Category Archives: PHILS-osophy

Phillip's Opinion, PHILS-osophy

Bending the Truth into a Lie

You know when you’re reading an article online and on the side they’ll sometimes have suggested titles with a picture like “14 Celebs That Hate Each Other.”  I really don’t care about that stuff and I usually just ignore it, but this time it was a picture of Lauren Graham and Scott Patterson, the actors who played Lorelai and Luke on Gilmore Girls.  It caught my eye because I remember reading something after the show finished where Graham said that she didn’t want Luke and Loreali to be together (even though at the Gilmore Girls reunion a couple weeks ago she said she wanted to see them get married), so I was curious if perhaps she said it because of her personal feelings towards the actor.

So I read it, and it legit said “[Graham] claimed they got along well enough to work together, but beyond that, they had their own lives and were not friends at all.”  So…how do you get “hate” out of this.  They were coworkers, nothing more.  I think most of us experience this type of relationship with our colleagues: we go to work, we exchange nice pleasantries, get through the day, and go home.  Just because we aren’t BFFs doesn’t mean we hate each other.

*sighs*

I’m just tired to people taking what other people say and bending it and twisting to make it seem shocking.  Really it was a waste of click.

Personal Experience, Phillip's Opinion, PHILS-osophy

Music On Your Sleeve

I think one of the hardest things to do is to show someone the contents of your iTunes library.  Music is so personal and intimate that it’s really like showing a stranger the contents of your heart.  I get nervous anytime someone wants to see my phone to see what music I have on it because I don’t want someone to judge me or be like “ew, you listen to that person?”  I’m tired of people making assumptions about me because of the music I listen to.

I’ve been having a problem with my iTunes syncing with my phone recently, so I scheduled a genius bar appointment for tomorrow and I’m a bit nervous.  I mean, I’ve done it before, and the people at the Apple Store are generally friendly.  I just don’t like people scrolling through my iTunes.  Which is really odd because I tweet, write, and blog about my music taste all the time.  Like, I don’t mind trending #PhillipsSongOfTheDay and creating Spotify playlists for random people around the world to listen to, but I can’t deal with a Apple genius accessing my iTunes to help me.  In all probability they’re too busy to actually judge my music preference.  Even if they did, the chances I’ll ever run into them again or them remembering me are so slim.

But I think this emphasizes this change the Internet has put on my generation: we’re more aware and self-conscious about our interactions in person, but when we’re online we pull out all the stops.  It’s a blessing and a curse, really.  For me, I’ve been able to open up about my musical taste and share my knowledge online because I don’t get to see my reader’s reactions.  I sort of did when I had the comments activated, but some people were rather ruthless.  Just because I didn’t know the person, they felt no shame in writing rather horrible things about me for what I objectively wrote about. It’s odd that the Internet can do such a thing as opening us up as a society and connecting us, but yet making us anonymous enough to tear each other down.  It’s like the Internet is a big window blind, and while sunlight my peak through and permeate the room, we’re shielded from ever truly experiencing the physical nature of a person.

I guess what I need to do the next time someone wants to make fun of me for liking the music I do is to remember the fact I have a musical preference.  I know who I am and I know what I like.  And I will never apologize for who I am.

Personal Experience, PHILS-osophy, Television

90s Ellen – Part 2

A couple of weeks ago or so, I wrote about watching Ellen Degeneres’ 90s sitcom Ellen and how it’s hilarious.  There’s an episode I saw where they’re filming a movie in the bookstore that Ellen owns and manages.  Because she’s the owner, they let Ellen be in the scene as an extra.  They’re like “just sit at the counter and act natural.”  And this is what she does on her first take:

Ellen as an Extra

I thought this episode was hysterical because it takes them a ton of takes to shoot the scene (I believe it ends up they don’t finish the scene because of Ellen), and in each one Ellen tries to be “natural” but she ends up screwing the scene up somehow.  It goes to her staring awkwardly at the people talking, to knocking over a bookshelf (by accident), sneezing, slamming a door (again, by accident), and other crazy things.

