Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Wednesday. How are you? You know, ripping off your mask when you get back in the car is the new taking off your bra when you get home. Am I right, ladies? Haha. West’s campaign is no longer active! Rapper Kanye West had decided to drop out of the 2020 presidential race. An adviser on West’s team, Steve Kramer, stated he was “out.” Kramer serves as a get out the vote specialist hired to help West get on ballots in South Carolina and Florida. Kramer spoke with The Intelligencer, stating, “I have nothing good or bad to say about Kanye. Everyone has their personal decision about why they make decisions. Running for president has to be one of the hardest things for someone to actually contemplate at that level.” West, who is married to Kim Kardashian, had announced she was running for President of the United States on Twitter on July 4th. West was known for showing his support for President Donald Trump and visited the White House to speak with Trump. On July 9th, West posted a video to Twitter of him registering to vote for the first time in the state of Wyoming. “Yeezy” encouraged his followers to “vote” before speaking with local officials. The tweet also included the official link to register to vote. According to the Independent, West had attempted to get his name on the ballot as a third-party candidate, but needed to collect 132,781 signatures by today to be eligible to run in Florida. West’s announcements come days after a U.S. presidential poll suggested he would gain less than two percent of votes if he were to run against Democratic nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump. The rapper has earned support from several social media users, including Elon Musk. He later claimed that if he won, Musk would be appointed “head of our space program” under his presidency. At the MTV VMA Awards backing 2015, West had announced he would launch a presidential campaign for the 2020 election. In January 2019, he teased a 2024 bid. The announcement of his presidential bid caught backlash from several celebrities. Katy Perry stated his decision to run was “a little wild” while Will.i.am stated the presidency “is a dangerous thing to be played with.” Which I agree with, the fact that he even attempted to run in the first place is hilarious in itself. Can you imagine Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West inside the oval office? Oh God, I would lose all faith in humanity.
Heads up, Walmart shoppers. The world’s largest retailer is the latest national chain to require all of its customers and employees to wear a face mask. The announcement comes as Starbucks announced they will require all their customers to wear face masks or facial coverings in all 9,000 U.S. stores beginning Wednesday to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Other retailers that announced a face mask policy include Costco, Apple, and Best Buy. Although no federal mandate to wear a mask or face covering exist, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated everyone “should wear a cloth face cover whenever they go out in public.” The CDC also stated that “face coverings are meant to protect other people.” Most major grocery stores and retailers had hesitated to enact their own mask policies for customers during the coronavirus pandemic, due to fear of antagonizing shoppers who refuse to wear any covering. Several retailers also noted that they are reluctant to put their employees in the position of enforcing all mask requirements. But, the requirement of the masks in restaurants and retail industries has shifted in recent weeks as more COVID-19 cases have popped up. More than 3.3 million people have now tested positive for coronavirus nationwide and more than 130,000 people have died. As the cases climb around the country, many states and cities are reimposing restrictions to contain any new outbreaks, which include mask requirements in public settings. Through a press release, Walmart stated, “As the number of confirmed cases has spiked in communities across the country recently, so too have the number and types of face-covering mandates being implemented. To help bring consistency across stores and clubs, we will require all shoppers to wear a face-covering starting Monday, July 20th. This will give us time to inform customers and members of the changes, post signage, and train associates on the new protocols.” Around 65 percent of its more than 5,000 stores, which include its Sam’s Club locations, are located in areas where the government has required face covering.
A large group of people in Lubbock, Texas... presumably mostly if not entirely Texas Tech University students... gathered at a pool on a hot summer day to beat the heat and apparently also each other. The only thing that wasn’t getting beaten on this hot afternoon was coronavirus. Not at all. In the video the kids are seen middling around the shallow pool in small groups before a fight breaks out between two bros. Eventually the fight spreads to other bros. Punches are thrown. Dudes are choked out. At least five people are filming. Random people are yelling stuff but I guess no one shouts, “World Star” anymore, which is depressing. And, of course, at least one girl is trying in vain to stop the entire thing. Then, of course, at the end of the video, the bro filming turns the camera around and is like, “lol wtfffff!” All classic stuff, really. According to one person who replied to the tweet sent out by Old Row Texas Tech, the fight occurred off-campus at the Republic at Lubbock apartment complex, and that these sorts of parties have been happening regularly. “Yes management has been allowing these pool parties all summer despite outbreaks at the complex by people who have been attending the pool gatherings.” It’s pretty tight that all these kids don’t give a shit about spreading COVID-19. But then again, no one who is willing to get into a White Claw fueled wading pool fistfight has ever had much concern for the well-being of themselves or others. Even if there wasn’t a pandemic they’d still be out there punching faces and getting their faces punched in turn, increasing their risk of skin cancer, turning their liver and kidneys black, and probably finding someone to give the clap to, or get it from. I know. Minus the face-punching and clap-giving I’ve partaken in this regularly. So at that point why worry about some bat germs?
