Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Tuesday. How are you? This is the last day of March. In case you lost track today is March 97th. For a truly immersive film experience watch Avengers: Infinity War and then after the "snap" go out for a drive around town. It really adds to the film in a way not imagined by the producers of the film. So, if you're wondering if you're too close to someone here's a tip: if you can smell their fart you're not far enough apart. So, watching Trump do a press concerned is like watching the kid who didn't read the book give his book report.
As we watch other international governments provide for their citizens, Americans may have been grateful to see movement in ours. However, some businesses seem to be doing the most in making sure they can still squeeze out every channel for more money, even if it’s from their own employees amidst the coronavirus pandemic. And boy, does my heart hurt for the employees of this specific Texas company. Based in Austin, Texas, this company (who will remain unnamed in order to not affect the company’s business), has sent out a form to their employees stating that they will deduct money from paychecks based on how much each employee will receive from the stimulus package. Basically, if you receive any form of stimulus checks from the government, this company will cut 100% of what you receive from your paycheck (half if receiving $500 for those who have children and dependents.) And just to tack on the unfortunate news, this company further explained in the form that these pay cuts will continue as many times as the United States sends government stimulus checks. They expect employees to sign the form, but it’s not clear what will happen if they choose not to. So I guess as long as President Trump signs more coronavirus stimulus deals, this company will not allow it to positively affect its employees. Recently, the latest news report that President Donald Trump had signed a two trillion dollar stimulus bill to help alleviate those whose jobs were gravely affected by COVID-19. The point was to utilize a government relief fund by sending some sort of stimulus checks to all Americans. I’m not too sure how much “economic relief” it will provide these employees if their company is also taking that away from them. According to KXAN, the company had already laid off a quarter of its workforce and also makes hundreds of millions of dollars in profit a year. And now, they are defeating the purpose of a government relief fund by docking the stimulus money amount from their employees’ paychecks. It’s a very interesting coronavirus response by this Texas business. I mean, Americans don’t want bankruptcy to become a pandemic too, do you?
On the flip slide it looks like the top executives at the Walt Disney Company are trying to help employees during this COVID-19 outbreak. According to a post that’s been making the rounds online, the greatest company to work for ever's top executives have decided to sacrifice their salaries to help fund payments to employees suffering from the economic strain caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Issuing a letter to Disney’s employees, like me incoming CEO Bob Chapek tells his workers that executives are going to have their salaries reduced beginning the fifth of April. This includes the executive chairman, Bob Iger, who has decided to take a 100% reduction in his salary. According to Chapek, the VPs of the Walt Disney Company have decided to take salary reductions so that they can “better position” the company in weathering the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic brings with it. "effective April 5th, all VPS will have their salaries reduced by 20%, SVPs by 25%, and EVPs and above by 30%. I will be taking a 50% reduction in my salary. This temporary action will remain in effect until we foresee a substantive recovery in our business. Our executive chairman, Bob Iger, has chosen to forgo 100% of his salary,” Chapek tells Disney’s employees. COVID-19 has certainly had a major impact on the economy and the entertainment industry.
An Indiana dentist and his wife accused of locking their child in a cage will not serve any prison time. According to authorities, Aime and Alan Friz are accused of locking their daughter inside a cage at night where she sleeps, and possibly at other times as well. Court documents stated the terrible parents withheld food, water, and other sanitary facilities from her. The official trial was scheduled for March 2020, but it was settled in Crawford Circuit Court with a plea agreement instead. Fifty-nine-year-old Alan Friz was charged with eleven counts of neglect, eleven counts of criminal confinement, and four counts of sexual misconduct with a minor. Aimee Friz was charged with eleven counts of neglect and eleven counts of criminal confinement. All of the charges were felonies. Unfortunately, the charges were dismissed, except two counts of neglect of a dependent on the conviction changed from Level 6 felonies to a Class A misdemeanor. The couple was then sentenced to two years of probation. The couple was originally arrested back in October 2017. Authorities had responded to their Dubois County home on a report that a juvenile was out of control. Along with the prosecutor’s office, authorities interviewed the girl. Police then received a search warrant for the family home and found a closet area of a bedroom that was converted into a large lockable cage. The Indiana couple originally was scheduled to be tried in Dubois County, but argued they “wouldn’t get a fair trial there.” The case was moved to Crawford County. Authorities stated the couple’s first year of probation will need to be surprised, and the remaining time will be unsupervised probation. Dubois Circuit Court Judge Nathan Verkamp accepted the couples plea agreement which will require them to “accept some level of responsibility for their actions and will require the [couple] to be supervised for a period of time.” By the look they have on their mugshot, these psycho’s definitely don’t regret anything. Look...