The reason why I find this so hilarious is that it reminds me of a project I had to do when I was junior in high school.  As part of our English class, we were required to take the play “Macbeth” and adapt it into a short film.  My group decided to make a 24-themed Macbeth, much to my displeasure; I had never seen the show, but I got out voted.

I just remember we were shooting the opening seen of a secret agent walking into a “secure” location with a briefcase, and the kid who was playing Macbeth kept telling me he’d just walk by the agent in the background as an extra.  I was like “you can’t do that!  You’re Macbeth!”  He proceeded to take his glasses off and tell me no one would notice.

People noticed.

Well, we didn’t win Best Picture (it went to a Santa Claus-themed Macbeth I believe, which was actually ridiculously funny; Santa McClaus’ best line was “Is that a candy cane I see before me?”).  I guess life is just full of people who have good intentions making mistakes that, in the end, we should just laugh at.

PHILS-osophy

You Are Beyoncé

I was scrolling through my Twitter feed when I saw someone tweet this video out with the caption “When you recognize your own name as a compliment.”  Naturally I was intrigued and watched the very short clip of Whoopi Goldberg saying “You are Beyoncé” and Beyoncé simply nodding her head and saying “Thank you.”

I thought the clip was hysterical, but I wasn’t quite sure Beyoncé really is that self-absorbed.  I know a lot of people who claim Beyoncé is Queen of the World and put her on a high pedestal, but anytime I see an interview with Beyoncé she just doesn’t seem that much of a diva.

So I went looking for the entirety of the interview, and it’s hilarious how way out of context the clip above was taken.  What we don’t see is Whoopi commending Beyoncé for being confident in her body and letting people know it’s okay to be who they are and accepting their different body types (starts around 5:58 in clip below):

I guess the lesson for today is not to judge something until you know the full story.  It’s a shame, though, that the media today can take clips and warp them to tell a completely different story.

PHILS-osophy

PHILS-osophy

I’m introducing a new segment on my blog called “PHILS-osphy,” which is a term I’m borrowing from Modern Family.  There’s an episode where the Dunphy’s daughter Haley is going to college and Phil (her dad) hands her a book he made entitled PHIL’s-osphy, which basically includes a list of life lessons that are rather foolish and make no sense.  But I like the idea of writing down lessons you learn and remembering pearls of wisdom, so I want to take what I learn in my life and share them here.  My goal is to be one of those old men who experienced so much in his youth that he is really wise…and I also want to be the grandpa who wears leather pants…it’s just gonna happen…

An example of a PHIL’s-osphy from Modern Family:

PHILS-osophy

Music From the Past

Is there a song that you hear and it reminds you of something from your past that makes you cringe?  Like, you were doing something while that song was playing and that memory you’ve been trying to suppress comes back when you hear it years later, haunting you of your humiliation?

It happens to me all the time.  All. The. Time.

One of those songs happens to be “Halo” by Beyoncé, which I wrote about and you can read here.  But others include “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis, and “Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO.  I’m sure there are more, but I guess I’m still suppressing them…

But then I was thinking about this the other day, thinking about how I deleted the aforementioned songs from my computer and iPod (and from my life) because I didn’t want to remember those rather embarrassing and perhaps heartbreaking memories, but then I thought:

Don’t run from your past.  You can’t.  Accept what happen and be happy at least something happen.  Those songs are just too good to ignore forever; use them to create new, happier memories.

Phillip's Opinion, PHILS-osophy

Random Thought of the Day

So I was biking today, my usual route, when I had a thought: you should be nice/kind to whoever you meet, regardless of who you think they are, because you don’t know who they are or where you’ll be in life in the future.  At the exact moment you desperately need help, they could be the one person who can give you that help and they may not want to.

Just a random thought…thought I’d share!