Ivanka Trump is currently getting roasted on Twitter for posting a bizarre selfie of herself with the a can of Goya beans. The picture, which looks like a still straight out of The Stepford Wives, shows Ivanka smiling robotically as she dutifully holds a can of Goya black beans. The caption, which truly adds to the overall bizarre factor, reads: "If it's Goya, it's got to be good."
The photo comes as a direct response to a trending #BoycottGoya campaign, which took shape after the CEO Robert Unanue praised Donald Trump. Unanue was invited to speak at the White House last week, during which he expressed profound support of the president: "We're all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder." Given the fact that Goya is the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the U.S., and Trump has called Mexicans rapists, his administration has quietly worked to gut rights for asylum seekers during the pandemic, and there are currently concentration camps springing up across the country, a lot of people who love Goya's products felt betrayed. AOC was just one of many voices urging people to boycott Goya after Unanue's praise of Trump. Even after the wave of backlash, Unanue doubled down on his love of Trump, and claimed the boycott was a suppression of his free speech. As a response to the boycott, some Trump supporters have decided to support the brand, and it's within this context that Ivanka posted her Goya black beans selfie. It didn't take long for people to start calling out the innate hypocrisy of the photo. Others brought up the fact that the Trump administration has been actively keeping children, and entire families in cages, and that posing with a can of beans won't undo or distract people from that fact. Other people pointed out the fact that it's actually a breach of ethics for a White House adviser to endorse a food brand online, so on top of the deep cringe, the picture violates The Hatch Act. While it's clear Ivanka breached a code of ethics, it's hard to hold faith she'll face consequences, given the laundry list of indicting things the Trump family has done without punishment.
According to California authorities, Naya Rivera’s body has been recovered from Lake Piru. Earlier this on Monday the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department tweeted their discovery, stating, “A body has been found at Lake Piru this morning. The recovery is in progress.” The announcement comes after an extensive search for the 33-year-old, who was reported missing on Wednesday, July 8th, after her 4-year-old son, Josey, was found alone on a motorized pontoon boat they had rented at the lake. The boy had told authorities that he and his mom were swimming but the mother never got back on the boat. The boy was wearing a life vest, and authorities found another life jacket along with Rivera’s purse and ID inside the boat. Rivera married actor Ryan Dorsey in Cabo San Lucas in July 2014, but filed for divorce in 2018 and had been sharing custody of Josey. Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub stated they are “confident” the body belongs to the actress due to where it was found, its physical characteristic, and clothing. Her body was found in the northeastern portion of the lake near the surface. The body will now be taken to the medical examiner’s office where experts will conduct a formal autopsy. Rivera was best known for her role on the TV show "Glee," where she was nominated for a Grammy in 2010 as part of the case who sang their own rendition of "Don’t Stop Belivin’" by Journey. She also won a People’s Choice Award, several Alma Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
It seems like Trump is having too much fun swinging a bat in the White House...
It's good that he's wearing mask in public now though...
The symbolism of Betsy DeVos having a bookshelf with no books on it...
I think it's him. Hahahaha. I just mentioned Ivanka tweeting about Goya, and showed the pic. She didn't really show where she was so I will show you...
That's sad. So, if I had a TARDIS I would go to and see the first flat screen TV.
A thin TV screen (only 4 inches thick) with an automatic timing device to record TV programs for later viewing is the wave of the future as shown at the Home Furnishings Market in Chicago, Illinois, on June 21st, 1961. Most likely it wasn’t a functioning set but more of a fresnel projection box with static images that were put on a slide show to demonstrate the possibility of future tech. Really nothing more than a physical mockup for demonstration purposes but was used to capture the imagination nonetheless. So, they didn't change the name of the Redskins, they just changed the logo...
