Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Thursday. How are you? They said a mask and gloves were enough to go to the grocery store. They lied, everybody had clothes on. Haha. I'm excited that the phase "get the fuck away from me" is no longer rude but a public service announcement. Well, here's an update on a story I told the other day... A company based in Austin, Texas was exposed for attempting to get its employees to sign a form that stated that their paychecks would be cut based on how much each employee would receive from the 2 trillion-dollar COVID-19 stimulus bill. ImageNet Consulting, a 3-D printing technology company, revealed itself when KXAN received a letter from its public relations company in response to an anonymous worker who first informed the news company. The president, Pat Russell, basically said they created this “ill-advised” plan in asking a small group of employees to reduce their paychecks by what they received from the stimulus because the company was trying to protect their “more vulnerable” employees… Interesting. Russell claimed that they were trying to deal with the “massive business disruptions” caused by COVID-19, and that this plan was a way to make sure they could keep as many people employed as possible, capping salaries at $75,000. Although he apologized for how poorly this plan was brought to fruition, he still made an effort to add that ImageNet will still “investigate all government programs which will help us whether this unprecedented and difficult situation.” Who knows what stupid plan they could come up with now? The fact that they’re still claiming that they’re coming up with one is baffling, but one thing seems true: any company that comes out of anonymity to do some PR rehab is either trying to prevent over-exaggerated stories or quite literally covering their tails. To be honest, it’s hard not to feel like it’s the latter. I’m assuming this company came out of its anonymous hole because of the heat they were getting, to the point where they deleted their Twitter.
Oh my gosh, this is one of the most stressful and satisfying things I have seen on the Internet.
I’ll be honest, I totally didn’t think that an entire BEACH TOWEL was going to be pulled out of this python, it’s insane! I mean, a towel is huge, how did this python even manage to swallow it? I have so many questions that are most likely going to be left unanswered. According to the staff at Small Animal Specialist Hospital in Australia, a family brought their 18-year-old jungle carpet python, Monty, into the Avian and Exotics Department after she swallowed the towel. Using an endoscope to confirm the location of said towel, the veterinary team used forceps to pull it out slowly out of the mouth. Yup, these Australian veterinarians just open the python’s mouth and start pulling. So nonchalantly AND with no gloves. Insane, I tell ya! Luckily for us, the entire procedure was posted on the hospital’s Facebook page, because it truly is remarkable. Have you ever seen anything like this? I bet you haven’t, truly impressive. Also, as a side note, Monty was anesthetized and doctors took several radiographs beforehand just to confirm the location of the start of the 10-foot long towel. So, there they were with a flexible endoscope and just placed it down her gastrointestinal tract and used long forceps through the endoscope to get a good grip of the entire towel from Monty’s stomach. According to the Facebook post, Monty was lucky okay and was discharged from the hospital following the procedure. Her owner did not that she was back to her happy, hungry self! I’m sure we can all agree when I say I hope her appetite for towels is over with. Because well, this did look pretty painful. Thank god for veterinarians, the true hero’s who keep our best friends alive and happy!
Hey, are you worried your meth might be contaminated with coronavirus? Well, fear no more! The Arkansas sheriff’s department is here to save the day! The St. Francis County Sherriff’s Office posted a hilarious “PSA” warning people to get their methamphetamine tested for the deadly coronavirus, and yes, even offered to do it for free! Because well, even those who use meth are at risk, you know? They also noted that if you’re uncomfortable taking the drugs to the Sheriff’s office or precinct, to contact any officer they see and they will test your meth in the privacy of your home! What nice fellas! As far as who actually had taken the drugs, well, that’s still unclear, but the post has been going viral on social media share more than 1,000 times! Of course, for those of you who don’t know, the "test" would likely result in criminal charges. Because well, meth is illegal, y’all. This isn’t a secret. The law (in Texas) states that possession of less than one gram of meth is a state jail felony with a whopping penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine of $10,000. And that’s just less than one gram, imagine more! You really have to love some good law enforcement trolling. I’ll give this one to them, they made me chuckle. It’s such a dad joke news, too.
