story behind that song?
David: "Guinevere" was funny, I had it for a while. I didn't know what I was doing. I was playing it with Jerry Garcia. He said, "You know what you're doing, don't you?" I said, "No, what am I doing?" He's the one who told me, I had no idea.
Me: What was it like writing with Nash, Stills and Young?
David: Well, it was a competition always. It was a very competitive band. In the early days there was a sort of reality rule, if you could catch them with a song, the other guys, then I would do that. If I capture them with it we'd then move to another song. We had a plethora of songs but that got less accommodating and less honest as time went on. Relationships in bands start at a place, we are in love with each other and we think we are all terrific and we love each others music and we want to make this fantastic music. They generally, socially if they're big pop oriented bands, they devolve to the point of turn on the smoke machine and play the hits.
Me: What was it like when you did your first solo album, "If I Could Only Remember My Name"?
David: It was complex. What had gone on, man, was I'd been in the middle of "Deja Vu" and my girlfriend got killed... in a car wreck. I had no equipment to deal with that at all. None. Zero. We'd be trying to record "Deja Vu" and I'd be sitting on the floor on the recording room and I'd be just crying my eyes out. Helpless. When we finished that I was about done as I was going to get. The only place I could exist really because if I had anything to fight back with in the studio, so I stayed in the studio, because it was a safe place. I had all these songs because they only used two of my songs. And all of those people knew, they're all my friends, Garcia especially, he came over almost every night. I'd play a song with who ever was there and see what happens. There was no plan, I was very open to inspiration or spark of the moment. And proof is in the pudding, you saw the results.
Me: You've always been very honest with your thoughts and words with your music, right?
David: I think the more honest it gets the better I can do it. Music is a fantastic tool for transmitting ideas. Songs are just wonderful to take people on little voyages. I think I'm still heading in the right direction. I'm still trying to write further out than I've been. I'm the luckiest fucker you know.
Me: You have worked with a lot of cool people over the years, David, but you seem to love working with these kids. Why is that do you think?
David: I find it absolutely fascinating and I'm extremely grateful and I don't understand it at all. But it's there, and if it's there there's only one thing to do, which is work my butt off.
Me: Your voice has not really changed all these years. How is that possible? What do you do to maintain it?
David: I did everything wrong. All of it. I'm insanely fucking lucky. Well, no, I didn't do everything, I didn't smoke cigarettes. That's a killer. That will just fuck me into the ground completely. There's no good about it, it's horribly bad, it'll kill you. And I didn't drink whiskey. I don't drink hard booze very much at all. I'll have one shot of tequila but I'm not a drinker and not a smoker. Maybe that's it or maybe I just got a leather lung voice. I'm a little baffled by it. Everybody says it, they say, "Croz, you're singing your ass off. What the fuck?" I have a huge ego already so I'm trying to make fun of it. It sounds like I'm singing like I ever sung in my life and man, they push me to it. These kids are so goddamn good.
Me: I like the song "Woodstock" on the album, which is a Joni Mitchell song I believe. Why did you want to close the album with it?
David: Well, a long time ago, years ago, just by accident, falling around with the guitar, I came up with another set of changes that work for "Woodstock." I showed them to these guys and Becca said, "Oh, I could play that." I said, "Can you? Because I don't remember how I did it." She said, "Easy peasy, it's like this..." And she played it... bang. She snatched it right out the air. So then we tried singing it and what you heard on the record, that's live. That's live four part, we do that easy. We do that every time and the first time we did it in front of an audience we hit the chorus and the audience started applauding in the middle of the fucking song. We said oh boy, we found it. Yahoo! And we started singing it every night. It's kind if a thing between us, because it's a genuine four part.
Me: So, do you have any regrets music wise or career wise?
David: Yeah, one of my biggest regrets is I didn't work harder at it. The other is the time wasted. I wasted time which I don't get back. But here I am now, I'm not dead yet, I'm still working, I'm pretty happy with it.
Me: Thanks so much for being on the Phile, David, for the first entry of 2019. I hope this was fun.
David: I love it, Jason, that you have gone so far into it as you have. I don't get asked the kind of questions you're asking. It's usually, "Do you date blondes?" "What's your favorite color?"
Me: Haha. I didn't have time to ask those. Thank you so much for being here, David, come back again soon.
David: It's my pleasure. Keep up the good work.
That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to my guests Jeff Trelewicz and of course David Crosby. The Phile will be back on Saturday with Phile Alum Fran Strine. Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye.
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
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