Problem solved. Hahaha. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York, here is...
Top Phive Reactions To Kanye West Dropping Out Of The Presidential Race
5. Kanye West drops out of 2020 presidential race, on grounds he could split the incomprehensible narcissist vote.
4. According to my calculations, West's presidential aspirations lasted one full Scaramucci.
3. This is disappointing. He fought a great campaign for very nearly 12 days.
2. God told him to do it in just over a week, now God is telling him not to do it? Is God trying to waste Kanye's time or something?
And the number one reaction to Kanye dropping out of the presidential race is...
1. My Kanye 2020 gear just arrived. Now to check Twitter.
MythBusted. Okay, you know I live in Florida, right? Here's another story from this state...
A Florida man who was walking around a Costco in Fort Myers, Florida without a mask on was filmed reacting with loud displeasure (to say the least) toward two customers, one of whom was an elderly woman, who had allegedly confronted him about his lack of coronavirus safety and concern for the well-being of others at the store. The angry, maskless man was purportedly first asked (or chided, it’s unclear) to put on a mask while shopping at the Costco by an elderly woman who is not seen in the video. Allegedly, the maskless man became upset at the woman for pointing out his dangerous and inconsiderate choice. At some point, possibly because of the way the maskless man was reacting to what the elderly woman said to him, another man felt compelled to step in on behalf of the elderly woman. It was then that the following interaction occurred. The video was taken by the man who stepped in on behalf of the elderly woman and was eventually shared by film director Billy Corben. Corben, a director of documentaries such as Cocaine Cowboys and ESPN 30 for 30 films The U and Broke, followed up his initial tweet with further elaboration on the incident, writing, “This occurred at the Gulf Coast Town Center location on 6/27 and one of the customers targeted said: To give Costco the credit, they escorted him out and made me wait inside and monitored him until he left and then they send someone with me to the care to make sure I’m okay.” The man has since been fired from his job for the outburst. This guy was, in this moment, being a massive and legitimately dangerous piece of shit. On multiple levels. There’s no way around that. There are probably no mitigating factors serious enough to make it worth reconsidering if this man’s reaction was justified. There is nothing to absolve this man. Every ounce of what happened here was despicable. He should be ashamed of this pretty much forever and deserves to be shamed publicly... he felt comfortable enough to behave this way in public, after all. That said, I don’t feel compelled to share his name, thus adding to the SEO nightmare that will follow him for years if not for the rest of his life, but you can Google it if you really feel the need to. Wear a fucking mask. I’m not sure he should have lost his job, though that is of course at the employer’s discretion. Being stripped of the income needed to provide for yourself and your family (he has a child) doesn’t feel like a reasonably proportional punishment for this at all. Strip him of his Costco membership (that’s a no brainer). Press charges for harassment or whatever the appropriate charge would be and get him into anger management classes. Make him legally compelled to make amends, based on whatever our actual system of justice prescribes. The theories being tossed around social media about why this guy reacted this way to being asked to wear a mask are the typically short-sighted and dehumanizing takes you’d expect to find on a platform like Twitter. “Entitled white man blah blah blah.” “hIs sHirT* iS pATriOtIC aND pEoPLE wHO lOvE aMeRICA r BAD NOW.” The truth is that this man is probably a fairly normal human being who’s had his brain straight-up broken by this country’s cocaine-brained media polarization... much like the people positing the aforementioned reassuringly dehumanizing theories about this man... because his job is (or, was) to sell insurance and be a dad, not to figure out to what degree every piece of news he’s being given by the TV and Facebook is lying to him in order to keep him engaged via rage and fear. That doesn’t absolve him of what he did, though. The vast majority of us consume the same shitty media and don’t have a rage stroke at old ladies for making a reasonable request because they’d like to not have the countdown to the end of their life accelerated while buying 500 liters of Costco brand cola. This was, again, despicable on several levels. I’m just compelled to assign some measure of blame (perhaps quite a bit) to the system that probably helped convince this man that his enemies are everywhere and that he needed to make wearing a mask his Bunker Hill because of who he is and what he looks like. Because it’s wildly profitable to do so. Expect more and more and more of this if we keep expecting so little out of the people, me included, who provide us with information. Alternate theory: he’s just an asshole.
If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Let's have a live look at Port Jeff, shall we?