I bet they don’t even see how messed up this is. Why lock a defenseless child inside a cage like an animal? That’s your kid! Disgusting.
A high school in the United Kingdom is getting some unwanted social media notoriety for handing out a sex education pamphlet to its students that listed activities teens could engage in other than actual intercourse but that were still kind of romantic or sexual in some way... because it suggested, among other things, sucking toes. The pamphlet in question was distributed at Shevington High School in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester to year nine students (aka freshmen). One father, Carl Lawrence of Tyldesley, came across his daughter Emma’s sex ed reading and, after taking a gander, said he was “bewildered and shocked.” The pamphlet, entitled “101 Ways To Show Someone You Love Them Without Having Sex” suggested the kids could suck toes along with nibbling ears, tickling them, buying them underwear, and running a bath for them. Lawrence was curious about why the school was encouraging fetish play as a sex deterrent and explained to his daughter that there were other ways of going about not having sex. Emma, for her part, said the kids at her school were laughing at the pamphlet and asked the teacher who would do stuff like that. The teacher, to her surprise, told the kids that they wouldn’t know if they liked it until they tried it. Dad’s right. Telling someone to fellate feet isn’t necessarily going to deter sex. For some it will, but for others it’ll just end up getting other stuff into their mouths quicker, depending on who is awakened by what. The only thing that makes sense about this whole thing is that the pamphlet was designed to, in a broad sense, make sense seem so weird and off-putting that the kids would choose to just ignore it altogether.
Yikes, these parents might want to look into getting a new baby sitter, asap. A 10-year-old boy was accidentally shot by his babysitter when she was taking photos of herself while holding a gun. According to the Texas Sheriff’s office, the boy was immediately taken to the hospital in critical condition but is luckily stable. The incident occurred at an apartment in Houston when the 19-year-old relative, Caitlyn Smith, who was watching the boy found the gun. Harris County Sheriff’s office stated Smith began posing to take pictures with the gun, thinking it was unloaded. That’s when the gun accidentally went off and hit the boy in the stomach. According to CNN, Senior Deputy Thomas Gilliland stated the boy’s condition has improved since taken to the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery after undergoing surgery. Through a Tweet shared by Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, authorities stated Smith was arrested and charged with Injury to a child-serious bodily injury, which is a second-degree felony. Jail records show she was booked on February 26th, 2020, with a bond listed at $20,000. According to the National Safety Council, accidental and preventable gun deaths make up one percent of overall gun-related deaths in the United States. Gilliland would like to remind the public to always remember firearms are not to be played around with. He noted, “Firearms are dangerous weapons so take precautions to make sure things like that don’t happen. Taking selfies was not the best thing to be doing.” Hey parents, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for using guns as a method of protecting yourself and your family, but maybe you should hide them somewhere you know your children won’t be able to find it? It’s the responsible thing to do. This could have easily been avoided. This little boy is so lucky.
This story begins with a Texas mom who was having a day. She was out shopping with her young, rambunctious children at Hobby Lobby and, as young, rambunctious kids are wont to do, one of them acted up to the point that the mom had to do something about it. So she took him to the bathroom and made him do pushups. Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Her son had to get some words in. The mom had no sympathy and no time for her son’s smart mouth. She just kept adding ten more push-ups every time he mouthed off. Simply hauling well-behaved kids with you can be exhausting enough, but the mental and physical toll of dragging around a kid who isn’t particularly interested in cooperating with you that particular day is to parenting what running up a mountain with a backpack full of bricks is to jogging. And also the bricks are telling you they hate you and that you suck. Another mom who witnessed this interaction understood that. Molly Wooden, who was carrying around her own kids with her that day, witnessed this mom’s old school, no-nonsense approach to motherhood and couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Common sense parenting! A mom or dad in the 21st century who doesn’t coddle their kids. She felt compelled to snap a picture and post what she saw to Facebook so she could publicly applaud this mother, who was a complete stranger to her.