It looks like this woman needs a chill pill and some nose plugs or some sort of face mask. A vegan runner is currently being slammed online after she asked her neighbors not to cook with their windows open because the smell of meat is “offensive” to her. The unnamed jogger from Berkeley, California was criticized on Twitter after her "petition" made it on a Twitter account called Best of Nextdoor. The account is dedicated to neighbor-on-neighbor pettiness. The runner admitted she found the smell overpowering when she goes jogging during dinner time. She asked meat-eaters to show “empathy for their plant-based neighbors by closing windows while cooking and only grilling vegetables on the bbq.” She also suggested people might want to do research about plant-based diets and join the vegan movement. As expected, Twitter did not take the post lightly. The post stated that when the weather warms up in California this time of year it’s always hard for vegan runners because people start the barbecue more than usual. The vegan jogger stated, “Quite honestly, the odor is offensive and I’m hoping our community can have some empathy for its plant-based neighbors.” Basically, this woman only wants people to cook veggies forever because she’s just another vegan trying to change the world one carrot at a time. So much so that she even encouraged her neighbors to join “the movement of people fighting back.” Several Twitter users left hilarious comments, asking why she simply doesn’t run in the morning or change her jogging route if it bothers her so much. Which I totally get. Now, putting my two cents in here, this to me seems so obnoxious. Don’t get me wrong, I respect veganism and crazy eating habits. You can eat whatever you want, I don’t care. But don’t tell someone not to do something because you’re so bothered by it. It’s their life. In this case, telling people not to barbecue in their own home is absurd. I’m really surprised that the Internet went lightly here, I totally expected people to shun this woman for posting something so stupid. If you want people to respect you, you have to respect other people around you as well. How is this different from people telling you to eat meat whenever they find out you’re vegan? You wouldn’t like that, huh? This is definitely petty.
Are you a beta in your own swimming pool? Do your kids do cannonballs that ruin your fresh margarita? Do they slap you in the face with a pool noodle and call you fat while you’re trying to lay back and relax? Does the annoying neighbor who does Crossfit make you feel like a Low T commercial before picture when they come over to swim and flaunt their hot bod in front of your wife? Does your wife laugh at Mr. Mid-Life Reinvention’s jokes even though they’re stupid? And are you pretty sure the length and loudness of your wife’s laughter increases in a statistically quantifiable way when this d-bag is shirtless? There’s not a lot, if anything, you can do about any of that. This is life and chances are you’re just going to have to eat the plate of shit it served you. At least you can play with this cool motorized pool chair from PoolCandy while all that stuff is happening, though. It looks pretty cool.
Think of all the possibilities with this thing. No more awkwardly paddling yourself over to the side of the pool to get out, or to get another drink. Buy six of these and play bumper boats in your pool. Have races and time trials. Or play water polo. Not the actual game of water polo, but regular polo in water, where you use your motor chairs as steeds. The pool game possibilities are endless. And if you have a beer or six during those games everything gets infinitely more fun. This bad boy works in pools, lakes, or inlets. Basically any calm body of water. If you don’t buy this for your summer you might as well just stay inside until October. This is the ultimate summer enhancer.
If I had a TARDIS I would love to go and hang out with my old neighbor Sean Connery when he was filming Dr. No in Jamaica, but he'd probably be too busy signing a little girls coconut.
Sean Connery did used to live across the street from us in Wimbledon when I was a kid. Natalie Wood as well and Brian DePalma. I actually went to school with Sean's son Jason and Natalie babysat me a few times. You know, it's okay to wear gloves and a mask when you go out shopping but some people are taken it a little bit too far.
Trump claims he doesn't have the coronavirus, but after seeing this I'm not 100% sure it's true...
Hahahahaha. The COVID-19 is so bad that famous paintings are protecting themselves.
People are using the coronavirus as a pickup line on dating apps...
See the difference? Hahaha. Get used to it, people, I have a whole slew of those. You'll see. Hey, it's Thursday, you know what that means.
Ugh! I can't look! That's bloody horrible! Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York here is...