Look at those clouds! It looks like a nice evening with people put for a stool. Okay, recently I had someone on the Phile who is now unemployed. Well, I thought it'll be fun to invite him back. So, please welcome back to the Phile...
Me: Hey, Chuck, welcome back to the Phile. How are you?
Chuck: I'm great, Jason. How are you?
Me: Not too bad. Tired. So, any behind the scenes Chuck E. Cheese stories you can share?
Chuck: Yeah, I have a top four list of things that happened at the restaurant.
Me: You do? Okay, cool, what are they?
Chuck: 1. The longer a pizza sat in the window waiting for table delivery the less toppings it had when it got to the table. 2. The costume room was the only place without security cameras. It became a sex den for horny high school kids. 3. A Chuck E. Cheese sex tape was filmed in said sex den. The four participants were wearing nothing but the costume heads. Whatever that means. 4. On nights when we threw out the raw pizza dough we would have pizza dough fights after we closed. A ball of raw dough to the gut hurts like hell.
Me: Hmmm... okay, that's pretty crazy, Chuck.
Chuck: Tell me about it. Okay, I have to go now and go have a beer. Bye.
Me: Bye, Chuck. Chuck E. Cheese, kids. That was so stupid. Hahahaha.
The best item to protect you from Sasquatch attacks is a camera.
GRANDPARENTS
The people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right.
With U.S. virus cases spiking and the death toll mounting, the White House is working to undercut its most trusted coronavirus expert, playing down the danger as President Donald Trump pushes to get the economy moving before he faces voters in November. The U.S. has become a cautionary tale across the globe, with once-falling cases now spiraling. However, Trump suggests the severity of the pandemic that has killed more than 135,000 Americans is being overstated by critics to damage his reelection chances. Trump on Monday retweeted a post by Chuck Woolery, once the host of TV’s “Love Connection,” claiming that “Everyone is lying” about COVID-19. Woolery’s tweet attacked not just the media and Democrats but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and most doctors “that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election.” At the same time, the president and top White House aides are ramping up attacks against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert. Fauci has been increasingly sidelined by the White House as he sounds alarms about the virus, a most unwelcome message at a time when Trump is focused on pushing an economic rebound. “We haven’t even begun to see the end of it yet,” he said in a talk with the dean of Stanford’s medical school Monday, calling for a “step back” in reopenings. Last week, Fauci contradicted Trump about the severity of the virus during a FiveThirtyEight podcast. While Trump contends repeatedly that he has done a great job against the pandemic, Fauci said, “As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not.” Trump later said Fauci had “made a lot of mistakes.” He pointed to Fauci’s early disagreement with him over the China travel ban and to the evolving guidance over the use of masks as scientists’ understanding of the virus improved... points the White House expanded on in statements to media outlets over the weekend. Asked whether the president still had confidence in Fauci, a White House official on Monday insisted Trump did. The official said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was regarded as “a valued voice” on the White House coronavirus task force. The official spoke on condition of anonymity even though the president has repeatedly railed against anonymous sources. “I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci,” Trump told reporters Monday, calling him “a very nice person.” But the president added, “I don’t always agree with him.” That supportive message was not echoed by Peter Navarro, a top White House trade adviser who has been working on the coronavirus effort. In an email, Navarro continued to criticize Fauci to the Associated Press on Monday, saying the doctor has “a good bedside manner with the public but he has been wrong about everything I have ever interacted with him on.” That includes, he said, downplaying the early risk of the virus and expressing skepticism over the use of hydroxychloroquine, which Navarro has aggressively championed despite contradictory evidence on its efficacy and safety. Fauci, who has not appeared at recent White House task force briefings and has been largely absent from television, told the Financial Times last week that he last saw Trump in person at the White House on June 2nd and hadn’t briefed him in at least two months. He blamed the fact that he has refused to toe the administration’s line for its refusal to approve many of his media requests. “I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things. And that may be one of the reasons why I haven’t been on television very much lately,” Fauci said. Trump’s political foes put it more strongly. “The president’s disgusting attempt to pass the buck by blaming the top infectious disease expert in the country... whose advice he repeatedly ignored and Joe Biden consistently implored him to take... is yet another horrible and revealing failure of leadership as the tragic death toll continues to needlessly grow,” said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Democrat Biden’s presidential campaign. Fauci’s public contradictions of Trump have been viewed by the president as a personal affront and have caused some in the West Wing to sour on the doctor, officials say. Some say that, while he is critical of the president in media