"To the woman in the Hobby Lobby bathroom. If my hands weren’t full of children I would have applauded you. As your son gave you the back talk of the century, you stayed calm and collected while adding 10 more push ups to his already growing number. We need more parents like you, who aren’t afraid to parent their own children because of what someone else might think. He said “Mama, this is the bathroom floor, grossssss”. She said “maybe you shouldn’t have been acting obnoxious. (They have soap for a reason.) 10 more.” Random woman of Hobby Lobby, I love you. Keep on raisin’ them boys right! I have since found the mom through the power of social media and she promptly thanked me for posting this, says she appreciates the support and positive comments, and we’re hoping to grab coffee sometime… while supervising push ups that is." Granted, the Texas Hobby Lobby crowd is probably going to be a lot more supportive of parenting methods like these than, say, second hand bookstore customers in Portland, Oregon. But still. Rock on, tough moms.
Are you watching that Netflix show "Tiger King"? Well, there's another new Netflix coming out that you might like...
Haha. Speaking of Trump, I don't think drummers will like his executive order on this stimulus package...
I have been mentioning that the late actor Don Knotts used to be everywhere back in the day. Here's some more proof...
Haha. People are using the coronavirus as pickup lines on dating apps, like this one...
Do you kids like Hot Pockets? Well, there's a brand new flavor that just came out...
Ewe. Hey, future kids, this was blink-182...
Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York here is...
Top Phive Things Said By People Who Can't Handle Another Month Of Social Distancing
5. People think this is going to last ONLY 30 more days?
4. Everybody is gonna have homemade bread, crochet scarfs and DIY wine bottle crafts presents for Christmas this year.
3. Expect August 30th... hope for April 30th.
2. Social distancing extended til April 30th... if I survive this and you see me this summer up 30 points... mind your own business.
And the number one thing said by someone who can't handle another month of social distancing is...
1. Y'all see ya'll did? Now we gotta stay inside 'til April 30th because ya'll jeep having quarantine parties.
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Okay, you know I live in Florida, right? Well, there's stuff that happens in Florida that probably doesn't happen anywhere else in the universe. So once again here is...
A Florida woman practicing either misguided passenger safety methods or some extremely public dom/sub sexual humiliation play was pulled over in Polk County, Florida because a Florida man locked in a dog cage was in the bed of the Ford F150 pickup truck she was driving. What was going on here? Fingers crossed for the public dominatrix angle, mostly because putting the man in a dog cage in the back of a giant pickup is one-hundred percent the Florida redneck version of a man being walked on a leash. Nothing screams “treat me like a dog” to that region like being questionably secured and endangered in the back of a speeding pickup truck. But the Florida man and woman had to expect this was coming. It can’t be legal to transport another human being like this, even if they volunteered for it. It’s certainly not legal to parade a grown man, or any person really, around the Polk County’s roads while he’s fully erect, moaning (howling?), and showing off his o-face the whole area. Hopefully part of the arrangement was that the man agreed to pay the ticket. That would also be humiliating so why wouldn’t he? The other options here are, who even knows? The man is being transported to face a trial by the county’s meth dealer tribunal versus a woman pulled over for having man in dog cage? The man was convinced he was a gator and kept trying to bite the woman so she threw him in a cage and is driving him back to the swamp? The man drunkenly confused the cage for his apartment the night before and the woman never saw him in there when she started driving the next day? Everything is on the table and almost assuredly the truth will somehow be stranger than the fiction guessed at here. I am resolutely Team Shame Boner, though.
Butterfly
flappy bug
Meg hosted a COVID-19 party in a lockdown state.
The 118th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...
The great Booker T. will be the guest on the Phile tomorrow. Okay, wanna laugh?