Top Phive Things Predicted To Be Less Popular After The Quarantine
5. The belief that our government has our vested interests at heart
4. Going to the office to work when you can just work at home
3. Sharing beverages
2. Buffets
And the number one thing predicted to be less popular after the quarantine...
1. People going to work when they're sick because they're afraid of the repercussions of calling off
The person who ordered Chinese food and then refused to pick it up.
You know I live in Florida, right? Well, there's stuff that happens here that happens no where else in the universe.
It could have been worse. It could have been so, so much worse. This was a mere nightmare for this particular Florida man. The Coral Springs resident was just bitten on the arm and, maybe, suffered some creepy slithering up his naked thighs. Oh, what horrors could have been when a 4-foot ball python popped out of his toilet and gave him the world’s worst surprise. If anything this man should be thankful. The python, for example, didn’t bite him right in the butt hole. The python also didn’t jump straight up his butt hole. A likely scenario? Probably not. But this is Florida. Everything is on the table. Always. The python also didn’t confuse his sack or dong for some sort of small, wire-haired rodent, and then strangle them until they burst and he passed out. Regardless of what could have happened, a damn snake still popped out of this guy’s toilet and bit him. That is, broadly, a worst case scenario when using the toilet. Anything beyond that is just debating how dark the shade of their nightmare is. The man was especially confused because the snake didn’t belong to him so he had no idea how it got into his apartment. Authorities believe the snake may have belonged to a previous resident of the apartment and escaped at one point. The toilet was a logical hiding place for the snake because the reptiles prefer tight, dark spaces to hide in. If you’re a Florida resident rightfully worried that a massive snake is going to pop out of your toilet to feast on you and your genitals, take the following precautions:... Once a day fill your toilet bowl with straight up gasoline and then flush it. Then toss a lit match down there. Get an angry mongoose with glow in the dark eyes tattooed on your butt. Install some sort of rapid deploy, horizontal guillotine you can activate with the simple push of a button should you fear that a snake is sneaking its way up to your nether regions. Also works great for long, clinging poo logs. Leave Florida.
Ha. If you spot the Mindphuck then let me know. Wanna laugh?
Amy, a blonde city girl, marries a farmer. One morning, on his way out to the fields, the farmer says to Amy, "The artificial insemination man is coming over to impregnate one of our cows today. I drove a nail into the two-by-four just above the cow's stall in the barn. You show him where the cow is when he gets here, okay?" So the farmer leaves for the fields. After a while, the artificial insemination man arrives and knocks on the front door. Amy takes him down the barn. They walk along long row of cows and when she sees the nail, she tells him, "This is the one. This one right here." Terribly impressed by what he seemed to think just might be another ditzy blonde, the man asks, "How did you know this is the cow to be bred?" "That's simple. By the nail over its stall," Amy explains. Then the man asks, "What's the nail for?" "I guess it's to hang your pants on," she tells him as she walks away.
The 119th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...
George Takei will be a guest on the Phile next week. I'm pretty excited about that.
Today's guest is an American actor. He is best known for playing Omar Little on the HBO drama series "The Wire." Please welcome to the Phile... Michael K. Williams.
Me: Hey, Michael, welcome to the Phile. How are you, sir?
Michael: Thank you. I'm alive.
Me: So, a lot of people might know you as Omar Little from "The Wire" but weren't you in the music video for Madonna's "Secret"? I have to show a pic...what do you think about that?
Michael: That I have to get to a gym. Ha ha.
Me: Ha. So, how did this happen?
Michael: I used to be a dancer back then, man. I didn't realize how young I was. I feel old. I look back as I'm old now to back then and I was a kid. I had good times on that.
Me: When was the last time you saw that video?
Michael: It's been awhile.
Me: And you were a dancer?
Michael: Yes, sir.
Me: How did you get into dancing?
