Category: Phil Pheed
Stopping for donuts? I don’t think so
Boats
Oxnard, Ca. April 26, 2010
Guy almost backed into me
Running For Joe-Big Announcement Tonight

Oh, yeah. I’ll take some snaps along the way…speaking of snaps, I’ll make a major announcement tonight on where we’ll be for two weeks, sending you blogs, photos…and maybe video, I hope….Want a hint?..check out the photo….
“A Little Bird Told Me”-Margaret Grey “Man charged after wiping his ass with a parking ticket”
by Margaret Grey—Rude, crude, foul and funky were the order of the day after an allegedly classy Chicago man was charged with disorderly conduct following a city employee finding brown stains and a foul odor coming off the man’s mailed in parking ticket. Can you believe it? The sad part. I’m familiar intimately with this kind of thing. Some one accused me of doing this with a speeding ticket.
Alexander Bailey, a 22-year-old from the Chicagoland area, allegedly also wrote a note on the ticket that he had wiped himself with it, lest there be any doubt. What a dumb ass. Like they can’t figure that out Alexander.
The city employee who found the crapped-up ticket informed police who then charged and locked up Bailey. “What are you in here for? “I wiped with a parking ticket.” (Sound effects of Bailey being held down and raped) He was later released after posting $500 bail.
The original ticket that Bailey allegedly wiped himself with was $15.
So genius boy will pay the fine and an additional fine for the wipage and whataver it costs to get the number of a rape counseling hotline from directory assistance. I’m sorry. I can’t stand people like that. As to the speeding ticket I used for ass duty, I wrote on the back “My husband wiped with this.” When they didn’t believe me and I was jailed anyway I was mortified. They’ve got a fight coming. it’s coming today*
*Line from “Tombstone”
Who are These people….really?

At left is Rush Limbaugh, a genuinely nice guy who unsolicited told me he liked our show. Moving to the right, beside me is Bill Handel, morning host at KFI. Bill is a nervous type who could be mistaken for shifty but not true. He’s been for the most part friendly to me and helpful with a phone number or two. And his wife Marjorie is a sweet lady. Further to the right is Glenn Beck. Glenn was always polite and complimentary but early on stand-offish, I think because I accused him of lifting my act a bit. So I can’t blame him. Finally at the far right is Jim Rome who, after much consideration, I consider to be a punk and a rude boor. He’s a talented guy with a completely unique radio show but just as a person Rome’s got a Napoleon thing going on. Asshole.
Thanks Ventura County Readers…….