Three old ladies are sitting in a diner, chatting about various things. One lady says, "You know, I'm getting really forgetful. This morning, I was standing at the top of the stairs, and I couldn't remember whether I had just come up or was about to go down." The second lady says, "You think that's bad? The other day, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, and I couldn't remember whether I was going to bed or had just waken up!" The third lady smiles smugly. "Well, my memory's just as good as it's always been, knock on wood." She raps the table. With a startled look on her face, she asks, "Who's there?!"
Today's guest is is an American rapper, actor, and activist who has a very good documentary series on Netflix called "Trigger Warning With Killer Mike." Please welcome to the Phile... Killer Mike.
Me: Hey, Killer Mike, how are you? Welcome to the Phile, sir. How are you?
Killer Mike: Surviving. Hey, Jason, how are you?
Me: I'm good. So, you have a Netflix show called "Trigger Warning With Killer Mike." What did you want to do with this show? It covers so much.
Killer Mike: I wanted to turn the world's perspective upside down, one individual at a time. People circulated the clip of Steve Jobs saying "we live in a world of possibility within a realm of possibilities you're given." But that's not necessary reality. Reality is what we create. I think we all agree to the rules of standards and realities that we don't have to so it's my job to nudge myself to first and foremost push my perspective in the push growth and just like I do when I argue with my boys and customers in the barber shops on social issues. In the middle of Florida a bunch of guys might not agree and talk smack with each other but at the end of the day we shake hands and all our perspectives have grown some, I wanted to do that through the medium of television.
Me: I see that. Tell the readers what you do in the first episode. It was fascinating.
Killer Mike: I try to go three days living on produce and products made by black people and using businesses owned by black people.
Me: So, how did that work out for you?
Killer Mike: Well, I'm from Atlanta so theoretically it should have worked really well. For people that don't know Atlanta has over a hundred year history of black working and middle class success. From W. E. B. Du Bois to Booker T. Washington having a conference there in the early 1800s, to the 50s and 60s where they had the black political Mecca class able to produce such people as Martin Luther King and Maynard Jackson because of the political and economical success that was enjoyed by people like John Wesley Dobbs. Then forward to people like Andy Young and the mayors since then. All my life I grew up with black leadership, black mayors, and seen black success. Just like any part of America if there's a wealth disparity there's a lot that could be fixed but I grew up with endless possibilities. With that said it's very difficult now, I'm a 40-something-year-old man it's more difficult my age to find black produce meaning fresh fruit and vegetables and black tailors and seamstresses to find black dry cleaners. All the things my grandfather at 40-years-old could go to in their own community.
Me: Do you have any good memories or any memories when it wasn't like that when you were younger?
Killer Mike: Yeah, I remember going to a gas station when I was younger, it was owned by Barbara, a black woman, the restaurants we ate at were black, the builders that built our homes were black, the real estate agents, the lawyers who sold us our land were black and did the deals were black. But today for some reason we don't have the same connectivity we once had. The connectivity we once had was based on something that was innate because every tribe tries to take care of itself. But it was also reenforced by a very evil law, called Segregation or Jim Crowism, which essentially put blacks into a position on the death ground. We had to take care of ourselves because no one else was going to take care of us. Prior to Desegregation the black community was a stronger community and hitched bigger community which was a stronger community because economically we were strong. We provided goods and services for our own community and a bigger community. But since Desegregation something has happened to stop that. If we don't return to that it will be a forgotten community soon. And not one that lends to the bigger community in the country.
Me: You ended up sleeping on a park bench, right?
Killer Mike: I did.
Me: And you were hungry, right? What the hell, man?
Killer Mike: I was. I lost about three or four pounds.
Me: You know, it's just a TV show. You didn't really have to sleep on a park bench.