Michael: Well, dancing was something that was always in my blood. It was my way in. I wasn't a tough kid so one of the ways I got accepted except for having all the "party favors" was knowing all the latest dance moves. I was like 22 or 23 and Janet Jackson releases "Rhythm Nation" and my head exploded. The militant look everybody wearing black, she wasn't selling sex, she was selling unity. When you listen to the content of the song set talking about a world rid of colorizing, equality and exclusiveness. I just, me going up as an outsider all my life that just struck a chord with me. I just said I got it, I'm going to quit school, I'm going to quit my job and work at Pfizer pharmaceuticals and I'm going on a quest to find Janet Jackson.
Me: Did you ever get to meet her and tell her about this?
Michael: No, I never got to. There's still hope, there's still time.
Me: So, how did you go from dancing to acting?
Michael: Again my rise came up when music videos could make somebody a star. I was doing a lot of videos in New York City and I believe Tupac Shakur saw a Polaroid picture of me. He could see my pigmentation. Me on a Polaroid picture wasn't the most flattering look. I don't know what he saw in me really but he had the director, Julian Temple, look for me and have me audition for the role of his little brother called High Top, and I got the part. That changed the trajectory of my life.
Me: I read that casting agents were attracted to your scar, is that right?
Michael: Yeah, they were like, "Do you know this guy Michael Williams, the dark skin guy with the ball head?" "Oh, you mean the one with the... SCCCCAAAARRRRR?!" That came along with my dark skin I guess. People automatically thought I was a thug. So I was getting all these roles. That got my feet wet but that got old real quick for me.
Me: I would have accepted it if that was me. Why did it get old for you?
Michael: I felt one noted long story short. And it wasn't me. So I said, "Mike, if you're getting tired of being known as the thug with the scar on his face they're going to assume you're getting tired of it as well. You need to create some substance behind this if you want this to last." I realized I had this opportunity here. That's when I got blessed be introduced to the Off-Broadway community in New York City called the Black Boxes. La MaMa Theater was the first play that I ever did. That's when I got into the craft, the art of creating a character.
Me: When you got the job as Omar Little in "The Wire" was it difficult for you to be so different than you really are? Does that question make any sense?
Michael: Absolutely. How was I going to make people believe that I was someone to fear when I held a gun? The reality of the fact is I never busted a gun before I booked "The Wire." I held a gun or two but I never actually shot a gun. I was clueless and nervous how I was going to make this believable. How was I going to make people believe that I could really kill? I just didn't know how to do that so I had to find out what connected me to him. For me I would have done him a disservice if I went in with the alpha make mentality trying to perceive him as an alpha, I'd do anything to anybody. I played him from a very honorable and very sensitive human being. That made me understand him, his sensitivity. I played Omar from a very fragile sensitive type of mentality. That's what I related to and that's how I made him real.
Me: Did the role change you for the better or for the worse?
Michael: I would say the universe definitely gave me Omar as a gift to heal. Some wounds that I had personally. It was definitely a gift. Did I use it for what it was intended for? No. Instead I got caught up in the vanity. I had very low self esteem when I booked "The Wire." Basically I was the corny kid on the block, I was very soft in my demeanor. So all of a sudden the dudes who probably would have taken my lunch money in school are now confessing their undying love for Omar, not for Michael. I was like ha, whose going to tell, no one would notice the difference. The love is for me. It's not how that works. So I had stopped doing the work on myself, I had stopped being a human being, I needed to grow up. I stopped caring about that and it became about me being Omar.
Me: So, when the show ended what happened then?
Michael: When the show got pulled and ended it was like a rug got pulled out from under me. I had to go back to "Michael" and pick up those pieces and I had made a little bit of a mess during the production of "The Wire." I learned a lot also, a lot that I used in my personal life as well as my professional.
Me: Barack Obama talked highly of Omar, right? Did that mean a lot to you?
