Fifty Shades of Phil: It's Not Mommy Porn, It's Daddy Scorn

By Phil Taylor

Throughout history many great religions have been centered around sacred texts containing beliefs and doctrines. The Bible. the Talmud, the Koran, the Torah, Book of Mormon, and Dianetics are included in this illustrious list. This book, Fifty Shades of Phil, is funnier than them all. A sarcastic, and sometimes ego-centric, look at the first decade of 21st century American pop-culture through the eyes the self-proclaimed Grand Poobah of Leisure and author of the hilarious long-running blog The Phil Factor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626759497

Phil Taylor

Phil Taylor hosts the Taylor Report at CIUT, Toronto. For ten years he was investigator for human rights lawyers including former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and the late Charles Roach.

Book preview

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

A Peek inside My Mind

Bad Blogs on Broadway

When Al Gore invented the Internet, he had no idea most of it would be wasted by bloggers. Allowing just anyone to blog without a screening process is like letting The People of Walmart walk around with a PA system all the time. Just because you can say something, doesn't mean you should. It's gotten so bad that even Fox News has a blog.

Bloggers have no idea what the rest of us think of them. In conversation, if you ask someone what they do and they respond with, I'm a school teacher and a blogger, how do you react? Most of us roll our eyes and sigh; hopefully not too noticeably, because we don't want to upset the blogger. You know how volatile they can be. They might run off and write a scathing post about us that would be read by all of their friend. The one thing that we don't do when someone tells us they're a blogger is say, What's your blog about? In fact, I'm fairly certain that last sentence was the first time in history that those words have actually been assembled into a sentence.

I imagine that at Internet headquarters, the people in charge are getting pissed. I picture a bunch a poindexter brainiacs in a room looking at a white board with a pie chart titled Internet that shows that the Internet contains: 10% legitimate websites, 40% pornography/dating sites, and 50% blogs. Next to that would be another pie chart titled, Blogs with redeeming social value. That chart is just a big, empty circle.

Blogging is so 2005 though, isn't it? There was a time when it was kind of cool to have a blog. Ok, maybe there wasn't, but now that virtually every person in the public eye has a website masquerading as a blog that you can comment on, it is so not cool. You know what is cool—the Harlem Shake. Nope, definitely not. I just killed it. As soon as someone in my demographic knows what something is, like blogging or the Harlem Shake, then that thing has lost whatever cache it might have had. Seriously, I just nailed down Gangnam Style and now I have to learn the Harlem Shake? I think the definitive way to tell if some pop-culture trend is past its cool peak is if someone with a blog describes it as cool.

What is hot now is Vlogging. Video Blogging! Instead of writing words you read, all of us arrogant dolts who think you want to know our thoughts are now on YouTube in front of our webcam telling you what we think. I know, that's pretty hot right? I guess Tosh.0 has to get his material somewhere. I just wrote a sarcastic blog about blogging. Does that make me an ironic hipster? I'm not sure, but if I just said ironic hipster then it is definitely not cool to be one. At least I’m not a Mommy-blogger trying to publish a book of humorous anecdotes about taking care of the kids. Ugh.

Channing Tatum: Sexiest Man Alive? Hardly.

People Magazine recently named their Sexiest Man Alive, and again, it wasn't me. Yeah, I know, shocker. Channing Tatum?!!? Puh- leeze! I scrape stuff off my shoe that's sexier than Channing Tatum. Have you noticed they always choose actors? Not once have they considered a blogger. First of all, I wasn't even interviewed. How fair is that?

Go on—compare his picture, which you have to Google to even find, while I put mine right here on my blog for all to see... His picture, my picture. His picture, my picture. His picture, my picture. I've been doing that all night and I still don't see it. Sexier than me? Who is doing the rating? Ray Charles? Stevie Wonder? (Why aren't there famous blind women?) I'm mean, c'mon, as far as I know he is completely between jobs right now. Meanwhile, I have a full-time job with health insurance and everything!

And his abs in Magic Mike? Completely airbrushed. My abs? Never been airbrushed. Not once. They are au naturel, my friends. Both of them. And those dance moves. Yeah, Channing, we saw Napoleon Dynamite too. Way to go. Pedro for President.

How about Facebook, the social convention by which all human value is measured? Does Channing let you be his Facebook friend? No, of course not. He is snooty. Snooty? Snotty! I will quote Ferris Bueller and let you be my Facebook friend. Check. Scoreboard, Phil again. And talk about snotty! He goes by his full name, Channing. He's too good for Chan, isn't he? Do you see me going by Philip? Of course not—The Philip Factor would sound stupid and snotty.

Raise your hand if you've read Chan Tatum’s blog? Of course you haven't! He doesn't have a blog. I do. I have a blog, a full-time job, and health insurance. Chan? No, no, and no. Ask yourself this, who have you spent more time reading about this year—him or me? We all know the answer to that. You've been to my blog at least once a week. How many times a week do you go out of your way to read what Chan thinks? Oh wait, that's right—we're not even sure Chan has thoughts. Also, you see my picture every time you visit this blog. Because of that, you've definitely looked at my picture more than you've looked at Chan Tatum's this year too. Do you know why? That's right, because I'm sexier. Case closed. In fact, my argument here is so watertight that I doubt Channing (read with sarcastic tone) will even attempt to refute it. Also, if you’re not my Facebook friend yet, feel free to friend me. I doubt that’s an offer you’ll get from Chan.

Why the Amish Are Cooler Than You

Admit it, you saw the title and had to read further. I am totally diggin' me some Amish action lately. I see straw hats, bonnets, and horse-drawn buggies and I think, Damn, break me off a piece of that! I cannot find me a butter churn fast enough. We all love the Amish. We find their culture and lifestyle fascinating. Here's your evidence that the Amish are hot—last week I bought a shed from the Amish. (Notice how we always refer to them as 'The Amish'? As if they're all one group or a large object of some sort.) After my awesome, built-like-a-fortress, Amish shed was delivered, I posted a picture of it on Facebook. That picture of my new Amish shed generated more comments than anything I've ever said or posted on Facebook in the last four years. Either I'm a boring Facebooker or you're diggin' you some Amish action too.

So why do we all love the Amish so much? Is it their stylish black outfits? They say black is very slimming. Have you ever seen a fat Amish person? Me neither. I wonder what their gyms are like. Instead of a Stairmaster, maybe they have a butter churn machine. The guys work out by bench pressing 4x4 lumber with hay bales on the ends. Do they work out in those sack dresses and the pants with suspenders? Do those come in lycra?

Another good thing about being Amish—their budget kicks ass. Guess how much money the Amish lost in their 401K's when the economy tanked? A lot less than me, that's for sure. You think the Amish worry about how they'll pay for retirement? Do you know how much they pay for electricity? $0.00. That's pretty damn good compared with my utility bill. And guess how much they pay for gas? Yup, $0.00. Unfortunately, the gas they're most familiar is in the form of methane coming from the horse in front of them pulling their buggy.

Rumspringa. It's the Amish word for a period of adolescence when youth are allowed to leave home for a period of time—to experience the