interviews, he is largely deferential behind closed doors. And they complain about those outside the administration, including some in the media, who have elevated Fauci at the expense of other officials. Fauci did not respond to a request for comment Monday. That lionizing of Fauci is anything but welcome as the White House tries to have its medical experts take a step back from the limelight to keep the election-season focus on economic recovery rather than the persistence of the pandemic. In the early days of the virus, as Trump bristled at the attention Fauci was receiving, the West Wing took control of the doctor’s media schedule, significantly cutting into his TV appearances though he continued to find alternative outlets... including podcasts and social media. The president’s team has made clear they have no intention of trying to oust Fauci, knowing the uproar that would create. Instead, they appear content to diminish his reach while encouraging Republican lawmakers, administration officials and other allies to highlight some of Fauci’s early missteps. The effort is part of a White House effort to “counterpunch” on behalf of Trump, who believes all slights must have a forceful response, said one official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal White House thinking. At the same time, supporters are flocking to Fauci’s defense. The Association of American Medical Colleges’ president and chief scientific officer issued a statement saying the organization was “extremely concerned and alarmed by efforts” to discredit Fauci. “We cannot allow Donald Trump to silence Dr. Fauci or any other government scientists,” said Sen. Ed Markey, who introduced legislation in April to protect Fauci and other leaders of the National Institutes of Health from being fired for political reasons. “Dr. Fauci is saving lives every day.”
Today's guest is an American actor and author, whose latest book Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre is the 131st book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club. Please welcome to the Phile... Max Brooks.
Me: Hello, Max, welcome to the Phile. How are you, sir?
Max: Good to be here, thank you.
Me: I love the movie World War Z based on your novel, so I'm so glad you're here. Your book Devolution is the 131st book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club. What is the book about, sir?
Max: It’s another timely tale about an eco-community under siege from Bigfoot-like creatures.
Me: Zombies and vampires are everywhere in pop culture, but not many people write about Bigfoot nowadays. What made you decide to write about Bigfoot?
Max: I always write for me. Bigfoot has always been a childlike fear. I was maybe 6-years-old, something, I was very, very young, young enough to understand the shows on TV were not real. I was exposed to a lot of this faux-Bigfoot documentaries that presented themselves as journalism and they were terrifying. And as a kid I always wondered when is this going to happen to me, when is Bigfoot going to come crashing through the plate glass window of my families house just like I'm seeing him do on TV.
Me: So, what is the Bigfoot like in the book?
Max: Well, I present in the book Sasquatch like I do all my other monsters, which is what if they were real. I get away from all the folklore and all the mysticism and this book I'm trying to present Sasquatch as nothing more than a species of a great ape living in North America. How did they survive? Hope did they get here? How did they avoid conflict with humans for so long? What would make them potentially dangerous?
Me: I love talking to authors more than ever now as I just wrote my first real novel, Max. What is the backbone of your novel?
Max: The backbone is a fictional diary of this woman who's living in a high-tech eco-community that comes under attack after it's cut off from civilization. I interweave for diary with news reports and interview transcripts. I use a similar technique with my last novel, World War Z.
Me: Hmmm. What draw you to this format in particular?
Max: Well, I like the idea of for these particular stories as doing an after-reaction report because for me the story itself dictates the medium in which it's told. For example, when I did the story of the Harlem Hellfighters, it's a true story of African-American soldiers that fought in World War I and the American government set them up to fail and yet they came home as one of the most decorated units in the entire U.S. Army. Because race and because skin color is the primary driving force of this story, it had to be visual. So a comic book, a graphic novel, I thought is the best way to do that. So we as a reader would never forget their skin color because we're never allowed to forget. Whereas something like a zombie attack or a Sasquatch siege it's great I think to read it after it's happened, to they to unravel the mystery of what exactly went down.
Me: In the book you have interview transcriptions with some real people like Kyle Ryssdal and Terry Gross. Why did you choose these people?
Max: Well, I have to say my wife started in public radio. When we met and we were dating she had her own show called "The Savvy Traveller" that she produced. I knew all these people. That's the world that I'm coming from. And for me public radio, certainly in the United States, was one of the last bastions of objective journalism. So for me they are the standard keepers of trust. So putting Kyle Ryssdal and Terry Gross in the book gives me more of a sense of reality, and a sense of this must've happened because Terry is talking about it. We were lucky enough to get Terry and Kyle playing themselves on the audio book.