Michael: Yeah. I get goose bumps. I did something in my lifetime that warranted the attention of the President of the United States that wasn't in a negative demeanor. I did something right. How did that happen? Also I had to grow up. I was very ignorant then when President Obama called me out, it was kind of a call out really because I was ignorant to the way things were in the real world. How can I be on "The Wire," a show so intricacy showed what's wrong with our society from politics to community to everything in between? How can I be a part of a main fixture of that and still be ignorant in my real life as to what's going on in my community? Then President Obama said, "It's got to be Omar, right? I mean, that guy is unbelievable, right? What a combination, a gay stuck up man who robbed from drug dealers in the series based in Baltimore. That was one of the best shows of all time." That's the reality I have. I said, "Mike, you got to clean up. You got to grow up and be a little more on the ball right now." I knew nothing, I didn't care. I didn't think my voice mattered.
Me: So, what changes did you make?
Michael: Well, I had to get clean. I did a lot of drugs. I had to get sober. That was one thing, I felt like an idiot, I was embracing myself or diminishing the high shout out I just got. I wanted to honor that and the way to do that was not try to be his friends or get photo-ops with him. The way to do that, the way to show that I really appreciated him calling me out or seeing me like that and seeing what was going on in my community because I never felt that any President really cared about my community before President Obama. That's just my take on it, so I needed to show him that I understand and that I get it. I needed some advice and I started to go on my quest to become a man in my community and to see how I can help to fix what is wrong. There was no more "Wire's" to make.
Me: Do you ever wish the show would get rebooted?
Michael: That show, as great as it was, we don't need anymore "The Wire." At least not in my community. People died so that show can be made. People went to prison. People made a lot of bad mistakes and bad choices so that show can be made. We don't need anymore "The Wire."
Me: You were also on the show "Boardwalk Empire." I interviewed Margot Bingham who was on that show by the way. Do you have good memories of playing Chalky White?
Michael: Very much so. I get goosebumps.
Me: Why does that give you goosebumps?
Michael: When I booked "Boardwalk Empire" prior to that my characters were pretty much modern day types of ills that were in my community. Chalky was my real diving into a period piece. I had a glimpse of the world doing Lackawanna Blues but Chalky was my full on lesson. I had nothing to pull on. Like I couldn't use my old methods of character building for Chalky.I had to go get some new tools. So for me I had to converse with my ancestors for that one.
Me: How did you create the character in your mind?
Michael: Chalky is created with the memories of five deceased men in my life. My dad, Booker T. Williams, my mother's brother, my father's two brothers. And I had my godfather. The snarl comes from my godfather. All those men they are deceased and they were the same age, they came from that era, they were alive then. I didn't understand why they were the way they were until I started reading "Boardwalk Empire" scripts.
Me: What do you mean?
Michael: I didn't understand the world that they lived in. I didn't know the Klan was so prevalent in the north, I didn't know. I wasn't walking the earth in those times. I didn't care, it wasn't my era. It wasn't like I was being taught it in my schools. I started realizing this is what my dad went through, this is what my uncles had to deal with in their time. It was there in the scripts and the scripts were accurately written.
Me: So what was it like playing that role?
Michael: It was kind of liberating. I grew up not really understanding my dad a lot. Why he did a lot of things that he did. Chalky helped me navigate through that.
Me: Do you still get typecasted, Michael?
Michael: I don't believe in typecasting, I believe in working. I come from a community with a lot of colorful personalities. The Vanderveer Projects is a project in Brooklyn, East Flatbush Brooklyn that consists of 59 buildings and each building I believe has 42 apartments. That's a lot of people I was exposed to for a lot of years. So I have a reservoir, or an ocean of memories and people and characters that whenever a job comes to me that character reminds me of someone that could have been from my community there's no tune that could be played the same. This one might remind me of this neighbor I grew up with and the next character might remind me of the next neighbor I grew up with. The third character might be a combination of both. I made it my business to not allow them, to allow Hollywood to make me feel typecast. The way to do that is by staying focused on the work and always go in my tool bag bring empathy and compassion to my work space. Once I've done that there's no such word as "typecast." At least not in my office.
Me: Michael, thanks for being on the Phile, man. Please come back again soon. You rock. Stay safe.
Michael: Thanks, Jason.
That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to my guest Michael K. Williams, that was a really cool interview. The Phile will be back tomorrow with artist Shepard Fairey. Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye. Stay inside.
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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