…and welcome to our site!!
FROM SUNDAYS VENTURA COUNTY STAR: “Ventura County’s Phil Hendrie hosts a unique radio show on which fake guests tangle with real callers” (scroll down for more photos)
It was not quite 10 p.m. on Monday, and radio talk show host Phil Hendrie still had a long night ahead. The satirist signs off at 1 a.m., but post-show adrenaline can keep him going until nearly dawn.
“Caffeine just levels him out,” whispered publicist Maria Sanchez as Hendrie sipped from two triple-shot coffee drinks and a caffeinated soda, tracking news flickering from an array of monitors lining a long metal desk.
“Through the looking glass we go every night,” Hendrie said, tipping back in a swivel chair, wearing headphones and a black leather jacket.
Each week, “The Phil Hendrie Show” attracts perhaps 2 million listeners to 110 radio stations across the country, according to distributor Talk Radio Network Syndications. Hendrie, a resident of Silver Strand Beach near Oxnard, has relied on a formula involving fictional guests to the show for 20 years.
Hendrie creates the voices of his fictional characters, who spout preposterous opinions that elicit indignant phone calls from real, often-unsuspecting listeners.
His shtick predates false naiveté acts like British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and his Ali G. character, Hendrie said. His influences include Monty Python, 1960s satirical group The Credibility Gap, and Lenny Bruce, the stage name for 1950s satirist Leonard Alfred Schneider.
Paid subscribers to Hendrie’s recently relaunched website can watch live video-casts of show preparations, listening to mumbled, frequently profane ad-lib commentaries as Hendrie hunts the news for satirical hooks.
“I just don’t think that sustains very well,” Hendrie said, scratching a joke about children with autism. Barking into phone props, Hendrie tweaked his voice to impersonate a lackadaisical hippie kid and a defensive high school administrator. A world map, bongo drum, amber bottle of Don Julio Anejo tequila and Franklin D. Roosevelt biography adorned the studio.
“It ain’t the O.C.,” Hendrie said of broadcasting from Ventura County. “It’s not gridlocked with Mercedes. There’s neighborhood pride.”
Hendrie’s show airs on eight California stations, including KIST 1490-AM in Santa Barbara and KTLK 1150-AM in Los Angeles.
On Monday’s show, a fictional Beverly Hills restaurateur campaigned for seven-day workweeks and lambasted President Barack Obama as a wildly unrestrained socialist. Irritated listeners called to snipe about the rights of ordinary workers.
Most listeners are men ages 25 to 54, Hendrie said.
“They’re nontraditional talk radio listeners,” he said. “They dig humor, they dig comedy.”
Born in Pasadena in 1952, Hendrie’s earliest radio memory is listening to late-night eulogies for Buddy Holly while dangling over the front seat of his parents’ car on a trip to Canada, he said.
“These voices would fade in and out from city to city,” he said.
Hendrie eventually moved to Florida, working construction before pitching a demo cassette to local radio stations, he said. In 1973, he scored a late-night disc jockey gig with WBJW 1440-AM in Winter Park.
Hendrie started introducing fictional characters on his KVEN-AM show in Ventura. Nine years later, in 1999, the show went national. After creating about 50 male and female characters, Hendrie announced a retirement from radio in 2006 to pursue acting instead.
Hendrie did voice-overs for characters on FOX’s animated series “King of the Hill” and “Futurama,” co-starred in NBC’s short-lived sitcom “Teachers” and played an NBA basketball coach in the 2008 Will Ferrell flick “Semi-Pro.”
Hendrie returned to radio in 2007, saying he enjoyed the physical aspect of acting but it moved too slow. “I was bored to tears,” he said. “I was waiting for phone calls, waiting for agents to call.”
In 2006, Hendrie acquired ownership of a website he began in 1999 while working with Clear Channel Radio.
“We’re entrepreneurs,” he said. “The new generation is about owning and distributing yourself and doing the marketing. We need to be in business for ourselves.”
Website subscribers pay $6.95 a month for access to 13 years of show archives, animated clips, TV pilots, special viewings of weekly video-casts and the hourlong weeknight pre-show, where viewers are sometimes treated to Hendrie’s uncensored “meltdowns.”
Website traffic has increased by 50 percent since its relaunching last month, said Sanchez, Hendrie’s ex-wife and former manager. Now, she’s a consultant and public relations representative for both the show and website.
“Frankly, that’s really where it’s at,” Hendrie said. “We say it’s a reality show wrapped around a radio show. Most radio shows are boring to watch. Mine isn’t.”
Hendrie has been warmly welcomed back to radio, performing in Las Vegas this month for the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention.
“I wanted to remind them that we want to keep the ‘show’ in our business,” said NAB Executive Vice President John David. “If you closed your eyes, it sounds like 15 or 30 different people talking. I wanted radio people to see him in action. People engage with his stories.”
Consistent quality radio can be a tough gig, Hendrie said, noting that nightly “great art” is a stressful standard. Topics are timely, but he considers himself less overtly political than commentators like Rush Limbaugh or Randi Rhodes.
Laughter is a better goal, Hendrie said. He abandoned an attempt to run a straight, character-free show upon returning to radio, embracing humor instead.
The satirist, however, has a soft spot for shock. One of his characters is a recovered child molester, and one spoof commemorated Princess Diana with shot glasses. Testing listener gullibility, characters have solemnly announced that scientists don’t yet understand how airplanes fly or why it rains.
Hendrie was hospitalized in December for pneumonia and said he has since kicked a two-pack-per-day cigarette habit. Professional goals include launching a one-man show in Las Vegas and doing more acting.
“He has the most creative, imaginative show on the radio — there’s no doubt in my mind,” said Phil Boyce, president of programming at Talk Radio Network Syndications. “Many listeners aren’t aware the voices coming out of the speaker are his — that’s part of the charm. Those in on the joke are amazingly entertained.” (Scroll down for some great studio shots)