CRANKING PHIL HENDRIE
Years ago a magazine ad for Hilton Head showed a middle aged man and his 20-something son retiring, sweaty and rumpled, from a tenniscourt set in Paradise under the headline, "Happiness is Beating the Man Who Taught You the Game."
This story will be of interest mostly to people who, like me, are devotees and ardent admirers of the single most talented personality on radio today, possibly in its history.
To others, it will be at best an interesting soupcon in the annals of Internet psy-ops; at worst a much-ado-about-nothing essay, about as worthwhile as the detailed description of a brilliant play at Parcheesi. It took ten times the time to write this piece as the events described took to transpire.
Most of the images on this page were lifted without any permission whatsoever from Phil's website -
www.philhendrieshow.com. I heartily recommend you visit the site and register for a month- or year-long Back Stage Pass, which will give you access to a virtually bottomless pit (abyss, font, arroyo?) of streaming audio virtuosity.
If you're intimately familiar with The Phil Hendrie Show, you can click directly to THE CRANK. If you're not, a little background will be useful.
The Greatest Show In The History of Radio is simple in concept but extraordinarily complex in execution.
Basically Phil interviews one or more of a stable of 36 recurrent Guests. These are normal-sounding persons who are, in their own way, demented, possessed by demons, and one or two steps removed from Reality. The Guests call Phil to discuss the scrapes and imbroglios into which they have recently fallen. The interviews prompt even more calls from irate, infuriated, impassioned Listeners who excoriate the Guests for their inexcusable behavior. Phil moderates as the Guests masterfully insult the callers who become the unwitting subjects of a massive national network Crank.
Three voices. Two persons.
You see, Phil plays himself and his Guests. All 36 of them. Only the callers are real...dead meat.
Often imitated, never duplicated, Phil's ability to switch seamlessly between multiple personalities is unparalleled and immensely funny. He occasionally runs live web-cam broadcasts so Back Stage Pass holders can watch him bop back and forth between the studio mic and the Guest phone. It's a better show than Rush's ditto-cam.
"Let me give out our our number - 1 800 449 8686."
To get Cranked, you must survive a fairly rigorous vetting process. During commercial breaks Phil and his able assistants screen callers mercilessly. Only Innocent Lambs with something to say are put on hold - to await Slaughter. Most are occasional listeners to one of Phil's 100 affiliates on the Premier Radio Network. They rarely understand what's going on. Regular listeners and Back-Stage Pass holders who know the score are quickly identified and dismissed, politely of course.
As Phil often warns us, "You can't crank your way into this show."
THE CRANK.
One Friday afternoon I was puttering about the office, listening to a stream of Phil's Thursday show, when it occurred to me that there just might be a way to do unto Phil as he does unto others. I'd just need to create a believable situation that would lure the wisest bear in the forest out of his lair.
I had bought spots on the network broadcast for dice.com in the past, and had fan-emailed him a few times, receiving one or two nice replies from Phil or from his assistant Janice. I had thus established some tenuous credibility with the staffers. I was about to throw it all away.
On Friday, July 8, 2005 at 3:52PM I sent this to phs@philhendrieshow.com.
SUBJECT: SAY IT AIN'T SO
Dear Phil:
As a Back Stage pass-holder who has not missed a single show for the past three years, you can imagine my shock and dismay to learn from my agency’s radio rep at WTKS-FM (104.1) Orlando of your impending retirement.
You’ve certainly been as forthcoming about the problems in your personal life as you’ve been enthusiastic about the recent changes in time slot and station.
I guess that things just got too much to handle.
For what it’s worth, you have been one of the bright lights in my life, and in the lives of thousands of fans across the country.
Your keen sense of humor and extraordinary talent will be sorely missed.
Best wishes,
Peter A. Burkhard
President/Creative Director
The Burkhard Agency, Inc.
1836 Whitehall Drive.
Winter Park, FL 32789
MOBILE: (407) 895-3092
OFFICE: (407) 647-4691
burkhardworks.com/
burkhardagency.com/
mailto:peterb@burkhardagency.com
First salvo, out the door.
Now, what if Phil bites? Surely he'll want to know what miserable radio rep sold him out. My actual rep at WTKS is Michael Bellamy, who would never, ever suggest that one of the station's best talents was on his way to the scrap heap.
I needed someone to blame.
Phil occasionally cranks himself. He creates a totally wigged out Character who calls in with some insanely outrageous proposition. At the end of the tirade, the Character blasts Phil with a snide "Bobba Booie" - Phil's shorthand for, "This bit is so weird it really belongs on the Howard Stern show, not mine."
Maybe my radio rep could be Bobba Booie?
Whirr, click, ca-chunk!
"Roberta Rednun."
Say what?