Killer Mike: I DID have to sleep on a park bench. Luckily I'm an artist and could sleep for only four or five hours anyway. So after four hours I got uncomfortable enough just to move around. I'm an avid marijuana advocate and smoker for medical and recreational use so it was difficult not to smoke for three days. The anxiety kicks in. But with that said I got an opportunity to meet an 83-year-old woman whose been toiling soil and growing her own food since she was a child. And now she's teaching her community, being the black people that live around her, and the greater community because all color and races are coming in to this former black elementary school which is now a farming center in the middle of that community. I got to eat fresh out of her kitchen, fresh out of her garden in the community garden and I got to spread that connectivity. It really is about making a connection. There's a west Georgia black farmers collective, we should make an effort as black people in Georgia to support them. We should make an effort to support them getting their goods in bigger stores. In my neighborhood we don't have a Whole Foods. we should make sure Whole Foods gets our neighborhood but we should not shop at Whole Foods because they won't do it, so that makes it a food desert. For me it's just about pushing for better in my community but not only for my community. My community is a strong community and we economically turn our dollar linger than six hours we'd make our greater community stronger.
Me: All right. So, tell the readers what you do in the second episode.
Killer Mike: In the second episode I go to a little school in Atlanta and I tell this group of first graders not to dream. Not to dream of being President, not to dream about being the scientist who finds the cure for cancer.
Me: What the fuck? Why would you want to give them that message?
Killer Mike: Well, the message wasn't not to dream but don't dream too big. That's what adults do to children all the time. I told my father I wanted to be an artist and he looked at me squarely in my eyes and said, "Son, they call it 'starving artist' for a reason.'" It's our jobs as children to prove adults wrong. Like Chris Rock said, "You over inflate your child's ego." Though is kind of like teasing almost like an older uncle. The irony is the black kid I told can't be President had nothing with the fact he can't be President it's just the United States Constitution doesn't allow him to because he was born in Canada. He's a Canadian citizen. So therefore he CAN'T be president.
Me: Would anybody want the job anyway? Hahahahaha.
Killer Mike: Not after the guy we got.
Me: You talk to some first graders about being an ally. For you what does an ally look like?
Killer Mike: Well, an ally could be any one.
Me: So, tell the readers why you said about being an ally.
Killer Mike: A beautiful little red haired white kid, and a kid who I told should be proud of his bronze skin was a black kid whose white classmate told him his skin looked like poop. That inspiration for me giving that quick lesson fairly and lovingly was to say to both of them I love both of you guys, but if I let you jump in front of him while I'm encouraging him that's wrong for him. This kid that I'm encouraging this lesson is to be proud of himself no matter what. I got that because I used to watch this show called "Kindergarten" on HBO and there was this black kid who accidentally hit his friend in the face and his friend was white. He hit him at the water fountain and he said, "Ooh, I'm sorry." His friend stopped crying and they fixed it, as two 5-year-olds, they fixed it. A teacher came in and asked what happened and the white kid looks rather and through anxiety or panic or just being a kid he starts crying again and says he hit me. Now they had already solved the problem themselves, they already fixed it. Julian, the black kid said he apologized and they fixed it but because an authoritarian figure popped up the white kid went into the mode of now he has to tell, authority is here. With the black kid who could see the confidence and shame drain out of his body. I said he's never going to be the same after that because his friend didn't understand that they've already settled this and the authorities didn't need to be in it. It's kind of like when you see a black girl selling water in Orlando and you decide to call the police. And you own a dogweed dispensary company. We need to learn to interact with other individuals from five and up in a way that's humane and loving and caring. That way when we run into individuals like that versus individuals that point and put authority on one another. So that opportunity I thought was to say to these children you guys are allies, no matter what you look like, no matter what culture you're from you have the opportunity on an individual level to befriend someone that doesn't look like you who is not from your ethnic racial background and to be of help and service to them.
Me: In one episode you say the greatest hindrance black people face is "white Jesus." What do you mean?
Killer Mike: If their deity doesn't look like them how could they see the deity in themselves? It's that simple for me.
Me: You set up your own religion, you have your own Bible, you have your own congregation, what did you see in the people who joined your choice tell you about their lives?