Me: That's cool. What did Terry think of the questions you wrote for her?
Max: I was terrified she didn't like them. She loved it all, she was a good sport and so was Kyle, so thank God.
Me: What are some of the real world issues are in Devolution?
Max: In Devolution I wanted to explore the notion of a breakdown, when we live in a world we think is solid and suddenly it just crumbles and under our feet, and that's what happens to these characters. They are living in a high-end, high-tech eco-community in the Cascades Mountains. There are not dirty, filthy, hippies living of the grid. They are the grid, they are the future. They are living in smart homes that are all wired together that are wired out to the world. Between telecommunicating to work, and Amazon drone deliveries of their groceries, these people are allowed now to live with the comforts of Manhattan in the depths of the wilderness. That is actually what technologies been giving us. But what happens when all that fails? What happens in the book is that Mount Rainier erupts and doesn't just cut them off, it allows them to be completely forgotten because Rainier blows out in the direction of Seattle and they're outside the blast zone. They are physically safe for the moment but nobody is looking for them. Winter is coming and these highly paid, highly educated David Sedaris fans can't change a lightbulb.
Me: Do you think the book is terrifying?
Max: I've been lucky because of World War Z to start to run in military and national security circles, so I'm part of two separate think tanks. Once is the Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the other is the Modern Institute in West Point and because both of them I've been able to embed in the tech world. I have seen with my own two eyes the tech world is rushing into a society built on comfort but not on resilience. They want to create a world that is so comfortable and so easy and successful but they haven't built in any safeguards. So when that collapses we are back in the dark ages.
Me: How likely is it going to collapse, Max?
Max: Well, we've seen it. We're seen it collapse several times. No one remembers this but I remember back in the 90s on Christmas Eve certainly in the United States when everybody started clicking on Amazon and this thing called eToys to buy Christmas toys forgetting that the click is just a signal. They still had to physically get the toys from China and that Christmas Eve parents were scrambling going out to brick and mortar. That was cute and funny, but that should've been a warning. The next one os right now, we are living in this, how many people thought, "I will retreat in my house and then I will click on grocery deliveries. And I'll get my food delivered so I don't have to go to the grocery store and get COVID-19?" How many of us were told it's not available, we are going to have to substitute, or the wrong food had been delivered, or the order has just been cancelled?
Me: True. There's the human element of it all that people forget, right?
Max: Yeah, believe me, the worst is yet to come. One of the things that the tech world is racing headlong into is driverless cars. I love driverless cars, I think their great, I'm all for it. However I'm also aware that anything that is networked can get hacked and the number one tool of terrorists today is driving cars into crowds. So if they don't build in, if these cars are built with a manual kill switch, or a lever that we can pull to cut the car's power they are going to put millions of guided missiles on our roads.
Me: have a nice day everybody! You're reading the Phile! Hahaha. Holy shit, man. So, when did you write this book?
Max: I wrote it a while ago. Obviously though I didn't write it predicting COVID-19.
Me: In the book you say "the greatest national unrest since Rodney King." Then there's another scene where the characters are debating non-violence and survival and they are actually comparing the differences between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. to one another. Does that scene have a different meaning to you now in light of the Black Lives Matter protests that we've seen around the world?
Max: I wish it did. I wish I could claim that somehow I predicted the future. The truth is I was just writing about the President.
Me: Hmmm. Why is that?
Max: Because racial injustice never went away, it just goes off the radar screen for a little while. That's a very American thing where we have a crisis, and we all deal with it and we all acknowledge it and then we kind of forget about it and move on to the next thing. The crisis really never really goes away. When Barrack Obama was elected somehow the idiots in the American media started talking about the post-racial socially, as if somehow we can get over 400 years of this stuff. Well, cops were still shooting black people in the back. So, I was just writing about what I saw that people weren't paying attention to.
Me: When you research your books what do you think of the world?
Max: Well, when I research for my books it's a way to cope with my own fear of the unknown. That sounds so counterintuitive I know, but digging into the worse case scenario makes me seem better.
Me: Why is that? I have been called before Mr. Worse Case Scenario.