Well, if you've ever sailed or motored up a tidal river in these United States you've seen the channel marked by Black Cans (on the left) and Red Nuns (on the right). A Red Nun is a buoy, which in New England anyway is often pronounced "boo-ie."
Yeah, yeah, it's lame, but, this is radio Parcheesi we're playing, OK?
Anyway, I went back to work.
At 9:45 PM, EDT, fifteen minutes before Phil goes live from the Ventura Blvd studios of XTRA-570AM in LA, the phone rings. I shall paraphrase our fifteen second high velocity conversation.
"Hello, this is Phil Hendrie."
"Well, hello!"
"Did you send me an email about some radio rep saying I'm going to retire!!?"
"Yes...."
"Who was it!!?
"Um, Roberta Rednun."
"Roberta Rednun, what kind of a name is that!!?"
"Well, actually it means..."
"You run some kind of an ad agency in Orlando!!?
"Yes, and Roberta Rednun really is..."
"Let me tell you something, I'm having enough problems with that station and that rep just got herself fired!!!!!!!!!"(SLAM!)
"Bobba Booie..."
"Well," I thought smugly, "Mission Accomplished."
I got Phil to do exactly what he gets his own callers to do. Get mad. Get on the phone. Get cranked. Fifteen seconds of private fame. Except Phil did hang up before he heard my last "disclaimer." Hmmm...
At 10 PM, Friday July 8, Phil opens his show: PHS/Phil Hendrie - Jul 08 2005 - Hour 1.mp3. (The first couple of minutes are germane to this story. The remainder of the first hour may convince you to join up.)
I was listening live, and just about lost it. "Oh, God," I thought, "I didn't want to really, really piss him off. Or screw up my friends at WTKS." So at 10:14 PM I sent a follow-up email.
SUBJECT: Premature Reports of your retirement.
Phil:
My apologies. Sort of.
I was explaining your show to a colleague this afternoon* who had never heard you before. He was amazed at your virtuosity. He also wondered why so many people call up to get reamed by your “guests.”I explained that you create bizarre situations that infuriate some people so much that they just have to get involved.
“Let me show you how it works,” I said.
A few hours later you called.
[QED!]Good to hear that you and Maria are “on speaking terms again.”
I love you, man.
Peter A. Burkhard
1836 Whitehall Drive.
Winter Park, FL 32789
MOBILE: (407) 895-3092
OFFICE: (407) 647-4691* [That conversation had actually occurred the previous week.]
Sunday night I hopped on a plane to Vegas ostensibly to meet a new client, who never showed up and left me twiddling my thumbs at the Mirage (not a bad place to twiddle, by the way). But that's another story.
Anyway, Monday afternoon I'm in my room, waiting for this client to call, when the phone rings.
"Hey, Pete. This is Mike Bellamy," my real rep at WTKS-FM.
"Oh, Hi, Mike." (GULP!)
"Say, did you send an email to Phil Hendrie?"
"Yesss...."
"'Cause Phil got really steamed and sent it to the management at Clear Channel in Texas and they called us, and my boss called me and said, 'What's going on? Who's our rep at The Burkhard Agency?'" said Mike, in his very best I'm-trying-not-to-watch-my-life-pass-before-my-eyes voice.
Obviously the follow-up email arrived too late.
I explained the whole crank to Mike, the Roberta Rednun deal, and the follow up email. Mike sort of chuckled. I promised to send him copies of everything when I got back to Winter Park (which I did).Then I had another idea...
And that, was that.
Or is it?
In the last few days, Phil has made a lot more noise than normal about how difficult it is to get on his show, if, that is, you're not a bona fide Lamb- Headed-For-Slaughter.
Wannabee crankers will get an immediate visit from the LAPD. Their phones will be frozen, even impounded by Sprint. The bear is on the prowl.
When I publish this page, and send Phil a link to it, I guess I should expect a knock on the door from one of his "guests." Maybe Citizens Auxiliary Ossifer Jay Santos, in his blue shorts, armband, and pith helmet will swoop in and demand to see if my computer is armed with an email device AND a Back Stage Pass.
I may well have to do a stretch at Atascadero State Penitentiary with the likes of reformed drug-dealer-rapist-child-molester-mountain-climber Jim Sadler and serial murderer Walter Belhaven. Bobbie Dooley will throw me out of the Western Estates Homeowners Association. Steve Bosell's lawyer Dolores Blasingame will sue me for "inflicting emotional humiliation."
Commodore Harvey Wireman will take me below decks to, "Kiss the gunner's daughter." I'll never again dine at Ted's of Beverly Hills or be allowed to buy two-day-old bread at Bob Green's Frazier Foods. I'm dead meat.
Because, as the Master puts it, bluntly and unequivocally, "Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, ever, ever, ever cranks Phil Hendrie."
Oh, really?
7/15/05
PS. Phil retired for real in the summer of 2006, a year after the story above. So?
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© 2005 Peter A. Burkhard