Killer Mike: What it tells me is that we have religion down to a business in my country and I believe the world. In making religion a business in collecting ties and building churches, of spreading the gospels, the spiritual writings as we see them we're losing taking care of people, losing actual love and care and forgiveness for a greater community or a beloved community Doctor King talked about, The character of Jesus in the Bible as a character is an amazing super hero, is an amazing agitator, is an amazing defender of the poor. He's an amazing call to justice, the evils of the church, and the system of that time. We don't present Jesus in that way when we go to colonize places and we put our religion on people. We don't do that. What we do is we take our rules and our laws and we insert them, we hammerhead and we give them the people. That's not good for my community. The image of white Jesus has not been good for my community because it does not show the divinity in us as human beings. What we do know honestly, that the first human beings on Earth were people of color. Life starts essentially in the horn of Africa. It's just that us people are dark. We do know that the first human beings they've seen so far they found in the mother of humanity somewhere found in the continent of Africa and east Africa. So essentially we are made in the image of God, the first person to be made in the image of God was a black woman. As a man a man does not come from a rib, I come from a woman's womb.
Me: Ohhh boy. Let's kick over this can of worms. What do you personally believe?
Killer Mike: I personally believe that God is a woman. But in my religion I have a best friend who is one of the most morally good people I have ever known and yet we ran the streets and stole cars together at 12-years-old. His name is Sleepy and I introduced him as my deity and Sleepy and I set out on a course to introduce people to the religion of Sleep to the bigger world to results that were pretty amazing to me.
Me: You rapped with a barbershop quartet at an old people's home... or assisted living home as they call it now. What do you think when you think of that experience?
Killer Mike: It was amazing! The absurdity of performing with a barbershop quartet just pushes the limits of what is rap. What's a good music and what's not? I wanted old non-black people to understand rap. And I couldn't just play beats or have a band behind me because just the noise would agitate them. I thought for old people what's a really cool music I could get for really cheap and a mariachi band wasn't available that day so we got a barbershop quartet. What we did was put on a hell of a performance for them and they could actually understand my words. Only one person left and I thought he didn't like it but it turns out he's a diabetic and he had to piss.
Me: So, the country is all divided right now, Killer Mike. Can you break it down in your opinion for me?
Killer Mike: Noam Chomsky said something that is very interesting to me. I'm trying to find a away to make it even more plain that he makes it. He talks about we've been given these polar opposite things to argue about. His exact quote is this... "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum..." In America we are given two things to argue about. Either they stream this or stream that then they go on Twitter and think themselves as an activist that day and they yell and scream about it. Or they go out and they match maybe. And then nothing else happens.
Me: Would you say you were an activist?
Killer Mike: I'm not an activist post-music. I didn't become an activist because I've become successful and felt guilty of having money and the pleasures of becoming an artist. I've been an activist since I was a 15-year-old child! Like the former ambassador of the United States and Mayor Andrew Young says, "When I first met this kid he was about to kick down my door saying kids deserved a say in local government." I've been me. I'm telling people that the polls they give people to argue from where they're yelling and screaming at each other they are all serving the same master. There's a class of people that see you as a subject and peasants. If you're not allowing yourselves to community as their own individuals and grow their own perspectives they will all continue to serve the same master. And be unhappy simply screaming at each other all the time on Twitter. We have an opportunity for individuals to meeting and growing perspectives, working together to become something more what we are now. Within and outside the United States. If we do not take that opportunity our children and grand children will continue to suffer.
Me: What did the show teach you about yourself?
Killer Mike: It triggered me. I'm a heterosexual man who grew up with two amazing gay uncles who taught me and groomed me in ways I didn't know I was growing at the time. I learned to accept everyone early. With that said I still brought my prejudices and bigotry, it was hard for me to watch the gay porno's that the girls see all the time. I wanted everyone to be represented so I got a sex positive sex therapist, a black woman, a black gay lesbian woman, she taught me more than I had ever known about people and sexuality, love and empathy. I've grown from that and I appreciate her. Mario, who was one of the behest challengers to my perspective at the end ends up being a hero to me. I grew my perspective because I argued with him constantly. I want people to watch it, I want people to challenge it, I want them to be triggered, but I want them to converse with other people and start to build on themselves, within their community and outside for the greater love of the community.
Me: Cool. Thanks, man, for being on the Phile. Stay well.
Killer Mike: Thanks so much for having me, I will talk to you soon. Love and respect. Peace.
Well, that was a "fun" interview. Hahaha. Check out the series though... you have time. It's so good. Thanks to my guest Killer Mike. The Phile will be back tomorrow with the great Booker T. Jones. 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