Max: Well, I'll start betaking about someone else, not me. My mother, my late mother, when I was a kid right out of college my first job was being an unpaid intern for the BBC. One of the jobs that we did was working on a documentary on East Africa. Now my mother was obviously terrified. But instead of going to church she went to the library and she became an African geography expert. Of every town, every province, so she can cross check that with the newspapers to what was happening in Africa. Sp every time she got a postcard from me from Africa she knew exactly where I was in relation to ebola or the Rwanda genocide or the Somalia crisis. That knowledge calmed her down opposed to steering her into the blackhole of anxiety, which is what anxiety is. Anxiety is a fog of not knowing what could go wrong. So the way I get rid of anxiety, the way my mother used to get rid of anxiety is to study it. Study the problem, and the more I know the better I feel.
Me: Meaning you prepare rather than panic?
Max: And I also know what that fog is when I study it turns the lights on. The fog lifts and I go okay, now I know what CAN hurt me and can't hurt me. When I was getting my very first grown-up job, big job, a writer for "Saturday Night Live" 9/11 happened and then not long afterward we had anthrax in our building. Where 30 Rock was a biological weapons target. Now most people were terrified of anthrax, but I wasn't because I already knew about diseases from my mother. So I understood anthrax is a bacteria, it can be countered by antibiotics here are the symptoms, so it wasn't a nebulous plague that everybody was scared of. The foreknowledge of anthrax kept me calm.
Me: I think I know who your mother is, Max, but tell us in case I am thing wrong. Hahaha.
Max: My mother was Anne Bancroft, the incredible actress.
Me: Ahhh. I know your father is comedy legend Mel Brooks who just turned 94 recently. You made a video with him early on in the pandemic urging people to keep their distance from vulnerable people including the elderly. It is very funny and has been seen by millions of people. Here's a safe shot from it...
Me: What made you do that video?
Max: I think that the biggest problem that the western democracy's have now is connecting with its voters. And certainly in the United States there's a lot of sense of the American people are over on one side and the people who protect the American people are on the other side and we don't talk to each other. That's been a huge problem, and it's been a problem for some time so I thought in a plague everyone has role to play. How do we communicate with this role? Well, we don't do charts, and graphs and facts and figures, we tell them a personal story about a father and his son. A son doesn't want to affect his dad who can affect his friends. The son is a danger becoming a carrier. So me and my dad, we make it funny, we make it short, people have a good time and then they learn something.
Me: How did you celebrate his 94th birthday?
Max: Through a window. I haven't hugged my dad since this started, which has been real hard on my son. He's 15, he just turned 15 during this plague so basically what we did was go over, sit in the shade, sit on the other side of the window and wave to him and sang him "Happy Birthday." That was it, that's all we could do.
Me: Do you think it'll be this way for ever?
Max: I don't know, it's so terrifying. When we get to a certain age every minute counts and we have to hold into these precious moments. So to watch them drip away because of a plague that was very stoppable I think is a crime.
Me: What's the biggest lesson you took from your dad about doing creative work?
Max: Well, I think the biggest lesson I learnt from my father that this is a job. I think that's a big misconception of wannabe artists, that they get tapped on the head by God, then it just flows and things just happen. It doesn't, this is a job like any other job and it's a lot of hard work and a lot of discipline and getting up every morning and doing it. Sometimes we fail and sometimes we fail spectacularly and we got to pick ourselves up and got to keep going. So those are the lessons I learned from my father.
Me: What does your family think of living with you during the pandemic?
Max: Well, my wife calls me Mr. Disaster Pants.
Me: Hahahaha. Why us that?
Max: Because she's very grateful that I can keep us all safe and alive but maybe not as enthusiastically.
Me: Haha. What does that mean? Cans of beans in the basement and lots of water bottles?
Max: Yes. This has been the problem, that I was ready for us not to starve. So I went out and got us emergency supplies and said, "I'm ready, I've got rice and beans." And of course my wife says, "I don't like rice, I don't like beans." She said, "The freezer is working, we can literally put things in the freezer!"
Me: That's funny. Thanks for being on the Phile, Mr. Disaster Pants. Give your dad my regards, and please come back on the Phile again. This has been one of my favorite interviews ever.
Max: I will. Thank you.
That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Max for a great interview. The Phile will be back on Friday with musician John Legend. 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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